What a crazy mother does for her daughter's 40th birthday.

[Writer]

Today one of my sisters turned 40. In her honor, my oldest sister and I bought her flowers, which arrived on time and in beautiful condition.

However, my mother, whose cheese sometimes doesn't fit completely on her cracker (she's really not batty, she just thrives on the attention), decided to send her a cake. Now, that sounds lovely, you might say, but please note that my mother lives in Dallas and my sister lives in San Francisco.

My handle is "Writer," but my sister is a far superior writer. Had she not been a blind conservative, her handle would be "Writer+" but I digress. I personally cannot do her description justice, so here is my sister's account of her birthday foree:


To Writer and Writer's eldest sister (cc to Dad so he can share)

The flowers are beautiful. 40 is not the new 20 it's 40! I can't believe I'm so old!

Mom sent me a birthday cake in the mail. I opened the box to find a squashed mass of cake and multi-colored frosting. It took quite a while to extract it with the cake equivalent of the jaws of life. Why would anyone in their right mind send a delicately decorated, fluffy-cream frosting cake in the U.S. mail? She erected elaborate cardboard and wax paper scaffolding to, I assume, protect the cake, but this only acted as a catalyst in destroying it. Imagine a small cake in a box twice it's size, hurtling through the U.S. mail system for several days, sitting in hot trucks, being tossed upside down and all around. When I spoke to her, she asked me if I saw my name written in icing on the foil doily under the cake. Oh! Where to start in answering that question! Then, curiously, she shared that "no one was willing to ship the cake" because the weather was still too hot. So, just how did she manage to ship it? Subterfuge I suspect.

I will attempt to attach a photo of the beautiful flowers and mom's fresh insanity sent via the U.S. postal service. If you can't see the pictures for some reason, just imagine two things: a bouquet of pretty flowers, then an elaborately decorated cake that fell from a moving car.

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[Phillycat]

1. HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awesome story. :thumbsup:

[MrCoffee]

2. i lost it when i got to the "cardboard and wax paper scaffolding"

hilarious!

[ThomCat]

3. That is very, very funny.

:P

[idgiehkt]

4. hysterical.

thanks for sharing that....lol. Mom put one over on the USPS. What a trip.

[Writer]

7. Mr. Writer called it "performance art."

It certainly was a performance, indeed. :eyes:

[u4ic]

5. Lol!

Enjoy!:D My mom wasn't around for my 40th...

[Shine]

6. LOL!! That's funny.

reminds me of the time when I was in my 20's and I mailed a sand dollar I got in Florida to somebody on the west coast.

Needlesstosay, it didn't make it all in one piece. :eyes:

Now THAT would make an interesting thread question: "What is the strangest thing you have ever received/sent in the mail?"

Hmmmm....


:hi:

[GOPisEvil]

8. That is brilliant.

:rofl:

Thank you for the laugh. No, thank your mother and sister as well.

[Writer]

9. You know, I didn't laugh when I first read my sister's email.

Because this is my crazy ass mother pulling yet another crazy ass stunt for our attention.

So it took me a while... I had to look at this existentially to find the humor. But it is pretty fucking hilarious. :rofl:

[radwriter0555]

10. oh it's ADORABLE! You have to appreciate her... her... unique train

of thought in going through with this.

She sent you a BIRTHDAY cake.. in the MAIL! IN A BOX!!!!! And she made it herself and put your name on it!!!! I just love it.

Whatever the motivation, the outcome is priceless.

[Writer]

16. Just for the record, this was to my sister...

and the cake is a true symbol of my mom's love: once beautiful, squashed, and melted. ;)

[pitohui]

11. ok i hope that is not a true story

giving wildly inappropriate gifts was one of the very earliest symptoms of my maternal grandmother's alzheimer's disease :-(

my story wasn't even funny when it happened, suffice it to say that even my mom agreed that i did not need to send a "thank you" note for the gift in question, and of course it was even less funny as time went on and we realized that this lady was never going to get any less batty

[Writer]

17. Unfortunately it's quite true...

but my mom isn't suffering from Alzheimer's, I guarantee it, unless she decides that acting that way will attract attention to herself.

My mother suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have to be honest, but I believe only those who have had a personal experience with NPD understand fully what I'm talking about. She does this type of thing not for love but so that people will talk about her.

It really is hysterical from an outsider's perspective, but there is unfortunately an ailment attached to this.

[kwassa]

18. My mother-in-law ..... also NPD ....

gave her daughter,(my wife) a Santa Claus cookie jar, unwrapped, that she had just picked up off her own coffee table as a Christmas gift, saying as she did so "I bought something else for you for Christmas, but so-and-so liked it so I gave it to them instead".

Right in front of the assembled family at Christmas dinner.

[Writer]

20. When it's a mother and daughter it is especially hard.

My mom has three daughters. I'm the youngest. When your mother has NPD there's so much commentary on physical appearance. She once told my sisters that they won't be as beautiful as she because they don't have such a "marvelously long neck" as she has.

We all have dealt with extreme insecurities, some more successfully than others. And when I see something like this gift, it's hard to find the humor in it, although it really is quite funny.

On edit: I'm very sorry that your wife has to endure your mother-in-law. :(

[kwassa]

21. My mother-in-law is different

she didn't focus on physical appearance at all. She just wanted to be in charge of everyone's lives in the entire extended family. She expected my wife to be her protege as martyr-in-training.

She was intellectually competitive with her own daughter, and had to learn and beat her at card and word games. Incredibly devious and manipulative. At the same time, mother-in-law herself was something of a hero child, being the first in her family to get out of poverty and to go to college and become middle-class. She pushed her kids in the area of education, and they are very successful, too. A very mixed bag.

My wife says that dealing with her mother's craziness has helped her be successful in business and management because her mother was a master's course in manipulation and general craziness. My wife has acquired major political skills because of it. At the same time, it hurts her in a big way, too.

[Writer]

22. It sounds like she's a full blown case of NPD

Very much like my sister-in-law, who acts similarly. My mother has her lucid moments, but once she has your attention, she'll slip into another personality. If she knows a way she can upset you, she'll exploit it, then ridicule you when you show signs of upset.

It's great to see that your wife rose above her upbringing. Growing up with an NPD mother can be beyond challenging. But I'm glad that she's been able to overcome this.

[kwassa]

23. My wife did it by developing really strong boundries

and at times she has completely cut herself off from her mother. Mother is always seeking a hook into our lives, so we tell her very little. Mom knows now if she steps over the line, she is cut off. She does like to test those boundries from time to time.

My wife has been through some therapy over it, figured out her issues, which mom needs to do, but won't, of course. Too scary.

[July]

25. Boundaries are one of the few useful tools with narcissists.

That and fear -- their fear. If they think you have greater power than they do, they turn into suckups.

[Writer]

26. Precisely.

Here's what this same mother did when she came to my house for my graduation in May:

One of our guest rooms is covered with pictures. My husband and I decided it would be nice to put all of our pictures of friends, families, and vacations in this one spot. I let my mom stay in this room for a few days. On Day 2, if I recall correctly, she called me back into the room because she wanted to show me something. Not only did she rearrange the furniture, but she also rearranged the pictures on the wall in a way that SHE thought was better - a serious disrespect for our boundaries.

I had to stand there with a stone cold face and suggest that she put them back the way they were. I couldn't allow her one moment of believing that she had affected me in any way, which she indeed had.

[July]

27. Good work, Writer. It's hard to stay cool when they're trying so hard to

push your buttons.

Have you run into the "I'm going to ruin your party" gambit? My mother's pulled this one several times: on my younger son's tenth birthday; when my sister's (now)husband proposed on Christmas Eve (Mom insisted we all sit down to eat -- the trigger for the proposal, as she knew -- because she was hungry, thereby leaving one of my brothers and his family out of that very special moment); and last Thanksgiving, when my very ill brother (same one) hosted the gathering, which might be our last Thanksgiving with him. I still haven't completely figured out this move. Clearly, she wants attention, even if she has to get it through negative behavior. But it seems there's more to it, like a desire to mix it up with us (her kids and their families), or just hurt us, plain and simple. She doesn't try any of it in my house, and I think it's because (1) she knows we don't take her orders, suggestions, and judgments seriously and (2) she's afraid of us (not physically -- she fears we'll give her a tonguelashing if she goes too far).

[Writer]

28. Oh absolutely.

My mother showed up at the very last minute at my sister's second wedding because she was so concerned about getting her dress/appearance correct. At my wedding she failed to find someone to do one of the readings for the church ceremony, per my request, which freaked me out (she acts all innocent when someone gets upset with her). When one of my grown sisters had a very big date, she and I worked together to clean up the condo we were living in. Literally 5 to 10 minutes before her date was to arrive, my mother decided it was time to rearrange the furniture in the living room, upsetting my sister. During this last trip she decided to spout off (none of which was consistent) her viewpoints on illegal immigrants right in front of my Mexican in-laws. They didn't mind, luckily, but it was embarrasing to me.

Essentially the rule is this: If I tell her that something is unacceptable, she will MAKE SURE to do it, for no other reason than cruelty. So I simply don't tell her anymore - I don't give her the ammunition.

[July]

29. Well, PM me any time. Sounds as if we have the same mother.

It gets a little tiresome for me when I talk to her and have to watch what I tell her and don't tell her, but you're right, you can't give them ammunition. They'll run with it, distort it, and use it to justify whatever self-serving fantasies they've got going on. As your anecdotes show, you can't count on a person like this. We could probably trade stories for days!!

It only took me about 40 years to figure her out (somewhat). I think you might be way out in front there! Good on you!!

[July]

24. Wow, that is so familiar.

Wish I could crack through that upset-then-ridicule m.o. My mother uses that one all the time, and I've resigned myself to the fact that she won't or can't change.

[Karenina]

30. My mom, on my sister's 38th birthday

(my dad committed suicide right before HIS 38th birthday) sent her all the news clippings, sympathy cards etc. ad :puke: She called me in TOTALLY DEVASTED hysteria, I broke out into hysterical LAUGHTER screaming, "So I'm not the ONLY ONE she's trying to KILL!" Finally got my kid sister cracking up with me.

[Writer]

31. What a horrible thing to do!

I'm so sorry. I'm glad the two of you could laugh together, however. :hug:

[Control-Z]

12. Oh my

I think I peed :rofl:

What a joy it must be for you girls to have such a gem for a mom!

[wildhorses]

13. you gotta love her

:rofl:

[book lady]

14. ...slowly takes the cake for my daughters birthday out of the UPS box...

[flvegan]

15. I have tears running down my face, I'm laughing so hard.

Thanks for this. Sorry bout the cake for your sis, though.

[LeftyMom]

19. I'm laughing, but partly because I can see myself doing that.

:eyes: