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Indignity Vol. 2, No. 102: 2022 Last-Minute Drugstore Gift Guide

SERVICE JOURNALISM DEP'T.

JOE MACLEOD

Dec 23, 2022 — 5 min read

Who's completely out of time and ideas for Xmas? You are! Ho Ho Ohhh!

IT’S THE FRIDAY before Christmas, or worse, it’s Christmas Eve, and you are a terrible person. You either have a horrible office thing or a horrible family thing, and you are empty-handed. There’s an aisle at the drugstore that’s just for you!

We keep trying to find different drug stores to go to, but they all keep turning into Walgreens, so let’s say for the sake of argument you’re gonna go to Walgreens, OK? Sure, right, what choice do you have? Ho ho!

Walgreens is to be commended this year for a lovely assortment of crap that costs five bucks, so if you’re the type of person who loves to get over at the office $20-limit Secret Santa, this is your jam, you cheap fuck.

First up is ALUMINUM HOOK, holy moley, it’s so you can carry all the bags you’re gonna stuff full of merch from Walgreens! Five bucks!

Next to it is a classic office gift, the BOSS STRESS BALL. Squeeze the shit out of this rubber goon! Take that, boss! Unless YOU are the boss, in which case go fuck yourself, ho ho ho! I squeeze your head!

SILICONE ICE CUBE TRAY is for that asshole you know who never shuts up about Single-Malt Scotch, and how they like to have large ice cubes to drop in and “open up” the aromatics, blah-blah, SNORE. Give them this and fool them into thinking you’ve been paying attention to them yammering on and on trying to educate you about their precious drams. A $30 pour of Single-Malt Scotch or two-for-one speedrack vodka, what’s the difference, they both get you there!

SMALL POUCH is an incredible gift because you can stuff it full of other gifts, or knowing you, stuff it full of paper to make it look bigger when you wrap it!

DINO WASHER DOOR STOPPER is a real puzzler from me, because there’s a suction cup, and I don;t understand the WASHER part, and no I’m not gonna read the label, I’m just gonna buy this for my friend’s kid who likes dinosaurs. Stick it to your forehead, junior!

Another good (cheap) kid gift is WILD THING JIGSAW, 100 pieces will keep ’em busy while you and Single-Malt Scotch go out in the hall to vape some sort of cannabis juice and you realize all you needed to handle this bozo was a lungful of nice-nice. “Peating? Wow, that’s wild.”

If you have to work in an office, we do not recommend FOOT ROLLER as an office gift on account of it might encourage people to take off their shoes and possibly socks, and it’s probably the same person who microwaves goddamn shrimp in the break room.

HAPPY MIND is a great passive-aggressive gift for the person in your life who stops looking at their phone so they can look at their tablet. They’ll never look at it because it’s boring paper with printing on it, but you made your point!

Here’s the first official “gag gift,” SNORE STOPPER, but again, excellent passive-aggressive for a co-worker. “Yeah, you can punch yourself in the face with this the next time you fall asleep in your cubicle, ha ha. No, that doesn’t make sense, but use it anyway. I’m just kidding, I gave it to you so you can deal with that person in the cubicle next to you. What do you mean I know perfectly well your cubicle is all the way in the corner and you don’t have any neighbors, I guess I haven’t walked by there in awhile? Anyway, what did you get me?”

MAGNETIC SAND TIMER is another excellent office gift for yourself! Keep it on your desk and tip it when Single Malt Scotch stops by your desk to blabber about the bottle he just bought, and just stare at the timer.

MAGNETIC BOOKMARK is for what, metal books? Did anybody think this one through? Do people need bookmarks on their refrigerator? If we got this we’d be mad. INSTANT RE-GIFT™. We didn’t get a chance to scrutinize the item on the left, what the hell is that, a tool set? Why is it important to know there’s a 1 COUNT?

There’s a warning in the unit price of the YANKEE CANDLE three-pack, because anybody who gives out a cookie-scented candle is going to burn in cookie-scented Hell.

Every year there’s some sort of PLUSH-LUMP CUDDLE-FLOOF, and this year’s model has lights in it, OK, sure, why not!

For the family, nothing says you have completely given up as much as the “gift” of SLIPPERS. If only they were all the same color and size, then you wouldn’t have to make any decisions!

Don’t forget to wrap that gift, the paper is 51 cents cheaper than the gift you probably bought, oh oh oh!

Of course if you really have to show you cared (spent $$$) there’s always the GIFT CARD rack, and if you really have no idea about the person you have to give it to, get ’em a VISA card. “Here, person, I SPENT MONEY because it’d be vulgar to just hand you a fucking twenty.”