I wanted romance. The kind of romance captured in photographs and printed in womens magazines. Is there any other kind?
I decided to set up our own romantic evening.
I opened the sparkling wine, I lit the candles, and I drew a scented bubble bath. Ah, this would be heaven, romantic, intimate, all those words of copy I read while sitting under the dryer at the hairdressers.
We both slide into the tub, on cue, the bubbles foamed and popped. The wine sparkled, the candles glowed. We gazed into each other’s eyes. I’m pretty sure they were his eyes; I’m pretty near sighted.
We sipped from the wine flutes and said, look, here we are in a bath tub drinking sparkling wine by candle light – we could hear the bubbles hitting against the glass, which was cool – the rain outside enhanced the coziness of the scene.
After ten minutes my husband shifted, splashing foamy water over the edge of the tub and extinguishing four of the five candles. The champagne bucket over turned into the bath and we spilled a flute full of wine.
Who knew the romance of this scene was meant to last only as long as it took to capture the photograph? Six, seven minutes, tops.
This is probably why people start playing with candle wax and end up setting the bath towels on fire.
