Toys vs. Clothes: The Gay Uncle's Dilemma

I don't think I've ever met anyone who has never shaken a gift as a child, hoping that a nice toy or electronic device was inside instead of clothes. Remember the disappointment when you lifted one of your gifts and you didn't hear a rattling of parts? Do you recall the malaise and slight anger you felt when you finally opened a gift and saw that it wasn't the Nintendo 64 you wanted, but instead turned out to be a box full of pants that didn't quite fit? Didn't you just want to strangle your parents with the tacky clothes that you knew would incite laughter and wedgies from the other children you went to school with? I held onto this clothes-gift animosity for years, well into my adult life. But recent events have changed my views on this matter and now I only give clothes to children for the holidays or birthdays.

I don't have children of my own (one of the many perks of not being able to get pregnant because I'm gay and not a woman), so I'd have a few extra bucks to spend on my sisters' kids during the holidays. One year, one of my nieces told me that she wanted a Barbie doll and another niece told me that she wanted a Fur Real Pet, so I braved the holiday madness at Toys R Us to get them those particular toys. Two hours and sixty five dollars later, I returned home from the toy store thinking that I was the super uncle and that toys equaled affection.

They opened their gifts the next day and the niece who got the expensive as hell Fur Real Pet simply shrugged it off and tossed it aside to see what else she got. The niece who asked for the Barbie was utterly appalled to find that I'd purchased a caramel-skinned Barbie instead of the Caucasian Barbie. Two months after that, neither of them knows where their Christmas gifts have disappeared to.

The three Christmas martinis that I'd consumed prior to the gift opening were the only things able to calm my disappointment that night. There's nothing worse than thinking that your hard work and time spent are going to score big with the little ones and later finding that it didn't really matter all that much to them. It's not really their fault because they don't know any better. They don't really care that you almost got into a fist fight with a person who cut in line in front of you at the toy store the day before. They don't realize that you could have spent that $65 on a month's worth of groceries or a week's worth of personal lubricant for yourself.

After that incident, I decided that I'd feel more comfortable purchasing things that I know my sisters' kids will use on a regular basis. It's actually a lot more personal to buy a cool outfit rather than a crummy old toy that any old schmo can pick up at a toy store because you need a keen eye and a sense of what works on the child in question. Those are things that come naturally to a gay man and I don't know why it took me so long to realize that. A gay uncle who gives toys instead of fashionable clothes is like a butcher who sells cheese instead of steaks. It just doesn't make sense.