In my family, there's ALWAYS drama during the holiday season. And I know I'm not the only one — recently, I saw a post on the Am I the Asshole subreddit about an unfortunate incident that went down at a woman's Christmas dinner, and I was stunned.
Basically, this woman told a dinner guest they could leave after they made a scene about a box of tampons in the bathroom, and now, she's wondering if she's in the wrong. Here's the full situation, as told by the woman, u/purplegreencarrot:
"I (F28) have been with my boyfriend (M32, Ian) for three years. We’ve decided to host a small, early Christmas dinner. One of the people invited was his brother, Jake (M26)."
"Jake asked if he could bring his girlfriend as she was all alone (they’ve been together for three months), and we agreed — the more the merrier. His girlfriend Naveah (F28) seemed a bit timid but lovely. Naveah brought her 8-year-old son (that we didn’t know was coming)."
"She seemed lovely right until she went to the bathroom. She came out shrieking with a box of my tampons in her hand, literally gasping for air in between her shrieks. I could barely understand her. Turns out, my box of tampons was visible (duuuh, it’s within reach because hey, I need it monthly, why should I hide it and then look for it)."
"She was going off about it being disgusting, and how could I be so shameless to have this in front of a child and other men and so on. I looked at her in disbelief. I couldn’t believe she made a scene about a box of tampons — has she never been in a shop?"
"Anyway, I told her that my tampons stay where they are, but if she’s so pressed, she can leave and go home where no tampons are present. She turned red, quite literally — her face was bright pink. Huffing and puffing, she dressed her kid and told Jake to drive her home which he did."
"Jake didn’t come back, but he called from her house telling Ian that I was the asshole. I was surprised to hear that Ian (my boyfriend) agreed with him. I thought he would be on my side. We were about to argue, but I decided it wasn’t worth it and went to my office to cool down and think this through."
"Am I the asshole for telling her to leave?"
I don't know about y'all, but my reaction to that story was something like this:
Many redditors came to the woman's defense, and decided that the brother's girlfriend was the asshole, including one person who goes by u/iron_red:
"NTA — this stranger came to your house and insulted you. She’s hardly a member of the family after three months of dating your boyfriend’s brother," they said.
"If she was genuinely concerned about her child seeing the tampons, then she wouldn’t have walked out waving them in the air and screaming."
Someone else who goes by u/eregyrn gave the woman some advice on how to handle the situation:
"OP's best course of action at this point is to sit [her boyfriend] down, and explain that she is really not under any obligation to be yelled at and insulted for — well, for anything in her house, really, but especially not for something so innocuous," they reasoned.
"The guest is NOT always right. There are social expectations of guests and how they should behave, as well. A host does not have to just tolerate any old behavior from a guest, and especially not behavior like that."
Another person with the username u/Doubtful_Desires had an amazing suggestion for OP:
"Omg invite her to next year's Christmas and have a whole freaking tree done up with tampon ornaments! Petty revenge ftw!"
And finally, someone who goes by u/Echinoderm_only suggested something similar:
"Wrap her gift in the empty tampon box."