(So aptly named by Jethro) Since I can finally post about it on the board, I wanted to make it clear that no one was intentionally left out of participating in Mud and Robins gift.  I sent an email to everyone that I had an email address for, and others forwarded it to posters they had email addresses for. We obviously couldn't talk about it on the board and keep it a secret, so this was the best way to handle it.

Here is a list of items that were included in the basket...

I filled a HUGE basket with......
 
Bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte champagne
Pair of hand blown, etched martini glasses
$100 gift certificate to the Doubletree
Burnes picture frame
Pair of Mikasa candlesticks
Lovers Coupon book
 
Food items:
Lobster spread
Smoked salmon pate
Merlot cheese spread
Crackers
Cherry Scones mix
French roast coffee sampler
Chocolate, carmel topping set
Waffeletten (cookies)
Strawberry preserves
Doubletree chocolate chip cookies
Swiss Alps Chocolate bar
Pyramid of Ferrero Rocher chocolates
Sinamints
An Outback gift cert. from Mims
  
Joke (but some useful) items:
Ponchos
Bunny slippers
VS Thong
Green M&M’s
Lifesavers
Wisecrackers
A mysterious “Nole” gift from Conman
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
Book - What Men Know About Women (it’s blank inside)
Liquid Love Warming Massage Oil
Jim Beam hot sauce (to spice things up when they need it)
Woolite (to wash his $600 jeans in)
A softball (signed by you know who)
Preperation H (since we’re all a pain in his ass)
Hampster food (to keep the server running)
 
and last, but not least, a VS sock puppet. :)

This thing was a bear to wrap to ship since there were so many breakables in it.  I couldn't send it as a traditional gift basket, wrapped all nice and pretty, I had to individually wrap the breakables in bubble wrap, put the candlessticks and frames back in the boxes they were purchased in, and even wrapped all of the chocolate with a frozen ice pack and tried to insulate it in layers of paper so it wouldn't melt during the shipment. (Did they stay cold Mud?)  I took great pains to make sure things were packed in the basket nice and tight so they wouldn't shift around during transit.  I called the local UPS store to inquire the best way to pack this, telling them it was a gift basket that contained champaign, glasses, many breakables, etc. The told me "Just put black arrows up with This End Up written on each side and it will be fine!"  Did they tell me it's illegal to ship champagne?!!!!     NOOOOO!   Did anyone that contributed to the basket that knew I was sending champagne tell me it was illegal to ship champaigne?  NOOOOO!  So I get to a UPS store in Daytona (since we had an appointment in Daytona anyway), they see the arrows drawn on the box and shake their heads saying "that won't work, that the box will be tumbling all over a conveyer". The conversation was as follows...

You get the drift by now.  We opened the box, unwrapped the basket,  removed the champagne bottle in front of said clerk so they would ship the box that day, then repacked it and blew it full of peanuts  I said at the time that Mud was going to love dealing with those peanuts, so it just cracked me up when he told me he had to open the box in the parking lot to take the basket out since it the box was too big to fit in his car.   And to top it off, he said with all of the arrows point the top of the box that was supposed to stay up, he found the box sitting on it's side in his office.

Oh, and one last thing for all of you that knew how it was driving me crazy to get the correct name of the kid in the softball incident.........MUD DOESN'T REMEMBER HIS NAME EITHER!!!!