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| Little kids. |
The traditional third anniversary gift is leather. The modern one is crystal, or- if one is feeling frugal- glass.
I am giving P.J. none of these tomorrow.
Instead, today I’ll regale everyone with one of the best Peej stories in the history of…maybe ever. (Although, when this tale occurred I was carrying an awesome leather bag and P.J. almost got his face smashed through glass. So to anyone who still feels that this blog has no tie-ins, well, I just laugh at you, sir.)
Okay. So this was back in the late summer of 2005. Our relationship was squeaky new (and a fortunately small group of people had taken to calling us “KeeJay”). I was twenty five. Peej was a positively toddler-esque twenty four. And we had been out late. The show in which we had performed had ended for the weekend and we had- quite possibly- stayed a little too long at the After Hours bar. And while we certainly weren’t drunk, one of us was a little more tired than polite conversation demanded.
Our cab let us off on the busy intersection near my studio apartment and we began our walk towards it. Halfway down my tree-lined block, a car whizzed by- way closer to the parked cars and entirely faster than P.J. deemed appropriate. In true P.J. fashion, he yelled after it.
“This is a residential neighborhood!”
Out of nowhere, a smallish group of Wrigleyville jocks appeared on the other end of the block. Telling P.J. to stop being such an expletive and yelling at them.
P.J. explained- loudly- that he wasn’t TALKING to them.
Expletive.
Expletive.
Quicker than you can say “full body cast,” we were surrounded by the frattiest looking group of White Hats- and one trashed and trashy-looking girl. Awesome.
They demanded to know all about P.J.’s beef with various issues. Peej conjectured that speeds of that car’s nature were unsafe this early in the a.m. It got rather heated, but not too unmanageable.
Until a hand reached out and shoved P.J.’s back. Which propelled him into the chest of the largest guy- with the White Hat most firmly turned backwards. Then came a lovely shoving backwards and forwards of various hands into various chests. Now, I’m no psychic, but I knew how this short story would end. Especially since this little, red-headed dude kept popping his face into P.J.’s and demanding to know “who was talking now.”
There was a momentary lull in the action, which enabled P.J. to turn and offer up the most P.J. of all phrases he would ever utter to me, be it past, present, or future-
“Get in the house.”
Oh, OKAY. I’ll just leave you to your pummelly death then, shall I? Okie doke. I’ll start getting ready for bed.
I ignored this advice, much to P.J.’s confusion. (Like I said, we were really new.) I then decided that this mission needed an ambassador mission and turned to the drunk girl.
“This is crazy,” I informed her. “We need to stop this.”
“My baby’s gotta take care of me, you know?” She actually slurred at me. “He protects me from people disrespecting.”
Uh, sure, Useless Girl With Imagined Slights. I chalked her up to be the least valuable person involved in the skirmish- maybe the city- and turned to one of the guys not currently shoving the boy I had decided would father my child in four and a half years.
“Please,” I begged him. “This is stupid. I live right here and he hadn’t even been talking to you. We almost got hit by a car!” I omitted P.J.’s strong feelings on speed bump necessities and also the gin and tonic- which I had just decided would be stricken from his drink menu until I died. (Which was looking pretty imminent.)
For some reason, this guy took pity on me. Or perhaps he felt something (respect? incredulousness?) towards P.J. fighting off six guys.
“Hey.” And they stopped. It was magical. Curt words were exchanged and P.J. was grudgingly allowed to leave the circle of death. He and I walked towards the exterior door of my building and I unlocked it, all the while hearing mutterings of dismayed frat boys and one pathetic girl’s misplaced prideful ramblings. As soon as P.J. and I were almost safely inside the front door, the redhead piped up something obnoxious and unrepeatable. And since Peej has enough Irish in him to not let something like that lie- ever- he shouted back his own anatomical request.
And just like that, a crush of bodies shoved forwards.
Safely locking us into my building’s foyer.
P.J. and I went upstairs and I contemplated having to move. As soon as we were contained in my apartment, he turned to me with a completely inappropriate gleeful smile.
“That was crazy!”
And while I didn’t hit him- per se- I’m pretty sure he was more afraid of me than the pack of sporty hyenas down the street. Which is the basis for an solid marriage. And while nothing of that ilk has ever happened since, it was the first of many times where I knew that P.J. would happily face an angry mob (be it during the closing on our property or bugging the nurse for more post c-section painkillers)- as long as I had gotten into the metaphorical house.
And he still feels the exact same way about speed limits on tree-lined streets.
(I love you, Peej.)
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