"Do You, Tower, Take This Woman...?"

(Sorry...this would not load yesterday!)

I'm not exactly what you would call a super romantic guy...I mean, my sweetie and I have "movie night" every week with NetFlix because I'm too cheap to actually take her out, but I usually let her pick the movies, and often times, they are romantic comedies. I generally don't buy flowers on special occasions because they're just going to die anyway; I usually go for something permanently meaningful like new power tools or electronics. Recently, it was a photo key chain with 59 picutres of myself...just in case she'd happen to forget, say, on her way to work. Still, I DO try to listen attentively to everything she says unless it's about my driving or my collection of pulp fiction or shoes, or...well, you get the idea. That's why this Erika person struck me the other day. It all started when I began to think about doing something really romantic like taking my sweetie to Paris: the capital of LOVE. I fugured we'd get a baguette, berets, maybe go see that Louie Cans guy's chair collection, and take in all the other sights ("Get an eyeful of that tower! I wonder what they call it!"). Not wishing to appear a total rube, I managed to learn the following tidbits for any savvy world traveller thinking about taking a trip to Straight Paree!
1. Go to the Eiffel tower on a warm day: it's six inches shorter when it's cold. Really...the 984 feet-tall structure really "shrinks" when it's cold.
2. Don't visit the tower early: it opens at 9,but stays open until 12:45 a.m. for those "Sleepless in Seattle" moments.
3. It will cost 13 euros (approx. $17.25 in real money) to get to the top of the tower. If you're on a budget, go to the facsimile in Vegas: it costs only ten bucks.
4. It takes 60 tons of paint in three shades of brown to paint the Eiffel Tower: darker shade on the bottom and lighter shade on the top.
5. And finally, don't bother falling in love with the edifice: it's already married.
That's where the Erika person comes in.
Seriously.
Erika, a former champion archery and military veteran, married the Eiffel Tower in 2007: her legal name now is Erika la Tour Eiffel.
Seriously. You can look it up!
This was more information than I could handle, but I had to continue. This is, uh, a condition termed "objectum sexual," so named by the first woman to publicly admit to having a love affair with an object, though in her case, it was the Berlin Wall. Her theory involved the fact that objects have souls, and as such, were capable of giving and receiving love. Hmmm. The "condition" appears to occur mostly in women, but is just too amazing for me to consider any further.
It also put a serious damper on my plan to visit this famous Parisian structure. Will she be there? Will I interrupt lunch? Will one of them get jealous?
I'm taking my chances in Vegas, I think...and sending my sweetie some flowers.