When I was 17 a few weeks before Xmas a large box appeared under the tree with my name on it. This was unusual but my mom told me it was too big to hide so she just had to put it out early. I was naturally pretty excited and speculated for weeks what it could be.

Christmas finally rolls around and I open my present. It's a toy electric drum set. The picture on the box shows it being used by a 10 year old. It was a cheap plastic piece of crap, complete with plastic drum sticks.

To be fair I played snare drum my high school's marching band so drumming was something I was totally into, but this was like giving somebody who's really into cooking an EZ Bake oven kit. Overall it seemed like a gift that an out of touch aunt who only vaguely knows how old you are might get you but this was from my mom.

I dutifully set it up and felt too bad to even laugh at how sad it was. I was over 6 feet tall at the time and this thing was meant for little kids so it barely stood taller than my knees when I stood. The "drum" sounds it made were barely louder than the sound of the plastic drumstick hitting the plastic "drum". I told my mom I didn't think it was working right so I boxed it all back up and the next day we went to K-Mart and returned it for $30 in store credit.