By Sugar Mama
This is a very special month for me, as it marks my 12th wedding anniversary, the highly coveted year of … linen. I suppose if my husband decided to wrap me up a set of dinner napkins, I could always fashion them into a cat scratcher. But in all honesty, I haven’t held on this long to a man who still wears tube socks for a couple of doilies to put in my lap. Nope, I’m holding on for our 60th, to get the diamond I never got.
Sorry, the proposal I never got.
You know when you’ve found The One, but he doesn’t know that you’re His One, despite the fact you’ve told him as many times as the areas you’ve waxed since meeting him? Well, such is our love story: Prince walks into a room; Prince takes Princess’s breath away; Prince walks past Princess to grab a hamburger.
What the prince didn’t realize, however, was that I was no princess. I was a wench who was used to hard work as well as wielding a tight blouse. This was before Googling people, mind you, when capturing an address for nightly drive-bys was nearly impossible. No, I had to resort to good old-fashioned faking interest in All Things Joe to capture his attention—my “art museum” years I call them. That’s a lie. They’re actually called, “The Years My Legs Sprouted Varicose Veins.” Regardless, eventually he realized I was there to stay and that he was going to have to seal the deal or have me arrested.
He had the ring next to his bed in a drawer for weeks. (How I knew this is irrelevant.) Then one Monday morning before work, I stared at my left hand, as I knew everyone at work would be doing, and I just blurted it out.
“Why is my ring next to a bunch of rusty pennies and loose thumbtacks when it’s supposed to be on my finger?”
“What ring?” he asked.
“The one that’s been burning a hole in your drawer since May.”
Joe was crushed, of course, that I had stolen his moment. Or maybe he was lamenting his stolen future. Anyway, that Monday morning proposal to myself was the worst one I’ve ever received. As well as the only one I’ve ever received.
Joe promises to ask me to marry him when I least expect it. So every time he gets on one knee, my heart skips a beat. Sadly, it’s only to pick up a sock or to rub a scratch off the floor.
People ask us all the time how we do it. “How do you keep your marriage healthy and happy?” they’ll wonder. Joe says it’s because we have something to look forward to.
I say it’s because he has no idea what I do for a living.
Whatever the reason, happy anniversary to the guy who never asked. Not because you couldn’t, but because you never had to.
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