Plays out of the Social(ly) Offensive Playbook, Part 1

The Worst Wedding Gift Ever

Not too long from now, my little sister will be getting married. Even sooner, she will have a shower thrown for her where she will be lavished with gifts of all sorts in advanced celebration of those impending nuptials.

Therefore, it seemed only appropriate that I trot out one of my all-time favorite stories. It is also my sure-fire "go-to" story in social situations that require a little punching up. It's a story about the time my wife and I got the most bizarre, damaging, and possibly insulting gift in the history of weddings. It's the first and only gift I've ever received that I would term a "net negative gift".

Let me first take you back 10+ years to a time right before our wedding when we were mulling over whether or not we should start inviting people off of our "B" list.

Big mistake.

The "B" list, as I'm sure you could surmise, is a group of reserve names that one feels iffy about in the first place so they don't make the original cut for the invite list. Over time, RSVPs come back, some people regretfully decline, and spots open up.

Now, over time, what I've come to realize about the "B" list is that while it may seem like a good idea at the time, it never ends up manifesting itself that way. This is because magically these people are the ones that seem to generate the most chaos around an event and end up doing something that everybody remembers them for after the fact... and not in a good way. In a lot of cases, these are the people who get the most drunk and your friends start asking "Who is that guy???" I wish we had gotten off so lucky. Basically, I think the maxim of this is that if they're not good enough to invite in the first cut, there's probably a reason for it, and you probably should avoid them altogether.

It is from one of these such "B"-listers that "The Worst Wedding Gift Ever(TM)" came from.

The day after the wedding, my parents, one of my two best men, and my cousin were kind enough to bring over carloads of wedding gifts from the reception to our apartment. During the course of the unloading process, we were beginning to notice that some of the presents were wet. As more and more gifts were being unloaded, we were noticing that some things were very wet, including a box that contained our guest book and a number of other trinkets from the reception (the cake cutter, some mini-bottles of champagne that were on the tables). We took one look at the guest book and saw that the cover was ruined and was already starting to mold a bit. The ink from some of the signatures had run as well to the point where you couldn't make some of them out anymore. This made us a bit frustrated, but since we could not ascertain the source of the wetness, we couldn't as of yet blame anybody.

Over the course of the next couple of days, we went through the process of opening all of the presents. When we got close to the end, we came across this box that was wrapped in baby-pink wrapping paper with a note taped on top in mixed-case hostage letter font that read:

"Prepare to enter the mindless zone"

Dear God. What the hell was this? As I unwrapped the paper from the box, I saw myself staring at a 24-pack of Molson Canadian beer. Already this was a bit unorthodox, but hey, I like beer, so I could probably live with this no questions asked. However, upon further inspection, the flaps of the box were not sealed down, but instead opened quite easily. It was then that I noticed that not all 24 bottles were in there. Instead, the outer rim of the box had bottles and there was another, smaller box in the middle, with another note taped to the top. I picked it up and read it:

"In celebration of Jesus's miracle at the wedding party in Cana, where he turned the water into wine, I decided to drink these beers with a minister and replace them with water. You may now kick the bride."

Holeeee sh*t.

We now officially have a mental patient on our hands. We also now had the source of the water that had gotten all over the place and ruined our guest book. For you see, he had in fact filled the bottles back up with water and had attempted to put the caps back on.

And there was still one more box to go.

It was at this point where I turned to Cindy and said "There had better be a pretty f*cking amazing gift in that box".

I opened it up. There were two power bars and a note. (Yes you read that correctly). Here's what the note said:

"I think of the two of you as having unique personalities. That's why I've included two powerbars, one vanilla and one chocolate. It's up to you to determine which one of you is the vanilla and which is the chocolate."

That's it?????? What the f*ck?!?!?!?!

There was no gift. There was no certificate for a gift. Just a leaky box, three notes, and two powerbars. And it ruined our guest book, which if you look at the cost of it as well as the sentimental value versus what we gained with those two powerbars, it was a NET NEGATIVE GIFT.

I looked at Cindy and said, "I don't remember registering for that one."

Days later, in an attempt to squeeze some lemonade out of the lemon that was "that gift", I tried eating one of the powerbars. I took a bite out of the chocolate bar and my mouth rejected it as not even being food. I spit it out. I couldn't even get THAT satisfaction out of it. I threw the powerbars in the trash, put the empty beer bottles out for recycling (yes, I had to open and empty each one) and washed my hands of the whole deal.

When filling out thank you notes some time later, we struggled with how to phrase it for this special case. "Thanks for the sh*tty gift." we thought about as one option. "Thanks for two disgusting powerbars." was a slightly more diplomatic one. Fortunately, during the time we had tabled sending out that thank you card, the story had become so famous that the maid of honor confronted the person in question and explained aobut the damage that had been done, and in the end he man'd up and sent a real gift.

Having Twins Leads to Stupid Questions

My wife and I hosted a mother of twins group picnic at our house this weekend, and it reminded me of all the nonsensical things you have to deal with when you're out with your twins in public. Before I proceed, you should all know that I am the father of soon-to-be 3 year old twins, one boy and one girl.

Now, whenever we're in public with the kids, and we've got them both in the same stroller going to God-knows-where, we become a target to be stopped by strangers and asked ridiculous questions. I'm not a social priss who's offended by being stopped by people... that's not my issue. My issue is the stupid things that come out of people's mouths when in the presence of my kids.

The first question I get asked is, "Are they twins?".

What I want to say is: "No, they're circus midgets of varying ages. He's actually her father, but you can't tell due to his testosterone deficiency. As you can imagine, he's terribly upset about having to be in a stroller."

Of course they're twins, they're exactly the same size! And usually, they're wearing cutesy matching clothes.

That's not even the dumbest question, because what usually follows is, "Are they identical?"

What I want to say is: "Yes, except for the c*ck. He's got one and she doesn't. Otherwise, they're completely identical.

It's not like we have a tomboyish girl... she looks and dresses like a girl. I think people just don't understand what the word "identical" means. Coming from the same vagina doesn't make them identical... looking identically like each other makes them identical.

Geesh.

No Joy in Mudville Today

I think my site meter is taunting me. I signed up for many moons ago to track traffic to this site. A few days ago, I got my "statistics" email from the site meter folks and it told me that 0 (zero, zip, zilch) people visited my site last month... and also for the last 12 months. So not even I have been visiting it. It's that bad.

Anyways, the occasion for this writing is the apparent lack of sense of humor at my place of business. For Christmas, my wife got me this really cool Office Space kit which I loved immediately and wanted to decorate my cubicle with. Yes, it comes with a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. Yes, it comes with sample T.P.S. Report Covers. Most importantly for me, it came with that cool banner that says "Is this good for the COMPANY?"

At the risk of being goofy and/or nerdy, I decided to put it up. I also put the mat on the floor for use in difficult decision making, although I don't know what to do when I land on "???" or "Moot". I had assumed this whole experience would be "funny". I guess I probably assumed that lots and lots of people have seen the movie. I even left the box out on my desk so that people would associate the decorations with the movie.

Instead I got more questions than enjoyment.

"Is this good for the company?".... "what's that supposed to mean?".... "are you a company boy now?" Somebody thought that since I hung it over pictures of my kids that I somehow meant that breeding was good for the company. (Nottingus Shittingus, Latin for "I shit you not").

All in all, I think I've had about 4 or 5 people get the reference and about 30 blank stares. Oh, and somebody also told me that my Jump to Conclusions mat was a safety hazard. So I had that going for me too. Since the decorations have ceased to be funny, I took them all down. I don't want to spend all day explaining it. As with any joke, if you have to explain it, it's not funny. And I no longer am getting anything out of this now that it's not funny. Also, I feel that my productivity should increase now that I don't have to take time out to explain it....

...unless I get any more questions about the picture of my father in my cube. People still ask me about that. As I work in a cube farm, I thought it would be pretty sweet to have a picture of my father working in his cube farm. The good news is that when my father's office was moving from one building to another a while ago, they found an old picture (circa 1984?) of him at his desk on the phone and looking very serious. He's surrounded by several other cube farmers as well. If I could take a picture, I'd have one taken of me working in my cube with dad's picture up on the wall in the background so that my son can have it to take to his place of work. It's that cool. At least to me it is.

But that's no longer fun now either, as I have to tell everybody who passes by:
a) Who it is
b) Where the place of work is
c) How old (roughly) the picture is
d) What kind of computer/printer/phone is in the picture

So basically, I can't have anything cool up in my cube without having to devote time to it. I've become like a museum curator... or a park tour guide.

That picture is staying up though. That's my dad. And it's on the wall so it's in theory not a safety hazard. Unless I end up hitting somebody over the head with it. Then, it pretty much is.