What Not To Give. If You Want To Live.

Need I say more? I mean beyond the fact that the dude in this picture is holding a drill behind his back. He does not, as my lovely daughter said, have a lightbulb coming out of his, er, buttox. (Hey. I'm not an artist. I'm a doodler. My skills are limited. They make drills look like lightbulbs and sleeves come out blank while the rest of the shirt is plaid. It's why I earn the medium bucks.)

Okay, yeah. I do need to say more. I got in trouble for this picture. My husband saw it and said, "What's he got . . . wait! I'm bald? And I'm giving you a drill?!"

In Answer:

Yes, dear, you are bald. Mostly. But that's okay. Some of the handsomest men in the world are hair-free and of shiny pate. To wit:

Santa Clause

Not to mention:

Bald Eagles

And to your other question (reminder rewind: "I'm giving you a drill?!"), What makes you think the handsome bald man in the picture is you? For all you know it could be:

In fact, yeah. It is. That's Bond James Bond up there in that picture at the top ready to give the little lady a drill for Christmas instead of diamonds or pearls or Louboutin's or a cupcake. And he's doing it because it will save her life. Or something. So it's fine, dear husband. If that picture above is you, it makes you look AMAZING. I'll just start calling you Double-O-Bruce, okay? Are we chill? Good.

The truth of the matter is this: It is I who is (am?) the gift-giving fail in this relationship. Through no real fault of my own. Our first year of marriage I gave my hub a cobalt-blue/charcoal-grey sweater for Christmas. V-neck. Eep. I don't believe in v-necks on guys. They remind me of scary mechanics with obscure accents and chest hair boiling up out of said V. I don't know what brain cell this gift came from. (And by the way, I mean no offense to any scarily accented and chest-haired mechanics with proclivities toward v-neck sweaters. My views are connected to some childhood trauma or other of mine. I'm sure.)

Anyway, the sweater was not a hit. Nor was the cutie-patootie-pie Garfield doll I gave him the following Valentine's day. (It was holding chocolates, a'ight?) Nor were a host of other ill-conceived gifts I've foisted upon the boy. I ponder with pain the multi-hotdog roaster, which I finally bought out of desperation one year because I couldn't think of anything else. I had convinced myself that I heard my husband asking for one in his sleep.

Let me just say that about 90% of what I purchase for my little Puppyknees gets sent back. And it probably has very little to do with me calling him "Puppyknees." Either I have not the husband-gift-giving-gene, or there's something else going on here.

I vote for the "else": Hub LOVES the chase. He consideres it a test of his manhood to research, hunt down, and then purchase the most high-tech, well-made, of-the-moment, coolest version of whatever it is that he wants. He lives for it. It makes the actual moment of acquisition that much sweeter. It is not something I can do. I know. I tried once.

That year, Puppyknees wanted cross-country skis more than meat loves salt (to understand that reference, you're going to have to read here). So I bought catalogues, talked to sales people, trolled every outdoor supply store on the face of the Rockies (there was no Internet then, but rest assured it would have been thoroughly searched if there had been.) And baby, I found him the most astounding and truly fabulous set of cross-country skis that ever had been given to man. He had nothing to complain about.

And it was true. I did my job. I deserved an award. I got him exactly what he wanted. 

But,

He hadn't been in on the chase. He hadn't brought the beast down. As a result, the skis went from being the golden idol of glory on the hill, to the chewed up raisin in the bottom of the cereal bowl. All the glow was gone.

Hub told me thanks. That I'd done a remarkable job. That I should be proud of myself. It's just that, well . . . 

He was more into camping now.

So he traded the skis in for an extreme-cold sleeping bag.

Uh huh. Well. 

Boy-face better think twice before getting me anything that plugs in this year for Christmas. Whatever he gives me had better be made of pearls, come with 15 pounds of chocolates, and walk in wearing a pair of Christian Louboutin's. Plus, he should keep his art-critic comments to his little shiny self.

That's all I'm saying.

And I mean that with love.