Trade Fair (Lad)

Dear Lad,
° "Retarded"?! (I use this word only in free selfadmission of its applicability to me, to our leaders on high, to our slaves and vassals, to our--no, Cats and Wolves actually are smart enough for the world in which they dwell, Mosquitoes also.)
° Say, rather: daffy, daft, loony, pointless aimless feckless, selfdefeating. Then take a deep breath, click on Thesaurus, and have a fresh go at it.
° How many families, burdened by the necessity of every single member’s giving Befana gifts to every other member--cousins, aunts, uncles, blood, water, grass, every conceivable kinship--how many families have, in selfdefense against the Spirit of the Season, adopted the elementaryschool dodge of drawing names?
° You drew your Uncle Gonzago, he, by fatal chance, drew yours.
° Good going, Lad, you’ve struck it rich!

° Here is the How.
° You make out a personal check to Uncle Gonzago for, say, $10,255,666.39. Place same in a festive scarlet envelope, with vintage reindeer poliostamp as seal.
° He makes out a personal check to Nephew Lad for, say, $10,255,666.39. He places same in a festive green envelope, with vintage whitebread Santa tbstamp to seal.
° Come Twelfth Night Morn, you both open your presents.
° Che sorpresa! You’re a DutchUncle bazillionaire!
° You ring up Unc to see if there has been, by some mysterious mishap, an error. But you find that Uncle Gonzago, Speedy Gonzago as it were, has already set out for the Bank.
° Desirous of thanking him in person, or for some other reason, you set out for the aforesaid Bank at full gallop.
° You arrive just as Uncle Gonzago is approaching the teller’s window, you dash to the open window just next.
° At the exact same moment, you deposit your fortunes into your own checking accounts.

° And here is where Age goes after Beauty, young FaceBoy.
° For no sooner has the printer issued your deposit confirmation than you write a check made out to Cash and withdraw the entire amount, while poor Uncle Gonzago, elderly and orderly, is still updating his check register.

° "Retarded!" my hind foot.

§

° Now in case this advice does not work out exactly the way I intended--in the back of my mind there are shadowy images of "settlement periods," "felony fraud," and "Jailhouse Blues"--and in case "check kiting," that favourite sport of some of the richest bankers I know, is not entirely--o just forget the whole thing!

° Anyway, I see your point: you purchase a Home Depot giftcard for $25, Uncle Gonzago purchases a Blockbuster giftcard for $25, you exchange for Christmas and--
° --and where’s the gift?
° Isn’t it a wash?
° And what of the risk that you’ll overgift? If he only shells out for a $10 giftcard, how screwed are you!?
° So, since nobody never gives nobody nothing in expectation of receiving nothing in return--"How about dinner and a movie, my treat, then sex and coffee afterwards, your treat? Deal?"--where’s the gift ever?
° For even parents’ gifts to their wee ones serve to buy love and dependency, or at least to reinforce their inborn consumerism for the good of the economy, or at the very least to appease the shrill whining that otherwise embarrasses Mom at every checkout counter from Hallowe’en to New Year’s . . . .

§§§§§

° So it would be no surprise to you that I didn’t get you so much as a sooty coal for your stocking this year.
° Nor Niece, nor Sandy, nor Coz, nor Piers, nor even my self.

° And yet, I did. I couldn’t help myself. And yes, in exchange, each of you must dote on--no, all I ask is that y’all live up to your own coffee scums all the livelong year.
° After all, it is more pleasant to love than to be loved.

° For Niece, Stiletto, by Caroline Cox. For Niece has just had a shoe design of hers accepted for mass production by her employer. Well done, Niece.

° For Sandy, a Fair Trade limesilkbrocadeandscarletvelvet Hindu bottle cozy, for Sandy is an accomplished oenophile. Just decorates a table all by itself, the cozy.

° For Coz, Damned--An Illustrated History of the Devil, by Robert Muchembled. Vasari’s fireupthewazoo engraving (after Dante, or Chris Marlowe), is worth the price of admission. For Coz, the firebreather, may as well see how artistically the Western World has libelled the poor Archangel all these centuries. When, as readers of Piers trinitatis iii well know, Lucifer, through the efficient housecleaning initiated by la Guadalupe, Emperatriz de las Américas and Dei Genetrix, while God was off breeding the Giant Vegetarian Cats, has been restored to Heaven, and to his original splendour, indeed he and his roomy Michael have finally made honest archangels of each other, in Heaven, not in Massachusetts.

° For Piers, a Fair Trade baby Weeping Camel. (Well, it’s an Incan llama, actually a vicuna, but who can tell at that age?) For it was seeing that film, and writing to him thereof, that finally, I don’t know quite how, made me understand that Piers is all grown up now, a free agent, incapable of being babied. O Rats! I even learnt that I could be wrong, and he right, and that I didn’t mind one bit.

° For you, my mellow Lad--well you know what it was, the female customers at Ten Thousand Villages were all oohing and ahhing. If it’s too girly for you and for your oolong, just knock out a couple of partitions, line with cotton batting, and eccolo! a perfect little bunk bed for the chinchilla.
° Hai capito?
° For my real gift to you, and to myself, was the pleasure of mentioning to the volunteer staff at Villages that I’d first been introduced to the concept of Fair Trade by my Lad and friend, who was, as you indeed were, responsible for converting Corner Coffee to Fair Trade coffee.
° Well done, mellow and heartwarm Lad.

° Affectionately, Giac.

P. S. And for me? An $8 Fair Trade Indian "Joy--Calm" incense sampler. For I never outgrew the sunredolent orange, the clove King Leo candystick, the "brasilnuts" and handful of pecans that stuffed my stocking . . . .