The 6 Creepiest Gifts Ever Given
Most of us are pretty bad at giving gifts. It's hard to know what people want, and making them tell you feels heartless and perfunctory. But below us there is another tier of people who are really bad at giving gifts. They give the kind of gifts that make people wake up screaming in the night ...
For Your Birthday, I Made You Shit Your Pants
Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, is the real-life guy that some of you only know from Johnny Depp's portrayal in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. His drug-induced exploits are legendary, but when he wasn't swatting bats with a fly swatter or being chased by some monster after tripping on a shit load of acid, he was pulling pranks on his celebrity friends. And by pranks, we mean terrifying events that gave them PTSD. Which brings us to the "gift" he got Jack Nicholson for his birthday.
James Allen was a notorious highwayman in the early 1830s. He robbed and killed people mostly because, you know, in 19th century Massachusetts what else was there to do? The only two jobs were bandits and cowboys, if movies have taught us anything. Anyway, the long arm of the law caught up with Allen when detective John Fenno, Jr. apprehended him and sent him off to be hanged. Allen, having some respect for the man who caught him, decided to give the detective a little gift. One made out of his own skin.
So Allen wrote out his life story and confession and, well, let's just say that he put a lot of himself into the book.
When collector Skip Henderson first saw the lamp at a New Orleans store, he knew it was unique. It looked old, and because of the style of the welds that hold the wire frame together, he could deduce that it was from Europe. But what caught his interest was the lampshade. Made of a material that was thin and yet had a strange texture. It was something he had never seen before. He paid the $35 price and took it home.
A lot of short stories in horror anthologies start like this, don't they? The lamp turns out to be cursed or something?
The 80s saw acid wash jeans, big hair and a huge Middle Eastern war involving regional powers Iran and Iraq. As Iran started to win, the Americans became concerned that Iran would spread their Islamic revolution across the region. So America became friendly with the Iraqis, who were led by a plucky young man named Saddam Hussein. Saddam, up to that point, was well known for torturing prisoners and killing Iraqi civilians, but regional security trumped all and in 1983, Reagan sent adviser Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq. What better way to get on a leader's good side than with a nice, tasteful gift? But what do you get the man who has everything?
Melanie Griffith's Dead Mother
We have previously pointed out that Alfred Hitchcock was kind of a creepy asshole. To summarize, he used the 1963 film The Birds as an excuse to torture actress Tippi Hedren -- specifically, by hitting on her and attacking her with actual live birds.
Imagine it's your wedding day. The gifts are piled up on the table and now it's time to open them and figure out how many people stuck with the registry. What's this? Why, it's a decorative chest from Uncle Frank depicting a graphic rape scene.
