A few weeks before the recent Christmas Holiday, I ran across an interesting website called Prank-O. These folks sell what purport to be all sorts of weird and wonderful things, from Earwax Candles and Plant Urinals to Cheap Meat Gift Cards (for purchasing “surplus and recalled meats”) and Pet Bat Flyers (“Look for our GoBatSquad.com vans in your community!”).

One thing that really caught my eye was their gift boxes, which are… well, empty boxes. The idea is that these appear to be the sort of gifts you’d buy from a TV shopping channel at 2:00 a.m. if you had the flu and you were delirious with cold medicine. You place your real gifts inside the boxes, wrap them with the appropriate paper for the occasion or season, and — in my case — leave them under the Christmas tree.

I immediately purchased one for my wife (Gina the Gorgeous) and one for my son (Joseph the Commonsense Challenged).

Of course, no one likes cleaning toilets, so you can only imagine Gina’s surprise and delight to unwrap what presented itself as a box of Tidy Tips fingertip brushes, which are described as being “Perfect for reaching those awkward nooks, crannies, cracks, and crevices.”

Similarly, Joseph — who often enjoys an al dente plate of pasta — manfully managed to curb his enthusiasm when he unwrapped his Pasta Recycler, which “Makes used pasta almost like new again.”

Even if you don’t buy anything, you’ll have a laugh wandering around the Prank-O website. For example, you can watch some Prank-O Gift Box Videos showing real people unwrapping their gifts and seeing their Prank-O boxes for the first time. Also, the answers to the FAQs are delightfully droll, especially the response to the question: “I ordered a Prank Pack and all I received was a flat empty box, where is that actual product I ordered?”

All I can say is that if you know someone who has a birthday or anniversary or some other occasion coming up for which a gift is called, you may want to consider presenting their present in a Prank-O gift box.