Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About Read Online Free PDF Page A

sitting in front of the TV rather than swimming The Channel. Tch – irony, eh? Anyway, I had to have
another wash
 to remove this oleaginous soap from me. This was the Third Thing. I'll come to the Second Thing in a moment, but the First Thing is the ferocity of our shower. British showers are risible, this is a fact. Most people's noses run faster than the average British shower and one of Margret's longest held desires has been to get a shower like those in Germany. Thus, she got one fitted when we moved to the new house here and it is, indeed, German. Now, as much as I'm against the feebleness of British showers, I must ask if it's entirely necessary that a shower should
hurt
? This thing has a setting called 'massage' and it's not a massage. A massage involves relaxation, the soft, enquiring hands of a 22-year-old Scandinavian woman, and possibly an exchange of cash. The setting on this shower ought more accurately to be labelled 'Jumped By Thugs', you could mount the thing on top of a truck and use it to crush riots. This is all the more horrific when we approach the Second Thing. Because not only does Margret leave our shower set to maim, she also leaves it on cold.
    Margret has cold showers first thing in the morning. How unsurprising is that? In fact, I could have just left the rest of this page blank and merely put at the top 'Margret has cold showers first thing in the morning' and everyone reading would have been able to infer the rest. I, it won't surprise you to learn, don't like mornings to begin with, and
definitely
don't want to find a cold shower lurking anywhere in them. Today, then, I stumbled sleepy-eyed into the shower, wrenched it on, and was immediately hit by a roar of icy water travelling at twelve-hundred miles an hour. My 'O'-eyed, bared-teeth face is going to be stuck like this for a week. Then, once I'd scrambled the settings back to within human limits, I got to cover myself in grease.
    Words will be exchanged.

58
    It's getting worse. I've mentioned this, in passing, before, but it's getting worse. We were watching Hannibal on DVD the other week, and Margret was sitting beside me, looking at the screen, right from the moment I hit 'play'. This, incidentally, is because before we watch any DVD or video we have this ritual.
    Mil – 'Are you ready?'
    Margret – 'Yes.'
    Mil – 'No you're not, you're clearly not. Sit down here.'
    Margret – 'I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm just cutting out this magazine article and putting the kids toys away in an order based on the psychological warmth of their respective colours and making a cup of tea and wondering if we should move that mirror six inches to the left, but I'm ready – go ahead, start the film.'
    Mil – 'No. I'll start the film when you're sitting here. If I start the film now, you'll sit down in three minutes time and say, "What's happened?" and I'll have to do that thing with my mouth. Not going to happen. You sit here right from the beginning.'
    [Margret makes an injured pantomime of dragging herself over to the sofa and sitting down beside me.]
    Mil – 'Thank you.'
    [I press 'play'. The FBI copyright warning comes up and, knowing full well it won't work, I repeatedly try to fast forward through it for the annoying amount of time – precisely long enough for me to fully hate the FBI and the entire motion picture industry – it takes to fade. A logo swirls around the screen. Darkness. A single, threatening, bass note rumbles low. Swelling in volume as the first image seeps into life.]
    Margret – 'I've just remembered, I need to phone Jo.'
    Mil – 'Arrrrggghhheeeiiiiiieeeeerrrrgghhhhhhhhgkkkkk-kkk-kk-k!'
    Margret – 'I only need to ask if she has a text book – carry on.'
    Mil – 'No. Make the phone call. I'll wait.'
    [Three hours later. Margret returns; I am still on the sofa, remote control poised in my hand, but now visibly older and covered in a light film of dust.]
    Margret – 'OK, done.'
    Mil – 'Right.'
    [I wind back four or