MSNBC recently ran a story about holiday gift horrors, “Used socks, old candy: Holiday gift horrors” by Rina Raphael, wherein TODAYshow.com readers shared their stories of weird, inappropriate and sometimes cruel holiday gifts.
For example, a Betsy Murphy of Mukwonago, Wisconsin writes: “My mother-in-law, who not only was usually drunk, but cheap, gave me a pound of ground beef — right from her freezer. She stuck a bow on it and made such a big deal over it. And it was very greasy!” (‘Mukwonago,’ BTW, sounds suspiciously like the way a juicer would pronounce ‘Milwaukee’ when they were in their cups.)
Over in Connecticut, Susan was disgusted with this choice: “My worst gift ever was from my mother-in-law. A used popcorn popper with old, rancid butter in the melting cup! (And it wasn’t a joke!)” (Hey, Mom’s recycling!)
And the understandably Anonymous checked in with: “I received two from my ex-mother-in-law when I was about 19. The first was a large faux wood Jesus clock whose arms spun around for the hour and minute hands and the second was a see-through polyester crotch-less lingerie in a size 2 times bigger (I was a size 9 in juniors at the time). Funny now, but boy what a Christmas that was.” (A Jesus clock and crotchless pantyhose – what was on Mom’s mind?)
Well, that got Yer Ol’ Tattler to thinkin’ about some of the bizarre holiday gifts he’s heard of over the years, presented forthwith and without commercial interruption:
– There was the matronly Aunt who, forswearing the usual hated sweater, tie or pair of Argyle socks, gave her relatives unrefrigerated Cornish hens one year, delivered in festively gift-wrapped boxes five days before Christmas. The stench of rotting flesh when the boxes were opened was overwhelming.
– Ned had never gotten along well with his boss, so it surprised him his third year with the company to receive a Christmas present from the guy – a large box of Harry & David fruit covered in green and red plastic wrap with a large red bow. He was nearly touched until he got the gift home and unwrapped it – someone had removed all of the good H & D fruit and replaced it with small bruised apples, overripe pears and misshapen oranges. Ned responded by giving his boss a cheap plastic Mighty Mouse watch from the ‘factory-seconds’ bin at local Big Box store with a gaudy band that read “Here He Comes to Save the Day!” They never exchanged presents again.
– The eight Hanukkah gifts from a mother-in-law to a new daughter. First day: an economy-sized canister of Comet cleanser; second: a toilet brush; third: a package of scrubbing sponges; fourth: furniture polish; fifth: large box of plastic trash bags; sixth: a toilet brush and caddy; seventh: a gallon of pine oil disinfectant; eighth: a 12-roll box of paper towels. Gee, what was Mom trying to say here?
– Then there was the jocular college boy trying to impress the parents of his new love on Christmas morning by gifting Dear Old Dad with a year’s subscription to Juggs magazine; Mom with a box of ‘ribbed-for-her-pleasure’ prophylactics, and his paramour’s 15-year-old sister with a 12-inch-long black plastic ‘marital aid’ called ‘The Anaconda.’ He thought they’d all laugh. Shock wasn’t the word for it as his girlfriend’s parents and sister unwrapped their gifts – it was all she could do to keep Dad from tossing him out of the house on his head. Incredibly, they ended up married for twenty-five years and had children. Today, he’s waiting for Karmic revenge as some boyfriend of one of his daughter’s gives him a weird gift and notes that his thrice-married sister-in-law still has The Anaconda in her dresser drawer – with new batteries.
The Tattlesnake – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of 2008 Edition
Coverage of the Big Stuff of 2008, in the form of cheesy top ten lists and lofty-worded think pieces, will be churned out endlessly by Our Corporately-Owned Media over the next few weeks, so here are some of the lesser-reported annoyances, intrusions on sanity, and other head-smackers of the year past.
The Good: It’s a new year and Obama takes office in less than 20 days! (Happy 2009, BTW.)
The Bad: Bush and Cheney can still stir up trouble in their ‘Final Days.’
The Ugly: What if they decide not to leave?
The Good: The already-weakened Republican Party is splitting apart in a war between the ‘Jesus Camp’ Christopublicans and the Neocon Corporate Pragmatists. (The true principled conservatives having ditched the GOP years ago.) The latter are willing to bend rather than break; the former can’t, since they arrogantly believe, apparently without the assistance of hard drugs, that their Invisible Omnipotent God of the Infinite Universe Who Hates Liberals and Homos has nothing better to do than whisper in their ears what kind of retail politics and holy wars against his other creations will set them straight with Heaven.
The Bad: There’s a good chance the NCP will dump the Republicans entirely and put all their money into the Dems, which will have the result of making the Dems as debased and corrupt as the GOP.
The Ugly: Even though the Theocrats-for-a-Better-Armageddon are a small minority, the GOP in their hairy paws will become a rural party of ranting rubes, bedeviled boobs, slick hicks, hypocritical hucksters, predatory politicians, snake-handling simpletons, and mumbling morons (not that it mostly isn’t already) and, thanks to our unique system of apportioning two senators to each state no matter what the population (another nasty legacy of the era of slavery), the Christopublicans will continue to wield enough influence to block legislation and stir up other governmental mischief to the detriment of us all. The future of the Republican Party might very well be an army of pious Puritan dunderheads marching in righteous lockstep, infecting the US body politic like a bad case of psoriasis – it won’t kill you, but it can be damned aggravating.
The Good: Speaking of Sarah Palin, her 18-year-old daughter Bristol had a healthy baby recently.
The Bad: As Bart of Bartcop fame wrote, “[Sarah] Palin promised her daughter ‘and the young man’ would get married but that was during the campaign so she can’t be held to it.” So, now that Bristol’s bun is out of the oven, where is the fuming outrage of the Big Media and the Christopublicans that she’s officially an unwed mother and, since Ma holds down a gub’mint job, she’s being supported by taxpayer money?
The Ugly: The kid’s father, Levi Johnston, remains a proudly ignorant redneck oaf, and he just went to work for a ‘let’s-rape-the-wilderness’ energy company.
The Good: A Democrat has finally vowed to fight back against Republican smears and refuses to cave in to their demands.
The Bad: That Democrat is the convicted-by-the-media-without-a-trial Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.
The Ugly: Here is the dumb-bunny guilt-by-location smear the RNC and every right-wing website will be repeating ad nauseum as long as Obama is president, even if Blago is cleared of all charges: “Obama and Blagojevich are both from Chicago, Illinois, which is, like, the most corrupt city and state in the union – the FBI guy said so! – and, hey, common sense says they must both then be completely corrupt, right? This is another one of those unanswered questions about Obama that the public deserves to hear the full truth about!” 2010 BM pundit’s comment: “Let’s say ‘hello’ to Illinois’ newly-elected Republican Governor Patrick Fitzgerald! At least he’s ethical, even if he couldn’t convict Blagojevich of anything!”
The Good: Illinois finally has a US Senator to replace Obama, a man with a clean and honorable record, former IL Attorney General Roland Burris.
The Bad: He is being morphed into Blago’s Rev. Wright by the scandal-happy ‘Whitewaterized’ Big Media, eager to toss him into the same ‘guilty-even-if-he-hasn’t-been-convicted-of-anything’ pot with Blagojevich. Burris is now ‘tainted’ just because he accepted the appointment. Note to the Big Media: What about all of those prominent Washington Senators of the Republican persuasion – Mitch McConnell, John Ensign, Saxby Chambliss, Richard Shelby, Orrin Hatch, et al — who openly dined and danced with the likes of Jack Abramoff and Karl Rove? Oh, right – Rove hasn’t been convicted of any crime – but when has that stopped you? (Hey, the Clintons weren’t convicted of any crime in the Whitewater land deal; and no crime was even committed in the ‘Travelgate’ fiasco, but that didn’t matter – they were still media-created ‘scandals’ that filled up newspaper columns and media airtime for years.) Lack of conviction, so to speak, certainly hasn’t been any bar to gleefully drubbing Blagojevich and Burris with the corruption stick. Abramoff is in prison and Rove is being subpoenaed and investigated all over the place for bribery, fraud and other assorted dishonesty, yet their close connections to prominent Republicans, not to mention the White House, somehow doesn’t carry the same ‘taint’ of corruption? Is the BM afraid of the GOP High and Mighty, or is it just your ingrained conservative bias showing?
The Ugly: Congressional and Illinois state Democrats are incredibly doing the Republicans’ job for them, sticking the blade in deep and twisting it not only with Blago, but now Burris, too. Hey, dingbat Dems, a simple ‘innocent until proven guilty, it’s the American way’ would be the way to go.
There’s more below the fold…
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