Gwynne's Birthday Presents

[Martin Hash]

My wife, Gwynne, and I are a perfect match when to comes to keeping things organized, even holidays. Christmas is a big, heavy holiday, that weighs down December. I always felt bad for people who had their birthdays in December because their lives were lopsided; it would take another 12 months for the wheel to turn back around. Luckily, or maybe we subconsciously planned it that way, Gwynne & I have organized our birthdays at the halfway mark in June. But Christmas is so big, we stuck our Wedding Anniversary, Father's Day & Flag Day in there too. There's even a new “Juneteenth” holiday this year because we had a Christmas party last year.

My son, Haven, who lives in Peru calls us on our birthdays on his video phone so he can show us how our grandson is doing. Gwynne loves talking to Haven 3 hours at a time until their phones run out of battery. As usual, Haven called on Gwynne's birthday, and after talking to her for well over an hour, asked what I was doing. I told him all the pans I had in the fire, and he seemed impressed; I even took our phone and aimed it at the dining room table.

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“We went to Seaside and I bought all these presents for Mom.” I pointed the phone's camera at the gifts on the table.
There was a pause while Haven was looking at them on his phone.
“Is that a model of a white on red 1958 Corvette like yours?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“And a Charlie Brown doll, cookie jar, mug & books; don't you like Peanuts stuff?”
“I do.”
“What else did you get Mom?”
“I got her a shot glass with a moose head on it; you know how I'm always telling Mom how I'm going to buy a moose head, so I kinda tied into that theme.”
“Uh-huh... Anything else?”
“Yeah, I bought a mug with Pluto on it. I was looking for a Goofy mug but I thought Pluto was a pretty good second.”
“Well, Pluto is cooler than Goofy, and probably rarer to find. What'd Mom say?”
“Not much. She probably wanted Goofy.”
Haven was silent for a moment. I'm pretty sure he wanted some of Gwynne's presents for himself.
“What'd Mom get you for your birthday last week?” he finally asked.
“Candy. One bag or box for every year. A whole basket of candy, candy, candy.”
“But you don't eat candy...”
“Mom does.”

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