Sunday, May 24, 2009

Pocket watch for ladies

Unsurprisingly (dare I say predictably?), I am very fond of solving all of my problems with a certain kooky-named search engine. That trusty engine failed me today, however, when all of the searches entered with a combination of the words “graduation,” “coming of age,” and “gift” fed me links of bar mitzvah DJs and L.L. Bean embroidered hand towels.

I was in the midst of a gift-giving crisis concerning the pending graduation of my littlest little sister from high school. I was torn between wanting to select a gift to convey the gravity of the situation and the contrasting suspicion that (18 year olds being the scourge of the earth that they are) she would rather me just purchase an umbrella with the Twilight guy’s face on it.

What do you give to a person graduating from high school when desire to discourage kids in high school from thinking that their lives (transported through cyberspace in a mass of fragmented texts and twits) are important? All I recall from my graduation party is wearing some weird Bugs Bunny shirt and threatening my mom with suicide if she attempted to enforce an event theme.

But let us return to the topic of gifts. Because I am melodramatic, I was leaning toward something Victorian and metallic in nature. A gold watch or a locket with a snippet of my hair inside would have suited my mood perfectly. But my main squeeze assured me that pocket watches are for men, and that since I would never afford the female equivalent (one set of sterling silver soup spoons) I decided to widen my search.

I provide below for your enjoyment a list of gifts considered and rejected for my sister’s graduation during one tour of the mall this afternoon:

• Lave lamp,
• Locket with Jesus etched on the cover (to be presented if purchased with visage pointing away from receiver , since sister is known to be very intimidated by religious symbolism and cries when forced by wayward religious relatives to attend services),
• Single soup spoon,
• McDonalds money,
• Hospital scrubs,
• Large, yet cheap, oil painting,
• Netflix subscription,
• Candles shaped like happy faces that burn lopsidedly (remember when these came briefly back?)
• Cool sneaks,
• A kimono,
• Vintage-covered copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

1 comment:

joel. said...

so what did you end up getting her? or has it not yet happened? i vote for catcher in the rye + netflix or hospital scrubs + colored pencils...does she had a bulletin board? anyways, my congrats to the grad.
is the horse race party happening? happy memorial day. see ya'll sometime soon.