Train pets, not people

In Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” windows are used as a metaphor for the separation of things. Brontë’s windows serve as invisible barriers between life and death, civilization and wilderness, and love and longing. Here in the real world, windows are the difference between outside and inside, as evidenced by the couple standing at the front door.

She arrived at that door first and just stood there, waiting. He looked at her questioningly. She looked at him and cocked her head to one side.

“Well?” she seemed to say.

“Well, what?” he seemed to respond.

A little misunderstanding right there on the front stoop.

One note on windows that bears mentioning here is that depending on the lighting, it’s usually harder to see in than it is to see out, especially at night.

She nodded at the front door.

It finally dawned on him that she wanted him to open the door for her. So, he did that with a great flourish. And if someone could sweep into a room, she did just that, right up to the barstool. He sat down, happy that two seats were so easily available in a busy bar on a Friday night. She, however, seemed less than happy, because she stood by her empty stool and stared at her date.

The same look that he had at the front door now came over his face again. Perplexed might be too complex of a word; it was more like simple confusion — more “huh” than discomfiture. And then came that moment of realization again, the aha moment.

The man quickly stood up and pulled out her stool. And with a great flourish, she took off her jacket and sat down. She then held out her jacket for what seemed like an eternity before he took it and hung it on the coat stand in the corner.

“You’ve got to teach people how to treat you,” she said to me for no discernible reason.

I certainly hadn’t asked and really didn’t care.

But then, the evening proceeded along an easily predictable course.

“Tell him I want an ice-cold, filthy-dirty, ultra-dry vodka martini, shaken until it has ice chips,” she said to her date while I stood there listening.

“And make sure it has blue cheese-stuffed olives,” she added.

I was halfway through making the drink before he even finished explaining it to me. He had forgotten to order the olives, but I hadn’t. And she didn’t notice.

He ordered her salad for her, dressing on the side, cheese on the side, etc. He had to be corrected twice on her entrée order. But he soldiered on.

“A lady needs to be treated like a lady,” she said to me.

I don’t know why she said that to me. But she did, just the same.

If all the world’s a stage, as the Bard once opined, then bars and restaurants must be some of the grandest of them. People will freak out if they don’t get that particular barstool only to immediately abandon it for that booth in the corner. And whatever you do, don’t even try and seat them at that other table. Don’t you even dare!

The performance continued on through dessert. They weren’t each going to get the dessert that they wanted. Apparently, that was out of the question. Why? Who knows? But it was an outrageous suggestion, obviously.

The dessert that was ordered wasn’t really shared. But it was left half-eaten.

Funny that when the bill arrived, it wasn’t shared. It wasn’t even looked at jointly. Apparently, that too was outrageous. And it wasn’t even suggested.

“You have to train people how to treat you,” she said to me once again while he retrieved her jacket.

Suddenly, I was unsure if she had said “teach” or “train” the first time.

That argument about teaching or training could be semantics, or it could be about psychology. She stood again by the front door, and this time he responded much more quickly.

As they walked down the walkway in clear view of everyone in the bar, thanks to those omnipresent windows, he stopped her, turned her around and kissed her long and hard. She kissed him back, and then he slipped his hand right down the back of her pants.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• What exactly does “wuthering” mean?

• Just because you don’t see me doesn’t mean that I can’t see you.