"I lahved joo"

Handsome is as white as they come…his family’s origins are Canadian, English, and Scandinavian. He is tall and thin, sports a short military cut of light brown hair, wears button-up polos, and when he dances, it very often resembles the air pillar man twisting and twirling in front of your local car dealership (which I think is very sexy). But when Handsome is trying to woo me, his ethnic background is overpowered by…the power of his love. I know when he gets that look in his eyes, the transformation begins. His skin darkens, his pants tighten, and a small black goatee appears on the bottom of his chin. His shirt suddenly bursts open revealing mounds of black chest hair and Salsa music begins playing faintly in the background. In a deep, thick Latin accent, Handsome speaks pick-up lines of love:

“Yourrr skin is like…” [enter dramatic pause as I adorningly look up from my menial tasks to stare deeply into Handsome’s eyes, awaiting to receive the  passionate decree of love] “…yourr skin is like…a pahncake…a pahncake that I ate, many a time.”

I smile blankly at the comment…and then the DJ in my mind screeches the Salsa music record to silence and I say, “What?” Handsome’s face remains passionately serious as his thick eyebrow slowly raises into a perfect upside down "V" and his puckered lips whisper “I lahved joo”

Later, we’re driving in the car at sunset and suddenly I start smelling the sweet aroma of…*sniff* *sniff* …is that the ocean? …and is that Salsa music again? I look over to the driver’s seat and find that my husband is suddenly fully donned in a white tuxedo. And he has a ponytail.

“The calors of the sunset,” his dark Latin accent captures my attention and I sigh, “the calors of the sunset…they luk like…they luk like, your face.” I look at the colors of the sunset: bright red, bright orange, and varicose vein purple. “Ummmm” I point at the sunset, “You think my face looks like–” He quickly adds, “And your teeth, they look like white mountain goats…jumping on a white rrr-ock.” I stare back at him with a half-dropped jaw. He caresses my cheek and whispers, “I lahved joo.”

I’m sitting at our kitchen table early in the morning, eating Raisin Bran when suddenly a classical guitar strikes the chords of a saucy hot-cha-cha refrain. I look around for the source of the music and Handsome appears walking out of the bathroom…shirtless. Holding a piece of floss he says, “The firrrst time I met you was like the firrst time I flossed…and my gums bled.”

Silence.

“I lahved joo.”

That night we’re on the couch reading and I notice out of the corner of my eye that Handsome is flexing his peck muscles. “It looks like you have something inside your chest,” I observe. Our eyes meet and then I literally watch black hairs materialize on Handsome’s upper lip as he grows a full mustache in less than 3 seconds. “No...there are two things inside of my chest,” Handsome's pecks dance. “One is my heart and the other is…my other heart. Both of my hearts are for joo, because...

"…I lahved joo.”