Tent pegs and marriage

First, I will probably post a few different post in the next day or two....I could put them all in one, but it makes more sense to do them separently (besides I like thinking of the titles for each post).

To set the stage for this blog post, I need to explain that I work with women who are in their mid- to late twenties, my boss and a volunteer are in their late thirties...and then there is me who has been married longer than most of them have been alive.  It is a fun group and we get along great.  In fact, our new boss James said that we finally figured out what was the major difference between this office and other offices that he has worked out...it was the lack of drama between us and in our lives that we bring to the office.  We all liked that assessment.

Anyway, back to the story, we hosted the office Christmas party for the adoption staff  and their spouses on Dec. 18th.  As part of the games, we had everyone answer the following questions before they joined the group:

1.  I couldn't believe that my spouse gave me _____________________ one Christmas.

2.  For under $100, I want my spouse to give me ______________________ for Christmas this year.

3.  In Christmas 2019, I want my spouse to give me ___________________ for Christmas.

My answers:  1-tent pegs; 2-books; and 3-a trip around the world.  This is important to remember by the end of this post.

After dinner, we passed a basket around and everyone drew out a paper to read and then we would try to guess who it was, along the way, we learned things about each other and had lots of laughs---afterall you might not know that one of your co-workers likes pink sassy high heels or another one got a santa suit from their spouse....funny stuff!

I was near the end of line to read the paper I had drawn, so I did not look at my sheet until more than half-way through the game.  Immediately, I recognized Gary's writing and realized that I got to read his to the group.  #1 on his list---tent pegs.

(Back story:  One Christmas about 12-15 years ago, we both put tent pegs in each other's stockings.  We had discovered that we were missing tent pegs on a summer campout and we both thought we were so clever to think of that at Christmas time.  We like getting weird things for each other's stockings, so we got a big laugh out of the fact that we had given each other the same funny thing.  Now years later, we had both put the same answer---trust me, we both have given each other a variety of weird gifts over the years to choose from.)

As someone began reading mine, Gary realized that we had written the same answer and we both started laughing .....and we had to share the story.  And I pointed out that I had Gary's with the same answer.  Everyone was way impressed.  Look what 32 years together can do....

The impressive one to me was Gary's #3 answer---"a companion ticket".  He said, "I knew you would say a trip.  I just wanted to make sure I get to come along.".  That is really what 32 years of marriage does!

(Final note:  Gary gave me another set of metal tent pegs in my stocking this year.  I think I might frame them in a shadow box.  They are too meaningful to use for camping :))