It is hard to talk about this issue without tripping over a thousand clichés. Because truly, this has been an issue ever since Grog first left the cave a million years ago in search of the perfect gift for Broog. Articles are written dropping 10,000 hints, entire department store floors are devoted to helping direct appropriately, and TV commercials mock us with how easy it is to get it right. And yet, once again, unassuming girl falls headlong into that deep, deep chasm that so mercilessly divides man from woman.
The Caribbean called my boyfriend the week after Thanksgiving. Its warm, balmy breezes, soft, white sand, and emerald waters all waggled a little finger at him, and he flew. I stayed behind in the fifteen degree weather, sliding along the ice with my daughter, my work, and our two dogs. I couldn't have gone despite the very sincere invitation, I was happy to keep his dog, as my dog and his are having an intense love affair that J. and I seem to be incidental to, and cold weather happens. But despite all of these rationalizations, I resented his white toes nestled in the warm sand. My toes were cold, and the dogs tracked in mud all week.
The night before his arrival back home, he called.
"I'm bringing back the little one some seashells."
My heart softened. Resent J.? The wonderful man in my life? "That's so incredibly sweet. My daughter will love them."
"I've got something for you too."
Heart, big puddle on the floor. Really, really, wonderful man. "You didn't have to do that."
He laughed in a way that implied that, clearly, he did. "I'll leave them both on your counter when I stop by to pick up my dog tomorrow."
The weather had warmed back up by the time his flight landed. I was at work, watching the snow melt out the window. My daughter and I arrived home that night in the last dim light of the day. The counter in the kitchen shadowed the gifts he'd so lovingly left for us. I turned on the overhead lamp, and my daughter ran to her shells, in awe as she picked them up, rubbing their smooth, white surfaces along the tips of her small fingers. A yellow bag was all that was left. A yellow bag with a picture of a clipper ship. I opened it, and pulled out the small, hexagonal box therein. Another picture of a clipper ship was stenciled on its yellow lid. Above the ship, red lettering spelled "Tortuga" My daughter's interest in her shells dropped momentarily.
"What is it, Mommy?"
"Rum cake," I said, dropping the box back on the counter.
"What's rum cake?" she asked, her sweet tooth intrigued.
"It's a type of cake," I replied, "with rum in it."
I left the kitchen, the rum cake untouched.
"Rum cake?" Liza screeched the next morning in the car.
"Rum cake," I mumbled.
For years, Liza had driven me crazy on our carpool with her ruthless criticism of her husband's appalling taste in gifts. A very warm and caring woman, you would never guess it from the way she browbeats Mike every time he makes a gift faux pas. The last error happened on her birthday in March, a gaudy, ruby and emerald chunky bracelet that would look out of place on The Sopranos ("I tell him where to shop. I show him what to buy. I've lived with the man for twenty years; how can he not know what I like?"). And now, my judging of Liza in her time of pain had come back to haunt me.
"The thing is," I said to her, keeping my eyes on the road, "I don't even like cake. And he should know that because we spent my birthday together."
"Even if you liked cake, rum cake is a horrible present."
"But, it's the thought, right?"
She snorted, "What thought!"
Oh, this was bad. I tried to let it go-it was just one gift, after all- but something in me wouldn't release. The thought of this cake, this alcoholy, topped with nuts cake, was wiggling its way down into my soul and making me feel completely evil. I wasn't Liza. I never complained about gifts, especially from men that I was crazy about. Hadn't I once said to him that it didn't take much to make me happy? I was, and always have been, the epitome of low maintenance. Why, then, was this rum cake about to change all of that?
In search of a more rational mind, I visited my friend Karen. If you catch Karen on a Sunday, all baseball cap and sweatshirts, you'll see why she was my next point of contact. Low maintenance, rational, I was sure she would be able to get my head back on the right way.
"Rum cake?" she questioned. "Why rum cake?"
"I don't know. And I don't know why it's bothering me so much."
"Rum cake is a terrible present."
Doh! "I think all of this would be easier if men didn't woo at the start of a relationship. If they didn't put 100% of their brain power to finding just the perfect little gift to leave in your mailbox, then later on, when they're not using their brains at all, rum cake wouldn't seem like such a disappointment. Men should not be allowed to woo. They should show up for first dates dressed in ratty jeans, plop on your couch with the remote, fart and scratch themselves in inappropriate places, and then leave without telling you how beautiful you look. Don't they realize, by all of this high powered wooing, that they are setting themselves up for expectations that they couldn't possibly live up to later on?"
Karen sat stunned as I climbed off my soapbox and caught my breath. "Men do woo at the beginning," she said, no doubt thinking back to all of the little bags her boyfriend Andrew had left on her porch during the first few weeks of their courtship. Bags that she hadn't seen in several months. Her brow furrowed. "Oh, man, that sucks! It's probably only a matter of weeks before I get a rum cake too."
I thought I had it settled. Clearly, my boyfriend was an insensitive soul whose brain had not just been fried by that warm Caribbean sun but was also being impaired by a lack of intensity toward me.
Karen called later that night. "Get this," she said, barely able to speak over the gasping laughter. "I talked to Andrew about this whole wooing thing. And you know what he said?" Here she snorted. "He said, 'What's wrong with a rum cake?'"
"I've realized something very distressing," I said to my boyfriend over dinner the next night. "After all of these years, I do believe I'm high maintenance."
He raised his eyebrows, "Oh, do tell more."
"Well, it has to do with the rum cake."
"The rum cake?"
"I don't like rum cake."
"You don't?"
"J., I don't even like cake; you should know that."
His face fell. "I'm so sorry; I thought you'd love it."
How could I tell him that I was picturing something beautiful and personal, and I got rum cake instead?
"I know it should have been okay, but I just couldn't get there in my mind."
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "I'll just have to try harder next time."
"Men shouldn't woo." At this he rolled his eyes, for this was a conversation long exhausted between us.
"Women shouldn't either."
"What do you mean?" Incensed, I thought of the long love letter I had written him over vacation. I was still wooing.
He shook his head, no doubt picturing the same letter. "Women woo differently. It's not about the presents or the love letters with you."
"How do we woo?"
"You woo by being easy on us. You act as if you want for nothing, that it will take very little on our part to make you happy. We burp, and in the beginning, you find it charming. Eight months later, you're calling us pigs."
I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. The silence at the table was deafening and I raised my hand to cool the flush that had spread throughout my face. "Oh my God, you're right. You're absolutely right. How could I not have seen this before? I've been masquerading as an easy-going girlfriend, when, in fact, I'm really a high maintenance bitch!"
He pulled my hand away from my cheek and patted it sympathetically. "I wouldn't read too much into it. After all, it's only a rum cake."
Clearly, there is little hope for any of us in this area, and with Christmas just around the corner, that's a little scary. I know that on December 25th, Liza will open her gift from Mike, and, knowing Liza, not even attempt to hide her disappointment. Karen will open her gift from Andrew, and if he's learned anything from this, it won't be a baked good. I will open my present and…maybe it will be perfect. Or maybe, after our discussion over dinner, it won't even matter.
What's come out of all of this? Well, one thing is the debate about the lack of wooing has ended. I suspect it is gone for good. Another thing is that a theme song seems to have penned itself and is making occasional appearances on our date nights. We'll be walking out of a store, or into a restaurant, or cuddling on the couch, and he'll lean in and whisper in his lilting tenor voice, "She's a high maintenance biatch…A high maintenance biatch…A high maintenance biaaaaaatch."
That's a love song of sorts, right? And to think that I thought the wooing was done.
No comments:
Post a Comment