This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Coalescingchaos on 2023-08-10 04:09:05.

Every social group has something that unites them - some cultural hallmark they can collectively come together and claim as their own; “this is who we are, this is what we do.” Teenagers decry authority figures and the generational attitudes of their elders, and create their own lexicon of words that are utter nonsense to anyone two decades above them. Self appointed “cat people” will spend $1,000’s on their feline companion and insist their murderous furball is “just playing” when it scratches the shit of your leg with the ferocity of a lion bringing down a wildebeest because you dared to walk past it in the hallway. Australians are a friendly bunch, yet every second word is a swear and somehow the most vile insults are also simultaneously used as terms of endearment with loved ones. And of course, the strange but universal truth that young children and white women between the ages of 50 and 65 yrs of age find Minions to be the height of hilarity.

As I settle in for another night of no sleep in this empty king sized bed, I wonder how the creators of Despicable Me sleep at night themselves. I wonder if Eric Gullion is holed up in some French bunker, clutching a terrified Pierre Coffin? They should be terrified given France’s close distance to the “new holy land” of Switzerland. I wonder if Chris Renaud, clutching the Book of Mormon in his quivering hands, managed to make peace with God before his shattered ribcage pierced his organs - the result of being trampled under the feet of so many ecstatic and devout disciples of a different faith; one of his own invention? I wonder who the last person was to enjoy a banana before they went extinct? I ponder many things whilst I lay here in this new world in a time which is now divided not by the coming of Jesus Christ, but of a different holy trinity. But mainly I lay here and miss my wife; my sweet Jenny. My darling girl. I remember the vivid shade of red her hair was when we first fell in love in our twenties, and how it had faded out to a beautiful silver ash in her late 50’s. Or the deep tan of her shoulders when I kissed her neck on our honeymoon as we lazed on the beach, and how far removed that colour was when I last kissed her goodnight.

It started with the memes. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the term before they quickly became the method in which this generation communicates with one another. Jenny loved her Facebook, and she considered herself a ‘modern woman’ for knowing how use a social media platform. Sure, she still wrote out the full names of people without realising that she needed to use the “@“ symbol to ‘tag’ someone, but she was leaps and bounds ahead of her older siblings, whom would forever be confined to the “purity of the handwritten word.” Jenny wasn’t a woman whom engaged in childish things, hell, she hadn’t even SEEN the movie these freakish little men were known from when this all started, but something about them tickled her funny bone. I could never understand the appeal of what amounted to a yellow tick-tak with googly eyes and no grasp on the English language, but Jenny was smitten. And not just Jenny, but also her friends; forever sending each other pictures of those inane cretins with stupid, inane captions; “a balanced diet is chocolate in both hands” or “ I have a crazy sister and I’m proud of it. Share if you have a crazy sister.” Somehow anything to do with those little weirdos could induce a chuckle from my otherwise serious wife. “Ohhh honey you HAVE to take this online quiz to see which Minion you are,” Jenny chuckled one morning at breakfast. ‘“I’m a total Bob,” she said with a smirk.

Jenny’s growing obsession with Minions was grating on my nerves; it set my teeth on edge to see yet another printed out poster of the fridge of those little yellow bastards. But I held my tongue - after all, Jenny had endured many a year of my own interests in which she herself saw no value. She didn’t chide me for watching the same re-runs of Faulty Towers (now there’s a much deserved cultural icon) and I’ve never been one to dampen someone’s joy, no matter how ridiculous I may find it. I consider one of the cardinal rules of a successful marriage to be holding one’s true thoughts over a difference of opinion in trivial things of no real importance. And so I watched the movies with glazed eyes when she picked them for our weekly movie night, and smiled at her unbridled, thigh slapping laughter. “He’s wearing a French maid outfit!” Jenny gwaffawed as I shook my head indulgently. You must understand, I had no idea where this would end up. How could I?

The changes were small to begin with – the aforementioned printed posters, followed by minions tshirts, keychains and slippers. For Christmas she even asked for a set of the original three minions, and by God I went out and bought them for her, fighting off shrieking children and old women alike. They had a place on our bed, those three harbingers of doom. How I hated their goggled eyes staring at me. I can’t even pinpoint the date at which Minions became a part of our daily life, I just know that one day I slowly looked around my house and took stock of just how “Minion-ised” it had become. Minions coffee mugs. Minions throw rugs. Minions shower curtain. Hell, even last seasons fad of the “Live.Laugh.Love” sign was now replaced by one which read “Live.Laugh.Banana.” What the hell did that even mean? And then there were the neighbourhood ‘Minion Maniacs’ meetings she started to attend with other Minion enthusiasts. Local community and social groups folded as older women joined the ranks of the new faithful. I would overhear her giggling and talking absolute nonsense words with her new friends on the phone, as if it were a real conversation. “Oh Pete, it’s called ‘Minionese.’ Its an actual language I’ll have you know,” she huffed as she put on her new black gloves. What was once a strange endearment was now truly becoming an obsession, and my own annoyance was changing to concern.

Things started to snowball and Jenny was acting….strange. Her personality was changing. She had always been a classy lady - always adorned in modest makeup, a stylish wardrobe and a penchant for glancing down the chic frames of her glasses with that ‘sexy librarian’ look she knew got my motor running. She outshone me like a diamond next to a child’s cheap plastic ring. But a woman is more than her appearance, and her good looks were not the main reason why I adored my wife and so I wasn’t initially adverse to her her new denim overalls. ‘They’re just so comfy. I feel more… myself in these,” she shrugged when I asked her about them after she had worn nothing else for a straight week. Who was I to argue with that? Though I must admit that after later looking through a wardrobe that now consisted entirely of denim overalls I began to think differently. Then she changed out her regular glasses for some serious bifocal hardware. It looked as if she had seen the local welder rather than the optometrist. “Doctor said I needed a more serious prescription, Pete,” she threw back over her shoulder as she waddled off in to the kitchen. Then there was that. Jenny never “waddled.” But here she was waddling around the kitchen in those boots, muttering to herself in half words. But we were both getting older, weren’t we? Hips don’t stay like they used to, our eyesight fails us and comfort is King.

It was the new diet that really brought things to a head between us. Suddenly all she would eat were banana based dishes. Banana bread. Banana pudding. Banana pancakes. Banana fritters. Just plain bananas. Shopping would take hours as she scoured every green grocer for her delicacy. “And did you hear that Sandra has up and left Tony? He’s filing a missing persons report,” Jenny gossiped at the fourth fruit and veg shop of the day. “Wonder if she’s met up with that Cheryl who walked out on Philip around the corner whilst the man was at work,” she mused, stopping to give another shopper daggers for daring approach the banana section. I cooked for her day and night but she refused to eat any of her old favourite dishes. “My stomach is just very delicate at the moment, Pete,” she said in an odd tone of voice. My roast lamb went uneaten that night, but the overflowing green waste bin in the kitchen told me that she had eaten just fine. I was worried sick about my Jenny, and even more so when her hair started to fall out in clumps. “You have to eat something other than bananas, my love,” I pleaded. “You aren’t getting enough nutrients or vitamins from this diet. And you’re starting to look jaundiced too.” But she wouldn’t hear it. “Oh Im rounder than ever, and balding runs in the family.” At least I think that’s what she said. It was becoming harder to understand her speech.

I became so worried that I phoned our local doctor and booked a home visit. We’d known Dr Stevens since high school, and our own brood had attended school with his gaggle of kids, so he was just ‘David’ to us. He looked exhausted when I met him at the front door, long after his official office hours had ended, “some strange illness affecting the womenfolk, Pete.” As we walked through the house I could sense a quiet unease coming from him. “Doing some home renovations I see, Pete. I must say, canary yellow is a rather odd colour to paint the walls….and the couch?” I couldn’t be sure if it was the haphazard new colour scheme or the fact that all the photos of our g…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/15mz1oz/minions_destroyed_my_marriage/