When John Matar stepped outside his Chicago home on his birthday recently, he found two tons of manure piled eight feet high on his front lawn. The present, compliments of his brother in California, was the latest in an outlandish gift-giving war that erupted between the two when John sent his sibling one of those “insulting” birthday cards. He got 50 back.

Last year John received a pet rock that tipped the scale at 4,000 pounds. He responded with 10 tons of pebbles and a note telling his brother that the pet rock had babies.

Over the years, gifts between the two have also included a full-grown elephant and two busloads of choirboys. Which goes to show, it’s not just the thought that counts.

Campus Life, Jan., 1980, p. 22