Or Maybe She’d Prefer a Gift Certificate

SHERWOOD KIRALY

Thankful, schmankful, what are you going to give your spouse for

Christmas?

I wouldn’t ordinarily be worrying this early about a present for

Patti Jo, but there’s added pressure this year: I have to make up for

the present I got her last year.

Our habit is to ask each other what we want, but we also each try

to come up with a little extra something, you know, for a surprise.

And a woman can be tough to shop for, because she likes things this

man doesn’t know anything about.

But if you gamble and buy into her area of expertise, and you pick

something good, you’re a hero. She’s thrilled that you took the

trouble to go out of your gift comfort zone and into hers. I’ve

managed this twice with rings and once with some Chinese-motif plates

and bowls that Katie put me onto.

Then again, they call it gambling because there’s a chance you’ll

lose. Last December I was in the Laguna Hills Mall, looking for

inspiration, when I came up alongside a store featuring exotic

bric-a-brac -- lots of ornate, foreign-looking oddities. There was a

discount sign. I walked in.

I did have a thought; in fact I had two. Patti Jo had said she

wanted to replace our coffee table, and our daughter Katie had told

me that Patti Jo once admired a Chinese table whose seats could slide

underneath, fitting like a puzzle. These two thoughts seemed to match

up in my head, also like a puzzle.

The store manager, a friendly chap, ended up selling me an

oval-shaped faux Chinese table with paintings all over it. It was too

big for an end table, too small for a coffee table, and too ugly for

words, but somehow I didn’t see it that way then.

I think what misled me was that the one I picked looked better

than the others. I knew the gold-painted ones with the dragons were

bad. But I thought the black one with the storks might ... well, it

hardly matters now.

On Christmas Day the table was a success in the sense that Patti

Jo was surprised, but her reaction overall was a kind of subdued

horror. She was polite; she is stubbornly loyal and her attitude is

that we’ve been together for many years and she’s willing to stick it

out. But her image of my judgment was shaken. Seeing the table

through her eyes shook me too; it shook me awake. There was nothing

worse in the house to make it look good. That was one butt-ugly

table.

We exchanged it a day later, which wasn’t easy, because there

wasn’t much in that store that spoke to Patti Jo.

A lot of you will think, “That’s what he gets; he should’ve

shopped locally.�

Well, I’m willing. And this year I’m starting early, so watch for

me if you’ve got a shop Downtown; you may see me coming. That store

manager at the mall sure did.