At a later point in time, after Paul and I were dating again, he got me roses. We were having a conversation about this and I said something like, “You’ve only ever gotten me flowers once.” And he said, “No, I got you flowers twice.”

It took me a second for the hamster wheel to turn in my head so that the story clicked. I was shocked. I really hadn’t believed it was him.

It was an awesome surprise though.

But, a few days before that, I was calling Kathleen, my wife’s friend, to make some last minute arrangements, and went into autopilot as I dialed (their number was the same as ours except for two digits) and called home instead. When my wife answered, I thought she didn’t sound like Kathleen so I said “Hello. Kathleen?” to which she said “What?” And like an idiot I said “Kathleen?” again. To which she responded “Mark, this is your wife!” After that I was laughing so hard I couldn’t talk much anymore and made some lame excuse and that was that. But, what a surprise!

It did make the opening scene of Bonfire of the Vanities particularly hilarious, though.