Epilogue: Hubby’s Valentine’s Day Disaster

 

As I mentioned previously, the romantic story of how I got together with Hubby was originally written in 2007 for a Valentine’s Day contest asking readers to share their own romantic story at a book review site that I frequent from time to time.

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At the time, Hubby had read my contest entry, and it must have triggered his romantic inclinations, because he decided that for Valentine’s Day, he was going to repeat his “chocoloctopus” surprise (it had been 6 years since he’d impressed me with his creative culinary masterpiece the first time). However, he traipsed all over the Oklahoma City area the day before Valentine’s Day, trying various Wal-Marts, Albertsons, Homelands, and even Country Boy, which is a tiny grocer 20 miles outside of town, and the story was the same everywhere: an Official Oklahoma Strawberry Shortage.

Not to be defeated, he mulled over his various fruit options and settled on chocolate covered peaches. Instead of octopus, he would do a close relative: a chocolate-covered “Cuttlefish”… my husband even remembered that when I freeze peaches, I use that Fruit Fresh stuff. So after I left for work on Valentine’s Day, he sliced his peaches and followed the Fruit Fresh instructions. He managed to design the cuttlefish and dip the chocolate “mantle”. Then he arranged the tentacles on the front end, near his little candy decorator eyes. The tentacles he left as very thin peach slices, not dipped in chocolate, “For a little contrast,” he said. He stuck them in the fridge and hurried off to work. What he didn’t account for was the fact that even with Fruit Fresh, you really better get ’em canned or vacuum sealed ASAP. LOL

I called him on my way home from work. He sounded oddly dejected over the phone, which was strange, because he should have been juiced up over Valentine’s evening. This was before we had kids, *cough*. When I arrived at home, he had the worst, most shame-faced expression. At first I suspected that he’d forgotten V-Day and failed to procure card, flowers or gift. But no, he had long-stemmed roses, a pair of nice earrings, and a card. Hmmmm. Why this long face?

So after we’d had our little gift exchange, and I’d tried to cheer him up by telling him that the results were announced on the “Isn’t It Romantic?” contest, and he was the hero of the contest-winning entry, I asked whether he’d had a hard day. “You could say that,” he muttered. “I don’t even want you to see what I tried to do for Valentine’s Day. I’d throw it out, but my only saving grace is I like to see you laugh.” So he explained first his intentions, and then he started rambling about what a waste of time it was to even mess with “that Fruit Fresh” (spoken as one would say “that cockroach“). Still shaking his head, he opened the freezer and brought out a plate. “I tried to do something amazing and wonderful, but it got… Ugly.”

You could say that. I stared at the offering. I could tell it was supposed to be a sea creature. It was brown. It had eyes. It had bizarre, shriveled tentacles. I had no earthly idea what it was made of, but it had to be the least appetizing dessert I’ve ever, ever seen. It brought to mind something that had spent at least a decade in formalin. “It’s a Cuttlefish,” he offered.

“Ah hah,” I said. We both stared at it. Then my eyes started to water as a shout of laughter started building inside.

I snickered. He glared at me. “They’ve never found a live specimen,” he said gruffly. We both guffawed, and shared a wonderful bout of laughter that was every bit as pleasant as the idea of the Choc-Cuttlefish could ever hope to be.

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It’s been quite some time, but these images still manage to crack me up. In fact, I giggled so much when I finally located the pictures tonight that it drew Hubby’s attention.

“Oh, hell no. You’re not really going to drag those up from the depths and share them, are you?” I giggled some more.

“You are so weird. The entire Richard Armitage Army is so weird.”

Pretty much. Lol