A drink cooler. It spins cans of soda for about 30 seconds to cool them. The problem is that it required about 30 pieces of ice to use and was pretty large. Not worth it.

When I still smoked my MIL gave me nicotine patches for my bday. Ironic since she didn’t smoke but always bummed a cig or 2 during parties.

Either way now I’ve quit for a while and can laugh about it… Back then though…

The worst gift I’ve ever received once was a some kind of gift certificate to weight watchers. I was pissed off because I actually had been losing weight on my own just fine.

This was before air tags and tile existed. I was gifted a keyfob/remote finder. It was a set of obscenely large plastic fobs that you can attach to things. They were super fragile though and would never survive on a keychain.

It was one of those Sharper Image products that show up around Christmas or all year in the middle isles of Kohls.

A fucking android tablet. The worst one on the market: even a browser would lag opening the simplest pace.

But i was able to install Gentoo linux on it and back enough to have fun. It was still pretty much unusable tough.

Whiskey stones. I don’t like whiskey or drinking alkohol…or cold drinks (got sensitive teeth)

Same guy bought me a drinking game, which was basically a roulette with shit glasses.

We know each other for many years and he knows I don’t really drink, yet he still buys me alcohol related stuff…

I got gift cards for a shady prepaid credit card company that would have cost me at least a little more than the cards were “worth” due to fees and hidden bs in their TOS. Worst case they would have costed me around ten times there “worth”.

life

My big present when I turned 10 was a weedwacker and new chores.

A $25 gift card to a seafood restaurant. I’m allergic to seafood. The person knew this but “forgot”. I ended up giving it away.

I received a large framed portrait of myself. No mater where I hang that I’m going to look like a narcissist.

Once when I left a company they gave me a golf-themed inspirational poster. I hate golf and inspirational posters. I looked around the room to see if they were being ironic, but no.

When I was in my early 20s, I foolishly dated a selfish stingy man for wayyyyy too long. I would go all out and get him whatever he asked for, take him out, the works, and I would have to save for months because I was a grad student working 3 PT jobs. For my birthday one year, he planned nothing, but my parents were nice enough to invite him to the fancy dinner they were paying for at a swanky blues club. He shows up with a plastic bag from one of those mega truck stops. Inside was a shark beanie baby and silver skull-shaped tire valve covers. I hated beanie babies, had no particular thing for sharks, skulls, or random ass car accessories. I was so embarrassed in front of my parents.

240g tin of Milo for my 18th by my mother. I like Milo but, it’s about the effort. Since then, it’s been less effort. I didn’t even get a card from her this year!

A self help / “how to be successful” book for my birthday from my parents. It wasn’t even that good – it had typos and grammatical errors all over. I was in my early-mid 20s. My dad made me read a chapter every week (and take notes) and then he’d go over it with me. Eventually he stopped forcing me to read it because I put up too much of a fight.

Nothing says “I love you” like being reminded your parents see you as a failure.

There’s a reason I’m in therapy…

A 200 page tome filled with questionable arguments for the veracity of his religion written by my grandfather after he got cancer. I did give it a chance and read through large portions of it (minus a large section on a theory he had regarding the location of the mythical events in the religion). It was… Unfortunately poor.

Then it was a balance of not trying to tear apart one of his proudest pieces of work and not pretend I believed it until he passed away.

Yes, for those guessing - - I grew up Mormon and that is the religion in question.

My ex used to do the Homer Simpson trick and gift me things he wanted for himself. Often it was something he knew I didn’t want.

For example, I didn’t want a laptop in the house. The kids were younger and it would be harder to monitor their internet usage if they were on a laptop versus the desktop I had purposely set up in a spot where we could easily glance at the screen when they were on it. (This was before tablets and smart phones were common.)

Also, I didn’t want a laptop because I’m a huge nerd who will lose hours to the computer if it’s in my lap comfortably on the couch rather than at a desk.

Also, we were broke and struggling to pay bills, and a laptop was an unnecessary luxury.

He talked about getting a laptop for months and months. I kept arguing against it. So of course, that was my Christmas gift from him that year.

Normally how it went was that he would gift me something and then after a few months, it would just magically become his (he gifted me a nice car stereo one time and after a few months just upped and put it in his car, for example). I knew that was his plan… I was so fed up that I used the shit out of that laptop out of pure spite… Didn’t share the password… Put it away every night I went to bed… Took it with me when I traveled without him…

Anyway. Nothing shittier than receiving a Homer Simpson bowling ball.

In our family, consisting of myself as the oldest, my brother as the middle child, and my sister as the youngest, our birthdays fall within a month of each other. At some point, my mother befriended this particular individual and their family, resulting in them frequently visiting. However, both my brother and I never really liked them due to their behavior, while my sister seemed to be held in high regard and became their favorite. Personally, I didn’t mind this as it meant dealing with them less.

On the occasion of my sister’s birthday, they came over to celebrate and brought along a trunk full of gifts for her. Of course, she was overjoyed with everything she received. After showcasing all the presents for my sister, they surprisingly announced that they also had gifts for my brother and I. They handed us a bag, and upon looking inside, we discovered Arby’s frisbees inside. Apparently, on their way to my sister’s party, they had eaten at Arby’s, and the frisbees came as a bonus with their meals.

Now whenever I see them I think about the fucken frisbee!!!

Not my story, but too comedic not to tell. Used to wash dishes with a guy, really cool dude, his stepfather was the head chef for multiple successful restaurants in the area including the one we worked at. Everybody else in the family is able to get whatever the hell they want for free. Shit, even managers got like $500 in gift cards to give to their family for free. But my dishwashing friend got a $20 gift card to the restaurant we worked at from his stepdad.

Not received, but given…

One Christmas, I was truly skint. No way I could afford to buy even half eddecent pressies for everyone, so I decided to buy the worst presents I could find instead. I found a £1 shop that was having a ‘25% off’ sale. I bought my vegetarian sister in law a glue based mouse trap, I bought my dad some cleaning spray for car seat leather (his car had fabric seats), I got my brother a feather duster.

On Christmas eve I laid the groundwork by saying, “I didn’t have a lot to work with this year, but I think I’ve done pretty well!”.

On Christmas morning, I asked to give out ny presents first and bigger them up again with ,“I put anlot of thought into this and I think you’re all going to be very happy!”. I gave out the presents and watching them open them with an expectant, wide eyed grin, like “I did good, right?”.

It went perfectly. A slight awkward pause while they checked my expectant face, then everyone burst out laughing. They loved the joke, we were all happy. I have fonder memories of that morning than other times when I was able to give out actually good presents.

A dead mouse to my doorstep. I don’t even own a cat, they just really like me for some reason. I guess it’s the thought that counts.