9.15.2010

A Blessed Union in Paradise

Luckily for us the convenience store sold greeting cards and was accustomed to patrons in subcasual beach attire. Fort Lauderdale was as inviting as it was going to get. Like most of our collective exes it'd offered all it had and still came up short. I'd had enough of the redundant tourist trap and wanted the next day's vows to be given so we could drive south to Key West, somewhere I hadn't been yet. I consoled my selfish desire by reminding myself of what a brat my cousin had been growing up and that little had changed since then. There's nothing like family to warm the already sweating heart.

"You can stop looking now," I said. "I've got the one."

My girlfriend looked at me with crooked eyes after glancing at the front of my selection while I rummaged through the display case for the proper envelope.

"But there's a desert scene on the front," she argued. "It's supposed to be a wedding card."

The boyish grin she fell in love with beamed at me in the reflection of her sunglasses. As usual, she knew what I was thinking before I said it. I entertained her fancy regardless.

"That's exactly why it's so fitting-- a barren life of desperate struggle, plagued by the occasional mirage of fleeting happiness. Besides, it's blank. I can write something along congratulatory lines inside."

She didn't respond verbally, though her weight shifted magnificently from one sandal-shod foot to the other. Hard.

"You're too much," she said as we approached the register.

"As long as the check I put in here's enough...that's all they'll care about anyway."

We walked out, both partially right, both partially hoping that we wouldn't succumb to the same pitfalls of life that seemed so inevitable to the hordes of fools around us.

We won't. We can't. We're too hard in the spots where they won't get us again. We're too soft in all the perfectly wrong places, like the drunk who only survived the accident because his limbs were loose. Bottom's up.

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