Hot Dignity Dog!

The main reason that the Pattersons hate to be criticized is their exaggerated fear of being embarrassed. You see, not everyone matures at the same rate on all psychological fronts and the Foobs are as one with a group of third graders on that particular issue. They seem convinced that if they suffer a temporary loss of face, they'll never be able to get it back. Their neighbors, when confronted by a similar situation, would probably wait for the heat to die down or someone else to look a fool 'cause they know enough about the world to realize one or both things will surely happen. Not the Pattersons, though. In their minds, if their dignity took what every one else could clearly see was a two-week vacation they'd become Milborough's PERMANENT Laughingstocks; a pathetic clan of zeros people haul out to chortle and hurl abuse at. This, of course, is their projecting their in-built hostility onto decent people who have no need or desire to subject the victims of circumstance to cruel mockery.