At any given time I have several research projects going on, but none of them give me greater pleasure than the cutting-edge research I've done in the field of Wife Trolling, the subtle art of irritating your significant other as way to express your love. Here at the Southern Minnesota Research Center I spend countless hours experimenting with new ways to troll my research subject (A.K.A my wife). Recently I've made a breakthrough discovery that I need to share in blog format since Wife Trolling doesn't have a journal (yet).
This new effective technique is based on several assumptions which may not always hold true for any given wife, but are generalizable across the population of North American wives.
- Women love Alanis Morissette
- Alanis Morissette has an irritating voice
- Wives like to remind their husbands of various things they need to do or have forgotten to do. The street term for this is 'nagging' although I prefer the technical term 'feedback.'
This morning I began experimenting with a technique where I would return feedback to my wife after passing it through an Alanis Morissette filter changing the tone and words to match the singer's style. For example, when reminded that I need to empty the dishwasher I responded with (loudly) "AND I'M HEEEER, TO REMIND YOU, OF THE MESS YOU LEFT IN THE DISHWASHER! IT'S NOT FAIR, TO DENY ME OF THE CLEAN SPOON I NEED TO EAT MY LUNCH. YOU-YOU-YOU OUGHTA KNOOOOOW!"
The results were immediately favorable. Subsequent trials indicated that this wife trolling technique is at least 50% more effective than previous techniques including dancing a soft shoe when reminded of chores which has been the gold standard in wife trolling since 2006.
This technique has only been tried with You Oughta Know. It is unclear if other Alanis Morissette songs will elicit a similar response. In future research I plan to try using Hands Clean and Thank You India to see if they can be used to effectively troll the research subject.
This research has only been applied to North American wives and the sample size is vanishingly small at this point. Ideally the research team could put together a control group of wives who would only be trolling with shoft shoe dancing and a second group that is trolled with Alanis Morissette.