“Is the dishwasher clean or dirty?”
“Is it in?”
Did you empty the dish rack first?
I don’t have an SO any longer, but I had been with the last one for 8 years and all the way up to the last breakfast we had together he asked me “don’t you want butter on your toast?” Eight freakin’ years and you still haven’t grasped that I don’t eat butter? Ditto cheese and most seafood.
I’m the SO who keeps asking what’s for dinner. For some reason, I always forget that we have a plan and we don’t need to thaw anything or pick up any extra ingredients. I probably ask three times in a typical day. This even happens when I’ve picked the meal and will be cooking it myself.
“Do you want anything at the grocery store?”. This question is usually sprung on me while I am working and I have not put any advance thought into it when it is asked. In spite of my usual answer of “I don’t know”, I still get asked every single time.
If the situation were that I was told a trip the grocery store would occur tomorrow, I would probably be able to put some thought into it.
“What do you want for dinner?” evokes a brief anxiety attack. This is because no matter what I say, the response will be “I don’t want that”. There is no right answer - I cannot say the dreaded “I don’t care”, or “whatever you want”. Nooooo - I have to tee-up several options for her to shoot down.
Then, when she does decide what to eat, she asks me if that’s OK, and again no response is good. “That’s fine” is about the worst thing I can say!
Okay, this one really identifies me, so… hiya smoochie, if you’re on here!
I actually ask this more than he does, so the question is reversed for us. It’s “dishes or dog teeth”?
See, we take turns each night after dinner doing dishes or brushing the dogs’ teeth. We’ve been doing it so long that it all blurs together and neither of us can remember whose turn it is to do which. I even get sick of asking it and sometimes do creative versions like “I think I’m dishes, right?” or "dishes or dog?. I think once I asked him “d or d” and then had to clarify but at least we both had a laugh.
“Is the house temperature okay (when it’s about 75 degrees)?”
I used to answer this one honestly and say that it was fine, but this got shot down. Like many men, he likes it cooler. I’ll say set it how you want, but why’d you ask me if you’re just going to set it at whatever temperature you prefer? His response is that he just wanted to make sure I was comfortable, too. Then he proceeds to set it to his own taste.
It has been going on for sixteen years now. KMN.
Holy crap. Basically, it’s questions about things we’ve already talked about. Drives me insane.
Her: Are you cooking dinner?
Me: Yes! Remember this morning when you told me I was in charge of dinner tonight and I said “Ok!”?
Her: I was just making sure!
IT IS ENDLESS.
“Are you getting up?” (when I get out of bed early in the morning).
For the life of me, I don’t get this. The answer will be self-evident in 60 seconds when I either come back to bed or go downstairs. The question never seems to have a purpose, i.e “as long as you’re getting up, could you get me some water?” or “if you’re not getting up, could I have an extra snuggle?” Just… “Are you getting up?”
Thing #2: “What’s the weather going to be like today?” Apparently I can PREDICT THE FUTURE even though I can’t be trusted to load a dishwasher. (Yes, we both have computers/smartphones).
“What are you thinking about?”
My current SO doesn’t do this (unless I’m in a protracted state of deep thought), but my ex used to ask this all the time, if I’d forgotten to speak for more than thirty seconds.
It used to annoy the hell out of me - either what I was thinking about was so mundane as to not be worth sharing (“I was just wondering if the bezel on the DVD player was metal or just painted plastic”), fairly pathetic (“I was thinking about an argument I had with a guy 8 years ago and was trying to come up with a decent comeback”), too complex/technical to easily explain (“I was just trying to figure out the best way to [insert complex excel/HTML coding/engine loom wiring problem here]”) or just frankly bizarre (“I was wondering what milk mixed with beer would taste like”). If I was thinking something worth sharing, then I’d include her in it. So I just used to reply with “mm, nothing much”, which would annoy her. :rolleyes:
I know what he would say. I ask “What the weather out?” And he asks how would he know.
The thing is, he’s sitting watching TV with his omnipresent and apparently to valuable to be trusted to me and perhaps even magical remote, and he’s a second away from the Weather Channel. But he gets pissy every time.
What time I will get up and what time I will be leaving for work. I don’t even begin to think of such stuff till my head hits the pillow.
My sweetie doesn’t ask a specific question, BUT if something comes up on TV, he’ll turn it into a hypothetical situation between us and expect me to have an answer. And he’s not always joking.
For example, if a character on a sitcom leaves her sitcom husband and runs off with her sitcom high school sweetheart, my spousal unit will ask me if I’m planning to run off and leave him. I’m pretty sure, after 32 years, it’s deliberate smart-assery. It definitely drives me crazy. Mostly, I just give him The Look in response.
“What do you call that thing?”
I’m amazed how many times I get it right.
‘Why do you put up with me?’
Actually, any question that starts with ‘Why’ and involves emotions an’ shite…
I’ve always worked, except for one six-month stint each involving the births of my two sons. Yet every morning, regular as clockwork, my husband would ask me “Are you going to work today?” Since I only stayed home if I had vacation (which he’d know about) or if I were deathly ill (which I’d hope he’d figure out), there was a 99.9% probability I was going to work. Yet he’d ask every day.
The best part is the one time I was stressed and not up to the usual morning conversational cha-cha, so as soon as I heard him coming down the steps, I said “I’m going to work today.” He looked at me quizzically and asked “Don’t you always?”
That thud thud thud you hear is me hitting my head against the wall.
Not exactly a question, but close enough…
(we are both sitting next to each other on the couch)
“Let me know if you’re getting up.”
In other words, I need a drink/my phone/a snack.
Drives me insane. OK, I’ll be sure to alert you.
mmm
You need a dishwasher nanny. It doesn’t completely eliminate the question, but it cuts way down on the frequency. Five bucks very well spent!
No thank you! I can see it now - I would use the doodad as specified, but he WOULDN’T, only increasing confusion, hence that fucking question gets asked even more often!
I just remembered that our dishwasher actually has a “clean” indicator - a little red light goes on. But it’s too hard to look at the bank of little red lights and interpret their meaning, much easier just to ask your wife, who, due to her innate housewifery, has a psychic connection with the appliances.
Is incessantly asking “is the dishwasher clean or dirty?” a microaggression?