LEDGER COLUMNIST
'Stop it .. you are annoying me'
Joe HUGHES LEDGER STAFF WRITER

Relationships are often a challenge, requiring both parties to at some point practice patience and knowledge of when to speak and shut up.

It is quite apparent I have yet to learn how to do either one.

I have been with one woman during the past four years, simply being me - a young man who likes to get the last word. This formula has helped me become a "hotheaded" person at times, ready to argue my beliefs to the bitter end.

For a while, my fiancee helped me with the problem, becoming less highstrung and more of a listener.

Sometimes when you are around someone long enough, you tend to rub off on them. It seems some of my bad habits have made their way to her end and I am wondering how this happened.

For example, what is supposed to be a simple conversation can sometimes spin into a flurry of sarcastic jabs, becoming a competition of who can make the other stop talking.

One of these situations involved my fiancee's trouble getting out of bed to go to work. She has tried several different alarm clocks, each one meeting their demise due to being ineffective or a mishap occurring that caused the appliance to break.

In an attempt to make sure my lady gets to work at the time she desires, I usually make an early morning call to her house to wake her up. It is something we agreed on, and honestly was working out quite well.

But earlier this week, I was reminded how I should be on my toes when dealing with a woman ... especially mine.

I made the usual call expecting to hear the words "Good morning, honey ... did you get a good night of sleep?" But on this particular morning all I heard was ranting and raving of how I stole her last five minutes.

Being someone who believes five extra minutes of sleep would make waking up easier, I told her I would let her get that time and would actually wait another 10 to 15 minutes before waking her up. That amount of time would also allow me to get a few extra winks.

The time passed and I made another call. However, what I heard on the other end was not what I expected.

"Stop it ... I don't want to wake up right now ... you are annoying me," she said.

My "virtuous woman" had somehow morphed into a teenage girl. In essence, her rants were what I equate to a child telling his or her parents that they ruined a good dream just to wake him or her up for school.

As I previously said, I am currently working on my temper. Unfortunately, this morning it did not show.

I suddenly turned into a fire starter, saying things merely to get a response.

"Why did you ask me to call when all you are going to do is complain?" I said. "That is totally asinine."

Of course, that resulted in me hearing my good friend "tone."

After calling back a few times and getting the same result, I decided to fall back asleep believing things would calm down.

When I did catch up with her 30 minutes later, things had been smoothed over. But I did make sure to get my message across.

"Honey, if you are going to complain at me when I call - something we agreed on - I just will not do it anymore," I said. "This is the type conversation that is not important enough for us to get angry at each other about."

My fiancee agreed, telling me that she was sorry and things should continue as they are.

So what did I learn? I learned once again that women are the hardest thing on Earth to figure out, and us men should never try to do so.

Joe Hughes (joe@gaffneyledger.com) writes feature and enterprise stories for The Gaffney Ledger.