Of the ways I would describe myself, "petty" would be in the top ten adjectives. Not because I'm especially petty, mostly because I'm pretty fucking bland and I'm not sure there are ten adjectives to describe me, and because I have done petty things a few times in my life, petty makes the top ten.
I am usually only petty if provoked, rarely am I going out of my way to fuck with someone just because. For instance, my eldest's father and I got into an argument, as we did constantly. Because he was older than me, and had a shitload of power in the relationship that I couldn't match, the ends of our arguments usually left me emotionally drained, in hysterics, and looking for revenge. Rhyann's dad is older than I am, so at the time, I was 19 and he was 26. There isn't much leverage a 19 year old has on a grown ass man, especially one that made it clear that all of the money was his and he kept her housed and fed. I had to get creative with my pettiness, so I did. This time in particular, I took all of his video game discs and hid them in places he'd never, ever find them. I hid them in my daughter's diapers, I hid them in the back pockets of my jeans, I hid a few of them in the front pockets of shirts he no longer wore. And it drove him fucking NUTS. He couldn't find them, and I let them sit where they were for a week. I relished in that absolutely. I eventually put them back, but I loved watching him tear the apartment upside down to find games he was never going to find.
On the petty scale, it isn't that high, I guess. It felt good, and it frustrated him in ways that I couldn't financially, or verbally, so it served a purpose for me.
We had a cat named Camp that loved me, loved Rhyann, and HATED her father. Hated him so much that if Chris left his clothes on the floor, Camp would seize the moment and piss all over them. If Chris and I would argue, I would wait until he went to bed or went to play games, and then I would throw his clothes on the floor for Camp to pee on. Imaginative? No. Satisfying? Absolutely.
As a more mature woman of 37, I have gotten better at using my words to discuss why I'm frustrated at any given partner I've had, so while my opportunities to be petty have been numerous, my desire to be petty has almost completely disappeared. I had a few moments with Dan where I did petty shit, but they really barely register (I think the last thing of note I did to Dan was spell his new girlfriend's name incorrectly on purpose. And that was rude to HER, which was not my intention, she did nothing wrong, and I recall admiring her for her ability to tell Dan what she expected from him. It made me look small, but I suppose...that's pettiness for you?). I don't remember doing anything petty to Allen, though I'm sure I did. If he were still here, I would ask him.
I haven't done much that's petty to Derek, not that I haven't had cause. But we were driving yesterday, and I recalled the time I hid the cake pans in his backpack because I couldn't allow him the satisfaction of being correct.
Back when we lived in Texas, I wanted to bake a cake. It was an occasion of some kind, I can't really recall, but I couldn't find our cake pans. I yelled to Derek that we needed to go to Target, ad he asked me what for. I said, "I want to bake a cake and we have no cake pans!" I had been searching all over our kitchen cabinets for them and had seen neither hide nor hair of them. I checked everywhere. Twice. Derek yelled back that we had three, and we didn't need any new ones. The fuck we didn't, the cake pans were not there, what was I supposed to bake the cake in??
Instead, I slammed my way through the cabinets for a third time, making sure my displeasure at Derek was evident in the loud bangs and clangs I made while "searching" for the cake pans I already knew weren't there. I screamed back to him, "THEY ARE NOT HERE. YOU BETTER COME LOOK FOR THEM SO YOU CAN SEE I NEED NEW PANS, AND THEN YOU TAKE ME TO TARGET."
And when I finished my triumphant yell, so sure in myself and my skills of a searcher that the cake pans were not there, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Three smug little cake pans, nestled into each other in a tender bakeware embrace, in a recess I swear I had clanged my way angrily through not moments before, and it had been free of cake pans.
What was I going to to? Admit I was wrong? Like a monster? I live in that house!
So I arrived at the only rational conclusion: I had to hide those pans, and fast. I scanned the kitchen as quickly as I could, and stopped my eyes on the laundry room. I quickly got up, opened the doors, and saw Derek's old backpack, hanging up on the wall, a light smatter of dust covering it like a gross promise of Derek's ignorance of its existence. Perfect.
I stuffed the cake pans into his backpack, zipped it up, and silently closed the laundry room doors. I yelled to Derek again, "ARE YOU GOING TO COME LOOK FOR THESE CAKE PANS OR NOT??" with all of the righteous anger of someone who is very very obviously in the wrong. He came out, couldn't find them for obvious reasons, and after about twenty minutes of swearing up and down that we had cake pans, we took me to Target where I bought brand new ones.
Years later, when we were packing to leave, he found the cake pans and was VERY puzzled as to why they were in his backpack, hung up in the laundry room. Upon finding them, he let out a triumphant, "HA! I KNEW we had cake pans!!" Which was the fucking EXACT thing I had been hoping to avoid by hiding the fucking things in the first place. I foiled myself by not removing them later and donating them to a thrift store. Mother. Fucker.
Petty may be in the top ten adjectives list, but unfortunately, so is "bad at being wrong".
