The Worst Christmas Gift Ever
I always hated the grab bags we would have in grade school. Not because I always got a bad gift… but because I always got the exact same bad gift during my entire elementary school career. It’s the single worst present that can be given to a child, because when it’s wrapped up it looks like it could be awesome. Yet it is anything but. I’m talking about…
The Roll Up Sled
First off, don’t let the look on this kids face fool you: he’s not having fun. His mom ordered him to smile for the camera. After he refused to do so, she threatened that he would not receive Christmas gifts if he didn’t show his teeth, prompting him to give the performance of his lifetime and appear to be excited to be riding the worst sled ever created. Even though I wasn’t present at the time this photo was taken, I know that there is no other logical explanation as to why this kid has a happy look on his face.
Back to the constant disappointment I felt during the grade school grab bag
It was the same every year. If you were a boy, you would buy a gift for a boy, and the girls would do the same. We were never assigned to a certain person, we were just told to bring in a gift a boy would like that was around $10.
On the day before Christmas vacation we would bring our gifts in, and each year I would immediately spot the large tubular present and pray to God that it wasn’t assigned to me. Actually that’s not true for every year: in kindergarten everyone wanted to pick this gift because of its size, and because we had no idea what it was. In our minds that could have been a bazooka, and what 6 year old wouldn’t want to be playing with an oversized war weapon? So that year I felt very lucky to be given the first pick of the grab bag draft. But after opening it up and seeing what it was, the prosperous feeling quickly went away, and after playing with that piece of crap for two minutes I knew, even at the age of six, that this was the worst gift I would ever get.
Here’s the problem with the roll up sled
Here are the numerous problems with the roll up sled
First thing’s first: the roll up sled doesn’t work. Plastic glides on snow, but the plastic used to manufacture the roll up sled doesn’t. It defies the law of physics. When I get on a sled, I assume that I will go down a hill at a somewhat accelerated pace. I’m not a thrill seeker, nor was I as a child, so I don’t expect to be traveling at 94 mph. But when I’m sledding I do expect to get to the bottom of a hill faster than I can walk to it. That doesn’t happen with the roll up sled. In fact, any kid that attempts to stay loyal to the roll up sled and slide it all the way to the bottom of a hill either dies of starvation or goes insane due to sleep deprivation.
Another problem with this piece of junk is that the roll up sled does exactly what it’s title suggests: it rolls up during a sledding session. Take another look at the kid.
He is barely on that thing! About fifty percent of the sled is already out of commission, and he hasn’t even travelled eight feet! Every inch he goes down the hill his ass gets an inch closer to being in the snow, and within seconds the sled will be rolled up into its original cylinder shape and he’ll be sitting in the snow, depressed and determined to live in a tropical area when he grows up.
The final flaw with the roll up sled is also my favorite part about it: it breaks immediately. After two attempted trips down a hill, it rips (since all of my plastic containers have been in the Milnamow family for many generations, this again makes me wonder what kind of plastic they use to manufacture this sled). Typically a child is upset when their toy breaks, but with this toy children are delighted at it’s demise. It’s like watching a villain in a Disney movie die. The kid is no longer obligated to associate himself with this embarrassing novelty, and can now move forward with his life free of guilt.
Back to my childhood
As I said before, after kindergarten I knew that I never wanted a roll up sled again. Yet for the next six years of my life, my grab bag gift was always a large devilish cylinder disguised in pleasant Christmas paper. I know what you’re wondering: why not avoid the gift? Well, after being rewarded with the first pick in kindergarten, I put up an impressive streak of getting the last pick every year after. And since every kid was trained to avoid the large cylinder gift as if it were Keanu Reeves movie, that was always the present left for me. 