How To Sleep On the Couch in One Easy Step

Each year I wrack my brain trying to think of things I can do for her or gifts I can give her that will let her know exactly how important she is in my life. I’ve tried surprise parties which included all of her friends and extravagant gifts that showed my love for her. I have even endured a few trips to places that would make your blood run cold just thinking about. I challenge any husband to match my constitutional fortitude to withstand a marathon shopping event that included not only innumerous scrapbook stores but also included a plethora of fabric stores including trying to assist in the selection of thread and rick-rack. I don’t even know what rick-rack is but I know it’s important and that it is not strong enough for you to strangle yourself with it. This year though I had completely run out of ideas. I had no idea what to get her. What was even worse, I don’t think I was paying attention when she actually told me what it was she wanted. I was in between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I couldn’t very well ask her to repeat what it was she wanted as that would immediately bring up the minor detail where I would have to admit that I was not listening to her the ramifications of which you can refer to in the first paragraph of this post. No, if I were to save myself I was going to have to come up with something pretty special and pretty cool and do it so it looked like I put a lot of time and effort into the gift. The question was, what kind of gift could I possibly come up with that would be cooler than whatever it was that she told me that she wanted. The first thing I thought of was a quick trip down to Chase Field and the Team Shop. After all, who could resist anything in Sedona Red or Sonoran Sand? But after seeing her reaction to the Diamondbacks gear I got her for Christmas I wasn’t sure that was a safe suggestion. I still find it incredible that she could possibly equate my level of effort expended to pick out Team Shop merchandise to the time when I did some last minute shopping at the truck stop. Those were completely different; the Team Shop doesn’t sell country fried steak. So against my better judgment I decided to go a different direction than a gift certificate to the Team Shop. Instead I decided to try and get her something that would make her life easier. I know she does a lot of vacuuming because she is always crying about the amount of dust on my bobble head collection on my desk. I’ve seen a lot of commercials about how vacuums have evolved into some sort of miracle device capable of sucking the pattern out of carpet. I went to several stores trying to find the perfect vacuum. It was weird, things would be going good with the salesman then when I mentioned that I needed a vacuum that came in Sedona Red (a lot of these guys didn’t even know what Sedona Red was until I explained it to them) and that it was a gift for my wife’s birthday the salesman would get this look on their faces that was a cross between pure terror and deer in headlights. No one seemed to want to be associated with this gift idea. One salesman went so far as to suggest that I might want to think about augmenting the vacuum gift with something a little more personal such as lingerie. I’ve never seen my wife vacuum in lingerie but the guy seemed sincere so I figured he must know what he was talking about. I went into a Victoria Secret to see if I could find a complementary gift to the vacuum. Victoria Secret is a pretty strange store. I have no idea what kind of secret Victoria has but from the looks of the mannequins in the window that secret can’t be very big since she doesn’t have many places to hide it. That store caters to a strange clientele as near as I can tell since everyone was continually staring at me and whispering. It is like none of them have ever seen a husband trying to match a bra and panties to a Diamondbacks hat before. It was a pretty frustrating experience. I could not find one article of women’s undergarments that matched Sedona Red. The sales girls were little help either since none of them could tell me which of these articles were best for vacuuming. No I was going to have to go a different direction. I thought to myself, what is more personal than vacuuming in your underwear? To be honest, I had no answer to that question. In fact I don’t remember ever even pondering that question before in my life and I had pondered a lot of weird stuff in the past. About the only thing I could come up with was silverware. Don’t ask me what quantum leap my brain had to make to go from a Victoria Secret bra and panties set to silverware. It may have been that I just happened to be wondering what the person must have been thinking when they invented the spork. All I knew was that time was running out and I needed some gifts. Besides, you don’t have to color match silverware, it just comes in silver (hence the name). I got her a nice service for 12 and a bagless vacuum cleaner. I’m thinking she is going to love it.