The Best Birthday Gift Ever

I went out to lunch today with Cara, Beth, and Hubby.  It was sort of a birthday lunch and Cara told me she was bringing a gift. That was enough to get me excited; I love birthday gifts! But this was especially exciting because I know that Cara makes her gifts by hand, so whatever it is, it's always special and one of a kind.

Hubby and I were there first, but Cara and Beth arrived soon thereafter. After the greetings and pleasantries, Cara handed me a beautifully gift wrapped box which I promptly unwrapped by ripping the paper off it very much in the way I like to rip the clothes off a man just before we...you know.

When I opened the box, I saw a set of kitchen towels that Cara had personalized for me by sewing on some special appliques. They were very cute Dick & Jane towels. I loved them!

My first thought was, "How cute! And how perfect!"  I was thinking of the fact that I was a teacher at one point in my life and that I am actually old enough to have learned to read using the Dick and Jane books.

Then I looked closer and thought, "Oh my gosh! These really are perfect for me!"

But that thought was followed immediately by, "OH MY GOD!!! Hubby is here!  Why did she give me these in front of Hubby???"

Take a closer look:

The first one says, "Come and play, See Dick."



The second one says, "Come, Sally, come! Oh, Dick."

The final one says, "See Dick and Jane go up and down."

So there I was holding these towels, almost speechless, wanting to comment about the obvious message communicated by the text but knowing that this could be really weird. I chose to go with my default response, which is to act like nothing is out of the ordinary.

I thanked her profusely.  I talked about how much I loved them (which is 100% true). I showed them - very briefly - to Hubby, and then I put them back in the box while the conversation continued to how Hubby and I had both learned to read with the Dick and Jane books and how old that makes us. Then we moved on to talking about something else.

Hubby gave no indication that anything was unusual about the gift, but now I have another dilemma.  If I take them home to use them, he will clearly figure it out when he looks at them closely. If I don't take them home, he'll definitely think something is up. For now, they are resting quietly on my desk waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.

But I really love them! They are perfect for me....and so fun! Cara definitely knows me well.

I really do love Dick.