90 Messages

Imagine this: You're asleep comfortably in bed with your significant other. Then, at 4:30am, you hear your phone start announcing incoming text messages. Your first reaction after hearing about 4 in a row is to think that something is wrong. You get to around eight of them and you realize that it is just your best friend (henceforth referred to as 'wife') spamming you with reactions to something. Probably Jane the Virgin. No big deal. She'll stop in a minute and you can go back to sleep.

She. Didn't. Stop.

Eventually, the boyfriend rolls out of bed and you know that this is it, he's not happy and the messages aren't stopping. Fine. You get out of bed and go to where your phone habitually spends the night on the kitchen counter. In a sleepy haze, you try to turn down the volume. Oh no. The phone requires you to enter your password first. In the meantime, the messages are still blaring in.

Fine. Enter password. And before you can even go to turn down the volume, you see a brilliant white number over your messages icon: 27.

Oh. Hell. No.

Despite your phone being your only alarm clock, you turn that bitch down all the way to vibrate. You leave it there on the counter, grateful that you can't hear the next one incoming. Then you wander back to bed where you have special moments with the boyfriend before returning to sleep.

You wake again at 7am. Knowing the wife is now asleep, you feel safe in returning your phone's volume back to normal. That's when you notice it.

90.

There are 90 messages on your phone. All from your wife. All from 4am onward.

You don't even look. Instead, you take your phone back to the bedroom, set it on the nightstand, and try to go back to sleep for one more hour and a half before you have to go to work.

Only after you've fully gotten ready for work do you finally read the messages. What could they possibly be about, you might ask? A movie. A stupid, cheesy, teenage movie.

There are 90 messages that constitute an entire play-by-play. And it is adorable, hilarious, and so completely unique to your wife that you can't help but laugh to yourself for the whole ten minutes it takes you to read them all.

If you thought that would be the end of this saga ... you'd be wrong.

While at work, you surreptitiously check out the link she sent you for the book that this movie was based off of. To your surprise, one of your other mutual friends has already reviewed the book. In 2013. And her two-star rating shares much in the way of the critiques your wife gave you in that 90 message blowup.

Thus, it is then your duty to go into your friend group and add details to the post your wife has already made (announcing how she intentionally drowned you in text messages about said movie). You tag this mutual friend and link their review. This mutual friend then decides to indulge in a spurt of masochism and proceeds to watch the meh movie about the book she had written off as meh five years ago.

Another play-by-play ensues. Alas, you're at work, so you must only check in periodically with this new thread. Meanwhile, your wife has only just awoken and has no idea what else she has unleashed in the friend group. When you mention it to her, double-checking proceeds and you find that yet another mutual friend also watched the same movie last night.

There are two posts containing detailed descriptions and critiques of what this movie entails. You read all of them, because your wife already spoiled it for you.

Alas, when you finally clock out and head home, you know there is only one true item on your to-do list. You're going to make yourself some ramen noodles and watch that damn movie! And the entire time, you are going to text your wife a play-by-play. Of a movie she just watched. Because PAYBACK that's why.

Almost two hours later, you've finished it. You agree with everything she said. The cute moments were just right, but most of it was pure cheese. A teen movie. No big deal.

So how many messages did your wife get from you?

60.

That's it. 60.

On one hand, you were eating through the first part, so that counts. On the other: DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!

Then, as you're sitting here typing this blog post, preparing to share it with the world, you remember something. You remember that time that you bought her a book that was poorly edited, with a lackluster plot, and wasn't quite to her taste ... all because of the insults and shade the MC was throwing. Your wife hates that book to this day, but you still made her read it knowing that she would hate it.

Karma is a righteous bitch sometimes. But it can also be kind of beautifully hilarious.

The End.