A Sister Unit this year bestowed subtle and sophisticated Aunt Marytry. This year’s haul consisted of keychain representing a steel drum, the kind you play and not the kind murderers use to dispose of bodies, a bike lock of unknown numerical combination, and the box from a promotional travel VHS. The box was its own redundant Aunt Mary system because in addition to being empty, the format of what should have been included is pretty much obsolete. That might seem like something of an Aunt Mary gifting coup, but it was offset by the fact that I now have the steel drum fob on the keys to my immortal 1991 Trooper. The Sister Unit hadn’t planned on me actually using an Aunt Mary gift, which is really a kind of Aunt Mary insolence on my part. Now I have a steel drum on one set of keys and a Fatah symbol on another — a fob for every mood.

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This year we’ve added a new dimension of thoughtlessness to the Aunt Mary experience. In the past we may have focused too much attention on the gifts themselves, ignoring the possibility of expressing the Aunt Mary world view in other aspects of the gifting process.

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I might have mentioned this thing on my face, which I thought was a stubborn zit, but turns out to be a basal cell cancer growth. (Thanks, Mr. sun!) Regular readers also know that I tend to name things — like my cars, Mr. Clackity and Mr. Lurchy, or the people associated with Mr. Clackity, whom I will name “defendants.”

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