Moooo!

Yesterday we went shopping for Valentines things to put into a box and ship off to Ruby and Sadie. Valentines is another holiday that Joe and I do not celebrate. Growing up with a 'love that dare not speak it's name' and with such secrecy around our relationship we grew skilled at communicating love publicly but privately. There was a 'hiding in plain sight' aspect to it that made it both very real and very powerful. When there is risk to love, as when there is risk to believe, somehow the loving becomes sweeter.

We would watch when the annual 'feast of love' in which our heterosexual counterparts  participated, stupefied and mystified. Really! Feeling a bit shoved to the sidelines became to feel more like a privilege than a denial. We watched people frantically trying to find just the right size box of heart-shaped chocolate, or the right sized fluffy animal with a heart in it's paws, or the right bit of expensive jewellery. My. It seemed to be a holiday full of desperation, not love, and we were glad to be out of it.

However, Ruby and Sadie, love Valentines just because they love celebrations and, of course, any holiday that has chocolate attached is fine by them. I have always determined that 'my point of view' does not need to be 'their point of view' and as yet the only point of view they have is quite simply 'MORE!!!' So we buy stuff for them and make up a Valentines box. We look for odd things, funny things, for them. In one store here in the mall we found two candy holders, one in the shape of a cow and one in the shape of a pig. Each when picked up make a noise. The cow goes, predictably, 'MOO'. The pig goes, can you guess, 'SNORT'. So we bought them and put them in the bag at the back of my chair.

So there I was rolling around the mall and depending on the twist or turn of the chair, one of them would be set off. It was like rolling with sound effects. Imagine watching a really fat guy rolling towards you with a faint mooing sound swirling round him. Or, a few seconds later a distinctly piggy snorting sound filling the air around the chair. Joe had taken some bags back to the car and I was rolling alone when this happened. At first I thought, 'oh no' and was just deciding to wait. But then the humour of it hit me and I pushed even harder. I had to stop from howling with laughter as I saw people see me, fat guy, hear sound associated with tormenting fat guys in the air, they didn't know what to do with their faces. The sounds were muffled from being in my bag, so I'm guessing they were straining to hear if what they heard they heard.

When we left the mall, I'm guessing that there were people there who's faces ached from being held so still - trying not to react takes work, who's necks are stiff from not turning to stare. Yep, kindness got a work out today - they expended extra calories, so, they can tuck into the Valentines box of chocolates - should they be loved enough to get the exact right box - guilt free.