There's No Magic Bullet for This Anniversary

I took a couple of days off for our wedding anniversary this year, having come up with a fairly simple idea, which is all I'm capable of when it comes to events like that. Anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's Day ... my mind freezes up like a ... frozen ... thing. See, just thinking about it does that.

Now, my wife loves camping, but our anniversary is March 5th. In Indiana that's camping season in the same way the South Pole is a tourist attraction: Sure, you can do it, but you're more than likely going to freeze. But we'd had a very warm February, so I rolled the dice and came up with a plan: We would head south for a short camping trip, maybe somewhere along the Ohio River where it's always at least five or ten degrees warmer than Northern Indiana. It's not exactly green down there yet, which is why I settled on Clifty Falls State Park--a place where a lack of foliage might actually improve the view.

As long as it didn't rain it was a brilliant plan, by which I mean it was brilliant by my standards, by which I mean I didn't come up with a backup plan in case it rained. Then we got measurable snow on two of the first three days of March. The first day we didn't get any snow because of the severe thunderstorm rolling through.

I confess to getting a little nervous at that point.

Our forecast was cooler and partially wet, but hey--that was hundreds of miles from our soon-to-be dream anniversary spot. So I checked the forecast for Madison, Indiana, which is right by Clifty Falls at the opposite end of the state.

Their forecast was exactly the same as ours.

That I didn't see coming. It wouldn't be so cold that we wouldn't be comfortable inside the sleeping bags my mother-in-law gave us for Christmas--but three days stuck inside a tent with a dog, wrapped in a sleeping bag (us, not the dog), just doesn't seem all that dreamy.

So as I write this it's March Third, and I'm desperately trying to come up with a plan B. I even checked on what the anniversary gifts are for a fifth wedding anniversary. The traditional one is wood, and the modern one is silverware.

Well, the wood would come in handy to build a fire. But silverware? Why don't I just give her a new garbage disposal, or a vacuum cleaner? "Isn't it romantic? A gift like this will sweep you off your feet! Get it? Dear? What are you doing with that ax?"

At this point I considered combining the anniversary gift ideas into a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" themed anniversary, in which we would go out into the forest with wooden stakes and silver bullets to hunt the supernatural. That show figured into how we met, and I believe it's having a 20th anniversary itself, so I thought I had something. Then I realized it would involve taking my once again disappointed wife into an area with no witnesses, then handing her a sharp object and a loaded gun.

Might as well just give her a shovel, too ... but I think hand tools don't come around until the 11th anniversary. I'll let you know how it goes.

If I can.