Articles in “Strange Conversations”

Nick attempts to balance a mop handle against a verandah railing only slightly thicker than the handle itself:

ME (after watching fifteen attempts): Why don’t you turn the handle so the thick side is resting against the railing instead of the thin side?
NICK: There!
ME: You are clever.
(Short pause while we watch the mop inevitably slide off and crash down the steps)
NICK: Thanks a lot, Treena!
ME: What did I do?
NICK: You spoke.

ME: I’m not just going to agree blindly with everything you say even though it’s your birthday.
NICK: But . . . but . . . but it’s my birthday! That’s the whole point!
ME: Why?
NICK: It just is.
ME: Why is it the whole point that on your birthday I agree blindly with everything you say?
NICK: Because on my birthday I am king!
ME: You’re holding a toilet brush.
NICK: I know. It’s my holy sceptre.

Late-night, extremely tired conversation:

ME: Stop talking and let me go to sleep. After all, it’s my birthday tomorrow.
NICK: Okay . . . wait! That sounds like something I should have said.
ME: But what’s yours is mine, right?
NICK: Right.
ME: So technically tomorrow is my birthday.
NICK: Yes, that makes perfect sense.

Or, how I learnt about the complexities of gender politics through Monkey (a lesson originally learnt some twenty-five years ago):

ME: Why is Tripitaka leading that mob against the slightly sad puppy monster?
NICK: I don’t know.
ME: But didn’t Tripitaka say that all monsters are in the mind? So why is he at the head of a lynch mob now?
NICK: Well, the thing about Tripitaka is that she’s a bit of a flip-flopper.
ME: But she’s so pretty.

And later, during the end-credit music (the dodgy, late seasons’ credit music, not the awesome, early seasons’ credit music):

ME: This is like a Christmas carol as done by “Tainted Love.”
NICK: Yeah.
ME: No, Soft Cell! Not “Tainted Love,” Soft Cell! Dammit. That would have been much funnier if I’d got the name right.
NICK: But I mentally added the correct value, so it’s all right.

At the tail end of a conversation in which I endeavoured to prove that occasionally swearing at Nick does not make me the worst girlfriend in the world:

ME: So it doesn’t make me evil, like you say it does.
NICK: I never said that!
ME: You implied it.
NICK: When?
ME: Last week.
NICK: Last week?
ME: I think it was Thursday.
NICK: Really?
ME: In the afternoon.
NICK: Seriously? Were we chatting on IM?
ME: . . . Sweetie, I’m just making this up, now.
NICK: Oh.

See, that’s really what makes Nick fun: he’s so intensely gullible.

ME: Honey, don’t store things on the windowsill. (It’s not just nagging: that windowsill also gets full sunlight most of the day.)
NICK: What?
ME: The Ajax.
NICK: Oh. That’s a temporary measure.
ME: They’re all temporary measures.
NICK: It’s the war.
ME: What war?
NICK: The war.
ME: Which war?
NICK: I can’t tell you. It’s a secret war.
ME: A secret war.
NICK: Marvel Secret Wars.
ME: Marvel Secret Wars are the reason why you left the Ajax on the kitchen windowsill?
NICK: Yes.

Poor Nick: he never does get used to the fact that I like to talk about nonsense while he’s trying to go to sleep.

ME: I saw this Facebook group called “I wish a little elf would write my thesis for me.”
NICK: Hmmm?
ME: Yeah, I would have joined that once.
NICK: (Grunt)
ME: But then I saw it had a disclaimer saying it’s not plagiarism if the elf references properly.
NICK: It’s still plagiarism.
ME: I know that! I would have bought it if they’d said that, maybe, it wasn’t plagiarism because supernatural creatures are not subject to mundane laws.
NICK: (Grunt)
ME: But even then I think you’d find it a bit tricky from your perspective.
NICK: (Grunt)
ME: Legally, I mean.
NICK: (Grunt)
ME: It’s like when someone, probably Matt Damon, got Robin Williams to write his thesis in that movie I think I just made up in my head.
NICK: (Grunt)

(Silence)