Posted on: Monday, December 13, 2004

ABOUT MEN
'Perfect' gift no end to worries

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

There we were, a full month before Christmas — November even! — and I thought I was home free.

For the first time in years — decades even — I already had exactly the gift my wife wanted for Christmas.

There's no more liberating feeling for a married man. We really do want to get just the right gift for our spouses, but we never have the slightest clue what that might be, or where to find it.

This time was different. This time I was going to come through. This time I was going to be a Christmas hero. Did I mention it was still November?

Of course, my wife had told me exactly what she wanted and exactly where to find it and exactly how much it would cost, but even so, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had actually remembered what she said. I had actually followed through and ordered it.

That may not sound like much, but given my history of Christmas gift-giving mistakes, faux pax, lapses, misjudgments, false steps, omissions, misunderstandings and sometimes even screw-ups, it was something to be proud of.

Not that my wife asks for, or expects, very much after all these years.

This time, all she wanted was a small salad bowl designed to resemble a cabbage leaf, which happens to resemble a bowl we had originally purchased 20 years ago in a small town in Portugal and which I had broken a few months back while I was using it to hold potato chips while I drank a late-night/early morning beer and watched a rerun of the UH-Idaho game, making such a clatter that it woke my wife, who at the time seemed more upset about losing sleep than losing the bowl, which I attributed to the fact that we still had three more just like it.

So when my wife said she had seen exactly the same bowl on a Web site, it seemed such a great, simple solution. The very next day — the key to Christmas shopping for wives is to be quick and resolute — I found the Web site, ordered one cabbage-looking salad bowl, had it gift-wrapped for an extra $2.50, and settled back to enjoy the rest of the normally anxiety-ridden shopping season, fret-free.

The very next week, as if guided by an occult hand, my wife led me into a store that had the exact same name as the Web site, where she found the exact same cabbage-looking bowl — and you probably know where this is going, with her buying the bowl over my feeble protests and me having to start looking for a new gift.

But life never goes exactly like you think, does it?

"Oh, this bowl doesn't look anything like the one we had," my wife said. "I guess we'll have to keep looking."

Now, I'm looking both ways.

On the one hand, I keep a sharp eye out for the UPS guy bearing the package that will prove I ordered the wrong thing — again.

On the other hand, I'm back looking for just the right Christmas gift — again!

Why worry, though? There are still 10 nonshopping days until the day before Christmas.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.