Evil Eye

The bad nanny turned out to be one of those people who, in popular imagination, are usually credited with “en evil eye.” Obviously, I don’t believe in actual evil eye, witchcraft, or any silly stuff like that. What people for centuries have referred to as “evil eye” is a certain psychological constitution that dooms its holders to be shunned and disliked through no apparent fault of their own.

The nanny didn’t say or do anything bad but after spending an hour with her Klara and I were wiped out. We crawled into bed and covered ourselves with fluffy towels, after which one of us nursed for an hour ten minutes and another inhaled an ice-cream bar. (Given that, psychoanalytically, ice-cream stands for mother’s milk, we engaged in identical activities.)

I knew that I was off and decided to protect my phone by hiding it in my chest. Like the peasant Ukrainian women I come from, I hide things in my chest. (And I don’t mean my chest-of-drawers, I mean a body part). Of course, I always manage to forget where I hid the enormous Samsung Galaxy and spend hours looking for it. This time, Klara prevented this from happening by throwing up massively right into the spot where the phone was stored.

All this was caused by spending a limited amount of time with a woman who probably has no idea what effect she has on people. I always feel sad for such folks because nobody tells them how heavily they weigh on others even during the most superficial contact. These are people who depress everybody around them simply by existing.

10 responses to “Evil Eye”

    1. Clarissa Avatar

      Please don’t ask me to read the whole thing. 🙂

      Like

      1. Dreidel Avatar
        Dreidel

        See the movie instead. It’s available on home video.

        Spoiler: the evil nanny gets pushed out an upstairs window at the end of the film.

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      2. Sternococktail Avatar

        “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
        Is The Hand That Rules The World

        Blessings on the hand of women!
        Angels guard its strength and grace,
        In the palace, cottage, hovel,
        Oh, no matter where the place;
        Would that never storms assailed it,
        Rainbows ever gently curled;
        For the hand that rocks the cradle
        Is the hand that rules the world. /…/”

        http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/wallace1.html

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        1. Clarissa Avatar

          This is uncanny because I read this comment while rocking an actual cradle.

          Like

  1. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    I’m sorry you and Klara are under the weather. Hope you both feel better soon!

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      By the way, yes, the weather sucks something fierce. 😦 We are already in a major heat wave.

      Like

  2. cliff arroyo Avatar

    In pre-industrial times (and places now like Sub-Saharan Africa or Saudi Arabia) the effect would probably be ascribed to witchcraft and she would likely be killed by a riled up lynch mob and/or some kind of ‘trial’.

    So progress is being made, but we havne’t figured out at the species/societal level how to let people like that know the effect they’re having on others so they could try to get it fixed (should that be their choice).

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Spiderbaby Avatar
    Spiderbaby

    This reminds me of an italian play called “La Patente”, where the main character is considered a jinx by everyone, thus he’s shunned by society along with his family. For this, he goes to a judge and requires a license to bring bad luck for a living.
    Your failed nanny could try that too 😀

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    1. cliff arroyo Avatar

      “he goes to a judge and requires a license to bring bad luck for a living.

      Your failed nanny could try that too”

      She could try for a new career as a cooler!

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318374/

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A conservative literary critic and college professor