My mum has thrown away over £150 worth of makeup and medication

[nostyleandnoclothes]

I have a small pouch that I carry around with me everyday. It’s got a lot of medication in it (antihistamines, painkillers, stomach medicine), as well as 5 lip sticks and 4 lip liners. In total it comes to over £150 worth of stuff in a space NK small pounce (which is expensive in itself!).

I was at my mum’s on Thursday night when she complained about her having bad hay fever. I pulled out the pouch and handed it to her, and although I thought I’d put it back in my bag I must’ve left it on the side. I realised tonight it’s missing as I’ve gone through my bag ahead of work tomorrow and she’s admitted that she has thrown it away.

AIBU to say she should replace it? Both the makeup and medication she’s thrown away?

Exactly, 💯 this. Either a lot of people are not bothering to sort their recycling properly or people are playing devil's advocate. People should not just be throwing things into their black bin without checking it first. This thread is giving me an eye opener into how much unnecessary stuff gets chucked into land fill because people are just throwing stuff into their black bin.

If you're not sorting stuff into recycling then you really should be. I find it hard to believe that people are sorting their recycling on their kitchen worktop. Or that people have so much black bin waste sitting on their kitchen worktop that they don't notice a makeup bag amongst it.

Bloody hell, who pissed on your chips today?

Now you're just being silly - what if, what if, what if. Who knows. My point is, if you leave something somewhere, it is not the responsibility of the other person to look after it, unless you have let them know it's there. What's the problem with this?

It is the responsibility of the other person to NOT bin it, so long as it is not disguised as rubbish in some way (eg. wrapped in dirty kitchen towel, or being stored in a black bin bag).

It's also very feasible that somebody could be using a compact pouch like that in place of a handbag for all kinds of personal effects and valuables: phone, bank cards, cash, keys...

Why it wouldn't even occur to somebody to have a quick check is completely beyond me. And even if it's empty and you know for a fact that neither you nor any of your recent visitors could possibly want it, if it's in good condition, it would still be something for the charity shop bag and not for the bin - which is obviously only for things that are of no use or interest to anybody.

Still not the responsibility of the person whose house it was left at. Your bag, your expensive make-up. If you leave it somewhere and it gets thrown away by mistake, it's your responsibility.

It's weird, because you can virtually guarantee that, if you accidentally left a small bag of this kind at an airport or huge railway station, it would be found either by a kind, honest person who would look for clues inside to help them get it back to you, or by a potential thief who would want to see what valuables they might be able to take... but either way, the stranger would look inside the bag. Nobody there would just pick it up and throw it in the bin.

And yet your own mother, who knows that you recently visited - and indeed saw you opening the bag to get something out of it to give to her - has no 'responsibility' to not just toss it into the bin without a care in the world?!

Maybe some people's bar for family/friends/ordinary half-decent people is much, much lower than mine.

True but just thinking they might not have been the most hygienic anyway?
OPs parents must have more money than sense anyway. OP, your mum was totally wrong there. No respect for your belongings.

Nowadays I suspect if it was found at an airport or a station it'd be suspected of being a terrorist device and detonated in a controlled explosion...

It isn’t normal to forget your handbag. It’s probably the only thing she carries when out so would know when she leaves a place she hasn’t got it

Mate, come on... I've had items found and returned to me by complete strangers; my local Facebook group is full of people trying to locate the owners of lost items, sometimes ones with no monetary value. If complete strangers can go out of their way to show such kindness to a stranger, you ought to be able to trust your OWN MOTHER, who supposedly loves you, to not throw your things in the bin. It's not even like OP was expecting her mother to return the pouch to her, just to not throw it in the bin (and throwing it in the bin was a deliberate act, because she remembered doing it). Putting it aside is the kind and considerate thing to do. Why wouldn't you be kind and considerate to your own daughter?? Are these the people who post in support groups saying they have no idea why their children cut off contact with them?

That's not how I read it. It sounds like it was an accident, not done with malice - as in OMG, I think I chucked that in the bin. Careless, maybe, but the OP left it there. Generally, you are responsible for your own stuff (not when you've lent it to someone or situations like that).

You didn’t read the updates then I take it… OP’s mum has a habit of throwing her possessions away. Also, if it were a true accident, she would’ve at least expressed some remorse, rather than be laughing at her going through the bins.

if they are more than 6 month old should be removed anyway

True... but you would hope that OP's mum wouldn't suspect her of being a potential terrorist... especially considering that she willingly consumed (legal everyday) drugs supplied by her!

Fair comment 😄I was just pointing out it'd be a more likely outcome in that particular scenario, rather than in OP's.

Don’t be ridiculous

@petermaddog

maybe if you’ve got more money than sense…

Exactly! I keep coming back to this thread amazed by how obtuse some people are being! Yes of course it's a good idea to try not to leave possessions behind, but can't we all be a bit nice to each other? Especially to family members!

I just cannot imagine a scenario where my mum visits my house, gets a makeup bag out to give me some medication (which is a nice thing to do!), leaves the bag on my worktop and I just chuck it away. And if I saw a nice makeup bag in my kitchen and couldn't remember where it had come from, I'd ask anyone who'd visited if they were missing it. If it remained a mystery I'd give it to a charity shop (minus the used lipsticks of course). Surely this is what most normal people would do.

YES! 🙌 A voice of reason!

Very strange / careless of your mum to just throw it away.
But if you’ve built this collection up over a couple of years I don’t think this it’s ridiculous to say some of the stuff may be past its best anyway.
Guidelines say lipsticks last 1-2 years after opening, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some medications have a shorter shelf life than that. Stuff may have needed replacing anyway.

Again,that's down to the OP,IF she chooses,to throw away,and IF she wants to. NOT the mother.

The medication is irrelevant. It could have been a recent prescription in the bag. In no way in the OPs post did she say the medication was 2 years old. Theres a lot of reaching in these answers 🙄🤦‍♂️😂

@nostyleandnoclothes this thread is bonkers!

I have a whole collection of lipsticks, possibly 70+ different colours. Some cheap, some dear. I treat myself whenever I bloody well like!

Re your mum binning your pouch. This is also bonkers. If my mum did this I would not be happy. It does not make sense. Why not just put it aside until your next visit? Or shock horror, call you and tell you that you’ve left it at hers?

I am also a mum and would never ever chuck one of my DC possessions, that they had clearly left by accident, in the bin without checking first. It was hardly taking up acres of space was it? And if I did, I would gladly rake through my own bin to retrieve a lost item. Indeed, I have done so on many occasions.

And thinking back about 50 years, my mum accidentally put my retainers in the bin on Xmas day (I wrapped them in a napkin, so my fault). We lived in a flat, and our rubbish was put down a chute into a communal bin at least six feet tall. My mum bin dived headfirst into that communal bin to retrieve my retainers. What a woman! Super Mum 👑

Yassss!

At the end of the day it’s clear on this thread that some women have issue with other women treating themselves. Which is INTERNALISED MISOGYNY