December 08, 2008

Holiday gift ideas for your laid off friends

Just don't give them a bottle of sleeping pills.

With the news that the country lost 533,000 jobs last month alone, for a lot of Americans this year is going to be one crappy Christmas. We're all bound to have someone in our lives who recently got laid off, whether it be a friend, a relative or a significant other, and the gift we give to them will be more important than ever. So 23/6 has created a handy holiday gift guide for the unemployed friend in your life...

What Do You Get For The Person Who Has Nothing?

	Bottles Of Liquor Go for quantity, not quality. If you can spend $60 on one high-end bottle of scotch, or buy two $30 bottles of Jamesons, go for the latter. Your unemployed friends don't need to savor the smoky fragrances of the highlands. They need to get drunk and stay that way for at least six to eight weeks.
	New Pajamas They'll remember you every morning, afternoon and evening when they look down at the pajamas you bought them and they think, "Holy crap, I haven't put on real clothes in weeks. Thank God [YOUR NAME] bought me these super-comfortable jammies or else I'd probably have hanged myself already!"
	Birth Control/Viagra gift certificates Help a laid off friend keep getting laid! If they lose their insurance, it will be costly to keep up their birth control pill and Viagra regimens. Why not buy them a gift card to their local pharmacy and say, "Hey, next boner/blocked ovulation is on me pal!" Planned Parenthood makes it easy with their new "Good for one free abortion" gift cards!
	Amazon Gift Certificates Send Amazon gift certificates to your unemployed friends early so they can use them to buy all the gifts they can't afford to buy for other people! It's the only way they're gonna get you something this year.
	A Coupon Good For "One Big Hug!" Let's face it, we all have friends that we want out of our lives but we're just not confrontational enough to have that all-out fight that will finally cut the cord. So why not give that friend a gift that will make them never speak to you again. When you give someone who's recently been laid off a coupon for "One Big Hug!" or "One Free Pep Talk" or something equally reprehensible, not only will they cut you out of their life, they might even try to punch you in the sack (so maybe you should mail it).
	A Second Life Membership Give the gift that lets them live a pretend life in a made-up world where no one ever gets laid off because everyone is too busy trying to have cyber-sex with each other. Buy them a membership plan on Second Life and they can spend all day pretending to be a successful, wealthy cartoon character who has sex with other unemployed people pretending to be successful and wealthy cartoon characters. Second Life, for when your first life blows!
	Cash Look, whatever gift you give them, the first thing they're going to decide is whether it's a better deal to use the gift or try and sell it on Ebay. Take out the guess-work and just hand them fifty bucks. You can even draw a cute Christmas bow on the bills if you want!