Valentine's Day

So....… It’s Valentine’s day soon.
Who knows what extravagant gift Mrs Ed will be bestowing upon me this year?

I must say, to be honest (and you know that I seldom if ever sway from the truth), that aging spouse of mine has been somewhat slacking in the last year or two when it comes to the art of ‘romancing’.

Gift wise that is.

I’m even starting to suspect that she doesn’t feel quite so endeared to me as she did back then, when I could afford enough vodka to convince her to marry me.

If I think back to the first half of the life-sentence we’ve been betrothed, she was much more of a romantic soul. I remember when the kids were toddlers and sometimes the pressure of running the household became almost overbearing for me (if it wasn’t the continuous chatter of the young whippersnappers disturbing my afternoon naps on the couch, it was Mrs Ed shifting the furniture around to vacuum up the trail of mess they left in their wake) she always made the effort to try and make Valentine’s Day something special. There were times when she used to pack a picnic basket with sandwiches and a few bottles of Amber Nectar, put a blanket in the car and drive me to Jubilee Creek, where she would blindfold me and lead me deep into the forest for a sunset picnic…. Mind you even that was a bit strange, because she always forgot to pack a torch so it would take me ages to find my way back home afterwards. I remember how, as I staggered up the driveway hours later, I would always find her standing at the kitchen window, with that feigned look of disappointment on her face.

But alas, no more. The last few years have become totally humdrum when it comes to Valentine’s day.

It’s not that I don’t try from my side, I really do. Last year I put a big red ribbon around the new wheelbarrow (well, it was almost new – apart from the buckled wheel that tended to clang-clang a lot when she has a full load) but Mrs Ed barely noticed my efforts. And I think I told you about the year before, when she had mentioned she wanted me to go to the clothing store and get her something black and lacy for Valentine’s Day “to spice up our relationship”...

Apparently the safety boots weren’t what she had in mind…. Sigh…

(Worse yet, when I mentioned we couldn’t take them back because of the Hospice Shop’s no return policy she accidently let one of them slip out her hand and it flew across the room and almost broke my nose!)

Am I wrong in thinking that Valentine’s Day becomes more of a challenge as one gets older?

Perhaps it is coming up with something different every year that makes it harder, but one would think that we would get better and better at buying gifts for our loved ones as time goes on. Indeed I know of people who do. My brother-in-law has the whole Valentine’s thing waxed, I must say. Like most of us men he is inclined to forget until the last minute, but this certainly doesn’t deter him from being the best Valentine’s gift producer in the world…..

As the realization hits him (like it hits so many of us men on Valentine’s Day morning) he sprints down to his workshop and, after a general buzzing and whirring of powertools which lasts mere minutes, suddenly he’s back in the kitchen, presenting his deliriously appreciative wife a beautifully created wooden heart with both of their initials carved in the centre, or an Oregon pine coffee table with a cedar wood inlay of figures, remarkably resembling their entire family, or a bunch of roses expertly and oh so delicately welded out of metal…. with the buds sprayed a delicious crimson red…. (I won’t mention this brother in law's name for fear of recrimination by the rest of the world’s population of men).

But I am seriously not that quick thinking…. And there seems to be a large area of no-man’s land between my brain and my hands when it comes to making anything worthwhile. I have tried, of course, but it’s easy to tell that the home-made horrors I create aren’t quite up to the mark.

One year I thought I cracked it. Following the lead of my bro-in-law, I used the resources available to me in the garage, and created a beautiful bed-side cabinet for Mrs ED. She had been complaining that all her Brick-layers’ Guild magazines and her erotic novels were always in a messy pile next to her bed….

Actually, that’s a fib.

I had been complaining that all her Brick-layers’ Guild magazines and erotic novels were always in a messy pile next to her bed, and she had pointed out that there was simply nowhere to put them.
“I need a bedside cabinet” she had said.

Well, on the morning of Valentine’s Day I led her to the garage and pulled off the sheet covering my creation.
“Ta daaaaa!” I sang.

She was speechless…. For an embarrassingly long moment.

“Ta daaaaaaaaaa!” I said again, figuring she may not have heard the first time.

Still no sound. Admittedly, looking at it through her eyes, I suppose it wasn’t immediately obvious what it was.
“You’ve... painted our old washing machine…” she muttered, in more of a matter-o’-fact tone than an ‘I’m forever grateful’ gush.
“Yes! er... No!” I cried. “It WAS our old washing machine…. Now it’s your NEW BOOK CABINET…. For next to your bed…. It’s what you always wanted….for your eroti.. er… romantic books… and your magazines….?” I showed her how cleverly I had split the inside cylinder into two by wedging an old fridge shelf in.

“The top is for magazines, and the bottom for books." I explained, “You’ll have to be careful because it still turns a bit if its unbalanced…”

“Next to my bed?” she asked….. was she even listening to me?

“Look,” I said, hoping that a bit of romantic flair would save the moment. It really wasn’t going as I’d planned. “I’ve painted it red for Valentine’s, and I’ve written something special on the side…”
“That’s brown, not red. Actually it’s the left over creosote from when I did the fence,” she stated, as blandly as if she was at a Bland Union's press conference, “And that’s not how you spell my name.”

Huh! Anyone would have thought that she was the best valentine buyer in the world. Well she isn’t.

If I remember rightly, that was the same year she got me the mushroom book. Loving mushrooms as much as I do, at first I thought she had scored a real winner – the book was a big, hard-back affair, with colour photographs and all. It looked new but I soon realized it must have been second hand because of the mistake. You see, whilst the outer dust jacket of the book (which for some reason had been glued on to the hard cover) bore the title ‘Edible Mushrooms of the Knysna Forest’ , reading the small print inside on one of the first pages, I realized it was actually called ‘Eden’s Most Poisonous Fungi’.

I still haven’t told Mrs Ed - it would break her heart to know that the book shop had made such a terrible error. In fact still to this day, every time I mention I might be anywhere near the forest she always reminds me to keep a look out for mushrooms.
“You might find some really delicious ones,” she says “So take that lovely reference book I got you…...