I had a wedding to go to. This in itself was a surprise as I have reached the age where most of my friends are already married or licking their wounds after divorces with no intention of going around again. However I have also reached the age where the children of some of my friends are now getting married and, possibly out of pity, one of these invited me to be a witness to his nuptials. Out of surprise I accepted and realised that I now needed to acquire a wedding gift for the no doubt deliriously happy couple. As it so happened I didn't need to acquire a wedding present but I didn't find that out until after I had bought one so they could damn well take it and look grateful.
Once I had successfully purchased an item which the recipients could at least pretend to appreciate without straining credulity too much I ran into the next gift related issue; wrapping. For some reason gifts need to be wrapped. I'm not entirely sure why. Here you are handing something to a person that they have neither requested or done anything to deserve but apparently this isn't enough. This offering has to be encased in multi coloured paper whose sole reason for existence is to be torn to shreds by human vultures slavering to get their hands on the loot. Woe betide if you neglect this flimsy little token. You lay yourself open to accusations of disinterest or laziness. A tide of criticism from your social group will rush towards you leaving you gasping on a beach like a pilot whale with navigation issues.
Let's be clear, the wrapping does not protect the present, it is usually so thin and flimsy that it needs wrapping itself for its own protection. The sole reason for the existence of wrapping is to add to the level of environmental devastation inflicted by the present buyer on a long suffering world. I am also a dreadful present wrapper. Jagged lines, sometimes ill matching paper and random bits of sticky tape result in a final product that looks like I got halfway through blending a clown before giving up. This along with a card carefully chosen for its inappropriate nature is then presented to the recipient who mumbles a few words of thanks and rapidly hides it before any children can be traumatised at the sight.
For the present mentioned above I decided to get the store to wrap the thing for me. This would result in a level of professionalism to the wrapping which would raise serious doubts as to whether I bought the thing at all and hopefully would drop the environmental karma points on the shoulders of the store personnel rather than myself. Unfortunately I wasn't satisfied with the result. In fact I was so dissatisfied that I decided to rewrap the thing myself when I got home. The gift was somewhat bulky so I decided to be prepared. I entered one of those stores that used to be called newsagents when they sold things that purported to inform us of the news of the day but are now reduced to selling lottery tickets and wrapping paper. I was desperate to ensure that I bought enough wrapping paper so I bought five metres of the stuff. I had to wait while they bulldozed a forest especially.
Once I had assembled all the necessary materials, wrapping paper, scissors, sticky tape (there was a time after I broke a finger when friends and relatives received gifts sealed with surgical tape) I proceeded to not so much wrap as mummify the gift until finally a misshapen lump with odd angles and strange extrusions signaled my success. Or if it didn't signal my success it signaled the end of my attempts. Frankly the resultant parcel looked like something that could have come from the mind of HP Lovecraft if he had decided on a career in gift wrapping rather than spectacularly racist horror stories.
With this wretched thing nestling in a bag hiding its shame from a fearful world I journeyed to the wedding, dumped it on the appropriate table and fled before anyone could associate my name with the hideous lump. This attempt at anonymity was pointless as a single glance at the gift table would identify the giver although I'm prepared to bet that no one would be able to identify the present beneath. Which I believe is the sole point of wrapping paper.
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