Day #122 “And don’t let Big Show sit on you…”

The Mister is off to go see WWE Live* in the Three Arena today after his mother and I got him a surprise pair of tickets for Christmas.

This came about in a slightly unusual manner. You see, we’re not great at giving each other surprise gifts. He’s often got a very specific tastes and requirements for his hobbies, making guessing games a bit tricky if you’re not in the know, and while I do occasionally drop hints, he suffers from a healthy dose of the husbandly fear of falling into the “Oh, another scarf. How… nice” trap. So we have worked out some less-than-subtle ways of keeping each other informed about our secret gift desires. And by secret, I mean he keeps a wish-list of computer games he wants to try that I have access to and I have a shared document on Google Drive where I note frivolous stuff I really like but am too disciplined to buy for myself  (the best kids of presents, really). It does take the mystery out of it somewhat, and isn’t very romantic, but on the other hand… I don’t have a closet full of silk scarves or a drawer full expensive perfume I never wear and we genuinely enjoy what we end up getting even if it lacks the element of surprise.

So when the universe genuinely handed me the opportunity to get him something that I just knew he would really enjoy and yet would never expect to get, I had to jump on it. It came on the back of a promoted tweet, of all things. Promoted tweets are something I generally despise and never pay attention to, but similarly I also don’t check my twitter regularly so the chances of this flying right by me were very high. In fact, apparently WWE Live comes to Dublin every year and this is the first time I had even heard of it. But there it was, on a quick morning scroll through my feed for the news – the opportunity to buy tickets 48 hours in advance of general release as a Three customer. I just knew I had to do it. I got his mother involved as well as she is yet another one who struggles to come up with ideas for what to get for her enigmatic son when it comes to gifts. So there I was first thing in the morning in my office booking tickets quickly and gleefully plotting how best to spring the surprise on him.

My biggest challenge ended up not spilling the beans to him early. This is a problem I have, and is, in fact, a long running inside joke between us. The man has a will of iron, so I could probably waterboard him and still not find out what item he chose for me, whereas I have trouble containing my excitement once I make the decision, especially if it’s something that’s extra special.

I persevered though. No beans were spilled, though some tormentful fun was had at his expense so that I could compensate myself for not giving in to that deep desire to open my big fat mouth.

The run-up to Christmas was very hectic and I nearly forgot to prepare any sort of presentation but with some last minute shenanigans, an envelope was prepared for under the tree. It looked like this:

Of course, I didn’t want to make it easy for him. That’s why the first thing he saw when he opened the envelope was this:

It was the most opposite thing I could think of from WWE. I really think it got him because the first response was a tepid “um…. that’s greeeaat”. His face may have even veered into “where did this marriage go so terribly wrong?” territory and I recall having to actually tell him to go look at the tickets themselves.

But what was inside was still not the tickets. I mean, he needed some sort of reassurance after the first reveal that his wife hadn’t somehow been hit on the head and turned into a different person.

This obviously perked him up a bit and returned some enthusiasm to his unwrapping efforts, which eventually culminated in the real deal:

Tah dah!

And this lead to the conversation I had with him this morning and the title of today’s entry:

Me: “If I don’t see you this evening have a great time, enjoy yourself, and don’t let Big Show sit on you.”

My husband laughs: “Ok, honey…”

Me: “Oh, and if you see The Rock, please bring him home.”**

Yeah, I’m definitely adding this to the ever growing list of utterly ridiculous things I’ve said to my husband since we’ve been together.

*The WWE logo, as well as names of the WWE Superstars, is a registered trademark of the World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. Although the logo is used here without explicit permission, there is no intent to dilute the quality of or profit from the mark. Basically, please don’t sue me, guys. I’m promoting your show. 

**Yes, I was aware when saying this, before I even looked up the featured wrestlers scheduled for this show, that neither The Rock nor Big Show were likely to be there. But saying “Don’t let Finn Balor sit on you” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, and if he were to bring The Miz home I think I’d have to consider a divorce.