The Lamest Bridal Shower Gift of All Time

Yesterday I was invited to a bridal shower. Not just any bridal shower, mind you, but a small, intimate, classy bridal shower for one of my new coworkers.  The guest list was about... oh... ten women long.  Yes, really.  And they wanted me there.  ME.

I don't know what they were thinking.  Do they not really know me?  Apparently they do not.  Don't get me wrong, I felt truly honored to be among the elite few.  And all things considered, I knew these women well enough, and the situation was controlled enough that I didn't have any real social anxiety over it.  However, this all meant that I needed to take a shower gift with me.

That's where it all fell apart.

Last week I went online to the "Bed Bath and Beyond" website to peruse the gift registry.  I decided that I would buy this lovely, LOVELY slate cutting board.  I have a special place in my heart for cutting boards because I have strong feelings about knives, and strong preferences about cutting boards.  I thought this one looked like one I would like.

I give you the intended bridal shower gift:

The website told me I could pick it up in store, so I pulled the trigger on the big daddy cutting board, and a spoon rest or some such other ridiculous item.  However, two hours later, BB&B emailed me to say that my items weren't available and my order was cancelled.

Seriously?

My excellent plan was thwarted, and I realized that I needed a back up plan.  Seeing as to how I was really peeved with BB&B, I perused the Target gift list instead.  Crikey!  The Target (pronounced tar-ZHAY in my head thankyouverymuch) list was miles long, so I decided I would just go to Target early Saturday morning and find something else that I liked.

Yesterday morning, full off coffee and cheer (ok, maybe just full of coffee) I trundled over to Target and printed out the registry list.

It was nine items long.  NINE.  There were NINE ITEMS AVAILABLE IN STORE.  The heck you say! Not only that, but most of the nine items had very minimal descriptions, and NO PICTURES.  Who doesn't put pictures on a list like that?  Target apparently.

So armed with this list I decided that I'd love to get her a "Down Throw".  I wandered and searched... couldn't find a stoopid down throw.  Next item up was a canister set. What the hooey is a canister set I asked myself?  I didn't know, so I moved on.  Item three:  shower caddy!  Oh YAY!  Except... they didn't have that particular caddy, or if they did I couldn't find it.

By this time I had to pee like a racehorse (remember that coffee?) and I was desperately trying to wrap this thing up.  Besides, I only had about an hour and a half to get to the shower by that point, and I still had to buy veggies for the veggie tray, chop and prepare said tray, and get cleaned up and drive over there!

But I digress.  The next reasonable item was a Pyrex set.  I thought to myself, "That's cool!  I love Pyrex sets!"  Unfortunately for me, they had every set in stock except for the set I was looking for.  I know this because I looked at the UPC codes on every. single. one.

By that time I was getting desperate in so many ways.

I finally came to an item that I could recognize.  I had seen one about 30 minutes before.  I knew where it was, and I knew what it looked like - no pictures needed.  Full of shame I trundled over a few aisles and put into my cart what has to be The Lamest Bridal Shower Gift of All Time.

To a Bridal Shower, I took...

wait for it...

A big black plastic trash can.

To make matters worse (yeah, because clearly this wasn't already humiliating enough) I then had to figure out how to wrap the stupid thing.

Not even the yummy smelling candle I wrapped and placed inside of it could make up for this:

I'm thinking there's a chance I may never get invited to another bridal shower again.  Ever.