July 07, 2005
Semantics
They say that the hardest part of living with someone is dealing with
their quirks. I disagree...that's the BEST part. Especially when you're
capable of making them lose it a little.
Case in point: Morn LOVES her kitchen stuff. When it came time for us to move into the Best Apartment Ever, I had FOUR boxes of kitchen stuff. This surprised me, especially considering that my idea of a cooking utensil is the phone. I use it to order dinner, eat out of the carton or box, and throw it all directly out into the garbage. How I amassed 4 full boxes of kitchen crap is a mystery.
Morn, on the other hand, had 22 FULL BOXES of kitchen stuff.
I'm not complaining, mind you. After all, a lot of it is really cool. Gadgets are everywhere, and they're simple enough for an idiot like me to use. The other night, I made a full dinner for the two of us in under 20 minutes while Morn was in the shower, using only a microwave, a steamer, and a George Foreman grill. And it was not only edible, but tasty!
The point is, there was no way we had room for all this stuff in the kitchen, so we needed to find a place for the extra 12+ boxes. Fortunately, the apartment is pretty big. In fact, it had 2 major selling points: 1) a second bedroom to be used as my office, and 2) a sizable storage room.
So where, you may ask, are the extra boxes?
No, not in the storage room. Why not? Because the litter box is in there, and according to Morn, "That's for the CATS! We can't put the boxes in there! They won't have enough ROOM!"
For the love of Mike, they're fucking CATS! I've seen these things squeeze through one inch of open door in order to run off down the hallway! How much room do they need?
But no, the storage room is the cats' clubhouse or something. Let's forget for a moment that they spend most of their time in closets or curled up on MY FAVOURITE CHAIR (now "The cat's chair," I might add,). No, the storage room is for them to do their dirty sinful "business" in without being disturbed. I should also add that in the past 6 weeks, I haven't been ALLOWED to do MY dirty sinful "business" in peace. One of the cats (Boo) seems to be FASCINATED with the human process of waste disposal, and either noses her way in or whines at the closed door the entire time. The other one (Monster) will sit just OUTSIDE the bathroom door and try to pick a fight with Boo the entire time. Meanwhile, all I want to do is read.
So the boxes can't go in the storage room...because why would you want to STORE something in the STORAGE room? Guess which room is the repository for all the kitchen boxes?
You guessed it...my office. This leaves me with about 3 square feet of personal space. Whenever I'm working in here, I'm doing so with the constant fear of being buried in an avalanche of boxes, with juice pitchers, melonballers, and God knows what else spilling around my crushed body.
Well, I can't take this lying down, now can I?
Tonight, as we cleaned up after dinner, Morn found it necessary to arrange the "containers". Now, I have nothing against containers, per se. I feel that containers have had a long and storied history of containing things, and I thank them for their years of service.
But you see, Morn has these admittedly-cool vacuum-sealed plastic things for certain items. Trail mix? It goes in a container, instead of the perfectly-reasonable alternative of storing it in the bag in which it was purchased. Same with salt, sugar, flour, and pretty much everything else. In fact, she went out the other day and bought MORE CONTAINERS...despite the fact that I've got an office full of boxed kitchen items that could be put in this cupboard including, I'm certain, EVEN MORE CONTAINERS.
As I stood there, she pulled some down, rearranged them, and replaced them. She did this three or four times. In a display of Obsessive-Compulsiveness that would make Howard Hughes jealous, she arranged them by size, by contents, symmetrically...you name it. Then, when she was finally satisfied, she pulled them down AGAIN and turned them so that the pre-printed labels were facing PERFECTLY OUTWARD before replacing them.
I decided right then and there to get revenge for my office.
As she watched, I pulled them all down, re-arranged them randomly, and replaced them all on the shelves, making DAMN SURE to do it with the labels turned inward. Okay, admittedly it's not much of a revenge, but it was almost worth it as I crossed my arms and looked at her, with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin on my face.
She turned to me and said, "I'll never understand why you do things specifically to annoy me," and walked out.
And THIS is where I take issue. Because the truth is, I DIDN'T do it just to annoy her. I did it to AMUSE MYSELF.
It's a matter of semantics, really.
