Basement Files: Diver down

On the morning of my birthday, my wife walks into our kitchen with a beautiful smile and a big, flat box. The smile is pretty goddamn adorable, one of those "I Found the Perfect Gift" smiles that immediately puts a lot of pressure on the recipient. She also has the nervous energy of the perfect gift-giver, impatient with all my I-hope-you-didn't-spend-a-lot protests and my box-shaking and contents-guessing delays.

"Come on...open it," she whispers, all nervous and giggly. (This impatience is deceptive, because it's less about how soon I'll be delighted than how quickly I'll be lauding her perfect thoughtfulness. After your 14th birthday, every gift is more a tribute to the giver than the recipient.)

"All righty" I say, rubbing my palms together, "let's see what we got here." The box itself is long, wide and shallow, but heavy as a tarp. I have to say I'm getting intrigued. I rip through the paper, lift the lid and peel back tissue paper to reveal a large expanse of black...rubber...something.

I have no idea what this is and yet Shelly's already looking expectantly for my initial explosion of delirious joy. As I lift the thing from the box, I suddenly realize it's a...wetsuit. What the hell? What possible use would I have for a wetsuit?

"Hey, look at this," I say, holding the suit up at arm's length and hoping Shelly can't hear the robotic tone of my bewilderment.

"Isn't it great?" Shelly says. "It's an O'Neill. The guy at the store said they were the best."

"You bet they are," I agree. "I wouldn't have anything else." (Is there anything worse than forcing yourself to muster a false expertise on the very gift that just ruined your birthday?)

"Well, it's only a three-millimeter," Shelly cautions, by way of prologue to the post-gift explanation spiel she's been rehearsing for weeks. "The guy said we could definitely trade it in on the seven-millimeter, you know, if we..."

"No, the three's perfect," I assure her. "I can't imagine needing a seven." And I can't really imagine it, if only because I have no idea what we're talking about. What's happening here? Why is my birthday spinning out of control?

"Well, they also had one with red accents," Shelly says, her voice rising with play-pretend doubt. This, of course, is the "no matter what options I offer you next, please say this is the only one you'll consider" speech. I try to interrupt after the second option

"Oh, no, the red sounds kinda garish," I reassure her. "I like the subtlety of this blue." I look up to see Shelly staring at me with a look of the purest love, a radiant look that says, "At last, my poor, doltish husband recognizes and submits to my superior taste."

"Okay, good...now open the card."

Okay, clearly the wetsuit is a teaser gift--a small piece of a larger, more glorious puzzle--and the card is going to explain it all. This is going to turn out okay. Maybe the suit's just a rental and we're actually going to Bali. That's the whole fun of a teaser gift's misdirection. I'm getting worked up about this absurd wetsuit, even praising it in ways we'll laugh about later, when the real gift is yet to come.

I tear open the card and some document floats down to the table. But I'm careful to read the card first, just as a well-taught child will linger over an inscription as a $20 bill flutters toward the ground. When I do retrieve the paper, it says I'm entitled to a 12-week scuba diving course at some joint called Dive Masters. I can't believe this is happening.

"Oh, honey," I stammer. "Oh, my goodness." There are certain kinds of dismay that pass for a stunned excitement and I keep uttering them while I get my crushed thoughts together. "Oh, man. Man, oh man. I can't believe this."

"Go try it on," Shelly says, all cute and bubbly.

"Oh, maybe later. Maybe after..."

"Oh, come on," Shelly insists. "It'll be cute." And then, in her most girlish, singsong voice, she adds, "I might get all wiggly." Wiggly is Shelly shorthand for "I might have sex with you later," and a word that has talked me into no end of foolishness.

Actually, I'm grateful for the chance to duck into the bathroom and to dissect, at some remove, the unfolding horror. Obviously, Shelly has come to believe (firmly and mistakenly) that I want to learn to scuba dive. But how? Did I say something recklessly stupid while we were watching the Discovery Channel? Something as innocuous as, "Hey, that looks fun," as divers crawled over the skeleton of a sunken galleon?

Why do women read so much into random comments? Sometimes you just want to say stuff without it becoming an indictment of stunted ambition. Like the way you might say, "I'd sure like to see Scotland someday." It's not always a dream. Sometimes it's just shit that comes out of your mouth. I thought they knew that.

And why are they so selective? When we went to see Spider-Man 2, I mentioned wanting to have sex with Kirsten Dunst, but Shelly didn't summon the starlet to my bed or even hunt for a decent lookalike among the scores of vulnerable runaways who gather downtown. No, they only pay attention to those comments that hint at self-improvement. Why? Because there are two possessions women seek constantly to remodel: their house and their husband.

All I can do now is slog down the hall in my absurd costume and present myself for inspection. Shelly's sitting on the arm of the couch, still beaming with that perfect-gift smile.

"Do you love it?" she asks expectantly.

"Not half as much as I love you."