Fix your rotten gift

Spicoli's fix
Given enough time, every guy will give his gal a dumb gift at some point. Maybe you gave her the exact same gift that you forgot you already gave her the year before. Or you might have gotten a deal on some used jewelry that wasn't in perfect condition...but still looked "pretty good" in your opinion.

These are pretty bad gifts, and if you don't do something about them, they'll become a series of running jokes for the rest of your relationship. I promise you, she will never forget them...unless you take action.

Erase all traces
Your goal here is to wipe out any memories of that terrible gift as much as you can, and you'll do this by giving her a better one, but in a different way.

If you do this right, the new gift will provide her with some new memories to replace the older ones, and you'll come out as a hero. She'll be happy, and that first joke of a gift should fade right away. Just remember...no matter how awful the gift, you've got to believe like Jeff Spicoli, "I can fix it."

Take immediate action
Now you may discover that she's unhappy with her gift right when she opens it, or you might find out years later. Regardless, your first step is to own up to how bad your choice of gift was.

Without pause, tell your gal why you picked that particular gift and how sure you were that it was a great choice. If you get to talking much longer than one minute or so, it could start to sound like you're making an excuse, and that's not what you want. This isn't some deep apology. You're simply letting her in on your thought process that went into her gift, so that she'll know you weren't phoning it in.

Let her see your disappointment over missing the mark, in spite of your best effort. Don't overplay this though. If you start acting like you're all broken up over it, you're going in the wrong direction. Just be honest that you feel a little bad (as you should) that your gift didn't make her happy like you had hoped.

Go bigger
To be clear, your gal wants two things from you. First, she wants you to acknowledge her feelings by recognizing that your gift was a dud. Second, she wants you to be a man and fix it...instead of stewing about it and doing nothing.

So now that you're finished with the first part, it's time for action. You're going to get her another gift that's more expensive than the first. The reason for this is that you're not trying to merely replace the first gift...you're giving her something better, that will eclipse any memories of that bum gift.

No surprises
You might be thinking that that you need to secretly find a new gift and wrap it up, like you did with the first. Forget that idea. The mystery has already gone out of opening her gift, and giving her another to open will feel too similar to the first experience. That would just be a do-over in her mind, and that's not exciting to a gal.

You have to do something wildly different this time around. So, instead of trying to surprise her, tell her that you want to make this right by having her pick out her own gift...something really special for herself.

If she refuses, then tell her that it's important to you, and that you truly want to give her something nice...or whatever you need to say to get her to agree. (She might not admit it, but she'll love hearing how important this gift is to you, and by extension...how important she is to you.)

Once she's on board with the idea, she probably won't expect or ask for a pricier gift, but nudge her in that direction. If she's adamant about picking something inexpensive, then the few bucks you saved and put them toward a nice meal with her, and call it a day.

Last thought
When you've given your gal an awful gift, but ultimately come through for her with a different gift experience, it sends her a message. It shows her that even when you hit a speedbump (be it something small like a gift or something larger, like a problem in your relationship), she can depend on you to take care of her in the end.