Fake Gift Boxes
Largish Gag Gift Boxes
Delivered at the Most Inopportune of Times
— Like the Wednesday Board Meeting
— To the Yacht Club Picnic
— To the Birthday Bash
— The Bachelorette Party
— The Stag Party
— The Wedding Shower
— During Your Mark’s Corporate Address
— The Company Picnic
— To Your Mark’s Hospital Room
— To Your Friend, the Attorney, in the Middle of His/Her Opening Argument
— To Your Psych Prof, During Class
— To the School Principal, During His Assembly Speech
— To David Letterman, While He’s ON THE AIR
–The Possibilities are Limited Only by Your L.O.G. (Lack of Guts….)
Roast the living daylights out of your “friend” by delivering this carton to her office.
Or gift wrap and present at her bridal shower. Leave it on her doorstep.
Send to her parents (by mistake). For her birthday?
How in the heck did we ever come up with an idea like this? Are we insane?
Skip the Cheesy Story and Go to the Product
Regrettably, no, we’re not quite…..certifiable yet. If we were, we’d be enjoying a relaxing game of invisible lawn bowling in some upstate looney bin, barking like a dog and talking to the Queen, not a bloody care in the world.
Many years ago, the owner of TrixiePixGraphics owed a friend some loot —about $5500.
This guy — the owner of TrixiePixGraphics — was a chronic malcontent and trouble-maker even then. So when it came time to pay back the money, he couldn’t simply write his friend a check.
A trip to the local bank revealed that rural banks don’t really carry as much cash as one might surmise. Instead, this guy, the owner of TrixiePixGraphics, (we’ll call him “Bob”), had to pay several hundred dollars to have $5500 in “ones” delivered by armored truck from a bank in a nearby larger city which did have that much currency on hand.
Much to Bob’s chagrin, however, even $5500 in $1s, packed neatly into a large shipping carton, wasn’t all that impressive. So Bob and friends stayed up half the night removing the stacks from their money-bands, and individually crumpling each and every bill. Now it looked like a bunch of money.
Bob’s friend was living in Alaska at the time. Bob assumed he lived in a house or an apartment—whatever. So Bob insured the crate of loot for $5500 and shipped it off to Alaska, secure in the knowledge that his friend would get a chuckle out of the joke.
What Bob hadn’t counted on, however, was that his friend lived in a hand-built log cabin seven miles by foot-trail from the nearest postal station, which was nothing more than an 8 by 25 foot travel trailer, far out in the bush of rural Alaska. About once a month Bob’s friend loaded his rifle for bears and made the four hour trek to the post office to see if anyone had written him a note.
As luck would have it, Bob’s friend arrived at the postal trailer on the first of the month. The first of any month in rural Alaska is a big day, as most government subsidy checks arrive by bush plane for all the indigenous people’s of rural Alaska. This was a typical first of the month—the trailer was jammed with patrons wanting their checks, and the line extended several hundred yards back down the trail. Many very rural Alaskans are “frugal”. They live on a few thousand or even a few hundred bucks a year, and money is always tight. On the first of every month, however, the population indulges— in anything and everything. The drinking begins immediately, and lasts, for many, until the money is gone. The Alaska bush harbors some odd fellows and gals, and it’s not uncommon that by the evening of the first, the backwoods is rockin’.
Finally, just before dark, Bob’s friend managed to get his turn at the General-Delivery counter in the tiny trailer. The postal clerk handed him a largish carton. Bob’s friend was perplexed. Thinking it might be a mistake, he decided to move over to an adjacent counter and open it right then and there.
Unfortunately, Bob’s friend wasn’t paying alot of attention when he opened the box, and a handful of crumpled bills spilled out of the overflowing carton. This immediately caught the attention of the natives, several of whom cautiously drew closer to get a better look into the box—and with the synchronicity of a school of herring the realization struck them that here was more money than they had ever freaking seen. It was a fortune.
Bob’s friend realized the danger immediately, and slapped the flaps closed on the box, and, forgetting about the handful of bills on the floor, bolted for the door and away down the trail, hoping he could maintain a sprinting pace all the way home—seven long miles in the dark.
His later recounting of the tale brought to mind visions from 1930’s black and white Frankenstein movies, where the entire village rushes the castle with burning torches and pitchforks, and that seems to pretty-well describe Bob’s friend’s mad dash for the safety of home, with a herd of slavering drunken natives hot on his heels.
He did make it safely, having lost only a few hundred bucks to the poorly sealed box, and to small rips and tears in the cardboard from falling onto rocks in the dark, and from limbs and brush tearing at the carton as he ran. Of course the sporadic trail of bills only served to spur his pursuers onward, like Hansel and Gretel following the trail of breadcrumbs.
Bob’s friend reported that when he made his cabin the natives were not far behind—only seconds, perhaps. And that he barely had time to shove the carton under a table before the pounding at the door began. The natives just wanted to talk, of course—so said they. But Bob’s friend didn’t feel like talking, and steadfastly refused their kind offers and deals. He said about fifty men, women and children hung around until almost daylight, even braving a light blanket of snow that fell during the cold night. Kind offers of items, wives and children for sale, proposals of business partnerships, and threats of bodily dismemberment finally turned ugly, and occasional spats of gunfire broke out. But the cabin was strong, and no fatalities were reported. Some of the more determined tried to hack their ways through the roof with hatchets, but to no avail—Bob’s friend poked them with sticks whenever an opening in the shingles appeared. And one of the group had found a rusty timberjack somewhere, and was busily trying to insert it between the logs of the cabin, so as to thereby gain unwelcome entry and have a talk with Bob’s friend on more equal terms. But Bob’s friend dissuaded them from this activity as well.
At daybreak the unruly mob gave up. All except an old Aleut woman and a child—surely her grandson. The woman was convinced that violence was not the answer to gaining access to Bob’s friend’s funds. So she set up camp and spent another 24 hours singing to Bob’s friend, non-stop—some high, sour, wailing native song, screached out like dry fingernails dragged across a blackboard. Bob’s friend said she just finally went away. We think he paid her off.
In any case, Bob’s friend got his loot, and Bob got his entertainment, and in the end, all was well and good.