My name is Arsani.
People call me Sani.
The people close to me call me Nani.
But the kicker is, after a month of marriage, my wife started calling me Angah.
Angah.
Yes, Angah!
I have no idea where it came from exactly. But when I asked her, my wife said it was one of the nicknames of a character in a movie she liked to watch. And naturally, the character was the villain.
I love my wife to death. But according to her, I only love her sometimes.
Sometimes I love her, and sometimes I get mad at her, she says.
Even though... I've never gotten mad at her. Not once.
Sometimes I just don't realize my tone suddenly gets louder when we're arguing.
Then she'll get mad right back if I call her “my sweetie.”
According to her, in those cute little ears of hers, it sounds like I'm saying “night hag.”
Yes, night hag!
That's soooooo far off!
Astaghfirullah!
At least she's pretty.
At least I love her.
And at least she's already my wife.
One day, I asked her why she didn't call me big brother, big sis, Mamas, or brother dear.
And do you know what she said?
“Since when were we born from the same womb?”
“Angah's a man. Why would you want to be called ‘big sis’? Big sis is what you call a female sibling. Do you want to change genders?”
“Since when did we change ethnicities and become Javanese?”
“Brother dear? Why not water spinach, sloth, or Grandpa while we're at it?”
Huh?!
What kind of logic is that?
My wife is amazing, right?
And that's just the matter of nicknames. There's plenty more where that came from.
People say that after a month of marriage, you're still in the honeymoon phase. Sweet and warm.
Me?
As if!
There's always some kind of war going on.
From the cold war, where we glare at each other sarcastically, to the war of words that sometimes seems like it'll never end.
Luckily, we moved into our own place right after getting married.
What would we have done if we'd still been living with my in-laws?
But... strangely enough, every morning we wash our hair together. Then we laugh together.
To me, having a wife like mine is a blessing. She never complains, but she does love throwing jabs at me. LOL.
And she almost never asks me to do things nicely. She just gets straight to the point.
“Angah, buy some propane!”
“Angah, do the dishes!”
“Bring in the laundry, Angah!”
I want to be surprised, but at least she's my wife.
I want to complain, but I'm afraid she'll cry and then file a report on me.
By the way, my wife isn't the kind of wife who files formal complaints, okay? She just likes telling the whole family about things directly. Take note!
Honestly, it makes me want to scream and feel proud at the same time. It means she cares.
My name is Arsani. A name my parents chose during a family thanksgiving feast, complete with slaughtering a goat for an aqiqah naming ceremony. But to my wife, that name means absolutely nothing. LOL.
“I married the person, not the name.” That's her excuse.
I hate being called “Angah.” I want her to call me “my beloved,” like she did back when we were dating. But her answer made me think about it a thousand times over.
“We live in the age of Prabowo, not back in the days of kings.”
Arghhh!
I was frustrated. Seriously.
I was so frustrated that every time she called me “Angah,” I answered right away.
In my wife's eyes, I must like being called that. The proof is that I still obeyed her, even after protesting over and over again.
No matter how nice my name was, my wife would keep calling me “Angah.”
The other day, I gave her the silent treatment all day over that nickname.
The result? I went hungry. And lonely. Hahaha.
The laundry piled up, and the dirty dishes were even worse. The house was a mess, too.
She went on strike and stopped cooking.
My wife only cooked for herself, then went right back to binge-watching K-dramas until I waved the white flag.
I gave up. Admitted I was wrong. Lost.
My wife smiled proudly, feeling like she'd risen above the clouds.
Meanwhile, I felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper. First I fell, then I dropped into a ravine, and then I went tumbling down it too.