When a hot tub’s waiting, it’s always good to cue up ‘It’s Cold Outside’

                        
For some guys, finding the perfect Valentine’s Day gift is an arduous pursuit aimed at finding the sweet spot of ardor. So many choices, so many mistakes to be avoided. Until the other night, I believed what my wife had said many years ago; that is, “Don’t ever think you have to get me anything for Valentine’s Day. I have all I want in you.” Which, let’s face it, has gotten me off the hook for more than two decades. What I usually do is cook a simple meal; I mean, it’s that old Pillsbury slogan: “Nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ in the oven.” But all that changed this year, when my wife got invited to a party ... and I want to quote the invitation accurately: a “Valentine’s Day Weenie Roast Hot Tub Disco Dance Party!” “Good God,” I said. “It says here to bring along ‘your funky self.’ I hated disco when I was in college.” “So?” she asked. “I hate it even more now!” I said. “It’s not enough that ABBA got voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ... but no Warren Zevon? No Linda Ronstadt? No Guess Who? It’s an outrage!” “Your brother loves ABBA,” she said. “Can’t he enjoy this?” “Well,” I said, “he also thinks Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy ... and that’s just plain wrong, too.” There was a quiet moment in the sunroom as my wife allowed my vitriol to wane. So I went out walking as the snowflakes began falling in earnest. My beard collected the white stuff as Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” played in my head and kept my steps planting deep impressions in the fledgling drifts. Disco, I thought to myself, and spat. Nothing represented all that was wrong in the post-Watergate world more than that “music,” a synthetic blend of slippery, greasy, moronic, syncopated, rhythmic, toxic swirl, topped off with nonsensical “lyrics” that defined the word “inane.” And those dance steps! The way everyone had to move the same way at the same time ... turn ... and spin ... and do the same thing all over again and again and again. Uniformity and conformity: the enormity of the insult to any sentient being still makes my mind snap. A reader last week called me “an old rock and roll warrior,” and I took it as a great compliment, though I’m not sure she meant it that way. Still ... the world rejected disco the way the human body rejects any dangerous virus: simply and efficiently. So, bye-bye records so slick that I’m still amazed a tonearm could avoid slipping all the way across. Hello, three chords and the truth. By the time I’d gotten back to the house, after having walked a mile or two in a rare winter Carolina snowstorm, I was in a much better frame of mind. “You really want to go to this party?” I asked as my wife put down her Kindle and gave me her full attention. “I have to go,” she said. “These are the people I work with.” “No problem,” I said, thinking that a hot tub in the middle of February sounded like something pretty fine. “We’re there.” And I’d already decided to pack a few CDs with my trunks and towel: some Stones, of course, maybe the Faces from “Five Guys Walk into a Bar” and a couple of mixes I’d burned last week, one of which features a lot of Ohio bands, including the James Gang, the Raspberries, the Ohio Players and the Choir. (Their “It’s Cold Outside,” released in 1967, is still essential winter listening.) And then it got cold inside. “You know how we’ve always said that we don’t care about Valentine’s Day?” she said. “No presents, no big deal, nothing that’s any different from any other day?” I started to get a bad feeling. You have to understand that my wife hardly ever asks me for anything. Aside from chasing birds and bats out of the house ... or taking out the trash ... or mowing the grass ... or cooking the meals, she’s perfectly content with me the way I am. “Sure,” I said. “We don’t buy into that whole greeting-card mentality when it comes to a made-up holiday, though I have brought home the occasional single red rose to mark the occasion.” “And I love them,” she said, hesitating in the way that any husband recognizes as the ground shifting beneath his sneakers. “But there is one thing you could do for me this year ... .” I swallowed and managed a smile. “Whatever you want,” I said. “You know that I’d do anything for you.” She didn’t hesitate this time. “I want you,” she said, fixing my furry face with her eyes, “to shave off that beard before we go to the party.” Mike Dewey can be e-mailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560.


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