Jim was very annoyed that he was having to look through the storage room for a VHS player.

It was currently Christmas Eve, and while everyone else in the world was out with their families, Jim was stuck in the office making sure everything was prepared for the movies they were going to launch in January. He was in the process of closing for the day, when he had stopped by the mail room and realized that there was a package that had not been delivered. Looking at the label inscribed on the package, he realized it was for him, but when he opened it up, he discovered the contents were a VHS tape, something he had no way of playing back at home. Hence, why he was looking through the storage room.

Luckily for him, it seemed as though his studio never threw anything out, so he was eventually able to find an old cart that had an LCD TV and a VHS player hooked up. Wheeling the antique technology to his office, he plugged everything and hit play on the device. As soon as the image came on, he immediately groaned.

The screen was decorated like red wrapping paper, and across it was the words “Merry Christmas Jim! -Love Michael” in Green. When the wrapping paper dissolved, the image changed to a scene of Michael, sitting in a armchair clearly meant for a person twice his size. He was wearing a red Christmas sweater with a simple starry design, and he was drinking from a cup of what Jim was assuming hot chocolate.

Looking fake startled, Michael finished his sip and said, “Hello Jim! I know how hectic the holidays can get for you, so I thought I would cheer you up by designing you a Christmas special. Who knows, if you like this enough, maybe you could even air it? Ha ha, I’m just kidding Jim.” Jim rolled his eyes at the man’s attempt at comedy.

“Now,” Michael said, placing the cup of hot cocoa on the table besides him and lifting up a big red book, “Let’s check in on some of our favorite characters across the Multiverse. How about we check out those adventurous toy reviewers from WRTR as they make their rounds on the Christmas Fairways?” The camera panned as Michael opened the book, revealing the title of the short ‘Thrift of the Magi’. As Michael flipped the page, an image of an average looking man standing in front of a camera was spread across the next two pages. As the camera zoomed in on the picture, the image became more clear and began to move…

~~~

“And so, my final score for Self on the Shelf a is a 4 out of 10. While the idea of dressing a miniature elf version of yourself in different ways and trying to hide them for your kid to find is a cute an innocent idea, the fact that it can be used as a miniature surveillance system and poor implementation as the double vision gets very difficult to get over, will more likely end up scarring your child or yourself. So, make sure to like, subscribe, and comment. And from Jamie and I at WRTR, have a Merry Christmas.”

Oh god! What am I going to do?! I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to get Jamie! We barely have enough money to continue running our show, so how can I get Jamie the perfect gift? What even would be the perfect gift?

I had pushed editing off to later in the week so I could take advantage of the fact that Jamie was at work to look for a gift for her. I headed out to the mall in the hopes that I could find anything she would love for a reasonable price. I passed by several clothing stores, popping in with the vain hope that there would be something that would pop out, but everything that did was too expensive, even with the holiday sales.

I continued systematically traveling through the mall, eventually finding myself in a corner of the mall that I seldom visit. This corner used to host a variety of small outlet stores, but they all went out of business months ago, leaving the corner an empty shell of its former self. This seemed to no longer be the case, as a single store now was open among the empty stores.

The sign above the was a nondescript red sign that said ‘Thrift Store’, but through the window and door I could see the store was filled with strange things. In the very front were two displays for strange products, one called ‘the wigifier’ which advertised being able to remove your hair so that you can take better care of it, and another called ‘D.O.G the next great pet,’ which advertised itself as ‘almost indistinguishable from the real thing!’

Walking into the store, the strangeness only increased. The wall to my left was covered in a variety of body parts of different sizes, skin tones, and gender. The back wall was entirely obscured by a variety of heads on a shelf, each one looked practically flawless in every way. The right wall had a variety of strange clothing, some with multiple limbs, some with less, others promising strange abilities. Near the front of the store were the aforementioned displays of featured products and a single cashier who was busy looking at his phone.

Walking deeper into the aisles of the store, I found that they had a variety of weird products on offer, some he recognized from our various online wish lists, but there were even more that I had never even heard of. Even stranger, sprinkled in with the absurd were also some regular products. You’d go from a set of hula hoops that acted as portals for one another, to an entire shelf of dandruff shampoo, to small model of a guillotine. I spent what must have been a solid hour just going down each aisle, until finally I saw it: the perfect gift.

It was a rather plain looking make-up kit, but upon the packaging was the words ‘Infini-supply: Never run out of make-up again’. Not only would this be a great gift since Jamie was starting to run out of everything, but this way, she would never have to buy beauty care products again.
I was scanning the box closer, so I didn’t notice the sales clerk who snuck up on me and said, “May I help you sir?”
The salesclerk was a rather young looking woman. She had a head and body that looked almost as flawless as the heads and parts that lined two of the walls of the store. “Yes, I was wondering how much this make-up kit cost?”
“Sure, let me scan it quickly,” She said, pulling out a scanning device. Scanning the barcode, she turned to me again and said, “Sir, the kit costs $15,000-”
“Jesus Christ!”
“But, not to worry. If you’re low on cash, our store has a very friendly trade-in policy.”
“What do you mean trade-in?”
“Well, if you’ll allow us to do an appraisal of your assets, we can come up with a reasonable trade so that you can take this home.”
“My assets?”
“Why, your body, of course,” the sales clerk smiled, “A large majority of the parts you see around here happen to be trade-ins.”
“O-okay then. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to at least get an appraisal,” I said trepidatiously.
“Alright then, please follow me to the back room then,” the sales clerk led me to the back room.

The back room seemed to be very similar to the outside room, in that it was near wall-to-wall covered in various body parts. “Alright, I’m going to need you to strip down to your underpants,” she said, turning around and wielding a small fountain pen and clipboard.
“W-what?” I stammered.
“Oh, you can strip those down too, but I assumed you were going to keep that since you seem to be buying for someone else.”
“No! I mean, why do I have to take my clothes off at all.”
“Oh! My bad! It’s just been store policy since someone tried to sell us a mannequin’s arm. We have to ensure the parts are all real, and all yours.”
“Okay then…” I said, stripping down to my boxers as I stood in the slightly cramped room.

The appraisal began, and it was definitely one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had. First, she rubbed my entire body with some strange lotion. Then, she had me sit down on a chair. Next, she grabbed my leg by the foot and pulled on it. Rather than having my body go with it, my leg seemed to disconnect at the bottom of my boxers. She then proceeded to bend my foot at the knee and ankle and curl my toes, telling me that it was to assess its performance ability under stress and writing down some stuff on her clipboard. A similar system of tests was done to my other leg, and then to my arms. She also divided me at the waist (thankfully, not even touching my waist, which she left sitting on the chair), and finally took my head off, which had the most tests, including a vision exam, hearing tests, and what range my voice could hit.

Eventually, I was reassembled, the entire ordeal lasting about half an hour. She sat across from me, writing furiously on her clipboard, until she finished and turned it around. “Well, Mr. Stratzman, after crunching the numbers, I’ve concluded that your most expensive assets happen to be your arms and legs, as they are well-toned and physically fit. However, best I could do for you is $7,500 dollars a piece. Another option would be selling your voice, but the best that could get you is about $2,000, maybe $3,000. Your best option, if you would still like to purchase the kit, is to sell us two of your limbs.”

Oh wow… I don’t think I could find a better gift for Jamie. But… Could I really live without an arm or a leg? I mean, we have plenty of stuff that would allow me to temporarily grow them back, but the only thing permanent would be the Reset Button, and then Jamie wouldn’t get to keep it… But at the same time… maybe I could sign up for disability? Then, when we have the money in a couple of monthes, I could buy my limbs back?

The deal had been made. I gave up my left arm (I was right handed after all), and one of my legs so that I could actually drive back home (Thankfully, the roads were mostly empty). As soon as I got home, I wrapped the make-up kit in some festive wrapping paper.

I waited anxiously for Jamie to come home, uncertain about how she was going to react to his missing limbs. He decided he was going to have to give it to her earlier, since he wasn’t going to be able to hide it for long. I heard the front door open, and began hopping my way towards the front door, package in my hands, only to nearly drop it in surprise.

Standing in the doorway was Jamie, who was carrying a present in her own arms. What was so surprising was the fact that her head was completely missing. “Jamie?! Where’s your head?! Can you hear me?” Jamie gave a similar little jump to my own, but then gave a thumbs up, before pulling out her phone.
Using a text-to-speech program, she typed out, “Don’t worry, I can hear and see. I got some extra money when I traded in my head, so they sold me this necklace that could act as a surrogate.” She pointed towards a majestic purple gemstone in a golden necklace around her neck. “Anyway,” the program said, “I found this weird thrift store in the mall, and I found you this amazing present, but… well, it looks like you found that same place…”
“Yeah,” I said, the slightest tone of disappointment in my voice as I realized how my present was all but useless now, “Well… here’s my present, I guess…” I handed her present over, as she handed over mine.
“Likewise…” She said. Opening my box, I found the most amazing two piece suit I had ever seen in my life.

The last time I had owned a three piece suit, was when I was in high school, when my father passed down the suit he had in high school. I was very upset when I grew older and I had to hand it over to my younger brother, but my family didn’t have enough to buy a new one for me, so from college onwards I had always gotten a rental whenever I actually needed a suit. It was the perfect gift, but I wouldn’t be able to use it…

We just stared at each other for a while, before dropping our gifts to the floor and hugging one another. We just stood there for a good while, in each other’s arms, until we let go and walked downstairs to press the reset button.

Once we had returned to our normal state again, we hugged once more. “You know,” I whispered, “I would give up literally anything to see you happy. Even the show.”
“Of course,” she said, “but then, where would we show off all the cool stuff we’ll find at that thrift store when we go back?”

Obviously, like how many of these sorts of stories, by the time we got back to the mall, that thrift shop had disappeared, as though it never existed in the first place, but we were both happy with it. We used the money we were going to use on gifts for each other to have an amazing Christmas Dinner together in a fancy restaurant. It was truly one of the best nights ever.