Dateline Boston — Halloween is over, and that means that Christmas is coming. “What about Thanksgiving?” you ask. For me, that’s a nice meal out. Husband and I are working on it. But right after that is the biggest gift-giving day of my year.
I work on Christmas all year long. When I see something in a store that I know would be perfect for someone, I get it, and it goes into the gift bag in the…well, I won’t tell you exactly where it is, but it’s in a secret place in my apartment. I did a lot of shopping this summer.
I also make requests all year long. If I’m with Husband, I’ll ask him to take a picture of the item I have my eye on. I know I won’t necessarily get it, but it’s good to have many options from which to choose, right?
Over the years, Husband has gotten me many gifts I specifically asked for. I love most of them. To my surprise, a few that seemed like good ideas at the time, but somehow quickly lost their appeal. Like the silver wings that are held onto Converse high tops by the laces. I don’t have Converse high tops. Why did I ask for silver wings? Why didn’t I ask for the high tops, too? Why haven’t I asked for high tops since? Well, I found out a little bit about arch support since I got my wings. It turns out that Converse has no support at all. Maybe I’ll just give them to a kid who has high tops.
One year I asked for, and received, macro lenses for my iPhone. Stick these lenses on your phone, and you can take a picture of an ant’s face! Only problem is, you have to take the case off your phone to screw the lens on. I have never let my phone be caseless; that’s just asking for trouble. So the lenses linger in a drawer, hoping to be used when I feel safe enough to take the case off my phone and walk around outside to look for nature, being very careful not to trip and drop my phone that doesn’t have a case. Hmm, gotta think more on this one.
How to Collect Dust
The best gift I ever got and don’t use is the Kindle Paperwhite. The commercials they had on TV for this thing had me drooling! It wasn’t enough to ask for a Kindle—I needed a Kindle Paperwhite, the kind of eReader that didn’t have any glare, even in bright daylight! I was so excited when I got it. It came with some books already on it, thanks to Husband, and one of my stepsons got me books for it that I got through Amazon. Well, I read a couple of books, then I put it on my desk. And it stayed there, gathering dust. Whenever I visited a bookstore, I picked up a book and looked at the cover art. And read the back. And felt the weight in my hands.
My stepson gave me a bunch of gift cards he had received and had never used, so I used them to buy real books—paperbacks and hard covers. I had a lot of fun choosing my “free” books.
When I went on vacation, I was sure I’d bring my Kindle, because that was the whole point, right? It’s lightweight and can hold hundreds of books! Well, I haven’t figured out how to “borrow” them from the library. It seems like a lot of work to download them, so it’s still sitting on my desk. I went back to my vacation ritual of buying a paperback at the airport.
I’m not ready to give my Kindle away yet; I think I’m going to ask for specific books that are automatically loaded onto it. Maybe I’ll use it when I have one hundred books?
I don’t feel so bad about gifts that don’t work. After all, Husband hasn’t eaten the can of vegetarian Haggis I gave him one year. Maybe he can eat it while I read an uploaded book on my eReader.
Ms. Vaillancourt may be contacted at snobbyblog@gmail.com
