This Gift Sucks

I bought this for my husband for Christmas because he is driven insane on a daily basis by the amount of crumbs (and whatever) that accumulate on the almost non-existent floor space we have. It's not like it never bothers me but usually there's something else I'm obsessing over while he's wandering around mumbling things under his breath about how he's slowly being suffocated by the horrible filth in which we live. On rare occasions when we do break down and pull out our six-year-old, low-end Dirt Devil upright vacuum cleaner, it usually doesn't work very well anyway. Not to mention the ordeal it is to maneuver it around our tight living quarters. Enter the hand-held Dustbuster- the crumb fighting savior we've been waiting for.

A couple weeks ago when I got home from Target I told my husband he was not allowed to look inside the bag I was holding because it contained a gift for him. I told him it was the kind of gift that I was pretty sure he was going to love but if he ever bought something like it for me, I would be really mad. You see, I have some sort of inexplicable disdain for unwelcome domestic housewares as gifts. It started with "The Rice Cooker Incident" of 2003 wherein my mother bought me a rice cooker that I did not ask for. At the time, I was single, living with my parents, and definitely not wanting to receive the kind of gifts you get when you either get married or move into your own place. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful rice cooker (Yan Can Cook!) and I've used it countless times over the past seven years but it was the principle of the matter. To me, getting a rice cooker (or any other grown-up kitchen appliance, cleaning tool, or you fill in the blank) meant leaving my young carefree years behind. It meant, "You have responsibilities now, we expect you to be able to prepare food for yourself. Oh, and by the way, instead of DVDs and ridiculous things no one really needs, we bought you a AAA membership." It meant growing up.

Thankfully, there is still some room in grown up life for fun. That same year when I received my first mature gift, I also received a ceramic box with a cat on it which my mother had filled with hair scrunchies. SCRUNCHIES?! Yes, scrunchies. Let me remind you that it was 2003 not 1987. I don't even know where my mom found scrunchies this side of the nineties but they were a lovely reminder of my frivolous (and often fashion-challenged) childhood and receiving them as a gift let me know that my mom wasn't going to let me grow up too fast. The rice cooker was only a baby step.

So now that I'm a "grown-up," I actually do get excited over the occasional grown-up thing; however, I still have a standing rule with my husband that he is not to gift me anything practical unless it is something I have specifically stated I would like to receive as a gift. It's just safer that way.