In a week and a half, the wife and I will be throwing a modest gala for her parents to celebrate a couple events: her father's 60th birthday AND their 40th wedding anniversary. Wow! Either way, that's a lot of years. Sometimes I have nightmares thinking about the cubic volume of cheese they must have consumed in that time, and I wake up sweaty--"Oh God . . . so much cheese . . . lodged in their bowels . . . "--but mostly I'm happy for them. They really are lovely people, and I do look forward to making with the happy.

And they really deserve it. It was kind of a shitty year for them; they lost both their longtime cat Peanuts (known in his later years for staring mournfully at, oh, the refrigerator, or walls, or middle distance; also, for getting trapped in the shower stall) as well as their longtime dog Travis (known for, in livelier days, chasing Peanuts through the house as the family howled in lusty enjoyment and laid down twenties betting on winners).

So we're treating the good old bastards to a sprightly night out at an Irish bar up on 15th. Many friends and family will be in attendance, and later in the evening, we've got some entertainment in store, in the form of a bagpipe player, who we assume will drive everyone away early so we can get some fucking rest. In the interim, people can chat and drink whiskey, except for the wife's parents, who barely drink at all, which allows me to order double whiskeys on their behalf, and then drink them.

And the gifts! I can't wait to unveil mine, which is a sassy, pop-culture-savvy farting robot named Vera. I can just see their faces. "What the devil is this?" they'll ask. "It's Vera!" I'll exclaim. "Do your stuff, girl!"

She springs into action! "What are you talking about, Willis? Eat my shorts! Kiss my grits! Ayyyyyyyy!" And then mechanized flatulence. BRAAAAP! I'm pretty sure that they've never seen anything like it, much like the wife and I had never seen anything quite like the Christmas carousel they gave us last year, the one that when wound up plays Fear's "Beef Baloney" while gnomes frantically sodomize a few terrified reindeer.

It's going to be a special night. I hope the bagpiper knows "Beef Baloney." It would mean a lot to them.