lesson #16: if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

I’ve always been taught that it is the thought that counts when it comes to gifts. Be polite and happy that you received anything at all…but what is a girl to do when what sits under the tree leads her to rethink everything. I remember my mom received an iron for her first wedding anniversary and the look of “how could you have gotten this so wrong” in her eyes as she looked up from the layers wrapping paper. No matter how big or how small the gift, what you get a person for special occasions says something about how well you know them.

When I was 24 not only did I have a wrinkle-free forehead and fit into size two jeans (in all honesty it was just for those 3 weeks after the stomach flu, but it happened people), I also had the most amazing boyfriend (or at least that is how I saw him through my rose-colored glasses). He was tall and smart, and seriously looked as thought I had ordered him from page 67 of the J Crew catalog. He was the kind of boy who made my heart pitter-patter whenever I saw him; in other words it was l-u-v. So when our first (and I will point out only) Christmas together rolled around I was determined to have thoughtful and appropriate gifts under the tree. So I turned up my super spidey hearing and tied my thinking cap extra tight to find the perfect presents that said, “I pay attention, I am the best girlfriend ever, but I am in no way trying too hard”…it’s a fine line to walk let me tell you, but I did it. I had a homemade scarf for those cold Minneapolis mornings (well technically St. Paul, we lived on the other side of the bridge), a book of Twin Cities bike trails (since he loved “the nature”), and an amazing sweater from the afore-mentioned mail order magazine that looked as if it had been knit just for him. I was a savant of present giving. His face lit up more and more with every tear of the paper. Mission accomplished.

He turned to me and said yours is coming when I get back from Mexico (Mr. Dreamy’s parents were living in Mexico City for a year for his dad’s job). “I want to get you something totally unique” he said. Awesome! So I waited through the cold, snow, and ice of a midwestern Christmas and New Years while he lived it up in the Mexican sunshine. When I picked him up from the airport he emerged from the terminal with the most beautiful tan, a broad white smile, and what appeared to be a wadded up ball of newspapers.  After all the appropriate greetings he handed me what I thought must be his recycling with an enthusiastic “Merry Christmas.” As I removed layer upon layer of The News from Mexico City I said a silent prayer to the god of good gifts and told myself that if it was horrid I would still appear to love it in the face of utter disappointment. Let’s just say my prayers went unanswered as even Jesus Christ himself might have had a “WTF” look on his face if he had been looking down at what was in my lap. Staring back at me (literally) was a carved wooden bowl with the neck and head of a duck emerging from one side. Speechless, I was speechless. “I got it from a street vendor and when I saw it I knew it was the perfect gift for you.” he excitedly declared as he tried to hug me (and I say tried because I was not only speechless, but paralyzed by the large dose of “ummmm?” coursing through my body). So many thoughts ran through my head it was hard to focus on anything in the world around me. “Really? I mean really? What about me says wooden duck bowl, because I would like to change that part of my personality immediately. Seriously, what am I putting out there that says me = balsa wood atrocity?” I took a deep breath in and let it out…nope still not ready to talk. Another deep breath in and out. “Thank you, it’s perfect.” I quietly whispered, smiled and proceeded to iHop for breakfast.

I should have known right then and there it wasn’t meant to be. As the break up came and went and reminders of the beautiful yet clueless gift giver were thrown away or burned (always a bad idea ladies, always a bad idea) I could never bring myself to get rid of the duck bowl. It was like an affirmation that there was something fundamentally wrong in that relationship that was beyond my control. So as the years went by and I relocated from state to state in this great nation of ours I found the duckbowl always had a place in the back of a cupboard. That was until the day my best friend and her long-term boyfriend broke up.  As I hung up the phone, after listening to her heart metaphorically breaking, I was sitting on my kitchen floor trying to think of what I could do to help her feel even the tiniest bit better my eyes fell to the kitchen cabinet that hid that mallard abomination. I pulled it out along with my crayola magic markers (yes, I am 30 and I still own magic markers…I have crayons, elmer’s glue, and construction paper too for your information) and I started to write a little something along the bottom edge of the wooden bowl. I signed it, dated it, probably drew a flower, and walked directly to the post office. Three days later I had a message on my voicemail that was nothing but laughter and a thank you. Over the years that duck bowl has traveled from friend to friend surfacing whenever something fabulous or not so fabulous happens; when babies are born or when relationships die…it has become a symbol that everything happens for a reason and we’re all going to make it through it…even when it doesn’t feel like it. I should probably send the dreamy lawyer a thank you card…probably, but I won’t. I think resisting my initial instinct to throw the duckbowl at his head was thank you enough.

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