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Category: Gimme

Tour de My Birthday

admin30 Comments

I’m curious what others think about this— maybe my own feelings about my birthday (which is, I’m grateful to have one and appreciate any kind gestures but don’t want any significant celebration) are clouding my judgement and making me curmudgeonly about this!

A bit of background: this particular friend has done this for at least seven or eight years now; selecting up to a week’s worth of activities to celebrate her birthday and mass-inviting friends, family and co-workers via Facebook. Activities have ranged from wine tasting to park picnics to movies to group dinners. As well as my memory serves, she’ll sometimes provide some food, as in cupcakes for the park picnic, and make the group reservation, but any entrance fees, tickets, meal checks, bar tabs, etc. are expected to be paid by her “guests.”

The invitation, received the first week of July for a birthday the last week of August, is as follows with identifying details changed:

I’m planning to celebrate my birthday with two days of fun!

On my actual birthday, I’ll be at Scooby’s Bar and Grill after work. Not sure about the time yet, but I’ll let you know (they have happy hour specials until 6 though so arrive as early as you want!).

On the Sunday after my birthday I’ll be participating in the Walk to Save the Micro Orphan Whales. More info to come; you’re welcome to join my fundraising team.

Then we can head over to Le Bougie Bistro to celebrate with food and refreshments. Based on the travel time I estimate we will start brunch around 10am.

On Sunday evening I’ll be attending the Symphony on the Green. We’ll have pizza among other goodies. Link to tickets here.

My thought is, if you’re in your mid-thirties and want to celebrate your birthday with more than your immediate family, you invite friends or whom ever for whatever fits your vision and budget—if that means a formal, gourmet dinner party, buying everyone pitchers of beer and plates of wings at a local bar, or even just cake and a board game in your living room, whatever; but you provide the hospitality and thank these people for being in your life. To me this sounds like “here’s my grand birthday tour, you may be graced by my presence at your convenience.” To that end, she titled the event “Birthday Options” and in the past has even said that she’s planned a full spectrum of events so that everyone can find something that works for them (I ignore the invitation completely but have considered submitting this every year for awhile now).

Of course, she’s already posted links to gift suggestions and this comes just weeks after asking for donations to fund her sketch comedy club’s European “performance (vacation).”  0807-18

By now everyone on the planet should know my thoughts on “invitations” of this nature.  One almost expects young children to be selfish and whine of their need to be suitably feted for their birthday but adults?  Pity the grown adult who must regress back to childish needs for a birthday party.

In this story, the birthday girl (and I use the diminutive intentionally) annually invests a considerable amount of time coordinating, scheduling and planning events surrounding her birthday yet apparently does not apply her considerable skills to bless anyone else.    One hopes that enough friends, family and co-workers decline to attend the birthday events.

Online Begging To Fund The Able-Bodied Teenager’s Hobbies

admin85 Comments

An acquaintance of mine, “Jane”, has a daughter, “Susie”, in high school. Susie is into gymnastics, a really expensive sport where I live. For the past few years, I’ve noticed that Jane (with her husband”s blessing, I believe) has been setting up GoFundMe accounts and making social media posts asking for money to pay for her daughter’s uniforms, equipment, etc. I was raised to work for what I want, and if my parents didn’t have money for an activity, we didn’t do that activity. I was chatting with friends and I said that since Susie has a car, she could get a part time job to pay her own expenses, and that I don’t donate to those tyoe of requests. That opened up a whole discussion. Some of my friends don’t see anything wrong with what Jane is doing, and some of us are floored by it and won’t donate. Are we just out of touch for thinking Susie should pay her own way or drop the activity, or is begging now the newest way of life? 0409-18

You are not out of touch.   You understand that life (and people) do not owe you happiness and if you want something, you work for it.   Breaking a sweat creating a Go Fund Me account does not qualify as “work”.

People who are handed things have no appreciation for the value of what they have been given.   If you want something bad enough, you work for it and that builds character, a deep appreciation for everything you own, and a mature understanding that no one owes you.

 

Panhandling And The Polite Spine

admin46 Comments

I’d like to get an etiquette opinion on something I witnessed a couple of weeks ago. Although I was not directly affected by the events in this story, it has popped into my mind on several occasions since.

Some friends and I were eating in an outdoor portion of a local pub. The restaurant is in a busy area of town on a pedestrian only street. There was a couple sitting near us, huddled with heads together, very obviously in the middle of a serious conversation. As they were speaking, a homeless man approached them from the street, and started a practiced speech about not being an addict of any kind, but needing money. The man at the table lifted his head, visibly irritated, and said “I’m sorry, we’re having our dinner and trying to talk.” and turned back to his companion, who looked unsure of what she should do. The homeless man eyed the couple’s empty dishes and said “looks like you’re finished to me.” And stood staring at them. The man sitting at the table just said “Dude…” in a voice that very clearly meant he wasn’t in a giving mood. After a moment or two, the homeless man moved on and gave his speech to the next table, as we made our way out to the street.

This interaction sparked a discussion in our group. One of my friends said the guy should have just given him some money. He is a human being after all, and it would have avoided a scene. Another thought the guy handled it just fine. I am on the fence. Part of me felt bad for the homeless man, but another part bristled at his reaction to being told “no”. Although the kind thing to do is to help those less fortunate, the couple owed him nothing, and he was interrupting an obviously intimate moment.

Panhandling has increased quite a bit in our town over the past few years, and will pick up again in the coming warm months. How exactly does one handle this type of situation gracefully? 0607-18

Is it a kindness to help those less fortunate, specifically the homeless, by directly giving them money? Usually it is not because the reasons for homelessness are often far more complex than a simple lack of money. Handing a homeless person cash may be a profound unkindness. You are not in a position to assess within the few seconds of interaction whether money will help or hurt this person. Is the person a professional panhandler?   In cities there are increasing numbers of “rescue missions” who offer the homeless a place to sleep, shower, fresh clothes, food, literacy lessons, job skills, help with addictions, money management lessons, and on and on. They address those complex issues in a far more comprehensive way, looking to see what would actually serve the homeless person to become not homeless. Financially support those homeless missions because most of them have excellent track records of lifting people out of homelessness into productivity.

But if a homeless person asks for food, by all means be generous. Pay for a meal to the restaurant, buy fast food and hand it to them. Pack an extra sandwich and apple in your lunch if you know the likelihood of encountering a hungry homelessness person on your way to work will be high. Some people have a unique solution to the panhandling by making and distributing “blessing bags”.

I see nothing wrong in how the man dealt with the situation with the panhandler.

Cringe-Worthy Graduation Greediness

admin38 Comments

About 20 years ago, my husband, kids and I were also invited to a high school graduation party because the graduate and one of my kids, my daughter who was also graduating from the same high school, were close friends, and we parents were long-time friends as well. Like the other submission, the graduate’s extended family was all invited and most of them came – they were a big, noisy, gift-giving, partying family – and my husband, kids and I were the only non-family members. The party was laid back, and we were having a good time.

The problem came after the food was served and the party nearly over. The honoree began to open the stacks of cards on the table; almost everyone had put cash or a check in a card instead of bringing a gift, and we had done the same. With a child about to start college, and more kids at home to pay for on our modest income, we had put $25 in the card – remember, this is two decades ago, so $25 was not a bad gift for a non-family member. This girl, old enough to know better, loudly announced the amount of cash or check in each and every card. “One hundred bucks, thanks Uncle X! Seventy-five from cousin B, woo-hoo! Wow, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY, thanks, granny!”

We were cringing. Our card was near the bottom, and we had to sit there and listen as amounts all much higher than what we gave were shouted out and sometimes, see the check or cash waved in the air in triumph. I looked at her parents; instead of discouraging her, they were egging her on, exclaiming, “Wow! Hey, that’s really a good gift! Thanks mom/uncle E/cousin D!” Second, third and step cousins gave a minimum of $75 each, and I knew these people; none were wealthy. Of course, that was their choice to give the amounts they did and none of my business to know how much they gave, or so I had always believed. However, did none of them realize that you don’t announce amounts? They all oohed and ahhed with each announcement, so it wasn’t bothering them, it seemed. When it came to our card, she was polite enough to say, “Twenty-five, thanks guys.”, but we were still glad when it was time to leave. We’d never seen our friends do that sort of thing before, but other parties we’d attended for their kids had been when the kids were young and it was all gifts they opened, not cash. When their other kids graduated high school, we always found a reason to leave just as the gift opening started at the end of the party. 0525-17

The Gimme Pig Doesn’t Fall Far From The Gimme Tree

admin61 Comments

My story is about one of the moms of my 9 year old daughter’s “best friend” who I will call Sally. The kid is very poorly behaved and has terrible boundaries and the mom is worse, but my daughter seems to be crazy about her so she wants her to be invited to all of her parties and such. My daughter’s birthday party is what this story is all about.

My daughter wanted to have her guests make ice cream sundaes instead of getting a cake. I went a little overboard and spent about $80 on ice cream and tons of toppings including fruit, candy, chocolate chips, nuts, whipped creme, etc. I gave each of the girls a red solo cup and told them to have at it. They created and consumed these massive sundaes and were happy as clams. Sally asked if she could have seconds and I said no, the first sundaes were huge and I didn’t think there would really be enough for all of the guests to have a second one. Sally was pissed and pouted but I didn’t really care.

I took all of the leftovers into the kitchen, putting away the ice cream but leaving most everything else out in the bowls I’d put them in while I went to continue to supervise the party.

When Sally’s mom showed up to pick her up about 20 minutes later, I was occupied with something else and didn’t really notice. When I walked into the kitchen you can imagine my surprise when there are Sally and Sally’s mom. Sally’s mom has made herself a huge sundae and is putting the leftover candies into plastic bags. She says “Sally wanted to take home all of the leftover chocolate chips and mini peanut butter cups”. My jaw was on the floor.

Not only did she help herself to food in my home without asking she decided to take some of it TO GO??? I didn’t know how to react, how to behave, what to say….so I did nothing and she took it home. 0728-17

“I’m so sorry.   Those have already been promised to someone else.”