180 Comments Add your own

• 1. ABDPBT  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:07 pm

  Wow. That is . . . that is crazy. People are scumbags.

• 2. Dr. Maureen  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:19 pm

  I am having trouble typing this from the dead because I died when I read about your mom. Dead. Dead from shock. But I have a story for you, although I will have to be vague on the almost impossible chance that the people this is about ever see this. A person I know has a sister-in-law who is… difficult. This person once served her SIL something in a Waterford dish, and the SIL began to explain how Waterford outlets sell flawed crystal. There is usually a small bubble or defect somewhere in the… ah, yes. Here it is.

• 3. SwingCheese  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:22 pm

  What your mom could have said is that, according to Miss Manners, first, acceptance of a wedding invitation is NOT a binding obligation to give a gift, and second, guests have up to ONE ENTIRE YEAR to give the newlyweds a gift, if they are, in fact, GOING to give them a gift. Now, I would have done the same as you, in the face of such rudeness, as I would have stammered out some sort of “situation smoothing” words. But still, I cannot get over the amount of RUDENESS concerning weddings. It is as though some couples see their weddings not as a celebration of their love and commitment, but as an occasion to really rack in the gifts and money. SO RUDE.

  Also, when I was about 15, a guy I really, really liked asked me out on the second to last day of camp (after the big camp dance, and this was nerd camp, so you can imagine the awkwardness). Anyway, I ran back to the room and excitedly told one of my new friends, and my roommate and best friend from home. My new friend gave me a huge hug. My best friend looked at me and said “Oh that’s just great. Now you’re going to miss him and I’m going to have to hear about it all the time.” As an adult, I know that this comment stemmed from her insecurity/jealously about not having a boyfriend of her own. But as a 15 year old? I was so pissed off that I didn’t talk to her for a week (but didn’t tell her why, and in true teenage female fashion, denied even being mad). And if I think about it too long as a 32 year old, I still get kinda pissed.

• 4. kakaty  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:28 pm

  Man, If were you mom I’d track that gift down in the mail-stream and take it back. That isn’t just rude, it’s batshit insane. Also, can I point out that generally accepted wedding etiquette states that guests have up to one year after the wedding to send a gift if they choose to give a gift AND! AND! that it is more polite to send the gift to their registry address rather then have them have to lug it home from the reception venue.

  Oh my hell. Now I’m all worked up on your mom’s behalf.

• 5. AndreAnna (Modern Matriarch)  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:35 pm

  There are just not words to encompass the colossal douchebaggery of that wedding story.

  Just none.

• 6. Suzanne  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:43 pm

  I would like to be totally horrified and shocked at the wedding gift thing but sadly I AM NOT. I have gotten, in the past year, wedding invitations that included little cards with all the registry info, links to the registry actually on the invitation and one with a PAYPAL address since the couple was trying to save for a house and really just wanted cash. I think I actually threw up at the last one.

  And while we’re on the subject of wedding gifts, I have to tell you when I was getting married I got a lovely shaker and bar tools (are they called tools?) off my registry from Uncle Steve with a note that said “The key to a happy marriage is cocktails”. My problem is we have no Uncle Steves in either family. So I called the store to find out who sent it and they didn’t know and couldn’t give me a billing address. My best guess is someone’s distant Uncle Steve knew his niece Suzanne was getting married in August to someone with a super-common last name and accidentally sent me a gift.

  I still can’t bring myself to use the shaker because I NEVER SENT A THANK YOU NOTE.

• 7. Amy  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:47 pm

  I’m d-e-a-d. WTF people?

• 8. jonniker  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:47 pm

  OH KATY. You reminded me: the reason my mom had it sent to her is because she MADE THEM A PIECE OF ART with the colors they chose (my mom’s an artist and she makes really beautiful, beautiful things) and she wanted to include it all in the package.

  BUT OH. THEY WANTED MONEY INSTEAD OMFG.

  Suzanne: It’s funny, I know it’s bad form, manners-wise, but as a wedding guest, I don’t mind the registry cards. I know they’re kind of tacky, but I find them helpful. After all, I’m going to get them a gift anyway, might as well know where to do it. (Although I DO usually give money, I don’t know why.)

• 9. cindy w  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:48 pm

  I am pretty sure there were people who came to our wedding who didn’t give us a gift. Or who sent one after the fact. And I didn’t give a rat’s flying patootey about it. That level of rudeness is un-freaking-believable. Just… the GALL. Wow.

  One of my favorite (?) rude anecdotes: I was in Chicago many years ago, and I had parked in a huge multi-tiered parking garage. Before you could leave, you had to go into the lobby of the building to pay. There was also an auto-pay machine, sort of like an ATM, with a huge “OUT OF ORDER” sign on it. So this middle-aged douchebag walks in, pays no attention to the out of order sign, shoved his credit card in the machine, then gets furiously pissed because the machine eats his card.

  So, he cuts in front of everyone else in line (me plus about 5 or 6 other people) to yell at the poor girl behind the counter that the machine ate his card. She tried to fix it and he screamed at her, “HURRY UP! I haven’t got all day, you know!” I was just stunned because it’s such a cliche line, but I’d never heard anyone actually *say* that before. Also: it was 2 p.m. on a Sunday and he was in a golf shirt & khaki shorts. Explain to me how he was in SUCH a hurry?

  After he left, and it was my turn to pay for my parking, I noticed the girl seemed sort of shaken and upset, and I said, “Man, some people sure are jerks, huh?” She kind of laughed. I hope it helped to know that other people there were on her side.

• 10. -R-  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:50 pm

  This isn’t really rude, but it is totally shocking to me. H asked his mom for advice in finding a home health care aide for my dad. She suggested her sister – who just last year was placed in a nursing home for several months to recover from severe drug and alcohol abuse. She has such serious problems that her own mother wrote her out of the will so that she wouldn’t end up with a windfall of money to spend on drugs. Yes, that is the woman I want to make sure my dad gets his morphine and vicodin on time.

• 11. jonniker  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:51 pm

  -R-: OH. MY. GOD. What do you even SAY? OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.

• 12. Lori  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:56 pm

  That’s kind of unbelieveable. I’m surprised anyone even noticed the gift was missing. Weddings bring out the worst in people, in my opinion. My husband and I are terrible about wedding gifts. Most of the weddings we attend require travel, so we’ve already spent a good bit to attend. We totally wait at least a year to give wedding gifts and it’s almost always just a Home Depot gift card.

• 13. Jess  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:57 pm

  But… these people… before they ACCOSTED people about not getting them gifts THREE DAYS AFTER THEIR WEDDING, wouldn’t they look at their online registry stats? And SEE that a gift had been purchased? We were able to see everything about who had purchased what from our registry online, whether or not we had received the gift in question yet.

• 14. jonniker  |  June 21st, 2010 at 9:59 pm

  Jess: THAT’S WHAT MY MOM SAID. She was like, but … but I bought off the registry! Maybe they thought because it wasn’t sent to them that she was KEEPING the sheets and towels? I DO NOT EVEN KNOW.

  The worst part, I think, is that at first, my mom felt BAD. Like her gift was LATE and then she realized, hold the phone, people! What the hell? But still! They made her feel bad, even if it was only for five minutes! WHO MAKES A GUEST FEEL BAD, EVER?

  The thing that gets me is that she MADE THEM A PIECE OF ART. AND MAILED IT. BEFORE THE RUDE PHONE CALL. She can’t even hold the gift HOSTAGE.

• 15. Heather  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:04 pm

  In Australia, the bride and groom get a list of who purchased what off the registry the day after the wedding. Gives them time to open stuff as a surprise but also have a record of who to thank. Something like that would have helped your mom…but seriously, that’s so rude and I’d have flat out told them so if I was her!

  My SIL is the rudest person I know. I could give you a thousand stories but here is the latest one. I had a day off work (Tuesday a couple of weeks ago) and she turned up at 8:45am with my 5 year old nephew and said “He has the day off school” and went to work! No, “Hey Heather, could you please watch ______ for the day?” and what was worse was it was a PRE-SCHEDULED ‘teacher only day’ so she’d known for WEEKS that he couldnt go to school that day and didnt deem it necessary to ask me to watch him. I could understand it if he was ill and couldnt attend school but seriously, the woman is RUDE RUDE RUDE! I wish I’d got my act together enough to tell her she’d just have to stay home but I was shocked into silence lol.

• 16. Danell  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:17 pm

  You know, I spend at least a few minutes a day with my mouth hanging open – rendered speechless – by something someone says to me. It’s either something personal (you’d be FLOOOOORED at what people think their veterinarian needs to know *shudder*), stupid, or rude…but seriously, DAILY someone says something that makes me go all wonky.

• 17. Jennie  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:20 pm

  You. Have. Got. To. Be. Shitting. Me. With that woman! Calling to ask after a gift!

  Obviously this couple was basking in the joy of being newly married while putting little checks next to wedding guests names! I foresee a lifetime of happiness for them!

  (If they were that hard-pressed for cash, skip the wedding, and pocket that money instead!)

  I don’t know if this is the rudest, I’ve probably heard all sorts of rude things, but the comment I heard newly pregnant (6 weeks) comes to mind first, when I told some family of family (brother-in-law’s sister) that I was pregnant and she said, “I wasn’t going to ask because sometimes fat’s just fat.” AND IN THAT CASE, IT WAS, BECAUSE WHO IS SHOWING AT 6 WEEKS!?

  She’s also 300 pounds. Which makes it strangely better and strangely worse all at the same time.

  I still, to this day, think of her when I need motivation at the gym.

  Bitch.

• 18. Christine  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:26 pm

  OH god, the wedding thing! Yeesh. And I’m not going to lie, I’m at the opposite end of the wedding gift spectrum. I remember the gifts that weren’t cash, but beyond that, who knows who got me a gift or not or how much it was for. (With the exception of my in-laws who after inviting an uninvited guest gave something which didn’t strike me as particularly generous, but this is more related to general in-law gripes…so, yeah. Oh and by in-laws, I mean Tony’s parents, not uncles, but no shit relatives, who didn’t actually see our legal ceremony since they didn’t come to the dinner the night before. Now off of crazy pants rant.) OH but there you go. Wedding stuff makes people crazy.

  Your mom can send me her art! I promise to cherish it. I’ll even send a thank you note since I’m WAY behind on that. (I swear I say every weekend: THIS is the weekend. Wedding fail.)

• 19. Beth  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:34 pm

  Unbelievably rude! I would be very interested to hear if your mom gets a thank-you note after the gredy, er, *happy* couple receives gets her gift. I also hope they don’t plan to attend any more events with this family!

• 20. Betsy  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:41 pm

  Kakaty is absolutely right–it is more polite to send the gift to the registry address rather than bring it to the wedding. Which totally makes sense, because how romantic was it to end the evening stuffing our car to the gills with gifts to take to our honeymoon inn (because the rest of our family was shitfaced, heh).

  You know this is totally coming from the MIL, right? I’m sorry, no GROOM is going to be going through the list checking to see who brought a gift 3 days after the wedding. That’s MIL behavior. And yes, she should know better. Your poor mom.

  Is it wrong that I was hoping the second story ended with you finding out she was divorced?

• 21. velocibadgergirl  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:44 pm

  A few weeks ago, I was out at lunch with my friend Susan and we had the baby along. The baby who was at that time 4 1/2 months old. Susan had been holding him for a bit so I could eat, and this completely normal-looking (i.e. not showing obvious outward signs of being batshit insane) woman walked past our table to get to the silverware on the counter behind my seat.

  She said in a very deadpan way, “That kid has been staring at me for fifteen minutes.” Susan and I both thought she was just making conversation and joking with us, so Susan asked if he had winked at her. “You need to make him stop,” the woman said. And then, in a snotty tone, “It’s making me nervous.”

  At that point I realized she wasn’t kidding and she was totally bitching me out because my INFANT happened to be looking toward the area of the restaurant that she was inhabiting. I could see how if he was an older child it could be considered rude and it would behoove me to explain to him that it was rude, but dude. BABY. He is a BABY.

  Now, I’m not one of those people who thinks my child is God’s gift to everyone or that expects everyone to fall all over themselves cooing at him. If you don’t like kids, that’s fine with me. If you want to walk by and not acknowledge that he’s damn cute, that’s fine. He wasn’t fussy, he wasn’t banging on the table or babbling. I don’t think he’d made a peep the entire time we were there, nor had he demanded to breastfeed. He was just sitting on Susan’s lap minding his own baby business and some crazy bitch thought she needed to tell me to make him stop looking at her. I’m still (obviously) annoyed by the whole situation.

• 22. Mama Bub  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:45 pm

  That is SO beyond outrageous. So many people just send a gift directly from the registry now, rather than bringing a gift to the wedding. I’ve been to maybe 20 weddings in the past five years and don’t think I’ve carried a gift to a single one.

  We received a wedding invitation once that said, “Your presence is a gift, however the couple is registered at X, Y and Z, but would prefer cash donations.”

  Oh, and after my wedding, my MIL asked to see the gift list (for writing thank you notes) so she could give gifts in the future on the level of what people had given us. YES, really!

• 23. velocibadgergirl  |  June 21st, 2010 at 10:51 pm

  So spun up that I neglected to say Oh. My. Effin. Lord. about your poor mom. I get so flabbergasted in the face of such ridiculous behavior that I always get polite and apologetic, which sucks because some people just need to be told off

• 24. Noemi  |  June 21st, 2010 at 11:24 pm

  HOLY. FUCKING.SHIT. That is the rudest rude thing I have ever heard of. In fact, it was so rude, I had to call J over here to read about it so we could DIE of the RUDE together.

• 25. Ginger  |  June 21st, 2010 at 11:28 pm

  Holy rudeness batman! On both counts, but that wedding gift one–wow. I just can’t believe that people are that crass (though I think I agree with the commenter who said that was the MIL, not the groom. That seems like such a stereotypical MIL thing.). The Post family would NOT approve–and since I’ve worked with them, I can say that with authority

• 26. Nothing But Bonfires  |  June 21st, 2010 at 11:38 pm

  I’m sorry, I have died from the wedding story. DIED. I HAVE DIED. I CANNOT TYPE IT ENOUGH TIMES IN ENOUGH CAPITAL LETTERS. WHO DOES THAT?

• 27. Amy K  |  June 21st, 2010 at 11:47 pm

  Your poor mom! I don’t think I could have kept my mouth shut after hearing that. That’s truly some prize-winning rudeness.

  Let’s see, the rudest thing I’ve ever heard might have been from my own mother. When I first started dating my husband, who is well above me on the attractiveness scale (I’m average; he always has women gawking at him), my mother said, “You two seem happy together.” I agreed, and then she continued, “Well, I wouldn’t get too excited. I’m sure this happens to him all the time.” Huh? Needless to say, we don’t have the best relationship.

• 28. Chaya  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:15 am

  That is just…gah. So rude! SO RUDE! I can’t believe there are people like that. Wait, I can, since one of our family stories involves a couple who came to a dinner party my mom hosted. When it came time to serve dessert, the couple got up and announced they would have to leave early. Then the woman turned to my mom and asked for the dessert IN A DOGGY BAG, TO GO.

  My SIL routinely says rude things, but it’s not out of malice, just cluelessness. Example: I had a miscarriage before my first kid was born, and a few months afterward I made some comment about family planning. And she said, “well, you don’t even know if you can have children.” I’m still shaking my head, 4 years later.

  (But who calls up and ASKS FOR A CHECK??)

• 29. sam  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:04 am

  The lady that most recently gave me a pedicure patted my stomach and said, “How many months?” …. I said, “no months.” BECAUSE I’M NOT FUCKING PREGNANT YOU WHORE. ~AHEM~

• 30. Jeff  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:15 am

  Wow. You know, I should be surprised, but I’m not. People have never ceased to amaze me. My wife thinks I’m too harsh when I say this, but…PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS! RUDE idiots! Don’t even get me started on rude, idiot drivers. If I had a James Bond laser cannon on my car….I’d use it!
  As for rudeness I’ve encountered of the NON-Driving kind…I had a roommate once who’s family, while not rich, were certainly not dirt poor. My brother’s mother-in-law had recently died, and they had a meal after the memorial service at her house. My niece and I were sort of unofficially in charge of making sure there were enough plates and silverware, drinks and all. Several people in our congregation had provided dishes so there was enough to eat, but not an excessive amount.

  Enter my roommate and his mom and sister. They were among the first to arrive and after hogging down HUGE platters of food, they ALL went through the line again with paper plates and stacked so much on them, that they had to put a second one on top to hold it all on, and then left!

  Apparently, they thought it was an all-you-can-eat buffet, first come, first served, screw anyone else who arrived late kind of affair. It was a sad occasion, and I should have said something, but was sort of in shock, as were everyone else there.

  I moved out about 2 weeks later. He was also one of the biggest slobs I’ve ever lived with, and I have 5 brothers.

  Ugh! Over 10 years later, and it still gets me. Idiots! RUDE!

• 31. Jen the Trephinist  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 4:35 am

  People frequently ask me whether I’m still sleeping with my ex husband, because we still hang out occasionally (like once a month, if that). And I’m not talking close friends, either–I’ve had near-strangers ask me about as frequently as anyone. Considering how common this question is, I would not be at all surprised if, at some point, my parents’ pastor leaned in conspiratorially at some random social function and said, “Soooo … are you two …” while making the universal symbol for “fucking” with his index finger and his other hand.

  Every time someone drops that question randomly in like, the grocery checkout lane, it shocks me all over again. I cannot IMAGINE having the balls to ask someone that question. Nor can I imagine feeling entitled to the answer, which is, hey, look, NONE OF MY BUSINESS.

  Probably the most common rudeness I get is about not eating meat. Always. Bitchy blog entries notwithstanding, I swear I am as polite and nonaggressive as possible about it and generally don’t even bring it up unless I’m forced to explain (because someone is trying to shove a plate of chicken hors d’oeuvres at me or something and I worry I’m coming off as rude by not taking one), and even then, I just mumble something and hope the topic changes quickly, because most of the time I just want to eat my dinner, not run a political platform.

  But so frequently, the other person immediately says something about how stupid it is or what a hippie I am or how they love bacon. (So bizarre in terms of responses, that last one, but so common.) Or they’ll just say “WHY?” with so much disdain and pull such a “just smelled a fart” expression that I’m at a loss for words.

  It’s breathtaking, really. I mean, I’m not a Christian, but if someone said they were while we were all sitting around at a dinner party, I like to think I understand enough about being respectful to another person that my first response wouldn’t be, “Oh, you’re one of THOSE idiots, huh? Well, I believe in Jesus, too … AND unicorns! HA! HA! Hey, it’s cool. I love a good fairy tale as much as the next girl!”

  Social skills, people. Social skills.

• 32. Anonymous  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 5:42 am

  Apparently the new etiquette requires any bride not receiving a gift to call and harass the offender because that is exactly what my newish daughter in law did. Except that she made my son call me about my ex-best friend’s lapse in good manners.

  I am so glad that you posted this because I have been in shock for months about a similar situation. First, my bff fails to send a gift when she was invited and attended my son’s very small wedding in Cancun (all expenses paid, mind you), Then the bride DEMANDS a gift and is so insistent that my son bought one of the items in the registry and sent it in my friend’s name. And last, which is the straw that broke this camel’s back, my friend was coming for a visit last month and asked me what was the gift that was sent in her name in case the subject should come up.

  I have to add that both these women are very comfortable financially, so it was not a case of one not being able to afford a gift or the other needing stuff for their new living quarters.

• 33. Giselle  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:00 am

  The wedding thing…argh. I’m stewing over here, and I don’t even know you and your mother.

  If the money was that important, then they should have charged admission for the wedding. Invitation to read:

  Your are invited to Lulu and Xander’s happy day. Price is $200 per person, with a 10 % discount if you also bring a wrapped gift larger than 2′x3′. Hope you can come and join us to celebrate our glorious union, because you’ll likely not hear from us again until we need money to decorate our baby’s nursery.

• 34. Giselle  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:03 am

  That would be “You are” not “Your are”. Obv.

• 35. The New Girl  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:37 am

  But…..But.

  omfg. Your poor mom. I can’t IMAGINE that…either of those things. What I can’t get past, is that in order to know that your mom hadn’t sent a gift, they would have had to compare the guest list to the gift list and I…don’t remember ever even THINKING to do that. I mean, unless there were only like 40 people at the wedding, how would they even KNOW? But I guess if they are the kind of people to CALL AND ASK….

  I have a hard time remembering really rude things that people have said to me, is that weird? I do the opposite of stew about it, I think. I have blank holes where the memories should be.

  That thing about the crystal platter, though, I would have wanted to bash the SIL over the head with it…

• 36. Farrell  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:39 am

  Re: Wedding: RIDICULOUS!!!

  I’ve got one for you. This past weekend I was told by a guy “friend” that I am a 7 on the 1-10 looks scale, but that if I lost 20 pounds, I’d probably move up to an 8 1/2.
  What a compliment, huh? *rolls eyes*
  And yes, I wanted to kick him in the balls.

• 37. Violet  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 7:05 am

  OH MY GOD! And I thought my mother was rude when she asked me who gave me gifts, and what they gave, and how much cash. I refused to tell her so she wouldn’t hold it against anyone who was cheap or didn’t get me anything. It just really doesn’t matter, right? But I thought that was seriously rude right there. But calling someone? Not to mention that soon? I can’t even say how horrified I am. I would never talk to them again. Yikes! Rude and greedy.

  I’m glad you all have so many nicer people around to balance them out!

• 38. Violet  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 7:20 am

  Oh, and one of the rudest things ever said to me was a (definitely FORMER) boyfriend who, after meeting my mother, said “now I see where you got your big boobs.” Ick! You’re checking out my mother? Then he asked if my father had a big nose, because “your mother doesn’t”. Nice – now I have a complex about my nose being too big, jerk. You can leave now…

• 39. Steph  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 7:39 am

  Weddings really seem to bring out the tackiness in people…!

  One of many stories about my stepmother’s rudeness: She and my dad were living in FL while the rest of the family lived up north. She invited her kids to visit them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and not my brother and I.

  I mentioned to my dad it would be nice to see him at the holidays and maybe we could do something where my bro and I see them at one holiday and her kids for the other next time and my dad said he’d talk to her.

  The phone rang about an hour later; it was her, yelling at me for being “resentful”. She’s since planned Father’s Days without including my brother and I — her kids’ dad died and she says “she picked out a good new dad” for them. Never mind that he already has kids. And my dad goes along with this. It’s sad.

• 40. Jennifer R.  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 7:41 am

  OMG!

  We didn’t receive gifts from several people when we got married and I only know that because we had 1 gift that we didn’t know who it was from so we did the process of elimination and that’s when we realized (we didn’t care). I just feel bad because we never thanked them for their gift.

  However, one of the people who didn’t give us a gift annoyed me. I don’t like these people anyway and didn’t want to invite them in the first place but my mom said it would be rude not to invite them since she invited all of their mutual friends. So they did not even bother to attend my actual weeding they just showed up at the reception were loud, obnoxious and made lots of racial comments (I’m white and my husband is Hispanic). My mom asked them nicely to please stop making racial comments and they said “What? can’t the beaners take a joke”. They scarfed up a bunch of food and left. Thank GOD!

• 41. Groovymarlin  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 8:09 am

  Wow. That wedding thing – wow. The mother of the groom sounds like a real piece of work!

  I was sitting here trying to think of the rudest someone has ever been to me, and the only thing that pops into my head right now is a story from quite a few years ago. I’m adopted, and when people find this out their reaction is usually something like “Oh really! That’s great/interesting/wild!” followed by the usual questions about biological parents, etc. I’m used to it. But in this particular instance, I was sitting in the office of a friend/co-worker, and it came up in our conversation that I was adopted. And her very rude, obnoxious office-mate stopped what she was doing (obviously she was listening to our conversation), turned around with her mouth gaping, and said “YOU’RE ADOPTED!!??!!!”

  Now, has anyone ever looked at you like you were trash, or a cockroach crawling on trash, or possibly something gross and sticky that was stuck to the bottom of his or her shoe? Because that’s the kind of look she gave me, and the kind of tone of voice she used. You seriously would have thought that I just admitted to being a pedophile, or a serial killer, or a woman who leaves the seat up. SERIOUSLY!

  So yeah, that was downright rude. And the weird thing is, I found out later that one of her siblings was adopted. Imagine how she treated him!

• 42. velocibadgergirl  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 8:20 am

  Ugh, Groovymarlin, that’s awful I’m adopted, too, and can’t remember anyone ever being so shitty about it >:(

• 43. danish  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 8:34 am

  All these stories are crazy. I cannot think of one incident of rudeness, my mind is a blank right now.

  BUT! I wanted to tell you, Jonna, that *I* notice when you don’t put up a new post for a week or more! I love your blog! (You know you mentioned that on Anna’s blog yesterday….)

• 44. Jersey  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:08 am

  Do you all remember an MTV show from about 10 years ago about weddings, and there was this couple, maybe from Long Island, who specifically asked for money in their invitations? Because they needed the money to pay back the cost of the outlandish wedding they couldn’t afford?

  You’re story made me think of that.

  Also rude: I have a friend who is looking to get engaged, like, yesterday. So she has flat out said: “He better not spend less than $7000 on my ring”.

  Ok. Seriously? What if he had a family heirloom? What if he found a gorgeous ring that just happened to be less? WHAT IF HE CAN’T AFFORD THAT? Will you love him less? Will you say no?

  My guy could give me a Cracker Jack ring, and I’d be happy. It’s about the emotion, not the cost of the ring…

  ps- love your blog!

• 45. Alison  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:25 am

  That is crazy! Completely shocking! (The wedding story.)

• 46. Melospiza  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:44 am

  Sometimes people are so rude that it becomes delightful, and calling to ask where the gift check is DEFINITELY is delightful. Oh my.

  Not quite approaching that, but close, were my SIL’s in-laws–the ones who called her a few weeks after her husband’s funeral to ask why she hadn’t yet sent a thank-you note to their friends. And who then asked if they oculd have his $10,000 tool set as a “momento.”

  Weddings and funerals. They bring out the best. Although the wedding horror stories are more deliciously awful, not being diluted by the sad.

• 47. Liz  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:03 am

  No words, re that wedding story. No words.

  Rudest thing I’ve ever encountered? A casual acquaintance asked me – in line at a CVS – when my husband and I were going to have children, given that, you know, he’s getting older and wasn’t I worried about the quality of his sperm decreasing over time?
  (She LITERALLY SAID QUALITY OF HIS SPERM)

  This is second to the time when my male coworker, in response to the questions “Does anyone need anything from me tomorrow?” responded “You could bake us a cake” Can I? Can I REALLY? ASS.

• 48. Caitlin  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:06 am

  OMFG. What is it about weddings that makes people INSANE?! And as has been mentioned, why have a wedding if you clearly cannot afford it? We paid for most of ours ourselves and did not do things we could not afford, OMFG.

  The only rude thing I can think of right now is something that happened recently with my Mom. My parents were taking a road trip, and our place was about the middle point so they stayed with us on their way out and back. In between visits, my husband cut his hair. He keeps it very short, so this is not unusual. On their second visit, my parents were barely in the door and my Mom, after hardly saying hello, immediately locks in on my husband. With her hand on his arm and says “Did you cut your hair?” He says “Sure did.” She continues to stare at him for a few looong seconds, pats his arm, and says “Well..it looks nice long.”

  NO FILTER.

• 49. Artemisia  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:06 am

  Wow! Even formal, fussypants etiquette states that you have up to ONE FULL YEAR to send a gift.

  #($%&*(^ Oh, I would lose my effing mind. Lose it.

  ENTITLEMENT is not a good color on anyone.

  (*&*$%$#&^(*()*

• 50. Artemisia  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:09 am

  Oh, and Suzanne? I think I love you – you can’t use the shaker because you never properly thanked the mystery gift-giver! You are awesome.

• 51. Li  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:32 am

  O. M. G. that wedding story in un-f***ing-believable. SERIOUSLY? And aren’t these people on their honeymoon? Why are they thinking about who got them what? Enjoy your newly married bliss, people! SHEESH. I am simply floored,

  Other rude stories….

  My 17 month old is starting pre-school in the fall (the local JCC has a toddler program that takes kids earlier than most pre-schools). On June 1, I stopped by to drop off the first tuition payment and another mother who was picking up her kid said…. ARE YOU READY FOR IT….

  …..”she will love the program…. and it’s perfect timing for you since I see you’ve got another one on the way.”

  I had just had a miscarriage a week before so I sort of stammered in my response before saying “umm. actually I’m not pregnant.” (didn’t feel the need to explain my whole story to a STRANGER – and let me be clear — it was an early miscarriage so it’s not like i was months along and hadn’t lost that weight yet)

  She then said something along the lines of “well, you don’t have to make me feel bad about making a mistake. I thought you were pregnant” I was so thrown off by the whole thing that I could barely hear what she said — just mumbled something and ran off.

• 52. Amy  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:41 am

  OMG, people are SO RUDE. I cannot believe that happened to your mom. I would have responded the same way as my first instinct in situations is to apologize no matter if it was my fault or not.

  A friend’s mom asked my now husband and I (when we were newly engaged and had been living together for a couple of years) if our parents were relieved now that we were no longer living in SIN. Who asks that??? No filter!!! Mind your own business!!!

• 53. Life of a Doctor's Wife  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:45 am

  Wow. I just… Can’t even fathom what drives some people to do things like that. As so many commenters have said, weddings seem to bring out the worst in people.

  And the ring thing! WTF? I hate it when people comment on rings. It’s rude no matter what. I don’t like feeling guilty if my ring has a bigger stone than yours. I’ve also had people ask how many carats it is or how much it is. None of your beeswax. I see plenty of women with big honkers on their fingers, but I’d never ASK. Geesh.

  Reading through the comments has got my blood pressure elevated. I have a rude person in my life and I can think of two immensely rude situations off the top of my head but cannot post them here.

  Anyway. So sorry for your mom! That would hurt my feelings so much. And she did such a nice, thoughtful thing for them!

• 54. Annie  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 10:47 am

  Holy wow. I agree with whomever stated that weddings bring out the worst in people. The groom’s mom calling people who didn’t bring a gift… Uhh. How does she even THINK that’s okay? And engagement rings, don’t even get me started. Girls say such snide things about rings (and weddings), as if they really mean anything to anyone outside of the two people who are engaged.

  To keep on the wedding rudeness, I had the sister of one of my bridesmaids, in front of my fiance and other friends of ours, go on and on about how I couldn’t make up my mind on bridesmaid shoes. She talked about this like it was the biggest inconvenience and like I was some crazy bridezilla queen, and pretty much the end of her life as she knew it and… she isn’t even IN the wedding. For the record, I had sent out several ideas to my bridesmaids as in, “What do you think of this?”, before deciding on the color and telling people to pick their own peep toe shoe. But, I think that’s relatively normal. This girl spent like five incessant minutes on this, and all after complaining about us never inviting her over. Ironically, she pretty much considers herself the more modern and hip version of Miss Manners.

• 55. Alice  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 11:00 am

  I AM DYING! DYING! DEAD FROM THE DYING! i *wish* i had the chutzpah and presence of mind to snap back in situations like that, but i usually am just shocked into silence and think of great comebacks 2 days later.

  i think the rudest thing ever said to me was by my “best friend” at the time. i’d just gone through a terrible break up – my boyfriend had asked to move in together, and then ONE WEEK after moving into a place together “remembered” that he was still in love with his exgf, who he had secretly moved down to VA without mentioning it to me. so anyway, 2 months later, i’m making a nice recovery and am feeling pretty ok about things. out of the blue one day, my best friend gchats me and says “so, are you going to go to therapy or what? because i’d just love to know when i can stop pretending you’re ok.”

  i mean, not that i have anything against therapy! i think it’s great! we should all go! but SERIOUSLY? we’re not actually friends anymore.

• 56. Jules  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 11:13 am

  Ugh, Jonna, that jewelry rudeness has happened to me before, but with a necklace. An old high school acquaintance told me that she liked it, but I didn’t have time to soak in the compliment before she breezed on to tell me that she had the same one in a higher carat weight and the matching earrings. Seriously, what in the holy hell do you say to that?

• 57. Jules  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 11:26 am

  … and I feel compelled to mention the Schadenfreude cherry on top of the rudeness sundae above. Said high school acquaintance’s fiance broke off their engagement hurriedly when he (no shit) knocked up an exotic dancer he was seeing on the side. Yeah, my partner might not spend quite as much on jewelry, but he hasn’t fathered anyone else’s children lately, so I’ll take that as one for my relationship in the plus column.

• 58. jonniker  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 11:32 am

  Jules, OMFG. OMFG. And Li! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.

  And … and ALL OF THIS OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.

  This is crazy, you guys! People are CRAZY!

  The bottom line is that PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN THINGS. And if you’re rude to someone, you apologize! THIS IS YO GABBA GABBA BASICS, PEOPLE.

• 59. Jess  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:05 pm

  I once got a wedding invitation with links to Home Depot and Lowe’s included saying that contributions to their home inprovement projects would be greatly appreciated. What?
  It was never clear if this “contibution” was in leiu of a wedding gift or in addition to.

  Every interaction I have with my mother in law involves some rudeness on her part…granted the woman is from Poland and knows about as much English as a 2 year old, but when she says “You no look too skinny today”..it’s hard to somehow lose that in translation.

• 60. Lippy  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:16 pm

  Has your mom considered throwing an Emily Post book through their window? Because they really need one. It leaves me speechless.

  Only rude story I can think of right now….. Six years ago our son was one and we lived in a two bedroom townhouse. We knew we would have more kids eventually and were pretty cramped as it was, so we were house shopping. One of our “friends” asked about it and I explained the crazy market at the time. (prices doubling in a month etc) She told me about some 3 bedroom houses she had seen, I explained we wanted a 4 bedroom house, she looked at me and said ” oh my gawd, you aren’t PREGNANT again are you?” Which??? WTF Funny thing is they had no kids yet and bought a 5 bedroom house, so not sure what her deal was. Kind of hate her still.

• 61. Kristabella  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:29 pm

  Doesn’t etiquette say you have up to a year to mail/give the wedding gift?

  Because I forget the gift like ALL THE TIME and have to mail it. I can barely remember underwear under my dress, let alone a gift!

• 62. Julie K  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:49 pm

  Thanks for telling your stories! Too bad your mom didn’t come back with “You didn’t get it? It was cash. Guess you’re out of luck.” She’s a better woman than I.

  Rudest? Of course it’s wedding centered. My husband and I met and quietly dated at the office. When we got engaged, it was a big surprise. One of the admin assistants strode into my office, demanded to see my ring, and loudly pronounced for everyone assembled (no lie, no exaggeration, no nothing) “IT’S SO SMALL!!!”.

  I leaned in to her and said “Thanks for that. It’s also flawless.”

• 63. Swistle  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 pm

  I was going through these comments, wondering why I was enjoying them SO MUCH when they are SO TERRIBLE, and then I got to Melospiza and YES: it’s that they’ve transcended awfulness to become delightful.

  I want so badly to contribute a rudeness story and I’m SURE I have some but now can’t think of any.

• 64. D  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:58 pm

  First of all, I would fucking DIE of embarrassment if my mom or MIL ever called a guest to ask about a gift, EVER, let alone 3 days after the wedding.

  Speaking of rude – ohhh, the MIL stories I could tell. She recently told me that she expects me to have lost 10 lbs by the next time I see her (bear in mind that I’m recovering from MAJOR hip surgery and can’t like, jump on a fucking treadmill anytime soon, plus YOU COULD LAY OFF THE COOKIES TOO, MA’AM). She makes frequent comments alluding to the fact that she thinks our marriage won’t last and makes it quite clear that *I* will be the cause of the divorce (in fact she recently “fake choked” me at a wedding reception saying that my wedding “better” be her son’s only one!). She’s suggested to a family friend that she’s not encouraging grandchildren just yet because of the possibility of said divorce….

  Oh, and before I end my ENDLESS RANT, let me add that among the many, many terrible things she said during the wedding planning process, the worst was probably when we called her immediately after booking a venue to tell her to “save the date!” and had her respond (without even saying congrats or asking WHERE THE DAMN WEDDING WAS BEING HELD) “You’re going to make our family travel all that way [CT to MA, hardly a cross-country trip] in that terrible weather?!” That terrible weather was late March, surely not the best season, but WHATEV. She then promptly hung up on us (again, without congratulating or inquiring about the location).

  Turns out our “terrible weather” was a ridiculously unseasonably warm 70 degrees. I am not ashamed to admit that I had the mother of all smug bitchfaces on as I told her that we’d be having the ceremony outside.

  Thanks for the invitation to rant, that felt like therapy

• 65. Li  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 12:59 pm

  PEOPLE ARE RUDE RUDE RUDE. Have been trying very hard to figure out if I know the person who was douchey about the ring…. I bet I do… but maybe not. Don’t tell me names — just, do I know her?

  The only person ruder to me around my miscarriage than the bitch at the preschool was my MIL who finally called me after 5 days (and a call from her son, who could not believe she hadn’t acknowledged it) and said, “Oh well, you got a bad period. Now you can have fun trying again. Did I tell you I finally bought myself a Blackberry? I love it!”

  I can’t stop thinking about your poor Mom, though, who had the best intentions and got a big old slap in the face! I hope she cuts those f’ing people out of her life.

• 66. Jeanne  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:11 pm

  Yeah… my mother in law did this same thing for my sister in law’s wedding. she sent nasty emails to the people who didn’t bring gifts.

  needless to say we are not close.

• 67. Kristin H  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:14 pm

  I have a somewhat-rude SIL, but it’s more out of cluelessness and general unhappiness in life more than being mean. But sheesh, even on her worst days she’s got nothing on that wedding story.

  I work in a predominantly male field, and I used to get pretty mad when men assumed I was the secretary and were condescending to me. I’m pretty much over it now, but one story does stick out: a guy called up and asked to speak with someone technical about a report, and I said I could help him. He yelled (seriously, yelled), ” I don’t want to talk to YOU! I want to talk to someone WHO CAN HELP ME!”

  (I am the vice president of the entire company.)

• 68. g.  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:18 pm

  Oh god oh god oh god.

  As someone who’s getting married in a few months, I have to echo the people who pointed out that it was the groom’s mother who did that, not the groom himself. I hope your mom doesn’t cut ALL of them out of her life based on only the mother’s behavior.

  I’m projecting here (and I don’t think my mother and future-MIL would ever dream of doing such a thing, thank god), but I wonder if the couple even knows she’s making calls like that on their behalf. If not, that makes it all the more rude and humiliating for them. I am sitting here visibly cringing, thinking about how they might feel. Aaaaahhhh.

  Also, D of comment 64: You have my total sympathy. Inheriting a new set of parents has proven to be a weird experience even if you like them… inheriting someone who acts like THAT toward you just completely sucks.

• 69. Danielle  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:19 pm

  Did they have, like, an EXCEL SPREADSHEET comparing guests to gifts?
  My MIL had a conniption fit at my wedding rehearsal because I would not have my brother and sister, who were a BRIDESMAID AND GROOMSMAN, pull my 2 and 4 year old brother and sister in law down the aisle IN A DECORATED WAGON.
  She hid in a closet and threw a fit, and then hauled her husband and kids back to CT without coming to the rehearsal dinner.

• 70. Nothing But Bonfires  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:25 pm

  Oh! I came back from the dead (after dying at your wedding story earlier) to remember a few rude things!

  a) I once had an appointment at the dermatologist when I was about 22. I was having a mole removed from my face. After my visit with the doctor, I went up to the receptionist’s desk and asked to make a follow-up appointment. She looked up, stared at me, and said “Is it for your acne?”

  (NO, WHOREBAG, IT’S FOR MY MOLE. I DON’T HAVE ACNE.)

  b) A few months after our wedding, my FIL sat me down and told me how rude Couple A and Couple B had thought it was that Sean and I didn’t have a receiving line at our wedding. They were disappointed that they had “flown ALL the way out to California for our wedding and not had a chance to talk to me properly.”

  (YOU KNOW, BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO HARD TO PICK ME OUT AND COME UP AND SAY HELLO TO ME THEMSELVES.)

  And PS: Couple B just happened to be the rudest people at our wedding. They got horribly drunk, talked all the way through the speeches, and the dude (who was in a Hawaiian shirt when every other man was in a suit) hit on my mother at the end of the night. Not sure if that’s better or worse than his wife, who ignored her the entire night.

• 71. Amy K  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:25 pm

  P.S. I forgot to mention that I misread “parental visit” as “prenatal visit” and for just a split second was so excited that we would be reading about Baby Jonniker #2. Heh.

• 72. Lucy Fisher  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:27 pm

  Giselle: BRILLIANT!

  “Your are invited to Lulu and Xander’s happy day. Price is $200 per person, with a 10 % discount if you also bring a wrapped gift larger than 2′x3′. Hope you can come and join us to celebrate our glorious union, because you’ll likely not hear from us again until we need money to decorate our baby’s nursery.”

  I snorted when I read that. At my desk. At work. Awesome. Also? Yes, exactly. These are THOSE people, for sure.

• 73. Arina  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:31 pm

  These stories are priceless, and I agree that they’ve transcended terrible to become laugh-out-loud funny.

  After my mother and I worked hard to ensure that we had childcare for my (small, evening, fairly formal) wedding, my sis-in-law declined it and announced that she’d bring her mother along to take care of their 2 kids. For whatever reason, they left the mother at home when they came down to my parents’ town for the wedding.

  So they decided to skip the ceremony and showed up for my wedding dinner (at the same place) with the kids in tow. They were very annoyed that there weren’t place cards designating the kids’ seats. They spent the entire evening sitting on the steps in front of the bar with the small children.

• 74. Allison  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:31 pm

  Ugh. People are so disgusting. I have two rude moments to share. The first one was during a parent conference with the mom of a student who was flat out failing everything and did NOTHING in or out of class. I was explaining this to the mom in the nicest way possible and her response was, “Well, he’s just so BORED in your class.” Uh, okay. Then I think this conference is over because I obviously have nothing to contribute.

  The second one was when my SIL announced her first pregnancy. She and her husband insisted that we all go out to dinner (which we all had to pay for). So, it was my husband and me, her mom and her dad and step mom. She had balloons all over the table and pacifiers and junk all over the place. And she had these bibs where my FIL and MIL were supposed to sit that said, “I love grandma!” and “I love grandpa!” And….nothing for her stepmom. Her dad and stepmom had been married for THIRTY years at that point. Come ON. Obviously, her parents are not getting back together. Time to move on. I about died on the spot because I thought that was the rudest, most insensitive thing I had ever been privy to. My SIL sucks.

• 75. Shin Ae  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:35 pm

  I’m in shock about the mother of the groom in your story. HOW SHOCKING. And, disgraceful.

  I had a hard time coming up with a Story of Rudeness to post. I feel that people are rude to me all the time, but it’s little stuff…no big shakes, we all deal with it kind of stuff. I just remembered, though, that one Christmas I really stretched to buy something for my boyfriend’s mom (he is no longer in my life). I couldn’t afford it very easily, but I thought she’d really like it. I had heard her talk about such things, and I was so excited when I saw it. So, I wrapped it up and gave it to her and when she opened it she said this: “Oh. Actually, I’ve been trying to get rid of some stuff lately.” Then she just kind of looked at me. To this day, I think that was so rude I just can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t understand why she said that to me.

• 76. samantha jo campen  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:35 pm

  My jaw has been on the floor for the last 30 minutes. I NEED MY XANAX because I’m ready to throw down some MExican Street Justice on all the assfaces mentioned here OMG.

  Two things for me:

  1). I had finally announced to my previous Workplace that I was pregnant as I was literally at death’s door with the puking and sweating. Our assistant didn’t know my news and came in to ask if I wanted Jimmy John’s for lunch. I quickly told her no because of my morning sickness as I was pregnant. THE FIRST THINGS OUT OF HER MOUTH WERE AS FOLLOWS: “Is it your husband’s? Are you going to keep it?”

  WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS THAT?!? So I’m a whore. I’m a whore who has abortions all the time apparently. As with most of these stories, I was so SHOCKED that I just stammered “Um, yes it is and uh. . .yes we are.” THEN she said “Oh congratulations!”

  It makes a great story but holy hell what was THAT?

  2). When I was a vet tech I only wore my wedding band and not my engagement ring because I didn’t want anything to happen to it as it’s a high setting (Marquee, high setting) plus I could scratch the hell out of the dogs. One of the receptionists recently got engaged with a FIVE CARAT RING that honestly was the tackiest thing I’d ever seen. It was far from flawless and was obnoxious. Not jealous, just sayin’. So I came in one day on my day off and had both rings on. She was clearly obsessed with rings having just gotten engaged so she took my hand to look at mine (a smidge less than a carat, solitaire), looked up and me, smirked, and said “It’s. . .cute.” THEN SHE TOSSED MY HAND BACK AT ME and went back to work.

  Need I mention that I had to continue to work with her? This wasn’t a random person never to be seen again? Hella good times.

  Also need to add: the stone was my mom’s. My dad died when I was three so she gave it to me for my ring. Special.

• 77. Kerri Anne  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm

  The fact that she asked your poor mother to rewrite a check that was never written in the first place is just UNREAL to me. Apparently I’m out of the wedding gift-giving loop, because I didn’t realize people routinely gave checks and/or cash as gifts. Gift cards to the stores where the couple are registered? Yes, sure! But if you want cash instead of actual gifts why even bother with a registry? WHY?

  We’ve already had this conversation, but someone suggesting via Twitter that the reason my marriage ended was because of “Karma” was maybe the rudest thing (not to mention the most passive aggressive thing) someone has ever said about me.

• 78. Denora  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:38 pm

  I don’t understand what it is about weddings that brings out the CRAZY in people. When my ex-husband and I were planning our wedding, we decided to have a no kids event, since my (now ex) best friend had 3 kids, and they were absolute monsters. We didn’t want to take the (extremely possible) chance that they’d do something to wreck the wedding. She was so pissed that her kids weren’t invited, that she backed out of being a bridesmaid, and didn’t speak to me for a month before the wedding. After we got back from our honeymoon, we started our thank you notes. The gift she gave us? A five dollar bill with a note that she had to spend the rest of our gift on a babysitter, since we didn’t want her kids there. Obviously, we’re no longer friends.

• 79. jonniker  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:40 pm

  WHAT, DENORA? WHAT?

• 80. H  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:40 pm

  I’m addicted to these comments! The rudeness, is so….rude.

  Fresh out of college, I was a new hire in the administrative department where no one new had been hired in a while. So these people were pretty set in their ways and did their work at a snail’s pace. About a year into the job, I got an award from our manager and he mentioned that I always seemed busy and hurrying about my business. Afterward, a bitchy (and clearly jealous) coworker came up to me and said, “It must be NICE to get an award for hurrying about. If I’d have known that, I’d have walked faster around here.”

  Also, I have a friend who invited (INVITED!) us for dinner and when she served the meal, she said, “I’m serving ham and asparagus so if you don’t like it, tough shit.” OKAY! Awkward!

• 81. Dani  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 pm

  So at my wedding I got a signed empty card. I did not find the need to have my mother call the person and ask if they forgot to include a check. I do believe it was rude though but what can I do.

  My other rude story is that I have a “friend” that lives in a trailer. (don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with a trailer if that is what you can afford). I myself live in a small house which is easily three times the size of said friends trailer. So she comes to my house for the first (and last time) step in the door and says, “you have a small kitchen”. My head almost fell off my shoulders. It took everything I had not to say YOU live in a f’en trailer!!!! Rudeness!!!

• 82. Regina  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:42 pm

  I find it rude when I send people friendly hellos or invites to get together and I get no response. I know it sounds silly but I spent time to put put myself out there and a simple decline or hello or even please don’t email me again would suffice. Don’t get me wrong I am well aware of how busy everyone’s lives can be and people just tend to fall through the cracks. I just figure if I took the time so can they. Maybe I am just having a bad day but your post kind of struck a cord with me.

• 83. heidi  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:44 pm

  Dead here. Dead from the rudeness!

  The rudest thing I think anyone has ever said to me was when a woman I worked with at the time asked me if I was bothered by the fact that my husband and son were going to hell because they didn’t take Jesus as their personal savior. (My husband is Jewish and we’re raising the boys in that faith.)

  I was sitting next to my 18 month old son and was 7 months pregnant when she showed her deep concern for our afterlives. I was stunned. I also may have mentioned that it wasn’t a problem since I would be joining them.

• 84. Marie Green  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:44 pm

  Since the main theme of this post and comments is wedding rudeness, my own wedding rudeness experience popped into my head.

  We sent out about 200? ish invitations. A few days after they went out in the mail, my MIL received a phone call from a woman on our invite list, letting her know that she had to pay the post office 6 cents to receive her invitation, as it was over weight. We had weighed them, OBV, and they were fine, but my MIL was polite and apologized. The next day, the woman called again to say that X person Y person and Z person ALSO had to pay 6 cents for THEIR invitations, and that my husband and I NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING. And then she went on to explain her ideas: refunds for all the guests (of what? 6 cents each?) at the wedding, with our sincere apology.

  I was MORTIFIED, thinking of all the people that were having to PAY (albiet only 6 cents) to receive our invitation. HOWEVER, only the people (about 6 families) that were serviced by that particular post office had any problems. So basically, that post office’s scale was off.

  I just… I fretted for so long about it- yes about those 6 cents our guests would be forced to pay… all for naught, since it was isolated to one rural post office…. And I’m quite sure I would not have said anything, had I had to fork over 6 cents for my mail….

• 85. Jessica  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:48 pm

  Oh sweet Moses, all these stories make me cringe. People like that baffle me. When I was 6 1/2 months pregnant, I was at work chatting with my co-workers when a girl from another dept. stopped by. We were talking about baby name and she exclaimed she hadn’t known I was pregnant. My one co worker chimed up and said ” Of couse you wouldn’t have known, she’s so fat it would be impossbile to tell.”
  Yeah……….. that was…. awkward and humiliating and WTF all rolled up. I cried for weeks over that one. That particular co worker is old enough to be my mother, and I swear is bi-polar, she is so nice to me one minute and then saying crap like that the next. Thank goodness I am not there anymore.

• 86. Slim  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 pm

  Danielle, I can’t help but feeling that that was kind of a win for you. Buh-BYE, crazy MIL.

  Jonniker, if this couple breeds — a delightful prospect, no? — I hope your mother will not send a baby present. Or will make a charitable donation in the lovely couple’s honor. Or will send them a copy of Miss Manners Guide to Raising Perfect Children.

  I went to a college that was one of a group of colleges in the area. You could take classes at any of the group. One day at work, I was on the elevator and two women were catching up. One said her daughter would be going to GroupCollege A in the fall. I turned around and said, “Hey, that’s great!” then thought to add, “I went to GroupCollege B.” And I was rewarded with the remark: “Well, my daughter was interested in GroupCollege B, but that was when she thought she couldn’t get into GroupCollege A.”

• 87. Deanna  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 pm

  I would say that maybe the bride would be incredibly embarrassed by her new mother-in-law’s batshit crazy actions, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say she probably won’t be. She married into that familiy; she had to know what to expect.

  The rudest thing I can think of right now was from my mother-in-law. The night we came home from the hospital after our twins were born, she came over to see the babies (and get in my way). Anyway, she was sitting on my couch, holding one of my babies. Her husband and other family were taking every available seat, so I kind of stood in the doorway for a minute, waiting for someone to get up and let me sit the hell down, as I was recovering from a c-section just three days before. My MIL looks up from her comfortable spot on MY couch, holding one of MY tiny, cuddly little newborns, and asks ME to please bring her a glass of tea. Did I mention I was recovering from a C-SECTION, where I had just given birth to TWINS? I snapped off a comment I’m not proud of, but my husband completely took my side, thank goodness, and it was never mentioned (by her) again.

  Can you tell I still have issues with the exchange? A year later, even without the postpartum hormones,just thinking about it still makes my blood pressure rise.

• 88. Heather F  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:51 pm

  OH MY GOD. Seriously, that woman has balls!!! Who does that?! Or better yet, Who SAYS that?! So inappropriate and classless! First of all, didn’t this couple have a registry? If they had a registry for wedding gifts, what would give that lady any right to ASSUME that your mom’s gift was cash? Not that there is anything wrong with that…but…you know what I mean. I actually think it’s totally appropriate to give cash for a wedding gift. When I got married last year, I actually just created a cash gift fund on MyRegistry.com so that way everyone could just contribute cash gifts online…and avoid any potential messes like the one your poor mom got involved with!

• 89. saly  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 1:56 pm

  OMG, your poor mom!!

  Further proof that people are assholes:

  When I was about 10 weeks along in my first pregnancy and I began telling people, a co-worker said to me “that’s good to hear; I thought you were just getting fat—that’s what usually happens after girls get married and start getting comfortable.”

  A wedding invitation I received included a link to the resort the couple was staying at for their honeymoon, where you could pay for them to go on excursions, or for upgraded dinners, fancy champagne etc.

  I kind of feel bad mentioning this one because she passed away last year, but I am going to anyway. The day I came home from the hospital after #3 was born, MIL arrived at our house soon after we got home. She snuggled on the couch with the baby and asked me to put a pot of coffee on. Because she was tired. BECAUSE SHE WAS TIRED. I was miffed about that one for….well I still am and she’s been dead for a year.

• 90. Sarah  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:01 pm

  As a (former) jeweler I can say as an absolute fact that bigger does not necessarily mean more expensive or higher quality. I used to have people coming into my store all the time putting on airs like they were the hottest shit around and pull out an enormous diamond that was a terrible color, filled to bursting with inclusions, or horrifically cut (and sometimes all three!). Just because you have a 3+ carat stone does NOT mean it’s a nice one!

  Also, the spiteful jerk in me noted that most of these women were miserable and alone.

• 91. Emily  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:01 pm

  Holy crap, these stories! These people!!! I, too, am dead from all of the dying. Despite this setback, I’ll soldier on with my story. Several years ago, I had to have three lumps removed from my breasts because they were growing and could have been malignant (thankfully, they were benign). When I went back to work after the surgery, one of my four female bosses knelt down, eye-level with my breasts and exclaimed, “Wow, they look great!” As if I’d had IMPLANTS put in or something. Who does that?!?

• 92. Barnmaven  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:11 pm

  All of these comments and the original post have been hysterical. Once you read enough of them they go from being shocking to being downright funny. WTF is wrong with some people?

  When my uncle died my parents were trying to work with my aunt on a night for a wake that would work with everyone’s work schedules, because she really wanted my brother and I to attend. We were really close with my aunt and uncle. My cousin’s wife got pissy about them trying to accomodate our work schedules and actually had the ovaries to say “Well, its not that important that they be there. They’re adopted, its not like they’re *real* family.”

  Bitch.

  When I was pregnant with my first I gained a lot of weight – about 70 pounds. One day in the elevator a young woman whose mother in law also worked in the company (and was someone I really liked) said to me “Mom and I were just talking about you the other day. We both thought it was so sad how much weight you’ve gained.” I actually cried about that one.

• 93. hemahi  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:15 pm

  This, unfortunately, does not surprise me. Weddings seem to bring out the worst in people (usually because they’re focusing too much on the DAY and not the MARRIAGE.)

  A few months ago, my cousin got married at City Hall. She made it clear that only a few people would be present at the ceremony and that they would have a party to celebrate. And then she asked my brother-in-law (who is a photographer) to attend to document the ceremony FOR FREE (and didn’t invite my sister.) He said no. They had their party recently and I thought it was strange that it started so late in the afternoon. Come to find out that they did that because they hoped people would eat before they came and they didn’t want to spend too much money on food. (I didn’t go to the party because, well, I don’t like them all that much) They registered for the most outrageously expensive stuff too (the sum total of your registry items should not be worth more than your house) which made it obvious they had the party just to get gifts. Just ridiculous!

• 94. Jen  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:16 pm

  Oh. MY. GAWD. I am feeling so awkward and uncomfortable on your mother’s behalf right now because I would have NO IDEA how to respond to that kind of rudeness.

  In keeping with the theme of wedding rudeness…we had a hard time deciding whether to invite children to our wedding. We wanted all of our nieces and nephews to be there, but we weren’t sure that we wanted our guests to bring their children. After a lot of hemming and hawing, we decided to just invite the children in the family. So of course my friend shows up with her three very small children. She never called to say, “Hey, we don’t have a babysitter, would you mind?” or anything like that. Just showed up with them. She did the same thing for my baby shower too – just showed up with two little ones without a second thought. I love kids and think they add a lot to celebrations, but I just thought that was so rude. I would never ever be one to complain about a gift, but this has me remembering that at my baby shower, the same girl gave me a tote bag of EXPIRED food and a Christmas nightgown for the hospital (baby was due in March).

• 95. C  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:18 pm

  These are entertaining! My rudest ever story?

  When my twins were babies, their older brother attended a half-day preschool. It was quite a struggle to pick him up in the afternoons with the juggling of the babies and all the doors – but nothing that thousands of parents don’t manage every day. Anyway, one day I was standing with my double stroller full of babies in the interior courtyard playground helping my son put his shoes on when a mom who hadn’t quite put two and two together said loudly to a teacher nearby “do all these kids (pointing at mine) belong to one mom?” when she saw me looking at her she said, “better you than me.” I wish I’d thought to say “yes, better me than you” but instead I just nodded.

• 96. Pocklock  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:28 pm

  I tend to have a very selective memory so I likely forgot about my best Rude Encounter story. However, I’m noticing that so many of these tales are regarding weddings, engagements, and pregnancy. I thought people were at their worst in High School, but clearly that’s not true!

  Regarding the wedding story you shared, Jonna, I’ve found that if you attend one in New York or New Jersey, they expect cash. I had a college friend born and raised in Jersey come up to me at my wedding and say, “Why am I looking at a gift table?” She practically spit out the last two words.

  Come to think of it, that was pretty rude.

• 97. Kris T  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:33 pm

  Wow…Im all pissed off on your mother’s behalf. People are just rude!

  Here’s my rudness story: First, necessary point to the story, I have minimal cerebral palsy. I can walk without crutches/aids of any kind and generally I tip to the right when I walk and I have lousy balance (makes me a shitty dancer too lol). I was attending a UU church in MA and I was in the choir. One Spring morning we were singing during service. As per usual we were short on Hymmnals so I was sharing w/ someone else. This through off my balance and I worked pretty hard all service not to fall over whenever we were standing/singing.

  After service, this woman who came to service semi-regularly, and knew I was in the choir, came up to me and said “You seem to be having a problem on stage today” and I politley said :Yes, I was trying to share my hymnal and because of my CP I was having a hard time balancing”

  Her response:

  “Well I wish you weren’t in the choir, because I find you very distracting.”

  HUH? Did you really say that? I stopped going to that church shortly after that.

• 98. Kate  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:35 pm

  Oh sweet fancy MOSES these stories are amazing! They are, indeed, crossing over from horrifying to delightful.

  I don’t have any wedding rudeness to share, but here’s my contribution: I was finishing grad school and was talking to the head of my program about all the various loose ends that had to be tied up when the subject of the new job I was starting came up. My job is a non-tenure-track teaching job at a large university — basically a serviceable and good job but not very high paying or prestigious. The head of the program (who was never my biggest fan and had made this sort of passive-aggressively clear over the years) did not congratulate me on finding employment in the tight academic job market, oh no. Instead she just said “Well, watch out; there’s not a lot of salary or security in that.” Well, THANKS, Program Head! Thanks for being such an inspiring leader and mentor!

  I’m sure that with the job market the way it is now, she’s probably changed her tune, though, and is likely telling people to be thankful for jobs like mine. Or I hope she is, anyway.

• 99. Betsy  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:50 pm

  Oh, I forgot to add a rude story!

  When I was pregnant, I had not one but TWO coworkers ask me if the pregnancy was planned. WTF? I’m married, it’s not like I’m single and unattached either. Not that the question would be appropriate then either.

  One of the guys also asked me just before I delivered HOW MUCH I WEIGHED. Not even how much weight I had gained, but how much I weighed. I work with some socially inept people.

• 100. Forgotten  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:53 pm

  I read all of these and I have to say, dead. Dying and dead again. Wow! The rudeness is just overwhelming.

  When I was pregnant with my twins and in the hospital, a woman had the nerve to say that I didn’t look sick enough to be in a wheelchair (I wasn’t allowed out of bed except to go to the bathroom and back and was only allowed out in a wheelchair for an hour at the most) and that I should be walking to get my blood pumping (walking made me have Braxton Hicks contractions every time I was up for more than 5 minutes). I ended up having the boys 10 weeks early. I wanted to find that woman and slap her around.

  When I got married, my uncle (who has always had a holier than thou art attitude) told my mom that I should have gotten married BEFORE I had my twins (we already had the date set and decided to start our family early. Our choice, not his.) and that he was glad I wasn’t going to look like a “fallen woman” anymore.

  I would love to hear what he thinks now that I’m getting divorced because that would be an entertaining conversation. I’m a lot more likely to tell him off now that I’m past that whole be nice to all your elders thing. If they’re older than me and they’re rude to me, they’re getting my 2 cents worth. (Sorry for the rant…I loved this post and the comments!)

• 101. Sam  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:58 pm

  I am in shock! I feel bad that your mom actually felt bad at first! What a joke

  I’ve been subjected to some really tasteless and rude comments too. When I was pregnant with my first, I told a single guy friend of mine the news. His response? He threw his hands in the air, acted all disgusted and actually said, “Well there goes my social life!” Huh, what? Isn’t the standard response, “Congratulations!” Maybe I am wrong here.

  I don’t think there is a “right” thing to say to anyone who has had a miscarriage, but my MIL really took the cake with mine… Of course I miscarried 2 days after MIL’s first grandchild was born, that didn’t help. When my husband told her the news she just put her hand on my arm and said “That’s ok, I think I’ve had a miscarriage or two in my life.” Ooooooh, because this is all about you. What does that even mean?

  Similar to your ring story, a former co-worker bought a car that was exactly like mine but a different color. I said something about it to her, like Oh hey cool we have the same car. She stopped, did that ‘look you up and down’ thing and said, “Well mine is SPORTIER.” Really? Honey I have two kids, do you think I care about sporty? I didn’t really understand though, we had the same rims, the same spoiler, moon roof and trim package… but hers was WHITE, how is that sportier? Whatev.

• 102. Ariel  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 2:59 pm

  Occasionally you get to watch someone eat their words-
  I got engaged about the same time as my sister in law’s cousin. We went to my niece’s birthday and he and his fiancee were there and she demanded to see my ring. I’ve never seen this woman before in my life. She said “oh, mine is much bigger! HaHa!” and I’m thinking so what? Your two carat diamond is gray and has a flaw so big I can see with my naked eye!
  I have a very pretty, very white, flawless .48 carat diamond, It is exactly what I wanted. It’s not fancy or anything but I love it.
  So then my nephew, love him so much, says with his eight year old candor: “Wow auntie, your ring sparkles a lot more than hers! But her ring has a bubble in it! That’s pretty cool too!” He thought he was giving us both compliments, but my sister and I went out back and laughed our asses off because the look on her face was priceless.
  It is a piece of compressed carbon, when all is said and done!

• 103. Annoyed  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 3:08 pm

  OMG so I’m posting this anonymously even though you internet know me, it’s that bad of a wedding doozy. My husband’s dad and step-mother have a long and horrid history of being, well, HORRID to him, their only son. But two years ago when we got married they offered to help my parents pay for the wedding apropos of nothing. We had not mentioned it or asked or even wanted it but they came out directly and offered. So I spoke to my parents, then came back and told his dad and step-mom that my parents would really like to pay for most of it but if they’d like to make a $500 contribution to flowers and catering, that would be lovely. They then proceeded to tell us that they had no idea we were spending that outlandish of an amount on our wedding (???) and how dare we ask them for that much money, no way were they paying that. This was all after they had recently sold their 1.5 million dollar city town home and told us how they’d given his step-mom’s nephew $5,000 to help him and his wife out with some bills.

  So whatever, it’s our wedding, we buck up and don’t make a big deal of their awfulness and they agree, again without us even asking, to split the cost of the (extremely inexpensive, I’m talking like $300 dollars here TOTAL) food bill for the rehearsal dinner with my husband’s mother. Then after going through everything from the wedding we realize they never gave us a present. We did not, like your mother’s hilariously rude friend, ever say anything about it. I am sad for my husband that they are continuing this awful douche-i-ness and it really, truly, hurts his feelings. But we keep our mouths shut. Then, three months after the wedding, THREE MONTHS LATER, we get a check in the mail from them in an empty envelope, no note, for $200 with “wedding” written in the subject line of the check. ARE. YOU. SHITTING. ME.

  Then they proceeded to not come visit our new son, their only grandchild, until he was 5 months old.

  Gahh, that didn’t really make me feel better it just reminded me how much I want to punch them both in their faces.

• 104. Annoyed  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 3:13 pm

  Ok reading that over made it sound like I think they’re rich and I’m pissed that they didn’t give us more money. It has nothing to do with dollar amounts and I would have been so happy if all they had done was offer to help with the wedding by setting up tables beforehand because they love their son, or if then had given us a wedding present of an old photograph or a framed poem or a freaking hamster for all I care, on the day of our wedding, because they love their son. Which apparently, they don’t, or if they do in my opinion, UR DOIN IT WRONG.

• 105. Annoyed  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 3:14 pm

  Also was that belated check supposed to be our present? Or were we supposed to give it to my parents after all? Did they FORGET before? Had they been fighting about it that whole time? Subject line: Wedding?????????

  I swear I’ll stop now.

• 106. Deb  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 3:29 pm

  Holy crap on a cracker. I, too, DIE at the rudeness.

  When my husband and I got engaged, his grandmother tried to guilt us into having our wedding photographer take a bunch of family portraits of their side of the family DURING THE RECEPTION. Since “it is the only time we’ll all be together like this.”

  It was the first, but certainly not the last I had to deliver a big OH HELLS NO to the in-laws.

  During the reception, my grandmother went around to all my friends and new in-laws and told them all what a rotten kid I was since I did not seat her at the head table beside me.

  Sixteen years ago and I’m getting the agita…

• 107. Therese  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 3:47 pm

  oh, these stories are so horrible that they are awesome! I want to participate.

  1. On more than one occassion I’ve had people ask to “try on” my engagement ring…WHAT? This is a sybmol of love and promise, not a cute accessory…

  2. My MIL came to visit when my son was about 2 weeks old. She has a very meek and passive personality so I knew she wouldn’t be very helpful but that also means she doesn’t really get in the way either. Anyway, my son struggled with nursing the first couple weeks and feeding time for him was VERY stressful, involving the pump and a syringe and other tricks. The last night she was with us, I was trying to feed my son and my husband was folding laundry. It was also our dinner time. My MIL makes herself a sandwich, my husband a sandwich and then sits in the kitchen to eat. I come out from the baby’s room (tired, stressed, and hungry after another crazy nursing session) and NOTHING… She didn’t even ask if I wanted anything. Thankfully, my husband took care of me but really….

• 108. Arwen  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 3:58 pm

  MamaBub, my MIL does exactly the same thing! When we got married, she insisted I keep track of every gift and its giver even after we’d sent the thank-you notes. She said that she loved knowing, 25 years later, who’d given her which wedding present. And I thought: awww, how sweet and sentimental!

  Little did I know that over the following years (8 so far) she would email me *every single time* that one of her friends’ kids got married, to ask what her friends gave us so that she can give a present of equivalent value. And the weird thing is that this is a woman who prides herself on being upper-class. Yick.

  But the worst thing that happened, manners-wise, surrounding my wedding came from my father-in-law. He owns a jewelry store, where we registered (as is de rigeur in my husband’s family) for outrageously expensive china, crystal, and sterling flatware. We also registered at an expensive department store, as my MIL requested. But since my own family and many of our friends are not loaded, I also announced an intention to register at Target. (I didn’t mention the reason.) My FIL’s response: “What, is your family too cheap to get you real gifts?”

  My parents-in-law are not bad people. I don’t have many complaints about them, really. But getting married to my husband sure showed me that well-to-do people often act much, much worse than those who (like many of my family) are poor as church mice. Go figure.

• 109. craftyashley  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 4:33 pm

  Seriously. I totally died from the rudeness!

• 110. Bonnie  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm

  Wow – just wow!

  I’m from Texas (the South) where gifts at the wedding are frowned on and cash gifts are unheard of! So, interesting story Jonniker and I have loved reading everyone else’s examples.

  Some of the entries have my toes curling since I have been guilty when I was much younger and clueless, saying the wrong thing to people about pregnancy, miscarriage and adoption. ACK! Now that I’m 50 – I hope I have learned from my mistakes. I tend to listen more than talk now and keep my inner dialog to myself!

  My husband is currently fighting cancer and this illness presents another cornucopia of social gaffe opportunities. It’s so nice that people want to know how he is doing, but what I don’t like is when they ask HOW he got tonsil cancer – does he smoke?? (judgement, judgement!) In this case, they get more than they bargained for – a lecture on the rise of HPV + oropharyngeal cancer and how they should make sure they get their kids vaccinated for HPV. ; )

  I also am a vegetarian and regularly get challenged DURING dinner on WHY?? I usually respond that if they really want to know, I will be happy to talk about it AFTER the meal. Nothing like talking about Factory Farm conditions to someone who is eating a big ole steak!

• 111. parkingathome  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:21 pm

  This one is more along the lines of unforgivable horribleness.

  My father is a dentist, my mother is a preschool teacher. They divorced when I was 4 years old and my mother raised 6 of us alone. My brother married a nice young lady, her parents getting older and not too well off.

  Well, my brother died. And when it came time to foot the bill of the funeral, my father said that he could not afford to contribute anything. ANYTHING. So the preschool teacher, the widow, and the widow’s poor parents had to pay for it all.

  My father just got back from a 19 day tour of Ireland.

• 112. Dani  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:42 pm

  I know I told my rude story earlier but I just remembered another doozy that I just had to share. I work in an office that a lot of elderly people frequent. I understand that at some point all their common sense leaks out if their heads. Anyhow I have worked at the same place for nearly six years and have been married all that time. Recently an elderly client was shocked to find out that I am married. She said I looked too young to be married and own my own home. As we continued our conversation she asked me if I had any children. When I told her no she asked why. Before I could say anything she asked how long I have been married. When I answered nearly six years she screwed up her face and said “I was a good Catholic girl and was pregnant four months after I got married”. OMG I wanted to die. Um for real you old woman. For all that old bitty knew I couldn’t have kids or just recovered from some horrid disease or had a miscarriage. I still hate her and dread having to be polite when she comes to the office.

• 113. Melissa  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 6:48 pm

  Both situations are incredibly shitty – the wedding one just downright appalling (I’m not AS shocked by the bridezilla comment), but it’s a whole nother story entirely when it involves your kid.

  I was at McDonalds (don’t judge me) with my 3 kids and a friend and her 2 boys. Some random grandmother (I assume, for she was old) came over to ask my friend where she got her boys’ hair cut (their hair is on the longer side). My friend told her, and the woman went on to explain that she loved the longer hair, and that whenever she took her grandson (?) for a haircut, he came out “looking like THAT,” pointing to, you guessed it, MY (short-haired) SON. I didn’t say anything, because it’s relatively hard to tell someone to go fuck herself when your jaw is on the floor.

  When the woman left my friend apologized to me for not pointing out her rudeness, not that I was angry with her in any way or expected her to say anything, but I obviously wasn’t being overly sensitive in thinking that was just ridiculously rude. Of course I glared at that woman the rest of the time we were there and thought of all the things I SHOULD have said.

  And really, how hard is it to say “HEY, DON’T CUT HIS HAIR SHORT” when she takes her kid (or grandkid OMG I DON’T KNOW SHE WAS OLD) in? She really needs to go out of her way to find another salon to take a THREE YEAR OLD to?! Wherever she ended up taking him, I hope they misunderstood and gave him a buzz cut.

• 114. Sara  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 7:12 pm

  SOOO RUDDDDE! The wedding one especially since people have up to a year to send gifts. And you are supposed to send thank you notes to those who attend regardless of gift or not.

  And the ring one! OH man! Shalllowww! Hers could have been crappier diamonds, or you could have preferred something smaller ( I actually do, I use my hands all the time and couldn’t have a big ole rock on there, my ring gets caught often enough already)

• 115. Maggie  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 7:59 pm

  I need my smelling salts after reading this comment section. And to think the rudest wedding story I’d heard is when my sister’s old roommate asked for people to cough up cash for the honeymoon ON the invitation. QUELLE HORREUR!

• 116. jana  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 8:20 pm

  Ooh, boy. These are all doozies.

  Two about my MIL:

  A few years back my MIL, who unfortunately suffers from chronic back pain, was encouraged by her doctor to get therapy for depression related to her chronic pain issues. She was talking to my husband and I about therapy, sort of derisively questioning what kind of crazy people get therapy, and, to be helpful and candid, I mentioned that I had talked to a therapist a few times over the years. “What for?” she asked. I told her (for the first time) that I had struggled with eating disorders for more than a decade. She laughed (LAUGHED!) and said “Well, I can tell that’s not a problem any more.” And then, in case I didn’t get it, she added, “Because if it was you’d be thinner.”

  For the record, at the time I wore about a size four.

  On a similar note, more than once when my husband and I would get to his parents’ house after a long road trip (several hours), she would say, “Son, are you hungry? Can I make you a sandwich?” To me, nothing.

• 117. danish  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 8:42 pm

  My sister told my husband shortly after our wedding, “I give it two years.”

  We’ve been married almost 5.

  Stupid Whore.

• 118. .  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 8:51 pm

  One of my best friends just told me that unless I was willng to leave my 1 year old child (for the first time EVER and is still nursing) to go to her destination wedding 16 hours of combined car/air/car travel away that she could not only NOT understand she simply could no longer be my friend. When we offered for my husband to watch her during the ceremony and reception she said she didn’t even want her on the PREMISES. OF THE RESORT.

  Then she told me our friendship was unfulfillng anyway.

  Dude, F-ing weddings man.

  Dude, F-ing weddings. SERIOUSLY.

• 119. .  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:02 pm

  Also feel compelled to say that I never begrudged her desire to have a kid free wedding, that I loved her and supported her and wanted her to have the wedding she wanted (baby free) I just…couldn’t go.

  Now am feeling like the huge asshole after reading the comment from whoever had the kid free wedding….

• 120. .  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:07 pm

  Also feel compelled to say child is not monster? Really? That I try crazy hard to be a conscientious parent? Which is why I was totally okay with it but knew I just couldn’t go? GRAH?

  Okay. I’ll shut up now.

• 121. LJ  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:35 pm

  Oh. My. People can be such incredible morons. My (now 3 year old) son was adopted at birth, and many friends & coworkers knew I was adopting. Twice now I have run into someone I haven’t seen in a long while when I’m out with him been I asked- IN FRONT OF HIM- from what country I got him. The first time I told the woman ‘Ghana’ and when she asked where that was, I told her to look it up,then just walked away with my strawberry blond haired,blue eyed son. Since then I’ve found the best response is silence. Complete silence,maybe with a slight head tilt and intense eye contact…and it’s almost fun to count the seconds until they squirm. Silence can work on the phone, too…

  and your self control is stellar, because the friend with the bigger ring would have gotten a “so is your ego” from me before I could have stopped myself. Or maybe even a “you’ll appreciate that when you split up”. Witch

• 122. KateLar  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:51 pm

  Is it awful that I’m sort of loving this? I am reading these comments with my mouth hanging wide open.

  Last summer my mom planned a family reunion for a side of her family that had never held one. She loves genealogy so she invited some more distant family that she’d reconnected with recently. She was a total pro event planner; sent save-the-dates, and then detailed packets of information to each person invited (maps, activities, RSVP instructions, etc.) since it was a destination reunion of sorts. On the first night of the reunion, we were all hanging out and having dinner (that my mom provided: drinks too!) when out of nowhere TWELVE people walked up and announced that they were our extended family (my mom had invited two of them, and they brought all of their relatives). They drove three states to be there, but they never RSVP’d. The final straw (after drinking all of the wine, ahem) was the next day when we all went river rafting (which my mom had organized). I asked my new “cousin” if she was going rafting and she replied that she was staying behind with her mother who had Parkinson’s and then proceeded to tell me off about how it obviously wasn’t an activity that was planned with *everyone* in mind. She thought that WE were the rude ones!

  Oh my GOD!

• 123. Charlotte  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:57 pm

  I always just figure that people who are unnecessarily rude are just very unhappy in their lives or maybe lacking in tact and just deserve pity. Reading over these comments has got me rethinking this stance.

  a) I was at Whole Foods this past Sunday and saw/overheard the oddest thing. The stock guy turns to a guy with a Baby Bjorn and says, “what a cute kid.” The guy thanks him and stock person says, “is it yours?” Baby Bjorn is in disbelief, gives a, “what, huh, what?” And stock guy repeats himself. Baby Bjorn says, “um, yeah.” Then stock guy breaks into the most gigantic grin and wishes him a Happy Father’s Day and gives him warm congratulations. I held my breath the entire time.

  b) For my grandmother’s birthday (or Mother’s Day, maybe) I gave her a lovely crystal vase. She thanked me politely in front of company but on my way out whispered in my ear that she knows the economy has tanked and that maybe next year I could give her a proper gift. Mind you, the vase in question was Baccarat.

  c) When I was fourteen I was sitting in my aunt and uncle’s living room watching television with another aunt. It was late and a commercial came on for a fat busting product or some such nonsense promising to help you reach your weight loss goal. Aunt turns to me and asks what my weight loss goal is. I told her that given that I was a size four I didn’t quite see the need for one. She laughed in my face and offered me surgical grade laxatives (I suppose it was what they give you before gastric bypass) during the same stay.

  d) Then there are the random people who come up to me and ask, “what are you?” because of the whole ethnic ambiguity thing I sport. Or strangers and acquaintances breaking out the classic, “you’d be a [some synonym of pretty] girl if…” Or giving a compliment with a tone of disbelief such as, “you have no backfat/cellulite/batwings.” Argh. People suck. We need to start a commune or something.

• 124. SwingCheese  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm

  Bonnie, if someone is going to be rude enough to give you the stink eye and make rude comments about being a vegetarian, I think that while they’re eating a big, juicy steak is the PERFECT time to go into great detail about factory farming. And slaughterhouse conditions.

  But I have another rude story to add, from a co-worker:

  When I was pregnant, she came to tell me how much she knew that I would enjoy being a mom because she didn’t think she was going to enjoy it, because she was so PROFESSIONAL, but she loved it and since I wasn’t as professional to begin with, I was sure to love every minute of it.

  This same coworker also told another coworker (and dear friend) who had been trying for children forever, would have been a wonderful mother, and who had just suffered her fifth and final miscarriage that she understood the pain because “she had really wanted a girl, but had only had two boys.” No one really knew what to say to that.

• 125. Jeff  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 11:15 pm

  Ah! I thought of another one.

  We had a friend who was getting married. Not rich, not poor, just…regular like the rest of us. Trying to get by, etc. My daughter was in the wedding and it was lovely. But…before the wedding even occured her maid of honor threw her the bridal shower. Traditional, right? Okay, fine. Then this woman has the unmitigated GALL to state that she didn’t “get enough stuff” at the first shower, and she wanted, nay DEMANDED that she get another shower, which she did. RUDE RUDE RUDE!

  I couldn’t believe her maid of honor actually did it. If my daughter hadn’t been in the wedding and we’d already bought the damn dress we wouldn’t even have went.

  It’s not about the loot, people. As someone else mentioned above, stop concentrating so much on the DAY and pay more attention to the MARRIAGE.

  Above example…? Didn’t even kiss at the wedding, they hugged, for crying out loud, and they stayed married for just a few years.

• 126. Kacey  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 12:35 am

  OMFG 1)Oh, how I wish your mom hadn’t sent that present yet! 2) I think kid-free weddings are sort-of rude anyway if you are inviting people with kids, inviting only certain kids makes me vomit in my mouth, and I feel strongly that if my child isn’t welcome neither am I. I will happily RSVP no, send a card and stay with my boy, but I would never choose a party over my baby and anyone who would expect me two is not my friend. 3) My son is 1/2 Guatemalan and I have (more than once!) had someone look at me, look at him, look back at me and ask “So, uh, is he MIXED WITH SOMETHING?” WTF

• 127. Jessica  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 1:57 am

  My fiance and I share a house with his brother. His brother bought “fancy” new pans and knives from Sam’s Club and when he decided that we didn’t take care of them well enough, he started hiding them in his bedroom. The final straw for me was when he started posting on his Facebook wall about how much of a shitty housekeeper I was and how he was constantly cleaning up after me. The week before this, he had left out pots and pans full of fettucini and alfredo sauce for a few days. It wasn’t the first time he’d neglected to clean up after himself. Needless to say, I unfriended him.

• 128. J  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 8:47 am

  I don’t know why it is, but people seem to turn off their filter when they encounter a pregnant woman. I recieved all sorts of rude comments, a few of my favorites were “Holy shit Jess, you’re huge!”…”Wow you used to have a really flat stomach” and “My God, that baby is going to be GIGANTIC”. (she was a very normal 7 lbs 10 oz thanks very much)…I also would have the same 5 or 6 people as me the same questions over and over like ‘When are you due again?” and ‘Where are you registered again?” Uhmm.. Aug 16 and Babies R Us..the information hasn’t changed since the last 4 times you asked!!! I guess this one is more of an annoyance than rudeness- but any little thing sets you off when you’re so nice and hormonal.

  I will never understand bringing small children to a wedding (unless it’s absolutely ncessary of course)..but I would think that a parent would like to have a few kid free hours and take advantage of the open bar. Maybe it’s just me but my kid stays home!

• 129. Lindsay  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 10:01 am

  I started my first job out of school and spent the first year losing a considerable amount of weight. I was down to a size 10 and looking good. Unfortunately, over the next 3 years I gained it all back and then some to be a size 16. I was horrified by how out of control I felt about my body and my addiction to eating processed crap. I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone and hated to think what people around me were thinking after they had all been so supportive of and excited about my “transformation.” One day a coworker cornered me in the office and asked point blank how much weight I had gained back. I was so shocked and stunned I told her the truth that I had gained it all back. She just shook her head and said it was a real shame and then walked away. Unbelievable. That’s been 6 years ago and I still can’t believe it.

• 130. Steph  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 10:38 am

  My SIL is awesome at rudeness. I’m pretty sure she majored in it in college. Or maybe even got a graduate degree in it.

  Anyway, two examples: Example the first, my wedding. We had planned to take all our pictures before the wedding so that obviously required the wedding party to arrive and be primped and ready earlier than “normal”. Wedding at 3, I had hired 3 hairdressers to come to the church and do my bridesmaids’ hair (which I PAID FOR) and so I staggered “appointment times” to try and accommodate different schedules and distances and those who had kids blah blah blah. Agonized over the scheduling b/c I knew some people would have to be there earlier, etc. I gave my SIL the LAST possible appointment b/c she had a 1 year old. I also got lots of input from my actual FRIENDS on the dresses and all that good stuff (she knows she’s just in the wedding party by default for being the groom’s sister right?!).

  ANYWAY. About a week before the wedding I get an email that was CLEARLY not intended for me as it ranted on for paragraphs about how much she is dreading the wedding and how insensitive I was about her daughter’s nap schedule (hello! Surrounded by friends, families, babysitters, not to mention a nursery was provided for the wedding again PAID FOR BY ME) and how ugly she was going to be in the wedding and I wasn’t good enough for her brother. Yeah. She realized later that she’d sent it to the wrong person and called me in a panic and asked me not to read it. I was bawling so I couldn’t be rude back, plus it’s my husband’s sister so I have to put up with her for forever. I still haven’t forgiven her and that was 4 years ago. I’m sure she has completely forgotten it.

  Example the second: My husband and I decided to do cloth diapers (we have a now 1 year old). It was not a decision made lightly b/c of expense and extra “hassle” with washing them, etc. Everyone around us pretty much thought we were crazy, but my SIL WOULD NOT LET IT GO. She kept telling me how ridiculous it was and “gross” (really?) and how I would hate it. Then. THEN. At my baby shower she gave me a pack of disposable diapers and a pack of wipes. I kind of raised my eyebrows but said thank you (we were in front of all the people–her side of the family) and she said, laughing, “I know you won’t last doing cloth, that’s to have when you give up the second day”. (No, she had never tried cloth.)

  I LOVE the cloth diapers (so EASY! So much better than disposables! I big puffy heart them!), but even if I hadn’t I decided at that moment that I would stick with them JUST TO SHOVE IT IN HER FACE. Grrrrr.

  There are so many examples, these are just the 2 that stick in my craw the MOST. We call them [SIL's name] stories around our part.

  ROOOOD.

• 131. Hashak  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 10:51 am

  Wow. That’s all I can say. These comments are unbelievable.

  The rudest thing I can think of regarding our wedding. We got a card from one of my husband’s friends (even though he didn’t sign it, we knew it had to be him) that just said:

  “Don’t be a statistic.”

  Ouch. I will stay married JUST TO SPITE HIM!

• 132. Linda  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 1:02 pm

  Let’s see . . .

  1. I was asked by a Catholic if it bothered me that my twins (conceived with in-vitro fertilization) were conceived in sin. (No, since I’m NOT Catholic and don’t believe IVF is a sin.)

  Another Catholic told me that my girls didn’t have souls because they were conceived with IVF. (Um, my God doesn’t let SOULLESS CHILDREN wander around, but I guess yours does?)

  2. When I came back from maternity leave with my 3rd, my patient’s family asked if I was pregnant and I said, no, I just had a baby 3 months ago and the wife said, “oh yes, I could tell because of your stomach” and then she pantomimed a belly on herself.

• 133. MinivanSoapbox  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 2:19 pm

  It’s one of those moments where you want to go back in time – just for a second – and relive that moment. Personally, when she said her ring was bigger than mine – I would have said “Yes, maybe. But your fiance is ugly” But…that’s just me. You’re probably nicer than me.

• 134. Christine  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 2:37 pm

  Ugh, after reading these comments I feel compelled to add that I didn’t find my in-laws rude because of the fact that the gift was small, but that it was the fact that they had invited someone who was clearly NOT invited, coupled with the fact that their gift did not cover the price of the uninvited guest’s dinenr.

  Also as someone who had a childfree wedding, I assure you it wasn’t out of rudeness, but the fact that we had a relatively young wedding as most of it was friends and not family and my wedding began at 7pm with an open bar and lots and lots of drinking until the wee hours and after party. For those who had children, I totally offered to find a baby sitter to stay in the hotel across the street from our venue with their children. We absolutely wanted no children there, no special exceptions.

• 135. Amy  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm

  I thought of another one! When I was newly pregnant with my daughter, a “friend’s” mom asked me outloud, in front of everyone, if the child was my husband’s. What I actually said was “yes”. What i was thinking in my head was, “I AM NOT A WHORE, but thanks very much for that.” She followed my reply with, “Well, you never know!” WTF, I barely know her.

• 136. beyond  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 3:50 pm

  as someone who encouraged people NOT to give us wedding gifts, i can truly say that your story killed me dead.
  i have a day job in an high-end shoe boutique right now, and am hating people these days. rude rich ladies, talking loudly on cell phones, picking up shoes from the shelves, looking at them, then DROPPING them on the floor, wrecking general havoc in the store etc ugh.

• 137. Amanda Z.  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 5:47 pm

  This is probably the best wedding story every, and totally beats my wedding story:

  During our wedding reception, immediately after eating and when all the crazy fun and photos were taking place, my aunt came up to me (the bride) and asked, “CAN YOU CUT THE CAKE NOW? WE WANT TO START DRIVING HOME.”

  I can’t even remember what I did! I think I went and told my mother and then completely disregarded it. If my wedding was such a waste of their time they shouldn’t have come. AND, these are the same people whom RSVPd for 3, when 2 were invited. They wanted to bring their 35 year old son, and yes, I paid for his dinner.

  (P.S. I have been reading your blog for a long time and I LOVE LOVE LOVE your dry sarcasm, kinda like mine. You make me smile, and sometimes cry when I laugh.)

• 138. Mon  |  June 23rd, 2010 at 9:30 pm

  Totally late to the party on this one, but a few months ago, my 5 month pregnant sis and I were at Target. This seemingly normal looking woman randomly asks my sister if she’s going to breastfeed. Sis says no and leaves it at that. Woman STARES. I finally say “she’s on medication where she cannot breastfeed”, because I’m one to speak while sis has jaw on the ground. Anyway, the worst part was, the lady looks at me and says “are you her sister?”. Upon learning I was, she says to me “oh, why don’t you just do it FOR her?” WTF, WTF, 1000 times WTF???? Lady, it doesn’t work that way. Anyway, I just stammered “Uh, I’m on medication, too”, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say (my jaw was digging a tunnel underground at this point).

• 139. Suebob  |  June 24th, 2010 at 12:01 am

  Best comment thread ever, and perfect for the moment, because I have been incredibly mad all day. My niece is getting a divorce and moving, and she has 2 kids and doesn’t make a ton of money, so I sent her a fairly significant check out of the blue to help with expenses.

  She cashed the check but hasn’t even contacted me via email or text or facebook or phone to say thanks. I mean, she’s not indebted to me, and she didn’t ask for money…but “Thanks” would be nice, right? A word?

  Here’s my favorite wedding rudeness:
  Co-worker cancelled her wedding the day before. She sent out a letter saying “We still really need the gifts and would prefer to keep them, but if you do want them back, please let us know and we will make other arrangements.”

  I was SO MAD. The nerve. I sent an email saying that yes, since I bought off the registry, they could credit back my card. That never happened.

• 140. Tweets that mention Headl&hellip  |  June 24th, 2010 at 12:38 am

  [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by suebob, jonniker. jonniker said: Please join the catharsis of sharing blinding rudeness. Some of these comments are BLOWING MY MIND: http://bit.ly/byd5J6 [...]

• 141. becky  |  June 24th, 2010 at 2:00 am

  I was pregnant & at Babies R Us, checking our registry to see if we’d forgotten to put anything on there. At that point, I was pretty far along & of average belly size. The lady at the REGISTRY COUNTER asked me how many I was having. I said one. She asked IF I WAS SURE and laughed like she thought it was funny.

  HELLO? Do you think I’ve already had an ultrasound or two? What a way to tell me I’m huge, lady. (She didn’t know me from Adam.) Who asks that type of question, much less asks if I’m sure?

• 142. Chris H.  |  June 24th, 2010 at 6:54 am

  I have two stories: first, my wedding. We wanted our ceremony to be just immediate family and close friends for several reasons: I didn’t have any extended family that could come given that the wedding was far away from my home (different country even), location was small, and that’s what we wanted! We explained to my husband’s aunts, uncles, cousins, the reasons, but made sure to tell them how much we wanted them at the reception. They came to the reception, but sat in a corner pouting, complaining that it wasn’t a real wedding b/c we didn’t register, I didn’t wear a wedding dress, etc., and then actually got into a heated argument with my husband over why I wasn’t going to change my name. My brother videoed it for me!

  The other rudeness occurred when I was sick. I was getting ready to start chemo for breast cancer and had to have a heart scan to make sure my heart was okay. That morning I had had surgery to implant a port-a-cath for the chemo so I was groggy and nauseated. My MIL, FIL, and I were in the waiting room at the heart clinic for a while as they were having a hard time reading my scan. Ended up having to have a different scan. I became increasingly nauseated so my MIL asked them if they had any crackers. The nurses were great – they went and got me a Coke and some saltines. I was sitting there eating a bunch of saltines, willing myself not to throw up. A woman in the waiting room with her husband(?) was staring at me for a while. It was clear that I wasn’t feeling well – I must have looked terrible. Finally, she came over, put her hand on my knee, and told me that if I kept eating those saltines that I would end up back in that office or worse! The three of us were speechless, but my FIL finally spoke up and told her why we were there. She didn’t even apologize, just went back to chair and continued to stare!

• 143. Jeanne  |  June 24th, 2010 at 8:06 am

  HaHaHa! I’m loving reading these stories!

  My MIL is probably the rudest person I know. I don’t know if it’s because she’s old and doesn’t care what she says, or if she’s always been that way. One year for Christms, our nephew’s new wife agonized over what to get “grandma” for Christmas. She asked her MIL and was told that grandma could use some new kitchen linens. Niece went out and bought a very nic set of oven mitts, towels, dish cloths, etc. The next year at Christmas, neice received half of the gift back: just one oven mitt, one towel, one cloth, etc. and someone else received theother half. I don’t have a problem with re-gifting in general, but re-gifting to the peron who gave it to you, and then only giving half of the gift? WTF?

• 144. Anonymous!  |  June 24th, 2010 at 8:08 am

  When we got married, my in-laws volunteered to pay for the alcohol at the wedding. This is because my side of the family is complete tee-totalers. Like, hard-core BAPTISTS. I wanted to do an open bar, so that we could be charged per head (it would have been $20 a head and the crazy unheard of thing was that the wedding planner at the venue was not even going to charge us for the people who weren’t planning to drink – that NEVER HAPPENS). That would have been about $2000. I know, it’s still a lot of money for alcohol. But my in-laws INSISTED that $2000 would be too much money and they would be overcharged and so they wanted to pay per drink and so we said fine, even though it made no sense.

  The bar bill ended up being $4500. FORTY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. They gave us $2000 to cover it. I am still (very rightfully) pissed about this. We ended up having to foot the rest.

  Also we had a hard time settling on a name for our daughter when she was born, and when we finally decided and called my MIL to tell her, she said, “Oh. I was pulling for the other name. And the name you chose is my sister’s dog’s name, you do realize.”

  I thought my husband was going to march out of there and kill her in her sleep.

• 145. Shelly  |  June 24th, 2010 at 9:06 am

  I’m loving these stories! The rudeness!

  Here’s mine: When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had HORRIBLE morning sickness. Like, all day every day sickness. By the second trimester, it had eased off quite a bit, but I still got sick pretty frequently. At about six months along, I went to a neighborhood party and met a lady I hadn’t met before who had two daughters. We were talking about pregnancy, and I told her about my horrible morning sickness. She then proceeded to tell me her theory that only lazy women who don’t work get morning sickness! She listed off her sister and a couple friends, who didn’t work and “just laid around the house all day” who had had morning sickness. She, working goddess that she was, hadn’t had a day of morning sickness with either pregnancy, because, “my body knew I didn’t have time for that”. I pointedly mentioned that I was working, and walked away.

• 146. Wendy  |  June 24th, 2010 at 10:10 am

  Rudest thing I’ve ever seen? A wedding invitation that included the line “Jane and Bob are registered at your local ATM”

  On the actual invitation! Horrible.

• 147. Sam  |  June 24th, 2010 at 10:55 am

  I’ve got moar!! My husband’s grandma has tried her hardest to slight me at every opportunity. We’re going on 15 years of this.
  My first Christmas with them, she gave me a USED and tarnished keychain, and a bottle of bathsoap that had so much dust on it I know she had to have pulled it out of her cabinet that morning.

  Then my sister in law came in the picture and Grandma’s preference for her was obvious. The following Christmas, we each received a box of cake mix for Christmas (grandma’s a loon). SIL’s was Angelfood. Mine? Devil’s Food.

  Really.

  The woman sends cards to our house for every occasion addressed to my husband and children, but never to me.
  This Mother’s day, I received a card from her. I nearly died from shock! But then I opened it up and discovered that she had meant to mail it to my SIL. It was a very mushy and sweet card. I called SIL to ask if she received mine by mistake, also… Nope.

• 148. Linky linky « Athle&hellip  |  June 24th, 2010 at 11:18 am

  [...] The comments on this post are so mind-boggling to me. I am fascinated by these stories of rudeness. http://www.jonniker.com/2010/06/21/headlights-look-like-diamonds/  [...]

• 149. Kathryn  |  June 24th, 2010 at 11:19 am

  A coworker of mine recently showed me a wedding invitation she’d received. In uppercase bold letters at the bottom………BYOB. Whew, that was the highlight of my workday.

• 150. sarah  |  June 24th, 2010 at 11:48 am

  Ugh, weddings and babies seem to bring out the worst in people- which is awful because these are supposed to be two of the greatest moments in your life!

  I think my (current) rudest story is from just the other day. Husband and I were at the mall, baby was in his stroller babbling to himself and playing with his toys. We were standing in line for coffee and I noticed the woman in front of us kept turning around to smile at the baby and look at the baby. She got her coffee, turned to walk away and went “Cute” sort of casually. I replied “Thanks!” because he IS made up of my DNA and I am a polite person. She walks away, comes back up and taps me on the shoulder. When I turn around she gives me an icy look and goes “I was talking about the baby, just so you know” and stomps away.

  HMMMM.

• 151. Alias Mother  |  June 24th, 2010 at 1:04 pm

  I’m wicked late on this, but Mon’s comment above reminded me how shocked I was whenever I asked if I planned on nursing/was nursing. And this was in professional situations! Yes, random person at a conference, I would love to talk about my boobs with you.

  I’m now on kid #2 and it still floors me every time.

• 152. Amy --- Just A Titch  |  June 24th, 2010 at 3:46 pm

  Best story ever. I love people’s unabashed rudeness.

• 153. Rosie  |  June 24th, 2010 at 3:49 pm

  (Background: I had a miscarriage last week, and a D&C this week. We’d had a miscarriage last year with an announced pregnancy and I really didn’t want to have to deal with everyone’s sympathy again.)

  This week, I emailed my teammates on my rec volleyball team to let them know that I wouldn’t be there, but would find a sub. I had also been gone last week, and once several weeks before. My husband also plays on the team, and he did still play this week.

  One of the girls on the team asked my husband (in the huddle before the game) why I kept missing games. He said something noncommittal about me not feeling well. Not satisfied, she kept bringing it up during and after the game. He kind of lost his temper and said, “Because we lost our f***ing baby today, okay? And we hadn’t announced the pregnancy yet, so we’re just dealing with it on our own.”

  That shut her up. But only temporarily. Later, she had to tell him how she and others had been speculating whether I was pregnant because I hadn’t been drinking, etc, etc. And asked whether she should call me to offer condolences.

  She is clueless.

• 154. metalia  |  June 24th, 2010 at 4:55 pm

  HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, THESE COMMENTS.

  My contribution: A (former) coworker coming over to me when I was about six months pregnant and demanding to know the gender Of my kid (which we weren’t sharing). I politely told her that we were keeping it a secret, whereupon she glanced at me and said, “It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me. I can tell it’s a girl, because girls take away your beauty.” Then she wandered off. DRIVE-BY DOUCHERY, AHOY.

• 155. Sara  |  June 24th, 2010 at 5:56 pm

  Oooh. I just thought of another one. My parents named me Sara, same as my father’s mother. When they told my Grandma Sara for who I am named she said “Well, I wouldn’t give a DOG that name!” WTF?

• 156. Erin  |  June 24th, 2010 at 11:50 pm

  So, I had to chime in with my rude wedding story. And I had to stop reading comments at #75 or I will NEVER go to bed.

  Anyways, my husband’s brother got married several years ago to a very sweet lady that he’d been dating for YEARS. She’s of a different nationality than us, but is fantastic. We all love her.

  So, the outside ceremony is held at my husband’s parent’s house, with a gigantic tent set up to accommodate the reception afterwards.

  The ceremony is under way, and suddenly there is the sound of several cars coming up the driveway. That was distracting enough, but then, the latecomers get out of their cars and start slamming doors and talking amongst themselves as they make their way into the tent. In the native language of the bride.

  THEN, THEN!

  The ceremony is over and the reception is under way and I notice that several of my new sister-in-law’s relatives are going to every table and scarfing ANY and ALL unattended favors.

  And bottles of wine.

  And centerpieces.

  Anything that wasn’t nailed down was fair game.

  Like, people were making for their cars with ARMS FULL of stuff.

  So, my husband’s mother discovers this and politely confronts some of them, explaining that the centerpieces weren’t meant to be taken home, as she had some sentimental attachment to them (they’d also been used in her daughter’s wedding). While my husband’s mother is talking with some of the relatives about this, others are hurrying around to the other tables to get what was missed before they get caught.

  It was the single most shocking thing I have ever witnessed.

  Also at that same wedding? The photographer STOPPED THE CEREMONY after the vows to TAKE PICTURES. I shit you not. I have NO pictures from the ceremony (wherein I was sitting in the front row) that do not also contain the world’s most intrusive wedding photographer EVER.

• 157. Anon  |  June 25th, 2010 at 12:30 am

  I swear, if what happened to your mom happened to me, I would have marched over to the couple’s house to take back the gift and painting. THE NERVE WTF?!?! Also, I have wedding stories:

  Numero uno: My husband’s SISTER didn’t come to our wedding because her (now ex) boyfriend’s niece was having a birthday party the same day. She turned 3. They aren’t all that close but REALLY?!

  Numero dos: My (only, and formerly very close) cousin had cancer a several years ago. She started a blog to keep family and friends updated, and kept it going as a regular life blog after she got better. Last year, few months before my wedding, she starts RIPPING on me in this post….that many of our family and family friends still read…about how my ridiculousness over my wedding is “TEARING MY FAMILY APART” and that I’m taking advantage of our Grandfather’s good will of offering me money to help with the wedding by having outlandishly expensive photographers and locations and that “GUESS THE BAD ONES ALWAYS GET THE ATTENTION” and “SHE ALWAYS GETS THE HANDOUTS.”

  I cried for hours, honestly believing that something I was doing was tearing my family apart and that everyone was upset…until I got a hold of my aunt and found out she was horrified by the whole thing and no one was thinking any such things.

  For the record, I had a terrible childhood with rotten parents, and was always quietly jealous of my cousin’s wonderful parents that she never appreciated. Also, my Grandpa (he offered and we didn’t even know how much until we received the check in the mail) contributed $500 to our $2000, tiny, wonderful wedding at our own church. Which a friend photographed for free. And which family friends helped to potluck.

  WTF?!?!?! I’ve never gotten over it yet. I sent her a lovely “Yep, I do still read your blog because I, know, CARE about you, and also, HOW DARE YOU” email. She wrote back half apologizing but saying not everything she writes on her blog is true, some stuff is for entertainment value, and that she thought only two friends living out of state read it. BULLSHIT.

  She came to the wedding and didn’t smile in any of the pictures. Actually, they look like she purposefully frowned. Lovely. Oh, and she got us the $5 EuroSealer off our registry. Just made me laugh.

• 158. Rhi  |  June 25th, 2010 at 10:56 am

  Um. Wow. Dying. DYING.

• 159. Che_ken  |  June 25th, 2010 at 1:35 pm

  Greatest hits of rudeness:

  1. I lost all my hair from a medication reaction for an autoimmune disease. I got both of the following lines many times from many people: 1. You look like you belong in a concentration camp and 2: At least it’s not cancer.

  2. The day of my baby shower, my widowed step-grandma dropped off the gift since she couldn’t make it to the shower, as she had a date with the guy she was screwing in my grandfather’s house. She asked me how much weight I gained, and with 100% honesty I said, “about 5lbs” and she looked at me over her glasses and says, “Oh, I’d wager it’s a great deal more than that” Well fuck you very much. Peace out.

  3. After my daughter was born, an event which left me within hours of death and rendered infertile, a coworker asked when I would have my next child. I said, “I can’t have any more children” with as much courage as I could muster, and she said, “That’s better anyway, one is a family, any more than that is insanity”. She has two children.

• 160. Eliz  |  June 25th, 2010 at 3:37 pm

  What is it about weddings that bring out the worst?

  I have two wedding-themed outrages to share: When my cousin got married, my aunt was so riled up over a relative who never RSVP’d that she drove my grandmother to tears. It was my grandmother’s sister, who at the time was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s (though we didn’t fully realize it at the time). She must have RSVP’d yes but didn’t come. Anyway, my aunt RAILED AND FROTHED at my grandmother for hours, and — goody! — I got to hear it all bc we were all at the same table that night. She told my grandmother (her MIL) how RUDE it was and how much money they were out bc this great-aunt never showed up. RAILED! (Like it was my grandmother’s fault?)

  And then she berated my grandmother for not making a reservation at the hotel where the wedding was (it was 20 min from my grandparents’ house) because that meant someone was going to have to leave the wedding to drive them home. (They were at that shouldn’t-drive-at-night stage of their lives.) My grandparents, at 80-something, just weren’t going to book a hotel room so they could get loaded and party all night after their granddaughter’s wedding, you know? And when I said I’d be glad to drive them home — cause I wanted nothing more than to get the HELL outta there — she yelled at me and said, “Don’t be a jerk! They deserve what they get.”

  THEN (can you see what’s coming?), when I got married a year later, my younger cousin didn’t show up, after my aunt had called me personally to RSVP for her and my uncle and my cousin and his girlfriend. When I asked if everything was OK and where he was, she said that he went to a car show instead and that I shouldn’t have expected him anyway, since he’s a boy and boys don’t like weddings.

  Then she told everyone that she wore pants because I wasn’t serving a “real meal,” only cocktails and hors.

  Non-wedding-related: My husband recently told his father that he might have to take a job out of town, leaving me and our daughter for a few months. When my FIL told my husband’s stepmother, she said, “That sounds like a separation to me. I guess she’s divorcing him because he’s not making enough money.” I suspected she thought I was entitled, but there’s nothing like getting proof.

• 161. Shea  |  June 25th, 2010 at 4:30 pm

  OK-delurking- I keep coming back and reading the new entries and I just can’t stand but to join in:

  My daughter was an infant that cried literally 12 hours a day. Call it colic, call it acid reflux, call it nervous mother- whatev….that it beside the point. She tended to REALLy wig out when we tried to go out so we stayed home 99% of the time for nearly the first year of her life. ANYWAY- when she was about 3 months old-my mom and two sisters convinced me to meet them out for lunch at an outdoor cafe. As per usual- about two minutes into lunch she started crying uncontrollably so my older sister started walking with her down the street to calm her down. A store about two doors down had a display of these bright colored windcatcher things that spun round and round outside there door. My daughter stopped crying when she saw them and just stared in awe. My sister literally sat with her on the bench and let her stare at it until we finished lunch. I was so excited that something- anything had calmed her down that I decided to go into the store to buy the thing. As I was checking out at the store, my infant daughter pooped her diaper. (Aside- 100% breastfed infant = not bad smelling poop). So my sister asked the shop girl where the restroom was and was told they did not have one available to the public. She then she started to head into the dressing room and the girl told her she could not change the baby’s diaper in the dressing room. At this point my sister got really irked and sat in a “folding metal” chair and started to change the diaper on on her lap. The girl then actually picked up the phone and said she was going to call the police b/c my sister changed a diaper in her store. I was such a postpartum mess by that point I think it took me 3 weeks and a prescription of paxil to finally quit crying. RUDE. RUDE. RUDE.

• 162. HereWeGoAJen  |  June 25th, 2010 at 8:08 pm

  Your mom needs to call them immediately and say that she hasn’t received her thank you note yet and obviously it was lost in the mail so they’d better send a new one immediately.

• 163. Amanda  |  June 26th, 2010 at 2:23 pm

  Late to the party, but I had to chime in:

  1) My boyfriend’s mother wanted to invite ALL of his ex girlfriend’s mothers to our baby shower. ALL OF THEM. Not just the ones from eons ago, but like, the last one that he broke up with and she burned half of his clothes? Her mom. Because they were her friends. And why shouldn’t she get to invite her friends to my shower? (Maybe because it was my shower, not a gd barbeque for her buddies.)

  2) We also decided to do cloth diapers. The BF’s mother, true to form, said “I’ll never change a cloth diaper. Never. Never have, never will. Won’t do it, you can’t make me. They’re gross and dirty and stupid.” So when our son goes to her house in a cloth, he comes back in a disposable, with his cloth diaper balled up in the bottom of his diaper bag. She REFUSES to use them and mocks them every chance she gets, knowing that I love them and am very proud that we use them.

  3)This is the worst one. Back story: My mother died 5 years ago of esophageal cancer. For her radiation she was given tiny blue dot tattoos on her sternum and ribcage, to line up the machine. Also, she loved dragonflies. So when she died terribly, 4 months after being suddenly diagnosed, my sisters and I got blue dragonflies tattooed – mine is on my sternum because of where her dots were, and because it’s the most painful place to get a tattoo. (Symbolic, obviously, because losing her in that way was the most painful thing I could imagine.) So. I’m at a party for the boyfriend’s uncle, and his mother is ten feet away. She looks right at me, makes EYE CONTACT, and starts talking to some random relative about how tattoos are tacky and cheap and ugly, especially ones that are VISIBLE and in SUGGESTIVE PLACES. Staring at me, the whole time. I was sitting there with my newborn, in shock. It was 8 months ago and I’m STILL MAD.

  She’s an awful woman. AWFUL. RUDE RUDE RUDE.

• 164. Rebekah  |  June 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm

  This mandatory gift-giving thing has gotten so out of hand. The idea that anyone is OBLIGATED to buy you a gift because you get engaged. you get married, you have a baby BLOWS. MY. MIND. If I’m not mistaken, when I chose to get married, didn’t that make it my (and my husband’s) responsibility to obtain those things we needed for OUR household? When we choose to have a baby, won’t it be OUR responsibility to buy our kid clothes, diapers, toys? I didn’t want to sign up for a wedding registry because it felt like I was saying “Here’s a list of things you can buy me.” — which is exactly what it was. My mom convinced me to do so though because she felt that IF someone wanted to buy us a gift, they would rather buy us something we wanted and a registry made it easier for the guests. With that in mind I did not list a $500 grill or a bedroom suite or a 20-piece set of Le Creuset. I kept everything well under $100 including my china which (almost 12 years later) remains in its original boxes, never used.

  And finally, to my story of rudeness or, as I like to call it “Lady, you have some really big balls”:

  Years ago, a former co-worker became pregnant via artificial insemination and as the time drew near for when one typically has a baby shower, she threw her own baby shower for herself and her partner because, as she put it to another co-worker, “I never had the chance to get gifts from a wedding registry like you did when you got married so this is my turn.” Because she is a lesbian and did not have a wedding or commitment ceremony the rest of us OWED her a kick ass baby shower. There had to be 70 people at that baby shower, bigger than my wedding, and she got the gifts, oh yes she did.

  (On a side note, she was not a warm fuzzy kinda gal and she never struck me as very motherly. I heard from another couple, years later, that the child ended up being really quite partial to her other mother who always seemed down to earth and quite humble.)

• 165. tracey  |  June 27th, 2010 at 9:00 pm

  The comments have become an entity of their own! Wow…

  Rude stuff usually rolls off my back. I try to let it go but some things stick with you no matter what. Ahem.

  This one time, (at band camp) I was told how lucky I was to have snagged a husband that worked so hard that I was able to stay at home and get sunburned at the pool with my kids. “Yes, How lucky!” I agreed (on FACEBOOK, no less), “that my husband has a wife who is willing to take care of his 3 children so that HE can have a CAREER. I ‘get to’ stay home and eat bon bons and while my life away, cleaning the basement when it floods and explaining exactly WHY my son needs to learn algebra. Lucky, lucky me!”

• 166. Andrea  |  June 28th, 2010 at 8:28 am

  I don’t have any rude wedding stories, since my husband and I eloped. We had a low key part at my parents house a few weeks later. However, I get rude things said to me all the time. I’m asked often what I am, since I don’t fit into a preconceived racial category. The rudest conversation I’ve ever had happened was at the doctors office. I had a miscarriage the week prior and was having some compications. I needed to get in right away so I made an appointment with a new dr that was two min away from my job. I waited an hour, then had to wait in her office before getting an exam. She asked what I did for a living, I told her and she said “oh, you take care of babies and you lost a baby, huh.” then she said “sometimes it’s not meant to be, and I’m not saying it’s anything you did but taking a prenatal vitamin may have helped.” I was taking one, but for some reason she assumed I wasn’t. She also gave me an unexpected pelvic exam with no lube and no warning. WTF. Another time I was with the kids I watch when a powerwalking grandma doubled back to tell me that her daughter hired “girls like me” (whatever that means) and if she caught them texting she would fire them. I had been texting when she walked by, but the kids were all within five feet of me, I was watching them closely, AND I was texting their mom not that it was any of her business. I’m not white, like most people in the area, and I look younger than I am but still not excuse for the rude. I’ve also been with this family for five years! I hate this area with it’s busy bodies.

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• 168. Morrigan  |  June 30th, 2010 at 11:54 am

  I am clearly (very) late to the party, but I had to share my own story of wedding rudeness. My husband and I married after dating for ten years. Due to personal preference and the fact that we paid for our own wedding, we wanted to have no more than 80 people at an evening wedding and cocktail party reception. We had tonnes of food and an open bar, and it was our hope that everyone there would know they were invited because they are important to us and would have a wonderful time.

  My MIL insisted that we invite one of her cousins to the wedding. I had never met her, and had not been invited to join my then-boyfriend when her own daughter got married a couple of years earlier. In an effort to keep the family peace, we sent an invitation. The cousin in question chose not to come and gave the invitation to her other daughter who RSVPed for herself and a guest. I was appalled! It never occured to me that a wedding invitation needed a disclaimer of “non-transferrable” stamped on the bottom. Luckily, both the cousin’s daughter and her boyfriend were lovely, but it doesn’t negate the rudeness IMHO!

• 169. Blythe  |  July 7th, 2010 at 1:23 pm

  I started reading with horror (OMG she called and ASKED for a gift?!) and it has gone on from there.

  But I think I’m getting old, because I’m a little sympathetic to some of these people. Rude, yes, (and in some cases unforgivably so – “You look like you are from a concentration camp?”!! EEK) but maybe also just uncomfortable and stressed (see: wedding behavior). And insecure.

  And totally inappropriate (“I see where you get your big boobs.”)

  Holy Cow.

• 170. Temerity Jane » Blo&hellip  |  July 12th, 2010 at 2:08 pm

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• 171. Amanda  |  July 12th, 2010 at 3:27 pm

  My now-husband and I were together 12 years, 7 of them living in a house we bought together and 2 as officially engaged, when we discovered we were expecting. A few months before our daughter was born, his grandmother informed me in front of the entire family, including the cousin whose second child was born well after her divorce and third child born to a father no one in the family has met, that we had better get married pretty quickly as “we don’t want a little bastard child running around.” OMG.

• 172. Adlib  |  July 12th, 2010 at 3:55 pm

  Here via TJ’s blog. Wow. My mind – she is blown. (by both the OP and the comments)

  Here’s one of mine. My SIL is my husband’s only sibling, and the only relative in town. While we housesat for them when their first son was born, they didn’t even tell us about the birth of their second! We heard it via my FIL on the phone. Not forgetful exactly, just thoughtless, like they are with everything else. I know that’s like a 3 on the rudeness scale, but still, irritating as all get out to us.

  Once my mom and sister went into a Walmart for the pharmacy. The actual pharmacist saw them standing at a register (both were empty), and he finally put a “closed” sign in front of the one they were at (without helping them) and said something to the others like “You have to put the sign out or else they just don’t get it.” My mom explained (probably much too nicely) that it wasn’t clear which empty register to stand in front of and she is not, in fact, an idiot. The guy didn’t really respond much and walked away so my sister shouted “Don’t apologize or anything!” So he tosses “sorry” over his shoulder. They reported him to the store manager and then transferred their prescriptions. (And yes, this was the head pharmacist that acted like such an asshat. Crazy.)

• 173. Courtney  |  July 12th, 2010 at 4:56 pm

  Another here from TJ’s recc That horrible bit of wedding rudeness totally reminded me of this:

  At my best friend’s wedding reception, we all gathered around to watch her do the traditional father-daughter dance. The song started, and of course it was sappy-sweet and super emotional and everything. Right in the middle of the sniffles and dead quiet, the AUNT of the bride turns to HER daughter, and tells her to get out on the floor with HER father and dance…AT HER COUSIN’S WEDDING. NOT HERS. ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME. I almost threw up right there out of embarrassment for this woman who CLEARLY doesn’t know how weddings work.

  She also pulled little stunts like that throughout the entire wedding process. She tried to get her daughter to get up and try on wedding dresses for pictures while we were helping the bride find hers. I just…I can’t even fathom the audacity :c

• 174. Bernie  |  July 12th, 2010 at 5:24 pm

  @ Steph: Yours was by far the best. Every year on your anniversary you should send the email to your friends and accidentaly cc it to your SIL.

• 175. Ale  |  July 13th, 2010 at 2:28 pm

  Wow, I cannot fathom calling someone to ask whey they didn’t give a gift. I had a wedding reception and invited friends and family to have a good time and share our excitement. Drink, eat and be merry. Plus it is the best dress up day of all time. If I wanted money or gifts, I could have just eloped and had my parents write me a check. Just….wow.

  My MIL is very rude in a I can say whatever I want because I am 70+ yrs old and shouldn’t have to filter my thoughts before I speak because my age has given me this right. She has a place in north MI that we go to in the summer per her request on Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor day. She is the type that when making a salad, makes a super sugary salad dressing and puts in on the salad. This is a big family as she has 6 kids all married with 15 grandkids total all under 14yrs. None of the kids will eat that salad with that dressing as they prefer italian or ranch as most kids do. On one occasion, I asked my sister in-law to please not put the dressing on the salad so the kids would be more likely to eat it (of course I don’t like her sugary dressing either and two of the kids are mine). My MIL noticed and I was sitting at a table with her and she said she was dissipointed that the salad wasn’t dressed and she had asked her daughter who told her someone requested that it just be on the side. I responded that it was me who asked and explained why, becasue I didn’t think it was unreasonable. Her response to me was, ” well I should have expected it was you since I know you guys eat out all the time with your parents and can just order stuff how you want it.” I wasn’t paying attention to her and only heard about the comment later because my husband told me as he was fuming about it. My husband and I work till 5pm or later and have 2 kids. Sorry if once a week we just don’t feel like cooking and order pizza. Also, my parents live 5 miles from me and every Monday when my husband golfs, I take the kids to visit them after work for dinner and 90% of the time, we order out because both my parents work as well. I don’t really feel the need to explain to her that until I was in Jr. High School, my mother stayed at home and cooked every day and money was tight. Now they have money and adult kids and have every right to fricking eat whatever they want to and so do we. She has hurt the feelings of several of my sister-inlaws with her offhand comments. I mostly have no idea what she is saying because when she talks, I have started replacing her end of converstaions with the I Dream of Jeanne themesong.

• 176. MrsTiara  |  July 14th, 2010 at 9:40 am

  At my wedding we had a dessert buffet. I did not get any since by the time one of my bridesmaids went over to get me something, nothing was left (like, ten minutes after it was set out). Whatever. I mentioned this to my mother a year or so ago, how I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t enough food. Her response? “Oh, there was plenty, guests WXY&Z filled up their containers with a bunch of desserts.” WTF?? I didn’t get dessert at my own wedding because my mother’s greedy friends cleaned it out????

  And for a non-wedding related rudeness. When I was pregnant with my first child, every single time my mother talked to me she asked me how much I weighed. Which I refused to tell her. And told her that it wasn’t her business. But she still kept asking. It was all I could do to not respond: “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m nowhere close to what you actually weigh without being pregnant.”

• 177. Coranada  |  July 14th, 2010 at 11:37 am

  Rude behavior always makes you WANT to respond with the same as you are given but I think most commenters here agree that we are generally rendered speechless by the behavior and don’t manage it. A friend of mine, however, when her own mother was astoundingly rude to her responded by writing on the outside of the box she was mailing her mother with her responses to the rudeness. They were polite but forceful and my favorite part was she ended with “PS I f*#@ing love you.” She hit just the right tone and now her mom gets to worry the mailman will judge her for being mean to her daughter.

• 178. D  |  July 21st, 2010 at 12:04 pm

  Oy, I can’t believe I’m coming back here to post AGAIN, but I have new wedding-related absurdity to report, and by report I mean I’m seething with anger and need to get it out in a semi-anonymous yet also public forum!

  So. My mom has been engaged for 6 years to a wonderful guy (side note, her engagement ring is massive and tacky and she loves to brag about how big it is, and it makes me want to puke). They bought a beautiful home about 5 years ago, and they’re in their 50s. They haven’t gotten married yet, basically because if they get married before my dad turns x age, the alimony stops rolling in, which infuriates me, esp. considering my dad now has two kids under 10 (he’s in his SIXTIES), and that money should really be going towards their college, or his retirement, or whatever.

  So they finally set a date fairly far off in the future, and they decide to do a destination wedding, which is going to be pretty expensive for all their guests, but whatever. My sister and I are bridesmaids, and she recently told us she wants us to wear matching bridesmaids dresses, like ACTUAL formal wedding attire, for her second wedding, in the Caribbean, where the dinner is going to be some crappy barbecue (note: normally I do not sneer at what the couple serves at a wedding, because hey, it’s not my business and everyone has their own budget, if you want to serve hot dogs go for it, but I think it’s absurd to require formal wedding attire for your bridal party that’s already spending over a grand to attend your wedding and then serve them chicken drumsticks and corn on the cob. BREATHE.)

  Even worse – I recently found out that she has a wedding registry. With ABSURD stuff on there. $300 stand mixer! $300 food processor! Fancy china, “everyday” (read: still fancy) plates, absurdly expensive silverware (when she already has beautiful silver cutlery), mattress pads, three sets of linens, bookcases, wine refrigerator, top-of-the-line toaster and blender, YOU NAME IT.

  My intention is not to malign second weddings, of course, nor complain about registries in general – but seriously, you do NOT need this crap when you’re in your mid-50s. Hell, no one needs this stuff when they’re 25! You cannot expect people to drop thousands of dollars to attend your destination wedding and then buy you a goddamn Kitchenaid stand mixer.

  The worst part? She’s admitted she doesn’t even really like the idea of being married a second time. She just wants the loot (and a big party).

  Phew. Sorry about that – like I said, I needed to vent (where she wouldn’t see it!)

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