Columnists
The anonymous gift
I received a Christmas gift this year from an unexpected source. It was from a certain “X, a secret admirer.”
My first reaction to receiving the gift was “Oh, how sweet; I’ll soon figure out who the secret admirer really is. All I have to do is crack open the package and there’ll be a note of identification.” There wasn’t one. Then I told myself “Well, the nature of the gift will reveal the identity of the donor.” It didn’t. It was a tall tin of quite highbrow looking liquorice allsorts. You may remember that in our pre- Christmas edition I offered up a reprise of a poem I had written several years ago, but updated for current events, in which I pined for a box of liquorice allsorts. So the donor could be any close reader of the Times. That served to narrow down the field somewhat, but then I remembered that the paper is online as well, so the field quickly expanded, potentially into the hundreds of millions, to take account of our offshore readership.
My first instinct was to accuse my wife of being the donor, but she absolved herself of any role in the controversy, claiming to have found the present by our front door. She maintained her composure despite some of my television lawyer attempts to break her down under withering cross-examination.
So I examined the package for clues. First clue: carefully wrapped. Obviously nobody with a genetic connection to me. Second clue: the gift tag. The words “…., a secret admirer” were written in blue pen, while the “X” before it purporting to name the admirer was written in black pen. Perhaps two people were in on this scheme, which spoke of a high degree of organization. Third clue. The same blue penned words were written in very neat copper plate, but slightly smudged. A person trained in the art of good handwriting, then, perhaps left handed? (Ah yes, in Wellington, an older person: that narrows the field.)
And the black-inked “X” itself wasn’t an “X” at all. It was some weird amalgam of stretched out and compressed letters Was it C-L-U-P? Was it A-I-G-S? Was it in code? I even held it up to the mirror thinking it would somehow reveal itself. No such luck. Thank goodness they managed without me when they were cracking the Enigma code.
So, as Mr. Fagin put it, I spent some time “reviewing, the situation.” I concluded the donors had expected to be found out. Otherwise, they would have simply labelled the gift from “a secret admirer”, rather than from “X, a secret admirer.” That at least put paid to my rising concern that they might be too embarrassed to be associated with making a gift to me. But it still left me no further ahead.
And my prime suspect list led me nowhere. But put yourself in my shoes. It would be terribly bad form to pounce on somebody I wasn’t dead certain about. “So, Mr. and Mrs. Farnsworthy, you are my secret admirers. Thank you so much for the gift.” “Well, actually, David, we don’t know what you are talking about and now that you confront us like this, we have to say we don’t admire you or your column; or if that’s going a bit too far, then let’s just say we occasionally smile wanly, but not with enough enthusiasm to go out and buy you a present.”
So now you see my dilemma squarely. Somewhere in the world, there sits a person—or two persons, one of whom may be left handed and a little older than an infant— getting a little bit crabby, saying to herself or himself, or to one another “Gee, it’s mid-January and we still haven’t heard from Simmonds. He can’t be dumb enough not to have figured this thing out, but the only alterative is that he’s too rude to bother thanking us. We should have made the gift to his editor instead for his extensive coverage of the sewage treatment issue. But our faith in humanity is shattered. No more gifts to anyone from us!”
Now I have also considered the possibility that the donors have me where they want me—twisting slowly in the wind (to borrow a phrase from the Haldeman/Ehrlichman lexicon). After all, how can I consume and enjoy the gift while filled with anxiety over my failure to identify them? But then again, who in their right mind would waste good money on a tin of liquorice allsorts just to take pleaure in my suffering?
So if you have any suggestions as to how I can work myself out of this dilemma diplomatically and with a shred of dignity left to my name, please let me have them. And if you are the donors: okay, you win. Please come forward: I promise not to reveal your identity. I’ll even go sharesies with you on the allsorts. Well, you can have two or three—after this ordeal, I’ll need my sustenance.
Comments (0)