Four-Score

Bee and I just celebrated our four-year wedding anniversary. Which is like twenty-eight years, if you're

1) a dog

or

2) a working-class couple with two (at the time) jobs, two mortgages, a teenager and a toddler.

I'm actually not complaining. And I adore being married, despite how my previous statement may sound. It's just, doesn't it sometimes seem like you just got married yesterday, but at the same time, you're so comfortable with your life that it could have been ten years ago?

We celebrated our anniversary by not celebrating. Truth be told, our month anniversaries, the ones we celebrate on the 6^th, are more significant to us than our wedding anniversaries. And since our wedding anniversary comes just three days after one of those month anniversaries, it kind of snuck up on us.

“I didn't get you anything,” Bee warned me the day before.

“Good,” I sighed, relieved, “because I didn't get you anything, either.”

“Well, should we do anything?” Bee asked.

I considered it. “I suppose we could go see a movie or something, if S.B. is around tomorrow to watch Mr. C.”

“No, he won't be around.”

 

“Oh,” I shrugged. “OK, then; let's not do anything.”

We both happened to wake up just after midnight, so we sleepily wished each other a happy anniversary. And Bee called me at work so we could re-confirm our well-wishes, as well as our complete lack of plans.

As I was driving home that night, I called Bee to let him know I had left work a little late. “Well, dinner will be on the table by the time you get here,” he said.

“Oooh, with candles and everything?” I teased.

“Uummm, maybe,” he hedged. Truthfully, I didn't really expect candles. I would have been pleasantly surprised with placemats.

“Maybe I should stop at the grocery store for some wine and cheese or something,” I mused.

“We don't need cheese,” Bee disagreed. “I have corn.”

Apparently, in Bee's mind, cheese and corn are an equal substitution. See? Even after four years of marriage, I'm still learning about him.

“Wow,” I breathed, “Really? Nothing since romance like corn!”

By the time I'd gotten home, Bee had shoved around the mess on the table enough to clear three spots. He set out plates with steaks, rice, and the romantic corn for the baby and us. No candles or placemats, but he used real napkins.

“Hey,” I exclaimed, “these are the napkins the restaurant gave us on our first anniversary! You remembered!”

“Of course I did,” he said calmly, but I laughed to realize he was lying.

 

We smiled at each other across the table while we ate and helped Mr. C with his food. As I finished, Bee jumped up. “I've got a couple of surprises for you,” he smirked. “The first one's in the freezer.”

“Assuming it's not a dead body, I like the sound of that,” I replied.

Bee produced with a flourish three tubs of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

“Baby, I love it!” I crowed.

“I got flavors I thought you'd like,” my darling husband explained, showing them to me.

“They're perfect,” I said, clutching the cold pints to me.

“I got you something else,” he twinkled. “It's a poem.” He showed me a card he'd made out of a picture of us with Mr. C, taken from a photo booth at Chuck E. Cheese's. We'd tried to take about six photos in that booth; all of them had looked horrendous. The particular photo Bee had chosen on which to write his poem showed me grimacing as I stared askew at the camera, while Bee was caught in a perpetual state of apparent confusion and Mr. C – ever the wiggler – was an alien-looking blur between us. Bee had thoughtfully 'laminated' the card with strips of clear packing tape. A few of them were almost even flat.

“I'll read the poem out loud,” Bee said, proudly starting in.

You must understand that Bee is not a poet, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Right after we were married, for instance, he wrote a love note that read: 'I love our new life/With you as my wife/ I look forward to eternity/With hope and certainty.' That was one of his better ones.

This new poem was filled with such gems as 'Do me now/Yo-Yo Master/Out pops Mr. C/For ever after' There was no smooth beat, and the rhymes were a stretch. Not to mention the atrocities he committed to the written word via misspelling.

And yet, none of it mattered. I sat across the table from him, grinning like a love-struck idiot while he read me his testament to this auspicious day. No one would understand the subtleties of the poem but us, which made it all the more special. And the fact that he'd taken the time to compose it meant more to me than anything.

As he finished his rendition, I clapped enthusiastically, then clutched the love note next to the pints of 

Ben and Jerry's near my chest.

The man knows just how to melt me.