The counterintuitive gesture

I happened to catch Miracle on 34th Street on TV the other night.   Actually, it’s almost impossible not to catch it.   It seems to be on almost every channel, every night.

Now there are those who claim it is just Christmas schlock entertainment.   And while I would not deny it tugs at the heartstrings, one could surely be entertained in much worse ways.

My favourite part of the movie—after the scenes in which the timorous judge dutifully follows hand signals from his political boss—comes when Kris Kringle, playing (or being, depending upon your point of view) Santa Claus in the toy department at Macy’s department store, asks a little boy what he wants for Christmas.  The boy replies that he wants skates.   Kringle is supposed to push the Macy’s inventory, but instead he directs the boy and his mother to a competitor down the street, where there is a better deal.   And he proceeds to do likewise with other children’s requests.

These gestures are at first met with cynicism by the mothers, and puts Kringle’s continued employment in jeopardy; but then the big boss Mr. Macy tells his staff that he has been inundated with calls from customers expressing their loyalty to Macy’s for adopting the practice, and is henceforward going to make the practice of referral company policy.   As Mr. Macy so aptly puts it:   “We’ll be known as ‘The Helpful Store.’ ‘The Friendly Store.’ ‘The Store With a Heart.’  The store that places public service ahead of profits.   And consequently we’ll make more profits than ever before.”

I thought of that scene when I was reading about the NFL quarterback Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts.  Luck is leading his team to the playoffs yet again, and has thrown for more yards than any other NFL quarterback in his first three seasons.  So he’s doing pretty well.  Mind you, any NFL quarterback who simply survives for three years without being squashed or otherwise obliterated is doing pretty well in my books.

ut what makes Luck unique is, apparently, his style of trash talking to opponents.  (Trash talking, according to one definition, is “insulting or boastful speech intended to demoralize, intimidate, or humiliate someone, especially an opponent in an athletic contest.”)  Most trash talking seems to take the form of unprintable negative comments about one’s opponent or his or her close family members, on the theory this will get the opponent so angry that he or she will not be fully focused on making the best athletic play. Luck, however, takes the opposite tack. He showers opponents with praise.   When there is a solid hit against one of his teammates, Luck issues words to the effect of “I say, old chap, jolly well done.”

The effect is to leave the opponent scratching his head and to turn the psychological table in favour of Luck’s team.  Said one player: “You want to say thank you [for the compliment] but then you say ‘wait a second—I’m not supposed to like you.’”  In that puzzled second, of course, Luck has given his team the opportunity to rebound with some brilliant manoeuvre that catches the opponent flatfooted.

Kringle and Luck must be on to something.  Call it the counterintuitive gesture.   I can think of an instance where it has worked for me.  Although I am normally the most law abiding of souls, I was once stopped by a police car and told I was travelling too fast relative to the suggested speed limit.  I was so dumbfounded, I wasn’t thinking quickly enough to resort to the usual “please officer, I don’t want to be late for my mother-in-law’s funeral” cry for mercy.  Instead, I blurted out my considerable thanks to the officer for drawing the matter to my attention.  I think it was the first time he had ever received an expression of gratitude for his actions.  I did not receive a ticket.

Bearing in mind that this is the Christmas Eve edition of the Times, and considering what we have just learned about counterintuitive gestures, I would like to invite the readers of this column who are not intellectually titillated by the content of or rendered curious by the advertisements in this newspaper, to go ahead and read instead the Picton Gazette and the County Weekly News, where they will find…

… What do you mean, Rick, when you say that it’s my last column?  Aren’t we supposed to follow the example set for us by Kris Kringle?

… You’ve got a family to feed?  But so did Mr. Macy!

… Yes I know we’re not selling toys, we’re writing about sewage budgets, but all the same, look at the success Andrew Luck has had!

… Okay, okay.  I’ll just wish our readers Merry Christmas and stop there.   Maybe they’ll see that as a counterintuitive gesture

I will miss John Kennedy’s sense of delight. He could not read one of his stories without convulsing in laughter. You laughed because the story was indeed funny, but also because that childlike sense of delight made you laugh too.

John’s laughter will remain. And laughter begets kindness.

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca