Gimme, gimme
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I love your site, it helps me keep my
sanity during my workday! Maybe I am overreacting, but I thought that this
was the height of tacky. My fiancé and I attended a couple of birthday
parties for a good friend of ours here recently, the second of which was a
surprise party that occurred about 10 days or so after her actual
birthday. To preface, we are both college students on a limited budget and
what with trying to save for our own wedding; we don't have any extra
money. In spite of this we contrived to give her a reasonably nice gift at
the first party, (and ate Ramen for a week) and then heard about the
surprise party from her boyfriend 3 days before it was to occur. We
cancelled other plans because we were told she would be upset if we did
not attend and all her other friends were there. Well, this party is in
the middle of nowhere at her sister's home, almost an hour's drive from
our town. We asked up front if there was anything we should bring, and
were told all that was required was our presence. The boyfriend was
supposed to email us directions the day of to make sure it "stays a
surprise", and never did. So here we are about 2 hours from the start
of this thing making frantic calls for directions. We arrive and find out
that this party is to be held outdoors on their back porch. No biggie,
except that it is July in the Deep South and there are mosquitoes/other
bugs everywhere, and of course no citronella candles or Deet to be had,
and it is sweltering hot outside.
So our friend gets there, and is
suitably surprised. The sister and her husband bring out this lovely
wrought iron wine rack, which birthday girl is very happy with, and we all
are thinking "what a nice gift". Bear in mind that ALL of
birthday girl's friends at this party had attended the first one with
gifts in tow, and are empty handed now because of it. Birthday girl is led
inside by her sister (no one else is allowed inside) on some pretext or
another, and sister's husband says: I need everyone to pitch in for the
gift. WHAT??? I just stood there open mouthed while all of our friends
started digging in their wallets and handing over 5's and 10's or whatever
they had. Everyone else had given money, and the husband is just standing
there looking at us with his hands full of bills. So, completely
embarrassed, we slink off to the car and dig in the ashtray for change,
which is all we have. The few quarters we can come up with got a decidedly
chilly reception, to say the least. We dropped off the money, and said our
goodbyes. To top it off, we were shopping a few days later in a specialty
store for some things for our own wedding, and came upon the exact same
wine rack, marked way down to $29.99. The wine rack they presented her
with was in a bag from this store, so I am positive it is the same one. I
know the husband took in more than 60 bucks from all of our friends who
had already bought gifts for the first party. On top of that, we heard
later from our friend that her sister had been offended that we left so
quickly!!! Awful, awful, awful.
Thanks for letting me get that off my
chest!
Gimme 0806-03
I received an invitation to a House
Warming party and was shock to see this on the invite "No gifts
please, we prefer gift cards from Home Depot." I mean, why don't you
just say "We know you have bad taste and we won't like anything you
buy so save us the trouble of having to exchange it!" I don't know
why I was surprised. A few years earlier the woman's parents threw her a
surprise birthday party at a restaurant, rented the banquet room, had
seating arrangements and when the waitress brought her parents the bill at
the end, they had the guests pay the bill.
Gimme 0809-03
A friend of mine recently told me of a
shower invitation she received. It was not a baby shower, or bridal
shower, but rather, a "weight loss shower". The person in
question is a co-worker and after joining a national diet program, lost a
significant amount of weight. Since a new wardrobe is not cheap, she is
throwing this shindig for herself. And to make this etiquette breach even
more horrific/amusing, she distributed the "invitation" via a
mass email to everyone she could think of, with a list of her favorite
stores, and her new measurements and clothes size. I mean, really, what
will people think of next?
Gimme 0926-03
Each year I sent my niece a present or
check for her birthday. Usually my brother (her dad) would call and say
thank you for the gift. More often than not though, I would call and make
sure the gift even arrived. Usually, I would get a "oh yeah, she got
it, thanks." Well, this wore real thin after a few years. Finally,
one year, I had had enough and didn't send a thing. My niece called the
day after her 9th birthday and said " um...yesterday was my
birthday." I said "yes". Now keep in mind, I had just given
birth two weeks before and she never even asked about the baby. She said
"well, I didn't get my check for my birthday for you." I was so
furious, first of all for this child to call me and "request"
her check, then to my brother who didn't have the good manners to stop it.
I said, "Well, where is my thank you card from last years gift?"
She said, "Um, I didn't send one." I said "well then I
didn't sent a gift this year." Surprisingly enough for Christmas that
year, I DID receive a thank you card. My kids are pre-teens now, and I
ALWAYS make them write thank you notes within 2 days of getting a gift for
any occasion.
Gimme 1013-03
I had a friend that I will call
"T". T was born with the misfortune of having a birthday between
Christmas and New Year's Eve, and every year it was difficult to plan
anything because people always had some type of family obligation or were
out of town. Knowing T's situation year after year, my husband and I
wanted to do something special and invite her to a 5 star restaurant.
T was very happy at the prospect of
going to a fancy restaurant on her birthday. It was very difficult getting
a reservation, but I managed to snag one. On her birthday, the day of our
reservation, T called us up and said she really didn't want to go to a 5
star restaurant. Instead, she wanted to get some Indian food, and she
called up 4-5 who were in town and wanted to go for Indian food as well.
Baffled, but only wanting for T to be happy on her birthday, we called and
cancelled the coveted reservation. We were extremely fortunate not to be
charged a late notice. Before the birthday party at the restaurant, we
stopped by a Pottery-Barn type shop and picked her up an espresso maker.
She opened the gift at the restaurant along with her other gifts. We were
surprised that these people were able to show up with gifts at the last
moment. 2 days later, T calls me up to "discuss something". What
she wishes to discuss with me is would I be willing to return the espresso
maker. After all, she explains, she doesn't really drink coffee and has no
use for it.
So now I have two presents that weren't
good enough for T's birthday. After deciding that this will be the last
birthday I celebrate with and for T, I go to T's apartment in the 'hood to
pick up the espresso maker. After making small talk with her, T tells me
what she wants from me for her next birthday - A surprise party! Yes,
after rudely scrapping a 5 star restaurant reservation with us, after
deciding that my espresso-maker wasn't good enough, this person had the
gall to request a third present that required a heinous amount of work
around the holidays and wanted it to be a surprise. From me! Needless to
say, T's next birthday and two birthdays after that went unnoticed. And
there were no surprise parties!
Gimme 1021-03
After a large musical production the
cast decided to go to a fairly expensive all night deli. About 60 people
in the cast plus quite a few of the tech crew were there and all were
expecting to pay for their own food and drinks. I went as a stage mom
since my 4 children were in the children's chorus. I ended up sitting at a
table with a woman I had never met before and she explained that her
teenage daughter knew some of the cast members and had come along to be
with her friends. She told her daughter that she could only get some ice
cream and then she just ordered a coffee. After about an hour, she got up
to find her daughter and leave. While she was gone, one of the dads came
to our table to announce that he was picking up the tab for the entire
cast then left to let others know. A few minutes later the woman came back
to the table. When we said we thought she was leaving, she said she had
just ordered four Reuben sandwiches because "some guy" was
buying. It was amazing that she was adding another $32 (4x$8 per sandwich)
to a bill that was over $1,000 but that wasn't all. She got the sandwiches
to go so she could feed them to her family for lunch the next. I've never,
ever seen anything so tacky in my life.
Gimme 0416-03
First, the story:
Several years ago, my friend Jean, who
lived in a city about an hour and a half away, phoned and informed me that
a friend of hers was going to host a birthday party for her, and that
she'd love for me to come. I enthusiastically accepted the invitation and
wrote down all pertinent information, but wasn't able to chat for very
long (I was on my way out), so I told her I'd call her back before the
party to confirm details. I figured I'd ask her then if there was anything
I could bring.
About a week before the party, Jean
phoned back and said that since the friend throwing the party was buying
the liquor, which would be costly, she thought that I might want to make
and bring food. Some of the other invited guests, she said, had asked if
they could bring anything, and she figured I would definitely want to,
since she knew how I loved to cook (which is true and if I may say so
myself, I do it pretty well).
That was OK by me--liquor is indeed
expensive, so I'm all about sharing the burden. Besides, I had fully
intended to ask her if I could bring something to the party, and had even
looked forward to making something--so what if she'd beat me to the punch
by broaching the subject first? So I again said sure, I'd love
to!
I set to work scoping out tasty
hors-d'oeuvre recipes, and when I found one I thought would be good, I
phoned her back to ask if it sounded good to her. She paused, seeming
hesitant to reply, so I thought she must have been working out a polite
way to tell me that my snack suggestion sounded icky-awful to her! When
she finally spoke, however, it was to inform me that yes, it sounded fine,
but she hoped I'd bring more than THAT, because there were 20 people
invited to this party; everyone might not like it, and besides, I'd have
to make a lot of it to give 20 people enough to eat! I should, she
suggested, probably bring a variety of dishes. This is when I realized
that she was not expecting me to bring SOME food to the party--she
expected me to bring THE food to the party (And OK, when she asked, she
did say something like, "I thought you might want to make THE
food," but because she then went on to tell me that other people had
offered to bring items for consumption, I pretty much just ignored that
fact.)
I was pretty shocked (after all, I was
not the one who'd offered to throw this gal a party), but I shut my trap
and looked up more (simple and quick) recipes. My original plan had been
to arrive in her city well before the party, and shop for a gift there
(much better shopping to be had in those parts) before I headed to her
place, but in light of this new development, I decided that catering the
entire party would be gift enough.
You can see where this is going, can't
you?
Jean called yet again a couple of days
later, and told me that since she knew I was going to get her a gift, she
figured she'd make it easy on me and let me know what she wanted.
By then I was speechless. As it turned
out, though, I supplied neither food nor a gift for the party; instead, I
came down with bronchitis and found myself unable to move on the morning
of the party. I'd stayed up late the night before making the food,
however, and it was all ready to go, so my sister (who had not been
invited to the party--she didn't know Jean well at all) offered to come
pick it up at my house and drive the three-hour round trip just to drop it
off at Jean's party. I told her not to bother, but she phoned Jean
herself. Jean also told her not to bother (though I don't know how she fed
people, since I found out later that the other guests who'd offered to
bring food were told that it wouldn't be necessary). A couple of weeks
later, Jean called me to see if I'd recovered from my illness. I told her
that I had, and thanked her for her concern. Unfortunately, her REAL
concern was whether or not I'd bought her the birthday gift she'd
requested yet. If not, she said, she'd thought of something else she'd
rather have. If I had, however, she'd be willing to accept TWO gifts, the
second one as a way of making amends for the fact that I'd failed to
provide the food I'd promised for the party . . . I believe that was the
last time we spoke.
Gimme 0923-03
An acquaintance of ours from a church
group, Millie, moved out of town, but would occasionally join our group
for special occasions. She contacted my husband and I and asked if she and
her sister could stop by our house before the church social (a potluck
dinner) to visit with us, and to kill some time because they were coming
into town a bit early to do some shopping. We agreed, happy to host them.
When the sisters arrived at our house,
four or five hours before time to leave for the potluck, and well before
we expected them, she asked if she could use our oven to bake some bread
for the dinner. As it was otherwise unoccupied, we agreed. Once the bread
was in the oven, she felt she needed to freshen up and asked to use our
shower. A bit more unconventional a request, but we didn't have a problem
with it. Once she got out of the shower, she asked if she could freshen up
her clothes in our dryer to get out the wrinkles. Again, we gladly agreed,
as it's the sort of thing we do for our friends.
She ran to the local grocery store to
get a few last minute items for the dinner, and asked us if we needed
anything from the store. I asked her to pick up two bottles of spaghetti
sauce for a dish I was preparing for the dinner. I told her I appreciated
her picking them up for me, and assumed it was on her dime as a return
favor for letting her use our hot water and all of our appliances.
While she was gone, several other
friends had arrived at our house to visit before we all left together.
When Millie arrived back at our house from the store, she handed the
bottles of sauce to my husband and, interrupting a conversation with
someone else, demanded five dollars for it. My husband (a bit shocked)
replied, "Sure, no problem, in a few minutes (when I'm done talking
here...). About ten minutes later, when someone else brought up paying for
something, Millie snidely said, "speaking of payment, I need five
dollars for the sauce." I immediately wrote her a check! To this day
among our circle of friends, she's known as "Five dollar
Millie".
Gimme 1125-03
Page Last Updated May 15, 2007
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