4 years of wedded bliss

According to Wikipedia (oh would my students be proud of me or what? I began my research inquiry with a rigorous google search, too, because I am a big giant hypocrite and apparently all the stuff I said about library search engines and scholarly sources is good enough for them but not for me because summer school is over! well, after today it is), the traditional 4-year anniversary gift used to be linen or silk, but now it's appliances. Which totally makes sense because the life of most of our appliances seems to be right around 4 years. We've had a couple air conditioner scares this cool summer; the washer leaves stains, and the dryer doesn't always dry. Also, our fridge makes puddles, and the other day our dish washer leaked all over the kitchen floor. And, you know, we've been mourning the loss of our grill all week.

In lieu of gifts for this anniversary we've just started sending Sears our paychecks since it seems like we'll be stocking up there any second now. Oh the glamour.

Last night while we sat on the couch and watched Tin Cup edited for the Golf Channel, Ben looked at the clock and said, "9:30, huh? This time 4 years ago, I was just going out to get drunk before our wedding. "

"Yeah," I said. "And remember how you were still drunk when the ceremony started at 4 THE NEXT DAY?"

He laughed proudly. "I had a few beers around 2 that day because I needed to stop sweating and shaking," he said with a beatific smile, his eyes a little shiny, as he stared at a spot about 8 inches above Kevin Costner's head and fondly remembered stumbling around the hotel lobby looking for coffee the morning of our wedding like a bear rummaging for hikers in the early spring.

Happy Anniversary Ben! I love you. So glad you got drunk enough to take the plunge.*


*I'm kidding! Kidding! I kid!
**Not about the love or the happy! About the other thing!