Real friends send you a dead bat in the mail…
…Ok, this story may need some unpacking.
My wife Alice and her friend Betsi have been close since 2005. They met during faculty orientation at a small college in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Throughout 2005 Alice and Betsi were inseparable. Betsi showed herself to be that loyal friend that genuinely cares for you early in their relationship. She’s that friend that shows she loves you by creating memorable moments in your life. Unfortunately for their friendship, Betsi soon took a job at another university a thousand miles away.
How do you maintain a unique friendship that far apart (in an era before Zoom and Facetime?) By staying involved in each other’s lives in unforgettable ways. Betsi and Alice talked on the phone every week, staying connected the best way they knew how. Then in December 2006, Betsi sent Alice a gift for Christmas. It was one of those cheesy White Elephant (AKA. Dirty Santa) kinds of objects that makes your belly laugh out of surprise. Alice enjoyed it so much that she gifted a dollar store knickknack that was equally terrible. That year a new friendship tradition was begun.
“The chemistry department were the judges. But when I moved, we started the competition to actually try to get the worst.” - Betsi
“Each holiday, we send the other person a bad gift. It started off fairly tame, then got weirder and weirder every year,” recalls Alice. “One year she sent me a hospital gown. So I sent her the DVD of Season 5 of (the 90’s sitcom) Blossom.
Here are some of the “favorites”.
Salad tongs from the dollar store
Gift card to SkyMall
Fridge magnet for tax attorney
Luchador mask
Easy-button that said “Bull****”
Justin Bieber singing toothbrush
On and on went this nuclear arms race of cheerfully bad gifts until 2012. To give something to Betsi truly weird, Alice found a performance artist on the Fiverr app that would record personalized birthday videos for a small fee.
“Happy Birthday Betsi Little VanFossen. I’m here to wish you a happy birthday. Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh” “Alice Suroviec wants you to have a happy birthday. Mmmmmmmmmmmm”
What made this video one of a kind was not what the artist said but what he was doing on camera when he spoke. As the artist drew out a long “Yeeeeeeaaaahhhhh,” he took off his shirt and squirted ketchup and mustard all over his bare chest. Then he used his hands to smear the red and yellow goo around his chest hair as he continued the birthday greeting.
It was gross and disturbing but impossible to look away from. It was like one of those real-life in the ER hospital shows on late-night cable. Surely no gift could top this in weird and memorable; until Betsi’s gift for Alice came in the mail. It was a seemingly innocuous parcel in a small cardboard container. Alice pulled the bubble wrap and tissue paper away, and the package revealed a preserved little brown animal.
“Is that bat? It’s a bat!!! it’s real? (Pokes it) It’s real! Oh my gosh!!! Where did she get a taxidermied bat from? ”
We were pretty impressed. Betsi did it again. This was the best weird gift ever, and I wanted others to share in our joy… So I took the bat to work. You may know that I have a special place in my heart for office pranks. Assuming the stuffed bat to be disease-free, I placed it just inside the lampshade on a co-worker’s desk. The bat was much smaller than you imagine, only a few inches in length, and it seemed to blend in during the day. I waited several hours for a reaction, but my co-worker never noticed it. So I stopped making excuses to hang out near her desk and went back to work. At 4:48 pm, I heard this blood-curling scream from the next room. I ran down the hallway to help the person in distress, forgetting all about the bat I had placed there earlier in the day. As I stared at the scene in front of me, I remembered what I had done and felt immediately awkward and immature. “Um…That’s my bat. Sorry”
Even though office pranks were a fun part of our culture, my co-worker did not appreciate the bat nearly as much as Alice did. As I reflect years later on that moment, I think it was a bit too much. I lacked the empathy to understand how terrifying the moment of finding the bat would be. All I was concerned with was the reaction I would get when she saw the bat. She was initially shocked, but thankfully that experience did not negatively affect our long-term relationship. Thankfully, we can both laugh about the moment now.
And as this story comes to a close, what should we remember? We all need a friend like Betsi.
Reflection and Action:
If you were Betsi or Alice, what would be the next weird gift?
Share your gift idea with someone who needs a laugh.
Who do you know that always gives the perfect gift?
How do they do it?
How can you show kindness to others in the way you give?
What is something unique you can do to cultivate a special relationship?
Pick one person to create something that only the two of you share.
Find a way to reconnect with an old friend or co-worker.
Let them know you appreciated them and made an impact in your life.
Host a White Elephant party for your team.
Make sure everyone understands that no “real” gifts are allowed.
No live animals. (Yes, that is a story for another time…)
Encourage people to find bizarre, unique things to wrap.
Take turns opening the gifts and laugh.
Consider giving a prize or gift card to the person who brings the most memorable gift.
