Holiday Gift Follies

The Holidays are approaching and we all know what this time of year signifies. It has nothing to do with Jesus, God, Hanukkah, or confusion over Kwanzaa. The Holidays mean rampant commercialism and an unbridled desire for inanimate objects whose immediate satisfaction seems to dim so quickly. Now that I’ve made some of you sad, I will stop being a Grinch and get to the point. While excitement invariably ensues when you do receive a truly wonderful and thoughtful gift, there are also those moments when you receive a gift and subsequently mentally curse that person and their family.

When you gift someone something nice and they give you CD with three tracks on it that still has the $2.99 price tag (this has actually happened to me before), you kind of wish their car goes careening off an icy cliff on the way home. So to prevent my readers from receiving voodoo threats from myself or other family members, I’ve compiled a list of six gifts never to give to loved ones and only to those people you really hate.

Electronic Baseball Score Tracker

Compare

The first gift we have is an electronic baseball score tracker that uses Wifi. Now let’s just ignore the fact that baseball scores are available on your Smartphone, laptop, desktop computer, iPod, and ESPN. What is most disturbing about the product is that the technology looks like something right out of the 1980’s. I’ve actually seen McDonald’s electronic toys with the same crappy display system. So for the baseball fan that doesn’t have cable, a computer, or any other piece of technology post 1970 in their house, please by all means spend one hundred plus dollars on this outdated travesty.

And contrast. 

Bicygnals 

I am a casual cyclist. I enjoy cycling around my neighborhood and through the forest paths in the nearby suburbs. However, I am not delusional. Cycling is not a glamour sport that brings you much respect. In fact, Americans really hate cyclists. Countless are the times that I’ve heard terrible things yelled in my direction as I use my share of the pavement. I’ve even been run off the road by meat-head truck drivers who find malevolent joy in slowly swerving in my direction until I have to jump the curb onto the sidewalk for dear life. So I do know the challenges cyclists face on the road every day. However this next product does not help the situation. 

The creators of ‘bicygnals’ have found a way to make cyclists look dumber, look geekier, and become more of a target on the road. Bicygnals are the perfect gift for the cyclist you want attention drawn to, and ultimately to end up under the chassis of a Dodge Ram.

USB Cooler

The USB beverage cooler is the peak of conspicuous consumption. This device serves no true purpose for anyone. Every office has a refrigerator. Every home has a refrigerator. Why would anyone need a miniature refrigerator next to their computer? The only guess I could venture would be World of Warcraft players because they epitomize the third of the seven deadly sins: sloth. And if anyone reading does play World of Warcraft, please castrate yourself promptly. Under no circumstances can our country afford another generation of useless keyboard jockeys.  

Harry Potter TV Wand

Harry Potter is all the rage again as the release of the final movie airs around the globe. Like a heroin addict who has one last dance with Mr. Brownstone before entering rehab, companies are trying to cash in on Harry Potter for what will most likely be the last time. This wonderful product caught my interest.

My advice is to get the Harry Potter television remote wand for the son of one of your Right-Wing Christian friends. Not just any Right-Wing Christian but the man you really dislike because he claims gays are Satan in the flesh and that Sarah Palin is a qualified person to run the country. His son will prance around the living room lightly flicking his wrist to change channels and all the meanwhile his father will stew in anger as he is forced to consider sending his son to one of those straight camps.

Peekaru

One of my favorite terrible gifts is the peekaru. This sweater is designed to fit over a baby holding apparatus with a cute hole for your little parasite’s face. Oh how wonderful! It keeps mommy and baby warm! Plus mommy doesn’t have to hold her fat baby!  

While this product may appear cute to soon-to-be mommies, to me it is something born out of someone’s nightmare. It immediately reminded me of this scene:

I hope that the producers of Alien will file an intellectual properties claim against the creators of this outrage in the near future.   

Just a Drop

The final gift I’ve found is one we can all relate to. We have all walked in the bathroom and been met with a terrible smell. Not just the normal smell of an adult bowel movement. No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the smell of congealing, rotting proteins that have been fermenting for hours in the warm gut of an overweight middle-aged person and subsequently been plunged into the world like an evil spirit escaping from Hades. I think we all have a better picture now. The smell that stops you in your tracts. The smell that makes you wonder whether God even cares about you.

Just eat a drop less tuna and maybe you won't stink the bathroom up like the wharf. 

This product is made for the person in your family or at your office whose bowel movements make you question the abilities of the human body. Just drop one of the tablets into the toilet before use and the smell is neutralized. It’s the polite way to tell someone that they should really consider a change in diet. 

Holiday Hell

December is in full swing and unless you live in a cave you’ve probably been to the mall. Whether you were forced by your girlfriend or wife or came to the yearly realization that at some point this holiday season you will have to go, for people with Y chromosomes it is a terrible experience. 

The Entrance

The entrance to a mall is like a staging area in a quarantined hospital. You must wash when you go in and wash when you leave, for safety purposes of course. Walking into the department stores at the mall you are blasted with the olfactory overload of thousands of perfumes at the same time. The sum of which smells like thousands of old ladies are circling you in their Rascals.

If this wasn’t enough they have spray tanned people standing around sticking smelly white pieces of paper in your face.

Leather-faced lady/well groomed, fit male: Want to smell Ralph Lauren Amber Rain today?

Me: NO. Stop sticking foreign smells in my face before I stick something in yours. And believe me it will be a smelly piece of white paper that you will never forget. 

  

For as much as I hate this entire experience it serves a purpose. Quarantine in a hospital prevents diseases from getting in or out of the little area. In the mall, the chemical wash that is the perfume department prevents you from experiencing some of the less desirable aspects mall, thus allowing you to spend more money.

For one there are children everywhere. We all know children smell. That is a fact, no need to say more. Secondly, old people. In general, they have less control over their bowels than Lindsay Lohan can resist temptation at a lesbian cocaine party. This is not a good smell, Lindsay Lohan or the old people. So by jamming your nostrils full of smell, you don’t experience these elements of the mall. Lastly, the aromatic fumes we find at the entrances also get us a bit high. Ever spend too much time in a department store? Those elves come to life after a while.  

  

Old People

At this point you made it out of the department store that you didn’t even need anything from.

Deep breath to try and clear the lungs and nostrils and it’s time to move on. One store. All I need to do is get to that one store, buy the crap, bee-line for the exit.

Mentally you’re prepared to get in and get out like a heist.

Smooth and seamless like in Ocean’s 11. You’re George Clooney. Ready? Go.  

Now as soon as you start to walk you hit a wall of old ladies. Roadblock.

God, they’re slow. Okay made my way around them, time to move.

More old ladies. Roadblock.

GOD damnit! Okay, scoot by that group of old ladies, let’s go people. Man I wish it was acceptable to push old people.

Bam! Old ladies? Exactly. This is because for some reason old people find the mall to be an acceptable place to exercise. They just walk around the mall holding up every last man who wants to shop with precision. 

Old people should exercise in places where no one can see them. Because honestly, I'm not sure whether or not that man is shitting his pants.

At this point you have to resign to the fact that these ladies are ruining your chance at a heist-like shopping experience.

Jailbait

The place smells. The old people are holding you up. But finally you make it to the store you wanted to find. You buy your girl that new set of pots and pans you’ve been thinking about to remind her that ordering Chinese doesn’t constitute cooking and you’re ready to go.  But alas, on your way from the register to the door you notice a girl walking in front of you.

Damn! That girl is cute. She’s got a NICE ass!

You think about going up to her and saying hello. You did just buy pots and pans for your girl so you’re thinking it could head south after Christmas. As you debate in your head you notice her walking towards a group of high school girls.

No,don’t go there. Nooo!

Yes. After all those terrible thoughts about old people God is making sure you realize you are a dreadful person.  As she joins her friends she turns around to reveal her braces in all their glory. For most of us, the guilt, shame, and anger fill your body. 

Why is she dressed like that? Seriously, where is her father?

Why can’t I be 16 again? I don’t remember my friends looking like whores in high school. Well, except Easy Erin, Loose Lucy and Spread-Eagle Sam. BUT IT WAS DIFFERENT.

My daughter is going to be a fucking nun. A FUCKING NUN!

Time to go

You’re rattled. Your head is spinning from inhaling fumes. The hoard of old people is starting to worry you because Mrs. Field’s doesn’t have a senior discount and the grumblings of riot are written on the wall. At the same time you’re trying to convince yourself you’re not a pedophile. The solution is to run. Run as fast as you can until you breathe the fresh air of the parking lot. And do not come back to the mall. At least until next year.