Warren and I are, professionally speaking, both just cogs in the machine. And we know it. He does... whatever it is he does for a middling-sized retail entity, and I spend six hours a day preventing America's Hope for the Future from vandalizing the bathrooms and getting knocked up before they fully realize their potential. The difference is, Warren works for the for-profit world, and I live off the fat of the land (or at least their income tax revenues). So while we both may be too busy working for The Man to be able to stick to him, Warren gets to enjoy a few more perks than I do. Such as getting a signing bonus that enabled him to pay off his student loans for grad school. And going to conferences in pleasant places of the world, at the time of year during which they are most pleasant. For the past few years, Warren has had the opportunity to go visit Las Vegas at various points of the year when it is neither hot enough to melt titanium out there nor very nice here. (I, on the other hand, got to go to a conference just this past week. It was held in the renovated basement of the old high school. I got a sandwich AND a diet soda with my conference fee, and I didn't even have to pay extra for it! That, my friends, is living it up!)
Anyhoo, whenever Warren hies off to places afar it makes for some hard slogging at this end of the rope. Ordinarily, I have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off OR one with its head up its @ss, but during business trips the pace doubles, so that I'm running around like the chicken who had its head cut off and THEN firmly embedded in its nether regions. So when he went out to Nevada last spring, I told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted some kind of remuneration for all my extra effort. "I want a gift," I said in my out-loud voice,"and I want a good present, too, not just a t-shirt."
Now here I have to interrupt myself to explain that Warren, while he has many stellar qualities, is a horrible gift-giver. Once we were clearly on the road to matrimony, he heaved an enormous sigh of relief and turned over all gift procurement and distribution responsibilities to yours truly. Also, being the relentlessly levelheaded sort, he defines "gift" as "something you need and can use every day." By his lights, the best possible gift in the world is a pair of wool socks. I, on the other hand, define "gift" as, "something you desperately want and dream of having that you cannot possibly justify getting for yourself." The best possible gift in my book is small, sparkly, and comes in carat weight. Needless to say, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Furthermore, my nearest and dearest kinfolk are ALL in Warren's camp. When we affianced, he came to his first Christmas at my parents' house. After a morning spent opening packages of winter underwear and suchlike, he told me, "I like your family. Their gifts are so practical." Words that make a girl's heart go pitty-pat, no?
So Warren went off to Las Vegas, and I spent four days doing double-duty parenting, along with my usual full-time job and other commitments (Woman With Kids, how do you do it?!?). Throughout the four days, I wondered: What kind of delightful bauble or tasteful trinket would he grace me with upon his return? When he walked in the door after dinner that night, we all greeted him with cries of gladness, followed by my cry of, "Whadja bring me, dear?" With a huge smile, he whipped out a small plastic bag with three parcels wrapped in tissue paper in it, one parcel for each of us. We unwrapped them to find:
Yep. This is what my husband got me for "jewelry". Or actually, this is what he got for the girls AND me; I just decided to swipe the girls' friendship bracelets for the day and wear them with my LOVELY real-faux-semi-precious-rocklike-bead bracelet. My husband bought me a present at the CHECKOUT COUNTER OF THE AIRPORT CONVENIENCE STORE, PEOPLE. And his argument defending that incidence of poor decision-making? "I was busy. I didn't know what you'd like, and I didn't have time to go shopping."
Now, those of you with oft-traveling spouses can correct me if I'm wrong (except that I'm NOT wrong), but I believe that small remembrances for one's spouse after a significant absence are immune from the "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" rule. Why? Because a present given to the person who has just shouldered his or her own share of the household management AND yours as well isn't a gift, it's a consolation prize. It's the absentee partner's way of acknowledging that yes, I just got a free pass to spend x number of days away from home, along with the clean towels and fresh bed linens and adult conversation at dinnertime that such a trip includes, and yes, I realize that I got to go have grown-up time with grown-up people and without dishes, temper tantrums and endless recitations of Clifford the Big Red Dog Meets the IRS Auditors and I am really really sorry you couldn't go too, but look! I got you this really really nice luxury item that you will love and adore and cherish every time you look at it. THAT'S what a business trip gift is about.
"What?" Warren said, miffed, after my reaction registered as being less than ebullient. "You said you wanted jewelry." Yeah. And beaded friendship bracelets are to jewelry as Kim Kardashian is to Sophia Loren. But that's okay. I am nothing if not resilient and resourceful. Next time he goes out of town on business, I'll just buy myself my own damn hi-honey-I'm-home gift, and it's going to be a doozy. I bet he'll damn well make time to get me a gift on his own behalf after that!