The Gift Exchange

“Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.”~ Walt Disney

And I’m back. In not any moment too soon before the Christmas holiday & break .

But I knew that I would be back today here when I woke up this morning as today was our grand ole fun-filled Holiday Party. A party in which no neighbor has referred to it as such in over five years. With the kinda of neighbors that I have now, political correctness can sit on it!

Our usual gathering took place with snacks and drinks and other deliciousness. As much as you had wished to stack onto a plate.

But the one part that would make you run and get the popcorn from home, would be ……. the gift exchange.

Allow me to explain why this is entertaining.

First off, there is a $10 limit on gifts. Of course, you must give a gift to receive a gift. Even though other people have attempted to lie and falsify that they gave, just to get something more… it never worked out well for them. But instead of doing something about it, they get passed off as “old and confused.” It doesn’t make sense to me either.

But one year after the gift exchange had been announced that it had come to an end. Everyone looked at what they had RANDOMLY SELECTED and nobody was happy or satisfied with what they received.

One woman who has been a rather frequent topic of conversation in this blog stood right up and announced a proposition for other neighbors if they had the desire to “SWAP” what they had with hers. Within one hour, I watched that one gift get traded and swapped through a total of four separate people.

The gift in question you may wonder? A two-cup coffee maker.

Another year, an old bitty was so greedy about receiving something through the gift exchange, that she had let it slip her mind until that very day. So just hours ahead of the party, she dumped out the contents of her own personal wallet and threw it in a box and then put it under the tree.

I can still see the look on the person’s face who had randomly selected that wallet. It wasn’t new. It was old and falling apart. And there was nothing inside of it either. All in the name of getting something more.

For the past couple of years, after the gift exchange had come to an end, it was an automatic thing that people would swap and switch their gifts. For as long as they were not receiving the same gift that they gave for the exchange.

So in 2015, I chose emphatically not to participate in the gift exchange. But rather sit back like a boss and watch the people trip and drown in their own selfishness and avarice.

I was not disappointed. The gifts that were under the tree this year were horrible. And I think the thought behind them were even worse. A person can do a lot with a ten dollar limit. This group of participating hoarders simply chose not to go that far in their exchange. A lot of thoughtless gifts, and even more bullshit ideas that would be considered as a present…. in the minds of simple children. 

So we pass another holiday season here. Christmas is just a few days away. And sadly for me, it will be just another day of the week as my sister already made her plans for the holiday elsewhere and out of town. I’ll probably get a few text messages and a couple of telephone calls of family and friends wishing me a Merry Christmas. And that will be the extent of it.

Stay tuned. 2016 is going to be packed full of surprises. I PROMISE YOU! Just be patient……………….

Things I Don’t Understand Make Me Angry

“I know all about cheating. I’ve had six very successful marriages.”~Bobby Heenan

People often get excited when they enter into a full blown new relationship. I know that I do!

I witnessed one shouting from the mountain tops this afternoon of her new found love that was right under her nose! And was feeling pretty silly for not considering the guy to give him a chance at something more long term.

So I inquired. After all, this was a person that I had thought I had a few years to go before I earned “tenure” and going one on one never seemed to go wrong. With a few obvious and constant exceptions that were just mind meltingly annoying.

As expected, more details were being handed out as I was in a private conversation with her. But she could not restrain herself from being so damned bubbly about the new prospective relationship.

Okay, I get that. Nothing to get annoyed about.

Until I learned of their history together. It was someone that has been around in her life for a very long time. Just that he came in and out of it at certain points.

You see, I had met this person from the Internet over a decade ago. But at the time she was married with children. So I backed off knowing that even trying to attempt anything wasn’t going to get me any where.

“She’s single now. Go get her!!!”

Fast forward all that time and our paths crossed again. This time, she was divorced with children. I attempted to make my move and woo her as much as possible without having the fault of the Internet make me sound like some gushing pervert.

Needless to say that I failed. And realized that a factor in this problematic situation was the very large distance. And probably the age difference as well as she was a few years elder than I. But hell, age is nothing but a number. But the miles in between I was believing would be an issue.

So I almost gave up.

Besides, the annoying habit was that each and every time I corresponded with her online and I said something wooing or flirtatious or whatever, her response was always to hand over an emoticon of a smile.

🙂

Wait. What? Seriously?? How was I to win at anything when combating those stupid smiley faces???

Fast forward again back to present time. The “hero of her heart of the day” was a person that she had cheated with on her husband back during the days when she was married.

WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And to think I was attempting to take a shot at her, now that she was untied, unkept, and single.

I spent all that time flirting and complimenting and chatting, but for what? Absolutely nothing. Unless she just absorbed that kind of attention.

And I wondered what kind of major bullet did I dodge by actually LOSING the  task of winning her heart and/or affection?

Cheating is nothing that I understand. I do not understand why people do it. Although I have been the person that someone cheated WITH on a number of experiences in the past. Of course all of those just about ruining my life in the long run.

So yes, cheaters make me angry. And to believe that even if I would have won the affections of her… how long before she would have cheated on ME?!?!?!?

I’m pretty sure that science and history come together that when a person cheats, that it makes it just that much easier to do it again and again and again. And who needs that? Cheating is lying and lying is cheating. And I don’t know of anyone who wants to be lied to or cheated on. 

I suppose that in some twisted way, I should be thanking this woman for being honest with me about her past. I couldn’t help but be frustrated at her la-de-da attitude about what she had done, but then again… those are NOT my consequences. It was still shocking nonetheless. 

So here’s a lifetime of being spared the agony. The finances. The emotional turmoil. And the realization of being cheated on yet again as it has happened to me in my lifetime, by my first ever serious girlfriend.

NOT cool.

So yeah, I’m angry. Angry to know what she’s been through. Angry to know what she’s done. And angry to know what she is absolutely capable of!!!!

The question is, now that she’s falling for the man that she cheats with when she is with other men, who is she going to cheat with on THIS guy?!?!?!?

Doesn’t sound fair, does it?? 

There are no mistakes in cheating. It only causes damage of magnitudes that you never thought possible.

It turns the strong into fragile beings. It turns the faithful into the untrusting.

Worlds crash, people’s lives are changed forever, and for what? Because you decided to find happiness elsewhere and hide it. If you’re not happy ….. don’t freakin’ cheat.

 

 

 

 

The Halloween Humiliation

“One man’s transparency is another’s humiliation.”~ Gerry Adams

Last night was the annual October showing of the cartoon, “It’s the GreatPumpkin, Charlie Brown.”, one that I would have to say that has been a part of my life each and every October. And each time I am reminded of my childhood memories of Halloween and Trick-or-Treating.

Sufficed to say that even in my adult life, I have watched that cartoon every October ever since I can remember and have missed it, but once in my life time.

And with those childhood memories comes a tale of a child’s Halloween nightmare.

Living on a circle drive, my parents were very serious about us, their children, not to wander too far down the block on either side. But one year for Halloween, we were actually “smart” enough to have gone all the way around the entire neighborhood as fast as we could without the parents wondering where we were.

Naturally this was back during a time when Halloween or parents were concerned with the dangers of children being out at night. Still though, when we went out each Halloween, we always had an adult with us, whether it had been my father or mother. But this one year, we were left to the supervision of the two elder siblings to watch over us in the night as we went door to door begging for candy.

For years, our neighbors were kind of predictable. We knew which neighbors gave out healthy stuff like boxes of raisins, and we knew who had “the good stuff” which was chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. Not to mention bubble gum. Our favorite house actually was the one who handed out the bubble gum. Not to say that its better than chocolate since that is a matter of opinion, but those neighbors across the street and one house over, had that gum in a candy dish– all year long. We knew it was a for sure bet.

But this particular tale would have moved my childhood into the next chapter of Halloween activities as our small-sized plastic pumpkins with the handle on it would prove not to be enough from the bounty that was inevitably before us. If we only were smart enough at that young of an age to have used our pillow cases!!

It just so happned that year on Halloween  on that same evening, or late afternoon, there was a wedding and I went with my father and younger brother to that wedding. We knew that there would be a reception, and let’s face it… when you are that young, the dream of having wedding cake as well as assorted salted nuts and those pink, yellow, and green colored mints added on to the piles of candy that would have been taken during the night was a child’s wet dream before they even knew what one was.

Needless to say, my father did not allow us that dream.

We had a choice: Wedding reception or Trick-or-Treating? We thought that we would get more out of the evening if we went home and went door to door. We were SO right!!

Also with the underestimated candy luggage was the action of doing away with the old standby Halloween costumes that were easy to slip on, like a shirt with a mask that was held together by a thin rubber band and tiny holes for the nose to breathe out of and of course the eyes to see. That Halloween, we did not have to dress up like a character from Scooby-Doo or a princess or whatever it was that we had. I think a Frankenstein monster, we had one too? I don’t recall. What I did remember was actually being “grown up” enough to wear the make-up and paint.

So we went out. We skipped over those who were bearing fruits and nutrition-filled food, as well as those just handing out caramel apples and went straight across the street for our gum. That year, we got TWO pieces of gum and we thought that this was the beginning of a marvelous adventure.

Door to door, house to house. Both sides of the street. And then we had reached our “limitations” to what we were used to. Going any further in the neighborhood was unheard of, but the elder two siblings said “Let’s Go!!”.

We left nothing unchecked. Each and every house was struck. Several neighbors that we never saw face to face or even knew as neighbors would definitely remember our faces as we stomped across front yards and cut across lawns to get to the next front door faster from the house before.

Our lousy plastic pumpkins were full before we even made it half way. The thought of going and knocking on strang doors started to bother me, so I every once in a while I would surrender my candy-filled pumpkin and tell my brother, “I don’t like this house. It’s creepy and the porch light isn’t on. I don’t want ANYTHING from this house.” And so my brother would go ahead and take my pumpkin and come back several seconds later. Clearly, I would end up with far less than he would.

My humiliation came to me when we had finished the entire lap around the block and came home for the inevitable “parental scanning for dangerous objects and mother/father candy taxes” were applied. Yep, we had to go through that TWICE.

Needless to say that a majority of the chocolate items were gone before they gave back our candy. But then I would see in my brother’s pumpkin some items I had never thought possible to be given out for Halloween.

Someone had given him a Little Debbie’s Star Crunch. It was untampered with in a singled package. And on top of that, he had a single dollar bill.

When I asked him where he got them, he simply smirked with a bold smile of bragging and said, “You said you didn’t want anything from those houses, so I didn’t get you anything.”

Neither my mother or my father would take that Star Crunch from my brother. So this fabulous snack treat, and some pocket change totally was lost because I didn’t trust the houses on the other side of the block. So humiliating!

I would learn never to turn down Halloween treats, from anyone at anytime no matter what. We were still going to have to go through the parents to make sure everything was safe. But all that meant was more for us for the next week. Even if we lost the grandest of all treats to the parents, we still had awesome replacements because nobody from that point on when we went out, would dare say “I don’t want anything from this house.”

 

Jewelry Separation

“Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell.”  ~Emily Dickinson

Last night I believe that I softly cried myself to sleep. A bitter ending to an usually busy day for me as I was cleaning my apartment for most of the afternoon and evening.

The steady activity of unusual excercise probably had worn me out, but in my efforts of cleaning always leads me to a surprise of discoveries of previously misplaced or lost items. One of which was the receipt to the gold ring that I had in a pawn shop. A ring that I did very much so intend on paying back the loan and retrieving ownerships once more.

But when I looked at the date that was printed to be the “last day of grace”, my entire body sank when I realized that date was yesterday.

I quickly went online to search for the operating hours of the pawn shop and it just got worse as by the time I realized it, I only had about 45 minutes before the pawn shop would close. All I needed to do was pay the interest amount on the loan and they would re-finance it to where I would have another grace period. But it would do nothing for the principal of the loan.

So I called them. I tried to explain my situation that I had the money for the interest amount, but would not be able to get there before they were going to close. As much as they did apologize and tell me that they felt for me, they were not willing to do anything about it. At least not in the sense that they would hold off for another day until I was able to arrive there to pay for the interest amount. The grace period was over.

This was the ring that I had put in pawn as a test to see what I would get for it, before selling that other ring that I had that had too many bad memories attached to it. This ring that was lost last night, the pawn shop was willing to give a loan up to $225 for. The story I had written in a previous post.

But instead of taking out that much of a loan, I only took $60 of it. I didn’t want to take so much of a loan on it that I could not pay it back. And it turns out that I couldn’t after all.

Even when I returned to SELL the ring that I didn’t want, I thought I would receive more for it because it had a larger garnet in it and diamonds around. But surprisingly, they didn’t give that much to me for selling it.

If I had known that I was going to lose this ring though, I probably would have gone ahead and taken the $225. But I had not intended on losing it at all. Now I have.

I could mention the reasons and excuses for why I never got to the pawn shop. But writing about them here isn’t going to return the ring back to me. It is not going to change anything.

All I could do was reflect on how proud I was when I bought the ring back in 2002 or around that time. It was something that I paid for MYSELF. (With the $20 exception that I got from my sister as a birthday gift towards the purchase.) Still, I paid for it. And I thought I was a bad ass for having it. I thought I looked pretty sharp with it on.

And then my thoughts would switch over to the ugliness of the situation from the OTHER ring. I was surprised that my brain would switch thoughts like that in an instant. I began to not like my ex all over again and blame her some more for the other situation. But I did not blame her for this.

And I also started to blame the scenario of a few months ago from the scam that I fell victim to. I believe that had I not fallen for it, my finances would be a lot different than what they are now. And most likely I wouldn’t have had to step inside the pawn shop at all for any reason.

I can point fingers and assign blame all that I want. But it will not give me the ring back.

I COULD go back into the pawn shop after a while and see how much that they are selling it for and buy it back, but most likely the mark-up on it will be so crazy that I couldn’t afford it.

So I guess that this whole summer, I had one hard lesson to learn. And it stings for sure. Perhaps now I will go online and do some shopping to see whether or not I am able to find something different. Something else that I might enjoy just as much to wear and see whether or not I can afford it. If so, I just might buy me another ring from some place else.

I’ll have to keep my eyes open.

So I wave farewell to the ring that I most enjoyed having. It is only material, and it can be replaced. And so I’ll march forward to do so.

Dumping Assumptions

Before anyone begins to cry foul over this post, let me just say that I am going to try to handle this specific subject matter with as much ease as possible, so that my own discernment is not misunderstood.

If I were to add a quote along with this post as I have in many posts before, I think that we all know which would be the preferred selection. This is about assumptions. And since we all already know one by heart, there really is no need for it to be posted here.

With being the totally social person that I am, in that I love to meet new people and make friends, there are those times when an introduction is made and right away I can tell that it probably isn’t going to work out in the end. And so instead of suffering through from beginning until I’ve reached the inevitable end, I simply make the choice not to go after it and allow it to dissolve on its own. Still, I have been told that people have enjoyed my company for one reason or another. I believe that it is always nice to hear something like that. Of course, who really wants to hear something like “You are totally boring! Go away!!”. Well… those who are self-sadistic maybe, but not I.

I have found myself in the past week at three different times, being pulled into a game of “match making” shall we say? Nothing thrilling to write home about by any means, but I guess something to break the monotony of this week’s slow activity. I was introduced to some people by some others that I know.

All of that was fine, until I found out that the reason why these people decided to make the introductions in the first place- was because I have a physical disability and the people in which I was being introduced to some people who ALSO had some kind of disability.

Now I am not talking down against the actual act of the introduction to these people. I am sure that they are wonderful in their own ways as every one of us really and truly are. But what I am vehemently against was the assumption that this person knew two people with disabilities, I and the other person, and believed that some sort of connection would be made based on that fact alone.

As I stated, this happened three times with three separate people over three separate events. The fourth? Well, I actually did find some merit within that person and some interest, so I stuck with it and traded my contact information with them. But the other three was solely based on the other person’s assumptions that “we’d get along great!”, because we have something in common.

Well no, not really. Two of them had different disabilities than mine. Far different lives they live than I do. I can only imagine what they have to go through on a daily basis and by comparison would probably bet money that my life is a bit easier than theirs. But because of the only commonality between these people and myself were that there was a disability… doesn’t always mean that we will automatically end up giving each other the label of BFF.

Yet I was really nice and polite with everyone involved in these awkward instances. It was no surprise to myself and to the other disabled people that we did not make that perfect fit for a friendship. The ones that made the original introductions, stood there scratching their heads in great confusion.

One of them literally came up to me and whispered, “I don’t know what’s going on! I thought you two would hit it off… because you two are so alike, with the wheelchair and all.”

WHAT?!??

#1- Clearly, you are mistakened. #2- You do not know me as well as you thought you did. #3- You did not think this all the way through.

The commonality in this specific example was the fact that the other person uses a wheelchair for mobility. They were not born with Spina Bifida, nor do they have any kind of physical disability in which they deal with on a day to day basis that is medically based. They have the need for the use of a wheelchair because in their past, they were struck by a train and are now confined for the rest of their life to a wheelchair. That was the only thing that was in common.

I really wished that society would think twice before making decisions like these. It really would get rid of any kind of humiliation to be suffered by any one, including those who have made the decisions to assume. Then, it would have been a lot easier on everyone with no pressure.

Now had I gone up to my colleague and they said, “Oh hey, this is ______ , they were struck by a train a few years ago and now use a wheelchair.”, then that probably would have gone over a lot easier than assuming that they would make a perfect match. (Even though it probably would have offended the person from the train accident for having someone else volunteer their personal lives. Probably to the point where it would have still gone over better if they had left it to me to ask them why they were disabled.)

Who knows what could’ve happened then? I might have been able to make a new connection and friendship. But because it was based on an assumption and the entire situation was made uncomfortable for every one there, it failed.

Just because I like women with green hair and three boobs, doesn’t mean you should come up to me and assume that I am going to like your friend who also has green hair and three boobs. Or even white hair and three boobs. You probably just should allow those kinds of decisions to be left up to be made by me.

So I hope that I have not come across like some jerk in this post. Life is frustrating enough for me personally without someone trying to make me into a character from a novel by Anne Rice. Having people lump me together with another group of people based on an outward appearance that shows commonality. It is ridiculous. And I don’t have to say just how stupid it is to assume.

My humiliation from these experiences wore off when I departed from them.  The same probably goes for the other people in which I was introduced. But those who dared to assume that they had someone that would be “perfect” for me will probably bear their shame for some time to come.