The Future Mother-in-law draws blood.

[Eddie Teach]

Nothing wrong with saying "no thank you, I dislike potatoes." Other than the part about disliking potatoes. 

[grumbler]

One has to assume that behavior itself was not imagined.  If so, the bride-to-be does come off a bit ditzy. 

Of course, it's hard to tell how overwhelming that behavior really is:  she could be a generally good person with rough edges and incomplete knolwedge of social norms, or she could be a vulgar trash.

No actual behavior was described. WTF does "you regularly draw attention to yourself" even mean?  That's not a behavior, that's a description of a perceived result of a behavior.

[grumbler]

I said "sound", not "are". Jesus Christ.

They sound Jesus Christ, but are not Jesus Christ? 

[grumbler]

Nothing wrong with saying "no thank you, I dislike potatoes." Other than the part about disliking potatoes. 

Better to nibble a bit, and leave the rest uneaten.  The message is sent, and if the cook wants to know why you are not eating them, he or she can ask.  That's when you say you don't care for potatoes in general (and, if diplomatic, may say this even though you do like potatoes that are prepared more skillfully than those on your plate).

[derspiess]

Almost seems too much to be true-- I feel like I should check snopes before I decide to take it seriously.

That having been said, some of the trivial crap sounds similar to what I dealt with back in Delaware when I dated this one girl pretty seriously.  Her mom seemed a little odd from the beginning, and had a strict midnight curfew on her even though she was in her early 20s.  I won't even go into her rabid Catholicism.  But the rest of her family seemed to be pretty laid back.

Well, apparently after attending 2 or 3 of her family get-togethers, she started getting complaints from her grandma, uncles, and mom about how rude I acted.  Which caught me a bit off-guard as I didn't pick up on one bit of it.  Apparently my faux-pas were: not greeting elder family members before they greeted me, not raving enough about how awesome her grandma's mediocre spaghetti was, how I didn't finish every morsel of food on my plate, how I had the nerve to bring  Chilean wine to an Italian meal (???), and probably some other stuff I've purposely forgotten.  These were apparently some serious transgressions in her family.

All this stuff was apparently "Italian family tradition", though I've never gotten any other Italian-Americans or even real Italians to corroborate.  This is aside from the fact that her grandma was only half Italian and that got diluted with the following two generations.

[DGuller]

One has to assume that behavior itself was not imagined.  If so, the bride-to-be does come off a bit ditzy. 

Of course, it's hard to tell how overwhelming that behavior really is:  she could be a generally good person with rough edges and incomplete knolwedge of social norms, or she could be a vulgar trash.

No actual behavior was described. WTF does "you regularly draw attention to yourself" even mean?  That's not a behavior, that's a description of a perceived result of a behavior.

I assume that when the cow says "You do not start before everyone else", the implication is that the bride did start before everyone else.  I assume that she did not just pick out rules at random from some social etiquette book and pasted it in an e-mail.

[The Brain]

Almost seems too much to be true-- I feel like I should check snopes before I decide to take it seriously.

That having been said, some of the trivial crap sounds similar to what I dealt with back in Delaware when I dated this one girl pretty seriously.  Her mom seemed a little odd from the beginning, and had a strict midnight curfew on her even though she was in her early 20s.  I won't even go into her rabid Catholicism.  But the rest of her family seemed to be pretty laid back.

Well, apparently after attending 2 or 3 of her family get-togethers, she started getting complaints from her grandma, uncles, and mom about how rude I acted.  Which caught me a bit off-guard as I didn't pick up on one bit of it.  Apparently my faux-pas were: not greeting elder family members before they greeted me, not raving enough about how awesome her grandma's mediocre spaghetti was, how I didn't finish every morsel of food on my plate, how I had the nerve to bring  Chilean wine to an Italian meal (???), and probably some other stuff I've purposely forgotten.  These were apparently some serious transgressions in her family.

All this stuff was apparently "Italian family tradition", though I've never gotten any other Italian-Americans or even real Italians to corroborate.  This is aside from the fact that her grandma was only half Italian and that got diluted with the following two generations.

America blows.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The future mother-in-law's e-mail was very rude, she sounds like a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket.

[Ed Anger]

Almost seems too much to be true-- I feel like I should check snopes before I decide to take it seriously.

That having been said, some of the trivial crap sounds similar to what I dealt with back in Delaware when I dated this one girl pretty seriously.  Her mom seemed a little odd from the beginning, and had a strict midnight curfew on her even though she was in her early 20s.  I won't even go into her rabid Catholicism.  But the rest of her family seemed to be pretty laid back.

Well, apparently after attending 2 or 3 of her family get-togethers, she started getting complaints from her grandma, uncles, and mom about how rude I acted.  Which caught me a bit off-guard as I didn't pick up on one bit of it.  Apparently my faux-pas were: not greeting elder family members before they greeted me, not raving enough about how awesome her grandma's mediocre spaghetti was, how I didn't finish every morsel of food on my plate, how I had the nerve to bring  Chilean wine to an Italian meal (???), and probably some other stuff I've purposely forgotten.  These were apparently some serious transgressions in her family.

All this stuff was apparently "Italian family tradition", though I've never gotten any other Italian-Americans or even real Italians to corroborate.  This is aside from the fact that her grandma was only half Italian and that got diluted with the following two generations.

My wife's grandma complained that I liked 'niggers', 'dagos' and 'chinks'.

You people have it easy.

[The Brain]

Almost seems too much to be true-- I feel like I should check snopes before I decide to take it seriously.

That having been said, some of the trivial crap sounds similar to what I dealt with back in Delaware when I dated this one girl pretty seriously.  Her mom seemed a little odd from the beginning, and had a strict midnight curfew on her even though she was in her early 20s.  I won't even go into her rabid Catholicism.  But the rest of her family seemed to be pretty laid back.

Well, apparently after attending 2 or 3 of her family get-togethers, she started getting complaints from her grandma, uncles, and mom about how rude I acted.  Which caught me a bit off-guard as I didn't pick up on one bit of it.  Apparently my faux-pas were: not greeting elder family members before they greeted me, not raving enough about how awesome her grandma's mediocre spaghetti was, how I didn't finish every morsel of food on my plate, how I had the nerve to bring  Chilean wine to an Italian meal (???), and probably some other stuff I've purposely forgotten.  These were apparently some serious transgressions in her family.

All this stuff was apparently "Italian family tradition", though I've never gotten any other Italian-Americans or even real Italians to corroborate.  This is aside from the fact that her grandma was only half Italian and that got diluted with the following two generations.

My wife's grandma complained that I liked 'niggers', 'dagos' and 'chinks'.

You people have it easy.

WTF

Edit: Also, an age joke of some sort regarding her youth.

[DGuller]

The future mother-in-law's e-mail was very rude, she sounds like a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket.

That e-mail was definitely a far worse transgression than anything the bride is accused of.  One of the first rules of etiquette is that you do not put someone else down for their own lack of it.

[MadImmortalMan]

Houndspool looks like a nice place tho.

[Admiral Yi]

Looks very Hobbity.

[Slargos]

One has to assume that behavior itself was not imagined.  If so, the bride-to-be does come off a bit ditzy. 

Of course, it's hard to tell how overwhelming that behavior really is:  she could be a generally good person with rough edges and incomplete knolwedge of social norms, or she could be a vulgar trash.

No actual behavior was described. WTF does "you regularly draw attention to yourself" even mean?  That's not a behavior, that's a description of a perceived result of a behavior.

I assume that when the cow says "You do not start before everyone else", the implication is that the bride did start before everyone else.  I assume that she did not just pick out rules at random from some social etiquette book and pasted it in an e-mail.

[grumbler]But we can't know that.[/anal-retentive prick]

[The Brain]

The future mother-in-law's e-mail was very rude, she sounds like a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket.

That e-mail was definitely a far worse transgression than anything the bride is accused of.  One of the first rules of etiquette is that you do not put someone else down for their own lack of it.

Er... dude.