The Pit of Love

"Happy Anniversary”. An excellent start. May be I could dig myself out of this Greeting Card catastrophe after all. On opening, it turned sour, “To A Special Couple”. Whilst there’s no doubt we are a “SPECIAL” couple, and not in a good way, my reserve card stash wasn’t offering anything I could fob off as pre-selected for my husband in celebration of our 3rd wedding anniversary, which was approaching faster than I could pop out to purchase the card I could have sworn I’d already bought.

As Accountant proudly bestowed his offering, delighted with himself for its early dispatch and tasteful frontage as opposed to the usual last minute petrol station dash to purchase mixed carnations and any card where a teddy and love heart had become inextricably entwined. It seemed as though our repeated 'chats' over my floral and stationery standards had finally paid off.

As he waited expectantly for his ‘good boy’ pat, I felt bad. Largely because I knew that all future arguments would now centre around the day I forgot to buy him an anniversary card. The day I became fallible. The day one of those pesky 3,420 balls I’d juggled so brilliantly for 31 years, slipped from my grasp and tumbled to the floor in slow motion. Drat. Drat. Drat. That’s when I decided my misplacement of one sodding ball wasn’t going find me slung into the ball pit with an Accountant for company.

I had two options:

Option One: Lie and Hope He Forgets.

Me: “That’s lovely, Sweetheart. Thank you. I’ve got your card but as it’s not our anniversary officially for another 2 hours, I’ll wait till then to give it to you so it’s extra special.”

Option Two: Distract and Hope He Forgets.

Me: “Thank you Sweetheart. I love my card, it’s lovely”

Apply hug of appreciation whilst turning over tv behind Accountant’s back to Baywatch reruns.

Me: “ Oh my god, what does Pamela Anderson think she looks like in that pvc thong?”

Accountant: “Where?”


After careful consideration, I went with Option Two. Job Done.