TOXIC PRESENTS TO AVOID
Six no-nos for men seeking that last-minute gift for women
Men, I know what you’re thinking. Still got plenty of time. No point looking for presents until I need to. And, if nothing else turns up, there’s always that shop in the arcade that sells those tops she used to like. But it’s this attitude, chaps, that leads to the buying of Toxic Presents (TP). Presents which are — on account of their being so ill considered, and so obviously something that you saw in the window of Pointless White or Silver Coloured Gifts, on your way home on the evening of the 23rd — rather worse than no present at all.
I know. You would have thought anything better than nothing. But quite the contrary. You’d be a lot better off going for the nothing-on-the-day option — and pretending your present is stuck in the post — than diving in somewhere at the last minute and coming out clutching a TP.
The TP is not only a present we have no desire to receive, it is glaring unavoidable evidence that you can’t really tell the difference between us and all women. If you’re still not quite clear what qualifies as a TP, then here are some useful examples;
1A marble cheeseboard: To be clear, we are perfectly happy to get stuff for the kitchen these days. We wouldn’t have been once, but around your mid-40s you start to appreciate the point of a do-anything food processor and want one a lot more than you do, say, a satin teddy. However a marble cheeseboard comes under the category of unnecessary things made in luxury materials in the Pointless White or Silver Coloured Gifts vein. We can picture you choosing between it, the rabbit pompom bobble hat and the initialled makeup bag.
2.Scent: Fine if you know we’ve run out of the one we usually wear, and that’s what we really want. But you can’t buy us random scent. Or, heaven forbid, bath oil. If you do, we will strongly suspect that it was marked down in boots and/or you bought it for your secretary and then panicked because of an “appropriate gifting” memo.
3.A scarf: Funnily enough (which may be why you are confused), we love a scarf. But we are also very specific about the scarves we love and (another bummer for you) the ones we don’t love have a powerful this-will-do aura about them.
4.Jewelry: No doubt all jewelry does look pretty special to the man whose time is running out. But unless you have witnessed us admiring said item on someone else, this is risky.
5.Clothes: Just think about it. Consider the amount of times you have come home and found us face down on the bed wailing, “I have nothing to wear,” when only last week we came home laden down with carrier bags, convinced we had nailed the problem once and for all. What are the chances of you getting it right? Less than zero is what.
6.The thing you want. It is true that we like music, but not to the extent that we want a super-woofer to take the “brightness” out of the sound currently coming out of the turntable and speakers that you persuaded us to “give to each other” last Christmas. We don’t want a big green egg barbecue, either. Hope that’s clear then.