When it's not polite to say "Thank you."What I wanted to blog flows with the headline there, but requires a substantial amount of back-story to fill in the blanks. The short version is my parents offered to pay for something for me, but "thank you" would not have been the right response.
It's been about 3 years since I've had to do any serious operational maintainence to my car. This is, of course, excluding the new transmission 2 months ago, considering that it was 34 years old at the time. Before it, there was nearly 3 years since the last thing I'd had worked on.
In the past few years, I've gotten myself out from underneath quite a bit of debt... pretty close to $10,000 owed to my parents and a couple of different banks and credit cards (
yes, those too are banks). So, a couple of months ago when the transmission freaked out on me, that was $1700 I wasn't prepared to deal with. I had to have my parents' assistance.
This time, for an oil change, fixed starter cable, fixed choke and carburator, it's going to be around $600, which I can handle, though it will make things pretty tight until next paycheque... but tonight, my parents more than offered to pay for it for me. It was more like parental intervention - I really didn't feel like I had much of a choice.
Let's freeze time here. We're sitting in a restaurant, about halfway thru our meal, and this has just come up. I would really like to say "thank you" however that really wouldn't have the effect one would think. It would be meant to be polite, but it would come off as greedy or even escapist. It's my duty to pay it. I can pay it. I don't need the help, but it would make things a little easier on me...
So, I could thank them, or I could hang my head in shame, silently accepting, and thus being more polite than actually verbally thanking them through a sign of humility... or I could do what I did. I re-mentioned the previous time they'd done that, and that it had been 2 months and I hadn't even had a chance to start making a dent in that debt.
But since they're my parents, then came the parental lesson. The guilt where none should be found, and a brief talking to about how sometimes you should take the helping hand even when not totally necessary because you might have to walk 6 miles uphill in the snow etc. one day and wish you had the help. I didn't exactly get it, but I think I accepted their offer.
So, I'm not exactly thankful. Irritated. Humiliated that it came back to this.
The moral here is that sometimes it's not right to thank people. In this case, I'm sure my parents would have gone home with the concept that I wasn't really appriciative or thankful if I had actually thanked them. In this case, it is much more likely to be welcomed.
Thank you.
