There is a buddy of mine who I play hoops with, it was his first Mother’ s day as a father and more importantly his wife’s first as a mother. I texted him this morning and asked him how it went, his response was “Flowers, gifts, cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner and did church and a hike, I think I did good.” My response was “you have set the bar quite high for future Mother’s days, rookie mistake but eventually you’ll figure it out. Mine went well, her whole family was over, dealing with them for six hours is better than any gift”. I have no recollection what I did for Shirley on her first Mother’s Day, but it wasn’t the trip to hell and back that I had this year trying to please the women who already has everything.

First of all, Mother’s Day, a wife’s birthday, Christmas, Valentines day, Sweetest Day (if you give into that farce of a holiday) and anything else that requires a gift for my wife has been made nearly impossible by Amazon, and to a lesser extent, other online retailers. If my wife actually needed to venture out of the house to buy shit for herself she would be limited to the 48 hours that exist on the weekend. She would never purchase anything during the week. That would allow for some wiggle room when it comes to purchasing gifts. Now all she needs is a couple minutes of idle time in her home office and within 23 minutes Amazon is delivering it. Man were those the golden years of gift giving when women were considered chattel and not allowed to own property, have a bank account, or access to any financial resources, women were much easier to shop for when society had it right.

Having not thought of any worthwhile Mother’s Day gift I asked a buddy Saturday morning after hoops what he was doing for his wife, his response, she’s not my mom. That attitude would work if I didn’t value sexy time anymore, but I do, and to a degree I want to show my appreciation for All Shirley does for me, or at least for the fact that she doesn’t bother me much when I am doing stuff I want to do. As I was leaving the gym I realized Shirley unintentionally dropped a great hint. On Thursday we were out on Green Lake in our new tritoon and she was wondering what type of cooler we should get for it. I flashed back to that moment in my memory and headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I immediately went to the Yeti section, she actually doesn’t have any grossly overpriced hard coolers, we do have a grossly overpriced backpack cooler, which I blogged about last summer. There were a lot of different colors and sizes but I knew I needed one on wheels so my family could transport it from point A to B when I wasn’t around. Being Dutch the first thing you look at when evaluating a purchase is the price tag, there were no price tags on any of the coolers. Weird, but I agreed to play their game and brought the cooler up to the counter and after clipping off the anti shop lifting device found out the cooler was $500, I almost shit myself. I returned it and brought another cooler up as I passed the Igloo section of coolers. (I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the Igloo coolers, but I bet they had price tags). The new cooler was $450, still a shit your pants worthy price, but knowing the price point I was dealing with I was able to stiffen my sphincter and avoid a second pants shitting. When I arrived at home the kids and Shirley were gone, always awesome to come home to an empty house. I decided to search through coolers on line having some significant buyers remorse. I found a cooler out of Australia that was on sale and pulled the trigger. Ultimately, I packed up my Yeti and the mulching kit that Lowes sold me for my zero turn but didn’t fit my zero turn, and embarked the ultimate journey.

As I was returning the cooler the clerk asked me if there was anything wrong with it, I told him no, I just realized I didn’t want to pay $450 for a cooler. He replied “understandable”. Lowes was not as smooth. I had ordered the mulching kit last summer after my zero turn had arrived. The primary reason was I was sick of listening to my kids bitch when I sent them out to rake and pick up the grass clippings, it was if I was asking them to pour 25 yards (I think that’s a lot) of concrete. I knew with my limited mechanical capabilities I would have to farm the installation out, I didn’t get around to bringing it in for service until a couple weeks ago and found out it was the wrong mulching kit. I went in to Lowes with no receipt and made the mistake of utilizing the toothless customer service rep. I am not sure how she couldn’t find the record of my purchase, but she couldn’t and told me tough luck. I only got a little bit angry, I’m not use to hearing no, but I didn’t lose it because I just wanted to get out of sight of her toothless mouth, it was unnerving. Pretty sure the toothless clerk gets much less guff from disgruntled customers than those that have a full set of chiclets.

Ironically when I returned home from my return and attempted return the first thing Shirley told me was that she found a really nice Igloo cooler at Costco. I’m still puzzled as to why she didn’t just buy it, because that is what she does, she just buys things with little thought. Regardless, I felt I needed to show her the cooler I purchased for her, I didn’t mention it was pink, but it was pink, making it as if it was adorned with herpes scabs. Having been married for 13 plus years I knew there would be no talking her into the pink cooler so I handed her my phone and told her to email the company and cancel the order. A few minutes later I received an email that the order had been terminated. I felt like I really dodged a bullet because unveiling the pink cooler on Mother’s Day could have easily ruined Mother’s Day. That night I was able to purchase a cooler that was rubber stamped by Shirley, it holds 60 cans (not sure if they can all be beer, but they probably will be at least 90/10 beer to soda) and 20lbs of ice. It’s Grizzly bear proof and claims to keep ice for 4 days, not quite as impressive as the 7 days Yeti claims for most of their hard coolers, but impressive (and probably bullshit) none the less. I’m sure there is absolutely no recourse if your ice melts in 3 days.

Sunday morning I ran to get coffee and stuff for breakfast. I had the kids, since they are 10 and 12, write in the card I purchased on their behalf for Shirley. When I went to write in the card I picked out for her, Parker had written his message in my card. Guess they still need some supervision. The message in my card indicated that Shirley was somewhat of a mom to me, but in a good way. Primarily because she is my go to IT person and because she seems to always be able to find things (she even finds stuff for the kids). I also indicated that if she would stop putting stuff in places where she is the only one who can locate the item, we would stop asking her to find stuff or us. Do all wives and mothers do this to their husbands and children?

Besides the cooler, I bought Shirley a Tritoon boat hat with a happy face on it and two pairs of shorts for pickle ball, I would say for working out, but I have given up on that dream. What’s the deal with active shorts for women? Are women looking for the least attractive completely unsexy shorts? I’m not talking yoga pants here, you ladies are doing fine with those, shorts though, that’s another story. That’s why I felt compelled to purchase the shorts I saw at Dick’s they were moderately attractive and a tad bit sexy. Surprisingly the shorts and hat were a hit as well as the card I gave her. So far so good, now I just needed to get through having her entire family over, not an easy task. The good news is it was a fairly nice day and the women folk were out on the porch most of the afternoon drinking their wine, because that’s what they do. I was tasked with smoking the meat and made a pork shoulder and a brisket. However, I had felt I made some real headway with Shirley’s sister’s husband and knowing he has a sweet tooth made apple crips along with a Pecan pie (he has a nut allergy, and based on what happened yesterday I should have forced a piece down his throat).

The apple crips and pie were constructed in the afternoon and placed in the oven right as we started eating dinner. The brother in law drove separately and was at our house for approximately 18 minutes prior to leaving with their dog as if the dog needed to leave and he was just doing it a favor. Shirley’s grandma is 94, she’s healthy as a horse for 94, but she can’t remember much of anything. Every time she comes to our house she asks if it is new, as in, did we do a renovation. We answer yes, and then two minutes later she asks if this is new. Unfortunately, she still remembers my name, once she doesn’t I will be off the hook. Regardless, she somehow managed to remember that I made pecan pie and when dinner was over she started grilling me as to when the pie was going to be done, I told her shortly, and then she kept asking. I pulled the pie out before the apple crips but ideally it needs two hours to set, a minor oversight on my part. I then pulled out the apple crisp and gave her some of that thinking that would make her forget about the pecan pie. No such luck, she had no more than put down her spoon from finishing the apple crips and she was on to busting my balls again about the apple crips. I left the kitchen to go take care of my smoker and to get a breath of fresh air, only to return to grandma eating a soupy piping hot piece of pecan pie, she loved it. Pretty sure when I’m 94 I’ll be dead, so good for her.