It was our Anniversary...

I dressed up.

I put on a black cotton shirt. With my shorts.

And new make-up.

My recently dyed auburn hair looked shiny and pretty in the mirror.

I checked my teeth.

No red smears across my thrice brushed pearly whites.

I was ready to go.

I went into the kitchen and his eyes lit up.

  I’m not just saying that because I turned the overhead light on.

“Wow,” you look really nice said my husband of thirteen years. It had been a tough twelve months to survive, but we had made it through one of the worst periods of our lives together…

…and even though it wasn’t easy…

…and even though many of the losses from the time period were catastrophic…

…we had survived…

…and we even still LIKED each other.

My parents had given us $50 dollars for our Anniversary. We decided to spend it …

all at once…

in one place…

in a splurge.

He opened the car door when we left the house.

He opened the car door when we got to the restaurant. We went to one of our favorite restaurants and got there early enough to stretch our bucks and feast on half-priced appetizers and $2 dollars off drinks.

We both ordered margaritas. I’m not much a drinker and when I do drink about ¼ of a serving does me in.

But, hey. We survived an awful year. Margaritas were definitely required.

Mr. Jenny looked at me all sweet over the rim of his glass.

He made a mushy toast…

…awwww…

…awwwww…

It was sweet.

We touched our glasses together…

I took a little sip of my margarita.

And started to choke.

Acccckkk!

Acccckkk!!!

My throat closed up and it was quite scary.

I gulped down water and was finally able to breathe again.

“Gosh,” I said breathlessly, ‘Can we try that again?”

So he did.

He said all kinds of mushy stuff...again…

…and we went to click our glasses together…

…and a piece of salt from the rim of the glass flew into my eye.

Seriously.

I scrinched up my eye and it started watering like crazy and the mascara I had carefully applied ran into attractive little black half-moons…

…and I had to run into the bathroom to get my contact out.

Seriously.

I came back and sat down in the booth again. I looked at Mr. Jenny.

“You know what?” I said, “Let’s just skip the whole toast thing. We survived this past year.  Things are going to start getting better now!"

Mr. Jenny sighed.

“Yes, we did survive an awful year,” he retorted, “Now I’m just hoping you can survive this dinner.”

So, yeah.

Happy Anniversary Mr. Jenny.

I’m sorry there’s not more dull moments being married to me.

Sigh...