Please, History, Don't Repeat Yourself
By Storygirl95
- 622 reads
You weren't going to lie. You were absolutely terrified. The kind of heart pounding, nostril flaring, horrific sight induced terrified that only came when you engaged in a situation like this. You had to control your shaking legs as you sat down in the chair, facing the object of your fear. This could go really well or be the worst experience of your life.
You were going to look at your search history. With your boyfriend.
Google had just come out with the history of things you had searched from years ago, so you had decided it would be fun to sit down with him and look at all the things you had searched together. You have so much regret right now. So much.
To be fair he might have been as scared as you because you shared the desktop computer, but the problem was that you looked up weird things. Really weird. You just have thoughts around 3 in the morning and look them up. And unfortunately, the Google search was connected to your account, so it didn't matter the device you used.
You bet all your boyfriend looks up is soccer. He's obsessed with soccer. And he probably also looks up some sort of weird food because he's always trying to make you new foods to stop you from ordering take out. It doesn't work. You don't even want to know what the thing he made you eat last Tuesday was. You think it moved when it slid down your throat.
You had to eat somewhere close to three entrees of Chinese food to try and get the taste out of your mouth. You shudder.
"You ready?" you ask him as he pulls up a chair next to you.
"As ready as I'll ever be," he responds, "although I can't say I'm not going to be scarred for life by whatever is on here."
"Ditto."
You both decide to start on the earliest entry, October 21st of last year. It's his.
How to make fun of your girlfriend
Pssh.
"Like you needed any help with that."
How to apologize to your girlfriend
You can't stifle the smug laugh.
"I see the first one didn't go over so well."
He looks away, pouting.
These ones were yours.
Penguins
Baby penguins
Baby penguins huddled together
"Do you like penguins, babe? I couldn't tell."
"Can you tell what I don't like? Oh, it's you."
He just smiles.
How much blood can you lose before you die?
"This was after that really bad horror movie we watched where the guy got stabbed," you say when he peers quizzically at you, "Remember? He was bleeding out while he walked like a whole mile."
"Why yes, I do remember," he answers, "because you had to tell me how it didn't make sense to whole mile."
His words are harsh, but he's got a playful tone so you know he's not being a jerk. Well, not the mean kind.
How many days can you miss of school before being labeled as a truant?
"..."
"What? It's not that weird."
"Why would you need to know this?"
"I just wanted to know."
"You're not even in school anymore. You graduated."
"I'm a curious person, okay?"
"I'm scared of your brain."
His searches pull up again.
Bunnies
Bunny maintenance
Rabbit medical problems
"Hey!" you exclaim, "this was when we were thinking about getting a rabbit, right? And you made me think we were going to until you cruelly pulled the dream away from me. You said we couldn't take care of it.”
He ignores you, scrolling down.
The same day is a search from you.
Are rabbits fragile?
What happens if you drop a rabbit?
Clumsy people and bunnies.
"And that would be one reason why," he says, holding in a laugh, "I didn't even need to see the searches to know you and fragile animals equals disaster."
"Hey!" you shout, petulant, "that's not fair! I was only making sure it would be okay. I'm not that clumsy."
He stares at you in a way which suggests that yes, you are that clumsy.
To be fair you probably would trip on the poor thing. But you didn't want to admit that to him.
"I could take care of him," you reply obstinately.
"Babe, you lost your pet rock."
"You said you'd never talk about Jeffrey again! That is a taboo subject and you know it!"
"Sorry."
Poor Jeffrey. He fell out of your pocket into the when you went to that festival in the mountains and crossed the bridge. At least he was with fellow rocks now, taking a swim in the mountain river. You miss him.
You scroll down to the next page, but not before shooting your boyfriend the dirtiest look you could muster. He actually looks a bit remorseful.
Durian recipes
"What the hell is a Durian?" you ask, almost afraid.
"It's a spiky fruit that smells bad but tastes like a custard on the inside."
"And why haven't we tried that?"
"Because I knew you wouldn't try it."
"Oh so you make me try that weird mollusk thing but not something that would actually taste good."
"The last time it was ridiculously hard to get you to try something that you didn't like the smell of."
"Because I knew it would taste as bad as it smelled! And I was right! Actually, it was even worse. I swear you fed me some animal in the middle of putrefaction."
"I'm just trying to help you stay healthy. God knows all that takeout can't be good for you."
"Maybe if you made something normal I would eat it. You always make bizarre stuff."
"Normal to you means so plain I can't even understand."
"That's so not true!"
"So your sandwich order isn't only turkey, cheese, and olives?"
"Olives are a topping! That's diverse!"
"One topping isn't diverse."
"Shut up."
Stupid boyfriend. It's not your fault you were born with the taste buds of simplicity.
Besides, it makes your meals really easy to order.
However, you boyfriend was bit of a health nut. Not the kind who brought up cholesterol particles at Thanksgiving dinner, mind you, and he wasn't judgmental. He was just always worried that you were going to get sick or something by not taking care of yourself.
You tried to eat healthy. Sort of. Whenever you could convince your boyfriend to actually make something edible like chicken, you would eat healthy. You would always do well these days until 1 o clock came at night and you had cravings for sour gummy worms. Gummy worms the vending machine downstairs just happened to have. You have a love/hate relationship with that machine.
Late night bag of sugar, you seductress.
You also exercised. Just only when you had time. Like maybe every five days. Or six. Depending on if you have a project at work. That counts, right?
Back to you.
Reasons a zombie apocalypse couldn't exist
"Babe?" he questions, "why this one? It's so late too."
Crap. You forgot about this one. You're terrible with horror movies and your friends dragged you to a zombie flick without you knowing. You couldn't sleep at all that night, you were so scared.
"Oh," your boyfriend breathes, as if he's had a revelation, "so that's what the night was about! When you went out to the movies with Jenny I knew something was wrong when you came back. Babe, why didn't you tell me you saw a horror movie and it bothered you?"
He gazes at you with concern.
"I didn't want to bother you. It was stupid," you murmur back.
You hated being so prone to that kind of thing. Having a vivid imagination sucks.
He reaches over and squeezes your hand reassuringly.
"Don't ever think it's stupid," he softly replies, "it's no bother."
You give him an embarrassed but grateful smile before scrolling onwards, to move onto another subject.
You again. This one causes a mood change.
Molar mass of asbestos
"What is wrong with you?" your boyfriend asks in disbelief upon reading the words.
"It was a late night thought."
"You think of the molar mass of asbestos late at night?"
"Obviously this day I did."
"I don't even think I know you anymore."
"You never know when you might need it."
"Like when? When on earth could you POSSIBLY need to know that?"
"What if there's a serial killer going around killing people who don't know things about science? You better brush up on your facts, babe."
He just buries his face in his hands like he can't even process what you just said.
The rest of the searches were not that special, with the exception that both you and your boyfriend looked up how to repair broken glassware. On the same day. You both decide to refrain from asking which of the things around the house it was.
You just hope it wasn't the coffee mug you love so much that he gave you for your birthday. You pray he isn't hoping it wasn't one of those sparkling wine glasses he got as a set. Because that's what yours was.
You didn't mean to, it's just that it's apparently a bad idea to put champagne in it and swish it around like a member of some fancy yacht club. You know that now. Because inevitably you drop it and it breaks the top in half. His mom got him that set. Thank god there's a place down the street that will repair glassware. You try not to think that he's probably made that trip too.
When you've reached the end of the list, you take a deep breath and sigh, absorbing the information.
"Well," you say, leaning back in your chair, "that wasn't really what I expected."
"You can say that again."
"Okay, that wasn't really what-"
"Not funny, babe."
"Yes it was. You just don't have a sense of humor."
"You tell dad jokes."
"Because dad jokes are the root of all good humor."
"Sure they are."
"Anyway," you continue, "I thought I would see a lot of soccer. I'm extremely surprised I didn't even find one."
"That's because I don't look up things on soccer, I just watch and play it."
"I didn't know you were an encyclopedia of soccer knowledge."
He ignores you, only leaning back in contemplation.
"Your searches surprised me too," he announces, "and not in the same way. I'm not sure I can handle being inside your brain, babe."
You smirk, amused.
"I was expecting misheard song lyrics more than anything else,” he comments, a smile flitting across his features.
Okay, so you may not know the words to songs you hear somewhere. Once, you were looking for "run from my bullet" but thought it was "cash in my pocket." You're really not sure how your brain got that. As a result, you never know what you're looking for when you google a song. Everyone's done that, right? Thankfully you've found the magical existence of Shazam. Bless the app maker's heart.
"Well," you sigh again, "I guess that's that. Interesting, bizarre, and terrifying all at the same time. Let's never do this again."
"I second that motion."
You stand up, stretching.
You peer down to see your boyfriend's chair tilted back. You scold him for that. He says it's more comfortable that way, but you are just waiting for the day he falls and cracks his head open. Honestly, you're trying to make it happen now that he keeps doing it. You mess with it in hopes your purposeful attempt to make him fall will not be as dangerous and will make him stop. You slyly slide over a few inches to where you can reach the bottom. You quickly slam your foot on one of the legs, causing the chair to crash onto all fours again. He wobbles, but remains seated. Damn.
"Babe!" he scolds, glaring in a way you can physically feel it, "you know I hate that!"
"Then stop tilting back and I won't do it anymore."
"One of these days I'll get you back," he warns, a wicked grin on his face.
"You wouldn't dare do anything to me," you answer, mildly fearful of what that could mean.
Let's just say he was extraordinarily good at pranks. You have literally hid yourself away in the locked bathroom on April Fool’s day before. It's not like he would hurt you, but you appreciate not hyperventilating and experiencing a pounding heart from the scare he gave you.
You tell him ONE time about your fear of moths and then on April Fool’s he somehow manages to find at least 30 plastic ones and spends god knows how long stringing them up in the bedroom so they faced the fan.
You had just wanted to come home and change, not shriek loud enough in terror the whole apartment complex heard you when you saw the figures fluttering in the air.
Your next door neighbor even came to your door with a baseball bat because he thought you were being assaulted. You defnitely wanted to assault a certain someone with said bat once you realized what happened.
Which was why you were more than a bit apprehensive about your boyfriend's comment.
"Oh yeah?" he asks, a glint in his eyes, "what's going to stop me?"
"I won't love you anymore."
"That's what you said last time. As far as I can tell, you still do."
"Just don't do it."
"If you're scared of the consequences," he replies lightly, "you shouldn't dish it out."
He stands up too, and leisurely strolls away from the computer.
"Hey," you call to him, "don't even think about it, or soon I'll be looking up how to hide a dead body."
"Whatever you say, babe."
Where was the key to that bathroom?
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Comments
i am amazed at the innocence
i am amazed at the innocence of the search history-- my faith in humanity is restored.
This is a great idea
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If anyone read my search
If anyone read my search history, they would run for the hills. This is a good idea but think if you expanded it to have a shocking/bizarre history, it would pull more punch.
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