Thursday, December 24, 2020

FIVE Earflap Hats! FOUR Tubs of Chex, THREE Gift Cards, TWO Unicorns, and a Cooling Pad on the Front Porch

Oh, that's not all. I don't have time to rewrite the whole song. Those are a few of the items I've been wrapping and labeling to be delivered by Santa Hick on Christmas Eve. We won't even start on the baking of the Oreo cakes. At least I had The Pony to help with that. He makes a good sous chef, though he is a bit indecisive and requests affirmation.
 
Of course there are way more than FOUR tubs of Chex. More than TWELVE, even! Let the record show that I have 14 adults and 6 kids to gift, which has been a chore this year.
 
"Oh, VAL!" you say. "No need to be so dramatic. You ain't the first woman ever to give Christmas gifts." 
 
WAIT! That's not you at all! That was Hick, when I was put on bed rest for a week, three months before The Pony's birth. As I recall, his exact words were, "You ain't the first woman ever to have a baby. I don't think 'bed rest' means you can't stand up for a half hour to make supper and wash dishes." Right before he left me home on the couch (in favor of traipsing through the woods, claiming to be deer hunting), ALL ALONE, after taking a week off from work to tend to me. 

Anyhoo... the gift-choosing and keyboard tapping and PayPal paying was not taxing. The wrapping itself was not all that much trouble. I've made Chex Mix so many times I could do it in a trance. No need to decorate the tree, because it is still up from last year! No, the effort was not the problem.
 
The most difficult part of this year's Christmas preparations has been GETTING THE GIFTS DELIVERED! I'm not even talking about our packages going to complete strangers, and also the next-door neighbor. I have a package in LIMBO! It has been IN TRANSIT since December 8. I'm pretty sure the Pony Express could have had that delivered five or six times by now. But it looks like the USPS cannot do the ONE JOB they are paid to do!

This package contains four gifts for The Pony. It's not like he's getting a lot besides that. I guess I'll hand him an IOU. He DID get one of his gifts that actually arrived EARLIER than predicted. It came yesterday. I was notified by an email from FedEx that it was on the porch. AND IT WAS! That must have been their ONE reliable deliverer, the woman in the white JEEP. 
 
I sent The Pony out to look for it within three minutes of the notice, and he found it! It was the cooling pad that he wanted for the new laptop he bought with his casino winnings. It's a fancy one, with colored lights around the edge. He picked it out himself, so no surprises there. 

The main item I wanted from that missing shipment is for my niece's daughter. It's a unicorn light. Like a night light, but it doesn't plug in. It runs on batteries, with an on/off switch. I'll just have to wrap a picture of it with a promise that SOME DAY, she will have her pretty unicorn.

Don't you worry about Niecy Jr. She's getting ANOTHER unicorn, with wings that light up when you stroke it, and also emits SPARKLY sounds! Yeah. I don't know what that is either, but it was in the description. I have it here, in a giant box. The Pony and I tried to fit it in a smaller box we had on hand, but it was a no-go.

"Um. Yeah. I don't think we'll be wrapping it in this."

"Not unless we cut off the head..."

You can be the judge of who proposed the decapitation.


12 comments:

  1. Still angry at Hick's comment before you gave birth? That was YEARS ago. Dang, a woman never forgets and saves the memory for future arguments. There should be a one year statute of limitations for a man's indiscretions.

    I guess delivery service is extra busy this 2020 Christmas, hope they arrive eventually.

    Merry Christmas!

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    1. Merry Christmas! I toast you with a virtual dirty-water cocktail. Which I remember, because of my supercharged WOMAN'S memory. I'll probably even remember THIS day, when you suggested such a man-enabling statute to thwart our superior arguing skills!

      Which reminds me of the time Hick said, "You're like an elephant!" Mind you, he didn't say I had a MEMORY like an elephant, though that's his excuse when I bring it up.

      Funny how, with many people decrying the lack of work due to shut-downs, these delivery companies can't hire people to do the job. Especially since they've had an inkling that this would be a busy online Christmas shopping season.

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    2. Or is it statue of limitations?

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    3. No. Nor is it "coming down the PIPE," or "dead as a doorKNOB." Two of Genius's preferred sayings.

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  2. Reminds me of the time I was in labor with our third and hubs had to go out hunting as I was usually in labor for so long, we had plenty of time to get to the hospital.When he returned covered with blood, I told him it had better be his own. It was a prize winning buck and I cursed him so he never had anything like even a bambi deer again.me

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    1. This is quite a remindy day! Your bloody labor tale reminds me of a country song, Hardy's "Unapologetically Country as Not-Heaven." Which includes the lyric: "Got buck blood on my Sunday clothes."

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAfmeG08Ww

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  3. That is a lot of Chex Mix. Thankfully, I have no gifts in transit. Merry Christmas.

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    1. Merry Christmas! At least I'm having Hick deliver my Chex Mix, so it won't go stale in transit.

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  4. Aww! Now I want a unicorn that lights up and sparkles! Maybe in my next lifetime, heh. I think Hick needs to be a woman in his next life, with faint memories of this lifetime, so he knows just how much women do and he can have a nagging unexplained vague sense of guilt.

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    1. I was really tempted to try it out, but that unicorn was wrapped in clear plastic, and had one of those things you have to pull out to allow the battery to work. So Niecy Jr would have known that SOMEBODY tampered with her unicorn.

      I would wish that upon Hick myself, but he had a little mishap this afternoon, and now he has my sympathy (which feels SO WRONG!). Story coming up.

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  5. I ordered a pair of sweatpants and got a text on Dec 14th they were shipped from Albany NY. Yesterday I got a text said pants were leaving Orlando 6should be delivered in St. Louis by 9 tonight. I could have driven to Albany and back by now!
    PS. It's 8:40 pm an no sweatpants.

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