Dee Dee - Vignettes

• As you know, Dee Dee and I met because we worked in the same department.
  
  One day, after we'd had two or three dates, I was out on a lunch break and browsing in a Hallmark store. I saw several humorous cards I was pretty sure Dee would like. On a whim, I bought three of them and took them back to the office. Dee usually took her lunch at just about the time I was getting back from mine, so I signed one and slipped it into her desk's middle drawer.
  
  Later that afternoon she arrived at my desk smiling and saying, "I like the card. Thank you."
  
  The next day this scenario was repeated.
  
  Third day, third card, threepeat.
  
  Around midafternoon on the fourth day I sensed a presence positively looming over me. I looked up and it was Dee.
  
  Donnie: "Hi."
  
  Dee: "Where's my card?"
  
  Donnie: "What?"
  
  Dee: "My card. Where's my card?"
  
  Well. if we were going to be seeing each other much longer, there weren't enough cards in the world to keep this up. Sooo . . . a tradition was born. Whenever we dated, I had a humorous card for her. Every time over a period of six years.
  
  
  • Once I picked her up at her apartment, handing her a card as I entered. She opened it and said, "This is a duplicate."
    
    Donnie: "No way." (I was very careful about this.)
    
    Dee: "Yes it is. It's a duplicate."
    
    From a closet she pulled out two lawn and leaf bags, one full and the other half full.
    
    Dee, handing me the half full bag: "Here. I'll take this one because I'm pretty sure it's in here."
    
    A few minutes later . . .
    
    Dee, triumphantly: "Here it is!"
    
    (Well, I thought I was very careful about it.)
    
    A couple of years later, in preparation for her upcoming marriage, she went through two full lawn and leaf bags, disposing of all but a few of the cards. The recycled paper industry must have experienced a boom.
    
    
  • As Dee's twenty-ninth birthday approached I found the perfect birthday card for her. She adored the Peanuts line (To this day, I send a Peanuts Christmas card to her and one to her mother every year. No duplicates yet, as far as I know), and this card had Lucy on the front as a cheerleader, chanting "Rah rah sis boom bah," and inside, "You're 29, ha ha ha." About a week before her birthday I mentioned that I had found the perfect card for her. "What is it?" "You know I can't tell you that."
    
    A couple of days later, at work, my phone rang. I answered it and heard, "I found my card."
    
    "What?"
    
    "I found my birthday card."
    
    "What does it say?"
    
    "It says 'Rah rah sis boom bah. You're 29, ha ha ha.'"
    
  
  

• When Dee turned twenty-eight, she began the process of becoming a nervous wreck over the fact that her next birthday would be her twenty-ninth, and you know what follows that.
  
  I was travelling a lot for business reasons, and I decided that during my trips I would keep my eye out for little things she would enjoy, so that I would have thirty birthday gifts for her on the big day. Chicago, Seattle, Little Rock, Jacksonville, and other places all contributed, and I completed my mission before her thirtieth birthday. As chance would have it, this occurred during one of our separation periods. In fact, I knew that she was seeing another guy, but I called her and told her that the following week she had to come to my place for dinner. "I don't care if you're getting married tomorrow, we have to have dinner next week."
  
  She came, I cooked (ho, ho, ho), and I trotted out the gifts, one at a time. She was as excited as a five year old, and when she had opened them all she said, "You've outdone yourself," which was certainly one of the nicest compliments she'd ever paid me.
  
  
• I have mentioned that Dee has a sweet tooth. On one trip to San Francisco I visited Ghirardelli Square. While there I picked up a chocolate bar for Dee that had to be two or two and a half feet long and a foot or more wide, and weighed five pounds if memory serves. On my return flight I carried it aboard in order to avoid having it broken.
  
  She was quite pleased with it.
  
  Years later, long after I assumed it had been eaten, I learned that she had stowed it away in a closet and had just discovered that somewhere along the line a mouse had nibbled a hole in one corner of the wrapper and the whole thing had been eaten, leaving her with nothing but the paper and aluminum foil.