October 25, 2007
Treats
The subject line on a junk email I received yesterday read, “It’s time to treat yourself.” My father-in-law (now deceased) subscribed to a similar thinking. It was almost impossible to buy gifts for him because every time he wanted something he went out and bought it for himself. It’s exasperating and frustrating to buy a gift for someone who seemingly has everything. There’s not much joy in giving someone a gift they don’t want. I wonder how God feels when I treat myself rather than waiting for His good gifts.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----We’ve had the same TV set for fifteen years. In fact, Char’s mom gave it to her several years before we were married, and Char says her mom had it a number of years before that. But it doesn’t look that old, and it delivers a good picture and sound, no vertical flipping, no stretched foreheads, or scrunched up chins. So, I’ve always thought we were free of TV set worries until about three years ago, when Char started angling for a new one.
-----Now, Char does not ask for much. She is a fine lady when it comes to carrying on a sensible budget. But when she starts casting around the pond for something, I have learned that she needs at least a nibble or the conversation will quickly turn to many unrelated, more negative topics. Fortunately, the timing has been good to me these last few years. With the Federal mandate for HDTV, the market was given immediate confidence in the consumers’ willingness to pay higher prices for better technology. So I have been able to supply her angling efforts with goodly nibbles by assuring her that in a few years we will have the perfect buying storm for a new TV: better technology, lower prices, and a more solid personal budget. She has been patient.
-----Until last Spring. She suggested with a great deal of inferred sureness that it would be nice to spend less on bunches of little Christmas presents this year and get the family a new TV set as one big present. I understood this angle to expect a solid bite. Though I knew I could have talked it forward one more year, I also knew she had been fishing with good patience. And I was thankful to have several months to mentally prepare for paying a lot of money to replace something that was still working well. I satisfied her suggestion with a resigned response.
-----So the topic of the new TV was laid to rest for about five months. And I have really been enjoying my new frame of mind. During those months I’ve been quietly looking at TV’s here, pricing them there, working ever closer to planning where behind the Christmas tree could I find a space for a present that big, and how could I possibly convince her it wasn‘t what it looked like it really was. Now my plans have entered the buying point, as they move towards a joyful crescendo. Then, last Sunday afternoon, while the family was half resting and watching some half-interesting TV program, Char asked, in that distinctive tone of expected answer, what size our TV set was. I suspected something was up by the question alone, and the lack of ease that hung in the air until I found a tape measure confirmed my suspicions.
-----About half an hour later, as I was readying to do some outdoor work, Char informed me that she was going to look at some flat screen TV she had seen in the classifieds. I knew I was woefully short of any good excuse to waylay her ambitions of buying a TV. So I displayed a mundane boredom with the topic, and otherwise stayed away from it. As I began my project outside she waved at me from a car lurching out the driveway with excitement. I pushed a smile and a wave back to her through my dissatisfaction, and I returned to my work knowing that possibly I would soon be carrying into the house the little destroyer of my recent plans to make her happy. She was actually going to run off and make herself happy before I could!
-----A couple hours later she interrupted me from my work. “I thought it was going to be one of those TV’s you hang on the wall,” she said with a measured dejection as she shuffled towards me, “but it was like any other TV that sits on the floor. It just had a flat screen is all.” I wanted to put my arms around her. But I was too muddy and she was too pretty, and it wouldn’t have worked. I knew I had dodged this bullet. I knew that there was now a very real prospect of my coming home from work one afternoon and finding the ruination of my plans to surprise her hanging on our living room wall. I figured I had several days to think up something to say that would effectively take her off the trail of buying a TV. I didn’t want the bother of the worry. I knew I could go out immediately and make her happy by buying the TV, but I didn’t want to scuttle the surprise for the girls.
-----I pulled the muddy gloves off my hands and sat on the tire of my cement mixer. ”Hun,” I said looking into the ground with a contemplative and assured look on my cement spattered face, “I know Santa. He’s a good friend of mine,“ I started as I lifted my eyes to meet hers, “He has a good memory.”
Post a Comment