Anniversary Gifts

I have a new toy! My husband got me an iPod Touch for our 6th wedding anniversary. It's the coolest thing ever, and it's my new best friend. I'm still looking through apps and figuring out how to use it, but it's seriously an amazing piece of technology.

He gave it to me early, two weeks before our anniversary, either because he was rewarding me for finally going to the dentist after 2 years and attempting to conquer my severe dentophobia, or because he was overexcited (who isn't after a trip to the Apple store?) and couldn't wait.

But this left me with a dilemma: We had previously decided not to get each other gifts, we had planned just to go out for a nice dinner. But an iPod Touch is an amazing and expensive present, so clearly I had to get him something. Plus, this is the most expensive anniversary present he's ever given me, so I am torn between wanting to spend at least that much on him, and wanting to not spend anything at all because he spent so much on me.

I had the next day off, so I sat down at the computer and tried to think. (Why yes, I do think better and more effectively when I am looking at pictures of kittens on CuteOverload.com, so there.) My friend Jacki said that giving an experience of some kind is always a fun gift, and so I thought of concerts. I pulled up Ticketmaster, and who was right there on the main page? The Killers! One of Greg's favorite bands. I look up whether or not they'll be in Orlando, and they are. On our actual anniversary date! WIN.

After an hour of trying to figure out how to buy tickets without using the debit card (so he won't see it on our bank website) and a few misspent moments searching Craigslist to see if anyone is selling their tickets, it finally occurs to me that I can just go to the actual box office, buy the tickets with cash, and avoid Ticketmaster charges. Unfortunately, the concert is at the new arena at the University of Central Florida; a place that I have only been a few times, and every single time I have gotten lost in its incomprehensible and seemingly random streets. Oh, boy.

I called to get directions, with very little hope that that would actually be helpful. I've never been to the arena, but I know it is part of a whole new area of the UCF campus. Trying to psych myself up with thoughts of how I am an ADULT and should be able to handle something as minor as driving to a box office to purchase tickets, I head off with the Black Eyed Peas on the car stereo and the AC on full blast. I can DO it, I can DO it.

Well, I did it, but holy crapmuffins. It was a morass of one-way streets that without warning would suddenly end up in faculty parking lots, huge parking structures that all seemed to be for student use only, and a frightening combination of cars driving really really fast and pedestrians walking really really slow (while texting). After circling the "block" (block = jumbled area of streets) in defeat several times, trying hopelessly to read the signs on the streets and the buildings while still paying a little bit of attention to actually driving, I lucked into a spot on the street. Yay! Parallel parking was easy breezy.

I got two tickets in the fourth row of the first balcony, which seems pretty good (I hope, I've never been to this venue). At $35 per ticket, I am spending way less than he spent, but still getting an awesome gift.

Getting back home was way easier, although admittedly I am pretty familiar with where my house is.

I spent the drive home imagining how best to surprise him. I could insist on eating dinner at the Chinese restaurant that's right across the street from UCF, we haven't been there in forever. Then I could slip the tickets into his napkin when he wasn't looking. What's this? Why, it's concert tickets! For my favorite band! And it's tonight!!

Or I could make it a kidnapping-style surprise, not even telling him where we were going. Maybe we could make it all the way to the arena, and he'd know when he saw "Killers concert tonight" up in lights. Or would there be signs, directing parking, that said "Killers", that would give it away? Well, maybe I could blindfold him.

Honestly, I am not sure he would go for that.

As much as I like surprises, I also love looking forward to things, so I ended up giving him the tickets when he came home from work. Okay, I was overexcited and couldn't wait! He seemed pretty thrilled with his present, and now he has a couple of weeks to listen to the Killers for hours every day in anticipation.