It's always been one of the great regrets of my life that I've never mastered the yo-yo.

Right after the big Hula Hoop craze burned out (oh yes, don't think I didn't humiliate myself trying to Hula Hoop because yes, yes I did) yo-yos took the stage.

One of the things that attracted me to My First Boyfriend, Steven, was that he could Hula Hoop like nobody's business. However, because of a painful case of eczema on his hands, he could never master the yo-yo.

That probably would have been a relationship buster, but his parents moved away before the magnitude of this severe character flaw really set in. He would be the person on the far right of this picture, I would be the shameless Jezebel pouring herself all over him, just to his left.

(I've said it before and I'll say it again. If two people ever had "Born To Die A Virgin" written ALL over them, it is Steven and I. How I ever managed to not only shed that label but to marry and reproduce is One of The Eternal Mysteries.)

It's especially mysterious considering that I never did master the yo-yo, eh.

When I saw my first yo-yo trick on the tee vee I was so freaking impressed I almost fainted. I pestered the living daylights out of my parents until they bought me a yo-yo because I was positive that if I mastered The Way of The Yo it would make me irresistible to the boys.

Yes, in my ten-year-old mind, even though I didn't have the words for it yet, I was convinced that the yo-yo would make me a stud magnet. I knew even then that I didn't have the looks to be considered a honey, but I figured that if I could just learn to Walk The Dog I would become a pre-teen femme fatale.

Yes, it's this sort of clear-headed thinking that's got me where I am today.

The yo-yo is a deceptively simple looking toy that is incredibly hard to master. Cheap yo-yo's aren't balanced, which makes doing tricks with them beyond difficult. I am co-ordination impaired at the best of times, and trying to compensate for the flaws of the cheap yo-yo my parents got me was just beyond my skills.

I did manage, after weeks and weeks of practice, to make it go up and down more than ten times in a row once. Sadly, that was my extent of yo-yo mastery.

You know, despite that great, sucking hole in my life skills, I still managed to form a secure, lasting relationship.

I know.

Really, what are the odds?

Oh, and about the other half of that relationship, the half I solemnly promised that I would not go nuts this year buying plants. Yeah, that half ...

The other night when the spousal unit came home from work, he was met with my ginormous freshly purchased lilacs.

I could hear him out on the porch where they were, taking off his coat, his work boots, putting away his tools. I was kind of tiptoeing around because I figured I was going to get my ears pinned back for this extravagance.

Because of the warmth of that room, the white one, Mme Lemoine, had opened one of her blossoms and the whole room was full of the perfume. Big slice of wonderful.

"It makes me think of when I was a kid and I used to make forts in my parents' lilacs," was the spousal unit's only comment.

No scolding, no eye rolling, just a happy memory and a grin.

Sheesh, had I known that, I would have bought four.

--Marn