On Friday the 13th, my husband and I set off on a quest. It had started that morning when I woke up to find my husband eagerly peering down at me from the edge of the bed.
“Do you know what today is?” He excitedly asked.
I slowly blinked my eyes. The night before we had gone to bed discussing all of the things we needed to accomplish, most prominently important was finishing the cleaning of the carpets that I had started the day before so we could get our house back together. In a too much information shared, both dogs had had two weeks of diarrhea, thankfully not at the same time, but it had made the purchase of a carpet cleaner necessary. I had spot cleaned, but I wanted to know that they were cleaner than before the last two weeks. Now that it looked like we might finally be done with the sickness, I wanted to go over the carpets thoroughly. I had finished one room, but all of my fingers had gone numb from the force with which I had gotten down on my knees and scrubbed, as only the best of us OCDs can do.
“Um, the day we’re going to finish the carpets. You are going to help me right?”
“No and yes.”
“Is it the day before Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes, but that’s not it.”
I was unsure what he expected me to say. Then I remembered the episode of “The Middle ” we had watched a few days prior. “Oh! Is it World Radio Day?”
He looked at me in exasperation. “It’s Monster Hunter Day!”
I sat straight up in bed. “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner? What’s the plan?”
It turned out that his plan was vague. This would not do. I quickly surmised that we would both need a new DS to play the new Monster Hunter games (a little bit of my love shown here) to the utmost of their awesomeness. They were being released that day after years of us waiting for them. Yes, I’m thirty seven. Yes, I love video games. Let me tell you one day of the year my younger sister got a Sega System for Christmas and I got boardgames. #notoverit. To be fair, my sister still loves video games, too. I think it plays to our love of fantasy. If you think you don’t like video games, but you read fantasy books, you might want to try them again. They have some games geared for folks just like us.
So, for the next hour I procured two new DS systems, and four video games (our kids play with us) at three different stores in three different cities. It was surprisingly hard. I had no idea the systems would be a hot commodity. We were lucky to get two, because I checked ten minutes later and all of the systems were sold out in Southern California.
My husband was thrilled.
Not about my awesome online shopping skills. I knew they would come in handy one day.
He was thrilled to be going to all of the different places to pick up the bounty we scored.
“It’s a scavenger hunt!”
I once made his day by requesting we hit five different grocery stores looking for frozen manicotti. He is easy to please.
We left at noon. We drove to the first stop and picked up three of the video games. On the way, I asked if we could stop at two different Costcos in the other cities because I had wanted to check out the different items they might have from our own. In truth, I was looking for more frozen manicotti. I have a problem. My husband was even more excited. Two scavenger hunts in one day?! I never needed to buy him a present again.
Two hours later, we arrived at our second stop. We picked up the last video game and our first system. From there we hit up our first Costco. We did not find any frozen manicotti. We did, however, find my children’s most favorite thing. A whole variety box of snack sized flamin’ chips. We also got some cream brûlée in little jars even though it is best made at home.
Another hour later we picked up our last system. We were high with the rush of collecting our prizes.
The last Costco was a bust, but we picked up some pizzas to have for dinner. By the time we got home, it was 6:30. We stayed up with the kids playing Monster Hunter in our bed until 1:00 in the morning. We set up our bed like those creepy grandparents in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” I ended up staying up until 3:00 trying to finish some quests.
So, the next morning when my husband woke me up, I had a new plan.
“Honey, I don’t really want to go out for dinner tonight. Would you mind if we just ordered Chinese food and stayed home to play “Monster Hunter?”
His silence scared me. I felt like I had disappointed him. He had been talking about taking me out for Valentine’s Day all week. Then his face broke out into a wide grin. “You are the best wife ever!” He proclaimed.
And that is why my house still looks like this.
And that is why I got no sleep.
And that is why yesterday was the best Valentine’s Day ever.
What did you do for Valentine’s Day? Did you dress up? Did you wear red or pink? I was going to wear the perfect pink and red outfit. It was a repeat of the outfit I wore on Christmas Eve. But instead I stayed in pajamas. And not the kind of pajamas one is supposed to wear on a romantic holiday. It didn’t matter. I killed a Great Jaggi and made a weapon with its hide. My husband declared it to be beautiful. Just kidding. He totally made it for me. He’s chivalrous that way. It was so romantic.
