Nightmare Dinner Guests

[FabulousFoodBabe]

As I read the thread about "worst experiences as a dinner guest," I think of all the dinner guests I've had over the years (my other job is a corporate wifey type -- you know what that means ). I always did the food and hired help for serving and whatever else. I've had ...

-a couple show up stoned, reeking of it. The husband had to be physically escorted from the kitchen where he was hitting on the 18 year old servers, and the wife spent the night by the Christmas tree eating candy canes and chocolate santas

-the wife of a new hire slam her fork down at the table and --in a raised voice -- announce that if SHE were doing this party, SHE would serve uncle ben's rice and tuna from a can, "none of this wild rice crap and fish with pepper on it ." The party was to welcome them to the area.

-the wife of the boss coming into the kitchen and requesting a piece of fish broiled and plain (I was making cioppino), because they didn't want to get fat at this dinner.

There are many, many more -- I'm hard pressed to come up with a "one worst," but it probably has to do with my mother in law .

let's hear your stories!

-Fabby

[Bond Girl]

I stopped having dinner guests because my apartment is simply too small, but I remember fondly the time my friend bought a date who didn't eat meat, dairy, mushrooms, beans, night shades (tomatoes, eggplants, etc) and whined about how plain and uninventive my food was.

Another time, a dinner guest simply wouldn't leave, and sat on my sofa watching television while I clean up. She ended up crashing on my couch, leaving a livingroom littered with dirty dishes and glasses from raiding the refrigerator at night.

[Carrot Top]

Ouch. You both have had some doozies!

My worst "dinner guest" experience happened at lunchtime. . .in the corporate dining rooms that I was in charge of. . .

Table of six, in the middle of the usual politesse by all, one of the old fellows (partner of the law firm people who were visiting) had a massive heart attack and fell right off his chair onto the guy beside him.

Waitstaff came running to find me, and we gave him CPR till the ambulance arrived. Unfortunately he did not make it.

Nowhere as amusing as your stories were. . but oof. Yes, a nightmare.

.................................................................

Which reminds me of the second nightmarish part of the whole thing. I was wearing a rather short skirt that day. During the CPR I looked up and noticed that the eyes of the onlookers were not exactly directed at the fellow's face.

Never wore a miniskirt to work again. . .

[Metal Spice]

The strangest I've had was the night we had a very good friend & his wife over. She doesn't eat anything but sugar, junk & kids type food (chicken fingers, mac & cheese, etc.). I really thought he was kidding when he told me that. So I made bruschetta, salad w/homemade vinaigrette, lasagna & ice cream for dessert (yes, I was dying to use my ice cream maker!). So, while we all had that, I made a grilled cheese sandwich for her. Very nice & very sweet gril, but it was odd to have all of this food for us & she was eating a grilled cheese sandwich. She didn't eat the ice cream either cuz it wasn't out of the "box".

Edited July 22, 2005 by Metal Spice (log)

[marlena spieler]

a few years ago i got a call from a visiting food writer colleague and her husband who was a family friend; they were in london on vacation and would i like to get together.

I immediately invited them over as I was having a dinner party the next evening, with some very favourite people also visiting from California, in fact, it was my editor at the time. so i invited one or two other people too, to make a big happy dinner party, and started my shopping and cooking. i belong to the cook until you drop school of dinner parties.

i set out the various before dinner tidbits and nibbles and guests began to arrive. when this particular couple arrived--and believe me she is really nice!--the husband could find nothing pleasant to either say or do. They did not bring A THING! He was withdrawn to the point of pathologically, insisted on keeping his huge winter coat on (well our heating is a bit more uneven than in california suburbia, but it was a warehouse and the heat was full blast and i don't even remember if it was winter or not). he wouldn't touch any of the food and wiped the glasses clean with a napkin.

he was on a number of diets it seemed. he was so rail thin that it was scarey. he was very self righteous and disapproved of everything we had to say in the conversation, which as my editor was very well educated person, was a lively and stimulating conversation. oh, well, he did he had spent all day excercising. that much he said. He refused to eat anything ANYTHING that i served except for one pre wrapped mint. There was something wrong with each and every thing i served. he didn't even really speak, though, it was mostly just dripping distain and disgust. he looked as if he needed to be fed through a tube he was so thin, and he was so miserable too....about 3/4 through the dinner he suddenly stood up and said we have to go.

after they left we all just looked at each other, and i said well i had no idea...she always seemed so nice.......and then we all relaxed and got a bit more jolly, and the rest of the evening was lovely.

a few days later i got the NICEST thank you note from the wife, the nicest. we were so perplexed though as it couldn't have been much fun for her. it certainly wasn't for anyone else at the table.

but the kicker is this: a few months later we were at a family/community gathering, and the couple was there, the man being a very important doctor. He was acting very important, nothing like the little creapy out of touch person who was at our house, and i told my husband: lets just let bygones be bygones and be nice to this guy so as not to embarass him, certainly he must be very upset by the boorish way he acted, we'll just be nice and not act as if he ruined the evening which he did.

And so we smiled and said Hi and he looked at us with total coldness, and raised his little nose in the air and looked right through us! he totally snubbed us, with that "hey, you're nothing" disdain.

man, that was the guest from Hell.

Edited July 22, 2005 by marlena spieler (log)

[wattacetti]

Which reminds me of the second nightmarish part of the whole thing. I was wearing a rather short skirt that day. During the CPR I looked up and noticed that the eyes of the onlookers were not exactly directed at the fellow's face.

Never wore a miniskirt to work again. . .

←

Apart from this being a prime example of why our mothers keep telling us to wear nice underpants, I'm quite sure the observers appreciated your smile.

Let's see…

I hosted one dinner where a physician invitee and the auditor split about 3 bottles between them and wound up imitating octopi with my female guests, so my evening became an exercise in reassigning seating, with a healthy dose of creative groveling the day afterwards to the latter group.

For ex-Canadian venues, there was the fun time in Brussels where a study nurse tells me she's a vegan and allergic to fish and shellfish after we arrive at a seafood place (I still have the letter of complaint sent to the department). Or the dinner in London where a physician and the US Project Team Lead got into a fistfight over what was considered an appropriate physical exam and medical follow-up.

There was also the (mandatory) Christmas luncheon when I was working contract. I was an invitee (with my mandatory antlers) but there was a small cluster of us at the table devising ways to exit unobtrusively as the agency owner, his wife and his mistress did body shots with taramosalata and other pikilia tidbits.

[Adam Balic]

Not quite a dinner party, but we had a party and I made food and it was dinner for some folks, so what the hell.

Held a party for a friends birthday, due to this I didn't actually know all the guests. One chap was a bit of an arsehole, but I decided to live and let live. After a few hours he got utterly shit faced and started feeling up various females at this point I and few other beefer males threw in out of the flat. Four or five hours later when everybody had left I found him hanging around in the stairwell, he claimed that he lived in the flat below us, and had a key, but couldn't get in the flat, so I assumed he was lying. This time I tossed him out myself and as he was getting violent I called the police. While waiting for them a car pulled up and two guys jumped out with golf clubs and started running towards me. When they were a few feet away, the police arrived and took the golf clubs off them, but did nothing else.

Turns out the arsehole was a guest of the downstairs flat, too pissed to open a door, but capable of phoning a few of his mates to beat the shit out of me.

[marlena spieler]

oh yeah, then there was the time that a BBC producer got drunk and started insulting my other guest, an american food writer based in europe. producer kept insulting guest about being american (hey, so am i!) , saying things like: Americans have no sense of humour, Americans are just stupid, and so on and so forth. at some point i think producer jumped over the table and tried to punch guest.......

my insulted guest was good about it. she took me into the kitchen and said: She's drunk, i won't hold it against her. just never EVER have us both to the same dinner again.

Edited July 22, 2005 by marlena spieler (log)

[godito]

I can talk about plenty at several restaurants, but I remember a friend telling me the story of inviting a couple to a BBQ (as in, hey, I'm having a BBQ this saturday, we'll be outside grilling in the afternnon. You guys should come over)

When they show up, and the meal is getting ready to be served, my friend asks them what cut of meat they want, and they say. Sorry, we're vegetarians. Do you have anything else?

[MT-Tarragon]

Well, your stories are more exciting than mine. The worst I can remember is a dinner guest who arrived late as dinner was being served and brought his own piece of salmon (we weren't having salmon, but I don't remember what the main course was), which he insisted on cooking for himself before sitting down with the rest of us. He had also brought a personal bottle of Perrier because he wouldn't drink wine that cost less than X dollars per bottle. I guess that I should at least be happy that he didn't want me to cook his salmon.

[ditsydine]

I can talk about plenty at several restaurants, but I remember a friend telling me the story of inviting a couple to a BBQ (as in, hey, I'm having a BBQ this saturday, we'll be outside grilling in the afternnon. You guys should come over)

When they show up, and the meal is getting ready to be served, my friend asks them what cut of meat they want, and they say. Sorry, we're vegetarians. Do you have anything else?

←

That is my pet peeve--no one makes amends for carnivore guests.

People amaze me--if you have special dietary needs and you don't tell the host in advance and/or bring something you can eat--tough cookies.

[Poffertjes]

A couple years ago, as recent college graduates, away from home, some friends and I got together to enjoy Thanksgiving. Everyone brought a dish, and I took care of the turkey, dressing, and cranberries.

Almost everyone was a good cook and brought great dishes but there were a couple of weird people.

1. The girl who was allergic to eggs, when deviled eggs were being prepared for appetizers while the food was finishing up. "oh god it stinks in here. Eggs are so gross, you know I'm allergic to eggs"

~ "if you can't eat eggs, don't worry there are other things to eat"

~ "if you think eggs stink, get out of the kitchen and go talk to the other guests"

~ "yes, we all realize you are allergic to eggs, nuts, air, water, and life. You tell us every chance you get"

2. The guy that showed up half way through dinner, pants falling down, knocking on every door in the building because he couldn't remember which apartment we were in. Then when the kitchen was clean and all the left overs were tucked away and we were in our post turkey sleepy mood, he started making chocolate chip cookies and going through everything to find the proper utensil in the kitchen to zest a lemon for the espresso he was making. I almost cried.

Luckily there were friends who filled up my glass of wine and took me out on the balcony for a smoke and a drink so I couldn't watch him destroy the clean kitchen we spend forever cleaning up.

[wattacetti]

Luckily there were friends who filled up my glass of wine and took me out on the balcony for a smoke and a drink so I couldn't watch him destroy the clean kitchen we spend forever cleaning up.

←

In retrospect, if they were really *good* friends, they would have used "allergic to eggs" woman to beat him senseless. That or give him one hell of a wedgie to make him stop.

[Mabelline]

WOW, youall have some sort of patience! I think these are some of the funniest yet 'cringe factor' parties (did I really say parties?) I've read in a while. I guess it could be turned into a positive by thanking Providence that you did not have any sword displays mounted on your walls!

[Genny]

Most of yours are far better than mine! Mine plays on a major pet peeve of mine... poaching in the kitchen.

My husband's family is wonderful. Really! I quite enjoy them but their habits play on my nerves at times.

We put together a little party for my husband's graduation this summer. It was an all day hanging out kind of thing, mostly for family and very close friends. His family called 2 hours after it started and said they were running late, they'd show in an hour. They arrived 2 hours later! The meal plan for the day was lots of mini-bites. We'd been passing plates of hors d'ourvres periodically as the nibbles all day and were in between passings when they arrived. They announced that they were hungry so my Mom and I ran into the kitchen to put together more food. They actually came into the kitchen and were taking food off the plates and out of the various pots before we could get them out! Wow, that really steamed me!

[Tess]

I enjoy the drunken guests.

My husband's ex came to dinner, drank half a bottle of vodka and passed out in our bed before the meal was served. She came out a while later and remarked that the dog had been humping her. I told her she could have pick of the litter.

There was one couple we liked a lot but stopped inviting along with any MDs because the guy would always try to hit them up for prescription medicines right there at the table.

[corinne]

My ex-boyfriend and I had a Christmas Eve gathering one year, very elegant, with the food to be served just so - a multi-course buffet with lots of fish dishes the Italian way. His oafish family started helping themselves out of chafing dishes before the other receptacles were filled. We had a room with French doors that the food was being set up in and tried to close them out, but no luck.

Then some cousins arrived hours late. Mr Hypoglycemia with many food allergies who needed food cooked to order immediately. By then the food had been put away, out it came again, with him grilling me on each ingredient.

[Poffertjes]

Luckily there were friends who filled up my glass of wine and took me out on the balcony for a smoke and a drink so I couldn't watch him destroy the clean kitchen we spend forever cleaning up.

←

In retrospect, if they were really *good* friends, they would have used "allergic to eggs" woman to beat him senseless. That or give him one hell of a wedgie to make him stop.

←

Believe me, the offered, several times, over several dinners.

Another favorite was when I was teaching a friend to make tostones to have with rice & beans and some pork, my boyfriend came over, looked at what we were doing and said, you're doing it wrong.

I made it clear he should not taunt a woman with a stockpot of hot oil when he doesn't have a clue whats going on.

[mizducky]

Which reminds me of the second nightmarish part of the whole thing. I was wearing a rather short skirt that day. During the CPR I looked up and noticed that the eyes of the onlookers were not exactly directed at the fellow's face.

Never wore a miniskirt to work again. . .

←

Apart from this being a prime example of why our mothers keep telling us to wear nice underpants, I'm quite sure the observers appreciated your smile.

←

Heh. While I can appreciate the humor in that position, so to speak, I confess to also being appalled at the onlookers. You mean a man is lying there on the floor, at the point of death, and all these goons can do is get a cheap thrill out of ogling the person actually doing something to keep the poor devil alive?

The vast majority of guests at dinner parties I've helped put on have been thankfully well-behaved ... except for those compulsory dinner guests known as family. My mother used to be driven to distraction by her mother-in-law (my paternal grandmother). Sooner or later during her visits we'd look up and see MIL had gone missing, only to find her in some out-of-the-way corner of the house, pretending that she hadn't just been running her finger along a window-sill or shelf to see if it had been dusted properly.

(Edited to clarify just whose mother-in-law I was talking about here...and then further edited because the heat is screwing up the connection between my brain and my fingers.)

Edited July 23, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[marlena spieler]

And i'm forgetting the couple who came to dinner, old friends of my late father in law. we invited them because the father in law had played bridge with them every week and liked them a lot, or at least liked the wife.

the husband, who i shall call the colonel because that is how he acted, was dissapproving of everything. has coeliacs disease, and was angry that i was making pasta for everyone else when he couldn't eat it. (i had lots of other courses, and gluten free, wheat free, everything free for him, and our other courses were totally in keeping with the coeliacs disease diet...i had just been to italy though and wanted to share some pasta discovery with the rest of the party).

he insulted me, he insulted my daughter and i belive he insulted my cat. he held forth pompously on the subject of medicine (my daughter's a doctor, he's not), belly dancing (she does it, he does not), and the ballet (neither do, but he felt some strong pull to just diss the ballet in case we decided it was a good thing).

they brought NO gift, no wine, (and no manners), and never sent a thank you note or made a call. he was a pompous oaf, and i thought if i never see them again i'll be happy. she was a simpering little mouse. there were no happy eating sounds from either of them, and if any of the other guests dare show their appreciation of the food the colonel would soundly rebuke them through sheer force of bad vibes. i thought that i never wanted to see him, though i didn't mind about her.

about two years later we were invited out to lunch with them. and the rolls seemed to be reversed with the husband and wife. she was passive agressive, and dissapproving. he had had his comeupance with a bad operation and a long languish on a waiting list, and limped along, extremely human and humble. amazing. this time i thought: i can get along with him just fine, but i don't care to be with her again.

bad vibes do not help digestion.

marlena

Edited July 22, 2005 by marlena spieler (log)

[lala]

Christmas dinner, quite a few years ago. Group of friends at my house, two of us cooked, one was supposed to clean up (let's call her Sal). Others were strictly guests, all of whom brought nice hostess gifts and behaved themselves. We planned a nice meal, and I used the last bottles of a case of stellar, no longer available Cabernet for the main course. Apps went well, with first wine. Soup was fantastic, with another wine. Entrée served, enjoyed, with a glass of that fab Cab left over (I hoped to enjoy it the next day with leftovers)... Until, as I was clearing the table, Sal dumped the remaining contents of the bottle into her glass saying how good it was. Dessert was served (with another wine). Sal bitched that the Cab didn't go with her dessert and dumped it down the sink. Then, after dinner, she laid herself down in the middle of the living room floor and proceeded to belch several times. After the other guests had left (in a bit of a hurry, after that floor show), Sal wandered into the kitchen. After running a sink of hot water (I don't have a dishwasher), she put a few dishes in, and came into the living room holding her finger. Said she'd cut herself on a paring knife (which was nowhere near the sink or dirty dishes!), and couldn't do the dishes for fear of infection. This cut was barely visible, and didn't even bleed. I passed her a pair of gloves, which she rejected, because they were too small for her. She promptly left, praising the dinner and saying we should all do this again very soon.

Needless to say, Sal hasn't had the opportunity to darken my door since!

[Mabelline]

Marlena, my dear, you simply have to let these folks have a link to your story about Shakespeare, the elderlies, and the buffet. I think it'd be appreciated.

[Toliver]

Then when the kitchen was clean and all the left overs were tucked away and we were in our post turkey sleepy mood, he started making chocolate chip cookies and going through everything to find the proper utensil in the kitchen to zest a lemon for the espresso he was making. I almost cried.

←

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I don't care if it's the Queen of England. Nobody but nobody takes it upon themselves to cook something in my kitchen. The guy was obviously looking for some boundaries, didn't find any and proceeded to have his way with your kitchen.

You should have told him no, due to a clause in your home insurance no one but the residents of the abode were allowed to cook in the kitchen. Or some such crazy excuse. Anything to get him out of the kitchen.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease and the unwanted guest out of the kitchen.

[Carrot Top]

Heh. While I can appreciate the humor in that position, so to speak, I confess to also being appalled at the onlookers. You mean a man is lying there on the floor, at the point of death, and all these goons can do is get a cheap thrill out of ogling the person actually doing something to keep the poor devil alive?

The whole scene was rather surreal from the start. When I ran into the room, there were five men staring down at this guy, who was splayed out on the floor in an odd position. They all seemed to be frozen in time and place, and because of the high level of manners that the business lunch had been running on, it really seemed as if they had frozen into some sort of overdone tableau of politeness.

I've never been in that position before. . .one of finding someone expiring on the floor. . . but since then have thought of how odd it was. . .the waitress that was doing CPR on him with me was also shaken by the formal stillness of the men. . .but I think it was shock. They simply did not know what to do so they froze.

And it just so happened that my behind was stuck up in the air towards them, so in their frozen state of shock, they transferred their eyes to it. I don't think they did it out of any real urge to peek. . .they were all so terribly mannerly, and seemingly just could not move.

Knowing all that didn't make me feel any less the fool, though!

Edited July 22, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

Oh, I do remember one more!

It was summer and we had been having a simple barbecue outside near the pool. The children were young, and many of their friends were over. . .most of the food had been eaten, but there was a package of hot dogs left in the cooler that was sitting next to the grill.

I heard a noise from the roof of the house, and there was one of my (now ex) husbands friends. He was standing on the roof, having climbed out through one of the bedroom windows. Whether he was drunk or stoned or just crazy, I really don't know, but there he was with the hot dogs in his hands which he proceeded to throw down into the pool with loud hoots of excitement. (The pool was fairly close to the house and he was on the roof of the garage). After finishing up his game of "throw the hot dog" he decided to show how strong and thrilling he was to the rest of us, by jumping off the roof into the pool himself.

Nobody in his or her right mind would have called that jump a safe or sane thing to do.

Luckily, he did make it into the pool, in the middle of his happy hot dogs.

He actually tried to do it again, but I stopped him as he was climbing out the bedroom window and somehow persuaded him that it was not a great idea.

(In the meantime, as the children had seen him enact this feat, they were all clamoring to try it! )

I should have made him eat the hot dogs raw from the pool, don'tcha think?

Uh. . .yeah, he was definitely not invited again. . .

Amazing how one forgets these stories till prompted.