Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version)

'You've already seen one film today.'

Phew. Lucky we caught that habit before it spiralled out of control, eh?

Which reminds me; test your own self-control by reading this and seeing if you can resist the urge to draw any telling psychological insights from it:

Margret walked through the living room on Friday as I was watching 'Band Of Brothers'. Absently, she asked, 'Is this 'Killing Private Ryan'?'

It's the nights I fear the most.

62

Margret is sitting at this computer (which is in the attic room, incidentally) typing something. I'm flopped in a chair close by with a paper and pad, scribbling away at a bit of work.

I pause and say to her, 'Tortoise and turtle is the same word in German, isn't it?'

She stops typing, reaches over, pulls off one of my Birkenstock shoes, throws it down through trapdoor (I hear it thud below, then flip-flop down the stairs) and returns to her typing. All in a single, silent movement.

Your guess is as good as mine, frankly.

63

Have you seen 'Good Will Hunting'? Of course you have. I was watching it with Margret the other day and she squeezed my arm and said, 'That's how I'd like you to look.'

'Ahhh,' you're all sitting there saying, 'But Mil, you're already practically Ben Affleck's double.' True enough. But Margret was talking about Robin Williams. Aged 45. With a beard. Kill me.

64

Relatedly – in the sense that the rest of the world's thought process is here, while Margret's is standing just over there – we had some friends round at the weekend. They'd just been on a skiing trip and took a digital camera with them. Many of you will know what the first thing you do with a digital camera is. Well, let's put that aside; you can go off to the newsgroups if you want to look at that kind of thing. The second thing you do with a digital camera, though, is take pictures of just everything. You know you're not going to have to pay to get the photos developed, so you snap away constantly. Our friends had taken loads of pictures. Huge vistas of oscilloscope-trace mountain ranges misting into the distance, people hissing down the piste at precarious speeds, glistening snow settled into creamy piles on the aching branches of trees, and so forth.

Margret is leafing through the photos when she stops abruptly. 'Wow! That's beautiful…' Her eyes as big and as shiny as CDs, she turns the picture round to show me. It's the inside of a chalet. 'Just look at that kitchen!' she breathes. Sometimes I have to reach forward and touch her, just to check that my hand doesn't pass straight through – 'Ah-ha! She's a hologram generated by an invading alien race – I knew it.'

65

The other day someone asked me, 'Is there anything you and Margret don't argue about?'

I stared up at the ceiling and patted my lips with my index finger, thoughtfully. A clock ticked. It snowed. The light began to fade. Eventually, I had to go out to buy more milk.

However, just when I was about to give up and resign myself to addressing another one of the backlog of thoughts I have to deal with, I light-bulbed, 'Ah-ha! Money! We don't argue about money!' and was tremendously pleased with myself for the five or six seconds it took to realise that this was demonstrably untrue. Oh, we don't have the standard, 'What the hell are you doing? We're behind on the mortgage and you've gone out and spent all our money on beer!' rows. In fact, Margret doesn't drink all that much nowadays. We have, however, found others.

One of them flows from the fact that Margret asks me how much everything I've bought for myself has cost. Now, I'm not one for the high life: I don't own a car, I'm not interested in holidays in the sun, my favourite meal is a Pot Noodle and the leather jacket I'm currently wearing I bought while I was still in the Sixth Form.

(All this doesn't make me bohemian and fascinating, by the way; people don't happen upon me and exclaim to each other, 'My! Imagine how intriguing he must be on the inside.' That kind of thing only happens in movies. In real life… well. Well, I was walking through the city centre a while ago and Margret called me on my mobile. With all the noise of people and traffic, it was hard to hear so I sat down with my back against the wall of McDonald's, bowed my head and, with the phone in one of them, cupped my hands over my ears to try and listen properly. As I sat there – I swear to you this is true – someone who was walking past looked down at me and threw change. But anyway, back to the point…)

So, I'm hardly what you'd call extravagant. Sometimes, however, very, very practical demands mean I need to buy a digital camera, say, or another guitar. I'll try and sneak it into the house (Margret will discover it eventually, of course, and say, 'Where did this come from?' but I'll be able to reply, 'Oh, I've had that for ages,' which – one day, I'm sure – will be the end of the discussion), but often I'll get caught.

'How much did that cost?'

'It was on offer.'

'For how much… I'm just asking.'

'Look – it has a built-in clock!'

She simply won't give in until she's made me feel like she and the children have looked up from their eighth consecutive meal of lard to see me stride in with a handful of magic beans. But recently the shoe swapped feet. Margret bought a sideboard. A second-hand sideboard that cost at least twice what I'd ever pay for a graphics accelerator card for my PC.

'How much did that cost?' I asked.

'It's an antique. Well… not a proper antique. But I think it was made in Poland.'

'Uh-huh.'

I take the moral high ground. From where I purchase the Buffy Series 3 DVD set. Outrageously expensive, yes, but a thing that, under the circumstances, I am not at all afraid to reveal to Margret. (I revealed it via the column I write in The Guardian, knowing she couldn't say anything because of the sideboard.) (Surprisingly, I was wrong.)

The other money-related argument is about cash. That's cash, specifically. Despite the fact that Margret's earning power is comfortably twice mine, she never has any cash. If you can conveniently pay by cheque or credit card, that's fine, but otherwise it's, 'Miiiiiiiil – have you got any cash? Only, I haven't and I need to go to the hairdresser's/pay a builder/have The Mob carry out a hit for me.' Every time – Every. Time. – I go to the cashpoint she'll appear within minutes with her nose wrinkled up pleading,