Seek understanding through stereotypes.

[dreadedcandiru2]

The interesting thing about looking a year ahead is having to remember that we have to deal with John filled with anxiety and moaning about the expense of long-overdue upgrades to the Pattermanse. His grumpy comment about how his grandchildren will be forced to pay for the renovation, his need to seek out the advice of Doctor Asshole Chauvinist Boor Ted and his whining about his joy wagon all paint a picture of a victim of cathode ray poisoning that assumes that the cheapskate he married is, like all silly women, destined to spend him into the poorhouse because media imagery and his sources tell him so.

When you factor this in with his default belief that his children are defiant monsters who want to knock him down, it's sort of obvious that John seeks to explain the behaviour of those around him via self-serving stereotypes because he isn't capable of building a mental model on his own. Thinking of Elly as a silly wifey who wants to spend him into the poorhouse is akin to having a prosthesis to replace a lost or deformed limb. People have to be pigeon-holed into someone else's mental model because he can't build one on his own any more than he can understand what they want just by looking at them. More on that tomorrow.