The other night I had a dream: It was Christmas time, and Andrew and I were in Lowes. He was excitedly negotiating with a salesman for a high end, front-loading washer/dryer. The units were purple; this mattered to neither of us. They were on clearance. When the salesman in my dream promised to throw in a new Dyson vacuum for free, I was a goner.

Given the thrill I felt in my dream, you would have thought Andrew was buying me an entire case of jewelry at Tiffany. When I woke up, I thought, “Awesome! A new washer/dryer!” only to be sadly disappointed that our old, (mostly) faithful run-of-the-mill Whirlpools were still taking up residence in our laundry room.

I find it hard to believe that my ideas of appropriate/exciting gifts has come to this. I am a romantic at heart, and I keenly remember thinking that Andrew and I would never resort to the sort of practical gift giving I’d seen so many married couples fall victim to – giving one another a few shares of stock or a coveted kitchen appliance; paying off their cars before the dawn of the New Year; stuffing one another’s stockings with tubes of toothpaste and Costco packs of toothbrushes.

Andrew is a great gift giver – he never fails to be thoughtful, and he’s almost always on the mark in terms of my preference or style. When he proposed, he did so with a ring that he designed. The Christmas after my father died, Andrew commissioned for me a painting of the farm where I grew up. When I turned thirty, he gave me a box filled with thirty slips of paper, each telling me what he loved about me. You really can’t get much better than that.

On the rare occasion when he has gone for something less than romantic/sentimental – there was that one shoe-themed Christmas – I’ve tried to cling to the bright side (I really did need some new shoes, and Andrew noticed without my mentioning it). But practicality is just generally not my gig. I’d rather be wooed.

So to dream that my romantic companion would give me a purple washer/dryer bought on clearance for Christmas? Truly a watershed moment. I have no Freudian or Jungian analysis for this. I think it’s just a sign of the times. Better appliances mean less work for me, and, as mentioned in a previous post, I need as much help as I can get.