Cheeky requests that make you want to scream

[MeMySonAndl]

What is wrong with people?

This morning, a friend I have not seen in almost 2 years called me. I didn't see the call until lunch time, rang her back and send her a text but didn't reply.

She has just texted back saying that she needed me to give her a lift to the mechanic (WTF?)

Had another one this week, when I had to tell "no" to another mum 14 times as I couldn't have her kid around and take them to an activity because I was working.

She took offence that I couldn't understand that she couldn't take him herself because she was working. Why on earth does she think that I should take time off and earn less money to entertain her kid???

My ex was friends with a researcher at a University abroad, who was invited to do a research stay where we lived. At the end he couldn't come, but he sent his BIL, who was working in the same subject. Exh said to him, "if he need some help, tell him to give us a ring".

So, one day the phone rang at 4 am, the BIL arrived and wanted to be picked up from the station miles away. He had not booked somewhere to stay, so exh let him stay while he got himself sorted.

He stayed with us for almost 4 weeks, wouldn't help with anything in the house, he often cooked paellas a but never big enough for us to share, even when he was using our food. Never cleaned the kitchen afterwards, made her bed or pick up wet towels from the bathroom floor.

If he sat to eat with us for dinner, he would do so in silence, although once he started weeping saying he missed his home (he was in his 30s). If we had visits, he would come into the living room, sit with us without acknowledging anyone and turned the TV on.

He said he couldn't pay for anything because he couldn't open a bank account (true if you are not here in a more long term basis) but he didn't seem to be in any hurry to get money sent to him.

I didn't put up with this kindly, but my ex didn't want to offend his contact abroad so he kept cleaning after him and driving him around while he was there. At the end I told my ex that if the guy was not out by the end of the week I would put his stuff out and tell him he had overstayed his welcome and leave him out.

So, ex took him to check flats, shared houses and eventually paid the deposit for him. Then he rang me to ask if I could buy him some bedlinen because he didn't know how to get it (I said no, but I could have bloody tell him that I couldn't get how he was working in a PhD if he couldn't even find bedlinen in M&S!). In all the months he was around he didn't produce a single piece of publishable research, but claimed that some important work of my ex was plagiarised from him (fortunately that work had been published a couple of years previously so he looked as an idiot.

We really felt a huge relief to know he was gone. We thought it was the end of it, but no... He contacted ex the year after, to say that he wanted to come for another research stay and sent me a message asking me to find them a place to live as he was coming with his wife, he also told me that the dog was a Great Dane that have been mistreated as a puppy and therefore was very sensitive and prone to attack people when it was nervous but he couldn't leave it at home as it was like a son for them.

My ex told him that given his lack of research output in the previous year, the university was not interested in offering him space. It totally went past him. The only thing that saved us from this misery was to point him out in the direction of the quarantine laws of the U.K., once he knew he needed to leave the dog in kennels for all his stay and pay for it, or pay £££ for a pet passport, he desisted of the idea.

Wife AND his dog, it is not as if he was married to the dog

I was staying with a friend in a popular seaside town where I used to live We went to a hen party where I talked briefly to one of the women who had travelled from up north (before she got her boobs out and pretended to masturbate on a table classy bird she was)

She assumed I still lived in this town and sent me a friends request on Facebook a few days later. Fast forward a few months and I receive a sycophantic inbox message from her saying "Hey hunneee. It's been soo long since we saw each other. How about I visit you with my 3 kids. We can catch up xxx".

What she didn't realise was that I had moved to a slightly grim northern mining village. I decided to humour her and sent back " Oh that would be lovely babe. Let's do that. I live in "Grimnorthernminingvillage" now so even closer for you. Let me know when you were thinking "

Deafening silence. She didn't even have the grace to send a fake apology and deleted me a few days later.

Using mare

I had the opposite, witchofzog. Really unfriendly woman. Not at all interested in me when we were introduced at a party. Not a problem, I'm a geek and used to it. She learned weeks later I live in InterestingBigEuropeanCity where I worked as an academic. Send me a request to come and visit me in InterestingBigEuropeanCity since we clicked so well .

paxillin Unbelievable. What did you say to her? These people really have no idea how obvious they are do they?

I was going to tell her what I thought, but chickened out. Deleted the first two emails. Answered the third saying sorry, no idea who you are, you must have the wrong email.

I also wonder if these people don't know it is obvious. Maybe they do and don't give a shit.

I was at a wedding when the best man's girlfriend, fed up the attention wasn't in her, announced her feet hurt so he'd have to take her home so she could change her shoes.

Not only was he the best man, he was the groom's brother. But this didn't stop her sulking when he said no.

My ex downstairs neighbour rocked up to my door about 11 at night and asked me to change his hernia repair wound dressing... It was an inguinal hernia (groin area)...he then flashed his willy at me trying to drunkenly show me his wound at my front door. Needless to say I quickly shut the door.

I've just caught up on the thread - I can't believe the wedding cake one. YOUR WEDDING CAKE?? You should've charged him!

Mentioning a uni scrounger put me in my mind of my own uni scrounger - a group of say 6 of us lived on the same floor in a catered halls, so all our meals came from the canteen, but it was a pain in the arse, if you weren't down for breakfast you missed it, and we had nowhere to keep milk for tea. We also had no snacks. Me and another girl (who interestingly were both from low income families who couldn't offer financial help unlike the other 4 who weren't struggling) used to get snacks etc and i bought a small portable fridge for my room.

It obviously wasn't long before people started to pisstake. I was asked to leave my door unlocked when I wasn't there so they could use my fridge and people started first to ask to share our snacks and then just take. This guy WHO NEVER EVER CONTRIBUTED kept taking my Coco Pops so I hid them in my wardrobe - my friend saw him one day taking them out of my wardrobe and shaking them into his bowl. He also used my private internet access that the uni had set up for me (SN student) in the olden days of dial up well before broadband and ran up a huge bill - the Dean let me off and gave me a long talk on this new breed of students with no social skills and described the guy to an absolute tee despite not knowing him personally

Oh and I forgot walked into my bedroom several times at early hours 7am ish to use the fridge when I was still in bed. had to be told not to.

Paxcillin, I had some think similar, was introduced t a very snob woman that really Looked down on me even when ...hmm... There was no need.

I often crossed paths with her at work and she always turned her face away. To be honest, I didn't like her very much either so I was happy to be ignored.

A few months later, the woman he introduced us rang me to tell me the snob had been left homeless after her contract expired and couldn't take another because she was unable to renew her visa, so could I allow her and 18 yr old DD to stay in my spare bedroom for a couple of months?

Absolutely bloody not!

Pisstakers who are lovely to the intended mug, flatter them and are at least good company are one thing. They risk friendships though and will run out of mugs, so have to work hard on finding new ones. That work could be invested in getting the money or know how to do the task they try to palm off.

Pisstakers who don't know the mug are perhaps easiest to understand, they chance it and of course there is an endless supply of people they don't know, ie. potential mugs.

Pisstakers who are horrid to the mug- how often does that work? News like this travels in college class, at work, at the school gate. They will be universally despised very quickly...

every that reminds me

my friend lived in uni halls, they had a flat thing with 4 rooms and a shared living/kitchen space.

Everyone got along very well until one person moved in. He would often have his mates around taking up alllll the shared room (which was small) 9 friends. NINE. My friend would walk into the living space and have to walk back out because they'd all shut up and stare at her, then ignore her whilst talking in another language. There wasn't enough sitting space so they'd all be sat on the floor and kitchen sides.

One day she went in and went straight to her room because they were all there again, as they had been every night since he moved in. She got a knock on her door, roommate asking if she would come and cook them food and if they could open her bottle of wine

It ended up with her not even having to report them because they got kicked out after 3 of them assaulted someone in the same building.

Yourleftelbow, for some reason that struck me as terribly, terribly sad. Those poor little children. Some parents deserve to be flogged.

I used to be a hairdresser but gave it all up. When the MIL found out this nugget of information she decided that from now on, rather than doing it herself as she had done for the previous 20 years that I was now her personal hair colourist, shampooer and blow drier. She'd invite herself round for the evening then eat all the biscuits/cake/whatever wasn't nailed down in the house. I told her repeatedly I was no longer a hairdresser and did not wish to do her hair but stupidly I was never firm enough (plus she'd just arrive on the sodding doorstep and barge her way in) until one day she asked me and I very firmly flat out refused. She was miffed but accepted it - hurrah!

Cue a fortnight later at a family gathering and she's sat there with one inch roots and greasy hair and declares loudly that "Yes well I did ask Woobeedoo to colour my hair, but she said no (head swivel in my direction) didnt you?". Every single person then glared at me and stupidly I didn't say a bloody word.

Mine is sort of an opposite - someone being v rude in response to being asked a small favour.

My dad lives in X, my sister in Y, about 2 hours away. She comes to stay with him every few months. He asked her to bring him something from a particular food shop (something you can only get there, it's specialist and v high quality etc) and it's on her way if she goes a particular route. He rang to ask and she said no, she wouldn't be going that way. Bit annoying but ok. But it turned out later, that when he rang she was actually IN the shop as she goes to it herself anyway but couldn't get anything for him as she was doing something else that day. Wtf?!

I think I may have told this story before. We live in zone 2 in London. Friends DD got a job here but needed a place to stay while she saved up enough for a deposit for a room. Was asked if she could stay whI'll she did this.

I didn't mind as having an early 20s girl in the house was a good influence on dd1( who was 17 and a bit stroppy) and we had the room.

Cue 3-4 months later and our lodger had been having a great time in London, the job paid quite well and she managed to buy all sorts of trendy new clothes as well as having a really a active social life. I suggested that maybe she should be moving out soon, or that if she wanted to stay then she could contribute £75 a week (as she got most meals, and I like a mug had just stuck her washing in with the rest.
) but would need to be out in another 3 months.

Dear reader, she went white with shock, and retreated to her room. I got a phone call later where her mother screamed at me about how selfish I was, she had spent the lot and more, how could she pay board and save at the same time? Of course I didn't need the money it was pointed out, so was just being greedy..

Did you keep her for the 3 months for free? Or send her back to her screaming mother?

When I was a child we used to rent a couple of caravans off a relative as a holiday. 7 days used to be Saturday morning - Saturday morning iyswim. We had a problem. The person bringing us back couldn't do Saturday morning, so my grandmother booked an extra day, so in theory it was Saturday morning to Sunday morning. The plan was we were leaving Saturday evening/night.
Only, the relatives turned up Saturday before lunchtime. About 10:30. Wanted us out. Complained about us sitting inside the caravan, complained about suitcases in the porch and complained about us sitting on the picnic tables outside.
We managed to leave at lunch time in the end. Only after my mum pointed out we had paid for an extra day and turning up and harrassing us to leave wasn't on. They refunded us in the end.

She paid, and stayed 4 months. Also did own washing after that.

Where the things ok with her mum afterwards? I will be seeing freeloader at a parents meeting next week. I feel like having some reinforcements with me

paxillin I think they don't give a shit . They come from the school of "I am a blunt person who is upfront and honest about what I want " which is a smoke screen for just being bloody rude

Some of these stories are truly awful.
However. IMO there is no harm in asking (if you don't ask you don't get) - and you just need to say 'no'. I wonder if this is a British thing, as one poster has pointed it out before: to not only not say 'no' but ever pretend that the requester does a favour to you ("it's better for my DC to have company, so yes, I am grateful I can look after your DC for free"). When you mean 'no', say 'no'.

The other thing is that if you offer something, you can't ask for money afterwards IMO. This refers to the stories along the lines of "I offered to drive my friend to XYZ, which is 12345 miles away, no bother at all, and then she did not give me petrol money".

I think the bottom line is: when a request is unreasonable, say 'no'. I've never lost a friend because of clear communication.

The post that initiated this thread explains how I said "no" 14 times, and the mum just keep giving alternatives on what I should do or drop to manage to care for her child (14 times!)

Interestingly, the child keeps complaining to DS that he cannot longer go to the activity because his parents work so hard.

i certainly work twice more hours as his mother and have much less flexibility than the dad. It is not about not being able to say no, it is about brass necked people not willing to take no for an answer.