Strangest gift you've ever gotten?

Sorry Chai, this cracked me up. Just this morning I heard about a British comic who apparently carried tea bags around in his pocket and would give one to cabbies, waitresses etc instead of a tip, saying, "Here. Have a drink on me."

I used to get very odd gift boxes from my dad. One of the best was the one right before relatives finally convinced him he could not live alone anymore and got him into an assisted care facility.

The gift box that year had an entire roll of unused, white kitchen trash bags, all separated off the roll. (Only thing I could figure out is he used it as packing paper or was cleaning house and forgot where he set down the bags) Also in the package were 10 rolls of those disposable scotch tape dispensers, some new, some with bits of pipe tobacco and life savers attached. Also in the box was one of those novelty wall clocks. This one had a choo-choo train that revolved around the clock face and made train sounds. (Must have reminded him of our visits to the model train museum when we were kids.) Digging down in the layers, I also found a kid-sized ski mask, brand new, still in the packaging. (He must have been thinking about our family trips to the mountains to see the snow) I don't have kids and might be able to wear the mask as a glove. Next came a brand new pair of men's leather slippers. They were great! Only problem was they made my feet look like clown feet. I think they were about 4 sizes too big even for my dad. I also found a kid-sized necklace with an amethyst pendant. (At least he got my birthstone right!) And at the bottom of the box was an envelope full of expired grocery coupons for pet food. (I used to have a pet. It was nice to know he had been thinking of me back when I did.)

Oh my gosh, the thread title reminds me--last night I had a crazy dream that I'd forgotten about till this second... It was almost my brother's birthday, and Mr Cypher was reminding me to think of a present for him in time, because last year I had forgotten it until the last second. Once Mr C told me that, all of a sudden I remembered that I had desperately scoured the house for anything to box up and send him so I could pretend I hadn't forgotten... And I ended up sending him a box of bread crumbs! It was one of those dreams that seems totally real, too... I was completely mortified...

I'm gonna have to think about a real answer for this, though, I can't remember any really bad ones off hand...

Aw, Butrfly, I didn't see your post before. That's awfully poignant...

A glitter finish motercycle helmet with a football gaurd on it.

A board game with missing pieces.

The most odd thing I ever got was this clockpurse

I like this little story. You guys sound like nice people.

My sister once gave me a homemade gift (the theme that year) that was one of the most hideous things I'd ever seen.

She bought and painted a bulletin board (20 x 24", roughly), pasted a lady's face from a magazine in the centre, stuck fruit stickers all around the edge of the bulletin board, and filled the rest of the space up with coasters. Yeah, we gave it away at a grad student party (they always left with something we didn't want).

I once got tupperware as a birthday present. The only explanation my friend had was that the tupperware was on sale that week and the deal was so good that she couldn't possibly have passed them up.

It sounded ludicrous at the time, but it's been eight years and I still have the tupperware, and use it regularly. I really can't complain... these things are damn useful.

Well, there was the bottle of Spanada from one of my cousins...

but I later gave my cousins odd gifts myself, hey....




Then there was the all time winner, the hanging thing of giant plastic strawberries and glaring green leaves from my mother-in-law. Not tongue in cheek, a straightforward gift.
Maybe in another ten years I'll find that poignant.


whereas I do find Butrflynet's post very poignant, right now.

When I married my first husband, his mother gave us a hanging bird feeder.

a belt

A belt?

As in a belt in the eye with a fist?

Was this some unusual belt?

made of melted down tupperware?

a belt for my waist with a mermaid on it.

It looked like it belonged to a 12 year old...

ohhhh.....

a mermaid.

I see.

you remember those belts that were made of nothing but elastic and had the thick metal clips on the front?

It was one of those kinds.. only made for an adult.

In high school my friends and I used to have a (typically high-school-nerdish) fascination with single objects that were technically and grammatically plural objects, like "scissors," "pliers," and "trousers." This inside joke reached its height when, as a Christmas present, my friend got me "a pair of pants." When I unwrapped the box, I found two left pant legs, one from a pair of jeans and one from a pair of sweatpants.

I guess you had to be there for that one, shapeless...

gold glitter leg warmers from R

the same Christmas, pink baby doll pj's from his brother A

I wasn't really THAT close to either of them.

They were both odd gifts to unwrap in front of a group of friends. Worse, they weren't gag gifts.