Under pressure

Brian Wilson

As of the date these words are being put into print, I have exactly 69 days and about 6 hours to come up with something to surprise my wife with for our 25th wedding anniversary.

For the mathematically challenged, my wedding anniversary is April 13. And no, I will not tell you my mother’s maiden name, the name of my childhood pet, the last four digits of my social security number or the threedigit number on the back of my debit card. What do you think this is, a social media quiz?

While 69 days may seem like a long time, I am beginning to feel seriously stressed out by the looming anniversary date. After all 25 years represents a span of time slightly over half my life, at some point without noticing it I had gone with spending more of my life with my wife than without her in it.

As a guy who secretly likes the occasional corny romantic comedy, I am compelled to want to do some grand gesture. Like a surprise trip or something equally awesome that will score me points and help shorten the time period I am in the doghouse the next time she decides I have done something dumb.

The challenge of grand gestures is that our anniversary is on a Tuesday this year. Tuesdays are perhaps the least romantic day of the week. Wednesday has that whole double entendre thing going for it. Monday or Friday lend themselves to long weekends. Even Thursday has more opportunities with the possibility of taking Friday off and going on a mini-vacation.

Tuesday is the gas station flower arrangement day of the week when it comes to planning a romantic evening.

I fully realize that a practical solution is to simply celebrate it on another day of the week. I could even do a stealth campaign of pretending to totally have forgotten about it and wait a few days until the following weekend, or until at least after the paper goes to press that week, and in the process allow her resentment at my insensitivity to fester before springing something totally awesome on her out of the blue so that she feels awful about being angry at me for being a thoughtless fool.

On further consideration, that plan is rather fraught with danger and would likely end badly, very badly. As a side note, if I go missing be sure to check in my yard for any suspiciously recent plantings of rare and endangered plants.

Complicating any plans is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that anyplace someone would want to actually go visit in mid-April isn’t letting people in and the places that are letting people in have only limited things open. In retrospect deciding to get married in the most unpredictable weather month of the year was not a brilliant move, but hey at least we saved a ton of money on decorating the church by getting married the Saturday after Easter.

While a lot can happen in 69 days when it comes to rolling out vaccines, given the less than speedy track record so far in Wisconsin, I am not holding out hope.

An easily discouraged person could see these obstacles as the negative omens they are and would fall back to the old reliable of getting a nice flower arrangement sent to my spouse at work. This is also not without its own level of risk. It sets a certain bar for the spouses of co-workers and when those spouses inevitably fail to clear that bar, there is the potential for lingering jealousy and resentment as they compare their spouses with what a truly awesome, considerate and all-around wonderful husband I am. My attorney friends are already complaining about being swamped with divorces this year and I worry about setting off some butterfly-effect chain of circumstances that would lead someone to call them.

I have resorted to asking other people for suggestions. My children are little help and at times I feel they are actively seeking to sabotage any elaborate plans I am making as a way to avoid me inflicting additional embarrassment upon them. Little do they know that embarrassing them, and writing about it for everyone to read, is one of my joys in life.

Still, the clock is ticking, and I need to come up with something soon.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.