Whatta Man, Whatta Man, Whatta Mighty Good Man

I wear the pants in my relationship with the Boyf. I have the career with the long hours, the insatiable sex drive, and the say in whether or not he can go to a strip club for a bachelor party. (He cannot.) Some might call him "whipped." I just call the arrangement "sensible."

But sometimes, we strong chicks get tired of making the decisions and dictating which way to steer the relationship. Sometimes we don't want to initiate all the important talks, and we don't want to mention, for the 40th goddamned time, that DIRTY DISHES FROM LAST MONDAY'S CHICKEN DINNER DO NOT WASH THEMSELVES.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when the Boyf took charge tonight.

We went to Bryant Park, in the middle of Manhattan, for today's Monday night summer movie: Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn. The atmosphere was, to me, classic New York City. We sat in the park, surrounded by trees and other people with picnic makings reclining on blankets they'd brought from home. Overhead, planes flew into JFK and Newark -- maybe a couple going to LaGuardia -- and the windows of office buildings all around us shone brightly, some off and some on, like jack o' lantern teeth.

All of this would have been fine the two girls (one in particular) who parked themselves directly in front of me hadn't decided to chat on their cell phones, to their friends, and to no one in particular at top conversation volume for at least the first 15 minutes of the film. They even snapped a few pictures of themselves hugging each other. On her cell phone, the loudest one asked a friend to "meet up with us" at the movie, which is nearly impossible considering the sea of people at Bryant Park during Summer Film Festival Mondays. I could see what was going on. She just wanted to tell her chic pals who weren't there that she was doing something New York-ish. She didn't care about Audrey. About Cary. About freakin' Walter Matthau.

So I got mad and turned to the Boyf, slapping him (gently) on the thigh. "Should I say something to them?" I mouthed, pointing down. "They've been talking the whole time!" (Here I gave the international sign for "talking," which is making one's hand into a mouth and moving it like a duck's beak.) He looked at them. He looked at them again. Then again. A minute later, I thought he had forgotten all about it, until:

"Excuse me," he said, tapping the loudest young woman on the shoulder, a stern look on his face. "I came to watch the movie, not to hear your chit-chatting."

"Um, okay, like, there is a nicer way to say that--" she said.

"You. Are being. Rude," the Boyf said.

"I would have, like, shut up in two seconds if--" she said.

"You. Are being. Rude," the Boyf said again.

They didn't talk the whole rest of the film. In fact, they left halfway through.

After they'd packed up their belongings, the Boyf leaned over to me and whispered, "I wasn't too harsh with them, was I?"

I leaned back to whisper, my lips gently grazing his ear. "You were perfect," I said. And I looked him in the eyes and smiled.