Warning: Contains Spoilers

...well, spoiler, singular. Don't read this if you've never seen Easy Rider...

One day, a long time ago, I was lounging back and watching Easy Rider for the first time ever when suddenly I received a phone call from Mr. IQ. I told him I couldn't talk right then and explained why I was busy.

"Oh," he said, "Has Jack Nicholson died yet?"

That's how I came to find out, well in advance of it actually occurring on my TV screen, that the Jack Nicholson character dies in Easy Rider. Was I pissed off? Oh, you have no idea.

As you know, today was the release date of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it's all CBC radio talked about all day. (That's not even remotely true, but whatever. "One must never let the facts get in the way of a good blog post!" Whippersnapper, 2007)

Finally Mr. IQ snapped.

"I've just got to know!" he muttered and disappeared into our (still ridiculous-looking) office. He emerged about 20 minutes later and, once again without asking me first if I cared to be privy to this little golden nugget of info, said, very casually, "Well, it looks like ******** gets killed."

For you to understand the significance of this thoughtless action, you have to understand that the question, "Is Jack Nicholson dead yet?" instantly became a part of this household's vernacular the moment it was first uttered. If someone good is being interviewed on the radio and one person rushes in late and asks, "What did I miss?" the other person is sure to respond with a pleasant, "Well, Jack Nicholson died." What I'm saying is, it's not like he's forgotten the first incident, it comes up every time we don't pause a movie for someone's trip to the can! How could he do this to me twice?? The fact that I have absolutely no plans to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ever in my lifetime is entirely beside the point. I was steamed.

About an hour ago, while stumbling to get to the computer in our (still nightmarish) office, my eyes happened to fall on a brand-new CD still in its wrapper.

"What the heck is this?" I asked, because we are in what you might call the "abject poverty" phase of our lives together and will probably remain in this phase until Baby Fangs hits Grade One. Buying brand-new CDs is verboten, ja. Hell, it's a wonder we can afford diapers these days.

Mr. IQ looked at it. "Oh!" he said, "That's for you, for your birthday next week! Oops, sorry, I guess I should have hidden it better!"

Because money is scarce, we've agreed that he will still wrap it up and present it to me on my "special day" as if nothing has happened. I've agreed to still be "surprised."

Good old Mr. IQ: Taking the fun and suspense out of everything since 1999.