By: Kathy Shaskan

If you've lived with a guy for more than fifteen minutes, you know that the male gender has something of a mental block when it comes to gift-giving. They just can't seem to get it right. This, of course, is nothing new, as history proves. Take, for example, the Three Wise Men, who put their heads together to pick out three gifts for a newborn baby and managed to come up with gold, frankincense and myrrh.

I'm sure that some day, scientists will discover the reason for this. (Perhaps the area of the male brain that once controlled the picking out of presents has been squeezed out by the part that governs the memorization of sports statistics or beer drinking songs.) Meanwhile, we women have to learn to cope with this annoying flaw. Many of us simply throw in the towel and take over all responsibility for family gift-giving. This is the case in my house, where my husband's responsibilities consist of handing to the recipients the gifts I have bought, wrapped and signed with his name. Other brave souls are determined to educate their mates in the finer points of giving. (Warning: these are frustrated, angry women. Do nothing to provoke them or they will bite your head off.)

Birthdays, Christmas and Valentine's Day can be traumatic for women who live with gift-challenged men. Why? Because your mate's performance in the present-picking department is supposed to show how much he loves you (or at least how well he can see the items you have circled and marked with post-it notes in the L.L. Bean catalog).

Oh, how we long for our men to show up with perfect presents…gifts that prove they have listened to us and care about fulfilling our deepest desires. We want so badly to open that beribboned box and be bowled over by how much care and attention was lavished on choosing it.

Sorry, ladies…ain't gonna happen.

More than likely, your guy will be like every other guy and screw up in one (or more) of the following ways:

1. He will buy a present that is really for him and not for you:
Does your guy buy you sexy lingerie? And, um… do you actually believe this is a gift for you? Time to get tough and tell him that if he wants to buy himself a present he can do it on his own birthday.

2. He will buy an item you want, but in the wrong size.
It remains a mystery why a guy who can remember every line of dialog from the original Star Trek is incapable of memorizing the number "14".

3. He will buy you a gift that totally undermines something important to you:
It is almost a foregone conclusion that when you're on a diet, your man always buys you the three ton industrial size box of chocolates.

It's enough to make you think the Three Wise Men weren't so bad. After all, one of them DID bring gold.