January 20, 2003

Life Atop the Gift-Giving Pinnacle

Today is almost eleven months since Tiffany’s 25th birthday. It’s almost eleven months since I handed her a birthday gift certificate for a massage and a pedicure. But today (did I mention that it is nearly 11 months since I gave it to her) she finally broke down and spent it. And oh my goodness! Am I Mr. Good Husband or what?! She said that it was the best gift I had ever given her…except for the child growing in her, that is. I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything but HONK HONK. I have done what few husbands manage to accomplish. I have crossed the threshold in to good-gift-giver status. Admittedly, I thought this was a place where only fictitious Hollywood actors lived. But No… it’s a real place, and I am sitting pretty in it. Now her birthday is a little over a month to go and guess what I’m getting her for number 26. You guessed it: another massage. And for her 27th? Right again my friend: another massage. But wait a minute…can I do that? Can I really retain my high gift-giving status by giving her the same gift 3 years in a row? Or am I setting myself for a let down because now I’ll always be trying in vain to beat the “Massage Threepeat”? It’s impossible now to go out on top. There is no way I can follow up this victory year after. Oh the pressure of being a champion is killing me!! When we’re in our eighties and I buy her a gift certificate to Luby’s or Morrison’s for her birthday, there will always be that cloud hovering overhead whispering, “Remember the birthday of 2002. That was back in your gift-giving heyday. Those were the glory years, and now look at you. You’re just a ‘has-been’ down there with your green jello.” What have I done?!! Oh the agony!!