Sometimes acts of kindness can be met with true ungratefulness. Get ready to be mad...
But I Want the Pink One
“My sister wanted a laptop. I was in college but had a little bit of Christmas money saved up, so I decided to get her something. I did a bunch of reading about what was the best kind of used laptop to buy. I ended up getting her a IBM Thinkpad T51. I formatted it, installed Windows XP, and went down to the school bookstore and got a student copy of Office to install on it. I was talking to my mom the next day and mentioned what I was getting her. My mom says, ‘Oh, well she really wanted one of those new pink laptops, you should have gotten her one of those.’
I explain I didn’t have the hundreds to spend on a brand new Dell for her, but this was a perfectly nice IBM that would do great for her for her first year of college (she was graduating high school that year). Later that day I got a call from my sister where she proceeded to scream at me and demand I get her the pink Dell she wanted. Screw that. I sold it on ebay and ended up making some money on it. I don’t remember what I got her that year, but it was something cheap, and from walmart. She dealt without a laptop until she was desperate and I gave her an even crappier one than the IBM a friend had given to me that was destined for his trash can.”
How Do You Want Your Steak?
“Every Christmas my in-laws ask me to cook dinner for them. They always want steaks, and I always make sure to cook them exactly as ordered. I’ve been cooking for years at a restaurant, and now at the firehouse and know my way around a steak. Every year I stand out in the cold and grill their dinner while they sit inside and enjoy the fire.
Every year they insist that their steaks are pink. Every year I prove to them that the lighting in the dining room is pinkish and if they would simply come outside and view their steaks in natural light they would know. So I go back outside and grill their steaks until they turn to charcoal to make them happy. Every year I have to listen to 6 months of complaints about how freakin’ tough the steaks were.”
Lesson Learned
“Similar issue with a group of children I’ll allow to remain anonymous, they complained about their Christmas gifts being either too cheap or too lame or one of many other things.
Their Father returned all of them to the store and bought something for himself and their Mother. The following year they were very humble and thankful for the gifts they received.”
I’m More of a Hoodie Guy
“My grandma spent a whole year, a WHOLE FREAKING YEAR knitting me, my brother and sister sweaters. very nice sweaters in our favorite colors.
My brother looked at his and said, ‘Why would you waste your time making this? I don’t even wear sweaters, I’m more of a hoodie guy.’ He was 18 at the time, that makes it even worse. Ungrateful jerk.”
She Needed a Break
“My brother and I were raised by a single mother, our father, having died when I was four, my brother eight.
After he died we moved from where we lived to where my grandparents live, to be closer to family.
One day, my brother and I were apparently just acting like brats. I don’t remember it, I was young, maybe seven at the time. We wouldn’t help my mother clean up or something. Well, my mother told my brother to watch me for a little and then she left for my grandma’s, three minutes away. I learned later from my brother, who was told by my grandma, that my mother left that day so that she could sit at my grandma’s and cry. She just cried about how she couldn’t take everything that we were doing. I’ve never felt worse about anything in my whole life, and I was probably eight years old when I found out.”
Lost Potential
“This one is about my sister’s dad. I was in 6th grade and my sister in 8th.
We only had four classes for extracurricular activities, and she’d already taken all of them, as they’d only lasted 3 weeks. So her teacher (and eventually mine) Mrs. McCulley, started teaching her American Sign Language during 6th period instead of what she usually did during that hour. My sister worked hard and became an impressive translator using sign language for her age. Mrs. McCulley scheduled a special performance for her to debut her skill during 8th-grade graduation ceremonies. She sang ‘You Raise Me Up’ and it was beautiful. She fumbled a little bit during the middle of the song, but smiled and mouthed ‘Sorry’ to the audience, and continued on flawlessly.
After the ceremony was over, her father walked up to her and said, ‘Well, you screwed up there, didn’t you?’ Instead of being proud and grateful to have a talented child, he snubbed her out. She was so ashamed and embarrassed, she never did Sign again. She could have had a promising career teaching it. And he screwed it up. I hate him for that.”
I Want What He Has
“I suppose this is more of a funny one…
One year I got a little pedal go-kart for Christmas, I was so excited, it was amazing, not nearly as excited as my little sister, who got a Barbie playhouse, but she didn’t want that anymore, she wanted my go-kart! She wailed and screamed for 2 hours until I gave in and let her have a go, she pretty much monopolized it for the whole of Christmas while I made a fort out of the leftover boxes and wrapping paper and threw Walnuts into the fire and at my Dad. It was fun.”
A Toaster for Christmas
“When I was a little kid, my grandmother had gotten me Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES as a birthday present. I was turning like 4 or 5. It was the one thing I really wanted. I loved the ninja turtles, and what better than a VIDEO GAME about them! Except… She put it in a box for a toaster. I’d assume to throw me off from the fact that she was getting me a video game. So there I was, 4 or 5 years old, and I unwrap a toaster. From the grandmother who always spoils the grandkid, getting them whatever they want.
I remember the disappointment that washed over me immediately. ‘Why would my grandma get me a toaster?’ was all I could think. It was too much grief. I started to cry. And cry, and ball my eyes out. I didn’t calm down until they opened the box, and showed me that inside, she had indeed gotten me the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game.”
She Doesn’t Know What She Has
“I know a friend whose mom absolutely spoiled her. Her mom, despite being disabled and with limited income, does everything she possibly can for her only daughter. Buys her phones, expensive clothes, whatever else she wants, and most recently a new car. Hell, she even does her homework for her, since my friend is D’ing or failing all of her classes, simply because she hates school and can’t be bothered (even though she says she wants to go to college). All in all, this girl is blessed with this awesome freakin’ mom.
My friend, however, usually doesn’t have many pleasant things to say about her mom unless it’s on Facebook. So apparently there is this fair that they go to as a family every year, and her dad had recently died, so it would be the first year without him. Her mom brings it up and the ingrate called my friend point-blank says she is not going to let her mom go. Why? Because she only wants her jerk of a boyfriend there. Her mom, who was on the verge of tears, said, ‘But…we go every year…’ Broke my heart.”
A Cleaning Bill for What?
“Early morning cardiac arrest call.
We worked on this guy furiously, got a pulse back, everything went right. Good call. Guy gets into the cath lab right away and walks out of the hospital alive a couple weeks later. Then his cranky wife sends us a bill for carpet cleaning, saying that we tracked in mud on her carpet when we were saving her husband’s life.”
I’ll Take It From Here
“I built my stepson a gaming computer, helped him set it up and got some games loaded up on it for him so we could game together and bond some.
As soon as I had it all set up he told me to get out of his room and closed the door. I spent 4 months saving and buying parts for it one at a time.”
A Change of Heart
“It wasn’t the most expensive of gifts, but my mom bought me a sweatshirt I really wanted for Christmas. I was in my scene kid stage and wanted my clothes to fit tight, so I told my mom to get me a medium even though she’d normally buy me a large. Well, I opened up my gift, got excited when I saw it was that sweatshirt, and then immediately threw a fit when I saw the sweatshirt was a large. I basically threw it on the couch and went, ‘Great, well now I’m never going to wear this.’
I acted like a jerk the rest of the day and made it a point to not even try the sweatshirt on.
Eventually, I put it on in my room and it fit perfectly. I thought about the fact that I had yelled at my mom for something that she bought out of love for me, and didn’t need to get me in the first place. I felt pretty ashamed of myself and gave her a sob-filled apology. I’m always grateful anytime anyone gives me any sort of gift now, even if it’s something that I wouldn’t in a million years want.”
Unpaid Babysitting
“My little sister was 16, sexually active with her bf, but would not tell my mom. She calls me one night and tells me that they ran out of condoms and decided to have sex anyway. I told her that she needed to get plan B, or take some of my birth control ( I looked it up and you can take four of the type of pills I had to be as effective as plan b). I did not have $55 to give her for plan B, but I did have the extra BC pills that she could have. I told her I would drive them over right then because the sooner she takes the BC the better. My sister agreed with me, so at midnight I left to drive across town to give her some emergency contraception.
As I’m pulling in my parents’ drive, I get a call from my older sister. My younger sister had called her and convinced her to spend the $55 on plan B, (the same thing I was bringing her except it was free,) and to call me and tell me not to worry about it. So my older sister shells out the $55 for pills, and asks my little sister has any money to pay her back. Little sister tells her no. So older sis told younger sis that she can babysit a couple of nights for her to pay off the debt. Fast forward a week later, my younger sis is watching my niece. (as per the secret between sisters EC debt payment plan.) My niece’s dad comes to pick her up, they leave. My dad asks my sister if they paid her for babysitting, my little sister says, ‘No, older sister didn’t pay me anything for babysitting.’ My dad calls my older sis and tears her about how she a cheap sister for not ‘paying’ younger sis for babysitting.”
Car for Sale
“My sister was so unhappy with the car my parents got her that she tried to sell it every time it was parked. This was back before cell phones so the only number she had to give was the home phone which my parents always answered if they were there. They got her back by moving the car one day and telling her that someone had bought it but since it was their car they got the money for it.”
You Can Pick Up the Bill
“Back when smart phones were new (omg a phone can play music AND go on the internet WUUUUT) my mom bought my cousin a phone for her birthday, because she did well in school unlike her other sisters. The only catch was that her mother pay the monthly bill. My mother had the contract in her name, and my aunt said she would pay for it. I didn’t even have a phone, and I had the top grades of the entire school.
Immediately, they pretended my mom said she would pay the bill. My mother went to the phone store, paid a 300 dollar fee, and closed the account. My mother doesn’t buy anyone presents anymore.”