Learning to Let a Sleeping Cat Lie . . .or Lay . . . Whatever She Prefers

Last week I corrected my wife for using the word "lay" instead of "lie," and when she questioned me about the proper usage I made the mistake of saying, "You call yourself a teacher?" and then I attempted to explain the difference between "lie" and "lay"-- that "lay" always takes a direct object, which is why you lie down in your bed, but a chicken lays an egg-- but she was hearing none of it; she was rightfully indignant over my contemptuous tone (I need to work on that) and I realized that this was a sleeping dog that I should let lie . . . so I didn't mention it again until yesterday, when I heard her repeatedly telling our dog to "lay down," and so-- being very careful of my tone-- I yelled from the kitchen, "Are you trying to annoy me, or what?" but apparently my attempt to use a warm and playful tone didn't work because she yelled back, "No . . . I guess I'm just really stupid!" and even I could recognize that she was being sarcastic . . . so though it offends the English teacher in me, I think I'm going to have to live with this one fault that my wonderful, beautiful, generally flawless wife possesses, and consider myself lucky that this is my only grievance in an otherwise blissful marriage.

5 comments:

zman said...

My cat woke me up by reposing across my face this morning. Not sure if she was laying or lying. Or lieing?

Dave said...

the cat was lying on your face. unless some evil person laid the cat on your face.

Clarence said...

Are you frickin' kidding me? Every week you make terrible grammatical errors, and we are always saying, "You call yourself an English teacher?" What a hypocrite.

Dave said...

aha! so i learned this tone from the commentators! i blame y'all

rob said...

commentators describe sports action, among other things. commenters respond to blog posts. for fuck's sake, man.

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