They Should Make a Fisher Price Version

My husband got me an iPhone for Christmas.

It was all a little Gift of the Magi, because I was actually trying to figure out how I could get him an iPhone for Christmas, but I didn't see how it would be possible, since we had this little thing I like to call a "budget" for our presents, due to a stupid thing I like to call a "mortgage." (I also call our house a "house" and our car a "car"- in case you were wondering.) (Ahem.)

So I cut off my hair and sold it and used the money to buy him an iPhone.


O.k., FINE, I didn't do that. I got him a gift certificate to Target instead. (That just doesn't quite have the same ring to it, somehow.)

The iPhone cost significantly more than what we'd agreed we could spend, but he secretly got me one anyway. We'd both gone without Christmas and birthday presents for a few years in a row, and he wanted me to be really surprised.

Now let me tell you something. When I opened the package, I was so excited. It was shiny. It was cool. I mean, I could check my email at the grocery store. At the bank. At CHURCH.

Best toy ever.

But.

But.

But.

I've somehow managed to divest myself of SIX cell phones in the last two years - all within the first three months I had them. I ran over one with the car, washed one in the laundry, dropped one in the bathtub and misplaced three. I've never been able to keep a cell phone for longer than three months. I could totally see the iPhone in about a month, cracked under the wheels of the car, or beeping forlornly from inside a Big Gulp cup where I'd set it down whilst thinking about cupcakes (YUM).

So I gave it back to him.

He refused it. I insisted. He refused it some more. I insisted some more.

I finally said, "You know what's going to happen to it if I keep it."

He looked at me, he looked at the shiny new iPhone and he said, "I've actually been having nightmares about it."

I said, "It's for the best."

And I turned it over to him, weeping.

OK, not weeping. More like snickering and punching him a few times, all, "Way to buy yourself a Christmas present honey," and then we had to go the rounds of "You keep it," "No, YOU keep it," a few more times before he would really believe that I wanted him to take it.

Alright, so maybe it's not exactly like the Gift of the Magi. But there were presents. And it was Christmas. So, almost exactly the same. And it was very touching in an "aw, look, he went against the laws of logic and his better judgment and bought me something expensive he already knows I will destroy" kind of way. At least at Target I can buy stuff that I will lose over time. Kind of spread out the gift destruction and collateral damage.

Goodbye little iPhone. It was a nice idea, but we all know I would've murdered/scratched/lost/broken/disapparated you within the first three weeks.