Birthday Surprises

 Times of TW.

Big is Better for Birthday Surprises

By Kent Barker

Oh dear, it’s birthday time again and I’ve no idea at all what to get her.  It’s the same problem every year only it gets more difficult as we get older. After all we’ve got pretty much everything we need – along with a huge amount of stuff we don’t.

Last year I was abroad and ordered something online for the kitchen.  When I got back she demanded a pound from me.  I was puzzled.  It’s bad luck, she told me, unless you include money with it.   I must have looked a bit surprised because she told me she loved the knife set and she would give me back the pound (which I don’t think she’s actually done yet).  When I looked up this strange superstition I discovered that there’s believed to be a danger that the gift of a knife runs the risk of severing the friendship.  Well worth a pound to prevent, I thought, except that it’s supposed to be a penny. But then that’s inflation for you.

I’m aware that the Sabatiers set – along with a number of my gifts to previous partners – have rather lacked that personal touch.  By far the worst example of this was when I gave my first wife a dishwasher for her birthday.  I thought it was rather a good gift. It was going to be extremely useful and would save us both a lot of hard work with an irritating chore.  

It was certainly rather a big gift.  Now this may be a boy thing but, to me, big equals good when it comes to presents.  I mean who wouldn’t want a parcel more than a cubic meter in size to open on their birthday? It is true that wrapping it proved a bit of a challenge as did ensuring she didn’t see it until the day itself.  I mean there was this bloody great cardboard box clogging up the hall making it almost impossible to hang up your coat or get through to the living room.  As I recall I simply put a blanket or bedspread over it with a little note on to saying “no peeking”.

I can’t actually remember her reaction when she opened it.  Certainly surprise and quite possibly muted anger at the sheer effrontery of such a utilitarian present.

That wasn’t the largest parcel I’ve had to wrap though.  I decided to surprise my ten year old son with a snooker table one Christmas.  It was duly delivered by two strong men and placed on its side in the dining-room.  I bought a job lot of seasonal wrapping paper and covered it as best I could.  We didn’t use that room much except for formal occasions so there was no reason it should be spotted.  But what my boy did notice was a large gap under the tree where he might have expected his present to be.  He was pretty stoical about it, but on Christmas morning he was clearly getting worried. “Haven’t you got me anything?” his expression seemed to say.  Finally I could bear it no longer.  “Why don’t you pop into the dining-room an see if there’s something there?”  A few moments later he was back with a bewildered expression.  “Can’t see anything, dad”.

We went in together and I sort of nodded towards this massive great shape taking up most of one wall. “Oh that!” he said with a huge smile of relief, “it was so big I didn’t see it.”

In the end I probably choose to give the sort of presents I would like to receive myself. The electronic gizmos I buy usually go down reasonably well – even if I have to set them up and explain, endlessly, how they work.  But I’ve found over the years that sets of carpentry tools are not so popular. 

I did actually make a romantic gesture once.  I was living in New York, a few blocks from Central Park where horse-drawn carriages trot tourists around in some splendor.  After a good deal of argument, and the offer of large wads of dollar bills, the driver reluctantly agreed to leave the park and drive to our apartment block at the appointed hour.

As the intercom buzzed on his arrival I was able proudly to announce to my then wife: “Your carriage awaits.”  I think it was appreciated, even if driving back to the park through the rush-hour Manhattan traffic was a bit of a trial!

They don’t have horse-drawn carriages where my partner lives now.  The nearest thing is one of those bicycle rickshaw things. But I very much doubt I’ll be able to persuade a rider to bring it up to her house at the top of a steep hill.

Perhaps I’d better get her some flowers to go with the new set of saucepans.

Read more at: KentCountryMatters.Blogspot.com