I cause him more work...

Brandon and I have this agreement that we do not get eachother anything for holidays, birthdays, etc. However, I'm apparently in the habit of providing him the least desirable of gifts on his Birthday. Here are two tales of the two birthdays in which I gave my husband a headache for his gift.

February, 2007 - the week of Brandon's birthday. I have such a handy husband and the fact that he works at a dealership makes it all the more convenient for car maintenance. One morning, Brandon was kind enough to take my car to work while I took his. I left the house shortly before he did and was making my way thru the country back roads towards work.

At one point in the trip the road comes to a T and traffic backs up. So, I'm behind this town car who's turning left and I'm waiting to turn right. He procedes forward as though he's going, but.. nope... he stops.

I was looking for my traffic - assuming he was going - and BANG! The man gets out of his car and I get out of my car and we chat and decide to pull into a farmers yard. by this time, the traffic has really backed up. Several cars back, in my car, is Brandon. I call him and he answers the phone with "What'd you do?!" not a good sign... He says "What's you do?!" often to me, and for good reason.

Brandon joins us in the farmers yard and handles talking to the guy (who laughed when he learned my husband was there), exchanges info, and then Brandon tries to calm me down before we get back on the road. I don't know why, but I balled the whole way to work.
That's the day I gave my husband a broken bumper for his birthday

February, 2008 - This year we went all out. Every day we had something planned. Dinner with family, party at our house, super bowl at our house with family, trip to the casino, etc.
The non-stop events of the weekend proved to be very strenuous and wearing, especially on the birthday boy. His patience had worn thin.

So, why not give him a gift (Amy style)?! When his entire family was at our house I had told his sister that I'd borrow her a purse. I was looking and looking but couldn't remember where... so I thought I'd look on the top shelf in our closet (well, Brandon's closet).

I couldn't see and hadn't anything to step on, so I place one foot on a wire shelf then the other on the opposite and BOOM! Apparently, the opposite had been screwed into sheet rock only. And did you know, that sheet rock will rip out of the wall with the screws and brackets? yep! Story checks out.

All of Brandon's jeans, t-shirts, shorts, etc came crashing down. I ran to the hallway and signaled for Brandon's dad to come up and not tell Brandon. So, he comes up and assesses the damage. To my dismay, it was not a quick fix before Brandon finds out.

Brandon asks where I am and I hear Brandon's mom yell "You're not supposed to go up there!" shit! Busted. I think I killed the last thread of his patience and in front of his family... Kicker is: the item wasn't even up there!!
That's the day I broke my husband's closet for his birthday.

The day the lights went out

As encouraged by my dear friend Leslie, it's my pleasure to share with you an amusing tale of why my husband's life is never dull.


Let's see... One day, a day like any other, Brandon and I had gone out to dinner. When we arrived home we went to change into our "comfies" (this is ritual).


We hadn't turned on any lights but the bathroom light, which lit the bedroom well enough. So, as I was changing into my sweatshirt, all of a sudden it went completely dark!!! I yelled at Brandon a very stern "HEY!"


In return he yells from only five feet away "WHAT?!"


As I removed my hood from over my face, I mumbled "nevermind". And then proceded to turn my sweatshirt around.


That's the day the lights went out in Amyville.

Up in the treetop

When I was a kid, I was always climbing trees. If you needed to find me, just look up. I was likely to be as high up as I could manage. I was a little monkey, but A LOT less graceful.


We lived on a dirt road in between suburban cities. Last dirt road within miles. There were four houses on our block, if you can call it that. One was my granparent's, the next was where my grampa grew up but was now owned by a non-relative, the next in line was a cousin's, and then my house. If you hadn't guessed, we lived very close to our grandparents.


So our school bus would come down our dirt road and pick us up at my house. Because we lived in a cold climate state and had to face the eliments, my parents built us a busstop shelter. Really, tho, it was a light salmon painted out-house. As we got older, we'd sooner face the elements than be caught inside it.


One spring in the 80's, while me and the neighbor boy (no relation) were awaiting the bus's arrival, I of course, was climbing a tree - I mean, what else would I be doing? These were the days when Zubas, diaper pants, hammer pants, parachute pants (call them what you will) were in style (you with me?). As the bus was approaching, I attempted to jump from the tree in my graceful style. My baggy bottoms got snagged on a branch part way down and not only ripped my pants, but held me dangling from the tree as the bus driver approached. I finally managed to get down and the driver was kind enough to wait while I ran inside and changed.


Luckily for me, we were the first pickup on the route. Even so, the neighbor boy witnessed it and I was horribly em-bare-assed.