12.24.00
All parents have scams that they perpetrate upon their children.
I think it's in their handbook somewhere.
Some scams are better than others, and my parents have their own little version of the bait-and-switch that I've experienced numerous times.
It goes a little something like this:
"Hey, Kristen, we're going to do <insert generous, unexpected financial act here> for you!"
"Gee, Mom/Dad, thanks!"
And then the generous, unexpected financial act happens.
Several months pass, and a nearby gift-giving opportunity arises...
"Hey Mom/Dad, I want <insert name of object here> for <insert nearest gift-giving opportunity here>."
"Ooh, Kristen, remember when we did <previously done generous unexpected financial act> for you? Well, we figured that would be your <nearest gift-giving opportunity> present this year."
Don't get me wrong, every single time they've pulled this trick on me, the generous, unexpected financial act has been excellent and appreciated at the time. However, when everyone else is unwrapping oodles of excellent Christmas presents and you aren't, only to find out after-the-fact that your present was getting your car door fixed during the summer, that stings a little.
I love being able to have passengers get into my car from the passenger side of the car. I'd love it more if the door and the side panel of the passenger side of the car were the same color as the rest of the car, but I digress. (LOVE YOU MOM!)
I loved taking Spring Flora earlier this year. It made an excellent birthday present! (And I mean that with all sincerity. Honestly.)
And the Thanksgiving airfare to Colorado this year? Good God, I've been DYING to see Grandma. Who would have thought she'd become a bitter old shut-in in the four years since I've seen her last? Still, an excellent Christmas present.
I can't wait until next year. If I really did hurt my knee in my recent fall and need orthoscopic surgery*, I think that would make a truly wonderful birthday present.
*If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm sort of a pessimist and more than a little bit of a hypochondriac. I'm currently obsessed with the idea that I chipped my kneecap when I fell on it, and that I'll have to have surgery to have the bone chip removed.
It's probably just a nice chunk of bruised tissue that is causing me horrid torment, but in my paranoid little inner-fantasy world, it's a crippling fragment of patella that's going to leave a scar when it has to be cut out of my leg.
Damn, now I'll never be a leg model!
