Zig when everyone else is zagging. Be memorable.

Ten years ago, our friends’ daughter was born.

A couple hours after the baby’s delivery, Elysha and I sent the happy couple a bouquet of flowers.

While on the phone with the gift shop manager, I asked if there was an item in the store that was so ugly or strange that it rarely sold.  Almost instantly, she answered by describing a bizarre, creepy, headless jewelry holder that she claimed had never been purchased during her three years of employment at the shop.

“Perfect!” I said. “I’d like you to send that up as well. It will be for their daughter.”

It would have been easy to send up a teddy bear or a pair of booties, but I like to try to be memorable in all that I do. Some may find a gift like this to be strange or unnecessary, but when presented with the opportunity to do something different, I usually jump at the chance.

My advice is always to zig when everyone else is zagging. Blaze new trails. Dare to be different. Be memorable.

On the day that the gift arrived in their hospital room, I wrote:

“Ten years from now, the teddy bear and the booties and definitely the flowers will have been all but forgotten, but an unexpected, out-of-place, downright ugly gift will surely be remembered. It will become a fixture in the story that they will one day tell their daughter about her first day of life.”

I was also hoping that this monstrosity would be their daughter’s first gift ever, therefore making it almost impossible to throw away and thus increasing the probability that it will stick around for a long time.

Happily, it was.

I called my friend earlier this week to find out if they still owned the creepy, headless jewelry holder.

Of course they do.

My friend has wanted to throw it out for years, but his wife won’t allow it.

It’s ugly but it’s memorable. And a hell of a lot better than a bouquet of dead flowers.