What's an arduino?

Morning! An arduino is a wad of electro-crap that can help you make things do other things.

Here is my version of "The Gift of the Magi": Dean ordered an arduino for Danny, and when we gave it to Danny on Christmas Eve-Eve, he accepted it graciously, but really you could see that we might as well have asked him to carve us up some wooden shoes, pronto. Dean was also put off by the item, and all the way home said things like "Good thing you didn't get me one of those!"

But of course I had ordered one for Dean. It just hadn't arrived yet. And in the mean time I'd also ordered Dean a Mandobird (seriously endorsed by Danny), an item that put me way over budget.

So I attempt to cancel the arduino order for partial correction of the budget, but the seller tells me the order was delivered already. But of course he was referring to Dean's order, as I discovered from the tracking info he sent.

It's 2pm December 24, and Dean gets up from his nap. I tell him we need to check the card to make sure we weren't charged for a thing that won't get delivered. I explain the order mix-up, and we agree that it's okay because arduinos are too tricky for Christmas. I unwrap the arduino book, and we decide to give it to Danny when he gets back from Tennessee.

At 3pm, the mailman delivers the ardino.

At 4pm, I walk through the slushy streets to buy some wine gifts at the Korean grocery near our house. Some jerk speeds right by me in a car, spraying slush and gravel up, despite the fact that I was yelling, "Hey Asshole!"

But then we went to friends for a marvelous X-eve dinner, and Dean has been trying to spin his "glad I don't have an arduino" remarks ever since.

Moral? no arduino book for Danny.

As I write this on Christmas morning, Dean is still in bed. He doesn't know about the Mando (well he probably does), so don't tell him. He doesn't know about the budget yet, either. (he probably does)