That went well, although it was a little sad. I'm tied up all weekend with
the Pinewood Derby, and I'm gone Monday, so I got out the
Spending-Money-on-Silly-Wimminz's Day crap early. A gigantic oversized
card full of all kinds of gushy hoobah that I signed my name to, a dozen
orangeish roses in a big red urn-shaped thing with a teddy bear hugging it,
and a huge ass Hershey bar.
I bought the card at a truckstop of all places, as an impulse buy. It was a
little sad, because the cashier actually broke down and cried. "Sob. I
wish I had a man to buy me a card like this. If I got a card like this, I
would frame it, and I would touch it every day, and I would cry and cry and
boo hoo hoo hoo bawl sob sigh."
I got the huge ass candy bar because a huge ass card needs a huge ass candy
bar to go with it, and to make up for the months during which chocolate was
strictly verboten for poor SWMBO. The teddy bear urn thing was an impulse
buy because it was next to the roses. Wal-Mart sure has made buying a
dozen roses an easy thing. I once paid $52 for a dozen roses in a
florist's shop, back in college, when I was earning $3.80 an hour. I'm all
for Mom and Pop staying afloat, but roses die after about 2-3 days whether
you pay $100 for them or $10. Even with one of those schmoozy Lee Valley
flower recutter flummies (which I bought for SWMBO as a guilt gift while I
was ordering some tools.) That $52 dozen was dead inside 12 hours because
they drank up all the water, and she didn't water them. Ugh. If these
share the same fate, I'm only out $18. What the hell.
So I set up the huge ass card in such a way that it hid the huge ass candy
bar until the last. She pulled the card out to read it, and then she took
two steps back and squealed like a, well, like a girl.
We had a crappy anniversary, and she had a crappy birthday. I didn't buy
her anything for either fete because of all the hoobah we were dealing with
after her hospital stay and whatnot, so this was her
Annibirthdaversarytine's Day pre-blowout blowout. For the blowout proper,
I'll take her to some restaurant we can't afford tomorrow and blow $100 for
a bunch of crap I'd rather not eat, and hopefully get hammered on
margaritas somewhere in the process.
The other depressing thing was today, when I bought all this most recent
batch of crap at Wal-Mart. The cashier got all teary-eyed and depressed.
Not as maudlin as the first one, but it was obvious she was hurting. She
asked me when I stopped being interested in my wife, and I didn't quite
take her deeper meaning, so I made some smartass comment, and broke her
heart even further.
Well, it's not like I'm ACTUALLY thoughtful. I don't give a rat's ass about
Valentine's Day, or any of this other touchy feely lovey dovey crap. I
just bought her all this junk because I knew it would make her happy. It
did, but that doesn't mean I'm swooning with passion or anything. I can't
help it that most men are insensitive pricks. I really feel sorry for
women who are dumped on, and I sincerely wish I could be with each and
every one of them, to be there for them, and give them strength, and make
them happy by wasting money on completely frivolous, utterly useless,
pointless romantic crap for them. But I can't. I'm already spoken for,
and SWMBO does NOT want to share. I don't have time to give more than one
of these critters the attention they deserve anyway, or the money for that
matter.
I'm lucky that SWMBO is a cheap date. I've got a gazillion tools in my
shop, and I think nothing of dropping $100 or much more on something for
me, whenever I happen to be in a position to spare it. When was the last
time I spent $400 on something for her? The dryer doesn't count. The
really nice thing about SWMBO is there isn't much she even *wants* that
costs that much. Not desperately deep down gottahaveit wants anyway. She
likes getting overpriced pieces of metal and rock with no cords and no
moving parts (completely useless IOW), but she doesn't require them. She
doesn't say my $500 table saw means she has to have a $500 ring. I'm
really pretty damn lucky. Plus she puts up with my ****. I'm hard to live
with, folks, in case you haven't figured it out. I'm locked away inside my
own head a lot of the time, thinking my own thoughts, and I'm largely
oblivious to all the little mini monumental doings and goings on that her
life revolves around. Who's screwing whom at work, who's pregnant, who's
getting divorced, what color the wall border should be, how the toiletries
are arranged in the salon de crappée...
I guess the big joke on all the whiney cashiers in the world is that I don't
really care much either. I just buy useless crap once in awhile to show I
remembered I was supposed to do that today. Somehow that passes for
sensitivity. Or maybe is *is* sensitivity? Am I sensitive?
I have no idea. Probably not exactly sensitive anyway. Oh well, 15 years
and counting, 11 years of connubial bliss and stuff, I guess I'm doing a
good job of faking it anyway. Maybe that's the key to this whole thing.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/