3 posts tagged “gifts”

My mom pulled a classic gift gag this year, by buying us picture frames filled with home-printed photos. Except, her frugality made the entire enterprise an insult. Let me explain.

First, she must have picked up these picture frames in bulk someplace. They are the roughest (read: splinters in my hands) Mexican-made frames I ever did see. And what did she put inside?

For me, she includes a (bad) photo of the three of us from our summer vacation. "That was the only photo with just you, your dad, and I." "Yeah, mom," I thought to myself, "the whole point was to meet your extended family there... just the three of us together seems like you're wishing we were still separate."

Whatever.

For X, she printed a photo of him and his parents. For some reason, they looked like American Indians. What was wrong? Upon further inspection, everything was dark, and especially, red. In my photo, my mother's white blouse was pink. There was something weird going on in these home-printed photos.

Upon close scrutiny, we noticed that the ink was pooled-up for some colors (like black), and splochy and shiny/dull in others. My assessment is that the printer she has (HP) and the paper (Kodak) were not compatible. She needed to match the better paper with her printer. But, she gifted us these lackluster photos that I took, printed to laughable quality.

One rule of thumb about gifting: don't let people notice the bad quality.

So, with splinters in hand, and determination in my mind, we re-printed photos to go into the frames. Mind you, we didn't use all the same photos. X demanded the same one, so I complied, since I did feel it was a good photo. But for mine, I instead selected one of him and me, which when completed, looked like "real" photos using my Canon photo printer.

When I took out the one glass, I realized it was filthy. Yes, my mother neglected to wash-off the spotted and grimy glass. Who knows how it got so nasty. Now, our finished products look good, despite the cheap frames. But this little gift now will cost me another $22, to replace the ink cartridges spent in re-printing the gifted photos.

Today at work, while eating lunch, someone opened the refrigerator in our kitchen, and said "Holy Moly! That's the biggest sausage I ever saw!" We all peered sheepishly inside, to find the world's longest Hickory Farms summer sausage. "If I had known about that summer sausage, I would never have bought a lunch," one lady said. I echoed the same thought, although I harbored it silently as I chewed my sandwich. "That's enough meat to feed a small army," I mused, as others scrupulously eyed the accompanying sweet and spicy Hickory Farms-branded mustards. "The benefits company brought us that, along with a truckload of cheese." Cheese and sausage, it reminded me of our high school marching band fund raisers.

Except that sausage stunk, and the cheese was rancid.

I said to the ensemble before leaving the table: "Perhaps for an afternoon snack today, I ought to have some of that summer sausage!" "Uh, huh!" they proclaimed, much like praisers of Jesus at a religious rally of born-agains.

As the afternoon approached, and I returned to the area where the same coworkers congregated, I eyed one, who asked "Are you going to break into that big summer sausage?" Since I was coaxed, I yelled back, "Why not?"

They all ran after me, like kids on a playground. I wrestled the large summer sausage from the refrigerator. Sitting now on the table, we all admired its giant size. Not only was it long, but this was no pepperoni... it was prodigious in every direction.

Summer sausages have a thick, outer casing you don't eat. I fished around in the drawer for a knife. Damn! Every knife was smooth like butter. Butter knives, that is. I wrestled this large, wood-handled, wide steel knife from the drawer, but it was no match for the sausage. It was devoid of any blade, as if some metalsmith had practiced smoothing techniques with any blade that once existed. You couldn't cut anything with this knife, you might as well have called it a pastry knife for spreading pastry creams on dry-crumb cupcakes.

"I'll find you a knife!" yelled a hungry secretary, who managed to find a small, yet able black-handled Ginzu-style steak knife. "It's the only knife left with teeth!" I proclaimed, as I held it to the light to admire this newfound cutlery.

"Slice that bad boy open!" another woman yelled, hungry for moist slices of the encased sausage. First I split the waxy outer hull, and then began to cut slice after slice of the summer sausage on the plate, each one glistening with either moisture or fat. 

Fingers immediately began flashing before my eyes, as different on-lookers skirted with death and finger injury as they all fought for the next succulent slice of summer sausage. "Mmmmm," they bemoaned in pleasure, chewing with both élan and passion. "No one makes a summer sausage like Hickory Farms!" "Oh yes, this is quite a fine sausage..."

I was so shocked that slice after slice, they disappeared. As the Ginzu felt as if it was finally losing its cut and pull across the meaty cylinder, the fingers subsided, the passionate hunger settled, and I was able to finally procure my own private slices.

I then packaged the sausage back up, for the refrigerator, and augmented the plate with a trio of special mustards. It was a fitting snack. And all free!

I walked into the hall, with this platter of freshly-sliced summer sausage and the extra-fancy accouterment of mustards, and down the stairs in my lair of work. As I troubleshooted technical issues and took business calls, I gingerly yet freely placed slice after mustard-coated slice of summer sausage in my mouth, too-appreciating its special qualities that make summer sausage an especially tasty treat.

Who knew so many folks loved the venerable meat snack that is the summer sausage. As the mustards out-lived the slices of sausage, I began to muse as to why it was called "summer sausage" in the first place. I found that summer sausages are cooked (not dried) like hot dogs, and can last for weeks in a good refrigerator. Now we know, thanks to my personal butler, Jeeves. Must have been the $63 Gold Miner.

It is once that time of year again, when gifting begins, and shopping must commence. What to buy for family? Friends? All these people need gifts. For what purpose? The season?