Gift Madness

Yay, my 25th birthday! I got a gift I have wanted for a very long time. Steve gave me a record player for my birthday. It was a record player with much drama attached.

So Steve and I get rid of stuff we don't use frequently. I have been holding on to some records that I have been collecting ever since I was in college, with the intention that some day I would own a record player. I got into one of my lets throw everything out moods and decide that it was time to toss the records. I placed the records in the Goodwill box. Steve, trying to save the records, had a wonderful idea that someone we know might want them. This was a couple of weeks before my birthday. The next week, I was working at a different branch than I normally work at and this wonderfully kind of eccentric girl was working with me. She started talking about records and I remembered I had mine in the car. I asked her if she was interested, and she was like total. Luckily, she made sure I actually wanted to get rid of them and said if I ever got a record player to let her know. When I told Steve that night that I gave them away he had a look of shock. I perceived it as a look of disappointment and started crying.

For those of you who don't know, I cry all the time. Crying is how I get my emotions out, no matter what the emotion: sad, happy, fear,..etc.

Probably my biggest fear is letting my husband down. At the time, this is exactly what I feel I have done. So while feeling horrible and crying, he is trying to make me feel better without telling me what he purchased for my birthday. Somehow he gets me to calm down, case forgotten: until my birthday rolls around a week later. I am sitting on the couch. He brings me my gift and I have no idea what it could possibly be. The box was huge.

I open it and I got my record player that I have been wanting for years.

Fortunately, he got a picture taken before I started crying. I was excited to have my own record player, but upset for having essentially ruined his birthday gift that he bought a month earlier and could not wait to give me. The crying did not last long due to the record store in town, and I knew Susanne would not have a problem giving my records back. So after all of the drama, I recreated, all was well in the world of Liz and Steve and our new record player with records.

And yes, artist today still record on vinyl.