Birthday Present

At some point in 1998, quite early on I believe, I made a decision. I decided that I would never spend another birthday in England, the country I call home, again. There were two main reasons for me suddenly coming to this decision: one was that I had just returned from several months backpacking, mainly around India, and I’d enjoyed this experience so much I wanted to make sure that whatever happens in my life I would always be guaranteed at least one trip abroad every year. I could of course, just make sure that I took a foreign holiday every year. After all many other people manage to do it, but I have a unusually large procrastination gland (it’s a real part of the body, located just below the meh bone), I therefore prefer not to even think about things until I really, really have to, and let’s face it, no matter how much we all like to think we do, nobody actually really has to take a holiday. So setting myself this annual deadline meant that I was less likely to put it off, or miss it out completely. This turned out to be a good decision, as my procrastinatory indulgences, combined with a sense of ‘I really can’t be that arsed with it’ have, on a couple of occasions, almost resulted in a stay at home birthday, and it was only a reluctance to break my own tradition that I ended up going away at all.

As I said at the beginning though, there were two reasons for me wanting to escape to other countries on my birthdays, and that second reason kind of boils down to the fact that I don’t particularly enjoy birthdays. I (mostly) dread being the centre of attention, I just become overly self conscious and uncomfortable, and feel like a caged animal... who’s on fire... and sweaty. I get pissed off with the social pressure that dictates you “have to do something special, it’s your birthday, don’t be so boring”, although conversely, I have ended up making my birthdays quite special in my attempt to avoid them.

I despise the whole idea of cards, to me they are a waste of money and resources, they clutter up every available space they can find for a week or two, making the place look untidy, and then they end up in the recycling pile, or even worse, the rubbish bin. Saying all that though, and contrary to what I strongly, and quite often loudly, lead people to believe, I’m not actually opposed to all cards, sometimes a card can be a priceless treasure, it’s normally one that is completely unexpected, there isn’t a special occasion for it, and it will always have more than just the ‘to you from me’ type message. In fact they’re more like a personal letter, only written inside a card.  Those cards actually mean something, I do have a couple of those cards, which I do treasure, and I will very probably keep them forever.

But the thing about birthdays that really grinds my overly ground goat are presents. I don’t like birthday presents, which I know sounds ridiculous, and frankly unbelievable, but it’s true. It’s the same for Christmas; in fact Christmas is probably even worse. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I’m an absolutely atrocious liar, so I find it very difficult to act believably grateful if I receive some hastily bought tacky piece of tat that someone with little to no taste has decided to bestow upon me. Ok I admit that’s not really fair, most birthday presents these days aren’t particularly tacky or tat, and some have even had a bit of thought go into them, but they are still never the less things that you don’t really need or want; I’ve had a copy of Al Green’s autobiography, Take Me to the River, sitting in my ‘unread’ pile of books so long now that the layer of dust on it is almost thicker than the actual book. It was a very thoughtful present; the person who bought it for me knew I loved Al Green’s music, so obviously assumed I’d be interested in reading about his life... I’m not. I don’t care in the slightest about Al Green’s personal life or that of any other celebrity, I’m really not a fan of autobiographies at all, but the person who bought it for me didn’t know this particular piece of information about me.

And therein lies the problem; we all have thousands of little foibles, likes and dislikes that even our closest friends don’t know about, so what chance does your partner’s brother’s wife have when choosing a birthday present for you? And thus we all end up amassing a collection of thoughtful but useless tat that could fill a small ‘I Don’t Know What to Do with This Now’ museum. At my current workplace there’s a tradition of having a small collection for each person’s birthday to buy them a card and a small gift, which has so far always been alcohol in some form or another. Despite my unorthodox views on the whole birthday card/present shenanigans I keep quiet and go along with it, they already think I’m weird enough without giving them another stick to beat me with. The card goes straight into the recycling and, as I rarely drink at home, the booze, up until now a bottle of spirits, joins the slowly growing collection of unopened bottles in a hidden corner of my kitchen. This ever increasing collection will come in handy if I lose access to the internet and instead of posting blogs I have to go the traditional route of getting drunk on street corners and shouting my incoherent rants at the world in general. This method might at least reach a wider audience.

This year however I arrived at work one morning to find a twenty can box of Fffffeuuw... Fffossssstyeurgh... Ffffffffffckackaaack... of a cheap and weak Australian lager favoured by students, that I can’t even bring myself to name, let alone pour the foul stuff down my gullet. I appreciate the attempt but there was no way in hell that I was ever going to drink it. My ever helpful and self sacrificing sister eventually took them off my hands after they had sat under my workbench for about a month, for which I got a lift home from work, so it works out that in the end what my colleagues actually bought me was a lift home. Thanks guys.

Even if the present is something fantastic that I’ve always wanted, my shyness, over pronounced English reserve, odd personality, or whatever it is, makes me come across as somewhat underwhelmed, no matter how much I like the gift presented to me, and I can see the disappointment in the giver’s face, then I feel guilty about it. I have tried to avoid both this, and the unbelievable lie scenarios by attempting to wait until I am safely alone before opening any present given to me, but of course part of the pleasure of giving presents is seeing the surprised/joyous reaction on the receivers face, so I will be encouraged by the giver to open it there and then, leaving me destined to cause disappointment in people who, quite often, I care about.

Like the cards though it’s not all presents I have a problem with, it’s just the birthday/Christmas socially brainwashed ‘expected because it’s an occasion for getting presents’ type presents that annoy me. If you’re out and about and you see the robot monkey butler that you know your friend has been looking for, but for some reason hasn’t been able to find, or afford, and you decide to buy it for them, even though it’s nowhere near their birthday, or Christmas, just because you want to and it would be a nice thing to do, then that’s all well and good, you are a fine, thoughtful friend...  If you decide to hang onto that item though, so you can wrap it up in colourful paper, stick a bow on it and ceremonially present it to them on a more traditional present giving occasion, then you run the risk that either they, or someone else has already obtained the item. I have two identical pairs of cufflinks because I’d mentioned, in conversation, to two different people, my girlfriend and a work colleague, that I was looking for a particular design of cufflinks. My girlfriend had gone out and bought a pair for me but decided to hold on to them and give them to give to me as a Christmas present. My work colleague had also seen a pair and decided to get them for me as a leaving present (I was due to leave work just before Christmas). My girlfriend was a little pissed off when I came home and showed her the fantastic present my work colleague had given me.

Presents would be a far more generous and thoughtful concept if we just abolished birthdays, Christmas, Hanukah, mother’s day, father’s day, Valentines day, and whatever else consumerism can come up with to keep the wheels of capitalism turning day gifts, and just bought them because we could. Because we found something that was just perfect. Because we cared...  Oh and by the way, just so you know; I really would love that robot monkey butler.