“You wake up one morning to find a beautifully wrapped package next to your bed.
Attached to it is a note: “Open me, if you dare.”
What’s inside the mystery box? Do you open it?”

How odd that this is a daily prompt after I just wrote a novel of a post about why I dislike receiving gifts.

If I were in a situation where I woke up with a present next to me, I don’t think I would open it. Not unless I knew who it was from and, at least to some extent, why it was being given.

Gifts tend to be a trigger for me. I get extreme anxiety if they come from a significant other due to events in my past.

The longer I have known the person, the easier it is for me to accept gifts from them, but even after years I still feel fear sometimes, and that makes me hesitant and cautious.

Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, if the present is next to my bed, I obviously am extremely close with this person. So it may override the fear, and I would open it.

Or… they are a creepy stalking breaking into my room… In which case I would be freaking out and not touching the gift for fear of messing up the finger prints on it that the police would use to track down Mr. (or Ms.) Stalky McStalkerson.

So many directions this situation could play out.

My first, instinctual, response however, is no. I would not open it, and I would prefer to receive nothing.

As to what is in the box… I’m not sure. Hopefully not a dead cat. That would only add to the Stalker theory I have going on in my head.

Maybe it’s just another thing that I’m really weird about, but for some reason I don’t view dead cats as a sign of love and undying devotion.

Sorry Schrodinger. Guess I’m not the girl for you.