Paul made a Wednesday trip to the West Side Market for fresh flowers and salmon. On Thursday evening, Valentine's Day, I came home to find him cooking Andrew Weill's recipe for easy poached salmon, the first thing he ever cooked for me almost six years ago. We dined on my heirloom china by candlelight, listening to the same Sinatra CD that was our soundtrack on our first Valentine's Day five years ago, when he proposed. We then watched a movie on DVD (cleverly combining my required movie viewing for this week's essay with the pleasure of watching a romantic comedy with my sweetie) and then went to bed early. Predictable? Perhaps, but we wouldn't have it any other way.
We don't do gifts on demand (Christmas, birthdays, Valentine's Day, etc.). Why not just opt out of that tangled web of obligation, pressure, and analysis of what-is-this-person-trying-to-say-by-
choosing-to-give-me-this-particular-object? I always tell Paul that he's got a lifetime A+ from me :-) No need to continually pass more tests and jump through hoops just so that I might deign to "renew his license" in the In Karin's Good Graces Club.
He did surprise me that evening with a really sweet card that had a great story. The story just makes it. Let me set the scene for you. It's Wednesday night, February 13, in the holiday/seasonal aisle at the Rite-Aid Drug Store. The red and pink bags and heart-shaped boxes of candy appear as though a natural disaster has just passed through, followed by looters and scavengers bent on survival.
The shelf of Valentine's Day cards is in a similar state. Now we know the card selection at the drugstore is never the greatest to begin with, but the pickings are mighty slim by Valentine's Eve. If you limit yourself to cards meant to be given to a female significant other, your options are truly pathetic.
In one corner, you have the "humorous" cards. This can communicate such tender sentiments as "You're a saint for putting up with my habit of [leaving dirty socks on the floor/laying around on the couch, belching Dorito breath, bellowing like a walrus at the game/insert other clueless, boorish, "male Neanderthal stereotype" behavior here] and once a year I'll tell you how much I love you because Hallmark expects me to." Be still my heart.*
Alternatively, there are the ones with pages of purple poetry in Italic Script. At least the guy is trying, but it's not like he would ever say such things if they weren't pre-printed. It's more about what he thinks she wants to hear.
Paul, realizing this wasn't looking promising, expanded his field of card candidates to the ones in the "To My Husband" category. (This explained why the back story was necessary.) He was just looking for one that was sincere and direct. I guess the card industry thinks that only a woman would want to give a card that simply says "I Love You" without a joke to diffuse the awkwardness. The inside of the card says, "Saying it a million times still wouldn't be enough. Happy Valentine's Day to My Wonderful
*What is it with American wives' seeming obsession with their men leaving dirty socks on the floor? Even Michelle Obama mentions it as one of Barack's annoying habits. Articles like this really bug me too. Are most married people in America really relating to their spouses at this level?
1 comment:
Oh MAN!! You are hilarious! I love your rendition of the sappy no-guy-would-ever-say-this cards. David and I like reading cheesy rhyming cards in a low-pitched Brooklyn accent, like an old woman who'd been chain smoking for 50 years.
As for the treating your husband like a dog thing, we really lucked out by getting two very evolved men who are highly intelligent and sensitive to their mates; if something David does bothers me, I can just tell him about it and explain why it's important to me that he stop doing it, and he usually does. I would guess by reading about "training" techniques that many men are not as "evolutionally endowed". :) If they persist on behaving like animals, even after repeated attempts by their wives, then perhaps they deserve to be treated like them. Just a thought...
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