Last month, I went to an unnamed, but well-known jewelry retailer and purchased a diamond pendant for Mrs. Bootleg and the five years - under the eyes of God, anyway - she's put up with me. And, can I tell you how hard it was to mask my unabashed panic as the San Diego wildfires burned to with in a half mile of our home?

Y'see, the pendant was in the house and The Camerons were in Hawaii.

Even better, when we returned home, I'd forgotten where I hid it. For several hours, I had a crazed look about me: wild-eyed, frantic, limbs flailing. Screaming "It was right here! I know it!" to no one in particular.

I seemed to have had fewer of those days when I was single.

Anyways, I found the pendant and next lined up a delivery of flowers to the wife's office – with a few extra dollars to ensure an early delivery for Friday.

And, then Jalen caught a cold.

Mrs. Bootleg stayed home, I went to work and my flowers would be delivered to an empty desk.

I called the good people at Overpriced Flowers.com and asked about changing the delivery address. What follows is the rest of our conversation:

THEM: "It'll be $49 to change the delivery address. Do you need some time to think about it and call us back?"

ME: "Uh, no."

Only 70% of the cost of the flowers (on top of the original cost of the flowers) to have them delivered 20 miles north of their intended destination? Someone's in cahoots with the airline industry.

I took something they call "internet credit", because anything with "internet" in it has to be better than cash.

Yesterday evening, I picked up some take out from Wings N Things (you have been reading all week, right?) and presented the pendant and two dozen supermarket flowers(!) to Mrs. Bootleg. In return, she got me a card, a "we weren't supposed to be getting gifts!" admonishment and a promise that she'd get me something on Saturday.

A little after 2:00 PM on Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Bootleg returned home from several hours out shopping with out son, Phlegmy McGee. She excitedly told me that she had "a surprise" and that "I wasn't going to believe" what she got.

I played along with her demented preschool parlor game, right up to its anticlimactic conclusion. It was a picture of Jalen with Mall Santa Claus…on November 10?

"It's the first time he hasn't cried when he sat in Santa's lap!, Mrs. Bootleg exclaimed.

And, just like this post, that's all there was.