Wheezely sent me an interesting link the other day: Why Did You Buy Me That. It’s a website devoted to the worst gifts ever.

Why did he send me this? Well, one year for Christmas, my stepmother bought me an olive tray. Seriously, an olive tray. I didn’t even know they made such things. For those of you who don’t know, an olive tray is a long, skinny dish that you put olives in to serve them. The only problem is that the dish is so long and skinny that nothing else will fit in it, except for Hershey Kisses lined up one by one. There was also a jar of black, nasty-looking olives to go along with the tray.

Needless to say, I don’t like olives, and this was one of the worst gifts I’ve ever gotten. It’s right up there with a men’s manicure set that another relative bought me one year when I was a kid. Yep, a men’s manicure set. I don’t know what that person was thinking, especially since I was like ten or twelve at the time. And, you know, not a man.

So anytime anyone complains about terrible gifts, I just look at them and say olive tray. So far, none of my friends have been able to top that. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. LOL.

What about you guys? What’s the worst gift you’ve ever gotten? Share in the comments.

Something funny happened the other day when I was in my local office supply store. When I was checking out, the clerk looked at my ID and did a double-take. I was starting to wonder if something was wrong — or if she was just that horrified by the flyaway hair in my driver’s license picture — when she looked up at me.

“Jennifer Estep, the author?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah.”

She smiled. “Oh! I used to work at a bookstore. I’ve read your books.”

And the best part was that she had enjoyed my books. 😉

This was the first time that someone’s recognized me like that (other than at a book conference), and I’ve got to admit that it totally made my day. So much so, that I was still smiling when I walked outside and got into the car.

“You’re beaming,” said Wheezley, my significant other.

I smiled a little bigger. “I just got recognized.”

I actually had to go back to the store later that day. Sadly, the clerk who had recognized me was gone, but I left some bookmarks for her with another clerk. I hope she got got them.

Authors — it takes so little to make us so happy …