Gift Implants

You can implant embryos. You can implant memories. You can implant breasts. and with my help, you can implant ideas... Christmas present ideas...

Have you ever received a gift that you wanted to throw on the ground and stomp on? How about a gift that the giver clearly thought you would LOVE when in reality you absolutely hate? Or an item that clearly was a last minute, no correlation to you whatsoever, "I have no idea what to get this person" kind of gift? Yeah, I understand that gift giving is supposed to be a simple, selfless act that comes from the heart and doesn't have to hold any material value, blah blah blah, but some gifts plain suck. I know it, you know it, and Goodwill knows it.

Each Christmas as a child, we were urged to send a list to Santa Clause listing what we want him to leave under our tree. Despite my always wanting something way cooler than Santa's elves could ever make (I never got my pink Barbie Corvette, Rudolph), my knowledge of St. Nick was shot down early on in life: I caught my dad in his undies tracking ash footprints from the chimney to the Christmas tree on Christmas eve when I was four. He tried to convince me that Santa had just left up the chimney and he was trying to clean up his footprints and cookie crumbs, but let's face it, dad, I was smarter than I looked (and still am, kinda).

Since that dark and dreary Christmas, I had to pretend Santa was real so my brother didn't cry (he was a bit of a pansy and still is..) I received gift after gift, year after year, knowing that Santa was a phony and my relatives thinking they were soooo convincing. Ha. As soon as the true identity of Santa was "revealed," I have noticed the devastating effects of not creating a Christmas list: horrible presents. Which is why I began my mental Christmas lists... in everyone else's minds MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

Side note: Thankfully, Mark started giving me the things I wanted during the year (I like to think of them as random acts of kindness) so he didn't have to wrap a present or buy a Christmas tree (very practical.) No implantation necessary.

So, present implantation.

Implantation can be taken advantage of in a number of ways. The most effective approaches are as follows.. but first, a few things to know: 1. You have to want something. 2. You have to have someone to target (aka who will get it for you.) 3. You need to be very very sneaky. 4. Creativity is key in order to make the gift giver believe it is his/her idea.

Say you want a faux fur Spirit Hood (which I, in fact, do.) Unless my friends and relatives are psychic, they have no idea I want this. I could email out a notice, letting everyone know this is on my list, but no one is going to want to buy me a $130 dollar dead animal looking hat to wear around like a jackass. This is where implantation comes in. My boyfriend of the week thinks it would be nice to get me a Christmas gift but has no idea what to get me that is within his budget (hopefully budget wouldn't be a problem with a longer-termed boyfriend.) I have a few options. When he is over, I leave the site up on Firefox so when he uses my computer he sees it. Because boys are stupid and probably won't catch my drift, it's going to take a little more work.. so, in another window, I ironically have just sent a message on Facebook to my best friend saying how cute it is and how I really want one. If he STILL doesn't get it, I have to take further action: the Colleen Adams effect. If a girl's best friend tells you she wants something, get it for her. Unless you are Superman, you probably don't know better than she does and to begin with your girlfriend probably told her to tell you (implantation at its finest, duh.) Overall, gift implanting is truly better than making a Christmas list because a) they think it's their idea=empowerment=good mood, b) if they unfortunately get you something different you won't feel bad they didn't get you what you "asked for," and c) if you don't get it from the selected individual, at least your best friend knows you want it!

;)