By Diana's blog | December 19, 2012 at 11:09 PM EST | No Comments
After work today, I found myself in a store called "Tuesday Morning". This store, which is a complete mystery by it's name, is a gift store. As I looked around at the other customers, I noticed that we were all women and we were all looking for cute gifts for friends and colleagues.
Then I had this sudden chill go down my spine and realized we were all in some kind of strange twilight zone episode. It could almost be a reality show. Here were a bunch of people shopping for a bunch of crap no one needed or wanted in order to be polite.
Each aisle I went through lead me to become more desperate to find an appropriate gift. Where is cat-themed dish towel when you need one? How would an acquaintance feel about getting a set of dessert plates embossed with pictures of high heels? Would that satisfy my gift giving obligation? Why would anyone want that? Does anyone ever use dessert plates? Would they think I'm creepy?
What about popcorn covered in some kind of flavoring? There are hot and spicy or sweet and savory toppings. Is that something anyone would remember? Would I be known as the disgusting popcorn woman? Or perhaps a BBQ sauce with an unusual flavor that absolutely no one would ever ever use? Ever. Many people are seriously lacking in trivets. In fact, I bet my co-worker is sitting at her desk right now fretting because she has a trivet deficit. I could be her hero with my snazzy gift.
Being on the receiving end on these gifts is also a challenge - a challenge of how to re-gift it. Would the mailman like a tin of butter cookies? Or how about an over sized wine glass that says "tis the season"?
At the end of the day, I will have spend a couple of hundred dollars on crap that no one will like receiving. I don't know an easy way out of this. Giving money is tacky and telling someone you contributed to a charity in their name is lame.
Perhaps I can start a support group with all the "Tuesday Morning" shoppers and we can all donate our stuff to some country overseas who is none the wiser to our strange gift giving traditions.
I'm sure there is a Yurt in Mongolia who lacks trivets.