I love presents.
I am not good at them. I mean, I am not good at thinking of things that other people will like. And I am not good at buying them on time, or getting them in the mail on time. And sometimes I think of buying something for someone and that’s as far as it ever gets.
Sad.
But a good present is, really, a wonderful thing.
Recently I have been the recipient of presents More Than Once. Here is the first one. It is my stapler, from my desk at school, and it’s in Jello. Elliott, one of my students, brought it to me. He and I are Big Fans of the t.v. show The Office. If you know the show, then you’ll appreciate this gift from Elliott. I certainly appreciated it.
You can tell from the photo that Elliott had to hold the stapler in a semi-closed position with a rubber band. If he hadn’t done this, the stapler would have stuck out of the Jello, and we Couldn’t Have That. Everyone in the class thought this present was Great. Especially me.
And a few days later, I was pleased to receive this present: 
These are Brand New markers for my white board. Since returning to teaching, one of my Chief Sorrows has been that the days of the chalkboard are over. The white boards that have replaced them are slippery (ah, the friction– non-squeaking, I mean–of a good piece of chalk) and smelly, but what to do? Also, you can’t use chalk on them, and chalk comes in All Sorts of Colors, a feature that is Really Handy if you are teaching, say, grammar. All year I have been making do with red, black, green and blue markers. Yawn.
And then one day, Alden came in with a present for me: these marvelous markers in Really Wonderful Colors. The one that looks dark blue in the center is actually purple, and the paler blues on the right are light blue and aqua.
Happy Me!
I use these markers– and Only These– every day now.
We ate the Jello. I haven’t tried the stapler yet.
