20 September 2013

"So long."

I’m not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. So when our anniversary rolled around, I wanted my wife to know how much I appreciated her tolerating me for the past 20 years. I ordered flowers and told the florist to enclose a card that read, “Thanks for putting up with me so long.”

When my wife got the delivery, she called me at work.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

She read the card aloud as the florist had written it: “Thanks for putting up with me. So long.”
—George Arnold, Melbourne, Florida
Found in Reader's Digest.

4 comments:

  1. MinnesotastanSeptember 20, 2013 at 8:22 AM

    I didn't want to interrupt the levity of the post with something as mundane as the etymology of "so long," which is explained here:

    http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/01/so-long-goodbye.html

    http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=so+long

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  2. Christina WilsdonSeptember 20, 2013 at 9:21 AM

    What a wonderful, funny story! Ah, the power of punctuation :) reminds me of some of the great stories over at Cake Wrecks.

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  3. kenjuSeptember 20, 2013 at 10:25 AM

    Oops. Cards can suffer from translation when they are dictated over the phone. That was funny!!

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  4. David CrewsSeptember 20, 2013 at 4:23 PM

    My Dad had a tradition of giving my Mom a special card on their anniversary each year. It was a sympathy card.
    Yes, he did! :D

    ReplyDelete