A Byte of Romance

Glitter Globe Love--I Married an Engineer

What happens when an Archery Hunting Dilberty-Engineer marries a Part-Time Vegetarian Writer?

Stuff.

You know that last part of the wedding ceremony when the officiate says, “Let the games commence!” What? You don’t know that part? I think they usually whisper it, as an aside.

Maybe that was just at my wedding. I’m thinking about my wedding because it is anniversary time for Dear Hubby and me.

According to Hallmark this year is a precious metal and jewels anniversary. Please feel free to bestow these treasures lavishly, should the mood strike you. My Dear Hubby says I just like to put sparkly jewels in drawers but since I don’t like them to touch me, he won’t buy them. The man absolutely refuses to be a good capitalist in this regard, anarchist that he is.

Once Upon a Time we had a big fat white wedding. My mother-in-law invited her entire church choir. My father-in-law invited his bowling team. Most of the men in Dear Hubby’s family danced with me while complaining that it was the first day of small game season. (That’s a thing, apparently. Who knew?) I knew whatever they were going on about didn’t matter. I knew my Tarzan would stop hunting anyway, after the wedding, and we’d spend our days in idyllic bliss reading poetry, visiting museums, and dancing.

I got married very young and naïve.

As Dear Hubby’s BFF has often said to me over the years, “Well, I guess that makes you the dumb ***.”

WARNING—WARNING—WARNING: If you marry a hunter during hunting season, you will celebrate anniversaries with your girlfriends. This is not a bad thing. I just thought you should know. Either that or your hunter will quit hunting and you’ll spend your days in idyllic bliss reading poetry, visiting museums, and dancing.

Hey, we live in an infinite universe, right?

The first anniversary I recall being in the same place as Dear Hubby was our fifth. I was writing and I noticed the date. I called out to him, “Do you know what today is?”

“The day we turn the clocks back,” he replied.

“Yes, but it’s something else too…”

He got that worried look in his eyes that husbands get during pop quizzes. The next anniversary I remember celebrating together was a couple years after that. We’d traveled cross country to visit my in-laws, coincidentally it was also so DH could hunt, but he took me out to a really fancy restaurant and slid a pretty velvet box across the table for me. It was an absolutely spectacular silver and gold watch. I was stunned, especially when he waited expectantly for his gift.

“Um. I didn’t get you anything, I’m sorry,” I said.

“That’s okay,” he said. He’s a very forgiving man, but he looked disappointed.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t know we were giving gifts this year,” I said.

“Don’t we always?” he asked.

“No. I think this is the first time you’ve ever given me an anniversary gift. I love it.”

He slumped back in his chair. “Shoot. I forgot. I wouldn’t have spent the money, but I know I sent you flowers before.”

“I love flowers,” I said.

“I don’t like to buy flowers. They just die,” he said.

“Well, everything dies, including wives.”

“Hopefully not as fast as flowers do.” Why can I never win that argument? Fortunately, what with the wild success of my books, I can now afford to purchase all the mums and daisies I want at the supermarket—and they last really well, until the next royalty payment rolls in the following month.

Leading the good life.

And that’s what happens when an Archery Hunting Dilberty-Engineer marries a Part-Time Vegetarian Writer. At least so far. But as I like to say, “Let the games commence!”

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So, if you were to sum up yourself and your significant other, how would you say it? Part-Time Fashionista, and Full-Time S'mores Goddess, marries Beef Jerky Aficionado, and Free Lance Arm Chair Conspiracy Theorist? And if you don’t have a significant other yet, feel free to hypothesize and just make one up. I dig that fiction stuff.