Ron Nagasawa is on leave. This column previously was published in July 2000.

A lot of times these days, you’ll see people labeled by their hyphenated personality types, for instance, obsessive-compulsive. I guess I can be best described as a practical-romantic.

What that means is if I take my wife out to a fancy dinner, I’ll have the strolling musicians come to our table and play, but only if I’m carrying the right denomination of small bills with which to tip them.

My wife, on the other hand, is an indecisive-romantic. If those same musicians were to come to our table and offer to play a song request, she’ll ask them to name all the songs in their repertoire before she can decide on one.

These last few months with special occasions like Mother’s and Father’s Day and with all the graduation parties, I have found out that this indecisive-romantic syndrome comes into full play even when trying to choose appropriate greeting cards.

I think it says a lot about my wife that she wants to find a card that has a message which appears to have been written for the person she’s buying it for. The problem I have with this is that she has to look at and read every single greeting card in the rack display.

The other weekend, it took my wife nearly an hour in an attempt to select one graduation card. When she came to show me several possible choices and asked, “Am I taking too long?” the obvious look on my face said it all.

Before I could say anything she contemptuously told me to go pick out a card. I walked over to the rack, plucked the first card within my reach, and said, “OK, this one’s good, let’s go.” She looked up at me wide-eyed and asked the test question, “Do you buy all your cards this way?”

I boldly announced, “Yes, all my cards,” but before the breath left my mouth, I included the vital attachment —"except the ones I buy for you."

Web Site of the Week

My friends Trent and Ku‘ulei at Jamba Juice Waikele store would like you to come visit them. Check out the Jamba Juice website for their location: www.jambajuice.com

Quench your thirst, then send in your favorite websites to me at:

rnagasawa@midweek.com