Seeing that title triggered my memory of a bizarre situation last winter.
I and my BFF Glenda have a friend, Mindy, that we've know since we were teens. Mindy is a little out there, a little strange-but harmless! and truly a nice person. Just a bit of a space cadet.
Last year Mindy made the jump from living at home to an apartment. A month or so after she gets settled she messaged us saying she'd like to have us over for lunch. We both respond yes and we work out a date and time, and because she has to leave around 4 to get to another engagement we would be there for noon and stay till 4. So a good little lunch date to see her new place, catch up- perfect!
We each ask what she would like us to bring, sides or drinks or snacks, she says just bring ourselves we don't have to bring anything. We both said okay but told her to let us know if she changed her mind. As it was I brought each a box of chocolates since I wasn't going to see either of them again before Christmas.
We arrive at noon, she shows us around the apartment, offers us a glass of water, I give them their gifts and we all sit down and start chatting. Around 1:30 we start smelling something absolutely delicious. Glenda makes a comment on how good the food smells thinking it was something that Mindy had ready to come out of the oven. Her response 'yeah, some of neighbours make really amazing food'. Oh. So Glenda made a few more comments about what it smelled like they're making. We start talking about our favourite foods. Glenda and Mindy open up their chocolate and start snacking.
Meanwhile I'm sitting there thinking to myself -oh &$%!!- I must have misinterpreted the email! and tried to recall if food was mentioned, maybe it wasn't a lunch invite, maybe it was just an afternoon visit. I was also regretting sleeping in and missing out on an actual breakfast before leaving.
The afternoon continued and about 2:30 Mindy gets up and goes to the kitchen, I'm thinking oh good, lunch time! I ask her if she needs any help and she responds she doesn't. She walks back out with one of those little bags of popcorn (the kind that come from festive gift baskets) opens the bag and starts snacking. She puts it on the table in front of her, facing her, so it doesn't seem like she's sharing it with us. I ask her if I could try some and she says sure so Glenda and I take a few and use the last drops of water to choke it down (it was very stale, and mouth was dry since we'd finished our glasses hours before, never offered more). At 3:30 we start getting our coats and scarves on, say our goodbyes and thank you for having us over and head out to Glenda's hubby waiting in the car. As soon as we got in the car Glenda broke and told hubby to please take us to find some food. I piped up saying I thought it was just me that misunderstood the invite, but Glenda was under the impression too that 'come over for lunch' means come over for lunch.
When I got home I scoured through the email exchanges to see what I missed. Short of saying 'there will be food' it was very clearly 'inviting over lunch' not 'lets meet up some afternoon'. Our offers to bring sides should have prompted a a clarification of what kind of visit this was if there wasn't going to be food at this lunch date.
So, rehashing this long winded story... what would you do? When accepting an invite to lunch or dinner does it need to be clarified before hand that there would be food at this lunch or dinner? Would you at half way through blurted out 'where's the food', or made excuses to leave early... I just...

...I don't know... looking back I should have done something, but what do you do in that situation?
In the grand scheme of things it was only about 3-4 hours long of a visit, but it took place around normal meal times and was, exact quote, 'would love to have you ladies over for lunch at my new place'. Even if I had had more than a piece of toast running out the door the time between breakie and dinner is a long time. When it became clear that we weren't getting food it was too late to say anything or go out because our ride would be there within the hour.
Epilogue- We are still friends, she's a sweet girl, just Mindy being... I guess, Mindy. We just make sure now that when we see each other it's somewhere that has a food court...

lol