Presents of mind
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
LIFE is a circle. I know this because I saw The Lion King once and
it seemed important enough to make an entire five-minute song about it,
complete with dancing hyenas. Then again, they once made a song about a purple people-eater, too, so I perhaps shouldn’t use song composition as any indicator of profound social importance.
But when it comes to gift giving, life really is a circle. Think
about it: when you are very small, on birthdays and special days, aunties,
grandmas and people who really didn’t like you very much gave you clothing as presents. Cute little socks and scratchy, mis-shapen, hand-knitted jumpers with bows and ribbons (and you should see the girls’ outfits ...) were deemed a “safe” gift option.
Of course, they were also about as much fun as kissing Great Aunty May’s big mole face.
As you got older, for a decade or so, people tended to give you
presents you actually liked. We’ll call these the Deaf Years, in honor of
those (presumably childless) adults who gave other people’s children
multiple sound-effect rayguns as cheery gift keepsakes.
Then you got old. As in 30. And a number of you had become parents which, under the rings-beneath-the-eyes counting method, is about 170 years of age.
And then it was all downhill from there. If you’re not there yet,
soon you’ll be back to being given knitted cardigans with cutesy patterns
and ugly, big ole sunhats.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because Father’s Day is looming
large. And I find myself this year, for the first time, contemplating
getting my old man ... clothing.
When I was growing up, I never gave my dad clothes. I didn’t want to
encourage him in case he decided to (a) go outside, and (b) be seen in
public with me. (It had something to do with his insistence on wearing brown sandals with long white socks and a comb-over of his 12 strands of hair shaped into a male version of a beehive hairdo.)
But now I find I’m asking myself burning questions like: boxers or
Y-fronts? How many centimetres go around the average dad’s neck? Will the fact his height’s shrinking at the rate of 10 square centimetres a year affect his sock size? And will a nose-hair trimmer accidentally suck out his brain?
But I am also wondering if what all dads really want for Father’s
Day is the same fun stuff they got before they were deemed “old”.
I think I might be really on to something here.
So if anyone can help, I’m looking for a multiple sound-effect
raygun in extra large - with an optional nose-hair-trim attachment ...
In brown or beige of course.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 29 AUG 2000