The curse

Peter Parker's curse was being Spiderman. I think mine's worse...and it struck again just last night. Let me see if I can explain...

A few years ago, one fateful Christmas, I was so excited for the gifts I was going to be giving my parents. See, they are quite difficult to shop for, so finding gifts that you are proud to give them is an accomplishment. Three times a year you have to trudge to the store and try to come up with some brilliant plan that can top the last gift you gave them. It had gotten to the point where ties where standard for my dad. That year I thought I had hit the jackpot. I had listened closely to things my parents would have enjoyed or needed, and I was giddy to make my purchases and wrap them up, anticipating the looks of happiness that would certainly brighten my parents' faces upon the removal from the paper. Christmas morning came...I looked around at the big haul Santa Claus had brought: a haircutting kit for my mom; the same movie I had gotten for my dad. WHAT?! I believe I actually cried that morning. It wasn't a big deal, but after all the excitement, what's a girl to do? I think what made me saddest is that I love giving the gifts, probably more than the receiving, so it was quite disappointing.

After that year, it has become a family joke that I always end up getting the same gift for someone that another person got for them as well...except Annie's usually gets opened last, and that's when the bad news hits. "Oh...," the person says with a sheepish smile on their face, "you shouldn't have!" And I am grinning with pride that I found something they will probably love. Until their face falls a little... "Um...well...uh...now I'll have two!" Excuse me, did you say TWO? This is when I usually throw my hands up in disgust and offer to take the gift back and get them something they actually didn't get.

The last few celebrations we've had, I've done pretty well for myself, tried to collaborate with the other gift-givers so we will not duplicate. Phew, right? I must have been getting too comfortable and maybe a little arrogant in my gift-choosing...

Yesterday was my sister Sarah's birthday. Her husband called me up when I was at my boyfriend's house Saturday evening and invited me to come to the family dinner he was putting together for last night. I thought I'd have another week because usually we reschedule family birthdays for the next Fast Sunday dinner for which we all congregate. "Sure," I say, "need me to bring anything?" We settle on something, and then I realize this means I don't have the extra week I thought I would to find a gift for her. Luckily, Ben and I weren't doing too much that night anyway, so we headed to Target.

Well, I am awful at shopping, so we spent about ten minutes milling up and down the DVD aisles, trying to find something that screamed Sarah to me. I finally found a MythBusters DVD I thought she'd like. Since my family usually goes in on gifts together, I decided maybe a kitchen gadget would be nice for her to have, too. No luck. We stared at that aisle and couldn't decide anything either. Hmmm...oh, how about a GAME?! Games go over great in our family. After perusing that aisle for a few minutes, I found one that I thought looked fun. And I think I uttered the phrase, "This looks like a game my family could fight about." Perfect.

So fast forward to Sunday evening...I show up at my parents' house, and my first order of business is to actually wrap the gift. But upon walking in, my nephew runs up holding a green box that looks very familiar. Wait...don't I have that SAME green box in one of these bags I'm carrying? How did he...? "Aunt Annie! We're going to play the game I gave Mommy for her birthday!"



So I pull mine out of the Target bag and say, "You mean, this game?" Oh dear.

It's like the curse of The Babe. But if you think about it, the Red Sox actually won the World Series and broke that one. Please, Universe, tell me what I can do to stop this!! I guess I really can't help it if I share great ideas with the people in my family without even knowing it. :)