Every year about this time, I begin to notice more gray hairs appearing at an astonishing rate.  Why, you ask.  It’s time to nail down Dear Hubby and actually go and buy a Christmas gift for his mother. 

     For the thirty-five years we’ve been married I’ve spent the months between one Christmas and the next on the hunt for the woman’s next gift.  It never fails, I think I’ve found her the perfect gift but when I tell him about my discovery, he shoots it down like a twelve point buck in deer season.

     Now it is again looming too close and I’ve resorted to torturing him nightly for ideas.  Thank heavens for a mailbox full of catalogues. 

     “Honey, take a look at this lovely gift basket full of soaps, lotions, and creams.  Do you think she’d like it?”

     He peruses the page I point out, he scowls, and he answers, “She’d never use any of it.”

     “Why not?  I’d enjoy a gift like that.”

     He grunts and says, “She only uses one brand of lotion and soap.”

     I sigh and pick up another catalogue.  “What about this great fruit basket?”

     “Nope.”

     “Oh, come on everyone LOVES fruit baskets.”

     He removes the catalogue from my hands and tosses it aside.  “She doesn’t.”

     I sneak another catalogue out of the pile on the coffee table and flip though a few pages.  “Here!  She couldn’t possibly find fault in this.  It has expensive chocolates, fancy cocoas, cookies, and dark chocolate covered nuts.”

     “You forget.  She can’t eat nuts.”

     Bang.