The Best Present Ever

Every September, I embark on a grand quest to find a birthday present for my brother John that could win the title of Best Present My Brother Has Ever Gotten. Current record holder (purchased by our mother) has held the title for the last twenty-one years.

It was a box of cereal.

Specifically, it was the sugariest cereal ever sold (or at least that our local grocery store sold). We had a strict no-sugar-as-the-first-ingredient policy in our house, and this gift skyrocketed to the number one spot with ease.

For twenty-one years, no one has beaten the sugar cereal. Until now. (I dare to hope.)

I had dedicated Drink, Slay, Love to John. (Drink, Slay, Love is my latest novel. It's about vampires and were-unicorns.) So for this year, since his actual birthday was the same week as my book birthday, I sent him a signed copy of Drink, Slay, Love, as well as a plush vampire doll that makes slurping sounds when you press it against someone's neck...


... and also a can of unicorn meat that has a dismembered unicorn doll inside.


I am crossing my fingers that this entry FINALLY beats the cereal. But I'm having second thoughts. Perhaps I should have also tossed in a set of Uni-Corn-on-the-Cob holders:


Or a taxidermy unicorn:


Or perhaps an Edward Cullen manllow (half-man, half-pillow -- it watches you while you sleep):


Or maybe what I REALLY should have given him is this:


What's the best birthday gift you've ever gotten/given?