How to drop a friend for $7.75
Last week I mailed back baby clothes and maternity belongings that a married couple, no longer our friends, had given us almost 2 years ago. USPS charged me $7.75 for the box.
We have not spoken to them since just a few weeks before our child was born. The wife forwarded a virulently Democratic screed, the kind of e-mail you only send to the party faithful - never to a member of the accursed party, and certainly never to anyone who thinks independently. The screed started by making fun of Christians, repeated some lies about the current presidential administration, and went downhill from there.
I objected strongly to it, and responded directly to the wife, copying my reponse to the husband. I never heard from her again.
The husband's first e-mail in reply was to say that I was too sensitive, that he just read things like that and immediately disregarded and deleted them, that there was no cause for consternation or anger.
I told him it still deeply offended me, and that I did expect an apology. Our e-mail exchange went downhill from there.
His last e-mail accused me of having too much anger. At least I was willing to keep talking.
Unbeknownst to me, the wife, a licensed acupuncturist who had treated me, refused to return phone calls from my wife asking to schedule the labor-inducing acupuncture sesssion they had arranged months before.
This was unthinkable to me, since I regarded this married couple as true friends. The wife refused to perform agreed-upon medical treatment in our hour of greatest need.
They themselves had a very cute daughter that we had grown to know and love. How they could choose to ignore our need, to cut us off as friends, to refuse not only to treat my wife but to ignore us such that we had no time to schedule another acupuncture induction is beyond my ability to understand.
They insulted us, belittled us, and then betrayed us.
So here is my warning to our former friends, available to the world: You have little idea how close you came to losing your license to practice acupuncture in this state, how close you came to losing your livelihood. I considered and dropped the idea of making a formal complaint; ask yourselves: was that an act of "too much anger"?