River: Bluebeard in Basingstoke

Conversational landmines.

A lot of people have them. You're going along having a great, wide ranging conversation, and suddenly the other person bursts into tears, or angrily delivers a five-minute tirade, or walks away. You wonder, "what in heck did I say?"

It could be almost anything. There was a time, in August and September of 1990, when asking me "how are your kids?" brought me close to tears, and turned my poor flower_cat into a puddle of grief. Don't get me started on software patents. There are certain names one doesn't mention in a filk circle for fear of conjuring up a demon one can't dismiss. And so on.

They are not, unfortunately either rational or predictable. Usually they're based on some incident in the past. They're emotional triggers. About all one can do is stay out of the line of fire.

Sometimes, if you hang around somebody long enough, you start to learn them. Sometimes you or they can recognize when the conversation is in dangerous territory, and warn people off. Sometimes, unfortunately, you miss one and let it go past you, with the usual results.

A few of them keep coming up for us, so we (well, OK, I) recently came up with a codeword to toss in whenever it looks like the conversation is too veering too close to one of these flashpoints for comfort. The word is "Bluebeard". It means, really don't open that door. (The reference is a to a novel by Larry Niven titled Protector.) Most people say "Don't go there", but it doesn't have the same resonance for me.

 

A somewhat related phenomenon is inappropriate reactions to things like tone of voice or conversational style. I speak loudly when I'm startled, for example when I've been concentrating on something, and sometimes Colleen bursts into tears. She also sometimes cries when I contradict something she's said. The kids invariably turn their brains off when math is mentioned. The code word for this one is "Basingstoke", from the G&S operetta Ruddygore. It's a near synonym for "Calm down!", which is what I used to say in that situation. But both of us know the reference, and it adds a touch of humor to the request. And if "Basingstoke" doesn't do it, "Burlingame" usually works.