Contrary Miss Wy

I love to be what my friend calls “contrary.” If you were to say, “I think there is a lot to admire about the Mormon church,” I would say, “I hate Mormons! Don’t talk about Mormons!” I don’t actually hate Mormons at all; it’s only that in a certain mood or triggered by certain people, I must be disagreeable. Like when my dear husband says, “Please don’t buy any more avocados,” I must buy avocados.

I also just like to say “No.”

When I took a night class recently, my teacher asked, “Christine, will you go upstairs to see if a better classroom is available?”

I looked at her and said, “No.”

This goes against every minute of training I received as a young Catholic school girl in a strict Southern society, a society where rules of polite conduct matter more than fashion or status, and are required of everyone for even the simplest transactions. As a girl, I was trained to always say, “Yes, ma’am.”

I loved saying “no” to my teacher. I tingled, I got tunnel vision, I felt giddy. I said “no,” and I couldn’t believe it.

She looked at me in shock, and someone rescued the situation by volunteering to find the other room.

The “no” applies to the rest of my life, too. When telemarketers call and my Southern training says to listen to the whole speech and then politely decline, instead I say, “No,” and hang up the phone. I feel stomach flutters of anxiety and head-rushes of joy that I am rid of the intrusion.

The power of denying, of the compelling “no,” is intense for me. In the case of my husband, I feel giddy and wicked, and with my teacher I feel bold and relieved, but with the telemarketer I feel sad to be so rude. “No” grips me and emboldens me; it shames me, and it disturbs me.

When I feel most contrary, when I walk past the fire alarm lever in the hallway outside my office, every day I say to myself, “No, don’t pull the fire alarm.” I don’t actually want to pull the fire alarm, but that perverse part of me that wants to live in contrary land where it’s OK to do everything opposite of good just feels my hand reaching over, fighting the forces of all that is right in this world, and pull, pull, gripping the white handle on the red box and trigger sirens and alarms.

The effect of my contrariness would be calamity. Not only would my entire building have to evacuate (3000 people and more?), but buildings of a certain size in downtown Chicago require a minimum of five fire trucks. Five. Five sirens wailing, five crews rushing onto the scene, five disturbances of the peace and five criminal charges when they find my five fingerprints on the pull box. Five fingers pulled to the pull box, five urges to resist. Five “No’s” a day.

I’m proud of my “no,” but I struggle to use it wisely. A true Southern lady can manage her “no’s,” when to be contrary and when to withhold, but with every “no” I become less Southern.