The White Elephant

-
I find it highly ironic that a custom that could only exist in the storage glutted United States takes its name from the East.

Sure, our goal is more to inconvenience someone than to ruin them, but where else would people exchange teeth impressions, hideous homemade stockings, and an entire crate of promotional items with the company's name emblazoned on each, nearly worthless item?

Everyone gets a good laugh that it wasn't them who got stuck with the slightly pornographic body oil. Someone else doesn't even bother begging for others to take their lovely gift of the flashing teeth and the grow-a-brain.

The toilet stopper-chopper wins the award for most disgusting, but instead of imagining an early trip to a dumpster, the recipient looks forward to the next exchange when she can pass it off on someone else.

And that's where it gets disturbing. Not only did all of this junk start off in someone's home, but there are plans to store it so that it can be passed on to someone else!

But I am so above that. I side-stepped the problem of storage... I reverse pick-pocketed my gift while I was still at the party.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "No I" Phone

-
Image
It's a cheap party trick: I pull out my phone, flip it open to check the time or send a quick text, and watch for the reactions. In the decades I've owned a flip phone, people have given me a few double takes. Recently, though, when I opened my phone to squint at a photo texted to me, the person sitting across the conference table surprised me with a "Haha! I love your phone!" And I did, too. I loved my flip phone. Then, in a deadly mistake of distracted domesticity, I scooped it up with my bed sheets and dropped it in the washing machine: Eco Cold, extra spin. Oh gentle readers, the tragedy of beautiful T9 predictive text programming drowned at the bottom of the linens spin cycle! Yes, I lost saved phone numbers, the blurry store photos I'd snapped over the years to double check prices when back to internet access, the text threads with details about addresses and meet-ups... all lost. Sad, inconvenient, annoying, frustrating, all of it. But the biggest tragedy,
Read more

Amtrak Adventuring

-
Image
Trying to see it all, 2011 I may never look down the aisle of an Amtrak train without remembering a baby bouncing, holding fast to the seat as the train rocked and bounced even faster. All the world over, trains carry a reputation for efficiency and frugality. That has never been my experience with Amtrak.  The Adventure Begins, June 22, 2011 Thirteen years ago (almost to the day) our little family set out on our first Amtrak adventure. We thought three weeks touring the United States on a train with an infant made so much more sense than the alternative. The alternative being flying or driving (with the same infant) to a wedding in the middle of Cornfieldville, Ohio. Being young and foolish, it made perfect sense. Our baby did not yet sleep through the night, so sitting up in coach seating night after night wouldn't affect our sleep all that much. With a rolling ice chest filled with lunch sacks that prevented us from knowing in advance whether our meal was Option A, B, or C, w
Read more

Stone of Help

-
Image
For the longest time I thought “Ebenezer” was a cup. Not just any cup, mind you, one of those old drinking vessels that might also be called goblet or chalice. My reasoning, you see, was all based on the hymn, “Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come.” To my little girl ears, it sounded like someone was proposing a toast, glass in hand to having made it so far. I know better now, but I still feel as if I am far more likely to toast how far I’ve made it than to set a large stone on end. But truthfully, I’m not very likely to do either. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not slighting the role God has had in bringing me as far as I am. And it’s not a lack of gratitude that turns me into being one of the nine lepers who never returned to thank Jesus for his healing. (At least, not always.) Instead, I’ve found that many times I don’t want to draw attention to what God has done for me because I worry it will make others feel as if I am intimating that I am a favor
Read more