I was helping a dear friend of mine with a party for her daughter. The party was a success and scheduled from 1-3. Aside from the usual unexpected siblings and some rowdy kids, it went pretty well etiquette wise too. We heard a knock and friend went to answer the door at 3:30. In comes a mom with her two daughters. One that was invited. The mom said, "Oh we completely forgot about this party and was driving by when I remembered. We wanted to come and apologize for missing it."
My friend said, "Oh okay, well I am sorry you missed it." Mom stood there. Her girls said, "Can we have some cake and ice cream?" Flustered my friend said sure, let me get you guys some. I unpacked the plates, napkins, found the cake server and went ahead and served them cake. They were very disappointed we were out of ice cream. As they ate their cake, I went back to cleaning up. The mom just stood there waiting patiently for her girls to finish while we all cleaned up. Then the girls put down their plates on the table instead of in the trash can that was right next to them and asked us for goody bags. I told them we didn't have any left and the girls said but we were invited! Friend stepped in and said that the party games and pinata were how the guests filled their goody bags so that's why we don't have one. The mom piped up, "I always prepack goody bags, that way all invited guests can each get one." Cue awkward silence. Finally they asked if there was anything else for them to take. I said I am not sure what you guys mean? They pointed at the balloon decorations. Friend gave them each a balloon and they asked for more. At this point I had enough and walked away to clean up in a remote corner of the room.
I told friend that she shouldn't have even let them in and said that the party was over. She thought they wanted to tell the birthday girl Happy Birthday (they didn't) and didn't expect them to act like that. We were both very surprised. Would we have been rude to tell them to leave? How would you have handled it?