Birthdays and holidays are fairly evenly split between two kinds of people: those who truly enjoy giving gifts, and those who unashamedly love receiving gifts. And being either type of person doesn’t make you good or bad — after all, you are an individual and are entitled to all your own preferences. But if there is one thing that we can all accept, it is that gifts are a kind gesture, never any kind of obligation.

Just because you received a gift doesn’t mean you need to give one in return. You might want to, sure, but you are under no obligation to. Similarly, if you received a gift you don’t like, you can be gracious and grateful, but it doesn’t mean that you need to keep it forever — just as, as the gift giver, you don’t expect a certain reaction from the recipient, nor do you oblige them to do anything in particular with the gift.

But if there is one thing we can say for sure, it’s that when you have received a gift, it’s yours. Just because someone gave it to you doesn’t mean that they can demand it back at any time — the ownership of the gift has been passed to you as the receiver.

That’s important in this story, since the person here was gifted a Kindle over a decade ago by their father-in-law. However, their sister-in-law (who first declined the Kindle) has decided now that she wants it after all, so is demanding it back.

Read on to find out how that ended up with no one having the Kindle.

You want it back after a decade?! Fine

Way back in 2012, my father-in-law won a Kindle Reader at work.

He asked my sister-in-law if she wanted it. She declined. He called me next and I accepted right away.

I owned this little like, first gen Kindle for years. It didn’t even have a backlight. Or colour. I didn’t care though because I had my books.

I filled that little guy UP. Books I’d read, wanted to read, had heard of, heard were so bad you had to read em etc. I was on the high seas those days so 99% of my books were… ill gotten.

But little did this person know, their Kindle days were coming to an end.

My sister-in-law came up to me one day at a BBQ and asked if I’d read The Witcher. I was like, yeah. It’s decent, I have the series on my Kindle.

She asked how many books I had on it, because her husband wanted to start reading. I told her like, hella-hella. I thought she was gonna ask for book recommendations.

She said something like, yeah about that. That was mine but Dad gave it to you so, when you’re ready just drop it off at my place.

I’m not gonna lie, I called my father-in-law and asked if I was being crazy, because that’s not a normal thing to say, right?

Read on to find out how the father-in-law responded.

He told me it was mine. I’d had it for ages. He said she was tripping (not his words but, you know) and that IF I chose to “return” it, the conditions weren’t specified.

I’m pretty sure he was suggesting I break the Kindle and drop it off at her door. We just plugged it in and restored it to factory settings. Wiped it clean and made it just like it was built.

She was ******, told me I wasted an ebook because she had to throw it away.

RIP Little Kindle.

Wow, this is a truly horrible story.

The sister-in-law was clearly so entitled; she’d declined the Kindle already, so clearly had no claim on it anymore.

It’s a shame; all this meant was that the person who was enjoying the Kindle didn’t have it anymore, and a perfectly decent piece of technology went in the trash.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

Most people thought the fact they gave the Kindle back was ridiculous.

While others thought they’d both made odd choices.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a woman who got family pushback after gifting jewelry to her stepdaughter.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained why the factory reset meant that no one could use the Kindle.

It seems really unfair and wasteful that, for whatever reason, this adult felt that they needed to give the Kindle to a woman who didn’t even want it in the first place. After ten years, it’s clearly not the sister-in-law’s Kindle, and any claim she may once have had on it has long expired. It’s ludicrous that she even thought she could demand it ‘back’ when she’d never had it in the first place — but the fact that the actual Kindle owner just went along with it is crazy.

Maybe the sister-in-law runs a tyrannical reign over the family, or perhaps the actual Kindle owner has no backbone — or was inspired into pettiness by the father-in-law’s suggestion. But whatever happened, it has just left everyone miserable, and a perfectly good — and once loved — piece of technology is going in the trash. This is unacceptable.