A Very Selfish Birthday Gift

I've sunk to a whole new low.  I've defied the natural laws and true spirit of gift giving.   The fact is that I recently gave a birthday gift that I put A LOT of thought into, however, my sad confession is that I wasn't really thinking of the person who was to receive the gift as much as I was thinking selfishly about myself.  It was all perniciously premeditated and, well, a bit narcissistic on my part.

But I justified the whole nefarious affair by categorizing my gift as "friendly philanthropy" instead of calling it what it really was:
An "egotistical endowment".

We're not talking about a pricey gift mind you.  Just a package of socks as a matter of fact.  But the important part of the whole gift was that they were LOW CUT socks.

These low cut socks were for my big brother's 43rd birthday.  He's just two years older than me, which was an extremely important factor in my decision to give him this sort of practical yet highly necessary gift.

My decision for this purchase was based upon that fact that he has, to my great shock and horror, spent the better part of the summer sporting summer shorts with ghastly TALL WHITE socks and paired them with an even brighter more jarringly white shade of tennis shoes. (yep, that's him in the hat...)

I cannot think of anything that screams "OLD GUY" more than that.  Of course if he wants to flaunt his aged-ness it really should be his right, right?  WRONG!

Wrong because he and I are practically the same age.  We were one year apart in school for goodness sake!  So if he's sporting the crusty old man look already what in the heck does that say about me?  His not-too-much-younger sister?  For the love of all that's youthful, can't he think about others?  Particularly me?  And if not me, perhaps he should consider his poor wife Wendy.  She's still a hot and youthful mama.  Therefore sporting such an offensively old look really tarnishes not only his sister's but his wife's youthful appearance.  That's two counts of premature aging.  Short of locking him up, I think this sort of public sock spectacle must be stopped.  And so stop it I did...with a simple and thoughtfully deliberate birthday gift.

And next year, I plan on giving him a new and less Amish-looking hat.