SEND SOMETHING!!

Lately, I’ve noticed a new type of cray cray raging through my mom chats.  I like to call it gift giving gone wild.  It’s a custom that has roots in tradition, and yet runs wild amid newfangled connectivity and, dare I say it, obsessive texting.

After all, what’s a well-meaning, well-mannered mom to do when faced with constantly knowing everything about everybody??   Um...can you say spiral?  Call it our nurturing instinct or our overzealous intuition, but you can always call on an informed mother's need to spring into action.  Inevitably, the question will be asked:  SHOULD WE SEND SOMETHING?!

I kid you not.  New York mothers, and their counterparts across space and time, are furiously “sending something” ALL the time.

Beth’s kid is starting kindergarten?   We should send something! 

Anya’s switching schools?  Send something?  Ideas?

So-and-so got into Vandy?!  Amazing!  What can I send?! 

"Sending something" means that you care.  Don’t believe me?

Heading to someone’s house for dinner?   

A guest at someone’s club for cards and crudite? 

Got a great tutor from that nice lady you met at pickup?

Ok, well, then, I hate to be the one to break it to you… but it’s time to send something!

Please, please, don’t get me wrong.  "Sending something" is SO nice.  It says “I care!” – but from a healthy distance.  It shouts, “I’m thoughtful!” - though certainly not enough to appreciate that sending magazines post eye-lift isn’t really user-friendly.  It screams “I’m busy!” but never too busy to Postmates a Milk Bar truffle box to those for whom you care deeply, especially when their luggage gets lost enroute back from Cabo. 

That’s right, my friends – even bad news can spur a surprise knock at the door.  It’s not only your good fortune that deserves a little something sent. 

Simon had his wisdom teeth out?   Let’s send soup!

Bob had a “procedure?”   Can you say Goldbelly??

You’re home with covid?  Oh no!  Sending treats for the kids!

Look, guys, I get it!!   Misery loves company, or at least it loves little packages that you must drag your bra-less, snotty self out of bed to receive from the angry porter relentlessly slamming the back buzzer. 

“Sending something” sounds simple, right?   And it can be! 

That is, until you mention it to more than a few people, and complications with “sending something” threaten to arise.  Namely the dreaded: Did you “send something” without me?!   People, take my word for it.  “Sending something” needs to be a surgical strike – a quick in and out!!   The longer you waffle, the more people will want to glom onto your saintly gesture, and the more lost souls you will inevitably exclude, (un)intentionally turning them into thoughtless ogres.  

(Should this happen, just “send something” to the person you miffed to make up for the fact that you left him/her out of the original sending of something. You’re welcome.)

 As they say, no gracious gift goes unpunished!

In general though, there’s very little downside to “sending something!”  For instance, if you don’t “send something” when others do, you may appear an ungracious narcissist.  But don’t fret!  Just complain to your shrink, who will always say that you’re right, provided, of course, that you sent her a little gift basket during the holidays. You’d never take her hard work for granted, like an ungracious, narcissist who doesn’t “send something” might do!

 So, do yourself a favor, and when in doubt, just send something!