I read Dh the one about the husband being furious about his wife suddenly liking guacamole last night. He said, “I don’t blame him, I’m pretty furious about the marmite thing.”
Which was surprising, because firstly he’s a very amiable man, and secondly I’ve always loved marmite. He then said (very accusingly), “When we first got together you gave me instructions on how to spread marmite that specifically said that it should be applied to the bread like chaos theory - randomly and falling where it may. Then a few months ago, you said that it needed an even coating. I’m still furious.”
He didn’t sound furious, but then I responded, “You still need an even spread, Gerald! I was merely explaining that it’s not like jam! An even spread for marmite means that I still need the right ratio of marmite to butter to toast, in each mouthful, but unlike jam - where I would need a thin, even scraping - it is fine for the marmite to be scraped in uneven fashion across the toast.”
“Uneven is not chaos, Martha! You completely moved the goalposts!”
“It was merely a poetic illustration for how it should be done!”
“No! You changed it!”
“Hang on, did you say you’ve been furious about this for months?!”
“It’s a righteous anger.”
And so on, and so forth. He’s right really. Chaos theory was never the perfect illustration, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth arguing 