Wednesday, February 3, 2010

How to Ruin Your Husbands Birthday in a Few Simple Steps



It is essential to develop my talents, right?  Turns out I have an exceptional talent for making my husband's birthday a wreck, and this year I came close to perfecting it.  In case there are any of you out there with a burning desire to develop this same talent, I have compiled a little tutorial:





How to Ruin Your Husband's Birthday

In a Few Simple Steps

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First of all, you must really plan ahead.  The day before his birthday you should make sure you find a huge puddle in your basement and find that it is coming from under the water heater.  Make sure you don't discover it until it is too late to call a plumber so the mess will be dealt with on his birthday.

Now, this might be enough, but if you can get his work to schedule a meeting on his day off, this makes things even better.  For better measure, make sure it is a meeting with someone upset with his department and wanting to vent on him for a couple hours.

Are you feeling the ruination?  We're not done yet.

Make sure that you have an event planned for the day (forgetting he has the day off) and make sure you are leaving about a half hour before he gets home from his meeting (see above).  Make sure that you volunteer to make his favorite treat for the meeting and ensure that there's not enough for him to have any.  (It helps if you're making the treat when he leaves for the meeting, so he knows you've made it).

Now, we have the day going perfectly.

While you're at your thing for a few hours, schedule the plumber to come.  If you can, make it so that the entire water heater needs replaced so that they're there all afternoon.  Also, make sure there is so much water at this point that the towels you laid out are soaked and your husband can spend a few hours using the shop vac to suck out 15 or so gallons of water from the basement.  All while you are enjoying yourself: feeding the 40 or so missionaries in your area, chatting with friends also there to help, and eating Cafe Rio style buffet.


We've done some excellent work, but the details make all the difference.

  • If you could, orchestrate things so he must attend an activity at church due to his calling as Young Men's President that evening.  This would be excellent.

  • Also, make sure the only gifts he gets are those you bought together online and only half arrive in time.

  • Forget to buy the stuff for the football shaped birthday brownies he requested.  (Also, make sure the treat you made earlier were brownies.)

  • If you could have his birthday on a major holiday that implies 6 more weeks of winter so everyone curses the day, that is the piece de resistance.

Congratulations, you have successfully ruined your husband's birthday!

If you're now feeling guilty, you can run to the store while he is at the youth meeting.  Buy brownie ingredients, ice cream, candles, birthday hats, favorite chocolate (dark), and a book. Then run home and make the brownies, clean up the disastrous kitchen, and decorate cake with football design. Have the kids make cards for him.  Keep kids up to sing happy birthday and then, after they're in bed, stay up late watching movie with him instead of going online.



 Determine to squash this talent before Father's Day and plan extra special Valentine's Day present (any ideas?).

21 comments:

  1. You really are talented!!! It is a good thing that you and your husband have such a great sense of humor. But you have to share this talent, I mean, really, how do you influence a groundhog?

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  2. I tried to call but no one would answer. I waited to give him his present while he was here. I did say Happy Birthday on facebook and I did think of him. Hope he had a good day anyway.

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  3. Um, "Happy" Birthday Dr Later....hope it was great??!!

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  4. Taking notes, I'm gonna need these instructions in a few weeks. Since we don't have a basement, do you have any suggestions for alternate areas to flood? Will a bathroom suffice?

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  5. at least he got Breyers . . . Happy Birthday!

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  6. This made me laugh. I have that same talent as well- add that to the fact that my husband's birthday is the day after Valentine's Day, and he's had a string of really crappy birthdays. It's my mission to remedy that this year, although coming up with unique ideas for two days in a row every year strains my mommy brain!

    I've loved poking around your blog these past few days. Your birth stories are very fun.

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  7. Yeah, I'm good at ruining birthdays and other holidays. But wow, after reading this, I'm gonna have to step it up! ;)

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  8. Sounds like a lot of our holidays around here the last couple of years...lovely. The last part seems pretty nice. Love the picture...(and loved eating yummy food in the quietest cultural hall ever.)

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  9. Would scheduling his birthday around 2 major exams work too?

    Happy belated birthday to your husband!!

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  10. ha ha, poor old Peter, maybe if he wasn't so old he would have better birthdays, or maybe if he worked out here for companies that know better than to schedule meetings on birthdays......anyway.....happy birthday to Peter! We love and miss you.

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  11. Oh no! At least you made the effort to fix everything. Poor guy.

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  12. Funny how men actually expect their birthdays to be celebrated! The minute I became a parent, it was all about the kids' birthdays and mine seems to have gotten shuffled off the family calendar! But look, Charlotte, you baked, you bought chocolate, you bought a book. You're good to go.

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  14. thankyou! That was definitely something worth reading!

    :-) Sounds like one of those birthdays that require a date the next weekend to make up for it!

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  15. Mmmmm....Cafe Rio. Oh wait, was this about Peter's birthday? I'm sure he felt old either way :-)
    I like the birthday hats as rhino horns in the picture!!

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  16. He looks happy to me! I think he adjusted to your impromptu plans. :)

    My husband and I don't even buy gifts for each other anymore. Sad.

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  17. You've given me some great ideas for Kent's birthday in two weeks. Luckily, I've already got the "YM president has to attend the activity on his birthday" thing taken care of. (Funny how our husbands share callings again.)

    A friend of mine is planning a surprise party of laser tag for his wife this weekend. A bunch of couples from the neighborhood are meeting there and then we're going out for dinner. Maybe you could pull off something this weekend? At least you'd have the excuse of the element of surprise and needing a weekend to make it work for everyone else. (He's probably working, right?)

    For Valentine's Day, I'm thinking about a couples massage...though I'd really like to go to the symphony. Does Peter like presents or experiences more?

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  18. I am SURE you more than made up for it! Birthdays just aren't what they used to be, are they? I miss the piñata, the dance games, the sleepovers, the anticipation! Now it's just a reminder that I'm old. Ok, now I'm depressed...

    Funny (sweet) post!

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  19. Ah, you gots you some skillz, girl. hee,hee.

    Maybe you two should take off for a night at The Anniversary Inn?

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  20. All I got from that was...Cafe Rio Style Buffet...Mmmmm. Poor Peter. I have a great Valentine's Day idea. Take a vacation to New Mexico (I hear the weather is great this time of year) find someone to watch your kids. Go out and spend money. I think you could handle that. :)

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  21. I will keep these in my mind :)

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