Today My Beautiful Wife turns 40.

Happy birthday, Honey.

MBW has perfected the art of the six-week birthday. It begins with her refusing to tell me what gift she wants the first nine times I ask. So I took her to the trendy shopping haus where teen age girls make a fuss over her and bring her sixty outfits to try on while I sit in the Man Chair and wait to either give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Eleven years and she hasn’t figured out that I can tell from her expression the moment the dressing room door opens what she thinks of the outfit and I merely confirm or deny whatever her eyes are already telling me. Budget: $200. Actual spending: $285.

A week later I’m trolling online for a good date night of entertainment and I notice that Tim Meadows is coming to the local comedy club on her birthday. Does she want to go? Of course. Tickets bought. Ching. That will be fun.

A week later she says, “Hey, I’ve decided what I want for my birthday.”

ME: [Thinking] Uh, didn’t we already address that with the shopping spree? The tickets?

ME: [Talking] “Great, what do you want?”

MBW: “I’d like to take my concealed carry class.”

ME: [Googles it up. Pays online.] “Done. Your class is Sunday.” Ching.

A week later.

MBW: “I think I’d like a new couch for my birthday.”

ME: [Thinking] Just shut up and say ‘yes.’

ME: [Speaking] “Whhhhhhaaaaat??? How much fucking birthday do you GET, woman?”

MBW:

ME:

MBW:

ME:

MBW:

ME: “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

MBW:

ME: “Shit.”

I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I sent a bouquet of flowers to her work on her birthday. I did this the first three years we were married. Every goddamn time she was out of the office on her birthday. Training seminars. Out of town at a client location. Taking the day off without telling me. Every goddamn time I paid through the nose to have flowers sit and wilt through the weekend so she could find a bouquet of dead flowers shedding onto her office desk a week later.

“Never again,” I swore after the third botched attempt. “Never again.”

I was in trouble. What was another $70 at this point in the Festival of Birth that is the Months of March through May?

Wednesday I heard her talking to her dad on the phone. “Yeah. Great! I’ll meet you there on Friday.”

“Wait!” I wave my hands. “We have Tim Meadows on Friday.”

She covers the phone. “Nah. Daytime.”

“Daytime?”

“Yeah. I took off work on my birthday. Didn’t I tell you? No. I guess I didn’t.”

Never. Again. I won’t send her flowers if she’s in a fucking casket, because it only means her corpse will go missing. So Tim Meadows, make us laugh, Ladies Man. Make us laugh or one of us isn’t going to be celebrating any more birthdays.