by Carson Margedant

Created on: December 05, 2008

He smiled, while secretly harboring a deep shame of his uncle. There sat in front of him a book with gelded letters and a spine that would make a curator cry in envy. It was the biology of tapeworms complete with breathtaking diagrams, inked with peerless scrutiny. That was not as much a compliment as it should have been. No one who drew these nauseatingly detailed images could have had peers. A peer would have stopped him and told him "Monarch Butterflies, that's where the money is.". Sadly Douglas Giovanni was too busy drawing tape worms emerging from dead bloated pigs to network.

This was not however the exact reason for the shame. Uncle Jimmy had apparently tallied young Cid's merits and demerits and found himself at the number 200 and bought his gift on an exact conversion of humanity to dollars. Unbeknowest to Uncle Jimmy, the actual worth of a man whose merits outweigh his faults is at least a lexus. They are rare creatures and should be held dearly. However Uncle Jimmy fault was that he decide to calculate at all. An even bigger fault was that he decide a 12 year old boy who wouldn't touch pork (deathly afraid of disease) would want an intimate understanding of the biology of tapeworms.

"Thanks Uncle Jimmy."

Uncle Jimmy looked downwards realizing that thirty dollars at Hasbro would have been infinitely more appreciated than two hundred dollars at a store that should have offer free anti-histamines. The guilt was tangible. Convenience of geography had overcome his better angels and his nephew knew it. Cid had seen the rare bookstore sitting underneath Uncle Jimmy's apartment when they picked him up on their way to Grandma's.

Time had come and it was time for Uncle James to open his gift. Inside a box for a ten year old lamp (which would be given back to be reused next year) sat a reconstruction of the Eiffel Tower 1:1000 scale completely done with toothpicks. There was no adhesive and the resemblance to the original was uncanny. Sadly one of the time honored stories was of Uncle Jimmy's worst day. Highlights included being stuck in a bathroom at the famous Louvre with a case of explosive diarrhea and a mugging underneath the very same building emulated in toothpick in front of him. The joke sat flattly on the ground between nephew and uncle

Cid scratched his head trying to think of warping this into gag gift. Of course witty Cid had been left in the cafeteria two months ago with the last really good comeback he had available. The gift was in fact an alternative to the dumpster. He had worked so hard and so long to make it that he forced himself to forget about his Uncle's unfortunate experiences abroad and hoped blindly that it would be a good gift by craftsmanship alone. The gift was a dud.

A draw had been reached. There was a tie in ineffective gift-giving. This was something O'Leary may have had mused aboutbefore
shaving a poor woman's head and pretending it was equal to giving away a man's watch. Regardless always forgiven on Decemeber 26 with a big dumb action movie.

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