IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN TO ME

Thanksgiving day my daughter Briana, the AT&T salesman, told her dad he should buy the new iPhone4S. It would transform his life. Better yet, she would get all the kids to chip in and give it to him for Christmas, along with the Bluetooth, and they would also spring for some special apps. She looked at me enthusiastically and said. “Then mom, you could have Dad’s old iPhone.”

 Lucky, lucky me! Apparently, I am not worthy of cutting edge technology. Every time Rick gets a new phone he passes his old one to me. I think it makes him feel he is being frugal. Who knows how he justifies it, but justify he does.

Not once did my children ask, or tell me, what I should get for Christmas. I knew Rick couldn’t help them. He would have forgotten every hint I slapped him over the head with all year. Even when I told him to, “write it down.” He simply smiled that, it’s locked up in my computer brain, smile, and promptly forgot it.

My first hint the children had something roiling around in their brains was when Garret came home for the holiday laden with an odd shaped gift. “Mom, why don’t you open this now? I can’t wait for you to see it.” He laughed his evil laugh and rubbed his hands together. “I haven’t been this excited since I was nine years old.”

My first instinct was to be suspicious. However, if Rick was getting the new iPhone they must have something really special planned for me. I allowed myself to get a little excited. Then Garret smiled and said, with emphasis. “You’ll know exactly when you will need to use it.” A tremor chased up and down my spine.

It just so happens that this particular year, Rick and I gave my sons early birthday gifts. They would have been more excited about me picking out their future wives than they were about their MRE’s. Why is it that I am the one who always gets the credit for being the paranoid, lunatic parent? They refused to believe their Dad had anything to do with it.

On Christmas Eve Adam and Jason would not let Garret give me the gift early. I would have to wait. Waiting was good because it gave me time to think about how I was going to accept this gift. Obviously it was something I would never expect--probably a gag. Was I going to laugh, or be annoyed that Rick got the Cadillac of phones while I, the hippy parent, got something I would probably have to bury in the backyard?

I decided that even though they wouldn’t appreciate their MRE’s until some huge catastrophe hit, like the apocalypse, at least they had fun coming together and planning. I couldn’t wait to see what it was—maybe.

I feel pretty confident in saying that no one else on planet earth has every received a gift quite like mine—a Zombie Apocalypse Kit; complete with book, toy gun, real shotgun ammo, and a cleaver with saw blades on one end. It came complete with a duffel bag to stuff dead Zombie parts in. HAH! I was right. It did have to do with burying something in the backyard.