Family, you can't live with 'em, but you also can't live without 'em. For these people, their family members embarrassed them so much that they're concerned their reputation. But also some family members straight up treated them like
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There’s Always That One Embarrassing Family Member At Every Wedding
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“My cousin, who was probably about 22 years old at the time, got so wasted at another one of our cousin’s wedding, that he got into an argument with the bartenders working the reception because they cut him off, then stormed off but it was more of a wasted-stumble, and he fell right into not only the table holding the wedding cake, but smack-dab into the cake itself, destroying most of it.
Then after being helped to the bathroom to clean himself up, he pooped his pants and then passed out while hiding out in a stall because he was too embarrassed to let anyone know he pooped himself. He was found near the end of the reception passed out on the toilet, holding wads of crappy toilet paper because it looked like he was attempting to clean himself up, but then gave up and passed out.”
They Won’t Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain To Grandmother’s House Anymore
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“My mother accused my sister’s 5-year-old of staring at her and giving her the ‘evil eye.’ A shouting match ensued and my sister left crying five minutes later. They haven’t spoken since. This was Thanksgiving Day about 20 minutes into the meal. We couldn’t even make it 30 minutes with each other. Needless to say, we probably won’t be making that four-hour drive for Thanksgiving anymore.”
Being Unrecognized By The Church Was More Than Just A Little Awkward For This Mom
“One time, my whole family was at mass – all six of us all sitting together in a pew, in a church that holds about 500. My mom always insists upon sitting near the front, so we were about eight rows from the altar. Just before communion, the priest announced there were some special awards to be given out. So, the lector walked to the altar and began to call out some names for some community service awards. My mom is relatively active in the church, so she whispered something to me along the lines of ‘Oh, this must be for blah blah blah,’ then she stood up and does that awkward shuffle across 10 people to the aisle and began to wait patiently.
The lady announced our school principal’s name, some nun’s name, and then she stops, shuts her book, and begins to walk off the altar, leaving my mom awkwardly standing in the aisle. My mom, realizing what was happening, tried to salvage the situation by sticking her finger up in the air as some sort of a motion to this lady (who isn’t even looking at her) and then kind of loud-whispers ‘Oh, you don’t need me? Okay,’ as if she could hear her. Then, my mom looked back to us sitting in the pew and tried to whisper again, ‘Oh, I don’t think they wanted me for this one.’ She did the awkward shuffle across the same 10 strangers who watched all this go down and stared at the gospel for the remainder of mass.”
This Was The Night They Realized Their Family Was Filled With Hicks
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“It was the Fourth of July, and my brother-in-law (BIL) had a fireworks display planned for the empty field across from my parents’ house. My dad, who is normally affable and easy-going despite his habit of carrying an open can of Old Style in the pocket of his windbreaker, was in rare form. He had his own personal mini-cooler of drinks tucked under his lawn chair and had spent the afternoon expounding on the patriotic values of liberty and American independence.
My BIL had just set off the first of his ground show displays and was in the process of launching the accompanying overhead rocket bursts when a police car pulled up right behind him. We tried to warn him, but with all the noise and flash of his rockets’ red glare, he didn’t even notice the police lights wash over the scene.
A cop gets out of the car and walks up to my startled BIL, a brief conversation occurs, and my BIL begins to assist the cop in dismantling the fireworks setup. Dad goes ballistic.
Dad stands up and starts making an impassioned speech at full volume about FREEDOM, LIBERTY, OUR FOREFATHERS, and THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS! The cop is not having it, says something to BIL, who turns and yells, ‘IF YOU DON’T SHUT UP RIGHT NOW I’M GETTING ARRESTED!’
This piece of timely information sends Dad right over the edge. Now he’s shouting about Nazis, the SS, and FASCIST PIGS. I tried to calm him down and told him the cop is just doing his job. ‘OH, YEAH? WELL HITLER WAS JUST DOING HIS JOB AND LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT!’ Dad turns to my mortified mother and says, ‘Honey, get the checkbook – it’s fine, I’ll bail him out.’
Meanwhile, the entire neighborhood has gathered to watch the crap show we’re putting on. I’m wondering if death by embarrassment is actually possible when my 8-year-old nephew, apparently bursting with pride, announces, ‘God I love this family!'”
They’d Never Forget Their Dad’s Petty Version Of Revenge
“Growing up, my dad was relaxed about most things. It didn’t matter what I did as long as I was honest and safe. The one thing that was the biggest ‘no-no’ for me was tattoos and piercings. So, like any rebellious young person, I waited until I left for college to get my nose pierced.
I got away with it for a few weeks until eventually, it came out through the grapevine (cough my sister cough) and my dad was upset. As mentioned before, he was a relaxed dad, so for him to get mad was a BIG deal. I remember sitting in my dorm room shaking when I got the call, dreading the next time I’d see him as I knew he had to pick me up in a couple weeks for an upcoming break.
During the period in between the phone call and him picking me up, he barely spoke to me. I knew it was going to be bad, so I braced myself for his attitude on the drive home. The day came for him to pick me up and he walked right up to my apartment and my roommates answered the door. They immediately called me from the other room sounding a bit strange and confused. I walked over to see what the deal was, and lo and behold, there was my Dad standing there with his face COVERED in fake piercings in front of all seven of my roommates. The looks on their faces were priceless when they saw my somewhat elderly, grey-haired, mountain of a Dad rocking a ‘lip ring,’ a ‘septum ring’ and two ‘ear piercings.’
He then proceeded to load up the car and walk through campus with said facial jewels, being sure to say hello to every student we passed. He didn’t say a word to me the entire time. The only thing he said once we got back to the car was, ‘You’re 18 now, and I can’t change your decisions. But, I can embarrass the crap out of you when you do something I don’t like.’ He laughed, took the jewelry off, got in the car, and that was that. I have never face-palmed so hard.
Basically, it was his ‘Now you know how I feel revenge.’ He is, unfortunately, getting up there in age and has started having some severe health issues so he isn’t as sharp as he used to be, but this will always be a great memory for me.”
This Dad Bought His Son’s Friends
“Ok, so my dad is an angry man when he’s wasted. Once, he showed up at my mom’s house wasted as all get out, and wanted me to go somewhere with him. I refused. My mom and stepdad brought me inside, and my dad began to try to break windows and trash our house.
My stepdad went out to persuade him to leave, and my dad tried to fight him. Eventually, my dad stumbled off.
A couple hours later and he was back. And he brought it back up. My stepdad went out to deal with the situation while we waited for the police. Then I noticed something.
The ‘backup’ my dad brought were friends of mine. I went out to ask them what they thought they were doing, and it turned out my dad offered them $50 each to help him beat up my stepdad. I just said, ‘I think you should leave.’
And of course, that is what everyone was talking about for weeks.”
Their Uncle’s Jokes Didn’t Go Well With This Audience
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“My uncle liked to do comedy roasts at family events that were always in terrible taste and crude, but usually only aimed at family members, so he got away with it.
Then, at my aunt’s 25th-anniversary party, he did a roast that included a lot of shots about a recent news story – a teenager threw a frozen turkey out a window and it caused a car crash that severely mutilated someone. Thing is, he did that roast right in front of the parents of the teenager who did it because the parents were friends of my aunt.
He’s not allowed to do comedy monologues at parties anymore.”
Lack Of Oxygen To The Brain Makes You Do Weird Things
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“My dad died of congestive heart failure, but before he died, he went through a period of sometimes doing strange things because of lack of oxygen to his brain. One day, my younger brother who was in high school at the time and had some behavior issues, got suspended and sent home from school. My dad went to pick him up, in his car, buck naked giving no second thought to it.
At least, thankfully, he did stay in the car.”
This Mom Trying To Play Wing Woman Definitely Backfired
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“There was a good-looking guy working the Starbucks drive-thru window, and when he left to run my mom’s card, she said something along the lines of, ‘Oh, he’s so handsome, isn’t he?’
Not thinking anything of it, I responded, ‘Yeah, he’s cute!’
Then the guy came back with my mom’s card and our drinks, and as she was grabbing them, she gestured to me and said, ‘Hey, this is my daughter, [arrowbread]. She’s single and she thinks you’re cute.’
I wanted to die. It took me forever to be able to go back to that Starbucks.”
Her Family Abandoned Her When She Needed Them Most
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“When I was at my lowest point of depression/anxiety. I had been hospitalized a couple times. My mother was worried that I was acting ‘strange’ and thought maybe I was on illegal substances or something. I had smoked a couple times in life, but that was it. Well, it just so happened that I went into this bad low with an anxiety attack, and out of desperation to just not feel bad anymore I got my cousin to smoke with me three days before I ended up in the hospital. Of course, they test you there and the doctor came in and told my parents that I had illegal substances in my system (I was 24 at the time and they were not on my medical disclosure list, so this was illegal). So my mother went around telling my whole family I had a substance abuse problem, not specifying what substance exactly.
Oh, and it doesn’t end there! A little bit before this time, my father (who was permanently disabled due to a car accident) was short about 60 painkillers one month, and my mother accused me of stealing them. Not only that, she told everyone I did it and convinced my father I did. I’m a daddy’s girl and he needed those pills, I would never do anything that would hurt that man and I hate opioids.
The only thing I give her is I was acting ‘strange,’ but that’s because I was going insane at the time. I was depressed, having panic attacks daily, suicidal, etc. I was on pills, the ones they prescribed me. They made me so loopy and out of it, I hated it. I was on sleeping pills and high doses of anti-anxiety medication multiple times a day, along with regular antidepressants and mood stabilizers. I still have no idea if my family thinks I have/had a substance abuse problem or not, but I always feel like I have to prove myself that I have no issues what so ever. (Bonus: after my father died, I found a whole bottle of his pills at my mom’s place in with her meds, so who really stole those pills?)”
Their Entire Family Is Embarassing
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“First day at university, my mom dropped me off at my dorm and then we went walking around town and a woman behind us tapped my mom on the shoulder and pointed down at her butt. There was a three-foot piece of toilet paper hanging down her pants.
We were on a road trip, alternating driving. My mom pulled into a crowded gas station and parked in front of the air pump. I told her she shouldn’t and she said ‘no one’s going to need it I’ll be right back.’ Right after she went inside, they called out over the PA for me to move the car so trucks could get to the air pump. I didn’t have the keys.
We got separated in IKEA in my hometown, and the person on the speaker called out ‘[my full name] please meet your mommy at the front’ I was 25. Still, I hope no one I knew was in the store that day.
We saw a restaurant and my mom made me pull over so she could go inside and ask if the restaurant started in NYC. After the hostess told her ‘no that’s a different chain’ she left.
Honorable mention goes to my sister. When she was 5 years old, she called the cashier at Kroger a man’s junk face.
Oh and my dad. We were at a bathroom in the Grand Canyon. He didn’t realize there was someone else in there. When they farted while peeing in the urinal he yelled ‘might want to check your pants after that one!’ thinking it was me.”
You Know What Happens When You Assume
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“We were at a Chinese buffet for a family celebration, dad wanted clean plates. He got into a five-minute argument with a Chinese man about the clean plates ‘Excuse me, can we please have some clean plates’
‘Uh…I no…..uh.’
‘He doesn’t speak English this is gonna be hard, PLATES, CLEAN PLATES’
‘UH….’
‘FOR. NEW. FOOD. FRESH PLATE’
‘Uh….I’m like…I’m like you….’
‘You are not, mate. Now where are the clean plates’
It turns out the guy who he was asking for plates was also a customer and didn’t actually work there. He just saw an Asian man and assumed he was staff.”
They Tossed Their Cookies During This Trip
“While moving from Houston, Texas, to Longmont, Colo., our family packed into our 1990 Toyota Privia and headed northwest. We stopped at a gas station, and I was given some money to buy snacks for the trip ahead. I ended up getting some Big Red and Twizzlers. These ingredients did not sit well with me a few hours later.
So, my mom ended up getting god knows what and was laying down some thick swamp farts. My sister and I begged her to roll down the windows but to no avail. She was up in the front seat laughing and farting her behind off while my dad was driving and giggling. If you know the Toyota Privia, there are these windows in the back but would only open about an inch and a half. My sister and I were pressing our faces into the crack trying to get fresh air while pleading to open the front windows. Well during this gas assault my stomach turned and I grabbed the Ziploc of freshly made cookies and barfed in the bag and sealing the bag shut. We finally got some fresh air while tossing the cookies out the front window going down I-70 in rural Colorado.”
They Couldn’t Believe Their Mother’s Screaming Reaction
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“I was going through a rough medical patch for some bladder issues for about a year and was back and forth at my doctor’s office and hospital for various medical check-ups. My mother, who I definitely do not get along with and had tried to keep this a secret from, invited herself to an ultrasound I was having one morning.
When we were on the bus to the hospital, I was in a lot of pain from my basically non-functioning bladder. She switches out of nowhere and starts screaming at me on the bus, to ‘Stop acting like a baby’ and ‘There’s no reason for you to act like this!’ I wasn’t making a scene, nor did I ask for her input. I want to clarify that by this point I had several months’ worth of medical letters, including one talking about this specific appointment. I think she refused to believe there was anything wrong with me and just came to humiliate me.
Worse than that, when we arrived at the hospital, I said I was just going to book in to ensure that they knew I was here, and she could just wait. She started screaming at me, at 8 a.m., in a hospital waiting room, with several people waiting around for their own appointments. I’m not talking in a, ‘Oh, that’s silly’ sort of way – I mean full-on screeching, the type that made everyone stare. I stood, mortified, and quietly told her that I was told to book in as soon as I arrived, as it might mean I got my appointment early. She continued to scream like a banshee even when I tried to reason with her that it would take maybe two minutes to complete. I just ended up walking away and confirming my arrival anyway.
Not a fun story, but definitely deeply embarrassing. I’ll never forget the looks on people’s faces when she was yelling.”
Sometimes They Wish They Didn’t Have An Older Brother
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“I’m one of those who has that family member that thrives on drama. Seriously, any time there’s a holiday, birthday of a family member, or someone being in the hospital, my older brother does something to try and put the attention on him.
Picking a single story is difficult.
Let’s just hit a few of them.
-He dropped out of school when he was 16 (many years ago now). His teacher made a harmless joke towards him, so my brother decided to call him a racial slur. He got expelled because half of his school is black and let’s be honest, it’s just not a pleasant thing to do anyway. He ran away for about a month, came back, my dad threw a can of spray deodorant at his head, told him to clean up because he’s going to enroll him in alternative school. He was expelled from there because he had illegal substances on him, and the K-9 unit came into the school and he got a simple possession charge. Before that point in time, my parents told me that if I ever smoked, they wouldn’t mind, because they smoked themselves. My brother got busted, got out, packed his stuff and left to go live with people he was doing actual illegal stuff with at some shady apartment.
-Follow up to that story. At the time he was working at a fast food joint. He didn’t want to go that day because he told them I was in the hospital after being in a bad accident. I know this because he said if they call, tell them this happened. I told him, ‘Screw you. If anyone calls, I’m telling them the truth. I am not lying to cover your tail because you don’t want to work.’ I was 13 at the time. He used me anyways. But he got fired because he was late or called out too many times to count. He had no income, roommates were getting upset, gave him a couple weeks to find work, three days went by and he got kicked out because he drank ALL of the drinks in the house when they were all at work and ate a bunch of their food. To this day, 18 years later, he does not understand ‘why they were being buttholes about it.’
-My mother had a stroke and he said that his wife told him he couldn’t come up to the hospital and that she wasn’t going to drive him. I talked to his wife a few months later and she said that he was too messed up on painkillers to form a sentence that sounded anything like that. He instead decided to say some crap about how if he killed himself everything would be better. Suicide pity is his go-to in a sticky emotional situation.
-He stole my Pokémon, DBZ, and Gundam Wing cards (for the respective card games) so he could buy drinks.
-Our sister let him borrow her Xbox, and he spilled soda on the controller. It didn’t damage the controller, but it was sticky. When she, passively asked him about it, he got offended and yelled at her and angrily exclaimed the following exact statement, ‘I’M YOUR BROTHER!!!!!’ Didn’t mention anything about whether he did or didn’t.”
This Crazy Mother-In-Law Put On Her Own Show During This Christmas Play
“My mother-in-law is crazy. Not violent crazy; just fruit loops crazy.
My husband was in the Christmas play at church. There were probably 100 people in the audience. She didn’t like the clicking noises one of the microphones was making, so naturally, she got up from her seat, WALKED ON STAGE, and turned that microphone off. She then went back to her seat. It wasn’t even an aisle seat.”
Their Mom Asked WAY Too Personal Questions
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“My mom asked my sophomore year girlfriend if she had lost her v-card yet. The first time she met her. Not funny, whatsoever.
I was on a cruise, and I was walking with my mom, dad, and a buddy. Well, my mom saw these two model-esque bombshell blondies getting their cruise pictures done in the photo hallway, then proceeded to shove me into the middle of them and said, ‘Hey girls, this one’s single! Why don’t you say hello! His name is…’ Not funny then, very funny now.”