Socks and Slippers

Yesterday was my other sister's birthday, and I bought her some socks.

It's possible I could have found a less interesting present, but I only had a day to do it. Yes, I knew the birthday was coming up, but there was too much rain the day before for me to seriously consider riding my bike. Or, walking.

I stumbled on this socks idea, one of the worst birthday presents I've ever gotten anyone, by being Mr. Aware. Normally when I need to get someone a present what I do is this: I go out to stores and look around until I see something that's pretty cool. Then, I picture the umbridled joy on the face of the recipient and hurl wads of cash at the clerk and invariably end up disappointing whoever gets the gift.

Sometimes I do all right. At least I think I do.

This time I took the easy way out. It may be a new family tradition or it could be an old one that I never noticed before, but in the week leading up to her birthday my sister spoke a lot about socks. She's begun wearing these silly kids socks, ones with animals and whatnot on them, and showing them to me. She's been complaining about not having enough socks. She's been doing all this knowing full well that her birthday's coming up, but she acted as if she was happy with the fourteen socks I got her for her birthday.

What she wisely did NOT do was make the mistake one of her daughters did one year at Christmas. Gina told everyone she wanted slippers and, well, you guessed it. It was hilarious watching her open one damn set of slippers after the other. I think the moral of the story is not to tell everyone that you want the same thing, or, at least, mention a few things to everyone who asks.

Anyway, now my sisters and I are all a year older, all of our birthdays have passed, and we can ignore each other until next year.