Gag Gifts

You can never really go wrong with joke Christmas gifts. Nothing shows somebody that you care quite like, for example, wrapping up a half-eaten bologna sandwich and giving it to them.

This year I received two gag gifts; a robotic fish and a Blobimal. (Just writing that sentence made me smile.)

The robotic fish is plastic with batteries. Once it’s placed in water, its tail automatically begins to flit about, propelling the fish along and creating the very realistic illusion to the untrained eye that some mad scientist has brought to life a plastic fish, one that can’t see and keeps repeatedly bumping into things.

Blobimals are a perfect example of how people will buy just about anything. They consist of a blob of a green, clay-like substance, along with several plastic monster parts, such as eyes, mouth, arms, and legs. The idea is to mold the blob into whatever shape you want and then attach the monster pieces to it. This leaves you with something that’s supposed to be a monster, but which instead resembles a booger with random body parts sticking out.

But it gets even better. Once a Blobimal is made, it slowly melts overnight, turning the monster into a deformed puddle of goo. My guess is that you’re supposed to laugh at the monster’s misery, which seems to me like an indictment of our society if entertainment can be derived in such a fashion. (Monsters have feelings too!) Anyway, after the monster melts, you can start all over again and build and melt it as many times as you’d like. (Unless, of course, it goes through the wash and ruins several pairs of pants, in which case the monster is probably in for something much worse than melting, courtesy of whoever’s in charge of doing the laundry.)

Needless to say, I really enjoyed receiving these items. The problem with joke Christmas gifts, however, is that once they’ve been opened and the laughter has died down, you’re usually left with something that’s unusable and just takes up space. In a best case scenario, you might be able to re-gift it the next year and start a cycle of the same present making its way through the family year after year. However, if it isn’t re-giftable, you basically have to store it for an appropriate amount of time, so as not to seem insensitive, and then throw it away.

This year, however, I’ve decided to get some real use out of my joke presents. Luckily, I received a small fish bowl along with my robot fish. Realizing that my living quarters could use some classing up, I flipped the batteries upside down so they continued to weigh down the fish without activating it, and now it hangs out in its little bowl on top of my fridge, always on duty and ready to chastise me for a lack of willpower if I’m rummaging around for a snack at 3:00 a.m.

“Do you really need another piece of cheesecake?”

As for my Blobimal, the instructions say to build a monster and take before and after pictures, and by golly, that’s just what I did. Perhaps this will turn into a whole series, or maybe this will be it, but either way, I now present to you Leprosy Monster, before and after!

 “Must….reach…arm…”

“You know, this is kinda comfortable. Maybe I’ll just stay here.”

Thanks to those who were responsible for my joke gifts! (You know who you are.) Because of you, I’m now one step closer to everybody thinking I’m crazy! Hooray!

Wrinkles

Note: I’m not really sure where this came from; just some random idea I had at some point, I guess. It doesn’t really fit into the general feel of this blog, and I’ve been somewhat hesitant to post it. However, maybe it’s time for something a bit different anyway, especially considering that it’s the Christmas season.

The room was warm and cozy, and it smelled like cinnamon. The old woman sat on a faded brown couch, thumbing through a gardening magazine.

A little girl bounded into the room. “Read me a story?”

The old woman put down the magazine and smiled. “I was hoping you’d ask,” she said. “Now run along and get us a book.”

“Okay!”

The old woman’s granddaughter scurried off to another room, her blonde pigtails bouncing like they had a life of their own. The old woman watched her go. “My, my, to have pep in my step like that again,” she murmured, shaking her head in amusement.

The little girl reappeared moments later, a battered book with a picture of a puppy on its cover clutched tightly in her hands. “This one,” she announced happily.

The old woman held out her arms, and the little girl scrambled up into her lap. She wiggled about until she found a comfortable sitting position and then handed the book to her grandmother.

The old woman eyed it for moment before innocently asking, “Do you think that Peter Puppy will make it home for Christmas this time around?”

The little girl twisted her head back and laughed. “Grandma, he always makes it home!”

“Well you never know. Maybe this time it’ll turn out different, so I think we’d better find out.”

“Yeah! Let’s!”

The old woman flipped the book open to the first page. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a little hand on her cheek.

 

“Grandma?”

“Yes?”

“Why is your face so bumpy?”

“Bumpy?”

“Yes, bumpy.” The little girl ran her hand over the old woman’s cheek, tracing the rough contours of her skin.

The old woman chuckled. “Those are wrinkles.”

“Oh.” The little girl frowned. “Why do you have them?”

“It just happens to people when they get older.”

“Oh.” She frowned again. “But why?”

The old woman opened her mouth to speak, but she found she had no answer.

“Grandma,” the little girl persisted, “Why do people get wrinkles?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Can you try?”

“Well…” The old woman’s voice trailed off as she looked up at the ceiling, her brow furrowed.

The little girl studied the old woman intently. “Grandma?”

“Hold on.”

A few moments later, the old woman looked down to the little girl. “You know what? Maybe I will try to explain it.”

“Okay!”

“You see,” the old woman said, pulling the little girl closer, “a wrinkle means that you love somebody.”

The little girl scrunched up her nose. “Really?”

“Really.”

“You have lots of wrinkles.” The little girl traced a finger over the old woman’s cheek. “Here, here, and here!”

“That means I love a lot of people.”

“Like who?”

“Pick one and I’ll tell you who.”

The little girl traced a wrinkle on the old woman’s forehead. “This one.”

“That’s for your grandfather.”

“It is?”

“Yes, and I’ll bet there are a few more up there, too. Those are for your mom and your dad.”

The little girl, her mouth open wide, examined the old woman’s forehead and nodded. “There is,” she whispered. She pointed to a line on the old woman’s cheek. “What about this one?”

“That one?”

“Yeah!”

“That one’s for you.”

The little girl’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“I got that wrinkle the day you were born.”

“Wow,” breathed the little girl.

“And the rest of them are for everybody else in the family and some of my dear friends, too. I could tell you about them all, but it’d take a long time and we’d never get to the story.”

“We probably wouldn’t,” agreed the little girl. “There sure are a lot of them!”

The old lady chuckled. “Should we get back to the book?”

The little girl didn’t reply. Instead, she rubbed her hands on her own cheeks. “Why don’t I have any wrinkles?” she asked. “I love people too!”

The old woman leaned in and kissed the little girl on the forehead. “I’m sure you do,” she said, “but wrinkles won’t come until you get a little bit older.”

“Why?”

“So you’ll appreciate them more.”

“But what if you don’t love anybody at all?”

“Then you’ll never get wrinkles. You never want to be an old woman without wrinkles.”

The little girl smiled. “I’ll bet I’ll have lots of wrinkles when I grow up! More than even you!”

The old woman laughed. “I hope you do.”

The little girl pointed to the middle of her forehead. “I’ll get one right here for you!”

“You will?”

“Uh-huh!”

“That’s wonderful!”

“And there’ll be another one for Grandpa right above it.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear it.”

The little girl, finally satisfied, returned her focus to the book. “Read, Grandma!”

“All right.”

A short time later, a man walked into room, just as the little girl was sliding off the old woman’s lap. “So,” he said, “Grandma got to read you a story, did she?”

“Yes!”

“Did you thank her?”

“Yes!”

“Good job.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I can’t wait ‘til I get wrinkles!”

The Impulse Table

Have you ever purchased anything at the grocery store from the impulse table set up right where you walk in? I never have, and it’s for a couple of reasons:

First, it’s sort of insulting howthe grocery store management thinks they can make me buy things based solely upon proximity. I mean, how lazy and out of shape do they think I am? (“Thank goodness, I can fill up my basket right here! I’m already breathing hard from walking across the parking lot, and I'm pretty sure I’d collapse if I had to go much further!”)

Second, they never even sell anything good at this table, anyway. For example, during the various holiday timeframes, they’ll try to push holiday related items, but only of the nasty variety, such as stale Christmas cookies with nothing on them but about three sprinkles; two green and one red. If it isn’t a holiday timeframe, they’ll just put out bakery that’s, at a minimum, one day old, in the hopes that somebody will be stupid enough to buy it. (“Well, these donuts may be rock hard and could very well give me food poisoning, but they’re still half off! Score!”)

I’m pretty sure that I’ll never buy anything from this table, out of sheer principle alone, even if it was something that I desperately needed and it came at a reasonable price. (“Even though I’m losing blood at an alarming rate from this gaping puncture wound, I’m sure as heck not going to buy these bandages! Do they think I’m the kind of sucker who’ll just grab the first ones he sees? I’d better see what else they have, assuming I don’t pass out!”)

Before the snow flies, they also always put flimsy shovels, along with hats and gloves, in this general area. However, even if a major blizzard was bearing down on me, and I had no shovel or hat or gloves, I'd still never buy these things from a grocery store, as it'd pretty much be an admission that I’m a total moron incapable of the slightest amount of foresight. (“Whoa! It’s snowing in December! Who’d have ever thought this would happen? I better get a hideous hat and gloves that are so thin I can see right through them, along with a plastic shovel that’ll break after two or three uses, and I better do it right now!”)

Maybe I’m just stubborn and don’t like being given obvious hints at what I should buy. In fact, I’d probably be much more likely to buy three-day old bakery if it were in the back of the store and labeled with a sign that read: “Purchase At Your Own Risk! This Stuff Is Old And Probably Tastes Like Dirty Socks!” (“Tell me not to buy it, huh? I’ll show them! Tastes like dirty socks, huh? Heck, it’ll be an improvement over my meat loaf, anyway!”)

I guess it boils down to this: If you want to make me do something, the last thing you want to do is hint at it. For example, if you think that the quality of this blog has been consistently going downhill, and that I should really put more effort into it, what you wouldn’t want to do is add a comment to this post that says, “Just some constructive criticism: Your stuff is terrible! If it were food, it’d taste like dirty socks! Try to do better, will ya?”

Instead, you’d have a much better chance if you employed reverse psychology and posted something like, “This blog is of some of the highest quality I’ve ever encountered! There’s no need to ever try and make it any better, since it’s already perfect! In fact, I don’t know how I ever lived before I found it!” Something like this would be sure to elicit a response from me such as, “So they think I’ve peaked, huh? I’ll show them! I’ll double my efforts and start devoting up to fifteen, perhaps even seventeen, minutes a week on this!”

Go ahead and post that, if you feel you must. I promise I won’t be offended.

Oh Christmas Spirit, Where Art Thou?

I’ll admit that I’m currently struggling to get into the Christmas Spirit, despite the Herculean efforts of the radio stations that have been playing Christmas music nonstop since early November. This really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, however, since I’m a guy, and guys aren’t required to get into the Christmas spirit until Christmas Eve, when they do all of their shopping, if ever. Still, I wouldn’t be against it if it happened to me a bit earlier.

I think a lot of it has to do with there being no snow yet here in the Twin Cities. To me, brown, wilting grass just doesn’t scream out Christmas the way that a good old fashioned U.P. blizzard does. Heck, I don’t think it’d even be enough if Santa himself was outside mowing it. (“How did this happen? I thought I had elves to do this kind of stuff! I never should’ve have let them unionize!”)

Sadly, I'm still not feeling the urge to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, which is a must for the Christmas season. This is because it’s the only place where you can not only see the worst special effects in terms of angels conversing with each other ever, but also where you can watch a 38 year old Jimmy Stewart play a man roughly eighteen years younger than that. (“For Christmas I’d like a new hip and a hearing aid.”)*

I guess I could try and force the issue. For example, I could eat more candy canes, which would still have its benefits even if it didn’t get me into the Christmas Spirit. Or I could put up my tree. Or I could walk around saying “Ho-ho-ho” until somebody called the cops to take me to a mental rehabilitation center. Still, none of that seems right. The Christmas Spirit is a fickle thing, and it isn’t going to hit you until it’s good and ready to. So, until it does, I’ll just have to, as they say, keep on keeping on.

Plus, you never know. Maybe I’ll get run over by a reindeer soon. If that doesn’t do it, then I don’t know what will.

*Despite my smart alec attitude, I do dig this movie.