- A mug that isn’t dishwasher safe. Come on, Hanna. We’ve been friends since elementary school. You know I’m going to put that “What would Brené do?” mug in the dishwasher and melt it into an unusable shape and spill hot coffee into my lap when the lid no longer fits.
- A picture-less Mensa puzzle. A puzzle where all the pieces are the same color and the shapes make no sense is supposed to be “fun?” This will take me years to complete. And the barely assembled puzzle is spread over the dining room table, so we won’t be hosting Christmas dinner this year. I get it, I didn’t test into the gifted program like you did in elementary school.
- A hammock. Hanna, you know a hammock is a death trap because you laughed hysterically when I fell out of one in seventh grade at Trevor’s birthday party. Have you tried to get in or out of a hammock lately?
- An orchid. Stupid fucking orchids. Sure, they look beautiful and delicate if well maintained. But they should be kept in an east- to south-facing window, in a room where the temperature is 15 degrees cooler at night and with fifty to seventy percent humidity. Hanna, you know I am incapable of accommodating this many needs. Remember that time Trevor gave me that orchid corsage for junior prom, confessed his love for me, told me he could only imagine a future with me, and I told him he was too needy and I could not be responsible for his feelings? Orchids are like Trevor—they just need too much.
- A robotic vacuum. This gift seems well-intentioned because you know we have a golden retriever that never stops shedding, but I still don’t know what you meant when you wrote in the card that came with the gift, “Can help pick up the pieces of the broken hearts you have shattered.” And I have a hard time believing in self-driving cars and A.I. that can take us to space when my allegedly “smart” vacuum gets stuck under the same couch, in the same exact spot, every single day.
- Books of daily affirmations. Hanna, you know I am neither deep nor disciplined enough to develop a daily practice of meditating to quotes from Oprah, Hoda Kotb, and Winnie the Pooh! And I noticed you marked the page with the Arthur Miller quote, “Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” What betrayal? Has this been about Trevor? We’ve been through this so many times—I didn’t know you were in love with him when I accepted his invitation to the prom!
- Cameo Message from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. For a minute and thirty seconds, she berated me, calling me a “Maskhole,” a “radical socialist,” and a “scared little girl who is pretty stupid.” Then she ended the call by telling me I was a bitch for stealing Trevor from you. Hanna, you do know I did you a favor right? There was no future with Trevor. He is wanted by the FBI for arms dealing for the Russian Mafia.
- A bag of feces.
- A tiger. Yes, it was funny when I cut my own bangs and we joked I looked like Joe Exotic, but that was about the extent of my infatuation with The Tiger King, much less with tigers. But you left a full-grown tiger in our backyard with a note that read “Pet tigers sometimes kill their owners just like you killed any chance of my having a relationship with Trevor.” Again, Hanna, let me remind you junior prom was two decades ago and you are happily married with a lovely life in the suburbs. Also, you left us with no food, no cage, no care instructions for the tiger. She’s been pacing back and forth in our backyard for days, looking for meat. We went vegan months ago so we’ve thrown her a few Beyond Burgers but she has not been fooled.
- Plutonium-239. Hanna, you must know the half-life of plutonium-239 is 82 million years! Have you considered what the storage and security costs are going to run me? And did you give out my personal information when obtaining the nuclear material because Kim Jong-un has been texting and emailing me non-stop since you left that metal tube covered with radioactive warning stickers on our front porch? Wait, did you buy this from Trevor?
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