For good or ill, gift giving amongst my male friends is not very good for birthdays, X-mas, anniversaries, halloween, or any other occasion that normally requires a gift to be given. As far as I am concerned this works out just fine as long as everybody agrees to not give gifts. The moment one guy decides to give a gift to someone then they have broken the unspoken agreement and we are all pretty much confused as to what to do the next time. This story is about my effort to try and confuse the hell out of all my guy friends by giving my good friend Dustin an 18th birthday gift.
In the united states, a males 18th birthday is a significant one as it allows you to purchase cigarettes, vote, join the military, and goto (most) strip clubs. My friend Dustin was having a party at his house for his 18th and Everyone was going. Early on there would be family members and close friends and the latter parts of the evening would bring the rest of the town to make sure Dustin began his adult life as a celebrity in Simi Valley as he still is to this day.
Being a close friend, I was expected to arrive early and partake in the gift giving portion of the day. With about an hour to go I had no gift and I had no idea what I would give him. And then I had one of the greatest ideas I have ever had in my life… I would shit in a box and give it to him. The only way this idea could get into my head, I think, is that I was listening to Kevin and Bean a few weeks earlier and heard them talking to a guy who ran a service where he would mail the shit of his dogs to people and was making a lucrative living on the internet doing this.
In my head, here is how I saw it going down… I would shit in a large box filled with packing peanuts so Dustin would open the box, see the peanuts, and just start digging around with his hands until he eventually found the prize and then everyone would laugh and I would be the coolest person ever. But here is how it actually went down…
I had to find a box, the only box I could find of reasonable size was a box for a mini humidifier that was maybe 8 inches cubed and the cardboard was the same type of cardboard that they use to encapsulate VHS tapes or maybe a box of Oreo’s. So I went into my bathroom and hovered over my toilet. First off, it is difficult to be straining your quads and then take a shit. Second off, I didn’t realize exactly the direction that everything comes out when you are taking a shit. So I hovered over my toilet, held this box underneath me and hoped it would just land right inside. It ended up hitting the side and a little on my finger holding the box. Oh well. I anticipated their might be problems which is why I planned on showering right after. The box was maybe a quarter full, very good quantity as far as I was concerned. I put the box on the sink and jumped in the shower. My bathroom at this time was not that big and the heat from the shower collected easily outside, especially when you need extra time to wash the excrement off your finger after trying to shit in a small box. I got out of the shower only to find that my box o’ shit was starting to melt, not totally, but having the contents turn into liquid was definitely something I needed to deal with quickly. First plan of action was to put the packing peanuts in the box. Of course I had none, so I decided to take about 10 pieces of paper, rip them all up into small shreds and dump them into the box. This had the effect of giving the brown contents a sprinkle effect but in no way did it cover the contents or anything like I had originally planned. Whatever. So I closed the box and then needed to seal it. So I found electrical tape and wrapped the box. I used one really long piece to wrap it horizontally and another to wrap it vertically until I had this black electrical tape cube. I put the cube in a paper grocery bag and then covered that bag with another grocery bag. At this point I was feeling extremely giddy and was just grinning from ear to ear with visions of Dustin opening his gift. I sprayed the bag with a load of cologne, walked to my truck, put the bag in the bed of the truck, and drove to his house rocking out to some happy hardcore trance music.
I show up at Dustin’s house and run inside. I immediately find Dustin and tell him to open my gift, he takes the bag and is about to open it when some family member called him up stairs. He put the bag on the pool table, which was in the center of the house, and said he would be right back. I was almost hysterical at this point. I waited outside on the back patio bouncing up and down and found my other good friend Joe. Nobody else knew about what I had done and I was overflowing with anticipation. I eventually told Joe of what I had done just to be able to share my feeling of extreme excitement with someone. Dustin was upstairs for ages. I remember hearing somebody inside say “What is that smell?” and I just started freaking out with laughter. For all I knew the shit could have completely melted and was liquefied being held in by about 100 yards of electrical tape. We were soon to find out.
Dustin finally came down and I immediately rushed to him and said that he had to open my gift because it was “time sensitive.” He grabbed the bag and went outside. Opened the bag and found a black electrical tape cube which was thankfully not seaping any substances from its cracks. He started removing the tape but it was proving to be difficult for him since it was two really long pieces of tape. A crowd had gathered at this point and every one was curious to see what was in the black cube. His brother Zak came over to help. Zak held the box with his two finger tips while Dustin pulled the tape making the box spin really fast in front of Zak. At this point I almost fell onto the floor laughing. I had visions in my head as they reached the end of the tape and the box opening up and splattering shit all over Dustin and Zak as it spun around super fast because Dustin was pulling the tape so hard. Dustin noticed my condition and asked me… “Luke, what is this? Cat shit?” and I then proceeded to laugh even harder somehow sputtering out “No, of course not. Who would give their best bud cat shit?” And my answer was absolutely pregnant with truth.
Now I would like to write that my vision of the spinning box splattering open actually happened but it didn’t. Dustin slowed down right at the end and took the box from Zak. He opened it up and immediately freaked out and threw it against the wall where it did actually splatter but no persons were directly affected. Everyone around was screaming to know what it was. Joe and I were rolling on the ground struggling to breath. I mean honestly, who shits in a box and gives it to their best friend?
I anticipated revenge but I have made sure to be out of the country for all of my birthdays since then and Dustin has never been able to get me back although I am curious to know what he would do to top that one.