Nested gift boxes wrapped in stripes, dots, waves and checks, with a bare white box on top, on a grey-green background.

Original artwork, not a still

Steven Wright

I bought my brother some gift-wrap for Christmas. I took it to the Gift Wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The present is gift-wrap, so wrapping it creates a peculiar problem: how will the recipient tell the packaging from the gift? Asking for a different pattern gives an absurdly practical answer. The joke treats an ordinary wrapping service as a puzzle about where unwrapping should stop.

Context reviewed

Share this quote