6

Chia Pets

Amazon.com

I am utterly, desperately unable to even fathom how these still exist. They were the butt of jokes in the 1980s, and yet they keep being mass produced and sold. I know they're new because they have Obama Chia Pets now. For the love of God, who keeps buying them? Grass grows literally everywhere that isn't a swamp, a desert, or some other assorted hellscape. It's the least impressive plant on the planet. Giving Chia Pets to people is like giving them discarded Starbucks coffee cups, or free clinic condoms.

There is no joy in a Chia Pet. It's a piece of pottery on which you slather a seed paste. Later the seeds grow and the world frowns because why? Why is this happening? I presume there is literally no one on Earth who has actively had a desire for a Chia Pet. At best are people who don't seethe when they receive them, which is probably not a great demographic to work with.

Trust that no one in your family or really anyone with whom you have a relationship that you deem worthy of gift giving wants to take five minutes out of their day to slather weed blossoms on a mass-produced pottery trinket and then let it live out its life in neglect by a window. Because no one would ever want that.

5

Board Games

TAROKICHI/iStock/Getty Images

I can taste the ire in the air for this one. Felix, you say, drawing me a bath, I love board games! I want a new board game! Well, yes, I enjoy board games, too. Scrabble? Risk? Forget about it, I'll play that shit all day long, I don't give a shit what Luke "I only play board games designed in Latvia" McKinney says. But here's the thing: I already own Risk and Scrabble. I bet you do, too. And maybe four versions of Monopoly, and some kind of adult party game you never play, and Trivial Pursuit, because it's awesome. You have all the board games Jesus wants you to have.

There are currently a dillion board games on the market, and each one in turn is exponentially less fun to play than the one before it. If you played all the board games available at your local Walmart, by the time you got to the 10th one, your only salvation would be if you rolled the dice and landed on a space that just shot you in the face. For every good board game, someone invents 30 more meant to teach you the true meaning of Arbor Day, or that require you to roll the same number thrice on a 20-sided die to proceed through the pretend volcano and earn the Golden Nugget, or just suck a loaf of dick.

There are only a handful of board games that are fun to play, and that's been the case since the 1970s. If you have the urge to buy someone a board game, buy one of the five that people play and then splash holy water on all the others and curse them in Latin so that they don't dare try to haunt you in your dreams. Because they will. You'll be convinced for days that maybe you really do need to buy True Blood: Night Eternal and that no, it's not worse than hepatitis. But of course that's wrong. So, so wrong.

4

A Calendar

Image Source/Stockbyte/Getty Images

3

A Basket

Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Getty Images

Last year my aunt got me a giant wicker basket that did not contain the burned and bee-stung corpse of Nic Cage. Instead it contained shortbread cookies that proclaimed to be Scottish in origin and made my mouth as dry as the Sahara after a single bite. There were also approximately 1,000 tiny strawberry candies that seemed to have been included in lieu of Styrofoam peanuts, three jars of exotic jellies, a massive, phallic elk sausage, a jar of birch syrup, a bevy of processed cheese flavored with such unique spices as "dirt" and "feet," crackers made from some kind of grain that hasn't been widely harvested since man first attempted to tame the wolf, and a DVD copy of Shallow Hal. The card explained the presence of the Jack Black film because he's funny, you see, and I make funny. We're co-workers.

2

Something Personalized

Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images

This one has a fine line to it, insofar as you could technically get someone a nice watch with an inscription on the back that you could consider personalized, but of course that's not what I mean. You know the kind of shit I mean: those things they sell at a kiosk in the mall that, by themselves, no one ever wants, but the edge the kiosk offers is that a dude with a Dremel tool can personalize it for you right here right now. Weee, life is complete!

There is nothing in the world that you actually require to be personalized, because once you own it, it's clearly yours. Has anyone ever legitimately mixed up one of your towels with one of theirs? Or your coffee mug? Your bathrobe? None of these things need your initials. If anything, they draw attention to you unnecessarily. Hey, whose dumb shit doormat is this? Oh wait, it clearly says right there "Timmy Douchewelder" under the little picture of the reindeer. This is your doormat. You suck.

1

Holiday-Themed Items

Anna Bizon/iStock/Getty Images

Every year when I was a kid my mom would give me a mug for Christmas. That mug was inevitably Christmas-themed, ensuring that its use during the other 11 months of the year made me look either lazy or like an idiot. Look at Felix the dipshit, drinking his Santa mug of juice in July. That kid must eat lead paint and jam marbles in his ass for fun.

So what if I did eat lead paint and play Poop Chute Cat's Eyes? I could do that 12 months a year, unlike using that damn mug with Santa's fat face smiling at me that goes on the shelf next to the Frosty mug from last year and the Rudolph mug from the year before.

Nobody wants your Christmas-themed towels, sweaters, trousers, condoms, or anything. We already know it's Christmas, that's why we're getting the gifts. And as a gift giver, it shows your immense lack of caring about the receiver. What do I think Gordy would like for Christmas this year? What really speaks to the heart of our friendship? Oh, an Elf on a Shelf. Because I fucking hate Gordy and I want him to die over the holidays. I hope he chokes on eggnog and aspirates on his festive vomit. Here is the first piece of shit on the first display in the front of the store that was placed here because it's Christmas -- I will rub my balls on it, wrap it up, and give it to him.

Long story short, when you give a holiday-themed gift, you're basically rubbing your balls on the idea of giving.

Always on the go but can't get enough of those sweet, sweet dick jokes? We have an Android app and iOS reader for you to pick from so you never miss another article.