"This is my vindication," Tom said, sitting down next to me and waving a Wal-mart receipt between us.
He had come from the garage. I thought maybe he had found the receipt for something he needed to return. I wondered what it was - he seemed pretty passionate about it.
But that wasn't it...
"I read your blog," he said. My brain tried to connect the garage with my blog (plus deal with the surprise and pleasure I felt discovering he actually reads it.) "I did too get you a card."
What? Oh...I finally understood. He was referring to a statement I made in "Lucky 13," posted on June 13, where I claim "He didn't even give me a card [for our 25th anniversary]."
He handed me the receipt. Sure enough, there it was: "Card Anniver," right under "Mens Belt" and above "Floral." There was also "9 NY Style Cheesecake" and "Beef Ribs" and the sale date: 08/13/07. It seems that he also bought me some roses and grilled the ribs and afterward we had cheesecake. The belt appears not to have been related to our anniversary, but then, obviously my memory from that day is a little hazy...
I'm not sure why I don't remember all of that. I won't go into the discussion about memory that my memoirs class had last semester, and I'm not going to blame it on menopause. There's really no excuse for it. So I admitted I was wrong, and he was right. (Dang it. I hate when that happens.)
I apologized for not remembering, thanked him for the card and roses (I hope for the second time - forgetting is bad enough), and promised I would retract my previous statement. To his credit, and my great relief, he wasn't mad. In fact, he was laughing, I guess pleased he had proven me wrong. If only I had shredded those old receipts like I was supposed to...
"You really read my blog?"
"Yeah. I'm not stupid!"
He really does love me. Sometimes I have to wonder why.
