Month: November 2009

Every year I dread Christmas.

Why?

Mandatory gift giving. I absolutely hate being forced to give gifts people don’t like or pretending to be happy about receiving gifts that I don’t really want or need.

Don’t get me wrong: Christmas is one of my favorite holidays.  I love the food, trees, decorations, spirit, and even the music.  It’s just that giving gifts is such an inefficient waste.  Money that would be better spent paying down credit card debt, caring for your children, investing in new businesses or just buying yourself something you really want is instead blown on useless crap.

Yes, useless crap.  Someone probably considers wool underwear vital, but I don’t.  Many of these items might be very useful to someone else or to the giver, but rarely does the receiver really want or need the gift he gets.

I should also make an important distinction: I approve of non-required gift giving, I just hate being forced by society to buy gifts for others or have them feel forced to buy me gifts.

Top useless gifts I have received:

• Bath robe.
• Salsa. I got this every year till I was 14 and asked people to stop.
• Video game cartridge for console I didn’t own. I then thought I would receive the console later and was heartbroken when it didn’t materialize.
• Beef jerky. I still get this from multiple people every year.
• Clothes. Nothing in the last 6 years has fit.  Not once.

I am sure you could easily come up with your own list of goods you received but did not want or need.  So why do Americans waste such enormous amounts of money?  Because we feel bad and the person who receives gifts but does not give them looks like the Grinch.

Will I give Christmas gifts this year?

Yes.

“WHAT?!!??!! Are you a hypocrite? Why did you write this whole post?”, you ask.

Every person who gives me a gift this year is going to receive a tire pressure gauge from me along with a note that reads:

“Dear Gift Giver,

Due to your erroneous, but kind, decision to give me a gift I must now return the favor.  Unfortunately for you, I am morally opposed to mandatory gift giving.  So instead of a fruitcake you would throw away or a shirt that doesn’t fit you, I am going to give you a useful item: a tire pressure gauge.  It could one day save your life.

If you don’t own a car, I have a special Christmas message for you:

Burn in hell, hippy.”

7 funny complaints about the world in general:

1. The majority of the global population believes in creationism, which would be hilarious if it wasn’t so scary.
2. Sex, one of the greatest pleasures ever, brings the risk of little creatures nesting in your pubes and feasting on your privates.
3. We spend years and years working under incompetent idiot bosses who have no lives outside of work until our souls are broken and we finally become what we hated.
4. Communism was defeated in other countries after much misery to billions of people, but now we are bringing it to America.
5. Marriage, a fine institution meant to glorify love and cement loyalty, often is just an excuse to put on 30 pounds, be lazy, and stop having sex.
6. Fat people. When your only non-motorized form of transport is waddling, you need to be put in a hard labor camp.
7. Hair. People spend far more time cutting, combing, gelling, spraying, flattening, curling, fluffing, picking, brushing, plucking, and shaving hair then is spent attempting to cure cancer, AIDs, and heart disease combined.