The ladies of Spain

A couple of weeks or so ago, I mentioned the gentlemen - or at least the hildalgos - of Spain doing each other in with knives.

Then yesterday, I heard a knife story about a lady of Spain. It seems that her husband really got on her nerves with his scratching behind his ears while watching the Spanish version of 'Big Brother'. This made her so mad that she was ramping up to stick a kitchen knife in him. But just before take-off she paused and phoned the police. Come quick she says, come quick before I do something terrible to my husband. So the police did come quick and they calmed the situation down, with their solution including some soothing cream for application to the backsides of ears.

My interest in this case is the notion that you can be mad enough about someone to be on the verge of sticking a knife into them, but in control enough to pause and phone the police.

How real was the madness? Has the idea of being mad simply been used as an excuse to get the police in to put the husband to shame? Was she really mad about him watching 'Big Brother' (you can take a peek on YouTube to see the sort of things they get up to), with the ear scratching business just being a screen?

There was the additional factor that the lady in question was a cook, with cooks and chefs being well known temperamentals.

I remember the one time I got mad enough at someone to think of using the Irish spade (the sort of long-shafted spade without a handle but with a blade shaped like the spades on playing cards) I was holding on him. But it did not occur to me to phone the police, not that that would have been easy at a time well before before the invention of mobile phones. Maybe the significant difference was my lack of experience of both anger and anger management - whereas my Spanish lady knew all about both. Knew how to canalise her anger, to use her anger as a management tool, whereas I just get angry, hot and bothered, which is much less effective.

I associate to a split in personality, but the sort where one of the splits is aware of the other. One has two personalities running along in the one brain, with one of them being able to stand back and admire (or not) the other. Another trick which I can't manage.

PS: I also associate to Mr, Karenin's way of cracking his fingers which so got on the nerves of his wife Anna,

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/a-country-of-contrasts.html.