Holiday Surprises

I know it's a little late to be writing about Christmas (or really, REALLY early, depending on how you look at it) but I wanted to share a few memories of the holiday season that showed how my mom can occasionally get the best of me and surprise me with a gift I didn't expect.

Christmas 2000
It was customary during the great unwrapping of gifts for my mom to direct me to certain presents and steer me away from "the big one" that was to be saved for the end. The "big one" this year was a Game Boy Color video game system. However, as I was looking it over, I was hit by a horrible realization. We had gotten video game systems in the house before, and they had always come with a free game included so you didn't have to buy anything else. However, the Game Boy Color was packaged alone. Not only that, but the video game I wanted the Game Boy for in the first place wasn't here, and there were no more presents under the tree. I tried to explain the situation to my mom, and she just casually strolled over to the tree, reached into the branches, and pulled out another present. It was the game I wanted. You win, mom.

Christmas 2007
This year I was very interested in getting a game for my Nintendo Wii system. My mom said she'd try to get it. Along the way, she decided to try the old "they were sold out" trick. When she opened a conversation with me by saying "About that game you wanted..." I jumped to conclusions.

You see, this game was made for more than one system. I thought she had accidentally bought the PlayStation 2 version of the game instead of the Wii one, which was useless since our house did not have a PlayStation 2, never mind that I'd heard the Wii version was much better. I imagined she may have gotten the PlayStation 2 game because it was ten dollars cheaper, not noticing that it was for the wrong system. When I asked as much, she agreed. "Yeah, that's what happened. Sorry. You'll have to wait until after Christmas when I can return it." Of course, she'd gotten exactly what I'd asked for, and I wound up getting duped again. By a plot I'd come up with FOR her, no less.

I have to stop assuming my mom is a complete dullard when it comes to video games. She is generally aware of how they work and what you need to play, but she's tricked me more than once by feigning ignorance.