I Got You a Present

My neighbor Ruth Ann called tonight, and as we were chatting I was cleaning the house in an ADD fashion (start to take the garbage out, then look through the stack of magazines in the bathroom and consider recycling some of them, then rearrange the photos on the mantel).

In the midst of this, I stopped to straighten out the crap on my bureau and came across something Mark gave me a couple weeks ago when he returned from a work trip to Phoenix.

I’d razzed him in the past for not bringing anything back for me when he travelled, so I was thrilled at my success in training him when he announced he’d gotten me a present. He dug around in his bag and withdrew a little Arizona license plate that said KRISTEN. I thanked him (weakly), and couldn’t resist telling him that something like this wasn’t what you’d really market as a “present.”

Thankfully, Mark has managed to bust out some pretty spectacular gifts for me in our time together, so the license plate incident didn’t send me running to the bathroom crying to call an old boyfriend.

Last week Mark was in LA for E3. He got back on Friday, and did that thing where he unpacks his bags within 20 minutes of returning from a trip. (I hope this is not something that is passed on to Kate, as I find it freakish.) He came out to the living room to say he had a present for me. This time it was a small cannister filled with lime green goo. How it works is you stick your finger down in it then pull it out really fast and it makes a farting sound.

Now *that’s* a present.