Fighting about the price

Two sisters in Sharjah sell embroidered bags online. One wants to raise the price. The other is afraid of losing the customers they already have. They have had the conversation many times.

When one of them describes it to a friend, she says they keep fighting about the price.

That word does work of its own. A fight has two sides and a winner. It is about who backs down. Once a disagreement has been named a fight, every point either sister makes is heard as an attack, and every concession feels like a loss. People leave fights bruised, and some things said in them do not get unsaid.

There are other words available, and they are not just politer. They describe a different activity.

They could wrestle with the price. Then the opponent is the question itself: what the bags are worth, who is buying them, what happens at each number. Both sisters are on the same side of that mat, pulling at a hard problem, and there is a certain energy in it. Hard problems are interesting.

Or they could dance it. One leads for a while, the other follows, then they swap. Raise the price on a single design and watch. Step back if it goes badly. Neither expects to win, because the point is to move somewhere together.

The disagreement is identical in all three versions. The price is still uncertain and the fear is still real. What changes is whether they come out of it still wanting to work with each other.

The name they give it decides more than it seems to.