Exotic yet ordinary

Reason 46 for why you should never tell your mother you have a blog: She will read it, all of it, even the comments, and then she will use it against you when your gifts arrive.

The lil ol' present Katie and Rickus carefully picked out and ordered for my birthday has arrived at my house. I know this because my mother called to let me know a package appeared on the front porch and she wanted to know if I was expecting some mysterious something-or-other from Smartbargains.com. In Kentucky. "As a matter of fact," I say, "I AM expecting a birthday something-or-other from Rick and Katie." "Well," she replies, "it's here." And then adds, "I wonder if Maya should be climbing on it." I suggested that she open it up to see if it is breakable. The call ends.

A few minutes later, she calls back. She's opened it and has now called to initiate the taunting. Without saying hello, she bursts into song: You are gonna love it! You are gonna love it! And like a dope I ask her how she knows (yes, my memory is THAT poor). She says, "Because I opened it - like you told me to. Sooo I know what it is! Neener neener neener!" This is done with much laughter and jumping up and down. The call ends.

I call back to ask where the box was from (I told you my memory was poor). She thinks this is some weird trick to try to get her to slip up and reveal the smallest of small hints about the package. Eventually, I'm able to convince her that I really just want to know because I had started an email to Katie and when I reached the part where I was told where the box hailed from, I couldn't remember what she had said. She tells me again and I thank her. She asks if I want a hint, and before I can say anything, we end up playing a bastardized version of Blues Clues, which happens to be on Noggin at the time I called. She gives me three clues, but just three because that's all you get on Blues Clues:
1. It has no color (because that's what it says on the packing slip)
2. It has 30 pieces
3. It's a three in one

She follows up by saying, "You'll NEVER guess." And she's right. I can't imagine what has no color, thirty pieces, and is a three-in-one. The call ends, but not before Maya gets on the phone. I try to get her to tell me something, anything, that may shed some light on the mysterious package sitting in the living room. Purple was all I could get out of her before she kissed the phone and handed it back to my Mom. This was not helpful as purple is definitely a color. I hang up, disheartened that I am nowhere near my thinking couch.

So, I call Rick to happily report that their gift had arrived and, you know, to generally disrupt his day. The longer I jabber on incoherently about this colorless, three-in-one gift and the silly exhange I had with my Mom, the more Rick doubts that this was in fact THE present, until finally he tells me it didn't sound like their gift at all. Rick gets paged and the call ends.

Rick calls back. He's talked to my mother. It turns out, the strange colorless, three-in-one object is in fact my birthday present, though he's a bit confused about the whole three-in-one thing. Whew! I can't WAIT to see what it is. I just know I'll love it.