My Valentine's Day predicament

By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
Feb. 14, 2003
I am writing this Valentine's Day commentary on Monday prior, and I still don't have my wife a Valentine's Day gift. This gift business confuses me. Not that I don't know what makes a good gift. I do. Some good gifts for instance would be a camouflage Gore-tex parka, or a six weight graphite fly rod, or a case of 12 gauge number eight light field loads; all examples of great gifts.
Here is my dilemma. I love my wife, Lurey, with all my heart and would do anything for her and she knows it. But when I ask her what she would like for Valentine's Day (or Christmas or her birthday or our anniversary etc.) she always answers with just one word: diamonds. (Notice that's plural).
My attempts to get a serious answer by making light of her request for diamonds and asking for her real wants are always met with a blank stare and silence sometimes a long silence; like days.
Conversely, when she asks me what I would like as a gift, I give her a quick verbal list and then I go to my desk and put down several pages of suggestions that make it real easy for her. (Once she gave me every gift on my list and I felt hoggish for several miserable seconds upon opening them all).
Understanding women
You see, I have progressed to the point in my understanding of women that I realize Lurey and I don't want the same stuff, we don't have an interest in each other's stuff and we don't even understand each other's stuff. So I give her a list to make it simple for her. Thus she won't mistakenly buy me Tink's Tarsal Gland Buck Scent when I specifically want Paul Meek's Super Doe-in-Heat Doe Urine.
But does she give me a wish list? No. Nothing. Just the D-word.
Now understand, I have given Lurey diamonds in the past (well, at least two sort of small ones) and she was happy. I was happy too (though broke) until the next gift-day came up and when I asked what she wanted she answered the same as before: diamonds. "What gives?" I thought. "Maybe she forgot I already gave her diamonds. Or maybe she has confused me with some guy in her dreams who always gives her diamonds on every gift-day."
I risked asking her again this week, and her immediate and unmistakable answer was the same. "Diamonds," she said.
I don't think Lurey understands just what frustration this causes me. She wouldn't make me squirm like this if she knew my bewilderment, would she?
Now I understand and covet gifts like the new M.A.D Grunt, Snort and Wheeze deer call and the Bass Pro Shops 7-piece Toad and Mouse kit and good stuff like that. But I don't understand diamonds except for this they are very, very expensive and they look exactly like cut glass and they don't do anything. They just sit there.
Expensive gift
Once I thought it might be that she just wanted something expensive, so I bought her a string of real pearls. Now here was something I could understand a little bit. Each of them came from a separate oyster's shell and thus a unique creation by a natural, living thing sort of like a kidney stone. Something I could relate to.
I took the pearls out of the store inside a box inside my briefcase, keeping careful watch fore and aft for jewel thieves as I walked to my car. I had only a few C-notes left out of a thousand dollar bill. I could have bought an engraved Italian-made 20 gauge double and a case of shells for what those two ounces of pearls cost. Lurey would be impressed.
Well, she was happy but not ecstatic. I think she has worn the pearls four times since that day 20 years ago. And she still asks for diamonds.
Recently, as a result of hours of tortuous contemplation, I began to wonder if Lurey's blunt and outrageous answer to my gift question is not simply her way of saying "Don't ask. You should know what kind of gift will please me. Surprise me." After all, she, and many women I know, prefer to communicate via subtle intimations or silent transferring of thoughts (mind reading). Lurey is yet to understand that this abstract dialog is not a dialog at all because I never get the unspoken message. In school I got sold on English and thought it was all I needed.
So am I failing to receive Lurey's subliminal messages that disclose what gifts she really wants, or is she serious about this diamond thing? I wish I knew.