So, here's a funny story. I was reading this for a class. School. I know right? Anyway, I thought this was pretty hilarious. I don't know if it is legal for me to post this, but it was from a newspaper so I figured, it's OK. If there are any complaints, let me know. No takers? OK, well then enjoy.
Gifted
DAVE BARRY
When I was a small boy, gift shopping was simple, because I had very few people to buy gifts for, and once I found a gift that worked, I stuck with it, year after year. For example, I always gave my father a belt. I got it at the five-and-ten-cent store for about a dollar. It was made from what appeared to be genuine hand-tooled cardboard. I doubt that my father ever wore any of these belts, because if the humidity got over 50 percent they would dissolve. But it never occurred to me to wonder whether my father needed a belt; all I knew was that belts were in my price range, and he always said thank you.
I always gave my mother a little bottle of toilet water, which also cost about a dollar. At first I believed that this was water from an actual toilet, and I had no idea what she was supposed to do with it. But it came in a nice bottle, and it was also in my price range, and my mother always acted thrilled, holding the bottle up for general admiration.
"Look what Davey got me!" she'd exclaim, in a voice containing no hint of the fact that this was the fourth consecutive Christmas she’d received it. "Toilet water!"
I usually made Christmas gifts for my sister. One year I made her a paperweight by getting some clay and letting it harden, thereby forming a hardened lump of clay.
"What is this?" she asked.
"A paperweight," I said.
"Thank you," she said, which I now realize was very gracious of her. It was not as if the lack of a good paperweight had left a gaping hole in her life.
Another year I made her a bookmark. It looked very much like an ordinary strip of construction paper, but the trained eye could tell it was a bookmark, because on it were written, in crayon, the words BOOKMARK. I am sure she couldn't wait to finish opening her other presents so she could race to her room and mark some books.
The point is, gift-giving was simple for me then. As you have no doubt noticed, the older you get, and the more obligations you develop, the more complex the gift-giving becomes. This is especially true if you have children on your gift list. Meeting the gift needs of a single modern child requires an effort of roughly the same magnitude as the Normandy Invasion.'
You parents know what I'm talking about. You know what it means to race from store to store, looking desperately for the Number-One Item on your eight-year-old son's wish list, namely the Official NASA Model Junior Space Shuttle, which takes seventeen years to assemble and leaks real hydrogen. You know what it means to get into a semi violent dispute with another parent over who gets to purchase the only remaining model of the heavily advertised hot new toy concept Baby Fester Face ("The Doll with Open Sores That Really Run!"), which your five-year-old daughter has informed you she absolutely MUST have this year, and if she doesn’t get it, she's going to put her own self up for adoption.
But at least children know what they want. It's much harder to decide what to get for grown-ups, who almost never know what they want, which is why we generally wind up giving them stupid things. For example, men are always getting cologne. I have never, in my whole life, heard a man express even the slightest interest in cologne. But most of us have numerous bottles of it, dating back to the Johnson administration.2
What do men really want? I am generalizing here, of course, but I’d say that what men really want is to be left alone at key moments. For example, if you're in a relationship with a man, and you have decided, after much thought, that the two of you need to have a long, probing conversation in which you both sincerely try to understand each other’s innermost feelings, then the man would consider it a wonderful gift if you would NOT announce your decision during an important televised football game (defined as "any televised football game").
Another great gift for a guy would be to tell him that you took the car in and had the oil changed AND the tires rotated.
But usually what we get is cologne.
What women really want, of course, is for men to share their innermost feelings. So what most men give them is appliances. I was guilty of this for many years, until I realized that although my wife could appreciate a fine appliance, she couldn’t really cherish it. You never see scenes like this in the movies:
BRAD: Well, Dorothy, I'm off to the war.
DOROTHY: Oh, Brad, please be careful!
BRAD: I shall, Dorothy. But just in case I don't come back, I want you to have this.
DOROTHY: (tears of happiness streaming down her face:)Oh, Brad! It's a General Electric
Coffee Maker with 12-Cup Capacity and Auto-Timer Function!
I have gradually learned that, as a rule, women prefer romantic items, which can be defined as "items that are small but cost a lot and do not have plugs," such as jewelry. The ultimate romantic gift for a woman would be a single molecule of some extremely expensive substance in a tiny cherishable box.
But you'll probably get her a Water Pik, you dork.
This is an outrage. When I say describe Harry Potter, you say, "He has black messy hair, and dark green eyes." HOWEVER I have recently discovered, after carefull examination, that the media has taken over not only our world, but the world of Harry Potter. They have ruined the whole image that is Harry Potter. Observe-
