That special day

"What do you mean you don't have any plans for Valentine's Day?"

Robert sighed. His dad did this every year, ever since he had first gotten a girlfriend. Robert simply didn't understand why this had to be an issue, and furthermore why he had to explain himself year after year.

"Look, Dad," he said tiredly. "We go over this every year. I don't treat Valentine's Day as anything special because I don't believe that I should need an excuse to plan something special to do with my wife. I would rather our special dates be spontaneous rather than scheduled."

His father sighed, clearly just as tired of hearing it as Robert was of saying it. "But that's not the point, son," he retorted. "Just because something is planned doesn't mean it's any less special. It's not about trying to plan out love. It's about knowing that there is something to look forward to doing together."

"I look forward to every moment we have together," Robert replied. "I don't need flowers and chocolates to make me look forward to being with the person I love. And as hard as it may be for you to believe, she doesn't need that either. If she was the kind of person who relied on these sorts of things, it's highly unlikely that I would have dated her in the first place, much less married her."

"But year after year and you never plan anything..."

"You're right, dad. I don't. And year after year, come Valentine's Day, we enjoy ourselves, because we don't plan anything. We just be together. We relax. We don't worry about going out and doing something alongside the thousands of other couples who feel compelled to go out and do something. We stay inside, and we have special little moments together, just the two of us, untampered with by the presence of other people."

Robert's dad smiled at that. "So you're saying your plan is to stay in together and just enjoy each other's company?" he asked.

Robert sighed. "Yes, dad," he replied, "that's exactly what our plan is. That's what our plan is every year. That is what are plan always has been, and probably what it always will be. Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

His dad shook his head. "I think you're the one misunderstanding here, son," he said calmly. "You do have a plan for Valentine's Day. And a very good one at that. And if you had just told me that that's what your plan was to begin with, we wouldn't have needed to have this argument."

Robert opened his mouth to reply, but then paused, thinking over his father's words. He was right. They did have a Valentine's Day plan. It just wasn't the grandiose thing that he was so used to hearing about. But it was a plan. "Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Our plan is to just stay in and enjoy each other's company."

"Sounds like a wonderful plan to me."