Most of my readers know that I married Bonnie last May. As in every marriage, you need to learn to adapt to each other’s peculiarities. Bonnie and I are both senior citizens which is good news and bad news. The bad news is that seniors are pretty set in their ways and have had time to develop a LOT of peculiarities. The good news is that neither of us sweats the small stuff quite as much as when we were younger. At least most of the time we don’t.
It is probably for the best that Bonnie is not a gambler. I have pretty high standards when it comes to gambling and there are relatively few ladies, who were otherwise acceptable, who approach winning at video poker like I do. Although I didn’t do anything like a systematic search, I decided that looking to the gambling world for a mate was probably not a good idea. “Forcing” my bride to study for 2,000 hours before she could play unsupervised didn’t strike me as a good way to start a marriage. So Bonnie accepts (for the most part) what I do and I have no plans to “convert” her into a gambler.
However, one thing Bonnie had to learn to accept was my peculiar attitude toward holidays. In my mind, Christmas isn’t for family. It’s for taking advantage of double points at South Point! Casinos realize that most folks have other responsibilities on Christmas, so these casinos bribe the players to shave those other responsibilities to the greatest degree possible and then head over to the casino. I’m someone who accepts these bribes.
Bonnie and I have agreed to celebrate Christmas either a couple of days early or a couple of days late, but on Christmas day itself, I’m working. For the two Christmases that we’ve been together (one before we got married — one after), this has worked well enough.
Valentine’s Day is a different matter.
As I’ve previously written, Bonnie and I spend quite a bit of time pursuing our square dancing hobby. In addition to two or three evenings a week, we attend a few weekend regional events each year. Each weekend there are many of these events across the country. Bonnie and I use a variety of criteria to decide which ones we’ll attend—the level of dancing, the distance from Las Vegas, how well we like the caller(s), who else from Las Vegas will also attend, and a few other things. On the big events we’ve agreed to, I’ll go no matter what gambling opportunities are available in Las Vegas.
One of these maybe-yes/maybe-no square dances happens annually in St. George, Utah (about 120 miles northeast of Las Vegas) over the weekend closest to Valentine’s Day. This year, that meant Friday evening, February 13, and all day Saturday, February 14.
While we had recently agreed to add a big dance in March to our “we’ll go there, no matter what” list, Bonnie wanted to go to the St. George event as well. Even though it was a lower-level dance than most that we attend, she wanted to hear this particular caller. I told her it was conditional on the South Point promotions, and this same caller will be in Las Vegas in September anyway, and that’s a dance on our “no matter what” list.
Insofar as I was concerned, if the South Point was going to offer double points, it was more important for me to stay in Las Vegas. I told her we would find out the last week in January and there would still be time to register should the South Point not offer that promotion this year.
Bonnie was not happy with a conditional acceptance. She wanted a firm “yes” or “no” in December — and she let me know that “yes” was the correct answer. I told her that if she insisted on such a concrete answer, my answer was “no,” but if she could live with a conditional answer, we still might be able to go.
Further, I reminded her that there were four or five cars full of Las Vegas square dancers (most of whom Bonnie considers good friends) who were planning on driving up Saturday afternoon for the Saturday evening dance and then returning home afterwards. She could easily get a ride with one of them if she wanted to hear this particular caller. She and I usually go to dances together, but she is well-known and well-liked so she always has a good time, even when she goes without me.
Bonnie doesn’t do well with conditional answers. Her former husband (she’s the widow of a career Air Force Colonel) didn’t talk that way. So she huffed and puffed for a few days and finally said fine, we wouldn’t go. We eventually made plans to do other things that weekend here in Las Vegas.
As it turned out, this year the South Point did not have double points on Valentine’s Day, but they did have them two days later on President’s Day. So had she been able to wait, we still could have gone to St. George. But a couple of other gambling (and other) opportunities were available in Las Vegas that weekend. By the time we learned that we could have gone without missing out on the promotion that meant most to me, we had pretty well locked ourselves into staying home.
Bonnie is gradually getting used to my conditional answers. She enjoys the many benefits (dining, cruises, spa treatments, gift cards, trips out of town) she gets from my career and in her sensible moments, is coming to believe I’m not using conditional statements merely as an excuse to weasel out of something.
Someone whose wisdom I respect told me that there were only two tough times during a marriage: 1) the first year, and 2) all the time after that. Since we’re close to being halfway through the list, it’s all going to be smooth sailing from here. Right?