Pass The Parcel
Sun Herald
Sunday May 28, 2000
Some gifts just keep on giving in the Floating World of Things.
Whenever you're invited to a dinner party, there's that last-minute quandary over what to take to drink. Of course, you want to take a decent bottle if you're going somewhere where the hosts will actually open the bottle and give it to you with your dinner, as opposed to saying "oooh lovely" and stashing it away in their cellar. On the other hand, there are always those dinner parties where you want to take some dusty bottle of shiraz from Vinegar Hill Estate that you bought in a Christmas dozen two years ago. Think family celebrations and pretty much anywhere where the host is going to say "oooh lovely" and stash it in their cellar.
But be warned that as soon as you take that bottle of Vinegar Hill to the dinner party, you're throwing it into the Floating World of Things. The Floating World of Things contains things that are never actually used or consumed but endlessly change hands as tokens of hospitality or good manners. Bad bottles of wine can frequently be observed in the Floating World of Things, endlessly juggled from one dinner party to the next. So can boxes of Ferrero Roche chocolates, after-dinner mint sticks and presentation gift boxes of soap.
And the spooky thing about the Floating World of Things is that it's likely that you're going to see those things again. For example, you take your bottle of Vinegar Hill shiraz to a dinner party at John and Johanna's house, who drag it along to Great Aunt Mary's house-warming, and she takes it to the church pot luck dinner, where the hosts eventually take it to a party at Bob and Barbara's, who take it to Christmas lunch at Barbara's mum's place who, three months later, is invited to your place for dinner and turns up with that very same bottle of Vinegar Hill.
Birthday and wedding presents very often join the Floating World of Things. For example, you have that boring white platter that you received for your wedding sitting around in your cupboard and, when cousin Joan gets married - what could be more natural than saving a few bucks by wrapping up the white platter in some gorgeous gold paper and adding it to the present table? But, of course, cousin Joan finds the platter just as dull as you did and decides to pass it on at the next wedding she attends and so on.
I remember one memorable birthday where a friend, whom I shall call Margaret, gave me a charming little pottery whatnot. The problem was that she had forgotten to remove the little card attached to the whatnot which said, "To dear Margaret, happy birthday from Vanessa."
Not that I minded. I always think it's a privilege to receive one of the members of the Floating World of Things. In fact, if I was ever going to start a popular culture museum, I would put together a collection from the Floating World of Things to truly epitomise the spirit of the age. It would be an intriguing collection featuring such quintessential floating items as cheap wine, pottery bowls, Terry's chocolate orange, salad bowls, talcum powder and baby booties.
And what bliss for those items from the Floating World of Things. At last, they would have a home of their own and they could finally rest in peace.
© 2000 Sun Herald