Kids From Around The World Share Stories Of Parents Who 'Want To Talk To The Manager'


Kids From Around The World Share Stories Of Parents Who 'Want To Talk To The Manager'


We're not saying it's wrong to expect quality service. You're a paying customer, after all. But we all know that one person who's just waiting for any excuse to play the "I want to talk to the manager" card. When you're a kid, and that person is your mom or dad, it can be extra embarrassing.

People from around the world recently took to the internet to share embarrassing stories about the times their parents just had to talk to the manager.

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55. To Hair Is Human

When I was young and my mom let me go to the barber by myself for the first time my mom felt that he didn't cut it short enough. Rather than going back and politely discussing the situation she screamed and hollered at the guy about him ripping her off. He stood there speechless. The worst part was that I had to get back in the chair and sit there awkwardly while he gave it a second shot, with her standing there directing him.

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54. Your Mom Is A Dragon Lady

My mom had to go in for a meeting with my principal but it turned out to be canceled and no one notified her. She screamed at the office staff while walking out of the office, the principal showed up so he was screamed at and then she screamed at me since my bad grades were the reason we were there. This was before school so a lot of kids and teachers witnessed this.

The only bright side was they never bothered calling my mom again.

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53. How To Kill Your Child's Passion

I was doing work experience in a cafe kitchen during high school and my parents showed up wanting to be served by me. I wasn't allowed to since I was kitchen staff so my parents started yelling and screaming at the waitress.

The manager came out, told them I was on a break and they screamed at her too. They were calling out to me, "get your butt out here and serve us". They only left when the manager threatened to call the police.

They were banned from the cafe, I nearly lost my placement(without it I wouldn't have gotten my qualifications before I graduated). My teacher had my parents come to the school and tore strips off of them.

That experience, coupled with the fact that my parents showed no remorse for their behavior killed any desire I had to work in the food industry.

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52. Speak American!

I'm certainly from that type of mother but my most embarrassing moment came two years ago while in Quebec (visiting from the US). This was our first encounter having to speak with someone from the city besides the hotel who was speaking English. It was at a restaurant:

Server: Says something in French.

Mom: American!

I was so embarrassed. Not even an "I'm sorry, do you speak English?" Just "American!" She and I both only speak English and she's been to more countries than I have. I have no idea how she can be so crass.

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51. First Impressions

My mum picked me up from school and had told me she ordered 4 meals from McDonald's for the family. However, she got home to find that the 5 Chicken Select meal only had 4 Chicken Selects. She went absolutely bananas at the worker on the front counter... and then the shift manager... and then the general manager.​

What makes this story embarrassing for me is that I then went on to work at that McDonalds, working my first shift the following week.

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50. This Is Why 'OK Boomer' Was Invented

Oh Man. It was my 29th birthday last year. My mom has been a nightmare my whole life; I’d cut ties but dad has Alzheimer’s and if I want to see him she comes too.

We were going out for dinner and there was a ten-cent fee for parking. Ten. Cents. A lone dime.

Cue mom screaming, swearing, demanding a manager (the parking lot attendant doesn’t have a manager), and then cursing me out and telling me that my being willing to pay a ten-cent parking fee meant I was "just another stupid [bleep] poor millennial and this is why you’re all broke because you waste all your money!"

Happy birthday to me.

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49. Instant Karma For An Entitled Dad

So one time I forgot to pay for something in my college dues. My dad and I both went to the financial aid office to explain it was a slip of the mind and ask them to take off the fees and we would pay the due.

My dad explodes on the girl behind the counter, yelling up a storm after she says that it’s not possible to remove the late fee. My dad screams let me talk to your higher up, and the dean gets involved. The girl starts crying and she bolts out of the room. It was horrendous.

After hours of talking to many people, we get the fine taken off and the due as well as a sort of “get out of here please bribe”. Instant karma when we get out and there is a parking bill the exact amount that we would have paid for the due and late fee.

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48. Mother-In-Law From The Black Lagoon

I'm not the child of an entitled parent, but my boyfriend sure is.

His mom is something else, let me tell you. I think the first time I realized I was not going to get along with her, she had taken me and my children to go get McDonald's for everyone.

A trip that should have taken, like, twenty minutes tops (she was getting food for 6 people) wound up taking close to an hour.

When we got there, in the drive-thru no less, she took her sweet time ordering and asking these people all manner of questions about the food. We had everything picked out beforehand, so she spent an extra ten minutes questioning them for just her order alone.

THEN, we get to the window and her card won't work. They tell her that it's their system, not the card. They always have issues with whatever type of card it was she had tried to use.

Now, this woman has all manner of credit cards in her bag. She also always has at LEAST two hundred dollars cash on her. My point being, she could have used a different method of payment. Instead, she makes them run the card, like, six more times. When that doesn't work (and she's been screaming at the poor drive-thru person the entire time) she pulls up and parks.

She makes me and my kids get out with her because she's acting like a raving lunatic. Says it's because she'll need our help carrying the bags, but it's because she wants an audience.

We go in, and she then proceeds to degrade the kid at the counter. Calls him names. Tells him she's going to call the owner of this particular store because she KNOWS her card will work here and "someone's doing something funny." The whole time, I'm apologizing.

I told my kids to go play so they wouldn't have to witness it. I even offered to pay for the food. But she was making such a scene that they just gave her the whole order for free. Like, refused to take my money (probably because she screamed at me for even offering) and told her she had her food, and to leave.

I have hated her ever since.

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47. There's Literally No Pleasing Some People

When I was 15 my mom, sister, and I had doctors' appointments and as it was earlier in the morning we decided to stop and eat to get breakfast as none of us ate. As it was a Saturday morning it was quite packed and we only had an hour to get it and eat and make it on time for us to make it to the first appointment.

When our order was taken and we waited and waited my mom got more and more irritated. Eventually, she complained to the waitress about how we were in a hurry and what was taking so long. Keep in mind the restaurant had a line of at least 20 people waiting just to sit down so you can imagine how crowded it was. As my mom keeps complaining my sister and I both were becoming more and more embarrassed and shot her apologetic looks.

My mom eventually says that we will just have to leave because we didn’t have time for this crap. At this point, we started getting looks from other people eating in the restaurant. The waitress then told us she said that she’d have the cooks try to prioritize our meal and that it should be out in a bit. She was also very polite and apologized profusely for everything.

It wasn’t more than 5 minutes later and she came sprinting to our table with our food in hand and constantly kept tabs on us in case we needed anything. In all honesty, she was the best waitress I think I’ve ever had at any restaurant with just how nice she was.

We all ate, and it was obvious that my mom was still upset at how long it took for the food to come out. So as we were leaving my sister decided to lay down a 10 dollar tip for the waitress, but my mom grabbed it and said that they didn’t deserve that tip. She stormed to the front and my sister looked at me and just rolled her eyes and walked towards the front with our mom.

I stayed at the table to finish my drink as she came by and that’s when I apologized to her about my mom, and then handed her a $20 bill for a tip and thanked her for the service.

To this day my mom still complains about the service on that day and how she was in the right to complain about it all.

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46. You Never Want To Be THAT Guy On A Flight

It is post 9/11 America, and I am in LAX with my younger brother and my dad, waiting for a flight. It begins to board, and my dad starts getting argumentative with the lady at the gate because she won't let him board first. With: the elderly, veterans, injured veterans, people with very small kids, people with disabilities, etc.

My dad was literally none of those things but proceeds to lose his mind anyway. He starts yelling, shouts that he has a "bad back and is sick of this crap." Is "traveling with kids" (points to us, his two teenage sons who have walked away from the line and are sitting down out of sheer embarrassment).

When he is told to stop - by a man carrying an actual small child in a baby Bjorne or whatever - dad screams at him and says something meant to call attention to the hypocrisy he was experiencing, and his just plight as a result, but instead it gets him grabbed by security and pulled from the line.

Which everyone else loved. Like, they were thrilled this idiot was getting escorted out of line. Security talks to him and the lady working the gate as people continue onto the plane and so my dad becomes irate once more, this time because they're forcing him to get onto the plane later than he would have had he not sought special privileges and this is therefore overly punitive.

And then we were on a plane with all of the people from the line. For the next 8 hours. And my dad yelled at a flight attendant because he believed she was ignoring him due to what happened at the gate. So now there was a plane-wide conspiracy to screw up his life. By the time we landed, he'd been in verbal confrontations with all local row members, other flight attendants, and sporadic outliers from other sections.

Have you ever been blood-related to the most disliked human being on an airplane?

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45. Just Plane Rude

We travelled a lot when we were younger and would skip lines at the airport since we were kids.

But when we were all in our early teens, my mom starting faking a heart condition to skip the long line and get on the airplane first. One flight attendant would have none of it and told us to go back to the end of the line like everyone else. I still remember the satisfied smiles of everyone present.

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44. I Wanna Talk To The General Manager

My mom has been the sort of person who 'wants to talk to the manager' regularly throughout my life. But I do have one positive story about it.

She and I went to eat at Portillo's when I was a teenager and we sat in the back of the restaurant where it was more private so we could eat in peace. About 10 minutes into our meal, two people came into the empty area and sat down two tables away from us. Turns out it was a manager and an employee who was getting written up.

The manager was being a complete jerk towards the employee, criticizing and belittling them. My mom put down her food and walked over and started yelling at the manager for behaving that way. She went on a rant about how rude and wrong it was of him to do this two tables away from customers and really let him have it. She demanded the phone number of the manager above him and we left after she received it.

I was pretty embarrassed at the time, but as I got older I realized that she was standing up for that employee and how wrong that manager really was. I'm not a hundred percent sure what she did with that phone number because I lived with my dad and I had to go home after that meal.

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43. That Poor Girl

The sheer number of cashiers my father demanded the manager fire because they were too slow, rang us up wrong, etc... it's mind-boggling. One time they actually did fire the person. I'll never forget that girl taking her Home Depot apron off and walking away sobbing. To his credit (I guess?) my dad seemed surprised that it actually worked. He must have felt at least some level of guilt because he never did it again.

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42. Dropped On The Melon

My mom and I went grocery shopping, and she dropped a melon on the way out. She then claimed it was bruised and demanded a full refund. When the staff member refused, she shouted about customer service and demanded to speak to the manager. I just sat there with a “kill me now” expression on my face.

After, one of the customer service employees gave me a chocolate bar, presumably out of pity. But 7-year-old me was happy.

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41. That's Maddening

My mother did this in restaurants nonstop growing up. She would demand to see the manager because my burger (which I asked for medium) had some pink in it.

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40. Social Insecurity

My dad once asked the cashier at the Verizon wireless store to give him his personal Social Security number because the cashier asked for my dad's. So my dad walked out afterward with some stranger's SS number on a post-it. I was a silent bystander because I really just wanted my first phone.

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39. There's A Nice Way To Do That

I was with my parents on vacation and the hotel put charges on our bill by accident. My mom marched to the front desk and demanded to see the manager. There was a long line, but she cut right in front of it. The manager wasn't very helpful, probably because she was rude.

So my mom went to all the other customers in line and told them that the hotel was a scam and they were ripping us off with fake charges. She made a scene. The hotel called the police and we were escorted off the premises by actual cops. I died inside.

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38. Some People Just Want To Yell

About once a month my dad has some drinks and calls various customer service centers to make demands. Once he finally gets off the phone (frequently 45+ minutes later), he spends the next few days telling us all about how he slew the customer service dragon and whining about how people sure don't appreciate their customers nowadays . (No duh, dad, you're being an idiot, no one appreciates that.)

If you've worked for DirecTV customer service any time since 1996, I apologize on behalf of my father.

I also remembered one time McDonald's was having some kind of 2-for-1 breakfast sandwich deal going on where the total was about $3. He got his breakfast, drove 25 mins to work, realized he was missing one of the sandwiches... and proceeded to call McDonald's customer support every evening after work for a week to complain about his wasted $1.50. They gave him apologies. They gave him coupons. But he just wanted to yell.

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37. Cheesy Dad

 

My father consistently returns food to grocery stores when he is unsatisfied with the quality. The worst is when he returns the 2 lb bricks of cheddar cheese because they went moldy "before they should have."

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36. How Cheap Are You?!

 

Before the second-hand store changed policies, my mom would cut tags off to get discounts since the cashiers would basically make up whatever price they thought it should be on the spot. If they high-balled it, she would get a manager involved and I hated that.

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35. Totally Worth It

My mom and I were putting groceries in the car when she checked the receipt and saw that the prices she'd paid for Yop (a yogurt drink) were slightly higher than they should have been. The moment she noticed, she unloaded the Yop and dragged me back into the store while I pleaded with her to let it go. The poor cashier had to face my mother's yogurt wrath; we were there for at least fifteen minutes, maybe more.

Want to know the kicker?​ There were only a few extra cents added on. My mom screamed for fifteen minutes over less than a dollar.

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34. You Could Have Helped...

My mother is a nightmare with customer service, despite the fact that her daughter (me) works in customer service and deals with people like her on the daily.

So many incidents stick out in my mind, but one that really embarrassed me happened at Walmart.

The stocker was struggling and dropped her price scanner thing on the ground. I was going to go help her gather her things when my mom came in out of left field and yelled: “YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD PICK THAT UP! PEOPLE COULD TRIP!” And then she just darted off with the cart

I was so embarrassed I just walked away in shame, and when I pointed out to my mom that the girl had dropped it on accident, she said ,“Well, she should really be more careful!"

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33. No Cake For You

My mum demanded to see a café's hygiene certificate when she saw an employee go from cutting cake in the kitchen to handling money at the till, even though the real problem is going the other way.

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32. High Steaks

My mom used to run restaurants. My stepfather used to be a chef in high end restaurants and is the kind of guy who expects to be treated better than he is currently being treated, regardless of whatever that treatment is. They are not fun to go out to eat with.

The “most embarrassing experience” is actually their most embarrassing experience, one where I embarrassed them.

My wife and I pride ourselves on being a “relief” table when we go out to eat. Both of us have been servers, and there’s always the counterpoint to the difficult table, that’s us. Barring horrible service or bad food, we are super easy customers, tip well, and try to have a good time with our server. Furthermore, we just treat people nicely. So you can imagine our distain when my parents act like they’re royalty at a dinner service.

My wife and I went out to dinner with them. They were being particularly tough. My mom was acting like she was Gordon Ramsey analyzing the business, critiquing everything down to the amount of bubbles in her seltzer (“looks like it’s time to change the CO2”). My stepdad was getting more and more heated over stupid things like the amount of ice in his drink and how the waitress didn’t top off his water, which he was barely sipping on, fast enough.

It came to a head when my stepfather ordered a steak medium well. It came back medium well, but for some reason he changed his mind while it was cooking and they hadn't read his mind! So he gave them attitude, as did my mom. They jumped really quickly to demanding free stuff.

I’m an adult and this may be the first time they realized this. I interrupted in front of the server and said something like, “Really? This is what you’re doing. That’s what you ordered...” I turned to the server and said, “We do not need anything comped.” I then pulled out my wallet and handed her my card and said, “This is for the bill. We’ll happily wrap up with what we have here. I’m very sorry for their behavior, you’re doing great.” Then the line that stung them so deeply they still bring it up years later: ”I was taught to treat people nicely, a lesson that seems to have been forgotten. Thank you.”

They turned red, the server walked away, I looked down and cut my steak, and didn’t say a word. They were so flabbergasted that the meal was virtually silent except me asking my step father how his steak was a few minutes later. I signed the check, gave a big tip, and we walked out and said goodbyes.

They’ve been nicer to servers each time that we’ve gone out since.

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31. Who Wears The Pants

 

My dad just loved to argue, and he loved a deal.

We were shopping in a department store, and I found a pair of pants I was mildly interested in. The pants were tagged at (let's say) $40, but the sign on the rack said "All pants $25".

I was mildly interested, so I asked the salesclerk if they had them in my size. The clerk said, "Those aren't supposed to be on that rack."

My dad lost his mind and insisted on getting the pants for $25. Then he started demanding a courtesy discount on top of that. He spoke to the floor manager and then the store manager.

Meanwhile, I didn't want the pants. They were okay, I guess, nothing awesome. I just didn't care very much about them and was more than happy to move on. I told my dad I didn't want the pants, by then he didn't care about what I wanted, he wanted the pants at the better price.

Eventually, after like an hour of arguing, the store manager said, "We're not giving you the pants at that price. Take them or leave them at $40." So we left them.

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30. Makes Cents

 

One time I was in a record store with my dad. He bought a record that was €19.99. He paid using a €20 bill. The clerk took the money and put it in the register and gave my dad the CD in a plastic bag. I started walking off when I noticed my dad wasn’t moving.

As I turn around, I hear him say to the record store clerk: “You still have to give me my cent back.” The clerk replies that they don’t return one or two cents because they don’t accept them and as such don’t have them in the store. My dad replies by saying that is “judicially impossible” and asks for the manager. To make a long story short... one of the clerks gave my dad a cent from his own wallet.

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29. Momster

I don't like going to restaurants with my mom. She thinks that because she worked as a waitress for a year -- 35 years ago! -- that it gives her the right to act like a complete monster to servers. She also thinks not tipping them will encourage them to "get their act together."

Joke's on you mom: I always find our server after we're seated, give them a $20 bill and apologize in advance for your poor behavior.

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28. This One I Kind Of Get

When I was 6, my mom took my brothers and I out to Golden Corral for dinner. She went up to the buffet, got a steak, and came back to the table. She’s an avid A1 steak sauce fan and cannot, I repeat, cannot eat steak without it.

She poured out the A1 onto her plate, tasted it, and was instantly horrified. She proceeded to pour out the Golden Corral Steak Sauce right next to the A1 and it matched perfectly.

Outraged, she called over a waitress and eventually the manager, showing them her little experiment and how she exposed the Great Steak Sauce Fraud of '06.

My brothers and I were scarred for the rest of our lives. I still have nightmares about it.

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27. Grandma Has No Filter

My grandmother wasn't only a "let me talk to your manager" type, she was pretty mean, and her dementia completely turned off her filter for that.

I've blocked out all the context around this story other than the fact that I took her to buy yarn and something went wrong. I think maybe they shorted her a couple bucks or wouldn't honor a coupon or something. Whatever it was ended in a "let me talk to your manager" followed by a tirade to the manager about how they shouldn't be hiring Mexicans.

I just remember having to talk over her and say, "Oh my god you can't talk to her like that. Nothing you just said is okay." I tried to push her wheelchair out of the store as fast as possible with her digging her feet into the ground trying to get me to stop. I wondered if I'd go to jail for elder abuse if her ankles snapped in the process because nothing was going to stop me getting her out of that store.

I got her into the car and then went back in and apologized until I was blue in the face. Wish I could say it was an isolated incident, but it definitely wasn't.

As an interesting side effect of caring for her, I have a tendency to wander off and pretend to look at things when we get to the register if I'm with someone and I'm not the one paying. I think she gave me an honest to god phobia.

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26. Worst Buy

I used to work at Best Buy. One day, I stopped in with my mom one day because she wanted to buy me the Star Wars DVD box set for my birthday.

I had a huge, HUGE crush on the girl that was working the customer service counter. Well, the DVD set rang up $10 more than it was priced, and my mom deliberately didn't say anything until after the transaction so she could claim the $5 Michigan Scan Law bounty.

If you don't know, there's a crazy Michigan scanner law: the price must be clearly displayed where the item is located on the shelf, or on the item itself.

If the item is rung up and the machine prices it at higher than the signage and the customer has 1) paid that price and 2) has a receipt then within 30 days they may contact the seller. The seller is required to pay back the difference as well as a "bonus" which is 10 times the amount of the price difference, min $1 and max $5.

Anyway, my crush didn't know how to process it and the manager was busy, so my mom tore into her about how it was her job and how she should understand how to do things.

At my job. To a girl I liked.

My life was misery for a while after that.

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25. I Will Wait Here

 

Scene: Any fast food drive-thru.

Worker: "Ma'am, can you please drive forward a little bit while your food finishes up?"

My mom: [folds her arms] "No!"

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24. Backseat Driver

 

My mom asked me to call her a taxi via an app.

She ended up calling me multiple times complaining about how the driver didn’t use the route she thought was best (she never owned a car and doesn’t know how to drive), even though the guy just used the best possible route the navigator suggested.

She ended up getting out halfway and taking the subway. The driver proceeded to call me in tears, completely shocked, unsure of what he did so wrong, and apologizing. I felt like total garbage.

I never called her a cab again.

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23. Ice Queen

My mom returned a fridge because it was too cold on the inside.

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22. New Sheriff In Town

This is a weird story that had a huge impact on me. It's about a parent talking to a manager... but it's a little different.

Growing up, my dad was sheriff of a small town. I must have been around 8-9. He was brought in after the previous sheriff was booted out for political reasons/stealing city funds. That was a really unpopular movie, since he was super popular and spread his money all over town and let people get away with murder.

That sheriff was out and my dad was brought in. Everybody hated him, in part because they loved the old sheriff and also because my dad was an "outsider" even though he came from about two towns over. He wasn't of their world, so he could never be fit to see over the village. (It didn't help that my dad was a raging asshole with a stick up his butt for the rules).

One day, my dad was dressed in his full uniform and took me alone to the local corner diner. Like, one of those places straight out of Roadhouse. We sat down and ate the full dinner, and my dad lectured me something about "respect" and "the rules are all we have."

Then the waitress came in and dropped the check. My dad looked at it, and it said the meal was free. My dad then excused himself and went up to the waitress. I kept to myself, and doodled on the napkin and the next time I looked up, my dad was full on SCREAMING at the woman. He was straight-up shaking.

She tried to explain that free meals is how all cops are treated in this town, and my dad was FURIOUS that he would get special treatment, that police are put above the normal laws. That the police have rules they must follow, and not accepting kickbacks is one of those rules. And that it especially happened in front of his kid, who he's trying to teach right.

Everyone in the diner was quiet and just staring at him.

It was a weird situation because it was a moment where my dad showed a lot of integrity, but also a story of a 6'7" man with a gun on his belt screaming at a tiny little waitress. It stuck in my head as a clear picture of the contradictions that our parents are. Like, a lot of good comes from them but at the same time a lot of bad.

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21. In-Law, Out Of Mind

 

My mother-in-law is truly a "talk to the manager" type. Going out to eat with her is always a nightmare. Her orders have 14 special requests, but she's not at all kind about it; she is defensive from the get-go, like you're an idiot who's already screwed the order up. "Nooo dressing. Not on the side. Nothing. Completely dry. Do you understand? I will send it back!"

The one I will never forget was dinner at Joe's Crab shack. In case you've never been, it's one of those places that every so often plays a song and the entire staff is required to drop everything to do a little synchronized dance. It's quick, everyone gets a little kick out of it, it's part of the fun.

Now my MIL knew this, it's not like she'd never been here. But apparently she was not willing to wait 2 extra minutes for her dry salad, so she started going off as soon as the dancing started. She got a manager who clearly knew her well and offered a quick apology, a discount, and her dry salad.

But MIL's not completely satisfied. She tells us that even though dinner for our party of 8 is on her, she's not tipping the waitress a penny. She proceeds to complain, loudly, for the rest of the meal, and antagonize our waitress over petty issues.

I made sure to get my bill separate so I could tip for the entire table. I wrote a quick note on the receipt, something along the lines of,  "Way to stay positive even when the customer's a jerk."

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20. Nanny Napkins

When I was around 10 years old, my grandmother went out and got us (her, my brother, and me) McDonald's. We got home and we didn't have napkins in the bags. No big deal, right? We have paper towels and napkins in the house -- also me and my brother are pretty good with not making any messes while we eat.

Nope. Grandmother got us in the car, drove back to McDonald's, demanded a manager, and screeched about how upset she was that we didn't get any napkins. I wanted to just melt into the floor and disappear. It's just napkins, Nanny...

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19. Sentenced To Death By The Burger King

 

Ugh, my dad. He can be such a jerk if you get his order wrong. It could be fast food or a nice sit-down restaurant. He often yells at wait staff if they “undercook” his steak. It has to be well done or he claims to have lost his appetite.

One time we went to Burger King when I was younger and we sat down to eat. He took one bite of his burger, spit it out and immediately started bitching about it being under cooked. He cut in front of everyone in line to yell at the cashier, then he asked who was the cook. When the cook appeared, he threw his burger hitting the poor kid directly in the face with a lidless burger. He’s now banned for life from Burger King.

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18. Your New Hotel Is Jail

 

I was 13 when this happened. My mom had made a reservation at a hotel for a trip, but when she got there the lady said there was some error with the reservation and that my mom’s payment didn’t go through. Instead, she offered us a double bedroom for a discount.

Rather than just taking the room, thanking the lady, and leaving, my mom decided the best course of action would be to scream, in the middle of a hotel lobby, “NOBODY IS GOING ANYWHERE TIL I GET MY [BLEEPING] ROOM!” She then proceeded to pester the lady, who clearly couldn’t do anything about it, until eventually she called the police on my mom for public disturbance. Mortifying.

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17. All For Free Cakes

 

The grocery store had this sign up that said if an item rang up higher than an advertised price it was free. It was the 80s and stores did stupid stuff like this that I never see in stores today.

Mom was buying a box of Little Debbie cakes and they rang up for $2.85 instead of the advertised $2.50. So now mom wants her free cakes. Cashier doesn't know what to do, summons a manager. Manager tells her to ring up the sale and he'll be right back.

Comes back and hands my mother 35 cents cheerfully and says, "There you go!" My mother points out the sign behind him and he says, "Oh, the last manager put that up. It doesn't make any sense. I'm the new manager and I just haven't had the sign removed yet." (It was a printed plastic sign that was screwed into the wall).

Mom insists they honor their sign, he says nah. Now, up to this point, I am totally on board with mom's actions.

Mom gathers her things, decides against taking the Little Debbies on principle, and we get in the car. Mom wordlessly drives downtown to the main store of this 3-5 store chain, knowing the office is next door. We walk into this perfectly 80's wood-paneled office where my mother asks the secretary to speak to the owner of the store. She is permitted to do so since this is a family owned business and their "corporate office" is smaller than the row of cubicles my staff occupy at work.

Here my mother unleashes a tirade about how she has lost faith in his brand and how his word is meaningless since they will not honor the sign etc. This guy stands up, profusely apologizes, validates her anger and then pulls out his wallet and hands her a $5 bill along with a promise that he will speak to the manager and the sign will either be honored or removed.

We get home and find that the ice cream we bought melted in the trunk because it was summertime. The melted runoff had ruined the cereal and the bread.

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16. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

 

Not long ago, my mom asked to treat my wife and I to lunch at Outback Steakhouse.

We get there and order. My mom orders iced tea with extra lemon. Tea shows up with one lemon. Usually no big deal, right? Just ask for more. Well, instead of doing that, my mom turns to the waiter and says, "What? No extra lemon? You fail as a waiter. No brownie points for you."

The dude stands there for a moment and then says rather flatly, "I'll be right back with more lemon." I turn to my mom and am like -- "That's how you get your food spit in! You've just sent the message that this will be a poor tipping table and he's going to totally focus elsewhere."

She argues, "Well it should have inspired him to work harder to impress us!" I think from that point I just mentioned that from his end, his odds of making money are now higher at some other table. It's just how people work.

Next, mom makes a super complicated order. I texted my wife, who was sitting right next to me, and say: "This dude is going to butcher that order on purpose."

When the food comes out,  her order is all up. Basically a totally wrong order. She asks for it to be fixed -- a bit more subdued this time. It comes out technically correct but obviously carelessly prepared/cooked. I chuckle inside.

Here's the insane part: after all of this she turns to us and says, "I was right about that waiter! He sucks at his job!"

No -- your behavior made him not care about you.

After being a total jerk and paying the price, she walked away feeling validated and haughty. I slipped in a nice tip with a "sorry for my mom" note.

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15. We Demand To Pay!

 

I grew up in a smaller town right on the cusp of its big growth boom. We knew our town had finally made it when we got an Olive Garden.

We used to eat there 2-3 times a month. My mom and I would always split an entree and my dad would get his own. We knew the rule: if you’re splitting an entree and you get more than one of the family style bowls of salad, than you’ll get charged an extra $4 for the extra person. Which is fair, 2 entrees come with 2 unlimited salads.

One day my dad decided he wanted more salad. The waitress said if she refilled the bowl, that we would be charged the extra $4. Lo and behold my parents threw the biggest tantrum because only HE wanted the additional salad. They demanded to speak to a manager and the manager explained the rule (which we knew) but offered to comp the extra salad just to get my parents to stop yelling. And they did.

When our bill came, the manager comped my dad's entree and the additional salad fee. Well, my mom got up. She interrupted the manager while he was talking to other guests and threw the check in his face. She was furious that he had comped my dad's meal! He ate the meal therefore we would like to pay for it. She wouldn’t stop raising her voice until she was allowed to pay for the meal (but not the salad).

The manager was confused but obliged. When they brought the change, the manager slipped a few free appetizer coupons. My mom ripped them up and threw them on the ground as she left. Safe to say I didn’t eat out with them for at least a month and I still refuse to go to Olive Garden with them.

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14. Sausage Rolling

One time my grandad got a sausage roll at a football match during half time. When he got back to his seat, he found it was overdone, the pastry was quite burned. The man was irate. He didn't take it back straight away as the second half was about to start, but he spent much of the second half angrily lamenting his savoury snack letdown.

So he takes it home, calls the customer service number on the back (I assume he had a few choice words for the poor soul on the other end but I wasn't present for this), and keeps the remainder of the sausage roll in the freezer for the next couple of weeks.

Skip ahead to the next match day. My grandad tells me we're heading out early so he can have his sausage roll replaced. The customer service line told him to go to Kiosk 3 at the front of the ground next to the ticket office. When we arrive, however, the shutters are down at the food place. The old man looks around growling and turning red in the face, stamps right over to window number 3 of the ticket office and slams his frozen burned sausage roll down like a flaky gauntlet.

At this point I'm trying to convince him the ticket office was a completely different department to the catering concession but my grandad was having none of it. The lady working the ticket window continually attempted to convince him the same -- they sell match tickets not hot snacks -- but this just got him angrier and angrier.

At this point I'm mortified by the whole affair, wishing I'd have stayed back at the house until nearer kick off.

Eventually, after an hour or so, the shutters come up on the food concession. Fella at the counter goes, "You must be Mr. Alaginge," and calmly resolves the situation, dispatching a freshly baked sausage roll with the steady hands of a surgeon. My grandad is completely satisfied with the result of his hour of insolent rage. As we're walking away he turns to me and says, "That's how you get these things sorted."

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13. A Rare Nice One

 

I was out to breakfast with my mom, and our waitress straight up disappeared. We sat for a good 30 minutes after having ordered nothing but eggs. It was an off time, so the diner was pretty quiet. It was as if our waitress had just evaporated. Naturally, my mom asked someone if we could speak with the manager. She stops by, my mom lets her know what's happened, and asks if she can check on our waitress, our food, etc.

Ten minutes later the manager shows up with our food, and the waitress in tow. She put our food down, then proceeded to rip into the waitress. This poor woman broke down in tears, apologizing profusely. We felt awful, didn't even bother finishing our food. Once the manager was out of sight, my mom found the waitress, gave her a hug, and a larger tip than usual. It was rough, leaving us both sufficiently embarrassed.

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12. Don't Reward People Like This

 

My mom once called Domino's regional corporate office because a pizza I ordered for her, THAT I PAID FOR, was "too expensive."

She did get four free pizza vouchers out of it but I'm so glad I was not around for the embarrassment of it all (I ordered it online from my job in the next state. Why? Because she wanted pizza.)

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11. I'd Rather Pay Full Price

My mom used to be really into couponing. Like extreme couponing where the store would pay her after shopping visits. Used to have to wait around 20 minutes just to check out so the cashier could scan every coupon. Usually one or two wouldn’t work, so of course, this calls for a manager. Another 10 minutes goes by just waiting for the manager to come and fix it.

At this point the cashier starts telling people to get in another line because we’re taking too long (but not in a mean way). Used to take at least a solid half hour to check out at the store. 9-year old me hated that. My mom isn’t nearly as extreme as before. Usually just a couple coupons but occasionally there will be a problem and I’ll have flashbacks.

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10. Never Change

 

Just the other day my dad got super snippy with the cashier at Trader Joe's because he thought she was going too slow and chatting too much with the customer ahead of us.

This doesn't really sound like much of a horror story, except that he's in his 80s and I'm in my 50s and you'd think by now I'd have gotten past the point where he could make me want the ground to open up and swallow me. But nope. It never ends.

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9. We're Post-Label

 

I once watched my father lose his mind over those liners for hanging baskets as a teenager. You know, the ones that are made of coconut pulp?

Anyway, we went to Home Depot and I went with him to buy herb plants. I check out, no big deal. He checks out, and they ring up more expensive than he thought, and he complains. They were on sale, 30% off or something. She points out that that was just the smaller ones, not the big ones like he got.

He immediately starts screaming about how stupid the people that work there are for 'mislabeling' something. Just chews this poor teenage girl out for 10 minutes and then storms off. I'm standing there, she's in near tears, and her manager is standing there. I apologize to this girl profusely, and call him an idiot. she says, "Hey, at least I don't have to go home with him like you do."

There's a reason I moved several thousand miles away from him.

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8. You Could Complain Politely

 

Really cute little asian fusion place. Extremely sweet waitstaff. Dad didn't like the shrimp shumai, and proceeded to make really exaggerated faces of disgust, loud comments about how it's horrible while people were sitting all around us, etc.

The sweet waitress who barely spoke english asked how it was. My dad said, "Oh, not good. Not good at all. Is there a manager here? Or someone from the kitchen staff?" Cue immense sadness and embarrassment.

Let them be, it's just shrimp shumai.

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7. One-Sided Food Fight

 

We went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell. I asked for 3 soft tacos, no lettuce. When mom saw my tacos with lettuce on them, she made a u-turn and went back. She walked inside and threw an unwrapped taco in the cashier's face. "These were supposed to be without lettuce. What does this look like to you!?" SMACK.

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6. Good Riddance

 

My dad got escorted out of a mall by security and banned from the entire mall for making a sales assistant cry after screaming at her for about 30 minutes because they wouldn't fix my water-damaged phone. He's an abusive jerkwad who think's rules/policies don't apply to him and that being aggressive and demanding will get him what he wants. I cut off contact with him a few years ago.

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5. A Side Of Cries

One time when I was about 3, my mom didn't get the honey mustard she wanted from McDonald's. So she said to the employee, "Do you want my daughter to cry?" Then she turned to me and demanded, " Cry, Annie, cry." She had trained me to cover my face and bawl whenever she did this. I still feel embarrassed. This is definitely wasn't the only time this happened, just the earliest I can remember.

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4. You Have The Floor

When I was a kid, my mother let my brother and me sleep on the floor during a long-distance flight. For safety reasons, the flight attendants told my mother that we were not allowed to do that. Mom started to argue with the flight attendant, who then took the matter to the pilots. The pilots threatened to turn the plane around unless we got up off the floor, but my mom continued to argue.

The pilots announced they were about to turn around because of my mother, so all the passengers got understandably angry. Eventually she caved in, but only when she had every single person on a Boeing 747 ready to throw her out the door.

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3. Read The Fine Print

My mom needed to return some shirts at the mall because they didn't fit right. It was past the allotted time that she had to return them, so the employee said that there wasn't anything she could do. My mom started SCREAMING at this girl who was probably about 16 or 17, calling her names and demanding to speak to the manager. When the manager told my mom that they couldn't do anything and that the return policy was on the receipt, my mom threw a fit and knocked over a display that was next to the register and stormed out of the store.

I was probably 6 or 7 at the time and I was mortified. I apologized for her behavior and picked up what I could before she started calling for me to follow her. The manager was super sweet to me though and told me that I was a good kid and to stand up to my mom when I could get away with it.

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2. How Did She Measure That?

So my mom and I were at a pizza place. She called over the waiter and said, “I would like your manager please.” So he brings the manager. He asks, “Is something wrong ma’am?” She says, “Yes, your music is over 80 decibels and it’s really not attracting customers. Fix it." Meanwhile there is a huge line at the door waiting for an open table.

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1. Girl Named Sue

My mom once demanded to talk to a manager at a restaurant for seeing a plastic straw on the floor. She threatened to sue for endangering wildlife.

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