Icees and Marriage

After nearly 8 years of marriage, Kathryn and I are still learning new things about each other. Couples with more years under their belts have said the same thing. They've said, "After nearly 8 years of marriage, Kathryn and Joe are still learning new things about each other." See? It's what everyone is saying these days.

The occasion for today's revelation was a romantic luncheon at Gattitown. We got our hopes up when the Icee machine didn't have an "Out of Order" sign like it did last week (yes, we're star customers at G-Town these days - for some reason, Kathryn feels less preggie-sick when she's eaten pizza), but upon closer inspection, the mix wasn't ready yet. Drat! Foiled again!

So we set to eating lunch. At one point, I go for a drink refill and notice that the Icee machines are ready to go. Sweet! I get one small cup of cherry Icee for me, one of Coke Icee for Kathryn, since those are, of course, what both of us most like. I set them down on the table in their respective places and go back to get napkins. I come back and Kathryn is laughing, saying "Are you joking? You're not going to drink all that cherry." I said, "Why not? I like cherry."

(I'm starting a new paragraph because this is the part where the story really takes off.) She says, "How in the world do you like cherry? Everytime we get Icees from Sam's, you always insist that we get Coke."

"Of course," says I, "because you like Coke more than cherry." "Nay," replies the wife, "I like cherry better than Coke." "Really?" "Really." "Hm."

Says Kathryn, "So you really don't like Coke better?" "No," quoth yours truly, "I prefer cherry." "Hm."

Anyways, I could go on and describe the part of the conversation where we candidly worked out our feelings on Blue Raspberry, but that's either another blog post in itself or not worth going into.

Wow. Who'd a thunk it? Nearly 8 years of marriage and we'd been doing this crazy little Icee dance, neither of us getting what we truly wanted, both of us trying to sacrifice a little to try and please the other person. To think that all this time, we could have both been savoring more of that frozen cherry goodness, instead of settling for less. Boggles the mind. Whether or not the lesson in all of this is, as the psycho-babblers love to put it, "COMMUNICATION!", I've certainly learned something about my wife, and I'll take it on serendipity.

Needless to say, this one has almost certainly already gone down in Wikipedia as the Great Peebles Icee Surprise of 2009, and will be told and embellished for generations to come.