Dictating OTHER peoples' time!!

[SparkStillLit]

My nmum and I use the same hairstylist. Nmum doesn't go on the regular and OF COURSE calls the stylist last minute and wants to be "fit in" or "added on", particularly to *my* PREARRANGED and PROPERLY MADE appointments.
The stylist had covid and just got out of quarantine. My son and I have dual appointments today. Nmum actually told me that it would be excellent use of the stylist's time to fit mum in for a haircut with our appointments!!!!!  What the actual eff!!!! How does SHE know what would be a good use of somebody else's time!!! I just....I can't even.....the way these people's minds work is just BOGGLING!!!!
I seriously sat there in shocked silence at that, while she just breezed on with gossipy prattle about how the stylist possibly caught covid (she didn't even know. She'd been nagging ME for weeks about a haircut, and I just said today the stylist had made arrangements with us for post quarantine. Hoping she would have A: tried calling the stylist herself, before, and found out about quarantine, or barring that B: not be able to get in on short notice, but make her own damn appointment. Which she may or may not keep.)

[SparkStillLit]

She does this with my stepdad's time. She volunteers him out for all kinds of jobs or time critical things (like picking up kids) that he doesn't even know about!!!! I learned after the first time to check with him and make sure he had the faintest idea what was going on (he never does), he's willing to do it (he always is), and that he doesn't have some OTHER committment that's going to make it a pain in the ass (sometimes he does!).
She just doesn't care. But WOE BETIDE if you inconvenience HER!!!
I remember this from being a kid, too. She would pimp out my babysitting or critter sitting services to ANYONE, ANYTIME, without asking me at all. Heaven forfend if I had a horse show, or a trail ride, or an endurance race....
She did this IN COLLEGE once, and it is how I was introduced to The Lord of the Rings. I had never read it. Now I'm a HUGE TOLKIEN NERD, so I guess that's the silver lining. Once. Tolkien is one of my happies that no PD can steal.

[SunnyMeadow]

My uNPDmother and yours could be sisters! Mine does the same thing, it's weird.

It really is boggling!! The way my mother's brain operates is a mystery!

[Thru the Rain]

During my M's rare visits here she arrives with wild hair and needing manicure/pedicure. (I live far, far away, and rarely agree to let her visit - usually only every couple of years.)

She EXPECTS that I'll make appointments for her AND pay. I've learned to play soooooo dumb. The last time she was here I had just moved and had genuinely no clue where she could get any of those services.

Her next idea was for ME to cut her hair. Honestly - it would have served her right if I had chopped away with my kitchen scissors. It would have been pay back for a bunch of terrible childhood hair tragedies.

I finally suggested she go to the salon where my DH goes (he really likes the "lady" places to get his hair cut - don't tell anyone!) I give her the number and she just looks at me like a deer in the headlights. So we drove over and she made an appointment in person. They were able to fit her in later in the week - she thought they would just sit her down and start cutting on the spot I guess.

The best part, by the time her appointment came around, I wasn't available to be chauffeur. DH dropped her off and told her to call when she was ready to be picked up. No waify expectation that DH would come in and hold her hand (and pay) - so I learned that's an act just for me. *As if I didn't know!*

In my M's case, she's a perpetual 12 year old, trying to draft me in the role of mommy. So of course I would take care of these things for her, right? 

[SparkStillLit]

The stylist told me that my mom had called. She confirmed that M always calls last minute, and wants to be seen that day. Said M wanted to be added to MY appointment, which absolutely wasn't happening. Maybe could fit her in later in the day. DS wanted to know why I wasn't like that, if I was raised like that.
The stylist said, when you know better, you do better. I told him that other role models existed, for me to understand that kind of thing was rude.
If she makes an appointment ahead of time with a service, she won't keep it. She decides what to do with her time on a daily basis and that kind of thing just doesn't fit. Like she's a country of one.