Jerry Mabbott's Blog

Anniversaries are a lot like bungi jumping. If you forget something critical, you die.

A woman’s memory is amazing. She can recall the first day you met, dated, kissed got engaged, got married and everything you’ve done wrong since the wedding.

Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of our first date. How do I know? I have it along with every other anniversary, on my calendar. Its self defense. If you forget, it means that you no longer care about romance, which is true, of course. Most men are not romantic, but we’re pretty good at faking it because we get points for remembering and, while points have a very short shelf life, you get a few days of peace.

One of the inherent problems is that most of us men know far too many sports statistics to get away with a diminished memory capacity. For example, I can recall that in 1984, the Detroit Tigers played the San Diego Padres, and won. The same year, the Miami Dolphins and Dan Marino went to the Super Bowl and lost to the 49ers and Joe Montana. I know that the Dolphins had their perfect season, complete with beating the Redskins in 1972.

So, knowing all of that, forgetting an anniversary is out of the question. Unthinkable. Impossible. So, even though I knew that Roger Maris hit 61 home runs, surpassing Babe Ruth’s long standing record of 60, I can’t remember what she wore on our first date.

“So, what did you think when you first saw me? I mean, what exactly were you thinking”? My wife has asked me that many times and I really try hard, but other than the fact that she wore jeans (she always does), I’m lost. I have no good excuse. Its obvious that I just didn’t pay that much attention.

In all fairness, I could say something like, “I don’t know, honey, I was so stricken, I couldn’t take my eyes off your face”. Her response will most likely be, “Yeah, right”. She already knew that I had no idea before she even asked the question. Its what ladies do. Why? In my experience, it’s because you will now owe her. Interpreted, that means a shopping spree, while you tag along and hold her purse.

And by the way, there is no cool way to hold your wife’s purse. Our only method of defense is to make sure that “somehow”, the purse falls upside down, spilling all of it’s contents. Do that a couple of times and you’ll be in serious trouble but you won’t ever have to hold it again.

Tonight, we’ll be dining at Red Robin, the restaurant where our first date occurred. I hope I remember the table at which we sat, otherwise remembering the date and restaurant will mean nothing.
Its a very scary night.

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