I bought a bladder for my brother for Christmas.

You may think I'm crazy, which is exactly what I thought my brother, Randy, was when I saw the words "Camelbak Bladder" written on his Christmas list. I mean, I couldn't believe he misspelled "camelback."

"It's a brand name," he said. "That's how it's spelled."

A brand-name bladder? Were the imitation bladders just not good enough? And what the hell was a "Camelbak Bladder," anyway?

"Randy, what the hell is a 'Camelbak Bladder,' anyway?" I asked him.

"It's for mountain biking. It holds water," he said.

Ah, yes, of course. So off I went in search of a bladder. (Incidentally, I am almost positive that is the first time in recorded history the preceding sentence has ever been printed.)

I entered the mountain biking store, which was empty save for the two clerks who worked there. I quickly surmised it must have been a slow day for bladders. I waited until the clerk asked if she could help me, because I couldn't quite get the words out of my mouth.

"Yes," I said, "I'm looking for a ..." I looked down at my brother's list. "'Camelbak ... Blad ... der'?"

I expected her to slap me, but instead she asked, "A total rehydrating system or just the bladder itself?"

"Uh, the bladder, I guess," I said. "Hey, can I just call it 'canteen'? That's what it is, isn't it?"

"No," she said. "It's a bladder."

I bought a blue one. A blue bladder. Say it: "Blue bladder blue bladder blue bladder blue bladder." It's fun.

The next day I went to Toys R Us with my girlfriend, to find a gift for her 5-year-old nephew. I suggested she get him a bladder. She slapped me.

As we wandered through the nightmare of Toys R Us the week before Christmas, watching parents and children run around the store, each of us had the same unwavering thought: If ever there was an argument for birth control, this place was it.

Nevertheless, on we trudged. While in the board games aisle, she considered buying her 8-year-old cousin a game called "Gooey Looey." The premise of this game revolved around pulling "boogers" out of "Looey"'s nose. The last person to pull a "booger" out of "Looey" somehow also pulls out his "brain," thereby becoming the "loser."

And I thought buying a bladder was weird. Luckily for my girlfriend, they were out of "Gooey Looey" games. That frightened me.

We did, however, find a gift for her nephew. She bought this tee-ball contraption that featured a pedal which, when pressed, shot a plastic baseball about four feet in the air. I don't know if her nephew liked it, but I seriously considered buying one. I dropped a few hints to my girlfriend about that being a possible Christmas present for me, but I'm not sure she picked up on them.

While we were in line to pay for this insanely cool toy, I noticed a sign hanging from the ceiling advertising "The Original Bigen!" This "toy" was basically a red ball, the size of ... well, bigger than a small child. In fact, the sign pictured a small c hild hugging this giant ball as if he truly thought this would be a fun toy to play with.

What I wanted to know was, why "original"? Did the makers of "The Original Bigen!" truly believe they were the first to think of the concept of a really huge ball? Were there "Imitation Bigens!"? When would "The Original Bigen!" feature film be out?

I posed these questions to my girlfriend. She had no answers. So I told her to say "blue bladder" over and over, really fast.

She slapped me.

Monty Phan is sports editor of the Arizona Daily Wildcat. His column appears Fridays.