Aselin

My husband made a terrible error in choosing to marry me. His challenge increases with the arrival of each holiday. The time between the holidays is sheer bliss, but his grave error came in not taking into consideration that I'm a lousy person to try and buy a gift for. Couple that with the fact that he doesn't like to shop and, well, you can imagine his pain.

With each impending anniversary, birthday or Christmas his stress level rises. Smart men marry girls who wear jewelry. Wise men marry girls who venture into a store more than twice a year so they can tell their beloveds what they would like to receive. Intelligent men don't marry women who ask for a rolling mop bucket for Valentine's Day. (True story) Even if that's what the girl really wants. Isn't that an assault on one's manhood? Well, he can pull it off, but he's no mere mortal.

So what does this unfortunate gent do when (cue music: dum, dum duuuum) Mother's Day rolls around?

I'm no help; I don't want anything. At least until I see it at Costco.

This year, he did a wonderful job celebrating the excruciating eighteen months of gestation time, near death and years of poopy diaper changing followed by more excruciating years of homework. Good thing the Federal Government and Hallmark colluded to set aside one day a year to make all the bystanders forced into honoring motherhood; it makes it all worth it.

He did a great job. His gifts involved reconnaissance. I am mightily impressed and feel wonderfully celebrated. Then, I heard the story behind the gifts, and well, my bubble sort of burst.

One of my gifts this year was an extravagant gift certificate to a salon I enjoy. He has no idea what I do during the day (which is probably a good thing), so the fact that he found this salon blows me away. Then he told me the story behind the escapade:

In my own mind, I am a legend. Everywhere I go people know me. What this really means is that I don't go very many places and to fully obliterate the bubble, the places I do go involve commerce - me giving money to people: the grocery store, dry cleaner, gas station. It stands to reason that these people might remember me. Hence, my notoriety.

Hubby went to see if the Salon, miles from our home, was indeed my preferred hangout. He walked in and inquired of the proprietor if an "Aselin" was one of their customers. The reply of course was: "We have lots of Aselins who come here."

Really? I guess something got lost in the translation, lots of Aselins? Since hubby speaks fluent Thai, I always thought he could navigate the Anglo-Asian divide. Who knows what they meant by lots of Aselins, but for the entire world's sake we should be glad that there aren't 'lots of Aselins' running around getting things buffed and waxed in the same salon. I'm just sayin'.

Hubby thought he was in the right place, so he ventured another guess. One of my dearest friends introduced me to this salon. She, unlike me, knows how to shop. She gets great gifts because she knows what she wants. Every time we are together I am impressed by the details about her and her style. So of course, I just try and copy her. Kellie brought me to the salon over a year ago and I've frequented it ever since.

Hubby proffers: "Does Kellie come here?"

An entire chorus of: Ohhhh, Kellie! We LOVE Kellie! Kellie is WONDERFUL!!!! Came flooding out. Then they burst into song

Yeah right. Lots of Aselin's but only one Kellie? If you met her you would agree, there is only one Kellie.

Aselin's on the other hand, are a dime-a-dozen.