When we got married twelve years ago, we received some interesting wedding gifts.
A dust buster, slightly used.
A set of gaudy, crystal and gold frames that looked straight out of the Liberace museum.
An Amway coupon.
And then there was the person that gave us the bird.
No, not figuratively. Literally.
Meet “The Bird”.
The Bird was a present from a relative who, for the sake of anonymity, we’ll just call Aunt Betty. I admit, we had kind of a “WTH?” moment when we opened the tiny little package and discovered the painted ceramic creature.
We’re not really bird people. Or ceramic people. Or ceramic bird people, for that matter.
Nevertheless, I firmly believed it was the thought that mattered. So we wrote Aunt Betty a nice little note, thanking her for thinking of us. And then we put The Bird on a bookshelf somewhere, where the little guy quickly made fast friends with the dust bunnies.
And there he remained.
Until one day, The Bird went AWOL.
I didn’t notice his absence at first. It wasn’t until several weeks later, when I was watering the plants, that I stumbled upon our little friend. He was tucked in the flower pot of a big palm in our living room, peeking out from behind the leaves.
“Did you put Aunt Betty’s bird in the flower pot?” I asked my husband later that night.
“Yeah. That thing was just so ugly,” Jay answered back, nonchalantly. “So I decided to hide the bird. I thought we could take turns putting it somewhere in the house.”
Again, I encountered another “WTH??” moment.
I’ll never quite know what inspired my husband to hide The Bird in the first place. But his quirky little idea caught on. And soon, it evolved into a game. We began trying to one-up each other, to see who could hide The Bird in the most bizarre location in the house.
It went on for months. Until one day, The Bird was hidden in such an obscure place, it remained hidden. And he was forgotten.
Recently, however… a few years and a couple of kidlets later, The Bird mysteriously resurfaced.
And the rousing game of “Hide the Bird” has once again resumed in our house. Only this time, there are four of us playing.
Can you find the bird?
Ironically, I figure that The Bird has actually gotten more use than any other wedding present we received. Maybe my aunt knew something we didn’t.
So, thank you, Aunt Betty. Yours is truly the gift that’s kept on giving.
I’d love to hear: What’s the “best” wedding gift you received?
hahah! I love it!
hilarious.
I am totally gonna flip my husband the bird now.
Wait. That’s not with this post was about, was it?
Sigh. I wish I had that game to play. My family only hides the stuff I need like my car keys or glasses. Or maybe I just lose them, we’ll never know.
i love this little birdy! The game playing, well, this is clearly something we need to implement. STAT.
My most used wedding gift is a ralph lauren robe. One of Mr. Kiss’ friends worked for him when we got married and sent them. She quickly became my favorite of his friends 😉
What a great game! I’m going to have to try this in our house, only we’ll use my mother. She’s rather small – and better hidden, if you know what I mean.
I think your aunt may have been onto something. 🙂 Or on something.
Either way, it’s a pretty cool game to play.
Hilarious! I would totally hide with the bird by the wine…smart little critters, aren’t they?
That’s fabulous!
When we both did lots of traveling, it was the game of Hide the Frog, who generally lives in plain sight as our bedroom door stopper. Rather largish stuffed frog would get hidden in the luggage of the traveler and the object of the game was for the frog to actually make it to the destination without the traveler discovering him before arrival.
Bonus points for the traveler secretly discovering the frog, after the non-traveler generously carried the luggage out to the car for the trip to the airport, and then traveler sneaking said frog inside to hide under the covers somehow for non-traveler to find at bedtime.
Major bonus points for the non-traveler discovering the discovery and re-hiding the frog back in the luggage. Sometimes this occurred at the airport, when non-traveler was generously taking luggage out of trunk at curbside check-in. Oh, the adrenaline rush!