The King and I celebrated Christmas yesterday. He missed all the holidays this year, being in Afganistan during the festive season, and so we decided last night would be a good day to wrap them all up in one, conveniently near Valentine's Day (which, for the record, is the lamest holiday ever, and yet we always seem to go out to dinner and wait two hours for a table anyway). We had a wonderful day and exchanged gifts. He gave me gift certificates for books ($125 worth!!) and a day spa, plus a set of jewelry from Afganistan, which was very cool. Also a Stephin Merritt CD, which I'm still deciding whether I like.
I gave him an electric guitar. You see, the King loves music, particularly rock and heavy metal. However, he has never picked up an instrument before. He declared early last year that he had always wanted to learn to play guitar, so I decided to indulge him. Woe is me.
The thing is, I forgot that my dear husband has NO PATIENCE. None whatsoever. He is the least patient person in the universe. You don't want to see him in line at the gas station, it's ugly.
Therefore, yesterday afternoon, when he had been plunking away on his shiny new guitar for an hour and hadn't yet mastered the A chord, much less Stairway to Heaven, he was a very, very frustrated man. I tried to tactfully remind him that I've played the piano for two years and only know Ode to Joy and Bach's Minuet, but that didn't seem to help. The ghost of Jimi Hendrix was floating over my husband's head and taunting him.
It was a long and stressful day. In the end, the guitar, somewhat shockingly, did not get thrown through a window, but it has been carefully placed on its stand, where we agreed it will stay until he can schedule some lessons with someone who, I dearly hope, knows the easy version of Stairway to Heaven.
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1 comment:
Merry Christmas!! Enjoy spending your gift certificates, I know I would. As for the impatient man disease, it afflicts most of them I think. Mine has ironing issues. He gets in his little head that he would like to do it, but he gives up inside a couple of minutes and spends the next hour sulking. This is why we love them, right? Right??
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