A Short Story…
As soon as I heard my wife leave the house I got out of bed. I had been pretending to sleep. I was proud of myself for preparing to celebrate her birthday. I had things all planned in my head. I should have known that my head was the wrong place to hold them.
Only finding one slipper to wear I held my glass change bank and danced and sang walking from the bedroom to the kitchen . . . “ain’t no good in an evil hearted women . . .” and oops I stepped on a marble, dropped my change bank which broke into multiple pieces and saw my perfectly planed birthday presentation for my wife go down the toilet.
I returned to the bedroom and got completely dressed and went back to the kitchen . . . not quite as happy as I had been. Back in the kitchen I looked at the faucet. My wife had complained about it for spraying her. I turned the water on and it ran perfectly and I remarked “Women just don’t understand.” I took it apart to see what her comment involved . . . and put it back together and turned the water on. Standing by the sink with my clothes all wet I re-thought the day.
Looking out the window I saw a wet paper advertisement being blown about on top of the grass offering household chores and assistance at very decent sales expenses. I had forgotten what Billy Jack, a wiz with plumbing had passed around the neighborhood just a few weeks ago. I went over to see Billy Jack. I could hear a nice tune playing. I knocked and entered his good size garage. Billy Jack listened to what I wanted done and then commented “Wouldn’t this be the water connections I installed last week in your kitchen?” I just stood there with my mouth open until Billy Jack called out to his fourteen year old son and asked him to go to my kitchen and see what the problem was. With-in four minutes the kid yelled back and said, “I’m off to school. Some fool switched the connections. It’s working fine.”
Billy Jack looked at me and I looked at him as I reached for my wallet in my back pocket. He just shook his head and said “Get out of here. Your wife gave me a good tip last week.” I smiled and backed out of the garage.
Back at home my mind clicked. I drove over to Johnson Candy and bought a couple different size chocolate candies and a hand full of black licorice. I could hardly wait. Back home I asked my daughter, Danah to wrap the presents. She looked inside the bag and just shook her head, “Mom doesn’t eat chocolate candies any more, but I do” “How about the licorice?” I asked Danah and she just looked at me. “She doesn’t eat licorice, either.”
I thought it over and said, “What the heck . . . how come everyone else knows what mom doesn’t want. What am I going to do?” As before, Danah spoke up and said, “Well. You can always ask her?” I responded “I don’t want to ask her, I want to surprise her.” Danah turned her head towards me and said “If you really want to surpriser her, why don’t you simply give her a card that says, “Just tell me what you want.” There were a number of family head nods.
That night after a lovely dinner, my wife opened up the special card that said, “Happy Birthday . . . just tell me what you want.” You should have seen her smile.
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