I celebrated my 10th anniversary by drinking a Diet Coke. You know, the 10th anniversary being the aluminum anniversary and all.

It seems to me that years ago, the 10th anniversary was the tin anniversary. But since we don't actually use tin cans or tin ceilings or much of tin anything anymore, I guess someone decided aluminum ought to replace tin when it comes to wedding anniversaries and all.

For those of you who care about these things, tin is the 50th element, sandwiched between indium and antimony. Silicon lies two rows above tin (next to aluminum, which is the 13th element), and lead sits one row beneath.

But all that matters not, because the 10th anniversary is now the aluminum anniversary.

Before doing my research, I thought the 10th anniversary might be the bronze anniversary, since the 25th is silver, and the 50th is gold. But alas, whoever thought up this stuff wasn't a fan of the Olympics; the eighth anniversary is bronze.

I'm kinda bummed I missed the leather anniversary (third), though the rest (paper, cotton, fruit, wood candy, wool, bronze and pottery) aren't that exciting. Pottery is okay, I guess, but we never needed an anniversary (or necessarily any special occasion) to pick up a nice piece.

Up ahead, we face the steel (honey, I love you so much I bought you a girder), silk, lace, ivory (you'd think that would have been renamed by now) and crystal. Then come the dead years, 16-24, which supposedly are all crystal--or something like that.

Barbara and I haven't really done a lot of celebrating on our anniversaries. She was so stressed by planning our wedding that for years after she claimed she couldn't remember the date. She's past that now, but in truth, all we did last Friday was attend a neighborhood auction (I donated a beer tasting party) and fall asleep. Oh, and Barbara went to Target, but I guess that's only romantic if you do it together. We did say happy anniversary to each other in between dealing with the morning antics of children.

And that's fine with me. A marriage is about the journey, not the send-off. And while it's a good idea for the parents of young children to take some time for themselves now and again, this isn't exactly the time for us--for reasons which will soon become obvious to regular readers. Maybe in a couple weeks.

I suppose that's the nice thing about a marriage. You know you've got time.

In truth, I'm still opposed to marriage. I think it's a patriarchal institution that causes more problems than it solves. And anyone who thinks their relationship will be better if it is within a marriage is sorely mistaken. A relationship is a relationship. A marriage is legal. It's good for health insurance and plenty of other goodies, but it is not designed to make two people relate to each other better. Indeed, "old school" marriage doesn't really consider if the couple is compatible at all. But I've bitched and moaned about all that before, and it's a tedious subject.

I'm happy with my marriage (not withstanding my philosophical concerns). Barbara and I have had a great life together (before and during marriage), and we've got two great kids. That's pretty cool.

And all of that is so much more than, well, tin. I suppose I could've played "One Tin Soldier" or something--the Killdozer rendition is deeply redolent of freshly-laid concrete--but that didn't strike me as particularly appropriate. And while I probably should have presented Barbara with a 12-pack of Coke, I do that often enough that she probably wouldn't have thought of it as an anniversary gift.

You know, if you can make your own rules within a marriage, I think you can decide for yourself what your anniversary should be. And I've gotta tell you, steel is about as dumb as it gets. So I think next year ought to be our leather anniversary. I've got lots of ideas for that.

No cattle were harmed in the writing of this column.