Husband Swapping

While our 23-year-old son was home with his girlfriend, they wanted to head to the swap meet to buy some inexpensive gifts to take back with them for friends in San Francisco. Everyone knows your money goes a long way there and you can get some unique items. But for us locals, the bottom line is you know if it was bought at the swap meet.

Anyway, we made the rounds until it got too hot to bear. But the shopping was fruitful and we left literally with bagfuls of gifts. In a way, that put me in training for shopping for my wife’s birthday gift.

She is so selfless that she always insists that we don’t get her anything. But that is not my style. A few weeks ago I overheard her talking to our daughter about how she needs a new wallet. She was admiring a beautiful Coach designer wallet while window shopping, but thought it to be too much money that could otherwise go toward something else the family could use.

Anyway, I found out which wallet she admired and secretly purchased it for her. I smuggled it into the house and put it in an inconspicuous place until I could have my daughter wrap it for her birthday. That time came when my wife went to the grocery store and my daughter called me at work to ask me where the gift was so she could wrap it.

I told her it was by some other bags and that I had taped it into one of those plastic grocery shopping bags just in case my wife found it. I told my daughter as a joke to keep it in the cheap plastic bag when wrapping it. Well, my wife’s birthday arrived and naturally we presented her with the gift.

When she opened it, I didn’t quite get the reaction I was expecting. Then she held it up and in the worst acting attempt possible said, “I love it!” She was holding up one of the trinkets from the swap meet. My daughter wrapped the wrong gift! We laughed and explained what happened, that she was going to get the Coach wallet she wanted. That’s if we ever get it back from one of our son’s friends in San Francisco, who must think him a god.