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A week that brings some extra sweating

Better Half sweats extra this time of year, not that the weather warrants it.

It’s this thing called Valentine’s Day.

February might be the shortest month of the year even during a Leap Year such as this with an extra day thrown in for good measure, but it generates the most angst, even more so than the month that brings Christmas or a birthday or an anniversary.

I can tell Better Half, “Now, don’t worry about getting me anything for Valentine’s Day,” but that would be a big fat lie that would add significant length to my nose already with its Pinocchio proportions.

Of course, Better Half dismisses Valentine’s Day as just another day.

I dare to differ.

I tell him I deserve the tiara treatment or at least another demonstration of his cute and clever Cupid antics that I’ve shared with readers through the years.

Last year we came down to Earth with perfect timing, a perfect plan to quit squinting so much when we’re watching television on a small screen.

We got ourselves a joint Valentine’s Day gift — one of those big-screen televisions.

Nothing says love like getting the big picture together, right?

It was a bigger screen TV to watch together as we cuddle on the couch and a bigger screen TV to doze off watching, for that matter.

So being cute and clever kind of went on hiatus for Valentine’s Day 2019.

But consider the gifts of years past, reminders of his love for me.

He got me:

– Two shovels because he double digs me.

– A broom because I “swept” him off his feet. (It now has very high mileage from my witchy moments of flying around on it.)

– An electric pencil sharpener to make the “point” that I was his true love.

– A coffee pot that was “grounds” for marital bliss.

– Candy bars because he’s “sweet” on me.

– A dictionary to remind me that there aren’t enough words to declare his love.

– And let us not forget the year of the potato, when innocently from the potato bag he plucked one Idaho destined for french fry glory.

Here was a potato shaped liked a heart, I kid you not. On it, he carved our initials in the framework of — you guessed it — a heart outline he also etched out ever so creatively.

“This ‘spud’s’ for you, honey,” I can still hear the tremble of true love in his voice as he presented that one-of-a-kind potato to me.

– Then there was the year he “fell” for me — literally — on the ice on his way to buy me a present.

He ended up in the emergency room and returned home empty-handed, save for the doctor’s discharge instructions.

I, meanwhile, buy Better Half cashews because I’m “nuts” about him or bread from the Steubenville Bakery because I love to “loaf” with him.

Now I know Better Half won’t disappoint me come Friday.

I heard him mention something about a “karat.”

I just hope it’s not orange and in my salad.

(Kiaski, a resident of Richmond, is a staff columnist and community editor for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times. She can be contacted atjkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)

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