I suggested dessert at my favorite ice cream shop, a trip to Wal-Mart to check out the new movies on sale and a few hours on the basketball court to improve my game. Manicotti for dinner could top off the evening.

“That’s the perfect day,” my wife said. “The perfect day for you. But this is Mother’s Day.”

Ooops. I forgot.

“I know,” I said. “I was just kidding.”

I messed up big time. And my wife wouldn’t let me forget I forgot Mother’s Day for as long as we both shall live.

About 10 years ago, my wife and I picked up a few items at Wal-Mart, including a movie I really wanted for my collection. At home I was multitasking and, unbeknownst to me, retrieved the movie from one of the bags and put it away.

The next day, I looked in the unpacked Wal-Mart bags for my movie and I couldn’t find it. I went back to the store and told an employee at the help desk that I must’ve left the movie at the checkout counter. The employee checked a log that listed all the merchandise that was left behind and told me I was out of luck.

“Well—I didn’t get the movie,” I argued.

The store manager finally let me go get another one.

Upon putting away my new movie at home, I found the first one I got.

“Where the heck did this come from?” I asked my wife.

I looked like a fool at the return desk 15 minutes later. To this day, my wife finds great joy in reminding me of the scene. And now she’d have my forgetting Mother’s Day to add to her box of ammo. So I had to make this Mother’s Day extra special for her—the perfect

Our 6-year-old son and I took Mommy to her favorite restaurant. We found the portions to be smaller than usual. The food wasn’t even that good. And the service was weak.

“Restaurants are getting worse and worse,” I said to my wife. “If they keep this up, we’ll have to start eating at home.”

We finished picking apart our meals and paid our overpriced tab when my wife had the idea to go across the parking lot to browse through Urban Home.

“Look at these water glasses,” she said, pointing to a set on display in the store.

“We don’t need more glasses,” I said. No kidding—we have at least 10 sets of drinking glasses. We use one set.

“I know we don’t need more,” she said. “But aren’t they pretty?”

“Why look if we’re not gonna buy?”

My wife looked at me as if I was crazy.

The same dialogue took place about 15 minutes later at the other end of the store when we came across a “really pretty” bedroom set. The wife asked me to look at it. I said we didn’t need it. She said she knew we didn’t need it.

An hour later we were at the register to buy it. When the cashier totaled our purchases, I did a double-take.

“Wait—how much did you say everything costs?” I asked. “How many times did you add tax to the subtotal?”

We had to cancel the order due to a shortage in our millions.

And my wife had been so happy about getting new furniture.

Mother’s Day was a bust—a terrible end to a terrible beginning with terrible all in between.

We plodded out of the store in silence.

In the car, I flipped through the radio stations to find my wife’s favorite music to help cheer her up. Somehow I landed on K-Earth 101.

“Since when does the oldies station play music from my generation?” she exclaimed. “I feel old.”

Arrggggh! My wife would never let my special day go bad like this.

My son and I asked Mommy what we could do to make her day better.

Her frown turned into a smile.

“But this was a great Mother’s Day,” she said to us. “Because I got to spend it with my two favorite boys.”

My son and I love Mommy— she’s always so easy to please.

I sure hope this upcoming Father’s Day isn’t such a bust.

E-mail Michael Picarella at michael.picarella@gmail.com. To read more of his stories, go to www.michaelpicarellacolumn .blogspot.com.