HappyValentine's Day, My True Valentine's Day Story

My true Valentine's day story

     I like to tell people I met my wife in a nursing home and we'll end our days in one. We were both personal care attendants or PCAs for short. That also is a true story, but not the one I'm telling today. The one I'm telling today is, like the title suggests,  about Valentine's day. 

     I was working as a nurse in the local hospital and my wife, Tracy was a student at the local university and was working on her degree to be a teacher. She already had a degree in biology and wanted to be a high school science teacher. I don't know what she was thinking either. As any good husband does, I said, "That's a great idea honey, follow your dreams. Reach for the stars", and that's what she did. She spent a great deal of time at school and was doing her student teaching, which included creating lesson plans and teaching in-person to a lot of little shits who couldn't have cared less, about her lesson plans, her teaching, school, or anything for that matter. Suffice it to say she was busy and sleep-deprived

     Some back story, we were married at this point and living in her mom's house, in the basement. We were saving money for a downpayment on a house, and the rent we were paying was helping my very cool mother-in-law. (How did I know she was cool? She listens to Pink Floyd, nuff said.)  We had a moderate-sized bedroom and Tracy had been on the Trading spaces show kick and thought because she watched the show she was a qualified home interior decorator. She painted the bedroom with a dark purple base coat and sponged silver paint over the purple. I have to be honest, It looked good, and I liked it, but  I will proudly proclaim my inadequacies at home decorating and be the first to say I don't know the first thing about decorating. The only reason I bring up the color of the room is, somehow Shopko, a local big box store, had a polyester bedspread that matched the silver and purple paint. At least that's what she told me. There is a point to all this prattle just hang on. 

     This particular Valentine's day morning Tracy was at school and I didn't have to work until the evening. I wanted to be a dutiful husband and do something nice but not stereotypical and unoriginal. My idea was to buy a heart-shaped helium balloon, a card, and a bag of heart-shaped dove chocolate. I wrote how much I love you, and you are the world to me, I'm so lucky... yada yada yada. I still feel this way, especially since she is my proofreader.  I placed the card on the bed with the balloon and placed the heart-shaped chocolate in the shape of a heart around the card and balloon. Placing heart-shaped chocolates in a heart shape, that was the, "Me being original part." I had to go to work before she returned from school so I looked at my romantic handiwork and smiled to myself as I set off for work. 

     When I returned home from work I asked my beloved what she thought of my romantic handiwork. She looked at me and said, "I saw the card and the balloon, very nice." "What about the chocolate hearts in a heart shape?" I asked. She was looking at me like what chocolate hearts in a heart shape? I explained the originality factor and went to the bedroom to find little heart-shaped chocolates lying on the floor, and on the bedspread. "What happened?" I asked

     Tracy explained she was extremely tired and came home and just swept everything off the bed in one motion of her arm and fell on the bed to sleep. She hadn't seen the heart-shaped chocolates in a heart shape. She thought she had brushed everything off the bed, but... she hadn't, instead, she lies down on the chocolates which slowly melt under her onto the new purple and silver bedspread that somehow matched the bedroom paint and her pants.  When I pointed this out to her she was very sad. She washed the bedspread and pants several times, first in cold water, no luck, then in hot water, still no luck. The chocolate was now a permanent part of the bedspread and pants. It smelled really amazing when she put them in the dryer and the whole basement smelled of chocolate. 

     Sometimes when we are arguing she will bring up something I did years ago and I only have to say, "Bedspread." She will stop arguing and get misty-eyed. Her lower lip will quiver and the argument is over and she will feel guilty and I will tell her I love her, she will ask for a hug. "It was a long time ago." I'll say. "Yes, it was." she will agree, "But that bedspread really matched the silver and purple paint and really tied the room together,"  she says. 

     I know it's not a romantic story but it is a true story. I do love my wife, we have been together for twenty-one years, and have an angsty teenager bringing us all the joy that comes with that.  

     I know it isn't much and it's not that great of a story but... well,  Don't judge me! You don't know me! I can live my own life as I want! Life isn't all romance you know.  There's being mad at each other and sometimes yelling, boring day-to-day tedium but we love each other. You're probably gonna end up sad and alone after four of five divorces so Piss off.