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Was this Gift Disrespected? (Rant)
Posted On: 01/09/2008 17:36:15
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Mr. Raphael’s relatives offered up a hideous lime green and pink argyle sweater as a X-mas gift this year. A gift means you should be grateful, right? Well then I’m guilty as charged. Unholy ungrateful. They know I dig earthtones and my name is not Barbie (yeah, hard to imagine, looking at my avatar). Perhaps I look traditionally feminine, but it’s not the way I dress. And I’m not a teenager living in the 50s during a bad sales event.
It’s not really a material issue though. Sometimes someone hands you something that’s so not you, that you have to wonder if the person has seen or heard you in the years they’ve known you. … reminds me of the type of person who pretends Michael Jackson isn’t an abusive White mother. Or maybe they’re hoping to initiate some sort of change (here, have this awful pink and green sweater, your fashion sense needs help)?
The price tag was left on the thing, boasting a horribly bloated price (probably they got it 85% off though). No receipt came with it and even if it did, that’d be a problem, cause then I’d know what store it came from and would want to burn it down, not exchange the gift. The thing is wretched. Someone out there would love it.
So I’ve been wedging it against a door as insulation against the cold (we need to get one of those rubber seals for the bottom, because the door is too far off the floor and lets cold air in).
Mr. Raphael thinks this is a disrespectful use of his family’s gift. Is he right? Maybe. I asked him if he’d like to wear it instead. He wasn’t interested. He asked if I’d want anyone to know that I was using their shirt as a door insulator? I was on the fence. So I asked him if he’d ever thrown out a gift (everyone has). Yes, he admitted. Then I asked if people would want to know that. I asked why they have to know anything? I felt my heart race, and asked him what our place might look like in 20 years if we “respect” everyone’s gifts. “I don’t know”, he said. Then he shrugged, grabbed a pencil and finished off a Sudoko puzzle (great, addictive fun, in case you‘re ever interested).It’d be nice to know that one of the gifts I sent out is being put to use, even if the use isn’t the one I intended for it … unless it involves unjustified crime or weird exchanges of body fluids - then I don’t want to hear anything about it. Still, there is that pang of guilt I feel looking down at that hideous sweater, keeping us warm, meant to be worn on my body. But then the pattern and colors make me so angry and I feel trapped by it. So I try not to look at the door if I can help it. This year I resolve to give up gift acceptance LOL.
- R
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