Paranormal
A birthday party in a quaint little suburban home. Just like any birthday party elsewhere in the world. Several kids wearing inane decorative cones on top of their heads, running around the house and bumping into other objects in a manner very similar to crazed, super-heated caffeine molecules.
And after the cake has been cut, and distributed amongst the children and the expensive carpets in an impartial fashion, the time comes. Time to open the presents.
The problem isn't with the part about opening the presents. There's something deeper here, that we're overlooking: The fact that the presents need to be opened. Reason: Gift-wrap.
Every gift that we buy, we gift-wrap it. Something we always do.
Probably the most redundant of rituals that we, as an intelligent species, could conjure up thanks to the logic and analytical skills granted upon us by millions of years of evolution.
Does no one see the redundancy and insipidity of this? Why is it that we go out, buy a gift for someone, and then instinctively hide it inside a foil of shiny paper, often with an intricately tied up knot of ribbon on it? Do we not realize that the recipients of the gift are going to tear the shiny foil off anyways? That they give little regard to what we put around the gift? After all, it is the gift that the recipient is interested in.
Perhaps, we are simply ashamed of carrying the gift in our hands if it were open. Then why give it to that person in the first place? Social and moral obligations? Save yourself the embarrassment and do away with it! There is no point in wrapping something up if they aren't going to like it anyways. In fact, they may even curse you for wrapping it because not only does the gift suck, but you made them put in an effort to tear up the shiny foil.
The phenomena of gift-wrapping seems to be a recent one. When the Trojan Horse was presented to Troy, they didn't gift wrap it. They didn't need to. And the citizens of Troy thought that it was a pretty swell gift too. In fact, if you're going to gift someone something, make sure it's good. Then you should give it to them without wrapping it.
What's more, is that we're going to be creating a problem for the coming generations. Some bright young executive, one day, will suddenly get the bright idea that gift-wrap should be branded, from designer names, or with extra accessories adorned on it, or perhaps with really nifty opening mechanisms. The trend will spread, and the people in the future will again, instinctively, buy these contraptions. And soon, before you know it, they'll start wearing gift wrap around their waists, perhaps to make a fashion statement that they are in touch with the idiocy of their own generation. The equivalent of this idiocy in this generation would be the iPod.
While there's nothing we can do about Global Warming, something can be done about this! We must stop this before it becomes a runaway effect. Now, what exactly would constitute a runaway effect? Here's what: Imagine if the executive above were able to start an ad campaign for gift-wrap. People start buying gift-wrap, by the bulk. More companies want a share of the multitrillion dollar gift-wrap industry, and start their own lines. Their own ideas. Before you know it, the gift-wrap phenomena has exploded. Everything is gift-wrapped. Toothpaste would need to be unwrapped first. Cigarettes can be smoked only after unwrapping them. We start wearing gift-wrap instead of pants and need to unwrap ourselves before going to the washroom. When someone gives someone else the finger, it's gift-wrapped.
And then one day, it happens: Gift-wrap inside gift-wrap. Almost immediately, parallel industries need to be set up for this purpose, either displacing or converting all others. And it happens everywhere at an accelerated rate, at a rate so immensely fast that the economy collapses into itself, creating a black hole. A Gift Wrapped black hole, that is.
Famine will follow, since the food has not been properly gift-wrapped, and we would be vulnerable to the non-gift wrapped bacteria and virii. Medicine will be rendered ineffective. The dependency on gift-wrap will be our own undoing, and soon, we shall die out.
This is why, I suggest we stop gift-wrapping our gifts. And stop buying mediocre gifts for that matter. Just buy something really cool for your friend, and give it to them, open. It can be the start of a new beginning. And is best for all of us.
If you're not sure about the advice I have given above, then you should try it out on someone first. Try gifting me a brand new, state-of-the-art surround-sound system, and don't gift wrap it. I guarantee you, you wouldn't regret it.
