In the Old Days (before children), I used to enjoy buying birthday presents. Why, I had the time and money to spend hours wandering through the shops really thinking about the person I was buying for, before finally finding and buying Just The Right Thing. How satisfying.
These days, gift vouchers are my saviour. Yes, I am one step away from slipping a $5 note in with the birthday card.
But really, as impersonal as vouchers can sometimes feel, they save me from the following type of situation…
In a recent high-pressured Toddler’s-bladder-is-about-to-blow situation, I made an impulse purchase for my friend JS’s birthday. I thought I was being cute. I thought I was being quirky. I thought I had bought her a 1950s battery-operated back-scratcher in its original packaging and with its original fittings. Noice.
It was only when I went to wrap it a few days later that I realised that I may have made a slight purchasing error…
For one thing, the product was very prominently called a “RELAX-O-MATIC VIBRATOR”, with the words “With Backscratcher” added as an afterthought, perhaps to lend the product some credibility in more polite circles.
Oh, and the picture showed a smiling well-groomed woman holding this very pink and distinctly penis-shaped item to her face.
And then the more I looked at it, the more I began to realise that it didn’t look like it was actually her own hand holding the pink penis-shaped thing to her face. It was someone else’s hand. Moreover, it was someone else’s well-manicured female hand.
Yes, I’d gotten my happily-married and childed friend a pre-loved Love-That-Dare-Not-Speak-Its-Name 1950s sex toy… with a backscratcher attachment. Which is kind of cool, if you think about it.
Still, when I opened the box and actually looked closely at said backscratcher attachment – which the blurb on the box cheerfully claimed gave “soothing vibration to relieve that nervous itch!” – the more it began to Totally Freak Me Out. It was a long stick with a little plastic hand on the end. And it made me realise that if someone were to relieve That Itch with it, it would be a little like receiving a hand-job from a plastic doll. Which was about a thousand different kinds of wrong.
Anyway, it was all too late for me to change the gift and so I wrapped it in the hope it would be seen by JS (and her friends) as a ha-ha-ha-quirky gift rather than presenting yet another “Oh. My. God. Who invited her?”-type scenario. My husband didn’t help matters by suggesting I write “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!” on the birthday card – which was entirely predictable considering his fine tradition of wanting to Just Watch (see “Boob-a-licious“).
And with my package in hand, I set off for her birthday cocktail party, still wondering if I should separate the card from the present so that when it was opened I could claim it was from me (or not) depending on the general reaction of the crowd.
But in the end, I stood by my purchase. After all, I was putting the “cock” back into “cocktail”, right? (CUE: laughter). And JS was, in turns, confused, amused, good-humoured and (I think) utterly delighted with her gift.
Still, people shouldn’t invite me places, really. That goes without saying.
You’ve just upped the ante for yourself on the birthday present front. All your friends (ie: me) will be wanting one.
That is the best damned present ever!
hahahaaa – I want to know which shop I go to to get one! hahahaa
Great present. Your signature vouchering move has obviously not damaged your quirky gift-giving powers.
Wonderful.
Looking forward to your blog post about accidentally getting a friend a Birthday Present of a night with two Russian hookers.
(this is NOT a hint; I’d like a book)
I wonder what type of Google searches will find your blog now…
But my biggest question is – what is that woman doing rubbing it on her cheek?? And that little hand thing is very creepy!
I know I would be delighted with such a gift. I think you know the only back scratching I receive comes with strings attached. Not if I owned one of these little beauties it wouldn’t. What is that thing doing on her cheek?
It is clearly evident that I am not looking hard enough for good birthday gifts. I hang my head in shame. Did it also include a self-hickey attachment, perhaps that is what she has suctioned to her cheek ??
My mum had one of these…! I remember playing with the plastic hand. As a kid it’s fun to be scratched by a robot doll’s hand. But I don’t remember the vibrator attachment… she must’ve discarded the hand to us kids and just kept the rest separate (!).
I wonder if she believed that it was an accident. Very funny story! (She may just get more use out of this than you thought….)
The backscratcher hand on the package. I have to say that it looks very like a zombie hand. It has that creepy undead grasping thing going for it. So…for all of your autoerotic electro-necrophiliac needs, I guess. I just get this mental image of the woman with the piled-up hairdo and her face-massaging friend having an intimate moment while a tiny dismembered electric zombie hand creeps across the floor, bent on their demise. And Face Massager picks it up, looks wickedly at Hairdo, and things suddenly take a turn for the 1970s…
Junglemonkey – you’ve seen the film Reanimator then?
There was a Mad Men episode where Peggy has to road-test one of these before coming up with campaign copy. With hilarious (and immaculately retro) consequences.
And here was I thinking I was good at quirky, original gifts because I found a Shakespeare poseable action figure for a writer friend’s birthday.
I bet your gift made all the other gifts at the party look boring and predictable. Well done.
Hopefully this comment will go some way in responding to the above comments and the floods of tweets and emails I’ve received (and yes, for the record, one email = a flood).
I. THE ATTACHMENTS
From left to right:
1. “For all over body massage”
(Please note the inclusion of the word ALL)
2. “For stimulating massage of the head and scalp”
(Doesn’t specify which head)
3. “For face to invigorate and tone up the skin”
(Definitely = hickey)
4. “For stimulating massage of the face after makeup”
(Or makeshift powder-puff to cover up hickey)
5. “For soothing vibration to relieve that nervous itch.”
(I think I’ve already covered that).
II. “PRE-LOVED”
A lot of people on twitter seem unduly troubled by the fact it is “pre-loved” – or rather, in their words (not mine) “second hand”.
I have already stressed to these people that there is only one hand attachment – there is no “second” one. I then laughed at my own joke for at least five seconds.
I think the fact the thing no longer works – and no, not because I broke it or anything – means that it is unlikely to present any health risk to JS or her family. As far as I know.
III. “THE MOVIE”
I don’t know about anyone else but I think junglemonkey is definitely onto something.
You tickle my fancy baby.
Love,
Leif
oh that is hilarious
i remember reading that they used to be seen in the 50′s as ‘medicinal’ 
It’s precisely filth like this that will be banned with the government’s new internet filter.
umm is the mild mannered lawyer actually serious..please tell me it’s not true!!!
why do you think it doesn’t work – did you try? by the way a brilliant present
I’ve tried coming to terms with what this is – or is pretending to be – but I still can’t get my head round it.
Thanks for the extra photos but it’s all still totally mindboggling. Junglemonkey’s film pitch is the only sensible thing I’ve heard on this matter. Totally sensible.
I THINK that is the best gift EVER!
hee hee hee still laughing … but the vital bit of info … where does one show for vintage er arhh ‘hardware’ of this nature … it’s a show stopper for sure
best le
I’m obviously not shopping in the right Vintage shops/markets! (of which London has many). I love the idea of the poseable Shakespeare figure, it gives me hope that my search for the poseable Phillip Roth figure is not in vain.
OMG, this post has made me spurt my coffee across my work computer’s monitor and snort and laugh hard and then basically choke on my snorting. But let me tell you, this is *GOLD*, NDM, *GOLD*. The mistaken identity on the gift, the horror realisation and then resultant triumph in quirkiness….this is the receipe for all good stories at your own expense! Loved it, loved it!!!!!
See, no one ever gives me presents like this. I want a girlfriend like you …
[...] THIS WEEK’S OFFERING: “The Inadvertent Vibrator“. [...]
Remind me never to do a secret santa at your place. I don’t need any inadvertent vibrators. (Wait – that doesn’t sound right …)
I should probably chip in here and say that back in the 50′s massagers were often called vibrators because that’s what they did>vibrate. Totally coincidental that they could be used for “that special itch” too.