Get off my lawn!

The Wife’s side of the fam damily met up at the farm last Saturday. Everyone had their own stuff to do with other parts of their respective families over the actually holidays but we still pulled it off. I had my first experience with “present givers disappointment syndrome”.

My nephew is 13 years old and his mom had given us a list of stuff he wanted. It was a well honed list reflecting a wide array of interests, but he sure wasn’t getting an X-Box 360 from me, I don’t even have one. One of his other items was a CD player. I thought I would be a freaking hero or Coolest Uncle for scoring him some electronic gear. I searched all over and found one that fit in the budget for the kids, which isn’t easy. Even in this day and age it is still hard to find a CD player for under $15. Keep in mind there are 7 kids on that side so that money adds up.

I was quite proud of my find. I had scoured the ads and hadn’t had much luck until Alien and I went to Fry’s Superstore on a whim. I found one that was on sale and then talked them down (Wejed) $5 more because the box was dented. The nephew also had starting to listen to Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, the Doors, etc so I sat down and burned him 4 CD’s so he could have some tunes to rock out to on his new boom box. To be honest it really isn’t a boom box because that would imply it looked cool and had some size to it. I think it was no bigger than a football but it played CD’s.

Anyways, we are sitting around watching the present feeding frenzy consisting of torn wrapping paper flying and kids frothing at the mouth patiently awaiting my cool gift to be opened. He finally gets to it and unwraps it and in the most monotone voice he says “oh……a…..stereo……” I wanted to kick him in the stomach. It was weird but it actually kind of hurt my feelings. It was my fault for building up an expectation in my mind.

One funny interaction that night:

Alien “T. your hair looks good red”
E. “It looks even better with her shirt off!”