Many years ago we got a surprise Christmas box from Harry & David. We didn’t know either one of them.

I assumed they were brothers living on a farm with an orchard where they went out early in the morning to pick the fruit, lovingly hand-polishing each piece, wrapping it artfully, snuggling it aesthetically into a box, surrounding it with candy or other fruit dipped in chocolate which they apparently made in the kitchen.

I forget the details, it was so long ago.

Then we found the note, handwriting which must have been machine, but the name of the giving someone we did know who lived close enough to call on the phone and say, “Thank you.” Which we did.

Our giving friend obviously had acquainted connections with a larger corporate world responsive to requests in ways I had never imagined, since I seemed to be living from birth onward in another world somewhat removed from those around me.

I did put two and two together to make two and immediately recognized a brand of recognized quality.

This was not like the gift box delivered by hand many years earlier.

We had a friend, a former student, who had a job as bag boy in a market.

The market management allowed employees to purchase at a much reduced price the left-over Christmas offerings remaindered unsold.

With youthful pride he presented us a resplendent box of fruit and chocolate which we later recognized was a forerunner to our experience with Harry & David, in looks only.

We immediately discovered yet again the underside of capitalist greed. Lifting one artfully displayed shiny fruit, we found it was moldy and rotten on the out-of-sight bottom. How cunning were the corporate bosses to trick their employees into giving over some of their hard-earned meager wages for something that had already been written off as a loss and would have wound up in the dumpster by the back door.

We carefully kept that knowledge from our friend who never knew the underside of his gift, and we shared the candy with him that seemed safe to eat.

Harry & David were never like that.

But we had been conditioned to look a gift horse in the mouth, so when the new present came from Elon & Donny, we were afraid to open it.

We saw the label, proclaiming contents activated next year. But we knew, because we have been incorporated into this world around us, that some of the items were already missing, removed after packing, leaving little vacuums.

Other items, we knew, were already rotten to the core, and we were afraid to open the box and let them out. We were quite sure that even Elon & Donny don’t know everything in the box.

So there it is, the box sitting unopened on the shelf. Already it’s beginning to smell.