Engagement Gift by Kaczynski
After a day of rain, wind, power outages and wedding reception discussions, IP and I took a quick jaunt downstairs to pick up our mail. As we walked up to the mailboxes, I noticed a rectangular package, wrapped in brown, grocery bag paper, waiting on the ledge to be picked up by its rightful owners.
Which happened to be us. To WordNerd and IP, from College Friend L.
A small gasp escaped me. IP asked if the box was making a ticking noisie. I held the box to me ear to check.
Once in the apartment, I scrutinized the box. Poking at the brown paper as IP disappeared into the kitchen, I wondered aloud if College Friend L was playing at anything. Since the Great Bridesmaid Decision of 2008, I’ve only received a “how well do you know your friend” forward, the type which I never fill out and respond to in kind — why should an email group of friends care that you’ve been kissed under a mistletoe or danced in the rain (for the record: no and no)? IP has received a birthday card, which I reasoned away as an indicator of her obsession with Hallmark cards. Now an engagement gift after nearly a month of silence? Perhaps it was unwise to open the box without the help of the bomb squad, I mused.
Curiosity and the belief that College Friend L knows nothing about homemade explosives got the better of me — because the box was wrapped, in typical fashion for her, with tape covering every single crease of folded paper so that one cannot gain ripping purchase, I retrieved a knife from the kitchen. “Open it yet?” IP asked as I put knife to box.
“No. Because she cannot wrap a goddamn thing without putting goddamn tape on every goddamn inch of goddamn paper,” I growled, somehow slipping the knife between the tape and cutting a section of paper away. “She thinks it’s goddamn funny. It’s not.”
IP shuffled his feet nervously as he poked his head out of the kitchen door. “Honey, maybe you shouldn’t say ‘goddamn’ so much right before you open that box. Just in case —you don’t want it to be your last word.”
I smiled grimly. “Well, just in case, then — I love you, honey.”
IP grinned backed as I succeeded in removing the brown paper. “Willow Tree,” I read.
Opening the box, which was labeled “Promise”, I pulled out a Styrofoam casing. The Styrofoam opened to reveal a figurine of a man and a woman embracing. I gave first the figure and then IP a critical look. “Nice,” I said. “So why is it okay to send a gift when you’re giving someone the silent treatment?”
“I don’t get it,” IP admitted, “but per our gift rule, I get to write the thank you note. You’re off the hook for that.”
I contemplated the figure again, then repacked it, placing the box on our hallway table. “Think she’s trying to send a hint? A ‘You can have three bridesmaids’ hint?”
“Then she would have been better about talking to you, don’t you think? Be a better communicator? Maybe this is an ‘I’m not angry anymore’ kind of thing.”
“Well, she’s not the best communicator in any way, shape or form. I never get what messages she’s trying to send,” I sighed. “We’ll thank her and be done with it.
“Are you putting it on display?”
“Not for now.”
College Friend L has done the “gift as message” thing before when angry — I’m never sure if it’s an olive branch extending to make peace or to beat me soundly. If she is still angry, I would prefer she say so rather than try to guilt me into reaching out to her by sending gifts. If this is her way of saying she’s not angry, the request remains the same: some communication in the form of, you know, communication is greatly preferred. I’ve never been one for using gifts as a proxies for apologies or forgiveness; given our discussions earlier in the year, she should know this by now. If this was a way to try to get me to open up the lines of communication myself (the ball, as they say, was in her court), then it fails through no fault of her own: IP is all about trading thank you notes (I take care of his side, he takes care of mine) — that arrangement, however, might tick her off even more since she might think I’m avoiding her. So if she wants to talk, why not just talk instead of sending cards, gifts, and non-relevant emails?
Aren’t we past middle school? I could’ve sworn I hit the three-decades old mark not to long ago.
