This Was Not My Son

It's a bit of a broken record at this point, but the Mild Wife and I are doing everything in our power to do the social distancing thing. I'm a numbers guy, and both the number of deaths and the rate of infection are trending in the wrong direction. It's just not worth it to mess around at this point.

Still, we have family and friends, and the days keep coming. So, people's birthdays and special events pop up on the calendar, regardless of where we happen to be that day. This has already created at least one amusing instance where a balloon delivery for our niece caused a bunch of confusion. Considering how common deliveries have become, I'm not entirely surprised that some of these interactions are causing some chuckles.

In this case, however, the anecdote wasn't funny because of the delivery itself, but because of the reaction to it. You see, Peruvian independence day happened recently, so we sent some flowers to my folks. In years past, we have all gathered to celebrate, but that wasn't an option this year. So, we sent them some red and white flowers to help commemorate the occasion. It wasn't quite the same, but we figured it would at least be a way to help celebrate the day.

Now, I say "we" because it was the Mild Wife's idea. Sure, we both picked out the flowers together and it was a team effort, but I will fully acknowledge that the Mild Wife was the impetus for this plan.

You know who else realized this? My father. Apparently, once he saw the flowers, he said something to the effect of, "oh, cool. You know what? I bet you this was [the Mild Wife]'s doing. This was not my son's idea." I know this because he told me as much when I called later that day to say hello.

Clearly, my family knows me well. Of course, the fact that they know me so well led to laughter on both sides of the phone when we talked later that night. My dad was laughing as he admitted he knew it wasn't my idea, and I laughed twice as hard when I realized what his insight meant. To put the cherry on top, the Mild Wife howled with laughter of her own when I told her about this exchange. The whole thing was hilarious.

So with all of that, the moral of the lesson is that the Mild Wife is more considerate than I am about some things, and it's a good thing I married her. Good call, past Me.