The smile comprised of clenched teeth

It's a rarity when Chad and I are the ones to push each other's buttons.

He never really bugs me and I never really bug him. It's just the way it is with us two. When we were dating I thought that something was majorly wrong with us because we never really fought. In fact, when the brewskies were flowing, I actually tried to pick fights with him because . . . well, I have no idea why, but it never worked because Chad would calmly say something along the lines of, "Okay, so what is this whole argument about, anyway?" A question I never had an answer for because my fight-pickin' was always so shallow. Luckily those ridiculous outburst were far and few between, since beer and the like seemed to bring out the giggly, beer pong champions that made up Chad-and-Nicole. Looking back, it kind of makes me laugh, but my mom told me that if a couple never fights, it might be because they are not communicating.

So when we got married, my number one priority (and still is) was to make sure that we communicated like pros. For a few months there, it was sort of hilarious because if Chad was quiet one night for whatever reason, I would always say something like, "Okay, babe, what's going on? I know you're thinking about something, you handsome dog! Come on, tell the ole' wife!" . . . in so many words.

But anyway, the other night I actually pushed buttons. Actually, I pushed THE button.

Chad had had the world's longest day at work and, after we ate dinner, had to finish up this test-like thing for the next day. Well, I decided that it was of the utmost importance to tell him about my newest plan for our near future before he embarked upon his late night work thing, but it was more of a one sided conversation since his mind was elsewhere. Well, APPARENTLY this was not okay with me, a fact which I vigorously informed him of. So there we were, calmly pushing our own points: me, that I was right and that we better hop-to on my plan, him, that he did not want to be talking about it at that moment. 

After fifteen minutes of our composed, weird argument, I looked at him and saw that his eyes were boring into my soul, his hands were neatly stacked one on top of the other and that he was wearing THE SMILE.

The smile he described to me when explaining how his boss had played a joke on him, telling him that he had actually been demoted instead of promoted. 

It was the smile comprised of CLENCHED TEETH!

Clenched teeth! 

Oh man, I knew I had pushed too far. In fact, I think my eyes widened by the mere sight of it! Quickly following the incident, he told me that he needed to go fill his car up with gas. What? Um, okay . . . Since when do us Cisneros's fill up our cars at 9:30 at night? Since when do we argue poignantly enough to warrant THE SMILE?! It was crazy town around these parts!

Anyway, after he returned from the gas trip, went to bed, woke up before me and returned to my lovely stir fry last night, he told me that the pit of his day was feeling bad about how mad he had gotten the night before. Then I told him how I could have taken it easy on him, considering he was trying to get some work done. 

So then we laughed, because we are hilarious. 

Isn't that just funny? It's like, when we do actually argue, we have no idea what to do with ourselves! We are awkward arguers! Anyway, in my opinion, it's not too shabby of a problem to have, but I had to document the occurrence of THE SMILE!