I was talking to a friend yesterday about how money complicates relationships (more precisely how relationships complicate money) and I remembered a funny story.
It was January in Boston, the coldest week all year, my first winter after graduating and leaving sunny AZ. D was out visiting and we sort of figuring out what the hell we were going to do about "this long distance thing". We were both totally broke (I was 1st year salary and he worked at a gift shop while applying to grad school) and after pooling our money and getting our cell phones turned back on we had $15 to last until pay-day on Wednesday (this was Saturday). We decided the smartest thing to do was spend the afternoon at the Side Bar with a $4 pitcher of pbr and ten 10c wings. This brought us down to $10, but we both agreed it was money well spent. We figured out a plan, that we'd use 6 of the remaining 10 to get 2 student passes to the Mapparium and Christian Science Museum on Sunday (shut up, it's really a neat place) then spend the last of it on peanut butter and bread so we'd have something to eat until Wednesday. Luckily we had already bought subway passes.
It was a good plan. We were stoked.
I got up to use the bathroom, and when I got back D sat grinning at me over the new pitcher of PBR. He wanted so much to make me happy that he decided to surprise me with a new pitcher. "Look what I did!" he said. "Surprise!" The confused look on my face must have made him wonder what was wrong. Suddenly his grin turned to a look of horror. "oh shit" "Did you just spend $4 on that?" "oh shit. I forgot" "but we just talked about it 5 minutes ago" "i know. shit. sorry." "you just forgot the second I left the table?" (sheepish look) "yeeaah"
I had never loved him more. He was so excited about doing something to make us happy that he didn't even remember he was spending nearly half of our money on it. And I didn't care. We skipped the mapparium and ate peanut butter sandwiches and it was great.
I don't know that I have a point, but that event has kind of stuck with me in the "remembering what's important" section of my brain. Also, it was pretty f-ing hilarious at the time. Maybe I'll have some philosophical revelation about life and relationships later. But...that's all for now!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
this is a great story.
This is a great story - I'm a big fan. Also, while I know the point is that 'what's important=what makes you happy/being nice to others', the fact that in this story 'what makes you happy also=another pitcher of PBR', kind of rules.
Dirt approved happiness!
ya, seriously. broadly speaking beer has given me more happiness, longterm and short, than mappariums.
i also think it's funny you call him D. given that I think you've dated a couple or three men starting with that initial... blogging for those with intimate knowledge i see.
"couple or three". That's very, uh, politic of you. But, what can I say? D's are good guys. DM, DG, the other DM...all keepers:)
Don't forget the two DS's you know - both stand-up men (boys?) and champion drinkers of PBR.
I also like this story.
How could I forget the DS's? I love my DS's! though your comment isn't helping the rumor that we are secretly dating ;)
Ha!
Though, I thought the idea here was that our double secret dating was so double secret that even _we_ didn't know we were dating. I think we're on to a new revolution in dating...
secret dating is the new secret humping.
i agree all of the above, it is a very sweet story.
so here's the comment i told you i was going to make, then decided not to since i was going to be meeting D in person (and as i said i thought it can be much harder to say nice things about someone that you actually know rather than about people in the abstract) but now after meeting him feel it's fine to go ahead and say:
i think that it is a pretty astonishing moment in a relationship where you realize that you can find nothing more endearing about the person that you're with than some flaw or fuckup they exhibit. not that they don't possess other nice qualities, but that when something far less than perfect about them can just floor you, as it seems that this buying another pitcher of pbr did, it's.. i dunno, a sign that maybe humans and their relationships with one another aren't always such bad, dirty things. it's encouraging.
that's all. a lot of build up for a bunch of puffery. i'm sorry, and you're welcome.
"i dunno, a sign that maybe humans and their relationships with one another aren't always such bad, dirty things."
I don't know, I'd say the jury's still out on that one :)
Post a Comment