And so it came to pass that we were sitting at dinner the other night when my partner of eight-and-a-half years casually looked across the table and asked the question that brings at least one half of every couple to a point of sheer and utter panic each and every year:
“So, what are you planning for Valentine’s Day?”
Deer in the headlights look.
“Um … what would you like to do on Valentine’s Day?”
This is the response of partners and spouses everywhere. Let me explain why this reflexive response is very, very bad. First, it just goes to confirm that you haven’t actually made plans yourself. Second, it confirms that you haven’t thought of anything on your own. Third, it attempts to put the onus on the other person, which is really lame to do, particularly when the other person has been clever enough to put the onus on you. You snoozed, you lost. Deal with it. Later. On your own. When no one can see the sweating.
Then, of course, comes the following response, which is dreaded by partners and spouses everywhere: “Whatever you’d like to do. I mean, we don’t actually have to do anything.”
Warning: This is a trap. Selecting the “we don’t have to do anything” option is very, very bad.
As beads of sweat begin to form: “Well, I have some ideas … ”
As a general rule, I’m not a huge follower of the greeting card holidays. Ray is, however, and he tends to express absolute horror when I suggest that a phone call will suffice on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. “That’s not enough!” he’ll exclaim, and then he’ll point out gifts that are usually about 500% more expensive than I was considering (for all the grief that I give Ray about it, I’m one cheap motherfucker myself).
Which brings us back to Valentine’s Day. I suppose it’s only fitting, given that we didn’t do much for our anniversary. Well, we didn’t actually do anything for our anniversary. It had something to do with the Montezuma’s revenge I brought back from Mexico and my not wanting to look at food.
As for the night sweats, in fact, I do have ideas. I also suspect that they’re going to get blown out of the water in about an hour when the restaurants open for lunch and haughty maitre’ds begin laughing at me hysterically when I ask if they have open reservation times for Saturday night. To my surprise, they didn’t. However, I’m going to keep the final arrangement secret. Bwa ha ha!!
And sweetie? You’re in charge of anniversary plans this year …
