A couple days ago Charlie asked me if I was planning on getting him anything for Valentine's Day. I will admit that in years past (when I was much nicer) I have wrapped up a book or DVD and pawned it off as a Valentine's Day present. But I was seriously thinking that this would be a good year to phase out that form of overindulgence, if phase means "to bring to an abrupt halt, immediately end."Surprisingly enough, I didn't automatically think "greedy little shit" when he asked me this question. Since Valentine's Day is still a week away I was actually kind of impressed by the fact that he seemed to be planning ahead, maybe even taking the shipping time from Amazon into consideration. I asked him if there was something specific that he wanted and was prepared for him to pull a list of video games out of his pocket. Instead, he said, "Well, there is a Lord of the Rings book of violin music that I thought would be kind of cool. Maybe you could get that for me. I'll bet dad would like it if I learned some music from that movie."
So much for phasing out the overindulgence.
I guess I'll probably manage to be nice again and buy the book while Charlie is at his violin lesson. Now if I can convince Zoe that a two-pound container of strawberries from Costco is a great gift I've got Valentine's Day for the kids covered. What will I get Zach, you wonder? Oh that's easy: I'll just tell him that he gets to say five smart-ass things to me without getting shoved into a snowbank, since I can't think of anything he'd appreciate more.
And by the way, here is a detailed list that describes how I will not be spending Valentine's Day:
- Eating chocolate
- Wearing red, scratchy pajamas
- Opening heart-shaped jewelry
- Eating heart-shaped pizza
- Exchanging $8 greeting cards
- Receiving flowers
- Watching "Sleepless in Seattle"
- Making dinner reservations
- Acknowledging it
- Being pissed at Doug because he's not acknowledging it, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment