I have the beat wife ever.

The title of this column was based upon a Facebook message my wife left me yesterday, for our anniversary. You know how hard it is to type messages on a cellphone when there is no real keyboard? Yeah. Well perhaps tomorrow when Haycomet and I get together for our Bacon Talk, we’ll have something to say about cellphones. Anyway, yesterday, as a lot of you may or may not know, was my red-haired wife’s and my first anniversary. Yes, friends, what that means is that we have been married for most of a year. Or close to a year. Something having to do with a year. And, as the title suggests, she is the beat wife ever.

You see, she says some things like that sometimes, when there are not even any keyboards around. She misspeaks and they become terms of endearment, naturally, for me. Like how she says, “Chipolte” instead of Chipotle. Or she’ll call me her “Knight and shining armor”. You know, cute things that red-haired wives do that make us smile. But yesterday, for our anniversary, she did what was perhaps to go down in history as one of the awesomest things anyone has ever done for me. She got me a lunchbox.


Allow me to explain. You know I will. You see, all day, I was thinking I would sneak her out for a nice dinner together at our favorite restaurant – Buck’s Road Kill and Muffler Shop – and we’d spend the evening together. I was going to get Siege to come over and watch The Bug (our fifteen-month-old daughter) afer she went to bed. However, she ended up having to go to work to work an event her company was throwing. Throwing? Do companies throw events? Host? Whatever. Her company was eventing and she had to be there. She would get off work at seven o’clock, and we’d roll out. Seven is The Bug’s bedtime anyway, so it would work out perfectly. I get off work at five o’clock, where I planned to roll out to Haycomet’s and help her and Byronic look at their malfunctioning pusher bot. It’s ninety degrees in their house. Good Lord. However, none of it really quite worked out that way.

At around three-thirty, I approached Siege at his desk and asked if he wouldn’t mind hanging out tonight at the SpaceHouse to keep an eye on Laynie so Step and I could roll out to Buck’s. Well he had other engagements already. And I wasn’t going to take her to Haycomet’s with me, because, like I said, it’s ninety degrees in their house right now, and I don’t really like to take my kids to people’s houses when said people like to keep their houses so warm. So a wrench was thrown into that intake, and I had to skip out on helping the Comet family.

Number two, well, that’s really it. I guess there is no number two. I had to watch The Bug, and when Step got home from work, there was no one available to sit for us. So we had to stay home. And since I had to haul directly home from work so I could pick up Laynie, I didn’t have time to swing by Felix Hebrew’s Flowers and Phone Repair to pick up a nice bouquet for her. I came home empty-handed, and felt pretty damn bad about it. Especially when my red-haired wife walked through the door with an awesome surprise for me.

You see, I am a child of the seventies. No matter how much I talk on here about being in my mid- to upper-twenties, it just really isn’t so. I haven’t been able to get the damn time machine up and running either, so I’m stuck aging like the rest of you poor saps. Be that as it may, I was born in the first half of the seventies, and thus, I am what some might refer to as “not quite over the hill, but definitely has his foot on the throttle heading right for the top of it at full speed, and quite possibly his brakes are out and he’s being chased by angry bears and rabid llamas”. And what this means to you, is that I had things in the seventies that were of the seventies. I had a metal lunchbox.

John Mayer wrote a song on his first album called “83” in which he sings the following lines: Whatever happened to my lunchbox? And when came the day that it got thrown away, and don’t you think I should have had some say in that decision?  Well that line has always spoken profoundly to me. My sister introduced me to that song several years ago and noted that very line, and we nodded our heads in agreement that it really was profound and spoke loudly to our childhood meanderings. What did ever happen to my lunchbox? I had a metal Pac Man lunchbox, and its awesomeness was unmatched for many, many years. Until now.

You see, friends, recently, I have been carrying my lunch to work in my son’s lunchbox, which is a Pokemon or Megaman or some other nonsense. I don’t even know, because it is a representation of a toy from the late nineties or early oughts. It’s not from my time. I don’t know it. So I’ve been wanting to get me my own lunchbox here of late. Something with emblems from my past on it. Superman, or The Dukes of Hazzard – well, namely, Daisy Duke and her black CJ. But I haven’t really looked for one yet, and didn’t really know where I would look were I given the luxury of remembrance. So when my wife walked through the door last night with this fine new metal box, I just about squeezed her to death with an appreciative hug. It truly is the best gift I have received in my adult years. Let me tell you why.

If I were to go out today and design a lunchbox to carry, it would have several features about it that spoke to its all-around general awesomeness. And, as fate would have it, this just happens to have most of those features, and then some:

  • A lot of the color orange
  • Something spacey, or space-themed
  • Something cartoony that reminds me of childhood
  • A hot red-haired alien woman with a smoking body and three eyes
  • Alien guns
  • Planets
  • A space ship

Does that not sound bad ass? Well, trust me, it is. And I will post pictures to prove it. I only hope you have not skipped ahead and looked at them already. So it also came with a nice thermos (with stars all over it) and a little package containing several similarly themed buttons I can wear.

Have you heard of Yelp? It’s a website that promotes reviews of restaurants and the like. When I first got my iPhone, I installed it, and even reviewed a couple of places I had eaten. It’s a great concept, and a well done site in general, but I really must say I’m impressed with their marketing clutter. Most companies hand out pens or magnets, plastic water bottles, keychains or other worthless nonsense. Well at my red-haired wife’s company function last night, Yelp was handing out freakin’ lunchboxes. With Thermoses in them!

So seeing this perfect mesh of awesomeness including hot three-eyed women, orangey goodness and a lot of space-themed bad-assedness, my red-haired wife thought it would be a perfect anniversary gift. I told her it doesn’t matter what you didn’t spend on it. It wouldn’t have mattered if you got it free or paid a hundred bucks for it. The point is it’s the perfect mix of utility and vanity. And it’s absolutely what I wanted. Thank you, Step. You really are the beat wife ever.

Here are the pictures. Click for bigger. (Who would have thought I could write 1300 words about a lunchbox?)

   

   

This Post Has 10 Comments

  1. Your original lunchbox was retired to the attic where all good lunch boxes go. Up there with the whiffin-poofs.

  2. SahSah

    truly an awesome specimen of awesomeness! Way to go Step! and now I want to hear the John Mayer song ;)

  3. It contains at least two of my favorite things-a space chimp, and a cool floaty robot. I love chimps and robots!!

  4. Siege

    The robot looks like the android OS logo droid. The droid should get his own offshoot TV series, web comic, and merchandising contract, that will subsequently be bought-out by the GOOG.

  5. Becky Riles

    I think it’s cute how you call Step your “red-haired wife”. So I take it you like red hair then! :D

    Happy anniversary!

  6. Catina

    All things seemed to have turned out better than expected :D How awesome is that. Did you ever get step something in return?

  7. Space

    Captain: Great. So the chance of there being some cookies or hot cocoa left in it is now infinitesimal.

    SahSah: Isn’t she great? And me too. Isn’t he great?

    Haycomet: Then you would love Amazon Women on the Moon, starring Laird Grainger.

    Siege: When that happens, I want the action figure for my birthday.

    Becky: Yes I like red hair. The redder it is, the – well let’s just say that yes, I like it.

    Catina: No. :mad: And you’ll read all about it in the column I’m about to write, called You Ruined My Friday. I still haven’t had time.

  8. steppy

    Thank you, angel for the sweet article. I’m so glad that you liked it. Catina- He is my gift every day.

    The red-haired, three eyed chic on there is kinda HOT!

  9. Jeremy

    Am I the only one who thinks you need to post pics of your redhaired wife? I’m just sayin.

  10. Space

    Probably so, Jeremy. Just trust me. She looks almost exactly like that red-haired alien on my lunchbox. Well, without the third eye.

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