The Tanya Tucker Defense

29 October 2025

End-of-Year Resolutions: The Tanya Tucker Defense

Many years ago, I used to use the Tanya Tucker Defense to explain why things didn’t work out between Me and Older Guy.

“Well, he was older than me.  I thought he knew what he was doing.”

I tossed that one out by the time I was thirty.

I moved on to making resolutions, and I soon discovered that the ones I made at the End-of-the-Year were the most dicey.  I don’t know if it’s a matter of my instinctive rebellion against an arbitrarily self-imposed rule, but I would quickly toss out, or jettison, the half-hearted determination.

If my heart’s not in it, I do not even begin it.

My heart is most definitely in the determination to forego any Experts in the Coming Year.  I know it’s only November, and not really the End-of-the-Year.  To me, however, it sure feels like the end of this year!

What a year it has been!

The weather pattern here in Placer County during this wet season has showed itself to be DRIZZLY RAIN/MIST/WET ICK for about 4-5 days — every 10 days.  There’s not much in the way of rainfall total, but the dank rank smelly humidity is awful!

I first noticed this pattern after the third week in October, which would have made the frequency of occurrence 3 times.  I then opined to Dear Husband, Civil Engineer/Hydrologist, that the cycle is about once every week.

He thereupon civilly launched into his oft-launched definition of What Constitutes A Week — 7 days.

“No,” I clarified.  “A week is 8 days.  It’s inclusive, according to the French..”

“According to the Beatles.”

“They stole it from the French,” I informed him.  “Or, more precisely, Paul did, during his Michelle-phase.”

All of which led to our still-entrenched divide between what constitutes a week.  For me, 8 days is close enough to 10 days to say, “We’re getting this yucky rainy pattern every week, with 3-4 days to dry out.”

Sounds like the condition of our Illustrious Guv’ner!

The Tanya Tucker Defense got replaced, somewhat, in my mind with:

“These are things we should already have.”

That nifty notion justifies the purchase of a necessity (“necessity” as defined by Me) that usually put a strain on the bank account.

In those good old days of Fiscal Responsibility — In the Home — cause We know that the Fiscal Cliff is the raison d’être for the Government of Any Constitutional Republic, or even a So-Called Democracy —I often made purchases of bare necessities at bargain basement prices, usually just preceding what was finally admitted by The Experts to have been A Recession.  But it was slight.  Transitory.  Very minimal, like their brains.

We still engage in Fiscal Responsibility In the Home, just cause I enjoy the contrarian nature of not-spending-more-than-you-have.  I’ve been cutting against that grain for decades now, which explains why I’ve been able to get ahead in many areas of my life.  The Sour Grapes around me, however, have insisted that I “just got lucky.”

Well, perhaps I did get lucky, in the sense that I’m able to use my God-given talents for the good.  I at least admit there’s a God from Whom I got talents.  And that’s a huge start for tackling the unexpected and unforeseen boulders that life throws at you.

I never did believe in the Experts, starting in Second Grade, when They deemed me to be a backward child, behind the curve.  That curve was something I didn’t understand, but They didn’t either.  They tested me and discovered that I am Gifted!

To go from developmentally disabled, behind, backward, and whatever other label got pinned on me at the age of 6 — to Gifted — at age 7 — that experience has stayed with me.

Whenever I hear about The Experts, I recall Mrs. Helen Hirsch and my Second Grade Class of Gifted Students.  I think I might have been ahead of our fabulous President on flattening the curve of the colossal egos of those Experts.  But I’ve always been a quietly rebellious spirit, ahead of my time!

My heart-of-hearts End-of-Year resolution for this year of 2025 is to forearm the experts even more than before.  It’s good strengthening exercise for the forearm!