This story always gave me a giggle as a child. My parents attended a dinner party many years ago, at K’s home. K had also invited L and M who were known for being a little bit stingy in their social circle – the type of people who never let anything go for nothing.
L and M brought two nice bottles of wine to the dinner party that night, a nice gesture and nothing unusual. Everyone had brought something – wine, flowers, chocolate etc. Due to the abundance of drinks available, by the end of the night, the party only finished half a bottle. As people left, they obviously left their cakes/wine/chocolates with K, as a hostess gift – this was what I was always taught was appropriate behavior after such an event.
L and M did not. They picked up their unopened bottle of wine from the counter as they left, and took it with them. Not surprising from them, this was kind of their thing.
The party was well and truly wrapping up when M suddenly reappeared.
Because he had forgotten the half-empty bottle of wine still on the table.
Yes, he and L had realized the first bottle of wine hadn’t been entirely finished, had turned around and driven all the way back to K’s place to reclaim their “leftovers”. I always wondered what would have happened if someone had finished the bottle after they left, but the end of the story is simply that the half-empty bottle was corked and handed to M, and this spectacular faux pas joined our family lexicon of What Not To Do. 0912-16
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We have a similar story in my family! But it was my aunt’s fiance and a bottle of Kahlua. My mom and other aunt decided that THIS time, he was not going to have anything to take home and consumed it while doing dishes. My grandmother was worried about her dishes, my mom and aunt had a wonderful time (as they tell it) and the fiance was very miffed he did not have any leftovers. It brings smile and laughter every time it’s told!
While doing dishes is the best time to consume unfinished wine! (or Kahlua) Makes being a host a lot more rewarding. Good on your mom and other aunt!
Why bring 2 bottles ? Yes it is rude especially to go back for a half empty bottle. It takes all kinds of people to make life interesting.
Love this! I cant help wondering if this couple ever hosted their own dinners.mim guessing they probably didn’t.
If they ever hosted a dinner party, they probably tried to get their guests to provide all food and bevvies. Anyone arriving empty-handed would get an invoice the next day
If L and M were well-known for their stingy behavior, why on earth were they still invited to social gatherings?
So that we can collect stories like this.
Perhaps because they were perfectly nice people with one personality flaw. I think this sort of behaviour falls under “amusing story” rather than “terrible to the point of a social cut direct.”
This story reminds me – what about casual get-togethers, like potlucks? Should you leave the leftovers for the host or take it with you?
In my circle, when people are leaving, there’s a sort of general food exchange among guests and hosts. “Do you want to take some of this with you?” “Do you want to keep some of this here?” I might leave with some of what I brought (or not), but also a bunch of what I didn’t.
In any case, the simplest solution is just to ask if anyone wants any before you go. Unless you brought it in a disposable dish, you’ll need to have that discussion anyway, since you’ll need to bring your serving plate / casserole dish home with you, whether it’s empty or not.
I ask. Some people really don’t want the picked over leftovers, some may like them. I don’t think there is a hard and fast rule.
To me leftover alcohol is more likely to be usable to the hosts. I always considered it to be a nice benefit to the hosts to have some wine, unopened beers, and so on.
For potlucks, most hosts don’t want to keep 25 casserole dishes and pie plates etc…
Because now they have an obligation to wash the dish, fill it with something new, and return it.
Also, there is usually a ton of food left over and the host begging people to take stuff home with them.
So I normally offer the host my leftovers. Then, if the host declines, I take them home with me.
When I hosted regularly, I used to beg my guests to take the leftovers, as everyone would always bring a lot, on top of me cooking a lot, and the leftovers just would not fit in the fridge at the end of an evening! But they didn’t want them, either. (they were probably like me when I attend potlucks, and would double the recipe, bring half to the potluck, and keep the other half at home for themselves.) I think it’s acceptable either way, but would like to know what the proper etiquette is here.
From what I’ve seen on this site, it’s a regional thing. Where I am, you are expected to take home your dish and whatever is left in it, although I would say more often people will try to get other people (not necessarily the host) to take the leftovers (so we scoop stuff into each others pans or make plates or whatever, especially if there is someone you know kind of needs it and will appreciate it, e.g. starving university students). And I would say it’s more likely that if you did plan to leave your leftovers, a host would say something to remind you to take them with you and wouldn’t keep them unless the person who brought the dish either told them to keep it (if they wanted it, because leaving someone with leftovers they don’t want or have room for is inconsiderate) or physically left without it. I guess the overall thing is that the leftovers don’t get wasted. And, of course, ultimately you want to bring a dish that people loved so much that there weren’t any leftovers anyway.
HOWEVER I’ve seen on this site that some people are just appalled by the notion that someone would take their own leftovers home.
Unless the hostess says so, you may take leftovers home? Otherwise, ask the hostess for her container, put the leftovers in there, and wash up YOUR OWN dish. That’s what my parents did in their social circle potlucks.
The larger error here may be an overindulgence in humor. Reclaiming leftovers is ungracious in most cases, but no more so than jesting about the cheapness of those one invites to one’s home. It makes me wonder whether their reputation was as deserved as it appears.
Thank you for this. Maybe the couple really has no idea how this looks to others. I am guilty of taking home my leftovers after pot-lucks back in my younger days because I did not know better. A friend finally told me how things operated. I was embarrassed but relieved to finally be in the know.
I think the people who turned around and drove back to pick up a half-finished bottle of wine, deserve all of their reputation and then some.
Ummm, no. If they were going around town blabbing it to everyone, that would be rude. But jesting about it privately in their own homes with their own family members is not rude.
I believe this is unnecessarily harsh. It is a story recounted to the LW by her parents, and by her (anonymously) to an etiquette site. There is no evidence L&M were made fun of in other situations.
The same thing happened to me! In fact, I think it was printed on this site. We had friends over for a party, and one of the couples presented me with a bottle of wine. Because they handed it directly to me (as opposed to saying “Where’s the drinks table? We’ll put it there for everyone to have some”), I assumed it was a hostess gift. At the end of the evening, the husband said “Where’s that bottle of wine? Since no-one had any, we’re going to take it home.” To be completely honest, I pretended I hadn’t heard him (partly because I couldn’t believe he was serious). He repeated what he’d said, though, so I silently handed it to him on his way out the door.
Wow – I’m not sure “tacky” is a strong enough word here. Unless you were bringing the wine solely for your own consumption (for example, if it was a party and you knew the hosts were only planning to have alcoholic beverages you didn’t like), any wine brought to a dinner party is a host/hostess gift – period. Taking the full bottle was bad enough – but actually making the trip back to get the half-empty bottle? That’s a whole different level of stingy! I kind of wish the other guests HAD finished the bottle before M came back – it might have been a lesson.
At least the modus operandi is known with L&M. Driving back for half a bottle of wine seems a bit over the top. It WOULD have been interesting had the wine been killed in their absence. Just shrug and keep going, this one is a minor one in the annals.
Sounds like people I know. One can sincerely try to find value in every relationship but if the selfishness is that noticeable it becomes very difficult to ignore. Eventually, one gets tired of it and the relationship is cooled or ended because of it. And then, looking back, one wonders why one put up with it for so long and regrets not having cut the ties much, much sooner. People like L and M usually do not have long-term relationships, since they choose to value things over people. It’s their loss.
No Words.
Not only was that rude (and also pretty cheap), it may also have been illegal to drive home with it under open bottle laws! In my state, it’s only legal if the opened bottle is stored in a compartment inaccessible from the cabin, such as a sedan’s trunk.
My thoughts exactly. I was pulled over with a warning for speeding after a weekend up at a cabin, and my friend told me after that he sat absolutely still and avoided even looking in the direction of the half-consumed bottle of bourbon in the back seat, which we forgot to put in the trunk.
Had the bottle been found, I’m sure that I’d have not gotten off with just a warning.
On the other hand, they did bring two bottles and presumably wouldn’t have complained if they had both been consumed, so while it was off to take the leftovers, you have to give them credit for bringing wine to begin with. I’m sure I’ve read stories on here of people who claimed leftovers from potlucks that they hadn’t brought. And points for the hosts to graciously cork it up and hand it over without a fuss.
How tacky! However, if an event is a potluck, people are free to claim whatever is left of what they brought.
People are weird. Seriously, if it were me, if I brought two bottles – I leave 2 bottles. If I brought an appetizer – if the entire thing wasn’t consumed I would ask if they would like to keep whatever was left – if it isn’t in a dish I want back – I would just leave it. The icing on the cake is driving all the way back for half a bottle. I mean, really?!?!?!? I could forgive taking the unopened bottle – but wow!!!!
I feel like the OP. I got a chuckle out of it, and although it was rude of L&M, it’s not so awful as to be anything but a humorous memory for the family. It is too bad, though, for humor’s sake, that the clean-up crew hadn’t already polished off the half-bottle when the husband returned for it.
I’ll take L & M over my brother–in-law who brings a bottle of cheap and nasty and takes home a bottle of our nice and tasty. We got in the habit of hiding all the good wine when we knew he was coming over, but one of the kids ratted us out. Brother-in-law rang the doorbell and when our son answered, his Uncle said, “Surprise.” Our son said, “Oh, I knew you were coming. Mom and Dad hid all the wine.” What can you say at that point? The wine’s in the spare room closet under the extra pillows. Help yourself. Kids.
rindlrad – I don’t understand why you told your BIL where the wine was. Why couldn’t you just say, “Yes, the wine has been put away. Can I take your coat?” and left it at that?
Embarrassment. I know, we should have calmly and coolly reacted just as you said or, better, never allowed him to begin taking our nice wine in the first place. Boundaries with family are sometimes hard. Brother-in-law has since moved so this is no longer an issue. Only a funny story that we tease our son about.
I’ve never known anyone take home a bottle but I do know a few people who will bring cheap and nasty and only drink the nice and tasty. The worse bit is that at the end of the night you house now contains a bottle no-one wants and you are not happy to give away. In our circle of friends one guy used to be infamous for it. We had an intervention of sorts. Basically a friend had a party and we all brought round his leftover wine /spirits (e.g. shop brand /half bottles etc). He turned up and actually commented along the lines of “is this it? No good stuff” and then he was let in on where all this alcohol came from. He was rather embarrassed but we all had a laugh at the “cheap night in theme”
I find it really odd that you would let him pick up a different bottle to take home… how did that happen?
It was kind of one of those situations that start our innocent enough and then gets out of hand while you aren’t looking. One night Brother-in-law was over for dinner and commented that he really liked the wine we served. My husband works in the wine industry and so we get gifts of free wine now and then. We happened to have been given two bottles of the wine that my BIL liked, so we gave him one to take with him. I guess he figured that ALL our wine is given to us (it isn’t) and that we would naturally want to share our bounty with him. While it’s true we would be happy to actually share with him once in awhile, he took it upon himself to divide up the goods.
We didn’t realize what was happening at first. Bottles that we thought we had were missing and we figured that we had opened them and forgot – that kind of thing. Then the cheap and nasty started showing up – bottles of wine that we knew we didn’t bring into the house – and we started paying attention. That’s when we figured it out.
As stated above, I know we were wimps. We should have put a stop to it and not done the stupid “hide the wine because BIL is coming over” thing. Like I said, family dynamics and boundaries are sometimes difficult. We look back and laugh. Relationship with BIL is good. In the end, I suppose that’s worth a few bottles of wine. However, if BIL had remained living in our city, I’m aware we would have had to eventually address the wine pilfering problem or the relationship would have been damaged.
I love your idea of taking the cheap and nasty back to the giver’s house. We just ended up pouring it out and recycling the bottles, which created another funny situation. My husband’s boss came to our house one day to pick something up. It happened to be a recycling day and the bin was out on the curb for pickup. He noticed one of the bottles was BIL’s cheap and nasty. He still teases my husband about it.
This is obnoxious behavior because there are plenty of cheap bottles that aren’t nasty at all, all it takes is a little know-how and not to stop at the nearest 7-11 >:(
Agreed. You don’t have to spend a lot to get a good bottle of wine. There ARE truly bad wines, but sometimes it comes down to a matter of taste. I think if BIL had paid attention to the type of wine we served him and that he himself likes, he could have found a $10 bottle that would have been just fine. I wonder if he was bringing us bottles of cheap and nasty that other people had given to him? Oh dear, I think we need to introduce my BIL to Ant’s frugal friend.
I once read something that defined being frugal and being cheap.
Being frugal is when your behavior affects yourself.
Being cheap is when your behavior affects others.
I had a co-worker who was very cheap when it came to common food, anything that was free, or what she brought for a potluck. It was annoying, but also a bit pathetic.
lakey, I read the same definition. I sometimes want to quote that to my mother. “When you have your thermostat set to 16 degrees Celsius in the winter, and I’m visiting, and I can’t stop shivering because I’m so cold – you’re being cheap!”.
Ooh, I like that definition. Very apt!
It’s a good working definition. But the lack of nuance would create a needless pang of conscience for some. There are aways going to be those whose resources allow them to entertain a bit more lavishly than I can afford. Yet I feel as though I am a successfull hostess if the food is safely prepared, generously portioned, hot, appropriate to the occasion and appetizing. Perhaps some can manage steak and grilled shrimp. Okay, chicken cacciatore, pasta and a salad make an acceptable basis for a reciprocal meal. Generosity of soul is an important component of hospitality (which is why it’s kinder to overlook some gaffes others coomit, rather than memorializing them, even humorously).
Every social circle that I have ever been a part of has always taken our potluck leftovers home at the end of the night, or swapped leftovers with the other guests. The hosts have always made it clear that they don’t want all these leftovers in their house. Some guests even bring plastic baggies and containers with them for the other guest’s leftovers.
Over here, the petrol would have cost more than the wine was worth!
I was just thinking that exact same thing! Petrol in the UK is so expensive (£1.15 per litre – that’s over £5 or $US6.50 per gallon) that it would have to be REAAAAALLLLY nice wine to make it worth the effort to turn around and drive back for HALF an opened bottle 🙂
I had a good laugh over this, cheap indeed!
I could not imagine the gall over driving back to get half a bottle of wine.
With thanksgiving rapidly approaching, I’m sure my mom will bring up (yet again!) the plastic container she sent home with leftovers YEARS ago that I never returned.
Every year, as she puts our (very generous may I say) leftovers into FOIL, she brings up that damn five dollar container I never brought back.
And yes, most certainly my fault for not returning it, but I have offered to replace it several times.
Every year, on the way to my folks house, one of my kids will start laughing and say “okay…how long we will we be there this year until grandma brings up THE CONTAINER!!!”
For Christmas this year, you should get her a nice big stock of plastic containers for all the years she’s suffered since you stole her beloved >:D
I would go buy like four of them, wrap them up and hand it over for a holiday gift. Then smile so sweetly.
I was in a similar situation for years and out of sheer exasperation I asked if there was anything, anything at all I could do to make things right so that the Slotted Spoon Incident could be laid to rest permanently. I said I would pay! A lot! Or go to the ends of the Internet to search for a replacement, as I had tried so many times already. Was there anything I could do or say to permanently end the years-old tragedy? My mother actually mumbled, “Well, no…”
Thank you to all! 🙂
Ah, yes….I have bought some and left them there when dear Mom tries to return them.
I get the attitude of a child who can’t find their bed time lovey, and are offered another one in its place.
“Sigh. It’s nice….but it’s not mine.” Argh!!! It’s Tupperware, for God’s sake!!!
And….I love my mom, don’t get me wrong, but she is a clean-a-holic.
You should have been there when one of son’s dropped a large bottle of maple syrup and it broke.
I thought my mom was going to have a stroke.
My son offered to clean it up, she just shooed him away.
Still hear about THAT too… 🙂
Just4kick, I got into a similar situation. And I got very passive aggressive with my mum about a metal cake tin. Basically between starting work and moving away I lived at home. I took a cake tin to work to work and lost it (or it was stolen). For months she would bemoan me “how could you lose a whole tin” ” are you sure no-one saw it” (probably but you can’t really accuse co-workers of stealing). Anyway she would tell everyone who would listen the tale of the lost/stolen tin. She refused my offers to by her one and this continued for years. I got fed up after ~2 1/2 years so for Christmas put her present in a cake tin and wrapped it. She thought it was “good but not my old tin”. So I did the same with her birthday present, next Christmas and repeat for ~3 years until she told me that the “joke had got stale” and she didn’t need so many cake tins. I pointed out her cake tin story got stale a few months after telling it but that didn’t stop her retelling it for over 5 years and she finally cottoned on that I was feeling bullied and stopped telling that story.
Also, on the subject of cheap vs. frugal, I was engaged to a man (whom I thankfully did not marry) who once screamed at me because I threw out the two “end” pieces of a loaf of bread.
Then he fished the wrapper out of the trash and made himself a sandwich.
Once we were married, he would’ve probably limited the toilet paper!!!
Wow you definitely dodged a bullet!
My husband hates food waste but he’s nowhere near that level. Whenever something gets burnt or whatever and I go to throw it out, he’ll say “Oh but you can’t waste food just because you don’t want to eat it!” Then when I say, “Well, good, you can go ahead and it eat, then.” it’s usually met with silence. So into the trash it goes. If YOU wouldn’t eat it, why would you expect ME to?
And I agree with you, the end pieces of the loaf are useless! lol
A HUGE bullet.
This is the same man who when we went to visit friends whose little ones had been sick, so they invited us over for movies and take out instead of dinner and a movie out.
The men decided McDonald’s sounded good and I said I’d like a big Mac, fries and a chocolate shake.
My fiancee looked me up and down my 5’7 and 125 pound frame and said “I’ll get you EITHER the big Mac OR the shake….too many calories for you to have both!!!”
True story.
The wife of this friend asked me to lunch the next week and said her and her hubby were horrified that he did that, and does he always treat me like that….And they were HIS friend’s!!!
Diane…wherever you are…thank you!!!! Really opened my eyes, and I called the whole thing off shortly thereafter.
To me bread heels were the best part. I was addicted to bread and gravy and ate a lot of it. Glad you dodged the bullet though.
Thanks!
I had a coworker who would “forget” to bring his wallet to work. He would hover around at lunch break wanting you to offer him something or needing to borrow change to get a snack. The last OMG! was when I was eating/sharing a bag of microwave popcorn with him and he took the “empty” bag and tried to re-pop the last few kernals of corn. No shame. The people that come into our lives are a blessing or a lesson.
I used to have a colleague like that. She borrowed cash and food from everyone, and even tried to get the work canteen to give her credit, which they did until they realised she owed them over £30. She earned a good wage and wore nice clothes and drove a very nice car, but she never bought a drink at after work drinks, and never brought in a cake or anything for bake sales. She was fairly close friends with another colleague, who made it very clear that she wasn’t in any financial trouble – she was just cheap.
….or the coworker who can afford (nice clothes/fancy car etc) but declines to go in on take out at lunch and then sits there sulking into a cheese sandwich and throws back handed comments down the table.
“Must be REALLY NICE to afford to eat out”!!!
Yes….Yes it is. 🙂
I’ve seen both situations: the hostess doesn’t want to be stuck with too much food and too many plates… and maybe they don’t drink all that much, so they ask guests to bring things back home with them; and I’ve also been to parties where the hostess does so much work, that if my bottle isn’t finished, or even open, I simply leave it. They can enjoy it later as a thank you for all their hard work. Sometimes, you need to know how to read the room. But if you’re in a social circle, most people know what’s up. And if someone commits a slight faux pas because they didn’t read the room properly, everyone sort of shrugs and laughs because after all, it isn’t that big a deal. But I agree that actually turning the car around to come back for a half-finished bottle of wine smacks of stinginess.
Everyone posting sounds very polite, but I just wanted to add a comment in case people were not aware of one time when it is not the custom to take home leftovers. When someone Jewish dies, instead of having a wake before the burial, the burial takes place right away and there is a custom wherein the family waits at home for visitors called “sitting shiva.” Some very religious families do this for a whole month but others simply do it for a day or a week depending on their preference. It is customary for people to bring food to a shiva house, but they should not take their leftovers home with them, or indeed, remove any food from a shiva house. I don’t know if there are similar customs in non-Jewish rites, but I can only guess that this custom came about because the food is usually provided by people who are, like me, Jewish mothers, there is usually enough food for an army and accordingly, loads of leftovers at a shiva.
Nothing really to do with the topic at hand, but this reminded me of when I was little and on Holy Saturday, we would take a picnic basket containing our Easter meal to have the food blessed.
You couldn’t throw any of the trash away, you had to burn or bury it.
I haven’t been to Mass in years, but I told this to my kids who were like “what”?!?
Were you guys Orthodox, too? We were advised to give the leftover blessed bread to the squirrels. Which I think is very cute and a great thing to do for the squirrels!
It got more interesting when we baptized our (then five-month-old) firstborn at home in a baby bathtub. All was good and well until we found out that it was now a bathtub full of holy water, and could not be poured down the drain. You could use it to water plants. We lived on first floor of an apartment building and there was a grass lawn underneath our window. So my husband and a couple other guys somehow carried that heavy tub full of water to an open window, and poured it out. Good times. This is completely off-topic, though.
No @ Goldie: Just Roman Catholic, not orthodox….however I too, love the feed the extras to the squirrels.
A lot more fun than digging a hole!!!
And….holy hell….! A full bathtub of blessed water?!?
I’m getting the vapors just thinking about that, as my grandma would say
….And, we also loved that Easter dinner had to be eaten off paper plates.
No worry of breaking moms good China washing it by hand after dinner. 🙂
This is not done. The gift, or bottle, is a thank you for having us.
Never take back any gift you bring.
Food, if the host requests you to take home, is fine. You should not be taking any home unless requested to do so. Nor should you ask.
If the host of a dinner party is serving wine with the dinner, it’s my understanding that guests who bring wine with them should not expect the host to serve the wine the guest brings.
The reason for this: at least in theory, the host has taken pains to make sure that the wine he is serving pairs well with the food he is serving. The wine a guest brings is a gift to the host or hostess, to be enjoyed by them when they feel it’s appropriate. If the host doesn’t feel the wine pairs well with the food, then host doesn’t have to serve it at the party and it would be a grave breech of etiquette for the guest to take it back.