This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

What's the worst Christmas gift you ever bought for your significant other? If you've only been married or together a short time, the answer may be tough. It takes time to screw up this bad.

For those who have some real miles on their relationship, the answer is easy — unless, of course, they're liars or possess abnormally high instincts for survival. People like us know what we've done.

I sit next to Paul Rolly in the newsroom. I asked him what he considered to be the worst Xmas gift he ever bought for his wife, Dawn.

He pretended to give the matter real thought, and said, "I've never given her a bad Christmas present."

I told him to his face that he's full of #$&@!. Nobody married as long as he and Dawn can have a perfect record.

Then I went in search of honest perpetrators of the greatest Christmas gift-giving sin. Here's what I came up with by asking other male co-workers:

"Treadmill."

"A Mexican dress."

"Nothing." (per mutual agreement not to get each other anything for Christmas, which she then violated).

"Wrong size lingerie."

"Set of new tires."

It's understandable why some of these gifts, particularly "nothing" (thanks, Dan Harrie) might cause discord. Women are notoriously hard to buy gifts for, particularly if the one doing the buying is a brutish lout of a male.

Note: Scientific research has determined that 94.7 percent of men, including gay men, fit in this category.

I'm definitely in that number. The worst Christmas gift I ever bought for my wife was a Springfield Pattern 1861 .58-caliber rifled musket. It was both incredibly beautiful and terribly expensive.

Before calling for my immediate hanging, please allow a few words of defense. First, we'd been married only a couple of years. Second, she had expressed an interest in having something in common.

Finally, and this is really important, after I took her shooting the first time, she remarked that "it was too loud, but OK."

"But OK." That meant she didn't absolutely hate it, which in turn meant she might actually enjoy it at some point. So why not get her something exciting, something that expressed how much I wanted us to share that part of my life?

I found out she hated it the gift well before Christmas. She was checking our bank account and noticed something amiss — 299 bucks amiss.

By way of instruction every bit as loud as shooting, it was money she had been setting aside for a new washer and dryer. Clean clothes were something we needed to have in common well before a stupid hobby. We had a baby together, for crying out loud. Why did we need a Civil War musket?

I took it back and instead got a new crib to replace the crappy one we'd bought at a yard sale. She loved it.

If you're new at buying Christmas gifts for your significant other, put real effort in finding out what would make them happiest. Try to take yourself out of the equation.

But what do you get someone who has tolerated your idiocy for 40-plus years? Correct answer: Whatever the hell they want.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.