With the car acting like a petulant child, threatening to strand us in the middle of nowhere, Anthony and I have no choice but to stay home and annoy each other. It’s true that we both have various projects to occupy us, but with a space so small, it’s inevitable that we end up bickering all day long until one of us passes out from the sheer effort of coming up with witty retorts.
I guess the first argument came about when I decide to sign us up for The Amazing Race. Why not? You get to run around the globe AND win prizes. With a couple of weddings (us Hwangs never do—or buy—anything just once. My brother had three weddings) and a honeymoon coming up, I think it might be economical to see if we can either win the grand prize or one of those nice little vacation package during the legs of the race and use it as a honeymoon. There’s no way I am going to go on a cheapo kayak and tent-related honeymoon. I have never really thought about what I want, but I do know what I don’t want.
The Amazing Race argument leads to a honeymoon destination argument wherein I champion for a resort type deal where mandatory massages, all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and umbrella drinks are part of the daily schedule. But Anthony wants an adventurous honeymoon complete with harness and paddles and sand wedged up places where the sun don’t shine.
“Why don’t we take separate honeymoon, then?” he snipes.
“That’s not such a bad idea,” I say, mulling it over. I wonder if I can get a discount if I book a honeymoon for one in Tahiti.
“I was joking!” Anthony says, his voice saturated with injury. He goes on at length about what an unfeeling individual I am, except instead of the word “individual”, he uses the word that rhymes with “witch.”
The honeymoon argument ends abruptly since the postie lady pops up right about then to deliver a parcel Anthony is not expecting, thus bringing fourth a stream of lively expletives. I tell him he’s fortunate to be receiving so many parcels like it’s Christmas morning and he should be grateful but he wants more, I suppose.
We resume our bickering when he sits down to watch a DVD and finds out that it’s in the wrong setting. I complain that it’s such a complicated procedure just to watch a DVD and that when I was living alone I had exactly two remote, one for the TV and one for the VCR. This leads to the discussion about how my TV and VCR were antiquated and that I should be grateful I have something that can’t be purchased in Bedrock right here in front of me.
“Here, let me show you what you need to do,” he says and brings out all three remote controls. “First you press this red button down…wait…that’s not working is it? Oh, it’s the other remote.”
“Duh!” I inject.
“You’re so harsh with me. Now pay attention, because I won’t have you messing this whole thing up again. You push this button twice and then see….wait, hold on. Why is it not working?”
While he sort it out, I go into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, which evolve into another argument after Anthony decides that he, too, wants a sandwich and notices that I have dabbed into his ham stash.
I accuse him of being cheap and selfish for not sharing his ham with me and that he’s always feeding it to the cat upstairs. Then I point out he’s always gleefully telling me that now that we’ve been dating for two years, everything we own is split down the middle. He proceed to tell me it doesn’t apply to ham, which is so ridiculous that I have no choice but to pants him.
So the car is finally fixed and we are free to roam about and not be in each other’s hair anymore. This is probably a good thing because I have found all my tools sitting on his side of the work table and am gearing up for one hell of a lecture. When I need my T-square, I don’t want to have to root around, looking for it. I mean, how on earth am I supposed to get a box of tissue without having to stand up?


















