A Fictional essay By Thomas E. (Ted-Tom) Genders
What to do … can’t go out in public … Walmart is out of the question because we have both tested positive for COVID-19, the Global Pandemic of 2020 and I just got out of the hospital tonight from a three-day COVID treatment. Time to get creative to save the marriage. Light bulb time. Think Bubba. I got it. We’ll play Valentine card shuffle. Time to call the wife in and explain the rules.
I’ll start since it was my idea. Here’s how it works: I’ll go get all the cards you ever gave me for Valentine’s Day and hand them all to you. Then you look through all of them while I have my eyes closed and you pick out the one card that impressed you the most as portraying your love for me and our goals together in life. When I opened my eyes, she was holding up the back of the card facing me and she said, “OK”. “Now guess which one it is”. “What!” “That’s not fair”. “Hmm, seems I left out a rule”. “Aw, come on.” She gave in and turned it around. The hard part was still ahead. I had to try to remember what was written inside; including the all-important signature comment line she wrote each year to personalize her message to me. I confess I failed miserably at this. Then it dawned on me what was special about this card. She was late returning to work after lunch the day she purchased it because she had spent so much time trying to find the perfect card. Valentine’s Day was truly the most important day of the year to her. That was the day I asked her to spend the rest of her life with me. Boy did Hallmark know what they were doing.
Guess I should have spent more time thinking about the finer details of the game before jumping in headfirst. Oh well. “OK. My turn”, She said. “I’ll go get your cards”. When she came back, I already had my eyes closed. She said it was ok to open them and I thought Wow. That was fast. When I looked, I knew I was in trouble. She was definitely holding up one card but there was not a stack laying there. Had she thrown the rest away or was my memory really going out the exhaust pipe and that was the only one I had ever bought for her. That was when I saw the oily stain in the top corner and I instantly knew which card that was.
That day was special alright but not the way you might expect. You see. I had just bought a used Hot Rod ATV and was anxious to get it off-road ready to race. Ah, the thrill of youth. I changed the oil in a hurry and decided to run to Walmart right afterwards to grab 4 new knobby tires while they were on sale. As I walked into the store the first thing that caught my eye was a long rack of valentine cards. Oh crud. They sure know how to merchandise. I had completely forgotten about it being Valentine’s Day. This was 15 years ago but I’ll never forget what happened.
I was frantic to be on my way to the automotive department to complete my goal but, darn it, I had better take time to get a card first, lest I forget later. I rushed up and down the aisle not really wanting to simply settle for anything but also not really wanting to mess with it at all that year. I gave in and grabbed the closest card I saw. In doing so I completely forgot about the motor oil all over my hands. Well, now I definitely had to purchase that one. I didn’t think it looked that bad so off I went to get the tires and get home to mount them and hit the mud for a test run before my wife got home. When she got out of the car she heard the roar and looked up just in time to see me spin around and sink into a mud hole in the pasture; the ATV and my body completely covered in mud. “Hi”, I said. “Want to go for a ride?” Grunt was the only response I got. “What do you want for dinner?” I shut my new toy down and followed her into the house. “Better take a shower”, she said. When I came out dinner was already on the table in the form of beans and hotdogs; and sitting on my plate was her gorgeous valentine. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know how much until I remembered the fate of my card. I had stuck it in my back pocket while changing the tires to keep It safe and it ended up in the mud with me. I slinked off to the bathroom and returned with a mud-covered Walmart bag and opened it as carefully as I could. It was too late to save the day, so I just sat down at the table and grabbed a pen and signed “I really do love you” “Wanna go for a ride?” Turned out she did throw away all the rest of my Valentine cards after all because that was the only one she wanted to remember from that day forward. The ATV was listed for sale the next day. Bubba messed up again.
™ TGENCO © 2021
