Things my girlfriend and I have argued about

Margret

(from the German

"M' Argr et" meaning 'to be dangerously insane').

Things My Girlfriend and I Have<br>Argued About

(now incorporating Mil's<br>Apology Homepage)

Look<br>in the mirror with pride instead of shame! By<br>donating to Britt Hermes's legal defence fund. (NB. Some<br>noticeable amount of shame may still remain. I mean,<br>obviously. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten<br>your little hand, right?)

The Paypal Donate button is at the bottom of the Oz<br>Skeptics page.<br>Nothing keeps a relationship on its toes so much as<br>lively debate. Fortunate, then, that my girlfriend and I agree<br>on absolutely nothing. At all.

Combine utter, polar disagreement on everything, ever, with<br>the fact that I am a text-book Only Child, and she is a<br>violent psychopath, and we're warming up. Then factor in my<br>being English while she is German, which not only makes each<br>one of us personally and absolutely responsible for the<br>history, and the social and cultural mores of our respective<br>countries, but also opens up a whole field of sub-arguments<br>grounded in grammatical and semantic disputes and, well, just<br>try saying anything and walking away.

Examples? Okey-dokey. We have argued about:

The way one should cut a Kiwi Fruit in half (along its<br>length or across the middle).

Leaving the kitchen door open (three times a day that<br>one, minimum).

The best way to hang up washing.

Those little toothpaste speckles you make when you brush<br>your teeth in front of the mirror.

I eat two-fingered Kit-Kats like I'd eat any other<br>chocolate bars of that size, i.e., without feeling the need<br>to snap them into two individual fingers first. Margret<br>accused me of doing this, 'deliberately to annoy her'.

Which way - the distances were identical - to drive round<br>a circular bypass (this resulted in her kicking me in the<br>head from the back seat as I drove along).

The amount of time I spend on the computer. (OK, fair<br>enough.)

First Born's name (Jonathan). Then, when that was<br>settled...

How to pronounce First Born's name.

Our telephone number.

Which type of iron to buy (price wasn't an issue, it was<br>the principle, damnit).

Where to sit in the cinema. On those occasions when we a)<br>manage to agree to go to the cinema together and, b) go to<br>see the same film once we're there. (No, really).

Whether her cutting our son's hair comes under<br>'money-saving skill' or 'therapy in the making'.

Shortly after every single time Margret touches my<br>computer, for any reason whatsoever, I have to spend twenty<br>minutes trying to fix crashes, locked systems, data loses,<br>jammed drives, bizarre re-configurations and things stuck in<br>the keyboard. There then follows a free and frank exchange<br>of views with, in my corner, 'It's your fault,' and, in<br>hers, 'It's a curious statistical anomaly.'

Margret enters the room. The television is showing Baywatch.<br>Margret says, 'Uh-huh, you're watching Baywatch<br>again.' I say, 'I'm not watching, it's just on.'<br>Repeat. For the duration of the programme.

She wants to paint the living room yellow. I have not the<br>words.

Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. No, hold<br>on - let me make sure you've got the inflection here:<br>Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. She says<br>she does, but years of bitter experience have proven that<br>what she actually wants is to sit by me while I narrate<br>the entire bleeding film to her. 'Who's she?', 'Why<br>did he get shot?', 'I thought that one was on their side?',<br>'Is that a bomb' - 'JUST WATCH IT! IN THE NAME OF GOD, JUST<br>WATCH IT!' The hellish mirror-image of this is when<br>she furnishes me, deaf to my pleading, with her<br>commentary. Chair-clawing suspense being assaulted<br>mercilessly from behind by such interjections as, 'Hey!<br>Look! They're the cushions we've got.', 'Isn't she<br>the one who does that tampon advert?' and, on one famous<br>occasion, 'Oh, I've seen this - he gets killed at the end.'

Margret thinks I'm vain because... I use a mirror when I<br>shave. During this argument in the bathroom - our fourth<br>most popular location for arguments, it will delight and<br>charm you to learn - Margret proved that shaving with a<br>mirror could only be seen as outrageous narcissism<br>by saying, 'None of the other men I've been with,' (my, but<br>it's all I can do to stop myself hugging her when she begins<br>sentences like that) 'None of the other men I've been with<br>used a mirror to shave.'

'Ha! Difficult to check up on that, isn't it? As all the<br>other men you've been with can now only communicate by<br>blinking their eyes!' I said. Much later. When Margret had<br>left the house.

The TV Remote . It is only by epic self-discipline<br>on both our parts that we don't argue about the TV Remote to<br>the exclusion of all else. It does the TV Remote a<br>disservice to suggest that it is only the cause of four<br>types of argument, but space, you will understand, is<br>limited so I must concentrate on the main ones.

1) Ownership of the TV Remote: this is signified by its<br>being on the arm of the...