Vehicle

This isn't a true story except metaphorically, but it's a pretty important one.

Imagine a young man nearing his 16th birthday, the day when he'll be eligible to get a driver's license. And let's imagine this is before graduated licensing was a big thing, or else imagine that he's maybe a little older and getting ready for the final level of the graduated system instead of the first level, or something like that. The point isn't exactly his age, just that he's about to get to the point where having a vehicle of his own would be a pretty good thing.

Now, he's in a fairly affluent society, and it's not unknown for rich parents to present their children with new cars upon their 16th birthdays. That's not unknown but it's pretty unusual and there's no way he can reasonably expect it from his own parents, who are of modest means; he knows this. Nonetheless it's a possibility that he's aware of and he can't help being aware of. A more realistic possibility might be that they'd give him a used car; or give him some money to put towards his own purchase of a used car; or even just co-sign on the loan for him to buy one himself. He's willing and able to get a job, maybe he already has a job, and can do the work and earn the money himself. It doesn't have to be a gift.

But of course he has at least once thought of what it would be like to be just given a new car by his parents, free and clear, as he knows does occasionally happen to people turning 16. It has happened to a few of his friends. He has imagined the experience of being given maybe an envelope with the keys in it on the morning of his 16th birthday. He has certainly thought about what kind of car he'd most like to have, what colour it would be, and so on. His parents know that too, and he knows they know, and they know he knows they know and so on.

And, again (this is a short, simple story so I feel like I have to pad it out): it needn't be the perfect car, even though he's picked out what the perfect car would be. It could be used instead of new, that would be okay. Anything he can ride would actually be pretty good. Or a contribution towards his efforts at getting his own, even a small contribution.

On the morning of his 16th birthday our boy's parents present him with a large wrapped box, and he's pleased, but mystified. An actual car couldn't fit in there. Normally you'd give someone the keys, or some small symbolic item (like a Hot Wheels toy car) to represent the actual vehicle that would be parked somewhere else. Or a cheque in an envelope or a note of some kind. Anything like that, though, would be much smaller. Maybe the box contains some other gift, completely unrelated?

He opens the box and finds that it contains a child's toy tricycle, in rather poor shape, apparently purchased for a couple dollars at a garage sale. His beaming parents tell him that they knew he'd wanted a vehicle, and they hope he enjoys it.

The first thought is that the tricycle is a wacky variation of the "give something small, like a toy car, to represent the real one that won't fit in the box and is parked elsewhere." But no, this is the whole present. There isn't a "real one" somewhere else, this is supposed to be for real. The next thought is that it's a sick joke - but nobody seems to be laughing. It takes a few rounds of confused, blurry questioning, before the message sinks in: his loving parents have given him this tricycle in the honest and sincere belief that it really is what he wanted. It's not just a matter of giving him a used car because they couldn't afford the new one, and a tricycle because they couldn't afford the used car. They are unaware of there being any compromise here at all. As far as they are concerned, the tricycle isn't just a substitute for a car, and it's not supposed to be "as good as" the new car he'd been secretly hoping for - they think it really is in every way a full satisfaction of everything he had wanted. They think it is the new car in all ways that matter. It's supposed to be the overwhelmingly good dream present, no compromise.

Well, if he'd gotten the new car, that would have been pretty cool, but he couldn't expect that.

If he'd gotten a used car, that would have been pretty cool too.

Or a contribution towards his own eventual purchase of a used car.

Or a co-signature to help him get the loan, without any direct contribution.

Or, you know what? Even if they hadn't done that, it would have been okay. The dream of getting a car just isn't that important. What really matters is that they love him and want him to be pleased, and that's more important than actually helping him achieve his goal. His parents don't owe him anything.

But they gave him the tricycle. He can't ride it because it was built for someone the size of a four-year-old, he can't use it for any of the purposes he would use his car for if he had one, and he can't even realistically sell it and use the money, because the time that would take would be time he could be spending at his part-time job, earning more money to put towards his car than the value of the tricycle. It's worse than useless to him.

What can one say or do?

(The story of the race between the Turtle and the Bunny is vaguely related to this story. See also bupkes.)

Comments

Daniel from 67.55.10.190 at Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:30:44 +0000:
I think he should let it go. Everyone gets disappointing clueless presents sometimes, even from people who care about you.

Matt from 216.75.190.36 at Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:39:47 +0000:
"Let it go" is the kind of non-answer that sounds wise until you try to actually apply it. What does it even mean?

The question wasn't "how should he feel about being in this situation?"; I'm interested in the practical question of how he can interact with the people who gave him this gift. Right there on the ground, what can one say or do? Just keep silent completely? That's certainly going to be conspicuous if it's the course of action he tries to follow. The question "Do you like it?" is going to be asked pretty soon and if all he can say is, "Oh, I'll let it go!" there are going to be some repercussions for that. He still has to live with these people whether he "lets it go" or not.

Daniel from 130.15.96.170 at Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:57:11 +0000:
What can one do about any bum present? Be polite, hide your disappointment, tell small lies about liking it if you have to (not *too* convincingly), and appreciate these people very much for the fact that they're in your life and tried to give you something you would like - even if they failed horribly. That shouldn't be taken for granted. Then when the next present-receiving bonanza is coming up, all you can do is hint around and outright ask, and hope and pray, that the next present won't be such a source of deep, deep self-pity.

Most people only understand you some of the time, and of those people who do better than that, it's still only most of the time. Everyone's alone in that way. I accept that, and I try not to hold a grudge against people who get me wrong. Though in fact that's one of the things that makes me angriest.

Matt from 216.75.190.36 at Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:56:40 +0000:
I wonder if that's really the best thing to do. I'm reminded of a point from a sex-advice columnist I read once, on the subject of faking orgasm: maybe it's really tempting to do that, maybe you feel your partner needs it in some way, maybe you don't have the energy for a discussion right then on the topics of what it would take for you to come or whether that is even an important goal or not, okay, fine... but if you fake orgasm you're giving your partner a really strong reason to believe that all is well and everything is the way you want it to be and nothing needs to change, and that means you can reasonably expect that nothing WILL change. If you say you liked the tricycle, then you will get another one, and when you do it will be partly your own fault, and it will not serve anyone's interest.

Do see the Race story if you aren't familiar with it. On the surface it looks like the Turtle is a victim of his friends' good intentions, but I think he bears some of the blame for what happened. They lied to him, but *he lied too*, especially at the end. I figure the most admirable character is the Snail: it neither lied, nor tried to talk the Turtle out of his dream. Everybody else did one or the other.

Maybe loving someone means telling them the truth even when it hurts - "This really sucks; it's completely unsatisfactory to the original need, can't be turned to any useful purpose for me, and is a painful reminder of the absence of what I actually wanted." If you ask "What would the donor want?", I think a lot of donors would want to know if the gift was no good. Then at least they'd have the opportunity to participate in whatever could be done to make it better. As long as you shield someone's feelings by giving them false information, or just not giving them relevant information even without a positive lie, you're putting yourself above them - saying that your judgment of what's right for them should take precedence over their own possibility to make that judgment. Maybe we shouldn't do that with people we love. Maybe we should treat them as teammates instead of separate from ourselves.

Understand that although I presented that argument I'm not convinced by it. In actual practice my behaviour has usually been pretty much as you recommend, to grin and bear it, lie, and count other blessings. I certainly wasn't honest in the way I describe, in the actual incident that inspired this. But I do wonder very much what's really the right course of action in such cases.

Daniel from 67.212.21.215 at Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:15:21 +0000:
I really like what you say here, and the sex example is an important one, an instance of giving and receiving everyone has to master. I think what this is really about is feedback, when and how is the most effective way to give it. And first you need to have someone who's open to it at all, which even sometimes people who care about you might not be. I think what I was trying to get at in my reply is that the timing is absolutely critical: right after someone's bought you a present - unless they can return it - is not the time to give feedback that you don't like it. If you do you'll be like my grandmother, who is such an ungrateful pain in the butt that the only people who ever visit her are obliged to by biological relation. So in the short term, right after someone's exerted themselves towards you, is when to appreciate them. At least waiting a little bit of tme before guiding them to do it better in the future, and best of all when they get another shot at it.

Otherwise it's like saying right after getting a blowjob, "well that was crap."

You have to not make people feel judged, especially not in the "you'll never get it" or "you've done something you can never make right" vein. So that's like what you're saying about not putting yourself above someone, respecting them by recognizing their ability to change and improve, and their desire to do so. That's what I think you're getting at with the idea of the people in your life as teammates. In the most treasured partnerships in life, mutual trust can keep growing and growing and feedback can be more continuous and the need to pretend you like something when you don't lessens.

Daniel from 67.212.21.215 at Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:20:56 +0000:
Just as a followup, it's an important and not-at-all obvious skill to communicate to people around you about how to please you. I want to get in the habit of broadcasting it loudly and often, the many things that I absolutely love and that can make me happy. I only have a handful of people who I know that about, like enough to plan a surprise custom birthday party for - and only some of them are close friends, some are just people who are great at broadcasting that.

Captain Smokeblower from 168.103.67.105 at Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:39:28 +0000:
Your story happened in my life. My third year in college I wanted an acoustic guitar for Christmas and my parents knew this. Sure enough Christmas morning there was a guitar shaped package under the tree with my name on it. I was ready whether it was an inexpensive new guitar or used one, but I wasn't ready for the five dollar particle board bodied child's toy with painted on frets and six identical strings. I was totally unprepared as were my parents when in tears I explained how inadequate it was. It was our worst Christmas, but we recovered. I didn't handle the situation in anything like a reasonable manner because I had invested in my expectations. I came home at spring break with my roommate's old beginner's guitar. I purchased it for $20 and that satisfied my desire for a guitar (and taught me I still didn't have an ear for music). My parents were happy I had what I wanted and they gave that toy guitar to my daughter ten years later. My daughter enjoyed playing and destroying it as any six year old would. On a parallel, I never managed to get my mother to understand I didn't like pasta, but that wasn't important to our relationship so I ate it when I visited and she had fixed it. Sex is a bit more important than pasta in marriage relationships and happens more than once or twice a year in good sexual relationships.

If the faked orgasm/ejaculation occurs just once (or less than once a year) in a long relationship there may not be anything that needs to change. (Since you get gifts less frequently than sex -- at least I hope you do, bad gifts annually are a bigger problem than a faked orgasm/ejaculation once a year*.) If you and your spouse have a good and frequent sex life and while being intimate the evening after you mailed your tax forms you suddenly realize you made a math error, and you can't get your mind back into the proper/improper frame needed then you've got to decide whether to fake it or admit you can't follow through. Your choice should depend on how your spouse will respond (and whether you can pull it off). An insecure person's self image can suffer from the truth or a lie if the lie is discovered.

* It's difficult to compare gifts and sex because we tend to get gifts once or twice a year from close friends and family, but we enjoy sex with one person very frequently throughout the year. I'm happy with that. I couldn't grasp sex with family members: "We shouldn't, grandma, I'm really not feeling well, in fact I feel supper coming back up right now." "Thanks for the sweater grandma," just feels better even if I don't like the color.

Matt from 216.75.190.36 at Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:48:23 +0000:
I'm sorry you had to go through this. Like a lot of my stories it's meant to resonate with a lot of readers, but I wish this one were more unusual. As for me, I get a lot more pasta than sex. At least I do like pasta.

Captain Smokeblower from 168.103.67.105 at Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:09:48 +0000:
You do a great job of telling stories. Even your cartoon, or maybe especially the cartoon. I was drawn into Bonobo Conspiracy by parallels in my grad school experience though I never met Algea at the U of A and I thought more highly of the professors than I do Dr. Klaun even those younger than me.

Pasta is one of those cheap meals on which college students survive. Sex, on the other hand, isn't cheap even when free. Though I've known a few college students who tried living on it. [OK Cap'n, deep breath and tell yourself, "I don't have to be jealous."]

Steve from 165.154.153.190 at Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:32:57 +0000:
I'm a terrible liar. My body language gives it away if I'm just trying to be nice. It's both a curse and a benefit. I'm really trying to be polite and appreciative, but the subtext gets through too.

In fact the last gift I received applies to your story. It was a box of chocolates at a dinner party. They had hazelnuts and I'm allergic to hazelnuts. I was given them during the appetizers. After the dinner was over I offered them around to everyone as part of desert, which I had decided I would do as soon as I got them. The person who gave them to me was saying stuff like "I don't want one, they were supposed to be for you." After I explained the allergy she accepted one of the chocolates.

And here is the meat of the story:

The next day she bought me a new box of chocolates. What's really impressive is that it was her WEDDING DAY! She found the time and effort on an extremely busy day that is supposed to be all about -her- to smooth over a mistake that she had no way of knowing she was making.

I'm not big on chocolates so I still have the new unopened box of chocolates in the cupboard. Eventually I'll eat them. But it is immaterial if I end up liking them or not... I'll always remember the effort that was put into trying to make me happy.

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