Matt Wingett talks about how a roast chicken made things difficult between at home, until a simple NLP technique intervened!

Sometimes arguments can be silly.  Very silly.  And they can get even more silly when they're with someone you love and care for, and who you also, by the way, just happen to live with. When you live with someone, you don't have to dress up in your Sunday Best for them all the time.  Meaning that they get to see you early in the morning looking dishevelled after a late night out, or feeling sorry for yourself with a cold - and pretty soon realise that sometimes you aren't quite the perfect human being that you like to pretend to the rest of the world that you are.  And once that realisation is made, then both of you can sometimes grow a little bit careless with each other and not show each other the regard you might show to someone with whom you aren't quite so familiar.  And you know what familiarity breeds, don't you?

 

Just so with The Affair of the Roast Chicken.  My partner, Jackie, and I had just eaten a Sunday roast cooked by my own fair hand.  We had had a little beer and were enjoying that afterglow that comes with good food and good company.  And in that little moment, as I was just drifting off to sleep with the smell of good food in my nose and a slightly giddy feeling in my head, she mentioned to me in an offhand sort of way: "By the way, do you mind getting the meat off the carcass?  I really don't like doing all that boning stuff that you do with a chicken."  

 

"Of course," I said as I drifted off into a light doze filled with even more pleasant odours of gravy and roast potatoes and that general feeling of wellbeing.  "No problem.  Zzzzz.  Zzzzz."  And I completely forgot about it.

 

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...It seems the chicken wasn't the only thing due for a roasting that day...

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Well, the little doze became something more profound, and when I woke up I suggested to Jackie that we head out for a little bit of a walk down by the sea where we live - and maybe catch a live band in a bar."Yes, but when are you going to do the chicken?" she asked.

"What chicken?"

 

"The chicken…" she answered.

 

Well, I've always thought that if you're going to procrastinate, now is the best time.

 

"Oh, the chicken.  I'll do it when we get back.  Come on."

 

Back home later that evening, I got myself ready for bed.  At which point, Jackie entered the room with accusatory eyes.

 

"You haven't done the chicken."

 

"What chicken?"

 

"THE CHICKEN!  THE BLOODY CHICKEN YOU'VE SAID ALL DAY YOU WERE GOING TO BONE.  YOU KNOW I DON'T LIKE BONING CHICKENS.  YOU COOKED IT.  YOU BONE IT!"

 

It seems the chicken wasn't the only thing due for a roasting that day. It is amazing to see how a chicken can turn into a bee, and then fly around in someone's bonnet.

 

 

"Oh, that chicken.  Put it in the fridge.  I'll do it tomorrow."

 

"I know what'll happen.  I'll end up doing it."

 

"You won't.  I'll do it.  I promise."

 

After a few minutes in which she incarcerated the chicken in its chilly cell, Jackie flounced into the bedroom and got into bed with a swift and petulant jerk of the duvet. I was sleepy and I really wasn't available for discussing the whole chicken thing rationally - but - well - let us say we had a spirited discussion extemporising around the subject of a particular species of feathered friend.  I confess, by now I had decided to get pigheaded about the chicken.  I was going to bone it tomorrow, come hell or high water.  That was that.  Had Arnie walked in and threatened in a German accent to Terminate me unless I did as Jackie bid, I would not have boned that chicken on that night.  I would have told him to do it himself, if it was so important to him. And I would have told him that he could put the chicken in his pipe and smoke it, if that isn't banned in California these days.

 

- You see how easy it is to stop wearing your Sunday Best when you get into bed with the one you love?  I was being unreasonable on purpose.  No doubt about it.  I admit it.  Completely on purpose.

 

We lay in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, with the light off. Then I started laughing. It was ridiculous. I mean, it really was ridiculous. We were having an argument about a chicken. I wondered whether we should have bought a boneless chicken. Then I wondered how chickens manage to walk around on boneless chicken farms. It was all just too funny. I laughed even more.

 

Jackie went quiet. Very, very quiet. That just made it even funnier. I couldn't help myself. My sides were splitting.  

 

The silence from her side of the bed was deafening. The minutes dragged by, without any sound from my love. Then, just as I was starting to doze off, she started laughing, too. Really, really laughing.

 

I sat up and put the light on.

 

"What is it?" I asked, a feeling of curiosity spinning inside me.

 

She looked at me a little sheepishly.

 

"You know you told me about that NLP technique, where you make a picture of the thing that's bugging you, and you fire it off to the horizon till it's a tiny dot?"

 

"Yes…"

 

"I always thought it was stupid, that one. But I was lying here, and I thought I've got to do something.  He's not bothered about it, so all that'll happen is I'll get a sleepless night, and he'll be all bright and cheerful in the morning.  - So I did it.  I got the picture of this chicken, and I fired it off to the horizon.  I did it five times.  And every time I saw myself hurling this stupid bloody chicken off to the horizon, I thought how stupid the whole idea of firing a chicken off to the horizon was.  That's what did it. Seeing myself doing something so stupid as firing a roast chicken off to the horizon. Seeing it hurtling through the air and getting smaller and smaller. And you know what? I couldn't get it back. No matter how hard I tried to get the chicken back, I couldn't do it. Then it all got very, very funny, that I was trying to get a chicken back so we could have another argument about it. And now it's all right."

 

I put my arm around her, tucking her shoulder under my wing.

 

"Yes," I said.  "And, to be honest, I behaved like a - er - male chicken.  I admit it."

 

She snuggled up more closely and looked up at me intently.  Then in a tone that would brook no opposition, she said:  "But you will do it tomorrow, won't you."

 

"Oh yes," I grinned.  There was no way I could forget it now.  "I promise."  And she gave me an affectionate cuddle.

 

So, many thanks to Richard Bandler for that one about getting rid of stuff that bugs you.  A simple piece of advice learned on an NLP Practitioner Course and passed on to your beloved, can, it seems, unruffle some very ruffled feathers.

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Matt Wingett is a freelance writer and editor of NLP. His free eBook, The Tube Healer, can be download here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/128159 

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Copyright Matthew Wingett, 2009