Friday, April 24, 2009

Satan's Easter Basket

Reader "K" emailed to share a recent experience in hellish mother-in-law gifts. If you can call them that. Thanks, K.


My MIL is the worst gift-giver ever. Seriously, I don't know what her problem is, but if it's in the checkout line at Big Lots, or even better, at a garage sale, then it is purchased and shipped to my house and called a gift.

This Easter, like every other holiday, my kids got a package from their Mimi. A package of shit and the contents were the following:

  • Magic Grow Kitty, a paper (?) cat that you add water to and watch it grow into something mommy throws into the trash.
  • An elephant balloon. You know, every child wants one?!?!
  • A fly trapped in plastic ice cube. Yes! Just what I wanted my daughter to own.
  • A bubble blower from a wedding. Because nothing says cheap like I got you a free thing of bubbles.
  • A Ziploc bag of hangers. Because its what I always wanted.
  • An eyeball headband, what all the kids are wearing these days.
  • A bunny purse filled with 15 plastic caterpillars. WTF?
  • A jumbo 2ft long pencil. Because, you know, my kid is 3ft tall and needs a pencil this big?!?
  • A magnet shaped like the state of Oklahoma, just to remind us how far away she lives. Thank God.
  • Seven outfits for my son that are shockingly too small, as in 0-3 months size. My boy is 7 months old and wears size 12-18 months clothes.
Seriously, the woman is whacked if she really thought this shit made a great Easter gift. To make this all the more unbelievable, she paid $18.10 to ship it to our house.

Next time, just mail a card and put a $20 in it. Geez.



19 comments:

The Devil's Daughter-In-Law said...

K, you know what The Devil gives me? Her old shoes. That she doesn't want anymore.

DKG aka Scrappy Doo said...

WTF???
I can't stop laughing :-}
I think I would just have to rewrap the package and send it back to her as a Mothers Day present
Scrappy

Housewife Savant said...

LOL
I'm sending my MIL a Thank You card RIGHT NOW.
She's so not like this.

I'm secretly glad that some MILs suck though, cuz I get to enjoy the hilarious stories. Thanks for sharing.

I love this blog. I'm going to follow until I identify my SIL in a guest post. =)

kel said...

That is the same kind of shit my my MIL sends! Dammit woman, have you heard of gift cards?

Dani said...

LOL That's HILARIOUS!

jeremy said...

that must have been a pretty big ziploc...

Kristina P. said...

This makes me SOOOOO grateful for my MIL. Seriously, she is amazing. She actually comments on my blog.

I sort of like her better than my own mom.

mo.stoneskin said...

I would have loved that gift box. I would have played the old ring-a-doorbell-and-run gag.

When they answered the door they would have been met with a growing paper cat and a trapped fly floating from an elephant balloon wearing an eyeball headband!

Fragrant Liar said...

My EX-MIL used to spend $5 (or less) a piece on my four kids for Christmas. For her $5 she would buy things like boxers for girls (one size fits all) and tiny, ornate glass perfume bottles. Now the perfume bottles were kinda cool, but as I said, $5, for a grand total of $20 for Christmas gifts for my kids (her step grandkids). And for her own daughter? She spent a measly $1,000 for Christmas presents. Can you say fucked up? I can, and I did!

bernthis said...

well you know what my reaction would be, same as yours. Send the 20 bucks and save me having to throw the shit out

Darrick & Melanie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Darrick & Melanie said...

My step-MIL (yes, I have two) used to drive down from Las Vegas with all the free crap she got from casinos as well as various ugly household items she no longer wanted. Once she left us this hideous 80s five-foot-tall lamp and its matching table lamp. I was actually too embarrassed to have people over because we couldn't hide it and it looked like we had bought it. Finally gave it my MIL, who my step-MIL despises. Ha. Sweet justice

Anonymous said...

I don't know. I actually think this is oddly sweet. I can picture this woman meticulously selecting these items and packaging them to send to her grandkids, and it's kind of endearing. It's certainly not malicious, and it doesn't hurt anyone. She's just not great at picking out presents. If my grandma had mailed me a bunch of plastic caterpillars and an eyeball headband when I was a kid, I would look back on it fondly.

Anonymous said...

Oh god, do I have this to look forward to when I have kids for my mother to dote upon?

My mother (not MIL) is a horrible gift-giver. She got me a string of pearls for my college graduation and a broach for my wedding, despite the fact that I never wear jewelry. *confused*

Kai said...

maybe she thinks you never wear it because you don't have anything you like enough.

Anonymous said...

yep i find this endearing. now if she had money and chose to be this cheap then id have a problem.
i had an aunt that even though she was like "cowboy farm hood" rich she did frequent garage sales and made us stuff..she gave really weird things but you knew they were from the heart.she had a problem with showing emotions to you face to face.
plus its easter! what do you give at easter..it aint your bday or xmas. without being too commercialized i dont know.

Unknown said...

OMG, that's hilarious. I'm snuffling into a paper towel at my desk right now, trying not to laugh out loud inside the hellish confines of my cubicle.

"....that you add water to and watch it grow into something that mommy throws into the trash."

*snort*

Anonymous said...

Do you have copy writer for so good articles? If so please give me contacts, because this really rocks! :)

Anonymous said...

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. You are so ungreatful. You don't deserve the card and $20.00, LOL. Seems like you love to find fault in the nice things someone is trying to do. Bet you'd like it all better if your Mom sent it, huh??? You have some seriously ungrateful physco issues. You need to put your neg thoughts and remarks in park.