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Bill Engvall Show Finale Airs Sept. 4 at 9 pm/ET on TBS

Well, gang, we are coming to the end of the first round of shows. I hope that you are enjoying our little play. Tonight’s episode deals with gift-giving. When we are children we really don’t think much about gift-giving because we are usually the ones receiving the gifts. Even when when we did have to give gifts, like on birthdays or Mother's Day, our parents would go and buy them for us. When we had to give gifts to our parents, we usually made a coin holder (in the old days this was also an ashtray) out of clay and then painted it. Or we mushed our hands into wet clay so that our parents had a permanent impression of our little mitts. So when we grow up and start dating or get married we (especially men) are totally unprepared in the proper ways of buying gifts. Trust me on this one: It took me forever to figure out that women actually do care what you give them.

But in defense of my stance on this subject, when I ask my wife what she wanted for her birthday she told me face-to-face, eye-to-eye that she really didn’t care. Well, guess what, she hardly ever uses the men’s golf clubs that I bought that year. Lesson learned! Guys are easy to buy for — pretty much anything shiny or electronic and we are happier than puppies with new chew toys. And it's not always men who make the mistakes; I remember one Christmas my mother-in-law gave us the worse gift that one could imagine.

Let me tell you the story. My wife likes this certain brand of toilet paper. I know, it makes no sense to me, either — guys are happy with dry leaves, newspaper, whatever. Anyway, when we moved to California they did not have her favorite brand of toilet paper. So my mother-in-law thought that it would be cute to give us a case of this certain brand of toilet paper. But not only did she give it to us, she wrapped it. Now, I don’t know if you have seen a case of toilet paper wrapped, but it is the exact dimensions of a 24-inch color tv. She put my name on the box. Christmas morning I beat my kids to the tree, I ripped opened the box and there it was, a case of toilet paper. My first thought was that it was a joke; there was a DVD player in there. Nope, just 144 roles of toilet paper. Then she gave me 10 pair of underwear — what do I need those for? With that much toilet paper I could have made my own underwear and still had some left over.

So gift-giving has to be thought out, and the receiver needs to be very clear about exactly what they want. When I was a child I told my parents that I wanted the song “War” by Edwin Starr. Well, my parents didn’t know rock and roll from Adam. So what I received was an album called “Tobacco Road” by the group War. Totally wrong that I grew to love that album, but my point is that I wasn’t clear about what I wanted. So in tonight’s episode, we deal with that point exactly: Be clear! We also deal with the issue of growing older and trying to hold on to your youth. I mean, I make noises getting into bed now.

So I hope that you will continue to spread the word about The Bill Engvall Show on Tuesdays on TBS. Because we are very funny.