Games we play

J is a smart man. Most of the time. There are some days, though, that I wonder what he was thinking.

Case in point, a night about five years ago.

We had recently moved into our house, we had just gotten our first cat, Zoe. She was the cat he didn't want, but I convinced him we needed. Now, I'm pretty sure he likes her more than he likes me.

It was a school night, so I was in bed at 10 p.m. I think I was asleep by 10:02. (It was the beginning of the school year and I was exhausted.) J was still up playing video games. A little after midnight, he walked down the hall and into the bedroom. He turned on the light and asked, "Where's the cat?"

Are you serious? I have no idea where the cat is. I've been sleeping for two hours, dude! Suffice it to say, I was mad.

But revenge was to be mine.

He won't admit it, but anyone who knows J can tell you that he's a bit obsessive compulsive. It doesn't interfere with his daily life, but it can be a bit annoying at times. For example, he has a series of "checks" that he does before he turns on the car. During the winter, it's not too bad. During the summer, I won't get into the car until he has it turned on. It's too hot to sit in the car while he's patting himself down and looking at all the mirrors.

Some of his "checks" don't really bother me. They actually make me feel safer. Every time we leave the house he double checks to make sure all doors are locked, windows closed, and lights and appliances off. He does the same thing every night before he goes to bed. Without fail. And, he doesn't just glance at the doors, he will unlock and relock them just to make sure.

A few days after he woke me up to ask me where the cat was, I waited up in bed until J came in. I heard him walking around the house checking the locks and shutting everything down for the night. I didn't say a word to him as he got into pajamas, turned off the light, checked and rechecked that his alarm was set, settled into bed and turned off his lamp. Once he was completely settled into bed, I leaned over to kiss him goodnight and said, "Did you lock the front door?"

I was laughing so hard I cried as he glared at me, humphed and threw the covers back. He stomped through the house and went through the checks again. See, the thing is, he KNEW he had locked the door. But because I had put that teeny tiny seed of doubt in his mind, he also knew he wouldn't be able to go to sleep until he went and double checked.

Yeah, I'm kind of mean like that. Revenge is sweet.