A twinge of concern about love that blooms on a Jumbotron

You see them everywhere these days—those grand displays of young love meant to guarantee a long life together.

You know what I mean—the airplane sketching “I love you Tori” in a tracery of wispy clouds across the blue sky above the beach.

Or a flash-mob breaking into dance as the song “A Thousand Years” plays over the loudspeakers at a train depot and a young man kneels with a ring in his hand.

Or the Jumbotron flashing “Marry me Michelle” and zeroing in on the young couple sitting behind the third-base line, the young lady pressing her palms over her mouth as the young man next to her smiles nervously.

But whenever I see one of those grand displays of budding love, I feel a twinge of pity for those poor young souls.

I can only imagine that couple ten years down the road—if they’re lucky enough to get that far. I mean, where do you go from skywriters, flash-mobs, and Jumbotrons?

“Really? A laser-light show on the far side of the Grand Canyon? You had a decade to think about it, and that’s the best you could do for our anniversary?”

Young couples who need a flashy spectacle to get jump-started seem so confused about how to begin a long journey together. They probably think that the best way to prepare for a drive to California would be to give the car a good wax job.

But it’s not Simoniz and Rain-X that keeps a car running smoothly over the long, dusty miles. It’s slimy things like oil. And grease. And brake fluid. Things that you know are there working for you beneath the surface but are at their best when unseen.

It’s that way with love, too—at least the kind of love that turns a couple into a single unit over years and years and holds them together without having to think about it very much.

Because there is no grand gesture of love—no words in the sky, no dance steps in the train depot, no image on the Jumbotron—that can match the staying power of a man remembering to put the toilet seat down, every time.

Or a woman agreeing to stop hanging her bras on the curtain rod every night.

There is no greater testament to love than the garbage finding its way out to the curb without a conference or a committee meeting.

Or a meal ending up on the table and dishes cleaned and put back in the kitchen cabinets without negotiation or a signed treaty.

If you’re looking for love—real love, the kind that lasts a lifetime—you’ll find it behind the paint cans in the garage. Or in the little sewing kit in the back of the closet.

It’s the perfume in the bathroom that she loves but he hates. It’s the can of sauerkraut in the pantry that he loves but she hates.

It’s at the back of the T-shirt drawer that finally gets cleaned out. Or on that rack of shoes in the closet that finally gets lightened a bit.

It’s under that pile of tattered purses that never gets any smaller, “Just in case.” Or under that rack of dusty baseball caps that never shrinks, “Just because.”

Love is behind the vacuum cleaner when her club meeting is being held in the living room this month. Or on the shelf with the guest-room sheets when his old school chum is coming to spend the weekend.

It’s on the lawn, where you notice that the dog droppings have vanished.

It’s in the drawer, where you find that the scissors are still where you put them last.

It’s finding stamps, envelopes, pencils, paper, sugar, flour, salt and pepper when you need them.

It’s never finding a cardboard tube on the toilet-paper roll.

It’s that last slice of pie that you left in the fridge yesterday, even though you had a taste for it—and still finding it there again today.

It’s starting the car and seeing that you won’t have to stop for gas after all this morning, because the tank somehow got filled.

Of course, this isn’t where you thought you’d find love so long ago when you were just starting out. You thought you’d find it at a flower shop. Or at a fancy restaurant. Or maybe at a high-end department store or a luxury beach hotel.

And you may even revisit some of those places every now and then, just to remind yourselves that you’re still madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with each other.

But then you come back home, slip into those tattered sweatpants or ratty slippers, and watch Monday Night Football—or “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”—together.

Sometimes—when I watch the pretty young lady nod tearfully on the Jumbotron as the baseball crowd cheers, for example—I wonder if I might have done better with my proposal 47 years ago than just to pull to the side of the road and ask my girl if she would agree to spend the rest of her life with me, as Otis Redding serenaded us on the radio.

With a proposal like that, I was no white-horsed prince trying to woo a princess. If anything, my best argument was that toads are good for gardens, too.

Oh, it got the job done, as far as proposals are concerned. But skywriting or flash-mobs can make a guy wonder, you know?

But I don’t wonder for too long, because it’s Wednesday night and the garbage truck will be pulling up to the curb early in the morning.

And when she sees me bundling up the eggshells and melon rinds, my wife flashes me that Jumbotron smile.

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