The Last Card I Gave My Wife

“Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.” – Joel Barish (about Valentine’s Day from the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

I just watched this movie this week (thanks to a free month of Netflix).  It is a strange movie and a bit hard to follow in portions.  The above quote is from the very beginning of the movie and is noted as a “random thought” by Joel in his journal.  I can relate.

You can ask my wife to verify, but I do not like greeting cards.  We were recently invited to a graduation open house for a daughter of friends of ours.  We discussed / negotiated the amount to give as a graduation present (we were just giving cash in the form of a check) and arrived at an amount that we could both agree to that would not seem over exuberant or under appreciative.  On the way home from church on the day of the party, the wife announced that we needed to pick up a card (in which to place the check).  I argued (half heartedly as I knew I would not prevail) that a card was not necessary.  We could use a normal envelope and a hand written note to get the same effect.  This would not do evidently so we hit the 2 for a $1 card section of the Dollar Store.  As the wife was writing the check I suggested that she deduct the 54 cents that it cost us for the card (with tax) and write a check for the lower amount.  She fought initially but when I suggested that we could write a cute note explaining the amount that it would make for a nice memory for us all, otherwise she (the graduate) would just cash the check and then forget about it (other than the mandatory Thank You notes that would have to follow).  The wife agreed and we all had a laugh when the card was opened.  Time will tell if she (the graduate) remembers this event or not.

A long time ago (well, over 10 years anyway) we were invited to a baby shower for a friend at my work.  As with all my friends, the wife had weaseled in and became friends with my coworker and his wife.  On a side note, I have no friends of my own that are just “my friends” as the wife muscles her way in to all my friendships (that is of course except the friends that she does not know about [yet]).  Anyway, we bought a suitable gift for a baby shower and the wife wanted to get a card.  The glorious 2 for $1 section had not yet come to our Dollar Store yet so we were forced to consider paying full retail.  It was going to run us $2 for a card (give or take) so I decided (they were my friends after all) that I would write a hand written note and tape 2 $1 bills together and stick the note inside.  The note basically suggested that if they really wanted a card then they could take the $2 and buy a suitable card or (if they were logical like me) the could take the $2 and buy something useful like diapers.  I never heard what they did with my $2 but I will bet you they did not go out and buy a card.

A month or so ago I bought a card off the 2 for $1 rack at the Dollar Store and hid it from the wife meaning to give it to her at a later date.  This is a big deal for me as even at 50 cents, I still do not like cards (I could go on and on here but I think I will keep this short).  Last night I decided that I would give this card to my wife.  It had a silly picture of a dog on the front and basically just said “I love you” on the inside.  I signed the card, licked the envelope and then began to think about where to hide it so she would find it later.  I thought about putting it in her pillow case and then saw her nightgown laying at the end of the bed.  I took the card and wrapped it inside the nightgown thinking that she would find it when she changed when getting ready for bed.  Sometime around 7:30 PM I took off to make a Kroger run (looking for something sweet and some cheap wine).  Sure enough when I came home the wife had changed into her nightgown.  We sat on the couch together and watched a rerun of Leave It To Beaver (again, thanks to Netflix).  She made no mention of the card, not even a hint that she liked it.  We sat there through 2 episodes and still nothing.  She asked me to rub her feet, etc. but did not acknowledge my giving her a card.  I was starting to get perturbed.  Finally we sent the kids to bed and headed to the bedroom.

As she was brushing her teeth I noticed that the envelope was sitting on the end of the bed.  I picked it up and to my surprise it was still sealed.  It was laying right there in the open.  She HAD to have noticed it when she changed while I was at Kroger, right?  As she exited the bathroom I handed the card and explained what I had done.  Though happy to get a card from me (this is a rare event) she could not help but laugh at herself as she replayed her changing clothes and how she could have possibly missed seeing a card drop from her nightgown right onto our bed (the white envelope had to stand out on our deep purple bedspread).  I pretended to be deeply hurt and (once again) swore off giving cards.

You can read the title of this blog as indicating that it is about the card I LAST gave to my wife or you can read it as I intended it; namely that this IS the LAST card that I will EVER give my wife.

Jon..

Bad (or Perfect) Timing

It has been 2 weeks since I last sat down to write a new blog.  I have been spending my time migrating my old Xanga blogs to my new Blogger blog but it is slow going.  I am amazed at how many spelling errors there were in those early blogs.  I am probably a quarter of the way done but it is a tedious task and no one out there (that I could find) has a quick way of migrating from one to the other so it has to be done one by one.  I have about 400 blog entries on the Xanga site and then I have a few hundred on the site where this blog entry is posted so I have a ways to go.  Anyway, that has kept me busy and hence I have not had the time to write a new blog but I did want to take time today to tell you about an incident at work this week.  First though (as always), a little background.

The wife has been hounding me for the past few months to get into the doctor and have a suspicious area on my shoulder looked at to see if it is anything that needs attention.  I have a “to do” list that I keep for work and dutifully placed “see doctor about spot on shoulder” on that list and then (like a lot of things on that list) I kept putting it off.  There is an on site clinic (and pharmacy) right at my workplace and it is probably only 200 feet or so from my cubicle.  You can call or even log onto their site and schedule an appointment but for all that convenience I still kept putting it off and worked on other things on my list.  Only after receiving an email from the clinic announcing free skin cancer screenings did I take action.  I think I am motivate a lot by “free” even though I doubt a regular doctor visit would cost me much based on my company insurance.  Anyway, once I got that email, I took the 30 seconds to make the appointment and then informed the wife that I had (finally) done what she had asked me to do.

Due to my schedule (and the schedule of the doctors on site), my appointment was a week or so out from the day that I called.  The date of the appointment was this past Tuesday (July 31) and at 3:30 I sauntered over from my cube (allowing 2 minutes for travel time) and started filling out the paperwork.  As far as paperwork goes, this was not too bad.  There was a basic information page (which kills me since they have all that on file) and then a page with an anatomically incorrect drawing of the human body (front and back) so you can indicate where on your body any suspect marks might be located.  I did my best to mark the approximate area and then handed the papers back to the receptionist and then waited to be called back.  Another lady showed up who had picked up poison ivy and was looking for a shot before the end of the day.  One good reason to stay away from the doctor’s office, there are always sick or infected people there!  After about a 10 minute wait I was called back.

We bypassed the scales so I knew that this was not going to be treated like a normal visit since normal visits always involve weighing in and then taking of your temperature and blood pressure.  When I got into the room I was told simply to strip down to my underwear and put on the paper robe that was folded on the examination table.  I had hoped that since I just wanted one spot looked at that I would only have to take off my shirt (or just pull back my shirt to show the spot that my wife was concerned about.  No dice, I had to strip down to my skivvies and get a full, head to toe exam.  I quickly got undressed and into the robe and not a moment too soon as right when I pulled the robe on the doctor entered the room.  Based on her accent and skin color I would say she was from no where around here but I am quite used to dealing with folks of varying accents to I understood her well enough.  She took a look at the spot I indicated on my paperwork and assured me that it was nothing.  She proceeded to look all over my head and torso while quizzing me on proper sun issues like wearing sunscreen and having proper sunglasses.  My wife has other ideas about getting enough sun (and vitamin D via sunbathing) so I just told the doctor what she wanted to hear.  I did not want to start a fight and I am quite under-equipped (unlike my wife) when it comes to arguing with a doctor about health.  I assured her that I basically only got sunshine as I scurried from building to building or car to building and I would make a perfectly good vampire and then she asked me to lie down so she could check out the lower half of my body.

It as at this time that the buildings fire alarm went off.

Other than using the rest room, this is the only time that I have been this naked at work and this is also the only time I have ever heard the fire alarm go off.  What are the odds?  The good doctor must have thought this was a test as she just kept on with her inspection (albeit at a slightly faster pace) until someone knocked on the door to make sure we were making haste to exit the building.  The doctor left and then I got dressed as fast as I could.  I left my shirt untucked and carried my socks, shoes and belt outside with the masses.  The receptionist hunted me down (I was easy to find as I was the only partially dressed guy outside) and handed me my paperwork and some pamphlets on the dangers of the sun and I tried to find a semi-private spot to put on my shoes and belt so I did not have to explain why I was barefoot before the alarm went off.  It turned out not to be a test but rather a false alarm and we eventually got to go back inside.  The day finished with no more excitement.

As I was relating this story to my wife I was trying to tell her that it is incidents like this that make me not want to go to the doctor.  I was hoping that some good could come out of all of this and I could avoid a future check up.  Her laughter was not reassuring.

Jon