"WHEN DID YOU get married?" asked my friend May.
I could not remember. I need to go check my marriage certificate, which is as undoubted as Mao's doctrine.
May said today was her eight year anniversary.
I asked her how she felt.
"I felt reminded that I've been a wife for eight, full years. Other than moving into a new house, I feel nothing."
Later on, I heard that she was busy at home putting together a romantic dinner.
Crystal suggested that she go nude under the apron. I suggested she should draw on the apron a pair of massive tits.
When I was in the south of France in what seemed like the region of Provence, I came across a road-side stall that had an apron for sale. The front of the apron had a picture of a full-bodied woman with a large chest and strong legs, wearing lace underwear and garters. The price was thirteen euros. But in a moment of weakness, I let the apron go. When I got to Paris, I searched stall after stall to no avail. There was not a single apron like it in sight. My regret ran deep — I wanted to give it to Pig as an anniversary gift, so that one day while wearing it in the kitchen, I could run in and take a picture of him.
In a way, marriage produces more special occasions. Each one is like a Christmas tree, and you feel compelled to decorate it.
Before getting married, I was a smooth killer. Whenever a special occasion came around, I felt like a shark smelling blood in the water for the first time. I was terribly vain. My favorite kinds of gifts were of the superficially flashy variety, ones that I could show off while walking down the street. But at heart, I'm still a simple village girl. I've never expected anyone to give me something lavish like a convertible I could race through red lights with. I'd rather have someone send me a bouquet of flowers to my office while I'm at work. Thinking about it now though, I feel disgraced. Everyone knows that if you show off flowers to the world, you've never seen a diamond or a mansion.
For our first Valentine's Day together, Pig brought home a bunch of red and pink roses. As he walked in the door, he received my greeting thusly, "Why did you waste so much money on roses? Are you insane? You've been ripped off."
Pig, on the contrary, was very pleased with himself. "Don't worry, they were only thirty yuan! I told the shopkeeper, 'It's already eleven. In one hour, you won't have anyone looking to buy. You might as well sell them to me.'"
Even so, I still think a bottle of shampoo is more worthy of thirty yuan.
Look, getting married is like a journey. A journey where you start in heaven and fall down to earth. As we progressed, our gifts tacitly changed from elegant flower vases to kitchenware. You don't need roses to survive, but you do need food. We were never so poor that we went hungry, but we did get incredibly lazy. Love is like climbing a mountain, and marriage is when you get to the top. After that, you can stroll about as slowly as you please.
After already gifting wallets, belts, T-shirts, shirts, razors, leather shoes, slippers — even socks and gloves — I started to wonder, "Is it appropriate to give long underwear for an anniversary gift?"
Pig was even worse than me. After gifting chocolate, flowers and perfume, he proceeded to repeat these same gifts in the same order. He did this several times. He was like a long-distance runner doing endless laps in his lane, determined to wear down my will.
I'd really like to know who invented anniversaries. Every kind of commemorative occasion puts human memory and imagination to the ultimate test.
Fortunately, humans naturally strive for simplicity.
After only one year of marriage, our celebrations were limited to both of our birthdays, Valentine's Day and our wedding anniversary — only four special days out of the whole year. Yet still, we both deeply regret the fact that we weren't born on the same day in the same year. If we were, we could drop one of the days and only have to celebrate three times per year.
Going on like this left us no room to be lazy. We racked our brains trying to think of ways to surprise each other, creating small joys to break up the monotony of life like how small flowers dot the great grassy plains.
This is what Pig the money worshiper did.
"Happy birthday! I got a car you!" he said, handing me a key.
He did the same thing on our wedding anniversary. But when he gave me the key that time, he told me that he bought a house.
