Check Out The Ridiculous Arguments Folks Are Having During Quarantine

Many of us have been spending a lot of extra time at home with our spouses for about 3 months now, (Thanks, coronavirus.) I don’t know about you, but it’s been a long-ass three months around my house.

I love my husband. Adore him. We’ve been together for half our lives, and he still does it for me. I think he’s hot, I respect him, and he makes laugh. Of all the men alive, he is my very favorite one. Honestly. I wouldn’t choose anyone else to be stuck at home with, and that’s really saying something in a world where Jason Momoa exists.

It’s just that right now, he is literally the only adult I’ve been within six feet of in months, and this is not it, people.

I chose this man, but I am a human person who needs other human people — preferably my girlfriends –to stay sane. COVID-19 has given me entirely too much time to focus intently on the volume of my husband’s breathing, which, in case you were wondering, is too damn loud, and he needs to get it together.

Last week, he returned home from the grocery store with a bottle of Dijon mustard. The store was out of my usual brand of stone-ground mustard, and he thought the Dijon would be a fine substitute.

Only I haven’t been anywhere in a long time, the contents of my fridge have started to feel very important, and this Dijon mustard was the disappointing straw that broke the camel’s back. An argument was inevitable.

My eyes filled with tears, and I said something to the effect of, “This isn’t my mustard, Scott. It doesn’t even look or taste like my mustard. How can we be strangers after seventeen years? Do you want to leave me? Is this a sign? Well, we have too many kids for you to afford child support and a second residence, so enjoy your new life in the garage!”

Then I told him not to speak to me, he said, “Gladly!” and we didn’t talk for an hour.

Clearly, we have entered the “bicker about dumb shit” phase of quarantine.

I figured we couldn’t be alone, so I set out to find some other people willing to share their hilarious, ridiculous, petty or silly arguments with Scary Mommy.

Let’s just say, our mustard argument, while still really stupid, isn’t alone. When it comes to quarantine quarrels, no topic is off-limits, and no offense is too small.

Check it out:

1. My husband quit playing Words With Friends with me because he is convinced I make up words. I told him the game won’t even accept made-up words, but he doesn’t care. He was like, “WTF does ‘QI’ even mean?! You’re telling me you know how to use that in a sentence?” I said, “Well, no, I am not telling you that, but it got me 25 points, and the game says it’s a real word, so just deal with it.” He deleted the app. COVID killed WWF in this house. –Jenn W.

2. My husband and I are isolating with our grown children and their spouses. One night all six of us got into a heated argument with raised voices, and one of our adult children ended up storming out of the room. It was a mess. The controversy? “Is the covered portion of the garden center at Home Depot where the cash register is considered indoors or outdoors?” –Trish G.

3. COVID has shown me that I married a serial killer or some other kind of psychopath. I’m not working right now, so my husband has been getting up first. Our bathroom faucet just has one knob for both hot and cold, and that is how I discovered that my husband brushes his teeth with hot water! The first time I accidentally got a mouthful of steaming hot toothpaste, I shrugged it off but now it’s war. What kind of weirdo brushes their teeth with hot water and doesn’t even put the water back on cold for the rest of us? I’m rethinking all my life choices. –Keri C.

4. My fiancé sucks at folding towels. I have told him my method (half/half/thirds) a million times, but he says it’s confusing, and he just can’t grasp it. Being here with his improperly-folded towels kills me, and he gets pissed when I fix them. Do it right the first time and we don’t have to argue! –Amanda B.

5. I am a big limoncello La Croix fan. Hello. It’s like lemon cake in a beverage. Yum. Anyway, I do not leave a drop. Not one single drop. My boyfriend will take TWO sips with his food and leave it so it goes flat. I finally got so fed up that, unbeknownst to him, I saved it in the fridge and tried to make him drink it flat the next day. You don’t waste something that delicious! –Lauren C.

6. My fiancé has never been a big gamer, but since we have time on our hands, I’m trying to teach him. We rarely ever argue, but he gets so mad when I correct him. Like mad mad. BIG mad. The other night, I finally stood up and shouted, “DO YOU WANT MY HELP OR NOT?!” And he shouted back, “I’M SORRY, HONEY! I AM TRYING!” And I didn’t know if that was a real sorry, or if we were still arguing or what. I’ve never been called honey so aggressively. –Ariel D.

7. Since we have been home so much, I have realized that my husband looks at real estate listings all wrong. I finally got fed up and told him, “I hate the way you look at Zillow!” He takes forever looking at the photos, examining each one from the baseboards to the way the ceiling is angled. I’m like, “I was just trying to show you how big the kitchen is.” –Samara M.

8. Our last argument was about my husband’s complete inability to commit glasses to the dishwasher. When he finishes a glass of milk, instead of rinsing out the glass and putting it in the sink/dishwasher, he puts the empty milk glass in the fridge. I found four empty milk glasses in the fridge yesterday! Like why?! –Christina B.

9. My seven-year-old is learning how to make beds bigger than his, and it kills me not to intervene and do it better. A couple days ago, he was yanking the blanket all over the place in every direction except toward the headboard. I was trying to direct him, but he just didn’t understand what I meant. I ended up shrieking, “Pull it THAT WAY,” like some kind of bonkers pterodactyl. My son shouted back, “MOMMY! What are you talking about!? Which way?” Then burst into tears. I felt horrible, and started to apologize, but then he just started laughing hysterically, and I couldn’t help but join him. We both just sat on my unmade bed and howled with laughter because the whole thing was just absurd. Quarantine, man. –Kat C.

10. I lost my mind on my husband because he left a dirty diaper in the living room. I mean, he just left it there and took the baby to the bath. There was poop in there! It’s an extra two feet to a trash can! I usually just throw them out, but I guess being trapped in the house has eroded my patience. I lost it. He didn’t understand why I was suddenly so pissed about it because “he does it all the time.” I screamed, “THAT IS THE PROBLEM!” I was beet red. I am lucky my head didn’t pop right off my body. –Susan N.

11. My husband has started folding little piles of clothes and leaving them on the bathroom counter. When I asked why, he said, “I’m not really going anywhere in them, so they’re not dirty enough to wash.” I asked why he didn’t just hang them back up, and he said, “They’re not clean enough to hang up.” That…is not a thing. They are clean or dirty. There is no third bathroom-counter-worthy designation. We are now in a silent laundry war. I toss his “half clean” piles into the hamper, and he returns them to the counter, rescuing them from being washed too soon. Maddening. –Jean U.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2FzulLh4f6/

12. Last weekend, my super friendly, extrovert husband totally blew up because I didn’t change the toilet paper roll in the front bathroom. It’s our guest bathroom, we rarely use it, and we haven’t had a guest in months, but for some reason, seeing that empty roll made him feel all the things. He ranted on and on about how disrespectful it felt, and I just stared at him silently, then finally said, “Are you done?” He said yes, and looked sheepish. I’d normally stick up for myself, but I let this one go. He is outgoing and social and he is not cut out for this isolation thing. –Nora L.

13. My husband has been promising to put two floating shelves in our kitchen for about six months now. We have had the shelves this entire time, and with all this time on his hands, he finally got around to putting them up. For some reason, once I saw them, I was completely unable to grasp how they were going to stay on the wall. He kept explaining by saying, “They’re like a box, Kelsey! They’re a skinny, empty box!” It still didn’t make sense. He was looking at me like I was an idiot, so I ended up shouting, “Your head is a skinny, empty box!” and storming out. Third grade insults are apparently the name of my quarantine fight game. It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine. –Kelsey G.

No matter how much you love your family, a sudden upheaval like a global pandemic can create opportunities for some level of conflict. These absurd verbal dust-ups can be frustrating in the moment, but if you can keep your sense of humor and admit when you’ve been ridiculous, it can make for some really funny stories.

Just do your best to muster up some extra patience, say you’re sorry when you lose your cool, and find some comfort in knowing we will all be laughing about this later.