It's holiday season, I'm feeling generous... I shall bless you all with the story of the Bill & Ted poster!
"Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and Disney's original "The Little Mermaid" both came out in 1989. By the next year, my sister was All Little Mermaid All The Time. I'm not good with remembering ages, when people were born, or sometimes my own birthday. So I just know her next birthday was somewhere between 5 and 7 years old.
I'm 8 years older. No other siblings. I had no one else to play these things out on. Her party was All Little Mermaid, but I had spent weeks telling her I was giving her a Bill & Ted poster for her birthday. She's opening Little Mermaid present after Little Mermaid present, our mom hands her a box and tells her it's from me, and the kid looks at me and smiles like we have a shared secret and says, "I know what this is!"
It was a Little Mermaid t-shirt and watch.
She was shocked! She squealed with delight! And when Christmas came...
Sister: What are you giving me for Christmas?
Me: Bill and Ted poster.
Mom: Not this again!
Eventually, after a few years, it became, "What are you giving me? And don't say 'Bill and Ted' poster!"
I think I stopped doing this for every birthday and Christmas around the time she started middle school. But I'd say it now and then. It wasn't completely forgotten.
Then there was Christmas when she was 20 years old.
I remember how old she was because several Big Things that year anchored it in my mind. One of the Big Things was her getting engaged. December came, she asked what I was giving her, I said it would be a Bill and Ted poster, and everyone had to explain the really long running joke to her fiance.
But nobody thought about the store at the mall that sold movie posters. Of course they didn't! I had spent over 10 years training them to believe this would never happen.
The poster was in a poster frame. Big, flat, and the right size and weight for a movie poster. I wrapped it, so no one could see what it was. Still, I thought they'd be at least a little suspicious. Nope! Right up to the last second it was, "Well, whatever it is, I know it's NOT a Bill and Ted poster!"
That might have been my best Christmas! The shock on her face! The way my parents cracked up laughing!
@weirdfizz I love this SO much!!!!
It was finally a Bill and Ted poster!
Now she always says, "You already did that," when I tell her that's what she's getting. I still haven't reminded her yet that there was a sequel.