Packing for Adventure

I have a terrible track record when it comes to keeping a gift a surprise. If I’m excited about it, odds are high I’ll blab.

But I was determined to keep this trip a secret. Chris’s birthday is a few days before Christmas, and our anniversary is in March. I planned to tell him about our anniversary trip on his birthday.

But how to contain the excitement I felt?? I ended up telling Chris’s sisters about it at a family get together and they validated my excitement with comments like “wow you must really love him!”

Once the plan was in motion, I booked the flights, a train ticket from NYC to New Haven, CT, and hotels. I researched all the top pizza restaurants in each city we’d be visiting and compiled a list. I looked into the best tourism spots and booked some things to do.

I packaged all the paperwork together including a suggested itinerary and had to figure out the best way to present it.

In mid-November after the kids were in bed and Chris was getting ready for bed, I started wrapping his gift alone in the kitchen. I found a used pizza box and set about putting it all together. I cleaned the grease off the box as best I could and set the paperwork in a folder inside the box. I cut a piece of wrapping paper and found that the box ventilation tabs were in the way of a clean wrapping. I pulled out the box cutters and set about cutting off the tabs…. and sliced my thumb instead.

I call over to Chris that I need stitches. It was well after 10:00 PM. I called my mom and asked her to head over and be with the kids so Chris could take me to the ER for stitches. It was the deepest gash I’ve ever had, and I was bummed to lose my lifelong streak of never needing stitches.

I let Chris know that my mom is on the way and we need to head to the ER, but DON’T LOOK AT THE KITCHEN TABLE!!!

Chris was very sweet and very gentle. I had wrapped my thumb in a paper towel. He asked to look at it. I held my thumb over the kitchen sink and looked away while he gently pulled off the paper towel and started rinsing my thumb. He spoke in the gentlest manner saying things like “we can fix this here” and “this isn’t as bad as you think.”

With the skill of a man who clearly had too many brushes with death growing up, he cleaned the gash and glued the skin back together and bandaged it neatly like a pro. After I called my mom to turn around and go back home, he gently chided me for making too big of a deal.

I guess what they say is true. Maybe women can work through a cold like champs, but panic ensues with a small cut.

I do have a gnarly scar though.

After all this commotion, the pizza box laid undisturbed and the secret was still safe.

Until Thanksgiving no more than a couple weeks later. We had Thanksgiving with Chris’s family and enjoyed a nice day full of delicious food. Later that night at home, we were eating leftover turkey in our kitchen when Chris nonchalantly remarks “you know, I hear New Haven, Connecticut has really good pizza. If we ever do like a pizza trip, we’ll need to make sure to include it.”

Whut? Was he being for real? That is such a random and SPECIFIC thing to say… did he know? Was he toying with me??

I got to thinking… I’m no good at keeping surprises. I have to keep this one. But does he already know? What if he doesn’t know, but by the time he finds out, he’ll think I only thought to include New Haven because of his comment? We can’t have that, I need the credit for the detailed research and thoughtfulness! (I know, I’m not winning any maturity awards any time soon.)

So that was it. I had to tell him. So I pull out the box (my thumb was still healing…) and I have him open it.

I am to this day annoyed at his lack of reaction. There was no shouting for joy and jumping up and down. I do know him well enough to know that he was genuinely thrilled about the upcoming trip – but a bigger reaction couldn’t have killed him.

So now he knows, and he is wondering why I didn’t keep it a secret? I only had another month before his birthday. I said he was toying with me! He had to have already known about it.

Chris: “How would I have known?”

Rosie: “I figured maybe one of your sisters told you about it.”

Chris scoffs: “When would I have talked to them?”

Rosie, clearly annoyed: “Ummmm…. TODAY??!? When we spent all Thanksgiving day with them??!?”

MEN!

So after all the trouble, the secret was out. I went over the suggested itinerary with him and showed him my preliminary research on best pizza joints and gave him the ultimate responsibility of determining which pizza places to pick, and whether or not we needed advance reservations. I also put him in charge of determining the best and most cost-effective way to get around each city.

So with that, Chris commenced on his happy research. He had a little less than 4 months to make the decisions of utmost importance… which pizza places to prioritize??