Courtney Shrine

One nice thing about Blondie is that he
doesn’t need material things.
He is spiritually happy all the time.
But this means that, when I give him gifts, he treats them like collectibles (even if they’re not meant to be). I mean, sure, maybe he couldn’t really have used the Love Bug, a micro robotic creature that ambles towards whomever in the room is talking. But I’m looking through this pile right now, and I know he could have used the puppy stickers and the Principia Chapel bookmark. In his parent’s house, he had a big room, and in the corner, there was a tiny shelf, which became the “Courtney shrine.” He kept all my gifts there. It’s almost like the minute he received something from me (right after thanking me with tears and an ovation), he’d dump it right on top of the pile and forget about it.

This didn’t bother me. It never bothered me because I liked how non-materialistic he was, how he didn’t put much stake in gifts. They were always the most special thing in the world in the moment he received them. Each gift would set him off on a speech about how I am the perfect gift-giver. Sometimes, as I mentioned, he would actually cry because the gift was so perfect–so perfect for that time. And then, inevitably, it would wind up on the shelf with the others.

If I ever try to toss any of these things, he protests, “You gave that to me!” I gave him an alarm egg from Sharper Image. When we moved all the stuff over to my house, somehow the alarm wound up on the round cherry table in the living room near where my mom does her studies. The alarm beeps every other minute. Last week, I suggested to my mom that we throw it in the trash bag, so it can beep all the way to the dump. Mom whooped and hollered with agreement, but Alex was at work, and I said we should wait for him to get home so he could be part of the decision. I asked him, and sure enough, he was like, “You gave it to me!” I was like, “You have never used it.” He said, “It’s too quiet. I will use it when I get used to waking up to something that soft.” I said, “Well, if you can figure out how to get it to stop beeping...,” and Blondie was like, “I like it,” referring to the sound.

When Blondie moved to my house, he packed up all the things he wanted to take with him. He used a New York & Company shopping bag to carry the Courtney stuff, and we just stuck it in the basement. I recently brought it up to my room, so I could go through it and maybe put all the old high school notes in a scrapbook–it’s funny that I’m doing that to the stuff I gave him–and maybe get Blondie to use some of the stuff that can actually be used, like the Pearl Oral Care toothbrush or the dachshund picture holder that his mom thought was a bong.

The Courtney shrine pile.

"I don't know what he does to make you cry
But I'll be there to make you smile
I don't have a fancy car
To get to you I'd walk a thousand miles
I don't care if he buys you nice things
Does his gifts come from the heart?
I don't know
But if you were my girl
I'd make it so we'd never be apart"