It’s Christmas Eve. (Actually, its 1:30am on Christmas Day now, so Merry Christmas.)
I am in Mechanicsburg, PA.
It is about 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
I am at my father’s house with my brother and his fiancée. We spent the day talking, playing cards, watching Star Wars (it’s been on all day), doing last minute shopping, wrapping gifts, listening to Christmas music, and eating lots of food. My dad was a real hero today too. He insisted on getting the grill out tonight to cook the steaks he had bought. Yes, outside. He does make some of the best steaks I have ever had, but when the grill has ice sickles on it, that’s a sign that we should use the indoor oven.
Anyway, my brother and I decided to go out and see how the central Pennsylvanians would react to my project. Frankly, it was not as easy as you would think to give away $10 here. We went to a pharmacy and approached three people. All of whom said no to participating in the Year of Giving. One didn’t even want to talk to me. Another took the web address and said he would check out the website. The store manager declined saying that there were others more deserving of the money than he.
So we left and headed across the street to a video rental store. Since they were open we thought we would try to find someone who was working on Christmas Eve and give them the $10. We walked in the store and immediately found Matt behind the counter.
A white 27 year old physics grad student at Penn State, Matt is originally from Boston. He said he plans to concentrate his studies on Newtonian physics and would really be happy if someone would recommend him for the MacArthur Fellowship – aka the Genius Award which is given out each year to 20-40 people in the US of any age and working in any field who “show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work.” While you are at it, you can recommend me too! Aside from the recognition, you get a cool $500,000.
Matt said he didn’t have much planned for the end of the year. As a Buddhist he said he would not be celebrating much except for New Year’s Eve, which he planned to have a few drinks. St. Patrick’s Day, he said, was really his favorite holiday.
So the big question. What is he going to do with his $10? Matt plans to buy some Marlboro Menthol Lights in the short 72mm hard packs. I had no idea that there were so many options with cigarettes. Now, I can honestly tell you that this is the first time in my life that I have ever given money to someone to buy cigarettes. I am vehemently opposed to smoking. Just a note to those who do smoke this type…check out this review of them on rateitall.com. I don’t know if the info there is true or not, but there is a claim there that those specific cigarettes have “a ‘salt’ (not like the kind you eat) in them that allows the nicotine to be absorbed by the very sensitive skin in you tongue, cheeks, throat, etc.” Matt, I have a great suggestion for a New Year’s resolution for you :). You can do it! BTW, congrats to my friend Aimee who just celebrated one month without smoking.
Year of Giving 