Gift cards: Jumping the shark?

Um, you have to stand in lines to buy the gift card too.

 

You can buy them online, too.

 

Of course, gifts can be purchased online as well.

God bless Amazon and eBay this season.

 

So I call my sister-in-law and ask what my 12-year-old niece would like for Christmas. Knowing how 12-year-old girls are, she probably wants some kind of make-up kind of thing or clothing. She's a little old for toys and such. Her mom suggests a gift card for a popular area mall (they live about an hour north of me but the mall is kind of in between us.

I get there and find that A, they won't let me pay with a check to buy the damn thing; and, B. There's a fucking service charge to buy the damn thing. So go get her a $30 gift card I have to spend $32. What a fucking rip off!

Never. Going. There. Again.

 

i love getting gift cards. i couldn't be happier when i get one. i don't want some stupid shit you picked out because you like it. i want what i want, not what you want me to want.

 

I got some gift cards to stores I like and am happy. I get to have my fun over the next few days. I'll have even more to spend once I exchange the hideous stuff... and for the record, I would have rather had a gift card than something that showed no thought or love on the part of the giver.

 

And that's another sticky variable.

Someone who really loves you and thinks about what to get can STILL get something that --- to you --- appears to show no thought or love. Our minds are all wired a little differently.

The Amazing Kreskin, we are not.

 

Of course, you have to take each relationship individually. Some people do buy gift cards because it's the path of least resistance, and others because they'd rather let the gift receiver be happy with what they get instead of taking a shot in the dark themselves. Some people ask for cards because they don't trust anyone to buy them a good gift, while others do so because they want to limit the stress involved in shopping. Your mileage varies.

All I know is one year I got my cousin a $25 gift card for Barnes and Noble, and she got me ... wait for it ... a $25 gift card for Barnes and Noble. It made me think about the futility of buying gifts for people you've fallen out of touch with to the point that you couldn't come up with a unique gift idea for them. Not that I didn't appreciate the effort or the intent, but it sort of thrust everything into a different light for me.

 

Another good reason to get gift cards is not to duplicate something the recipient already has. Whether it's a book, CD, video game, etc, it's hard to know EVERYTHING that that person has.

 

My parents just don't want to put any thought into gifts. So every birthday, which is a few weeks from Christmas, I get a $100 Macy's gift card. I don't shop at Macy's--everything's too expensive. So I end up going there and buying my wife's Christmas presents with the card. Then for Christmas, they send my wife and me--wait for it--a $100 Macy's gift card. They don't send us separate things--they barely acknowledge my wife's existence (in the 20-odd years we've been married, I think she's gotten one birthday card from them. One.)

A couple years ago they slipped up and sent a Barnes & Noble card for my birthday. I must've sounded too happy in my thank-you note, so the next year they went back to the Macy's cards.

It'd just be easier all around if they just quit trying to pretend they care and gave up.

 

I don't like Macy's for different reasons; I think most of the clothes and shoes suck. But their cookware, Tools of the Trade, is a very good value for the money. Not as good as Farberware, but it'll last longer than the cheap shit.