Conflict Of Interest

Editor’s note: Ron Nagasawa is on leave. This column was published originally on Aug. 26, 2009.

For being a husband, I think my approval rating is in the high 90s. At least for 10 minutes out of the year it is. I try really hard to do all the things a good husband should do but sometimes my job gets in the way. While blaming my job is the lamest excuse, that’s all I got.

In all my years of marriage, I have never forgotten a significant date, the most important being my wife’s birthday. This year her birthday happened to coincide with MidWeek‘s gala 25th anniversary. I had entered the time-space-wife paradox.

As publisher, I was pretty much required to be there. With her two brothers here from the Mainland with their families, she wouldn’t be coming with me. What this boiled down to was that we would go our separate ways on her birthday.

Of course, I don’t give her enough credit, for when I explained my obligation on her special day, she more than understood. I promised her I would go to the party but not enjoy myself without her. She laughed and said, “Sure you will.” Well, she wasn’t wrong. Of all the parties I’ve gone to in my capacity as publisher, this was the best one.

Explaining my situation to my colleagues, they insisted I take home a spray of flowers they had for the party. It was a nice gesture, but the flowers looked like a display for the head table at a wedding reception. It was 3 feet wide by 2 feet high. Beautiful, but a dozen roses they were not.

When I finally got home, everyone had left and our daughter was sleeping. My wife was in the living room going over our daughter’s homework. She looked exhausted as she had put in a full day at work, and while her birthday celebration with family was good, she was quite tired.

In transporting the flowers, I had inadvertently smashed them so when I walked in it looked like I was carrying leftover funeral flowers. She looked up at me, and before I could say “Happy Birthday” she said, “Don’t tell me you’re going to try to pass those off as my birthday present.”

I dropped down to the floor and immediately gave her a foot rub. I ended up receiving a full pardon. rnagasawa@midweek.com