I’ve been researching and planning my spouse’s FBI retirement/50th birthday/25th anniversary present for about two years. I knew it was going to be Dallas Cowboys related but, until January, I wasn’t definitively sure in what way. I was hoping to send his ass to an adult Cowboys training camp but they don’t offer one. Finally, I settled on a trip to a home game.

When my husband was a kid he had a #33 Tony Dorsett jersey that he’d wear every game day, then again on Monday if the Cowboys won but not if they lost. He’s nothing if not calculating! At some point, his mom donated his jersey to charity or maybe just tossed it out, more likely. Consequently, we (the kids and I) have had to hear about that fucking long-lost jersey literally every football season. It’s a real sticking point for him, no doubt.

During the trip planning process I found myself in the rabbit hole that is Cameo.com. Look it up! It’s a website that allows people to purchase shoutout videos from various B-list actors, musicians, YouTube “celebrities”, and athletes.

I spent a buttload ordering shoutouts for my husband from 10 different Cowboys rookies and legends, including Troy Aikman, Danny White, Charles Hayley, and Terrell Owens. After snagging Troy Aikman at the bargain price of $75 (his price went up to $500 a week later), I thought it was time to cool it with the cameos.

Two weeks later, and because I was addicted, I couldn’t help browsing the new talent listing and was shocked to see Tony Dorsett, including a profile picture of him wearing the #33 jersey I have nightmares about thanks to my husband’s annual anxiety-inducing tale of loss and betrayal.

Holy crap! I jumped out of bed and ordered the cameo immediately! Two days later I received the cameo:

https://www.cameo.com/v/g9dAyQnuR

It was perfect! He mentioned everything I wrote in the order INCLUDING A MENTION OF THE LOST JERSEY! Then he offered to make it right and instructed my husband to reach out to him through Twitter. I nearly shit my pants.

My husband once called me a Komodo dragon … in the most loving of ways, I’m sure. They bite their prey, then follow them for miles until they are in a weakened enough state to be overcome and eaten.

Long story short — I’m tenacious.

It took many Twitter messages, two additional Cameos, and many internet searches before I reached his booking agent and, through her, got Tony Dorsett’s home address. I mailed the vintage jersey I had found on eBay and, you’d think this was the home stretch, right? No. Three days later my cell phone rings and it’s Tony Dorsett! Seriously, how did I not actually shit my pants this time?! Apparently, he had misplaced my package and only had, in hand, the note I had included. I was on the phone with him for a full five minutes, listening to him rifle though the things piled on his desk before he remembered that he’d already put the jersey in the return envelope. I listened to him tromp outside to confirm that it was, indeed, already in the mailbox.

“You signed it, right?!” I had the audacity to ask.

He assured me he had. I thanked him profusely and this lifelong atheist graciously accepted his “God bless you.” like a blind person given the gift of sight.

It was an arduous but fruitful journey: