The Worst Gift I Ever Got

As the holiday season approaches, I feel I should caution you regarding what is and is not an appropriate gift. Now, I am going to preface this by saying that my step-mother-in-law is “weird, but well-meaning” — at least towards me. To say that she is “frugal” or a “bargain-hunter” is just not doing her justice; she has taken the disease of compulsive shopping and hoarding and combined it with coupon mania into a disturbing art form of a hobby. Which is sometimes awesome if you need a new work wardrobe on a $100 budget; she’s the first one I’d call in that case… But when it comes to gifts, you sometimes get the feeling that she’s ransacked her room of drug store clearance items, tossed a few in a gift bag and said “there.” (She doesn’t even write your name on the tag, so she can reuse the bag later). She has gotten somewhat better in her selections the longer I’ve known her and the gifts I get are much more relevant to my interests now. But we aren’t talking about now…

After Garian and I had been married for about a year, we managed to take the grown-up step of buying a house. We closed in November and had a couple of weeks left on the lease of our duplex so we were able to fix it up a bit, paint the walls and such before moving in.  Somewhere in this process, our good friend “Ford” and my two teenage brothers were over helping to paint and Garian and I ran back to the duplex to get some tools or something. While we were gone, Garian’s father and step-mother came by the house to oooh and ahhh over the progress made and dropped off some presents for me as it had just been my birthday and Christmas was coming up. So we return and my brother tells me that there are presents over there. What a nice surprise. It is a couple of gift bags and so I start pulling out things like socks, Christmas candles, bath gel, chocolate, perfectly lovely little presents for someone who doesn’t know me all that well, but has an inkling of what I’d like. And then I find IT. My eyes skim the box in disbelief and as I open it I say, “well, she must have reused this box — an unfortunate choice, but surely there wouldn’t really be…” yes, there really was.

An expired VALUE PACK of Generic-brand DOUCHE!

Nothing says "Merry Christmas, new daughter-in-law" like large quantities of vage-wash!

As I stare at it in bewilderment, struggling to discern the meaning in such a gift — as well as what the hell do I do with this — Garian, my brothers, and Ford all howl with laughter. And they can’t stop. Tears are running down their cheeks as they attempt to pull a straight face, but then they make eye contact and dissolve into hysterical giggling again.

I called the next day and thanked the in-laws very generically for the presents, especially the lovely bath gel — I adore that scent! In comparing notes with Garian’s other relatives, we later discovered that every female member of the family also received a value pack of douche. It must have been on clearance at some point — half of half! — and she was able to justify purchasing it ALL by rationalizing that it would make great gifts!

No. Stop. Do not pick up the douche, do not pass the checkout. The only time you should give this sort of thing as a gift is when you’re invited to a White Elephant Exchange and no one will know it’s from you. That would be hilarious. Do it for your next office Christmas Party. I dare you.