The Gift for the Nag. I.

It's been almost a week now. And I've tried not to gloat. But I cannot hold it in any longer. HEY! I am NOT talking about my fudge-fed gut. I am talking about the gift I received from Hick. He certainly knows the way to this woman's heart.

I would rate this gift right up there at #3 of Hick's all-time Valcentric gifts. That's pretty high, since he seems compelled to spoil me with treats for Christmas, my birthday, and Mother's Day. Whether I deserve them or not. He's generous like that. Plus, he knows that Val without presents is like a kitchen table bereft of a towering bowl of soup. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, as well as who butters it, who drives to town to buy his bread and butter, and who tells him as she's serving it: "All that bread and butter is not really good for you." Hick is wise beyond his appearance.

"What was it?" you ask? The #3 Hick-to-Val gift of all time? Here's a clue: my gift was not wrapped. That's because it was kind of impossible to wrap. Oh, the parts could have been wrapped individually. But what kind of gift would THAT have been? Not a very good one, I assure you. It was a package deal, without a package! I'm sure Steven Wright could make a joke out of that.

My gift was not under the tree. I had other gifts, of course. Let's not forget Hick's affinity for bread and butter. But this was one that took me by surprise. Like that time my mom and dad bought Hick a used chainsaw, and put the package in their basement. After all the wrapping and bows were cleared away and people were oohing and ahhing over their gifts, with Hick trying to be a brave little chainsawless soldier, they told him to check the basement. He came up those steps carrying that box, looking like a toddler on Christmas morning. When in reality he was a grown man on Christmas day.

Let's just say that I did not have to go down to the basement. My gift was revealed on Christmas Eve, as I buckled up my seatbelt, preparing to ride shotgun in the Tahoe over the creeks and through the woods, as to my sister's house we went. Being Hick, he could not hold the secret one second longer. Could not allow me to discover it for myself.

"Can you see the road?"

"The driveway? Yes. Hey. I can see farther than ten feet! Do you have the lights on bright?"

"Nope." That was a smug nope. Hick was practically polishing his fingernails on his chest pocket, exhaling on them, polishing them some more, then holding them out to admire. "I put in new headlights for you. AND I got rid of that milky white fog inside the light cover."

"This is GREAT! I can see where I'm going! Without using the brights! Now I can drive at night. Without risking death by running into a cow that I can't see until too late."

"Anything else?"

"Well...now that you mention it, I can see through the windshield. Is the defogger not blowing yet? Because it's not all fogged up. I don't even think my finger would leave a mark if I tried it." Which I did. No mark.

"I cleaned your windshield, too!"

"With that bottle of stuff I got last month?"

"Uh huh. Inside AND out!"

"This is, like, the best present ever! After my office chair. I really like my office chair."

"See? I know what to get you. Even though you never tell me anything good that I can understand and get for you."

"Thank you! This is great!"

That Hick. Sometimes it takes a while for him to get the hint. But he played this one just right.

That office chair, Hick's #1 gift of all time, was a stroke of genius. I had not even asked for it. He went all the way to Office Max and picked it out and put it together and kept it in the BARn until after I went to bed in the wee hours of Christmas morning, when he snuck it into my office and put it in place of my old uncomfortable squeaky chair.

Gift #2 was another Christmas effort. Hick had a little help from my sister for that one. He scored us two tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Fabulous Fox. I KNOW! The perfect gift for Val. Sis was getting tickets for her husband, as big a fan as Val, and called Hick to see if he wanted in on the action. Anybody who was following the event at the time might recall that it was not easy to get these tickets. Hick had to ask me for cash, because he had to pay off Sis for the use of her credit card. Thankfully, she did not charge a commission. She could not get us seats together, but at least Hick and I had a pair, and she and my brother-in-law the former mayor had a pair.

Yes, it was a joyous gift-receiving holiday for Val Thevictorian. And to ward off the Even Steven curse, I will round out this proclamation by enumerating the three all-time worst gifts from Hick to Val.

#1...The Pink $3.00 Change Purse/Two Boxes of Sno*Caps Combo. A Mother's Day gift hardly befitting the mother of two sons and the stepmother of two more from the tender age of five to adulthood.

#2...The Disappearing Red Devil Hand-Held Mini-Vac. Presented to Val from Hick on December 25th, 1994, as she sat rocking Baby Genius, born December 12th, 1994, whisked away after gift-opening ceremonies, never to be seen again, revealed to reside in Hick's workshop two years later. The Red Devil. Not Baby Genius.

#3...There is no number three. Hick's good deeds outweigh the bad. They just aren't as funny to write about.

So there you have it. A tale of Val's prized tangible riches that she was showered with this holiday season. Even though I'm a giver, I was happy to receive.