elbows, I don’t think your analogy really works. Big difference between the two situations emotionally if nothing else.
CairoCarol, you are a Saint. If I had suddenly found myself in your situation, I would have dumped all the sunblock in the house down a sink and then filled up the empties with COSTCO brand tanning oil.
I’d be fixing myself a nice tall drink while the Hawaii Sun did the rest… :eek: 
“The beach is that way. Have a good time!”
Seconded. You can’t compare teenagers to adults, since psychologically, teens are much more egocentric and are still developing the skills to handle the kinds of situation adults deal with.
CairoCarol’s an adult, as is her old roomie, and when she extended the invitation, it was not with the present circumstances in mind. It was the roomie’s extremely poor decision to bring an extra adult and three kids when the invite was undoubtedly issued only for her and her bratty son. If she’s hurt by the none-too gracious characterization of her son, well, that’s a separate issue from her amazing lack of tact and grace in imposing more people than intended on CairoCarol, who was nice enough to open her home to her.
If anything, karma’s a fair bitch and she got hurt by someone she offended first.
Point taken, perhaps you’re right.
I guess I just believe that generally you shouldn’t say behind someone’s back what you wouldn’t be willing to say to their face.
Still, I do see what you’re saying.
And I must say, it certainly seems that CairoCarol is doing a wonderful job with a very trying situation regardless. And that’s always to be admired.
Originally posted by elbows:
Setting aside your amendment in a later posting after others responded, elbows … I take your point and I think you are partly right. But the person I was talking to is a good (and circumspect) friend as well as our neighbor/property manager; I wasn’t just blabbing to the world, and I also started out in a whisper that, unfortunately, gained in volume. Also, the tubby girl in your example is COMPLETELY blameless, whereas ya gotta admit, my friends played a role in creating this situation. Even so, I showed EXTREMELY poor judgment saying anything in an environment where there was even a remote chance of being overheard. So while I don’t think my situation is totally analogous to the one you posit, I do think that my loose lips were ill-advised at best.
That’s for sure, in fact I think there is a discussion somewhere of the inadvisability/inconsideration of doing that. So I screw up again :smack: Man, I am getting a year’s worth of mistakes made in a very short period of time here. I hope I shape up.
Golly gee, it is so helpful to read everyone’s comments. You all are help keeping me sane. I really have to thank all of you!
I could give the latest update on how it’s going, but I don’t think it would illuminate anything – they have continued to be, in some ways, extremely considerate guests, and in other ways to take terrible advantage. I’ll go back to THIS thread (!) to give you the final chapter after they leave.
I’m looking forward to it. We don’t even have a guest room in our house (think our friends and family can take a hint?); I need to get my horrible guest stories vicariously (which is truly the best way).
God I feel for you. I had a similar, but nowhere near as voluminous, experience. One night turns into two turns into three and one guest decides to bring one child, then can’t leave the other two out, etc… until you, your husband, your two children, your cousin and her three kids (all kids ranging in ages from 5 to 6 months with a set of twins thrown in there) all crammed in a three room apartment and two of those rooms are bedrooms!
I am so glad you and your friend aired it out a bit and hopefully this will be a “Wow! Do you remember when?” story.
Mine did not end so well.
Okay, it is OVER. The guests left, and I think I still have a shred of sanity somewhere around the house that I can locate.
No point in regaling everyone with their behavioral high and low points now, but there is one story I must share that was perhaps the nadir of the visit. They never ate out if possible, but one night we camped out. It was their decision to eat in a restaurant rather than bother with the mechanics of bringing and preparing dinner at the campsite. When this decision was made, they said “besides, we have to take you to dinner to thank you.”
I said that would be very nice.
So, we get to the restaurant, and since there is a bit of a wait, they get the menu and review it in advance. They decided on a complete order for all nine of us, without so much as handing me the menu, much less saying “Carol, we’re taking you out to dinner to say ‘thanks’…so what are your favorite dishes?”
Then, when the waitress came, they tried to order 3 dishes and one order of soup, for 9 people (yes, three were little kids, but we had three big kids and three adults). The waitress told them that would not be enough, so they reluctantly ordered a fourth dish, then sniped that the waitress was impolite.
In the event, it was (barely) enough food, but I found the behavior mindboggling.
That is all. I have learned my lesson. Oh boy, have I learned my lesson.
They seem like totally classy people.
So…when are they having you over? (Turnabout is fair play, after all.)
:eek:
Wow. Just…wow. Those people have no class and no clue.
Being the insensitive and impolite person that I am, I would have been forced to ask, in a very sincere and puzzled tone; “Wait a minute. You’re taking me out to dinner to thank me…but you’re not letting me order my own food? How does that work?”
Originally posted by Chimera:
I did say something, actually – not as pointed as that, but simply something to the effect of “I’d like to see the menu too.”
So they got me a menu, and I realized I had left my reading glasses in the car and couldn’t see the darn thing anyway! Therefore I let things go. However, if I’d been able to read the menu I probably would have simply ordered more food and paid for it myself.
Those are some of the strangest people I’ve heard of in a long time. They sound like pod people - they don’t know how humans are supposed to act. Weird, weird, weird.
OK, that wasn’t maybe-they-don’t-know-any-better rudeness. That was I’m-a-horrible-jackass-so-kill-me-now rudeness.
It’s stories like this that make me grateful for a being a loner. I know I miss out on a things and I don’t have a lot of fun stories to tell and no one’s going to show up for my funeral, but at least I don’t have to deal with situations like this. Because I like having an intact head. If I had to deal with people ordering for me but not giving me enough food because they’re too cheap, after I turned my house over to them for over a week and dealt with their bratty kids, then my head would explode.