Did you get Scotch tape as a present?
I love my mom dearly but she is an eclectic present-giver. I am not sure how she conceptualizes the endeavor but it’s classic. She gives one big present, but then also a number of smaller, more practical gifts. Last year she gave me a box of paper napkins. Undoubtedly she saw me utilizing paper towels for a casual lunch and made a mental note. Somehow she wraps a box of paper napkins and doesn’t mean it as controlling or judgmental. Her intent is more innocent, as if to say, do you know they now have paper napkins? Isn’t it great?
This year I watched her present-giving conceptual framework manifest in the next generation. My nephew Tyler is in college and moved into a house with roommates. He is still filling out his household repertoire. She gave him a nice sweater and then a box full of necessities, at least in her mind: a two piece whisk set, three wooden spoons, a pair of tongs, a plastic spatula, a can of wild rice and a roll of scotch tape. These last two knocked me out. I had to investigate, “A can of wild rice mom, really?” My mom loves wild rice, but it takes a long time to cook. The idea of pre-cooked, easily accessible wild rice is enough to make her eyes glisten. Compare this with the likelihood of my nephew reaching for a can of wild rice as a savory treat. The contrast is charming.
The present of Scotch tape really threw me for a loop. At first, giving Scotch tape feels like giving Ajax, a perhaps necessary part of the household but without glamour, without fanfare, only noticed when absent. At second glance, there is simple kindness about such a gift. When one needs Scotch tape and there is none to be found, it’s a bummer, often one has to make due with something less effective. To give this as a Christmas present makes me marvel at my mom’s perspective. After teasing her and all of us getting a good chuckle, I inquire further.
I listen to my mom’s defense of Scotch tape as a present. I hear wonder in her voice as she tells her story. Scotch tape appeared in her remembered life shortly after WWII. That would make my mom about eleven. It was a revelation. She said it solved many problems. First and most important, it made present wrapping infinitely easier, even allowing it to be done without the help of another. Second, Scotch tape was a great way to collect lint off of cloths. It could also fix ripped letters and papers. As my mom speaks of these applications, the wonder in her eyes strikes me deeply. Of course, every household needs Scotch tape. It is not just a matter of the convenience. For my mom, it was a simple and practical example of a breakthrough, a marker of change.
This finally brings me to the point of this blog. The Scotch tape makes me feel how fast and how much the world is changing. My mom paid for an IPhone 6 for both my recent birthday and Christmas presents combined. She doesn’t really understand what she has given me. I try to show her the wonder – how it holds all of my music, how it can invisibly (through Bluetooth) play through my speaker, how I can ask my phone to find directions to Christmas dinner at the Rickert’s house and how Siri will talk through my car radio and direct us as we drive. I have wonder in my eyes and she smiles patiently as she listens. We share wonder across generations – her Scotch tape and my IPhone – and I am grateful and lucky that she is my mother.