She seemed friendly enough at first. That was how she sucked me in to thinking how great she was. She's the one who goes around with the Neighborhood Roster, all official like, every year updating everyone's names and numbers and making sure everyone gets a current copy. That was how she sucked me in. I thought, how great it was that she volunteered her time like that and how helpful that list is. Especially how helpful it would have been the year my cat got himself locked in another neighbor's garage while they were camping for the week. Let me tell you it was great going door to door with my newborn trying to figure out who had a number to contact them at. Awesome. As you can imagine, after that I was a big fan of the Neighborhood Roster. Great idea. Couldn't be happier.
Then she wanted to get us all together. A meet and greet of sorts for our little culdesac. Again I thought how great she was. How nice of her to volunteer her time. And this where I made my mistake.
I offered to donate all of the ice cream for our little get together. After all, I get it for free through my family, so I wanted to help out too.
Cue me receiving the flyer to our friendly neighborhood get together, with my address on it as the location. As though I were hosting my entire street over for a get together. That was not what I had in mind and now everyone had a flyer that said to come on over, when all I'd offered to do was donate some ice cream. It was fabulous. Especially when I only had a couple of days notice and Preston was still tiny. I was furious, but I pulled it off. And seethed silently on the inside.
Fast forward. Every single time that her son is doing any kind of a sports fundraiser, they arrive on my doorstep. No matter how many times I tell her that my cousin goes to his rival school and no I would not like to donate, if I choose to donate I will donate to my cousin thank you very much. Plus it starts to get a little old when they keep asking for money. All the time.
It gets better. Lately she has started calling.
Calling to ask me to donate ice cream. Apparently since I did it ONE time TWO AND A HALF YEARS ago, I'm available and willing to do it anytime she needs me to, for any reason she needs me to.
It's obnoxious. The last time, I received a phone call asking me to donate ice cream to her son's football fundraiser. I once again told her that if I were going to donate something then it would be to the school that my cousin goes too. But this time I also told her that I am not in charge of who the company donates to and that if she is looking for a donation she needs to call the office and get it approved through my Grandpa, the owner to the company. As in please stop asking me to give you things.
I'm not trying to be rude. But my family runs a business. That means that when they give you ice cream for free, you aren't buying ice cream. Thus taking money away from the business. I wouldn't show up where you or your husband worked and constantly ask for free stuff. That's just not how things are done.
She just did it again. She is doing some sort of a walk and she was wondering if I would be willing to donate. I politely informed her, "Not at this time". While wondering why I even bothered answering the phone. But she once again persisted. "Are you sure? I was hoping to donate a basket from the culdesac.". I stuck to my guns and repeated no. Still, she continued on. "Do you know anyone who might want to donate? Anyone at all?" There was that nice little hint in her voice that I should step up to the plate and give her all the ice cream she
Can you sell a neighbor's house? Have an agent come look it over and toss up the sign? Anything to get her to leave me alone. I am just so tired of being polite to her. Has anyone told her the economy is crap right now? That it's rude to repeatedly ask for free things? That no does in fact mean no? I am just feeling very done with her and the whole situation right now. Ugh! Any advice? There has to be some way to get my point across politely, doesn't there?!
