Sunday, June 14, 2009

Hardware Store Arts & Crafts?

There's some great things about my dad. He's good at fixing stuff, and even good at making stuff. He taught me a lot of things when it comes to anything mechanical. He's also pretty good at tracking down bargains, especially when it comes to food.

Unfortunately, my dad is the absolute WORST gift giver I've ever seen. When I was a kid, we didn't celebrate Christmas. Instead, my mother made up for it with "Present Day" which was usually held at the end of June on the last day of School. Present Day was a horrible let-down because it wasn't as good as Christmas, and the gifts generally sucked mostly due to my mother not having much money and my dad being a bargain hunter.

One year when I was around 13 years old, I asked for a new watch for Present Day. My dad got me a kids' watch which was so small, I had to wear it on the last wristband hole. On the front of the watch, there was a picture of a fucking chicken hatching out of an egg. Yeah, I got made fun of in school for that one. Eventually, the wristband broke and I happily retired the chicken watch.

A few Christmasses ago, my dad brought over a bunch of gifts. (Note that it wasn't his idea to stop Christmas, it was my mother's.) Anyway, he mostly brought over some food, and gave me something in a cardboard box. I opened the box, unravelled the tissue paper and the bubble wrap to see what expensive, breakable item he had purchased. I really didn't know what to think when this thing emerged from all the wrapping:



If you need a description, it's two "crystal" poodles hotglued onto a piece of broken mirror, with another piece of broken mirror hotglued at a 90 degree angle for a back drop.

I know my dad means well, but this is a really UGLY piece of shit. Click on this pic for a closer look:



I really had to wonder how this thing came into existence. Did someone purposely order a bunch of broken mirror pieces to make this? Did some hardware store recieve a shipment of damaged goods and they decided to do arts and crafts with it? It hurts my brain to even contemplate why this thing exists.

Look closely at this picture:



There's blobs of hot glue slopped all over this thing. There's even a couple blobs dripping down the back piece. It looks like the poodles made the effort to piss all over their mirrored home, and then promptly sat in it.

You know, if they decided to just wrap up the "crystal" dogs on their own and put them in the box, it wouldn't have been so bad. But this thing is fucking hideous, which is exactly why I kept it.

1 comment: