Nine glorious and long years ago, I married my first and current wife. This week we celebrate our anniversary.

We have tentatively agreed not to exchange presents this year. We're about to add a room to our house and so we prudently decided to spend our money on the project rather than on gifts. Although we are still going out to a nice dinner, I agreed to the no-gift deal with great trepidation. I don't mean to be sexist (which is a not-so-thinly-veiled way of saying, "Hey, I'm sexist!"), but dames dig gifts, right? I oughta give her something.

I informed her the other night that I was considering changing the sheets on our bed. This is a chore that gets performed every ewwwww-I-can't-stand-these-sheets-any-more in our house. It's about that time.

"Baby," I said lovingly, "I'm gonna change the sheets for our anniversary!"

I checked the chart. The first anniversary is something paper, 50th is gold, and 9th is clean sheets. Hoo hoo!

Anyway, not only will I be giving my sweet baboo clean sheets, but I will also be giving her something else and equally priceless, RIGHT NOW! In honor of our 9th anniversary, a truly momentous milestone, I think it's time to give my wife a name in this blog other than "Wife".

I've written before about how I'm not very good at naming things. Throughout my life, however, one name has come up time and time again when I needed a moniker for something that I cherish. Honeypie, in that spirit of respect and love, I do hereby christen you "Hank".


Happy anniversary, Hank. I love you.