I had to go to a baby shower at work today. As I've never been to a baby shower before, I wasn't too sure what was going on. All I knew was that I was supposed to buy something, and then stand in a corner with the rest of the men and shut the hell up Check, and check. The hard part for me was picking the appropriate gift.
I ended up giving money to someone who knew better about this stuff, and buying 1/4 of a little geegaw, bat-around, plastic fun center or something similar. I don't know about this idea, though. In the course of an average life, you're not a baby for very long. Why give someone something that's useful for 3 months when you could give them something that's useful for 80 years or more? Also, I have more experience in buying gifts for adults. I briefly considered following this path, and simply choosing a gift I'd choose for any one of my friends.
The suspects.
Alcohol - I'm not going to waste a single malt on someone who won't be able to drink it for 21 years. No, I'd have to give something cheap and pleniful in order for it not to be wasted, something like a 24 pack of Coors. The mother-to-be could very well misinterpret this gesture.
Bowties - I think bowties are the quirkiest neckwear in the Western world, narrowly beating out the bolo tie. However, if some little baby has years to go before tying her shoe, how many years will it be before she can don the bowtie? It'd just be sitting there, in a glass case on her bookshelf, mocking her. And then, when she finally put it on, she'd say, "Hey, what's the big whoop? Who bought me this? Give me his address, I wish to kill him."
Collected works of Henry Miller - Again, easy to misinterpret, but think of the vocabulary that kid would have.
Nunchuks - Too heavy for a baby. Also, the field of hand-to-hand combat moves too quickly for me to assume these will be effective in 20 years time.
Bob Dylan, "Blonde on Blonde" - Babies hate singer songerwriters.