Deception At The Point Of Giving

Here’s hoping you had a Merry Christmas!

After logging MANY hours on the air, I am back to playing our regular format of Light Rock on 94.9 WHOM—not that I don’t love the Christmas tunes….it was just time(at midnight last night) to move on!

Many of us are fresh from our Academy Award-winning performances of unwrapping horrible gifts in front of the people who gave them to us. When revealing an ugly shirt or cheap gadget, you must disguise the look of disgust on your face. In fact, you need to act as if you have just received a winning Powerball ticket:

“Oh, my goodness! What an AWESOME gift! How on earth have I SURVIVED without the Clapper?”

“Wow! How clever are those Chinese! Who else would of thought of McCain/Obama salt and pepper shakers?!”

“I’m certain that doubleknit Nehru jackets are coming back into style! I’ll be the FIRST in my neighborhood to have one!”

“A lawn ornament of Daffy Duck with wind-propelled crazy spinning legs was on my list last year, but nobody got it for me!”

Of course, the challenge is to:
a) Not run into the person who bestowed upon you said crappy gift at the exchange/return counter.
b) Find a way to (at least ONCE in the near future) actually wear or display the offending item in front of the gifter.

This, of course, means inviting that person of extreme bad taste into your home. This is convenient for clothing, since that way you won’t be seen leaving the house wearing the plaid leisure suit. Only your other family members and pets will be subjected to the pain of having to withhold either uproarious laughter or vomit while entertaining the offender in your living room.
Displaying those hideous items in your home can be a one-and-only-one time event too:

“Say, could you please pass the Obama? My steak needs a bit of seasoning!”

My feeling is that after ONE “sighting”, the giftee and gifter never have to uphold the pretense that the item was ever valued.

Future questions can be answered using the little white lies we employ to spare other people’s feelings. For instance, if the giver asks why he/she hasn’t seen in you that wide-lapel turquoise smoking jacket, you can answer with a rueful laugh about how ironic it is that a smoking jacket somehow itself caught fire and was completely burned to a cinder.

How unfortunate.

I was VERY fortunate to have received all winners from my family-no acting needed!

My wish is that Santa (in all of his various forms) gave you EXACTLY what you wanted this year. If you got a real bummer of a present, feel free to share it with me as a comment or right to my e-mail at: tim.moore@citcomm.com