I opened the case and there it was! My 10th Wedding Anniversary present from my wife. After my injury-forced hiatus from playing for almost 10 years, and selling all my guitars except my Ibanez Artist and keeping that only because it was my high school graduation present, I had told my wife for several years that I just couldn't stand not playing guitar. I went to a doctor to ask what I could do to reduce the pain and gain back some motion. I had broken my left wrist right in the joint so I had lost range of motion, and it hurt if I held it in any kind of bend position.
After months of stretching and exercises, I was getting to where I could play at least for a little while without pain. 30 minutes tops. But that was better than nothing. When my wife asked what I wanted for my 10th anniversary, I told her I wanted to start playing guitar again and would like a nice guitar. I went to the local music store and for the first time in person, saw a PRS guitar. When the guy handed it to me, I knew the price and knew it was WAY over what she could spend, but I wanted to try it. I played it for literally 60 seconds tops and handed it back to him. He looked at me in surprise and said "don't like it?" I said "it's the greatest guitar I've ever felt in my life, but I can't afford it so I need to put it down before I fall in love with it."
Two weeks later I went to the store again with my wife. I figured she'd maybe want to spend as much as $1000, so I showed her some high end Ibanez guitars I liked. After showing her my favorite of those, she said "So that's the best?" And I said "no, it's not the best. That one over there is the best, but we can't afford that." She insisted that I show her the "best" I was talking about. They had 5 identical Custom 22's on the wall, each a different color. She recognized the beauty of the guitar as soon as she looked at it, but when I played it and gushed about how well it was made and how incredible it felt, I almost felt guilty even showing it to her.
When our anniversary day came, it was pretty easy to recognize that it was a guitar that was wrapped up. But I couldn't speak for over 3 minutes after I opened the case. She was only working part time back then. I figured I was going to blow her away with the diamond ring I bought her. I didn't expect that she was going to spend even more than I did. After a couple minutes she said "well aren't you going to say anything?" I could never justify buying something so expensive for myself, and I was the one that made all the money. I was just blown away by what she had done. She said she had saved for 3 years, not even knowing what I wanted but wanted to make it something great. She did!