Western Walkabout: Saying No
Richard Harris, ruminating on the difficuly of saying "No''. concludes that life is one long compromise.
It’s hard to say No, sometimes, especially to people you love. It takes a firmness of character not always readily available.
My son phoned me today just as I had gone through the front door with a prescription for an anti-flu preparation.
I had spent the best part of two days in bed, and the previous day, felt I could die.
“Yes,” I croaked.
“How are you, Dad?”
“I think I’m going to live,” I said.
“No, you haven’t got a cold,” he said. “You don’t get colds.”
“It might be fowl pest, for all I know, “I said. “But the doctor told me I was flu-ish.”
He had phoned to ask me for a sample of cat’s urine.
My cat is a private, timid creature. Very fastidious. She won’t even pee under the mulberry tree because she doesn’t like getting the sticky over-ripe fruit in her claws.
“Why do you want it?” I said.
He explained that he was trying to repopulate the coastal dunes near Rockingham with quandong trees, the quandong being a native peach in danger of dying out. It was traditionally re-established after the seed passed through the gut of an emu, which then dropped it out with other splatter, from which the seedling grew.
My son has developed a synthetic emu poo using mushroom compost and coffee grounds but wanted to add cat pee to deter rabbits from eating the little quandong seedling.
Old cat pee smells ferocious and would deter the hungriest rabbit, giving the quandong seedling a better chance.
“No,” I said. “No way am I going to ask Mehitabel to pee in a can for that project. She’s a very private, discreet cat.”
I’m from a long line of negotiators, so I couldn’t leave it at No.
“Why don’t you do what the traffic engineers did at Main Roads to deter dogs from peeing on their traffic count recorders, which used to stink.”
“What was that?” he said.
“They went down to the local hardware store and bought a can of spray-on stuff – Scent-off I think it was called.”
I left him pondering that. “Must go,” I said. “I don’t want to die today – have still got pills to pop and things to do.”
It was as gracious a No as I could manage. It was a democratic No – two in favour of the No, the cat and me, and one against, my son.
Life’s just one long compromise.
