Have you ever received a gift you didn’t like? If not, what types of gifts would you not care for? (Prompt courtesy: https://thecoffeemonsterzco.com/en-ca/blogs/midnight-blogging/journaling-prompts)
I’m just going to come right out and say it, my parents were not good gift picker outers. Some people have a knack for giving others what they really want and others, well, they’re cheap.
When I was in Grade 10 I received an interesting, and honestly, disappointing, birthday gift from my parents. And I get that it’s difficult, with my birthday being four days before Christmas, to want to spend the money or put in the effort for a proper birthday. Christmas is enough work and expense as it is, without having to worry about focusing on a birthday in the same week.
But a girl in grade ten, even way back in the early nineties, hoped for cool, feminine, teenage type of gift.
What I got that year was a watch. Dad had apparently picked it out. From the sole hardware/grocery/liquor store in Birch River. It was gold, which was never my thing. I was always more into sterling silver, still am. But that was the least of it.
It was a digital watch that played music. Not like a smart watch. More like if you hit the top right button you could hear yankee doodle dandy or when the saints come marching in kind of music. No singing, just music. It was hideous.
Did I act like I loved it when I opened it up? Possibly. I mean receiving a watch isn’t necessarily a bad gift. I just wasn’t crazy about gold and then knowing it came from the store it came from was…embarrassing. Then the fact that it played this lame music, to a fourteen year old, it was not cool.
I did wear it yes. When you grow up…not wealthy, you get good a learning to laugh at yourself. Cause what else can you do. I remember wearing it in Biology class and my best friend and another guy who sat at our table playing the watch’s silly songs and having a good laugh.
I had a great childhood and I have amazing parents but I really wonder what my Mom was thinking when she gave my Dad the task of going into Birch River to pick out my birthday gift that year.
bloom.planted.north 
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