Superior

J takes pride in his ability to be irritating. I suppose that is not ill-placed confidence since he has to be one of the most annoying men to have ever walked the earth. He has the potent combination of tenacity and the inability to pick up non-verbal cues. He will push and push and not let something go even after your face has turned purple with rage and started spinning off your neck.

I do try to take my mother’s advice, “just ignore him, it will go away.” That is such a waste of time because that advice is total bullshit (however, her other sage advise, “he is only bothering you because he likes you is 100% true—it is the guys that are nice to you that you have to watch out for, they will be attentive and put up with your stupid teenage melodrama and then you find out he has been fucking his best friend at wild homosexual orgies—Not That This Ever Happened and certainly there is no bitterness that he is still the Hottest Man to Date Your Sorry Ass).

Ignoring J does not work. It just encourages him. He knows that he can outlast me. While we are both stubborn it is much easier to be stubborn about maintaining your annoying ways than to be stubborn in ignoring a grown man poking you in the stomach.

Tonight he was singing his most familiar routing. Telling me that I should get “in the kitchen and make him some pie” and “remember my place.” But tonight, for the first and probably the last time, I got the best of him.

My response? A humble, “Of course you are right, you are superior to me in every way.”

“AB, just stop talking.”

“Honey, how I wish I had your self control and could keep my mouth shut, but you are just so superior to me that I cannot possibly live up to your expectations.”

“Why are you so frustrating?”

“My love, I am sure with your superior intellect you will be able to solve this puzzle.”

Oh, how the mighty make a big fucking thump when they fall.

He was so annoyed with me he stopped talking to me for a moment, his nostrils flared and I could see him mentally counting inside his head.

It will never happen again, but the sweetness will live on.

Of course he has a black belt in being a tool, so I expect to start a whole new losing streak first thing tomorrow. He is so very superior after all.