Yesterday was Walter's birthday and he chose to go out to The Old Spaghetti Factory for his birthday dinner. It was a fun evening. The food was delicious (gotta love that spaghetti with the mizithra cheese!) and they sang Happy Birthday to Walter after lighting a candle in his ice cream dish.I had to wonder if people only came to the Spaghetti Factory when they were celebrating birthdays – Walter’s was the fourth table we heard get birthday singing in our section! When I first told them it was his birthday and they mentioned the singing he protested a bit. I told him if he didn’t want the singing we didn’t have to have it. But he said “It’s okay.” When they actually did it I think he really enjoyed it.
I told him after dinner I wanted to go to our local mall and pick out a card for my sister who has a birthday in a few days. He said fine. At that point he had no clue that I had previously ordered his birthday gift online and had it shipped directly to the mall’s Radio Shack. Radio Shack is Walter’s absolute favorite store in the world and he loves to spend time in there.
When we got to the mall I deliberately parked near the mall entrance where we would have to walk past Radio Shack to get to the card store. When we walked inside he said “okay, you go to Hallmark and I’ll just be here in Radio Shack!” He was kidding, but I knew he would love to go in there so I said “no, we have to get a card first, then maybe later.”
We went to the card shop and it didn’t take long to pick the right card and we were on our way. As we approached the Radio Shack on our way out, Walter started pulling me in that direction and made another joke about going inside to look around for a while. I asked “you want to? We can if you want to!” He said “naw, that’s okay.” But I told him “no, we can go inside for a few minutes, let’s see what they’ve got.” And of course he gave me no argument.
We went inside and he started looking at some stuff and I pretended to look at other stuff. He called to me to let me know “hey the good stuff is over here!” So I looked at what he considered “good stuff” and then drifted over to the counter. There I handed the sales clerk my ID, the credit card I had used to purchase the gift, and the printout from my email. I told him “I believe you have an order in for me.” Walter was busy looking at more “good stuff” and paid me no attention.
It took a while for them to bring the box out from the back room and then finish up my order paperwork. In the meantime Walter stayed busy looking around and I floated between him and the counter. Finally everything was done, and I got to take the large box with me. I set it down next to Walter’s feet and he asked what I bought.
I told him “I don’t know … just something! But you can carry it for me!” When he picked it up I told him it was his birthday present. He decided to wait until we went home and he could open the box to find out what it was (it was in a shipping carton).
On the way out he said something about how I must’ve had that all planned out. I told him "Yes, and it wasn’t difficult to get you into Radio Shack either!" He said “You know all you have to do is walk me past it and it’s like a magnet!”
The gift was an HD radio. He has been hinting for one for months. Today he hooked it up and played with it. He called me at the office to let me know how much he loves it.
Happy Birthday Walter!!
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