‘I think he hates it’: Wife surprises her husband by putting him on a billboard for his birthday, and his reaction is priceless

Gift giving is an art, and if it’s your love language, you probably have this down. You know your sibling would love a cookbook about making pizza, or your mom would cheer if you got her a cozy new sweater. Sometimes gift giving can go terribly wrong, so you want to consider it carefully. But when it comes to a 40th birthday present for your spouse, you want to do something a bit more special.

TikTok user @melissabeeler2 shared the epic birthday gift she got for her husband: a billboard that says “Happy Birthday, Ryan! You’re still smoking hot at 40!!”

Melissa told her husband they were driving around getting some errands done, and when she pulled onto the highway, he was unsure about where they were going. When he saw the billboard, he said “Oh my God! You’re kidding me.” He spent a few seconds staring at it in total silence before asking, “Do you think people saw that?”

That response alone was definitely worth the cost of the billboard! Ryan told his wife it was “pretty funny” and seemed impressed that she set it up. People in the comments section were equally charmed by this gift. Although one user said “I think he hates it,” others said he seemed to come around in the end. The video is quite the wild ride! One person asked how pricey it was, and Melissa said it was a couple of hundred dollars, aka “Less than my weekly grocery bill!!!” Melissa shared that Ryan wasn’t thrilled that she was driving because thanks to his job as a firefighter “He knows pretty much every street in this city & the fastest way to get everywhere.”

If Ryan was someone who hated surprises, chances are Melissa would have chosen another unique way to celebrate this birthday. According to a survey from 2021, 52% of the 2,000 Americans who responded like tiny surprises, and that is particularly true of “a sweet treat in the afternoon” during the summertime.

There’s a lot more to surprises than we might have originally thought. Kimberly Chiew at the University of Denver looked into the science of surprise in 2022, and decided to study the 2016 election. Chiew and others asked 499 Americans questions about what they remembered from that day, like beverages, food, outfit choices, and people they spent time around. They thought that if people voted for Donald Trump but weren’t sure he would win the election, they would remember more of the evening than Hillary Clinton voters. They figured the “surprise” of Trump’s victory could be the key to these stronger memories. The study respondents who voted for Clinton were reliving the election more than those who voted for Trump. According to Psychology Today, the study authors said “our observations … are consistent with prior findings from the trauma literature.”

Based on that compelling research, if Ryan wasn’t big on surprises, perhaps he would remember more of that day his wife took him to see his 40th birthday billboard. This plays into the “negativity bias” that we all feel. It makes sense that if you have negative feelings or a bad experience, your mind would replay it over and over. But even though this surprise was a good one, chances are Ryan will have great memories of the thoughtful way his wife marked this huge milestone.