Each year when Christmas rolls around, I try to find my wife the perfect gift. This year it is a lock, in the bag, guaranteed. A home run.
In previous years I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to find a gift for my wife that she will really love. Something that will show her that I love her, understand her, and care for her. Well, that is what I intend to do. But like with blind carrier pigeons, the message sometimes doesn’t get delivered.
Let me abuse a baseball metaphor for a moment. With the game on the line, I have learned that I simply can’t hit the home run. The home run is the gift that shows class, thought, and a clear sense of my beautiful wife’s impeccable taste. I’ve tried time and time again to hit the home run, and every time I strike out. A nice winter coat (returned), jewelry (banished to the jewelry box never, to be seen again), a dress (returned – after the laughter), clothing of all types (still have the tags on them). Point is, every time I swing for the fences, I strike out. So I have learned, that I am simply not a home run hitter.
So, rather that strike out again and again swinging for the fences, the last few years I have tried just to get on base. Singles or walks. Just don’t strike out. To hit the single, I rely on the one thing I know, stuff that plugs in. TV’s, DVD players, a laptop computer, an external hard drive.
Truth be told, the external hard drive was nearly a strike out but I pitched as a gift for storing pictures of the kids. You know, for the children. This merely got me a base on balls, but at least I didn’t strike out. This year, as I prepared to put my helmet on and come up again to bat, the coach told me that she was sending in a pinch hitter. Herself.
Yesterday, my wife held up a couple of bags that she brought home from shopping. She said, “I am putting these in your closet, they are gifts to me from you.”
“Huh?! You can’t do that!” I protested.
She replied, “You never know what to get me, so this year I thought I would help. Don’t worry, none of this stuff plugs in.”
Is this a girl thing? I can’t imagine any guy I know coming home with stuff for himself and telling his wife that she stinks so bad at getting gifts that he bought his own this year. If he did, he might as well buy a new couch for that is where he would be sleeping for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, I checked around and apparently my wife is not the only woman who gets away with this type of egregious insult. Other guys have been maligned in much the same way. This has to stop. Do any of you remember that it is the thought that counts?
So filled with righteous indignation, I approached my wife and told her in no uncertain terms that she cannot buy gifts for herself and say they are from me! No way. No how. She looked at me and said, “Fine, I will just keep this stuff anyway and you can buy me another gift.”
Can anyone recommend a good Blue-Ray player or perhaps an HDTV? I hear the LCD TV’s last longer than the plasma. What is the best pixel ratio?
