I've recently (like in the last year) been in touch with my cousin that I hadn't talked to in a number of years. She's had a pretty crappy life - her dad abandoned her and my aunt (her mom), so they've been living in poverty since then. My dad was saying that my cousin had a mean streak in her, but I know he's done some mean things to her when he's been drunk (like forgetting he promised to take her to lunch - which is kind of hard on my cousin when she's already been abandoned by her dad). But my dad's helped them out with buying them their flat when it was all privatized some years ago (this is in the Czech Republic), and helping them with miscellenous repairs.
Anyway, it was my cousin's birthday like a month ago, and I bought her a shirt. It was a smallish tee-shirt - you know the style - one that's meant to be sort of small and tight. She's pretty petite, so I thought that she'd like it. Anyway, she actually sent it back to me with no explanation. My dad called my aunt, and she said that my cousin was pissed because she got it a week late, and because she thought that the shirt was too small. Can you f*cking believe that?!?!?
My theory is that she is pissed off because she asked me if she could come to the U.S. to learn English. She just turned 23, and she's never held a job for more than a couple of months - mostly she just sits at home and does crosswords or sudoku. So, I didn't want to have her at my house if she was going to be getting herself fired from everywhere. Also, I wasn't going to be paying for her to go to the ESL program at the University of Utah (which is like $4,000/semester) - not to mention the $5,000 + that they want you to have in your savings to even enroll as a foreign student. So, I told her that the U wasn't cheap and asked her how much she'd saved. At that point I was still been entertaining the idea of helping her pay for all this. But she wouldn't give me a straight answer about her finances, so I assume she'd spent all her cash and that she's pissed at me for making it an issue. But most Czech people just bring that up with their relatives right off the bat - because they'll assume that you have nothing but $$$ and they can live off you.
Well, sorry this has turned into such a long rant. But I don't know what to say to her. Actually, I have nothing to say to her. I just hope that she grows the f*ck up, because our parents aren't going to live forever, and she can't be a baby all her life. And after her mom dies, she doesn't have anyone but me, and I have a very limited patience for this.