On July 10th, exactly a month ago, Weber and I celebrated our third anniversary and I gave my final exam for first summer term. While I was at school, my beloved husband was doing on his anniversary what most men do, frantically trying to wrap a gift for me. This involved finding appropriate wrapping paper. And so the story begins . . .
We don’t have much cause for gift wrapping throughout the year because a) the majority of our family birthday’s are in December b) I have a moral objection to gift wrap and c) we don’t give many wrapped gifts (see “b” above). All this to say that the gift wrap we do have resides in the closet in our guest room, a room that is kept off limits by a baby gate because of a little dog who likes to leave gifts of her own in there.
As Weber was scaling the gate with wrapping paper in hand, he caught his foot on the gate causing an intimate encounter with the wall in the hall. Again, I was not home at the time so I missed this daring choreography. According to Weber, the “thud” elicited a half-conscious “Are you OK?” was his sleeping stepdaughter. He managed to respond with, “I think so.” She went back to sleep and he assessed his various places of pain.
As it turns out, he must have smacked the wall on his way down because when all was said and done, the only real injury was to a finger - his ring finger on his left hand. By the time I got home, it was swollen quite a bit. He had not thought to take off his wedding band immediately so at this point it was pretty tight on his hand. We managed, by slathering it with soap and holding it above his head, to finally get it off. And, he gave me my still unwrapped anniversary gift. Here’s to the irony of taking a fall like that and the only think you injure is your left hand ring finger, requiring you to remove and not wear for several weeks, your wedding band, on your anniversary. So, Weber got to masquerade as an unattached guy for a few weeks.
As we were preparing for our trip to England, we searched to various websites for the hotels where we would be staying to check on the availability of free wi-fi. We quickly learned that “free” and “wi-fi” are words that the English do not often use in combination. Our first stay was in Cheltenham at a Holiday Inn Express. Surely an American chain would offer free wi-fi. Weber had an email exchange with them and was told that if he became a member of their rewards program, which was free tHeflin, he would then have access to free wi-fi. That was easy enough. He then received the following email:
Dear Mr. Baker,
Thank you for your email. We can update your IHG number and you will be provided free wife. Please advise us your IHG number
If you need anymore information please do contact me
Kind Regards,
Tugba Ilkbey
Duty Manager (Trainee)
Holiday Inn Express Cheltenham Town Centre
Dunalley Street
Cheltenham
GL50 4AP
Freudian slip or the wonders of spellcheck?
Whatever the case, we have gotten many laughs from it. I told him that it was probably a good thing that he was not wearing his wedding ring. I wasn't sure how his free wife would feel about the fact that she was getting a “not new” husband. I also wondered if having two wives was a blessing or a curse. Oh well, we won’t go there.
As it turned out, the free wi-fi materialized, the free wife did not, at least as far as I know.
Just this week, the following cartoon was in the paper.
The synchronicity of things never ceases to amaze me!
Weber’s finger is no longer swollen so he put his wedding band back on. He is at home with one wife and all the free wi-fi that he wants.
