Scenes from my marriage (two-ply quilted edition)

So... the Geek and I are cooking dinner the other night (okay, he was cooking, I was puttering about in the way), and we got into a rather "spirited" discussion where we did NOT agree. Not one little bit. There was no shouting or anything; it was just "spirited" without being mean-spirited as we stand on completely different sides of this issue. (This happens more often at Casa PC than you'd think.)

(Although he is completely wrong in his stance on Life-of-Copyright and Intellectual Property protections, we finally had to agree to disagree. If he insists on clinging to his erroneous conclusions, that's his prerogative. It's a free country. He has a right to be completely wrong.)

Unbeknown to us, AC had overheard the entire conversation. She carefully brought it up at dinner.

DG and I were quick to reassure her that it was okay for people to disagree. That it was healthy as long as everyone remembered to discuss and debate instead of just argue.

Then the Geek said, "Mom and Dad disagree on a lot of things," and something in his tone made me (glutton for punishment that I am) ask, "Such as?"

DG looked at me, and in a voice I can only describe as "earnest" said, "For one thing, the way the toilet paper is supposed to come off the roll."

Unfortunately, I had a mouthful of food at this moment and we nearly had to perform the Heimlich on me as literally inhaling pasta is not good for your lungs. Once I could breathe again, my response was. "You actually care?"

It seems not only does my Geek hold strong opinions about how the toilet paper should come off the roll, he seems to think I actually have a preference as well.

Let me assure you, dear Playfriends, I don't care one way or the other. As long as there is toilet paper when I sit down, I'm happy. I don't care how it comes off the roll, because it's toilet paper. The direction of toilet paper isn't even a blip on my radar.

Here's the kicker -- the Geek has such strong feelings about TP directionality, he confessed to reversing the roll when he finds it coming off in the wrong direction.

Now this whole thing Fails on three levels:

1) After 15 years of marriage, I was unaware my husband had a TP-directional preference.

2) After 15 years of marriage, my Geek is unaware that I don't.

3) For 15 years, this man has been going behind my back and changing the direction of the TP even though he thinks I prefer it the other way.

I had to ask what difference it made, because if he was willing to wage guerrilla TP warfare over it (but not brave enough to take a direct assault), there had to be a good reason (beyond his own anal-retentiveness.)

And in that tone Engineers use when they are trying to explain important, complicated things to Liberal Arts majors, my Geek looked me dead in the eye and said...

"You get a better pull."

I sincerely wish I hadn't just put another bite in my mouth after asking. ~cue Heimlich~

So this conversation Wins on two levels:

1) After 15 years, my Geek still has the ability to surprise me.

2) And he can still make me laugh so hard my sides hurt the next day.


Although I'm sure there's a forum somewhere on the internet where the Over folks fight the Under folks in bloody, deadly, "You're a TP-Nazi" combat (because this is the internet we're talking about -- people will fight to the death over the strangest things...), I want to know where the Playground as a whole stands on this obviously important and divisive issue.





I am sorry, but I stand by original statement. I don't care how you replace the roll as long as you do. *

I do, however, have every intention of taking great joy in making sure I turn every TP roll in the house the other way. After all, I've got a minute to kill while I'm sitting there.

After 15 years, I gotta get my kicks where I can, right? ~grin~


PC

*However, while I am Switzerland in the TP directional wars, I do have strong TP opinions otherwise: one-ply TP is an abomination.