No Gift Like the Present

Maybe you don’t cogitate over things like this, but since I do, I figured I’d drag you through it with me. What’s the deal with gift cards, anyway? Are they any good? They’re decorative, plastic, and fit in a wallet. But then you can say the same about gum. And it doesn’t conceal the fact that they don’t do anything worthwhile, from what I can tell. Gift cards, in essence, are the perfect way to say “I was too indifferent and lazy to put any thought into a present, and you can’t be trusted with money, so here’s the next best thing. Happy birthday.” On such a momentous occasion, one can only be touched by these sentiments. Just give them a ten, and maybe draw a mustache on Hamilton’s face and be done with it. Don’t pretend that you care by dressing it all up to be more than it is. “Here’s some colorful money I got for you, but you can’t use it here, here, here, here or here. Only here. Have a nice day shopping at the one place I’m forcing you to. If you want to get your present, I’m making you go to that store to get it, since I know you wouldn’t if I gave you cash.”

And then when we get a gift card, we act like it transcends money, because when you’re receiving gifts you have to be complimentary about everything so you can get repeat customers to future birthday parties. “Oh, you got me a piece of string for my birthday? It’s what I always wanted! How did you know? It’s perfect...” I always wondered just how low you could go on the gift scale and still get that same sort of response from the person you gave it to. “Hey, this is a cool bag of trash. For the man who has everything, eh? I like it. It says hope your day is special like nothing else does.” “What? A box full of maggots? You shouldn’t have. No— you really shouldn’t have...”

And then there are the birthday greeting cards. (cue the dastardly organ music, please) The funny ones are good for a joke and they have their place, though I haven’t quite latched onto the sentimental cards. A sentimental thought is supposed to be personal. So you buy a card written by a greeting company that distributed the same one to thousands of stores, and they’ve never met the person you’re giving the card to, but somehow they’re supposed to capture your particular sentiments toward that person. What happens is they end up speaking in generic terms. “You’re the person I always thought if I’d love a person for being who they are it would be you for the way you are what you are like nobody else can, and that’s what makes me love you.” Basically, this is paint-by-numbers sentimentality. All you can really take credit for is finding the card in the store, getting the gender and age right, and then either paying for it or stealing it. You did all that successfully, but is that an accomplishment? What’s pre-printed on the card is no more you than the daily horoscope, except that you got to pick your own sign.

(Note: If any of you have given me gift cards or pre-printed greeting cards, I appreciated them tremendously, and I'll appreciate them in the future. I'm just projecting here. My analyst says it's good therapy.)

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I used to go to breakfasts at this lovely diner in the basement of the county courthouse near where I work. This place is run by two sisters who have been going at it for over 20 years, and they always have a lot of helpful insight to give, being great conversationalists. I had been frequenting there until the summer of 2006 two years ago when I went on extended sick leave and then had to watch my diet more closely in the interim. So just this week, I went back there for the first time since then, and note that I’ve never talked to them for more than ten minutes at a time and they don’t know my family or vice versa. We just used to talk in passing. So anyway, what happens when I go back? Not only did they remember my name, they also remembered that I like my toast to be sour dough, and my eggs to be over easy, and that we had been talking about me planting trees when we had spoken before. That’s amazing to me that they just picked up right where they left off from two years before. And eggs and toast is only one of the many orders I used to make, so it’s not like I had a usual that they got accustomed to. They also remembered that I’d bought a house back at that time. Completely floored me. You never know how well people are taking notes on you. You figure it happens somewhere from time to time, but you don’t figure you’re the one that anybody’s keeping tabs on. Kind of a little spooky, but in a good way. Maybe they slipped, and I’m in the Truman Show. (looking around for cameras now)

So going back there turned out being a rather surreal experience. It kind of brought everything from the last couple years full circle, into an unexpected form of closure. I remember the first thing they said when they saw me was, “We were wondering if you had died or something.” It’s nice to be missed like that. I replied that I was wondering the same thing.