GIFT HORSES
There’s an idiom that baffles me:
“Don’t go looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
If you knew nothing about this phrase, two things come to mind when hearing it for the first time:
- What the fuck is a gift horse?
- Why am I not supposed to look in its mouth?
The phrase is wisdom wrapped as a riddle. It means to be grateful for what you’ve just received. After all, it was so kind of someone to gift a horse (hence the term “gift horse”), and who are you to inspect this newly acquired animal for gum disease and tooth decay to check if the mangy thing might die in the next hour?
In other words: “It’s a horse! Oh my gosh, what a great gift! You should be grateful.”
It’s worth noting that “Don’t go looking a gift horse in the mouth” is a phrase that isn’t in rotation much anymore. First of all, it’s downright confusing: Was there a time in history when horses were gifted at a rate that called for the invention of the term “gift horse”? On what occasions did people receive horses? And even if a horse was gifted to someone who, logically, made sense to receive one – say: a little girl who dreams of being an equestrian – was she supposed to happily take ANY horse as a gift?
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COMPLETELY OPTIONAL SIDENOTE
Sidenote: If I’m given a horse as a gift, I’m absolutely going to inspect it. Supposing I wanted a horse at all, I don’t just want any horse—I would want one that might be useful.
Sidenote to the Sidenote: Who has spare horses to give away? No one that I know. And where does the guy giving away horses take any responsibility? What’s his motive? Not generosity, that’s for certain. Why give away a horse? The horse is probably decrepit and about to die; it’s no longer any use to this guy. Otherwise he’d KEEP THE F%&$ING HORSE!! So, instead, this stranger gifts a horse away to someone else instead of retiring it??
(Read: euthanize—which sounds cruel, but so is this practice of gifting away livestock, don’t you think?)
I could keep going, but I digress.
Of course, I’m complicating the intention of the idiom. The message is simply this: Don’t immediately inspect a gift for quality. It’s rude.
I mention the phrase because I think it holds up. We should be better Gift Receivers: practicing gratitude and grace when someone goes through the trouble of giving a gift.
Admittedly, it is tough to receive gifts gracefully today. Most people are not gifted gift-givers, and those that are talented at observing the hobbies and purchasing trends of others tend to receive mediocre responses for their thoughtful gifts.
There’s a reason for this, I think. Perhaps it is the current absence of horses as commonly exchanged goods, but the conundrum for why it is so hard to pick out gifts for others is precisely because of this overpopulation of Bad Gift Receivers.
Which, I’m convinced, all started with rectangular giftboxes of clothes.
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GROWING INTO IT
My nephew is the best to buy gifts for. He’s 3, going on 4, and has so many loves: dinosaurs, Spider-Man, fishing poles, blocks and puzzles. The list keeps growing. Each birthday, holiday, what-have-you, is easy to come up with gift ideas for. I just think of what would add to his already bourgeoning imaginative world.
We all started at this way, with loves of superheroes, unicorns, racecars, and magical lands.
What happened?
It all started with a rectangular box unwrapped at holidays and birthday parties. These mysteriously wrapped presents was large enough to draw excitement at first, but once unwrapped became a symbol for disappointment. What was inside was never inspiring, never any fun.
Just the opposite: It was disgustingly practical. Useful, even.
Ick.
Have you ever seen more a defeated look on a child’s face than when they open up a box of clothes?
That’s because children, even without consciously understanding it, know that the gift of clothes is about forward planning. A child thinks, “How are clothes supposed to help beat the bad guy?” or, “This box could have been filled with LEGOs—why waste it on a winter coat that I didn’t even want!”
As the years go by, more rectangular boxes infiltrate the cache of gifts loved ones purchase.
“I found this on sale,” says a relative at a birthday, “and I know you’re outgrowing your dress clothes. You’ll need these for when you go to a wedding or a funeral. It’s a little big, but you’ll grow into it.”
“I found this sweater on the bargain rack a few weeks ago,” says a delusional aunt with an impaired fashion sense. “It’s 1,004% wool, but it’s a trending right now. You’ll grow into it.”
Years pass by and the clothes keep coming. Soon, you’re the one asking for clothes.
“Mom, I need a pea coat for this winter. Yeah, I don’t really play outside anymore, and all my friends are wearing pea coats now.”
Fast forward another ten years and you get a new sweater. That you bought yourself. To open at Christmas. As a gift that is technically from a relative who couldn’t figure out what to give you.
“There we go,” you say, extracting the sweater from the rectangular box. “1,004% wool. Everyone at work is wearing them. Thanks Dad, you know me so well.”
Who would have thought all of our childhood dreams could be neatly packed and forgotten into such rectangular boxes?
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GIFT RECEIPTS
One Christmas, I unwrapped a special hardcover edition of Douglas Adams’ The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I already had the novels, and despite the glossy cover art, this was the same thing I already currently owned.
I didn’t take this gift well.
I smiled politely, mentioned that I had already read the books, loved them, and that, although this was a different printing, wondered if I could have the receipt to exchange it for something else.
What has always perplexed me about this gift is that I never exchanged it. The edition I received is still on my bookshelf, in its original packaging. Perhaps I unconsciously took it as a symbol: I remember the disappointment from those who knew of my love for Douglas Adams, had remembered that I mentioned those stories as influential for my own writings, and went through the trouble of picking out a rather expensive copy of all his collected works.
But instead, I took my gift horse and inspected every inch of its mouth with a flashlight, prodding and poking its gums with a pick, and had found it a mangy creature.
I have no recollection of what else I opened as a gift that Christmas. But I remember the edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I remember throwing away the gift receipt, eventually.
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GIFTING HORSES
Our philosophy of gift-giving mutates for those we love.
It begins simply, joyfully: “What is this person into that would add to that world?”
And, yet, we somehow morph into this: “What makes the most practical sense to give someone that is practical and useful?”
Through this metamorphosis, we turn our loved ones into Bad Gift Receivers: Those who only measure the practicality of the gifts they receive.
Is it any wonder, then, that the most common gift for adults is either cash, check, or gift cards?
Money, uninspiringly, is the most practical gift of all—and also completely bereft of anything meaningful.
Today, the currency has changed. We don’t gift in horses anymore. What would we ever do with a horse, anyway?
I’m not sure, but it would be a gift to remember. Maybe.
Next time, I’ll take the horse as is.
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- “Sleepwalkin’ – Daydreamin’ Version” by Better Oblivion Community Center, Pheobe Bridgers, Conor Oberst
- “Sit Right” by HONEYMOAN
- “Not A Go” by foamboy
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Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,
