I'm a Very Embarrassed Gift Bag Reuser

[frazzledspice]

On Friday night we hosted a party for someone who just experienced "retiremenent American style" (he got axed the week before Christmas, and given his age, he's unlikely to find another job like the one he had.)

Of course it happened at 4:30 p.m. No one even had the chance to say goodbye.

My husband gave me a gift to wrap for him, and I put it in a gift bag left over from my daughter's birthday party last week.

As the guest of honor opened up the gift (a first edition of "Executive Blues") he rummaged around the bottom of the gift bag. "Oh, there's a gift certificate, too!" he said.

HUH??? I looked blank.

"It's to "Nail Spa," he said.

"Oh, no!" I said, "That was one of my daughter's birthday presents."

He looked crestfallen. "Gee," he said, "I thought I could go and have my first pedicure!"

Was my face red....

[kurt_messick]

I've had things like that happen, too. Not quite to that extreme, but there was once a gift to which the store had attached a card which I'd neglected to fill out. My friend went to read it and found it blank.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

When hubby and I got hitched, we got a lot of presents that we really didn't want or need or could use. So, being thrify, hubby and I put them aside for "re-gifting." The problem is, as I had opened each present I put the attached Wedding card in the box so I could write my thank-you notes, and after writing my notes I put them back in the boxes so I wouldn't re-gift to the wrong place (e.g. one present came from a friend from church, so I knew I couldn't give that gift to anyone I knew from church without being found out).

Some items found their way to my Eastern Star chapter's drawing table. Someone won a crystal vase, opened up the box to see it, and out fell a card clearly addressed to me. I can only imagine how many of the ladies were looking at me and wondering if what they gave me had suffered a similar fate elsewhere...

mj