The Manic Attack

Best gifts given and received

Week 26, prompt 3 - "Welcome To My Reality Forum"  - "What's the best gift you've ever given, and the best you've ever received? Think of actual gifts for birthdays, special occasions, etc."

I don’t really remember any special gifts I’ve given people because I’ve been broke for so long as an adult that I generally don’t give gifts, not even for birthdays, Christmas, etc. If I can mention a non-holiday, I’ll say the best gift I gave someone was for a homeless man. He was outside of a mall at the Rubio’s restaurant across the way, and was basically asking people for spare change. I asked him if he had eaten lunch already and when he said no, I invited him in with me to buy him a lunch, a burrito or something like that. We ate together and talked, and he told me about himself. He had a good job before but lost it and then eventually lost his house, and sometimes stayed with his sister but she wasn’t very nice so she didn’t let him stay with her all the time. He slept outside most nights because he got kicked out of the homeless shelter for fighting, even though it was another guy who instigated the scuffle. So he’s banned from the shelter. After eating lunch, I asked him if he had a jacket. I could tell he didn’t because all he had on him was a t-shirt, jeans, shoes, and he was carrying multiple bags with plastic bottles to take to the recycling center. He didn’t bring the bags into the restaurant when we ate; rather he left them by the dumpster. So when he said he didn’t have a jacket, I took him into the mall and bought him a sweat jacket from Sears if I recall correctly. He was so thankful and grateful, and it was really nothing because it only cost about $20 because it was on sale. But I knew he was cold at night because even though it was summer (last summer) it got pretty chilly at night. He said he mostly slept in the back yards of foreclosed homes where the people had moved out already. It was so sad listening to his story, so I tried my best to do what I could in the moment.

The best gift I’ve received was a surprise party for my 18th birthday. My mom set it up, and she got hold of my best friend’s phone number somehow, then got to invite my other friends from my high school. I went to an all-girls Catholic college preparatory high school in Oakland, CA. I had many more friends there than I did in the trashy, rundown public high school I previously went to for freshman and sophomore year. Transferring to that school was the best thing I ever did during my high school academic career. So the party was a complete surprise; I thought I was just going to a Chinese restaurant with my mom and her boyfriend at the time. When we got there, the sever led us to the banquet room in the back and ta-da! Most of my family and several school friends were there. Even my childhood best friend who was already in college was there, and we hadn’t seen each other in a while since we weren’t in school together anymore. That was the best surprise and gift I’ve ever received. I was so touched I think I cried a little. I’ll never forget it.