I May Be Too Late………..

This is for the newly married Jackson County men who, throughout the past eleven months, chased their girlfriends until they were caught.

I could not find the exact data on the men that were married this year, but I have an idea of the appropriate proportions. Let’s work in groups of one hundred. I would think that, out of a cluster of one hundred men who succumbed to the promise of wedded bliss, twenty six had been married before and twelve woke up with hangovers and realized that the happening should not have happened, and immediately departed for some foreign seaport, or the deep woods, or the mountains.

This leaves sixty-two newly minted husbands. Mickey Gilmore’s advertisements at Wal-Mart have alerted five of these to the supposed desirability of the early purchase of a gift, and they fell for it, so we will be working with forty-seven grooms who have no idea of the perils they face.

These are the ones that I will instruct in the niceties of proper selection of that all-important first Christmas gift, and the snares that are subtly connected. Listen closely, gentlemen.

I was married for forty-two years to a woman who began Christmas shopping as we drove home from the Fourth of July parade. Her list was checked closer than Santa’s, and not just once or twice. Calls were made to ascertain that the aunts and uncles spread across this great nation of ours were yet alive. Once she checked a sonogram of a pregnant niece to make certain that there would be an appropriate gift if the baby (you recall the rule: blue for boy, pink for girl) arrived by Christmas. I watched, at first assuming that this would eliminate any last minute buying, but I was wrong. I would be putting together swing sets and tricycles on Christmas Eve and Theresa would be making one last gift run.

As an aside, I want you to know that I am an expert on last minute shopping. At least three times in the four decades that I was with Theresa, I stopped at a convenience store at 11:00 PM on the night before and bought her panty hose, in the incorrect size and of a shade that she did not use, and put them under the tree. That, my friends, is truly last minute!

That brings me to how you, the neophyte, should go about purchasing gifts. Be careful in your selections, not only for Christmas but throughout the year. Once I noticed a helium filled balloon that had in large print the beautiful thought “I LOVE YOU MORE TODAY THAN I DID YESTERDAY”. I had no special reason to buy this for my beloved, except that it expressed how I felt. I bought it and proudly carried it home. What could go wrong? I had read the large print; she read the small print underneath: “Yesterday you were a bitch”.. This is what the great patriot of the American Revolution Thomas Paine had in mind when he wrote “These are the times that try men’s souls”. It is also what your father meant when he told you to always read the small print. You thought he was talking about contracts, didn’t you?

Some thoughtful man, and it must have been a man, came up with the proper anniversary gift for each year of marriage. It begins with paper, goes to wood for the second year and progresses upward in cost and in desirability. Do not vary from this tradition. On our twenty fifth anniversary I made a quick trip to Tallahassee to purchase silver for Theresa. Being in a hurry, though, I stopped at the jewelry section of Gayfers and saw a diamond tennis bracelet and I purchased it. This was the ultimate bad choice.

Once you give a diamond, there is no going back. I recall Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell singing, in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, a moving but true “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”. I cry when I see reruns of this on TV. Bracelets lead to necklaces, necklaces to earrings, earrings to a diamond ring for each finger and then there are ankle bracelets. I am thankful that toe rings did not come into favor while we were still married. The DeBeers Company, the world’s largest diamond merchants, once advertised “Diamonds are Forever”. That is the understatement of the century.

Do not ask her what she would like to have for her birthday, Christmas or your true anniversary. You must guess, so that she can blame you for selecting the wrong gift, and pout for a week or so, and use this as an excuse for not cooking or bringing you a beer when you come in from work. I say “true” anniversary. If you have been married for any time at all she will come up with very strange dates that you should have recalled, like “today was the anniversary of the first time we ever watched submarine races together, and that was two months before we got married, and you didn’t bring me anything today!” You can’t win these battles, so don’t try. Just be kind to her. The moon and her mood will change.

You have to be observant and alert, and see what she would really like. She may have told you that she enjoys fishing, but Zebco does not make an appropriate gift for a woman. Rolex does, and ocean cruises are fine, but if you choose to take her on a cruise, be certain to have a gift that she can unwrap, or it won’t count.

Be careful of lingerie purchases. Skivvies are entirely appropriate for intimate times, but be cautious. I would suggest your handling it like this: Forget Fruit of the Loom and Hanes. Take the time to go to Victoria’s Secret, unless you are past sixty. If you are past sixty, as am I, you will only get strange looks from the sales clerks as you ease among the racks and sweat and look furtive. One of them is most certain to call security. But you can, with a nice saleslady’s assistance, pick out an appropriate ensemble. Buy the bra at least one cup size too large. If she wears an “A”, buy a “B”. She will be pleased that you seem to underestimate her endowments, and will kiss you and treat you very nicely, and then she will secretly exchange it for a Wonderbra at her first opportunity, and will not tell you. This is why they call the store “Victoria’s Secret”. And buy the panties one size too small. She will not exchange these, but will, when she is by herself, try them on and decide that it is really the size that she should wear. You have made big points.

On a serious note, and I can be serious, Christmas is an important time for us to express our true feelings about our mates. In 2004 Theresa found that she had terminal cancer, and her oncologist told her that she had only a few months to be with us. Christmas approached, and I was in a quandary. What could I give her that would have meaning at such a time? Christmas was always her season, and she had done her usual thing, buying gifts for everyone.

Then one day I heard a commercial on the radio about naming a star for someone. Up till then I thought that this was an entirely inane idea, but then I realized how appropriate it would be, just this one time. So, under the Christmas tree that year was a certificate and a star chart that says that the International Star Registry “doth hereby redesignate star number Ursa Major RA 11h 7m 55s D 42’ 26’ to the name + Theresa L. Hirt and that the star will henceforth be known by this name”.

Finally………… I got it right.