Assistant Head Wrapper

a dispatch from bewilderness

I went to college in California. Berkeley and San Francisco State between 1967-1969. When not in class or being gassed on campus by ultra-armed soldiers and police, I wrapped packages at a luxury department store. At Christmas, you asked if the customer wanted angels or holly or endless Noels. Plus, for kids, a candy cane.

Photo by David-Olivier Gascon on Unsplash

T’was the season to be jolly, but some folks were tired and tense, having busted their tails for a few hours to spend what we wrappers might earn in a year.

Meanwhile, we were dressed as elves, wrapping gaily, getting tons of paper cuts, and keeping blood off gifts. My belt was big, my cheeks were red to match the jaunty jacket and hat, and Elvis was crooning holiday tunes like Blue Christmas a few billion times a day. Or so it seemed to wrappers like me.

At break, I studied yams, or rather the culture of the Trobriand Islands, where nothing was done “to” anyone because verbs did not exist, and beauty was in the eye of the tuber, I mean the shape of the yam and the eye of its beholder. That culture has been lost.

After work, I returned to troopers gassing kids on campus (a concoction of tear gas, pepper gas and mace), then back with red and stinging eyes to the store to wrap more gifts. I became Assistant Head Wrapper, which meant bleeding-then-blotting festive gifts for holidays and wedding gifts with cream organza bows on white or all white, if you preferred. Which our customers were. I mean, all white.

Three small signs inside our stand said Keep Blood Off Gifts. Below each sign were Band-Aids.

A few years later, I got a related but way easier job speed-wrapping stories with quick, clever words as a very junior caption “kid” at Time Magazine.

Back then, magazines were printed by presses on paper produced from trees. Then I got promoted to writing descriptions of BBC films and Nova TV. Pretty heady stuff.

A few decades passed before I was hit by a cranial tsunami which caused the loss of the culture then ensconced between my ears. and was caused by a drunk with a truck. Which meant my head was wrapped, too.