Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of questionable ones.  A towel.  Not a set of towels, just a towel. Underpants from my mother.  I was in my twenties and they were boxers.  Just plain awkward. Never wore them.  Great dusting rags though.  

A canvas boat bag from my father, the consummate sailor.  

He had it monogrammed with my name:  JEEF

My name is JEFF.  

Of course I had to use it as he continually brought up that everything on a sailboat has to have straps for safety or some other reason.  Funny that I remember sailing one day and he had a very top of the line camera, then dropped it into the Long Island Sound as he didn’t have the strap wrapped around his neck.  So yes, straps are essential when utilized.  

But back to the canvas boat bag.  Every time I used it people would ask who JEEF was.  I’d have to make up stories like “oh my father’s native language isn’t English” or that it was some sort of nickname he came up with.  Ridiculous.  It didn’t help that he got one for every family member and naturally their bags had their correct names.  I overheard my parents talking in the kitchen about getting it fixed:

“Oh he won’t notice.  He can’t even read.”

Umm, I was thirteen and in Advanced Placement English at the time.  

A plate.  When I wiped off the smudge where the price tag would be, I realized it was spaghetti sauce.  It was a used dirty dish.

Then there was the banana seat pink bicycle with a basket.  It’s like I was being forced into gayness.  Two things about that one.  First off, I didn’t know how to ride a bike, so I had to practice on a side street with my mother while being harassed by the neighborhood bullies.

“Ring the bell Jeffrey.”  Had to do it.  So embarrassing.  

The other problem with the bike was that they made a license plate for it using my initials:  Jeffrey Allen Namian = JAN. 

They might as well have just entered me into a drag contest.  But that’s not even the worst Christmas gift JEEF/JAN ever received.

It was a book.  A collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.  Halfway through the book I realized it was used.  How?  There were pages missing and things scribbled in the margins.  Somebody drew a set of really large breasts on Rapunzel.  They gave me a used book!  To this day, I have no idea if Hansel and Gretel ever made it home.  

Then there’s a slew of wrong size clothing items that just rotted over the years with the tags still dangling off them.

“Oh I thought you were a large.”

My adult weight barely breaks 150.  Sometimes I thought they’d think I would just give it to them. And I probably should have regifted them the next year, but that wasn’t really a thing way back when.  Some of these shirts would qualify as pup tents.

Now I get that I was a quiet and nerdy child that more times than not flew under the radar, but come on.  

JEEF / JAN / USED BOOK / PINK BICYCLE / DIRTY DISH / PUP TENTS … oh boxers and a towel.  

I was a Salvation Army half off sale.