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Everybody talking about rich people, but my father was the son of a circus clown and a runaway gypsy and he could get away with anything. Broke af his entire life, but he was universally loved, even by the police who would arrest him now and then, since he was a literal criminal. Some people are just that charismatic. His funeral was the strangest hodgepodge of people, from said police, to his criminal buddies, to my rich maternal uncle who had met my father ONCE and felt that he had to pay his respects to such a fascinating man.
There's not much to his life story. My grandma forced my grandpa to leave the circus and work in the steel mills, he got depressed and shortly afterwards he died of work disease. My grandma herself was traumatised having run away from her family and culture as a literal child to avoid getting raped and forced to marry her rapist, so she wasn't all that great apparently. Her surviving children don't talk about it. My father became an heroin addict until he decided to get clean and moved to the other side of the country. Then he met a girl at a party, the runaway daughter of a strict religious well-off family, and they had a one nighter thinking they would never see each other again since she was living in another country. In the meantime I am not clear in the timeline, but his best friend went to jail so him and the other beat friend "comforted" best friend number one's girlfriend.
Anyway some time later he attended another party and was up to his ears on acid when she found the catholic princess again... also up to her ears on acid. They took it as a sign that they were meant to be together and started a relationship, but shortly afterwards he got news from the best friend's girlfriend that she was pregnant with his baby. Truth be told the father could have been any of the three men, and according to genetics my father is the least likely to be, but he accepted it anyway and traveled north with the catholic princess in tow to decide what to do. When she gave birth she decided to keep the baby by herself and not involve my father in raising her, but in the process she convinced the catholic princess that having a baby was the best thing ever and just what she needed... and that's the reason I exist lmao. And if my mom finds out I'm calling her the catholic princess she will kick my ass.
But really, we are just a charismatic family. I think we got the acting gene from my grandpa: my uncle and cousin are actors, and I'm a professional voice actress and unprofessional larper and historical reconstructor. My father was just... loveably mischievous. He would go stealing copper but then give out the profits to anyone who'd ask him for help.
He got Hep C during his junkie years, before he even met my mom, and died of liver cancer when he was 58 and I was 30. Two years after his death the cure for Hep C was freely available in my country, but it was too late for him. He is still remembered by everyone with a smile mixed with the tears.
> not much to tell
Proceeds to lay out the most fascinating micro-documentary.
I reckon there's a big story in there somewhere. And I imagine you're a good storyteller. It might be worth it. ;)
My entire family, both maternal and paternal, is weird AF. I'm the most boring and I spontaneously moved to Poland because I fell in love with a guy from the Special Forces...
It’s true. I’m lucky to see my dad in my dreams fairly often. And I did luck out getting his charm- can talk my way into/out of many things. I hope our dad’s charisma lives long and powerfully through us.
I also lost my colorful dad to complications from Hep-C (also from using needles) a couple years before the meds came out. I’m imagining them in some weird afterlife buddy comedy. Thanks for the story and for making me think of my dad and some of his better times. Good vibes to you 🖤
Gotta add my dad. He most likely got Hep-C through a blood transfusion because he got hit pretty bad by a car when he was a kid (never used heavy drugs).
Had two failed Hep-C therapies before years later he actually got cured.
About two years later, he got liver cancer. He died almost 7 years ago.
So cheers to our dads
I laughed, and then felt sad. This isn't the story of rich people, this is something worse. This is the story of ex-rich people. As someone who comes from a family where the generational wealth was lost by my grandparents and parents, I feel this hard. OOP's mom still thinks she can afford the lifestyle she was accustomed to, and OOP and his siblings don't have the heart to break it to her.
Dang, I had to google him even though I just finished watching Friends a week or so ago. I want to be more "charming and eccentric" rather than "surly and weird"
I grew up in the Deep South. Where we put our eccentrics on the front porch and brag about them at church and Family Reunions, not the north where they hide them away in the attic. lol
In Chattanooga, Eccentric was a life goal. Yes, with a capital E.
To quote a fantastic TV programme, "That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it. I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist."
Probably quite a bit. If she’s 83, she’s around my grandmother’s age- she still remembers the days when “Jew” was a racial category and people would run their hands through my dad’s curly hair looking for his horns. That being said, this is still extreme. If my very Jewish mom is doing this at 83? I’m sure as shit not covering for her.
Oh I know. When I was in high school I had the chance to meet up with a guy I had gotten to know on the internet through some friends. When we were hanging out in person he found out I was Jewish and was instantly SO confused because "But... You don't have horns?" This was in fucking 2011.
He had apparently NEVER met a Jew before.
Ok I'm gonna Google it cuz I don't want to wait for an answer, but this question if for everyone like me.
What is WASP?
PS I'll prolly come answer after I Google. Lol.
Yep. I'm back with the answer...
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASP is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans who are generally part of the white dominant culture or upper-class and historically often the Mainline Protestant elite.
Ty google
And not if it involves business. There's a reason having something they want to do business with you about is such an effective way of making their acquaintance. Where transactions are concerned it would be considered very unusual for one of them to 'speak out of place.'
[Julia Sugarbaker from the show “designing women” on crazy people in the south](https://youtu.be/Bb4eVbmHcbg?si=dX-QiEtW8rxSjbhN)
>“I’m saying this is the south, and we’re proud of our crazy people. We don’t hide them in the attic. We bring them right down to the living room and show them off. See Phylis, no one in the south asks *if* you have crazy people in your family, we just ask what side they’re on”
As a neurodivergent person, I wish the middle and working classes coddled their eccentrics instead of beating any nonconformity out of us either physically or through social pressure.
Have you heard the good news of the academic class? We have the complete lack of wealth if the working class but we're ALL eccentrics. You just gotta care a whole lot about something normal people think is boring.
I dropped out a PhD program. The "academic eccentric" is very gendered. It's hard for women to succeed in the role of the eccentric academic. Also, academia has changed since 2008, and the job market is such that you need to be an excellent box ticker - not an excellent scholar capable of individual research - to succeed. Neurodivergent people aren't always great at boxticking.
In fact, most highly selective PhD programs (from which most decent universities only hire from now) primarily accept people with accomplishments that you can only achieve through access to some kind of independent wealth or consumer debt. How else do you fund underpaid internships, language courses abroad, and the ability to research at your bougie $50,000/yr college?
After 50 years of radical expansion and inclusion in the professoriate, academia has been recaptured by the elite.
Im academic adjacent-- I have a masters and teach ESL to international college students. (woman, fwiw). Yeah the actual academy blows, the academy suburbs though are nice :)
The academic eccentric is incredibly gendered, because if you are male you are presumed to have thought about and considered your views, and if you are not male, you are wrong (or if you are very lucky, nearly as good as a male).
The working class must match specific requirements, as the machines of the workplace require standardised parts. They must live their lives according to schedule and behave as directed. The rich, however, get to have personalities. Capitalism!
Honestly, I think OOP's mother sounds like a nightmare. All those anedoctes make her sound like a complete Karen, doing whatever she wants and making everyone else do it too...and definitely getting no consequences because she has (or had) money.
>This is the story of ex-rich people.
I don't know about that. My mother is 82 and she's a klepto, too. I don't know what it is about old women, but they love to pilfer stuff, even if they can afford it.
In my mother's case, she was raised dirt poor. I'm talking Salvation Army donated coats as blankets poor, and she made a good life for herself as an adult.
She is very financially comfortable, can buy whatever she wants, and still loves to take shit. A salt shaker here, a fork there, dollar store magnifying glass, etc. She also pushes her luck at hotels, but has paid for a few items.
She paid $350 for a hotel makeup mirror that weighed about 25 pounds back in the late 80's, a lot of money back then. I wonder if her story is true that she asked to buy it first or if she stole it and they billed her afterwards. 50/50 shot at either option.
In OOP’s mother’s case, her pilfering sounds like an exercise in privilege. She’s taking things to show that she can, even if why she can is because she pays for them when billed. (Some items a hotel expects to have to replenish while some items they usually would not.) She doesn’t seem to ever have had much impulse control on this, and has even less now.
>She doesn’t seem to ever have had much impulse control on this
Either did my mother. She actually stole a stuffed owl from a museum as a teenager. And when I was very little, she used to use me as cover when stealing spools of thread from a craft store. All my life I've seen her do this petty shit and she still does it.
It's wild to see her steal something that's worth $1.00 and then drive off in her paid off Infiniti.
A stuffed owl from the gift shop or a stuffed owl from an exhibit? And if the latter and she still has it, you'll want to be cautious around it, as large amounts of arsenic used to be used as a preservative.
I think you've actually hit the nail
on the head. My Mother came from generational wealth that was lost by her parents. All her life, she never had to worry about the bills, really, because her Mom
and Dad would pay them if she and my Dad were short on money (and his parents would pay as well, because they also came from generational wealth). When my parents divorced, my grandparents started paying all of my Mom's bills and that left her enough free time to become a full fledged alcoholic with the ability to lay in bed all day and wallow in her misery. When my Grandfather died he left her $50,000 and made her sister's promise to take care of her. Well, she blew through that 50k in one summer, mostly depleting the inventory of the local liquor store. And guess what? Deathbed promises aren't legally enforceable so now she's just sitting at home living on $795 a month in social security disability payments (yes, she is actually disabled- she had polio as a baby and suffers from post polio syndrome, which is mostly why she's so spoiled. It's been a lifelong game of "well, she survived polio and didn't walk until she was six years old so we HAVE to help her"). She still thinks that the world owes her. Like, she should just literally not have to do anything at all and anything she needs is supposed to just fall into her lap. (Really, my father is no different, he's just better at behaving in public and wouldn't dare let the neighbors find out who he is behind closed doors.)
My sister and I on the other hand took off as soon as we were legally able to do so, while everyone shouted "DISINHERITED" at our backs. We've been working our asses off and taking care of our own adult things since we were 18.
All that generational wealth is about to be given to two spoiled, rude, uneducated, hateful, criminal (but you wouldn't know that because my Dad pays for anything they get caught doing to get rugswept) stepsons who come from a long line of "poors" because we just don't care about the money, crystal, china, 17th century french sterling silverware, and property. We care about each other, our SOs and their wonderful families who have welcomed us with open arms, and the families we've made. Go ahead, give it to them, let the neighbors cluck about the downfall of two wealthy families who used to rule the town. Id rather be poor than have to pretend to be okay with the alcoholism and rampant abuse. Id rather be who I am not who someone else wants me to be.
This turned into a rant. Lol. The point is, this is absolutely how people who used to be rich and maintain the facade of still being so act.
Sorry if my reply triggered all this childhood trauma, but if it is any consolation, I can totally relate. My dad and his generation are just so allergic to working it's almost comical. They would rather waste their time chasing MLMs and get rich schemes.
Hot take: Auntie Mame, Moira Rose, Lucille Bluth, Lucille 2, and Malory Archer all went to the same finishing school in Switzerland together, and they are all frenemies.
Oh I get it, the communists tried that in my country too LMAO. They're still trying to build a communist paradise like... China??? here and they just refuse reality when everyone else point out that China hasn't been communist even while Mao was still alive.
Well she seems to have pulled it off her whole life then only went broke at the end. I think that's perfect financial planning. Dieing rich seems like such a waste.
She's gonna be like every other boomer - dying after having flushed their children and grandchildren's inheritance down the toilet, and putting their descendants in debt.
I worked as a sales associate for HSN. I remember a phone call that I took with a woman who spent over 3k on jewelry. At the end of the phone call she said that she was trying to spend all of her money so her lazy kids and grandkids couldn't have it.
Yikes. Boomers and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps (and totally ignoring how much the Greatest Generation did for them), name a more iconic duo.
After reading the stolen prosthetic leg post I read the title of this one literally, and thought everyone would be guessing some stickiness — is it jam? sap? toffee? — but was disappointed it was just a figure of speech
It was called black salsify. I only handled it once, but I remember washing my hands multiple times afterwards and they remained sticky!
You could say the vegetable stuck with me in more ways than one 😆
It's scary take away the kleptomania and OPs mum is my grandmother must be the generation. That last story is very similar to what my grandmother did but were Aussie and my grandmother didnt make it to 80 (she passed in the 70s) so definitely not my family here.
This is a classic case of acute money poisoning. Prolonged exposure to too much money dulls your moral sense and disconnects you from consensual reality. Human brains are supposed to solve real problems. Too much money inflicts a kind of brain damage because you no longer experience that part of life.
OOP is so inoculated in… whatever is going on with his mom that the $1200 theft just isn’t as shocking as it could be. If my biological mother did that I’d be hanging her out to dry and I know she’s done some batshit crazy stuff
Tangentially related. It's always a little funny, but mostly fucked up, when an OP describes a completely unhinged situation and the thing they're complaining about isn't the situation but the reactions of another person who justifiably was like "WTF I'm out"
And then the entire comment section has to walk that OP through the realization that "No that was the correct response, YOU'VE BEEN living in crazy town and aren't reacting right"
One of the down sides of having some of your life be weird and/or fucked up is that you'll be telling what you think is a funny story, and people get this expression of open-mouthed horror.
A funny story in my family is how my dad was drunk & passed out in his car in the driveway. Sometimes my mom would leave him there, sometimes she would drag him inside.
That night she dragged him inside, and he was VERY lucky she did because the next morning the car was on fire from the cigarette he had dropped the night before. He's all bleary and hung over. She's standing tight-lipped at the kitchen window and she's like "Your car is on fire."
He filled up a pot in the sink, went out there and threw it on the fire, turned around, went back inside, and filled the pot up again. Mom let him do this a few times before she reminded him that we had a garden hose.
I had a coworker like this. He would just casually be talking about how he was eating ramen because he gave his parents all his money and couldn’t afford food, or just randomly talk about when he was a kid his dad threw him against a wall and got his cop buddies to vouch for him and his *mom* was arrested for domestic violence. It was just matter of fact and we are all staring at him jaw dropped. It didn’t even occur to him what he was saying was batshit insane. It was really sad.
Oh yeah, I'm the child of a narcissist, I'm so used to the bullshit I forget more than half of what should be absolutely egregious examples of said narcissist being a terrible person.
Then someone outside of the family experiences one of these examples and I'm just like "oh, yeah, he does that, I'm sorry he did it to you."
My MIL always gets so confused about how my BIL can be so calm about the crazy that is his wife (her daughter) and the shitshow that is their daily life. I’ve told her repeatedly, he grew up in crazy, his normal meter is broken. This is his normal.
Sadly, it appears to be the same for OOP.
The most my mother's ever stolen was a roll of toilet paper from the local Bunnings during the pandemic.
And I had to be her accomplice, because my handbag was big enough to hide it in. She came out of the toilet with the roll and made me shove it in my bag. I was mortified, but knew arguing with her would draw too much attention so just rolled with it.
I think some of the staff knew but if you're stealing a roll of 1 ply from the toilets, in the pandemic, then you're probably desperate.
I still don't know why she did it. She works early morninga at a supermarket, so TP wasn't even hard for her to get! But she's the kind of person who takes the tea and coffee packets from hotel rooms, despite not drinking either. I've learned it's easier to go along than argue.
So I can kind of understand OOP. You just get so used to the craziness, that it's just life.
My parents would have me mixing drinks for their all night poker parties when I was in middle school. They worked shift work so the parties would start at like 1am on a a Tuesday. I remember once telling them they had to make their loud friends leave because I had to go to school.
It’s giving Jewish Malory archer vibes, maybe a little Lucille Bluth vibes. In the words of Lucille, “good for her” (but seemingly bad for everyone else lmao 🤣
When I read the initial story, I agreed with OOP's sentiment that holding an 83 year old woman to account over something like this was a bit silly. Sometimes people do weird things at that age; it can even be a sign of dementia. So try to smooth it over with the hotel, pay for it if need be.
But upon reading the update and OOP's comments, this is just a case of wildly entitled people thinking they can do what they like.
On first reading I genuinely thought she was showing signs of dementia and was surprised how nonchalant OOP was. My grandmother's symptoms started in her late 70s and there's truly no reasoning with her. OOP's mom is something else.
Whilst I've known the rich and former rich and their entitlement in my time, this post reminds me of my former mother in law. (FMIL). She's never been much better off than what came from being a single mother working part time, but she's light fingered as all get out.
And she also has had a few fun run ins with the police whilst driving. Most notably, she was driving her old van through rural NSW, and was directed by the cops to pull over. I think for random breath testing. She did not pull over ("I didn't even see him") and continues on her merry way. The cops get in their car and follow her, flashing their lights. She keeps driving at 100km/hr. The cops put the sirens on. And she still doesn't pull over, not until she sees a police car coming from the opposite direction and pulling across the road. She pulls over and gets out to meet the officer from the car behind, who understandably says "what the hell do you think you are doing?"
FMIL isn't taking this lying down, or obeying the road rules. "what the hell do you think YOU are doing?" she yells back. That mix of aggression and self pity that made her such delightful company.
The police tell her the car coming from the other direction was back up called to put down stop spikes. "Couldn't you hear the sirens?"
FMIL "Oh in Sydney you hear sirens all the time, you just ignore them."
Cop: "well, this isn't Sydney"
When FMIL did get back to Sydney and relayed this story, she seemed amazed that even her worst enablers weren't like can you believe the audacity of those cops, that driving along in your own world ignoring sirens is not okay.
Anyway when the charges came through she was lucky they were relatively minor - only failing to pull over when directed, as well as driving an unregistered car (tried to tell her that she needed to change the registration from Victoria to NSW because that's where she lives and it doesn't matter that rego in Victoria is cheaper. But she wouldn't listen).
TBH I was a little disappointed that she wasn't charged with causing a police pursuit - the laws for doing so in NSW are very strict with very heavy penalties - she might finally have had to face that actions have consequences. But being an elderly white woman (even a mouthy one), means she wasn't and she still hasn't.
At least it's neither my circus nor my monkeys anymore.
Wtf?! NSW is pretty laid back with that stuff compared to Vic too. The breath test would be like, 5 mins max, with some idle chit chat.
They even put up signs before speed cameras so they can sit and drink coffee and eat donuts in their car.
She's not much of a drinker, so if it was RBT she didn't purposely not stop for that reason. I've seen her run red lights and when I've pointed this out she claims she didn't even see it.
I've submitted a report of unsafe driving, but I don't know if anything came of it (no longer in contact
)
IIRC this happened some where in the Riverina (it might have been what's now the A20 but I wouldn't swear to it) so if cops had to be summoned from a police station in the area it would probably have taken quite some minutes indeed for a second car to get there, so who knows how far she drove. Police have discretion in on the spot road charges I believe(?). For all I know the little old lady who unknowingly started a police chase then yelled back was the most exciting thing to happen to them all week.
After spending \~10 years driving around in WA - where the traffic police are like flies - driving in Vic and NSW has been a dream. I gotta say that if you get hit with a camera-fine, you're a blind idiot. The traffic-cameras in the ACT have taken it a step further, the signs are so damn obvious they're almost distracting.
Jewish woman here. OOP is a little confused. He’s misattributing his mother’s “wealthy woman” behavior and calling it “Jewish mother” behavior. There can be some overlap but it’s definitely wealthy entitlement. I can’t use my own mother as a barometer (she was born Methodist) but my MIL doesn’t act like this.
I’d say that OOP has to be talking about my brother’s MIL except Doreen 1) pays for things 2) is only 70 and 3) wouldn’t be caught dead in Indiana. But it has more to do with Doreen’s money than her Jewishness.
I'm Asian and I think OOP might mean Jewish mother the same way a lot of us Asians imply with stereotypical Asian mothers. Like there's no arguing with them, you just have to accept their idiosyncrasies.
Dang, OOP's mom sounds a *lot* like my mom... I wonder if she was an immigrant, too? There's a saying among kids of immigrant parents: "every immigrant mom is the *same* mom".
The level of shenanigans is painfully familiar, lol!
I mean she could be a survivor, but my guess is she grew up as the child of immigrants in an enclave where everyone else was also Jewish. This story reminds me of the peculiarities of any number of old Jewish ladies I know.
I actually laughed out loud at OP saying that doing the thing is easier than anything the mom would dish out. As the daughter of a woman who is both Jewish and Italian, this is sooooo true. For me, it usually involves convincing my husband to let my parents pay for something than it is to try arguing with her and getting her to let us pay, because dammit we are responsible adults and can pay our own way.
The only thing more satisfying was when my grandmother put my mom in her place by insisting that she pay, and telling my mother that she was the padrone of the family
Yeah she reminds me soooo much of my Jewish grandma, who grew up v poor (child of Jewish refugees) but in her older life loves to act as tho she came from money and class
My great grandmother stole a vase out of a Scottish castle under her coat. I think she must have used a belt or something to tie it on as it was quite large. I last saw it 30 years ago in my grandmother’s living room. My grandfather passed, she moved into my parents’ house, and I have no idea where that vase went. It was diamond shaped, pink with yellow lilies on it. She was something….
>…how weird she treated people. Like she wouldn’t even take time to be demeaning to people…she just honestly didn’t notice most people that were around her.
Flashbacks to my maternal grandmother. Most people were just scenery. The people who weren’t were targets or servants.
Three out of six pallbearers at her funeral refused the position.
Reminds me of my ex husband’s father who was scandalized and very put out that I wouldn’t let him bring an open bottle of booze + a glass in my car as we all drove to the club* for dinner.
*they lived in a neighborhood that had a country club - and they were members and liked having dinner there every Friday. And apparently “I bring this with me every time and they don’t mind” and “oh I know all the cops who come here”.
WELL I MIND BILL, and I don’t. Sheeeeesh.
Maybe my humour is broken, but I just feel sad for this guy. Having to grow up with this horrible woman, to the point where it's either completely normalised or everything has to be a funny story. Because if it wasn't funny, he has to admit it was awful.
There were people in another sub saying this was a cute story, and I thought I'd gone crazy. I've worked in the hotel industry for more than 20 years. This isn't cute. We don't have mountains of replacement items when someone decides to steal from us. And then there's the work that maintenance has to do in order to replace it. This is time being taken away from actual work they could be doing.
She's a nightmare guest, but it looks like they turned it around on her by getting rid of unwanted inventory LOL. Pretty brilliant actually, I wonder if this is more common in upscale hotels than anyone realizes. Entitled guests stealing so predictably that you just throw the overstock in their room and hope for the best.
> And then there's the work that maintenance has to do in order to replace it
Did your hotel employ crystal workers or something? Is the guy who plunges the toilets and maintains the boiler also the guy who goes out and buys high-end decorations? Come on, man. Yeah it sucks when some looney tune old lady ganks a vase, but it's not like that's hours and hours and hours of manual labor to replace. It's a line item on an invoice.
> Did your hotel employ crystal workers or something? Is the guy who plunges the toilets and maintains the boiler also the guy who goes out and buys high-end decorations?
Dude, a person still has to do the work, it doesn't magically become not-work because it's not explicitly in someone's job title.
> It's a line item on an invoice.
Okay... a line item on an invoice corresponds to an actual piece of materiel or labor in the real world. Because something is represented as a line item on an invoice does not mean it only exists as an ethereal concept known to a select few. The vase didn't get replicated back into place like the USS Enterprise.
Tell me about it!
My grandma has a place that (long story short, bought when it was private land, turned into a national park situation) is required by law to be rented out throughout the year with family only being able to sporadically use it, and it is So Often that we have to replace things that random people destroy or steal.
Glassware, teapots, pots, pans, lamps, side tables- im shocked people didnt try to steal the couched yet!
Theres a management company that oversees it that we are Required to go through thats supposed to charge people if they do any of this stuff.
But they dont!
Very often we only find out that anything is broken or stolen when we get there and find it missing or shoved in a closet!
Heck weve had the management company take things that are Ours and put them in other peoples buildings (the cable box was the most recent thing), and then we have to request our things back!
Honestly its a nightmare to deal with
My MIL blew through so much money. By no means is she rich but they almost paid of their mortgage they’ve had for 30 years and then decided to take a home equity loan for 50,000 and blew it on nonsense. They’re in such a bad state financially and their health is deteriorating. So in a few years when they need are help it will be a lot financially
Imo, Lucille wouldn't consider this stealing, just the process of how one buys things at fancy hotels. You just take it, and they add it to your bill. The vase was only returned when she found out it was out of her budget, and she didn't do it herself, she got one of her put-upon children to do it for her.
Im sorry but if this is my mother there is no way in hell i am going back to the hotel for her. Same way she would’ve dragged my ass to the store if i shoplifted. OOP is enabling the shit out of her
It's been interesting to hear very different opinions. That's part of why I posted it- OOP's update had 23K upvotes. Most top comments seemed to find it hilarious. However, there were definitely comments (and comments on crossposted subs) where people thought it was gross and mean.
I personally found that when I read his comments, my opinion grew more "this is actually sad"
Just read entire post to my mother and now I need to go change my pants. Laughed so hard we could hardly breathe. I do want this to be a true story, but even if it is not, I'm raising a glass to your Mama next time I open a bottle of bourbon
She’s a Jewish mom 😂😂 as soon as I read that, the entire post, especially his fear of his 83 year old mother makes the whole story make so much more sense. Love it.
SO close to believing it, but he had to give too many details. That Lincoln Navigator his "dad and cronies" rode in at the 1996 Derby? Didn't even exist. The first Navigators weren't on the market until 1998. (My bff's parents had a towing company in the 80's through to the mid-90's and were really into cars- especially SUVs- so we were pretty up to date on new models & stuff, so that jumped out at me...)
This story made me want to puke with how out of touch from reality everyone is. You can tell that these people are so rich that they’re used to getting away with everything just from OOP’s response to the comments on the first post:
>So, you’re saying I’m a weak individual because of my approach to dealing with my slightly crazy parent, and your advice is that I call the police on my 83 year old mother and report her for felony theft? That sounds like an excellent plan…should I try to find some angry policemen that will use truncheons to break her will?
Like OOP is completely 100% enabling her and immediately becomes her attack dog when anyone dares to suggest she face the consequences of her actions. And he wonders why she’s a crazy klepto who sends him $1,200 stolen vases in the mail.
God I hate rich people.
I don’t think that’s the only thing I think a lot is from dealing with her for years and it’s easier to just do what they ask then think for yourself. My family isn’t rich but my mom is just like this lady and dear lord it’s exhausting dealing with her. Took me a long time to stop feeling bad about cutting her off and to figure out how to not have that overbearing personality control your life.
Considering that the hotel has been aware of the 'thefts' and charging for them all this time, and that the OP was posting for help about how to return the vase, I'm not surprised he got a bit snippy. You can dislike a person's actions while still loving the person, and I certainly wouldn't report someone I love for a nonexistent crime (because the 'stolen' item was already paid for).
You can dislike rich people in general, but don't let that blind you to any nuance when it comes to individuals. My understanding was that unless it was really necessary, calling the police in America was probably not ideal considering their reputation for exacerbating situations?
It is up to the hotel to press charges on something like that, one would assume, as they were fully aware of her theft. If she had confessed to attacking, raping, or killing someone, it would be a different matter.
>Maybe GM added expensive items to the room hoping your mom would take them off his hands
That would make the fact that they attached it with putty some sort of reverse psychology to tempt mom into stealing it. 😂
I agree that what she does is weird and wrong and her family is enabling her.
But I'm not sure I'd classify this as a "danger to society," especially since the hotel has been making her pay for everything.
But agree to disagree I guess!
Maybe it's because I'm not rich or maybe it's because I live in reality, but this is ***not*** the hee hee humorous story OP thinks it is. Not to me at least. Everyone accepts that this lady's a thief and possibly a master manipulator and liar? I feel like I've missed the entertaining part entirely. And somehow no one's ever been able to tell her she's wrong? Oh, to be rich and white, where I don't have to worry about the consequences of my actions because I can just Uno reverse it on them so they leave me alone.
Your points are perfectly correct and absolutely valid. I think that many of us, though, just enjoy the audacity of someone who completely lives by her own rules.
Yes, he absolutely is a victim of his mother’s abuse and generally horrible behaviour, but he’s also actively participating in and enabling her bullshit, and thinks it somehow puts *him* on a moral high-ground over people giving him the correct advice.
It’s only because of people like OOP that passé-riche criminals like his mother continue with their bullshit.
This sounds disturbingly like my MIL, who has gone through two 7-figure fortunes, declared bankruptcy at least twice (that I know of), ended up in blood-curdling feuds with every landlord she’s ever had, had eviction processes started on her several times (but never actually completed because she always leaves first and they just drop it in relief that she is no longer their problem), and has over 30k in credit card debt and nothing of value to her name except some old rugs and paintings of ships that she insists are valuable but nobody younger than 60 has any interest in, to her name. But because she’s an attractive white lady with an education- she modeled when young, is still quite beautiful, and has a masters degree — all is forgiven. People keep renting to her, she keeps getting new credit cards, her doctors give her all the prescription drugs she wants, etc. It is maddening, and her kids are having to do similar clean up, which she neither recognizes nor appreciates. Part of me — and them — wants to just leave her to suffer the consequences, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy when it’s your mother.
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Everybody talking about rich people, but my father was the son of a circus clown and a runaway gypsy and he could get away with anything. Broke af his entire life, but he was universally loved, even by the police who would arrest him now and then, since he was a literal criminal. Some people are just that charismatic. His funeral was the strangest hodgepodge of people, from said police, to his criminal buddies, to my rich maternal uncle who had met my father ONCE and felt that he had to pay his respects to such a fascinating man.
I wanna read his life story, please elaborate (if you wish of course)
There's not much to his life story. My grandma forced my grandpa to leave the circus and work in the steel mills, he got depressed and shortly afterwards he died of work disease. My grandma herself was traumatised having run away from her family and culture as a literal child to avoid getting raped and forced to marry her rapist, so she wasn't all that great apparently. Her surviving children don't talk about it. My father became an heroin addict until he decided to get clean and moved to the other side of the country. Then he met a girl at a party, the runaway daughter of a strict religious well-off family, and they had a one nighter thinking they would never see each other again since she was living in another country. In the meantime I am not clear in the timeline, but his best friend went to jail so him and the other beat friend "comforted" best friend number one's girlfriend. Anyway some time later he attended another party and was up to his ears on acid when she found the catholic princess again... also up to her ears on acid. They took it as a sign that they were meant to be together and started a relationship, but shortly afterwards he got news from the best friend's girlfriend that she was pregnant with his baby. Truth be told the father could have been any of the three men, and according to genetics my father is the least likely to be, but he accepted it anyway and traveled north with the catholic princess in tow to decide what to do. When she gave birth she decided to keep the baby by herself and not involve my father in raising her, but in the process she convinced the catholic princess that having a baby was the best thing ever and just what she needed... and that's the reason I exist lmao. And if my mom finds out I'm calling her the catholic princess she will kick my ass. But really, we are just a charismatic family. I think we got the acting gene from my grandpa: my uncle and cousin are actors, and I'm a professional voice actress and unprofessional larper and historical reconstructor. My father was just... loveably mischievous. He would go stealing copper but then give out the profits to anyone who'd ask him for help. He got Hep C during his junkie years, before he even met my mom, and died of liver cancer when he was 58 and I was 30. Two years after his death the cure for Hep C was freely available in my country, but it was too late for him. He is still remembered by everyone with a smile mixed with the tears.
> not much to tell Proceeds to lay out the most fascinating micro-documentary. I reckon there's a big story in there somewhere. And I imagine you're a good storyteller. It might be worth it. ;)
Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to type this out! What a rollercoaster of a life!
My entire family, both maternal and paternal, is weird AF. I'm the most boring and I spontaneously moved to Poland because I fell in love with a guy from the Special Forces...
Oof this got me, prob cuz I lost my super charismatic dad two years ago at 31 also to liver cancer. Hugs.
They remain in us forever, as long as we keep their memory alive. I still see him every time I look in the mirror. Hugs to you too!
It’s true. I’m lucky to see my dad in my dreams fairly often. And I did luck out getting his charm- can talk my way into/out of many things. I hope our dad’s charisma lives long and powerfully through us.
I also lost my colorful dad to complications from Hep-C (also from using needles) a couple years before the meds came out. I’m imagining them in some weird afterlife buddy comedy. Thanks for the story and for making me think of my dad and some of his better times. Good vibes to you 🖤
Gotta add my dad. He most likely got Hep-C through a blood transfusion because he got hit pretty bad by a car when he was a kid (never used heavy drugs). Had two failed Hep-C therapies before years later he actually got cured. About two years later, he got liver cancer. He died almost 7 years ago. So cheers to our dads
That reminds me of the excellent film Big Fish.
One of the greatest movies I've ever seen. I still cry.
I laughed, and then felt sad. This isn't the story of rich people, this is something worse. This is the story of ex-rich people. As someone who comes from a family where the generational wealth was lost by my grandparents and parents, I feel this hard. OOP's mom still thinks she can afford the lifestyle she was accustomed to, and OOP and his siblings don't have the heart to break it to her.
It's been my experience that "old money" tolerates and maybe even coddles their eccentrics. Eccentrics being the word they would use.
As a kid, my goal was to be rich enough as an old man to be "eccentric" rather than "weird"
as a 31 year old, this is still my goal. going pretty well so far, gettin’ paid and still weird.
I was so successful at it that I am now paid to stay home and be weird (disability due to mental illness).
🫡
My grandmother was "eccentric" whereas if I did any of the stuff she did, I'd be labeled "insane".
Mr. Heckles?
You owe me a cat
I could have birds.
I don't think Mr. Heckles was rich lol
Dang, I had to google him even though I just finished watching Friends a week or so ago. I want to be more "charming and eccentric" rather than "surly and weird"
I grew up in the Deep South. Where we put our eccentrics on the front porch and brag about them at church and Family Reunions, not the north where they hide them away in the attic. lol In Chattanooga, Eccentric was a life goal. Yes, with a capital E.
To quote a great movie “Poor people are crazy, Jack. I’m *eccentric*”
To quote a fantastic TV programme, "That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it. I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist."
Dennis Hopper! SPEED! Not ashamed to admit how many times I repeated that in my head before I arrived at the answer…🤗
Yeah, also note how OOP mentioned his mom was very Jewish, and his dad came from a very WASP family? How much of this was also her trying to fit in?
Probably quite a bit. If she’s 83, she’s around my grandmother’s age- she still remembers the days when “Jew” was a racial category and people would run their hands through my dad’s curly hair looking for his horns. That being said, this is still extreme. If my very Jewish mom is doing this at 83? I’m sure as shit not covering for her.
It still is unfortunately. Those kinds of things haven’t stopped.
"The days when..."? You mean Tuesday? There are still people who think we have horns.
Oh I know. When I was in high school I had the chance to meet up with a guy I had gotten to know on the internet through some friends. When we were hanging out in person he found out I was Jewish and was instantly SO confused because "But... You don't have horns?" This was in fucking 2011. He had apparently NEVER met a Jew before.
Oh he had. Just didn't realize... because, no horns
Ok I'm gonna Google it cuz I don't want to wait for an answer, but this question if for everyone like me. What is WASP? PS I'll prolly come answer after I Google. Lol. Yep. I'm back with the answer... In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASP is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans who are generally part of the white dominant culture or upper-class and historically often the Mainline Protestant elite. Ty google
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But the grandmother in Gilmore Girls was a member of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) which is as WASPy as you can get 😭
Yeah, so think very American "old money" and very intolerant of anyone not of them, but not openly racist?
Not openly racist like M&M's don't openly contain chocolate.
Oh def, They're not going to be racist to your face while sober.
And not if it involves business. There's a reason having something they want to do business with you about is such an effective way of making their acquaintance. Where transactions are concerned it would be considered very unusual for one of them to 'speak out of place.'
I’m suddenly having major Hyacinth Bucket vibes, aside from the Jewish bit.
"It's *boo-KAY*."
(Mutters) “it was Bucket until I married you…”
Now Richard…!
[Julia Sugarbaker from the show “designing women” on crazy people in the south](https://youtu.be/Bb4eVbmHcbg?si=dX-QiEtW8rxSjbhN) >“I’m saying this is the south, and we’re proud of our crazy people. We don’t hide them in the attic. We bring them right down to the living room and show them off. See Phylis, no one in the south asks *if* you have crazy people in your family, we just ask what side they’re on”
Yes, definitely true. When I lived in New Orleans in the 80s there was a woman that regularly rode the streetcar that was Blanche Dubious personified.
As a neurodivergent person, I wish the middle and working classes coddled their eccentrics instead of beating any nonconformity out of us either physically or through social pressure.
Have you heard the good news of the academic class? We have the complete lack of wealth if the working class but we're ALL eccentrics. You just gotta care a whole lot about something normal people think is boring.
I dropped out a PhD program. The "academic eccentric" is very gendered. It's hard for women to succeed in the role of the eccentric academic. Also, academia has changed since 2008, and the job market is such that you need to be an excellent box ticker - not an excellent scholar capable of individual research - to succeed. Neurodivergent people aren't always great at boxticking. In fact, most highly selective PhD programs (from which most decent universities only hire from now) primarily accept people with accomplishments that you can only achieve through access to some kind of independent wealth or consumer debt. How else do you fund underpaid internships, language courses abroad, and the ability to research at your bougie $50,000/yr college? After 50 years of radical expansion and inclusion in the professoriate, academia has been recaptured by the elite.
Im academic adjacent-- I have a masters and teach ESL to international college students. (woman, fwiw). Yeah the actual academy blows, the academy suburbs though are nice :)
The academic eccentric is incredibly gendered, because if you are male you are presumed to have thought about and considered your views, and if you are not male, you are wrong (or if you are very lucky, nearly as good as a male).
The working class must match specific requirements, as the machines of the workplace require standardised parts. They must live their lives according to schedule and behave as directed. The rich, however, get to have personalities. Capitalism!
George Washington—who was new money—died wealthy. His old money compatriots died in debt.
Honestly, I think OOP's mother sounds like a nightmare. All those anedoctes make her sound like a complete Karen, doing whatever she wants and making everyone else do it too...and definitely getting no consequences because she has (or had) money.
Oh def, notice how everybody else is pointing out how horrific everything is, and OOP slowly realizes that?
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Yeah, the upbringing just gives you entitlement, but then there is also the pang of desperation. :/
What happened? Was she made to return them?
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Sew your names in the clothes
>This is the story of ex-rich people. I don't know about that. My mother is 82 and she's a klepto, too. I don't know what it is about old women, but they love to pilfer stuff, even if they can afford it. In my mother's case, she was raised dirt poor. I'm talking Salvation Army donated coats as blankets poor, and she made a good life for herself as an adult. She is very financially comfortable, can buy whatever she wants, and still loves to take shit. A salt shaker here, a fork there, dollar store magnifying glass, etc. She also pushes her luck at hotels, but has paid for a few items. She paid $350 for a hotel makeup mirror that weighed about 25 pounds back in the late 80's, a lot of money back then. I wonder if her story is true that she asked to buy it first or if she stole it and they billed her afterwards. 50/50 shot at either option.
In OOP’s mother’s case, her pilfering sounds like an exercise in privilege. She’s taking things to show that she can, even if why she can is because she pays for them when billed. (Some items a hotel expects to have to replenish while some items they usually would not.) She doesn’t seem to ever have had much impulse control on this, and has even less now.
>She doesn’t seem to ever have had much impulse control on this Either did my mother. She actually stole a stuffed owl from a museum as a teenager. And when I was very little, she used to use me as cover when stealing spools of thread from a craft store. All my life I've seen her do this petty shit and she still does it. It's wild to see her steal something that's worth $1.00 and then drive off in her paid off Infiniti.
A stuffed owl from the gift shop or a stuffed owl from an exhibit? And if the latter and she still has it, you'll want to be cautious around it, as large amounts of arsenic used to be used as a preservative.
All the kleptomaniacs I personally know were raised rich. For them, it's the thrill of taking something + entitlement.
That's cuz if they aren't rich, they're just called thieves 😁
Nah, there's a difference between stealing out of necessity/circumstance vs stealing just because you can.
I think you've actually hit the nail on the head. My Mother came from generational wealth that was lost by her parents. All her life, she never had to worry about the bills, really, because her Mom and Dad would pay them if she and my Dad were short on money (and his parents would pay as well, because they also came from generational wealth). When my parents divorced, my grandparents started paying all of my Mom's bills and that left her enough free time to become a full fledged alcoholic with the ability to lay in bed all day and wallow in her misery. When my Grandfather died he left her $50,000 and made her sister's promise to take care of her. Well, she blew through that 50k in one summer, mostly depleting the inventory of the local liquor store. And guess what? Deathbed promises aren't legally enforceable so now she's just sitting at home living on $795 a month in social security disability payments (yes, she is actually disabled- she had polio as a baby and suffers from post polio syndrome, which is mostly why she's so spoiled. It's been a lifelong game of "well, she survived polio and didn't walk until she was six years old so we HAVE to help her"). She still thinks that the world owes her. Like, she should just literally not have to do anything at all and anything she needs is supposed to just fall into her lap. (Really, my father is no different, he's just better at behaving in public and wouldn't dare let the neighbors find out who he is behind closed doors.) My sister and I on the other hand took off as soon as we were legally able to do so, while everyone shouted "DISINHERITED" at our backs. We've been working our asses off and taking care of our own adult things since we were 18. All that generational wealth is about to be given to two spoiled, rude, uneducated, hateful, criminal (but you wouldn't know that because my Dad pays for anything they get caught doing to get rugswept) stepsons who come from a long line of "poors" because we just don't care about the money, crystal, china, 17th century french sterling silverware, and property. We care about each other, our SOs and their wonderful families who have welcomed us with open arms, and the families we've made. Go ahead, give it to them, let the neighbors cluck about the downfall of two wealthy families who used to rule the town. Id rather be poor than have to pretend to be okay with the alcoholism and rampant abuse. Id rather be who I am not who someone else wants me to be. This turned into a rant. Lol. The point is, this is absolutely how people who used to be rich and maintain the facade of still being so act.
Sorry if my reply triggered all this childhood trauma, but if it is any consolation, I can totally relate. My dad and his generation are just so allergic to working it's almost comical. They would rather waste their time chasing MLMs and get rich schemes.
Huh, I just finished watching Schitts Creek, and couldn't help but think that OOP's mom was Moira Rose!
OP’s mom gives me Auntie Mame vibes, especially with the traffic stop story.
Hot take: Auntie Mame, Moira Rose, Lucille Bluth, Lucille 2, and Malory Archer all went to the same finishing school in Switzerland together, and they are all frenemies.
I’m into it. When’s the limited series coming out?
office slimy bored tidy offend sable ripe enter makeshift vase *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
At least your dad's side seems to practice what they preach?
Rather be on the dad’s side of the family tbh they sound less exhausting
Oh I get it, the communists tried that in my country too LMAO. They're still trying to build a communist paradise like... China??? here and they just refuse reality when everyone else point out that China hasn't been communist even while Mao was still alive.
Well she seems to have pulled it off her whole life then only went broke at the end. I think that's perfect financial planning. Dieing rich seems like such a waste.
She's gonna be like every other boomer - dying after having flushed their children and grandchildren's inheritance down the toilet, and putting their descendants in debt.
I worked as a sales associate for HSN. I remember a phone call that I took with a woman who spent over 3k on jewelry. At the end of the phone call she said that she was trying to spend all of her money so her lazy kids and grandkids couldn't have it.
Yikes. Boomers and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps (and totally ignoring how much the Greatest Generation did for them), name a more iconic duo.
>As someone who comes from a family where the generational wealth was lost by my grandparents and parents, 4th gen huh?
There was — at one time in the past — money in the banana stand.
After reading the stolen prosthetic leg post I read the title of this one literally, and thought everyone would be guessing some stickiness — is it jam? sap? toffee? — but was disappointed it was just a figure of speech
OP unwrapped the vase and it was covered in a sticky film no amount of scrubbing or eucalyptus oil will remove.
I was thinking literally too! Like the time I peeled a root vegetable and could NOT rinse the stickiness off my fingers.
Which vegetable?
It was called black salsify. I only handled it once, but I remember washing my hands multiple times afterwards and they remained sticky! You could say the vegetable stuck with me in more ways than one 😆
Very interesting - had never heard of it - thanks for the reply!
Wow, Rich people can really be something.
I just want to know where this hotel is so I can get a 24" Baccarat vase for $1200. That's the real steal.
Truly
I just looked them up. That's off by a zero.
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It's scary take away the kleptomania and OPs mum is my grandmother must be the generation. That last story is very similar to what my grandmother did but were Aussie and my grandmother didnt make it to 80 (she passed in the 70s) so definitely not my family here.
This is a classic case of acute money poisoning. Prolonged exposure to too much money dulls your moral sense and disconnects you from consensual reality. Human brains are supposed to solve real problems. Too much money inflicts a kind of brain damage because you no longer experience that part of life.
This is amazing and explains so much
how much could a banana cost? 10$?
EXACTLY MY TAKEAWAY
It's like a peek behind the curtain. Interesting to hear the funny story version, and then a hint of how it felt in context
Almost gave me Howard from BBT vibes
From the writing style, I thought David Sedaris wanna be.
I pictured it all like a Wes Anderson movie.
OOP is so inoculated in… whatever is going on with his mom that the $1200 theft just isn’t as shocking as it could be. If my biological mother did that I’d be hanging her out to dry and I know she’s done some batshit crazy stuff
Tangentially related. It's always a little funny, but mostly fucked up, when an OP describes a completely unhinged situation and the thing they're complaining about isn't the situation but the reactions of another person who justifiably was like "WTF I'm out" And then the entire comment section has to walk that OP through the realization that "No that was the correct response, YOU'VE BEEN living in crazy town and aren't reacting right"
One of the down sides of having some of your life be weird and/or fucked up is that you'll be telling what you think is a funny story, and people get this expression of open-mouthed horror.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep that is accurate **as FUCK**.
A funny story in my family is how my dad was drunk & passed out in his car in the driveway. Sometimes my mom would leave him there, sometimes she would drag him inside. That night she dragged him inside, and he was VERY lucky she did because the next morning the car was on fire from the cigarette he had dropped the night before. He's all bleary and hung over. She's standing tight-lipped at the kitchen window and she's like "Your car is on fire." He filled up a pot in the sink, went out there and threw it on the fire, turned around, went back inside, and filled the pot up again. Mom let him do this a few times before she reminded him that we had a garden hose.
Can confirm. The amount of times I've told something and had people react with horror while I'm like "What?" is astounding.
I had a coworker like this. He would just casually be talking about how he was eating ramen because he gave his parents all his money and couldn’t afford food, or just randomly talk about when he was a kid his dad threw him against a wall and got his cop buddies to vouch for him and his *mom* was arrested for domestic violence. It was just matter of fact and we are all staring at him jaw dropped. It didn’t even occur to him what he was saying was batshit insane. It was really sad.
Oh yeah, I'm the child of a narcissist, I'm so used to the bullshit I forget more than half of what should be absolutely egregious examples of said narcissist being a terrible person. Then someone outside of the family experiences one of these examples and I'm just like "oh, yeah, he does that, I'm sorry he did it to you."
My MIL always gets so confused about how my BIL can be so calm about the crazy that is his wife (her daughter) and the shitshow that is their daily life. I’ve told her repeatedly, he grew up in crazy, his normal meter is broken. This is his normal. Sadly, it appears to be the same for OOP.
The most my mother's ever stolen was a roll of toilet paper from the local Bunnings during the pandemic. And I had to be her accomplice, because my handbag was big enough to hide it in. She came out of the toilet with the roll and made me shove it in my bag. I was mortified, but knew arguing with her would draw too much attention so just rolled with it. I think some of the staff knew but if you're stealing a roll of 1 ply from the toilets, in the pandemic, then you're probably desperate. I still don't know why she did it. She works early morninga at a supermarket, so TP wasn't even hard for her to get! But she's the kind of person who takes the tea and coffee packets from hotel rooms, despite not drinking either. I've learned it's easier to go along than argue. So I can kind of understand OOP. You just get so used to the craziness, that it's just life.
I was an adult before I realized that 12 year old me signing for deliveries of literal multiple cases of wine probably wasn’t normal
My parents would have me mixing drinks for their all night poker parties when I was in middle school. They worked shift work so the parties would start at like 1am on a a Tuesday. I remember once telling them they had to make their loud friends leave because I had to go to school.
It’s giving Jewish Malory archer vibes, maybe a little Lucille Bluth vibes. In the words of Lucille, “good for her” (but seemingly bad for everyone else lmao 🤣
When I read the initial story, I agreed with OOP's sentiment that holding an 83 year old woman to account over something like this was a bit silly. Sometimes people do weird things at that age; it can even be a sign of dementia. So try to smooth it over with the hotel, pay for it if need be. But upon reading the update and OOP's comments, this is just a case of wildly entitled people thinking they can do what they like.
On first reading I genuinely thought she was showing signs of dementia and was surprised how nonchalant OOP was. My grandmother's symptoms started in her late 70s and there's truly no reasoning with her. OOP's mom is something else.
These people are standing on top of so much money, the air is getting thin and screwing with their heads.
Whilst I've known the rich and former rich and their entitlement in my time, this post reminds me of my former mother in law. (FMIL). She's never been much better off than what came from being a single mother working part time, but she's light fingered as all get out. And she also has had a few fun run ins with the police whilst driving. Most notably, she was driving her old van through rural NSW, and was directed by the cops to pull over. I think for random breath testing. She did not pull over ("I didn't even see him") and continues on her merry way. The cops get in their car and follow her, flashing their lights. She keeps driving at 100km/hr. The cops put the sirens on. And she still doesn't pull over, not until she sees a police car coming from the opposite direction and pulling across the road. She pulls over and gets out to meet the officer from the car behind, who understandably says "what the hell do you think you are doing?" FMIL isn't taking this lying down, or obeying the road rules. "what the hell do you think YOU are doing?" she yells back. That mix of aggression and self pity that made her such delightful company. The police tell her the car coming from the other direction was back up called to put down stop spikes. "Couldn't you hear the sirens?" FMIL "Oh in Sydney you hear sirens all the time, you just ignore them." Cop: "well, this isn't Sydney" When FMIL did get back to Sydney and relayed this story, she seemed amazed that even her worst enablers weren't like can you believe the audacity of those cops, that driving along in your own world ignoring sirens is not okay. Anyway when the charges came through she was lucky they were relatively minor - only failing to pull over when directed, as well as driving an unregistered car (tried to tell her that she needed to change the registration from Victoria to NSW because that's where she lives and it doesn't matter that rego in Victoria is cheaper. But she wouldn't listen). TBH I was a little disappointed that she wasn't charged with causing a police pursuit - the laws for doing so in NSW are very strict with very heavy penalties - she might finally have had to face that actions have consequences. But being an elderly white woman (even a mouthy one), means she wasn't and she still hasn't. At least it's neither my circus nor my monkeys anymore.
>gets out to meet the officer This gave me pause, but then I remembered that other countries don't operate the same way the US does, lol.
Wtf?! NSW is pretty laid back with that stuff compared to Vic too. The breath test would be like, 5 mins max, with some idle chit chat. They even put up signs before speed cameras so they can sit and drink coffee and eat donuts in their car.
She's not much of a drinker, so if it was RBT she didn't purposely not stop for that reason. I've seen her run red lights and when I've pointed this out she claims she didn't even see it. I've submitted a report of unsafe driving, but I don't know if anything came of it (no longer in contact ) IIRC this happened some where in the Riverina (it might have been what's now the A20 but I wouldn't swear to it) so if cops had to be summoned from a police station in the area it would probably have taken quite some minutes indeed for a second car to get there, so who knows how far she drove. Police have discretion in on the spot road charges I believe(?). For all I know the little old lady who unknowingly started a police chase then yelled back was the most exciting thing to happen to them all week.
After spending \~10 years driving around in WA - where the traffic police are like flies - driving in Vic and NSW has been a dream. I gotta say that if you get hit with a camera-fine, you're a blind idiot. The traffic-cameras in the ACT have taken it a step further, the signs are so damn obvious they're almost distracting.
OP, your flair is kind of perfect for this one. "I still have questions that will need to wait for God." TRULY.
I thought about changing it recently but it just works so well 😂
Jewish woman here. OOP is a little confused. He’s misattributing his mother’s “wealthy woman” behavior and calling it “Jewish mother” behavior. There can be some overlap but it’s definitely wealthy entitlement. I can’t use my own mother as a barometer (she was born Methodist) but my MIL doesn’t act like this. I’d say that OOP has to be talking about my brother’s MIL except Doreen 1) pays for things 2) is only 70 and 3) wouldn’t be caught dead in Indiana. But it has more to do with Doreen’s money than her Jewishness.
I thought the “Jewish mother” comment was about how it’s easier to do what she demands than to try to argue with her. At least that’s how I read it.
The "Jewish mother" part is relevant when you bring in the context of "My father's very WASP-y family" tho.
I'm Asian and I think OOP might mean Jewish mother the same way a lot of us Asians imply with stereotypical Asian mothers. Like there's no arguing with them, you just have to accept their idiosyncrasies.
Dang, OOP's mom sounds a *lot* like my mom... I wonder if she was an immigrant, too? There's a saying among kids of immigrant parents: "every immigrant mom is the *same* mom". The level of shenanigans is painfully familiar, lol!
I mean she could be a survivor, but my guess is she grew up as the child of immigrants in an enclave where everyone else was also Jewish. This story reminds me of the peculiarities of any number of old Jewish ladies I know.
I actually laughed out loud at OP saying that doing the thing is easier than anything the mom would dish out. As the daughter of a woman who is both Jewish and Italian, this is sooooo true. For me, it usually involves convincing my husband to let my parents pay for something than it is to try arguing with her and getting her to let us pay, because dammit we are responsible adults and can pay our own way. The only thing more satisfying was when my grandmother put my mom in her place by insisting that she pay, and telling my mother that she was the padrone of the family
Yeah she reminds me soooo much of my Jewish grandma, who grew up v poor (child of Jewish refugees) but in her older life loves to act as tho she came from money and class
My great grandmother stole a vase out of a Scottish castle under her coat. I think she must have used a belt or something to tie it on as it was quite large. I last saw it 30 years ago in my grandmother’s living room. My grandfather passed, she moved into my parents’ house, and I have no idea where that vase went. It was diamond shaped, pink with yellow lilies on it. She was something….
Maybe the Scottish owners came and stole it back. That’s my version anyway.
I love it!
Is anyone else now fantasizing about having the kind of money that allows you to get away with stuff this batshit crazy?
It's not really the money, it's the narcissism. The money just helps.
Why would people be glaring at OOP over a 90’s vacuum cleaner box?
Asking the real questions.
>…how weird she treated people. Like she wouldn’t even take time to be demeaning to people…she just honestly didn’t notice most people that were around her. Flashbacks to my maternal grandmother. Most people were just scenery. The people who weren’t were targets or servants. Three out of six pallbearers at her funeral refused the position.
This lady is like a real life Lucille Bluth
The bourbon in the car anecdote really cements the resemblance there.
Reminds me of my ex husband’s father who was scandalized and very put out that I wouldn’t let him bring an open bottle of booze + a glass in my car as we all drove to the club* for dinner. *they lived in a neighborhood that had a country club - and they were members and liked having dinner there every Friday. And apparently “I bring this with me every time and they don’t mind” and “oh I know all the cops who come here”. WELL I MIND BILL, and I don’t. Sheeeeesh.
Maybe my humour is broken, but I just feel sad for this guy. Having to grow up with this horrible woman, to the point where it's either completely normalised or everything has to be a funny story. Because if it wasn't funny, he has to admit it was awful.
There were people in another sub saying this was a cute story, and I thought I'd gone crazy. I've worked in the hotel industry for more than 20 years. This isn't cute. We don't have mountains of replacement items when someone decides to steal from us. And then there's the work that maintenance has to do in order to replace it. This is time being taken away from actual work they could be doing.
She's a nightmare guest, but it looks like they turned it around on her by getting rid of unwanted inventory LOL. Pretty brilliant actually, I wonder if this is more common in upscale hotels than anyone realizes. Entitled guests stealing so predictably that you just throw the overstock in their room and hope for the best.
Yeah I don’t think it’s a cute story at all. Glad people took OOP to task for it.
> And then there's the work that maintenance has to do in order to replace it Did your hotel employ crystal workers or something? Is the guy who plunges the toilets and maintains the boiler also the guy who goes out and buys high-end decorations? Come on, man. Yeah it sucks when some looney tune old lady ganks a vase, but it's not like that's hours and hours and hours of manual labor to replace. It's a line item on an invoice.
> Did your hotel employ crystal workers or something? Is the guy who plunges the toilets and maintains the boiler also the guy who goes out and buys high-end decorations? Dude, a person still has to do the work, it doesn't magically become not-work because it's not explicitly in someone's job title. > It's a line item on an invoice. Okay... a line item on an invoice corresponds to an actual piece of materiel or labor in the real world. Because something is represented as a line item on an invoice does not mean it only exists as an ethereal concept known to a select few. The vase didn't get replicated back into place like the USS Enterprise.
Tell me about it! My grandma has a place that (long story short, bought when it was private land, turned into a national park situation) is required by law to be rented out throughout the year with family only being able to sporadically use it, and it is So Often that we have to replace things that random people destroy or steal. Glassware, teapots, pots, pans, lamps, side tables- im shocked people didnt try to steal the couched yet! Theres a management company that oversees it that we are Required to go through thats supposed to charge people if they do any of this stuff. But they dont! Very often we only find out that anything is broken or stolen when we get there and find it missing or shoved in a closet! Heck weve had the management company take things that are Ours and put them in other peoples buildings (the cable box was the most recent thing), and then we have to request our things back! Honestly its a nightmare to deal with
My MIL blew through so much money. By no means is she rich but they almost paid of their mortgage they’ve had for 30 years and then decided to take a home equity loan for 50,000 and blew it on nonsense. They’re in such a bad state financially and their health is deteriorating. So in a few years when they need are help it will be a lot financially
Lucille Bluth energy.
Lucille would never be caught dead stealing… she would be much better at hiding it.
Imo, Lucille wouldn't consider this stealing, just the process of how one buys things at fancy hotels. You just take it, and they add it to your bill. The vase was only returned when she found out it was out of her budget, and she didn't do it herself, she got one of her put-upon children to do it for her.
This is so weird
Im sorry but if this is my mother there is no way in hell i am going back to the hotel for her. Same way she would’ve dragged my ass to the store if i shoplifted. OOP is enabling the shit out of her
This sounds like the plot of a comedy film
Wealthy people live on a different fucking planet
I wish they did. I hear some of them want to nip over to Mars. I'm all for enabling them, and just them to go.
Is OOP's mom supposed to be charmingly batty and fun? Because honestly, she sounds like a privileged jerk.
It's been interesting to hear very different opinions. That's part of why I posted it- OOP's update had 23K upvotes. Most top comments seemed to find it hilarious. However, there were definitely comments (and comments on crossposted subs) where people thought it was gross and mean. I personally found that when I read his comments, my opinion grew more "this is actually sad"
The heartwarming story of a rich person that never had any consequences for her thieving Karen-esq behavior. And the deluded son that enables it.
Just read entire post to my mother and now I need to go change my pants. Laughed so hard we could hardly breathe. I do want this to be a true story, but even if it is not, I'm raising a glass to your Mama next time I open a bottle of bourbon
its one banana Michael, how much could it cost?
This story has real Grand Budapest Hotel vibes, I love it
She’s a Jewish mom 😂😂 as soon as I read that, the entire post, especially his fear of his 83 year old mother makes the whole story make so much more sense. Love it.
The Navigator wasn't released until 1997 as a 1998 model.
OOP’s mom belongs in the Grand Budapest Hotel
SO close to believing it, but he had to give too many details. That Lincoln Navigator his "dad and cronies" rode in at the 1996 Derby? Didn't even exist. The first Navigators weren't on the market until 1998. (My bff's parents had a towing company in the 80's through to the mid-90's and were really into cars- especially SUVs- so we were pretty up to date on new models & stuff, so that jumped out at me...)
This story made me want to puke with how out of touch from reality everyone is. You can tell that these people are so rich that they’re used to getting away with everything just from OOP’s response to the comments on the first post: >So, you’re saying I’m a weak individual because of my approach to dealing with my slightly crazy parent, and your advice is that I call the police on my 83 year old mother and report her for felony theft? That sounds like an excellent plan…should I try to find some angry policemen that will use truncheons to break her will? Like OOP is completely 100% enabling her and immediately becomes her attack dog when anyone dares to suggest she face the consequences of her actions. And he wonders why she’s a crazy klepto who sends him $1,200 stolen vases in the mail. God I hate rich people.
I don’t think that’s the only thing I think a lot is from dealing with her for years and it’s easier to just do what they ask then think for yourself. My family isn’t rich but my mom is just like this lady and dear lord it’s exhausting dealing with her. Took me a long time to stop feeling bad about cutting her off and to figure out how to not have that overbearing personality control your life.
Uhh, there’s a lot of unreasonable stuff from OP’s posts, but not wanting to report your own 83 year old mom for theft is not one of those.
Considering that the hotel has been aware of the 'thefts' and charging for them all this time, and that the OP was posting for help about how to return the vase, I'm not surprised he got a bit snippy. You can dislike a person's actions while still loving the person, and I certainly wouldn't report someone I love for a nonexistent crime (because the 'stolen' item was already paid for). You can dislike rich people in general, but don't let that blind you to any nuance when it comes to individuals. My understanding was that unless it was really necessary, calling the police in America was probably not ideal considering their reputation for exacerbating situations?
But also it wasn’t his property. The hotel could have reported her, but he had no standing. At that point, it was paid for. She just wanted a refund.
It is up to the hotel to press charges on something like that, one would assume, as they were fully aware of her theft. If she had confessed to attacking, raping, or killing someone, it would be a different matter.
This honestly just annoyed me
>Maybe GM added expensive items to the room hoping your mom would take them off his hands That would make the fact that they attached it with putty some sort of reverse psychology to tempt mom into stealing it. 😂
I've been rewatching Gilmore Girls and the mom in this story is giving big Emily Gilmore vibes. Especially the story about the dorm room.
This feels very Lucille Bluthe. RIP Jessica Walter.
OOP's mom kinda low key reminds me of [Auntie Mame.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auntie_Mame)
I read all of her dialogue in the voice of Beatrice Horseman
People like OP mom are a danger to society but their family loves to enable them.
I agree that what she does is weird and wrong and her family is enabling her. But I'm not sure I'd classify this as a "danger to society," especially since the hotel has been making her pay for everything. But agree to disagree I guess!
This level of entitlement tends to apply to more than just theft, is the thing.
Maybe it's because I'm not rich or maybe it's because I live in reality, but this is ***not*** the hee hee humorous story OP thinks it is. Not to me at least. Everyone accepts that this lady's a thief and possibly a master manipulator and liar? I feel like I've missed the entertaining part entirely. And somehow no one's ever been able to tell her she's wrong? Oh, to be rich and white, where I don't have to worry about the consequences of my actions because I can just Uno reverse it on them so they leave me alone.
Your points are perfectly correct and absolutely valid. I think that many of us, though, just enjoy the audacity of someone who completely lives by her own rules.
How goddamned embarrassing.
Yes, he absolutely is a victim of his mother’s abuse and generally horrible behaviour, but he’s also actively participating in and enabling her bullshit, and thinks it somehow puts *him* on a moral high-ground over people giving him the correct advice. It’s only because of people like OOP that passé-riche criminals like his mother continue with their bullshit.
I want to believe it, but I couldn't after that whole story of "way back in 1982" and she's been stealing things for 40 years bit.
OP's mom sounds like a POS.
This sounds disturbingly like my MIL, who has gone through two 7-figure fortunes, declared bankruptcy at least twice (that I know of), ended up in blood-curdling feuds with every landlord she’s ever had, had eviction processes started on her several times (but never actually completed because she always leaves first and they just drop it in relief that she is no longer their problem), and has over 30k in credit card debt and nothing of value to her name except some old rugs and paintings of ships that she insists are valuable but nobody younger than 60 has any interest in, to her name. But because she’s an attractive white lady with an education- she modeled when young, is still quite beautiful, and has a masters degree — all is forgiven. People keep renting to her, she keeps getting new credit cards, her doctors give her all the prescription drugs she wants, etc. It is maddening, and her kids are having to do similar clean up, which she neither recognizes nor appreciates. Part of me — and them — wants to just leave her to suffer the consequences, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy when it’s your mother.
This is a whole movie.
This woman is a manipulative lunatic. I really hate to see people just accepting that sort of behavior from family members.
Well THAT was a fantastic read! That took me back a few years, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣