Why Can't They Get the Hint?

I’d love to know how you get your family to buy you stuff you actually like for Christmas, Birthday’s, Anniversaries, and the like. I’ve been working on this for twenty years and I never get it right. This is saying a lot since most people who know me would say that I always speak my mind, or I’m an insensitive jerk depending on how you take my comments. Take my recent encounter at Walmart. On a particularly busy weekend I jetted in for foodstuffs, medicine, and the all important new release DVD that we just had to have. Somehow I walked out with most of my foodstuffs and without my new DVD. I was pretty sure that those checkers were trained to spin the little bag wheel to make sure that they had given the customer all her bags—but training only goes so far and I didn’t get mine. Which meant that I had to traipse back over to Walmart stand in the historically long line at Customer Service and explain what happened. The man looked behind the counter, walked to the checkout and looked around, and then came back to tell me that the person behind me in line probably got my bag. No kidding? I never would have figured that out on my own without flash cards or a life-line call to my mother! I said, “well, I didn’t get it so I’m going to get another one since I paid for it.” He agreed, and even called me out of the long line I found after I had walked to the back of the store for the video so that I wouldn’t have to wait.


The same holds true in all areas of my life. I’m up front with my children that the computer and video game consoles will remain locked until their beds are made and they clean up the shoes and backpacks that are always strewn across the entry way like toys trying to escape a fire. I tell my husband when I need a hug because men can’t read minds, take hints or put their socks in the hamper. I plan and execute girls nights out because I recognize that over-exposure to my family makes me itchy and another word that rhymes with itchy.

So why is it that I can’t get my family to buy me anything good as a present? I don’t drop hints, I tuck lists into my husband’s wallet and then repeatedly remind him that they are in there—next to the money he’ll need to make the purchase. For my last birthday I wanted a specific purse. I told him to go get it. I told him to do it soon so that it was still there. I’d even gone over the lesson learned the previous year when they wound up spending $100 on a bunch of little junk for me instead of getting me one nice item. What did I get? A smelly candle, discount store pajamas, a movie that the kids were more interested in than me, perfume I don’t wear and fuzzy socks. Actually, I kind of like the fuzzy socks. But still no purse.

Maybe I should try becoming a “collector.” My sister said that once she had accumulated two ceramic elephants that her in-laws determined that she collected them and then every holiday was celebrated by giving her another elephant for her collection. My other sister got caught in the same vicious cycle with Coke-a-Cola Bears. I think she got the bad end of the collection deal with that one. I’ve tried to let them know that I collect jewelry now, but that hasn’t caught on as well as I would have liked. The only person who seemed to notice was my mother and she’s female so she’s always known I like jewelry—and books. Maybe I need to get more specific and say that I collect “Samantha Wills” jewelry, but that would be a lie since I don’t actually own any of her stuff—I’d like to, but that’s the sort of thing you should get as a present. I should put that on a sticky-note and slip it into my husband’s wallet—unless you have a better suggestion.