Quibbling Rocks

One of the best things about being married for a good length of time is the quibbling. Not the ugly, hostile fighting where one person gets all angry and irrational because the other person does something minor like sleep with the mail-delivery person. I don’t care for that. But I am a big fan of quibbling.

Don’t confuse this with nagging, which is a one-sided version of hell. No, quibbling is the harmless debate over things that really aren’t important: Which route should we take to the airport? Should we paint the house solid black or neon-green? That sort of thing.

We have a cat-door built into our back door. When our cat was alive and my wife and I were leaving town, we usually quibbled over where to place the cat food. I thought we should leave it near the door where it always was. My wife said it should be in the bathroom in case raccoons came in for the food.

Raccoons? Please. I’ve never seen a raccoon anywhere near our house (despite the alarming amount of trash in the yard). “Someone’s been watching too much Animal Planet,”  I’d think to myself, because this was ridiculousness bordering on fear.

Then one night I was sitting on my couch. My wife was out of town. I heard a strange sound near the back door. I looked over and saw an enormous raccoon pressing itself through the cat door. It dropped to the floor with a thud and looked at the food-dish. Then it turned and stared at me as if to say “Is this cheap crap the best you’ve got?”

I screamed like a little girl. The raccoon bolted back through the cat-door. And that’s why I like quibbling. It reminds me that I’m only right 51% of the time. A gentle reminder that you’re not always right is a very good thing.