As the holidays creep towards us, many of us are still enjoying the privilege of taking ample time to find that perfect gift for everyone on our lists. But there are a handful of us that, though we may know just what that perfect gift would be, have no time to make or buy it. With the immense volume of shoppers out-and-about at any given time, the idea of finding a parking spot at the local mall is enough to give us indigestion. And then there are the piles of merchandise, strewn willy-nilly across the stores in the wake of shoppers who got there early. We have to mine the piled boxes in the electronics department, or struggle to extract that perfect sweater from the over-stuffed rack without loosing the hanger and pulling down the surrounding items, which we (I hope) would then have to re-hang. I am exhausted just blogging about it!!!
That’s why the gift card is such a spectacular idea. Yes, there is a certain special quality to a gift that was chosen just for us by someone who knew just what we would want. But let’s face it; usually the things we get are not what we would have picked up for ourselves. For example, one Christmas I was given a trash can by my grandmother. Another time my uncle gave me a candle that said “Cowboy” on the package. It had a musty dirt odor mingled with a hint of horse. Needless to say, the candle went into Nana’s trash bin.
My point here is that, while gift cards may not be terribly romantic, they are practical. I’m at the point in my life where I don’t need stuff. And gift cards allow me to keep the clutter to a minimum, while still feeling appreciated.
Now that I have made my case for gift card-giving, I feel it necessary to make contradictory commentary on a pertinent news story I recently read. Starbucks pre-paid gift cards are quite possibly ascending to a status that is right up there with the mark of the beast, only for coffee. A news article from the Associated Press says that last holiday season, 15 million Starbucks cards were sold, and brought in a whopping 170 million in revenue upon their redemptions. Since November of 2001, roughly 96 million cards have been sold in the U.S. and Canada. Cards are also a form of caffeine-scoring currency in the U.K., Japan, Spain, Thailand, Australia, Germany, and Greece, and don’t think that Starbucks is planning anything short of global takeover. Pretty soon we will have no way of getting caffeinated but by using the magical plastic. Latte-deprived cash-carriers will wait in hour-long lines only to find out that paper doesn’t cut it anymore. They will stumble away from the register bewildered, dragging their plastic to-go cups along the shelves of pre-fab pastries, and compilation CD’s. Dazed, they will wander into mom-and-pop cafes with their pockets turned inside out, trying to by go-juice with their library cards or sticks of gum.
I can see it now. The days of paying for something when you buy it are over. Now is the time of paying now and buying later. I’m so disturbed, I may convert to tea.