Best Laid Plans

[ladysprite]

I love my sweetie. I love buying presents. I especially love finding good presents for my sweetie. And this being our first holiday season as husband and wife, I was bound and determined to find the absolute most perfect gift in the world for him.

I had the most wonderful idea, too. We'll be visiting his family in Long Island for part of the holiday season, and it's just a hop, skip, and a jump from there to New York City. It's been a long time since we've seen a show together - tickets to a Broadway show seemed like the perfect surprise.

My first choice was sold out. So was my second. I finally found one that sounded great - until I realized that even the lousy seats were well over $100 apiece. Stupid Broadway, stupid expensive seats, stupid plan being shot to heck by stupid finances.

Oh, well. Luckily, I am a wise and foresightful woman, and I had a backup plan. So, as part of this afternoon's lightning attack on the mall, I wandered into the store in question, where I had seen the item I wanted less than two weeks ago. Foolish me, I had figured that two weeks out from Christmas the stores would still be fairly well stocked. Not quite so, apparently. The item in question (carefully hidden by vague wording, in case it suddenly re-manifests in time for future holidays) was out of stock. Of course, I could special-order it from the store.... or at least, I could if the store wasn't going out of business in three weeks. No more special orders. So no second-choice item.

Not a problem. I'm such an incredibly plan-a-riffic soul that I had a backup plan for my backup plan. I marched down to the next store on my list, head held high, and demanded my backup backup item. The store clerk explained to me, while I tried not to cry, that the item was not available. It was available last year, and will be available next year, but right here and now it is in a temporary state of nonexistence due to licensing and ownership squabbles.

This is absurd. Apparently God doesn't want me to give my sweetie a holiday present. Luckily, I have managed to thwart the anti-gift aura by wandering aimlessly through the remaining stores without any sort of plan, sneaking up on unwary gifts and pouncing on them before the Inconvenience Fairies could sweep them out of my reach, and a gift has been achieved. But still, that strikes me as a heck of a lot of effort on behalf of Fate to interfere with one simple present....

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Ooh...so you two will be down in my neck of the woods?

When???

[new-man.livejournal.com]

I was going to recommend "Slava's Snow Show" at the Union Square Theater in New York. It's off-Broadway (Union Square is not Times Square), but it's a spectacular show.

Inconvenience Fairies

[thebeardedone.livejournal.com]

I know the Inconvenience Fairies well. There are a pair of them hiding in my attic, disguising themselves as raccoons. They wait until tafkad or I are trying to sleep and then they start their dice games right overhead. I've tried spreading mothballs up there, but I think they use the mothballs as one-sided dice. :(

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Ouch -- sounds like you got a heavy dose of the Russ Field today!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling... and we usually give each other 8 presents... :-)

[jtdiii.livejournal.com]

When in doubt, most males can be wonderfully surprised by a gift from the Home Depot. If it is bright and shiny and has lots of volts or horsepower it will usually go over well. It does help to have an idea what he already owns, but you can never have too many tools...

Or if in doubt, go up to a salesman, bay your eyelashes and tell him what you are looking for and they will make suggestions.

Re: Inconvenience Fairies

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Cayenne pepper. Really. Raccoons will avoid it.

Re: Inconvenience Fairies

[tafkad.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip. Last time around, the mothballs were sufficient, but this time has been insane. I wanted to fill up the attic with balloons and see if the raccoons would leave in fear after popping one or two, but thebeardedone objected. Something about having 50 balloons popping loudly at odd intervals in the middle of the night. Go fig.

The worst part about the Inconvience Fairy is that you have to leave a quarter under your pillow to make it go away, but you just never have the right change when you need it, no matter how sure you were there was a quarter in your pocket just a second ago . . .

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Herm. Maybe I made a horrible mistake and sent you all my gift finding/buying luck... and forgot that it was all bad. :-)

By the way, happy birthday, to a beautiful and wonderful person (that's you, just in case you had any questions :-) ).

[gingicat]

Hope it works out.

BTW, happy birthday!

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Having found you (again) via warinbear after your disappearance from 'that other place' (euphenisms are great when you aren't sure of the reactions to certain reminders), may I please add you to my friends list?

And may I wish you a (belated) Happy Birthday and Wedding Congratualtions.

I have missed your insights and stories and would like to have the chance to interact with you in a space where you feel most comfortable.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Hi! Good to find you again! Thank you....

And don't worry about euphemisms - I remember a.c fondly; we just grw apart. Please do friend me; I'd be flattered. :)

Re: Inconvenience Fairies

[jducoeur]

To be fair, we only have a sample size of one so far, so it's far from a scientific determination.

But it does seem to have driven at least one out of our attic for at least a few days, and while it smells a bit, it isn't nearly as bad as mothballs. (And is more effective: the mothballs didn't help against our raccoons, at least in sane quantities.)