Fun With Escalation

The biggest problem with sneaking up on The Husband to give him a good fright is that men have this ability to freaking escalate. 2 days ago, at just about midnight, I asked The Husband to help me close the windows in the living room because I can't reach them. Living room lights are off, study lights are on. He shuts the windows, and as he shuts them, I hunker down in the dark so I'm in plain sight still, but only if he looks down. Which he doesn't. Then he proceeds to turn off the computer and the study lights, walks out into the living room and BAM I'm leaping out at him in the dark with the scary ghost hands.

It's been quite a while since I've seen a man so angry. I think the last time was when I managed to crawl right into the middle of the study and under the computer table whilst he was totally engrossed into a computer game and gave him my best "Ju-On" face.

So last evening, I'm tap tap tapping away at the computer keyboard in the study and everyone else has been asleep for an hour when I hear the sound of creeping feet behind me. I turn around, and it's the (formerly) sleeping husband who woke up and tried to sneak into the room to scare the crap out of me right back. And the thing is, I'm scared but I don't want him to have the satisfaction of knowing I'm scared and yet I know that if I do that then it won't be counted and he'll just try to scare me again. And then he won't believe me when I tell him that I was already previously frightened and my next attempt to scare him thereafter will be counted as an offensive strike, not payback (which it should be).

I think we have about a year before The Son cottons on to how childish and immature his parents can be. Actually I suspect he knows already - he broke up the last "poke me? I'll poke you back! Poke! Poke! Poke! Poke!" with a loud, shrill "Don't! Fight!"