Eideard

Undoubtedly, the Thread and Bobbin Sewing Kit that Aunt Mildred sent from Amazon.com for Christmas will never see a stitch. The Stallion Stable Music Box might have looked pretty on the computer screen, but under the tree’s flickering lights, it is frightful. The polka-dot nightgown has never been a good idea, even with free shipping.

These gifts sent via some warehouse many miles away are not only unwanted, but also a multimillion-dollar headache: They have to be repacked, labeled, dropped off and shipped back to Amazon’s Island of Misfit Toys. Then a new present has to be packed, labeled and shipped again. Efficient, the process is not.

Amazon is working on a solution that could revolutionize digital gift buying. The online retailer has quietly patented a way for people to return gifts before they receive them, and the patent documents even mention poor Aunt Mildred. Amazon’s innovation, not ready for this Christmas season, includes an option to “Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,” the patent says. “For example, the user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential sender has different tastes than the user.” In other words, the consumer could keep an online list of lousy gift-givers whose choices would be vetted before anything ships.

Amazon’s proposal has raised the ire of the Miss Manners crowd, which thinks the scheme rather uncouth. After all, receiving an e-mail notification of a forthcoming gift – and thereby being able to check its price – is hardly the same as unwrapping the item at home.

Anna Post, great-great-granddaughter of the late etiquette author Emily Post and spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute, said she hopes the company realizes it is risking major backlash and abandons the idea. Because of Amazon’s dominance online, she and others say they fear the idea could spread throughout the e-retailing industry, which this holiday season racked up $28 billion in gift purchases.

“This idea totally misses the spirit of gift giving,” Post said. “The point of gift giving is to allow someone else to go through that action of buying something for us. Otherwise, giving a gift just becomes another one of the world’s transactions…”

Amazon appears to be quite serious: Its patent was awarded not just to Amazon, but to its founder, Jeff Bezos…Amazon’s patent is 12 pages long, with numerous diagrams, including a “Gift Conversion Rules Wizard” that shows how a user could select rules such as, “No clothes with wool.” The document makes for curious reading, reducing the art of gift giving to the dry language of patentry…

RTFA. The patent description is about as dry – and humorous – as you might expect.

Learn a bit more about business and traffic management – once a topic near and dear to my heart – or at least my wallet.

Harry Jackson, our wandering con

A south Georgia inmate was arrested this morning as he tried to sneak back into jail with 14 packs of stolen cigarettes.

Camden County Sheriff Tommy Gregory said Harry Jackson, 25, was spotted and arrested as deputies investigated a 1:55 a.m. breakout and the burglary of a nearby convenience store.

“We thought we had two separate incidents. By the time we locate this guy, he’s one and the same,’’ the sheriff said.

Jail personnel suspected someone had broken out when a detention officer routinely checking doors found one to be unlocked that had been secure a few minutes earlier. As officers tried to determine who was missing, patrol deputies responded to an alarm at the Snappy Foods store about a block away, the sheriff said.

Meanwhile back at the jail, a deputy saw the shadow of a man trying to stealthily get into the jail. The man was arrested and found to be the inmate carrying about 14 packs of cigarettes, Sheriff Gregory said.

Har! This is supposed to be a smoke-free jail.