Chip 'n Dip
Author: Nathalia
Rating: PG
Challenge: Flavor of the Day #243 - gimcrack (a showy but useless or worthless object; tastelessly, showy, cheap, gawdy)
Extras / Toppings: malt (Thanksgiving: Matthew: accident in the kitchen)
Word Count: 479
Story: Misfits
Summary: Janna and Jack get the best housewarming gift ever.
Notes: Here’s a picture of the housewarming gift. I saw it on Mad Men and it was the first and only thing I could think of when I started to think about the prompt. And I had to steal it from Mad Men and go with it.
Janna and Jack stared at the object on the counter in disbelief. They had just unpacked it, a housewarming gift from Ganner who had not wrapped his mind around the fact that Janna and Jack were not back together and would probably announce their engagement soon.
“What is this?” Janna finally decided to ask, hoping that maybe Jack knew more about housewarming gifts than her.
She hadn’t seen her high school friend on a regular basis since he had followed up on the harebrained idea of attending some tiny community college in Alaska after a strange break-up. He still came back in the summer months but was very stealthy, afraid that this old vengeful girlfriend might track him down but he had gotten wind of Jack’s return from his Iraq tour and the fact that Janna had asked her ex-boyfriend to move in with her. The only concept Ganner did not seem to comprehend was that that didn’t mean they were back together.
“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “And I know I’m not known for having a good taste but that thing is just ugly.”
Janna nodded and started to rummage through the package and producing a small note from the manufacturer. “Chip ‘n Dip Serveware is a must-have for every household. When you have friends come over, don’t just hand them a bag of tortilla chips and salsa out of the pot you bought it from. Use your Chip ‘n Dip instead.”
“Soooo,” Jack sighed, leaning closer to the ceramic object on the kitchen counter that had now been identified as a Chip ‘n Dip, something he had never heard of, but he was sure that this was the ugliest Chip ‘n Dip serveware ever produced. It was shaped like two big leaves of lettuce with a tomato with a removable top in the middle.
He removed the top of the tomato. “We are supposed to set this up on the coffee table in the living room with chips and a dip in the tomato and let everyone who comes by make fun of us?”
Janna seemed to be thinking hard about it. “Odds that Ganner will ever visit us are very, very low. And if he does, we’ll say someone asked to borrow the Chip ‘n Dip for a party they are having.”
“And what are we really going to do with it?” Jack wondered, knowing that Janna wouldn’t want to keep this horrible thing in the apartment.
She walked up to the fridge, her hand running along the kitchen counter and when it hit the Chip ‘n Dip, she sent it flying to the floor.
“Oooops...”
Jack looked at the shards on the floor in disbelief for a second, then burst into laughter. “That’s the only way to deal with a Chip ‘n Dip,” he forced out during fits of laughter and Janna soon followed suit.