I'm working myself into a temper tantrum.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I had a little extra money, and instead of putting it in my pocket, I chose to treat my grandchildren. I’d seen the TV commercials for the Chinese Shen Yun dancers, and I thought the bright colored costumes and synchronized movements would delight them.

COTU#1, COTU#2, COTU#3, my daughter, my SIL, my son, my DIL, and another person we’ll call a relative.

Eight tickets, REALLY nice seats. With fees and everything, damn near a thousand bucks. Incredibly extravagant in our world, but this was windfall money of a sort, and I wanted to give my family a treat.

The performance was last Saturday.

Well, on Friday, COTU#1 got sick. She had a lab test for something, and bells, whistles, and sirens went off, because they found trouble that had nothing to do with her original complaint. Her blood sugar was ridiculously high. She was immediately admitted to the hospital. She spent the weekend there so she could be stabilized.

That meant four unused tickets. Daughter, SIL, COTU#1, COTU#2

My DIL made some calls, and gave two of the tickets to my niece and her BF. I thought that was wonderful.

So here it is Monday, and I have not heard ONE. SINGLE. WORD. from my niece.

Now, perhaps there is a thank you note in the mail. If one does arrive, I’ll come back here and delete this post.

But until then, I think I’m having a snit.

Please, just tell me I’m being unreasonable…
~VOW

(note: COTU is a nickname for the grandchildren, meaning "Center of the Universe)

2

Hmm…yeah, a bit of a snit.

Wouldn’t her chief obligation be to thank your daughter in law? Who is after all the person who actually gave the tickets? Is “by the way, these seats were paid for by VOW” a piece of information that she has? Is “by the way, these seats were really expensive” a piece of information that she has?

(IOW … cool your jets, dude, IMHO)

Hope your granddaughter is ok btw

3

No, have your snit. A Thank you on Facebook at least. Jeez, these kids these days have no respect. I havn’t ever got the first Thank-you note for a graduation gift (always cash). I have a large set of nieces and nephews and they never forget to send us a card when they’re graduating. I expect 4 this year.

4

So did you go to this performance or not? I don’t know what COTU means.

Does the niece have any idea that you paid?

I can’t say I’ve ever been in the position of your niece, or if I have I didn’t realize it. But I’ve never sent a thank you when someone bought me tickets. However, I have gotten tickets from people and gone WITH them to an event and thanked them profusely before, during and after the event. So I don’t know if I’ve ever had occasion to thank someone for tickets that didn’t go to the event with me.

Do you know if she knows?

5

Skip it! It’s completely NOT worth it.

That your snit needs ‘working up’ to says you intuitively know that you don’t *have * to give a shit about this. And you don’t. So don’t. Just choose not to.

Yes, thank yous are important, part of social protocol, and def respectful. But they shouldn’t be a required obligation, that will ruin the spirit of your giving entirely. Needing a thank you, come down to it, is a least a little bit, about ego. Do you really need it? This person is already raised up and you’re not their Mamma. There’s no lesson to be teaching here.

You did an awesome thing, feel wonderful, avoid the snit and be confident enough to know they loved it and appreciated it, even if they didn’t say so. You can start feeling nothing but awesome about this, right now! Dwell there and resist straying into, being owed something.

Just one opinion. good Luck to you!

6

I’m not sure it matters, since the snit is directed toward your niece and that part seems clear, but I’m a little confused by the overall story. You said you got tickets for eight:

3 grandchildren (COTU 1, 2, and 3)
Your daughter
Your sister-in-law (SIL)
Your son
Your daughter-in-law (DIL)
Someone else

When grandchild #1 gets sick, that means four people - your daughter, two grandkids, and your sister-in-law - can’t go.

Now I’m confused. I assume that your daughter is the mother of two of the grandkids. And that the grandkids are too young to attend on their own. That would knock out three tickets: your daughter and her two children. But why can’t your sister-in-law go? And couldn’t your son and his wife pick up the well child to attend, or something like that? I assume everyone lives close to everyone else, or you wouldn’t be planning a night out for all of them together.

Alright, enough of that. Unless you are positive that your niece knows that you bought the tickets and they were expensive, I don’t think there is anything to be snitty about. What did your DIL say to her? Maybe just, “hey, since COTU#1 got sick, we have four tix that are just going to go to waste, since they’ve already been bought and paid for. Want some?” Then perhaps your niece said, “sure, thanks, I’ll take two, that’s great!” and had no idea that you bought the tickets or that it was a big deal to you. Also, even if your niece knows you bought the tickets, she knows you didn’t buy the tickets for HER. In addition, you didn’t reach out to her and offer her tickets; your DIL did that.

A note or a call of appreciation would be a thoughtful gesture, certainly. But you niece may not realize that, and not because she’s a bad person, just because of the way things played out.

7

Always remember, Kids: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

8

An aside, how is COTU#1?

9

I assume you did not purchase a ticket for yourself? If you’d attended, I’d bet the beneficiaries would have thanked you in person. Since you did not, a quick text, call, or email would be the considerate thing to do. However, it’s only been two days. If your niece went old school and dropped a thank you card in the mail today, you wouldn’t receive it for a couple of days, and there’s no rule that says she has to thank you immediately.

I don’t think I’d drop that much money unless I knew for certain the recipients really, really wanted the tickets. It was incredibly generous of you to treat them that way, but your eagerness to hear back from them may not match their eagerness to have gone and therefore, their eagerness to thank you as quickly and as enthusiastically as you’d like.

10

Harumph! Indeed, HARUMPH! I was looking forward to VOW’s rant but you wrecked it, killjoy. :wink:

11

COTU#1, COTU#2, and their parents did not go. (My daughter is the mom)

Mr VOW and I are in another state.

COTU#3, his parents, and another person (not related, but a huge confusing story) went to the performance. (My son is the dad)

My daughter-in-law is the one who invited my niece. And I’m sure my DIL explained the circumstances, especially the part where I paid for the tickets.

My sister (mother of my niece) even asked me today how COTU#1 is doing!

I do not have my niece’s phone number.

I asked my sister for it, and she never answered me.

I quit FB about two years ago because I got tired of all the pettiness, and I’ve stayed away because of the security bullshit.

All telephone communication is by text, because I am profoundly hearing impaired. This is how my sister gets away with not answering me.

CairoCarol, SIL can also mean son-in-law, and it does in this sob story.

elbows, you are channeling my mother. Everything you wrote, I heard in her voice. I’ll probably snit a little longer, and then channel my father. His Life Philosophy was, “Piss on 'em.”

Beckdawrek, COTU#1 should be discharged by now. Everyone is pleased with how quickly they got her BG controlled, and she was very very cooperative in the hospital.

nelliebly, the original intended recipients of the tickets were incredibly thrilled. But Shit does indeed Happen, and my DIL was trying to make the best of the situation.

I’m crazy about my DIL.
~VOW

12

dropzone, no worries. I plan on snitting a little while longer.
~VOW

13

So your grandchild has diabetes? That’s sort of a big deal, no?

14

HUGE!

She’s nine.

I was rather surprised that the exchange diet isn’t used today, that everything is based on carb counts. Menu planning will be challenging!

The kid has got an outrageous sweet tooth, and I anticipate battles. She is a lot like her mother, and when her mother was her age, she tried to ARGUE the calories out of food!

If I snit over the performance tickets (ticket snitting?), then I don’t have to dwell on the Diabetes Monster.
~VOW

15

Good luck. My daughter was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 2, and developed CF-related diabetes by the time she was 10. Now that she’s 30 she’s finally really taken charge of managing her diseases fairly well, but it was hell getting to that point.

16

I’m sorry your COTU#1 has to deal with diabetes at such a young age–well, at all, really, but especially now, when she’s young and has to deal with health consequences and food restrictions that may be tough. I bet was disappointed she had to miss the show, too. Glad she’s getting discharged. Can’t have the Center of the Universe off-kilter! :slight_smile:

17

Oh I’m so happy she’s going home. Tell them to get her to a good nutritionist. I think most BlueCrosses cover it. They are big on diabetes education. I bet they even have a youth program. I was fighting and fighting with numbers til I got the diet squared away. Will she be diagnosed t1 or t2?

18

I’m guessing T1.

Her mom and her other granmother attended a nutrition class while COTU#1 was still in the hospital! Other grandmother said they got a big binder with information.

My daughter works for Kaiser, so they have Kaiser insurance. Kaiser has classes for EVERYTHING! There will probably be more classes down the line, including, I’m sure, age specific classes to teach kids how to deal with kid-perspective problems.
~VOW

19

Thanks for the awesomely detailed clarifications. And now it is time for me to do some soul-searching: why is it that “SIL” means “sister-in-law” to me, but “son-in-law” never even occurred to me?

I must give that some thought.

20

In Spain we pretty much don’t do written notes except when there is no other way; in this case I think a big box of chocolates tied with a huge red ribbon would have been an appropriate “thank you”. Or at least a Nestlé Red Box. So yes, you’re entitled to a snit.

The good news about COTU#1, diabetes and a sweet tooth is that she can still have sweets: she needs to have them in a more controlled way that 9yo appetites would like, but it’s not the “oh I can’t touch anything sweet!” image many people still have. And while artificial sweeteners should also be handled carefully (ah, the wonderful interactions of maltitol with the lower digestive tract!), nowadays there’s a ton of stuff with sweeteners instead of sugar in supermarket alleys: they’re not really specialty items any more.

One of my most recent clients made both natural and artificial sweeteners. The break room would often have two trays of products from any of our clients: both sweetened with our products, but one sugary and one sugar-not. It was pretty cool.