The package sat on her porch for exactly 27 minutes before she opened it. I know because I timed it. The meltdown that followed was the most glorious thing I\u2019ve ever heard through a phone. Totally worth the overnight shipping. Let me explain. My wife Jane is wonderful\u2014smart, funny, kind. We\u2019ve built a happy, simple life together. Everything\u2019s great\u2026 except for her mother, Celia. Celia is the kind of mother-in-law who sees every gift I give Jane as a personal attack. When I gave Jane a bracelet, Celia called me to complain she\u2019s never gotten jewelry in 32 years of motherhood. A vacation? She reminded us she hasn\u2019t had one in \u201cdecades.\u201d Flowers from my late mom\u2019s garden for Mother\u2019s Day? She called them \u201cweeds.\u201d Jane, always the peacemaker, chalked it up to loneliness and tried to include her more. I tried too. But the passive-aggressive digs kept coming.<\/p>\n
Then came the tarantula. Jane had recently fallen in love with weird gifts\u2014geode lamps, framed bugs, and yes, a pet tarantula named Rosie. She adored it. Celia, of course, had something to say: \u201cYou spend your money on junk.\u201d So I had an idea. I ordered a second tarantula, complete with habitat, food, and a note: Since you always want what Jane gets\u2014enjoy! Love, Andrew.\u201d The result?\u00a0 Seventeen missed calls. Screaming voicemails. Full cartoon-style meltdown. She screamed, dropped the box (don\u2019t worry, the spider was safely enclosed), and made Jane\u2019s brother come \u201cbanish\u201d it. Jane wasn\u2019t mad\u2014in fact, she laughed so hard she cried. Best part? Celia hasn\u2019t complained about unequal gifts since. Moral of the story? If you\u2019re going to demand equal treatment, be ready to get exactly what you asked for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The package sat on her porch for exactly 27 minutes before she opened it. I know because I timed it. The meltdown that followed was the most glorious thing I\u2019ve ever heard through a phone. Totally worth the overnight shipping. Let me explain. My wife Jane is wonderful\u2014smart, funny, kind. We\u2019ve built a happy, simple …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5451,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions\/5451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}