Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

Most of us have probably heard the old line: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And that pretty much means don’t be ungrateful i.e. an ass when you get a gift. I hadn’t put much stock in it before because, well, I never behaved that way. My mom’s Finnish-American and my dad is Nigerian, so I wasn’t really raised with the saying as is. Every gift I got was great, because 1) I didn’t have to pay for it, and 2) see one.

But lately I’ve been giving gifts, and this phrase came to slap me in the face. And I hate to say it, but all my experiences with the old adage have been with Americans.

So here’s the mini back story. A friend moved out of her house and let a bunch of her things, and what I mean by that, is she left almost everything. This was not because the stuff was crappy or broken, but because she didn’t have enough room and she was moving across country. She took what she needed and left the rest.

Well, being the good samaritan I thought I was, I decided to donate the stuff. The packaged unopened food went to a food-bank. The clothes to good will and other organizations similar, and the rest to a variety of places. We didn’t want any of it to go to waste because both my mother and I knew what it was like to have nothing.

Not only had I grown up poor, but I’ve also traveled to very impoverished places. I’ve been to China, Egypt, and Nigeria. But not only that, I’ve seen poverty in my own community. Having a roof over one’s head and a hot meal are luxuries to a lot of the world, and I understand that.

But I’m not going to go into too much detail, because that’s not the point of this piece. The point is that I have never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Whether you like something or not, you accept it, smile, and figure out a way to deal with it if you don’t want it.

So, my mother and I thought it would be a great idea to give away some of the woman-that-moved’s stuff to my university. That included three TVs, her couch, all her office supplies including a barely used printer, board games, new laptop bags, pens coming out the wazoo, over 20 three-ring binder, and the list goes on.

I called people, asked questions, made sure it was all right. Now I get that hearing someone say they have a truck load of this stuff can be a little bit unbelievable, but it was seriously a truck load. We rented a truck to get all this stuff. So, I dropped stuff off on various places around my university. Some people were grateful, but overall I got a negative reaction.

I got rude emails telling me to come pick stuff up, I got a talking-to from my boss about how inappropriate it was, and the only genuine gratitude I got was from a receptionist who loved all the board games I donated. Basically overnight I went from a good samaritan to a useless child who doesn’t think.

Now, am I upset? Heck yeah, I’m upset! It’s not like I hated donated stuff before. I love donating. Every year my mother and I donate boxes of things we don’t need either because we’ve outgrown it, or because we’re moving and have to downsize. Donating is a part of my life, and I really like to do it.

Sorry, that was a tangent.

But I was pissed. I made calls! I asked if this stuff was okay, and not only could they not give me a straight answer, but when they did, and they said it was okay, I got feedback saying the complete opposite.

I understand that I might have called only a few hours before everything was delivered, and that wasn’t enough time. I understand that the university has policies in place for accepting gifts, and while an almost new printer might be acceptable, the rest is not. I understand all of this now, because I had to listen to it again and again.

But why? This is what I don’t understand. Why is this a problem? Was it so terrible that I gave them a printer, new bags, and a Brita filter for the office? Was it terrible that I gave the entire box of new pans, plates, and silverware to the community kitchen so that when people want to cook they have the utensils to actually do so? Was it so terrible that I put a couch in the lounge so that people would have a place to sit?

The headache that I have gone through trying to be a good samaritan has left me, not only feeling bad, but with a desire to never do it again. Why donate or give anything away that could actually be useful when people are just going to hate it and berate me for it? Why do anything nice when all I hear is: “While the thought was nice, you can’t do this. You should have done x, y, and z. It was inappropriate and blah, blah, blah.” Not only does it make me not want to be nice, give to my dorm, or donate again, but it also makes me want all of the stuff I just gave away back.

Because guess what? While they were bitching and moaning, they still took it! That TV and Wii? They took it. That new printer, bunch of new pens, binders, and whatever. Thy took it. Now, I don’t know what they did with any of it, and I’m hoping they put it to good use, but bottom line is they took it.

And you know what? I can’t always anticipate when people are going to up and move and leave all their stuff, or that the realtor is going to call a cleaning crew to come and take everything to the dump only 72 hours after the person leaves. I can’t anticipate that a woman is going to post that she has a free Wii, or bed, or whatever else on the web. I can only react to these things and do the best I can.

I thought I was doing a good thing, giving stuff to my university that could be useful, but the headache I’ve gotten through this endeavour makes me want to say, "Screw it." I’m just going to let the cleaning crew come through and throw the rest of the woman’s stuff away. Through her mattress and box spring, her Kitchen Aid mixer, her dresser, bed frame, DVD player, and the other almost new stuff she has in her house away, because I don’t even want there to be a chance that I might be chewed out or hurt for a good deed. Is it petty of me? Maybe. But I’m so hurt and angry right now, that I don't even care. And that’s the saddest thing about it.

My dorm, my boss, and my friends looked that gift horse in the mouth, and now? I’m just going to through it in the trash.