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

71

I better note this down before I forget it again. I was reminded of it last week — apologies if you were around at the point when my memory was jogged but, before you start whining that you've heard me mention this observation already, may I just point out that anyone who's sitting around watching daytime TV probably oughtn't to get too captious, eh? So, Margret and I were having an argument (you'd think I'd have a shortcut key for that sentence by now, wouldn't you?). I can't remember what we were arguing about, but that doesn't matter here because in today's lesson we're focusing on style, not content. Say we were arguing about, oh, lettuce (even if we weren't, it's surely only a matter of time):

Margret: You haven't washed all the lettuce.

Mil: I've washed the bits I'm going to eat.

Margret: And left the rest for me to wash.

Mil: If you wash it all, it goes off quicker.

Margret: So, we'll eat it quicker, then.

Mil: I don't want to eat it quicker.

Margret: But I do.

Mil: Then wash it yourself if you're so bloody desperate to gorge on lettuce. What am I? Your official Lettuce Washer?

Margret: My last boyfriend was taller than you.

Etc.

Fairly standard stuff, clearly, but what you need to realise is something that I can't get across on the page. It's that, as the exchanges switched backwards and forwards between us, there was a kind of bidding war going on with the pitch. It's not just that each one of us upped the volume a little for our turn, but that we also changed the tone by raising our voices so that our reply was about a fifth higher than the one that the other person had just used. It was like two Mariah Careys facing off — pretty quickly, we were having an argument that only dogs could hear.

I've noticed that this often happens, and I reckon Margret secretly initiates it as a ploy. She raises her pitch, subconsciously luring me to respond. It's tactical. She knows it increases her chances of winning the argument because — when I come to deliver the final, logical coup de grace with great imperiousness and gravitas — I discover I'm doing so in the voice of Jimmy Somerville.