Valentine's Day Surprise

My wife and I have never been big celebrators of Valentine's Day (what I like to call "Singles Awareness Day"; alternatively, I just tell people "Happy VD!").  First, we don't believe in the idea of defining some arbitrary day as the day to celebrate a relationship.  We use our anniversary for that purpose.  Second, the idea of defining a holiday simply to drive consumerism diminishes the intended message.  I was done with Valentine's Day my freshman year in college when a radio station asked listeners (all women) to call in with the most romantic things their signficant other did.  The callers proceeded to define "romantic" as:  a mink coat, a diamond bracelet, two dozen roses, a new car, and a trip to Vegas.  Where were the free gestures like poetry, candle lit dinner at home, etc?  That ended the "romance" of VD for me.  Third, Valentine's Day has become a day for men to spend on their women, and not the other way around.  So, our tradition has always been my wife treats me to a quiet dinner out.

Knowing that background, you can understand why my wife would be surprised, and a little nervous, when I informed her I had a big Valentine's Day surprise for her.  Her curiousity - and nervousness - increased when I began to hype the "gift" by saying "the most expensive thing I've ever bought you", and "will qualify me for the 'Husband of the Year' award".  The catch was that it had to wait until the 17th.  My explanation was that Valentine's Day fell on the same day as the Chinese New Year and the streets would be busy and restaurants packed.  Furthermore, since we were not celebrating on the ACTUAL day, we could postpone it to our normal weekly date night - Wednesday.

 

All of this made sense and there were no objections.  My plan was working perfectly.  Then United Airlines stepped in and caused problems.  My "gift".  The "big surprise", was that I had conspired with my wife's sister to fly her and her two daughters - aged 3 years and 5 months - to Jakarta to stay with us for a month.  We'd been planning it since Christmas, but wanted to keep it a secret.  I waited until February to start dropping hints.  On the day they were to leave Phoenix, United, in their infinite stupidity, said they could not find the infant ticket from Phoenix to LAX.  They saw the ticket was fine once they arrived in LA, but was asking her to pay $350 to get to LAX.  Three hours, and a missed flight, later, they "found" the ticket.  In reality, lap babies DO NOT REQUIRE a ticket.  Good job United!!  Yet another reason not to fly such an old airline.

They were able to board the following day, but I now needed an excuse to delay our Valentine's Day dinner another day.  I told my wife that there was a delay in the arrival of the gift I had special ordered, so we would have to wait another day.  By this point, my wife was asking around if anyone knew.  Luckily, I live by the motto "two men can keep a secret if one of them is dead", so I had told no one.  I didn't know that my sister-in-law had told several people, so we were further lucky that my wife didn't start pestering them.  I knew I couldn't keep her in suspense too much longer.  If there was another delay, I was going to have to tell her.

The pressure became enormous.  My wife kept asking.  She kept reminding me she didn't like surprises.  She started listing the things it "better not be".  I started making up my own, outrageous ideas.  "You like the show 'Big Love', so I ordered you a 'Sister wife' from Russia!"  "You said you like babies, so I bought you a baby!"  She stopped asking after that.

On the day the surprise arrived, I left work at lunch to pick them up.  My phone battery was, unexpectedly, dying, so I was able to turn off my phone so I wouldn't give away my position to my wife.  We arrived at the house mid-afternoon and I took my baby niece inside with me.  I showed her to my wife and said "See, I told you I got you a baby!"  She was just staring at her thinking "where do I know that baby?"  That's when her sister came up the stairs and the hugs and tears began.

Everything worked wonderfully except one thing - I failed to realize this would mean I would have four kids under four in my house.  When they are all awake, there is never a quiet or dull moment.  I'm paying both our maid and nanny to work overtime the whole month to help out.

As for me, I'm wondering how much it would cost to stay at the Ritz for the next two weeks...