Friday, August 01, 2008

Worst gifts ever file


eggplant and brick
Originally uploaded by lynnsterj
XUP wrote about her "worst gifts ever" today and encouraged her readers to contribute. As I got into the third comment I was about to leave at her blog, I realized I had a lot to say about the topic and decided to rant right here at home.

My worst gift (or set of gifts) ever was from my delightfully creative, energetic, spontaneous, usually-hopped-up-on-No-Doz college boyfriend. We'd only been dating for a few months around Xmas of 1990, and I have no recollection of what I'd gifted him that year, but here's what I received:

a plastic eggplant, 4 inches long
a large marcasite pin, shaped like a preettee liiteell bow
a wooden paintbrush, 2 inches wide
a tub of artifically flavored chocolate body butter (to be painted on with item above)
an original abstract acrylic painting, on the unusual canvas of the exterior of a Bausch & Lomb saline solution box.


What's wrong with that abundance, you may ask? You might think there may have been inside jokes involved, but no. I grew up in the Midwest & don't think I'd ever encountered an eggplant for food or otherwise, much less had any opinion about them at all. Regarding the pin, at the time I was a fine arts student, quite Goth and wore primarily black clothing with spider jewelry; bows were like, too prom-queen, dude. Bodybutter? Ew. And it smelled like it would quickly end anything with amorous intentions. The painting? I guess the product package made it kind of pop-art? Eeh. I had nothing against the paintbrush and still have it in a drawer somewhere to this day.

Overall impression? Speed-infused bf waited until the night before, ran through a quirky store to grab things, then packed it with a painting he had lying around.

On our last Xmas as a couple, I hinted around that I wanted some prints from his photography class (I was his model). He finally gifted me a set of abstract-y photographs that he had developed in our art school's darkroom. They were …interesting… He made sure to let me know several times that they were all his outtakes (i.e., not printed at my request but saved from the trash).

He was an entertaining guy and very spontaneous. Thoughtful? Not so much.

What were your worst gifts?!? PLEEZE, I WANT TO KNOW, tell me in the comments section.

5 comments:

  1. My worst gifts have been anything from my sister that tried to decorate my house--you know those home made craft projects that go on a wall or your front door over your fireplace etc, but generally that do not speak to your particular taste.
    What do you do with them

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  2. Happy to have inspired a post, since I was inspired by another blogger on this topic -- it's almost like self-perpetuating meme

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  3. Hi anonymous! Homemade gifts might be cool and heartfelt, but if the giver understandsps nothing about your personal style: disaster. We we gifted a pair of taper candles with a wild African theme; since any decorating style we might have is Asia/1930s/Modern and we don't use/display candles at all, they immediately went into our disaster/emergency storage area.

    XUP: Yeah, funny how that worked! Thanks for the idea.

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  4. I'm generally cool with any gift, because I'm easy like that. "Presents? For me? THANKS!!" But I recently got a gift from someone that was so completely not my style that it did make me think that this person does not know me at all.

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  5. oh man. i'm always so excited to get prezzies that i rarely am disappointed, even if it's weird. i've gotten weird presents, though, but i'm reticent and hesitant to broadcast them, as someone is a reader and could conceivably meander over to these parts. ehhem.

    but, as my MIL always says, "we are good gift givers and we are good gift receivers." words to live by :-)

    ReplyDelete

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