Nawing at My Insides

Guess what I leaned on Thursday?
That even if you are only driving 100 yards, you need to wear your seatbelt.

Or pay the State of Illinois $95, and give up a Saturday for traffic school.

Scribble that down, stick it on the tack board, and NEVER FORGET IT.


Ho Ho Fucking Ho
So we had our team Christmas party.

It was actually quite nice.

Well, of course, that’s despite that fact that I somehow (accidently?) got left off the email list for the group gift to my boss.

I sure it has nothing to do with the fact that one of my screeners has been shit-talking the piss out of me to anyone who listen – and oh, they’ve been listening. You know, because she doesn’t like the way I..uh..supervise? Make sure she meets her deadlines? Shows up for work?

The nerve of me.

Whatever. So they “forgot” to ask me to participate.

Humbug.

Okay, back to my story. So we all had to bring a $10 gift for our grab-bag person, and then a White Elephant gift (aka whatever piece of crap you find at the back of your closet to bestow without remorse on some poor co-worker in the name of yuletide cheer).

Okay, okay – before I go any further, let me say this – I love giving presents, but I HATE gift giving for the sake of gift giving. I hate that part of Christmas where you rush through the stores, trying to find a sweater, or scarf, or some Old Navy pjs, or some other sort of crap that the recipient could very easily buy hismelf.

If I am going to give a gift, I prefer it to be personal, meaningful.

Perhaps something that you remembered your beloved saying that he wanted six months ago, or something that you know he could really use but won’t buy himself.

Something that, when they open it, your heart wants to burst as much as his does.

Yeah, I like giving those gifts.

For example, my family has decided not to exchange gifts this year – mostly because we all have what we want. And if we don’t, we can just get in our cars, drive to the Gap, and get it ourselves.

So instead, we just had a lovely dinner the other night. Good food, good company – a true reminder of how blessed I am.

So back to this whole idea of $10 gifts – I mean, really. First off, what can you possibly get for $10, and for a person you know virtually nothing about? If I am absolutely forced to engage in this nonsense, I would much rather prefer a gift card to say, Target, because I know I will use it.

And hey, with Cheese around all the time now, I am finding I spend an inordinate amount of time in the toilet paper/wet wipes isle at the Big Red Bulls Eye in the Sky.

So I got our administrative assistant in the grab-bag, and my boss told me she likes to drink coffee from a particular food establishment, so coffee gift card is what I gave to my Grab-Bag person. Creative? No. But at least she could use it. And multiple times, at that.

The gift that keeps on giving.

And you know what I got?

Foot lotion and foot scrub.

Or some shit.

I can’t really tell, as I didn’t all to much look direct at it in its plastic packaging that like came straight from the Walgreens about an hour earlier – or even perhaps was being re-gifted from last year.

Come to think of it – definitely re-gifted.

I was so much rather have received nothing then this.

And the worst part is that it came from another supervisor – one of many who I have done countless numbers of favors for – both her and the people she supervises.

And before I am misunderstood – please hear this – I am not bitching about getting a shitty gift (thoughtless, maybe) – but rather, I am bitching about how, during this Christmas season, there is this oppressive forced giving-for-the-sake-of-giving shit.

I mean, I don’t care about the $10 - but for what? Why couldn’t we have just tossed the ten bucks in an envelope for the next staff meeting, and bought everyone lunch? Hell, that could have bought us lunch for the next TWO staff meetings!

To me, these little grab-bag deals are such a waste of time and energy and funds. And what you end up with a bunch of crap.

Crap.

Like foot lotion.

From Walgreens.

But on the bright side, we also had to bring the White Elephant gift we had to bring that acted as prizes for our Bingo game.

And you know what I came home with?

A huge ceramic white bowl that says “Popcorn” on the side.

First off – SCORE!

Second off – who would WANT to get rid of this piece of art?

I mean sure – I came this/close to losing it to another supervisee for some used (yes, you read that right – USED) cloth napkins. But as if Santa himself wiggled his large bulbous nose and sprinkled some elfin magic dust over the group – I Bingo’d again, and managed to win back the white pot of glory.

Yeah, I got the stink eye after that, but I didn’t fucking care – the supervisee I won it from was the woman who organized the Boss Gift.

So those are my Jingle Bells in a nutshell.