Donating gifted junk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell her it broke, so you disposed of it. (It did break, before you got it). Refuse to pay her -- tell her you would not have accepted it if it was a sale and not a gift. If you do end up paying her to get ride of her, use this as an excuse never to accept anything more from her ever again -- sorry, we don't have the funds to accept any more items from you. Whatever money you paid will be well worth never having to take anything from her again.

I like this advice.

[Anonymous]

Tell her it had broken glass in the lens and nearly cut your child's eye so you had to dispose of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have donated the crap that MIL and her sister give us. They love to go garage sale shopping and thrifting. They are the types who will go to garage sale right when it opens, haggle about something that is $2 and then wait to come back at the end of the sale to see if they can get it for free. They then try to constantly give us this crap. We always decline at first but occasionally when they keep pushing we will accept it and say thank you because its not worth the battle. We promptly take this stuff to Goodwill because its junk, broken, not age appropriate for the kids or no one has any interest in it. DH's aunt has been asking for one of the items back if we aren't using it. If we are honest and say we gave it to Goodwill she will freak out and go on and on about how valuable it was and now we owe her money. We didn't originally realize that she takes things to this level and have just been avoiding her. She is now trying to get MIL to go through our garage to get it because we are not responding to her. MIL has never noticed that the surprise gifts that she brings are also gone but she will probably catch on once she doesn't see any of them.

I don't want to store their junk. I don't want to engage in stupid drama over junk. I 100% do not want to give the aunt $100 for something that was a piece of broken junk that she bought for $1. DH thinks that we should say we had a flood and many things were damaged. I'm not sure this will work.

DH needs to handle this.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I took the let DH handle it. This was perhaps not the best decision. DH went with telling MIL that we had a leak in the garage and had to throw out a bunch of stuff that was water damaged. He is not a good liar and does not know when to stop. In discussing this catastrophic leak, FIL overhead. FIL is the ultimate king of DIY. There is not one episode of Bob Villa that this man has not seen. He now has a mission and is coming over this weekend with all his tools to make sure we don't have other potential leaks and that the repair was done correctly. He can't believe that DH hired someone to fix this and did not call him. DH is now trying to figure out his next step. I am just going to sit back and watch. If DH decides to try to create an actual leak and damage to cover his tracks then I'll intervene.

[Anonymous]

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Simple, straightforward honesty is always best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they gave it to you it is no longer theirs. Repeat as needed.

+1

And you can add to prevent any issues in the future we cannot accept any more gifts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I took the let DH handle it. This was perhaps not the best decision. DH went with telling MIL that we had a leak in the garage and had to throw out a bunch of stuff that was water damaged. He is not a good liar and does not know when to stop. In discussing this catastrophic leak, FIL overhead. FIL is the ultimate king of DIY. There is not one episode of Bob Villa that this man has not seen. He now has a mission and is coming over this weekend with all his tools to make sure we don't have other potential leaks and that the repair was done correctly. He can't believe that DH hired someone to fix this and did not call him. DH is now trying to figure out his next step. I am just going to sit back and watch. If DH decides to try to create an actual leak and damage to cover his tracks then I'll intervene.

Oh, boy. Even if FIL didn’t overhear, you all had to know MIL would pass this along. Yikes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Simple, straightforward honesty is always best.

THis. It's also kinder in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I took the let DH handle it. This was perhaps not the best decision. DH went with telling MIL that we had a leak in the garage and had to throw out a bunch of stuff that was water damaged. He is not a good liar and does not know when to stop. In discussing this catastrophic leak, FIL overhead. FIL is the ultimate king of DIY. There is not one episode of Bob Villa that this man has not seen. He now has a mission and is coming over this weekend with all his tools to make sure we don't have other potential leaks and that the repair was done correctly. He can't believe that DH hired someone to fix this and did not call him. DH is now trying to figure out his next step. I am just going to sit back and watch. If DH decides to try to create an actual leak and damage to cover his tracks then I'll intervene.

Oh, boy. Even if FIL didn’t overhear, you all had to know MIL would pass this along. Yikes!

Why would you want to be married to such a liar? Knowing that he's so willing to lie just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation would be very unattractive to me. Weak and dishonest. Tell him to do better. I hate the expression 'man up' but this would be an appropriate time to use it.

[Anonymous]

Is FIL understanding of wait a pain in the butt MIL and aunt are? If so have FIL come over share a few beers and discuss the real issue at hand and the attempt to spare feelings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is FIL understanding of wait a pain in the butt MIL and aunt are? If so have FIL come over share a few beers and discuss the real issue at hand and the attempt to spare feelings.

He’s probably coming over to fix the leak so he can get a few hours away from MIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was a cheap toy microscope that was already broken. It retails new for about $15. Used AND broken (held together with tape so you can sort of see the magnification but not very well) it was probably selling at a garage sale for $5 and she probably got it for $1. I'm not even sure whether Goodwill would have sold it or just dumped it. I wrote on the box what worked and what didn't. She is claiming that it is a $100 microscope. She always claims that things cost more. She gave my cousin a pair of shoes going on and on about how they were $200 dollars shoes. The price sticker was still on them and they had been marked down to $8.99. My cousin didn't say anything but years later she is still hearing about the $200 shoes that her MIL gave her.

You all sound like nut jobs. Do you really need advice? You literally can’t figure out how to handle this situation??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Auntie, all of my friends were so jealous that we had this fancy microscope. They used to fight each other over who got to use it when they came over. There were always fist fights, tears, and one time the cops were called. We had to get rid of it, for everyones safety."

"We were playing with it and we found drugs stashed inside. We called the FBI. They have it."

"I got your message, Auntie. I left it on your porch. Oh, its not there? I guess it was stolen."



I would just have fun with her for all future gifts also. I have nutty in-laws, and this is the only way to survive.

You are hilarious