Christmas Advice From A Woman Scorned

Do you know what today is? It’s the Third Day After Christmas and My True Love Said To Me: “So, you know how you bought me an eReader last year and you went to all that trouble to research it because you know how I believe in research? Like I don’t buy so much as a tube of triple-antibiotic ointment without reading through every Consumer Report to find out which is the best. So you researched every electronic reading device to find the one you thought I’d like, and then you went out and did some legwork to learn about eReader cases and found the very best one? And then you bought ‘1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die’ as an accompaniment? And then you bought a gift card for books?

“And then remember how I opened it and smiled and hugged you and said ‘Thanks, but I’ll probably never use it. I love to turn pages and I love the smell of books and the weight of them in my hand and the look of them on my shelf. I mean I love your beautiful brain, but I don’t travel much and that’s where I would use it. So let’s just return it and put the money toward that really expensive camera I want that we can’t afford and you can’t get for me because you can’t do the right kind of research or an adequate amount of said research to find the perfect camera for me because I don’t know until I see it which is the right one and I get that ‘zing-y’ feeling behind my ears. Besides which, did I mention, we can’t afford it?’ Remember that? And so you returned the eReader and sighed because you felt like a Christmas-wife-failure but I assured you that you weren’t and the idea had been a good one but I just couldn’t use it and probably never would? Remember that? Well LOOKY what our lovely friends gave us for Christmas this year! An eReader!

“If you will excuse me I will now spend the entirety of the Three Days Following Christmas burying myself in the eReader, going on and on about how much I love it and probably we should have gotten one by now, and won’t you love it if you ever get a chance to pry it out of my cold dead hands? And would you mind bringing all of my meals in here so I don’t have to get up, and maybe a blanket? And possibly a port-a-potty-thingy too?

“No? What’s the matter with your face, Lovey? You look sort of discolored. Red, even. Flushy. Are you feeling ill? Why are you holding that Panini-maker your brother just gave you for Christmas in the same way you would hold a baseball bat? Dear, I don’t think that’s how you are supposed to use those things. Plus I think you have to plug it in.

“The eReader? Why certainly you may hold it. Just for a moment though. I don’t want fingerprints on it. Dear? DEAR!!?? What are you doing with the Panini-maker, dear? I don’t think that’s what they’re made to . . . No! NOOOOOOOOO!!!”

And that, my dear male readers, is why you should ALWAYS love what your wife gets you for Christmas. No matter what.

(The doctor says the little panini-lines on my husband’s face should be gone in a few months. That’s a relief.)