Duping

This is another post of something I'm not proud of. Well, no. That's a lie. When I succeed, I'm actually quite tickled with myself, it's another one of those relationship victories. When you step on that podium to get your gold medal and the crowd cheers, there's nothing like it. You know what I'm talking about, the duping of the other half. Nothing beats the feeling of when you do your damnedest to pull the wool over their eyes. I can get Boyfriend to do my bidding because I: A) am too lazy to go outside, B) am not too keen on getting rained on, C) have better things to do, D) like to exercise my muscle in getting Boyfriend to do things for me, or E) all of the above.

One of my constant go-tos for duping is the milestone quiz. Ladies, you know what's up here. You ask your fella the date of something important, such as your birthday or your anniversary. Every chica out there knows that dudes are bad with any dates that aren't the superbowl or some other super sports match extravaganza main event thing. It's a given. I'm delighted when Boyfriend even guesses the right month. The thing I like to do is not to get upset when he doesn't know important dates, but to make him think that yes, somewhere in the dusty archives of his brain, he knows days that are important. Yay Boyfriend. I like to go with it, remind him of days that he's declared are my birthday or some day that involves me getting presents. Then he gets me presents for the wrong day, and will have to compensate by getting me presents for my real birthday that say three things: 1) Happy Birthday, I love you, 2) I got you a really good gift for being stupid and way incorrect in thinking your birthday was two months ago, and 3) I cost myself lots of money when I don't remember dates properly. With any luck, he'll forget again the next year and Boyfriend will get duped again by getting me more presents. After all, it's his fault for forgetting your birthday, no shame in milking presents for it. This duping scheme is foolproof.

A long time favourite of the casual duping is the out-of-the-house pick-up responsibility. When I'm home and I get a craving or remember I need something but find myself disinterested in leaving the warm apartment to venture out into the rain it bums me out. Then, those times when I'm lucky, Boyfriend is out and about somewhere making friends over beer or flipping off bad drivers in traffic. The point is that he is out of the house with a vehicle. There is a certain magic here with an unwritten, unspoken rule. If you're out, you have to bring home items requested to you by text message, phone call or telepathy. We're still working on the last one. Sometimes Boyfriend hedges his bets and brings me home a pineapple because he's guessing that it's something I desire. I only She-Hulk when he guesses wrong to promote learning through negative reinforcement. He'll get it eventually. Or die trying. I do like that he has to pass a tremendous number of stores in order to get home. If whatever I desire is on route, he has to pick it up or suffer the consequences. Whatever frivolous want I have needs to be attended to, it's the polite thing to do, and Boyfriend is a gentleman. Well, he will be. Or die trying.

I happened upon an interesting turn of events this morning, and in hindsight, I feel that Boyfriend is learning about duping. This does not work well for me. As always, Boyfriend wakes me when he leaves for work. I guess it's payback for when I get home late and wake him up, or kick him off the couch, or throw the cat on him with her hindquarters toward his face. Immature, yes, but he's the one that says something is the cat's ass and means it to be complimentary. No matter. As it's my day off, who really cares? I've got a ton of things I want to get done today, take the mutt for a long walk, grab a coffee, do some laundry, find a university in which to get a degree in being a samurai, read, go buy some dog food and cart it home like a pack mule, work on my book, dig a tunnel to China, make the bed, shower, practice some voodoo and maybe make plans to go to a movie later. Not a bad day that I've laid out in my head. Boyfriend shakes me awake, like he did the other day when he interrupted my dreams about eating chicken wings, and says his see ya later. I only catch parts of his sentences for three reasons: 1)I've been rudely taken from slumber, 2) I can't listen and wake up at the same time and 3) If I'm not going to remember what he say anyways, why put in the effort? Multitasking is hard. I wake up when Boyfriend shoots a deal my way:

If you do laundry today, I'll go buy some more dog food.

In my head, I'm thinking, Sucker. I was going to do laundry anyway. And I was going to get dog food at some point during the day too.

Sure thing Boyfriend, that sounds like a fair trade to me.

He leaves, and this ol' lady flops back into bed for a few more hours of winner's sleep.

When I wake up, I am pleased. I duped Boyfriend into doing one of the jobs that I wasn't looking forward to. As I smile with victory I stop and slowly realize that maybe Boyfriend isn't so easily duped. I mean, yeah, my plan was to walk to the pet store in the rain and get the mutt some food. Now that I think about it... that's not a job that I usually do on account of having to walk to the store and carry the food home. This is a job that Boyfriend does because he has a vehicle and he loves Mutt. It gives him great pleasure when he picks out food our little picky bastard will actually eat. If he was never introduced to gourmet food prepared by a red seal chef, we wouldn't have a problem. I done been duped! Boyfriend probably thought I was the sucker because all along his plan was to get the dog food anyways. That's like eight different kinds of not cool. I can't believe we tried to trick each other into doing chores that we were going to do anyways. We're both dumb. That, or we're both conniving, malicious, attractive geniuses. Whichever.

It seems there is a trend with Boyfriend's duping. He woke me recently to tell me something.

You owe me forty dollars.
Okay. Wait. Why?
Alright, you don't owe me forty dollars, but you can't blame me for trying. Love you.

Can't believe I almost fell for that one. Again.

How do I She-Hulk about this without admitting the duping that I too am guilty of? Something for me to think about. Or die trying.

Time for tea,

K