Like a lot of you out there, I am indisputably, undeniably, even aggressively single. But while there are moments after a bad date or a close friend gets engaged that you consider giving up and getting 11 cats to slowly eat your body once you finally succeed in dying alone, there's a small voice inside of you that's still adamant you'll find your special person.
For the most part, that little voice is right; by hook or by crook, most of us manage to find someone special, and although 50 percent or thereabouts of marriages end in divorce, you don't believe that you'll be one of them. No, your love is the purest of them all; you're going to have a ton of beautiful kids, a dog, and after 50 years of marriage, you'll look back and be glad you spent it all with your awesome partner.
Would you, uh, do so at a Burger King?
If not, then you've not got the love of delicious meat (and each other) that Lloyd and Sandi Howard of Monroe, New Jersey, have. Not only have they stayed together for half a century, they've celebrated each and every wedding anniversary at a Burger King.
Now, if you took your long-suffering significant other to a Burger King for your wedding anniversary, there's a good chance you wouldn't be together for very long. But for the Howards, it all started off as a complete accident, according to one of their daughters Tracy Gorelczenko.
"The first year they were married, they were running late to see a show in the city [Manhattan], and there was a Burger King on the corner," said Gorelczenko. So the couple stopped by for a quick bite, and that looked to be the end of it. But then came the next year's anniversary.
"I forget where we were going, but it was around lunchtime, and we realized that it just happened to be our anniversary," revealed Lloyd. It sounds a little bit like they forgot their anniversary, but instead of some fancy decadence every year, the couple decided that this accidental annual trip to see the King might just be a sign of "good luck".
"We just figured — maybe for good luck — that we’d just keep going back on our anniversary."
So they did it again. And again. 50 years to the day since they tied the knot, they've been going to Burger King to celebrate it, and I think that's as good a sign as any that Burger King is a good luck charm for this particular couple. So sweet was this tradition, Gorelczenko decided to do something special for 50 not-out.
This year, when the Howards arrived for their annual trip for burgers, they were surprised by their entire family: their two daughters, plus six grandchildren, who happen to be quadruplets and twins.
"They were all there, and they'd never met us at Burger King before — it was a total surprise," revealed Sandi "We were just floored. The most important thing was to be with them," and to celebrate this joyous occasion, Lloyd and Sandi Howard decided to have Whoppers. Isn't that sweet?
While I don't recommend taking your dates to a fast food joint any time soon (trust me on this), this just goes to show how the most mundane and unromantic things can take on new meanings when you're with someone awesome.
