Gifts that keep on giving.

I received a gift from my mom this week. The local sports store in the town where she lives was having a sale and she'd e-mailed me to see if I'd like her to get me anything. A very thoughtful gesture, to be sure. I e-mailed her what I wanted (running shorts/tops), what sizes (Large bottoms/Medium tops), and what brand (Under Armour).

My sister brought me my mom's purchases, and I immediately pulled out a hot pink Adidas top with matching hot pink bottoms. Hot pink isn't really "me", but that wasn't the only thing a little off. The bottoms were size XXL, the top was XL. Apparently she had confused me for a much larger daughter whose colors are blush and bashful, as there's more pink fabric between these two items than there is surrounding Christo's islands.

I would love to say this misstep in gift-giving was a novelty with Mom, but sadly that's not the case. And it's always tough to tell if she genuinely got confused, or if there was a more self-serving rationale behind the gift. For example, my freshman year of high school I received two cds - Patti LaBelle and something called "Classical Loon", a disc comprised of such classical greats as "Claire de Lune" (pun tragically not intended) interspersed with the mating calls of actual loons. Why anyone would want this disc is beyond me*. But when I responded to the gift with, "Patti LaBelle? Are you kidding me? And what's with this On Golden Pond crap?" my mother retorted, "FINE. If you don't want them, I'LL take them." Which I'm pretty sure was the plan all along, and will no doubt be her response when I question the running clothes.

Sometimes the self-serving nature of her gifts are a little more veiled, though. Like Christmas, my senior year of college. Despite not having so much as a boyfriend at the time, I received baby booties featuring my college mascot. Baby booties? "Well, I know it's maybe a little premature, but at least you'll have them when you have a baby." (Translation: I want a grandkid. Let's get on that, please.)

And not unlike the situation with the running clothes, being specific with what I'd like rarely helps curb this problem. When I was in fifth grade, I was a tomboy and my best friends were my cousin and his buddies in the neighborhood. At the time they - and thus, I - were totally into skateboarding. For Christmas that year, I told my mother in the months leading up to Christmas, that all. I. wanted. was a Santa Cruz skateboard. I wanted NOTHING else. Just a Santa Cruz skateboard.

Christmas morning, I ran to the fireplace with the excitement of a 10 year-old combined with the thrill of knowing I was about to get my coveted skateboard. But when I rounded the corner into the living room, there was no skateboard. There was, however, a tandem bicycle.

"What is this?!?" I shrieked.

"It's a tandem bicycle!" Mom said excitedly. "You and Lindsay can ride it around the neighborhood together!" (Translation: This is a gift of peace and quiet for myself.)

First, my sister Lindsay and I hated each other at the time. To think we'd manage to suspend this hatred and work together to bicycle around together was preposterous. And it was a tandem bicycle, for godssake. Even if we loved each other, there is absolutely nothing cool about a tandem bicycle.

"I told you all I wanted was a Santa Cruz skateboard!" I wailed.

"Well, you haven't opened all your presents yet, have you," she pointed out.

I looked around the room for any box that looked like it might contain a skateboard and ran immediately to it. The tandem bicycle was suddenly forgiven...that is, until I opened the box. I saw a skateboard, alright. A SNOOPY skateboard that had "Joe Cool" in great big letters on the top of the deck and Snoopy riding a skateboard on the underside.

"A SNOOPY SKATEBOARD?!?" I sobbed, "I can't ride this in front of the boys. They'll all laugh at me!"

"Well, then you can practice on your Snoopy skateboard, then impress them when you use theirs."

It was, hands down, the worst Christmas ever in terms of gift-giving. But I suppose the upside was that Mom did a bang up job managing expectations as to what I could expect from her moving forward. Honestly, there's part of me that admires my mother's ingenuity as she's amassed quite the collection of if-you-don't-want-it-I'll-take-it gifts she's enjoyed over the years. And as she's coming in town to celebrate her birthday tonight, maybe I'll adopt her principles and buy her some weed with the assumption she hasn't recently taken up recreational drug use.

Happy Birthday, indeed.

*Comical side note: I received "Classical Loon" as a going away present three years ago from a friend that thought he'd come up a brilliant joke of a gift. Needless to say he was beyond crestfallen when he learned I already owned it.