I am starting to suspect the holidays are a conspiracy to drive us insane. I’m about to surrender, just so that I can get some sleep.
Today’s Word:
transpicuous
As in:
Barbara Montez, 49, has an unusual profession. She is the only known “Gift Whisperer.”
Given that there is only one “Gift Whisperer” in the wide world, you might be wondering what does one do. I was curious myself, so, I asked her.
A “Gift Whisperer” is a person known for two things. First, she can detect, without opening or damaging the gift wrap in anyway, the contents of a wrapped present, with an 80% accuracy rating.
This is a very valuable skill, and people who are burning with curiosity as to the contents of the items under their tree are more than happy to pay her to have a “peek” under the wrappings without the taboo tell-tale signs of paper-tampering.
Some of her customers employ her services to assure that an item wrapped for another household member is not, in fact the same item they themselves wished to purchase for that member, saving both the giver and the recipient from the headache of a duplicate gift.
Barbara, who has always has a “sixth sense” about wrapped presents discovered her unusual knack as a child, when she would guess her own wrapped presents. When no one was around, she’d pick each one up and give it an experimental shake. “Usually, judging by the weight and the sound of the contents, I could make a pretty good guess just from that. The items spoke to me as if the wrapping was transpicuous. I mean a book is pretty obviously a book, right? Even when it’s wrapped. The next trick is to figure out which book, and for that, well, it took listening to each item and thinking about the giver, and all the factors of gift giving. Presents just seem to speak to me. I have no other way to describe it.”
Barbara’s skills don’t stop at identifying what’s inside a gift package, however.
The other service she offers is making recommendations for each person on your list. She’s very good at taking a very brief description of the personalities on your gift-list, and suggesting the perfect gift. She even offers a money back guarantee. “If your loved one doesn’t love the present I suggest, I will give you back your money. Guaranteed”
Her unique skills have even been employed the USPS during the holiday rush, to help determine if suspicious packages are, in fact, dangerous. Her accuracy rating on these types of parcels? Ninety percent. More accurate than the best bomb-sniffing dog.
Montez has been providing insight into gifts professionally since 1989.
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I had this thought over a year ago, maybe two, and then failed to do anything with it until this year. Hope it was worth the wait.
transpicuous / trans – PICK – you – us / clearly seen through or understood.