There are two kinds of houseguests in this world. There’s the kind who brings a bottle of wine, makes their own bed, and whispers “thank you” every five seconds. And then there’s the kind who moves in, makes demands, and treats you like the unpaid help. One mother-in-law on Reddit just found out her daughter-in-law is the second kind, and it all exploded over a cup of coffee.
Let’s set this scene. Our narrator’s son and his wife, “Emily,” are in a bind. Their house has water damage, and it’s unlivable. So, mom and dad to the rescue. They’ve opened their home to the couple for the next month. This is not a weekend visit. This is a full-on, long-term favor.
Now, our narrator is not a lady of leisure. She works nights. She gets home around 6:30 AM, exhausted. But before she crashes, she has a sweet little routine where she makes her husband coffee and breakfast so they can have some quality time. This woman is already a saint.
Being a good host, she extended this offer to her son and Emily. She asked if they, too, would like coffee or breakfast before they go to work. They said yes to coffee, no to food. Easy peasy. She, being a gem, even asked them to let her know if they wanted their coffee made differently, clearly thinking they’d say “a little more cream” or “two sugars.”
Oh, she was so naive. Emily, the daughter-in-law, texted her that she “left instructions” for the coffee. I’m sorry, what? Instructions? For a free cup of coffee? From your mother-in-law? Who just worked a full night shift? The audacity is already breathtaking.
The next morning, the exhausted MIL comes home to a note. And it’s not a “light and sweet, please!” kind of note. It’s a “very detail instructions how to make a complex coffee.” It was, as she says, “like a Starbucks drink.”
She wanted foamed milk. She wanted different syrups. She wanted a specific coffee bean, ground fresh. And to top it all off, she wanted a different brewing method than the simple drip coffee machine the narrator owns. She even left all the supplies out on the counter, as if she was leaving a task for her unpaid barista.
The mother-in-law, in a move I am personally applauding, looked at this ridiculous, high-maintenance order and said, “Nope.” She was not doing that. She made them the normal, standard-issue coffee.
As you can imagine, Emily was “not happy.” An argument actually broke out before she left for work. The MIL finally told her, “I am not a Starbucks barrista and I am not going all that.” And Emily, with the entitlement of a queen, told her she “shouldn’t have offered in the first place” if she wasn’t going to make it exactly to her liking.
That is not how “offers” work, honey. An offer of coffee is an offer of the coffee the host is making. It is not an invitation to submit a full-page, single-spaced list of demands.
And the son? The spineless wonder? Instead of pulling his wife aside and telling her to check her privilege, he started sending his mother texts about “not being hospitable.” Hospitable? She is letting you live in her house for free for a month! She is saving you thousands of dollars in hotel fees! “Hospitable” is giving you a roof, not becoming your personal au pair.
This poor woman is now having trouble sleeping because she’s being ganged up on. So, is she the ahole? Let me scream it: N-T-A. She is not the ahole. She is a working woman who is being treated like a servant in her own home. Emily needs to learn how to be a guest, and the son needs to grow a spine.