Surprise...!!

My mother-in-law turned 80 last fall.  She finally agreed that she was no longer able to look after her acreage by herself.  Last spring she moved into a seniors apartment in the city.  Finally this summer she agreed to put her property up for sale.  The property sold this summer, and although the buyer intends to knock down the old house and build on the land, we were responsible for emptying the buildings and cleaning things up by the possession date.  My wife struggled with this as her Mom was reluctant to let go, and not particularly cooperative.  My sister-in-law and the eldest daughter in the family, although very helpful earlier on, was not able to travel from her home in California to help out with the final clean-up.  I was very busy at work so the brunt of it fell on my wife's shoulders.  To cheer her up a little after such a difficult task I bought her a car.  One of our neighbors had a nicely restored 1972 VW Beetle for sale.  My wife grew up learning to drive on Beetles and has a nostalgic attraction to them.  So I bought this one for her, and surprised her with it.  This will be her summer car, and is just for her.  We now need to clean out our cluttered garage to make room to park it, but Margarit relishes this challenge as she does not wish witness a repeat of the clean up that she just endured at her Mom's place.  We will work together to get our place in order and not have to subject our kids to such an indignity in the years to come.