Karen DEMANDS I Eat Her Horrible Cooking... I TOLD HER HOW BAD IT IS! - Reddit Podcast Stories

In today’s episode of Reddit Stories Podcast, a wild Karen completely loses it. You won’t believe how this one ends! Sit back, relax, and enjoy this binge-worthy Reddit Stories Podcast, featuring Karen freakouts, entitled people stories, and pro revenge tales.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, dear mister Redder here, welcome back to another episode
of Reddit podcast Stories. Our first story will be reading today.
My Karen, mother in law demands I eat her horrible cooking.
I gave her a piece of my mind. After that,
I created a tech support help desk for my family
since they always need my help with technology. And after that, yes,
we'll have the coffee. The Tale of a Waiter who

(00:22):
really messed up. Now, for every thumbs up, this video
gits one. Karen does not get to force anyone to
eat her cooking. But I'm making mystery meat surprise tonight.
It's even got left over us from last week in it.
So please smash that like button and subscribe and turn
on notifications for new stories from Reddit every single day.
My Karen mother in law demands I eat her horrible cooking.

(00:45):
I gave her a piece of my mind. My husband,
who's twenty three and I I'm twenty one, we come
from different cultures. For example, I'm an immigrant and I
moved to America when I was just twelve years old.
There are many things my husband and his family do
differently than mine, things that I'm not quite accustomed to.
One of them is how they prepare and season their food.

(01:05):
To me, it's super bland and the food combinations they
choose don't seem to go together. For example, my mother
in law puts mayo and literally everything. I've even seen
her making a tortilla pizza with mayo as her base,
which she offered to me. Each time she offers me food,
I make up some kind of an excuse to avoid
eating it, and I try to be as polite as
possible about it. Unfortunately, after I invited her to dinner,

(01:29):
she felt compelled to do the same for me, even
when I told her it was not necessary. The next day,
after the dinner we had together, she started making plans
with my husband. When my husband brought it up to me,
I told him I really didn't want to go to
which he replied, my mom's food isn't that bad. Can't
you just please deal with it for one day. In
most cases, I would have just sucked it up to

(01:51):
maintain a good relationship with my mother in law, but
I'm pregnant in my first trimester and I'm feeling extra nauseous.
I honestly don't think i'd be able to keep the
food in the condition I'm in. My husband grew up
eating her food, which is maybe why he doesn't think
it's that bad. I mean, even my family thinks. So
when my mom invited her over for a family get together,

(02:11):
she brought some pasta, which sauce tasted like a whole
package of ketchup was dumped in it. I ended up
venting to my sisters and mom about the issue, and
they all gave me the advice to just be honest.
My mom even said that if I don't be honest now,
it's something I'll have to deal with for the rest
of my life. So I decided to call her and
express to her that I'm not accustomed to eating these

(02:32):
types of foods that she's used to making, and since
I'm pregnant, it'll be really hard for me to swallow
the food because of my nausea. I even offered to
teach her some recipes from my homeland that she seemed
to really enjoy. It didn't go well. She was really
offended and told me that she'll never cook for my
ungrateful self again, and told my husband. My husband is

(02:52):
really disappointed in me because he felt like I should
have just pretended to keep the peace and he's upset
that now my mother in law doesn't even want to
invite me over again. I feel super bad now, and seriously,
I want to know if I'm the jerk in this
situation or if I was being too mean or disrespectful. Update.
I invited my mother in law out to a tea
cafe and I spoke to her in person. I was

(03:14):
able to explain myself better and chose not to back
down on me not liking the types of foods that
she cooks. This is my life, and I'm choosing not
to live the rest of my future being pressured into
eating foods that I don't like. And I'm also choosing
to live my relationship based on honesty. I had an
honest discussion with my mother in law and explained to
her that I love her as a person and appreciate

(03:35):
the time and effort she puts into making my husband
and I food, but I honestly do not like the
type of foods that she chooses to make. I explained
to her that it doesn't make her any less of
a person or a bad cook, it's just my personal preference.
She took it extremely well this time and apologized for
insulting me. She told me that she has never been
the best cook and would love to take me up

(03:56):
on my offer to teach her some meals from my homeland.
I ended up suggesting that we take cooking classes together,
and she loved the idea. I think the little bump
in the road gave us a stronger bond, and I'm
glad that we were able to patch things up. I
personally don't think the advice that I was getting from
the majority of this sub was good advice, and I
would recommend to anyone in my situation to be honest

(04:16):
and kind. I even made it known to my mother
in law that I would appreciate the same kind of
honesty coming from her, and if she ever disliked food
I made, or even a gift that I gave to,
please let me know so I can make or get
something that she'd enjoy. She even made jokes about previous
gifts that I had got her. I mean, you called
her up to tell her that you don't like her food,

(04:37):
you wouldn't be offended if she did the same thing
to you. If she was like, the food you make
is really unfamiliar, and I honestly can't stomach it at all,
wouldn't you be offended to? I would be soft. You
are the jerk. No, you don't need to eat her food.
You don't have to like her food, But calling her
up to tell her how you literally cannot imagine trying
to choke down her food is pretty rude. You're the jerk. Seriously,

(05:01):
you're the jerk here. Pregnancy was the perfect excuse to
say you just couldn't eat the food because your sense
of smell and taste is being weird, rather than insulting
or cooking, you're the jerk. You don't call someone up
and tell them that you don't like the food that
they cook for you. You just don't. If you're pregnant,
you can say you're nauseous the night of the dinner
and just eat very little. But it's just basic manners

(05:23):
when you're being hosted to pretend the food is good. Yes,
you might have to deal with this the rest of
your life. Who cares occasional meals you don't like are
not the end of the world. I created a tech
support help desk for my family since they always need
my help with technology. I'm female, twenty four years old.
I'm studying computer science and I'm currently doing an internship

(05:44):
at a medium sized company that hasn't laid off thirty
percent of its employees yet. So since I'm the one
who knows about computers, my family sees me as their
personal tech support. And my family is big. I live
with my mom, my little brother, two of my aunts,
and their kids. The kids are lazy when it comes
to tech because they know that I'll do it for them,

(06:05):
but my mom and aunts are beyond tech illiterate. They're
tech morons. I'm constantly interrupted during my studies or my
work because my cousins forgot their Disney Plus profile pen
or my mom needs to reset her email password again.
I actually set up a cloud password manager for them
that they do not use because they always forget that
it's an option. So a few weeks ago, one of

(06:27):
my little cousins wanted me to help him reset a
password after he got locked out of Google, and he
aggressively knocked on my door demanding that I help him.
I asked him, do I look like tech support to you?
And he said yes with a straight face. So I
got a domain and set up a help desk. Then
I told my family that if they wanted any help
from me. They should go to the website and submitt

(06:48):
a ticket for my help. My aunt said that I
was being ridiculous, but I was dead serious. In the
following days, I would give them the cold shoulder if
they tried to come to me with tech problems and
just tell them to submit a ticket, and I would
send them the solution by mail forgot your mail password
too bad, use someone else's mail, fortnite is lagging, get
a ticket, and wait till I'm home. That helped me

(07:10):
a lot, But then yesterday I came back from the
university and the whole house was sitting in the living
room telling me to sit down. They were doing an
intervention on me. They said I was rude, cold, condescending,
and unhelpful. My mom said she's tolerated my manly ways.
No idea where that comes from, because I'm helpful with technology.

(07:31):
But now they won't stand up to my disrespect and
I'm treating them like kids. I said, no, I'm treating
them like customers. The discussion got heated and turned into
a screaming match. I said I would move in with
my ex stepfather because he doesn't ask me to do stuff.
I'm still with my family, but I feel like everyone
hates me now. But my ex father says I'm right

(07:52):
to be annoyed by them. Am I the jerk? Okay,
this is brilliant. If it was once or twice in
a while, I'd say you're a jerk. This consistently with
no respect for your time. Not only not the jerk,
but genius not the jerk. No good deed goes unpunished.
I'm sympathetic with folks who are technologically illiterate if they're

(08:14):
willing to listen and at least try less. So with
those who are lazy and titled jerks. You're facing a
mixture of both, compounded by the numbers. Your solution was
a genius, good show. I'm hoping you don't actually have
to move and that the threat gets them to shape off.
Guess we'll have the coffee the tail of a waiter
who really messed up. My sister just reminded me about

(08:36):
this story. It takes place in twenty seventeen. She and
I were out for a brunch and we had a
lovely time at an upscale rooftop restaurant in the heart
of our city, you know, the kind with a full
setting cloth, napkins and white tablecloth, the kind where a
pancake entree has the word melane and mimosas are sixteen dollars.
We had a great time, even though the service was

(08:57):
a little rushed. We get it Saturday brunch, which means
a lot of tables with a speedy turnover. My sister
had been a waitress all through college. We even joked
about her applying for the weekend shifts since she'd make
great tips. When it came time to settle the check,
we noticed we had been charged for two coffees, which
we didn't order nor receive. While handing the bill back,

(09:17):
I asked that they'd be taken off. Waiter, well, you
got coffee. Me, I'm sorry, we actually didn't see. I
show him the pristine empty coffee cups. Waiter, No, there's
two coffee cups on the table. Me. There are coffee
cups on every table. At this point, he kind of
huffs and rolls his eyes and says he doesn't have

(09:38):
the authority to remove anything from the bill. Before I
can ask for someone who can, he smirks and says
the manager on duty just went on break and we'd
have to wait thirty minutes for her, but he'd be
asking us to wait at the host stand since they
need the table. My sister and I look at each
other and we both get the same idea. Sister, well, okay,
guess if we're being charged for coffee, I'd like her

(10:00):
refill me. Oh for me too, and can you bring
cream and sugar. It was at this moment he knew
he messed up. We spent another twenty minutes sipping coffee
and keeping him from turning the table. We asked for
refills once and I asked if they had any raw
sugar packets. By the end of it, he was pointedly
ignoring us. We kind of giggled about it, and I

(10:21):
made a very dramatic show of flourishing my card, putting
it in the booklet, and setting it up right. My
sister even tried to flag him down, but he refused
to look in our direction. We finished and hung around
until he came back with his manager. He was smirking again.
I have to say, his facial expression stayed with me. Waiter,
sickly sweet. Okay, you two, we have a seeding time

(10:42):
limit to allow our other guests the opportunity to eat
with us. Will that be all today. Me, Well, we've
been waiting for you to take our check. I was
trying to get your attention earlier, but you must have
been busy. I offer him my card and the booklet,
and I've never seen a human turn read so quickly.
He mutters that he'll be right back and marches off
to run it. While we were waiting, the manager asked

(11:03):
us about our experience. We said we both had a
great time and we'd be back, and relayed what happened.
At least we ended up enjoying the coffee we paid,
left a decent tip, and skidaddled, But it felt good
knowing he probably cost himself a ticket's worth of tips
over nine dollars in coffee. I can't believe you left
a tip after that treatment. Waite staff deserved to make

(11:25):
a living, but that waiter all but begged for you
to stiff M Why do people still tip when servers
pull this crap? Most people are more passive than you
might imagine. So you tipped the guy and informed management
that you enjoyed your service. Yeah, he's gonna learn from this.
Oh p No. I told the manager about what happened

(11:46):
to us, and I left an eighteen percent tip. I
would have left a zero tip. In this case, it
was well earned demand. I do it your way, Okay,
enjoy your brand new rusty wheel slicer. It's been years,
but I'm still worried that this person is going to
hunt me down in my sleeve. Hence the throwaway. I
used to work at a deli shop just to make

(12:07):
ends meet while I went to UNI. The owner of
that place was a real piece of work. If you
got on our bad side, she would be both openly
and passively aggressive, with the general vibe that you were
an incompetent idiot no matter what you did. I heard
that woman scream at a fifteen year old on her
second day because she had mixed up coffee and teacups
which differed in size by only one ounce. Just to

(12:29):
give you an idea of her personality. After this whole experience,
my dad told me that as a general hint, it
may be good to be suspicious if a workplace hires
exclusively teens with no experience, because they are very unlikely
to recognize crappy workplace treatment. There were two people in
this place who didn't take her craft. Me, a mid
twenties in recovery who seem way worse, and a forty

(12:51):
five year old Iranian man who told her that she
could buzz off when she went off on him for
not being willing to come in early to was eleven
hour shift to prepping ingredients off the clock. Of course
I liked that dude with the stage set onto the
malicious compliance. When I started this place desperately needed a
new wheel meat slicer. The one they had made a

(13:12):
constant screeching noise and drove everyone crazy. About a month
and a half into my employment, they got one industrial
grade cost five thousand dollars, both looked and worked accordingly.
Amazing piece of kid. As we were all celebrating and
unpacking it, I flipped through the instructions booklet to look
up how it works and specifically how to clean it,

(13:33):
as there were quite a few parts. The manual says
to clean everything detachable thoroughly, but that the wheel itself
should be cleaned by letting it run on very low
speed with safety precautions and using a cloth and alcohol
based cleaning agent. On the exposed part. There were some
pictures and detailed instructions on how to do this, and
it explicitly stated not to take the whole wheel off

(13:54):
and deep clean it, as this would remove the wheel lubricant,
an anti corrosive agent, and risk damage to them machine,
and to especially not let water or any cleaning agents
get into the machine without making sure to thoroughly replace
any lubricant. I was working the evening shift, so ninety
nine percent of the time it was up to me
to clean it. The instructions is how I clean the

(14:14):
machine because I trust the designer to know how to
clean it. Or I do for about two days until
my boss sees me, asks what I'm doing and why
I'm not taking the wheel off to clean it. She
goes off on me about food safety and hygiene standards,
telling me how disgusting I am for doing it this way.
I stand my ground and inform her that I do
it this way because of the instructions that I'm following

(14:36):
the manual, and I explain the reasoning behind it. If
we scrub it down, especially the inner part, the grease
will go away a lot faster and we'll risk damage
to the machine. She basically tells me to shove it
and to do it her way. Now, I'm not going
to ruin a five thousand dollars machine because one woman
doesn't understand how it works. But the very next day,

(14:56):
my manager sees me clean the machine and gives me
an extremely content sending talk down on how this isn't
how we approach hygiene and how Boss told me you
don't seem to understand food safety. My explanation falls on
deaf ears again, and I'm also informed not only am
I expected to take the wheel off and scrub it
at the end of the day, but after every single use.

(15:18):
Boss also wants me to make sure I spray off
the inside section to ensure there's no bacteria in there,
with some hints that there had apparently been a whole
colony of life growing in there due to my two
day negligence. She wants me to spray soap and water
mixture into the cogs of the machine they just bought.
The blade is stainless steel, but the cogs aren't fine.

(15:39):
If that's what you want me to do, that's what
I'll do. Every day, Five times a day, I take
that machine apart and scrub it down. Every day. I
see that lubrication disappear more and more, and after a
week it's all gone, eventually becoming replaced by growing patches
of rust. I feel bad for the machine, but I
do as I've been told. I only work six days OFAY,

(16:00):
so every day I come in after my break thinking
that Shirley yesterday my manager would have reacted. Nope. She
takes it apart just like I do, cleans it like
I do, and doesn't seem to think twice about the
fact that this brand new machine is rusting apart in
front of our eyes. In fact, she goes the extra
mile and also scrubs the cog itself, which is probably
why a year or so worth of lubricant disappeared in

(16:22):
one week. The thing about rusty machinery is that it
usually works up until a certain point, but once it
reaches that point, there's no going back. One day, I
turn it on and it makes a screeching noise I
can only imagine came from the soul of this bit
of kit, wondering why God has forsaken it, and it's
like the clocks all stop. My coworker in the pastry
section comes over to ask what that noise is. My

(16:45):
boss and manager come into the room with the same question,
and I just shrug and slice my salami. Boss tells
her co owner to go get some lubrication for the gears,
and after a minute, he puts some spray on lube
in front of me and tells me to lube the
gears off. I ask him where the lithium lubricant paste is,
since according to the instructions, that's what you need, and
he seems flabbergasted that putting something made for hinges and

(17:08):
ball bearings isn't appropriate for a meat slicer. Two days
and some tonightis later, he's acquired some grease and then
proceeds to be stumped when I let him know that
I'm not going to stop doing my regular job to
spend thirty minutes greasing up this machine unless someone else
takes over my section or they pay me overtime. My
boss is meanwhile demanding to know why I haven't told

(17:28):
them we needed to stock up on lithium grease, which
I don't even bother to respond to. I make sandwiches.
I'm not your mechanic. I left that job a few
weeks later, and when I did, the machine was still
crying the song of its ancestors every time we turned
it on, and we were still scrubbing it down from
the inside out daily. Of course, I have since then
gotten a sneaking suspicion. I know what happened to its predecessor,

(17:52):
and me and my dad, who is actually a mechanic,
still laugh about it sometimes. My boss did ask rhetorically
at one point, how the heck the machine got to
that stage so fast. I answered that it's probably because
we've been scrubbing the lubrication and corrosion protection off several
times a day. And I take great pleasure in the
memory that she completely ignored me. It's the only time

(18:13):
while I was there that she didn't snap back at me,
and I like to think she remembered back to when
I explicitly told her that if we clean this thing
in that way, this is exactly what would happen. Overall,
I don't think a five thousand dollars machine would make
or break anything, but Yaza, did that feel good? Apparently
my job wants us to be comedians. My restaurant got

(18:35):
new menus printed, and apparently they decided to add a
little by a joke for fifty cents being at the
bottom of the page without bothering to tell any of
us about it, or say what jokes, et cetera. So
the first time anyone asked me about it, I had
no idea what they were talking about. I'm a bartender,
but recently they've been cutting so much staff all the
time that they had just me up front that day. Anyway,

(18:57):
I see a table of German tourists, and then when
im back from the bar to take their order, a
guy asks if he can buy a joke and has
some quarters laid out on the table. I was like, huh.
Then he pushes the quarters at me and says again
that he wants to buy a joke. ME still have
no idea what he's talking about now, gaslighting myself that
I must not be hearing it right due to his

(19:18):
accent or something, because what I think he said doesn't
make any sense. It was probably clear to them at
this point that I was confused as heck. So one
of them points to the menu where I see it
printed at the bottom. I apologize and explain to them
we just got new menus printed and we weren't told
about the joke bit edition. We all kind of awkwardly
laugh off the situation and they go on to order,

(19:40):
except the one guy who keeps asking about a joke.
I was like, I'm sorry, I don't have one ready
to go. He kept pushing it, so I said I'd
try to think of one. Any joke I'd ever known had,
of course, flown out of my brain the moment they asked,
and when I tried to remember any, they were all
too long or not appropriate for work on the other tables,

(20:01):
the bar et cetera. Doing all the jobs in front
of house. Yes, I know it's messed up, but we
don't have time to get into all of that. I
pop into the back where the shift lead is unpacking
the week's order of food and supplies, because apparently upper
management figured he could unpack and stalk the entire shipman
himself and be a server and manager at the same time.
I know. I ask him what's up with the joke thing,

(20:24):
and they never mentioned it to him either. He said
I should tell them my job, which made me laugh,
but I doubt my table of tourists would have gotten
that or found it funny. Anyway, I go back out
and most people seem understanding or chill seeing just me
running around doing everything, but the joke guy persists almost
any time I'm near their table, running food or bringing

(20:45):
a check, whatever he mentions it. I try to stay
behind the bar as much as I can because I'm
starting to get annoyed. Sir, I ain't got time for
jokes right now. I'm trying to make this place run.
The whole thing was upsetting me, the way he kept
pushing the coins at me. Dance Monkey dance. That they
want me to be a clown for fifty cents while
I'm trying to do my actual job and others for

(21:07):
fifty cents? Are you kidding me? Now? I got to
learn jokes for this. The fact that they didn't tell
us at all about it, or give us some kind
of approved joke list whatever. I got to make up
my own material. I'm not a stand up comedian. I
know it's probably not that big of a deal, and
they were probably just trying to be quirky or whatever
the deal, but it annoyed me. It felt low key, degrading,

(21:29):
and just one more thing in a long list of
annoyed or disrespectful things that upper management has put upon
us for no good reason and zero communication. It's stupid anyway.
Since then, I've probably only gotten two other people that
ever mentioned it, one being a regular that noticed it
and thought it was dumb, and some other dude that
didn't give a hoot when I didn't have one and
laughed when I told him. I don't know what's up

(21:50):
with it either. They just put it on the menu.
I have, however, been trying to pick up jokes here
and there that I could possibly use because my anxiety
riddled self doesn't want to feel unprepared. They never seem
to stick, but I think I finally found one the
perfect joke for the bar anyway. It's short, concise, easy
to remember, and bonus, it should have the desired effect

(22:11):
of making sure they never want to ask you for
one again. All right here it is what does dark
humor and kids would oh dang, they never get old,
Boom said, with all the enthusiasm of Wednesday, atoms should
do the trick. Or Hey, if they think it's funny,
then they're either a super chill person with the dark
scenins of humor and we could get along, or they

(22:33):
like it a little too much, they're a psycho and
should be avoided. Either way, it's a win. Am I
the jerk for making an insurance claim against someone just
trying to help me. I take my dogs for a
run every afternoon to some fields about ten minute drive
from my home. I load them up in the canopy
in the back of my truck and pop one window
of canopy into the open position so my dogs can

(22:55):
look at things and get some fresh air. The gas
struts on the window have failed me. The window no
longer supports itself while open and drops down, so I
wrap a strap around the inner strut to act as
a support so the window doesn't drop down and close
while going over bumps. I did the same thing that afternoon,
but after getting home and dropping the dogs off, I
needed to pop into the shops. Problem was that I

(23:17):
had left the canopy window open while driving to the shops.
On the way there, some bloke got out of his
car at a set of traffic lights and runs over
to my truck and attempts to close the canopy window
down for me, but because it was braced so well,
he had to put extra force into trying to close it.
I watched this all unfold from the mare. It happened
extremely fast, so I had no opportunity to tell him

(23:39):
to stop. He put so much force into trying to
close it for me that he completely shattered the window.
The light went green, so we pulled over on the
side of the intersection. I got his details from him.
He's twenty years old driving an old four wheel drive.
Really nice kid. But am I the jerk for making
an insurance claim to have the canopy replaced. It was

(23:59):
an older kid, so they could not make repairs. I
do feel bad that he was only trying to help out,
But in the same breath, I was left with a
problem I never created. Should I have just copped it
on the chin? I left the window open mistakingly. He
was just trying to be a good Samaritan and was
extremely apologetic about it. He actually went back and cleaned
glass off the road with a broom. He also cut

(24:21):
his feet in it at it. Some people saying I'm
taking advantage of the situation, which is not true. I
asked insurance to repair the old canopy. The manufacturer came
back and said it can't be replaced because the model
was no longer supported and had been superseded. So the
whole canopy must be replaced under the insurance claim. It
was already broken, and you are taking advantage of the situation.

(24:44):
To get it fixed. That young man's insurance costs are
going to go up for the next seven years thanks
to you. You're the jerk, or the kid could have
just not touched someone else's stuff. OP has it rigged
up and working fine until the kid shattered the window.
The kids should have told OP and not rushed over
to mess with their stuff. Not the jerk. He shouldn't

(25:06):
have touched your vehicle. There was no expectation for him
to do so, and his actions caused the damage, unfortunately
for him. You shouldn't be stuck with the bill, Not
the jerk. When will men learn that we don't need
their help. I'd honestly press charges if I were you.
It's guys like this that seriously creep me out. You
have no right whatsoever to touch anything that belongs to me,

(25:28):
just trying to help. How about you help me by
keeping your hands to yourself. This guy is definitely the
kind to pull out chairs and hold doors open, and
probably considers himself a gentleman. Guys like that give me
the creeps and make me so glad. I was raised
by my mom and didn't have to deal with my
loser dad while I was growing up I'm raising two
sons on my own now, and I'm teaching them that

(25:49):
women don't need their help for anything and never will.
My sons will know that they are not some special
little superheroes. And I'm also teaching them to mind their
own business unless spoken to by woman. My sons will
not grow up to be jerks like the ones I
read about on here. Karen demands I let her daughter
keep my crafting supplies. I'm thirty one female. My best

(26:11):
friend Riley, who's also thirty one female, recently just got
a part time job after several years of staying home
with her daughter, Ella, who's six. She and her husband Joe,
who's thirty four, haven't been able to get the child
care situation totally sorted out and needed a babysitter last Saturday,
so I agreed to watch Ella for the day while
Riley was at work. I've been sort of the cool

(26:32):
aunt ever since Ella was born. I typically will bring
small gifts or activities whenever I know I'll be seeing her,
which isn't all that often. Ella is smart and engaged,
and I like to give her things that will interest
her and keep her occupied. One important piece of information
here is that I'm a very crafty person. I have
a small online store and also work with local businesses

(26:53):
for selling and distributing small batches of my product and
painted wooden figurines. I thought it might be fun to
introduced Ella into my hobby and business, so I ended
up bringing ten unpainted figurines to choose from a few
tubes of acrylic paint and some paint brushes. We immediately
got to work and Ella was so into it. She
had an absolute blast painting her turtle figurine. But when

(27:15):
it came time for me to leave, I started packing
up all of my supplies and Ella became visibly upset.
Riley insisted that I leave the supplies behind so that
Ella could keep and play with them. I disagreed and
basically said that I have no obligation to give away
any of my belongings. I personally feel like I was
more than generous by babysitting Ella on my day off.

(27:35):
I do have a regular nine to five job as
well and providing a fun activity for her. Riley pointed
out that I have a pretty large stock of items
at home, which is true, but still letting Ella keep
the supplies and figurines would have been a loss in
profit for my business. Ella cried when I didn't let
her keep any of this stuff, and Riley argued that
I should have never brought toys over if I wasn't

(27:57):
willing to let Ella keep them. Now, Riley has hasn't
been responding to any of my messages or calls, and
I can only assume she's still angry over this whole thing.
I thought I was doing something nice by babysitting and
providing a fun activity. Am I the jerk for not
letting Ella keep my crafting supplies? At it? Just clarifying
that I did let Ella keep the one completed turtle

(28:17):
figurine that she painted herself. Everything else I took back
home with me, not the jerk. Does Riley start dismantling
the swings when she leaves the playground? Not the jerk?
And Ella is old enough to understand that Karen steals
my family's name for her baby and refuses to change it.
This is a throwaway because my brother in law twenty

(28:39):
four male knows my main account and sorry for the
errors I'm posting for my phone. So my stepsister twenty
three female as having a new baby soon and my
whole family is excited for her, and this will be
the first grand baby for my mother and stepfather. I
twenty five male, am half white and half Polynesian. They
are full white for reference. So the story my family

(29:02):
got together and is having a good time. We were
all chatting in the living room and then the topic
of the first grand baby comes up between my mom
and my stepsister. They're talking about what she will do
with work in normal expecting talk when they start talking
about names, and my mom starts suggesting names like Sam
and Riley. Then my sister says, a Polynesian name, think

(29:23):
Leilani are along those lines. I was a little offended
because the name has a lot of importance in my family.
It has a very important meaning. I would go into
more detail, but the name is so specific they would
know who's posting this. She said she heard the name
when talking to me. Duh. It's a family name and
it has been on her mind ever since, and she's

(29:44):
just fallen in love with it. Polynesian names are very
significant to the families and people with those names, and
most Polynesian cultures, names tell a story and have a
significance to the family. Only certain families can have these
names because of respect and genealogy, an honor like a title.
I get that it's not normal here in the US,
but I was offended that she thinks she can just

(30:06):
take a name from my family like that without even
thinking about my customs. I feel like it was offensive
to my people because she didn't even know where my
family is from. I would always tell her the island
my family is from, and she would be like, Okay,
what EV's She doesn't know anything about the culture or customs.
So I pulled her aside and in privacy, told her

(30:27):
I didn't feel comfortable with the name she had chosen.
I told her the importance of names in my culture
and how they have meaning, and I even offered to
sit down with her and find a story or meaning
she liked and translated into a name of my people
so she can still have a pretty name, but it
would also not be taking from the culture. Then she
got really mad at me and said that it doesn't

(30:48):
matter the culture, it's just a name, and why can't
I just let her be happy. I told her I
would never call her kid by that name because it
would be offensive to my family and I then she
got our family in life. They all started calling me names,
so I tried to explain to them the meaning of
names in my culture. They told me I was in America,
not the island my family is from, so it doesn't matter.

(31:11):
So I called them some names and they could at
least have some knowledge or some appreciation for my culture
before they start taking from it. I want to know,
am I the jerk for making such a big deal
out of a name? Edit one. I keep seeing I
don't own the name. This is why I say culture,
because back on the island i'm from, my family does
actually own the name. You can't name someone that name

(31:33):
unless you're in our family. That's why I say. I
know it's different in the US, but it's not like
that in our culture. Edit too, my grandpa said, we
are proud to share our culture. We'll teach you our
dances and share our food, but we draw the line
when you start taking our sacred family names. These names
are passed down in our family like Americans would pass
down war metals or a very important pocket watch. That's

(31:56):
how we connect to family and our ancestors. I would
be fine with any other name in my culture as
long as it wasn't one of these. These names bring
great pride to our families. We track them through what
is basically a mural that our decades, if not hundreds
of years old. I would explain it like these names
were bestowed or given to us by God. For lack
of a better analogy, that's what our family names mean

(32:18):
to us. My stepsister has no relation to my Polynesian
side and has always made fun of my name. When
I pulled her aside, I tried to explain to her
that the same way she has treated me is how
other kids will treat her daughter. I have also been
with my stepsister since I was six. Support our channel
by joining as a member today and we'll give you
a shout out in our next video. Or come watch

(32:41):
this video next. You won't believe what Karen does in
that one.