Buying Gifts for Friends

Monday I went to the Brookfield Zoo with my friend Adam. It was a beautiful day, which can be rare in Chicago in March. As far as the boycott goes, this was an uneventful day, until we went to the gift shops.

I've already ranted plenty about how everything is made in China, but this was my first experience putting my boycott into effect when buying something for someone who was right there with me. Adam and I like to buy small souvenirs of the places we visit, which is all well and good, until you limit what you can buy.

It's a good thing that he already knows about this project, because it was very embarrassing to look at something I wanted to buy him and have to admit, out loud, that no matter how much he liked it, I couldn't buy it. I was frustrated and repeatedly questioned myself about why I was doing this. Almost all of the trinkets were "off-limits" and with each new item I found that I thought he might like, it became increasingly difficult to admit to him that I couldn't buy it.

So much of how we interact with and judge other people is based upon what we can afford to purchase as well as the goods that we buy. Sometimes, admitting to not being able to buy something feels like a weakness, a personality flaw and a failure all rolled into one. These are never feelings I enjoy.

In the end, I was able to buy Adam a small sculpture of two elephants, his favorite zoo animal. This was made possible by the fact that the "where it was made" sticker/identifier was missing off of all of the little statues, therefore, there is no obvious proof that I may have committed a violation. The flexible pencils also were without identifying origins and the candy was made in America.

Since Luke and I are the only ones subject to this boycott, I think Adam had an easier time buying me a small aardvark toy, a key chain and the Monkeys in a Barrel game.

Sticking to your principals is difficult enough in private, it can me almost mortifying when others are around to witness it. This was not something I really considered when I came up with this idea.