Gift Giving In The Haole-BukBuk House

My parents have a hard time shopping for one another. Every year it seems my father buys something for my mother that she hates, and she in turn tries to buy something to make him mad. Problem is, he never gets mad.

This year he bought her flowers for Mother's Day. For some reason this upset her so she bought him a garden hose for Father's Day. He giggled when he told me on the phone. Giggled and told me he went out and bought golf balls. This pacified my mother because she felt that if he wasn't mad about the garden hose he wouldn't have bought the golf balls.

This is the logic that shaped my childhood.

The prize winning gifts remain branded in my and my brothers' minds and will continue to be alluded to during holidays forevermore. Somehow the subject always comes up much to both our parents' chagrin.

To: Mom
From: Dad

Whatever possessed him to think my mother would want a bread maker* we will never know. Whatever possessed her to completely freak out about receiving a bread maker we also will never know. She was enraged by the fact that he bought her a kitchen appliance and made him take it back immediately. He thought he was doing a good thing because she loves bread. Apparently he was wrong. And none of us will ever forget it.

To: Dad
From: Mom

That's right. A Flowbee.** I'll say it again. A Flowbee. Whatever possessed her to think it was a good idea to buy a Flowbee we will never know. Whatever possessed him to actually be excited about receiving it we also will never know. What I do know is that when he took the Flowbee out of the box, someone else's hair fell out of it. Apparently not only had my mother bought a Flowbee, she bought a returned Flowbee that someone at the department store was lazy enough to not check before restocking. I have to say Flowbee one more time. Talk about ew factor.

*not the actual bread maker
**not my actual dad