Valentine & Old Couples

So yeah. Almost everyone online seem to be calling it Sucker's Day and we're inclined to agree that Valentine's Day is just another excuse for businesses to bleed your wallets.

But Valentine on Saturday was just another Saturday to us. We took the kid to The Curve and let him run loose. Meanwhile, young lovers (and suckers) were everywhere, dressed to the nines lugging around bouquets, gifts and other Valentine paraphernalia. As Mae and I watched with amusement, we were also painfully aware that this part of our lives is now over.

Let's face it. Mae and I are no spring chickens. Pushing 40, married for 7 years with a hyperactive 5-year-old in tow and another in the oven, we don't really get much more alone-time to be together anymore. In fact, it's probably never gonna happen until we ship the kids off to college and stuff. Sure, when Jesse was younger, we could always just dump him at my In-Laws and go for a movie or something, but now that he's bigger, we're never gonna get this past him.

Last Saturday, we took him all over and let him stay at the playground to his heart's content. He had a ball, running up and down like a monkey on speed. By 9pm that evening, the boy was out like a light. And so, after leaving the household under the care of our maid, TheaVy, Mae and I snuck out for our Valentine's Day Dinner. And, having the wisdom of our years (*ahem), we did not submit to the crass commercialisation of the day. There was no bouquet (sorry Honey!), no dressing up, no make-up and no pretenses. Instead, we ended up at our favourite Pokkari haunt in the Chow Kit area, in our t-shirts and shorts.

So there we were, right smack of the seediest side of downtown KL, surrounded by a community of traders, prostitutes, drug addicts and transvestites, backdropped by raging traffic and screeching Mat Rempits. And right there in the midst of it all, we were alone at last. And for a fleeting moment, we were like young lovers once again. Until the night air caused our bones to ache, that is. Okay, I was kidding about that last part! We're not quite that far over the hill yet.

So yeah, Valentine's Day may be Suckers Day to you, but hey, we old couples need this. If only as an excuse to drop everything for a couple of hours and pay attention to each other again. Tragic as that may sound. :)



happy valentine's day