Gestures of love and ridicule

Warning: Today's blog post contains several references to romantic gestures, although these romantic gestures are strictly hypothetical. No actual romantic gestures were performed for the writing of this post.

We recently discovered, buried in the clutter that continually threatens to take our house hostage, a pack of cards titled Gestures of Love: 50 Heart-Felt Recipes for Romance. Your own personal cupid! the back of the box proclaimed. We were a little fuzzy on the exact origin of these cards, but we were curious about what our own personal cupid would reveal, so we decided to read one card each night after dinner.

With our fondness for efficiency, we were expecting something along the lines of "50 romantic gestures you can do in the 20 seconds between when you finish dinner and start cleaning up." But whoever wrote these suggestions apparently was inclined to put off cleaning up, and had much more time to kill.

Fill a room with 100 balloons, the first card read. Tie the balloons with long ribbon streamers. We looked at each other.

"How much would that cost?" Joe said.

"I think cost is not supposed to be a factor," I said.

We were dubious about a roomful of balloons, and since we couldn't act on the idea right away anyway, we went on to the next card.

It advised us to put a picture of yourself on your pillow when you're away from home. Spray it with some perfume or cologne.

"That would make me sneeze," I said. "It wouldn't be very romantic to sneeze all over your picture."

We went on. Pick your loved one up at the airport. We looked at each other blankly. "As opposed to what?" I said. "Not picking them up?"

But there was more to the idea. It suggested wearing something special to the airport and running to the other person with arms outstretched, just like in the movies. "Maybe something special like a bright orange jumpsuit," Joe suggested. "And you could run and yell, 'I'm free! I'm free!' "

We looked for something that would keep us out of trouble with the justice system. The next card said write and mail a thank-you note to your partner. Use a "Love" stamp. Although Joe liked the general idea of a thank-you note, he did not see a need to mail it. "Why not just write a thank-you note to your partner? Forget the stamp."

But he got into the next card, Shine your partner's shoes. Tuck new socks into each pair of shoes and line them up in a neat row in the closet. He fairly drooled over the prospect of having neat rows of shoes in the closet. In our closet, chaos reigns. We try to maintain some semblance of order, but the minute our backs are turned the shoes all rearrange themselves into letters spelling out "Ppffftt!"

Leaving behind our visions of an organized shoe collection, we moved on to Read a great love story aloud. We thought this was a good idea, but then realism set in. "Love stories are long, right?" he said. "That would take a long time."

"Here's another suggestion," he said. "Read the newspaper aloud in bed. That wouldn't take as long as a whole story."

"But the newspaper's not very romantic," I said.

He looked at the card again. "You're supposed to do the crossword puzzle together, give your own advice to the Dear Abby questions, laugh at the comics--"

"Or laugh at the Dear Abby questions," I said.

In the end he strongly objected to reading the paper in bed on the grounds that the paper was dirty. "We might as well eat Cheez-Its in bed," he said, horrified at the prospect.

I agreed that Cheez-Its and newspapers should stay out of the bed. That way I can eat AND do the crossword puzzle by myself.

Join us next time as we continue our attempts to find appropriate gestures of love that do not dirty our home any more than it already is, make us sneeze, or land us in jail.