Tuesday, January 18, 2005

The Emergency Gift

Gloria had an emergency gift this year.

As a guy, I was entirely unfamiliar with this concept. Apparently, if someone unexpectedly gives you a gift and you have nothing for them, the emergency gift is used. Again, as a guy, if someone unexpectedly gives me something, I'd say "I didn't get anything for you." The mysterious world of woman, though, is all about shadowy alliances, and the emergency gift is just another weapon in the ongoing diplomatic initiatives.

The gift is beautifully wrapped--Gloria could be a professional gift-wrapper with no problem--and it's still sitting in our living room, because we didn't get any surprise gifts this year.

So I thought, clearly, that I should send it to one of you.

Now please remember--this is a woman's gift. "Emergency gift" creates the image of something you pull a rip-cord on and it inflates, but that's not what you're getting. It's a kind of thingie that you hang on the wall. We have one on our wall, in addition to about one thousand other delightful thingies, and by "delightful" I mean "where did all this crap come from?"

It's about 9:20 a.m. CST now and I'm going to work. I'll check my inbox at 1:00 p.m. CST and do a random drawing from the entries.


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