Inspired by the annoying spousal repetitive question thread currently in this forum.
This last weekend I snapped at my husband because he was starting to tell me for the 500th time his teenage radio story. It goes like this (I’ve heard if for decades, so I know it word for word):
“When I was a kid, my fundie mom wouldn’t let me listen to the Beatles because her church said they were evil or something. My grandpa gave me a small transistor radio, so I’d take the family’s poodle for a walk often and secretly listen to AM radio when they played all the greatest tunes ever written OMG! And my mom never guessed!”
I can always tell when the story is triggered to start again. It’s whenever we hear on the radio some mid-60’s pop tune, especially British Invasion stuff.
How about you?
The way we met. People laugh, cry, shake their heads when they hear it.
Personally, I like to speculate that everyone is born with a Geezer Memory Number. Only years of diligent research will ever determine what the value of the GMN is, and whether it varies among individuals and groups. But let’s assume it’s 42. That means that everyone’s memory will slowly dwindle down to 42 recurring items, which can be spread over jokes, anecdotes, and complaints.
If your husband has X anecdotes that repeat and repeat, that means that there are a potential X recurring complaints that are not happening. Personally, I’d encourage it. Or try to shift it to jokes, if you prefer them. How many fundie moms does it take to change a light bulb?
My dad used to complain about things that his mother used to do. One recurring complaint was about the number of times that she would repeat the aphorisms that her father used to say. So if I start repeating the story of his complaints, it would be my Recurring Geezer Memory (RGM) about his RGM about her memory (I don’t recall her ever quoting her father myself, so it dropped out before it became her RGM) about her father’s possible RGM. Heirloom RGMs.
The aphorism that he hated most was “Laugh before breakfast, cry before supper.” And the idea of telling a small child to stop being happy because it was still the morning is truly appalling. But that was some industrial grade gunny-sacking, there, Dad.