As a First Amendment absolutist, I agree completely with the court’s decision, which you can read here. Miss McMillen’s rights have been vindicated. She just can’t exercise them at the prom, which the court also said could remain canceled.
No harm, no foul, no prom.
Congress making no law abridging the right of a school district to cancel the prom.
Surrounded by a flotilla of ACLU attorneys, Constance McMillen made her way into the US District Court House in Aberdeen, Mississippi yesterday. She and her lawyers were there to argue that Itawamba High School should be ordered by the court to un-cancel its prom, once scheduled for Friday, April 2. A federal judge, rather than prom king and queen, presided over this particular court.
The US District Court where Miss McMillen plead her case.
Forgetting for the moment the improbable coincidence that my mother’s first name is “Constance” and her birthday happens to be April 2, it occurred to me this morning to wonder how many Itawamba High students would have excused themselves from the dance because it was to have taken place on Good Friday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar.
In the mediarama that ensued after Miss McMillen threatened her first suit (the one that brought her to court on Monday was her second), I do not recall a single comment about this unfortunate timing. And that’s as interesting as it is puzzling, since both supporters and detractors of Miss McMillen were quick to point out that Itawamba County is but one of the many notches of the Bible Belt. A reasonable person might assume that any number of devout parents might have frowned on their son or daughter kicking up his or her heels on this day of solemn contemplation. A reasonable person might even wonder why the powers that be did not glance at a calendar: separation of church and state does not preclude sensitivity to individuals’ religious observances. No college or university that I am aware of—private or public—schedules exams on, for example, Good Friday, Yom Kippur or Eid. I am really curious to know why a high school prom in this instance is so different from an exam. Because it’s voluntary?
I might buy that, if it weren’t for the spontaneous outpourings from Miss McMillen’s cheering squad that attending prom is a “right” of passage that high school students absolutely, positively, can’t-possibly-miss must attend. Elevating a school dance to the level of compulsory life experience makes it at least as important as all those tests that do not take place on certain days of sacred significance. Isn’t the prom therefore also worthy of taking place on a day that allows for more inclusion?
So I guess I also wonder why the Christians who presumably could not attend the Itawamba High School prom because of their religious beliefs didn’t get busy with their legal briefs. Why didn’t they round up publicity-seeking lawyers to plead their case that a Good Friday prom for them would be no prom at all? I am sure someone would have taken up the cause.
I’d like to think it is because, unlike Miss McMillen, these students understood that although they can want something desperately they can’t always have it, even if that something is being withheld from them by people who are thoughtless or bigoted or both. I’d like to think these students chose to choose their battles wisely. That’s called “growing up.” Something I hope in time Miss McMillen will do.
Perhaps on Sunday, April 4 Miss McMillen (R) and her date will wear their prom finery in the Easter Parade.
NOTE to readers: A good account of the March 23 hearing appears in today’s Washington Post. And of course CMM!‘s earlier trenchant commentary, Constance McMillen and Barak Obama: Spiritual Prom Dates, for background and context.
You may have read or heard a story about Mississippi high school senior Constance McMillen, who teamed up with the ACLU to exercise her inalienable right to don a tuxedo and take her sophomore girlfriend to the senior prom. Miss McMillen and her lawyers were nonplussed when the school board responded to their suit with the following statement: “Due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events, the Itawamba County School District has decided to not host a prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School this year.” Elsewhere in its statement, the board suggests that private citizens or groups might sponsor a prom in lieu of the school function.
Proms are a touchy subject for me. My journey down the dusty road to spinsterhood began early: I didn’t attend the Varsity Club dance (semi-formal). I didn’t attend the Junior Prom (formal). I didn’t have a date for either. Full disclosure: I did not attend a single dance the entire time I was sentenced to high school.
This was back in the days when prom-goers counted themselves lucky if they could borrow dad’s car to drive to the gym, not order up a pimped-out limo to deliver them to the Crowne Plaza “ballroom” and then on to the obligatory round of after-parties. Girls bought their prom dresses in shops with names like “Deb’s Den,” “The Yankee Lady,” or “Grad’s.” (Had I gone to the prom, mine would have come from Lerner’s.) What the boys wore was of little consequence, as long as they produced the requisite wrist corsage to match their date’s perfect dress and shoes. Established cliques schemed to get their sisters elected prom queen and her court. There was always a bottle or two of vodka to be had. Or so I have been told, having had no firsthand experience.
I give my parents a lot of credit for not getting all bent out of shape about my lack of a date to the prom. While they may have sprung for a pizza for dinner on prom night, they did not go running to the principal’s office to complain that it was unfair I couldn’t get a date. And they certainly didn’t hire a lawyer to fight for my right to be a wallflower.
So you will understand if I have a mixed and somewhat jaundiced take on Miss McMillen’s courageous litigation. I am robust proof that one can live a promless life. For Miss McMillen, and for her classmates, missing the prom will be a lifelong catastrophe only if high school proves to be the highpoint of their social experience. And if that is true, then they have more problems than can be solved by “An Evening in Paradise,” “A Night at the Copa” or “An Undersea Fantasy” -themed school dance. Or by a lawsuit aided and abetted by the ACLU.
“But..but..but…” you are sputtering, “Miss McMillen is a lesbian! Don’t you understand how marginalized she is by society and her peers?” Having seen a picture or two of her, I assure you Miss McMillen is anything but marginal. And if you don’t believe me, listen to her, as she defends the second suit she and the ACLU have just filed—to force the school district to hold the prom: “This isn’t just about me and my rights anymore—now I’m fighting for the right of all the students at my school to have our prom.” Uh-uh. Apparently when apprising Miss McMillen of her legal rights, the ACLU neglected to fill her in on the risks of bringing a suit.
Miss McMillen is quoted in The San Diego Tribune as saying “she never expected the district to respond [by canceling the prom]. ‘A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they [sic] had already spent too much money on the prom’ to cancel it, she said.” In other words, Miss McMillen assumed that only she and she alone could take a principled stand: the school district would be guided by money alone. Oops.
I don’t really care how l’affaire prom resolves itself, or what color carnation Miss McMillen’s boutonniere will sport. I hope that she goes on to live a happy and productive life, and that she finds a partner to share that life with. But I do care that high school proms and yearbooks have become easy targets for publicity-seeking self-perceived misfits, and that the ACLU is trigger-happy to lend them an instigating, enabling hand. When I was in school these kids channeled their non-conformist yearnings into plotting their escapes to college, New York or Paris. Rather than wanting “them” to be like “me,” the “me’s” longed for the day when they could leave the squares behind. It’s so interesting to me that teens today have so utterly lost that desire to escape. They’d rather go to the prom. Sad.
Perhaps the president will give Miss McMillen the name of his tailor.
Sadder still is the give-me-what-I-want-now-or-I’ll-make-you-pay attitude that runs through Miss McMillen’s story, and the dozen variations on it we will read from now until the high school prom then graduation seasons are over. It’s the same attitude that President Obama has adopted to push through his version of health care “reform.” Damn the consequences, damn the consensus, full speed ahead with what I want. Because I’m right. And you’re wrong.
On the other hand, if I had to choose between one of these dainty frocks, I'd probably demand a tuxedo, too.
The most interesting end-of-the-week-dump-of-the-news-you-want-buried was the Friday afternoon announcement by the White House that social secretary Desiree Rogers would be leaving her post:
“It has nothing to do with being glamorous — that is all make-believe in the eyes of the press,” she said in a telephone interview. “I’ve always dressed this way. This is who I am.”
Like the First Lady, Rogers has some pretty fabulous threads, and her sense of style is definitely more hit than miss. But nevertheless, I find her comment, “I’ve always dressed this way. This is who I am” much more than disingenuous. It’s not that I don’t believe her. I do. I’m sure that her closet is full of designer duds. She can afford them, so why not?
Why not, indeed. As a private citizen Rogers can now wear whatever she wants whenever she wants. As a (soon to be former) employee of the White House, though, she had to abide by rules not of her making, difficult as that is, rules that are largely unwritten and rooted in professional decorum and common sense.
Let’s start with her job title, social secretary, and all that it implies. Unlike a cabinet-level official or a corporate capital-S Secretary, a social secretary is a small-s secretary, holding a critical and important position to be sure, but one defined by its attention to detail, its fealty to routine, and most of all its lack of original initiative. A social secretary’s job is no different in this sense from any other small-s secretary’s: make the boss look good. Anticipate problems and fix them before they happen or as soon thereafter as possible. Let the boss take credit for your work. And never, ever upstage the boss. If you do, you’ll find yourself at Union Station with a one-way ticket on the Lake Shore Limited.
Right now you are protesting: But Desiree never upstaged Mrs. Obama! They’re friends! They are friends, and Mrs. Obama’s generosity of spirit in permitting her friend-employee to grace the cover of WSJ is admirable. But as soon as the Salahis elbowed their way into last fall’s state dinner, Rogers became the center of attention, a position that is way, way out of her pay grade, as her other boss would say.
For me Rogers departure makes sense. She wanted to work at the White House, who wouldn’t? But she probably hadn’t reckoned with the crippling effects of tradition, the squeaking disapproval of her predecessors from prior administrations, or, most of all, the difficult and ultimately impossible transition from making the rules to following the rules.
Style Crone Anna Wintour and Victim of Fashion Desiree Rogers
A social secretary is the little wren that hovers at the perimeter of the pecking order: drab to the point of invisibility, she is at her best when nobody knows she’s there. It may be an upstairs job, but it requires a downstairs sensibility. And Rogers, who cuts a regal figure, whose familial and educational pedigrees are impeccable, and whose prior work experience is executive-level, simply does not fit that mold. That she thought she could break the mold was her hubris and her undoing.
I’m guessing that spending a year trying to be someone she so obviously is not was worth it to Rogers for the chance to be a White House insider. When forced to choose—her wardrobe or her livelihood—she didn’t drop a stitch.
So Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-Rhode Island) calls Scott Brown’s successful candidacy for the US Senate a “joke.” The representative’s addled reasoning has something to do with “seven out of ten of Brown’s voters [being] labor households” and Brown’s swearing-in date. If, in fact, seventy percent of Massachusetts’ union members helped elect Brown, the Democratic party is in deep, deep trouble. But what exactly is the joke here? According to Howie Carr, it’s Representative “Patches” himself. I agree that Patches is good for a few laughs: he gave a rousing stump speech for Brown’s opponent “Marsha” Coakley, after all. And he has the darkly humorous habit of DWA, driving while asleep. But I am not a fan of Carr, so I am uncertain that young Kennedy is the punch line here, however easy and irresistible that conclusion might be.
I think what caught up with the representative is simply the time of year. It put him in a jocular mood (or would have, if he knew the meaning of the word). February, when winter gets down to business, is the worst month of the year, a joke of a month really. Think about it. February begins with a needle-nosed rodent opining on climate change. It ends a few days short of an authentic month. And in between are the Oscar nominations, the Super Bowl, and Valentine’s Day. All risible, in my opinion.
First up, the Academy Award nominations. Since the last time I saw a movie in a theatre was during the last millennium, one might suppose I am not qualified to have an opinion, but come on…ten nominations for “best picture”? Now that is a joke. Is the American viewing public so blessed that a double-digit number of pictures are so terrific that they can vie for the title “best”? Given that one of the nominated films, Up, is a cartoon, and another, Avatar, seems like it should be considered a cartoon since I understand there are oversized Smurfs running around in it, the number ten does seem a bit inflated. I don’t believe George Clooney is capable of making a good movie, let alone a “best,” so I’d knock Up in the Air out of contention, too. The rest of the nominees seem awfully predictable to me, and for the wrong reasons.
What can a single woman say about Valentine’s Day: Wait until next year? Chocolate is bad for my complexion? Fredericks of Hollywood messed up my order? Best to go into twenty-four hour seclusion, to forestall putting herself in the harm’s way of being the butt of “good-natured” joshing about her spinsterhood, or, worse yet, being forced to listen to others’ romantic escapades. Her attitude is best expressed by a memorable remark from a long-ago colleague of mine: “Valentine’s Day. What a joke.”
But then there is the light at the end of the tunnel, the Super Bowl. I have never understood football, and have no interest in educating myself. But I look forward to “game day,” as the NFL stupidly insists it be called by every entity that’s not an “official sponsor,” as much as any rabid fan. On Super Bowl day, the stores are deserted, parking anywhere is not a problem, and one is free to roam this great land of ours without fear of traffic, crowds, or lines at the supermarket. Try visiting a Home Depot or some other manly refuge tomorrow afternoon (or whenever it is the game is on); you’ll feel like you are in an episode of the Twilight Zone…the usually bustling aisles eerily silent, the overpowering aroma that inevitably hangs in the air when a critical mass of guys with ass cleavage congregate strangely absent, and wives who’d ordinarily hang on to hubby’s side for dear life are listing oddly to left, as if leaning on their phantom meal ticket. But the best thing of all about Super Bowl day is that all that’s left to endure when it’s over is the winning team’s victory parade, then it’s bye-bye bruisers till next fall.
So, Patches, I forgive you. I don’t think you meant what you said. I think you were simply a victim of February.
It would be rude of me to ask if you have ever seen a sex tape, and ruder still I suppose to inquire as to your possible starring role in one. As I spinster I can assure you that my theatrical inclinations are limited to pretending I am interested in the lives of my friends’ children, but if attending a screening of Debbie Does Dallas counts as watching a sex tape, then I guess I have. I understand that what one or more consenting adults do in the privacy of his/her/their bedroom is his/her/their business, and if the inclination is to memorialize the activity electronically, whether for future reference or as means of sending Uncle Jonas into cardiac arrest for early collection on an inheritance, so be it. But let’s be honest, you and I are but faces in the crowd, and it’s highly unlikely that no one save a few intimates is going to be much interested in our celluloid escapades.
But not everybody who opens up for the camera is a private citizen, and the public’s need to know about the lives of the rich and famous pretty much demands that Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee use the subtle angle of a ceiling-mounted video cam to give us the skinny on those parts of their bodies that are not tattooed and those unconventional parts that are. Sometimes, of course, a fledging actress such as Paris Hilton, she of the life-like appearance in such gems as House of Wax and the Hottie and the Nottie, needs to give her career a goose. A release of an independently produced cinema verite in which the depths of her capacities are plumbed could be just the thang.
Between the worlds of the hoi polloi and the Hollywood bottom feeders, though, is the middle ground of people who are in the news because they are newsmakers or because their fifteen minutes are ticking. In the latter instance I think of Carrie Prejean, who’s so 2009 that I probably need to remind you who she used to be: the Miss California contestant who briefly became the poster girl for what she called “opposite marriage.” Her career as a spokes model came to a premature end, though, when the poster turned out to be of the centerfold variety, and an iPhone app of her making her own fun became available. Presumably Miss Prejean is back in her aptly named hometown of El Cajon, where one supposes she is even unto this day licking her…wounds.
But the blockbuster sex tape has got to be the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction one of the ambulance-chasing shyster turned one-term senator turned serially unsuccessful presidential candidate John Edwards and his extramarital cupcake Rielle Hunter. As cupcakes go, Miss Hunter is in a class by herself, and I mean than as a compliment. She’s stayed out the public eye, and she doesn’t appear to have a book deal in the offing. Edwards himself though is a different kettle of fish. I’d always suspected that his perfect coif was a substitute codpiece, and now that we’re pretty sure his extra-conjugal congress has been recorded for posterity—if the National Enquirer says so, it must be true—I am feeling rather smug that my suspicions have been confirmed.
You know, I can almost understand why a Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, or even a Carrie Prejean would engage in a little boudoir porn. It kinda fits their bleachy blond beach bod personae, and in the sorry world of popular culture it probably is a good career move. But for an over-the-hill adulterer who aspires to public office to yell “Action!” before jumping into the sack? He may have proven that he doesn’t shoot blanks, but he surely shot himself in the foot.
Before I began writing this post I asked myself, “what is left to say about John Edwards?” Six hundred and forty-seven words later I have my answer: nothing.
For the last several years during Christmas week I have been spending a few nights at the Copley Plaza in Boston, the hotel that once billed itself as “Boston’s Grande Dame.” Specifically, I hole up on its “Gold Floor,” which, according to the introductory patter of the desk clerks, is “patterned after a fine home on Beacon Hill.” And it is true that on the Gold Floor there is a large drawing room complete with fireplace, a paneled library with leather wing chairs (and books), and, best of all, a butler’s pantry. It’s enough faux Brahmin to make one forget that the Gold Floor is just another manifestation of the marketing concept many hotels use to charge more for essentially the same room that’s on any other floor by slapping a name on it (“concierge level,” “grand club”) or providing the illusion of exclusivity by issuing special keys to bring the elevator to the exalted level. Nevertheless, for three days just before New Year’s I happily play let’s pretend and wallow in the artifice.
For a single woman, this is almost dream getaway. You want to be called “Miss”? The obliging staff calls you “Miss.” You want your slippers and robe set out for you? No problem. You want elves to shine your shoes for you overnight and return them gift-wrapped in the morning. Sure thing. Hang a “privacy, please” tag on your door and you can laze around till 3 p.m., go out for a brief constitutional and return to a room freshly made-up by unseen hands.
And then there is that butler’s pantry stocked with every imaginable breakfast item, hot and cold, all morning long, its selections changing daily. Mid-day there are cookies and fruit and come cocktail hour (or on the Gold Floor, cocktail two hours) a lavish display of canapés appears, along with an honor bar that would knock your socks off. You never have to leave the Gold Floor for the duration of your stay!
And this year, I barely did. I was writing, so I alternated between the laptop I brought with me and kept in my room and, when I wanted a change of scenery, the desktop computers tucked away in the drawing room. My meals were there for the taking, as were my adult beverages. So what’s with the “almost”? What’s not to like? Well, a couple of things.
First, the television. When I entered my room I gave a little gasp of joy, for the Copley had finally upgraded to flat screen, high-def models. Great, I thought, the perfect antidote to my chronic insomnia. Silly me. I had forgotten my brother-in-law’s first rule of hostelry: the more expensive the room, the fewer the TV channels. Not only did the Copley spurn many of Boston’s local channels, which meant no nightly hour of Family Guy, but of the measly number of choices it did offer—twenty-five, maybe—a full third to half of them were sports: ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN HD, ESPN News, ESPN Classic, NESN, something called “Speedway,” and on and on and on. I understand that in the heart of Red Sox nation there is interest in keeping up with the local teams, but to dedicate our precious airways to all sports, all the time, including repeats of games from five years ago? An entire channel for motorcycles? You know what I think? Of course you do. Whatever genius thinks up the television selection for the Copley has got to be a man, programming for all those he-man road warriors out on the hunt to bring home the bacon for the little woman. Me big-man traveling IT consultant. Me want my sports TV. Somebody needs to remind these hospitality experts that women constitute half the workforce, and that most women at the end of a long day working (or, in my case, loafing) are not interested in catching up on curling matches from 1983.
The other drawback that keeps the Gold Floor from delivering single women to the promised land is that for all its luxe amenities it apparently represents a real bargain for families on holiday. For a single person paying the same as a couple or a family of four for a room on the Gold Floor, the cost of that one “complementary” breakfast and a plateful of appetizers is more than built into the price of the room. But for the traveling Griswolds, with multiple hungry mouths to feed, it is an incredible deal. Nothing shatters the illusion of exclusivity faster than a father looking the other way as his kid plunges her hands into a chafing dish of oatmeal. Nothing kills the frisson of that first sip of martini faster than a sullen teenager discovering that mini quiches make great projectiles. And nothing but nothing eliminates the possibility of strangers-that-pass-in-the-night romance faster than a raucous family reunion fueled by an honor bar. Next year I am hoping that the Gold Floor will hire a couple of bouncers.
I know that I could decamp for the Mandarin Oriental that’s just opened, or the Taj that occupies the old Ritz, but I am a creature of habit and tradition. Especially that one about kids being seen and not heard.
Just when you think that you’ve grown too old to get caught in the grip of Christmas spirit, it sneaks up while you’re not looking and snares you in its web. And just like that you are once again believing if not in Santa Claus, then at least in Christmas miracles. So, there I was last night, falling for one of the oldest if not the most preposterous miracle of all: “How to Meet a Man at 40,” a five-page, step-by-step guide shining out like the Star of Bethlehem from the pages of the London Times Online to lead me to my prince.
And so, reader, I clicked on it.
I am a great fan of the British press, especially the tabloids, and avidly follow the gossip in them. I read of the sorrowful demise of Jade Goody, I follow the blossoming fashion career of Mrs. David “Becks” Beckham, nee Posh Spice, and I keep up-to-date on the latest travails of Waity Katie. So of course the Times Online would be my reliable go-to source for dating advice.
Unfortunately, instead of a sugarplum, “How to Meet a Man at Forty,” turned out to be nothing more than the usual lump of coal a spinster finds in her stocking each year, regardless if she’s been naughty or nice. Oh for the chance to be naughty! Now that really would be a Christmas miracle!
Yeah, yeah…I can see your eyes glazing over: you’re thinking “another rant about life’s unfairness to single women.” And you’d be right. But indulge me, please, just once more. If the following excerpts from “How to Meet a Man at Forty” are not enough to convince you that old maids should be considered a protected class, up there in the pantheon of victimhood along with the rest of the alphabet soup of sexually disenfranchised losers, then you are part of the problem.
“How to Meet a Man at Forty” begins reasonably enough, roasting all the old chestnuts about being too picky, holding oneself too aloof, but then, having lulled the reader into a false sense of familiarity, the article turns mean, and launches its ad feminan full frontal assault:
If there is one thing the single woman cannot afford to be, it’s a burden. You must be sunny and amenable, the best guest, the most reliable friend, the tonic at the party and the one who blends in on the family holiday. Precisely because you are not part of a couple, you need to give out the message, loud and clear, that you are no trouble and guaranteed life-enhancing. Being successfully single means having lots of different options and knowing plenty of people who might think, “Yes, bring her along!” rather than, “Maybe not.”
Gotcha. Remember the old belief that in order for a black person to be accepted in the workplace, she must work twice as hard as her white counterparts? In what way does the above paragraph (written, I might add, by a married woman) differ from the prejudiced thinking that held the black to a different standard? The answer of course is that it is no different at all, except—and this is a big one—that discrimination against people because of their skin color is not only against the law, it’s socially unacceptable, thank God. All you recovering racists out there, take heart! You have a new outlet for your prejudice. But I digress.
“How to Meet a Man at 40” continues, “People notice single women getting drunk more than they would notice any other demographic. They are waiting for you to get swervy and take to the dance floor, on your own, clutching a bottle of champagne, and then collapse sobbing on the shoulder of some man who has long since married your best friend.” Ah yes, poor Aunty Lucy, she loves her schnapps, doesn’t she? It keeps her warm at night.
What I don’t understand is that when I say things like that, my married friends look at me as if I were crazy. “Deluded” in fact is how one of them puts it. But leave it to a British tab to print an article that vindicates my views. What a gift! Maybe there are Christmas miracles after all.
Have you noticed the growing number of comparisons between religion and environmentalism? This analogy seems to have sprouted legs, and is scampering its way across the punditsphere. For a definitive and perhaps seminal read on the subject, check out Michael Crichton’s 2003 speech to the Commonwealth Club, in which he elaborates with astonishing clarity the similarity of going green to going to church.
Although I have no conversion plans, I admit that I am intrigued by the notion of adding April 23 to the calendar of saints and feasts. I also believe that this new religion might be just the ticket to revive the moribund sect known as the Shakers, and I am all for that.
Shakers as you know broke off from the Quakers and found their way to upstate New York and New England. They lived simply, in harmony with the land: they ate what they grew, built furniture to last, and believed in the virtue of thrift. Yes it is true that they expressed their faith by sometimes speaking in tongues and by a rather prescient form of modern dance, but even the most spiritual among us needs a hobby.
Shakers were also decidedly ahead of their time in their attitudes about gender and divinity, seeing in the body of the lord both male and female characteristics. For this reason, among others, Shakerism (the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, actually), was organized around a matriarchal hierarchy. Mother Church, Gaia Hypothesis…the Shakers were definitely on to something!
It is also true that Shakers believed that as God’s chosen people they were singled out for being, well, single. Celibate, they grew their ranks through adoption and conversion. Imagine if you can (I cannot) a world in which single women were not only the norm, they were in charge! Imagine if you can (I cannot) a world in which marrieds were the second-class citizens, accepted by the group but looked at askance and ineligible for the top jobs. Talk about heaven on earth!
Heaven on earth is of course an oxymoron. If earth were heaven, I suppose we would have no religions at all. We wouldn’t need them. So I suppose it is too much to hope that today’s neo-Shakers, the members of the AGW Church, incorporate the tenet of single supremacy into their religion. Pity. If they just made this one sensible change to their dogma, they’d win a new convert.
A note from Callmemiss: This post, in a slightly abbreviated form, was originally a listener essay read during Morning Edition, WFCR-FM, December 24, 2004.
On Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving, one day after Black Friday and two days before Cyber Monday, I heard a Christmas carol on the car radio. Since I had spent the day on the hunt for early-bird specials and door-busting values, I was already aware that ’twas now the season.
I did not need the reminder: my thinning wallet and thickening stack of receipts were a dead giveaway. But those first cheery notes harmonized with my inner alarm bells, ringing full blast with their annual warning: Get ready! Paste on a smile! Practice looking like you care! Office holiday party ahead!
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am as sociable as the next person. And I genuinely like my colleagues. Most of them, anyway. It is the annual workplace ritual of gift exchange that starts me contemplating if not hibernation then at least early retirement.
These rituals start off innocently enough. Tins of cookies or fudge appear in the copy room, seemingly free for the taking. When complimented, the stealth baker will modestly reply: “it was nothing. I made them for my kids’ teachers. These are the leftovers.” Inevitably, the hint, along with the last gingerbread man, is swallowed whole by some rookie in the relentless game of holiday merry-making. “I have a great idea,” he’ll say, “let’s bring in some little something for each other.
Plans for an office party then begin in earnest: lists are compiled, assignments are doled out, and names drawn for a “secret Santa” gift exchange. Then come the decorations: a plastic wreath here, a blow-up vinyl Rudolph there and cunning elves capering across the secretary’s desks. One year, we even had monogrammed stockings tacked to our doors, and our office was the envy of the campus. All in preparation for an afternoon orgy of high-calorie snacks and grab-bag presents.
My experience with office holiday parties and gift exchanges spans a quarter century, and I have been the bemused grabbee of gifts that range from soap-on-a-rope so old it’s wrapped in yellowed cellophane, which, along with the surfactant inside, crumbled to a fine power …to a battery operated mechanical dog that barks “Jingle Bell Rock” while shaking its booty.
Yes, yes. I know it is the thought that counts. My thought is that the only real way to survive the office holiday gift exchange is to adhere devoutly to a single, simple rule: gifts for the office must not only be cheap, they must look cheap. Nothing cuts through the faux holiday cheer and says, “forget the bonhomie, give me a cash bonus” like a hastily selected, carelessly wrapped gew-gaw–preferably purchased at the dollar store. At the very least it must have “Made in China” stamped on the bottom, or, if it is a comestible, be rapidly approaching if not past its sell-by date. If you buy something on clearance, make certain that a tell-tale portion of the red or yellow “reduced” tag is clearly visible. Better yet, recycle that little something under last year’s tree–the gimcrack you shoved in the junk drawer on Boxing Day. Best of all: re-gift what you pulled out of a prior grab. This is not only the apotheosis of apathy, if challenged you can simply look smug and declare you are celebrating a “green Christmas.” What with that global warming and all, you are seeking out every opportunity to conserve!
Colleagues of mine, and perhaps you will join them in this view, have accused me of being petty and mean-spirited. Actually, I am not. My office-party survival rule does have one important exception: it applies only to the gifts you give, not the ones you receive.
