Weasels

Not long ago, I found myself, as I often do, in the sort of dilemma that only a weasel master could get out of. I was in desperate need of Tamora Pierce’s newest , and only in hardback, novel. As inpatient as I am in such matters of importance, I could not wait for either the cheaper paperback to hit shelves nor for the maddeningly slow library to pick up a copy. I wanted that book. However, my parents were not enthusiastic about spending twenty dollars on me at the time and I, having no source of income, was apparently stuck.

I stalked to my room, knowing that they thought I was sulking. But as the door closed behind me with an audible click, my pout transformed into a sly grin. I knew that the book would be mine in a matter of days.

What did I know that my parent’s seemed not to? The crafty art of weaseling. I knew I could weasel anything as minuscule as a little book out them with relative ease. Weaseling things out of parents is a common and by no means new practice. For years, children have managed to coax parents into anything from buying them a book to letting them stay out past curfew to party.

But don’t be deceived by the apparent ease in which this happens. Weaseling is a subtle art that requires skill, patience, and countless trials as well as knowledge of a parent’s most likely reaction to different types of stimuli as the child must choose which weaseling approach will best work.

There are several approaches in weaseling. The main types include; the nagger, the demander, and the actor.

The moody morning hours of half conscious irritability or the stifling heat of the ‘just off work’ summer afternoon is when the Nagger strikes. Similar to a mosquito, she will buzz incessantly about the targeted parent, whispering in her ears and tugging at her sleeves. She is one of the most persistent, as this approach is the art of wearing away the parents’ resolve piece by piece with the patience of knowing that a tiny drip can carve a cavern.

Weaseling by nagging can be immensely fruitful, however, a cavern can easily take a millennia to form. Only those with time and patience to spare should implement this method. Therefore, it is most useful when working your parent over something big and not immediate. A road trip next summer with your friends or getting that skull tattooed on your shoulder.

However, if your desire to permanently decorate yourself is strong enough that you will face a long upward climb and most likely a period of unstable relations with parents, as this is a negative method, then here are some basic guidelines.

Step 1. As previously mentioned, attack when the target is at her weakest in terms of irritability and ability to reason. But be careful. When people are irritated they will either give in easily just to stop the nagging, get very angry, or simply grow a temporary immunity to other voices. It is up to the weaseler herself to judge how this tactic will be responded to by her parent.

Step 2. Be persistent. You don’t have to be nagging twenty four hours a day but don’t give up after a few hours either. Take a break. Do your homework. Broach the subject again over dessert.

Step 3. Be as annoying as possible. Tap your parent on the shoulder often. Especially when she is on the phone. Whine loudly. Bother her as she is heading to bed and before her morning coffee.

If nagging just doesn’t seem to be working, then you may need to try another method. The weasel approach that works the least often and the most messily, is that of the Demander. This technique is almost impossible to due in good humour. It is most often employed by the spoiled ,angry, and frustrated and is easy to fall into when you run out of patience. The demander does just as it sounds. Demands outright what they want. With a great deal of smugness and little respect.

As demanders are often confident and forceful, they, in their arrogance, assume that they will immediately get what they want. This is their biggest downfall. A major point when dealing with a parent is to always remember that it is she who is in charge. By acting forceful or smug with her, you are challenging her authority. Her automatic response will be to reject any request, no matter how reasonable.

It takes both an exceptionally well balanced child and parent to pull off the demanding weaseling with any sort of positive effect. If you deem that this technique is right for you, I have only two suggestions,

Step 1. Leave negative emotions such as anger out and do your demanding in a light-hearted manner. Negative emotions only cause more negative emotions.

Step 2. Be confident and forceful, but not threatening. Without confidence or force, it just becomes a pathetic facsimile of nagging. Threatening will always cause a negative and defensive response.

While the demander has it’s strong points, its negativity is a to much of a roadblock for many to get past, so I recommend the third and final method, the Actor. The Actor is the only one with a positive, though perhaps the most weasel like, approach to weaseling things out of parents. It is the least heard about, the best working, and by far the most fun and light-hearted weasel technique.

Actor weasels like having fun, and realize that others do also. In fact, they understand that a parent in a good mood is a parent who is more willing to agree and give in to requests, albeit this approach should be used almost exclusively for small, non-consequential things like getting a book or seeing a movie. Though it is seldom used, actor weaseling is very simple. Just act pathetic in a humorous way.

Crawling around on the floor and whining woefully, like a starving dog is standard actor technique. So is getting down on your knees and begging with shimmering puppy eyes. Over acting and playing into your parent’s sense of humour and yes, superiority, is what it’s all about. If you want to give this a whirl, here are my guidelines,

Step 1.Be humorous. The point behind this whole thing is to get your parent to laugh. If you manage that, you’ve almost assured yourself a victory.

Step 2.Be as overly pathetic as possible. Grovel. Whimper. Narrate your patheticness like a bad novel, ie..”...and a single tear slid from her pain filled eyes..”. Act like a cripple. Employ as many ‘pathetic’ devices as you can.

Step 3. Let your parent know that you are having fun. Let yourself laugh. It’s

contagious and even if you don’t get what you want you can still say you had a good time.

I find that the acting approach is the all around best and often employ it myself. The technique of the actor is one that most closely parallels and easily applies itself too the three basic fundamentals of weaseling. These fundamentals should form the ground work for all of your endeavors, no matter what your approach, and always take precedence over other steps.

1. Don’t be unreasonable. Not even the weasel masters of the world can get everything they want.

2. Never expect anything. Feelings of disappointment are more than just possibilities in the weaseling art so pick your projects with care to keep them to a minimum. This should be a fun exercise in diplomacy, not a painful confrontation with failure.

3. Always do your weaseling with a sense of humour and fun. The worst mistake would be weasels make is to get to serious. This causes anger and sharp words to fly. These will never work on your behalf , immediately disintegrating your chances at getting anything.

Weaseling should be treated as something fun and interesting, incorporating few of the negative emotions that too many people associate with the act, and above all should be done, and taken, with good humour. In short, it should be treated a great deal like life.