My dad gave Rockford and me Visa gift cards for Christmas this year. I always have a long list of Stuff I’d Like to Buy, but the money tree always runs out of leaves before I get around to purchasing any of it. But since Dad specifically said that I couldn’t spend the money on groceries or stuff like that, I decided to splurge on a thing or two from Amazon. And gee whiz, it was fun. I filled up my cart and clicked Send Me The Stuff and kicked back and waited for the loot to arrive.

And then on Monday I got an email that said they hadn’t been able to process the payment. So I harrumphed around the house for a while, and then I found a “call me” button on their site. They called me, I explained that it was a gift card debit card thing, they re-processed it and said it went through and everything was A-OK. So I kicked back and waited for the loot to arrive.

Oh, and I cut the card in half and tossed it in the trash.

And then yesterday I got an email that said they hadn’t been able to process the payment. Which meant that I’d essentially thrown about $60 in the trash. The first thing I did, naturally, was to cry while sending an email to my dear husband. Because yesterday? Yesterday was the day that Pete sits in front of the window to watch the garbage truck pick up the trash. I couldn’t remember whether the card had been in the last trash bag to go outside. I was a little bit panicked. I was also not looking forward to digging through a bag of garbage.

But I did it anyway. I picked through the wet Pull-Ups and the coffee grounds and the roasted-chicken bones. It was almost unbearably gross, and guess what? The card wasn’t there. I grew ever-more dejected, and I carried the bag of picked-over trash out to the big garbage can outside. And do you know what I found there? Another bag of trash! I’ve never been so excited to see a bag of trash! I was so grossed-out by the first excavation, though, that I couldn’t stomach the thought of digging through it just yet. And so I didn’t. But I did send a follow-up email to my husband, in which I told him about it.

Now. Have I ever told you about my very handsome and smart and brave and handsome and wonderful husband? Because he is very handsome and smart and brave and handsome and wonderful, and he volunteered to dig through that bonus bag of trash. Because it was a day older than my bag of trash, it was even grosser. There were horrible, unidentifiable things in there. And with those mucky, awful mystery globs of yuck were two pieces of a Visa gift card.

(I. Love. My. Husband.)

I washed the goo and bits from the card, and I went back to Amazon to make sure I’d typed the numbers in correctly. And I found that I hadn’t. Not even a little bit! Because the card that my darling, handsome, wonderful husband so valiantly pulled from the garbage? It was not the one I’d used. See, I had another gift card, only I was sure that I’d used the one from my dad. The one I’d thrown away. I do have a terrible memory, though, so it’s no surprise that I was wrong. It was rather embarrassing, though, and I felt very bad for poor Rockford. So bad that I woke up early today and made him breakfast.

Oh, and the Amazon thing? I’ll never use a non-Amazon gift card with them again. Twice I’ve called them, and twice they’ve confirmed that everything went through, and twice I’ve gotten emails saying “we can’t process your payment.” The card definitely has enough on it to cover the purchase. So today I’m going to the gift card display at the grocery store to buy an Amazon gift card with my Visa gift card so I can make my Amazon purchases. And then I will kick back and wait for my loot to arrive.

(This post has been rated “Blogmas”-worthy. Thanks, Fadra!)