Presents

I spend a lot of money I don't have these days. It's kind of my thing.

For example, tonight some friends of mine from high school were meeting for dinner. SF, who was visiting from the UK, had brought us all presents. She'd been telling me about the present she was going to give me for weeks, to the point that I felt I ought not to show up empty-handed. But I couldn't very well only get a present for SF, so I bought presents for everyone. I justified this expensive move by telling myself that if they hadn't bought me presents, I would simply return their presents to Barnes and Noble, and it would be no loss on my part.

On the subway ride downtown, I convinced myself that of course it was the right thing to do to have presents because these were Southern Christian kids, the type to have really nice Christmas presents for everyone. Nonetheless, I hid the books as well as I could in my bag so that I could bail out if need be.

So right off the bat I can tell that LW probably doesn't have presents in her tiny purse. CH doesn't seem to have any gifts either, unless he has stashed some giftcards in his coat pocket. Dinner starts and SF presents us all with our gifts. We are all delighted and everyone seems quite surprised. I am thinking to myself: keep those books in your bag. No one is expecting a present from you, so just keep em in there. You are poor and can't afford presents. If anything keep those books for yourself. Keep em. Yeah. But whatever you do, don't get them out.

But of course that makes me feel grinch-like and what with a little sangria, before I know it I am passing out packages. Well, of course everyone liked their presents, though I think they were quite embarassed at not having anything to give in return and well they fucking should be.