Monday, December 14, 2009

Blocks of wood make great gifts

As I procrastinate on my Christmas shopping again this year, I remembered one of my all-time worst gifts which I so graciously gave to my only brother. Sorry Chad.

I think I was about 11 years old and I had this cool box car kit. It came with wheels, nails to put the wheels on, and a wood block. It sat in my drawer for a long time until I decided that I was going to put it to good use and make a really cool, homemade gift for my older brother, Chad. He is my only sibling, which is unfortunate, because he got lots of crappy gifts from me and had no other source for gifts except my parents.

So, I started on my project. I went out to the garage and started carefully shaving wood chunks off what was meant to be the front of the car. Thankfully, I had my trusty cub scout pocket knife to assist me, but after carving off the edges to create my masterpiece (a grueling 20 minutes or so) I realized it was going to be pretty hard work and it was going to take a while. I decided I needed a break and went inside for a glass of lemonade. Unfortunately, I never worked on it again and before I knew it Christmas had rolled around. So, I put the wheels on (but I did that wrong because they didn't actually turn) and wrapped it up (actually, I think I had my mom wrap it). I didn't paint it. I didn't draw cool logos on it. I just ... put the wheels on. It didn't even look like a car. It looked like a piece of wood that had been used as a door jam for a while ... and then someone ... put wheels on it. As you can expect, it wasn't his favorite Christmas. Sorry Chad.

2 comments:

Suzanne said...

Ha, ha! I can just picture you doing this. :)

Kelsey Donahue said...

Toby, this is SO you! Welcome back to blogging...you should write more often, these make me laugh. :)