Dana had some good news at work this week. Big promotion for her! Guess what her idiot husband said. "Hey hon, let's go out and have a nice dinner and then I'll take you to a movie." Sounds nice on the surface. Unfortunately, the movie portion was limited by selection since we have an unspoken Avatar boycott happening (the whole 'if enough people tell you you HAVE to do something, then you WON'T do it' thing...by the way, you HAVE to watch The Wire). Back to the story, I had read Shutter Island in the fall and thought it would make a great movie, although the book was only fair. Scorcese, DiCaprio making a thriller seemed like a can't miss. Of course, if you know Dana, this next part will not surprise you. The last thriller that she watched with me was The Silence of the Lambs...when we were dating...when we were both trying to impress the other one with how "cool" we were...she hates thrillers because they freak her out - too scary for her.
Why did I lose sight of this? I am not smart.
In short, Dana's celebration night now gives her nightmares - nice work, Kent. Dana leaned over to me as the end credits began to roll and said, "Ohhh, you are going to pay for this one."
The movie is good, by the way. It gets a bit graphic and unpleasant with regard to Leo's inner-demons, but I thought it was better than the book.
This situation got me thinking about a top 5 "little things that make Dana, Dana."
1. The first walk of the day On the weekends, I'm cursed by not being able to sleep past 8. So I always get up and go out and read or watch TV. About an hour or so later comes a sound that means Dana is awake. Imagine the sound of a guy at a hardware store dragging a bag of feed across the floor, but stopping and then restarting every few inches. This is the sound of Dana dragging her slippered feet down the hallway to the den. In looking at that, it sounds like I don't like it. I do. It cracks me up every time. After about ten paces, she comes around the hall corner into view with her eyes half open and says incredulously, "When did you get UP?"
2. The fear of getting caught We love movie candy. We sneak it into every movie we ever go to and over the years have saved somewhere between 10 and 15,000 dollars by doing that. Once, I got a little greedy and asked Dana to sneak a fountain drink for me in her purse(the top was firmly affixed to prevent any spillage). She reluctantly agreed. As we approached the gate where they tear your ticket, we both saw that in addition to the usual acne-ridden 16-year-old ticket taker, was a manager in jacket and tie looking on and evaluating the kid. The phrase "seized by fear" would be the best way to describe Dana's reaction to this. Her pace slowed, her face changed, her grip on my hand tightened, and she whispered to me in frightened sentences about how "they KNOW, they KNOW!" We walked right in, and I enjoyed an ice-cold Coca Cola classic to complement my Twizzlers. I'm pretty sure we went to see a drama that day, but I had several hearty laughs in the theater.
3. The thermometer readings The thermometer in our house is not accurate. We need a new one. I've never seen a reading of 98.6 on it. It goes anywhere from 97.1 to 104.3, but it never seems to reflect anything that would be helpful or informative. I think Dana checks her temperature twice a week. She'll get a headache or stomach ache and check it. When the little thing beeps that it has a reading she takes it out, looks at it, and then silently puts it down. I'll ask what it said and she'll respond with some number that either means she passed away 30 minutes ago, or needs to immediately be thrown into a tub of ice water. But if I irritate her about it, she'll say "Stop, I have a feeee-ver!" It slays me.
By the way, as I read these, I feel like if Dana did one of these about me it would just be "Kent tries to irritate me" 5 different ways.
4. Her never-ending love for Kissyfur Whenever we see an animal of any kind, it is accompanied by Dana saying either "I love Kissyfur," or "I miss Kissyfur." She's asked me before if I think that when we die, do I think Kissyfur will be in Heaven.
Nothing will ever top Kissyfur. Pistol could come into the house and recite the preamble in a little dog voice, and Dana would turn to me after and say, "I miss Kissyfur." It is like clockwork: animal, a few beats while she reflects, "I miss Kissyfur."
5. The parking spot point-out Whenever we go somewhere that has a parking lot of more than 20 spots, it reveals Dana's and my divergent philosophies about parking. Luck usually determines whose philosophy is correct. Dana likes to find the closest spot and will patiently wait for it until it appears. I feel like the waiting negates the closeness. That if you just park in an average or even "bad" spot, it would take the same amount of time to walk in as it would to wait and then park. But it has become a joke now that when I do park, Dana waits until I'm halfway into the turn-in to point out another spot that would have been better. And of course, as we walk in, she takes great joy in pointing to the many spots that would have been closer/better/not as long a walk in this freezing temperature. It usually leads to a "sliding doors" speculation about how much better our trip to Target would have been if I'd listened to her, but instead, we are doomed to our spot in parking hell because of my impatience to wait for "that spot...that spot...that spot."
All of these are things that make her my wife. And I love them. Congratulations on the promotion! I am so proud of you!
