The San Francisco Treat

"World's

Worst Gift...Ever."

Location: San Francisco, California

San Francisco was a family affair. Collectively, all of Alex and my siblings live in San Francisco, two of whom live less than 300 yards (according to our GPS) from one another. One such sibling, Alex's middle sister Catie, set us up with her roommate Shaun who is a "big brother" to two boys, nine and eleven. We were able to meet up with Shaun and one of his "little brothers," Evan, 9, to see if we couldn't brighten his day. Evan comes from a very rough family background, having been from foster home to foster home in the middle of a pretty mean part of town. Recently, Shaun introduced him to skateboarding as a way to be active, get creative, and spend time together. Evan was using one of Shaun's old boards, a sweet hand-me-down by all accounts, but it was old and the grip-tape was tearing and we knew what we could do.

We took Shaun and Evan to a sweet skate shop in the Mission District called Mission Skateboards and let Evan pick out his own brand new board, deck, trucks and everything. He picked a deck that featured his last name, and the sales guy put together his board right in front of him. We also bought a set of trucks for Shaun's other "little brother" who we weren't able to meet so he could start skateboarding with Shaun as well. After Evan's new board was all set, the five of us went to a nearby skate park so he could test it out. Evan was not deterred in the slightest by the bigger, older guys (I could see you at the top of the ramp, Chris Dedinsky) waiting to drop in, and he strolled right up with them. Alas, as we watched him take the drop the first time, he completely ate it. He was so disappointed and upset that he fell, he stormed up and insisted, "I hate this board! I want my old board back!" He was slightly injured, but nothing more than scrapes. Alex, Kevin, and I realized we had successfully given the world's worst gift...ever. We never intended a donation to make a kid bleed. But we are pretty sure that given a couple days to heal, both ego and bruises, Evan is going to get used to the new board and really, truly dig it. We just hope any future gifts won't make it onto any more world's worst lists.