At least it's not a bedpan..

Today we are supposed to celebrate love and hearts and chocolate and frying pans.

Frying pans? Yes. Did I stutter? It is the romantic type of gift that my gem of a husband is known for. It is actually the gift he gave me the first Valentine's Day we were together. And after I clunked him in the head with it, I drug him down to the courthouse and we were married. The end. (You always wanted to know our love story, didn't you?)

I kid. Now some people I know would equate receiving this particular gift with getting a vacuum cleaner for their birthdays (got one of those, but wouldn't mind a dustbuster!). I understand where the man is going with this whole frying pan idea. He knows that while I do enjoy flowers and chocolate, I would much prefer a useful gift instead (not that chocolate isn't useful in keeping me in elastic-waisted "transition" pants). And in keeping with tradition, I have requested a very specific type of frying pan this year (ohmygosh teflon-FREE please!) so that I might continue cooking up yummies for him. (Also, I tossed our current frying pan out already because it was becoming a health concern of sorts and I don't feel the need to carry the teflon-flaking pan with us to Ft Campbell to potentially sicken us there.)

And since it is somewhat weird to give a man flowers and chocolate (because I really don't enjoy parting with chocolate, and he shouldn't have to pry his very own gift out of my white-knuckled hands), I got Steve something useful as well. Not as useful as a frying pan, but it is better than dying, drying flowers (or chocolate that I'm just going to steal while he's at work anyway).

And no, I'm not counting the baby as his gift. Even though I did incubate his child in my body for nine months and let his child leech fried chicken and sweet tea off of me and was in labor with his child for 23 hours (reminder: there are 24 hours in a day, so I was in labor for almost one full day) and conceded to allow his child to have red hair and become a complete mini replica of Steve, I have sadly already used that as a gift to Steve for Christmas and his birthday. I'm not sure how much longer I can milk that as a gift.

So he gets a coffee press. Now all we have to do is a find a place that sells expensive lah-dee-dah coffee to be used in the press and he will be a happy man. Yes, it must be expensive because the one time I skimped and got him the coffee that was two bucks cheaper at Walmart (yes, I shop there incognito on occasion- don't judge) was apparently one of the worst transgressions of the century and I have still yet to hear the end of the cheap coffee incident.

How the man remains married to such an uncultured palate is a mystery to me. It must be that he knows I'm going to make something yummy for him in that new frying pan.

I have no idea what this face is. But I could not, for the life of me, get him to smile at me- his first Valentine. I love you anyway, Sammy!