World’s Worst: Presents

The worst Christmas/holiday gift I’ve ever heard of was the time a friend of mine gave his girlfriend $187 in cash with which to buy a parking pass.

“But she really needed that parking pass!” he told me later, having received remonstrations from her, her family, his own mother, and me.

Happy ending though–the couple in question is married with an adorable baby girl. The relationship survived a gift of cash (unlike Jerry and Elaine’s).

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I gifted my own dud last year. I bought books for my two pre-teen nieces. Books, it turned out, they had already read. In lieu of demanding an all-time reading list, I went the safe route this year and bought them gift certificates to the venerable Secret Garden Bookshop, where I bought books as a kid. (Back then, it was in Greenlake, where BluWater Bistro is now. This is just a preview of the exciting new SunBreak series, “Seth’s ‘Where Things Used to Be!’”)

The worst gift I ever got, wasn’t actually that bad, I was just a snotty kid and turned it into a big deal. My mom saved up for a trip to England, it was her first trip out of the country–I believe she was in her late 30s at the time. Anyway, she bought my sister and me gifts, and mine was a replica of a chess piece in some famous prehistoric set at the British Museum.

“Mom. A chess piece? What am I going to do with one chess piece?” God I was a brat. I still have the thing, it’s actually pretty cool, and has far outlived many presents I was bowled over by at the time–like the Radio Shack remote control car I got on Xmas Day and played with maybe twice after New Year’s.

Hoping none of my presents this year make anyone’s all-time worst lists. We’ll see…