Giving PA people what they "want" (Stories!) UPDATE P27

[Yvaine]

  Certain people would even take their partner's gifts and use them!
 

Hmm...I guess I don't see what's wrong about that.

Give someone a gift card and their partner another gift card, and while one is away, the partner takes both gift cards and uses them. Repeated behavior. I no longer give them gift cards.

Again, I see that as something that's a matter between the couple. Last year, my nephew and his wife were gifted with a quantity of gift cards...they decided that rather than jointly deciding on what to buy, each would take the cards gifted by their own relatives. If he wants to trade his half of the department store card to her for her half of the Amazon.com card,  it seems reasonable to me. If a person is telling others that their spouse took his/her gift card without permission and used it, well...that's about like taking money out of your spouse's wallet without permission. Such a marriage seems to have way bigger problems that just the etiquette of gifting.

Yeah...if they're using each other's GCs without permission, that's a marital issue.

But if they're doing it with permission, I don't see it as a big deal. My ex used to get all these Barnes and Noble cards. It was a logical guess, as he's a smart guy who likes to read. But for various reasons, he doesn't actually like Barnes and Noble and rarely shopped there. He'd give them to me. It was a win/win--the card got used, I got books, and he benefited from me not tapping into the general "us fund" to buy books. 

[DoubleTrouble]

At least once a visit, my Mom will start cleaning something around the house. Like windows or ovens or the steps to the basement. When I came home from the hospital after my c-section, Mom decided to clean all the blinds in our house. As in take them all down to wash & dry each & every blind. Took something like two days & when she finished, Mom said something along the lines of how her blinds hadn't been cleaned in forever I cheerfully replied that there were cleaning services that would do it for her if she didn't have time!

The cleaning ticks DH off because it's her PA way of saying we don't keep a clean house but I just remind him that it's a free cleaning service

[ladyknight1]

  Certain people would even take their partner's gifts and use them!
 

Hmm...I guess I don't see what's wrong about that.

Give someone a gift card and their partner another gift card, and while one is away, the partner takes both gift cards and uses them. Repeated behavior. I no longer give them gift cards.

Again, I see that as something that's a matter between the couple. Last year, my nephew and his wife were gifted with a quantity of gift cards...they decided that rather than jointly deciding on what to buy, each would take the cards gifted by their own relatives. If he wants to trade his half of the department store card to her for her half of the Amazon.com card,  it seems reasonable to me. If a person is telling others that their spouse took his/her gift card without permission and used it, well...that's about like taking money out of your spouse's wallet without permission. Such a marriage seems to have way bigger problems that just the etiquette of gifting.

Yeah...if they're using each other's GCs without permission, that's a marital issue.

But if they're doing it with permission, I don't see it as a big deal. My ex used to get all these Barnes and Noble cards. It was a logical guess, as he's a smart guy who likes to read. But for various reasons, he doesn't actually like Barnes and Noble and rarely shopped there. He'd give them to me. It was a win/win--the card got used, I got books, and he benefited from me not tapping into the general "us fund" to buy books. 

There is not a mutual agreement, but the husband is passive and won't say anything to the wife. He works out of town during the week, and she takes the gift cards to go shopping. I can't do anything about that, except no longer give gift cards. It wouldn't bother me if it was only one time, or it was mutually agreed, but that is not the case in this situation.

[Nora]

The cleaning ticks DH off because it's her PA way of saying we don't keep a clean house but I just remind him that it's a free cleaning service

But it's not free, it comes with overbearing dissaproval.

[GratefulMaria]

The cleaning ticks DH off because it's her PA way of saying we don't keep a clean house but I just remind him that it's a free cleaning service

But it's not free, it comes with overbearing dissaproval.

Very true.  But the recipient can decide not to pay the cost.

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

My grandmother used to write 'Slattern!' in the dust on top of my mother's piano.

My mother used to leave it for her next visit, so that she wouldn't be put to the inconvenience of writing it again.

[ladyknight1]

My grandmother used to write 'Slattern!' in the dust on top of my mother's piano.

My mother used to leave it for her next visit, so that she wouldn't be put to the inconvenience of writing it again.

I think I like your mom.

[AfleetAlex]

Me too!

[Celany]

At least once a visit, my Mom will start cleaning something around the house. Like windows or ovens or the steps to the basement. When I came home from the hospital after my c-section, Mom decided to clean all the blinds in our house. As in take them all down to wash & dry each & every blind. Took something like two days & when she finished, Mom said something along the lines of how her blinds hadn't been cleaned in forever I cheerfully replied that there were cleaning services that would do it for her if she didn't have time!

The cleaning ticks DH off because it's her PA way of saying we don't keep a clean house but I just remind him that it's a free cleaning service

I'll try to think of it your way. During the rare visit when my mom comes & stays, she also does that kind of cleaning & it makes my blood boil. When she stayed last year, my roommates & I had just done a really good cleaning & the only thing she could find to pick at was the dish drying rack. It had gotten a little dirty at the bottom. Which she made a huuuuuuuuge deal out of. Ugh.

[andi]

My grandmother used to write 'Slattern!' in the dust on top of my mother's piano.

My mother used to leave it for her next visit, so that she wouldn't be put to the inconvenience of writing it again.

Hot coffee up my nose. That is just the best response ever.

[gramma dishes]

... When she stayed last year, my roommates & I had just done a really good cleaning & the only thing she could find to pick at was the dish drying rack. It had gotten a little dirty at the bottom. Which she made a huuuuuuuuge deal out of. Ugh.

It sounds like she just wants to think she's still useful and needed.  Personally, I'm DELIGHTED when I see a little dirt of some kind or another at my DIL's and my own DD's homes but for a very different reason.  It makes me feel like I don't have to go crazy cleaning whenever they're coming to visit to keep my own house up to their standards!   

[Yvaine]

Me too!

Me three!

[Celany]

... When she stayed last year, my roommates & I had just done a really good cleaning & the only thing she could find to pick at was the dish drying rack. It had gotten a little dirty at the bottom. Which she made a huuuuuuuuge deal out of. Ugh.

It sounds like she just wants to think she's still useful and needed.  Personally, I'm DELIGHTED when I see a little dirt of some kind or another at my DIL's and my own DD's homes but for a very different reason.  It makes me feel like I don't have to go crazy cleaning whenever they're coming to visit to keep my own house up to their standards!   

That is absolutely true, and if she handled it differently, I'd just be happy to have the extra cleaning help and feel grateful. But she usually gives my roommates a mournful look and says something along the lines of "I raised her to be neater than this. But she's just so meeeeeeeeeessssssssssssy". And then she'll shake her head sadly.

She's a hoarder. There is not a single room in her house that doesn't have piles of boxes & crap. Most rooms (including my parents bedroom, my bedroom, the spare bedroom, and her old crafting room) are so piled with boxes that it's either impossible to get into them (literally impossible. boxes have fallen against the door, so it cannot be opened), or impossible to get farther than the doorway. THAT is how I was raised.

Which is why I want to climb the walls whenever she makes a comment on my home.

[Shalamar]

That reminds me of when my parents stayed with us one Christmas after our first daughter was born.  They invited over some friends to come see the new baby (who was approximately one week old at the time, so yeah, my husband and I were a bit tired and stressed).  I decided to forego the nap I desperately needed and tidy up the house for the visitors.    My mother entered the room just as I was finishing up, glanced around, and said reassuringly "Don't worry about it being so messy.  Our friends know that you just had a new baby, and they won't expect it to be neat." 

[Jules1980]

He did get a Kindle Fire by saving up his money (we paid for half), but this is mostly stuff like Pop-Tarts and ice cream, with the occasional Nerf gun thrown in. I don't mind stuff like that once in a while, but if I let on that he could just buy them with his own money he'd never eat anything else!

Next birthday, wrap him up a box of Pop-Tarts and when he opens it, amazed to discover it is NOT the gift of his dreams, reply, 'You asked for it so often, and so piteously, I thought it would be what you really wanted for your birthday!'   
Oh, wait, that would be passive aggressive.
 

That would be PA, but giving him a wrapped box of Pop-Tarts along with a larger, more appropriate birthday gift might be fun.

One year for Christmas my nephew received in his stocking a box of Ritz crackers and a pack of McDonald's gift certificates since he always asked for "real crackers" (as opposed to the whole grain, seedy variety my sister bought) and daily asked for a milkshake from the McDonald's they passed on the way back from school.

Nephew was THRILLED.

My grandmother once used a big frosted flakes box (It actually held several boxes of Frosted Flakes, my aunt got it from the retail store she worked at.) to wrap my DB's gift in.  He opened it, said, "Cool! Frosted Flakes!" and sat it down.  It was an hour later before grandmother told him to look in the box.  He was DISAPPOINTED that he got sneakers and not Frosted Flakes.