The Viking and I spent most of Saturday silently arguing. Well, not arguing the way most people would argue, but more like silent, body language arguing. It’s our specialty.
Okay, fine! It’s my specialty. That’s how I argue. I walk away from the actual argument (you might be tempted to think you’ve won but you would be mistaken) and then answer every subsequent question with one syllable responses that are so fucking polite it’s impossible not to notice I’m pissed off.
I sometimes think I should work on that but to be honest it’s just too big of a job. I’d have to dig and pick at childhood stuff and then become more assertive and less Passive-Aggressive which means I would have to actively participate in arguments that would involve cursing and shouting and maybe even door slamming and nothing would be settled because everyone was so busy shouting they couldn’t hear what the other one was saying. I’ve never done this so I’m just guessing at how it would all work.
It was while I was silently, Passive-Aggressively arguing with The Viking on Saturday, that I started thinking about the things I did to my Ex-Husband, Stanley, while I was Passively-Aggressively arguing with him. I have to admit I did quite a lot of things but he was just so easy to fuck with and I was evil enough to use it against him.
Food was the biggest issue with Stanley. Don’t touch his food, don’t smell his food, don’t even look at his food. If one of your digits/limbs got too close you could expect, at minimum, a good stabbing with his fork. When children came along, we would all huddle down at one end of the table while he hunched over his plate at the other end, shovelling food into his mouth, never breaking eye contact with us. He said it was because he spent too much time in Boarding Schools where he had to fight for every bite of food. I thought it was because he was raised by wolves. Whatever the cause, as the Cook/Scullery Maid, I had plenty of access to his food and when the Passive/Aggressive got a hold of me……well….I would fuck with his food.
He worked 12 hour shifts so I would pack 4 sandwiches, a Tupperware container of microwaveable dinner leftovers, an apple or two and half a dozen cookies. Sometimes, I would take a big bite out of the lower right-hand corner of each sandwich, stack them up, perfectly aligned and wrap them. I’d put the bite corner facing down in the lunch box so he wouldn’t suspect a thing until he wanted a sandwich at work.
He called from work. “WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
I put a note in the lunch box. “I licked one of the cookies.”
“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
I folded the piece of ham in half and chewed out the center, leaving just a ham ring before I put it in the sandwich. All four sandwiches.
“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
I made him 3 Bologna and Strawberry Jam sandwiches because I ran out of mustard after the first one. Before you go ‘Ewwww…” try it. It’s actually good.
“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
I put a note in the bottom of his lunch box. “One of these things is past its expiration date. Guess which one.”
“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
He once woke me up at 4 o’clock in the morning because he was going on a rafting trip with some friends and had promised to bring sandwiches. He forgot to mention it the night before. So I left the wrapping on the cheese slices in every one of the 12 sandwiches.*
When he got home…..“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
He called from work one time to ask me to mow the lawn so he could go to the bar with some of his work buddies. The best advice my Mother ever gave me was to never do any chore for your husband because it will be yours for the rest of your life. So I mowed the lawn in wild curves and circles with large patches of grass un-mowed. From above it should have looked like a penis and balls.
When he stopped at home to change clothes….“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!” I told him I thought it looked great. He mowed it again before he went to the bar.
I folded all his socks inside out. I stuck my finger in his mashed potatoes. I short sheeted the bed when he was working night shifts. “WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
He sat on the toilet so long that his legs fell asleep. He waddled down the hallway, heading for the family room. I watched him for a moment and then put my index finger on his shoulder and pushed him, ever so gently, so he had to take a step. He yelled “QUIT IT!” I did it again. He yelled again. I did it again. You have to make the best of the time you have before the blood rushes back into his legs.
“WHAT THE FUCK, LORI!!”
I’m not proud of any of it. Wait. Who am I kidding? I’m totally proud! And it’s difficult to stop doing a behavior that gives me so much joy. And before you have too much sympathy for Stanley you should know that he once came home in the middle of the night and banged on the front door. When I got the door opened he was wearing a full face Gorilla mask and jumped at me. There was a little bit of pee.
He also sat on top of our refrigerator for 45 minutes just so he could scare me. I wonder if karma ever caught up to him?
I don’t have the time or energy for those kinds of things anymore. At worse I make food that I know The Viking doesn’t like. He also works at home so there would be no “cooling off period” before he could confront my deeds. And there is the fact that I already do enough stuff to make him holler without engineering more.
As for trying to address my Passive-Aggressive tendencies: that’s probably not something I’m going to get around to fixing. Besides, what would I do with all my VooDoo dolls?
*I’ve noticed that leaving the plastic on the cheese slice has become a ‘thing’ now. But I did it first – 30 years ago. However, I never thought to write “Sorry. Not Sorry.” on it with a Sharpie.
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