A Valentine’s Day Dilemma

February 13, 2014.Reading time 5 minutes.

“Henry, what’s the matter, boy?” George Lee asked his son. “You’ve got that stress face your mother and I worry about.”

Henry quickly scrambled to cover the red and white clipped paper on his desk. When he looked up and met his father’s gaze, he found a measure of comfort in his concern. “Teacher gave us an awful assignment, and I don’t wanna do it.”

George chuckled, “I’ve never seen you shy away from anything too hard. What is it? Math? History? I can help you with those. If it’s writing your mother or Dorothy would be a better help.”

“It isn’t any of those.”

“Well, what is it then, son?”

Henry looked around to see if either of his sisters or mother were within earshot. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell his father what he had to do, but knew the man was going to pull it out of him somehow. Reluctantly, he answered, “I gotta make a card for someone. A Valentine’s Day card. And it’s awful.”

George Lee started to laugh, but noting the angst in his boy’s eyes, he caught himself and took a seat beside his boy. “Here now,” he said. “That doesn’t sound so bad. You used to love to make pictures and such.”

“It ain’t the making that’s so bad,” Henry lamented. “It’s the giving.”

“Well, what’s Virgil going to do?” George asked before pondering the question. He typically wouldn’t use Virgil Creech for any sort of standard of behavior.

“Aww, he’s sweet on that old Esther Haywood. So he’s got all kinda big plans about making something for her,” Henry explained. “Said he might even put a quarter in his card so she can take him to a picture show.”

Again, George stifled a smile. His boy was on the cusp of the wonderfully tragic discovery of girls, but obviously not there yet. “Didn’t he get in trouble for putting a cockroach in her hair last week?” he asked. “God help the poor girl Virgil sets his sights on.”

Henry laughed and the tension in his face eased somewhat.

“Isn’t there any girl you think is just okay?” George asked.

Henry thought for a moment. “There’s Abigail Jacobs. She’s not too bad.”

“There!” proclaimed George. “Make it for her.”

“She’ll slug me if I make it for her,” Henry said. “She already warned us if she got anything from us boys, something bad was gonna happen.”

“Well son, I’m out of ideas,” George said as he rose to go. “Surely you can come up with someone.”

“Dad, what did you get for Mother?” Henry asked, only to watch his father turned as white as the paper on the desk.

“I completely forgot,” George said vacantly. “And the stores are closed now… Oh, tomorrow’s not going to be pretty.”

George left his son alone and spent the duration of the evening plotting his own plan to stay out of trouble, while Henry finally finished his work.

In the morning, George came into the kitchen to see his wife cleaning up after the children’s breakfast. Instead of the reception he dreaded, he found himself met with a very loving embrace.

“George Lee,” Harriet gushed. “Of all the sweetest, most wonderful husbands, I do believe you are the best.”

As she squeezed the shocked man once more, he noticed over her shoulder a colorful card made of the very paper he had seen on his son’s desk. He couldn’t make out the words but he knew that Henry had not only found someone to make a card for, but saved his father’s hide in the process.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Portsong!

The DVR Effect on Husbands

February 11, 2014.Reading time 4 minutes.

I have always been told I was a selective listener. If I were called to stand trial for this deficiency, my mother would be the first witness called to the stand. Countless times my chin rested in her hand while she said those five words all boys hate: “Let me see your eyes!”

Teacher after teacher could give valid testimony against me. But the prosecution’s star witness would be the woman who’s suffered with my malady for the longest – my poor wife. When I zone out, she constantly gives me the look that lets me know she’s onto me. Rarely does she patronize me with the five-word command, but she has ways of making sure I’m listening. Some are gentle, some are not.

When we found out I had hearing loss in both ears, I immediately pegged it as the culprit. Truth be known, it’s not. If I were brutally honest, I would admit that I hear some things and choose to keep my head down. Unknowing, unhearing, un-responsible for whatever I’m being told. I know, it’s not healthy and not good. But don’t act all holier than thou, men. As if your sense of smell suddenly abandons you whenever you hand your baby back to your wife and didn’t happen to notice their full diaper.

So there has always been an irritation. The onset of the Digital Video Recorder has grown it to a plague. In my television viewing, no longer am I required to pay attention to anything. I can give the TV a cursory glance and if I want to go back, I can hit the magical button that pushes time backwards fifteen seconds to fill in the blanks. It is amazing! It is brilliant! It is revolutionary…but not for relationships.

Because of the DVR, I don’t listen to anyone when they begin talking to me anymore. It’s not my fault, my brain has been conditioned that the first fifteen seconds of anything don’t matter because I have a magic button. “Honey, can you get the large pot from the cabinet, fill it with water, and put it on to boil,” becomes the simple phrase, “to boil,” which means absolutely nothing, thereby absolving me of any responsibility to help in the kitchen.

This is excellent news for me, but not for my wife. You see, she doesn’t have the receiver that takes the signal from the magic button – nor does she want one. She will repeat herself, but seems to be very annoyed when forced, at which point I naturally point to my ears and claim hearing loss. After twenty-one years, she knows that game well and wins it more often than not. Defeated, I put on water to boil and wish I could learn to pay attention.

Fortunately for our marriage, I don’t watch much TV. But when I do, I hold the magic button in my hand and am invigorated! And the cycle begins anew.