Once again, my stepson showed up at our house for Christmas yesterday empty-handed. I told my wife this morning “I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I just don’t get it.” She said “Hey, I’m lucky if he remembers to text me on my birthday.”
He’s 45 years old and works full time at the university. He doesn’t have a wife or kids or girlfriend. He lives in an apartment with a couple of cats. He drives a 10+ year old Honda. It doesn’t seem like he should have that many expenses, but always seems to be short of money. And apparently can’t be bothered to get anyone even a token gift (or bring food, or a bottle of wine, or something) for Christmas.
Some people simply don’t think of gifts. The very idea of “gift” is simply alien to them. I’m a bit that way.
If I see something I like for me I buy it then and there, occasion be damned. So there is (almost) never a known unmet need for me. So anyone buying something for me is either buying me something I actively don’t want, or they’ve magically identified a need I myself haven’t yet identified. Much more likely it’s the former.
So now they’re spending on [whatever] out of a sense of obligation, and I’m falsely gushing over [whatever] out of a sense of obligation. We’re both less happy than before and some retailer is grinning all the way to the bank. Spare me. And spare you. It’s the humane civilized thing to do. Not to mention that it’s also economically efficient.
For someone like my wife with whom I spend so much time and share so much of life I have a realistic chance of a) knowing of an unmet need she’s got, and b) knowing her taste well enough to solve it successfully given some good luck. So I’ll at least try. And occasionally even succeed. But certainly not on cue on one of 4 magically officially pre-chosen dates of the year: Valentine’s Day, Christmas, her birthday, or our anniversary.
Having said that, I’ll sure bring food to a group meal or flowers or wine to a host(ess). But physical gifts? Bah. If you wanted it you already have it. If you don’t want it you’re better off without it.
This morning (the 26th) my wife & I gave our Christmas gift(s) to her two adult kids. Matching transfers of money via Zelle. Works for all of us.
I think it’s okay that you feel this way. They may not be that bad now, but you’re entitled to your feelings about how you were raised, and sometimes those feelings persist well into adulthood.
I’ve been thinking about my own family a bit, and was talking to my husband about my biological father. He is a severe alcoholic and I haven’t spoken to him in several years. He never did anything terrible to me, it’s just that as a child, I always felt like the responsible one, even at six or seven years old, he said and did a lot of stupid and dangerous stuff and I felt like I had to rein him in. He took me to the toy store and the park and taught me Scrabble and new words from the dictionary, but I never felt for him what you’re supposed to feel toward a father. One thing he always said to me was “I can love you and alcohol at the same time.” And every weekend I saw him we would spend at least one entire day at the bar.
So no, he wasn’t the worst father in the world, but I felt something missing as a child, I still feel something missing and it just seemed like a lot of effort to maintain a relationship with someone I am largely indifferent toward.
Thank you. With an adult perspective, it’s easy to have compassion for people like your father, but that doesn’t negate the damage they do through things done & undone.
I went through this years ago, so my family knows how I feel about it. But… my ex-SIL brought up her daughters to think they must give gifts no matter what. And she loves, loves shopping for gifts. I can’t stop her so I just let them give me something and sometimes they get something back because I love, love to cook and bake. This year, I got a jacket that doesn’t fit and some of XSIL’s mother’s costume jewelry. Well, I’ve got a bag of stuff to Goodwill started, so I’ll just add to it. This year, they got re-gifted soaps.
People give me soap because it smells good, is cheap, and everyone uses soap. Except me because of my myriad allergies, I quit trying to explain it to people and just re-gift the soaps. The family knows are accept the soaps with grace.
One of my bro’s loaded me up with odd foodstuffs from his freezer as a gift. I am so grateful because he knows I need it. He even handed me the hambone from the ham he cooked because he knows I’ll use it for soup. Now that’s a handsome present!
My son and DIL’s SWA flight was cancelled last night. After determining they couldn’t get another flight for 3-4 days, they hopped on various apps and low and behold Enterprise had a car they could rent for a one-way trip to their destination. They book it and pay for it.
Show up this morning at 9:45 to a suspiciously empty parking lot. They are told that they are 5th in line for whatever vehicles may show up.
More phone calls, and, it being Enterprise, simultaneously driving to another nearby location. The manager there is apologetic, says he doesn’t think he’ll get any more vehicles today, but we should hang with him a bit. DIL meanwhile has been on the phone with Enterprise and the regional manager would call her ASAP with a resolution.
And then, a Christmas miracle. Turns out FedEx rents a boatload of minivans at Christmas as overflow delivery vehicles. They weren’t due back for a week, but five of them got turned in as we sat there. The Guatemalan family that were waiting when we got there got the first one, and then we got the next.
So it all worked out, but the bastards shouldn’t rent you a vehicle they don’t have. On the other hand, if they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have been in the store to get one.
My son is a very cute toddler. So cute and so very toddler. He grabbed my glasses the other day and bent them WAY out of shape. We go to a glasses place and they fix them up. All’s good. Then, he got them again yesterday. They aren’t as bad as they were the first time but we haven’t been able to get over to a glasses place to get them fixed properly so they are kind of just hanging on my face. I’m worried they won’t be able to fix them this time because they were already worried about breaking them the last time. Is it already time for new glasses? Glasses are so expensive. UGH
ETA: I got this pair in March. It is NOT time for new glasses.
Ditto. My husband and his family really seem to do and feel everything differently from mine. None of his kids ever give gifts. And we don’t need shit, it’s fine. But after everybody left on Christmas day, husband mentioned that his son told him the cookies my mom contributed “sucked”. I just bit my tongue.
I have dealt with Enterprise enough that I know the managers of the two closest non-airport locations by sight & name. Both have explained that Corporate / their website is completely happy to take reservations for vehicles they have absolutely no expectation of actually having on the lot. In their telling it’s not the usual overselling to offset some predictable rate of no-shows as is commonplace in many industries. Instead it’s taking in large numbers of pure fantasy bookings. Every. Damned. Day.
I do not know how common that is with other rental agencies, but it’s an acknowledged “feature” of Enterprise.
When I reserve a rental car at an airport from any of the big brand name agencies, there’s often some futzing around. I’m reserving a car of some arbitrary “class” they’ve invented, and often when I arrive they have no cars of that class. I generally reserve one towards the fancy end of their menu and often I end up with something from nearer the bilge of their menu. But I’ve never had a “no cars at all situation” from a large agency.
Then again, I’ve not tried renting in the middle of an airline meltdown.
Yeah, #1 son did a stint at Enterprise one college summer. He said they spent a lot of time (maybe most of it) hoping someone would bring a car back early to cover whatever was supposed to be going out that day. In Enterprises defense, he said a lot of times the problem was that people would a car a day (or more) late. Of course, a customer-focused operation would have that figured into their available cars algorithm. On the other, I guess always having 99.99% of cars on contract keeps the bottom line happy.
My kids do well with Zenni~if you don’t need same day or precisely fit progressives. Good return policy, seems like very high quality for the price.
Costco’s price for eyeglasses is incredibly low for the quality and excellent service you will get (or at least I did, with some precise fitting prescription needs I had). I got two pairs, progressives in nice frames, adjusted well for less than $170 for both. I was used to paying $300 per pair from optical shops. Well worth the yearly $60 membership fee. I waited about a week to pick them up. Huge selection of frames, BTW, including some designer frames. Every couple of months when I’m shopping I have them tighten the frames and replace the nose pads, which they cheerfully.
BBB has been silenced before she coud type the truth “Which they cheerfully eat!” CostCo employees are aliens who eat our used nosepads! We’re through the looking glass here people!
Walmart (at least the one near me) is also surprisingly very good and inexpensive (compared to most places). I used to use Costco but switched over some years back due to problems with a staff member. Walmart seems to have a wider range of low-end frames as well as pricier stuff.
Are we all missing the obvious solution? Take your glasses off before you pick up a toddler (or get your face near one).
Works even with 20/800 vision…
But I’m betting none of us would think to do that… we’re all creatures of habit that just automatically wear glasses all day long, no matter what we’re doing.
Oh, or get contacts til the kid’s older (and don’t have any more children: “Sorry, honey, I’d need new glasses if we did.” “Okay, that’s unassailable logic.”) 8•)
I have the rest of the soup fixins too because I always have a mix of beans in the cupboard, as well as home-canned tomatoes and onions. And that’s pretty much all it takes. But I want to take the bone to the butcher and have them cut it in half to expose more marrow for the cooking. Yum.
I’m this toddler’s mom. Might as well just go around blind all day.
But, as luck would have it, I didn’t actually have my glasses on when he grabbed them. He ninja’d them off the couch when I took them off to fix my hair… both times. I gotta learn from my mistakes.
Aww, he was just trying to figure out how glasses work, and performing some stress tests on them. You can console yourself with the fact that the kid has a great future as an engineer…