"Oh, look!" I said as we went into our town's premier supermarket yesterday, "They have tulips!" Actually, they had all kinds of flowers at the entry and in their floral department. Heart-shaped balloons floated above potted plants of azaleas, tulips and other gorgeous arrangements in a sea of color. It was Valentine time!
Men, young and old, were streaming out of the store with bouquets, boxes of chocolates and cards. I had to smile at their serious, stolid expressions, as if they were here on an unaccustomed mission they dare not ignore.
"I would like some of those tulips," I suggested to Howard. He said okay, but he had planned to get me some chocolates. "I would rather have the flowers," I said. After he put them in the basket, I remembered once I had received a pot of red tulips with balloons for Secretary's Day when I worked as our office secretary at church. They were so pretty and seemed to light up the house.
"A balloon would be nice, too!" I prompted my husband. I guess he had already considered that, because he said they were expensive here. "Well, there's the dollar store," I said. He told me they were out when he was there yesterday, but I felt sure they would have some. On pulling up in front of the store, I saw a woman coming out with a beautiful, inflated red heart floating by a ribbon grasped in her hand.
"See, she has a Valentine balloon; they must have them," I pointed out. He wanted me to go in with him, but I said, "I'm not going to pick out my own balloon!" Then as he trudged toward the store, I called mercilessly, "A red heart! Two of them!"
My dear husband has a penchant for getting something different than what he is sent for. I am nearly always surprised at what he comes up with. But when I saw him emerging from the store with a bright red balloon, I was relieved, even though the other one was a black-and-white zebra stripe, like the stripes on the pajamas I'd gotten a teen granddaughter for Christmas!
"Those are so pretty," I told him, "But what's with the stripes?" He said he thought I would like them. I tied the balloons to the flower pot when we got home, then I gasped in amazement when I noticed that the red balloon wasn't a heart at all, but a giant red star! Stars and stripes! How funny! Well, since I didn't notice it at first, I guess he didn't, either.
Lest I create a wrong impression, my husband is very generous, especially when he is reminded. I did just have a salon visit, and he's taking me to the church Valentine banquet where I'll be wearing a new outfit. Men are men, and thank God for them! But they are comical sometimes, as evidenced by a snapshot my son took at 7:45 this morning and shared on Facebook. A half-dozen or more guys were clustered in front of a greeting card rack, all with heads down as if praying, contemplating that all-important card. Today is Valentines Day, and I guess he had just thought of it, himself!
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