Critical Thinking

or a lack thereof . . .

Margie Willis
5 min readOct 20, 2024
An older woman bundled up for an autumn walk in the forest.
Image by Besno Pile from Pixabay

One of my favorite college courses was critical thinking. I’ll never forget taking the class at Monterey Peninsula College at the turn of the century.

The other day a self-absorbed oaf talked my leg off for a half hour or longer.

Michael finally tripped my switch by badmouthing his grown daughter ad nauseum, so I told him to take a hike and leave me alone.

Liz the Cat Lady sorta sicced this guy on me.

My next-door neighbor was returning from having gone out to breakfast with Michael when we all ran into each other. I was then subjected to this man’s audacity for thirty minutes.

I have come to see how scoundrels will tell a seemingly harmless anecdotal story featuring a woman being dissed by this man. If you allow such a story to stand unchallenged, the man pegs you as the kind of woman who is okay with his woman bashing.

This is why Michael began our acquaintance badmouthing his daughter endlessly. To see if I was a woman who’d stand for it.

Men in this dive do this all the time.

Felix, who lives on one side of me, began our acquaintance by informing me it’s against God’s will for a woman to be…

--

--

Margie Willis
Margie Willis

Written by Margie Willis

spirit of the phoenix, fill me . . .

Responses (21)