Dear Beatles: The Answer Is 'Yes.'

We interrupt the unremitting barrage of delighted baby-anticipating squeals to answer the question  articulated best by the Beatles in 1967:

Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64?

Well, Paul McCartney (who apparently first asked this question at the wise old age of SIXTEEN, holy cow), in the case of the handsome guy seen above, the answer to your question is an unreserved YES! Let me explain.

Sunday afternoons are sacred to me, in that I take a holy nap every single Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday after church and lunch I set the volume of a 1940s-era movie to "soothing," pulled a cozy afghan up to my chin, hit the recline button on my chair, and drifted off sleep. Two hours later I woke up to find Husband had put a note on the book still open in my lap.

"I'm at the office but I'll be back at 5:30. Be ready to go."

What?

Then at 5:15 he called--"Are you ready to go?" Well, no, not unless you count pajama pants and an old sweatshirt as ready to go. "Just put on some jeans."

By that point I was completely baffled. He knows I don't go out in public in jeans (see also: People of Walmart I Don't Want to Be) so we weren't going to the movies. We had seen an interesting house with a "For Sale" sign on it, even though we have no plans of moving from the House on the Corner--were we going to relive our first dates when we trolled open houses even before we knew we'd be sharing one?

Finally his pick-up pulled up at the back door and I got in. At the first corner we turned right, then right again, then after a few blocks right again, into Small Town's most beautiful park.

And then he parked at a picnic table and pulled the cooler out of the back. In it was a red-checked tablecloth, plates, silverware, bottled water,  and a full fried-chicken meal from the local grocery store.

"It was such a gorgeous day, we just had to be out in it, and I know this is your favorite," he told me. We sat there and ate the carbs-be-damned delicacies, in the most perfect weather, with the company we most prefer in the world. He knew, and remembered, that I hate plastic cutlery. He knew, and remembered, that I love the crispy fried chicken. He knew, and remembered, that I can't abide bugs so this is the best time of the year for me to enjoy a picnic.

And while I do love the big gesture, it's this--the remembering, the attention to detail, the thinking of me first, that made me fall in love with the accountant.

Yesterday this guy turned 64. The first line of the Beatles song was a little on-the-nose prophetic ("When I am older, losing my hair....) but the final verse rings especially true.

I could be handy, mending a fuse

When your lights have gone

You can knit a sweater by the fireside

Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds, 

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

I do, I will.

Who could ask for more?