How to get what you want? Buy it yourself

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re giving our columnist a week off this week — deserved or not, who’s to say — by rerunning this column from the past, which is still timely, since our columnist’s wife’s birthday came around again earlier this week.

What do you do with someone who drops copious hints about what she wants for her birthday, then goes out and buys it for herself two weeks before her birthday?

I could start with hard to shop for — and that might be the kindest thing I could say.

Terry’s birthday is a little more than a week away, but a few weeks ago she saw something in a sale circular — her favorite reading material, by the way — from an outdoor equipment store that she wasted no time in showing me, with the comment that it would be something I could get her for her birthday.

Now, I may be more than a little bit dense at times and take a while to figure some things out — all right, a lot of things — but even I could get that hint.

Just to be sure, though, she made sure to leave the circular, open to the page with that item on it, around in a number of conspicuous places over the next several days.

I found it on the computer keyboard, on the living room coffee table (right under the TV remote, real subtle), even in the box of breakfast cereal — instead of the secret agent decoder ring I expected to find but still haven’t.

What she wanted was a hand-held GPS device.

A while back, at some conference or camp she attended, they did a little geo-caching game and that got her hooked. She decided that was the next toy she wanted.

Having had to direct her over the cell phone to one place or another she was driving to over the years, I can understand where it might be a useful device for her — although I’m still old-fashioned enough to rely on a road map myself.

This particular GPS was listed at about half-price or so, on special, so she thought it would be a good buy — and just in time for her birthday.

Never mind the fact the closest location of this particular outdoor equipment store is only about 45 minutes away. For the sake of a bargain like that, for her that’s no different than going down to the corner store.

Since I couldn’t foresee any time in the near future when I’d be able to get away to the store, I started to look around on the Internet and found one for about the same price.

That was not before, however, she made her own trip to the outdoor equipment store.

Her excuse was that she was taking her father, who’d never been to this particular store before, there to see it. Being an old camper, hunter and fisherman from way back, he was easily talked into taking part in her little scheme. With apologies to Bob Dylan, he was only a pawn in her game.

Apparently she had no faith in me following up on her many hints and actually getting her what she wanted for her birthday. I can’t imagine why.

All right, so I haven’t exactly been the most imaginative gift buyer in the world over the years — and she’s got the drawer full of bath oil beads to show for it.

But over the years, I have gotten her hints from time to time and gotten her things she wanted, whether it was tools or kitchen utensils or cooking equipment or what have you. I may not be batting 1.000 on getting her what she wants, but I haven’t struck out completely over the years.

When she announced that she was heading down to the outdoor equipment store with father, I had a feeling what might happen, so I put off placing that online order for her GPS just in case.

That was a good thing, because we really don’t need two of them. Then I’d have to start using one and I’d have to throw out my entire collection of road maps. Who knows what we’d fill up the glove compartment of the car with then.

Naturally, when she got back from her shopping trip, she had to show me her new toy. I’m not sure if she believed me when I said I was planning to get her one for her birthday — after all this time, she doesn’t have that much faith in me — but she was generous enough to let me pay for it and consider it her early birthday present.

The downside of that is, now I’ve got 53 weeks to sweat over next year’s birthday present instead of just 52. Sometimes you just can’t win.