My Husband Traded Me for a Christmas Tree

No, I’m not married to some brute from the Dark Ages who views women as property to be traded.  My husband, Nick, is a really, really nice guy; he just happens to be fond of very small cars and is not your typical guy when it comes to keeping the car clean.  He actually drives a two-door Honda Civic, which I (not so affectionately) refer to as the half car.  It’s also always full of various odds and ends related to the fire department, more papers than any office I’ve ever worked in, and what else I don’t really want to know.

We bought our first Christmas tree together on the first Thanksgiving after we were married.  I’d never had a Christmas tree, and I was determined to get as big a one as possible and join the folks who put them up the day after Thanksgiving.  Michael’s had a sale on artificial trees that year; the store opened at 6:00 Thanksgiving evening and the pre-lit trees were 50 percent off, and we even had a coupon to take more off.  We had to go!

We spent Thanksgiving Day with some very dear friends and left straight from their house for Michael’s.  I HAD to have my tree.  The store was about 45 minutes from the house we were renting at the time.  Nick had driven to our friends’ house, since I was balancing several desserts on my lap, so we were in the half-car, which neither of us thought much about.

We arrived at Michael’s and found the perfect tree for us.  It was 7.5 feet and pre-lit with white lights.  It was beautiful and I fell in love with it.  We decided it was probably a little big for our living room, but then decided that Christmas only comes once a year, so why not get the tree we loved.

We paid for the tree and headed out to the car, with a sales associate wheeling the (exceptionally heavy) tree on a cart.  As we approached the car I began to have serious doubts about getting the tree into the car.  My husband, optimistic person that he is, was sure we could get the tree, and the two of us, into the car, along with all of the other stuff that was already in the car.

The sales associate very quickly left us to our own devices.  I can’t say that I blame him.  We spent nearly an hour trying to get the tree into the car from different angles.  The only way to get the tree into the car was to move everything else to the trunk and shove the tree in through the passenger door and kind of tip it into the backseat.  I tried scrunching down in the backseat; I was perfectly willing to have a cramped ride home for the sake of the tree, but I couldn’t scrunch up small enough to get the tree far enough in to get the door closed.

We finally came to the realization that only one person would fit in the car with the tree. Nick actually wanted to return the tree!  I quickly talked him out of that and into the idea of one of us staying behind while one of us took the tree home and then came back for the other person.

In addition to the fact that I couldn’t lift the tree on my own, we were in an area I wasn’t very familiar with.  I also have the ability to get lost in a revolving door, so driving home by myself from a place I wasn’t familiar with, with a giant Christmas tree in the car, and then trying to get back to the shopping center didn’t seem like a good idea at all.  We finally decided that Nick would take the tree home and then come back for me. 

I spent that hour and half wandering around Michael’s, which is not a bad place to be stranded, and calling to wish friends and family a happy Thanksgiving.   Nick made it home in record time, shoved the tree in the house, and then came rushing back to get me.

It made for a pretty funny story when people asked how our first Thanksgiving was.  I don’t think anyone expected the answer to begin with “Oh, Nick left me at Michaels’” or “Nick traded me in for a Christmas tree”.  It’s still fun to tell the story whenever someone comes over during the holidays and comments on our tree.  It may have gotten me left behind at the store, but we have a great tree.

Husband

I talk a lot about my husband Nick in my blog, so I thought I’d take my H post as an opportunity to introduce the other half of Sweet Tea Reads (even if he was raised by Yankees and doesn’t love sweet tea).

Nick is a volunteer firefighter (which has some definite perks), and works in another branch of emergency services.  He’s left-handed, soft spoken, and can’t stand for his food to touch.  He reads almost exclusively non-fiction; the really brainy stuff like higher math theories and science. 

Nick and I met on E-Harmony, had a few very long phone conversations, then a first date that lasted about five hours, and were married a little over a year later.  He says he wanted to propose on our first date (his grandfather proposed to his grandmother on their first date), but didn’t because he thought it might scare me off.  I’m very glad he proposed, but very glad he waited a little longer.  We just celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on September 28^th. 

Nick has a habit of getting distracted and losing track of time, so I actually thought he had left me on our first date.  No.  He just got into a long conversation with someone installing paper towel holders in the restroom and totally lost track of time.  I was getting ready to ask for the bill and leave when he finally came out.  That sums up a lot about our personalities; he’s much more personable and patient than I am.  He’s also a much friendlier person.  I tend to lose patience quickly and move on.

Somehow, though, we seem to be very well matched.  I suppose we bring a balance to each other.  He’s the voice of reason when I want to adopt every cat I find.  I keep us on enough of a schedule to fulfill our obligations.  We just work together.

So there you have my husband, Nick, the other half (another H!) of Sweet Tea Reads for a little glimpse of the man in the posts. 

Lefthanders Day

Today is Lefthanders day!  As a lefty this makes me very happy.  According to this site, we have the right to declare the area around us to be a left-handed zone today.  Yippee!  Fortunately for me, my husband is also a lefty, so our house is already a left-handed zone.  I just wish the rest of the world was a little more lefty friendly.  So here’s to all of the lefties in my life:

My paternal grandfather:  He seems to be the one who got the whole left-handed thing started.  He’s the first lefty in the family anyone is aware of. 

My dad:  He kept the left-handedness going.  He also adamantly refused to allow anyone to try to turn me into a right-hander.  He put a stop to it when he caught my mom switching my toys, bottles, etc to my right hand when I was a baby.  Because of this he ended up being the person to teach me how to write, hold silverware, and tie my shoes.  No good deed goes unpunished, right?

He also went to my school at the beginning of every year and told all of my teachers that I was left-handed, and that my being left-handed wasn’t something that needed to be changed.  He said if they had a problem with that they could take it up with him. Since my dad sort of looks like an extra from The Godfather no one ever seemed to have a problem with it, except one very foolish P.E. teacher, but that’s another story for another time.

My husband:  They always say girls marry men like their fathers, so I guess it comes as no surprise that I married a lefty.  There is some debate as to whether or not my husband actually started off as a lefty.  There aren’t many lefties at all in his family, and he has an impressive scar on his right hand from getting it slammed in a car door when he was a toddler.  So there’s a theory that he became a lefty while his right hand was healing. 

I choose to believe that he’s probably a true lefty, and just did things right-handed in very early childhood because he was surrounded by right-handers.  The right-hand injury just gave him the chance to become the lefty he truly is. 

Either way, I’m glad he’s a lefty, and that we can arrange things in our house to suit both of us being left-handed.  It’s also fun to find each other left-handed gifts.  We’re also in good company, since some very interesting historical figures were also left-handed. 

So what about you?  Are you a lefty?  Are there any lefties in your life?