Gift certificates. What a scam. Don’t be fooled. They seem all sweet and innocent and generous. They hide under a blanket of ease and versatility, both for the giver and the givee. When you get one, you can buy whatever you want, and when you need a gift and you’re too lazy to think of anything, the gift certificate is always there to bail you out. Seems too good to be true. And it is. This logic proofette kinda sorta almost proves my point:
Let p = gift certificate
Let q = thought
Let r = significance
q = r translates to “It’s the thought that counts”
We can further illustrate this point through this series of equations, where n = any number
2q = 2r
nr > r iff (n >1), or “A gift will count more if and only if you put more thought into it.”
We can represent p thusly:
p = ~q, or “gift certificates are thoughtless”
since q = r from before, ~q = ~r
and utilizing the Transitive Property,
p = ~r, or “gift certificates do not count.
Anyone who’s ever bought me a gift certificate, you owe me another gift.
Maybe logic isn’t your thing. That’s fair. You seem to be in the majority. Nonetheless, gift certificates are still less than perfect. Especially when combined with store credit. Gift certificates and store credit are a cunning marriage of treachery and wallet rape. Take the following scenario, please! You were happy to receive a $25 Barnes and Noble gift certificate for your birthday. You carefully choose a $21.99 edition of Logical Reasoning for Dummies. Remembering your state’s 8.5% sales tax, you figure you’ll use $23.86 of your gift certificate, leaving a measly $1.14. Enough, you remember, to get a small Frosty from the 99 cent menu at Wendy’s. Score! But wait, the cashier is filling out some kind of form. She never even opened the register. She hands you a slip of paper, shrewdly identified by you as not one dollar, one dime, and four pennies. And then you realize. Store credit. $1.14 in store credit. You frantically search for something in the place that’ll cover this diminutive sum. Even the 7th Heaven Fan Fiction Collection is more than that! You realize you have two options. Lose the $1.14 that is rightfully yours, since you spent $29 dollars on the supposed “friend” who gave you the gift certificate for his birthday and you’re already out $4 in the first place, never mind the $5.14 that would result from the forfeiting of the store credit. Your other option, buy something else, spending your own money, losing even more than you would if you just ripped up the damn store credit receipt and gone home. You, my friend, have just become the cream filling in a rock and hard place Oreo cookie. The cause; a gift certificate.
So there you have it. Gift certificates: serving industry, serving thoughtlessness, serving evil, and serving Satan. No, seriously, he’s a busy guy. He doesn’t have time to shop. And it’s a little extra evil. A “screw you” in sheep’s clothing. And Satan likes to screw you in sheep’s clothing. Or so I’m told.