Tag Archives: romance

Happy Valentine’s Day from the clogged lint screen

My wife thinks I’m not as romantic as I used to be.

To this, I agree.

Also, our 15-year-old clothes dryer doesn’t dry clothes as fast as it used to.

Maybe we are both clogged with lint. Or maybe our heating elements are burning out.

After 19 Valentine’s Days, 19 of her birthdays, 19 Christmases, 16 wedding anniversaries, and 15 Mothers’ Days, it can become challenging to come up with fresh bursts of romance. 

Lately, it has taken lots of time and effort to keep that old dryer limping along. It’s had its triumphs and failures. It makes more noise now than it should. So do I.

We both wore out our belts.

Cards have sure changed since my youthful days of flaming romance.

I prepared to buy a new dryer, but my wife said no. She said these new computerized dryers have too many sophisticated parts that could break down and be expensive to fix.

Sure, they look flashy and seem full of promises, but they would most likely be unreliable.

She would rather stick with the dryer she understands—the one she knows where to kick when it acts up.

The one I can keep running, imperfectly, but consistently.

She gets annoyed at the old dryer’s many flaws, but she knows eventually the clothes will come out warm and dry, and comfortable.

We both get annoyed, but we are the only two who know all the old jokes, and understand why they are still funny. We couldn’t laugh so hard at anything else.

Even after all these years of hit or miss holidays, my wife is still a very attractive woman. I have little doubt she could have much more than a new dryer if she wished.

But I have even less doubt that she cherishes warm and comfortable things that she knows exactly where to kick.

I may have slowed down, but I never moved the target.

There must be something romantic in that.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the young lovers, young and old alike.

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Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a bear attack

Valentine’s Day isn’t my favorite holiday. It’s like a yearly final exam of love, and I never liked being tested. If you don’t have someone special in your life, you fail. And if you’re lucky enough to have a special someone, you probably fail anyway, because you used up your reserve of romance during those early days when you actually imagined you could top yourself year after year.

If you’re that guy who doesn’t do little things for your love whenever you see the chance, Valentine’s Day is your opportunity to make one grand gesture that you hope will sustain you through another year. I try not to be that guy, so I can’t say if it works, but it is a potential upside to the holiday.

If you do rely upon a yearly gesture, the fine folks over at Vermont Teddy Bear have just the trick for you. It’s a six-foot-tall stuffed bear that your lady love is sure to love appreciate be unable to ignore.

I’ve seen several commercials for the Big Hunka Love Bear in the buildup to Valentine’s Day. They are, to say the least, eye-opening.

All out of love

Oh no! Sold out! Now what kind of monstrosity can we buy to express our love? (Image: Vermont Teddy Bear Company)

If the commercials can be believed, and we all know they couldn’t put it on TV if it weren’t true, women go gaga over Big Hunka. That is to say, women who resemble supermodels go gaga over him. There were no women not resembling supermodels in the ad, so there’s no telling how ordinary gals will react.

But, on this special day, you want your woman to feel like a supermodel, right? When you flop this behemoth bear over her shoulders, she will know, if she has not suffered a concussion in the attack, that you still think she’s awesome sexy after all these years. Because nobody’s ever seen a Plain Jane hunker down under the weight of such a gargantuan plush toy.

According to the TV, your woman will adore this bear enough to frolic with him while dressed only in her most sensuous underthings, thus taking the pressure off you to cuddle with the half-dressed love of your life. In business, they call that a win-win.

I’m not getting my wife a Big Hunka Love Bear. She already knows I think she’s a supermodel. Plus, she’s not a large person and I’m afraid she could not stand the mauling. Moreover, I’d be crushed to discover that her other man is a stuffed bear. He may be physically appealing, with his hairy chest and whatnot, but I’d hope to rate well intellectually against such a rival.

The boys would like the bear, though I’m not sure I want them strutting around like supermodels. Little Buster would have a blast, alternating between petting the bear and punching him, because that’s just the kind of emotional psychopaths boys can be at his age. But Buster has me for punching, so we’ll skip the bear this year.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all, but especially to my supermodel wife. I love you more than a bear ever could, sweetheart.