FREEWRITING FRIDAY PROMPT
My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose
Try telling my wife that
Valentine’s Day. February 14th. How do we perceive it? Love or hate it? Ellie Jacobson in her recent prompt — Freewriting Friday: Do You Love or Loathe February 14th? — asks: Did something happen to change your outlook? Let the rant begin! Okay, you asked for it…
‘A Red, Red Rose’ by Robbie Burns begins, ‘O my Luve is like a red, red rose…’ How romantic.
Valentine’s Day, for me, started with the sort of juvenile ditty boys composed and sent anonymously on pieces of paper to girls who they had a crush on at school.
‘Roses are red, violets are blue, with a face like yours, you belong in a zoo.’
A line like that was never going to win favour and end with a dream date.
Things didn’t improve. When I was going steady with the girl I knew I would marry, the same banal wording resurfaced using the same roses are red and violets are blue theme, but adding a new punch line — ‘I’ll die for your kiss…Guess who?’
So, ever since our first Valentine’s Day, my wife and I retain this ritual of exchanging a silly, even insulting, Valentine card and a small gift. She gets a chocolate bar; I get a piece of liquorice.
It goes back to first dates and her waltzing me off to the cinema to watch action-packed movies. We didn’t do soft and fluffy happy-ending romantic films. Our choices were death and destruction. Except for one February we enjoyed Barbara Streisand and Ryan O’Neal in the 1972 romantic screwball comedy, “What’s Up Doc?”
Then for some reason, I changed the routine. After thirteen years of marriage, I upset this now sixteen-year ritual and became serious. I bought her red roses, a dozen. A baker’s dozen. I know most men would go gooey-eyed and buy twelve roses, hoping for a misty-eyed response. But 13 is my lucky number.
What a mistake that was, those thirteen roses. And after the third-degree interrogation, I was given, I vowed never to do that again!
Back then, I had been working a lot of overtime, twelve-hour days for weeks on end. We, as a departmental team, were eating our packed lunches whilst scanning computer print-outs, checking data and facts, for a project that had to be completed by the end of the month.
It meant all the guys in the office were saving money. We weren’t spending our lunch break in the nearby pub.
Finally, our boss, satisfied we were back on track, relented. As it was Valentine’s Day, he gave us a flyer, letting us leave the office early at 4 pm instead of the usual 9 pm.
I was driving the 20 miles home when I noticed a florist shop. Seeing the display of flowers in the window, I spun the car around, stopped, went inside, and made the purchase.
My wife’s greeting on opening the front door wasn’t what I was expecting. No heartfelt sigh of appreciation, no peck on the cheek. She actually stepped back and, with a quizzical look, said, “Okay, what have you done? You never buy me roses, even on my birthday.” How true.
Going outside to inspect the car for damage, she said, “That seems okay. So have you had another bust-up with your boss? Have you been demoted, moved to another department? Are we moving house again?”
I’ve done first aid training courses and understand how shock can affect people in different ways. Realising the enormity of what I had done, we did what the British always do best in a crisis, went back inside, and made a pot of tea.
Over our cuppa, we had a good laugh about it. It was a Valentine’s Day we’d never forget. After that, it was back to the old routine, and if it hadn’t been for Ellie’s prompt I’d have forgotten to buy a Valentine card, as February 14 has crept up on me this year. Thanks Ellie!
