From humble beginnings we built our empire

Today is our fourth anniversary, rather arbitrarily calculated at this point but better than nothing.

In celebration of this, we’re going to sundae ourselves into food comas tonight at Fenton’s, which was the site of our very first date — except it was a different Fenton’s, which was possibly a Leatherby’s at the time, and it was our first-first date, not our most recent first date. Still, there is important symbolism here somewhere, even if you have to dig into the couch cushions of my brain to find it.

That first date, when we were 14 and 15 respectively, was exciting in lots of ways. The Lad, upon discovering how uncomfortable I was eating around others, refused to order anything and instead insisted on staring at me while I ate. It was around this time I thought “this might be someone I’d enjoy being mildly abused by for the rest of my life.” After the ice cream, we saw Guarding Tess in the Dome, then had our first kiss just outside. (“I’m going to hug you now,” I explained, moving in for the kill, “so that I don’t have to hug you while my mom is here,” a line I have used with varying success throughout my dating career.)

In conclusion I’d like to present you with a quote from Guarding Tess that I feel sums up much of our past years of relationship drama, if you substite “the Lad” for “Tess” and “Didofoot” for “the President.”

Tess: The President is coming […]. Will you have the cars and the machine guns ready in about an hour?

Let us take a moment to reflect not on the miracle of our love, but on the miracle of an internet that will provide us with quotes even from a movie as shitty as this one.