TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

It's not my style to pick on my husband because overall he's a great guy. I could easily put a bumper sticker on my car that reads: "My husband does more dishes than yours." But he has this one coming.

I somehow let the week prior to Father's Day slip by without narrowing down what I'd get Charles for a gift. Nevermind I asked him what he wanted on multiple occasions with no reply -- even though I planned everything for my own Mother's Day festivities, from emailing him a link to the gift I wanted to putting a dinner reservation in his name. I guess there are certain injustices in life we all must bear; the disproportionate amount of care associated with gift-giving is nothing new between husbands and wives. I only put up small tantrums here and there, and then get over it. Slowly.

At any rate, despite my constant threats he'd get nothing if he didn't provide suggestions, I've never failed to give him something on his special days. Yet, there I was on the day before Father's Day and hadn't done a thing. Moreover, it was a day where Charles had left me alone with our on-again/off-again feral children. It being a Saturday, they had already ingested four cinnamon rolls each and the 3-year-old was still on his weeklong boycott of underwear and shoes. Going shopping with those two would involve hair pulling and I'm trying to scale that back.

That left shopping on the Internet. Knowing that nothing would be here on time for Father's Day, I realized it had to be something big. Capital B-I-G so Charles would overlook receiving it later in the week.

I was deciding on the gift when the boys turned on the TV to watch a cartoon. That's when the thought occurred to me that I should get Charles a new TV. He had been bugging me about it for years. Not that there was anything wrong with our current TV, but it was an oversized projection TV and bought only months before projection TVs became obsolete thanks to affordable flat screens. The way he had bemoaned it over the years was as if his very manliness was challenged if he didn't have a flat screen like his friends.

I'd always lay out the same argument: the TV works great and we'd be better off saving our money. He always succumbed to my rationale, but then he'd usually, yet nonchalantly, play a game of indoor catch or have a light saber duel with one of the boys in front of the old television.

C'est la vie.

Still, Charles had been a real trooper over the last year, going above and beyond to help me with a personal goal that was finally achieved the week prior. With that in mind, I knew what I should do.

Say hello to my husband's little friend: a 50-inch HD 3D plasma TV.

After it was ordered, Charles said we needed an entertainment stand. After we bought the stand, he said we needed 3D glasses. After we got the 3D glasses, he said we could only watch 3D movies if we bought a 3D DVD player. Have I mentioned yet that all the dead presidents on our money were weeping like lost children at the mall?

Then, there was the fight over HDMI cables.

Him: The TV needs HDMI cables.

Me: Go to Target and pick out the cheapest ones.

Him: I don't think Target has the gold-plated cables.

Me: Gold plated? Why would you need gold-plated cables?

Him: They're better.

Me: For whom?

Him: For my TV. You'll be able to see the difference. Trust me.

Me: I doubt that. Get the cheaper ones.

Him: But they're gold!

Me: I don't care if they're gold-plated, diamond dusted, tuck you in at night and then call you baby in the morning! I'm tired of spending money on this thing!

He came home from Target with gold-plated cables. "This is all they had," he said.

Liar.

I still don't even know what an HDMI cable is or does, let alone which moron convinced my husband they had to be gold.

Suffice it to say, I threw in the towel at this point. It was a good thing because immediately after, my linebacker/mountain man of a husband started talking about accent rugs to create contrast between our wood floors and the new TV stand. Oh my giddy aunt.

As far as I'm concerned, this TV is his third child. And his favorite one, too.

-- Heather Ijames is one of three community columnists whose work appears here every Saturday. These are the opinions of Ijames, not necessarily The Californian's. You can send e-mail to her at hijames@bakersfield.com. Next week: Inga Barks.