Hello there and welcome to the third installment of Interview With My Significant Other, a new A+ series in which Autostraddle team members interview a signficiant other. Here at Autostraddle in spring of 2022, we’re in a historic era. There has never been a time in history in which more of the Autostraddle team have been in romantic relationships. So, to take advantage of this time, and so that we can all revel in the broad range of ways that queer relationships can look and be, we developed fourteen questions for our team members to answer in conversation with their significant others. We asked them how they met, to tell us their hopes for the future, about finances and sharing labor, and yes, about sex.

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How’d you meet / get together? (Include how long you knew each other before becoming romantically involved.)

Beth: So I tell the story?

Sa’iyda: You could tell the story. I feel like I always tell it, so I’m curious to hear how you tell it.

Beth: Okay. Well, first of all, I identify as a lesbian. We met online dating. There’s an app called Lex, and at the time there were no photos. I was not interested in anything serious. I’d just come out of a very long term, serious relationship and I just wanted to get back out there, meet new people, have some fun, discover more of my sexuality. And so I put an ad out there and then you responded with a like, I think?

Sa’iyda: Yeah. I don’t think I reached out.

Beth: No.

Sa’iyda: I think I just liked it. Yeah.

Beth: You just liked it. And so I was like, “All right, who is this?” And I looked at your profile and saw something about you making warm cookies. And I was like, “Oh, that’s funny and I like cookies. Who is this person?” I introduced myself and we started chatting and I asked for your Facebook.

Sa’iyda: It was my Instagram.

Beth: Oh yeah, yeah. Your Instagram. And I saw this really cute woman with this really cute kid and I figured you were his mom.

Sa’iyda: Oh, thank you.

Beth: Did you say you had a kid? No.

Sa’iyda: Yes, I did. I think I said I had a kid and that’s why I didn’t link to my Instagram through my profile. Because I feel like I like to be able to present that to people and not have them find out before they’ve gotten to talk to me.

Beth: I thought he was adorable and it didn’t at all scare me off. I kind of liked that you were a mom, actually.

Sa’iyda: Yeah?

Beth: Yeah. I did. And so we met for coffee.

Sa’iyda: Oh.

Beth: Which was a little disastrous.

Sa’iyda: That’s a nice way of putting it.

Beth: But there was definitely an attraction and we went our separate ways and then you texted me and I was very… Can I say what you said?

Sa’iyda: Yeah. You can say what I said. It’s fine.

Beth: You said something about how you wanted to see me again with less talking and more touching. And I was like, “All right.” We spent the next week just texting a lot and we finally met up and…

Sa’iyda: The rest, as they say, is history.

Beth: The rest is history. It was a very intense couple weeks.

Okay, so what are your big 3 astrological signs? How do we feel about that?

Beth: Oh, we’re really into that.

Sa’iyda: Yeah, we’re really into that. It’s true.

Beth: And very much feel like there’s something to be said about that.

Sa’iyda: Yes.

Beth: I am an Aries sun, a Scorpio moon, and Sagittarius rising. Then, Sai’s an Aries sun.

Sa’iyda: Gemini moon. Libra rising.

Beth: We checked into our love and romantic and…

Sa’iyda: And given the way Venus moves we’re both Venus in Taurus. I think it’s very indicative of who we are.

Beth: We’re both Aries.

Sa’iyda: We are both Aries suns, which is why we are doing something like this because we like to talk about ourselves.

Beth: Yes, we do.

Sa’iyda: That’s how I pitched it. I was like, “Yeah, we can totally do this because we absolutely like to talk about ourselves.” There you go.

What do you enjoy most about your relationship?

Beth: I wish I’d thought about that in advance.

Sa’iyda: No, you just got to go off the cuff, man.

Beth: We have a lot of fun. We laugh a lot and I think that fun permeates and I think if we didn’t have fun and laugh a lot, we both…we have a lot of fun. We both sing a lot. We’ll be silly and dance in the kitchen and whatnot. But I think singing in the car.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. We do have fun doing that. We like to have a good time.

Beth: And how well you can read me. It’s like there’s no hiding.

Sa’iyda: Nope. No, it’s true. Oh my God, because you like to pretend that you’re just such an enigmatic creature and you’re so hard to figure out and I’m like, “Ma’am, you are not.”

Beth: Yes.

Sa’iyda: You just have to know. You just have to know the way around you.

Beth: What’s your favorite part about our relationship?

Sa’iyda: I love that we let each other be ourselves, even though we might give the other some good natured ribbing about it. Okay, at least that’s me. I call you a snob all the time, but—

Beth: I have good taste.

Sa’iyda: You’re a snob. It’s fine. But I think that we knew exactly who we were coming into this relationship as individuals. You knew who you were and I knew who I was and we presented that and we accepted each other. We’ve never tried to make each other into who we wanted each other to be, because we know that, one, we’re too old. And two, we don’t want that. We genuinely like each other for who we are and so there’s no need to try to switch each other up.

Beth: Yeah.

Sa’iyda: I think that’s a big one.

What hurdles or obstacles have you overcome together in your relationship? These can be within your relationship, or things that you’ve faced together.

Beth: I’d say lockdown.

Sa’iyda: Yeah.

Beth: During lockdown. I lost my job so I couldn’t keep my apartment and we’d been planning on moving in together anyway, but that really escalated it.

Sa’iyda: It moved it up significantly.

Beth: Right. And so I moved into an existing space that was admittedly very small. It was a tight squeeze, and so learning how to navigate that space and the personalities of a 6-year-old at the time…the two of us, who were really well bonded at the time, but…

Sa’iyda: Yeah. Still learning each other.

Beth: Right. And it was about eight months of not leaving that space, and that was very challenging.

Sa’iyda: That was really difficult. And when you’re still trying to get to know each other and you have nowhere to go when that’s not going well, I think it really was a make or break situation

Beth: There was no personal space and that was hard.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. There was nowhere to go. But I think also it was trying to figure out the dynamics of our relationship too. I think that was a hurdle we had to overcome together and apart, because like I was saying before, we know who we are as individuals so well, but we’re very different. Inherently as people, we are very different. And so it was trying to figure out how to compromise but not lose our senses of self, I think, has been the biggest challenge. And I think it still comes up. I don’t think it’s something that we’ve solved, but I think we’ve learned better now how to navigate it. But just how do we move past the things that are important to us as individuals, if it’s not important to the other?

Beth: Yeah.

Sa’iyda: Your theoretical love of the outdoors and my theoretical love of sitting inside with a good book or TV. How do we make those two things work? Because you’re not a country mouse, you’re a city mouse who likes being outside. And I’m a city mouse who very much likes being in the city. That was a huge hurdle that we’ve had to overcome and we’re still trying to overcome. And my love of all things pop culture and mainstream and your utter disdain for it because you’re a little bit of a snob, but…

Beth: I have good taste.

Sa’iyda: You’re a little bit of a snob.

Beth: Well, we both love theater. We both love music, but they don’t always align.

Sa’iyda: Right.

Beth: I love musicals, but you love musicals, and then I like regular plays.

Sa’iyda: Well, I mean, I like regular plays, but I have to see them. I can’t read them. They’re harder to see. Musicals I can listen to. It’s easier for me to attach to something if I can listen to it.

Beth: Right. I guess that’s not a thing.

Sa’iyda: No, but I think that’s valid because that is a good, tangible, difference or my love of ’90s pop music and your utter disdain. But you are at the very least trying to understand which I appreciate.

Beth: I now recognize all the voices of One Direction.

Sa’iyda: I’m very proud of you.

Beth: And I am accepting that it’s okay to know these things.

Sa’iyda: I mean, it’s not like it’s something you need to put on a resume unless it was going to get you a job, I guess. You found appreciation for Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. You’re welcome.

Beth: Yeah. That’s true. I didn’t know who Harry Styles was, though, because I’d never listened to One Direction. But I quite appreciate him, love Taylor Swift. It’s very surprising to me.

Sa’iyda: You’re welcome.

Beth: You said I’m a snob. You might be a little right.

Sa’iyda: I know I am. Thank you.

Where do you locate your relationship on the monogamy / polyamory spectrum? What philosophies do you have around how you handle monogamy / polyamory? How do you feel this impacts your relationship?

Beth: We’re both monogamous and in a monogamous relationship. I think we both accept that other people are poly and live in poly relationships. We’re not people who don’t believe in it. We’re just not that. We both will say when somebody’s attractive.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. I can’t imagine wanting to. Like I’ve said, it’s so hard to break one person in. I can’t imagine having to do it more than once.

Beth: Oh, you’re funny.

Sa’iyda: Listen, I got you the way I like you. I don’t want to have to do it again. Yeah. I think it’s all good.

What’s your living situation like (together, separate, long distance with long visits, something else), how often do you see each other and why?

Sa’iyda: We’re together all the time.

Beth: We are. It’s very hard to take time away from each other because we both work from home, and we don’t have room for offices.

Sa’iyda: Right.

Beth: The couch or nearby table in the same room is our office. We’re together 24/7. And sometimes I know it’s important to get away, especially for me. I like having time and alone time. Sometimes I just want to go into the bedroom and just close the door and chill or go outside for a walk. And now that we have a dog that’s easier, but yeah, there’s, again, not really personal space.

Sa’iyda: Yeah, I mean, that kind of happens. And also, thanks to COVID we were forced together for so long that now I think we’re finally feeling like we can begin to separate a little bit, but I genuinely really enjoy being around you.

Beth: Thanks.

Sa’iyda: It’s a lot sometimes, but I think that’s just because I spend so much time at home working. I feel like even though we’re in the same room, I’m not actually paying attention to you most of the time.

Beth: Right, right.

Sa’iyda: And we’re sitting next to each other, but we’re not necessarily paying attention to each other.

Beth: Right. When we have the opportunity to go out, which isn’t very often because we have a kid, but if there’s an opportunity, it’s really… We feel like we never get to do that, and it’s very exciting, even though we’re together all the time, like you said, we get to see each other in a different life. It’s not just sweatpants, but if we dress up and go out, it’s a really great opportunity.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. And I mean, also, I think just for me, I like the time that we spend actively paying attention to each other at night, after Jackson’s gone to bed and we sit on the couch and watch whatever we’re going to watch. It’s weird for two people who are literally together all day to still want to be together. But it feels like so much of our time before 9:00, 9:30 at night is not our own, even if we’re operating in the same space.

Beth: Yeah.

Sa’iyda: It’s like, oh, here’s a few hours that we’re actively being attentive to each other.

Beth: That’s true. I remember my last relationship, we had completely different schedules. She would go to work really early in the morning and come back around 4:00 and I would go to work around 9:00, 9:30 and come back anywhere between 7:00 and 10 o’clock at night. Our schedules didn’t align and we hardly ever saw each other. I’m enjoying this.

Sa’iyda: Yeah, me too. That’s how my previous relationship was too. We parallel played, I like to say, which is weird for two adults in a relationship. Yeah. I like us being able to have some active time together, even if it is just sitting on the couch and watching “Say Yes to the Dress” or whatever show we’re watching at the time.

Beth: Again, something that you’ve gotten me into.

Sa’iyda: Well, we are also engaged, Beth. And have been for most of our relationship. Just saying. Just putting it out there.

How do you all share expenses or work out finances? How do you share or split up labor in the relationship? Can you talk about why that is?

Sa’iyda: I guess I’ll take the lead on this one. Do you want me to?

Beth: Sure.

Sa’iyda: I take on the bulk of the finances just because I’m the one with the weirdly steadier job considering that I’m a contract writer. I just have steadier sources of income. And so most of the bills get paid out of my money. I pay the rent and I pay most of the groceries and internet, gas, whatever, most of that. I pay the bulk of it. But you do financially contribute. It’s not like you don’t. But given your job in casting, which is weird, because it’s basically freelance.

Beth: It is. It’s very much freelance.

Sa’iyda: You still financially contribute. It’s not that you don’t

Beth: Yeah. And in terms of stuff around the house or duties around the house, a big part of the responsibility is the child and I’ve followed your lead on that because you’ve been a single mom for so long. But during COVID that started to shift. As you were working, I took on the bulk of responsibility over Jackson in terms of making sure that he was occupied. We would play together. I would supervise him during his online school at home and then when there was no school, I was taking him to the park daily. And that time together, that was before we had even been together a year. That time together really bonded us. And very quickly I stepped into the role of stepmom because he let me.

Sa’iyda: Yeah.

Beth: But in terms of day to day, you cook, I clean the dishes.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. You take out the garbage.

Beth: Yeah, like a good butch.

Sa’iyda: You handle the pets.

Beth: Yes. We have three pets.

Sa’iyda: We split the laundry; neither of us likes to fold it. We have Mount Laundry, which we affectionately call it.

Beth: But we at least have clean clothes.

Sa’iyda: Yeah, and we tag team when we clean the house. I’ll sweep and then you mop, and I’ll clean the bathrooms and…

Beth: I’ll clean the kitchen.

Sa’iyda: You’ll organize the table. Then it becomes chaos again, but you will organize it.

Beth: We do our best.

Sa’iyda: I think our division of labor feels fairly consistent. We’ve split picking up and dropping off the boy at school. I mean, I did have to ask for that, but…

Beth: You kept saying you liked it.

Sa’iyda: I did, but I was also very tired. I realized that you weren’t going to read my mind until I asked for what I needed.

Beth: That’s important. Yeah.

Do you have kids, pets, plants, all three? Do you not currently have, but want any of these things? Why? Are you in agreement?

Sa’iyda: I think we’ve talked pretty extensively about the kid. He’s mine from a previous relationship. He is eight and a half. It’s very important. But I think in the two years since we started dating, he has become yours too. He’s wonderful and hilarious and brilliant and a total pain in the ass and that’s why we love him.

Beth: Yeah, so much. And he gives us so much love.

Sa’iyda: Yes. We’re at about 90% mutual agreement that he will remain an only child, but we’re not entirely closing that door.

Beth: No, that was a big conversation because I had always wanted to be a parent from the beginning, I guess you could say. And it took me a while to realize that I’m already a parent and I don’t need anything else. That’s been a difficult transition, but I think it’s a really good one.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. I mean, and like I said, we’re not entirely closing the door just yet, but there’s a lot of factors as to why we feel that way. It’s the financial end of things, because two uteruses can’t make a baby, unfortunately. That’s a thing.

Beth: Also I think the stage that we are in life. That’s really important.

Sa’iyda: I know. I jokingly say I don’t want to have a toddler, a teenager and a menopausal or perimenopausal spouse. It’s a lot of hormones coursing through this house, but… Yeah, I think we know what we want out of the next part of our life. And so that’s been a big part of it. We also have three pets.

Beth: I came in with two cats and together we got an adorable puppy. There’s a lot of personalities in this place. We’ve got the three humans and the three animals’ personalities, and somehow we manage it. We make it all work.

Sa’iyda: I never thought that I would settle down with a cat lesbian being a dog lesbian myself, but…

Beth: And vice versa.

Sa’iyda: Crazier things have happened. And now I love those furballs.

Beth: And that puppy is…

Sa’iyda: He’s adorable. Lots of poop. Forgot about that part. And I don’t know about plants. I kill things. I kill plants. Give me a human, I’ll keep it alive. Give me a plant, it’ll last a week.

Beth: If we had better light, I’d turn the balcony into a succulent heaven. That’s what I would do.

How would you describe the sex you have together (if you have sex)? Do you believe in lesbian bed death, and has it or do you think it will visit your relationship? What haven’t you done together but want to?

Beth: We are extremely sexually compatible.

Sa’iyda: We are. Yes.

Beth: Our relationship started as a non-relationship. But there was a lot of…somebody once described us as fucking and processing.

Sa’iyda: Yes. Yes.

Beth: And I think sex is very important in a relationship, and evidenced by our relationship that when we’re busy with life and maybe feeling a little bit distant from each other or haven’t been as connected as we have been before, sex is an opportunity for us to connect and in a very intimate and powerful way. And I think that always brings us back to ourselves and to each other.

Sa’iyda: I mean, when your relationship starts out as a sexual relationship that turns into something more, I think it’s always going to be a fundamental part of the relationship and I think we can both see the holes in our relationship when for whatever reasons we haven’t been having as much sex as we would like to have. I think that given your medications and stuff like that, sometimes you’re just… It’s not that you don’t want to, you just don’t initiate. And so I just will be the one who does after a while.

Beth: Yeah. But also in terms of lesbian bed death, I think it’s absolutely a thing, but I don’t think we should call it lesbian bed death. I think in long-term relationships, sex changes. Libidos change. And that’s something that can be hard to adjust to. But as long as you communicate about it, then I think you can get through anything.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. Is there anything that we haven’t tried yet that you want to? I feel like we’ve tried quite a lot.

Beth: Oh no. We’ve tried a lot.

Sa’iyda: I can’t think of anything.

Beth: I can’t think of anything either, but if something were to come up, we would probably try it.

Sa’iyda: It’s true. I would. I mean, I think there’s things that I’d like to get back to.

Beth: Oh really? There’s stuff you’d like to come back to?

Sa’iyda: Well, I just think for reasons we’ve gotten very used to our sex routine.

Beth: Yes.

Sa’iyda: We’ve got a whole drawer full of sex toys.

Beth: I was thinking about that the other day. I would like to get back to that. I think also you get into the routine because there isn’t a lot of time, and we know each other so well that know that—

Sa’iyda: We can hit the greatest hits and then go to bed.

Beth: Yeah. And we don’t have a lot of time where there isn’t a child around. We don’t really have the opportunity to take a lot of time.

Sa’iyda: Right. Morning sex is really not an option because usually we’re woken up by a wiggly creature who’s like, “Mom, Aren’t you going to get up?” We don’t want to scar the boy.

Do you think your relationship will more or less continue to exist as it currently is? Why?

Beth: I think so. We feel like an old married couple, but I think as we do more, we have more adventures together, we get outside more, maybe we do a little bit of traveling and that will just bond even further, because we’ll have more shared experiences.

Sa’iyda: I think as we have more time together, I think we’ll start to find those things that we like to do without each other. You’re wanting to start hiking with our neighbor friend and I want to go back to yoga and things that we couldn’t do, obviously, because of the pandemic that now we have the opportunity to do. I think that will also bond us because we’ll have the opportunity to miss each other.

Beth: And we’ll have things to tell each other that are different. Like going to dinner or coming together for dinner after you’ve made it, and I’m about to clean it up and saying things like, “So, how was your day?” When I was there the entire time.

Sa’iyda: The entire time, yeah.

Beth: We’ll have stories to tell each other, we’ll miss each other. We’ll think about each other while we’re doing these things. And I think having alone time is really important to a relationship.

Sa’iyda: I mean, yeah. I don’t think our relationship is going to change drastically. The seeds I think we’ve planted will grow a little bit stronger.

Beth: And we have a very strong foundation. I’m excited to see where we go from here.

What would you say are your most fundamental differences?

Beth: They seem superficial, but they’re very important. I would say that our core values are the same and our worldview is the same.

Sa’iyda: Right. That’s not the question.

Beth: No, but that’s important. Our difference is I like to travel and adventure and all things worldly and you like to stay home. Or even if we were to do some adventures, what we would want to do on those trips are different.

Sa’iyda: Right. Yeah.

Beth: And that can be very hard.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. I think that’s the better way to explain it because it’s not that I don’t like to travel, it’s that I’ve never really had the opportunity to.

Beth: That’s true. We want to go to Italy for our honeymoon and I think we’re going to have a blast and other places that I’d like to go to, I just don’t know if you’d have fun.

Sa’iyda: Yeah, I don’t know.

Beth: That, and the pop culture thing, I grew up really not liking it. It wasn’t aesthetically, or whatever the word is, auditorily pleasing to me. And I’ve had to learn to respect or deal with it because it’s on all the time in the apartment.

Sa’iyda: Respect sounds like a good word to use there.

Beth: Right. I don’t have to like it, but you do and, I mean, I love you. It’s not that I like what you like.

Sa’iyda: No.

Beth: What do you think our differences are?

Sa’iyda: I mean, yeah. I think the biggest thing to me is just our actual likes and dislikes are very different. Otherwise, I don’t really think that we have too many, but I think our likes and dislikes are different and are so vastly different that on paper we may not look like we work. But at the same time we do, because sometimes for us, it’s asterisks next to some of those things. It’s like we both like theater, but you tend to like more straight plays and I tend to like musicals or…

Beth: We both like movies.

Sa’iyda: Right. But we like different kinds of movies. You spent a New Year’s Eve watching Holocaust documentaries and—

Beth: I was very depressed, to be fair.

Sa’iyda: Either way, that’s the exact opposite of what I would do when I was depressed. If I was depressed, I would watch “Legally Blonde” or something.

Beth: Right. I like dramas and you like comedies, but even then you like drama and I like comedies, but we just like different kinds. Deciding on something can be difficult.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. But I think we do a good job.

Beth: There’s a lot of compromise and that can be hard when we feel like we’re compromising all the time. To meet somewhere in the middle. But as long as we leave space for us to enjoy the things that we enjoy on an individual level.

Sa’iyda: Because there are times where you’ll decide that you want to watch something that I don’t want to watch and you’ll watch it on your laptop or… I don’t know, but…

Beth: But you’ve also started watching some shows that I’m inclined to, and that you wouldn’t have.

Sa’iyda: Yeah, that I wouldn’t have watched. Sometimes I watch them from behind my fingers, but I still enjoy them. Yeah. And I am a creature of habit and I think I’ve turned you on to some of my habitual things. But sometimes we’ll just pick something out and be like, “Oh, I don’t know how we’ll enjoy this,” but then we end up either enjoying it or not.

Do you all have any shared dreams/goals for the future or each other? What are these?

Beth: I think that we both have artistic goals that are very compatible and can and are intertwined. I’m making a documentary film and you—you’re gesturing for me to continue.

Sa’iyda: Continue.

Beth: I’m making a documentary film about how queer women find connection or community and identity through representation on television. And it’s something I’ve been working on for a number of years. And you’ve come on board as a co-writer, being a writer yourself, who can read into my mind and know…

Sa’iyda: What you’re trying to say.

Beth: You have just elevated the project.

Sa’iyda: Thank you.

Beth: You’re welcome. And you being a writer and very much wanting to be a young adult writer.

Sa’iyda: Yes. One day I’ll finish that book. One day I’ll start it over again.

Beth: You will. You will.

Sa’iyda: And I think we have talked about… Because we both have theater backgrounds and I think it’s about time that maybe we put that money to good use. We’ve talked about potentially a theater company. You had your acting studio and expanding that maybe one day in the future and directing. I still have my dreams about the truly queer production of “Company” that I would absolutely love to do one day.

Beth: And I’m so on board. I absolutely see us as a family working on theatrical projects together.

Sa’iyda: I think the sky’s the limit for us, which is very exciting. It’s nice to be with someone—artistically and creatively—which translates into our dreams and goals for the future, that we’re so aligned and always have been.

What piece of pop culture do you share or what piece of pop culture reminds you of your relationship? What’s your movie or your show or your book or your song?

Beth: Oh boy, this is a big issue in our relationship.

Sa’iyda: I don’t think it’s an issue.

Beth: But I don’t like pop culture.

Sa’iyda: But we consume TV together.

Beth: Yeah. That’s true.

Sa’iyda: We consume movies and music together. There has to be something.

Beth: No, that’s true. I think music is a big part of… What was the question?

Sa’iyda: What piece of pop culture do we share or what reminds you of our relationship?

Beth: There are songs, like when we first got together, you made me playlists. You made me a mixtape.

Sa’iyda: I did. I wooed you with a mix tape, it’s true.

Beth: Yes, exactly. And I wooed you with music. I found out that you liked Taylor Swift, so I took out my ukulele and very poorly sang to you.

Sa’iyda: You did. You sent me that video of you brushing your teeth to Welcome to New York.

Beth: That’s right. That’s right.

Sa’iyda: Which I thought was very sweet.

Beth: There are numerous songs that could be “our song.”

Sa’iyda: Yeah. I think there’s different things to different phases.

Beth: There are, as you said, different points of our relationship. For instance Halsey’s…what’s it called?

Sa’iyda: Beautiful Stranger.

Beth: Halsey’s Beautiful Stranger was absolutely the beginning of a relationship. And from there, I think the next one…there are two for me, at least.

Sa’iyda: Okay.

Beth: One is Lover by Taylor Swift and the other one is Mirrorball by Taylor Swift.

Sa’iyda: You sense a theme here?

Beth: Yes. See what you did?

Sa’iyda: I did. I did. I think for me, yes, those and also it’s really hokey, but the song My Girl by the Temptations. I think for me, that was huge…it was the weird song that happened to come on a playlist I was listening to and I was like, “Oh, that’s what the love songs are all about. Her.”

Beth: Oh.

Tell us a funny story about your partner!

Beth: Oh Lord.

Sa’iyda: You go first and then I will come up with one.

Beth: Funny story about you. There’s so many.

Sa’iyda: Pick the least embarrassing one.

Beth: I feel like these little things are popping into my head, but…

Sa’iyda: Yeah. There’s moments, but I don’t think it’s a full story. I don’t think there’s a beginning, middle and an end to it.

Beth: I mean, I’ve fallen a lot. You’ve gotten some good pratfalls out of me.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. There was one time where you fell, not the time you got the bruise because that was painful, but there was one time you…oh! Bowser’s castle.

Beth: Oh, Bowser’s castle.

Sa’iyda: That is a funny story.

Beth: This is a good funny story. For both of us.

Sa’iyda: Yes. I think we could wrap it into one story. Our son is very into LEGO Super Mario. And so it was his COVID activity, I guess, or one of his COVID activities.

Beth: And the bane of my existence.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. For Christmas 2020, we had gotten him Bowser’s castle, which was the big centerpiece of that first set of things that came out. And we had spent most of Christmas day putting it together.

Beth: And it was very emotional.

Sa’iyda: It was very emotional. Well, also because the instructions are on an app, and so that was tricky. And then Jackson poured all of the LEGOs out of the bags, even though you’re supposed to go bag by bag. That was very tricky. But eventually we did it and we were very, very proud of ourselves. And then Beth doesn’t pick up her feet when she walks.

Beth: Nope. It’s a problem.

Sa’iyda: It’s a problem. And she stepped and didn’t pay attention where she’s going and her foot came up in the rear and just decimated Bowser’s castle.

Beth: It was horrible.

Sa’iyda: It was. Pieces were just in bits and shambles and Jackson looked at her and looked at me and was like, “This better be fixed by the time I wake up in the morning, because it’s bedtime.” And we were like…

Beth: Yes, sir.

Sa’iyda: Duly noted. We broke out his tiny Thomas table that he was using for school, his Thomas the tank engine table. And we set out with the app in hand to try to put Bowser’s castle back together. It was Christmas 2020, so we put on “Bridgerton” in the background, season one, to try to keep us awake and…

Beth: 2:00 in the morning.

Sa’iyda: No, I think it was later than 2:00.

Beth: Was it 3:00?

Sa’iyda: It might have been 3:00. It might have even been 4:00. It was pretty late. I think we watched almost all of “Bridgerton,” if not all of “Bridgerton.”

Beth: Yeah, and we still didn’t finish.

Sa’iyda: No.

Beth: We couldn’t figure it out. And so I was like, “Oh no, Jackson’s going to be very upset.” He gave us very clear instructions.

Sa’iyda: Yeah. You don’t mess with the seven year old who tells you, “This better be fixed.”

Beth: But when he woke up, he just quietly finished it, and thank God there was no additional drama.

Sa’iyda: That’s true. Well, that’s our interview. That was fun.

Beth: I love you.

Sa’iyda: I love you too.