Hosting Thanksgiving is not for the faint of heart. It is a grueling marathon involving hours of peeling potatoes, wrestling a frozen bird, and navigating the emotional minefield of extended family dynamics. Most guests understand the blood, sweat, and butter that goes into the meal and act accordingly with gratitude and maybe a bottle of wine. But one woman on Reddit just shared a story about a cousin named Janice whose entitlement is so off the charts that I need a glass of wine just reading about it.
Our narrator explains that she usually travels for the holiday, but this year she and her husband stayed home to host a small gathering because they had tickets to a concert the next day. It sounds like a perfect, low-key plan. She decided to extend an olive branch to her cousin Janice, whom she rarely sees even though they live thirty minutes apart.
From the moment Janice arrived, the vibes were off. She showed up five minutes before dinner was served, which is the universal sign of someone who wants to eat but has zero interest in helping or socializing. She proceeded to spend the entire meal glued to her phone. She didn’t even look up for the blessing. She treated a home-cooked Thanksgiving feast like a pit stop at a gas station.
To top it all off, Janice announced she was leaving before pie. Leaving before pie on Thanksgiving should be a crime in all fifty states, but to each their own. The host, being a gracious human being, offered to pack her a plate of leftovers right then and there. Janice declined. She said she was heading to the movies with a friend and didn’t want to carry food. Fair enough. You make your choice, you live with it.
You would think that was the end of the Janice saga. But no. The next day, Friday evening, the narrator and her husband are in the car, heading to the concert they stayed in town for. The phone rings. It is Janice. And Janice isn’t calling to say thank you for the meal she barely paid attention to. She is calling because she wants to “swing by” and pick up those leftovers now.
The narrator explains that they are literally in the car, driving to an event, and are not home. A normal person would say “oh bummer, my bad” and hang up. But Janice is not a normal person. Janice is a woman who believes the world revolves around her stomach.
She actually asked them to turn the car around. She wanted them to abandon their plans, drive back to the house, and unlock the door just so she could get a container of stuffing she refused twenty-four hours earlier. The narrator was understandably gobsmacked. She told her absolutely not. They weren’t missing their concert for her Tupperware needs.
Janice was “miffed.” Miffed! Imagine being annoyed that people won’t cancel their Friday night plans to cater to your lack of planning. The narrator held her ground and told her she should have taken the food when it was offered. It was the only correct response.
The narrator says she hasn’t heard from the rest of the family yet, but she expects a call from her aunt soon. Honestly, if anyone has the nerve to defend this behavior, they can make Janice a sandwich themselves.
So is she the ahole? Absolutely not. Leftovers are a perk of attendance, not a constitutional right. Janice had her chance. She chose the movies over the turkey. She doesn’t get to demand a special delivery service the next day. Enjoy the concert, OP, and maybe lose Janice’s number before Christmas.