It's been all about the new apartment lately! New apartment, new apartment! I've barely had time to write these days, what with talking Katr down from the 50" flat screen TV, booking guys named Meredith to move our things, getting upsold at every consumer establishment when buying furniture and a host of other stuff that's FASCINATING to us but might make you want to CHEW YOUR FOOT OFF with boredom.
Fortunately, the winning combination of unpacking bits and pieces and rediscovering old treasures and feeling shortish on jack is bringing back some warm holiday memories. Memories involving re-gifting.
I would say that in my adult life, I am a mild to moderate re-gifter. But back when I was young and still reliant on my parents to buy birthday gifts for my friends, I was a notorious re-gifter. See, my mom used to be a school teacher and she would get all kinds of little gifts from her students at the end of the school year. Therefore, my and my brother's friends whose birthdays were closest to June often got gifts that were on a victory lap.
As my friend Juwi's birthday was the first of the school year, in October, she was the victim of several years of re-gifting. It didn't take Juwi long to catch on (Juwi: "Not that I don't love this plush Shamu, Roro, but tell me . . . when were you last at SEA WORLD?" Me: "Foiled!") and it became a running joke between us. One year, my mom received quite an unusual and extensive end-of-year haul and I spent the early fall telling Juwi that she'd be receiving an "Eskimo mobile" for her birthday.
Juwi assumed that "Eskimo mobile" was a euphemism for something. Hopefully for something GOOD, like smelly erasers, neon socks or the soundtrack of Cocktail. "Riiiiiiiight," she'd say, winkingly, "an Eskimo mobile. It'll go nicely with that Moose in a Can I got for you." Ha ha. Poor, unsuspecting Juwi. By the time she opened her birthday present, I was practically in tears with mirth. Juwi? Not so much.
"It's an Eskimo mobile," I told her.
"I see that, Roro," she said, as she held up the mobile, felted Eskimos dangling. "Well played."
She never did give me that Moose in a Can. Of course, that was back in the '80's. There's still time, Juwi.
Anyway, since my youth I've had a horror of re-gifting, or rather being CAUGHT re-gifting. This fear was rekindled a couple of years ago when my brother, digging around in my mother's "gift" closet for ribbon, came across some handmade organic soap he had given my parents the year before.
Jaro was LIVID. "HANDMADE SOAP," he said to me. "I mean, it's not like it was a BRUSH. And I found it in the RE-GIFTING AREA!!" Jaro set about plotting his revenge, which was basically wrapping the soap up again and addressing it to "Ungrateful #1" and "Ungrateful #2". When my parents opened their soaps for the second time, they knew the jig was up. There was much mirth as Jaro got a guarantee that his two soaps would be used immediately. One of them went into the guest bathroom. And I strongly suspect that the other one ended up in my stocking the following year.
This year, we're trying to keep it simple, gift-wise, due to the aforementioned lack of jack. I don't know that any actual re-gifting will take place, in the traditional "passing an unwanted gift on" sense. But re-gifting in the "look, I found this old thing of yours in our storage locker!" sense may occur. OR the "old thing of yours" may show up as part of our yearly "decoy wrapping" ritual! Decoy wrapping and "gift tags as clues" - look for a discussion of these in my next post. Unless Meredith makes off with our stuff, in which case you'll be reading about how I had to explain the cops that "Meredith" is a guy. For reals.
