Thursday, June 13, 2013

Married Romance

[Note: This post was originally published on The Mrs on June 25th 2011.]

Yes. Married romance.

And no, this isn’t an oxymoron. And it’s not what you might think.

Mr Lannis has gotten a pretty good pass. Like, for the last seven years, he hasn’t had to really haul his weight in the romance department. Believe it or not, I’m pretty easy going. Which is to say that I don’t need a lot of creativity, I just need to know that he’s thinking of me.

Flowers and chocolate would do.

It would, except I’m allergic to perfume, so most flowers are out (he claims it’s conspiracy that roses, oddly, don’t bother me). Also, knowing I’m a recovering chocoholic, he’s not too keen on the idea of bringing something into this house that will incite me to snort its shavings...

So what is ‘married romance’ in my humble opinion? It’s those teeny tiny things that we do for each other; the ones that say we’re thinking of each other, that we care about what our partner cares about, even though we may not.

Case in point? My bumper sticker.


Yep, you read that correctly.

This past weekend, Mr Lannis decided to take our boys on a field trip in the mom-mobile. To a midway fair. Without me.

I have no issues with this. If he wants to cart them around and brave the crowded, expensive, whiney, cotton-candy-sticky fairgrounds and ferris wheel, it’s all right with me. He’d just better be prepared for puke (true story — ha!).

Anyhow. When taking my oldest to school the next day, I walked around the back of the van to see... nothing.

Background: enter the geek-tastic bumper sticker. A rather rare bumper sticker — like, can’t find it on eBay rare.

And yes, I’m a geek. A rather big stupendously huge one, when it comes to a certain fantasy series.

Like, flew to another country to celebrate said book series for a long weekend, hardcore fan (see visual proof here).

My hubby knows this. He’s read this series, but he’s not into it like I am. At this point, I’ve been reading these books for twenty years and they’ve been grandfathered into our relationship. Technically, I’ve been involved with the books longer than I’ve been involved with him — it doesn’t really matter what his opinion is, I’d still have flown down for JordanCon. Ha!


So. When I walked around the back of the van and saw nothing...? Well, “panicked” would be an understatement.

My bumper sticker — my ridiculously geeky-yet-cool, extremely-rare-and-coveted-official-WoT bumper sticker, GONE?!

I had stuck it to a sheet of magnet before adhering it to the mom-mobile, in accordance to Mr Lannis’ issues with marring the vehicle-we-plan-to-own-for-the-next-ten-years’ resale value (seriously. I rolled my eyes, too).

Someone stole my freaking sticker?!

I raged.

I grumbled and fumed and grunted and growled until my four year old wanted to know why I kept saying, “your father!” that way under my breath. When I replied, “Mommy’s ‘Bela’ sticker is missing,” he blinked, and offered up the holy grail...

“I think Daddy took it off.”

Pardon cowboy?

I dashed to the back of the van, popping the hatch. There, in with the reusable grocery bags and folding lawn chairs, was my sticker!

He’d removed it! When parking in a busy area, where the presence of possible shit-disturbing teens other crazed Wheel of Time fans was likely, he’d had the forethought to rescue my sticker!

This is what I’m talking about. He wouldn’t shed a tear if someone stole Avi-van-dha’s* bumper sticker. He wouldn’t care.

Sure, arguably I would have made his life hell for a while, and he’d probably care about that. But really? If that slap of plastic and magnet had disappeared forever, he wouldn’t’ve blinked twice.

But he knew it meant something to me, so he made sure it couldn’t happen.

This is married romance. He cares about what I care about, not because it’s also important to him, but simply because it’s important to me.

Sure, it’s not a grand gesture, and it may not truly be brag-worthy, but that’s what makes it meaningful.

And I’m still a-braggin’. I love this man.


* Yes, our van has a name — after a character from WoT, naturally. And like all self-respecting geeky fans, I am gloriously proud of it. The Mrs and taxes? Yeah, that’s me and WoT. Yep.

5 comments:

  1. This made me smile the first time I read it, and still does...

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  2. EricisnotagiantsquidJune 18, 2013 at 7:45 PM

    1. I have those exact books lined up in nearly the same way! Or I did until my bookshelf collapsed. Now my office looks like the back of a used book store where nobody goes except to hide or perhaps revel in chaos.

    2. It quite honestly never occurred to me Bela might be a darkfriend. I mean, she gets around. That's for damn sure. But darkfriend? Nooooo.

    3. I'm going to have to re-read or Google or something... but a lot people ride the heck out of her. This is starting sound 70's porn-ish.

    4. I love lists! Bullet points with circles, arrows, dashes and stars. It's like Wingdings was written for me.

    5. Bela's a horse folks. An old mare that just happens to always be where some of the best action is... Kinda like Bill from Lord of the Rings, but way way way more involved.

    6. Crap... I'm now giving your readers a synopsis of both Wot and LotR. Don't you hate readers that totally give up the spoilers?

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  3. My all time favourite married romance conversation went something like this:


    Me: |sigh| horrible day at work... What do you want for dinner?
    Him: Takeaway?
    Me: oooh, yes please...
    Him: You get the fried chicken, I'll get the beer
    Me: This is why I love you. See you at home.

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  4. Now I love him, too. Sharesies? ;)

    ReplyDelete