What I get for Christmas
December 5, 2009Josh Brown View CommentsSurprise is a hard thing to fake for me. My wife buys me gifts and for some reason, I always guess what they are. I figure, as long as I don’t tell her that I guessed something, that I’m safe, but that isn’t the case. She either detects that I know or I don’t act surprised enough when I open the gift.
The only safe bet is to avoid thinking about it entirely, which isn’t easy. I hate being hard to shop for, so I make it a point to mention a large variety of things for which I would have a use, rather than make a wish list. So I enjoy talking about the things that I desire. And at some point, her reaction to some of those things changes to defensive in tone. My brain sticks a pin in it and it comes up more frequently until I’ve figured out whether she’s thinking about getting it, already bought it or doesn’t plan to. How can I possibly avoid this?