Twice Shy

10 TWICE SHY

It's November thirtieth, and I have to hand it to him: Ilyaz is winning this game. We have a scoreboard now, which is basically sticky notes on our bathroom mirror that keeps count of our sabotages. Sometimes I catch myself regarding it too objectively and from that perspective, we're two immature children who need to forcibly grumble apologies and shake hands. Luckily, I'm not objective. Our board looks like this:

Point Ilyana: pirate b-day, Arr!
Point Ilyaz: instagram post
Point Ilyana: shoes
Point Ilyaz: frame for theft

It started last week when we went to have dinner with his friends at Walk the Plank, a seafood restaurant. I excused myself to use the restroom and instead flagged down a waiter and told him it was Ilyaz's birthday. I asked if the staff could sing to him, which they did— in a savvy, Scottish accent— while Ilyaz was made to wear a trick corn hat with an enormous hot pink feather and nearly collapsed from mortification. 

On Instagram.
Live.

They stuffed their signature lobster bib in his collar, and placed an alive parrot on his shoulder. The parrot was spitting vulgar nonsense, like when he blew the candle and the parrot screeched, "Tharr he blows!". 

All his friends found my surprise hilarious. Ilyaz did not so much.

The next day my phone blew up with notifications. Turns out, Ilyaz uploaded a photo of me while I was asleep. He drew a single eyed patch, and stuck a handle bar moustache on my upper lip. It was so zoomed in you could count every pore.

That picture has accumulated more comments than anything I've ever posted, and when I think about it I want to watch his blood drip into a pan. I want it to coagulate into a gelatin, which I'll consume using utensils carved from the bones that resides where his heart should be.

I tied his shoe laces in a double fisherman's knot next, and secured it with gorilla glue for extended measures. Watching him struggle untying it and get progressively more frustrated is a highlight in my life.

What happened next Ilyaz claims was an accident, though I don't believe him. I was pulling in the driveway when I spotted a kitten in the ditch. He wasn't wearing a collar and there were no houses around, so I picked him up.

I could hear Ilyaz's voice in my head; Don't get any ideas.

But I did get ideas. In fact, my ideas had ideas of their own.

I brought him home and brewed some chicken broth for him. He ended up falling asleep on my lap after that, and I was sold. When Ilyaz came home, he found me carrying the kitten in one of his nice work shirts fashioned it into a baby-carrier sling. 

He said, "Y'Allah! Where'd you get that?"
And I replied, "Tum baba baan gaye ho! He looks just like you!"
And the kitten sneezed. It was adorable.

Ilyaz didn't care about his adorable nature. All he cared about was getting him neutered, bathed, and "cat food is not cheap, JSYK,", and everything else faded into white noise while I distracted myself into taking photos of the cat in costumes.

When he peed on Ilyaz's Slytherin cloak that I got for his birthday last year, he lost it.

Unfortunately, the cat already had a family. Ilyaz found a poster of the kitten squeezed between identical twins with matching missing teeth that he'd ripped off earlier and justified he forgot about it.

He reunited the kitten with his owners because I was too emotional to. When he returned home, his eyes were red. He fell in love with the feline's cuteness too.

I am officially unemployed, which means I have all the time in the world to scheme colourful ways to exact my husband's sabotage. Frankly if it weren't for our game of vengeance, I'd be engulfed in rapt depression.