Articles in “Strange Conversations”

ME: Actually, he was pretty hot in that episode of Community.
NICK: You think?
ME: Yeah. I didn’t see the appeal of Sawyer, but I’m a sucker for a man in a ten-gallon hat.
NICK: Really?
ME: What can I say? I watched a lot of Westerns as a kid.
NICK: Now I’m wondering where I can get a ten-gallon hat.
ME: Honey, I’m also a sucker for men with long hair, because I discovered I was straight in the early ’80s. Doesn’t mean you have to grow your hair.
NICK: And you’re still straight in the early ’80s.
ME: Pardon?
NICK: Okay, that’s not fair. You have evolved. A bit.

An extension of a Twitter conversation about self-importance:

ME: But if I don’t keep that secret from my students, I’ll have to rule by fear. And that’s so tiring.
NICK: Simple solution? Get a Death Star.
ME: Honey, one of my classes is twenty-two students and me in a room that takes a maximum of twenty-four people. There’s no way I’m getting a Death Star in there.
NICK: Good point.
ME: And that’s how I choose to undercut that argument?
NICK: It made sense to me.
ME: Really? Because it sounded like the stupidest reason ever to me. “Oh, I can’t have a Death Star. The room’s too small.”

Talking a class through a professional-editing exercise:

ME: So, how would you annotate that problem?
STUDENT: I’d say, “Don’t be a pompous douchebag.”
ME: As a general rule, it’s best to avoid any phrases that, for example, I wouldn’t write on a student’s assignment.
STUDENT: But if you wrote “Don’t be a pompous douchebag” on my assignment, I’d just think, “You’re right, I was being a pompous douchebag.”

ME: Those brown linen trousers of mine aren’t going to last much longer. I don’t know what will happen to my wardrobe when they’re gone.
NICK: They just don’t seem to be making trousers these days.
ME: Of course they’re making trousers. They’re just not making trousers for women who are short and fat.
NICK: You’re not short. You’re at the tall end of medium.
(Pause)
NICK: What? What are you looking at me like that for?

ME: I’m not sure about this blanket.
NICK: I think it looks great.
ME: Yes, but you also think that knitting is witchcraft.
NICK: That’s true. I don’t think it’s relevant, but it’s true.

NICK: Yeah, she’s taking valuable shelf space away from the rest of us!
ME: And by “the the rest of us”, you mean me? Because you aren’t publishing anything soon.
NICK: I might produce a short monograph on my adventures.
ME: What, your adventures between the bathroom and the kitchen?
NICK: And on the bus! My … commute. And the grocery store, sometimes. And when I go to get takeaway …
ME: Honey, you’re killing me.

After listening to a radio advert in which Darth Vader tries to put his TIE fighter in for service:

NICK: The experimental TIE interceptor!
ME: I don’t think even Darth Vader knows that much about his TIE fighter.
NICK: Darth Vader doesn’t need to. (Darth Vader voice) “I like that TIE fighter. Give it to me.”
ME: Is Darth Vader played by Arnold Schwarzenegger now?
NICK: Oh my god!
ME: Seriously. That sounds exactly like Schwarzenegger would sound doing Darth Vader.
NICK (Darth Vader voice): I find your lack of faith in my Darth Vader voice disturbing.
ME: Seriously, can’t you hear that?
NICK: Force choke!
ME: It doesn’t seem to be working.
NICK (Darth Vader voice): Give me my light saber.
ME: You can’t hear that?
NICK: Actually, that did sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Light saber. Light saber. Damn, it’s all I can hear now.
ME: Honey, you have to stop this. I can’t laugh this hard and steer the car at the same time.

NICK: Treena is a specialist in happiness and joy.
ME: No, I’m a nineteenth-century scholar. You must have me confused with someone else.
NICK: Oh, I’m a specialist in happiness and joy!

Then he did a little dance.

ME: Here, get rid of this.
NICK: Recycling?
ME: Well, it’s an empty cardboard tube, so I don’t know what else you’d do with it.
NICK: I’m just going to pretend it’s a light saber for two minutes first.

ME: Well, that’s me done. How am I ever going to catch a man now?
NICK: You’ve caught me hook, line, and sinker.
ME: But …
NICK: And I’m the closest to a man you can expect.
ME: But I had a witty riposte!
NICK: Yeah, I holed that one below the waterline.

NICK: I’m seriously considering asking for two days off before the Ekka holiday.
ME: Oh, good! We can finish the spring cleaning in one go.
NICK: Right, gone off that idea fairly comprehensively. Dammit, woman!

ME: How is it that this spring-cleaning was your idea, but I’m doing three-quarters of the work?
NICK: I’m working!
ME: I don’t dispute that. I’m just saying you’re only doing one-quarter of it.
NICK: My pride rises up in revolt at that idea.
ME: Well, then, your pride can’t count.

In which we discuss my shifting of an old photograph of us into a new, Apple-branded photo frame.

ME: I thought it was apt, because you love your Mac more than you love me.
NICK: Yeah.
ME: Were you listening to what I just said?
NICK: Yeah.
(Pause)
NICK: I love you?
ME: You weren’t listening to what I said at all, were you?
NICK: I was … listening to what I thought you said. And I’m just now realising that may not have been the same thing as what you actually said.
(Pause)
NICK: Bugger.

In which we discuss the horrible, horrible music in the Jon Pertwee episode “The Sea Devils”, which had already prompted Nick to complain, “That video game conference they’re holding next door is really distracting”.

NICK: This is a picture of the machine that made those horrible noises.
ME: That’s terribly interesting.
NICK: I don’t think you’re treating this with the appropriate level of interest.
ME: Oh, I think you’ll find that I am.

NICK: Katy Manning’s stunt double was actually Stuart Fell.
ME: But I said on Twitter it was Terry Walsh.
NICK: I know.
ME: Well, if you want to out me on Twitter as not recognising Terry Walsh when I see him in a ladies’ pantsuit …
NICK: Not at all!
(Pause)
ME: Dammit, I’m going to have to do it myself. The curse of being an academic.
NICK: What, having a sense of intellectual honesty? I can see where that might be inconvenient.