Gerald Smith's Flat Champagne

Bub. Bub, look at this ice sculpture. It's a pancake. They carved the entire planet as a pancake and nobody at this gala thinks that's a punchline — they think it's a tribute.

Ridiculous? Bub, you said anywhere, and I spent four months on that waiting list under a fake name because "plus one" wasn't cutting it for an anniversary dinner. This is the one place on earth where nobody's gonna side-eye us for toasting with flat champagne.

Fascinating, she says, like she didn't catch me practicing "oh wow, flat" in the bathroom mirror for a week. My mother used to say the only gifts worth giving are the ones that embarrass you a little in the getting — she planned my dad's retirement party for eleven months, Bub, eleven, and cried when the banner came out crooked because she meant it. I'm not above a little crooked banner. I'm not above a pancake planet if it means one night nobody looks at us twice.

Exactly! Nobody's bonkers enough to notice my tie doesn't match, or that you teared up during the appetizers, or that I still don't know how to say "happy anniversary" without my voice doing that thing. Out there, Bub, somebody's always got an opinion. In here, a man in a globe-is-a-conspiracy t-shirt just told me my cufflinks were "brave." Brave. I haven't felt brave since the waitlist lady asked why "Gerald Smith" sounded so nervous about a pancake.

"Exploring new places" — that's generous, Bub, considering I watched you Google "is this a cult" under the table before the salad course. But you stayed. Eleven years and you still stay for the crooked banners. That's the whole marriage, right there, in one sentence, next to a pancake made of ice.

A snowball! Bub, do you hear yourself? Twenty minutes ago you were Googling cults under the salad fork and now you're out here committing heresy for me. The man in the globe shirt is gonna weep. I might weep. I didn't even get you a card this nice.

Fun — right, fun, say that again so I can carve it into the ice before the pancake melts. Okay, snowball's going down, globe-shirt guy's crying into his flat champagne, and I'm standing here thinking about how you used to make fun of my dad's crooked banner and now look at you, out here committing heresy for me. Dance with me. Right here, between the conspiracy pamphlets and the cheese table. Nobody's watching except people who think the moon's a hologram, which means nobody's watching at all.