Wrap it Up

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My role in Christmas is getting less and less every year. A few years ago Kathy gave me a list of clothes to get for her, leaving a bit of it up to my imagination - she returned every single gift that year. So, to make it easier, we (meaning she) decided that she'd get the essential clothing items and if I so desired I could get her a couple of additional gifts. Which works just fine for me. Except...

She refuses to wrap her own presents.

So, this morning seeing a few of the gifts and figuring I could make good use of my time, I decided to wrap them a good twenty days before Christmas.

Let me set the scene - I was in the bedroom and there wasn't a good flat surface to lay the paper down and cut it - so I went to the floor - with the two dogs gathered around me wondering what the hell was going on.

I smoothed out the paper and Melky walked over it, ripping a huge hole in it - I yelled at her and she jumped up on the bed where she could look down at me as I worked. I grabbed a piece of tape and it got wrapped around my finger before I could cut it - so I battled it long enough to just get it off my finger.

I decided to cut the paper and forget about the tape for a moment, and I ran the scissors up the edge and put the present dead-center - it was immediately obvious that I didn't cut the piece big enough, so I cut a little piece to place over the top - that accomplished, I reached for the tape again, pulled it and tried to cut it off on the razor edge - it wrapped around my ham hands again. Shadow got off the bed and stepped on the paper, ripping it even more. Melky looked down from her perch above me and I may be imagining things, but I swear she giggled. If she could speak she probably would have said something my father told my mother as they watched me try and lace my basketball sneakers - "Get those away from him before he hangs himself," good old Dad said.

It took me about another twenty minutes to wrap three presents and I swear to God, they look as if they were wrapped by a mentally-challenged three-year-old.

Don't worry - Kathy will let it slide - she'll just laugh at my lame attempt at wrapping - and marvel at the fact that I got her just what she wanted.

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