Worst Goon Gifts [Receiving]: (Part 2 of 2)

Ms Boods

My mom's worst scheme was when I went to grad school - 2,000 miles from home, and she acted as if it were the worst betrayal ever. She didn't want me to come home for Christmas (which was fine by me!) because she would 'suffer too much' when I had to go back. Anyway, she sends me this huge box, and it's filled with presents! I was really knocked out - she said she was worried I'd be sad and alone at xmas, so here were lots of nice presents to brighten up my apartment. Don't open them until Christmas! Thank fuck I bought myself presents that year (something I started when I was little, which I know sounds weird), because when I went to unwrap the presents, they were empty boxes just wrapped up to look like presents. She couldn't understand why I was so upset - she said they were to brighten up my apartment! Why on earth did I think there were actual gifts?

Dump_Stat

When I was a kid my parents bought me a Playstation for Christmas. I had never really had any big ticket items before so I was pumped! They filled the box with wooden blocks and when I opened it I remember looking at them expectantly like "Ok, where's the Playstation?". There wasn't one. They convinced one of my relatives to give them the box of the Playstation they bought for their kid.

I guess they thought it was funny (?). I sure didn't.

dinozombiesgoRARR

Don't build up the kid's expectations beforehand, just hand them a present in a wacky box that just happens to have something different/awesome inside it. The emotional transition is rather than

There's a way to play Xmas pranks without being a shit heel.

Grand Prize Winner

Oh, I remember one! When I was like 15, my mom bought me a Playstation. She didn't buy any games, though. She said that making you buy games after you bought the console was 'a scam' and that I should just 'have fun with it as it is.' A Playstation with no games is basically an inert hunk of plastic, but I wasn't about to tell her that. Instead I plugged it into the TV and then tested its cd-playing ability with our single CD, which was a Billy Joel greatest hits compilation of some sort. I had that playstation for six years and never got a single game for it until I got a job.

Eventually I realized it was a habit with my mom. She loved to have the latest electronic gizmos but didn't approve of buying whatever media they were supposed to play. She had a VHS player, a Videodisc player, a nice stereo that played CDs, tapes, and records, but the only videos or music she had were a tape produced by Boeing to advertise their jets (she'd gotten it for free when she wrote the company newspaper), an 8-track tape of Yellow Submarine, that Billy Joel CD, and a Fleetwood Mac single with an unplayably scratched B-side.

czarmonger

XBOX 360!! Wait, is it 2005? No, that was the year I got a Playstation 2.

The only problem is there was a miscommunication and I didn't get any games. Would any of you happen to know a store that is open on Xmas and sells new video games?

Crustashio

A games console without a game is like buying you a car without wheels.

blazeing w hitler

Wow what an awful day. Anyway I have been doing most of my gaming on a 360 with a display adapter for my monitor over the years and decided it was time to make the leap to an actual HD set. So I told mom and pops that I'd really like a fairly large 1080p HDTV. When I woke up, I noticed the box for what was at least a 46". I almost jumped back because it was way more than I had asked for. But then I noticed something: it was only a 720p display. I was furious, and when my parents woke up they asked me how much I liked it. "It's even bigger than the one you asked for!" Then I had to go on to eloquently explain that since it displayed at a lower resolution on a bigger size screen it would look shittier than 1080p on a smaller size set. How hard of a concept is that to grasp? Its like the wild west where you send your henchmen to steal a horse and they come back with a donkey.