In a one-word answer: poorly.
My blogger buddy, Kathy, who is the Martha Stewart of Tennessee, has been egging me on to reveal my gift-wrapping style. She anticipates a good chuckle at the expense of my incompetence in this department. I hope I deliver.
On Tuesday, my unwrapped gifts and I exited my comfort zone, the soot coated Apple, to head out to the San Francisco Bay Area to spend Christmas with my family. As I do every year, I am spreading my special brand of sour to my sister, Dovima, niece, Sweet Pea, and brother-in-law, Herb (pronounced with a silent h).
Since my finances have been in freefall for the third year in a row and showing zero sign of reversing, thanks to having a get rich slow job at Cheapskates R Us, it has been years since I have given anyone of either my nearest (my East Coast posse) or farthest (my family and best friend from college, BatPat) a gift they rate. Fortunately, I am the intrepid-type, so I do try to at least give everyone that matters a gift that reflects some degree of thought. Yet, I arrived suffering a mini-crisis for I completely forgot about getting anything for Thurber, the family dog!
This is the first year I’ve ever forgotten the hound. I felt terribly turdish. On Wednesday, I raced out to Target with Sweet Pea and Dovima to get him something he can chew on. I was leaning toward a squeaky chicken but Sweet Pea thought this purple mallard went better with Thurber’s fur color.
I was drawn to the duck’s soulful expression, the same sultry look I’ve been known to give my special someone, Yakking Gadfly. The clerk at Target, a guy about my own age – over 40, under death – eyed me and eyed Thurber’s duck.
Me (screaming inside my head): What?!
I withheld my inner irate New Yorker and silently shelled out five clams for the duck.
Target Clerk (snarky): Happy Holidays to you and your duck.
Then, he quacked. I bring out the best in everyone …
Onto my wrap-style, but not with Thurber’s duck, but with my brother, Axel’s, original gift I literally spent hours researching.
This New Yorker tee shirt happens to now be a collector’s item!
Lame Adventures Readership (en masse; all three of you): Why?
Apparently, The New Yorker is no longer producing mugs or tee shirts with any cartoon of a reader’s choice. I’m outraged! Had I known this, I also would have pounced on getting a few Michael Maslin cartoons on tee shirts. Check out his wonderful web site here. Now that these tee shirts are such rarities, I am sure I will score even more points with my brother, not that I think this will ever top the toaster-radio that scored such a hit with Axel ten years ago.
How to wrap a New Yorker tee shirt without a box:
Spend ten minutes looking for tape.
Spend fifteen minutes struggling to unpeel backing from bow.
Take a two hour nap.