There comes a time when you’re buying or making a gift for someone and you’re trying to think of how they’ll react to it. If they’re like me, they would react very favourably towards a winning lottery ticket, to a horse or a pony, and probably fairly well towards something like a bouquet of large white daisies. And then there’s sometimes when you hand over a gift and watch that friend or colleague rip open the wrapping paper eagerly only to see that huge look of disappointment cross their face before they compose themselves again and look up with a fake smile pasted on their face going “Wow, thanks, just what I always wanted.” And how do you avoid those awkward moments where you just know they’re thinking to themselves “I am going to be regifting this as soon as humanly possible”? Easy, avoid giving them anything on this list.

• Items for personal hygiene. Don’t give people mouthwash, toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant or soap. It’s rude, it will make them think that they have horrible personal hygiene. Even if that is the case, it is still rude. The only acceptable items for personal hygiene would be things from a store such as The Body Shop. And, even then, only if you know that person likes things like that.
• Pet supplies when the person A) is allergic, B) doesn’t have a pet or C) just lost their dearly beloved Fluffy to the friendly neighbourhood coyote.
• Please, please, please don’t regift fruitcake. I know that no one likes it during Christmas time (and if you do, you’re one sick human being). I also know that those things can be as hard as a rock, and they just never seen to develop mold or anything. But it is still not appropriate to regift baked goods. Especially not fruitcake. And please don’t ever regift it outside of the week of Christmas. No one wants a fruitcake in the month of July.
• Please do not give people pregnancy tests. I mean, sure, it’s funny and cute if you give it to someone as a gag gift (and it’s followed closely by a real gift, hopefully nothing related to being pregnant or babies), but giving someone a pregnancy test for their birthday or for Christmas is just inappropriate. However, there are exceptions to every rule and when a pregnancy test is appropriate is when you’re cutely telling someone (i.e. the father of fetus) that you’re preggers. In which case, congratulations.
• Giving someone an object that represents a phobia that you know that they have is both inappropriately and unnecessarily cruel (unless they happened to give you soap, a fruitcake or a pregnancy test because they think you’ve got a bit of a baby bump). So, say you know that your neighbour’s daughter is afraid of spiders. Don’t get her a living tarantula. Don’t decorate her room with fake cobwebs. If your brother’s girlfriend is afraid of snakes. Don’t get her one of those cans that opens up to let snakes pop out and drape a rubber snake around her neck.
• Don’t give someone who’s recovering something that will let them slip back into an addiction. For example, don’t give a smoker who quit cold turkey a package of cigarettes. Don’t give an alcoholic a bottle of tequila or vodka. Don’t give someone who used to cut themselves anything with a sharp edge. Don’t give someone who’s recovering from anorexia or bulimia a scale or a piece of paper with their BMI (Body Mass Index) written on it.
• Don’t give your exboyfriend’s new girlfriend a photo frame that ‘just happens’ to have one of those ‘bedroom’ photos of you and your exboyfriend from when you two were still dating. However, if you really wanted to be cruel, you would photoshop the date on the photo to be a day when those two had already started dating. Just a thought…
• Giving your uber-religious (virgin) friend a gift bag full of condoms would be kind of embarrassing. Especially if her parents are in the room when she receives them. But I must say, it would make for an excellent photo op moment!
• Getting your friend a blow-up doll for his birthday after his girlfriend of 5+ years just broke up with him is kind of needlessly mean. I mean, he just got dumped, do you really need to rub it in his face that he’s no longer getting any and therefore must resort to air-filled rubber? Probably not.
• I personally think that Post-Its are awesome. They are incredibly useful and I use them for tagging notes onto anything and everything. However, if you were to find a pad of yellow Post-Its, write ‘Happy #th Birthday, Name’ on it and then give that, and only that, to someone on their birthday. You will end up being viewed as the most stingiest party patron there is and it’s unlikely that you’ll be invited again. And it’s even more inappropriate if this is at someone’s splashy, media-frenzy party. What would make it even more inappropriate is if the person just happens to be allergic to the type of adhesive that 3M uses on their Post-It products. I mean, seriously, the world’s most lame gift, being photographed by a popular tabloid and breaking into a rash? Talk about being inappropriate.