Reese’s Pieces

 My shirt was a gag gift from a friend, received sometime after Myles was born in 1980. It was orange, like the candy wrapper, and had “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – Two Great Tastes!” in big brown letters across the front. This was back when I might actually wear a T-shirt with something written on it, even one with a double meaning, since I was nursing a baby at the time.   

Rerun on the picture, sorry. But it says “Two Great Tastes!”
Fast forward a few years to
September 2, 1983– my tenth wedding anniversary. I was watching my daughter while she played in front of the house. Caitlin took off running down the hill, even though she had been told a million times not to. It was a steep hill, and I was always afraid she would stumble and fall. As I watched in horror and amazement, she did just that — tumbling head over heels like Jack and Jill. I raced after her, my heart pounding, certain that she had broken something, everything, and would need stitches, surgery, traction.  All I found was a little cut on her chin, but it was bleeding profusely, and all over my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Two Great Tastes as I gathered her in my arms. We decided that I would take her to the emergency room and my husband would stay home with our toddler son. 
Would have been nice…

For our anniversary, we’d arranged for the kids to be taken care of for the night, had reserved a room at the Claremont Hotel, and made a dinner reservation someplace nice. This was a big deal, ten years. The high school sweethearts, now parents of two, things going well – let’s celebrate, we thought.
 Then the transmission went out on our car and we had to change our plans. The transmission cost as much as our big weekend would have, and we couldn’t afford both. No matter what Hallmark says, for us the tenth anniversary was not wood or paper or whatever–it was a new transmission and a visit to the emergency room in a bloody T-shirt.

Who really cares what a transmission looks like?

Caitlin didn’t need any stitches, nothing was broken or even sprained, and when we came home that night, I was too exhausted to care about celebrating. I couldn’t get the picture of my daughter’s horrifying downhill somersaults out of my mind.
I threw the shirt into the laundry.

Later on,  we had a quiet celebratory dinner at home. Despite the unexpected turn of events, we raised a glass and offered a toast to ten good years.

What the hell, right?…Clink!

One Response to Reese’s Pieces

  1. Cathy Fisher says:

    Thanks for sharing! I remember the build up to our 10 year anniversary — have to plan something special! The pressure was on. Then we got a surprise phone call — want a second baby? So our 10th anniversary was spent bringing home Sarah — no regrets, best anniversary gift I could imagine!

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