Annoyed

My mother and mother-in-law are incapable of communicating with one another, despite the fact that they live less than 30 miles from each other. Each will actually call C or me and say, "Could you tell M's mom so and so?" and vice versa.

This Christmas, I bought my dad and my MIL gifts from E-bay Express this year, and in my naivete, I had both gifts sent to my parents' house. In hindsight, I realize I should have paid for the gifts separately and had Dad's shipped to my parents' house and Yetta's to her house. I reasoned, however, that it was easier to do a single checkout and that my mom could drop off Yetta's gift at her office, which is only about 15 minutes away from my parents' house. When I asked my mom to do this favor for me, she immediately agreed, saying she'd call Yetta and ask her when she could drop it off. Now I had these gifts shipped the week after Thanksgiving, so there was no rush for my mom to get it to Yetta. There was plenty of time to get the gift to her before Christmas. When I talked to my mom later in the week, she asked me to talk to Yetta to find out when she could drop off the gift, and I told my mom that Yetta didn't have to be there; she could just drop it off with the receptionist. At this point, I called Yetta and asked her to call my mom to figure out when they could meet to exchange the gift. I did this because Yetta is much more social than my mom, and I figured she'd take the initiative. She didn't. I finally got my mom to agree to take it to work with her (she manages a coffee shop in the local mall) and asked Yetta to drive by and pick it up. Yetta said she'd try, but given her work schedule she wasn't sure she'd make it before traffic got bad (an understandable excuse in my mind as I've tried to get out of this particular parking lot during the holidays and it has taken up to an hour). When she didn't manage to get to the mall to pick it up, I gave up. C told Yetta just to call my mom and they could figure it out. I talked to my mom a little while ago to say "Happy New Year!", and she informed me that Yetta "still hasn't called me. What am I supposed to do with this gift, M?" I took a deep breath and as calmly as I could said "Mom, the phone works both ways; you could just as easily call her and figure something out." To which my mom said, "Oh, I guess I could do that," in a tone of voice that tells me she won't. So it is New Year's Day, and Yetta still doesn't have her complete Christmas gift from us, which upsets me because I spent a lot of time thinking about what to get her and I know she'll love it. But why they can't call each other, I don't know.

Turtle Night Light

While we were visiting family over Thanksgiving, C's mom, whom I'm going to start calling Yetta (this is the name she has her grandchildren call her, and in case you were wondering, no we're not Jewish.), gave Wild Man a book; she does this frequently, and she always chooses beautifully illustrated books and often goes out of her way to attend author signings and always writes something to Wild Man in the book. I love books, so I treasure any book she gives him. I do put most of them away until I think he can really appreciate them, but we often take them out and read them to him. We do not, however, let him play with these particular books. When C showed me the book, he immediately showed me that it was signed by the author. I said something like "Oh, how cool. We have to be sure to put this in a place where Wild Man can't get to it." Yetta, who was in the room, said "Just be sure not to exchange it like you did that turtle night light I gave you at your wedding shower." I was so taken aback that I quickly responded "We never exchange books unless they are books we already have, and I don't exchange things unless I tell the person who has given me the gift." It didn't occur to me to respond to the implicit accusation in her statement; I was more concerned with reassuring her that I would never return anything so special. I promptly forgot about the statement until it came back to me yesterday while washing dishes. I suddenly recalled the statement and turned to C and asked "Did your mom really say that?" He burst into laughter at the randomness of my question, but he said she did, in fact, ask that question. He said she had mentioned it to him separately during the visit and he had to ask her what the hell she was talking about.

Here is what the hell she was talking about. In the month before C and I got married some 7 (yes, that's right 7) years ago, Yetta's friends (whom I had never met) threw me a wedding shower. Yetta gave me a very nice gift basket, which included a linen handkerchief embroidered with the date of the wedding and my initials (well, my married initials; she ignored the fact that I was going to hyphenate my last name), some perfume, a pretty slip (yes, it was weird to get lingerie from my future mother-in-law), and some body lotion. She also gave me a turtle night light as a separate gift. It looked something like this, but it was much brighter and much uglier. I had seen the light before on shopping trips with her, so I knew it was inexpensive and that she had bought it at a Wal-Mart. She didn't spend more than $10 on it. I assumed at the time (and still assume) that she thought I'd like it because I have a turtle. Well she was wrong, so I asked her if I could exchange it for something C and I needed more than a night light. She said yes and didn't seem at all upset. And then out of the blue she brings it up over 7 years later in connection to a gift she got for Wild Man. As I said, I didn't respond to the statement at the time because I was more focused on the book, but I really want to call her and say "What was that about?" Has it really bothered her for 7 years, or did she suddenly remember it? Am I really expected to keep a gift that I don't like and won't use to make her happy? Isn't it better that I politely asked her if I could return it for something I thought would be more useful (I have no idea what I exchanged it for--it was 7 years ago!)? Or is this simply another example of my ungratefulness? I have no idea what to think.

I am, however, seriously tempted to buy her a turtle night light for Christmas and see what she does with it . . .