Bob Schwartz

If you’re lucky enough to love somebody, and even luckier to have that somebody love you back, you’re always thinking of little things that say I love you.

The candy, the cards, the flowers, the stuffed animals are always appropriate. But if you’ve been together a while, been there, given that. Today, one of the first truly gorgeous days of an inconstant spring so far, the aisles of the local Walgreens offered the just-have-to-get-this-for-her item: the Slinky Spinwheel.

Okay, it’s just a happy-colored mylar pinwheel. But consider this. The candy gets eaten, the card gets put in a drawer, the cut flowers wilt, the live flowers need water and when they don’t get it die, the stuffed animals cutely live on a closet shelf.

The spinwheel lives. It spins prettily and magically in the spring breeze. Or in the summer, fall or even cold winter breeze. Just like the one you love and who, if you’re lucky, loves you back.

(Note: For the cynical among you who may think that this sounds like advertising for Walgreens or Slinky Spinwheels, please be assured it isn’t. There are lots of stores that have lots of pinwheels. If it is an advertisement for anything, it is for love and spring. There is never enough promotion of those.)