6.30.2008

Manners, do they even still exist?

This weekend we (my mom, cousin and I) attended a baby shower. The girls mom threw the shower. When we arrived, the mom was not very nice. No greeting, no offering of drinks or snacks, she pretty much ignored us. I thought back to my shower, where the people hosting the party were friendly offering seats, drinks and anything else you wanted. I think it is safe to say we felt totally unwelcome in this house. The girl who is pregnant is carrying the child of my cousin so it's not as if we were strangers, in fact we were the only other family besides the boys mom to show up.

As time progressed we were told to go eat. Then we were rushed through some poorly planned games and still treated pretty poorly. At this point, when I say we, I mean EVERYONE AT THE SHOWER! At one point, the mother of the girl even called her into the kitchen to lecture her on something or other, and I felt like that was a total mood killer. The worst part though was when my mom sat down and the chair cracked. The girls mom came thundering over picked up the chair and angrily flipped the chair over declaring, "THAT CRACK WASN'T THERE BEFORE YOU SAT IN MY CHAIR"! I stopped and looked over and was just floored. She didn't ask if my mom was okay, she didn't say, I'm sorry I feel so bad, or oh man are you okay that was awful can I help you, no she yelled at my mom. Then she grabbed the chair stormed off and threw it in a hall. Five minutes later we saw her standing on another chair to do something for the party. She weighed at least 200 pounds and was standing on her chair no fucking wonder they cracked.

Later, as her daughter opened gifts and received a ton of diapers, plus tons of notes from family saying they would be supplying diapers any time all she had to do was call, plus a shit ton of stuff from me, not one thank you was given. Her mom never said wow thanks guys this was so thoughtful of you, or gosh she would have never gotten all of this if it wasn't for you.

Now would be a good time for me to say, the pregnant girl is 16. All of these people showed up for her, they bought her stuff, gave her stuff, whatever, and her mom never thanked them, or me. Her friends didn't come, it was mostly her moms friends, her boyfriends sister, and us, with 2 other friends. I would have thought, at the end she would have thanked people for helping her daughter who has nothing, who is totally unprepared and is basically being ignored by her family. The people who showed up, should have been thanked.

There were so many more moments where I just felt so unwelcomed at this poor girls shower. You could tell how uncomfortable she felt too, being in this situation. Even when I won the game there was no, good job, nothing. Instead, they threw a box of gifts at me and said here take a present and then move on.

The lady got upset with Brandon for walking up and down the stairs. He wasn't going in any rooms, or even stepping off the stairs, he was just going up then down up then down, and she got upset about it.

I remember both of my showers. I remember at the end my mom stopping every single person and just thanking them for being there for me, for buying me gifts that would help me out, for taking the time to be there for me and just thanking them for everything. Everyone felt welcome in my house.

In the end, we left feeling so bothered, feeling like our presence wasn't appreciated. I also left wondering what the fuck happened to manners.

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