Gift Wrapping Tips For Men
(Edited slightly by Tom)
This is the time of year when we think back to the very first
Christmas, when the Three Wise Men; Gaspar, Balthazar and Herb, went
to see the baby Jesus and, according to the Book of Matthew,
"presented unto Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh." These are
simple words, but if we analyze them carefully, we discover an
important, yet often overlooked, theological fact: There is no
mention of wrapping paper.
The words "wrapping paper" do not appear in the Bible, which means
that the very first Christmas gifts were NOT wrapped. This is
because the people giving those gifts had two important characteristics:
1. They were wise.
2. They were men.
Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of
putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off. This
is not just my opinion: This is a scientific fact based on a
statistical survey of two guys I know.
One is Rob, who said the only time he ever wraps a gift is "if it's
such a poor gift that I don't want to be there when the person opens
it." The other is Gene, who told me he does wrap gifts, but as a
matter of principle never takes more than 15 seconds per gift. "No
one ever had to wonder which presents daddy wrapped at Christmas,"
Gene said. "They were the ones that looked like enormous spitballs."
I also wrap gifts, but because of some defect in my motor skills, I
can never completely wrap them. I can take a gift the size of a deck
of cards and put it the exact center of a piece of wrapping paper the
size of a regulation volleyball court, but when I am done folding and
taping, you can still see a sector of the gift peeking
out. (Sometimes I camouflage this sector with a marking pen.) If I
had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half
of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by Scotch tape.
On the other hand, if you give my wife a 12-inch square of wrapping
paper, she can wrap a C-130 cargo plane. My wife, like many women,
actually likes wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that
requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me
is very close to being a symptom of mental illness. If it were
possible, my wife would wrap each individual volt.
My point is that gift-wrapping is one of those skills like having
babies that come more naturally to women than to men. That is why
today I am presenting:
GIFT-WRAPPING TIPS FOR MEN:
* Whenever possible, buy gifts that are already wrapped. If, when the
recipient opens the gift, neither one of you recognizes it, you can
claim that it's myrrh.
* The editors of Woman's Day magazine recently ran an item on how to
make your own wrapping paper by printing a design on it with an apple
sliced in half horizontally and dipped in a mixture of food coloring
and liquid starch. They must be smoking crack.
* If you're giving a hard-to-wrap gift, skip the wrapping paper! Just
put it inside a bag and stick one of those little adhesive bows on
it. This creates a festive visual effect that is sure to delight the
lucky recipient on Christmas morning:
YOUR WIFE: Why is there a Hefty trash bag under the tree?
YOU: It's a gift! See? It has a bow!
YOUR WIFE (peering into the trash bag): It's a leaf blower.
YOU: Gas-powered! Five horsepower!
YOUR WIFE: I want a divorce.
YOU: I also got you some myrrh.
In conclusion, remember that the important thing is not what you
give, or how you wrap it. The important thing, during this very
special time of year, is that you save the receipt.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a strange tale. I thought you might appreciate it.
It has to do with those two famous characters, Anakin and
Luke Skywalker. The tale concerns that time when Anakin was
going by the name of Vader, specifically the lightsaber
battle they fought in the cloud city. The depiction of that
fight in the Lucas film was fairly accurate, but it left out
a few details.
It seems that, during the course of the fracas, more words
were exchanged while the two of them were temporarily
clenched with their weapons locked against each other.
Apparently the director must have felt that some editing
would make the dialogue a bit snappier, so some of the words
were snipped out.
So here's the rest of what they said to each other.
"Luke, there is something that you do not know."
"What's that?"
"Luke, I know, beyond doubt, what you are getting for
Christmas."
"You're wrong. You can't know that."
"Nevertheless, it is so."
"I don't believe you! This isn't possible!"
"Trust me, Luke, I do know what you are getting for
Christmas. I know it with the same degree of certainly as I
know of the inevitability of the failure of your pitiful
rebellion."
"You can't know that. The rebellion will succeed!"
"I know a great many things, Luke. Join with me. Let me show
you the true power of the Dark Side of the force, and
together we can destroy the emperor!"
"Is that why you think you know what I'm going to get for
Christmas? You think your mastery of the Dark Side can show
you the future?"
"The Dark Side shows me many things, Luke, but I did not
need it for this."
"Then how do you know what I'm getting?"
"It's very simple, Luke -- I have felt your presents."
Received from leon_taylor.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some Un-Christmassy Texas Jokes
A visitor asked a West Texas cowboy, "Do you ever get
tornadoes out here?" The cowboy replied, "Yeah, we had
one a while back, but it ran into a sandstorm outside
of town and got ripped to pieces."
A visitor asked a West Texas cowboy, "Doesn't it ever
rain out here?"
The cowboy replied, "Sure. There was a half-inch of
rain a couple of weeks ago just a few miles north of
here, but I was too busy and couldn't go."
The wind blows so hard out in West Texas that at a
drive-in theater it once blew Gene Autry right out of
the saddle."
A little brown hen once got caught in a West Texas
sandstorm. She was flying through the air backward so
fast that she laid the same egg three times.
It was so windy that prairie dogs were digging holes
40 feet in the air.
It was so dry that the Baptists were sprinkling, the
Methodists were spitting, and the Catholics were
giving rain checks.
It was so hot that I saw a roadrunner pull a worm out
of the ground using pot holders.
It was so cold that a farmer threw a dipperful of
water and it froze in midair and knocked a pup
unconscious.
A visitor to Amarillo asked a local rancher, "How do
you stand the wind blowing every single day?" The
rancher said, "You just have to get used to it - learn
to lean into it. In fact, one day last fall the wind
stopped blowing all of a sudden, and all the chickens
in the panhandle plumb fell over."
During a period of heavy sandstorms, a rancher visited
his banker and applied for a loan. The banker warned
him, "I'll have to come out and inspect the property
first." The rancher replied, "That won't be necessary.
Here it comes now."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Muffled Workers
Winters are fierce where he lives, so the owner of the estate felt He
was doing a good deed when he bought earmuffs for his foreman.
Noticing, however, that the foreman wasn't wearing the earmuffs even
on the bitterest day, the landlord asked, "Didn't you like the muffs?"
The Foreman said, "They're a thing of beauty."
"Why don't you wear them?"
The Foreman explained, "I was wearing them the first day, and
somebody offered to buy me lunch, but I didn't hear him! Never again,
never again!"