Monday, August 22, 2005
Recently, my mother got a gift card for her physical therapist, a strapping young woman who likes to hike. The gift card is for EMS, a store with pretensions of outdoorsiness (but in my opinion can't compare to REI, or even L.L. Bean). But this is no ordinary EMS gift card. This particular EMS card has a tangled history, a history of being handed from person to person, traded off like so much meat.
My father had given me this EMS card for my birthday. I thought it was quite generous, and I was impressed by his awareness level: first, that he even knew what EMS was, second, that he was able to find one, and third, that he went to it and shelled out fifty dollars for a gift card. Especially since Dad claims to be utterly helpless in the face of birthdays and other mandated gift-giving occasions.
So the gift card went in a drawer with my other gift cards (currently, Babies 'R' Us, Gap and Macy's). Later, my sister asked what Dad had given me for my birthday. A gift card to EMS, I told her. Huh, that's funny, she said. I gave him an EMS card (I can't remember what occasion she told me it was for). For $50? I said. And we looked at each other, the light of understanding dawning in our eyes ...
Now, I don't mind EMS. However, years of living in Arizona, with its plethora of outdoor gear stores and perpetual siren call of the great outdoors, have helped me to accumulate a very respectable stash of hiking and camping gear that are now existing in limbo, given that I live in a flat place about five feet above sea level populated with about 2 million people. So I don't really need more stuff. And wandering into outdoors shops gets me all glassy-eyed and mentally planning multi-day excursions into various mountain ranges, even though I now have an infant, nonconsecutive days off and no vacation time.
So when Mom mentioned that she wanted to head to the nearest EMS store for this gift card, I right away offered her mine. She promptly wrote me a check for fifty bucks. I felt the merest twinge of guilt. But it seems only fitting that the card move on, still seeking the right owner, on a quest for the person who would love it right. It's climbing every mountain, as it were. Is the physical therapist the right person? Well, she has actually done some hiking in the past year. And even if she doesn't have a need for a new backpack or Dri-Wick T-shirts, it is now clear that a card like this can really come in handy. Especially with Christmas right around the corner.
My father had given me this EMS card for my birthday. I thought it was quite generous, and I was impressed by his awareness level: first, that he even knew what EMS was, second, that he was able to find one, and third, that he went to it and shelled out fifty dollars for a gift card. Especially since Dad claims to be utterly helpless in the face of birthdays and other mandated gift-giving occasions.
So the gift card went in a drawer with my other gift cards (currently, Babies 'R' Us, Gap and Macy's). Later, my sister asked what Dad had given me for my birthday. A gift card to EMS, I told her. Huh, that's funny, she said. I gave him an EMS card (I can't remember what occasion she told me it was for). For $50? I said. And we looked at each other, the light of understanding dawning in our eyes ...
Now, I don't mind EMS. However, years of living in Arizona, with its plethora of outdoor gear stores and perpetual siren call of the great outdoors, have helped me to accumulate a very respectable stash of hiking and camping gear that are now existing in limbo, given that I live in a flat place about five feet above sea level populated with about 2 million people. So I don't really need more stuff. And wandering into outdoors shops gets me all glassy-eyed and mentally planning multi-day excursions into various mountain ranges, even though I now have an infant, nonconsecutive days off and no vacation time.
So when Mom mentioned that she wanted to head to the nearest EMS store for this gift card, I right away offered her mine. She promptly wrote me a check for fifty bucks. I felt the merest twinge of guilt. But it seems only fitting that the card move on, still seeking the right owner, on a quest for the person who would love it right. It's climbing every mountain, as it were. Is the physical therapist the right person? Well, she has actually done some hiking in the past year. And even if she doesn't have a need for a new backpack or Dri-Wick T-shirts, it is now clear that a card like this can really come in handy. Especially with Christmas right around the corner.
