Compromise

My dear, loving, good-natured, smart, almost always right wife and I had a small discussion on Saturday night. We put the kids to bed about 7:30. While I was wandering aimlessly around on the Internet, A gained control of the most precious post-child-bedtime commodity, the Tivo remote.

Before I knew it, she had turned the channel to the dreaded testosterone sucking force that is "Lifetime." She wanted to watch Abandon. I'm not even going to link to it, the movie was so awful. Anyway, she went about her business, and I turned the channel to something more masculine: Shark Week.

After awhile, A comes downstairs, and starts the negotiation process. "Can we watch that movie?"

I told her that she could watch the movie wherever she wanted, but that I would not be joining her. I was open, of course, to anything other than said movie. She got something to drink, and said "Can you turn it to channel 252?"

"Isn't that Lifetime? "
"Yes."
"Then no. If you want to watch it, I'll go upstairs." Seeing as I was caffeine-less for the day, I probably wasn't using a proper tone.

Either the tone or the message didn't sit well with A, and she informed me as such. I spent the rest of the night not sleeping (how can less caffeine cause lost sleep?) and responding to pages from work. It wasn't a pleasant night, needless to say.

The next day, I made another big mistake. I made the conscious choice to go without caffeine. I was a zombie the entire day. The idea was that I needed to get up at 5am, and wanted to get my sleep. It wasn't worth the cost.

So last night, after the kids were in bed, A again regained control of the remote, and again turned it onto Lifetime. This time, thankfully, there was no Katie Holmes horrible acting to look at. It was instead, a series..."Serious Medicine" or some such thing. It was like "ER" without drama or good acting (save Rick Schroeder), or good plots.

The next show was "Missing." It was like "Without a Trace" without drama or good acting or ....well you get the point. Why bother employing Vivica A. Fox if you aren't gonna use her best assets?

The combined effects from the previous nights' discussion, and the lack of energy, led me to sit and stare blank eyed at the TV for about an hour and a half. It wasn't bad enough that I had to watch the TV show. Part of my penance was watching, paying attention while A was doing stuff around the house, and report back to her. I did so dutifully, no matter my inclination to turn the channel to the NFL station.

So I have learned my lesson. No more quitting caffeine...ever.