This is Why the Newlywed Show Should Have Accepted Our Application, Part One

I'm sure you know  a couple or two who just love to fight. Call 'em the Bickering McBickersons.
The Big B and I are definitely one of those couples.


Most of the time these discussions, while heated, have no lingering bad-feelings accompanying them. We may look like we are about to tear each others' faces off while in the heat of the moment, but ten minutes later we can be kissing each other sweetly as if nothing happened.


There are exceptions. Neither of us are morning people, we get up for work at the same time, and we have to share one extremely small bathroom with each other and our two cats. As you may already be imagining, this is a recipe for disaster. Through some trial and error we have found a script that works for us. Everything is fine as long as we don't deviate from it too far.


"Good morning."


"Can you move just a bit to the left? Thanks."


"Have a good day sweetie. Be careful it's really hot/cold/wet out there today. I love you."


Anything other than variations on this is leading to dangerous territory and a guaranteed way to start the day off crankily. And for gawd's sake, DO NOT go into what you want the other to do that day, or what they did the previous day that didn't 100% please you. That leads to bloodshed and the kitties get upset when mommy and daddy bleed so early in the morning.


We fight at the slightest provocation. Anything, literally anything, can set us off at a moment's notice.


For most of our arguments, I can't really recall after the fact what got us started in the first place. Most often it's a statement one of us makes that garners an immediate denial from the other. I think it's almost instinctual at this point. If he were to say "The sky is blue today," I would in all likelihood respond with an immediate "No, it's more of a turquoise-green".


From there, the discussion follow a similar pattern. In the beginning I'm earnestly trying to get him to see my point, attacking his refusals from different angles to try to put a chink in his logic. He bats aside all of my attacks with firm head-bob denials. Then things may start to get ugly. There is something about the way he argues that crawls under your skin to irritate the crap out of you. Maybe it's his tone of voice, or the way his head bobbles so emphatically after he refuses to listen to your completely reasonable and logical arguments. Maybe it's that he refuses to budge on anything and his logic is something that not even Spock could agree with. Surely it has nothing to do with me.


The end usually results in hands thrown up (mine), a display of disgusted storming away and a shouted refusal to "talk about this any more!" (once again, usually me).


We've argued about so many silly things. Time-travel, evolution, where photos on the cover of school books come from, the new Twins stadium, the potential Vikings stadium, whether cleaning out the fridge of leftovers is a dishes-related or cooking-related chore, and how genes are passed on from parents to offspring (to name a few that stick out in my memory).


Unfortunately, usually these arguments are not the type that either of us can win to our satisfaction.