Take large plants, for example. Okay, there are people who love plants and enjoy spending time with them. I am not one of those people, and there are many like me. Plants don’t like me. I think plants are fine, so long as someone else is taking care of them. I am the kind of plant parent who thinks that plants should be seen, but never demand attention. When I DO give a plant attention, it is a death sentence. Plants take one look at me and die, because they know they are doomed, anyway. Never give someone like me a plant, if you value its life.
Another impractical kind of gift for me is any kind that involves large amounts of perishable food. This includes big baskets of fruit. Fruit is delicious. I love almost all kinds of fruits, especially things like grapes, apples, pears, peaches and oranges. Those things can be easily eaten. Whole fresh pineapples and whole coconuts require muscles and/or sharp implements and a lot of patience. Often, there is a whole fresh pineapple in the middle of one of those big baskets of fruit. To add more craziness, one person cannot possibly eat all that fruit before it starts to go bad. Have you ever tried giving fruit away to your friends? Don’t – unless you enjoy wasting time and carrying oranges around.
Nobody has ever given me a Costco gift certificate, and I hope that nobody will ever do that. I have never taken out a membership in any company that expects customers to buy things in bulk. Families can save money that way. I would only end up with a small apartment full of stuff that would go bad or that it would take me a year to use up. Yes, you can buy a TV at Costco, but that never occurs to me because there are so many other places to get a good bargain on a TV. On the other hand, if anyone wants to give me a Costco gift certificate for a great meal at a fine restaurant, I will grab it and love it.
Oh, and I live in a small apartment. Before anyone gives me anything that takes up room, I hope s/he takes the size of my apartment into consideration, especially if it is a butt ugly thing that the giver is re-gifting to me.
Pretty dishtowels are nice, and I have one hanging in my kitchen. I almost never use it, though. I air dry all my dishes on the dish rack because it’s more sanitary that way, and easier. If anything in the kitchen requires wiping, I use paper towels or a sponge. The dishtowel is just there for looks, although nobody ever looks at it. My kitchen is full of everything from big bottles of Poland Spring water to a big bag of cat food to just about anything a kitchen can hold. One little dishtowel is lost in the clutter.
Sets of bath towels can be a good gift, but that shelf in my closet where I keep towels and washcloths is already bursting with them, and I don’t think they want more company in there. This is my fault, in part, because the local odd lot store sells nice towels at cheap prices and there are times when I am in the mood to shop. You can guess the rest. I have more than one useless item that I bought in that store, along with some good stuff. I discovered Sarabeth’s preserves and storage ottomans there, for which I am grateful.
One of these days I’ll write something about a lack of closet space, for which storage ottomans take up a lot of the orphaned stuff that doesn’t have any room.
That’s a whole other story.
I once took a large plant. Well, it wasn’t as much a large plant as a Christmas tree. The authorities didn’t like it at all, at all and I really should of paid for it. Long story short, don’t steal Christmas trees – it’s not kool, kids.
Authorities do tend to take a dim view of people removing Christmas trees without trading some money for them first. It’s a tradition, you know. 😉
Just ask for fruitcake.
LOL! This is a good idea because I LOVE fruitcake. The fact that so many people don’t like it just means there’s more for me!