February14
While browsing Walmart’s Valentine card selection the other day, I kept coming across variations on a theme: “They say that the longer a couple stays together, the more they start to look alike. Good thing we’re both so good looking!” Apart from the fact that this trope is not particularly funny, I eschew cards emblazoned with it because it’s simply not true of Mr. Burt and me. (Though, come to think of it, I do wear a lot more t-shirts and hoodies than I did when I met him eight years ago…)
Now, if there were cards that said, “They say that the longer a couple stays together, the more they start to think alike. Good thing we’re both so exceptionally intelligent and clever!” I’d be all over those.
Then again, that truth may be self-evident without its being expressed on a greeting card.
We don’t go overboard on Valentine’s Day in the Burt house, but we do celebrate it. I mean, why wouldn’t you take advantage of an excuse to exchange silly cards and eat candy and have sex? Not to mention it’s such a cute holiday–and you know a holiday’s legit when it’s got its own kitchen towels and dishes. (I’ve got the dishes, but will be hitting Target or Kohls tomorrow for clearance decor.)
And sock monkeys.
When I saw the sock monkeys at Walmart, in Valentine pinks and reds (or robin’s egg blue or jailbird stripes for the men in your life) with hearts stitched on their chests, I caved to consumer pressure and bought a pair for Mr. Burt and the Burt Squirt. (Monkeys are a bit of a thing in our house, what with Mr. Burt being a code monkey and the Burt Squirt just being a plain monkey and owning a bit of monkey paraphernalia. But I won’t pretend that any other thought than Must have Love Monkeys! influenced my decision to buy.)
Friday night, Mr. Burt went out to do a bit of Valentine shopping for me. Before he left, I told him he didn’t have to make a big deal of it.
“I just got you something little and silly,” I said. And lingerie. But I’m not so into being Even Steven that I wanted Mr. Burt to come home from Walmart with silk boxers or, God forbid, a banana hammock, so I kept that part to myself.
As it turned out, our Valentine gift exchange was a little more Even Steven than I’d imagined. Actually, I had imagined that Mr. Burt might be taken with Walmart’s Love Monkeys (that’s kind of a disturbing phrase, and I will never use it again) as I had been, and wouldn’t it be funny if he got me one, too? But I didn’t really think he would, as just a few days prior I’d remarked about how much I’m missing that gene that cares about stuffed animals.
Anyway, Mr. Burt opened his Valentine present from me and drew out a black and white-striped Love Monkey.
I opened my Valentine present from Mr. Burt and drew out a red Love Monkey.
(And when a boy Love Monkey loves a girl Love Monkey very much…)
If the Love Monkeys alone didn’t prove just how similarly Mr. Burt and I think, there was also the little issue of our Valentine date destination.
Earlier in the week I’d emailed my mom to ask if she’d be free to babysit Saturday, and when she wrote back to ask what time she should come over, I asked Mr. Burt, who was at his computer, when he wanted to go out.
“Noonish,” he said.
“What do you want to do at noon?”
“Hang on, let me check.” He started clicking around with his mouse.
“Check what?”
He didn’t answer my question, just said, “Yep, that’ll work.”
“What’ll work?” I asked, confused and intrigued, because we hadn’t even discussed what we might do for Valentine’s Day, not having secured Squirt care until the moment before.
“It’s a surprise.”
A surprise would be fun–except that I had this not-so-surprising feeling that Mr. Burt was going to take me ice skating. I had no good reason for suspecting this. We hadn’t discussed ice skating, not in relation to Valentine’s Day; a few weeks earlier the Groupon had been for ice skating, but when I mentioned it to Mr. Burt he was in the middle of a computer game and it’s a crapshoot whether he’ll hear you or not when you talk to him while he’s gaming.
Sure enough, Saturday rolled around, and when Mr. Burt asked me if I had any idea where we were going and I told him I thought he was taking me ice skating, his mouth fell open and he said, “How did you know? I didn’t give you any hints at all.”
It was true. We hadn’t discussed our Valentine date at all. And I hadn’t seen his email confirming his coupon purchase, because we have separate email accounts on separate computers. And the coupon he’d purchased hadn’t even been the Groupon one I told him about before.
“That’s not fair,” Mr. Burt whined as we drove down the tollway toward Stonebriar Mall. “I wanted to surprise you.”
I patted his arm consolingly. “You couldn’t have done anything differently. There’s just no accounting for ESP.”
We’re just a couple of Love Monkeys, with two hearts that beat as one.
(And we’re not too shabby on the ice, either.)