Awful Things My Neighbors Tried to Order for Christmas!

It's Christmas time again, and with it comes the insane materialism that runs rampant in my community. You don't really need all that crap you ordered on Cyber Monday or Web Wednesday, do you, neighbor? No. None of us do. And yet every day in early December, I'd look out my window and see porches littered with just-delivered Christmas shit and holiday trash. But this year, I decided to clean up the streets. Christmas should be about love, family, giving, warmth and happiness. By saving people from all this stuff they don't actually need, I'm making Christmas better for everyone!

Like, take these bongos, for example. Did the dude on the corner need these? No. Did I need to hear him play them all fucking night, or whenever he got them? Of course not. Look, if you want to hit something with your hands, get a job. Or get some kind of mechanical thing that generates energy-efficient heat for rural homes when you slap it. Something positive. Not a pair of fucking bongos.

Now look at this horseshit. Someone decided they needed a new Cyber Monday TV, delivered right to their house, in a big-ass box that says Philips 46" TV right on the side? Nope. It's my TV now. It was hard to get into my trunk, but it's worth it to think about how whoever bought this is sitting at home, enjoying their existing TV, realizing that life isn't just about a constant string of hardware upgrades.

And besides, check this out: When I busted that waste of pixels out of the box and set it up in my living room, it downloaded an update. The TELEVISION needed to UPDATE ITSELF before I could watch it. My neighbors don't need that kind of hell in their life. You're welcome.

I thought this was a penis thing, so I looked it up, and it turns out Xtend is something you sniff when you work out, so you can work out longer. Sounds like the opposite of what I want, which is not to work out at all, ever. Straight into the trash.

Can you believe this? Perfect Polly is a fake bird that makes electronic chirping noises. Whoever bought this, I just saved you 3 to 4 weeks of the aural torment you would have suffered before it inevitably broke. I kept this to re-gift because I know someone I hate and I want them to have bird noise in their house for a month.

The box was right. This was heavy as shit. It's a KitchenAid 600-Series mixer, and it's humongous. How did you think there was room for this thing in your kitchen, neighbor? I have the same horrible little kitchen that you do, and trust me, it's not going to fit in your cabinets. After I unpacked it and set it up with all the accessories, I had to store it out in my garage. That's how bulky it is.

This book made a satisfying hollow thump when it hit the canister of Xtend in the trash can.

I didn't believe that someone mail-ordered canned herring from Canada, so I ripped open the box, and, yes. Canned herring. Metal-encased stinkfish, times twelve. This is going in my emergency kit, so if there's an apocalypse, the last thing I'll taste is the room-temperature oil of a long-dead Atlantic fish.

You might think this was intended to be a friend for Perfect Polly, but I know better, because I stole this from a completely different street. It's a plastic owl. I think this is meant for a farmer, but some asshole in the suburbs ordered it, I guess to put in his house. Enjoy your life without your owl, whoever you are.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Drew Fairweather is the author of three daily sites: The Worst Things for Sale, Toothpaste for Dinner, and Married to the Sea.

– Drew Fairweather (@drewtoothpaste)