Gifts

Joe calls me one afternoon to tell me he is coming home from work. "I have a present for you," he adds.

Oh, boy! I can't wait. What could it be?!

When he comes home, he hands me a square package wrapped in shiny silver paper. I look at it, and several thoughts go through my head, none of which are "My husband is so thoughtful!"

What I think is, It's not my birthday. It's not our anniversary. It's certainly not Christmas. And this is far too professional a wrapping job. There is only one explanation.

"Campbell gift?" I say.

He nods sheepishly. Campbell is where Joe works, and several times a year -- every other month, it seems -- the company gives every employee a shiny-wrapped package of some extravagant gift festooned with "Campbell and Co."

Though Joe has only worked there for three years, these company gifts are a large part of the reason we need extra storage. There is a large duffel bag. A glass ice bucket with tongs but no lid. A wine decanter that has an uneven bottom so that it sits crooked on the table and looks like it might fall over at the slightest provocation (a feature that, apparently, is supposed to allow for maximum "mixing"). For a long time we wondered whether there was something wrong with the one we'd gotten; maybe it had been a second-hand find somewhere. But no, everyone else's sat crooked, too.

And there are the shirts. Joe's entire work wardrobe consists of Campbell shirts. (And one tie, which he can only wear at company functions because it has "CAMPBELL" emblazoned down it, and only at Christmas because in between the C, A, M, P, B, E, L, and L are little reindeer.) These he does not give to me.

I look again at the package I'm holding. "Shall we play guess-what-it-is, or guess-where-we're-going-to-put-it?" I asked.

"I already know what it is," he admitted. "Some other people opened theirs at the office."

Selfish people! I think. They didn't take it home to their spouses first.

I open the gift and stare at the contents. This is a common reaction to Campbell gifts, other than the duffel bag and the shirts, which are pretty self-explanatory. In the box are two -- there is still an unopened lump, which I assume contains two more of whatever these things are -- pewter objects that look like small gavels. They have a crab engraved on the head and, of course, the requisite "Campbell and Co."

"What...are...they?" I finally ask.

"They're crab hammers," he says. "So we can have people over for a crab fest!"

I hope that he is joking. Not being a native Marylander, I still find it difficult to understand this state's obsession with eating crab. Crabs are not particularly attractive, especially dead on your plate, and the amount of work you have to undertake to get even a teeny tiny bit of meat out of them leaves you listless for weeks afterward. And the mess created by all this effort would dismay even the most stalwart of Molly Maids.

I will say the gifts are beautiful. Many are glass, or crystal, or, like the crab hammers, pewter. But having the company's name all over them creates a definite problem, one we have not yet solved. We cannot regift these items and give them to someone who appreciates crooked wine decanters and creating a mess in their home with crab fests. We cannot even sell them in our antique booth ("What if the president of Campbell comes in one day?" Joe shudders at the mere thought).

And so they end up, inevitably, in some remote corner of the basement, to be shuffled around whenever we need a suitcase or the Christmas ornaments. If anyone needs a gift, just let me know. We probably have just what you need.