weaponized_incompetence tender_square a fictionalized husband and wife folded their kids' laundry, as they spoke of the cleaning power of a superior brand worth the added cost. "honey, you can't fold," the woman chided, as he handed her a balled-up shirt. "i know," he said. and she scoffed, rolled up her sleeves, and refolded the article of clothing. "isn't it funny when we laugh at the way men can't do things?" my friend remarked. she explained that on social media this new term has been circulating, "weaponized incompetence." "it's when, in a relationship, you ask a man, for instance, to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and he turns around and asks you to make a list because he doesn't know what to get." the air deflated in my lungs with audible sigh. so many years of matrimony were spent this way, doing double the work, running circles around my supposed "partner," with tacit acceptance that this is the way things are. "i'm glad there's a name for it," she said. the phrase strikes of bombast, of intentional assault, when the effects are more subtle and insidious than all that. but perhaps that choice of word is to shock us all into acknowledgement that it is real and it isn't okay. 230703 what's it to you? who go blather from