AIBU to think you shouldn't have to specify your food order as "on its own" if you don't want a side and they cost extra?

[SidesAside]

A wet and cold Bank Holiday Sunday where I am. DH and I decided to go with our original plan of visiting a garden centre, but to pad the day out a bit as we wouldn't be looking around outside, I suggested stopping off on the way for lunch at a cheap and cheerful chain pub that has nice lakeside views.

For context, come rain or shine, workday or weekday, we always have a light lunch, e.g. sandwich and then a substantial dinner in the evening.

We arrived, found a table and I looked at the menu. I found a list of sandwiches and chose one. It's an order at the bar and pay place, so I kept the table and DH went up with the order.

He came back and said, "You've got spicy potato wedges as a side."

I said, "The menu didn't mention it came with a side, I didn't want one."

He said, "It didn't cost any extra."

I looked again at the menu and saw, under the list of sandwiches, a footnote saying "Add a side for £1.50' with a list of sides, potato wedges, onion rings and so on. I checked the receipt and we had indeed paid £1.50 for unwanted wedges. Now, I am not fussed about £1.50 but I pointed out we'd now paid for something that would go to waste.

DH became defensive and said "But you didn't ask for a prawn caibatta "on its own"".

I said, "Surely I shouldn't have to as the sides are an extra, you know I never normally order sides, even if we're having a main meal." [for context we have been married over 20 years].
DH repeated "You should have asked for it "on its own"."

I didn't want to spoil the day with a petty argument so I said, "In short, you've been a victim of upselling - just please, engrave in your mind for the future that unless I specifically say I want a side, whether it's included or not, I don't want one."

I then changed the subject, we carried on with our day and had a pleasant enough time considering the weather.

But who is being unreasonable here -

• Me, for not asking for the sandwich 'on its own'
• DH for saying I should have asked for it 'on its own'
• The pub for what sounds like sneaky upselling.

Opinions welcome!

I genuinely wondered if other people routinely said "I'll have the X on its own" when ordering something that didn't come with a 'side' as part of the menu item, as my husband was so adamant that I should have done this that I was doubting myself.

If he hadn't said that, if he'd said 'they implied it was included' I'd probably have commented that it was sneaky and said no more.

Not sure what AIBU exists for if people can't get opinions on this sort of everyday thing.

I'm sorry, but we're not an Instagram-perfect couple who never ever disagree on anything and go through life as if we're in a romcom.

We have disagreements, we argue sometimes, then we get on with our day as happened today.

It hasn't been mentioned again between us in the 8 hours since it happened, we went round the garden centre, we visited the supermarket on the way home, we relaxed in front of the TV for a while, we had dinner and I'm currently helping him with a crossword while we listen to some music.

I posted because I wondered if I'd missed the 'on its own' memo. It sometimes happens that I miss something other people do as standard, or I do something that I think is perfectly normal and other people don't understand it, so I like to check sometimes.

I would be very annoyed OP that his first move was to blame you. It’s not a big deal that he mistakenly bought this side - it was a waste but still not bigger but him trying to gaslight you was really bad.
Of course they ask : Any sides? Any drinks? Any cakes? They’ve done it for ages. They just ask they don’t force you to buy them.

I also can’t understand people commenting so vigorously on your size of lunch. What this has to do with it? Your question was if you worded your order correctly.
Of course you have.

It's not rigid to expect someone to order what you asked for, without unasked for extra items.

PP seem to have taken against OP because of the engraving on brain thing: but maybe that's just the fancy way she talks, and DH is used to it.

If someone was really determined to blame you for this, they could say that, when you carefully read the menu, you should have spotted the upgrades, and instructed DH not to buy any of them. But that would have been infantilising him, as it would be to assume that he knows you have a hiatus hernia and don't normally eat wedges. Or to warn him about upselling practices before he sets off to the bar.

You can't win.

We do have lots of phrases we use between ourselves and that's one of them - I don't think that's uncommon in a long marriage or relationship, you develop a kind of shorthand whereby you know exactly what the other means but it wouldn't convey the same thing to an outsider.

It just means "I don't want to have to say this every single time we are in a similar situation, so please listen carefully and try to remember this as a simple rule to follow if this scenario should crop up again"

It's not intended to be sinister or threatening, and wasn't taken as such, it closed that conversation and we started talking about something else.

Haha my autocorrect did me dirty!!

What did your DH order?

Did you not ask him about the fries? (You seem to assume he was asked if he wanted them but didn't clarify this with him?)

Maybe the poor sod just fancied some wedges but was too scared to eat them after you tore him a new one for ordering them?

All in all its just very strange, OTT behaviour.

No, that's not, but OP said, For context, come rain or shine, workday or weekday, we always have a light lunch, e.g. sandwich and then a substantial dinner in the evening.
And that is rigid

It just means "I don't want to have to say this every single time we are in a similar situation, so please listen carefully and try to remember this as a simple rule to follow if this scenario should crop up again"

This isn't making it sound any better!!!

For the people saying OP was patronising- that was after her husband had twice blamed her for not specifying "on its own". Which isn't a thing. He could have blamed himself , or the pub, or just tried to gloss over it and say "oh well" but he cast the blame on OP and she was right to reject the blame.

Tell Auntie Jean about the time you ordered those wedges for £1.50 but thought they were free, and I told you to engrave it in your head to never do that again! Oh how we laughed.

I didn't want to spoil the day with a petty argument so I said, "In short, you've been a victim of upselling - just please, engrave in your mind for the future that unless I specifically say I want a side, whether it's included or not, I don't want one."

If my husband ever spoke to me like that I’d be telling him exactly where he could shove the wedges and the sandwich. I imagine I’d get a similar response if I was that much of a twat to him.

All Ado About Nothing coming to a pub restaurant near you. Don’t miss it, reviews say it’s an edge of the seat thriller.

' In this present world we live in a minefield of stealth upselling, hidden extras and so on'

Wtf are you going on about....

You would be told to shut the fuck up if you told me I need to listen and engrave something so ridiculous in my brain.

Pasta (penne in tomato sauce).

I did offer him the wedges but he didn't want them - as I said earlier, he's a slightly-built, small-meal eater, he didn't even finish his pasta which is nothing unusual. He fills up by eating something sweet in the evening, he's got a box of mini chocolate brownies on the go at the moment and usually has something of that type to keep him going.

I would rather have seen the wedges eaten than wasted, but I'd never try to persuade someone to eat something they didn't want so they sat there, ignored, unloved and unremarked on, until the table was cleared.

And for about the 6th time, I didn't even ask him what he was ordering let alone attempt to limit it in any way, he could have ordered wedges for himself or anything else he'd wanted.

I'd have fallen off my chair in surprise if he'd ordered a side for himself, or wondered if he'd had a quick stomach transplant while he was at the bar because it would be totally out of character, but I wouldn't have minded in the least.

I didn't mean it in the sense of some kind of rule, I meant it in the sense of custom and practice - like you might say, I never have breakfast or I always have a coffee at 10 o'clock. My body clock is attuned to having a light lunch and a substantial dinner, rather than the other way round as some people prefer.

Well in that case it sounds as though your DH assumed that the side was included as part of your order, he made a decision in the moment to choose a side on your behalf (bet he bloody regrets that now!!) and it was all a slight misunderstanding. Yes he could have checked the menu or come back and checked with you but maybe for simplicity and ease he just picked a generic side (most people would happily nibble on a wedge or two even if they didnt particularly want them per se).

Lecturing him about stealth upselling and chastising him like a naughty child doesn't paint you in a favourable light though. The more you try to defend your actions, the more petty and controlling it seems.

I actually doubt he'll remember it, which is why I tried to emphasise that he should.

We lead fairly uneventful, boring lives but I don't feel the need to apologise for that. We're an unexciting middle-aged couple, and our treat of the week is a cheap pub lunch, so what?

That said, if I wanted to dredge up anecdotes for Auntie Jean and Uncle John, I could probably do better than this one.

OMG, what a lot of unnecessary drama about some £1.50 wedges.

You sound like hard work OP

Ah stop.... he's not even allowed do a crossword alone? 😂 (I'm joking before you berate me since that's your mood today).

Yes, that's more or less what happened but you're missing out that he kept trying to tell me the normal way to order without a side was 'an X on its own' which, as far as I knew and which has been confirmed on here, it isn't.

That was the only the situation went beyond a 'that was sneaky of them, oh well!' ending and I decided to post to check my understanding.

Ordering you spicy potatoes when you don't eat spicy potatoes is a bit more than lacking common sense, surely? I'd be fuming that he didn't care to try to remember what I do and don't eat.

He's welcome to do it alone if he wants, he's periodically asking me for help when he gets stuck and I'm happy to pool knowledge.