Query

What should I get for my 6 year old second cousin for Christmas? He likes sports, and I like spending less than $15 for children's gifts.

As someone who doesn't have kids and who is not yet acclimated to the cacophony that surrounds kids, I also have an issue with toys that require batteries. I don't like loud, persistent noises. Why do they (the toys not the kids) all make noises? What if I go visit them, and he's playing with my toy? I don't want to have to listen to it squalling. I like to give blocks and baseballs and books as gifts. That way it's a gift to everyone.

Should I just go to Academy and be done with it? I need to go anyway for other fatherly gifts. Oh, the dread of driving on Bryant Irvin and parking in the cold and shuffling around under florescent lights in my work shoes and searching everywhere for something and finally asking a clerk for help and gettting distracted by all their cute coordinating workout clothes and realizing I go to the gym in stretched out yoga pants and a paint-splattered "Everman Cheerleading" sweatshirt and then feeling like a fat slob and then seriously considering buying a basketball goal to put on the garage and then laughing at that ridiculous idea and then wondering why I'm still in Academy and why don't I just go home because I hate that place. Who doesn't dread going to Academy?

Well, I guess my dad loves it. Of course. It's like going to Forever 21 for my dad. (I'm assuming.) Cabella's would be like going to Anthropologie for him, but Academy, that's more comparable to Forever 21 or Target's clothes department. The first is probably more exciting for us in that we can actually walk out with some loot, but the second, we're probably just looking and finding inspiration. Or spending a gift card. I just had this vision of a split screen with me dancing through Anthropologie and then wrapping up in pink velvet curtains on one side and my dad running through Cabella's and wrapping up in a smelly camo tarp on the other side. I feel like that idea is the stuff of commercials, but it is hilarious to me right now.

I actually feel like I've only gotten my dad three types of gifts my entire life: ties, Cabella's gift cards, and donations to charitable organizations. I had about a decade of ties when I was young. Then about a decade of Cabella's, and now we're moving into charitable donations.

I find man gifts to be impossible.