My brother sent three boxes yesterday. Sounds innocuous, I know, but my brother's gifts send fear racing through our veins. He thinks it's amusing to send tasteless things: tee shirts with sexist messages, movies that are beyond B, they're about a U, and books nobody has ever heard of for good reason. Some of this has to do with having lived in Texas for so many years, but actually, from childhood, his taste was hideous. He was the kid who picked the dried snake or the fake dog poop. This time it was sculptured armadillo beer can holders (a must for every household), a three foot plaster painted fox, and a plaster little girl in pigtails who is supposed to be hung by on a tree upside down. You know the Chuckie horror movie ads - well, she's way scarier, with creepy blue eyes. I accidentally (really, I was trying to figure out whether she was hung upside down or right side up) broke one of her ponytails while getting her out of the box, and when my husband got home I made him put the creature in the garage. Normally we put stuff we don't want out on the curb, but I cannot be identified with this thing in any way. I cannot imagine a human being (other than my brother) who would want this. It's very twilight zone, which was my brother's favorite TV show as a kid, though he forced me to watch with him because he was terrified.
What is the message? Well, obviously, that he wins for most tasteless gifts of the century. He's tricky, though, because once in a while he sends beautiful books. This forces me to open every box, instead of tossing it whole into the garbage. The Tweety Bird pink and black fake leather jacket seven sizes too big for me still hangs in the coat closet in case I need a quick costume, and I have real Ed Wood movies and books that might be good if I dared begin reading. My brother dreamed of being Red Skelton or Red Buttons when he was a kid, and in his old age he has decided to test out his comic abilities. I just wish it was for an audience at a Texas steakhouse instead of me. But that might prove dangerous, even where he lives, and he has his reputation to consider. So I'm the recipient of the abundance of his humor, and there is no way to get him back, as even in the catalogs that come with the gifts, I can see he has already picked the most hideous selection available. Oh, well, I might hide the fox outside in the bushes, and the beer holders might be amusing to my younger son. But the swinging Chuckie, she needs to be buried, fast.
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