My boyfriend and I are about to go into the living room to watch a movie. He’s standing at the door waiting. I’m changing from flip flops into socks and slippers when he interrupts me.
Boyfriend: “Fix it!”
I freeze and look at him.
Me: “What?”
Boyfriend: “Fix it! Please!”
He’s gesturing in my general direction, which isn’t helpful. My floor is a mess, and my nightstand is worse. He could be pointing to anything.
Me: “Fix what?”
Boyfriend: “I don’t remember the word! Just fix it!”
I look around. I can usually come up with some guess as to what he’s talking about when he isn’t making sense, although sometimes I don’t realize I’ve guessed it because it’s so weird. But in this case, I’m at a complete loss. Nothing seems more out of place than usual, and there’s nothing I can think of that would get him upset.
Boyfriend: “Gaah! FIX IT!”
Looking down at my feet, one of which still has a flip flop on because he distracted me from putting on my slippers, I finally take a wild guess.
Me: “My shoes?”
Boyfriend: “YES!”
Still confused, I check the back of my sock. It hasn’t slipped down, but maybe there’s something wrong with it that’s bothering him?
Boyfriend: “They’re DIFFERENT!”
Me: “I was… changing shoes?”
Boyfriend: “Fix it!”
At last, I figure it out. He’s upset because I have on one slipper and one flip flop, a situation that he has been prolonging by shouting.
Me: “I was in the middle of changing! You stopped me!”
Boyfriend: “You PAUSED!”
Apparently, I had paused for about half a second, and he thought for some reason that I was going to keep it that way. He immediately panicked and drew out what would have been at most another half-second before I changed my other shoe into two or three minutes of me trying to figure out what on earth he was talking about. His excuse, after the fact? “Abject horror does not lead to logic.”
