It’s the Thought That Counts (but Thanks for the Blender!)

(From IF IT WAS EASY THEY'D CALL THE WHOLE DAMN THING A HONEYMOON)

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT typical Jenna’s Side fare.

I promised when I started this substack, I would never put anything behind a paywall. I wanted (and still want and will always want) my words to reach as many eyeballs as possible. That said, as my paid subscriber base has grown, I decided I wanted to thank my generous patrons with… something. So I have been serializing, weekly, one of my earlier and favoritest [*I know it’s not a word] books. It’s a funny look at marriage and relationships and may give you a glimpse into who I was before I was a raging conspiracy theorist/Not For Everyone. It does contain some profanity, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to skip it!

Since I’m traveling again this week (I’m in Denver speaking to an awesome patriot group!), I decided to share this with everyone. If you become a paid subscriber, you’ll get bonus (non-topical/non-political) content regularly. :)

“When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. 
Men invade another country.
It's a whole different way of thinking.”

~Elayne Boosler

The very first birthday I spent with Joe we happened to be in New York City for a friend’s wedding. He had brought my gifts along to be opened in our hotel room, and I was giddy with anticipation. Was he practical or romantic? Showy or sweet? The sexy-lingerie sort (please God, no) or the plane-tickets-to-Paris type (pretty-please God, yes)? I didn’t yet know. I love giving and getting gifts equally and have proudly maintained a long-standing family tradition of blowing birthdays (or rather, birthmonths as we liked to call them growing up) ridiculously out of proportion, with parties and presents and an embarrassing excess of hoopla. Knowing all of this, Joe tortured me by holding out until after an endless, decadent birthday meal to present my gifts to me. I immediately noticed and appreciated how precisely he’d wrapped them; he even knew to fold the ends over before taping them to achieve the most streamlined and professional look possible. I was already head-over-heels in love with him, but this nearly put me over eternal devotion’s farthest edge.

I delicately worked at the wrapping (newspaper, of course) on the first package, resisting my typical urge to tear into it like a greedy, wild-eyed kid on Christmas morning. (No sense letting my hopeful future fiancé see all of my ugly habits before the deal was sealed.) It was a lovely leather journal, which he hadn’t inscribed but I forgave him for this oversight because he’d mostly grown up without a mom and he wasn’t a writer, either. How could I expect him to realize that the inscription is more important than the book?

The second package was roughly the same size as the first and wrapped just as meticulously. I wondered if it was a novel or memoir or some other thoughtful tome, my favorite kind of gift (besides cash, which would have been slightly creepy at that particular juncture in our relationship). I opened the box and was shocked to find what could only be a kinky, wearable sex toy. I gingerly lifted the elastic contraption from the box, turning it around to inspect it more closely. It basically looked like an industrial and not at all comfortable pair of thong underwear with a small metal box affixed to what I assumed was the crotch. Were these those vibrating panties that were making the bachelorette party rounds? I wondered, purposely avoiding Joe’s gaze and hoping that the look on my face didn’t reveal the depth of my horror and disappointment.

In my defense.

“What do you think?” Joe asked, not even the slightest bit self-consciously.

I dared to look up at him and was surprised to see he hadn’t donned a leather S&M mask.

“What is it?” I finally asked, defeated.

“It’s a headlamp!” he replied.

“A what?” I stammered.

“A headlamp,” he repeated. “You know, a flashlight you wear on your head when you go kayaking into caves or spelunking.”

Oh, right. When I go kayaking into caves or spelunking. Who was this man? And more importantly, who the hell did he think I was?

I considered the gifts I’d given him—the embroidered wallpaper-print shirt, the Euro-styled, whip-stitched sandals, the massage gift certificate to my favorite day spa—and realized that a lot of the time, we subconsciously give our significant other gifts that will benefit us in some way. I clearly wanted Joe to be slightly edgy and the tiniest bit metrosexual; he wanted me to have an outdoorsy, adventurous spirit and an urge to get dirty.

We were both screwed.

AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT MARRIED TO HIM

“My husband is an absolutely horrible gift-giver, to the point that I’ve come to dread any holiday where the exchange of presents is involved. I’ve received gas station stuffed animals, perfume roses, knickknacks that play music and myriad other treasures you probably wouldn’t even attempt to re-gift. We’ve talked about it, I’ve begged him to take one of my friends shopping with him, and one year I went so far as to print out a list, with links to websites and visual aids. It didn’t help. This Christmas, the highlight was matching elf costumes: Supercenter sweat suits (two sizes too big) in Santa red and Christmas tree green. (‘But I just wanted you to be comfortable,’ he said.) My friends literally wait for the report now every birthday and Christmas.”

~Allison

Over the years Joe has become somewhat famous for heading out in the afternoon on Christmas Eve to “start his shopping,” and sneaking out of the house as I’m making breakfast on my birthday to procure my gift. This is not passive-aggressive behavior meant to torture me; in Joe’s mind, it’s not rocket science; that’s just when you shop. No sense dragging the whole affair out for days or even weeks, right? Plus, by its very urgent nature, a last minute shopping trip is guaranteed to end with a purchase. Not necessarily a mind-blowing or even marginal purchase, but a purchase nonetheless. Mission accomplished.

Hint, hint, dear.

When you have a million friends and a couple of kids and a dozen or more nieces and nephews and gigantic blended families, gift-giving can get out of control. As such, Joe and I long ago agreed that holidays like Valentine’s Day and Mothers and Fathers Day were really nothing more than artificial Hallmark Holidays and therefore not something we would recognize with physical tokens of our affection. More often than not, we use these occasions as an excuse to purchase something large that we were going to buy anyway but otherwise would have felt guilty about. Which means that one year I got a flat-screen TV for my anniversary (and you may recall that I don’t watch TV), and another year Joe got a giant antique mirror that he wasn’t particularly fond of even before he discovered how outrageously overpriced it was. Happy anniversary of that other year we gave ourselves something I didn’t want, dear!

When we do exchange gifts, I have to admit that his are always both thoughtful and generous—if not necessarily things I might ever buy for myself. He’s not the type to go for the Tiffany-box, ten-karat display of fondness, nor is he the home-made card sort of sap. He tends toward practical items that would nonetheless be considered splurges because nobody in their right mind could ever claim to “need” any of them. There was the coffee pot with the built-in timer because he knew I hated waiting for my caffeine fix in the morning; the microwaveable Brookstone slippers and matching buttery robe that together cost a small fortune; the ATM-size high-tech towel-warmer because “who doesn’t like getting out of the tub and wrapping up in a nice, toasty towel?” He doesn’t stuff my Christmas stocking with one tube of body lotion but seven, a symbol that he loves me despite my finicky nose, and also tangible proof of his relentless desire to find at least one scent that might please it. The year I mentioned I wanted a sewing machine, Joe spent countless hours researching various machines and their features, and ultimately forked over a sum that could get you a decent used car for a digital model nicer than the one the seamstress that I go to uses. It took me a week to figure out how to turn it on, and several months of lessons before I could load the thread and wind a bobbin. I made some curtains that year, and pretty they were not. It turns out that sewing in a relatively straight line is a lot harder than it looks. Sadly this was before we had children (which is probably why he was buying me pricey machinery) so I couldn’t even pawn my lopsided, ill-fitting window coverings off as one of the kids’ handiwork. My overly generous husband is still bitter about how much dust my electric stitcher collects, but in my defense I didn’t ask for the bloody Lamborghini of sewing machines. If he’d gotten me the Fisher-Price model I’d had in mind, its disuse wouldn’t be an issue.

“I went out on a limb this time...” he’ll tell me, handing over another expertly-wrapped box. “If you don’t like it or you won’t use it, you have to promise me you’ll take it back.”

“I promise,” I vow solemnly.

Oh dear mother of the infant baby Jesus, what is that?

“I don’t like it and I won’t use it,” I admit. Well, I promised.

“Really? You won’t? You don’t even want to try it? Why don’t you just try it?” he looks hurt and I feel awful. But I truly don’t like it and I definitely won’t use it and if you didn’t want the brutal honesty you asked for, you should have married someone else.

I know that many husbands shower their wives with precious metals and semi-precious gemstones at every gifting occasion. Mine is not one of them. Other than my wedding and engagement rings—purchases about which it’s not like he had much choice—Joe has bought me jewelry exactly once; a pair of diamond earrings when I gave birth to our first child. (And I am pretty sure that if creating, carrying, incubating and then delivering another life into the world doesn’t earn you something sparkly, nothing ever will.) It took me less than two weeks to lose one of them—I was very busy not losing our new baby, thank you very much—and I have never heard the end of it. I would bet my last dollar I never will. Whoever came up with that catchy “diamonds are forever” line clearly wasn’t married to me.

AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT MARRIED TO HIM

“My husband is a terrible shopper. In fact, he never shops unless he knows exactly what he needs to get. He never browses, and if he is accommodating me, I feel so stressed because he always asks, ‘Are you done?  Are you ready to go?’ Because of this he also is a terrible gift giver. He has gone so far as to give his mother money to buy things for me.  When our daughter was small, he had her pick out my gifts so everything I got was exactly what a six year old girl wanted (horse head pendant, mini-hoop gold earrings). Now, every year I get the same thing: a Yankee candle and new slippers, plus anything else
that I very specifically ask for.”

~Rosemarie

I love buying gifts, probably because to me shopping is a fun activity, an inherently pleasant way to pass the time that sometimes even ends with a purchase. I like products and packaging, and I am a sucker for any sort of marketing claim. I’ll see a tube of Blackest Black mascara and feel a rush of hopeful joy, because I only have True Black, Dark Black and Very Black. But Blackest Black? How could I have lived my entire life without enjoying this extreme of blackness? Thank God I found it! Similarly, it matters not that I already own two dozen bottles of hair conditioner; when I see that Extra Super Thick and Glossy Conditioner on the shelf, I am helpless to resist it. I like drug stores and hardware stores, sock shops and supercenters. Joe will mention that he’s going to pick up some paint and I will beg him to let me tag along.

“I’m just getting paint,” he’ll say.

“That’s okay, I just want to keep you company. Plus I like looking,” I tell him.

“At what?” he genuinely wants to know.

“All of the stuff!” I explain vaguely.

At the paint store, he waits mostly patiently by the counter while I bustle about the place, accumulating must-have gadgets that we didn’t even know were out there waiting to make our lives easier and that we therefore must purchase immediately.

“What the hell is that?” Joe asks, inspecting a little rubber nub I’ve placed on the counter.

“It’s a tool for cleaning the rim of the paint can!” I explain excitedly.

“Did you ever hear of a rag?” he asks, shaking his head.

Actual video of me in Home Depot.

But to me, if they make a product specifically for one task, it must be one of those wonderful things you could live without, but you probably wouldn’t want to. Like a cheese slicer. Before the cheese slicer came along, sure you could always use a knife to saw off a nice hunk of Jarlsberg. But once you’ve experienced the bliss of identical, uniform slices of your favorite curdled milk product, there’s no going back. You know it and I know it and if your cheese slicer broke tomorrow you’d haul your ass right over to Target and buy another one.

“What’s that?” he asks, pointing to another item in the pile.

“It’s an edging tool,” I inform him.

“Does tape ring a bell?” He is starting to get a little pissy with me, which isn’t very nice seeing as I came along to keep him company and all.

“But this is made just for edging,” I argue. “Tape can be used for anything.”

“You will literally buy anything, won’t you?” he says sadly, handing over his credit card to the cashier. “Next time, you’re staying at home.”

He’s right. I will buy anything. Our drawers are clogged with Chip Clips and egg separators, wine aerators and dryer balls. We have a pasta maker, a bread maker and a yogurt maker (into which you must put yogurt plus whatever fruit you want in it and the machine then conveniently mixes it for you; you know, like a spoon might), plus a spatula for every dish and cooking surface ever invented, including a pan-size one for omelets and a dozen pointy ones for pie. In an effort to clear up some kitchen cabinet space, I finally sold the $100 George Foreman grill in our garage sale. I got a whopping ten bucks but I honestly never used the thing so I was relieved to see it go. Within months, I’d purchased a shiny new Panini press, which fit perfectly in the spot left vacant by the George Foreman—because, it turns out, they are the same fucking appliance.

AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT MARRIED TO HIM

“My husband—a prominent architect—keeps buying these ugly printed jackets with tigers and such on them at the swap meet. He insists on wearing them in public because he thinks they are cool. I’ll sneak into his closet and throw them away, but he just keeps buying more.
Is this male menopause?”

~Ileana

Joe doesn’t like accumulating stuff, so it makes sense that he doesn’t much care for trolling for it in the first place. To my husband, braving any sort of retail establishment is a task to be endured when you absolutely, critically need something, like sour cream or a raccoon trap or underpants without holes in them. If my husband determines it is time to buy, for example, new basketball shoes, he drives straight to the nearest sporting goods store, tries on three or four pairs of sport-specific sneakers, purchases the most comfortable one and goes home. That’s it! He never gets sidetracked in the pool toy aisle or sucked into trying on a dozen or more pairs of sunglasses or considers how his ratty old socks are going to look with his shiny new shoes. He doesn’t stop to wonder if there might be anything else in the store worth checking out; once he’s made his pre-determined purchase, the goal is accomplished and he can head back home to putter in the garage. Honestly, it must be nice.

Not really a shopping meme but you know you laughed (and sang it out loud).

Although he’s not a born shopper, Joe has made great strides in the area during our marital tenure. For instance, when we’re on vacation, not only will he occasionally suggest a stroll through the local shopping district to check out the native wares but he has even learned to feign interest in the items I show him, and he hardly ever hovers anxiously in my shadow, checking his watch every thirty seconds and sighing dramatically. Definitive proof of how far he has evolved in this area came on the morning of our ten-year anniversary, when he presented me with a thick envelope. Inside the envelope was a lovely card, and inside the card was an even lovelier surprise: Ten crisp one hundred dollar bills. Now, a Benjamin a year for all of the compromise and sacrifice and that forsaking all others business—plus doubling the size of our little family practically single-handedly—might not seem like all that much, but my husband knows that I rarely spend money guiltlessly (although I admit I somehow still manage to squander an unseemly ton of it on God only knows what), so I was a pleasant combination of stunned and delighted.

“The deal is,” he said, immediately putting the brakes on my growing giddiness, because I just knew he was going to say we had to do something awful with it like put it in the bank or use it to stock up on unstained Tupperware with matching lids and a new hot water heater, “you have to spend it before we get home tomorrow.” We were going away for a whopping thirty-six hours, to a romantic little town an hour away. In order to spend that kind of dough, the next day and a half would have to feature a lot of shopping. That, gentle readers, was the real gift.

We bought two cast iron urns for the front porch first—something I’d wanted since we bought the house, but there was always something on the endless home improvement list that seemed more urgent. Or maybe I’d just not happened across the right pots, but there they were and conveniently I had a fat wad of cash in my pocket. Then we found a quaint little garden shop and chose flowers to plant in them. Up and down the main drag we traipsed, passing up only the stores that sold taxidermy or old-lady clothes. I splurged on an impractical, floor-length skirt, three pairs of nearly-identical earrings (without even a single eye-roll from Joe) and a gold Buddha wall plaque for the garden (again, not even a sarcastic smirk); while I wasn’t looking a pair of ceramic love birds flew into my shopping cart.

“How much do you have left?” he’d ask excitedly after each purchase. I know what you’re thinking—that he just wanted the whole thing to be over and done with so we could go back to the hotel and have sex. But it wasn’t like that, I swear. He was noticeably enjoying watching me enjoy myself, and he even insisted on paying for all of our meals out of “his” money (which was technically “ours” but not, you know, mine to do with as I pleased without asking for his input or permission), because the grand was specifically earmarked for extravagance. He even made a game out of it, saying things like “You got that, moneybags?” when it was time to pay, and shrugging as I handed over one crisp bill after another as if to say, “My lady likes to blow the dough. What can I say?” I have never loved my husband more than I loved him that day and a half. Maybe money can’t buy happiness, but it certainly can rent it for a while. 

So now you know I’m a shopping addict. It could be worse!
Next week: If It’s Broken... Please God Don’t Fix It