’Net Junkie
Truly awful
gift experiencesWith Christmas just a few days away and the holiday shopping rush in overdrive, this may be a good time to remind everyone of the old dictum, "It's the thought that counts." Like death and taxes, receiving an off-the-mark Christmas present is another one of life's inevitabilities. Just smile, utter a polite "thank you" and be grateful you never received anything as truly awful as those at www.funny-funny-pictures.com/christmas-presents unfortunately did.
"I will never forget or forgive this one," writes one contributor, who awoke one Christmas morning to find a cluster of gifts from her husband stacked under the tree. "I was so excited! I was thinking 'WOW! What a great guy.' He hands me the first package. I open it, and it is a package of SOCKS! I am thinking, 'OK, this has to be a joke.' so I move on to the next one, and it, too, was another package of socks. I open three packages of freaking socks and informed him that the last one better not be socks. He assured me that it wasn't. I open the last one, and it was a package of underwear. Not my size, and granny panties to boot!" It was her worst Christmas ever, she says. She later divorced him.
"A few years back I needed a new coat," writes another. "My girlfriend and I went Christmas shopping, and we saw this awful PURPLE COAT with a black FUR COLLAR on it. I told her that is the most awful-looking coat that I had ever seen. Well, lo and behold, on Christmas morning my hubby handed me a beautiful box. I opened it, and to my HORROR it was that UGLY PURPLE COAT. I started to cry, and my hubby said he was so glad that I liked it. I only wore it out of town so that people wouldn't see me in it."
For thrift-conscious or procrastinating shoppers looking for an easy way out, here's a tip from a disgruntled gag gift recipient: "I got a Ziploc bag, and on the outside it said in print, 'You've been naughty so here's the scoop, all you get for Christmas is snowman poop.' And inside the bag was about 15-20 miniature marshmallows."
I haven't even gotten to the teenager who received an economy-size box of tampons, the narcissistic fellow who sent relatives a picture of himself posing in a Speedo or the traumatized 6-year-old who found a lump of coal in a tiny package from his older brother. Oh well, as all too many of us say during the gift-giving season, there's always next year.
’Net Junkie drops every Monday.
Contact Shawn "Speedy" Lopes at slopes@starbulletin.com.
Note: Web sites mentioned in this column were active at time of publication. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin neither endorses nor is responsible for their contents.
