20+ People Shared Stories About the Worst Gifts They’ve Ever Gotten

Donald Duck, a character in the Disney animated series Duck Tales, once said to his girlfriend, “Honey, I wanted to buy you a diamond ring, but the jewelry store was closed, so I bought you a yogurt.” Some people seem to follow the same principle in life. With a poker face, they can present their loved ones with a pen they found in their bag, a frayed comb with hair sticking out of it, or a lint remover for cleaning clothes. These situations have even happened to a 12-year-old birthday boy, and the people who give these presents can be your own grandmother, aunt, or mom and dad.

Internet users recently shared stories about these kinds of ridiculous birthday gifts. We at Bright Side chose the ones that seemed the most absurd to us.

• My grandparents had a low income and were very cost-conscious. One year, they got me a second-hand coloring book from a thrift store. It was almost completely colored, and it appeared to be a 3-year-old with a single green felt pen who had colored everything. By the way, I was 18 when my grandparents thought it was a good gift because it was Disney related and I was going to college for animation and design... © Vyper28 / reddit

• My dad got a tattoo on his chest of his birth sign. This was his gift to me when I was probably 12 years old. He hyped it up all week, as if he had gotten me some great gift, like a Nintendo 64 video game console. © frenchfreer / reddit

• My own scarf. Yes, that’s right, my mother went into my room, took my only scarf, wrapped it, and gave it to me like it was a new scarf. © sneakysnakeeeee / reddit

• My grandparents have been gifting me and my brother the same set of 3 vice grips for almost 10 years. Collectively, we have 60 vice grips. I don’t know if they bought a pallet of them... Or where they are even coming from? © mikeardigan / reddit

• My best friend got me a deep red candle she bought at a 99-cent store. It was in the shape of a flower, there was no smell, but it had glitter all over it. It happened in high school. She just pulled it out of her backpack and said, “Here. Happy Birthday.” © tacospizzaunicorn / reddit

• When I was 8 years old, I was growing sunflowers with my mom one summer. My aunt decided to get me some fertilizer for the flowers for my birthday. So on my birthday, I unwrapped my present and saw what looked like a tub of vanilla ice cream. But when I opened it, there was horse sh*t in it. Literally. © JPO_5×5 / reddit

• In high school, I really got into learning how to play the guitar. All I had at the time was a beat-up acoustic guitar. My birthday came around. I saw a wrapped present — a fairly large box in the living room. For some reason, I was sure that my parents had bought me an electric guitar. But I was wrong. They gave me... a blender. © One_yed_Man / reddit

• I played soccer in high school because my narcissistic father wanted to live vicariously through me. He once framed his old jersey and gave it to me as a birthday present. Like I was supposed to worship it. © mindfeces / reddit

• A used DVD of The Notebook. And I got this present after I explicitly told the person that I had no intention of watching it. This person was my stepmom. The DVD was from her and my dad’s DVD collection. This collection was stored in our living room. I could have grabbed it at any time to watch.
  I want to clarify that my stepmother is not evil at all, she just slowly became more and more forgetful and her behavior often had no explanation. © RockClimber247 / reddit

• I have been stung by a bee 3 times in my life, and all of them were on my birthday. I was 3, 14, and 25 years old. © HandsomeLakitu / reddit

• I got a pair of pajamas. The only problem was that they weren’t made yet. It was just the fabric and a promise to make them for me. I had to give the fabric back. I never got the pajamas. © Revenge_of_the_Khaki / reddit

• I got a pool cue when I was 15. I was so excited thinking my parents got a pool table. Nope. I got a pool cue even though I didn’t have a pool table. © piaband / reddit

• My dad bought me a shoe care kit so I could shine his shoes. I even found a picture of the kit I got. © Alantsu / reddit

• My ex-boyfriend presented me with a small, flat box on my birthday. Inside, there was a passport. His passport. That’s it. Just his passport. No tickets for a trip, no promises of a trip once we saved up together. He literally just gifted me his passport. I’m still baffled.
  I want to clarify — I accepted the gift out of politeness and didn’t ask about the plans for a trip. We ate dinner, went home, and the whole thing was pretty much forgotten about as far as I can remember. We broke up a few years later. His passport played no role in my life. © katzenmiauen / reddit

• The book 1001 Ways to Cook Chicken. I’m vegan. To be fair, I will note that this person simply didn’t know that I was vegan. And the gift was presented for a housewarming party. © ShoEveRevNot / reddit

• On my birthday, my mother-in-law showed up and said to get ready because she had booked me a glamorous photoshoot in an hour. This happened a few weeks after I had a baby. Of course, I declined. It feels like she’s always hated me. © RoadFlowerVIP / reddit

• One guy gave me 3 salami sticks on our first date. SALAMI! It turned out that he works at a meat processing plant and he stole it especially for me. On our second date, he brought a huge box of chocolates with 10 tiny chocolates inside. This guy has a rich imagination. © Overheard / Ideer

• After our wedding, for all my birthdays, my mother-in-law constantly gave me dishes while saying, “You need it, you have a young family. If you don’t like it, just give it to your wife.” I won’t say that this annoyed me a lot, but I finally made a decision and handed her a set of screwdrivers for her birthday while saying, “If you don’t like the present, give it to my father-in-law.” The rays of hatred from my mother-in-law’s eyes almost burned right through me. Since then, she stopped giving me any kitchen utensils. © PivBea / Pikabu

• In 1994, my admirer who was a bit crazy gave me a cow. He always presented me with some nasty stuff like plastic flowers. After having a fight about it, he called me and told me to go to the balcony. There, in the February mud, was a cow tied to a lamp post outside of my house in the city center. I tried to call my admirer, but he was away on a business trip for a month. Then some guys bought the cow from me, but with the agreement that I would deliver it to them. I had no money for a truck, and I had to drag myself across the city with a cow on a leash made of my mother’s robe. The most ridiculous thing is that the cow only moved forward if she heard a voice. Maybe, there were other ways to control the cow, but I didn’t know them. At first, when we walked, I told her, “Come on, go, go.” And I felt terribly stupid. So I recited out loud all the poems that I remembered by heart, and I had to walk for 2 and a half hours. © Sitnikova Marina / Facebook

• I got a credit card for my 18th birthday from my father, and he told me not to use it because it wasn’t “active yet.” When I landed my first real corporate job at 22, the company ran a credit report on me and found out I had $ 350,000 in debt. It turned out my father had tricked me into signing a co-mortgage and not credit card paperwork. So I got into debt on my 18th birthday. © masteroffeels / reddit

What ridiculous gifts have you gotten?