In a one-word answer: poorly.
My blogger buddy, Kathy, who is the Martha Stewart of Tennessee, has been egging me on to reveal my gift-wrapping style. She anticipates a good chuckle at the expense of my incompetence in this department. I hope I deliver.
On Tuesday, my unwrapped gifts and I exited my comfort zone, the soot coated Apple, to head out to the San Francisco Bay Area to spend Christmas with my family. As I do every year, I am spreading my special brand of sour to my sister, Dovima, niece, Sweet Pea, and brother-in-law, Herb (pronounced with a silent h).
Since my finances have been in freefall for the third year in a row and showing zero sign of reversing, thanks to having a get rich slow job at Cheapskates R Us, it has been years since I have given anyone of either my nearest (my East Coast posse) or farthest (my family and best friend from college, BatPat) a gift they rate. Fortunately, I am the intrepid-type, so I do try to at least give everyone that matters a gift that reflects some degree of thought. Yet, I arrived suffering a mini-crisis for I completely forgot about getting anything for Thurber, the family dog!
"How could you forget me?"
This is the first year I’ve ever forgotten the hound. I felt terribly turdish. On Wednesday, I raced out to Target with Sweet Pea and Dovima to get him something he can chew on. I was leaning toward a squeaky chicken but Sweet Pea thought this purple mallard went better with Thurber’s fur color.
Quack.
I was drawn to the duck’s soulful expression, the same sultry look I’ve been known to give my special someone, Yakking Gadfly. The clerk at Target, a guy about my own age – over 40, under death – eyed me and eyed Thurber’s duck.
Me (screaming inside my head): What?!
I withheld my inner irate New Yorker and silently shelled out five clams for the duck.
Target Clerk (snarky): Happy Holidays to you and your duck.
Then, he quacked. I bring out the best in everyone …
Onto my wrap-style, but not with Thurber’s duck, but with my brother, Axel’s, original gift I literally spent hours researching.
Danny Shanahan New Yorker Magazine tee shirt.
This New Yorker tee shirt happens to now be a collector’s item!
Lame Adventures Readership (en masse; all three of you): Why?
Apparently, The New Yorker is no longer producing mugs or tee shirts with any cartoon of a reader’s choice. I’m outraged! Had I known this, I also would have pounced on getting a few Michael Maslin cartoons on tee shirts. Check out his wonderful web site here. Now that these tee shirts are such rarities, I am sure I will score even more points with my brother, not that I think this will ever top the toaster-radio that scored such a hit with Axel ten years ago.
How to wrap a New Yorker tee shirt without a box:
Swipe a roll of your sister's gridded wrapping paper.
Cut gridded wrap with your pen lying on top so you do not misplace your pen again.
Place tee shirt on gridded wrap.
Fold tee shirt.
Fold wrap left.
Fold wrap right.
Accidentally photograph dart board on wall.
Accidentally photograph stars on wall above dart board.
While holding camera strap in teeth trim wrap.
Yes, that is drool on wrap from holding camera strap in teeth.
Wrapping finally cut to correct size.
Spend ten minutes looking for tape.
Tape sitting atop tags where it had been all along.
Taped wrapping.
Tagged wrapping.
Select blue ribbon in recognition of many Jewish friends that loathe this time of year.
Spend fifteen minutes struggling to unpeel backing from bow.
Peeled bow.
Voila!
Take a two hour nap.
Qaulification to enter Recycling Hall of Shame.
Lame Adventures 
Jesus H. Christ sandals again! LOLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!! I leave a worse wrapping mess than you which I will be doing tonight at home whilst sipping bourbon and listening to a Jackie Gleason Xmas album scored off ebay!
Merry Christmas Leo!
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Wrapping while sipping bourbon! Great idea Max! See you when I’m back on our coast, Buddy!!!!!!!!!
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Priceless, my friend. Oh, how you deliver! Thanks for the shout-out!
Quacking,
Kathy
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Here’s quacking back at you, Kathy!
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I’m pretty sure Target guy was hitting on you! Most straight women find quacking incredibly sexy.
I think your accidental pics of the dart board and the stars were what made me laugh the hardest.
Ps. I had no idea you were so good at folding shirts. Want to do my laundry?
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I’ll let you in on a secret, I minored in Folding Shirts at NYU(seless).
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I love the tee shirt. Another one along those same lines is the one by Roz Chast titled “Introducing—Ed, The Nephew of God,” where he says (somewhat testily) “Yeah, I’m His cousin,” and “No, I don’t have any ‘special powers’,” and “But I can make a good Margarita, and I’m a nice person. Isn’t that enough?”
I’m so bad at wrapping presents that my mother-in-law once asked my (then) 7-year-old daughter if she’d wrapped the gift we’d just given her. Nope. I did.
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I love Roz cartoons! Thanks for sharing!
Your mother-in-law reminds me of the old Ernie K-Doe song, Mother-in-Law.
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I have a couple CDs in my car of all the “oldies but goodies” from the fifties and sixties and this song is one my grandkids always request. Also “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry, “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis and “La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens.
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Timeless classics!
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You are so funny! I used to be the uber Pee Wee Herman/Martha Stewart of wrapping gifts – I was inventive and clever – I used all sorts of household and non household materials to wrap stuff in. It took hours. The wrapped presents too often outshone the contents. That just couldn’t be. So now, I practice your style of wrapping – just get her done – don’t make an event of it.
The other thing I do now is keep every bit of wrapping and ribbon after the presents are opened – I even take the stuff my sister and her husband are trying to throw out. I haven’t had to buy wrapping paper in 5 years at least.
My dogs get gifts, too. I’m still behind on their presents so I’m heading out today to finish up. They’re family!
Merry Christmas, LA! Enjoy every moment.
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My brother, Axel, also used to keep every bit of wrapping. He’d meticulously fold everything and hang onto all the bows.
Then, when no one was looking our mom would trash it all.
You have a Merry Christmas, too, SDS. I hope you find the perfect gifts for your hounds!
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Do I have to come there to teach you how to wrap, again?!? Signed, Countess of the Bow
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Let’s share our classic video with the masses, Countess of the Bow!
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SHE’S GOOD!!
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Merry Christmas Lame Lady
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Merry Christmas back at you, Baroness of Bows!
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