Before I address the elephant in the room, let me first give you permission to say, "Aww. What a sweet husband! He shared her blog with the masses!"
And guess what---he does it every day. Permission granted for you to say "Awww" again.
Pause for "awwww"ing.
Now, regarding the elephant in the room. We do no, in fact, have a pachyderm-shaped coffee table. Nor have we added a circus elephant to our menagerie of cats. We do, however, have this:
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| No, I'm not kidding. Yes, it's a giant shelf of robots. |
Let's rewind to the fall of 2006, when the madness began and our living room was sans shelf.
One night, Brian and I were enjoying our pre-reading, post-sleeping perusal of the Internet Movie Data Base, looking for upcoming movie releases. Suddenly, while I was busy reading the description of some other, now-forgotten film, Brian sits up in bed, shouts "WHAT??!?!" and immediately gets his "Immense Joy" face on.
A: What is it? What is it?
B:OMG!!THEYREMAKINGATRANSFORMERSLIVEACTIONMOVIEPANTPANTPANT.
A: I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
B: O.M.G. THEY'RE. MAKING. A. TRANSFORMERS. LIVE-ACTION. MOVIE. PANT. PANT. PANT.
A: You mean, the plastic toy robots from the 80s?
B: (stares at A like she just grew a third eye in the middle of her forehead.) They weren't just "plastic robots." They were my favorite cartoon as a kid!!!
A: Oh. Well, honey, that's sweet.
B: (banging away on keyboard) I wonder if this means they're bringing the cartoon back?!? And the toys! Oh boy, I wonder who the director will be....who the *&@$ is Shia LaBeouf?
And so the obsession began. First, it was just checking up on the movie...looking for new trailers, finding information about the cars involved in the project, reading up on the actors who were in the film.
Then he began giving me updates.
I'd recount them here, but there were so many I don't remember them.
And then, one day while fighting our way through the crowd at my LEAST favorite store on the planet (we'll call is Small Mart), Brian disappeared.
Less than thrilled, I called him on his cell phone.
A: Where the *$#@ are you?
B: I'll be right there.
A: Seriously?? I just got to the front of the store to get in line, and you disappeared!
B: I'll be right there. *click*
That's when I see my husband
B: LOOK what they had!! *holds up box with a robot inside*
A: Aw, hon. Is that a Transformer?
B: It's not A Transformer, it's THE Transformer. It's Optimus Prime! *Looks at box wistfully* I ALWAYS wanted this toy as a kid, but we could never afford it.
At this point, I swear, there were tears in his eyes. And my heart melted as I saw a little of the 10-year old boy inside my 20-something husband. Without even glancing at the price tag, I took Optimus and put him in our cart, on top of the toilet paper and cat litter and ginormous bag of Doritos.
And unknowingly created a monster.
Fast-forward to 2010. Two movies, a huge shelf, and 74 robots later and Brian was turning 30. I threw him an unorthodox and unsolicited surprise party. And the theme?
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| You guessed it. |
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| Our pal, Mimi, made a Cupcake Cake that any 10-year-old boy, and my husband, could be proud of. Oh, and the matching napkins? That's right, we're SO cool! |
To this day, if we go in a store with a toy department, Brian somehow manages to steer me to the toy section "just to look."
He also knows to give me a warning before he starts talking about robots. IE: 'Hey, so, this is going to be about the new Transformer movie, in case you want to start tuning me out. Might wanna start right about now. So anyway, I read on the forum today that...."
It can sometimes be annoying. It's definitely an expensive hobby. And there are days when discussing robot-on-robot action is the last thing I want to do.
But it brings him joy. And it's just one of the many things I love about him.
So, I let him keep the elephant in the living room.
And I equal things out by talking about Donnie Wahlberg. A LOT.
