As you know if you read my entry, I'm a big soppy weepy thing, 'cause Dawn got me sweetasabiscuit.com for my birthday. What is the best and most surprising gift that you've ever gotten? The kind of gift where you know that the giver was really paying attention to what you wanted, even though you weren't asking for anything?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), August 07, 2000

Answers

I was in college, and looking for a job. A friend of mine was an executive secretary at an insurance company, and offered to show my resume around the office if I brought her one, so I showed up in my interview suit, which was brown slacks and a brown sport coat, shirt and tie. The next time she saw me, she asked if those were really my interviewing clothes, and when I said yes, she told me to meet her for lunch the next day.

She took me to Hastings and bought me a suit, shirts, ties, and shoes. I told her I couldn't pay her for it, and she said that I could pay her back some day by returning the favor to someone else-- someone who needed a suit, or a prom dress, or money for a plane flight, and then I'd be the one with the money to spare.

Thanks, Tish.

-- Colin (ethilrist@prodigy.net), August 07, 2000.

I've received several touching gifts over the years, but the one that really caught me off guard with delight was given to me by my parents when I was in second grade (I think). When I was that age I was obsessed with the color blue; -everything- had to be blue. Except the blanket on my bed, which I -loved-; it was some peach color I think, and after having had it for several years, and after having made tents and God knows what else out of it for games, it was in a pretty tattered condition. But I wouldn't give it up.

One night both my parents came into my room when it was time for bed (I don't think that happened very much), waiting for me to turn down my bed. Mother had an enormous smile on her face, I recall. Under the bedspread was a brand new blanket of a very bright beautiful blue! Any thought of the old blanket went right out the window. I was so excited about that BLUE blanket I started to cry a litttle. Daddy thought it was because I was upset, but that was definitely not the case.

And it wasn't Christmas or my birthday or anything. Probably my mother was just tired of that old blanket.

So while there are been other great surprise presents, the first one is still the most memorable.

/Robert

-- Robert (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), August 07, 2000.

I also received my domain and a year of free hosting with Shelly Ross as a gift at my online baby shower.

I know how you feel Kymm :) I think a domain is outrageously thoughtful. Especially for an online journaler.

-- Renee (justme@justme.org), August 07, 2000.

A puppy. That's the only thing I can think.

Oh, you said when I wasn't asking for anything. Um, a pony, I guess, when I was 8. But I'd been asking for two years; I'd just given up at that point.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), August 07, 2000.

My big Sweet as a Biscuit coffee mug... No, wait. I bought that for myself.

After my fiance died, a friend paid for a plaque and a yellow rose bush in a memorial garden that her church sponsors. To have her do something like that was touching enough, but for her to remember that yellow roses were "our" flowers made it even more special.

-- Laura (windmills@diaryland.com), August 07, 2000.

I've gotten lots of wonderful gifts in my time. People can always seem to get me something that I think is cool. It helps that I like toys and silly things. But the best gifts really have come from a friend of mine who makes really personal things. She's given me a forged and repousse candlestick, some handmade notes with Polaroid transfers of us on them and a personal memoir of one of her own 'stories' that I enjoy her telling. See http://www.jump.net/~forrest_preece/jo010800.htm for a description of that. The whole month of August is my birthday, too! LB

-- Linda Ball (linda_ball@lbffp.com), August 07, 2000.

My sister surprised me on the day of my college graduation with three plane tickets to New York -- one for her, one for Mom, and one for me. The family members were sitting around the table at a fancy restaurant after the ceremony, and my brother captured on film a photograph of me, bursting into tears with a glass of merlot in one hand and the open envelope in the other. We left the next day.

This was an extremely generous and surprising gesture, considering that my sister was only a 21-year-old college student at the time who had saved for this for months, unbeknownst to me. It was especially touching because it was a chance for her and Mom to see where I would be living and going to grad school that fall -- I didn't end up going, alas, but it was still a kick-ass trip and remains my all-time favourite gift.

-- dora (dora_525@yahoo.com), August 07, 2000.

The first Christmas that my husband and I were dating he bought me a small heart pendant with a garnet (his birthstone) surronded by diamonds (my birthstone). What was absolutely perfect about it? What he told me as I opened it. "This is so you'll always have a part of my heart with you." I burst into tears and gave him a great big hug.

-- Suzy (suzy@cyberbabies.com), August 07, 2000.

I just had my birthday last Friday, and while the entire day turned out to be a really good day, with thoughtful presents and good wishes from a bunch of friends and co-workers, the best gift was from my boyfriend Geoff, who called my best friend Tracy a few weeks before to invite her up to visit for the weekend. She and I went to college together, were roommates for a year in Kentucky. Later, a few years after I moved to Chicago, she and her husband transferred up here. This April, though, they moved away, down to Cincinnati. I've missed her a lot already. She appeared in my dining room at 11:00 p.m. on my birthday, and spent the weekend visiting. Geoff didn't even tell me that he'd been the one to invite her up, or that he'd done so a few weeks ago, until I asked him about it. It was a generous, wonderful gift from both Geoff and Tracy. I loved having her visit, and I was really touched by his thoughtfulness.

-- Jessamyn Bagley (j7b@quarles.com), August 07, 2000.

My brother came home from work one day with tickets to the Jackson Victory Tour for me. I was 15 at the time and though I desperately loved Michael Jackson (I know, I know), I knew getting tickets would be impossible, so I just pretended the concert wasn't coming to Chicago. After that, my brother was God.

-- Amy Lester (amy@petdance.com), August 08, 2000.

Last Christmas, my husband presented me with a very large, and very heavy box that I had been told was actually for my son. When I opened it, I discovered inside every single snack food and treat I had ever mentioned liking, plus a case of Coke, and the last Weekly World News of the 1900s. He didn't miss a single thing, and while snack food may seem kind of underwhelming (hey, I likes me some snacks!,) the real gift was seeing just how well he knew me, how many little things hadn't escaped his attention. I get a little googly eyed thinking about it.

-- Saundra (headspace@anywherebeyond.com), August 08, 2000.

Years ago, a boyfriend gave me a blowdryer. I really needed one, and he just gave it to me out of the blue.

It's probably not the best gift, but it was the most surprising, because he normally wasn't very generous or tuned in to what I needed.

-- Catherine (catcoicrit@earthlink.net), August 08, 2000.

This wasn't for me, but last week was Hollie's birthday. She already has her own domain and all the toys a geek girl could want, so a web designer friend of hers made her...

Her own 404 error message.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), August 08, 2000.

My digital camera came out of the blue, and showed that my fiance supported my online journal more than I thought -- although I'm still not allowed to post pictures of him...that paranoid Russian!

-- Denise (deniseb@wwnet.net), August 10, 2000.

the best, best, bestest gift i've ever gotten was the birthday present i got a week ago today... the computer that i'm using to write this on. cause i've never had a computer before, and never been able to go on the internet until my wonderful husband went out and got me this one now.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!

-- nicolemrw (nicolemrw@yahoo.com), March 30, 2001.

*ahem* reading over my own posting i realize that enthusiaim lead me to babble, thereby leaving out a very important two words from that post.

i've never been able to go on the internet _from home_ before.

obviously i've been on the internet, i've been posting here for months now.

*blush*

-- nicolemrw (nicolemrw@yahoo.com), April 02, 2001.