Sadieandleo

July 15th, 2008

No one has been more effected by “the birthday gift” like Mike has.  I now refer to it as “the birthday gift”.  Of course on Saturday when I talked to my sister I had her explain, slowly and in detail how the whole situation played out… and I mean slowly and carefully, in detail.  I’m still on cloud 9 about it but have had my feet touch down here and there.  Mike still makes jealous/envious references to it; tonight he informed me that he is now going to start signing things, “You rock, David Cook”.  I told him that would be strange seeing that his name is Michael D********.  People might be a little confused… I also added that he can’t because he’s not a rock star.  That should have been obvious.  The point is he isn’t letting it go.

In fact he wrote this email to my sister to thank her for her gift to me.  Pay close attention to the snarky sarcasm… it’s kind of like chicken or the egg with Mike and I; neither here nor there.

Here you go:

(email to Amy {sister} from Mike {husband})

So, what do you get the girl that seemingly wants nothing? Apparently you get her a birthday card signed by David Cook! Seriously awesome gift! I bow to you! Awesome! But I seriously hate you! How am I supposed to compete with that! Damn you! I figured the only way to top that was to call in a favor from Michael Buble, but funny enough he won’t take my call. I don’t suppose you have something signed by him that I can borrow do you? Maybe an active cell number. I’m kidding of course…no I’m not.

Here was the scene earlier. Tara asked me to bring her some paper after I got out of work today, so being the darling and dear husband that I am, I gladly brought the paper to her at American Eagle (I later found out that she had received your gift just after we had spoke). When I entered the store I noticed a crazed woman clutching a FedEx package. She somehow maintained a twenty-one-foot perimeter around her precious cargo with a dizzying combination of the “hairy-eyeball” and a stack of AE gift cards. My first thought was that someone had lost their grip of the tether that once restrained this poor autistic women, and now there she was clutching her new friend “Mr. Boxey”. That’s when my world slipped between my realm- the normal realm where there are no such things as Hobbits and Wookies- to a hot pink, Hello Kitty, super-Iggy-POP-Culture world. I could feel my shoes turning various shades of neon. A sheath of Emo drizzled onto my once adult exterior turning me into a zit-faced, greasy-haired, androgynous teen. I stepped back several paces and the Emo-ness was suddenly vanished. The crazed autistic woman caught my sudden movements in her periphery. She spun like a hot pink Barbie top and looked me directly in the eyes- the hairy-eyeballs were upon me. But there was something familiar about those eyes- brown, soft, slightly human. That’s when it hit me, “holy shit, that’s my wife!” My newly autistic wife, upon seeing my face, let forth a screech that blew the lenses out of a poor nearsighted child’s glasses that had been hiding behind the latest in jean cut-off fashions (high fashion really- these things had built in belts….yeah…I know…high fashion, that’s what I said). My wife, who had once been completely sane, lurched toward me like a fat man who had sat in one of those hard chairs you find in a Burger King restaurant for far too long. As she inched closer, box pressed to her chest like it was the last life preserver on the Titanic, I could feel the wall of pop culture once more consume me…horrible. When she was no more than five feet from me I tried to call out to the woman who had once been my cute wife. “Lady Bugs?” I said. Her response started from the deeps of an invisible abyss, shaking the walls, spilling over a stack of hangers, and setting off every store alarm in a five block radius, and ended in a high shrill that sounded like someone had too much helium at little Johnny’s party. “YOU ARE NOT GONNA FRICKIN’ BELIEVE WHAT MY SISTER SENT ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!” I’m pretty sure that what she said, for my eardrums had left their posts sometime around the middle of what she said. Sounding now like Charlie Brown’s teacher, my wife “whaka-waa-waa’ed” something at me. I was able to decipher two words- David was one, Cook was the other. She slowly, almost painfully, pulled out a gold foiled envelope. A poor woman- clearly frightened by the recent earthquake- venture too close to us. She had no idea of her transgression until she saw my once frail wife. For a second I really thought I saw a forked tongue jet out of her mouth. After the woman that ventured too close to us was consumed in fire, my nutty wife opened the envelope and produced a hand-written note that read : To Tara, Happy Birthday, You Rock, David Cook.  Like a vegan smelling a large pepperoni pizza when everyone’s back is turned, my fork-tongued wife sniffed the surface of the note in ecstasy before slowly putting it back in the box. I told her that it was an awesome gift and that I wasn’t going to be able to top it. Her cold, black eyes looked deep into my soul, “Just and awesome gift?” She cackled. Somewhere in the distance a child cried. “This is the best thing anyone has ever gotten, do you hear me!” Had I not pee’d myself at that very moment, my pants, socks, and shoes would have all caught on fire. I reached for the box and told her that I’d better take it home for safe keeping. Yeah, bad move. Like a ninja, she laid into me with movements almost undetectable in this strange pop-emo-world. I tried to block a dizzying forehand strike, but her David Cook necklace refracted the neon lighting directly into my cornea. Once she was certain that her precious note was safe, she snarled, hissed, and spit a few words at me. “If you lost it somehow, I would divorce you.” I coughed up blood. “Just go home and clear out the entire computer room. And get some white cloth to drape the room in. A shrine will be erected before the sun doth rise in the morrow.” I crawled toward the now deserted hallway of the inner mall. Behind the cell phone cart a small child and mother popped their heads up to look at me. I gestured for them to hide. One of the cell phone cart guys popped out too. I decided I’d let him go- maybe if she took him out they’d stop asking what kind of service I had every time I walked past them. Once I was a safe distance, I got up and ran for my life. Like Jimmy stewart in “It’s a wonderful life” I shouted to every one I passed, but it wasn’t about how great life was, no. I was more like, “Run for life! David Cook has consumed her and he’ll consume you too! The evil is upon us! First John Denver, now this.”

That is what happened. Every word is true. See what you did? When I woke up this morning the world was normal. Now my shoes are neon, and David Cook is president. Oh shit! She just pulled up in the driveway and I haven’t finished the shrine. Head for the hills, the David is coming for you too!

Seriously, awesome gift!