I got to see mom do this once. It was⊠terrifying. I was moving into my first apartment, and my buddy had just moved into a place about half a mile away, and he was almost crying with rage because of some of the safety issues the apartment had with the wiring. There were a whole host of other problems, but that one was about safety and it should not have been a thing. Mom gathered us up, and drove to the leasing office. When we got there, she informed him (not asked. Sheâd walked his apartment, noted everything she disliked (she had much higher standards than he did) and she was PISSED) that he was to keep his mouth shut, make whatever expressions she cued him on, and pretend he understood whenever she and I switched languages and weâd fill him in afterwards. (I have been used as a complainant prop before. I know what my job is when sheâs on this warpath; thankfully she does not use her powers for evil.)
It took her all of twenty minutes to have a promise in writing from the son of the owner for everything to be fixed by a specific date and also to install a ceiling fan at no cost to my friend. In that meeting, she managed to leverage his church, his family, his reputation, the concept of a gentleman, the biblical concept of how to treat the poor, how people would treat his children, once they were grown, and the concept of a self-made man (which my friend is trying very hard to be), Christian morality, what it means to be a community institution, real estate law, and honestly, I forget what else. Sheâd never met him before. She does not live in our city -or state, for that matter. Weâre not Christian. She did a cold-read of him based on his office, face, clothing, and posture (he didnât give us his last name -the ârelated to the ownerâ was a guess that turned out to be lucky), and hit every point of pride or insecurity she could find. When some things still hadnât been taken care of a week later, she *called his father* and implied that heâd failed as a man and a parent since his son hadnât yet honored his word. My friend had the fan that day, and the remaining safety issues were taken care of on top of it. No yelling, no threats, it was just a calm, âfriendlyâ conversation. My friend does not do subtext; he knew the social chess game was going on, but not how it worked.Â
tl;dr: Iâve seen my mother do this and holy shit this really should be a thing.
