Competitive gift giving

A big reason we moved to Minnesota two years ago was to avoid air travel. In Charleston, where we lived at least 1,500 miles away from anybody who shared either mine or my wife's DNA, that was largely unavoidable on an average year, no matter how much I begged and pleaded to stay home.

Sure, it's colder here in Minnesota and there are neither mountains nor oceans nearby, but at least I don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to be tired, cramped, stressed out and treated like garbage just to fulfill some family visiting obligations.

Yet, ironically, I ended up taking a job that -- you guessed it -- requires me to fly several times a year.

It's not so bad, really. I've built my shoulder muscles lugging around my bags. I've gained a new appreciation for leg room and I've seen hotel rooms in Phoenix, Miami and Virginia. And I get to go to D.C. in a presidential election year. HOT DOG! Gridlock!

But the person who really benefits from these trips is The Boy, because when I first started taking them I started a tradition of buying him something from wherever it was I went. For the most part these were small, modest toys -- because I didn't want to "spoil him" (as if connecting Dad's departure with gift-giving is any better). When I went to D.C. the first time I got him a toy Air Force One, complete with a totally unrealistic sound of a plane taking off. About the only thing it did well is annoy Dad.

Then, on a trip to Denver, I got him another plane, this one a stealth bomber. It made the same damn sound. I hadn't paid enough attention to it before I got it, and didn't realize it made the sound until I had already bought it and left the store. It's been a curse on my house ever since, going off at the slightest provocation, or just for the hell of it. That thing went off constantly in my luggage, in my car, in the toy box. I was hearing it in my sleep, at work, or any other time I'm sitting there, staring ahead blankly. And when that one wasn't going off Air Force One was, until the day that plane decided to simply keep going off without stopping in a major effort to send me to the loony bin.

I won that battle, however. I managed to remove its battery before the guys in the white coats showed up. But I admit that I was cackling and drooling in the process.

I quit giving The Boy planes, but I never deviated from my rule of simple, cheap gifts. And I expected my frugal wife to do the same when she went to Vegas.

Fat chance. She came home with something cool. A carpet surfboard. Sure it barely moves, but The Boy had been trying to surf on the carpet using various flat objects for weeks and obviously adored a device designed specifically for that purpose. So like any new toy he loves he played with it nonstop for two days before promptly forgetting its existence. Unlike the toys I got him, which were hot items for about five minutes before being discarded.

I could not let this stand.

I could not let The Wife get away with getting a better gift. That goes against every competitive instinct I have. So when I went to Newport News I searched the neighborhood for a toy store or something that would provide me with the gift that would shout to the family that, "DAD WINS!" Unfortunately, there was nothing within walking distance of my hotel other than an IHOP and an RV superstore marked by prominently displayed confederate flags. Pancakes aren't a good gift and I wouldn't be able to fit an RV in my suitcase.

The idea hit me on the evening of the last day of my trip, at a minor league baseball game in Norfolk. A team t-shirt, with The Boy's name on the back. Excellent! He loves his name! He'll totally forget all about that stupid carpet surfer and Dad will be No. 1 again!

And, in fact, the shirt went over well. Too well. He wore it with pride, and eagerly displayed it for all of his friends. Yet instead of "extra small," the size he wears, I got "small." So when he wore my winning gift, it looked like he was wearing a dress.

But at least his name was on it.