Going out to dinner with fussy eaters can be a recipe for serious secondhand embarrassment. Especially when you know they won't respond well to any form of criticism or well-intended problem-solving.
You don't need to have years of waitressing experience in order to recognize how annoying it is to play a game of 20 questions when you're trying to take people's orders. And the correlation between people who ask endless questions and people who have loud complaints are pretty much one-to-one.
She wrote:
AITA for saying I didn’t even want my grandparents to come to my graduation dinner for this reason?
Going out to eat with my grandparents has always been an ordeal. They complain and always make the waiter jump through hoops over the smallest things. So it was my graduation dinner right after my ceremony. I beg my mom for it to be just us as a family and not invite my grandparents for the above reasons. My mom said it would be disrespectful not to invite them since they went to my ceremony.
We get to the restaurant and my grandma has an issue with her burger. The bun is too bready for her. So she complains that she wants the burger remade with whatever they use on the children’s menu for burgers. The waitress said it was the same bun but just a smaller portion. My grandma wanted to see the bun before it was remade so the waitress brings out the children’s bun for examination.
My grandma didn’t like it and asked for sandwich bread for her burger but the waitress explained that all the sandwiches they had are served on Texas garlic toast. My grandma said that’s ridiculous. At this point, I said this is exactly why I didn’t want my grandparents to go and I asked my dad to just take me home so I could go to my friend's graduation party instead. My dad did so without argument.
My mom and grandma are angry at me and mom tried to ground me for being disrespectful to my grandma. I canceled my graduation party for next week and I’m staying with a friend. I’m almost planning not to come back because I’m leaving for college in late August and my mom is hellbent on punishing me for my attitude problem and ruining her plans for my graduation party that I’m now not going to.
I’m sick of being forced to interact with my mom and grandparents. My dad says he understands and has brought me clothes and stuff to my friend's house while I take a break from my mom.
blanketstatement5 wrote:
NTA. If I were you,
assuming you don't have any younger siblings, I would tell your dad that he has your blessing to divorce your mom if she keeps allowing her parents to mess with your life.
Edit: actually I changed my mind. Younger siblings shouldn't deal with this bullsh*t either.
Canuckistanian71 wrote:
NTA. My mother was like your grandma and it sucked going out with her. We tried to avoid restaurants, but if we couldn’t, we’d apologize to the staff ahead of time and tip very well. Let your mom calm down a bit and talk to her in a few more days/weeks.
FallenPencil wrote:
NTA for you except the 'see that's why I did not want them here'
The granny is embarrassing. The waiter needs a tip for his nightmare.
INFO do they pull this attitude at people's homemade dinner? Or other events since for you it was expected. Your mom might need to think if she would be okay if her or her relatives behave entitled at any dinner?
Birthdaysworstdays wrote:
NTA. I remember reading about a man whose mother was like your grandmother, I think in the comments on an old Gawker article. He had long since given up trying to stop the behavior as futile.
Instead, when he could no longer avoid going out to dinner with her he called ahead and told the staff that his mother experienced a personality change after a stroke and warned them of her demands and assured them he would tip generously in recompense.
OP is definitely NTA, but her grandma is a big one, and her mom is one through enabling these kinds of scenes.