Love me! Love me! (The flipside)

So I'm in the process of revising an article according to the comments and instructions sent by a journal editor who is also a big shot in my field. And I come to one of my footnotes, and there, in the margins of the proofs, is a note instructing me to add to this footnote a reference to a book I hadn't included--a book by the editor whose comments I'm responding to. The problem is, I know the editor's book pretty well. And I didn't include it in my footnote because it's not relevant to the point at hand. It's not like I'm some hermit who doesn't know my field well enough to reference the appropriate work. The editor's book didn't occur to me for the footnote because it's not directly related to what I'm saying. But s/he's the editor, and I don't want to fall out with the editor just because I didn't want to make a very small addition that probably no one will ever notice. So I massage and get uncharacteristically vague for one sentence and make the editor happy. But I'm feeling...used and condescended to and angry on one hand, and on the other hand sorry for the poor editor who, after so many books and keynote speaking gigs and named professorships, still needs to be told that s/he matters.