Justin Werfel
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
Two to one. That was the score. My father is not an easy man to give presents to. It's not that he doesn't like surprises. It's more that he doesn't like anything. And he's not shy about saying so.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
So while the rest of my family is all gathered around exchanging gifts, you know, trying to share with our loved ones the things that we found for them that we thought would delight them, my dad opens a present and says, oh, why'd you waste your money on this? I don't want it. Which isn't such an easy thing to hear when you're, you know, six. But you get used to it.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
Which doesn't mean that you stop trying. My sister and I had a running competition. Throughout our whole lives, we kept track of how many presents each of us had gotten for him that he'd actually liked. And the lifetime score was two to one. To be fair, he was always very clear about what he actually wanted. And that was a sports car.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
Which I think is the traditional present you get for a child for their parent, if you're the emperor of the 12 kingdoms. I mean, obviously he didn't expect to get one as a present, but from his point of view, it was like, why would he want some other thing that he didn't want? So we would get him things that we could, that we thought he would like, and he would vocally not want them.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
That was the system. There was one time when I was probably seven or eight, I went into a Hallmark store, and they used to sell these little cardboard jigsaw puzzles, like 100 pieces in a square little box. There was a section of the store devoted to these, Which actually, now that I'm looking back on this and saying this out loud, strikes me as really kind of strange.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
100-piece jigsaw puzzles, that's a really specific niche audience. I mean, you've gotta be enough of a control freak to enjoy setting things in order for recreation, but also too impatient for something that's gonna take you more than a couple of minutes. Anyway, I used to be really into these. I had a whole collection.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
And so I went into the store that day and went to the inexplicable little cardboard puzzle section, see what they had. And oh my God, there was a puzzle there with a photograph of a red Ferrari. And in big letters on the box, it said, your very own sports car, some assembly required. Perfect. could not wait for the next gift-giving occasion to come around.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
And when it did, my dad opened the carefully wrapped package I gave him and he looked at it and said, oh, why'd you get me this? And it may have been that some disappointment showed in my face because he handed it back to me and he said, here, you take it. You'll use it. I didn't really. A few years ago, I was thinking about this puzzle. It was so symptomatic.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
Of all of the things that I got him over the years that he couldn't stand, that one might have been the best. It was so ideal in so many ways. And it turned out that I wasn't the only one thinking about it. A month later, I was visiting home, and my dad just started talking about it out of the blue, totally unprompted.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
And the reason this is so weird is, aside from the coincidence of both of us thinking about it around the same time, My dad has the worst memory. He just absolutely remembers nothing. So for him to suddenly start talking about this present after a quarter of a century means that it must have really made an impact on him. And it had.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
What he said was, you remember that puzzle of the sports car you got me? That was the worst present. And I said, no, that was the best present. That was your little son who loves you, trying to get you something to please you. He said, OK, I get it. I said, no, you don't. That was the thing you were always saying you wanted. That was me finding a way to make it come true. He said, OK, I get it.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
I said, no. That was connecting my interests to yours, which is a thing you've spent my entire life saying you want to do. Like I said, I'd just been thinking about this. And eventually, I actually got him to change his mind about it, which is yet another thing that never happens. But in this case, eventually he came around to thinking, huh, that actually was a good present after all.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
And huh, what a shame in the way he received it. And what a lost opportunity. Well, I've always been organized. And when I grew up and moved out, over time, most of the stuff got moved out of my room. But a lot of it really just got moved down to the basement.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
So that night, I went down to the basement, and I found my old little chest of drawers, and I opened the bottom drawer where I kept my puzzle collection, and there it was, where I'd put it, when he gave it back. So when the next gift-giving occasion came around, my dad opened the carefully wrapped package I gave him. And this time, he got it. He keeps it on his desk now.
The Moth
The Moth Podcast: Gifts and Gratitude
It's the first thing he sees every time he sits down. Three to one.