> The Gift that Keeps on Giving
> 
> 
> OWATONNA, Minn (AP)
> 
> Roy Colette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same
> pair of pants as a Christmas present for 11 years - and
> each time the package gets harder to open. This year the pants
> came wrapped in a car mashed into a 3-foot cube.
> 
> The trousers are in the glove compartment of a 1974 Gremlin. Now
> Collette's plotting his revenge--if he can get them out.
> 
> It all started when Collette received a pair of moleskin
> trousers from his brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of Bensenville,
> Ill. Kunkel's mother had given her son the britches when he was a
> college student. He wore them a few times, but they froze stiff
> in cold weather and he didn't like them. So he gave them to
> Collette.
> 
> Collette, who called the moleskins "miserable", wore them three
> times, then wrapped them up and gave them back to Kunkel
> for Christmas the next year.
> 
> The friendly exchange continued routinely until Collette twisted
> the pants tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide
> tube and gave them back to Kunkel.
> 
> The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch
> square, wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale" to
> Collette.
> 
> Not to be outdone, the next year Collette put the pants into a
> 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded
> it
> with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel.
> 
> The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were
> damaged. But they were as careful as they were clever.
> 
> Kunkel had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had
> a 20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette.
> 
> Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them
> into a 5-inch coffee can and soldered it shut. The can was put
> in a
> 5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and
> given to Kunkel the following Christmas.
> 
> Two years ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound
> homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched
> Collette's name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the
> treasured trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a
> cutting torch.
> 
> Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to
> Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department
> decorated it with red and green stripes, put the pants inside
> and welded the safe shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel,
> who is the plant manager for Viracon's outlet in Bensenville.
> 
> Last week, the pants were trucked to Owatonna, 55 miles south of
> Minneapolis, in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a
> car with 95,000 miles on it. A note attached to the 2,000-pound
> scrunched car advised Collette that the pants were inside the
> glove compartment.
> 
> "This will take some planning," Collette said. "I will
> definitely get them out. I'm confident." But he's waiting until
> January to think about how to recover the bothersome britches.
> 
> "Wait until next year," he warned. "I'm on the offensive again."
>