To Have, To Hold, To Argue About Insanity

Nathan and I will be married in a little over a month. (Like holy cow and stuff.) Marriage is hard and although we aren’t officially married, we have lived together for a over a year and a half, bought a house together, bought a car together, and gone through all sorts of emotional trauma together, so I feel like we have a pretty firm grip on this whole “doing life together” circus.

Promising to love someone forever and promising to stay with them through all the messy day to day reality is really huge. There are days that I actually wish I had ten middle fingers so I could flip Nathan off with all ten of them. Sometimes I watch Snapped (the show about women who kill or plot to kill their husbands but always get caught) and think to myself “I wouldn’t end up getting caught like that chump, I’d do it right.” Because sharing one space with one person can sometimes make you a little crazy.

I’m about 99.9% sure that nowhere in marriage vows comes the line, “to have, to hold, to pick fights with you over things that are super important at the time, but looking back are hilarious and insane, please don’t leave me because I don’t know how much the mortgage costs or where you keep the extra stamps” but it should.

So, without further ado, here is a list of some of my favorite fights Nathan and I have ever had that, looking back, make me cackle like a hyena:

1. He dream cheated on me and I was real life mad at him

(This is apparently pretty common in relationships; who knew?!) I had a dream last winter that Nathan decided to get back with another woman. During the dream, they were all snuggled up to each other and he thoughtfully explained to me that they wanted to give it another go; that life together may not be perfect, but that several years apart showed them what they really wanted, which was each other.

Now, first off, I have a better shot at leaping off my roof right this second and gliding like an eagle to the nearest wildlife preserve than I do of hearing Nathan ever, ever, EVER say anything like that. (This is the man who proposed to me by asking me if I’d spend the 3-5 years he had left on earth with him, since our running joke is that at 12 years my senior he is actually, well, a senior citizen. Or who, upon the death of my pap about a month ago, in an effort to try and make me laugh, told me to have his hands cremated, put inside a locket, and to wear said locket under my shirt so he could always be near my boobies.) Poet savant he is not. Words? He’s not so good at. That should have been my first clue right there. But no…

So, like any normal woman would do, I waited until he was at work and rehashed the dream with him. “I had a dream that you dream cheated on me and wanted to be with another woman. Would you ever real life do that?” “HahahahahaNO.” “Swear?” “Yes duh swear.” “Like really swear? Like swear promise-swear?” “Yes and that’s not a word.” “OH MY GOD ARE YOU TRYING TO DEFLECT FROM YOUR SECRET DESIRE TO BE WITH SOMEONE ELSE BY TELLING ME THAT WORDS AREN’T WORDS?” “Ashley when did I meet you?” “Like five years ago.” “How long have I had a crush on you?” “Like five years, but you didn’t act on it for like four  or something- OH MY GOD WHAT IF YOU MEET SOMEONE ELSE AND SECRETLY LOVE THEM FOR FIVE YEARS WHILE YOU’RE WITH ME?” “Bye. I’m going back to work now.”

For weeks after that, I’d continue to ask him what his plans were: to marry me or to meet someone else and love them in secret. He “swear promise swears” that he won’t.

2. He changed Siri’s voice to Australian

Picture it: a calm evening in south Knoxville. Nathan and I are laying in bed after a recent software update. “Babe! Guess what? I can just lay my phone down and say ‘Hey Siri’ and she’ll answer.” “I know. I have an iPhone too,” I rolled my eyes. “Hey! You know what else? I can change her voice to be Australian.” “Why would you do that?” “I don’t know. I like Australian accents.” “I thought you said you liked MY accent?” (Pause: Nathan was born in Chattanooga, moved, lived in California for the first seven or so years of his life, then moved back to Chattanooga. He has no accent. I on the other hand have a drawl so thick I sound like I crawled out of a Southern satire.) “I do. But I think Australian accents are cool too.” “Cooler than my accent?” “Ashley dear God I can’t run away with Siri you know?”

Well. Apparently I did not, in fact, know as the next day I sent him Pulitzer Prize worthy novel texts about how his choosing Siri’s accent over mine was a huge slap in the face because all this time I was under the misguided impression that he preferred my voice to all others. (Are y’all laughing with me yet because I literally cannot read through this without cracking up.) “So what are you going to do? Leave me for an Australian woman one day?” “Yeah. Because we get so many Australians here in East Tennessee.” “OH MY GOD BUT IF WE DID YOU’D CLEARLY LEAVE ME FOR HER WOULDN’T YOU?” “Yes. Yes at this point I am nearly ready to leave you for a hypothetical Australian woman who maybe isn’t insane, Captain Scenario. Yes.” “So you’re admitting it? You hate my accent and you want someone who is Australian?” “Did I say that?” “You didn’t have to, Nathan. It’s implied in your actions.” I still get a little jealous when he asks Siri for something, not going to lie. Bless this man for putting up with me, you guys. But it isn’t just me…

3. I had a dish drainer

“What IS this thing?” Nathan snarled at me one evening. “That would be a dish drainer.” “Yeah but why do we have it? And why is it in the sink?” “We have it to drain dishes and it’s in the sink because…water?” “But we have a dishwasher.” “Sooooooo?” “So it washes and dries the dishes. And I want a sink that doesn’t have clutter in it.” “Kayyyy. Well get rid of it then. Freak.”

A few nights later we had the same conversation. All in all, I think we had the conversation about three times until he finally grabbed the dish drainer one Thursday night and threw it into the trash on the side of the road for pick up the next morning. “How you feelin’? Lots better?” “I just don’t get WHY you wanted that thing in the sink.” “To drain dishes.” (He still thinks he’s right but whatever, man. I guess this is part of that whole “compromise” thing I keep hearing about.)

4. The outside trash cans were dirty

(You guys this one is the best because all the neighborhood kids were here to see it and still give him crap about it.)

Nathan came home from work one night and noticed there was something sticky in the bottom of the outside trash cans. “Yeah. It’s probably trash,” I told him. He panicked and told me about bugs and how they get into the house and ants and stuff and I think I looked like I was listening but mostly I was shopping on the Internet.

The next day he asked me to rinse out the offending trash cans but I’m pretty sure I was watching animal videos on my newsfeed or other pressing matters because when Nathan got home from work that day we still had dirty trash cans. As the neighborhood kids and I looked on in shock and tried not to laugh, Nathan started flinging empty trash cans all about the yard and washing them down with a water hose and pine sol mixture. “Is he…Um…Is he washing the garbage cans?” The oldest of the neighborhood girls whispered to me. “Yeah. Apparently they’re dirty and it makes bugs.” “But you don’t have bugs.” “I know just go with it.”

“Hey babe…Do you know you’re washing the containers we put actual garbage into, and that these stay outside” “Yeah. Yeah I do. BUT IF SOMEONE HAD DONE WHAT I ASKED TODAY I WOULDN’T BE HERE IN THE YARD DOING IT NOW WOULD I?” “Umm? I guess no?” “Exactly Ashley. How many times have I told you that everything has to be empty before it goes in here?” “These are outside trash cans though. And stop talking to me like I’m a child. Trash goes in trash cans. It’s not like I threw it in the living room floor.” “You may as well have!” “I…May as well have? Oh my gosh please get a grip.”

For weeks after the #trashcantakedown2016 the neighborhood kids came into our house and looked at the counter tops while screaming “OH GOD THE INVISIBLE ANTS ARE EVERYWHERE!” Nathan shook his head and huffed out of the room. Now he laughs about it. We’re getting somewhere…I think.

We have also squabbled over me wanting him to sign up for a library card (“Really Ashley, who reads books anymore? I can just read articles on the Internet.” “You are literally everything wrong with the world these days.”) which led to a huge argument about “why I even want to read.” Also that I store dirty clothes in the washing machine until I wash them, or that I nailed the wrong size nails into the walls to hold pictures up, that he didn’t tell me he loved me in front of his family once so he’s clearly ashamed of me, and that his family came over unannounced at 10pm one night and I had to put a bra on. (Okay that last one I still feel is pretty valid, but his cousin was in from teaching in Hong Kong so I guess I can’t get too mad about it).

Please, oh please, tell me in the comments what insanity you and your spouse thought was totally relevant at the time but now makes you belly laugh thinking about.