Thanks Grandma!
My grandmother was an Avon lady when I was a child and, apparently, she was her own best customer. She would buy lip gloss, perfume, talcum powder by the boxload and stick it up in her attic, forgotten. Every year, around Christmas, she would have herself a frantic race around the attic for Christmas presents. I should note that the Attic was not climate controlled and the gifts that I received were usually melted, decomposed into something else, or infested with bugs.

Not to be considered ungenerous, she followed these items up with a yearly gifting of a polyester sweatsuit from goodwill - usually in a color that was blinding and harsh on the eyes: flourescent orange, fushia, neon yello, bright turquoise.

She was also very much into knitting items out of rough yarn (also in weird colors) that were unrecognizable - i.e. too big to be a scarf, too small to be a blanket, i.e. what the hell do I do with it?

For Birthdays she usually goes to the Dollar Store and, instead of buying useful items (household products, food, etc.) she buys god-awful brick-brack, usually with some sort of Christian Message that is meant to be uplifting in a sparkle-spattered gaudy kind of a way: "Hang in there, Jesus Loves YOU!!!".

I won't even get started on the cards that accompany these presents but suffice it to say that one card has enough poorly glued sparkles on it that sparkles can be found in my car at any given time, even up to a year later. Insidious.

But she's my gram, I love her even though she is so very obviously missing a chromosone or two.
(Igneous, Thu 23 Sep 2004, 17:05, Reply)