A pleasant surprise to start the new year

My husband has been a very understanding person. He is the only one who could tolerate my rantings and ravings. Not at all a romantic person, but he's caring and I know he loves me much. Nonetheless, he has this one kind of sense of humor in him that sometimes I can't predict, though I have been sharing my life with him for more than 12 years now.

Today, without a word, he left house early morning and only came back in the afternoon. Smiles on his face, he asked me to sit at the sofa and told me he has something for me. I was quite suspicious with his attitude, yet I obeyed.

"This is for you." He handed me a big box wrapped nicely. Like a birthday gift. But today is not my birthday.

"What's this?" I asked, still looking suspicious.

"Open it. You'll love it." He said, still smiling.

I put the box on the coffee table and stared at it. This must be one of his clever tricks. Well, I've been tricked one too many times. He would then roll happily on the floor when my face turned red. Who knows what he put inside the box? What would be his trick this time?

"Are you doubting me?"

"Tell me what's in the box."

"Why don't you find out yourself? Open it."

"No. I don't want to."

"So you don't want it? I'll give it to our son, then. He'll be extremely happy."

There's silent everywhere. I tried to figure out what could possibly be in the box. Today is the first day of a new year, he has a good reason to put another trick on me. But no way that's gonna happen. I am determined not to be fooled!

Because there's no respond from me, my husband called our son to the living room.

"This is for you. A special gift from your mom." He said to Irfan.

"A present! For me? Can I open it now?"

"Yes, and make sure you open it in front of your mom, because it's from her." My husband kept smiling. I wonder if he ever felt tired of smiling like that.

Irfan did not hesitate to tear open the wrapping paper. Soon the mysterious gift revealed itself.

A CAMERA! IT'S A CAMERA. WOW!!!

I was about to jump to my son and grab the camera, but suddenly stopped abruptly. Perhaps it's a dummy. Must control myself from getting too excited.

"Cool, dad! Thanks. mom!" Irfan was excited. I got a kiss on my cheek.

"Can you teach me how to use this stuff?" Irfan asked his father.

"Sure, first you need to insert the battery and the smart card. Then ....(bla..bla..bla...)"

Owh! Just you wait, Irfan, when you finally find out your dad is putting a trick on you." I said quietly, still stoned at the sofa.

Suddenly the door bell rang. My husband got up to get it. This is golden opportunity for me to inspect the dummy camera.

"I'm sure this camera is expensive, mom! It comes with many features. See! I must read the manual first before I can shoot like an expert."

"Let me have a look at it." I took the camera from his hands.

Masya-Allah!!!

It's a REAL CAMERA. It's a brand new Nikon D3100. It's simply beautiful.....I fell in love with it instantly.

Owh! Now I regret being snobbish earlier. What should I do? I have unintentionally "handed over" the camera to Irfan. What to do now?

"This is a mistake. I did not give the camera to you. Can I have it back, Irfan? Pleaseeeeee...??"

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To cut the story short, after much persuasion, Irfan finally agreed to exchange the brand new Nikon D3100 with his father's old Canon Powershot. What a relief! He finally agreed that the new camera is too complicated to handle and understand. So he opted for the much simpler, smaller, lighter and handier Canon Powershot. I owe my husband an apology for not trusting him in the first place. I must thank him too for being able to convince our son to take Canon instead. Dear darling husband, I love you so much!

"Now you need not take pics with your old Nokia N90 for your blog anymore. Oh! But you'll have to attend a training session organised by Nikon." my husband told me.

It had never occured to me that I would need to be trained to use a camera. But the idea does make me feel excited. I am looking forward for the session.

This is really a pleasant surprise for me to start the new year. At the time I write this post, I kept wondering if I would be able to master all the features offered by the camera and take beautiful pictures with it.

We'll see.....