Most of us spend three weeks every winter racking our brains for the perfect gift to bestow upon our spouses, uncles, mothers, and certain ambiguous acquaintances during the “holiday season.” But why not take the opposite approach? How about finding an imperfect gift – in fact, an item the recipient will despise?
I know this sounds like a bad idea, but it has several virtues. For one thing, we don’t know for sure what anyone will like. You think you’re giving a reprehensible present, and the person may love it.
Secondly, the item can always be regifted, and regifted again, and yet again, until it
finally – perhaps six years in the future – reaches the correct destination.
Thirdly, it’s a good way to remove annoying people from your life.
Fourthly, a surprising number of recipients will find it funny. Each person is unique; a self-help article can’t tell you everything. Still, you might try this ploy: innocently remark to your friend, “You know what I hate? Tuna-fish sandwiches on a roll,” and see if that elicits a torrent of complaints. If so, take careful mental notes.
Of course, certain substances are hated by (almost) everyone, but they cannot be mentioned in a family newspaper – with one exception: unpaid bills. Suppose you owe $94.26 to Paraco. Simply wrap up the bill and give it as a present. The person unwrapping the gift will probably be surprised, and infuriated.
Or garbage. Place some of your kitchen trash inside gift wrap, and set it under a friend’s Christmas tree. Unless they’re an avant-garde artist, they’ll be summarily appalled.
Colors can be repellent. Certain nauseating shades of yellow, for example. A perfectly elegant scarf may be invalidated by its vomit-like hue.
Some subcultures are easy to buy lousy gifts for. If your aunt is a Marxist, give her one of those self-help books for businessmen. (Looking at the current list, I’d suggest Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.)
Finding a gift that will shock born-again Christians is wonderfully achievable. (Pornography comes immediately to mind.) Conversely, a Christian refrigerator magnet will repel most of your irreligious pals. (Let me open the bible at random and see what I find. Here goes: As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead — Ezekiel 3:9. Pretty weird, huh?)
A gun makes a good antagonistic gift for a pacifist, or anyone with a rational fear of firearms. (Is it legal to give a gun as a gift? Yes, it is, according to Google.)
If your gift-victims are nudists, give them tuxedos. If they’re vegans, wrap up a bacon cookbook for them. (I recommend The Bacon Bible: More Than 200 Recipes for Bacon You Didn’t Know You Needed.)
One virtue of bad gifts is that they are generally cheaper than good ones. Crappiness costs less than beauty.
The political divisions in our nation make sadistic gift-giving easy. If your friends – like mine – are 99.2 percent liberals, you’re in luck! Donald Trump has a vast selection of merchandise for sale. Here is a small sample: a “TR(I)UMP(H)” T-shirt ($25.89), a leatherette whiskey flask with the number 45 on it ($32), the Trump deluxe bathrobe ($205). (I know what you’re thinking: it’s morally wrong to give money to this incendiary wanna-be-fuhrer. That’s okay, just buy presents from the “secondary market” (that means eBay) so that you can enrich some struggling North Carolina farmer who realized Trump is a fraud and wants to sell his keepsakes.)
If your sister hates technology, give her a robot! (I suggest the SANBOT Max Business Service Robot: $9999.00.)
If your brother hates sports, buy him a football jersey. (Try the New York Jets number 34 (Brian Pool): $75.99.)
Another controversial area is music. I was recently thinking: “It’s wonderful that the Seventies ended, so that I have no more danger of turning on the radio and hearing ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” That gives you an idea what sort of gift will nauseate me.
New-Age albums are a good bet. The relentlessly soothing synthesizers – often augmented by chimes, birdsong, and a burbling stream – is so reassuring, it makes you want to kick a dog. (I recommend anything by Laraaji.)
But be careful; some music is so “square” that it’s “cool.” Muzak of the 1950s is one example – especially if it has a Polynesian theme.
I stumbled into my career as the Gift Giver From Hell inadvertently. In the mid-Seventies I was obsessed with natural foods, and decided to make fruitcakes for my extended family, as Christmas presents. I used the purest ingredients: organic apricots, whole-wheat flour, molasses, imported raisins.
Fruitcakes are famously inedible, but mine reached another level. No ordinary knife could pierce them. They were more suitable as projectiles than as snacks. It’s possible that one or two of them still inhabit freezers somewhere.
One thing I’ve learned: people love eccentric gift wrap. I was about to throw out an atlas five years ago, but decided instead to tear out its pages to wrap presents with. I’m a terrible gift-giver, but almost everyone becomes fascinated by the terrain of Sumatra (and, on the reverse side, New Zealand) – or whatever page they’ve been given. So try that as the perfect yin and yang: a terrible gift, wrapped in thought-provoking paper.
Join the family! 
