Operation Pink Gorilla

While I was in the hospital last week, my wife provided me with the emotional strength and unwavering support I needed to get through several painful days. She is amazing and one of a kind. Her selfless commitment to me and my health since my accident a year and a half ago just goes to show you how much I dominated at choosing my partner for life.

When I got home from the hospital last week, I leveraged what little functioning neurons I had left to brainstorm ways to say thanks to my wife. Shoot -- let's not even call it a brainstorm. It was more like a braindrizzle.

I came up with one dumb idea.

The best way for me to relay my appreciation and love to Brooke was via the ancient and sacred art of the singing telegram.

Surprisingly, American Balloon Company still offers singing telegram services here in Washington, DC. One of their employees, who cannot possibly be getting paid enough, shows up to a location of your choosing to sing an impromptu song and deliver several large balloons, a coffee mug full of Jelly Bellys, and a personalized letter.

After employing their services, the next step was to develop and execute a plan of attack -- code named Operation Pink Gorilla.

What is the best way to deploy a singing Pink Gorilla to Brooke with the right amount of embarrassment and maximum entertainment value? To solve this problem, I enlisted the help of the three lovely ladies responsible for the recent covert operation to unpack our apartment while we were in the hospital: Alison, Crystal, and Katy.

Over a series of secret emails, Operation Pink Gorilla was developed and set to go for today at approximately 12:45PM. At a prearranged meeting location setup by the girls, a Pink Gorilla wearing a top hat found Brooke in line about to make her food order.

As you can clearly see from the video evidence, absolutely nothing will divert Brooke's attention away from food -- especially when that girl is hungry. I know for a fact that if held at gunpoint, Hungry Brooke wouldn't back off of a Stromboli or discontinue mowing down a bowl of chicken and dumplings.

This was clearly poor planning on my part -- the unfortunate side effect of my earlier braindrizzling. Brooke, on an empty stomach, will beat up small children and puppies to get nourishment.

That said, this was still extremely funny and totally worth it to see the surprised looked on her face.

Here's a picture of the personalized card I had delivered by the Pink Gorilla. If you can't read it, here's what it says (well, what it should have said -- it appears they misinterpreted some of the things I asked them to write down):

Viss,

Thank you for being a loving wife, an understanding partner, and that Mom from the hospital scene in Steel Magnolias.

You are the love of my life,

Your Crippled Husband

"Viss" is what we used to call Brooke in college since her last name used to be Visser. I still enjoy calling her that, and some of our friends up here in DC have jumped on board with it. Although I've not seen it, Brooke was telling me that Shirley McClaine plays the role of a mother with a sick child in Steel Magnolias (I'm now being told it's Terms of Endearment) who goes nuts on a nurse that fails to take care of her child's pain.

Here is a photo of my wife sitting down for some gelato with my co-conspirators. From left to right we have Alison, Crystal, Brooke, and Katy. I had asked Brooke to pay for their gelato under the guise that it was payment for unpacking our apartment -- but in reality, it was my payment to them for their participation in this operation.

Turns out that crap is expensive. Yet another casualty of my braindrizzle.

I found out later that I narrowly avoided disaster by asking too many probing questions. Last night Brooke was stressing out about how busy her day was going to be today. Not wanting her to miss out on the singing telegram, I probably asked too many questions about her schedule.

So I'd say it was a successful operation. Thank you so much to Alison, Crystal, and Katy for yet again taking part in Operation Pink Gorilla. Your efforts and hard work are commendable.

And, thank you, Brooke, for being an awesome wife. I love you!