ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030051
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: FRIDAY SOMETHING
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER
If you bought Bill Gates (America's richest Harvard dropout) a Christmas present, chances are he's already rewrapping it for someone else.
It's not that he didn't think of you fondly as he opened it in his new $50 million bungalow. It's just that high-income Americans are more likely to recycle gifts than those who make less money and might actually need something, according to American Express' Most Outrageous Gift Survey.
When asked for the oddest gifts received, replies included chocolate-covered bees, a boa constrictor (they don't come cheap), a truckload of dirt, and a burned-out light bulb. Go figure.
Maybe that Elvis toaster cover or duck-shaped casserole dish from your mother-in-law isn't the weirdest gift in the world and might win you $500.
Find out by entering next year's American Express' ``Most Outrageous Gifts Contest.'' Any gift is eligible for any of the four categories - Lover's Losers, Friends Bearing Gifts, Relative Failures (self explanatory) and Workplace Worsts.
Send entries to Stanton-Crenshaw Comm., 79 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10003.
Money and good taste are not necessarily found in the same side of the brain, you know.
LENGTH: Short : 32 linesby CNB