Last March, I wrote a post that resulted in one of my favorite comment sections ever. Relationships are so funny, aren’t they? Like, you could be absolutely committed to stepping in front of a train to save a person’s life, but if they hang the toilet paper the wrong way you would murder them with your bare hands. I guess when you spend year after year with a person, you have to find some ways to keep things fresh.
Recently, my husband and I had an argument that made me think of the earlier post and the resulting comments. It was an argument that nearly led to fisticuffs, it was so intense. Neither of us wanted to cede even an INCH of ground. I wanted to scream at him, and surely he felt the same way. We finally stopped bickering about it but only because we ran out of energy; we never formally agreed that I was right all along. (I am right.)
The subject matter of this fierce battle? Marshmallow size.
That’s right, folks. My lovely, generous husband agreed to go do all the Thanksgiving shopping for me and I nearly strangled him over his refusal to accept that the marshmallow size I requested was the correct and only marshmallow size.
Do you want some context? Carla’s favorite Thanksgiving foods are a) cranberry sauce and b) sweet potatoes with marshmallows (or, more accurately, marshmallows with sweet potato essence). So I put marshmallows on the grocery list. Because my husband likes to know Specific Details about the things he’s buying, I added the note Giant size to our grocery list.
“We get regular size marshmallows,” he said.
No, we don’t. We always get the jumbo size marshmallows. The kind you use for making s’mores.
“No, the little ones.”
Round and round we went on this, Internet. I found a photo of last year’s sweet potatoes, with the jumbo size marshmallows on top.
“Maybe we used them last year, but usually we use the regular size.”
For awhile, I thought maybe we were talking about the exact same thing and just using different terminology for it. Like maybe he thinks the jumbo size Kraft Jet Puffed are “regular size” and we were arguing about nothing. But no. He meant the small size. The kind you put in hot cocoa.
Carla helpfully googled this photo so we could determine that we were, in fact, discussing marshmallows of different size. (This was only after a deeply infuriating aside, where I said that “tiny” marshmallows are the kind that come in packets of powdered cocoa and he disagreed, and I nearly detonated.)
I tried to remind my husband that I have been making these same sweet potatoes pretty much every year since 2010. Not sufficient evidence. I dug up a photo of that first Thanksgiving, in 2010, with the jumbo marshmallows. Not sufficient evidence.
Is this the most RIDICULOUS argument you have ever heard of?! It didn’t feel like it, in the moment. It felt like this man was a stranger. How could he think I was a person who would put small marshmallows on top of my sweet potatoes?! Who has the TIME for such detailed work?! Not me! Did he not SEE me? Did he not KNOW me?!
Finally, I threw up my hands and told him that fine, if he insisted on getting the small marshmallows, he could place them all in concentric circles on the mashed sweet potatoes. (Even though marshmallow placement is firmly Carla’s job.) And he went grocery shopping. When he came home, he handed me a bag of the correct size marshmallows, even though he made it very clear that he was surrendering to me, not that he thought I was right.
One of the most maddening arguments we’ve ever had.
Although it doesn’t compare in any way to the all-out brawl* we had over which everyday glasses to register for when we got engaged.
Okay, here is where you tell me the most ridiculous arguments you’ve been in. With a sibling, a spouse, a friend. I just want to hear the silly things that push your buttons.
* Not an actual brawl.
I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join the fun, check out San’s blog here.
I was in a board meeting once and we got in a 45 minutes argument about water bottles versus juice at lunch time. Some people apparently think water is not an appropriate beverage for a kid’s lunch.
I try not to argue with my husband- he was a philosophy major in college and will debate down to the angels on a head of a pin level on many topics. If it’s not important, I let it go, as I just can’t last as long as he!
HA. Water vs. juice — sounds like a very divisive topic!
Lololololomg was your husband captured by body snatchers and did you receive an alien in his place? That is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard. Ridiculous and kind of amazing, to be honest.
My husband and I had the most intense fight about a Sex and the City episode. It was the episode where Carrie says “Your girl is lovely, Hubble.” This fight was epic. EPIC. This was 1999 so the specifics are fuzzy but I will always remember the FEELING.
Swistle once had an amazing comment section about a fight she had with her husband about if 1/3 was truly equal to 0.3333333 and IT WAS EPIC. I wonder if I could find that old post. It was probably at least ten years ago, if not significantly more.
https://www.swistle.com/2011/06/03/fights-that-would-seem-silly-to-someone-outside-the-relationship/
I found it! I had never read it; that was an amazing read.
Fractions and the Monty Hall problem in one post!! ❤️
Yay! This was so fun to read again!
It was ridiculous and amazing. Someday we will laugh about it, but right now it is too fresh. LOL.
YES – I remember that post!
Wow, that is really funny! The best part is that (a) does he even like the dish? (b) does it matter to him taste-wise or something? (c) does HE ever make the dish and if no, why does it matter? or…maybe (d) he just wanted to be right?
I don’t really like marshmallows now, but we used to use the medium (regular?) sized ones for s’mores AND for hot cocoa (we were not a family that bought different sized marshmallows for different occasions and/or maybe the jumbo was not even an option when I was a kid).
I am having such a hard time thinking about how to make a s’mores with the smaller/regular sized marshmallows! Do you stack them on a skewer to roast them over a fire?
We always roasted them one by one on a stick over the fire.
I have never had sweet potatoes with marshmallows but I definitely assumed it was the mini ones that got used from pictures I’ve seen.
We disagree about plenty of silly things, but we agree on toilet paper placement so all is ultimately forgivable!
And I have definitely found photo evidence to “prove” things to my husband or kids. Many times.
Having “proof” photos is one of the best things about having a blog, imho! LOL.
This is really hilarious! I am sure my husband and I have had epic fights about the stupidest things but nothing comes to mind right now. Is this sweet potatoes or yams and marshmallows a US thing? I hear about it all the time but have never had it (or wanted to lol). I’d be interested to hear from other Canadian commenters. I hope you had a lovely day in spite of all this trauma.
It was indeed a lovely day. And I think of these ridiculous fights with fondness (when they aren’t in the middle of happening, of course).
I have no opinions about marshmallows, don’t hate them, don’t love, am indifferent to their size and/or placement on or in food.
My husband and I still bicker about how to load the dishwasher. You’d think we’d have come to terms with it, but NO! He does it the wrong way, I do it the right way, of course.
Of course you do it the right way, Ally!
When we were planning our wedding, we generally agreed on everything. The venue was easy. The food, which is usually such a BIG DEAL, was settled quickly. We had a few hiccups with the guest list, but worked it out amicably. We even mostly agreed on how things should be allocated for the budget. We picked invitations. We sent over a sample playlist to the DJ. We were solid!
But then there was an hours long disagreement over the FONT on the save the date cards. THE FONT! It was ridiculous. In retrospect, I think we were both tired and hungry, but it felt So Important at the moment. It was honestly a ridiculous fight. (Although the font was not good. I still think that the font we ended up compromising on was the wrong choice. It has been fifteen years and maybe I could get over it, but…)
Also, I broke up with a boyfriend in high school over a disagreement about postage stamps. I mean, I think the postage stamps were a stand-in for a host of other issues, but stamps were the straw that broke the camel’s back!
Hahaha — yes, font. I can totally see it. I think those little fights when you are about to get married take on such outsize importance, too!
I’m actually infuriated on your behalf here. You are SO CLEARLY right!!! WHY was he even arguing? Where did he get it in his mind that you used mini marshmallows in the past, when you had photographic evidence to the contrary?
Honestly, I’ve had so many arguments like that and I’m so tired out by this time, now I usually just say “okay.” Not as in, “okay, you’re right”, but “okay, I don’t even want to talk about this.” Anyway… I hope all is well now, and your sweet potatoes came out well (with the correctly-sized marshmallows!)
They were excellent! But Jenny, he bought truly enormous marshmallows. Like even more giant than the ones I was hoping for. And I didn’t have the heart to tell him they were wrong. They worked fine! I am sure any marshmallows of any size would have been just fine. It was the principle of the thing lol!
This is hilarious. In my mind mini-marshmallows work better in the dish, because they can be spread evenly into all the servings, but if you make the dish and you always use jumbo, then GO BIG OR GO HOME.
Coach and I have fought over some silly things – I feel like paint color for a room, but more specifically who was gonna paint said room, maybe? It’s fuzzy now. We used to fight a lot about his parents and how I felt he should tell them to buzz off, or stick up for me, or SOMETHING. I now handle that all on my own.
When we were registering we fought over whether or not to register for an electric frying pan (me) or a griddle (him). I liked the electric frying pan, because it came with a lid and my mom used one, so I assumed that was the norm. He was only focused on breakfast, so he wanted to griddle and didn’t see the need for a lid. I don’t honestly remember which one we got – I kinda think we went with the griddle. Regardless, it’s been 27 years and we’ve replaced griddles left and right. We do not own an electric frying pan.
I could see how paint color for a room could spark a huge fight!
Amazing – how could your husband be so wrong on so many levels? Regular size are regular size, not small. No sane person uses small marshmallows in s’mores. I have always found the sweet potatoes with marshmallow things mystifying, but millions of people think it’s a good idea, so who the hell am I to say different.
I wish I’d never started thinking about this, because I think the only conclusion I can draw is that I fight about many things and my husband just declines to participate. For one thing, there are things that I understand his expertise to be superior to mine, so I don’t fight about those. For another, he knows his memory is shit, so in a situation like this he might THINK he knows better, but he knows the likelihood is that he doesn’t. And yet, I am often combative. Being married to be is a treat, I’m telling you.
I am so infuriated by this. Who would be the one with the most personal knowledge of this- the one who buys and makes it every year or the one who only eats/sees it? That’s deserving of some face stomping in my book.
I can’t recall any monumentally stupid arguments with my husband, aside from the constant- DONT WAIT TO PUR ON YOUR SEATBELT UNTIL MY CAR BEEPS EIGHT MILLION TIMES AT YOU GAH! Every goddamn time.
I dislike marshmallows so I have no dog in that fight, but I did have some “interesting” arguments with my late husband–like why he kept buying fat free mayo at the store. “It’s all they have.” (him) “NO, you’re in the fat free section!” (Me) Have you ever had fat free mayo? It tastes like paste.
Oh man. This would have infuriated me, too! I have never made that dish but the person who makes it decides on the particulars. And how could he argue with multiple photos showing the type of marshmallow you typically use? Come. On.
I am blanking on big, humorous (after the fact) arguments my husband and I have had. Most of the time we are arguing over whether or not I told him something or a conversation we have had that he simply does not remember. Like I will tell him, we are going to Courtney’s house on the 23rd (I’m making the details up). And then he will say I never told him about said plans. But I know I have AND it’s written on the calendar in our kitchen!!
There was one time he said he told me something and I didn’t remember it. But he had actually texted me about it and I had responded. I blame having one too many classes of sav blanc that time. 😉
I am with Carla! Those are my two favorite foods, too! We use tiny, tiny marshmallows. The kids love sweet potatoes with them.
The WORST fights Paul and I have, I think, are the ones where he INSISTS HIS EXPERTISE on topics where I AM THE CLEAR EXPERT. As with this fight: YOU are the one who makes the sweet potatoes; YOU know what size; YOU can even produce several examples of proof. Yet HE thinks HE is the expert. UNACCEPTABLE. INFURIATING.
Favorite, most-relatable line: “It didn’t feel like it, in the moment. It felt like this man was a stranger.”
We use tiny ones.
BUT. LISTEN. I want to be RIGHT at the end of an argument, not be surrendered to, and that was SUCH a good description.
My husband and I have had such similar arguments.
I read the Swistle post and I have a reply to that! (I’m sorry) Paul is correct. There are two ways of looking at it, the obvious way and the more subtle way. Here they are.
Obvious: input 1/3 into your calculator. What is the result?
More subtle: there are two possibilities. Either 0.99999…. = 1, or it does not. If it does not, there is necessarily a number between them, their average. What is the decimal representation of that number?
Just in case there are other math geeks that find this interesting.
My husband has learned (more or less) that when I send him to the grocery store, I expect him to buy exactly what I’ve written down for him. I list the size and the name brand. If they don’t have what I sent him for, he is to CALL ME. If there is any doubt, he is to CALL ME before he gets it. Otherwise, he’s going to have to go back to the store and go through the refund/exchange thing that HE HATES! Then he’s probably going to have to go to a different grocery store to get what I sent him for. Sometimes I take pictures on his phone from the internet so he can see exactly what he is to bring back. It’s been a learning curve, but he’s gotten much better. I give him a solid B+. And yes, we have silly spats all the time, but I wouldn’t trade him for the world! Mona
There are two major areas where my husband and I have agreed to disagree, but I know I’m right: first, whether we should wash our cast iron pans with dish soap (we should! I’ve shown him informed articles that say it’s fine!) and whether you need to warm up the car engine before you drive somewhere in the winter (I say no, he says yes, and he was unconvinced even by an episode of car talk) so we just apply our own standard to our own cars.
This is amazing! I love silly arguments like this that feel SO IMPORTANT to each side. I’m glad you got your giant marshmallows!
My brother and I had this argument about a specific quote from a sitcom. He said it came from Sitcom A and I (rightly!!) said it came from Sitcom B. And we found out it DID come from Sitcom B, but now my brother says HE always said it came from Sitcom B and *I* said it came from Sitcom A. BLASPHEMY.
Haha, that would be funny if it wasn’t so serious (LOL)… you, as the person who makes the dish, would obviously KNOW best what size of marshmallows you use (and why does your husband even argue if he asks you to write the specifics on the grocery list?).
Having said that, I haven ever had sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping and wouldn’t know if the size made a difference (but you’re right of course!).
I am sure we had plenty of silly arguments but I can’t think of any right now but I definitely always pull up photographic evidence LOL
Omg, the insane part to me is that you had the proof in all the past year’s photos and he still didn’t believe you. Hmm, I cannot think of any silly arguments we’ve had recently! I am sure if will come to me right after I submit this comment LOL.
I… dude, what? You had PICTURES. Actual photographic proof. GAAAHHH. (I would have been similarly livid, lol.)
This is just too funny.
I sometimes wonder why someone is so so sure about something that they are not doing. Like you here obviously making the dish since 2010 but he know what your ingredients are? Even after showing a photo?
I can’t really pin point one exact argument but the husband and I do have those too. And i am dead sure I am right but he tells me otherwise. It drives me so mad.