MMV. I don't think it's at all reasonable to assume that a restaurant will have on hand ingredients that aren't needed for any of their menu items.

TYSHTTP: No matter how you try to justify it, saying that there was something a guy could have done so that girlfriend didn't emotionally abuse him is still victim blaming. It is never on the victim to appease their abuser.

To the people questioning the timing of Dr Ford - listen do you really think it's outrageous that someone would rather not go into the details of a sexual assault but decide to come forward when the assailant is about to get a job for life on the freaking Supreme Court? Truly do you not get that this is the exact time when someone SHOULD come forward?

This entire thread is reminding me of the story Kitap told about the guests who only ordered items NOT on the menu, and then got mad at the kitchen for not providing room service.

Seaboe

I'd agree with that, mostly.

I don't think it's rude to ask for something minor at the time of the meal, as long as you do it in a fashion that makes it clear you're neither demanding it nor sneering at the hosts if they haven't got any -- 'do you happen to have mint tea?', for instance; or, to take your example, while I agree that getting snotty about it is rude I think just politely asking whether there was acidophilus milk would be OK, even if it wasn't done in advance. I think anything major should be discussed in advance, and again in a fashion neither demanding nor critical -- 'I'd love to come but I can't eat x / have to eat y' -- at which point the host can either say they can accommodate or say 'sorry that won't work this time, we'll see you at some other sort of occasion!'

But I think in a private home there are limits even to asking beforehand; though some of them may depend upon one's knowledge of the family. I don't think it's polite to ask a vegan household to supply ham and cheese sandwiches, for instance.

I think it's interesting how some of us take certain things so for granted that it's almost impossible to believe you won't be able to get it just anywhere. I once ransacked a kitchen*, literally opening every cupboard and looking through every likely seeming container because it was inconceivable to me that someone would not have sugar somewhere in their house! Anyway, lesson learned about making assumptions about what the well stocked kitchen must hold!

* we were house sitting for some friends a number of years ago so I wasn't a guest being incredibly pushy and as it turned out they had not run out of a staple, sugar was not something they used.

I don't keep sugar in the house usually. I don't take sugar in coffee/tea, and I don't bake.

Then how do you take your medicine?

I'm starting to think the American guests in the Fawlty Towers episode "Waldorf Salad" aren't all that unrealistic.

An apple a day, keeps the doctor away...

I think that is indeed interesting. -- by this point in my life I've lived with and/or visited with a wild enough variety of people that there isn't much I assume will be in the house. Certainly not sugar, not meat, not cheese, not fruit, not vegetables, not flour -- in fact, not much of any provisions at all, as some people's cupboards are nearly bare because they almost never eat at home (or because they're extremely broke); but even aside from that I've known specifically people who don't eat sugar, or animal products, or, in the other direction, people who apparently don't eat anything but processed precooked meals. Not coffee, and not tea. For that matter, not anything whatsoever to read, not a lamp by the bed to read it by, not washcloths, not a box of tissues, not indoor plumbing . . .

But those are all things that at various times in my life I would have taken for granted. I've just learned better over the years, that's all. And I'm sure people have been astonished also that I didn't have something they took for granted -- soda comes to mind. (And at some points I've been the one without indoor plumbing.)

Really mister?

A selfie with the roaring Potomac River behind you? Standing on a rock. What could possibly happen?

As I have told my family, the longer I work in the hotel industry, the more I understand how Basil ended up as Basil.

I've been yelled at about bad weather, airline problems (we are apparently responsible for the airline losing luggage), wild coyotes howling, baby owls walking on roofs, being 2 hours from Phoenix.... Also I had a drunk demand that I go down to his room and have sex with him once.

What kind of a monster gets mad about baby owls?

DD wraps it in cheese.

It was walking on his roof. He heard it, and called positive it was a mountain lion/killer/Joe Arpaio on his roof. My security guard went down and saw a baby owl was using the roof to learn to fly from. I called the guy to let him know, and he freaked. I'm like dude, baby owl! Cuteness! He was all "are they dangerous?" And he came from either Vermont or Maine. You'd think maybe at some point he'd, like, heard of an owl before.

Either that guy had super hearing or baby owls are a lot more heavy-footed than I would have guessed. :lol: Maybe he'd overconsumed his edibles.

Other people have heard things on their roofs-these are flat roofs. Raccoons are heard walking around occasionally. He's just the one who stayed all freaked out.

TYSHTTP - if you are having an argument with a family member and keep making barbed comments on FB including posting memes and cartoons etc about ungrateful children then you really can't be surprised that others know about your feud and that your child is even angrier with you than she was before! I am by no means saying she is right and you are wrong BTW just pointing out that if you want to resolve things in any kind of peaceful fashion splashing your anger all over for the world and his uncle to see is probably not all that helpful.

A while back my wife and I were having breakfast at a local restaurant. There was a tropical system moving over the state (not a named storm) and it had been raining for three days.

There was an older couple from up north somewhere that started berating the waitress over the weather. This was not just a jovial jibe. It was constant non stop and often loud.

"How can you call this the Sunshine State? You should be ashamed."

"We've been saving for months to take this trip. Now it's raining. Somebody owes us a refund."

"Still raining? I don't understand how you could expect us to pay for this meal since our vacation has been ruined."

On and on it went.

Locals complain about the rain, but we do not blame anyone, we just wonder if the world is coming to an end after three days of rain.

Now if it gets cold, we blame the folks coming down from up north. All that traffic disrupts the jet stream and the cold pours through the break. I am sure that's how it works, but I still don't demand the snowbirds reimburse me for my heating bill, I just put on socks and look for that long pair of pants that I know is in my closet somewhere.

We get the idiots up here too. The ones from South of the border who expect there to be snow no matter what time of year they show up (although I really think the tourists showing up with skis on their car in July is a joke - but everyone has a FOAF who swears they've seen it!) but I guess one advantage of a government town is that we don't see too many tourists who tie their enjoyment of their trip into the weather. Always gotta be a few though I guess.