I admit it.
I’m really bad at gift giving.
I may have fantasized about the look of delirious happiness and surprise on a friend or loved one’s face after they opened my ‘perfect’ present to them, along with imagining their gushing response (“You really know me! This was so thoughtful!”) but in reality I’m a ‘gift-card’ cop-out sort-of-guy through and through and have been for many a year.
I can remember back to a time, however, when I briefly had the midas touch as a gift giver. Literally every present I bestowed on a friend would hit the satisfaction bullseye with the accuracy of Robin Hood. When you’re ten years old and growing up in the 1970’s, a $2 matchbox car or a $3 plastic cap gun was all you needed to be a dead-set friend pleaser complete with the wish-granting powers of an Aladdin-style genie.
These days as an adult it’s infinitely more difficult.
The odds are stacked against anyone with pretensions of being the sort of present giver who hits the high notes and moves the orchestra to fire up in appreciation. Afterall, your average adult by the time they’ve reached the age of let’s say forty, has acquired not only a whole house (possibly multi-storey) full of ‘stuff’ but a garage and backyard shed as well equally stacked to the ceiling with both life’s necessities and useless trinkets.
Difficult, but with this list as your inspiration, certainly not impossible.
Try these ‘out of the (gift) box’ ideas on for size…
Apparently this stuff really works. Gross it may be but hey, beauty demands sacrifices. I prefer the activated charcoal masks myself.
BUY ON AMAZON
Many, many people slaved away making these lollipops under great duress. Possibly the most satisfying flavour of all time.
BUY ON LOLLYPHILE.COM
The Japanese may be famous for creating miniatures, but with this astronomically correct creation it would appear they’ve outdone themselves. Just a pity no one sends letters anymore.
BUY AT JAPAN TRENDSHOP
I’ll freely admit to taking a special pleasure in popping the real thing back as a teenager. This is a simulation that approximates one of the truly simple pleasures of life. As addictive as popping bubble wrap but without the sound fx.
BUY ON AMAZON
I don’t play golf but I do drink a variety of liquids. There’s a lot of people who combine the two while having a day out on the green. This quirky (ok, creepy and ridiculous) convenience device would make the perfect gift for just that person.
BUY ON AMAZON
Color the cat and dye the dog in nearly every color imaginable. It even comes in brown for some reason!
BUY ON AMAZON
A true breakfast game-changer and one designed to leave a lasting impression.
BUY ON BURNT IMPRESSIONS.COM
Cute, weird or somewhere in between?
BUY ON AMAZON
When a mountain of ego like American rapper Kanye West says something outrageous like “I need a room full of mirrors so I can be surrounded by winners” can anyone deny their first thought is to give that type of excrescence the same treatment they’d give a Bachelor’s Degree or treasured training certificate and frame it? Well I can and you can but there are people out there who might actually consider it. And one of them might just be that friend who has everything.
BUY IT AT FRAMED TWEETS.COM
To hell with the idea of a more huggable world! This is all about harmless revenge and releasing those feelings of angst upon a helpless inanimate object. Feels good or your money back.
For the friend who has everything eh?
Nah, it only SEEMS like that person has everything.
Ps. What gift could you bestow upon someone whose latest movie has just won the Best Picture Oscar? Tough question to answer but there can be no doubt a director who’s capable of delivering the comic masterpieces (too complimentary you dare to suggest?) SHALLOW HAL and DUMB AND DUMBER is long overdue to receive their deserved place in the sun, recognition wise.
Apart from his many movies, Peter Farrelly is also the author of the classic 1998 semi-autobiographical novel THE COMEDY WRITER about a young man who quits his sales job in New England and moves to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a comedic screenwriter.
And since this concluding thread has been in praise of Hollywood ‘Man of the Moment’ Peter Farrelly and his many fine creative works, I will mention nothing of the at very best sporadically mildly amusing and definitely eighteen years too late DUMB AND DUMBER TO (2014).
Absolutely nothing.
Scenic Writer's Shack 
Fun, but sometimes shocking presents, Glen 😳🙀
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I like to shock.
Every now and then.
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Ah, the Farrelly Brothers. We felt the same about Dumb and Dumber to. Meh. WAY too late! I remember seeing the Heartbreak Kid and thinking much the same. Chuckled several times. Didn’t chuckle more. VERY strange scene on the beach when the wife’s trying to remedy Ben’s having gotten stung by a jellyfish. Oh, well….
Some of those gifts are da bomb! I would even consider the golfing one for my dad who still plays golf at age 90, except I think he probably has his whole system worked out.
I love the star-filled envelope & the selfie toaster is perfect for those hard-to-please millennials!
One perfect gift might be calling the company that sends someone to your job or home (or it might only be to your job) to wipe away your tears when you’re sad. Might be a Japanese thing. Not sure if it’s spread out and/or if they’re still doing that. But I often need someone to come wipe away my tears at work as I grit my teeth in frustration and slave for Da Man.
Or….there’s this! (And I think there’s other things in cans, too, like dragons and maybe fairies)…… 🙂
https://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e5a7/
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Canned Unicorn Meat!
Of course!
That is inspired!
(Poor little unicorns…)
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For many months Jane was always on about how much we needed a whipper snipper. I heard her loud and clear, and got her one for her birthday. This was about 20 years ago, and I don’t think I’ve ever lived it down. There have been a number of whipper snippers since that first one, but none was ever as good as the original, yet still I’m the bad guy. Not to worry. I don’t lose sleep over it, and neither does Jane. I guess I’m lucky if that is worst thing someone can trump up against me in over 20 years of marriage. 🙂
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I’m trying to picture how one might wrap a whipper snipper to give it as a present.
That story is a complete crack-up Roger.
I’m hoping for my next birthday I’m not presented with a lawn mower.
Even a container of pool chemicals would be a more welcome gift than that!
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I had to look this up, ’cause I had no idea what it was. A device to trim grass, right? That IS a pretty good record for Roger! I’ve gotten at least a handful of confused and/or less than enthusiastic looks during our marriage. Geez, you’d think I’d given him a Kanye West framed tweet or something. I wouldn’t blame him then ! !
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Nothing pleases me more than to have comments left on this site that bring me to laughter.
And it looks like you’ve done it again Stacey!
To think that another set of eyes 14 000km away is trying to make sense of what a ‘whipper snipper’ is as two Aussie blokes go about talking in the local dialect is not only comedy gold but testamount to the cultural-gap-narrowing wonders of the internet.
Thankyou, thankyou Stacey for ‘adding so much value’ (sorry for the crude marketing term) around here on such a regular basis. I am truly lucky to have you as a follower.
Now if everyone else would just follow your lead we might be able to get a fun discussion up and going on these parts more of the time. I wish!
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Thank you! Happy to contribute! Your posts are fun & laughter is healing! 🙂
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Thankyou for the ultimate compliment because, apart from when I’m talking about Charles Manson and the like (tee hee) ‘fun and laughter’ is what I’m about around these parts.
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I’m enjoying a good laugh too, and still enjoying sitting back and watching Jane hard at work with the whipper snipper… 🙂
Funny to think it is unknown as a term in the USA. Makes it even more funny Stacey. I did crack people up a number of times in the USA saying totally ordinary things at my university there, and having the whole year screaming on the floor with laughter, while I’m sitting there wondering what was going on. One soon to be friend told me how jealous he was that I emerged as the class clown in orientation week without trying, when he aspired to that position himself
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Love the gifts !- feel about queezy with the zit one though 😲
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That gift had ‘queezy’ written all over it.
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