By Ruth Pennebaker

I’m all about helping other people. I always have been.

That’s how I found myself shopping for my husband for my own upcoming and very significant birthday. I mean, sure, the birthday is still 19 months away. But so what? I needed to plan. I needed to take action.

For too many years, you see, I’d done it all wrong.

In our first decade together, I’d assumed my husband would buy me what I wanted without any help. Bad idea. I ended up with a series of terrible presents, ranging from a small statue of uncertain parentage to a tarnished bracelet that fell off my arm every time I lifted my wrist. My husband told me I was impossible to buy for. I told him he hadn’t been paying attention. We both sulked.

Second decade: I got into hinting. I’m a Southern female, so I’m born to hint. Unfortunately, my husband, who has some kind of unsavory family relationship to Ulysses S. Grant on his mother’s side, is born and bred to ignore hints. More bad presents, more miscommunications, more sulking.

Him: You never like what I get you.

Me: That’s because you never get me what I want.

Who needs conversations like that? Forget supportive silence, hints and the whole passive waiting game. I’d finally learned my lesson. If I want something, I find it – then I point it out and make a lot of racket.

Which is why I ended up thrashing through the Internet, hot on the trail of something I’d really like. “You know, I’ve got a big birthday coming up in 19 months,” I told my husband.

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