Grinding The Ax

Yesterday I began my tale of woe that revolves around my Christmas present. The ONLY present I asked for. The one that I DID NOT GET!

I know Christmas is all about the spirit of giving. And I gave, by cracky! I give all year long, and I continue giving right on through Christmas. In fact, if I was not there to assist Santa, all my kids would get would be a moose that craps jelly beans, and a candy dispenser in the shape of a Wiimote. That's HH's idea of Christmas presents.

So I left numerous hints about the Seinfeld Scene-It game that I wanted. Heck, you can't even call them hints. They were bold-faced declarations of the gift I wanted for Christmas. "We never know what to get you." And I would shout, "Seinfeld Scene-It! That's what I want. They have them at The Devil's Playground." You see, it's not some esoteric, gossamer, flight-of-the-imagination eclectic gewgaw that my men would not know if it bit them on the butt and then bellowed, "HA! I JUST BIT YOU ON TH BUTT! BET THAT HURTS, DOESN'T IT? MY FANGS WERE JUST IN YOUR BUTT, AND BLOOD IS SEEPING OUT! HOPE YOU'RE NOT A BLEEDER!" Nope. It was just a regular everyday game from The Devil's Playground. There were even commercials about it. And I would yell, "That's IT! That's the game I want for Christmas! See it? They have it at The Devil's Playground." No, it's not like getting me the one gift I wanted would plunge us into financial hardship. $29.97, people. About a fifth of HH's weekly allowance. Both boys have way more than that in their not-so-secret hiding place for their billfolds. Heck, they could have all chipped in $10 for loyal ol' Hillbilly Mom. But no.

Did they pick up my gift on one of the trips HH makes weekly to The Devil's Playground for dog and cat food? No. The #1 son is old enough to say, "Mom, drop me off while I run in and get something. I'll call you when I'm headed for the door." I do it all the time when I don't want to go in. The Pony and I park and listen to the radio. But no. HH organized a shopping expedition on the evening of December 22. They came back with bags. HH wrapped things. I assumed they had my gift. The only gift I wanted. The gift I had asked for repeatedly for six weeks. But no. NO GIFT FOR ME!

Don't think I didn't get anything. The truth in blogging law requires me to mention that I did receive several books that I had ordered for myself from Amazon. Because you know my children are internet illiterate, and HH only knows how to go to eBay and look up car parts and old beer trays. I got some fruit medley candy, which I like, but need like a hole in my lady-mullet. And I got DVDs of StepBrothers and House Bunny. And two tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld at The Fabulous Fox on February 7, which is a really good gift, but my sister called HH and asked if he wanted her to get them, because she had ordered some for The Mayor, earlier, when the seats were good, and knew that HH could not do something such as look up the number of The Fox and call and order tickets with a credit card. HH is kind of an idiot savant, except for the savant part.

But I really just wanted that ONE gift. And I didn't get it. We went out to my mom's house for Christmas dinner, and I just might have let it slip that I had only wanted ONE gift, and nobody cared enough to get it for me, and my sister said that she had asked about getting that for me and was told that no, someone else is getting that for her. Because, you see, she got it for The Mayor. Oh, and he happened to bring it with him, so we could all play, which was really kind of like salt in my wound, like letting a poor kid watch you eat an ice cream cone.

The story given by my men was that they actually looked for it on that shopping expedition on December 22, but that "...we didn't see any." So they got me Apples to Apples, which is a game, and that should count as the same thing as Seinfeld Scene-It. To me, it just says that I do not matter, and I've been having myself one grand old pity party since then, and today the boys and I went to The Devil's Playground, and I saw a former student who asked me how my Christmas was, and I told him how I only asked for ONE gift, and I didn't get it. He said his phone exploded when he touched something in The Devil's Playground that gave him a shock. Sounds fishy to me, but that's his story and he stuck to it right there in front of his grandma, so I told him he won the Battle of Worst Christmases.

Oh, and while I was there...I bought myself the Seinfeld Scene-It. The #1 son said they had a whole giant display of them on special, for $25. And now they have one less.