Etiquette Hell = Where the ill-mannered deserve to go

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Just Plain Tacky

When no other category fits the crime

Archive 2001
Jan - Jun 2003 Archive
Jul-Dec 2003 Archive
Jan-Jun 2004 Archive


 

My story starts when I got off the plane in the Dominican Republic. I was in line at immigration the place was packed full of vacationers. I had been in line for a hour when more people started to pour in. I was in a line when this French family walked up in front of me and broke into the line. I asked them to get in the back of the line. they said to me "Its O.K." I said no its not I had to wait so should you. They kept saying "Oh no its O.K." so I put my bags in front of me and started to slowly edge them out of the line .They were talking a bunch of smack about me in French, but by the time I got to the immigration gate I had pushed them out of the line. 4 hours later!! I had never had a problem with "French people" before, but I'm schooled now!!! Thanks 4 your web site!!!!!

edPlainTacky0709-04


I received this email from a co-worker today. I'm still in shock. The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent, other than that it's straight cut-and-paste.

Hello,

I am going to be having a birthday party for Taylor and I'd like to send everyone an invitation. Before I send invitations I like to get an idea of who can make it. I'm planning it for the weekend of Sept. 18th. If you don't think you can make it, then please let me know and I will not bother to send an invitation to you. I am sending this in advance so hopefully most of you can make it. 

edPlainTacky0803-04


 

This is a story so tacky that it deserves to be shared with the world.

My husband moved from his part of the country to my part of the country, to be with me. Once a year we take a couple of weeks to visit his family. A few years ago, we timed this trip to coincide with his father's 50th birthday party. Now, I'm not very close to those in-laws and would have much rather not gone to the party (I'm a wallflower and avoid all parties), but I went along in the name of family harmony.

The party was held in the community hall of their nice, historic neighborhood. The guest list included his wife (my husband's stepmother), her two grown daughters (and the man that one of the daughters is now married to), some family friends, many of his work friends (and their wives), and even his boss (who surprised him with news of a much-coveted promotion at the party). The agenda for the night was pretty cool: we were going to have catered food from FIL's favorite Spanish restaurant, Spanish music playing all night, and a bit after dinner, a dance instructor was going to come teach us all how to tango! So far so good, right?

The day of the party, I'm sitting in the living room reading a book or otherwise passing the time, when I hear stepMIL telling stepSIL that one of FIL's friends (a younger man who I will call "Larry") had asked her if she had hired a stripper for the party. Yeah, a stripper for the birthday party where his WIFE and CHILDREN and BOSS were going to be! Unbelievably tacky! But wait, it gets worse. When stepMIL tells him that of course she didn't, Larry takes it upon himself to hire one.

The party starts out well enough. My husband and I are the youngest folks there (late teens to early 20s at the time), most everyone else was FIL's age or older. I didn't know anyone there outside of the family, but I made do by talking about my business and the really cute cat who crashed the party. Larry shows up late, in a zippy little sports car.

It was late summer and the community hall didn't have the best cooling, so a lot of people were going outside to either smoke or cool down. I was doing the latter when... the stripper shows up. Someone alerts stepMIL to her presence and stepMIL intercepts her before she gets inside. I have to hand it to the stepMIL, she handled the situation with grace. She explained that stripping was inappropriate for this party and tried to come up with some sort of alternate entertainment. Apparently the stripper can't do anything but strip, so they decide on just a sexy dance number, but her clothes are staying on.

Now, this stripper looked the part. She was tall and buxom, wearing a long, tight leopard-print dress which was split up the sides and cut low in the back, so you could see her bra. Actually, she looked pretty "cheap", and wasn't what I would call beautiful, either. I felt pretty sorry for her.

So anyway, I go back inside and find my husband, just as the stripper walks in. My husband looks at her and says to me... "THAT's the dance teacher?" Uh oh, I realize that he hadn't overheard the conversation! Wishing to save him immense embarrassment (really, what 20 year old man wants to see his father get a lap dance?), I dragged him down into the basement of the community center and told him what was going on. Boy, was he ever disappointed! Turns out he had always looked up to Larry as a kid, and this really lowered his opinion of the guy (big surprise).

After talking about it for a few minutes, we head upstairs figuring that the worst will be over and we don't want people wondering where we had gone off to. Our timing was bad, we came up just as she was hiking her skirt and waving her booty in front of a very embarrassed FIL. With all of his co-workers, his boss, his children, and everyone's wives watching. Ugh.

We weren't the only ones with bad timing. About this time, in walks the dance instructor - a very proper looking older gentleman! He wasn't too impressed with us after catching the tail end (pun not intended) of that show.

Not surprisingly, Larry's not really considered a family friend anymore...

edPlainTacky0811-04


Several years ago, I worked in a medium sized office and one of the girls there had a younger brother that was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  He was in his mid-20's and single.  Their parents had died the year before and he was pretty much on his own with only his sister to help him out.    Several of us had gotten together to pitch in where we could with some support.  Sis had asked if we could put together some easy to reheat dishes of food for him to make meals with and she and I went to a cheap store and bought a ton of plasticware to share with everyone. 

Almost everyone took a batch home and began bringing in little frozen batches of all kinds of food, which brother & sister appreciated immensely.  There was a lot of gratitude there and it was rewarding to feel helpful.   At my house however, my husband is complaining about every bite going into these little dishes!  Now we both earn quite a good living and are not struggling in the least so I am quite surprised by this fit he is throwing.  Anyway, I wasn't cooking anything special, every time I made us a meal I just took a portion of whatever it was and put some into the little plasticware bowls, then I froze the dishes and carried them to work every few days.  We certainly weren't missing any meals or doing without at our house.   Meanwhile at the office, sis is washing the dishes and bringing them back to be refilled and all is going well.  I have absolutely no complaint about this plan, it worked great and was very helpful to her and the brother.    

At my house, my husband is still complaining about every damn bite of food going out of our house.  I am stunned by his attitude.  Apparently, he has determined that I am having an affair with this bed-ridden, terminally ill young man and the accusations start.  I am not even going to the fellow's home, I am sending my dishes with his sister, that I have worked with for 15 years and I am certainly not having an affair.    

Too make a long story short, the brother passes away within 3 months of the start of this story and the sister and I agree to donate all of the plasticware to a local shelter for abused women.  Once again, she is great and I feel that I have been helpful in a bad situation.  My husband throws another fit that I did not get our plasticware back.  Now I know we didn't spend more that $20 on this cheap stuff and we split the cost anyway.  Who cares?     

It turns out that my now ex-husband had been having an affair with his best friend's wife and was trying to justify it by accusing me.  Counseling led us to divorce somewhat amicably and last year he was diagnosed with cancer (non-terminal) himself.  Guess who cooked and carried food over for him - the faithful sister I worked with and myself.  He had no complaints this time! I guess what goes around does come around.     

edPlainTacky1231-04


I am a veterinary student and commute daily with a knapsack that weighs over 40lbs! I was lucky enough to score a seat for awhile until a very elderly Asian woman carrying a lot of groceries stepped on the bus. She walked by about 8 healthy young people before I stood up, "shlupped" my knapsack onto the floor and offered her my seat (which pleased her immensely.) Next, an old man with a cane got on the bus and AGAIN, these feebs didn't even shift. I had no seat to give, so I vocalized my distaste, which was met with dirty looks from a few of the people including three young "hoochie" girls, and a yuppie couple drinking Starbucks coffees. I said "aren't you going to let this man have a seat?" and the woman actually said "We have coffees." After a chastising look on my behalf, The man begrudgingly got up and offered the man his seat in an irritated tone. I couldn't believe it! The old man was grateful and shared a look with the Asian lady and I. Aren't people considerate enough to allow a person carrying a huge load, an elderly or disabled person have a seat anymore? Yeesh! 

edPlainTacky1202-04


I have a daughter in grade school, who has several close friends.  I am friends with the mothers of most of these girls, and one night, my daughter, "Colleen", her friend "Denise," and Denise's mother, "Abby," and I all went out for a girls' night out.  Abby's behavior was unbelievable.

First, we went to dinner.  I happened to be working part-time at a steak house at the time, so we went there and had dinner.  Colleen and Denise chatted and giggled the way eight-year-old girls will do, and Abby and I were having a nice conversation when her cell phone rang.  She took the call, and completely ignored me for the rest of dinner while she talked with some guy she worked with (incidentally, Abby is married).

After dinner we went to a movie.  We had settled in with our snacks and the movie had just started when Abby's phone rang again!  Not only did she answer it, but she spent the first five minutes of the film talking to this same guy until I elbowed her, and she told him she was at the movies and had to get off the phone.  As soon as she got off the call, I asked her to turn her phone off (and of course, that particular instruction had already been blazed across the screen before the start of the show).

Following the movie, we went to my house.  Denise was going to spend the night with Colleen.  When we got to my house, Abby asked to use my phone, and then had the temerity to call this dude BACK and talk with him, on MY telephone, for over an hour!!!  During this time, I was doing girl stuff with Colleen and Denise, but it's absolutely the last girls' night we'll ever have, although Colleen has asked me several times for another one.  I think we'll find another friend with a mom who's more attentive to the people she's with than to some guy she works with!!

edPlainTacky1015-04


 

I am acquainted with a female friend of my boyfriend, "Katrina", who has unfortunately suffered abuse at the hands of men (she has been raped and molested). While I am very sympathetic that she went through this, what I find tacky is her behavior- Within 5 minutes of meeting someone new, she'll start telling them about how she was raped. I am absolutely baffled as to why anyone would tell personal details like this to someone they have barely met, but it continues...

This girl receives counseling because of these unfortunate and traumatic events, and at parties will often interrupt conversation to start whinging about how much she hates going to counseling, etc... just so people will pay attention to her again!

To top it off, she has what a close friend describes as "slimy" behavior, she'll flirt at parties, but instead of nice friendly flirtings, she'll pretty much "slime" men... basically hanging off as many guys as she can the entire night.

(as some history, I live in a different state to my boyfriend, so at the moment we're carrying on as close a loving and close relationship as we can in the circumstances)

On a related note, she decided that my boyfriend of a year was a perfect catch.... so she started flirting with him non-stop, even after he told her several times that he wasn't interested and already had a girlfriend.... and the sort of flirting in question was making up a story about being "cold" (on an Australian summer night!) when she was at his house for a party, so she climbed into his bed with him, and when he pretty much passed out from tiredness, instead of politely leaving and going to (one of the many) guest beds, she decided that she was going to stay right there, in my boyfriend's bed with him. All of my friends, and friends of my boyfriend were livid (none of them like her much because of her above mentioned tacky behavior), and she since has not been invited to any parties they have!

There are MANY other occasions when she has acted inappropriately to my boyfriend, while knowing full well that he has a girlfriend, but that just takes the cake, and still infuriates me to this day (that she could be so tacky, and that he could be so dense as to not recognize her ulterior motives)

While, as I said, I am fully sympathetic that she was raped; I can understand how traumatizing the event can be, I think she's playing her 'victim' card a little too often, and needs to be firmly told that her behavior is classless and tacky, and if I come across her again, and she has the gall to flirt with my boyfriend in front of me, I will not be afraid to tell her so.

Thank you Etiquette Hell for allowing me the chance to vent!

edPlainTacky1223-04


Page Last Updated May 15, 2007