A Dad and his gift card stand united for Mom

Gift cards were probably invented by a man.  This man may or may not have been a dad, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case.  This dad had probably purchased, once too often a blouse, skirt or moo moo that were not the color or style that his spouse wanted.

Then again, it’s possible that a woman invented the gift card.  This woman; was probably a wife, whose knucklehead husband once bought her a moo moo.

Regardless of how the gift card came to be, I’m thankful.

It was a lean period for the budget in the Mojo house, what with a hernia, dental surgery, dog surgery, new HVAC and computer repair all in the last six months.  Add those expenses to a small, growing Baby Mojo and mom and dad scaled back their wish list considerably.  She just wanted a gift card to a popular shoe store and I just wanted a subscription to Batman.  Unfortunately nothing in this last paragraph was a joke, except for this sentence which is more a droll attempt at humor.

In early December we told each other what we would like for Christmas.  She told me all she wanted was a gift certificate to a shoe store and then started to explain why.  In a guys mind, when we hear that a woman just wants a gift certificate we don’t need to know why.

It’s like a cloud of happy adjectives dancing in our heads in a thought bubble lined with beer and chocolate.  No shopping.  A fixed spending limit.  No returns.  Less time at the store.  No embarrassing walks through the women’s underwear department.  More time on the sofa.  Wife is happy.    Pick any one of those or add your own reason; guys love gift certificates and we don’t need rationale as to what you want to purchase.

I got the gift card for the special pair of shoes that has the things for the event that she was trying to tell me about; but I had already zoned out into a cloud of beer and chocolate.  On the way home I wanted to purchase a blank greeting card, so that I could write my own personalized greeting.

I stopped by a large card store, one with literally hundreds of cards, knick knacks, glass figurines and wooden reindeer-there were three blank cards.  It’s not that they were out, they were fully stocked, they just had three blank cards.

Unfortunately these blank cards were morose and drab looking.  They were apparently from the Apocalyptic line of Mayan cards touting the world’s end in 2012.  If I were writing prose for an unexpected job loss or death in the family these cards might’ve done the trick.  However, as I was writing something happy and love inspiring to celebrate the fact that I didn’t have to go shopping for my wife, I had to find other cards.

Farther down the street I stopped off at our local Wal-Greens, who had a seemingly never ending supply of greeting cards.  They also had about 50 blank cards.  I rarely mention stores by name here, but a fine job having nothing on your product Wal-Greens, in this case it was exactly what I was looking for.

My wife did pull a slight rope a dope by telling me that she “had purchased one other small thing that I said I needed”.    Grrrr….I fell into the briar patch of giving.  It was me, with my one gift card; and she presenting a beer and chocolate infused husband with two unexpected sweaters and a subscription to Batman.  I need to create a secret gift area that’s filled just with things my wife would like.  I could put it in the garage, near the power tools, wheel barrel and other man junk, but I would never find it again.

Man do I love my wife, gift cards, beer, doughnuts and Batman.