And now I have a question for you.
Nov. 30th, 2006 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceOne of the nicest things about being a grownup is that you can have a slice of pumpkin cheesecake for dinner and there's no one to say you nay. I'm just saying.
:::
I went to lunch today with my mother, and we talked briefly about my awful aunt, who, among her many stellar characteristics, possesses the ability to pronounce the word interesting in such a way as to turn it into a synonym of appalling. She thinks our family is interesting. She thinks that any gift which does not correspond to her fluid and entirely subjective ideas of what gifts ought to be is interesting.
Or really, what we talked about was not my aunt so much as the fact that it's an unrewarding struggle, trying to find a gift for someone who will open it, peer into the box with an expression most people reserve for gifts of dog manure, and say, "Oh, how interesting!" in That Tone of Voice.
And yet we persist. Both of us like picking out things for people that we think they'll like -- though goodness knows we don't always succeed -- and neither of us wants to be the sort of person who keeps a kind of mental tally running (giving gifts as payment for kind thank-yous or interest, either real or well-feigned), and neither of us is assertive enough to just say Enough. And so we beat on, picking out gifts, or making them, with care, knowing all the while that they'll be dismissed.
I'm curious, because I'm sure that at least a few people around here have people similar to my aunt on their lists: how do you respond to such a person? By not buying gifts any more? By trying harder? By sneering a heartfelt fuck-you?
:::
I went to lunch today with my mother, and we talked briefly about my awful aunt, who, among her many stellar characteristics, possesses the ability to pronounce the word interesting in such a way as to turn it into a synonym of appalling. She thinks our family is interesting. She thinks that any gift which does not correspond to her fluid and entirely subjective ideas of what gifts ought to be is interesting.
Or really, what we talked about was not my aunt so much as the fact that it's an unrewarding struggle, trying to find a gift for someone who will open it, peer into the box with an expression most people reserve for gifts of dog manure, and say, "Oh, how interesting!" in That Tone of Voice.
And yet we persist. Both of us like picking out things for people that we think they'll like -- though goodness knows we don't always succeed -- and neither of us wants to be the sort of person who keeps a kind of mental tally running (giving gifts as payment for kind thank-yous or interest, either real or well-feigned), and neither of us is assertive enough to just say Enough. And so we beat on, picking out gifts, or making them, with care, knowing all the while that they'll be dismissed.
I'm curious, because I'm sure that at least a few people around here have people similar to my aunt on their lists: how do you respond to such a person? By not buying gifts any more? By trying harder? By sneering a heartfelt fuck-you?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 07:41 pm (UTC)Oops, did I say that out loud?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 11:15 pm (UTC)The thing is, we totally suspect her of doing this very thing! She famously really hates my younger brother (who is, by the way, the most likable member of my family), and gives him the worst, most thoughtless gifts -- a gift of peanut brittle, for example, the year he had oral surgery and had his jaw wired shut for six weeks over the holidays.
It would only be fair, wouldn't it? :-?