Also, a lesson in what not to buy for a work party gift swap, and for another note to read before reading, I’m not a feminist I’m a realist.

Last Friday was the work party for my husband’s work, and due to feeling a bit under the weather, my first time attending sober. I’m sure those bottles of red missed me, but we live and we learn and I won’t make that mistake again. That’s not why men should listen to women more, but when it comes to knowing what to do when you’re doing the Yankee Swap. (Or the White Elephant, whatever you call this game, it’s all the same principle.)

During the game, I eyed a few different gifts to steal. My husband refused saying, “you can’t take their gift”. Well sweetheart, the game says it’s not their gift until the end. One of the gifts included a Dunkin Donuts k-cup box and a gift card. “Take that or the iTunes card” I tell him. He assured me that he had this, he knew his plan. His plan was the suspicious looking brown Dunkin Donuts bag. After telling him what a terrible idea this would be, he ignored me and got the gift he wanted and wasn’t prepared for having to open it up in front of everyone to see something they would want to steal. This is where the story gets fun.

Upon further investigation, he turned red and realized that his precious bag had a dirty little secret. By dirty little secret, I mean it was a bag full of sex toys. At first, my mind was empty. I was mortified enough for the both of us, while listening to the hoots and hollers of everyone in the room. I eventually got over that, and wondered why someone would get a bag of sex toys for a work party. Sure, I’d probably do that for a party at a friend’s house, what’s a few toys among friends? But at a work party where there are only a handful of twenty somethings and the rest are easily 10 years above that? I ended up more embarrassed for them, then myself. It ended up the gift got stolen from us and we ended up with Swedish fish vodka.

So, the moral of the story is, when it comes to gifts and present games requiring a bit of thought you should let your female friend make the decision. In fact, anything that requires some degree of thought you should, just for safe measures.