[Author's Note: due to some confusion by some readers, let me clarify that the story below is just a silly made-up piece of fiction. OK, as you were...]
My boyfriend can stand still for hours. In fact, he’s so good at it, he does it for a living. Must have been all those years in the service guarding the sacred pet rabbit at the White House. This was when Eisenhower was in office. Boy, you never hear anything about Eisenhower, do you? No History Channel specials, no conspiracy theories. I’ll bet you didn’t even know he had a sacred pet rabbit, did you? His name was Bert.
Anyway, my boyfriend. Stanley. His mother claims he loved those little green army guys as a little boy.
Stanley was big for his age and the other kids made fun of him so he stayed home a lot and played alone with his army men.
“He imitated their stealth and stillness for hours,” his mother told me.
I met Stanley while he was in the service guarding Bert. I was walking down the White House hall toward the cage where they kept little white Bert, when all of a sudden I saw this huge man standing unbelievably still. He held his army rifle in front of him and stood in front of the cage. His huge square jaw coupled with the discipline of standing at parade rest for hours made me swoon. I begged the First Lady (I forget her name now… well do you know what it is? OK then.) to introduce me.
And we’ve been together ever since. Well, except for the time he left me for another man. But that didn’t last long and I knew it wouldn’t. He has too many quirks that drive people batty that I find so endearing.
For example, he has to (HAS TO) watch at least one Clark Gable movie every day. I’m not sure why, or how it started, but I do remember he started growing that Gable moustache of his and hasn’t let it go. He was so stubborn about keeping it that the army sort of discharged him over it.
Years went by before he found work again. I think he’s too old to be standing outside in the elements, stiff as a board, but he was so proud of his work in the White House that he still pretends he’s a little green army guy holding a rifle guarding that rabbit:
I’ll always look up to him and put him on a pedestal. And I will continue to support him in whatever he does. People still make fun of his size, but I will defend him until the day I die. He has shown me nothing but kindness and love. And extremely large jewelry. Speaking of which, last weekend while we were visiting our winter cabin in BigAss Redwood Park, he proposed! I can’t lift the rock he gave me let alone have it set for an actual ring, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
Mamie! That was her name. Mamie Eisenhower.
Oh, I gotta run. I need to go grab the flatbed truck to pick up my big boy from work. But first I gotta stop off at Walmart. The Complete Clark Gable Forty-Seven Disc Box Set on Blu-ray comes out today. It’ll make a great stocking stuffer!
