Cuisinart gives +3 to Bliss.

One of the best things about getting married is the loot. Woot! It is overwhelming to see so many folks come together and support a couple as they start their life together. Initially, Mr. Husband was disappointed and confused by the fact that the items that a couple registers for during a wedding are kitchen, bath, and bedding items. He didn’t understand. He had a hard time trying to comprehend what he imagined was a great wall of china that I wanted to build. I tried to explain to him that these items were intended to help us set up house and begin our blissful adventure, but he didn’t buy it. He felt left out. Of course, dear Mr. Husband wanted to register for video games and complete his video game console collection. Fortunately, my twin brother, Harold, bought us a Wii for our wedding—our Wedding Wii.

Mr. Husband was a trooper—he crossed his arms and settled at the time for the SKU code zapper at Macy’s for his entertainment. Perhaps he imagined that each dish, each cup, each of the many, many, many wine glasses were little tiny criminals that he was rounding up. Perhaps I’m trying to spin something fun into an outing that was most likely pure torture for him. But he grinned and he zapped and zapped and zapped some more. We laughed as we traveled through the Macy’s home department: he with his zapper gun, and me riding shotgun with my china fun.

It is now almost nine months after the wedded day of bliss and we are beginning to understand. Aha! All of these items, these wonderful gifts, these glorious things, this loot, is to help us make the transition into being together all-the-time-every-day-all-day-24-hours-a-day easier. We actually came up with a theory during our leading-up-to-wedding time when we seriously mused on these many household items. Could it be that we were enacting an outdated ritual that is intended to appease the wife as she begins to realize that her life is nothing but cooking and cleaning for an ungrateful husband who would rather pretend that she doesn’t exist? He’s home from the office with his newspaper, beer, and TV while she’s singing unknowingly, ignorantly, and uncontrollably in the kitchen into her apron, her only friend? So she falls in love with her new frying pan and she imagines her perfect vacation with her new coffee maker? Could it be? No, not us. Not quite so bleak.

That thought creeps at the back of my mind like a thief who is trying to steal my new shiny plates and corrupt my All-Clad. And as we get ready for our new house—this sneaking suspicion is a reminder ever constant, for we are also getting ready for our wedding gifts. We must remember the gifts are for both of us. The tiny apartment where we make our current home with our two cats is not big enough to handle the wonderful new kitchen that we were presented with as encouragement for our new life of super marriage. Only a few choice items have made the cut to apartment living: new sheets, 3 All-Clad pans, 2 casserole dishes, a few pieces of cherished Arthur Court, one Cuisinart that slipped through the cracks, and, of course, the Wedding Wii.

Whenever we use one of our gifts, we remember who gave us the gift, and we remember the day. Nothing can take a couple back to that place in time quicker and with more elegance—that place on the altar when I almost fell over laughing after trying so hard not to cry, that place on the dance floor where I slipped on my train and fell and my new super Mr. Husband picked me up and swung me around, that place near the groom’s cake when Mr. Husband realized it was decorated with Transformers and he kissed me, that place on the Country Club steps where we ran from a crowd of friends blowing bubbles—that place where we began our great life adventure.

We had such a moment this past weekend as we opened up the hand-held Cuisinart for the first time. Mr. Husband and I were cooking appetizers for a housewarming on Saturday night. He gets the gadgets like the Dyson, the ice cream maker, and the Cuisinart, and I get a helper in the kitchen. I am not in the kitchen alone wondering if I left Mr. Husband back in 1954. He is there with me and we are both remembering the wedding and dreaming about the future. He is holding the hot pan of fudge as I scrape it into a Pyrex dish. He is chopping up vegetables and arranging for my next ingredients. And here we find that these wonderful gifts, the loot, is helping us to work together, remember our sacred vows (whether spoken through laughter or through tears), and reminding us that we’re a darn good team for life.