"My first non-drug-rep bribe..."

A patient gives a gift that's wrong in every conceivable way. Then it's carried off by Katrina! Dr. Hebert reports on why he misses the worst gift ever given:

My desk and my office took on 8 feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, so I only have my memory of it; but my memory in this rare case is perfect: It was a 5-inch tall gray ceramic skull, a Halloween trinket, glazed to a high gloss...It was, in a word, tacky. I kept it to remind me that I could never get a worse gift. My little Yorick humored me.

As with any gift, its value was derived not simply from the value of the object itself but also from the circumstances of the giving, which I will now relate...