Kristin looks like this:
And because she looks like that, when we were in high school, guys would ask me things like this:
But honestly, I'm not probably the one guys should've been most worried about.
But this blog post isn't about my father (the dad-dedicated post won't come out until October), it's about Kristin. Hmmm... what to say about Kristin... well, she's always been actively engaged in the Halfrican American Rights Movement.
She's traveled the globe... Europe, Asia Minor, a couple of years in Japan... at one point she was in a place where they grow trees like this:
And every year, for Christmas, Kristin and I do this thing where we give each other terrible gifts.
I'm not sure how it started, but I think it had something to do with our inadvertent habit of watching bad movies together. We'd be bored, decide to go see a movie, call the theater and find out what was playing, come up with a compromise movie that we could both probably sit through, and every movie we went to see ended up being awful.
It became a kind of joke towards the end; we only knew how to choose bad movies. So it seemed fitting that we should also give each other bad gifts. Now, every year when me and my sisters and my parents get together to celebrate Christmas and hand out gifts, Kristin and I wrap up something lousy for one another. It's kind of a competition.
One year I got her the weirdest-looking stuffed animal I could find in Target's discount toy bin:
She got me a straw that wraps around my head:
I got her a loaf of bread:
She got me a rubber ducky:
Heck, one year I bought some wrapping paper, took the wrapping paper off of the cardboard tube that it comes with, wrapped up the tube, and gave it to her:
Usually, it's not really clear who wins the You Got Me A Worser Present Award. Except for this one time, a few years ago...
Kristin was back in the states from Japan on Christmas vacation. I got her something lame, like a tissue box or something, thinking I would win out of sheer thoughtlessness...
Kristin just looked at it and smiled. "Cute", she said. "Now open mine." And I did. What I got was this:
Apparently, in Japan, everything can be anthropomorphized. EVERYTHING. Even human feces. They have a cartoon character that is a piece of poop with a smiley face.
...actually, now that I think of it, isn't there a cartoon character in that one show that is also a piece of poop?
But the "cute poop" wasn't the end. Kristin's gift was a two-parter. The other thing was a weird block-shaped brick wall with a face.
...my drawing doesn't really convey how creepy this thing is. Here's a photograph:
It's a coin bank. You put your coins in the mouth and then the face moves and moans something in Japanese, except that it's defective and sometimes it just starts moving on its own like it's possessed.
I don't know why I still have that thing...
The point is, I'll never be able to top her one-two combo of Cute Poop and Possessed Coin Bank. Well done, Kristin.
And Happy Birthday!
Cheers.
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