Freebie McMoocherson
Every interaction with her was ending up with me somehow being short a few bucks each time. I get it that she’s struggling. She has had serious medical issues with her back, and is stuck between public assistance and disability. I helped her out by lending her $400, and she paid me back by doing my hair. That worked out fine enough. I had a little sticker shock at her prices, but I went with it. But not before noticing that she spun it as, "Not only have I paid you back, but I have even given you a few deals along the way." I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but did notice it could be a manipulative spin.
My first suspicion about her was a few years back, when I’d been coming out to her house every week because their car was not operational. I mentioned that it will be nice when they do get their car fixed, so they can start coming out to my house, as the drive was getting tedious. Three weeks later, I find out they’ve been driving for several weeks. So I stopped visiting them every week to watch The Voice. I invited them several times, and they never came to my place. Rule 1: No free delivery.
She was trading 4 squares for 8 rounds, and I knew this was a deal that benefited her more than it did me. Eventually, I stopped accepting the squares. Rule 2: No trades. [She went on to find someone else to buy her squares, but it wasn’t at the generous rate I was paying.]
She still wanted to occasionally buy rounds from me, but no longer had a car, so delivery was on me. She’d call at 9pm on a Sunday and want to meet half-way between our houses. How tedious, of course not. Rule 3: no free half-delivery, or, continue to make sure I don’t take a financial hit every time she wants to meet.
I eventually told her I’ve been too busy to be doing crafts, and I don’t have any more rounds left.
I’d go out to her house, and she’d ask me to stop and get her cigarettes. They’d cost $6.72 or something, and she’d hand me $6 even. She’d always short just a little bit each time. The social visits stopped, so the cigarette delivery stopped as well. The only time I was going to her place was for hair services. No trades, no watching TV, just an occasional haircut or other salon service. If she asked me to pick up cigarettes, I’d take it out of the exact amount of cash I had on me for hair services, so there wasn’t the opportunity to nickel-and-dime me.
Now, her car is gone, so when I go out to her house to get my hair colored, I also have to drive her to the beauty-supply store (or pick it up myself on my way out), for the same price. Oh, she’ll take the cost of the product off the cut, but there is no discount. So now, a hair color is $70 plus $30 in product that I have to stop and pick up myself. I can pay $100 and get my hair done in a salon, closer to my house, without having to run an additional errand. Rule 4: no deals better than I can get commercially.
The last thing that was costing me was her continual habit of canceling or rescheduling my hair appointments. I’d schedule the Saturday cut on Tuesday, so she had plenty of time to prepare. I would call Saturday morning an hour before the appointment, and she would cancel because she was still asleep. Come out later, she’d say. Well, that doesn’t work for me, and I told her I would stop in somewhere to have it done instead. Rule 5: no appointments any less professional than what I can get commercially.
A month or so later, the same thing happened with a color appointment. She was casual about saying "maybe Sunday" and then changing to Wednesday on Sunday morning. I was already over her self-serving tactics, so I just went somewhere else and had it done. She asked Monday what time I was coming out Wednesday (48 hours in advance), and I told her what I did instead. Given that she has canceled several times in the past, this shouldn’t be a big deal, right? But apparently the rules don’t work that way, and now she accused me of taking advantage of her because she is family. Because I canceled one appointment, over the span of about three years.
Additionally, she did this in a manipulative, spoiled manner by telling me I was preventing her from being able to pay her bills. If it was so critical, she could have done it Sunday. She could have offered another salon service, like waxing. Instead, she took her anger to the nines and ended up swearing and calling me names and telling me how much I was victimizing her. Had she not gotten to the name calling, I would have explained my perspective. She heard me say I felt taken advantage of already, and that’s when the name calling started. When I get called names for something as simple as canceling an appointment … that person has to immediately be gone from my life forever, family or not.
Of course she is my cousin, I will be pleasant to her at family events and will still give her daughter a graduation present. But I have plenty of people in my life who treat me better than this. I am guessing she will tell everyone that we both know what an awful person I am for taking advantage of her. Anyone with five minutes of experience with her will know what a line of BS she talks, too.