Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Without a hitch

Lately we have been chanelling our life savings into our local bike shop. In addition to each buying a new bike in the last few months, we have also picked up an infant bike seat, a helmet for Liam (well… that was a gift from Gramma & Grampa Cook), and most recently, a new bike rack. We used to have a rack that strapped onto the trunk of our car, but now that the truck is our family vehicle it was time for something different. Even without knowing about Chad’s plan to kit us out with new bikes, I had anticipated the need for a hitch-mounted rack, and started looking into it as a Christmas gift for Chad last year. I stopped looking into it when the dealership quoted me almost $500 for the hitch alone, nevermind the rack. But when Chad’s biking enthusiasm picked up in the spring I thought it would make an appropriate Father’s Day gift and bit the bullet and started calling around for hitches.

Chad has the uncanny ability to go out and buy exactly what I am thinking of getting him for the next major holiday at exactly that time, and it wasn’t long before he came home and announced that he was looking into buying a hitch-mounted rack. So much for my great idea. To make a long story short, within a few weeks we had a hitch installed and a new bike rack mounted. Luckily, the bike shop came through with a much better deal than the car dealership could muster.

Somehow, over the past few weeks, Chad started to refer to this new hitch as my birthday present. Which offended me on two levels. Number one, what kind of man gets his wife a car accessory as a birthday present? And number two, how did this go from being my gift for him, to his gift for me? Somehow, I never wind up getting credit when I come up with a good gift idea.

There is really no point to this story, except to say thanks to Chad and his family for having a few other birthday surprises up their sleeves so that I was not left trying to act excited about having just received a new hitch for my birthday. Chad, I hope you are able to muster up some excitement over it on Father’s Day, because it’s still your gift. :)

(In case you’re wondering why I am thanking Chad’s family and not my own, it’s because birthdays seem to be done entirely different in the Robinson family… sometimes not even acknowledged. You know who you are!!)

I just ran into Mark (Cindy’s husband) at the printer, and he reported to me (after speaking with Cindy at lunch) that Liam is having another rough day today. This may interfere with my plans to catch the season 2 premiere of Lost again tonight (9 p.m. Jenn!!) if I am sitting up with him all night. Well, it could be worse… it could have been an epi I’d never seen before…

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The phone will be off the hook and the popcorn is waiting. I can't wait! :)

Darin may be interested in your old bike rack if it fits over the spoiler of the car better than the one he got from Bruce and Dana (If you are looking to get rid of it, that is.)

megan said...

What do you mean "what husband get's their wife car accessories as gifts?????". Remember the snow tire Christmas of 2005?

Jen,
Don't buy the croc's Linda got there before you. If it's too late we will exchange for different colours.

Carrie,
Can you tape the show tonight? I forgot to tell Cory (or call at 8:55pm to remind him as I will be busy presenting Bill 183 Adoption Disclosure to my classmates)!

Anonymous said...

OH. MY. HECK.

I forgot just how much I love that show but I am hating the fact that I have to wait a week for the next episode. Watching a whole season in a week is definately the way to go.

Anonymous said...

If you're looking to sell the bike rack and it doesn't fit Darin and Jenn's car let me know.

Anonymous said...

I don't really want anyone to answer this question about Lost for me (I'm sure I'll find out down the road in ... oh, I don't know, maybe Season 4) but what the heck is that guy who Jack met doing living under the island??? This is crazy.

Carrie said...

Ohhhhh, keep watching... it keeps getting better!! I was thinking about all of the stuff we still don't know when season 2 ends, but when I watched last night, it made me realize just how much we have learned since season 1. I definitely think season 2 was faster paced and more interesting and informative.

And, thanks for everyone's interest in the bike rack... but we traded it in as part of the deal on the new rack. Sorry!