"I."

"Can."

"Not."

"Believe."

"Believe what?" So this one wasn't me. The rest was. I was a little pissed off. But the last one...that was him, interrupting my nice little rant. I hate it when he does that, but he always does. I figure one of these times I'll tell him what I think of that little habit of his...but for now...

"I wasn't done yet..." I grumbled, and he just smiled at me. This time I did it faster, so he wouldn't do it again. "I. Can. Not. Believe... You would do something like this to me!"

"Like what?" he asked me, as if he didn't really know what was going on. Of course, knowing him, he probably didn't. He probably just thought that he had been helping me by doing that, and that I was going to praise him now. And he would pout and whine and maybe even cry if I didn't praise him, even if I told him that what he had done had just made several days' more work for me.

I groaned, and shook my head in disgust. The problem was that I was starting to understand him too well. I knew what he was going to do in response to what I did, and that was starting to scare me. I didn't want to get to know him that well, especially not the kind of knowing that often close couples never achieved, which was how my insight into his thinking was starting to seem to me.

"Listen," I said, sitting down in front of him so that I would be on his level to look him in the eyes. "When I ask you not to touch, I mean it. When I ask you not to touch, it's because whatever I don't want you to touch is very sensitive equipment that can't be easily fixed if you break it. And I know that you didn't mean to break anything... accidents happen."

"I didn't break anything," he said, pouting.

And I realized that, no matter how much I said, he wasn't going to listen to me. He was convinced that he had done something good, put things back the way they were supposed to be for me so that I wouldn't have to do it. And no matter how many times I explained to him that I needed that array there, on the table where I left it, in the exact same state that I left it in, he would insist that he was right, and that he had in fact "fixed" things for me. The best thing to do in this case would be to give up, and just deal with it some time when he wasn't there.

I sighed, and then stood up. "Just please leave my things alone next time, okay?" I asked.

I don't think he had any intention of doing so, but he still beamed at me and nodded. I was sure that he was serious about it, too. It was just that by the next time he saw something that didn't look "right" to him, he would have forgotten that I had yet again extracted his promise that he wouldn't touch my stuff, and he would go right ahead and do it.

The question wasn't if, if was when, and I can't say that I was looking forward to finding out when when was this time. Preferably never, but that was just a wild hope that would never come true as long as he was staying in our house.