Kyle and I recently celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. Yay, us! While there are a lot of reasons why couples are able to have a wedding anniversary – for celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Nicolas Cage, for example, “just not getting divorced this year” is a big one – Kyle and I had an anniversary because we continue to love one another. Yay, love!
For #19, Kyle and I honored our love by going to dinner. For the whole of drinks, salads, and dinner, we talked about football because in addition to having a deep, passionate love for Kyle, I also recently developed a deep, passionate love for the NFL. This burning love came to be after I was introduced to three TV shows – Hard Knocks, Quarterback, and Receiver – and am now a foremost expert in professional football…but only the professional football players and teams that were featured on those shows. I also know a lot about the Minnesota Vikings, per geographic law, as well as the New England Patriots because Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl while I was living in Boston. Also, I should clarify that while I am the foremost expert on the players and teams featured on Hard Knocks, I’ve only been watching Hard Knocks for about two years so nothing before that. To recap: Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots circa 2002-ish, and the aforementioned TV shows over the past two years. Let me know if you want me to join your Fantasy Football team.
There’s a NFL quarterback named Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins was formerly the starting QB for the Vikings and was featured on both seasons of the show Quarterback – so I know and like him best of all. I also like him the best of all because Kirk’s idea of a crazy adventure is to drink more than one Roy Rogers (Coke+grenadine) in a sitting, and being a wholesome nerd is the number-one quality I feel is important to being a good quarterback. The second quality is kindness, so I also like Jared Goff of the Lions and Jameis Winston of the Giants because they seem like good fellas. Finally, the third quality I feel is important to quarterbacking is looking good in those little football pants, and so I also like Joe Burrow.
Last year, Kirk Cousins left the Minnesota Vikings to play for the Atlanta Falcons and, near the end of the season, the Falcons benched him for Michael Penix Jr. The gossip today is that both the Falcons and Kirk want to trade him away this season, but the Falcons are paying him a gazillion dollars and the NFL has a salary cap and so someone can’t just take him because they also go nuts for a quality Roy Rogers.
Anyways, that’s what Kyle and I talked about at our anniversary dinner: what we believe to be Kirk Cousins’ future in the NFL. We did not come to a definitive conclusion.
By the time dessert rolled around we figured we should probably talk about something related to our actual marriage and so we reminisced about some of our previous anniversaries, starting with one of our most memorable: the first wedding anniversary after we became parents.
It was our fifth anniversary, and our son was barely a month old. We were very, very much in the “Our first baby is a month old and we are very tired and we may have showered and eaten meals today but maybe not” phase of parenthood. My Godmother took mercy on us and offered to watch the baby so we could go out for an anniversary dinner. We showered, put on actual clothes, dropped the baby and two different diaper bags off at my Godparents’ house, and went to the fanciest restaurant in town at the time, called Sanders.
We were seated at a two-person table in the middle of a row of tables along a shared banquet bench. The table to our left was a grouping of four adults who looked like business people, and the table to our right was a man and a woman who were obviously a couple. The tables were so close together that we could reach over and butter the bread of our neighbors, so we said hello to both parties and sat down.
The waitress took our drink order, we had a brief conversation about what we thought the baby was doing at that moment, and then we both looked down at our menus. As noted previously, up to that point we had been talking the entire time – to our neighbors, to the waitress, to one another. When we looked at the menus, we were in silence. That silence was important because, in that brief moment, we realized the couple to our right may or may not have been having an affair.
How did we know they may or may not have been having an affair? They were wearing wedding rings. They were holding hands. And they were asking each other things that married people typically do not ask each other after they are already wed.
“So you grew up in the South?” The man asked, leaning in.
“Yes,” she said, rubbing her foot against his leg. “Have you ever been?”
The realization of what was happening occurred to Kyle and I at the exact same moment. I knew it happened at the exact same moment because he looked straight at me over his menu with the look that two married people know means, “Are you paying attention to the couple possibly having the affair next to us?” And, because I was his wife and could read his looks, I returned that look with a look of my own that said, “YES.”
I’m not sure what a wholesome person like Kirk Cousins would have done in the same situation but I can tell you what the Kosiors did, which was eavesdrop on every single second of their conversation for the rest of the evening. We probably said a total of five words to one another. Our original plan was to skip salad and dessert so it to not take advantage of my Godmother‘s generosity, but we had both salad and dessert because they were still on drinks when were ordered and we weren’t missing a single second of whatever was happening. At some point, someone we knew came over to say hello to us and we shooed them away. We were committed.
The dalliancing couple paid and left before we had gotten our own bill.
“What do you think?” I asked when they were out of earshot.
“Definitely an affair, right?” Kyle said.
“Definitely,” I said.
“Good anniversary,” Kyle said, giving me a high five across the table. “Let’s do it again next year.”
The photo above is of my boyfriend.
This week on North Dakota Today we talked about Marti Kaiser, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as an awesome free book and art event in Jamestown. (Valley News Live)
We are only 3 weeks away from the fantastic STAR Seekers Charity Dinner to raise money for the Grand Forks Children’s Museum, and guess who the emcees are for the evening? Kyle and I. (GFCM)
The Northlands Rescue Mission received 4,500 pounds of food in a week after the pantry had to temporarily close due to lack of items. (Grand Forks Herald)
I’m disappointed that I didn’t know that this super-awesome event – ND Senior Games – happened last weekend. (KFYR, Found from “Oops Only Good News”)
Congratulations to Landen Schmeichel, North Dakota’s History Teacher of the Year! (KFYR)
If you live in Grand Forks, you know a thing or two about free french fries. Here are free fries that you may not know about. (Facebook)
Isis Sio is North Dakota’s first female professional boxer. (KFYR)
The new Taco Bell in Williston broke the record for a grand opening across all Taco Bells. (Facebook)
Buy a lottery ticket in Minot recently? Better check the numbers. (KFYR)
Icelandic State Park is a family affair. (Grand Forks Herald)
Serve in the military? Your kids can get free school supplies. (KFYR)
Grand Forks’ Al, Lisa, and Zach Erickson took home…gold? scales?…at the annual Drayton Catfish Capital Challenge Fishing Tournament. (Grand Forks Herald)
If you remember this from North Dakota Today, you know that I LOVE this. (Grand Forks Herald)
North Dakota Nice 
Leave a comment