I hate gift certificates. Well, no. I like spending them as much as anyone else. But while I'm sitting there at Grandma's house, holding this piece of paper with a clear demarcation of exactly how much to the dollar Uncle Whoosis loves me, some small part of me, just for a second, is thinking "Wuss."

I know they're practical. I know that they prevent me from making a horrible mistake and buying something godawful.

I've gotten the godawful myself. I lived through the infamous Cow Years, when every single person I knew believed I was fanatical about cows.

(There were these cow slippers, see. I said "Oh wow! Cows!" What I meant was, "I have never seen slippers such as these. Those alligators are also amusing, but I don't like that particular shade of green. Yes. I would like those cow slippers." What my family heard was, "Ana loves cows. Let's buy her many many cows.")

(Cows??? Who likes cows??? Over the next few years, I got cow christmas lights, D6s with little cows instead of dots, and a t-shirt with a picture of a cow saying "Don't have a Bart, man." Those were all good gifts. They captured what had originally amused me about the slippers. They were offbeat. They had this incidental cow theme going on, but mostly, they were something a little bit strange.)

(I also received several tons of pure cow kitsch. Cow mugs. Cow magnets. Cow stationery. Cow calendars. Cartoon cows and realistic cows and cows wearing precious little gingham dresses.)

(I hate cows. Especially those damn black and white spotted ones. I recognize their contributions to, say, a nice medium rare slice of prime rib, but that's as far as the cows and I go.)

(Why oh why oh WHY didn't I say I liked the alligator slippers better? I live in Wisconsin. There is very little alligator merchandise here. I could have maybe handled getting alligator crap occaisonally. It wouldn't have been every year. It wouldn't have been five or six different alligators every goddamn year. But the cows. The cows are everywhere. They watch me. They know my thoughts....)

(Whups. Heh. I guess I've still got a few issues with cows. I didn't mean to get sidetracked like that. What in the world was I talking about?)

I've gotten the godawful myself...

Ah, yes. The point is, I probably would have rather gotten a gift certificate. But for every cow (COWS! Cowscows cowscows cows!!), there was also a bunch of really neat stuff I never would have known existed. That lamp D. got me for my birthday. The Oz books, back in the day. Those water timers with the colored globby stuff. If I had just gotten gift certificates, I never would have had any of that.

But gift certificates are so evil. They're impersonal. They're boring. They're little slips of paper with dollar amounts on them.

Besides, what if everyone gave gift certificates? Gift certificates are the Perfect Modern Gift, after all. Christmas is already totally commercial and wrong and blah blah blah. It's all about putting a dollar amount on love, so let's just cut out the middle man. Here. I love you this much. Merry Christmas.

But it can't possibly be to the point where we all trade little envelopes of money and call it a holiday quite yet. I'd like to think I'm not that cynical.

If Christmas is about exchanging gifts, those gifts had damn well better be gifts. Gift certificates are lame. That's all I'm sayin'.

And now I basically have no choice but to get one. I've gotta get a gift for someone I don't even know, and his mom says that's what he wants. But I still feel dirty.

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