Today, I thought I’d try a little something different. Some of you may not realize this, but we’re coming up on the official five-year anniversary of this blog. Whoa, right? Blogging came into my life just a few months after meeting the newf which has given him plenty of time to grow into his role as a Joanna Lumley-esque, spotlight-stealing guest star. An impressive feat considering the many reasons why you’ve gotta be out-of-your-mind crazy to willingly date a blogger.

In a rare moment in his honour, I thought I’d cover the two equally important roles that he plays oh-so well in being the Corky to my Murphy Brown. I wish nothing more than for this to help guide you single guys and gals out there to not just love and happiness, but to a useful spouse who can earn their keep in a blogger household. You’ll thank me later.

The first common blogger-spousal role is that of The Voice of Reason. And thank god for that. While I see how quickly I can work my way through a bottle of wine while forcing my boozey thoughts upon the internet, the newf is usually busy keeping us afloat with forward-thinking finances, responsible choices, and grown-up plans. Without him, all those end-of-the-bottle ideas like “I swear, you give me two months and I can make 98 Degrees hot again. And the first month will be just to give the ugly one the slip. This is my new calling,” would actually take over my life for weeks at a time. Instead, I share these ideas with you, the newf stands in the corner with his arms folded, and we’ve got instant odd-couple hilarity.

Bonus Points: this hilarity does not come at the expense of my future which will be much appreciated when I’m 45 and the internet doesn’t exist anymore and all my life’s work toward making faceless strangers care about my zany adventures proves to be in vain.

Another, more fun take on being a blogger spouse involves being The Quippy Sidekick Who Says What Everyone Else Is Thinking If Everyone Else Were To Be Half In The Bag At All Times. This one is a slap-stickier take on reversing the previous roles. It’s also internet humour gold. Bloggers with a solid lock on an unintentionally funny significant other have got it made. They don’t even have to write anymore, they just have to sit back, wait for the next obnoxious statement, and blog that shit.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but the newf does this one really well too. He’s basically a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to fulfilling his quota of bloggable whimsy. From randomly signing us up for water aerobics without asking first, to saying things like: “Could you get me an episode of those burger hose? The borgableese? The blagahoo? Fuck it – you know what I mean…the dirty pope show,” my man can definitely bring it.

The only problem with my blogging muse (self-proclaimed) is that occasionally, he knows it all too well. Lately, he’s taken to saying such foolish things as, “God. You wouldn’t even have a blog if it weren’t for me. I’m what the people want – you’re just the middle man,” before spouting off a series of rimshot-worthy one-liners, each followed by a, “are you writing this down? I don’t see you taking notes…it’s okay. I’ll wait.”

And it’s around then that he gets really unbearable in a Mariah-looking-for-three-dozen-morning-doves kind of way and I set out to take him down a peg. Which is what this post is actually all about despite the guise of it being a happy-go-lucky anthem for unappreciated blogger spouses.

You thought I was actually being nice? You must be new here. You see, kicking things off with a “SUCK IT. I MADE YOU AND I CAN BREAK YOU,” just seemed unnecessarily vulgar and I consider myself to have more tact than that. But let’s be serious: there will be no posts here about how amazing anyone is unless they’re about me. Get your own blog, losers.

So, in the spirit of putting an imaginary competition ahead of my relationship, it is my greatest pleasure to announce to you that up until last month, the newf didn’t know that there was a system to making rows disappear in Tetris. I’mma let that sink in for a minute…

No really. Since approximately 1993*, he thought the disappearance of rows happened by some random special surprise or by moving certain colour blocks from side to side as often as possible before they hit the bottom, skewing his entire understanding of the game. And that’s how he’s been playing UNTIL LAST MONTH.

Now, I don’t mean to be cruel. But to me? This is the BEST NEW THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME FULL STOP EXCEPT NOT FULL STOP BECAUSE WE NEED A COUPLE OMG YAYZERS IN THERE FOR GOOD MEASURE.

Why? Because now whenever he slips into The Voice of Reason role and gives me the side-eye when I can’t answer a single question on the math quiz he gave his sixth graders (fuck off, okay? I have a calculator. Eat shit, elementary curriculum), I can pummel his vintage video game knowledge gap until he’s weeping under the glow of an original Game Boy.

And isn’t that what relationships are really all about?