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December 7, 2004

The Elf Resigns

It's no longer fun to be the appointed family elf.

Once upon a time it somehow became my responsibility to send an email to family members asking them for their Xmas wish lists. The idea of asking for lists was to eliminate the unnecessary taxing of one's brain and providing more than enough gift ideas within a reasonable price range. The exercise also helped everyone avoid duplication and subsequent returns.

I approached this assignment in my usual way -- take a ho-hum task and infuse it with humor. This worked for the first couple of years that I did it. I was funny. I was witty. I left them wanting more. I could have done standup comedy.

Somewhere along the lines I lost that humor gene. I tried to find it. I looked everywhere for it; under sofa cushions, in cupboards, boxes of important papers, in the pages of books in my bookcase. I scoured the files on my laptop and those now housed on CDs. I came up empty. I posted about it last year on November 25 -- "Call for Wit" -- hoping that some of my readers could assist me in tapping into my funny bone, and some of you really tried to help me.

Even though I tried my best last year, the humor just wasn't there. The email went out and it was ho-hum in content. To make matters worse, the response was pathetic. You'd think that after years of doing this, family members would have a clue and be a bit more cooperative. Some were, some were not. This resulted in additional communiques; three or four more emails requesting information from them. It had now reached the ridiculous stage, an absolute waste of my time as well as drastically altering my usually upbeat attitude. How difficult can this task be? What part of "please" do you not understand? *sigh*

That was last year's debacle. My absolute frustration and failure in obtaining a 100 percent response left me no choice but to resign this year. I decided that I'd hand in my elf hat and pointy-toed slippers and quit. My resignation has afforded me the luxury of sitting back and watching someone else try to do that very same thing I did last year. It has been amusing but at the same time, reminds me of my own frustration back then. Though some lists have been sent out, I've decided to ignore them. This retired elf is giving each one a fruitcake. :-)

Cindy

Comments

Brain matter deposited by: Al on December 7, 2004 2:34 PM

Brain matter deposited by: Daisy on December 12, 2004 3:22 PM

Brain matter deposited by: Kat on December 13, 2004 3:37 PM