Generous People Share The Most Ungrateful Reactions To Gifts They've Faced
Gratitude is one of those things that you almost don't notice when it exists, but WHOOOOOOOOSAAAAAAAU do we see it glaringly when it's absent. One reddit user asked a doozy of a question, and we picked out 20 of our favorite responses. Fair warming, you're probably going to want to punch people by the end of this.
1. The Pink Laptop
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 highschool 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.
Fuck 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, shitty 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.
2. Twenty-five YEARS or MONTHS old?
My aunt gave a small birthday party for my cousin (who was turning 25) last fall. He got really upset and angry because she bought him a pair of black skateboarding shoes instead of brown ones. She tried to calmly explain that she couldn't find any brown ones, but he wasn't having it. I almost slapped him.
3. The Car: Round 1
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.
4. Get Out
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.
5. The Car: Round 2
One of my friends received a car for their 18th birthday from their grandparents. A free car. Their response was to break down in tears saying how much they hated it because it was an old man car and then absolutely refused to drive it ever. That's about when I had an epiphany and wanted that person out of life immediately.
6. Suddenly Feeling The Christmas Spirit
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.
7. The Car: Round 3
After my mom died my step dad took some of the insurance money and bought his daughter a brand new SUV. I heard she threw a screaming fit in the driveway because it wasn't a sports car. BTW me and my other siblings got nothing at all from him. Of course now she is 35 and still lives with her dad and still screams and whines for everything she wants so I guess karma is a bitch (and so is my step sister).
8. Forget The Life, Save The Carpet
Here's just one of (too) many.. 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 ass 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. :/
9. Made WIth Love
My grandma spent a whole year, a WHOLE F*CKING YEAR knitting me, my brother and sister sweaters very nice sweaters in our favourite colours. 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 bastard.
10. Feeling Ashamed Of Yourself?
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.
11. The Car: Round 4
A girl at my high school put a brick on her gas pedal and crashed her brand new mustang into a concrete wall, at school.
All because the car she got for her 16th birrthday was the wrong color.
And she kept bragging she'd "get a new one. I'm just teaching my parents a lesson."
She got expelled, and arrested. After that I don't know. It was two months from graduation.
12. Not Very Fair
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 fucking 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 cockhead of a boyfriend there. Her mom, who was on the verge of tears, said, "But.. we go every year.."
Broke my heart.
13. A Verbal Beatdown
My spoiled teenage cousin almost earned himself a dickpunch last Christmas. We were talking about what we each got for Christmas that year, since we're both gamers. I was excited that my wife had gotten me SWTOR. He got a bunch of games, a new 360 since his old one was "dirty and scratched" (from his nerd-raging) with Kinect, a Fender guitar, a new drumset, an iPhone 4 (to replace his "stupid 3gs"), and since he'd just turned 16 his parents gave them their "old" 2009 Toyotta suv (thing is sweet, fully loaded, beautiful). I was like "Damn dude, that sounds like a hell of a haul." His reply:
"Yeah right that car is f*cking gay. My buddy at school's parents got him a Honda S2000, a Burton snowboard, and him and his girlfriend new iPhones, plus they got to go on a cruise for Christmas. I told my parents what car I wanted, they're just cheap." I gave him a verbal beatdown the likes of which he needed to hear, rubbing in just how rough his life is, all the while he's rolling his eyes.
14. Scene-Kid Sweater
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 dick 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 fucking 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.
15. Santa's Failed Miracle
One Christmas the only thing I wanted was a Super Nintendo. I was probably about 10 or 11. Granted, this was after the N64 had already come out, but I believed so hard that Santa Claus could work miracles that I thought he could get me a Super Nintendo new in box. After I opened all my gifts and realized a Super Nintendo was not among them, I began to cry. Looking back on that day, I feel really horrible about it. We ended up with a compromise: I returned one of my gifts and used the money to purchase a used Super Nintendo. The Super Nintendo stopped working a couple years later, but that Christmas morning is something I'll always be embarrassed of.
16. The Robot
Well, unfortunately the only one that comes to mind was me. It was Easter 1995 (I think) and I'm all excited to be getting me some new toys. Then I see this big, stuffed robot sitting there with my Easter basket and I got upset because it wasn't what I wanted (what I wanted was most likely something Power Rangers related, but in any event it was anything but that). So I ran to my bedroom crying and sat on my bed thinking what a waste this Easter was. Cue my dad, who comes to the scene and sits down with me and explains that the robot in question was a gift knitted by my mom (which I'm sure took a long, long time), who was now upset by my reaction. He then went on to let me know that if I kept this kind of behavior up, it would be the last time I would get any presents for a while. Soon after I apologized to my mom, thanked her for the present, and then bawled because I felt really super bad about how I had acted. Especially since it was such a fucking awesome robot. A few years later, when we were still moving into our new house, I couldn't find my robot and asked my mom where it was. She told me that she had thrown it out because it was starting to get a little old and ragged, and I about cried. To this day I'm grateful to receive gifts, even if I'm not wild about them.
17. The Small Potential Murderer
Just the other day my little 6 year old cousin, another 12 year old cousin, and myself were playing my PS3 in my room. We were playing Skate 3 which in only single player on one machine so we had a rule that you play untill you fall three times and then you pass the cotroller around and let the next person play. This system was working fine untill all of a sudden the youngest cousin fell his third time because he got the skateboarder run over by a car on one of his turns and when me and my other cousin told him it was time to share the controller he completely seriously replied with "I hope you both get run over by a car in real life... I will kill both of you in front of your fathers."
I was completely shocked by this and didn't know what to say, I just took the controller off him and told him to leave the room.
18. The Cell Phone Blackmail
I work at a popular place that sells Cell phones. and The most cringe-worthy one I can think of is how this mom and her teen daughter come in the store looking to add another line to their family plan for the daughter. she was told to pick out anything in the $50 dollar range, and the mom said how the $50 is all that's left in their current budget. The teen girl pointed to the biggest most expensive android phone she could find and said "I want that one", it was a $200 phone. The mom says "sorry hun, we don't have the money to do that, its not in the budget, we can only get you a $50 phone". the kid's response was to so casually say "hah, well if you don't get me the one I want, I'll just misbehave until you get it for me" The mom instantly buckled and got her the $200 phone. All the while I'm standing there praying that she instead would do the right thing, take her child out back and beat her.
19. Regretting It Ever Since
My mother was terminally ill with Colon cancer. She was bed ridden and I remember 8 year old me wanting to go to the public pool with a friend. At first I told my mom I would understand if she said no, but could she take me? She reluctantly told me no, she couldn't get out of bed. I flipped. I screamed and cried and threw a tantrum. I accused her of irrational things such as "if my sister asked you would!" or that "it really isn't that hard!"
Less than two months later she died. It wasn't until I was 14 that I found some writing she left for me. "I love you, but you need to curb your anger" was what made me fall apart, because I knew what she was talking about. I've regretted how I treated my mother every day. Kids can be so cruel.
20. A Happy Ending
It isn't really a present or anything... But one time my mother made Tuna Noodle Casserole for dinner. Now, a lot of people in my family hate fish, me included, but we were tight on money and we already had all the ingredients in the house so my mother didn't have to go buy stuff. My mom made it and sat down at the dinner to eat with the family... everyone said "I hate fish, why did you make this, I'm not eating this!" even my dad said "I'm not really in the mood" and of course I wasn't really all that thrilled either since fish, any fish, are my least favorite meals... but when I looked up at my mom and saw her really look sad at that empty dinner table with her sadly eating the casserole by herself it made me sad and angry that everyone abandoned her, so I sat down, loaded my plate (which was almost half the casserole dish) and started eating all the casserole my family wouldn't eat and saying "This is pretty good mom" me and my mother had a wonderful time eating together and truthfully it wasn't that bad, but I still wouldn't look forward to eating Tuna Noodle Casserole... I almost finished that whole pan.
H/T: Reddit