It’s September, which means that once again it’s time for my birthday. To be honest, the prospect of this fills me with a certain amount of dread. Not because of the grey hair (Clementine solved that problem for me—at least temporarily—when she had my hair dyed green and purple). And not because of the wrinkles (I have discovered to my somewhat delight that zits don’t tend to appear in the middle of a wrinkle). And not even because of any potential cognitive lapses—sometimes I think that forgetting is nature’s reward for agreeing to become a parent. No, my dread is not due to any of the age related aspects of having another birthday, but rather because of the fact that birthdays mean presents. And presents, for me, mean pretending that I like them.
I’ll be the first to admit it: I am a terrible person to buy presents for. No matter what you get me, I will always find something wrong with it: wrong size, wrong color, wrong price, wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m not proud about it, and I’m not bragging, I’m just stating the simple, unhappy, truth: I suck at getting presents.
This is okay where my husband is concerned (although he might tell you differently). After sixteen years of marriage he is used to the first words out of my mouth being, “Did you keep the receipt?” every time I open a gift. (In my defense, I must say that he can be spectacularly bad at buying presents. I will always remember the time I asked for something from Victoria’s Secret and instead got a pair of full length flannel nightgowns from J.C. Penney. That’s right: a pair. Two! I suppose his thinking was that this way I would always have one while the other was in the wash).
The problem I am currently having with my present-receiving disorder, however, is that now it no longer involves just my husband—it involves my children. And there’s no way I can ask my kids if they still have the receipt—not unless I want to have to do damage control for the rest of the night.
This used to not be such a problem, because instead of buying me presents they used to make them. And while I can almost always find a flaw with a store bought present, even I would have a hard time finding fault in a handmade one—especially one from my kids. Macaroni necklaces, stick figure drawings, amorphous lumps of clay—I have loved and will continue to love them all. But as my kids have gotten older, and busier, and more susceptible to advertising campaigns, their presents have changed. And not for the better.
Now instead of making me an ashtray in art class they buy me a “Mom” mug at the dollar store. And even though I do drink coffee, and I don’t smoke cigarettes, I can’t help but prefer the former to the latter. (Although, to be honest, the ashtray did cause more trouble than the mug. After Clyde gave it to me his older sister couldn’t resist pointing out to him gleefully that I didn’t smoke, at which point I felt compelled to lie and say that it didn’t matter because I was planning on taking up smoking anyway. It was, I thought, a harmless little white lie—until Clyde started pestering me daily, and in front of everyone I knew, about when I was finally going to start smoking. It’s been four years now, and he still hasn’t laid that one completely to rest.)
Still, if I’m being honest, I would admit that the problem isn’t really flannel nightgowns and ashtrays—it”s my own lack of tact and graciousness. And that maybe fixing that should be my present to everyone else.
Yeah. Or I could just learn to enjoy smoking—while wearing several yards of flannel.