buttons

A couple weeks ago I was driving with Eloise and I commented on what a beautiful day it was.  I told her it reminded me of the kind of weather we had on our wedding day.  She asked if that was the day when I 'spilled the buttons'.  I could not figure out what she was talking about and then I realized Mike must have had told her the 'button story'.  Thinking back on it, I think it was kind of, sort of, maybe the exact moment that I fell in love with Mike.

When we were first dating Mike was living in Chicago and I was still in Toledo.  I had been to visit him a couple of times and now it was time for him to visit me in Toledo.  Things were getting serious.

In my rush to get things ready and my apartment all cleaned up, I had thrown a ton of stuff into this huge walk- in coat closet in the living room. In addition to coats, it was also part craft closet, part kitchen storage, part Target overstock warehouse, so there were clothes, shoes, bags, coats, skillets, crafts, fabric, all kinds of stuff in there.  Also, I had recently spilled a jar of about 32,000 buttons, all shapes and sizes, and they were now covering the whole floor of the closet.  I just closed the door and hoped that no one would see that a tornado had gone off inside.  In our relationship we were still at that early stage when you care about what the other person thinks of you and you want to make a good impression.  Ahhh, love.

At some point after Mike's arrival we decided to go out to dinner.  I needed to get my coat.  Damn it! Not wanting to ruin the illusion of my perfection, I told Mike to please not look into the closet and I just had to grab something real quick.  It went a little something like this:

Me:  Don't look.
Him:  Okay.
Me:  Look away.
Him: I will.
Me:  Did you see?
Him: No.
Me:  Did you?
Him: No.
Me:  Do you swear?
Him: Yes, I swear!
Me:  Okay.  Good.

Him:  Liz?
Me:  Yeah?
Him:  Do you have any buttons?

Ten years later, I now have my buttons organized into color coded compartments
and sorted by size and material.  But, if you were worried that marriage has changed me and I have lost my true self, just take a look at my closets sometime.  On second thought, please don't.

 Happy Anniversary, honey.