So you open the wonderfully wrapped gift and find a painting so hideous that you have to tactfully muffle a shriek.
What do you do?
Of course you give the person the warmest thanks possible. To do otherwise is rude.
Ah, but then a few months later, the giver visits your home and wants to know where you hung the painting. You make up some excuse and think the matter is over.
The person visits again, and again asks about the painting.
What do you do?
You probably panic and lie that you just haven't had time to find the right place for it -- knowing full well that its rightful place is in the back of a closet facing the wall.
It could also be a badly made homemade sweater, fondue set (even though you have never indicated a fondness for heated cheese) or a diet/relationship self-help book you would rather burn than read.
Whatever it was that you received and didn't like, chances are the giver may make it difficult for you to accept the gift, or rather the thought, with grace.
It's true what French writer Francois La Rochefoucauld wrote: "What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving, we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given."
