The Panty Land Diaries Presents: Gift Wrapping 101

If you bought a gift for someone and you were preparing to wrap it, what would be the first thing you'd do?

Well, since it's a gift, it stands to reason that you might take off the price tag. Most of us who were not raised in barns were taught at a young age that it's uncouth to discuss how much was spent on a present.

But some people who were raised in barns (or at least whose stunning lack of logic skills lead me to believe they were) come into Victoria's Secret from time to time, and those people feel the need to ask the person at the concierge desk if they would be so kind as to remove the price tags from the items before wrapping them. Once upon a time, a woman with four or five different gifts actually requested, loudly, as she saw us begin working on each new gift, "Can we take the prices off that one, TOO?"

My inner monologue went as follows: Oh, thank goodness. I'm so glad you mentioned that, because even though I actually spend eight hours straight wrapping presents, this was going to be the one I decided to leave the tag on. So thank goodness you reminded me. Thank. Goodness.

I couldn't just go on forever not saying anything, and since most of these people were not snappy enough to pick up on sarcasm, I decided to go with this.

Customer: Can you take the price tags off that?
Me: Oh, of course, m'am. We aaaaaalways doooooo. Very first thing! (Insert cruel smile only Southern women can effectively pull off that translates to something like, "So fuck you kindly, bless your little heart.")

Hey, it was my job to sit there and wrap boxes all. day. long. If I hadn't figured out how to take a price tag off yet, well -- I'd still probably be qualified to work for Victoria's Secret. But I don't come to your job and...

...Actually, Kathy says it better than I can.

cheers,
e. cawein