O Tidings of Comfort and Joy

As I slid into the car I noticed the humidity in the air, the noise of my fiance's Cutlass, and the Sears shopping bags in the back seat. "What's goin' on there?" I asked, curious as to what he'd done now.

"I dunno... maybe it's an entire bedroom set!" He said, excitedly. "My mum took me shopping and I picked it out. It comes with everything, blanket, pillowcases, sheets. It's sort of an un-birthday present." I glanced over my left shoulder, trying to make out the pattern in the darkness. It was after 10 in the evening, and I'd just finished a shift at work. The Man was picking me up. I couldn't really make out anything more than a couple of triangles.

"Oh no." I uttered under my breath.
"What? What is it?"
"Umm, nothing, really. I'm just, I don't know. Nervous, I guess."
"Why?"
"I don't know if I'm going to like it. I'm afraid I won't."
"You will."

We got back to the apartment, and hauled the oversize bags into the building. Immediately I dropped them on the carpet in the bedroom and flicked on the light switch, hoping for the best. I wanted to like them, I really, genuinely did. As the light came on the comforter was instantly illuminated in its shiny new packaging surrounded by throw pillows and sheets.

"Oh no." I muttered again.
"No. Holly, no. Give it a chance. I really thought of you when I picked it!"
"But I... sort of already don't like it." I said, being as friendly as I knew how to be.
"Let's just take a look at it on the bed, okay?" I gulped, terrified, seeing a vision of us putting all of the linens back in their bags when we were finished. This could not be happening.

First the bed skirt, then two sheets, all out of their bags, packaging materials strewn about the bedroom. Next the pillowcases, and finally the comforter. I stepped back and looked at the sight as the Man scrounged through yet another bag to find another piece, though I could not imagine what more could go on this bed. Suddenly I felt a heavy stone in my stomach, and my gag reflexes began to trigger. Oh. No.

The sight before me was the most masculine combination of patterns and colours I had ever seen. Not soothing, not tranquil, but harsh in geometric designs and composition. Mixes of oranges, reds, greens, suddenly I was transported to a hunting lodge, and this was the tapestry hanging from the wall. Then still, I was teleported to a teepee as I watched the chief himself dance around, his dusty feet pattering across this comforters triangle design, and once more! I find myself in the middle of a cabin, lounging on this blanket as a bear claws at the window and the deer's head on the wall glares down at me with an evil, knowing stare. This blanket could not be farther from what I would have chosen. In any world.

"Baby...?" I said in my cutest, meekest voice. The man looked up from the bag he was shuffling through and flashed me a look of recognition, then relaxed his face and eyebrows in an exhausted, frustrated way.

"What."

"Can I be honest...?" I lifted my finger to my mouth and began chewing my most vulnerable nail.

"No."

"I sort of hate it."

"What?"

"I um, I sort of don't know if I've ever seen an uglier bedroom set in my life."

Then, like a flag of victory, the man lifted from the bag a window valence, matching in pattern to the comforter, the pillowcases, the sheets, the throw pillows, and headed toward me with it, intending to put it up on the curtain rod. His eyes menacing, he marched ever closer, my life flashed before my eyes as the South American afghan pattern encircled me, closing in on me from all directions, like wallpaper over my soul.

"Noooooo!" I shouted my battlecry, throwing my hands out in front of me. Suddenly the world I knew was in slow motion, my arms entangled in the rough polyester valence, the man crashing slowly into me, soldiering onward toward the window.

When time started again I regained my composure, valence in hand. "Absolutely not. You will not put this on that window." The Man feigned confusion, as I marched past him, throwing the overpriced piece of ugly fabric to the ground, where it landed among bags and pieces of cardboard. "Baby. No."

"But, I really thought of you when I picked it out!" He claimed, hands lowered in a pleading motion, and I could tell he meant it. Though, this was not a comforting thought.

"Do you even know me? At all?"

Slowly but surely we took the pieces off the bed and carefully put them back in their bags, and assembled them in the corner of the bedroom. A mountain of my fiance's shame.

"I'm sorry, should I have not said anything?"
"No." He sighed. "I'm happy you did."
"This is what you're getting yourself into, you know."
"I know, baby."
"Are you going to take it back to your mum's? Maybe we can get a new one."
"Yeah." He breathed.

We snuggled up in the old blankets to watch some TV before retiring that day. "You know," I started. "It's sort of funny."

"What is?" He said, tilting his head at me.

"This will be the second comforter we'll be sending back to your mum's."

He paused for a few moments.

"I wish you hadn't told me that."