Rob Azevedo with a Valentine’s Day tribute to his wife (Sort of, kind of).
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I’m going to try, but I doubt very much, — actually, I completely doubt — that I’ll be pulling off any heroic Valentine’s Day tribute to my wife this Saturday. I just don’t have it in me this year. Wish I did but I don’t. Hate me if you must. Beat me with a bag of quarters.
I’m going shoveling.
Dunsky on the insides, this I am. Blame it on the unrepentant white beauty that’s been laid upon us in New England this past month. Good place to start. Winter is in beast mode! Just killing it. I can hardly even hate her yet, though. She’s so damn beautiful and still sprinkling the purist of snow nearly on a daily basis, landing like a whisper on windshields for miles. Barely hardened. Not even glazed over or shit stained in gray, just puffing up, high, clean and brutal.
My first thought for a Valentine’s Day tribute to my wife of almost 15 years and main squeeze for over twenty was to go roller skating. Yup. Sounds fun, right? Kick it old school, once again, this time not on some sandy strip of Candyland near the ocean, but inside a roller rink off a filthy roadway, where Whitney Houston is pumping out the speakers, the green and blue and yellow parade of flashing lights curling around the heated rink, the old carpets, the worn out plastic seats.
Oh, yes, I can still smell the pretzels and popcorn, the raw dogs and that thin line of “Loves Baby Soft” perfume that still lingers, I’m sure, throughout Roller World since the mid 1980’s.
And if I can drink a beer while I’m trying to navigate a Figure 8…well, well…well forget it. I can’t. We’re not going.
You need a crew of believers for something like this. And convincing ten 40 year olds that spending a night on Route One in Saugus, Mass. pretending we’re kids again, chasing the origins and innocence of love, is better than feasting on some unpronounceable entree in a tight ass restaurant, well, good luck.
Strike One on the Master Plan.
So, it was time to think about the Love Shack. Find a sitter. Buy something thin and sheer. Show off the curves, let it breathe. And maybe buy the wife something too. Light a candle and borrow the Tiger Rug from my buddy Snake. Hmmm, oh yes, I forgot, our children, they’re with us EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY! Or so it seems.
The night, in my minds eye, played out like a You Porn video before this realization. My goal was to unravel a host of tantalizing trickery for my woman. An “A” game performance it would need to be. No room for the shoddy, the rushed, the weak and conformed. Not on this blessed night of reverie.
Valentine’s Day, after all, is a fantasy. Is it not? Cooked up for weeks in desperation, feigning excitement, making reservations at places you could normally just walk into off the cuff on a Wednesday night. Same walls. Same plates. Same pretentious waitress that seems to be saying through every vowel that she has lived while you have wilted.
But you gather your rocks and strategize. Maybe we simplify the tribute and make a run to the mall together, grab an appetizer at some chain joint, rifle back a few tall boy beers. Then we can walk the mall and touch hands before pulling away in awkwardness.
I’d suggest gardening but my yard looks like Second Christmas in the Kremlin. Plus I hate getting my knees wet. Indoor tennis? Paint bar? Hockey Game?…I can’t take it! Pressure!!!
Hey, now, wait. I just have to show my wife that I love her, like, more than I normally do, right? Kind of make a dance out of it, be a puppeteer of sorts, wire the performance up right by pronouncing my words and losing the attitude.
I can do this. In fact, I can do this now, not in two days, not in two weeks or two months. I can do this right now, at this brazen midnight hour. Because there are two things I know: I love my wife and we both love cheesy, meaty dip on a flat cracker. And I think we have some in the cupboard.
So, up the stairs I’ll climb out of my frozen tundra of a basement office and I will pay homage to the woman that gave birth to my babies, that took my name, that saved me from a life of contempt and convinced me that true love is unconditional. I will look her in the eyes, grip her face ever so gently before asking: “How about some salsa with that dip? Tonight it’s all about you, Flower.”
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This post is republished on Medium.
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