To Hint or Not to Hint

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I used to work retail at the holidays, and that gave me a very mixed perspective on the returning of presents. Every year, on December 26th, some of the most awful people I've ever met would come into the clothes store I worked at, and return the carefully chosen gifts they had been given with as much contempt as if they had been given old dog turds (though I don't think they'd have liked fresh dog turds any better.) I get it if you are returning things for size, or you might prefer another color, but sometimes, the vibe I got off these people was just the most egregious sense of greed and opportunism. To them it was just about merchandise in/merchandise out, and it made me sad that they didn't even attempt to honor the intent of the giver by exchanging it for something that bore some resemblence to the original gift. Me, I'll wear some ugly thing I've been given just to avoid hurting the feelings of the giver. So I guess if you give me something, you're probably never REALLY going to know that I didn't like it so much. I'm just grateful that you gave me something, and spent time chosing it. And I get that everybody doesn't agree with me on this. But today, I got a letter from a woman from my home state of Minnesota, and I sympathized with her plight: