It is that time of year again ... to relate your favorite stories of terrible gifts. ;)
...
For my own entry, I have two - both gifts given by my mom to my wife.
1. When we were first married, my mom gave my wife for her birthday present ... a mop. It was admittedly a very nice mop, but the unstated message caused a certain amount of resentment on my wife's part ...
2. When we had the kid, my wife got a present from my mom - a baby hat that said "CHICK MAGNET" on it. As it turned out, my mom had no idea what that meant.
Quote from: Malthus on November 24, 2014, 04:40:19 PM
It is that time of year again ... to relate your favorite stories of terrible gifts. ;)
...
For my own entry, I have two - both gifts given by my mom to my wife.
1. When we were first married, my mom gave my wife for her birthday present ... a mop. It was admittedly a very nice mop, but the unstated message caused a certain amount of resentment on my wife's part ...
Meow!
Wow, and I thought my mother was vicious and hated my boyfriend. :lol:
Is it fair that Malthus wins the thread in the OP? :hmm:
I got my parents one of those Roku streaming boxes when they first came out. They were all into Netflix by mail and Dad had streamed a couple movies on his computer. And they loved using Time Warner's movies on demand, just didn't like the selection.
I set up the device for them and showed them how easy it was to pull up a movie. They just did not get the concept. Not one bit. Three weeks later I saw the box with cords and everything boxed up and sitting on one of the basement steps, ready to put in basement storage :frusty:
I once gave a fuck.
Quote from: Martinus on November 24, 2014, 04:53:11 PM
Wow, and I thought my mother was vicious and hated my boyfriend. :lol:
The funny part is that they now get along all too well in some ways - they spend hours talking to each other on the phone. :lol: No good can come of that.
Christmas before last, my brother's mother in law gave him a gift card to a restaurant and that was the only thing she got him for both Christmas and his birthday (he has a December 26th birthday-- lucky him). When he opened it and was about to say thanks, she sternly advised him that she intended for him to use the gift card to take his wife out to dinner for her birthday the following month. So basically she was telling him he got nothing.
Quote from: Malthus on November 24, 2014, 04:40:19 PM
1. When we were first married, my mom gave my wife for her birthday present ... a mop. It was admittedly a very nice mop, but the unstated message caused a certain amount of resentment on my wife's part ...
Thing is, my mother would do something like that and be sincere about it, if only because her passive-aggressiveness is singularly surpassed by her obsessive-compulsive cleaning disorder.
Today is Monday: Kitchen Floor and Bathrooms Day. The house still smells like vinegar upstairs.
I don't think I have told this story here before, but it is my favorite Christmas story ever so it is possible.
We (mom, dad, younger brother and myself) were in San Diego to have Christmas with my dad's parents; this was sometime back in the early to mid 80's. I think I was in high school and my brother is 4 years younger than me, so let's say I was 16 and he was 12. May dad's parents were very devout Catholics, but still had a very good and sometimes dirty sense of humor. My dad was good friends with my grandmother's best friend Beverly, and they liked to tell dirty jokes and give each other gag gifts.
At this time my dad had come up with this silly system, where he would mark all of the Christmas gifts with a code; a number or letter or something. He kept the list with him so he could tell the person giving out gifts who each gift was for and who it was from. I never figured out why he bothered but it amused him, so whatever.
This Christmas morning my brother and I were sitting next to each other on the couch. My brother got a gift that the code says was from Mom and Dad, so he opens it and quickly says 'check the list again'. Dad says 'nope, to xxx from Mom and Dad'. Brother says that it was definitely not for him and to check the stupid list again, and at the same time quietly opens the box to show me what it is. It was a ~12" chocolate candy penis.
Dad insisted the list was right until brother handed the box to him, at which point all hell broke loose. He realized it was for Beverly but now of course everyone had to know what was in the box to cause such embarrassment from my brother and himself.
I believe it is the last time he used a code for packages and we went back to writing actual names on the tags.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 24, 2014, 04:58:12 PM
Is it fair that Malthus wins the thread in the OP? :hmm:
I think sbr may have just knocked him from his perch. :P
This doesn't match those stories, but when I was in high school my similarly aged cousin was going into surgery. I was looking at DVDs with my father so I could send her one for her recovery. I picked up "Pretty Woman". My father was "No no no, she won't like that movie, she is a sweet girl and that is about a prostitute. Get her Billy Elliot instead, that is a good move she will like."
I did not accept that she wouldn't like Pretty Woman because it had a prostitute, but my father had seen Billy Elliot and went on and on about what a good movie it was, and despite me thinking it looked like the worst film ever, insisted that it is much better than the box indicated.
I reluctantly deferred to my father's judgment, and bought Billy Elliot and sent it to her.
She then watched 5 minutes of the movie and all hell broke loose. She apparently could only imagine that I sent such an obviously terrible movie to her as a prank, while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery. Apparently her time in the hospital consisted of 50% complaining about pain and 50% complaining about me being an asshole. I couldn't explain myself because she lived in another city. For the next Christmas, she got me an electric dying rat (the stupidest gift ever, it probably cost $5). She would not accept my explanation.
So since she thinks of me as the villian for giving her Billy Elliot, I decided to embrace it. Now during holidays I've given her several Billy Elliott related gifts. She has received a Billy Elliot book, the Billy Elliot soundtrack, and the spanish language version of the Billy Elliot film. When she gets married, I'm going to find a way to make sure that Billy Elliot songs make their way into the reception.
Bought my wife a treadmill after the birth of the twins.
Surprised it wasn't gravy.
My dad gave me a book titled "Does God Believe in Atheists". Of course, I've given him awesome gifts like a camo baseball cap, so I suppose it was partly deserved.
I once ask for a Taco press from Mexico. Instead I got a Betty crocker quesadilla maker. My sister in law and her fiancee sure do suck at the internet, especially considering they own a website selling craft earings.
Quesadillas are better than tacos
Not the same kind of failure, but my mother just tried to give me a gift book on Amazon (which you can setup to not reveal itself to recipient until a particular date) but failed and just gave me the gift right now. She then wrote me an emailed entitled "Shit" to tell me what she had done. Happy Thanksgiving present! :D
A few years ago, my brother-in-law was having issues with groundhogs and other varmints on their property; his mother was so sympathetic, she bought a rifle for him as a Christmas present, and tried to board the plane in St. Louis with it. :lol:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 24, 2014, 10:53:00 PM
Quesadillas are better than tacos
They're practically the same thing.
Quote from: Malthus on November 24, 2014, 04:40:19 PM
It is that time of year again ... to relate your favorite stories of terrible gifts. ;)
...
For my own entry, I have two - both gifts given by my mom to my wife.
1. When we were first married, my mom gave my wife for her birthday present ... a mop. It was admittedly a very nice mop, but the unstated message caused a certain amount of resentment on my wife's part ...
2. When we had the kid, my wife got a present from my mom - a baby hat that said "CHICK MAGNET" on it. As it turned out, my mom had no idea what that meant.
I think you might have told that story before.
Quote from: alfred russel on November 24, 2014, 06:01:42 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 24, 2014, 04:58:12 PM
Is it fair that Malthus wins the thread in the OP? :hmm:
I think sbr may have just knocked him from his perch. :P
True, although mismatched gifts are a different leagues than purely passive aggressive intentional gifts. :D
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 24, 2014, 10:58:28 PM
A few years ago, my brother-in-law was having issues with groundhogs and other varmints on their property; his mother was so sympathetic, she bought a rifle for him as a Christmas present, and tried to board the plane in St. Louis with it. :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Not on the same level, but initially my boyfriend would get me various self-help books about improving my outfits, managing my stress and anger etc.
This year he got me illustrated Game of Thrones. I wonder if he is trying to tell me something. :hmm:
I've received the usual assortment of well-meaning but crappy gifts from friends and relatives (usually books that are in the genres I would read, but far removed from the subgenres/niches I like; kind of like someone getting you a best of soccer tape when you actually only watch hockey, but hey - SPORTS!).
The worst gift was work related, though.
A few years ago, at my old company, my new supervisors were visiting from the UK. They had gone out for Italian the night before and decided to bring me a bottle of wine.
At first I thought that it was a nice gesture, but then they explained that they hadn't been able to finish it the night before and didn't want to let it go to waste.
I looked closer at the bottle and found it had been recorked and was about half full. I was literally rendered speechless. I stored it under my desk until they left, then poured it down the drain.
Quote from: Syt on November 25, 2014, 03:09:30 AMThe worst gift was work related, though.
A few years ago, at my old company, my new supervisors were visiting from the UK. They had gone out for Italian the night before and decided to bring me a bottle of wine.
At first I thought that it was a nice gesture, but then they explained that they hadn't been able to finish it the night before and didn't want to let it go to waste.
I looked closer at the bottle and found it had been recorked and was about half full. I was literally rendered speechless. I stored it under my desk until they left, then poured it down the drain.
Ok this must be the biggest dick move I have ever heard of. What the fuck they were thinking?
British businessmen unable, between them, to finish a bottle of wine at a dinner.
Country is going to the dogs.
Quote from: Gups on November 25, 2014, 05:57:29 AM
British businessmen unable, between them, to finish a bottle of wine at a dinner.
Country is going to the dogs.
One was actually French (though you couldn't have told - his name could have been old Norman, and he spoke both French and English invariably without accent, and we and colleagues were guessing for years as to his provenience), the other a Sikh (though not of the bearded turban variety).
Quote from: Syt on November 25, 2014, 06:11:41 AM
Quote from: Gups on November 25, 2014, 05:57:29 AM
British businessmen unable, between them, to finish a bottle of wine at a dinner.
Country is going to the dogs.
One was actually French (though you couldn't have told - his name could have been old Norman, and he spoke both French and English invariably without accent, and we and colleagues were guessing for years as to his provenience), the other a Sikh (though not of the bearded turban variety).
What a bunch of assholes.
That is pretty ghetto.
"Here are some chocolates. I left the ones with nuts in them."
I had a great-aunt who was notorious for giving odd gifts at Christmastime. She gave me a paint brush when I was 10; not an artists brush, but one you would use to paint the walls. One year she gave my dad a 4 LP set of "Amos and Andy" but with only 1 LP. (Presumably she had given the other three records to other people; and gave my dad both the album box and the first record.) This was in the 1980s, long after it would have been acceptable to listen to Amos and Andy, so I'm not even sure where she found it.
(We weren't allowed to listen to it. It got "Lost" pretty quickly, much like the dart board one of friends had given me for my seventh birthday.)
Quote from: Savonarola on November 25, 2014, 11:25:25 AM
I had a great-aunt who was notorious for giving odd gifts at Christmastime. She gave me a paint brush when I was 10; not an artists brush, but one you would use to paint the walls. One year she gave my dad a 4 LP set of "Amos and Andy" but with only 1 LP. (Presumably she had given the other three records to other people; and gave my dad both the album box and the first record.) This was in the 1980s, long after it would have been acceptable to listen to Amos and Andy, so I'm not even sure where she found it.
(We weren't allowed to listen to it. It got "Lost" pretty quickly, much like the dart board one of friends had given me for my seventh birthday.)
At least it wasn't lawn darts ... :D
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 25, 2014, 09:03:21 AM
"Here are some chocolates. I left the ones with nuts in them."
"I had to suck the chocolate off to check which they were."
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 24, 2014, 10:58:28 PM
A few years ago, my brother-in-law was having issues with groundhogs and other varmints on their property; his mother was so sympathetic, she bought a rifle for him as a Christmas present, and tried to board the plane in St. Louis with it. :lol:
But he needs it for Squirrels and such
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 25, 2014, 04:20:17 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 24, 2014, 10:58:28 PM
A few years ago, my brother-in-law was having issues with groundhogs and other varmints on their property; his mother was so sympathetic, she bought a rifle for him as a Christmas present, and tried to board the plane in St. Louis with it. :lol:
But he needs it for Squirrels and such
Varmint Cong.