Why offer shopping if you then refuse to go. (Lighthearted)

[littleblackno]

So I am at home with covid. Dd and ds also are positive with mild symptoms.
I was pretty ill in the week but now feeling much better but still testing positive so have to isolate.
My mum lives a few doors away from us. She hasn't been a close contact as I hadn't seen her in about a week before becoming ill. She has phoned everyday and on two occasions asked if we needed anything, we didn't as I had a shop delivered but ds asked if she would bring some treats/ cake/ chocolate?
She said no she wouldn't go to the shop just for that.

I asked for milk yesterday, again she said she wouldn't go to the shop just for one thing.
Aibu that if you don't want to go to the shops don't ask if there's anything we want/need?
Obviously I don't expect her to go out of her way for me. I managed to get a delivery with some treats and milk in it yesterday. But if you don't want to help out or do something to make someone feel a little better then don't bloody offer!!
She has form for this type of response.

That is pretty unreasonable! And frankly, unkind.

Unless you live on a remote island and popping to the shops involves a boat trip...
I'd go shopping for you, OP, and pick up my own early if that was easier.

No remote island! The nearest shop is a 2 min walk away - it's very frustrating that I can't just pop there myself or send the kids like I usually do.
I know it's nothing essential and I'm just feeling a bit sorry for myself.

I'm not surprised. It's a small thing to ask. Her refusal accentuates the isolation, basically!

I bet there are other people who would help. And I'm afraid I'd be less available to help her, to be honest.

I would definitely be making a mental note of that. When we had covid a friend drove over from the next village with dinner cooked for us, when she had covid we drove to them with party bags for their children as they'd missed my son's birthday party. I would expect your actual mother to take less than 10 minutes out of her day to get some shopping if she had actually offered it.

This is what makes it worse is I am regularly 'summoned' to help her with things. She is not ill or disabled at all but things like TV, phone, something online she can't work out.
I have friends who will help if I asked but as you say it has accentuated the isolation.
I have spent the past two years running around helping out people who are isolated in any way I can and my own mother can't be arsed to buy me a chocolate bar.
To be honest I've come to expect this.

Ah well, on the sofa with the dcs - including my 6foot ds who's feeling sorry for himself and wants a hug from mum! Takeaway incoming!
Thanks for making me feel like I'm not totally unreasonable.

She’s one of those “I’m here if you need me, but don’t you dare contact me really” types.

Likes to look like she’s offering to help but doesn’t actually want to

Yep that's her. She will help as long as its something she thinks is worthy.
She will probably turn up on Tuesday with some random shopping that I don't need and be able to tell everyone how she helped me out when I was ill. 🙄🙄

Makes me really cross on your behalf. If you're anything like me, while you're upset you're also resigned to the fact that it's 'just how she is'.

It's not fair, though, and you deserve better. Her dis interest is not a reflection on you, but on her.

Aw thankyou pickle
You are right I have spent the last 45 years resigned to how she is. It doesn't always make it easier as I get older and understand more.

Teen ds is out of isolation tomorrow so he can buy us cake!!

I would only be responding to her summons in emergencies now.

Just tell her ‘I’m not coming round just for that’.

We did popping to the local shops for a family in isolation at church as well as doing their bigger shop and thud is people we barely know as they are new. If your mum can't go to the shop for a few bits she shouldn't have bothered. I'll do it for you OP.

Ohhhhh I thought my mother was the only one who did this...

Ring me asking if I needed anything as she'd be going to the shops and passing (she drove, I didn't)... I'd give a short list of things I'd planned for a meal, and she'd know it was for a meal....

She would turn up with either ... some of the items but not all, missing a crucial ingredient, say... no cheese, for a cheese sauce. Or bread for a bread and butter pudding - because of some spurious reason like 'you don't need that' or 'your're too fat to have that'..

Or she would ignore the list entirely and bring me some gone off/out of date stuff from her house, so instead of milk/tea/eggs/butter I'd get a gone off jar of cook-in sauce, some 5 year old rice and a bag of lentils.

Or she would just forget and not bother turning up!

I never did get to understand what she thought she was achieving before she died, but it wasn't very pleasant to be on the receiving end of.