Kevin's Watch

As a Kindergarten teacher, I get a number of re-gifts from parents who somehow feel obligated. I must say I also get a lot of nice things, too, like African cloth in 6-yard bolts, a traditional gift.

For Valentine's Day I got a gift card for a department store, which is only on another continent, and going online I discovered it was expired. I'm not really even sure what to think!

What kind of tacky gifts have you gotten? Not to be ungrateful, actually I find it quite amusing.

My tackiest gift may have also been one of my most precious. I was working at a summer camp, and one of the kids on the last day gave me a rock with a smiley face drawn on it in Sharpie. She had signed it on the back "Love Alina".

My aunt gave me a used Uncle Cracker cd 3 christmasses back; it was something they failed to sell at a garage sale they had a few months earlier. Uncle Cracker is, from the little I listened to it, disgusting. Anyway, her husband apologized to me in secret before we exchanged gifts. I gave it to my mom, who begged me for it so she could give it back to her sis as a regift. My mom and I think alike.

Another classic gift (I actually like this one) I got for christmas was from my wife, the first year we were married.



She made it herself, out of t-shirts. T-shirts she found in my dresser. T-shirts I wore. My mom dubbed it the ankle quilt, because that's all it's large enough to cover. I still have it, because I miss my t-shirts, I guess.

Well, the perennial joke regift is a whole other category. We had an awful electric-blue stuffed animal won at a fair whom we dubbed "Mr Google Eyes" who was regiven back and forth, mainly between my mom and older sister, although he made other forays, since the 70s. I'll have to ask where he is now, he hasn't made it to Africa yet.

One of the weirdest gifts I got was from my manic-depressive grandmother who was pretty medicated at the time. I was in college, and she bought me a protractor and an issue of Tiger Beat. I guess she thought I was a gay nerd. I suppose not too far of the track...