What's a good thank-you gift for a regular, working guy?

November 8, 2006 11:54 AM

What's a good thank-you gift for my girlfriend's driver's ed teacher?

My girlfriend just passed her road test (after many years of procrastinating) and wants to send a thank-you gift to her driving instructor. He's a working immigrant and has been teaching driver's ed for awhile. He doesn't like it though and wants to switch jobs. What can she get him that he would appreciate? Flowers, fruit/chocolate/spa gift baskets amongst other standard gifts seem rather pretentious and not appropriate for a regular guy. She's looking for something under $30. Any suggestions?

posted by redhotchips to human relations (10 comments total)

Steering Wheel Cover.
posted by sindas at 12:09 PM on November 8, 2006

Grocery-store gift card?
posted by GaelFC at 12:26 PM on November 8, 2006

A scratch lottery ticket and a thank you card?
posted by b33j at 12:26 PM on November 8, 2006

A nice, car friendly, coffee mug with a gift card in it? Also, whatever you get, a glowing letter of recommendation tucked in the card would be sweet.
posted by BoscosMom at 1:06 PM on November 8, 2006

A nice Swiss Army knife keychain?

It's useful, looks more expensive than it is, and comes in a nice little box.
posted by cowbellemoo at 1:36 PM on November 8, 2006

Gift card to Home Depot / Lowe's.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:54 PM on November 8, 2006

Do you know if he has a SO/wife/kids? Movie passes/gift certificate to the local theater is a nice gift because it's a little more specific than a gift card, but they can still see whatever they want. Even my dad, who generally hates movies, finds at least one movie a year he wants to see, so it's a pretty safe gift.
posted by gatorae at 2:16 PM on November 8, 2006

This sounds silly, but a well written, short thank you note is doubly useful to the instructor, because it can be hung up on a public bulletin board in his office (or car, I guess) as a 3rd party testimonial.
posted by rossination at 2:59 PM on November 8, 2006

Model car(s)?

My driving instructor used three small model cars to demonstrate how to do stuff, but they were different scales, so I bought him three nice cars of the same scale (each a distinctly different colour, so it was easy to reference them when describing a situation). It was tricky because I'm in Australian and most models have the steering wheel on the wrong side, but I found some nice Holden models that were right-hand drive.
posted by krisjohn at 5:11 PM on November 8, 2006

6 pack of beer = man flowers
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2006 [1 favorite]