To make a cheeky comment to my friend about this?!

[feedmefudge]

Last night I hosted drinks and nibbles for a couple of friends; one of whom we haven’t seen in over a decade. I bought wine and nice wee snacks for us.
The local friend I see more regularly brought a box of posh crackers. Looking at the box, I could see that they are 6 months out of date. Not only that, but the date was covered with a weird sticky stuff that was murder to remove from my kitchen surface. Clearly the box had come from the deepest corner of her kitchen cupboard!
Wealthy friend, money no object. And to be honest, it grates a bit.
I’m tempted to make a light-hearted comment which shows that it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
A bit passive-aggressive maybe, but AIBU? And any funny suggestions of what it could be?!

Bloody hell, get a life. She was in a rush or she was distracted with some stresses, she grabbed something in a hurry - so what?

Yes they really do. Giving a friend an out of date box of crackers from your store cupboard because you can’t be arsed to pop to the shops on the way doesn't really indicate that you value that friend.

This. It's a crackers thread about crackers. Especially as it's pretty clear that the OP has already made her mind up that she is indeed the victim of a grave cracker-based insult. But given that, I think the OP should go big or go home, no pissing about with pass-agg nonsense. Dump a lorryload of crackers on her lawn, swear a vendetta against her entire bloodline, something like that.

Were the crackers all right though, or had they gone noticeably stale? I'd be a bit disappointed but I'd never say anything. Like, what do you want to achieve here? I guess you'd simply want her to match your effort and bring nice stuff that's in date, but if she feels bad about her mistake, is that what you want to happen? I don't think it's worth it, sorry.

But thanks for the reminder: I bought some packs of Pick crackers from Greece in July and they need to get used before they pass best before, which would be a tragedy.

That is the point, though. That out of date crackers are pretty small beer in a valued friendship.

With friends like you….

You offered to host, yeah it’s polite to bring something but anything could be going on in her life. Back when I was married my husband was an alcoholic and drug addict, my head and life was chaos and often, something as simple as stop for a bottle of wine on the way to a dinner was too much for him. It took me all my time to keep life on and even keel for my kids and prep for these things just sometimes didn’t happen. Nobody knew a thing about all this at the time as I was mortified and he put on a good show for the outside world. So it was go empty handed or don’t go sometimes.

youve actually turned my stomach with this op you’re a vile ‘friend’. Get your priorities straight.

I hear you OP.

I'm wondering if it's a thing in a long line of tight behaviour.

Fair enough if it's a genuine error but I strongly suspect that the OP has seem more than one incident of tight behaviour and that's what's grating on her, not just this one pack of crackers. It's more the principle and f the thing, I am surmising.

The woman passed two shops on the way, she could have picked up a bottle of wine or something.

That's how they be one loaded and stay loaded. Surely, if the friend was a good friend, she wouldn't begrudge bringing a £10 bottle of wine!

Couldn't be friends with someone so mean.
PA would be to return them and tell her you don't risk out of date food.

That's super petty. I would not mention anything. I have been in that position before. Why would you want to make your friend feel bad? If I consider someone a close friend and host them in my house I would just assume that was an oversight.

Why be nasty by saying anything?

Every Christmas we get at least two “hampers” from family members who feel obliged to buy us something but don’t know what. These invariably include posh snacks we never eat ourselves and pull out of the cupboard on occasions like this, by which time they often probably are out of date.

Be happy she came and you had a nice time.

Says who? Who makes the rules?

If it was chicken you'd have a point, but crackers?

Just leave it unless she's a repeat offender! She might not have realised out of date...you had a good night, thats the main thing. Fair play to them coming out on a Tuesday night!

I once had a well off "friend" who used to check who owed what drink. If she bought you a drink in the pub, she'd store it up to remind you that you 'owed' her one the next time we were at the pub. She was like this with everyone.

Not an attractive quality, especially when I happily and willingly bought her drinks (without needing a reminder).

When she was at uni, she was moaning that she was skint and that she only had £5k in her bank account (this was in the 1980's). She got a full grant because her parents were divorced, no tuition fees and the bank of Mum and Dad too!

My version of skint was having to survive with £10 in my pocket for the whole week as a student!

What do you hope to achieve?
Make her feel shitty?
Make yourself feel superior?
What’s the objective?

Wouldn’t demean myself.

You mentioned her money!
Clearly your friend forgot rather than deliberately brought old crackers. If you didn’t raise the issue at the time, your opportunity to make a lighthearted comment has passed.

She passed two shops on the way to her friends and could have popped in for a bottle of wine. But preferred to bring a box of old crackers.

I wouldn’t say anything unless she makes a habit of it, or is really tight in general.

I always check dates, even on stuff like crackers, if the food will be served to others. And chances are she knew she’d had them in for ages.

Feed them to the birds and squirrels - they'll think "party!"

If I'd have spotted the date and sticky stuff prior to opening them, I'd have gifted them to her at the end of the night with a cheery "oh we never opened these, why don't you take them back home as we'll not eat them"

Surely this is just reducing the amount of waste in the world? How do you know these items were regifted? I presume they are not used (although I know someone whose MIL gave them half a bottle of Baileys for Christmas! 🤣)

I would just be grateful I was receiving presents!

Agreed.

This wouldn't bother me at all (if I even checked, which is doubtful unless they tasted very 'off' or stale or such).

And I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who was putting this much emphasis on it!

I can easily imagine keeping something like nice crackers for a special occasion and not thinking to check the date on them. I would be mortified if you snidely tried to embarrass me. I don't think old crackers will harm you, they will go soft and be inedible eventually.

What exactly is the risk from out of date crackers?

Apparently they cause the death of friendship…

You checked the date? How bizarre. And the label was so sticky you couldn’t get it off your worktop? How double bizarre……