The extended family gift exchange manages to piss me off every year because of its inherent inequity. It's no different than what most families do: You're randomly assigned the name of a cousin and you get them a gift in the $25-30 range.
This range means there've always been people who stick to the high or low end when buying. With most of us getting gift cards, it's not hard to see who cheaps out and who doesn't. While this shouldn't really make a difference (and it doesn't, it's just a few dollars, whatever), it pisses me the fuck off. Take last year when I gave a $30 card, received a $25, and watched my brother, whose exchange gift was paid for by out mother, receive a $30 card. My take: -$5. His: +$30.
Of course, this year was even better.
Following the untimely death of my father, the family decided they need to "take care" of us. My mother gets weekend trips and home cooked meals, my brother gets a free Wii (seriously), and I get bullied into quitting smoking (which came with massive weight gain and a cracked tooth). As if this wasn't making me rage-y enough, come X-mas my aunt decides that the best thing she can do for me is pick out my exchange gift. With absolutely no input from me.
I'm really not a complicated person. I like makeup, coffee, The Simpsons, scented candles, and all manner of crap from Ikea. I do cross-stitch and other crafty stuff. Finding a good, non-gift card, gift shouldn't be hard. Finding an adequate gift should be a cakewalk.
Still, I was given this:
As I was unwrapping it, my aunt came by and said that she saw it and thought it was me. I've had this thing for over three weeks now, and I'm still trying to figure out what part of me is reflected in this. First, I'm not a rustic/hippie earthenwear type. Stylistically, it clashes with everything I own. Like, I don't think I even have a pair of shoes that would go with that thing.
The second, and in retrospect, more offensive, aspect of this is the fucking chopsticks. I accepted this graciously, I really did. But then I pulled out the goddamn chopsticks. I managed to keep the bland, "it's really nice" bullshit when anyone asked me if I liked it, but for fuck's sake. Chopsticks? I didn't wrap up a brick of Velveeta and hand it over with a "I just saw it and thought of you". Shit. These people have known me long enough to know better.
I took it in to work so that my coworkers could share in the mockery, and that's about as useful as it'll ever be to me.
Next year: Fuck the family, I'm spending X-mas alone.
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