The awesome Valentine's Day gift disguised as an uncreative one

Raymond Chen

A few years ago, one of my colleagues wanted to surprise his wife with a new laptop for Valentine’s Day. (As a bonus, he set the wallpaper to one of their wedding pictures.) Now, he could just give her a neatly wrapped laptop, but he wanted this one to be a super-surprise. First, he bought a large box of chocolates. He then carefully opened the box (preserving the bow and other wrapping), removed the chocolates and put the laptop inside, using a smaller box of chocolates to act as packing material. He then put the cover back on the box of chocolates and restored the box to its original unopened appearance. As a final step, he took the completed package to a local grocery store, explained what he was doing to the deli manager, and asked if they would be so kind as to re-wrap the box in shrink wrap to complete the deception. The manager was suitably touched by his story and was happy to help. On Valentine’s Day morning, he put the large box of chocolates on his wife’s chair. She woke up, wandered groggily into the room, saw the box, and said, “Whoa, that’s a lot of chocolate.” It took some encouragement to get her to open the box (seeing as she hadn’t had her morning cup of coffee yet), but when she did and saw the laptop, she just stared at it in shock, saying, “What? … No, what?” In case you couldn’t figure it out, his wife was taken totally by surprise and was completely thrilled. And that’s how my colleague surprised his wife with a new laptop for Valentine’s Day. He makes the rest of us look bad. Related: iPad frozen into slab of chocolate, delivered to unsuspecting wife.

Bonus: The story from his wife’s point of view.

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