Whatever...

Because I thought it would be funny, last night I was making a list of things that make me irrationally angry. I was stuck at four, not long enough by far. Surely, there must be more than four things that make me irrationally angry. Now, I asked Sweetface for help, as I sometimes do as part of what we’ll call for the sake of argument, “my creative process.”

Little did I think that it would be similar to the time I asked him how I looked in a pair of pants I'd just purchased, and he said they made my butt look big. (I won't pretend that my body is perfect, but a big butt is not one of my issues. At least, not until I was alerted to fact that it required special butt-diminishing pants.)

Me: What makes me irrationally angry?
Sweetface: Bad drivers?
Me: No, they just make me angry.
Sweetface: When I say “Whatever.”
Me: That is not irrational. You deserve to taste my wrath for “Whatever.” You might as well rip my still-beating heart out of my chest, flush it down the toilet and tell me you don’t love me anymore.
Sweetface: See?
Me: Oh no you don’t. When I want your opinion and you respond with “Whatever,” you’re just being hurtful.
Sweetface: No, I just mean that I don’t have an opinion one way or the other.
Me: Then why don’t you say that?

So, I’m willing to admit that I was Emeril angry, (ready to tear culinary student, Timmy, a new one for leaving the ice cream under the stage lights too long). But I don’t think it’s at all irrational to expect that your spouse respond respectfully to you, when you ask if he wants the Wedgwood blue or the mocha curtains. “Whatever” is for condescending, insensitive 14-year-olds on their way to teen boot camp on Jerry Springer.

When Sweetface says it, it's as close to speaking fluent Valley Girl as he gets. There's no pretending that he ever uses an innocuous "Whatever," which, " just means that I don’t have an opinion one way or the other." He always says it with an impatient tone that feels like he wishes I would slink back to The Great Indoors and not bother him with my insignificant, bothersome concerns.

I know that I should be examining my own wellsprings of irrational anger, but I found it much easier to pick out the faults of my Sweetface. Women are just naturally tuned to picking out a man’s flaws, I guess. I think that ability is definitely a product of evolution, but apparently it doesn’t matter what I think. So, “Whatever.”