When The Big Daddy and I married, we lived about two hours from our parents. He was in graduate school, I worked in a bank. That year, Christmas Eve was on a Saturday. The bank kept regular Saturday hours, 9 – 12, and I offered to work since we didn’t have much of a drive.
It started snowing early in the a.m.and was a swirling, blizzardy mess as the morning wore on. There was stories of accidents and bad driving conditions from customers, and one of my coworkers who was going in the same general vicinity as me heard that the interstate was closed. Puhleez. There wasn’t all that much snow that could have accumulated in such a short time.
While that may have been true, in central Illinois there is nothing to stop the snow, and with the right wind conditions it certainly can close a highway. So there we were, The Big Daddy and The Loan Processor spending Christmas alone in the dreary basement apartment. With the roaches.
Because we had planned on being with the family, we had no tree. Nor a Christmas dinner or gifts to open because we were broke. Ho. To. The. Ho. We dug in the fridge and came up with some cube steaks and a couple of beers. Nothing celebrates the joy of Jesus’ birth like chewing on some gristle off of t.v. trays while watching MTV. I was DEEpressed.
Finally, The Big Daddy said, “Enough. We are getting out and going to the movies.. Your pick.” That’s how we ended up at “Terms Of Endearment” and I had no idea Debra Winger was going to die. I boo hooed and it was a miserable 1st married Christmas except for this…………..
In the movie, Jack Nicholson offers Shirley MacLaine a drink which she declines. He tells her she should consider it “to kill the bug that crawled up your ass.” I believe it’s one of the finest movie lines of all time and I have used it over and over. In my head. To people who make me nuts.
We went back to our place, killed some Christmas roaches in the bathroom and called it a night. We eventually made it home to celebrate New Years with our families and we drank plenty.
Just to make sure.
