He bought me what?
Well, I’m back from my brief hiatus. Over the Christmas break, my brother who lives in the Pacific Northwest came down to Kansas for a visit. Since I only get to see my brother about once a year or so, I stopped most of my usual activities so that we could spend the entire holiday season doing things together.
Now that I’m back, I’ve some thoughts from over the holidays to relate. Sorry for the number of posts in a single day, loyal readers (I’m up to 2 confirmed readers now, as measured by comments). For all you loyal non-readers out there, the other 6.5 billion of you, let me extend my greetings and wish you a happy year to come.
I’ve begun to notice a few things about the way that gifts are given. When I was much younger, I simply bought strange items off the shelf for my few relatives or, if they had a Christmas list, bought them an item off of it. As I have gotten older, gift buying has become a much more intricate process. Most people can pull an adequate gift off a store shelf without much trouble, and even more can buy an item off of someone’s wish list, but to come up with a truly proper gift takes a lot of work.
I usually pride myself on my ability to get gifts which have at least some basis in my view of the relationship between the person and myself. For instance, when I was in college, a girl I was seeing loved the smell of lilacs. Of course, there weren’t any lilacs blooming when we did our holiday gift exchange right before finals. The lilacs wouldn’t be blooming for another four months or so. So for Christmas, I went out to Hobby Lobby and bought her some silk lilac branches (looked remarkably like the real thing), and a lilac scented spray. I sprayed the silk flowers, tied them up with a blue ribbon (her favorite colour), and told her that I hoped that these flowers would keep a smile on her face until the real ones could bloom up on campus.
My brother is much the same way. My brother’s soon-to-be wife is in the armed forces. Because of this, my brother doesn’t get to see her as often as he would like (big understatement). On his first date with her, they had dinner, saw a movie, and ate popcorn. For Christmas, since she would soon be leaving to go off to another state for a while, he got her a gift card to the restaurant they ate at, a video copy of the movie, and some microwave popcorn, so that she could relive the date in her mind while on base.
Another friend of mine in college had a rocking chair in which she loved to sit. She also had a gigantic teddy bear (won at a carnival or something) which was about 5 feet high. She shared her apartment with a black cat named ‘King.’ For a Christmas/birthday present, I managed to find her a blanket showing a large teddy bear sitting in a rocking chair and snuggling a cat on its lap. The words "Friends are Forever" was emblazoned across a banner over their heads. She liked the present so much that she cried and hugged me.
As a general rule, my brother and I tend to get thoughtful gifts for people that mean a lot to us. But what I’ve noticed is that you can tell a lot about how well someone knows you, or how much they care to get to know you, by the gifts they give you. If the person knows you well, the gift will be a thoughtful gift. If they do not know you well, or have not taken the time to know you, the gift will be something a little less thoughtful.
With that in mind, I’d like to run through some of my gifts. My brother got me a web-cam, which was one of the most thoughtful gifts I got. Now, even though we may be separated by a thousand miles or something (I’m too lazy to get an atlas and find out), we can not only talk on the phone every once in a while, but see each other as well. That was a really nice gift. My mother bought the presents which were from ‘both of my parents,’ and they ended up being very good. I got a new mattress and box springs for my bed, to be delivered to my new apartment. My mother’s personal gifts were generally things she knew I wanted or things off of my list. My Aunts and Uncle also got gifts which I would use or which were things off of my list.
My father, though, bought me tools.
Tools. I’m not a handy person. I don’t build things. I don’t paint things well. I don’t know how to fix a leaky pipe, change the oil in my car, or install a new electric garage door opener. What’s more important, I have absolutely no desire to do any of those things. That’s what I call a plumber for, go to Lube Stop for, or hire the good servicepeople at Sears for. I’m not belittling blue collar workers for the jobs that they hold. The world needs people to build things. But a smart person realizes that people tend to gravitate toward their talents. People who are really good at being poets tend to become poets. People who really love biology tend to become biologists. Those few people who get really excited about accounting become accountants. Me, I have absolutely no talent or enthusiasm for doing manual labour. It’s just not my thing. I’m a thinker, not a doer.
Even as a young child, this sort of thing wouldn’t have been my area. A lot of small boys love to take apart machines to see how they work. A friend of mine as a child loved to take apart appliances and did so to many of the machines in his house until his parents ordered him to stop and bought him a robotics set. Some men love to take apart their computers, or have a fascination with airplanes, trains, trucks, or ships. Others learn about guns and tanks. I never did any of these things. I will mow the entire lawn with my lawn mower without ever once wondering how it works. I will drive to my law classes without ever thinking about what goes on underneath the hood of my vehicle. Instead, I am likely to be thinking about distributive justice or some other equally arcane and esoteric topic.
The upsetting part was not that he bought me power tools, but that he thought that I would actually have some use for these items or desire to own them. As nice as it is to have a cordless drill with an extra battery pack, I can come up with absolutely no instances where I anticipate using a drill of any kind. I plan on buying furniture, not building it. I would hire workpeople to come to my house if I wanted them to put up a new wall or tear one down. I can’t picture myself ever doing any woodworking in a shop or something either.
As it is, I’ve put the tools in storage against the day when I might take some interest in manual labour, but I don’t hold out much hope.
Now that I’m back, I’ve some thoughts from over the holidays to relate. Sorry for the number of posts in a single day, loyal readers (I’m up to 2 confirmed readers now, as measured by comments). For all you loyal non-readers out there, the other 6.5 billion of you, let me extend my greetings and wish you a happy year to come.
I’ve begun to notice a few things about the way that gifts are given. When I was much younger, I simply bought strange items off the shelf for my few relatives or, if they had a Christmas list, bought them an item off of it. As I have gotten older, gift buying has become a much more intricate process. Most people can pull an adequate gift off a store shelf without much trouble, and even more can buy an item off of someone’s wish list, but to come up with a truly proper gift takes a lot of work.
I usually pride myself on my ability to get gifts which have at least some basis in my view of the relationship between the person and myself. For instance, when I was in college, a girl I was seeing loved the smell of lilacs. Of course, there weren’t any lilacs blooming when we did our holiday gift exchange right before finals. The lilacs wouldn’t be blooming for another four months or so. So for Christmas, I went out to Hobby Lobby and bought her some silk lilac branches (looked remarkably like the real thing), and a lilac scented spray. I sprayed the silk flowers, tied them up with a blue ribbon (her favorite colour), and told her that I hoped that these flowers would keep a smile on her face until the real ones could bloom up on campus.
My brother is much the same way. My brother’s soon-to-be wife is in the armed forces. Because of this, my brother doesn’t get to see her as often as he would like (big understatement). On his first date with her, they had dinner, saw a movie, and ate popcorn. For Christmas, since she would soon be leaving to go off to another state for a while, he got her a gift card to the restaurant they ate at, a video copy of the movie, and some microwave popcorn, so that she could relive the date in her mind while on base.
Another friend of mine in college had a rocking chair in which she loved to sit. She also had a gigantic teddy bear (won at a carnival or something) which was about 5 feet high. She shared her apartment with a black cat named ‘King.’ For a Christmas/birthday present, I managed to find her a blanket showing a large teddy bear sitting in a rocking chair and snuggling a cat on its lap. The words "Friends are Forever" was emblazoned across a banner over their heads. She liked the present so much that she cried and hugged me.
As a general rule, my brother and I tend to get thoughtful gifts for people that mean a lot to us. But what I’ve noticed is that you can tell a lot about how well someone knows you, or how much they care to get to know you, by the gifts they give you. If the person knows you well, the gift will be a thoughtful gift. If they do not know you well, or have not taken the time to know you, the gift will be something a little less thoughtful.
With that in mind, I’d like to run through some of my gifts. My brother got me a web-cam, which was one of the most thoughtful gifts I got. Now, even though we may be separated by a thousand miles or something (I’m too lazy to get an atlas and find out), we can not only talk on the phone every once in a while, but see each other as well. That was a really nice gift. My mother bought the presents which were from ‘both of my parents,’ and they ended up being very good. I got a new mattress and box springs for my bed, to be delivered to my new apartment. My mother’s personal gifts were generally things she knew I wanted or things off of my list. My Aunts and Uncle also got gifts which I would use or which were things off of my list.
My father, though, bought me tools.
Tools. I’m not a handy person. I don’t build things. I don’t paint things well. I don’t know how to fix a leaky pipe, change the oil in my car, or install a new electric garage door opener. What’s more important, I have absolutely no desire to do any of those things. That’s what I call a plumber for, go to Lube Stop for, or hire the good servicepeople at Sears for. I’m not belittling blue collar workers for the jobs that they hold. The world needs people to build things. But a smart person realizes that people tend to gravitate toward their talents. People who are really good at being poets tend to become poets. People who really love biology tend to become biologists. Those few people who get really excited about accounting become accountants. Me, I have absolutely no talent or enthusiasm for doing manual labour. It’s just not my thing. I’m a thinker, not a doer.
Even as a young child, this sort of thing wouldn’t have been my area. A lot of small boys love to take apart machines to see how they work. A friend of mine as a child loved to take apart appliances and did so to many of the machines in his house until his parents ordered him to stop and bought him a robotics set. Some men love to take apart their computers, or have a fascination with airplanes, trains, trucks, or ships. Others learn about guns and tanks. I never did any of these things. I will mow the entire lawn with my lawn mower without ever once wondering how it works. I will drive to my law classes without ever thinking about what goes on underneath the hood of my vehicle. Instead, I am likely to be thinking about distributive justice or some other equally arcane and esoteric topic.
The upsetting part was not that he bought me power tools, but that he thought that I would actually have some use for these items or desire to own them. As nice as it is to have a cordless drill with an extra battery pack, I can come up with absolutely no instances where I anticipate using a drill of any kind. I plan on buying furniture, not building it. I would hire workpeople to come to my house if I wanted them to put up a new wall or tear one down. I can’t picture myself ever doing any woodworking in a shop or something either.
As it is, I’ve put the tools in storage against the day when I might take some interest in manual labour, but I don’t hold out much hope.
posted by The Academian | 9:33 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home