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Every family has them. Every workplace has them. Every street, school gate, and Sunday dinner table has at least one person who has pushed your patience so far over the edge that only humour will bring you back.

This tongue-in-cheek guide is dedicated to those individuals — the ones who leave you rolling your eyes, biting your tongue, and Googling “How to stay calm around difficult humans.”

Here are the perfectly imperfect gifts for the people you’d never actually buy a present for… but secretly wish you could.

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The Sister-in-Law: A Tampon dipped in Semtex

The sister-in-law you despise — the one you’d rather spit at than suffer her company. Overweight, unattractive, poorly presented, and controlling to the extreme. Despite the decades since you were a teenager when you first met, she still treats you like one. Condescending, superior, and perpetually convinced you’re a reckless adolescent compared to her self-appointed status as Responsible Adult™.

Solution? Take a tampon, dip it in Semtex, wrap it in herb-patterned paper, and declare it has aromatherapeutic benefits when heated. Insert as standard, then simply light the string…

…bang.

(Please note: Ethical Superstore sells great tampons, but we do not recommend dipping them in Semtex or setting fire to anything.)

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Brother-in-Law: A Night Away… on their Tab

The brother-in-law who always insists on the most expensive restaurants, ensures you can’t order your own drinks, then loudly proclaims he paid the entire bill while you contributed “diddly-squat.” He repeats this routine with everyone he knows, proudly reinforcing his legend of generosity.

Tell him you’ve treated him to a room at The Royal Horseguards Hotel in London — nearly £1,000 a night. Book the room, don’t pay, and let him settle up at checkout.

…humiliation… and a £1,000 dent in his ego.

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Mother-in-Law: Handmade Soap with “Extra Exfoliation”

The mother-in-law who nags incessantly, insists you mistreat her grandchildren, and constantly highlights how she is superior in parenting, homemaking, and general wisdom. A matriarch whose lectures make you want to munch on glass.

Follow the usual instructions for a beautifully exfoliating handmade soap — but replace the oats with mashed glass fragments.

…owch.

Crafty Arts sells great soap-making kits. Adding glass is, of course, not endorsed.

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Father-in-Law: The “Easily Confused” Bottle Opener

The father-in-law who treats women as second-class citizens, insists sexism is imaginary, and dismisses your opinions as if you’re of lower intelligence. He regularly tells people you are confused, though the reality is usually the opposite.

Buy him a bottle opener with the phrase “Easily Confused When Drunk.” Then file off the “When drunk” until the remaining message simply reads:

Easily Confused.

…tushay.

Power Tools Direct sells the perfect flat file. Please avoid using any of the hammers or axes they supply on him.

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Home-Boy Nephew: Dolly Peg “Girlfriend”

The dull, feeble nephew who’s never moved out of his parents’ house and has never had a girlfriend. Emotionally grey, conversationally limited, and still shopping for clothes — including underwear — with his mother well into adulthood. The most dramatic thing likely to happen in his life would be a Viagra overdose.

Gift him a simple dolly peg labelled “Girlfriend.” It’s probably the closest he’ll get to a relationship.

…clip that on your peni*…

Crafty Arts sells multi-packs of dolly pegs. Style one to suit.

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The Boss: Piranha Tea Bag

The over-talking boss who loves nothing more than his own voice. Three-hour staff meetings are mandatory, during which he speaks 90% of the time. Your day is repeatedly interrupted by needless “briefings” that add nothing other than lost time, wasted wages, and rising employee despair.

Take a tea bag, empty the contents, and replace them with tongue-eating piranhas. No tongue = no more talking.

…croak.

Pukka teas are wonderfully unique — not that we recommend modifying them.

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Busy-Body Neighbour: Hash Cookies

The neighbour who gossips nonstop and complains about the area “looking bad.” Overweight, unkempt, excessively common, and blissfully unaware that she is the very thing she complains about. Forever whining about loud music and assuming every minor disturbance is “DRUGS!”

Bake chocolate chip cookies, but swap the chocolate for hash. Get video footage of her absolutely stoned and post it to her Facebook.

…spaced out…

Dog ’n’ Bone publishes Cooking With Weed, inspired by Woodstock. For educational purposes only.

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The “Thank-You” Candle: Primary School Teacher

The teacher who insists on lengthy lectures at parents’ evening despite your child being a straight-A student. Last time, she instructed you to teach phonetic sounds as if your child couldn’t read — despite them being fluent long before joining her class.

As she lectured, your mind drifted to whether your vagina feeling slightly dry might be the menopause. You then began wondering if she herself was old enough to menstruate.

Visit the Pound Shop, buy a “Thank-You” candle with removable letters. Remove “Than,” leaving “K,” and replace with “Fuc.”

…Fuck-you Teacher…

Worried your child might repeat any of this? Try Thank You, Heroes — a lovely book celebrating public servants, guaranteed to inspire polite playground quotations such as “Mummy said Ding-dong, the wicked witch has gone!” upon teacher retirement.

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Conclusion

Life hands us all sorts of characters — the smug, the snippy, the sanctimonious, and the self-important. We can’t always escape them, but we can laugh about them.

These gifts are not to be taken literally (please, for the love of sanity, don’t). They are symbolic, cathartic, humour-soaked ways of acknowledging the people who test your patience but make excellent stories.

If you can’t change them, you might as well joke about them.

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