by Arianddu » Fri Oct 09, 2009 12:27 am
My kid sister's 16th birthday, I got to pull two good ones. Kath's a huge Tolkein fan, and had been looking for a copy of "A Tolkein Bestiary" for about 8 months, so I ordered in a hardback copy for her birthday. Our birthdays are 10 days apart, so to celebrate them both the family was going out to dinner in a nice restaurant. Our grandparents picked her up from school and me from work, then we went back to Nanna and Poppa's for a few hours before we met our parents later at the restaurant. Anyway, I got into the car with what was obviously a big hardback book in a brown paper bag. I was chatting to Kath and the grandparents, and she was eying off this parcel I had, wild with curiosity. After a few minutes, I asked her 'do yo want your present now or later?' and she promptly said now. But instead of handing over the book in the paper bag, I took a card and a tiny parcel out of my handbag and gave it to her. She looked a bit disappointed, opened the card in which I had written 'Because every girl deserves on of these on her birthday' and then opened the tiny parcel, which contained a tiny toy car, the sort that you pull back and it goes forward by itself.
Now I should point out at this stage that I worked on our Dad for about 10 months before my 16th, telling him that the best present he could give me would be a car, and he'd refused on the grounds that he couldn't afford to pay for me to run a car and besides, he didn't think 16 was mature enough for that kind of responsibility and teenagers got into all sorts of trouble in cars (I retaliated and bought a motorbike for my 17th birthday.) Kath remembered all of this and dutifully giggled at the joke, but obviously thought it was a pretty cheap present, especially for such a 'big' birthday.
Anyway, we got to Nanna and Poppa's and while they were off getting ready, Kath and I were talking, and I suddenly said, like I had just remembered, "Oh yeah, you should see the book I bought during my lunch break, it's really cool," and pulled the book she'd been wanting for ages out of the paper bag. She flipped through it, face like thunder, as I enthused about how much I liked it, and she muttered pointed things like "yeah, I've wanted a copy for ages" and "you know, this would make someone a really nice present". Eventually she found the fly-leaf where I had written 'Happy birthday Kath' and the look she gave me! Too funny!
The best was yet to come, when I pointed out that she would get to tell Dad that I bought her a car for her birthday. Now Dad loved jokes and Kath had never been able to pull one on Dad, so she loved the idea of trying this one on. Dad and my step-mother were the last ones to get to the restaurant, and the moment Dad walked in the door, Kath bounced up and down and yelled "Dad! Ari bought me a car for my birthday!" I was working full time and earning reasonable money at that point, and he knew I was quite capable of buying her an old banger as a present. He just froze and stared at me while I grinned and said 'the breaks are a bit dodgy but it's got great fuel economy.' He stood there in the doorway, looking like a stunned fish while Kath wittered on about how it was so cool and the best present a 16 year old girl could get from her big sister and it was her favourite shade of red and so fantastic... I could see all the panicked thoughts running through Dad's head until Kath let him off the hook by holding up the toy car.
She still thinks setting Dad up for the only practical she ever managed to pull on him was the best present I ever gave her.
Why treat life as a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in an attractive & well-preserved body? Get there by skidding in sideways, a glass of wine in one hand, chocolate in the other, body totally worn out, screaming WOOHOO! What a ride!
put on a happy song dude.. 
