The Colour Of Money

The title of a rather well known movie starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, it is also a metaphor for many things.  The first cousin of the expression ’the colour of money’ is its more outspoken and controversial family member ‘the colour of my money’.  A metaphor for the reason gift giving sometimes gets weird?  Maybe so.

Why it is that gift giving can at times be so completely and utterly confusing?  Why is there no handbook for this kind of thing?  Frankly, I’m t h i s close to giving up on the whole spirit of giving shtick.  Of course I don’t really mean that, what with me deriving giddy pleasure from causing people’s faces to light up at my occasionally off the wall but always heartfelt thoughtfulness.  Giving is a drug, and in this realm I’m a junkie who can’t relinquish something that feels good. But gosh darn it, I’m cross.  That’s right – c r o s s.

We need rules around gifting, don’t we?  Good, clean, straight-up rules.  Like “How To Give,” for one, and perhaps a concurrent publication “How To Get”.  In my mind, that should fix everything, so should there be sufficient interest, I shall set about writing them but in the interim here are potential excerpts from both of the as yet unwritten masterpieces:

From The Code:  How To Give

Ø  A gift must come from the heart (if it comes from your foot, it loses its sentimental value very quickly).  The more perceptive among us will spot a gift given from the foot, so pick wisely.  Hint:  It needs to emanate from the gooiest, softest place that you have inside of you… that awesome place where no matter what else is going on in the world, it can all be perfect for one moment when heartfelt generosity is passed from you to somebody you care about.

Ø  A gift must be offered only when the joy of giving it exceeds the combined magnitude and power of all other emotions in the universe.  Period.  Simple.  Please don’t mess this up by thinking to yourself, “But… but…”, because “But… but…” is how all the great wars have started and we don’t need any more of those now, do we?

Ø  A gift must be given with no expectations attached.  As an example, surprising your partner with a new Lagostina Teflon frying pan on your anniversary is only a good idea if he or she gives a damn that your Sunday over easies, by his or her hand, routinely turn into a craptacular scramble that requires some sort of power tool to retract it from the pan.   As they say in business circles, know your market.  Caveat:  On a case by case basis, it might be forgivable to have certain expectations of personal happiness around the giving of a gift that you both - both! - have a vested interest in.  But that’s a whole other book (The Code:  Reasonable Expectations) which yes, I will write just as soon as I’m done crafting all my other literary masterpieces.  I’m v e r y busy (she laments, dabbing sweat off her brow in a manner that would make Blanche DuBois, well, blanch).

Ø  A gift must be given with no strings attached.  Once you give it, it is no longer yours.  Nor can you take it back, no matter how much you might want to.  I know this will put a lot of lawyers out of business and I feel badly about that (I have lawyer friends and they are good people), but I won’t budge on this one.  Once you give a gift, it’s gone.  But if you’ve done your homework you should be able to reap the benefits of the joy the receiver gets out of being in possession of your gift.  Do your homework, givers.  Don’t run amok giving gifts with a spirit that goes against code.  It throws the earth of its axis for those who give gifts with the purest of motives: the unabashed joy of both the giver and the getter. 

From The Code:  How To Get

Ø  A gift must be received with genuine grace and heartfelt gratitude (immediately).  If either of those two things are missing, or if the gift giver is noble in spirit but the acceptance of the gift is not, the gift must be refused… no matter how shiny and pretty it may be.

There.  Done and done.  As these excerpts clearly demonstrate, we will soon have structure around what was once a painfully ambiguous process.  I feel good about this.  I shall now sit on my duff and await my Nobel Peace Prize, which by the way is a gift – a gift that I shall refuse on the grounds that my reasons for accepting it would be against code.   Why?  Well because the clarification of protocol around giving stuff and getting stuff is not ground breaking erm, stuff.  We all know what constitutes grace, gratitude, and good judgment… but sometimes it’s just nice to have a little refresher.