So there I found myself in the basement, with nothing to show for all the mental effort I had already given this Valentine's gift. I sat behind the computer for a few minutes and that's when I stumbled on a how-to video showing how to make a paper rose. "That was it!" I thought as I watched the video. "I will make an entire bouquet, a dozen roses." It had all the elements of the perfect gift for my mom.
After watching the video through a few times, I was ready to start making my own. I gathered everything I needed: a hot glue gun, construction paper, scissors, and a pencil. I sat down on the floor and began. Five hours into the crafting, my fingers were dried and cut from the paper, my knuckles were red and swollen from the scissors, and my hands had areas burned by the hot glue gun. I had only four roses finished. Unable to finish the dozen I had hoped for, I was slightly disappointed, but I was proud of the beautiful roses I had made, and I knew that they would make her happy.
A few days later, Valentine's Day had come. I placed the intricate roses in one of the crystal vases we had in our cabinets. At her place on the kitchen table, I set the vase and a simple, handmade card. When the time came to open the presents we had been given, my mom's reaction to the roses and card made my battered hands and hours spent in the basement worth it. She loved it then, and loves it still.
The gift I gave was perfect in her eyes. The time and thoughtfulness I put into those roses showed her how much I love and care for her. An economist might say that my gift was not the most efficient use of time or resources, and that it would have been far more efficient for me to give her cash; however, I know that it is not the monetary value of the gift that really matters. The personal value is what matters; the handmade roses exceeded anything my money could buy.
The four-rose bouquet still sits in the crystal vase as it did the day I gave it to her. The symbolism of the roses endures even today and, unlike money, it will never lose its value. It cannot get more efficient than that.
Very similar to the Super Bowl stuff. It appears that human emotion plays a massive role in the way we spend our money. It makes some economics principles work in a vacuum but not in the real world I feel.
ReplyDeleteI think that an economist would say that your gift was very efficient. While your initial cost was high, the long term utility of the gift was also very high. Where with cash the initial cost would have been low, but the long term utility would also have been very low. Also I think that your gift was pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteThank you will for being the one non-cynical take on the holiday! It is interesting to note that whatever causes the holiday to persist, it is not a lack of widespread resentment: certainly more people wrote negative posts than positive ones.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe the subversive strategy is to take the holiday seriously but not to buy anything on it. Isn't a lot of the resentment people express about the holiday a sign that they know that they should do something like this rather than buy a gift, but they actually don't want to do that. So the real problem with the commercializers is not that they ruin the holiday, but that they aid and abet the laziness that makes us feel guilty, and that is why we resent them.
Also, I agree that your gift was awesome.