Essay: Birthday girl, the sequel (in which Liz's gift is revealed)

 

By Paul Carrier

I mentioned earlier this week that my wife of 25 years celebrated her birthday on Tuesday. What I didn’t say in that post is that she got a spanking new bright red Vespa. As you can see in the photo, Liz was one happy camper when the scooter was delivered on Tuesday, her big day. She’s been tooling around the neighborhood ever since, acting for all the world like she’s been two wheelin' for years. (Yes, she has a helmet.)

 

In fact, Liz’s only prior experience with a Vespa occurred last Saturday, when she test drove one around the parking lot at Tri-Sports Inc., a dealership in Topsham, Maine. (Great folks there, by the way.) Yet she took to the scooter immediately, perhaps because she’s wanted a Vespa since high school.

I’m sure I’ll hit the road on the Vespa one of these days, but so far I’ve confined myself to nagging her about being careful and helping her haul the surprisingly heavy machine in and out of our attached shed. For better or for worse, Liz is simply more receptive to change than I am. She isn’t in any way careless or irresponsible - quite the opposite - but she’s generally quicker to try new things than her stick-in-the-mud husband.

If it’s true, as they say, that opposites attract, this is just one more manifestation of that fact. Perhaps the key to a good relationship is for two people to combine different personalities and common interests - in our case, such things as reading, writing, animals, politics, history and our shared values. All I can say is that it’s worked darn well for a quarter of a century.