It’s all down to INFLATION!
Love is in the air at Kevin’s house, but unlike his marriage, some things aren’t meant to last
Linda and I are unreliable around our wedding anniversaries. Sometimes I forget, sometimes she forgets. Sometimes I buy a gift, sometimes Linda does. Sometimes we just buy cards, though they now seem as costly as gifts. However, our recent anniversary celebrating 45 years of marriage was too special to forget. We both bought gifts – but Linda’s absolutely triumphed.
She presented me with an astonishing metre-high caricature of us both, made out of balloons. It was the work of Paul Bates, one of the competitors in the 2023 TVNZ series Blow Up. If you didn’t see it, balloon twisters competed to create the most remarkable room-sized constructions.
Linda knows the multitalented Paul. He annually performs as Zappo the Magician in the kindy she teaches at. Linda asked Paul if he’d make her a bunch of flowers out of balloons for me on our anniversary. He agreed. But Paul went further. He created a balloon image of the two of us as a wedding couple – an absolute crack-up. The latex creation stood tall and proud on our lounge coffee table for weeks. Visitors were fascinated. “Such an original gift – what did you give Linda, Kevin?” My book looked so lame.
As it turned out, Linda’s gift just kept on giving. You see, after a while, the air started slowly leaking from both of us. We couldn’t establish quite where from, but I suppose all blown-up balloons have a limited life. As the days and weeks passed, we began to gradually slump as if we’d drunk too much wedding Champagne. My specs, so cleverly constructed, fell down my face. Linda, for the first time in her life, was in worse condition than me. She began to go cross-eyed as her whole body started to contort. Was this some kind of a metaphor for a long marriage?
As more time passed, I too started to slump right over, like I was doing up my shoelaces. My head ended up somewhere down between the bride’s buckled legs. It was getting awkward. The balloon sculpture would have to be removed from the lounge in case any children turned up. In case anyone turned up! In the end, we decided to, as it were, pull the pin on the project and burst our celebratory bubble. Yes, it felt deflating. But I’ll never forget our 45th wedding anniversary – when Linda absolutely nailed it.
As the days and weeks passed, we began to gradually slump as if we’d drunk too much wedding Champagne