Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version)

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What Margret and I have, essentially, is a Mexican stand-off with love instead of guns. OK, yes, sometimes there are guns too. The important thing is the mindset, though. Sure, people can argue about important issues, that's fine, good luck to them I say. But where, I ask you, are those people when you take away the meaningful sources of disagreement? Lost. Utterly lost. Let me illustrate the common mistakes amateurs might make using something that happened the other week. You will need:

Margret.

Me.

A roast chicken.

We're having tea and on the table are the plates, a selection of vegetables and a roast chicken in an incredibly hot metal baking tray. Getting this chicken to the table (see — if you're a Mailing Lister and can — 'cloth taking-things-from-the-oven-thing', in the Thing-o-Matic archive) has been an heroic race that ended only fractions of a second short of a major skin graft. Due to this haste it is, however, not sitting precisely centrally on the coaster. Some kind of weird, hippie, neo-Buddhist couple might have failed even at this point and simply got on with eating the meal. Fortunately, Margret is there to become loudly agitated that radiant heat might creep past the edge of the coaster, through the table cloth, through the protective insulating sheet under the table cloth, and affect the second-hand table itself. She shouts and wails. I nudge the tray into the centre of the coaster, but, in doing so, about half a teaspoon of the gravy spills over the side onto the table cloth. Outside birds fall mute, mid-song. Inside, frozen in time, the camera swings around us sitting at the table, like in The Matrix.

'What the hell did you do that for? Quick, clean it up — quick,' insists Margret (where an amateur would have, say, shrugged).

'No,' I reply (at the moment when another amateur would have been returning from the kitchen with a cloth), 'I'm eating my tea. I'm going to sit here and eat my tea. Then I'll clean it up.'

'No, clean it up now.'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'No. I'm going to eat my tea first.'

'Clean it up now.'

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so a couple of semi-pros might have worked this up into a shouting match. But I am not about to stoop to childish name-calling. Instead I lift up the tray and pour some more gravy onto the table.

'OK?' I say, 'Now stop it. I'll clean it up after.'

'Clean it up now.'

I tip a little more gravy onto the table.

'I'm just going to keep doing it every time you say that. I'll clean it up later.'

'Do it now.'

More gravy.

'Now.'

More gravy.

This continues until we run out of gravy.

I must make it clear that my actions here seemed perfectly rational at the time. I've mulled them over since, of course, and am relieved to find that they still hold up to examination: it's pleasing to know I can make good decisions under pressure. Anyway, we eat the meal from a table awash with gravy. I am happy to have argued my point persuasively. Margret has a smile fixed to her face due to the belief (incorrect, yes, but it's only her enjoyment that matters) that I've clearly done something hugely stupid that she can bring up later in any number of arguments — possibly years from now. Everyone wins. We eat, united in contentment. I clean up the table.

Do you see? I want everyone to try this out at home and write me a report for next week.