CANTANKEROUS

Cantankerous (a great word) = bad-tempered; quarrelsome; perverse.
Yes, that pretty much sums up a friend of mine.
BAD-TEMPERED = - not always. In fact much of the time she has a great sense of humor and keeps me in stitches. Like the time we vacationed together. We were staying in a grand old hotel that looked like something straight out of the movies: louvered doors, great ceiling fans that ran day and night, rattan furniture, and silence (even though the place was full of guests). And every morning my friend would sneak out of her room, gather up all the trays of dishes left out from the previous night for room service pick-up, and pile them up in front of my door. That was her good tempered side.
The other side runs toward the paranoid. Hearing of the slightest injustice she’ll immediately glom (I like that word, too) onto it as if she were the next victim, the next to be maligned, or somehow mistreated. “They’d better not try to do that to me!” she’ll rant, working herself into a red faced lather.
“I don’t think you need to worry about it,” I remind her. “You don’t live in the Brazilian jungle and that type of behavior is not common in our culture, anyway.” But once started, she isn’t easily contained.
QUARRELSOME = There are some days she just seems to need to pick a fight with somebody. “I’m on your side!” you may remind her. “Why are you arguing with me?”
“I’m not arguing,” she’ll argue.
One day during a phone conversation on a subject we both agreed on, she began to add a negative to every comment I made. Finally growing out of sorts I confronted her.
“Why do you always have to have the last word?” I asked.
“I don’t!” she replied and quickly slammed down the phone.
PERVERSE = Obviously, her perverse side comes into play when she catches people off guard with her bad-tempered, quarrelsome side.
FACT OR FIB? – you be the judge.