Blebbziversary 16: Waxsimile
"For our sixteenth anniversary I'm supposed to gift you something made of wax," Sue told me.
"What would you even give me?" I asked.
"I dunno."
"Speaking of wax...I was digging in my ear the other day and pulled some out. And for the first time, I decided to eat it. My mother used to feed hers to the dog once in a while, and he liked it, so I figured I'd try it. Pretty much flavorless."
"Oh yeah, I've eaten it before," Sue said, a response that reminded me of the scene in Showgirls featuring Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon bonding over dog food consumption.
This is how we addressed the day's celebratory nature, a day I'd coined our “Chunday Blebbzday Blebbziversary Blebbztacular” earlier in the week. There was a Saturday Night Live sketch a decade ago where Bruce Willis's character mistakenly said chun instead of son, a throwaway bit Sue and I have used for comedic (and rhyming) effect ever since. Fresh out of wax or the ability to recall that candles exist, Sue began singing "You're Sixteen (You're Beautiful and You're Mine)" to honor our distaste for ear detritus as we neared our destination.
She entered a store to replenish her incense stock while I walked in search of a (now shuttered) bookstore, returning to browse with her.
"Are you Adam?" a man with gauge earrings and ample tattoos asked as the bells on the door rang.
"Uh, yes."
"Happy Anniversary!"
"Thank you, but it's not necessary to humor her," I told him as Sue cracked up.
She sniffed a dozen or so “flavors” prior to plucking four musk-centric boxes and offering to buy me a postcard I was laughing at featuring Josef Stalin with the caption "Dark Humor is like food: Not everyone gets it.”
"That's $19.65," the cashier said.
"Terrible year," I said, a surprise given I always say "Great year" in such scenarios with Sue in tow.
"Why's that?" Sue asked me.
"The military-industrial complex, uh, some other stuff.…"
Upon departing, we walked across town to a discount store we love where Sue rifled through the “5 for $1” section teeming with cookies, bags of chips and candy, and various other near expiration edibles.
"I hope you don't find a severed finger like last time," I said as a stranger mimicked Sue's actions beside me.
"I know, that was bad!" Sue said.
"Even though that happened, you're back here looking?" the knowing lady asked me.
"Yep. That finger was delicious."
"Why do you say 'yep'?" Sue asked. "It's 'yup.' I've never met anyone who says 'yep.'"
"Something about 'yup' bugs me. It looks weird written down too. I've only ever said 'yep.'"
"I don't know about you," Sue trailed off while our fellow bargain hunter moved on to loftier pursuits.
As I questioned myself for getting a discounted ten-dollar container of peanuts, Sue fumbled with her debit card then struggled to input her PIN.
"She's never seen a card reader," I told the cashier. "Just picked her up from a lengthy prison stint this morning."
"Shut up," she said while chuckling.
"I thought they had Eggie Chips," I told her, "but the bag was folded and I didn't see the V. Why aren't there more egg-flavored snacks?"
"Have a good day," the security guard in sunglasses told us.
"Crazy to see a blind security guard," I said loudly as we exited but failed to earn a response.
Guess we know where all the wax wound up.
After dining on a bountiful vegan spread—cream of tomato soup with oyster crackers, Caesar salad with blackened tofu, chik’n on a waffle, and buffalo chik’n pizza—Sue asked me to take a commemorative photo of her hands. She'd worn all purple-hued rings with lavender nail polish, a tribute to my favorite color, and I suggested placing her digits on the keys of the piano beside our table. Unfortunately, an "Employees Only" sign deterred us, but we took photos of one another outside instead, forever needing to piece together solo shots to create one frame of us celebrating our love together.
"$11.92," a new cashier said as we concluded the day grocery shopping.
"Great year," I told her.
"What?"
"1192. Great year. Your son cut his finger? No medicine so he's dead by dawn."
The cashier, now fully aware she was in the presence of a comedy god, explained how she was fond of using the same joke when roles were reversed. Research confirms that 1192 was the year the shogunate was established in Japan, and accompanied by the Stalin postcard from earlier, maybe Sue and I should've exchanged photos of our favorite dictators to honor sixteen years together. I could use a new Gaddafi.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Following a reveal of the squishy pink bubble slides she'd treated herself to—"Another pair of shoes I can't burgle in," Sue divulged—we dug into Serious Matters.
"Dude! I've been waiting all day to tell you about this. It even gave me nightmares last night. So...you know James Kennedy on Vanderpump Rules?"
"Yeah," I said to avoid rekindling our E vs. U debate.
"He was dating this girl named Raquel," she breathlessly detailed. "She was a beauty queen, never said much on the show, and then finally asked Tom Schwartz to kiss her after his divorce was finalized! It gets worse! Last night it came out that Tom Sandoval cheated on Ariana with her! Shit is going down!"
"Oh damn," I said as Sue hunched over her laptop in search of more drama. “Poor Ariana. She seems so sweet.”
"It's so funny to me how the things I'm passionate about are purely visceral whereas everything you get fired up about is intellectual. Like, you'll discuss, I dunno, a golf course design or something, yet here I am hoping for girl fights."
We settled in for an episode of Animal Control, a new sitcom featuring our mutually beloved Joel McHale, but first Sue gifted me matching red and green bracelets after I complimented the new ones she was sporting. I'd detailed a video about a hippo messing with some lions earlier in the week but had forgotten to email the clip to her. As soon as it ended, we quickly traveled down a Wikipedia hole to learn everything about hippos while I held Sue's stuffed hippo Mildred. Twenty minutes later it was time for me to head home—it was a school night, meaning an eight a.m. alarm—and Sue sang Ringo one last time.
While typing notes for a journal entry, I watched the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational that had taken place earlier in the day. More curious about the course’s concluding holes than the jammed-up leaderboard thrilling fans, I researched to find people critical of Bay Hill’s difficulty, upset that golf fans would rather see ample scoring on easier greens than commanding architectural challenges. My mind considered studying aggregate scores of the most difficult courses played each year on the PGA Tour so I could pontificate about this topic to the zero people I know who would care, but instead attempted to channel Sue, wishing I could engage in fisticuffs with illogical Twitter trolls in a greenside bunker.
For once, my brain succumbed to brawn. If only I could dig through my barren ears to extract some evidence, a perfect gift.