My husband and I just celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary. We had already been together for about a decade before that, so really the only thing that changed was our tax filing status. We did, however, get to have a lovely ceremony at a local nature preserve that has a truly lovely pavilion by the lake.

The weather was perfect, the day was magical, a beautiful swan showed up in the lake just as the ceremony was starting, my brother and brother-in-law went for a pre-ceremony walk through some of the paths and came back with some Praying Mantis pals in hand / on shoulders; we almost couldn’t ask for better.

Almost.

As I said, the venue was local, specifically for us. But both my and my husband’s family is spread out widely, between one and four hours’ drive away. However, it was our wedding, and we had already made the trip out to visit others plenty of times before for birthdays, holidays, and yes, weddings! Siblings, cousins, and in-laws were all happy to come celebrate with us, with the only negative commentary coming from my mother.

She just didn’t understand why we wanted to have our wedding “in the middle of nowhere.” “Nowhere” is the town I grew up in, where she had lived with my father for decades before he passed, and she moved back up to the city. She complained on behalf of everyone else about all the traveling and expense and difficulty and accommodations, and everything else.

No complaints actually FROM them, of course. My then-fiancé checked with my brother to make sure everything was okay, and my bro backed up my statement that my mom just liked to share rumors and gossip to get people talking to her, because she always needed some amount of attention. Even if that attention caused problems for others, because she just kept picking at old wounds that everyone else had already gotten past.

On our wedding, though? NOT acceptable, and I had words with her, calmly and in private, but just a reminder that today was NOT her day, she was NOT allowed to start causing grief, she could, in fact, simply talk with the family and enjoy a nice day like everyone else did.

Apparently, my mother took this as both an insult and a challenge, because the “rumors” started going twice as fast. This person was commenting on their in-law’s weight. That one was trying to get others to pay for their hotel. Cousin’s plus one was actually a vegan and was talking nonsense about the meat at the meal. Uncle was talking about how a same-sex couple wasn’t right.

LITERALLY NONE OF IT WAS TRUE.

She went from sharing/exaggerating actual things to just inventing problems to drive a wedge between people. All with this impish little smile on her face, like she was playing a harmless prank.

Nope. Not on our wedding. Explosions went off. Shouting occurred.

Mom was kicked out of the wedding, and everyone either turned off phones or blocked her because, OF COURSE, she had to start calling people before even leaving the parking lot. Apparently, she thought she could start a family civil war and get others to leave with her? I don’t know, but there was so much less tension and bad mood after she left.

My cousin was the one who delivered the message that my husband and I would talk to her again when she apologized, and swore to never pull such a stunt again.

So, what brought up this memory? As I said, we just celebrated the one-year anniversary of our wedding… And of the so-far last time we talked to my mother.

CORRECTION: This story was incorrectly tagged as ‘Right’ instead of ‘Related’.

This was years ago; I was at my retail job. I was a cashier, and it was probably 6 PM or 7 PM. I’d had a steady flow of customers and was still three or four hours until my shift was over. At the time, I was five or six months pregnant.

A couple walked into my line and started loading up the groceries for me to scan. The husband hadn’t been paying much attention and moved up to load the scanned groceries back into the cart.

Without looking up, he said:

Husband: “Hi, sir, having a great day?”

The wife instantly turned red and turned to smack him.

Wife: *Hissing.* “That is a woman!”

Like a deer in headlights, he looked up at me for the first time, and all I could do was laugh. I was a “tomboy,” and the work uniforms were very blocky. He stammered an apology and was pretty quiet the rest of the time.

His wife kept apologizing, too. I tried to reassure them that it was okay, I wasn’t offended.

Four years later, I came out as transgender and started my transition. So, I mean, I guess he was right?

My friend and I are chilling on the Atlantic City boardwalk, watching the waves roll in, talking about nothing important.

Friend: “Man, we really should visit the right coast more often.”

Me: *Laughs.* “Haha, yeah, and definitely not the wrong coast.”

Friend: “No, I mean the right coast. Instead of the left coast.”

Me: “You mean East and West coast?”

Friend: “No, I mean the right coast, the one we’re looking at right now. It’s the right coast.”

Me: “Well, it’s the East Coast, as East is East regardless of where you’re looking. Left and right… well, aren’t.”

Friend: “Are you stupid? Look at the map! This is the coast that’s on the right!”

Me: “I mean, sure, but… look. I am standing here. What side is the ocean to me?”

Friend: “Right, duh!”

Me: “Okay.”

I do a half-spin.

Me: “How about now?”

Friend: “It’s still the right coast!”

Me: “But it’s to the left of me.”

Friend: “You moved, the coast didn’t! On the map it’s—”

Me: “—Okay, bring out your map app.”

He does so, and he zooms out on it until we can see the entire USA.

Me: “Where are we?”

Friend: “Right here, on the right coa—”

I flip the map upside down.

Friend: “…”

Me: “The map moved this time.”

Friend: “Well… that… that’s stupid too. The map doesn’t flip like that in real life, because if it did, Mexico would be North of us!”

Me: “So you’re saying the cardinal directions themselves can change based on the direction of the map, but your sense of left and right is absolute?”

Friend: “Yeah!”

Me: “D***! Someone better warn the Mexicans, then. It’s about to start snowing in Acapulco!”

I’m leaving a parking lot and need to make a left turn on the road. I look left, see that the nearer lane is empty, but there’s a woman stepping into the crosswalk. I look to the right and see that traffic in the far lane is backed up all the way to a curve down the way a bit. Pondering if it might be quicker to just turn right and loop around some back roads, there’s suddenly a very soft thump in front of me. I look, and the lady from the crosswalk has just laid her top half down on my hood. I put the car in park, roll down my window, and lean my head out.

Me: “Are you okay?”

She suddenly pops her head up.

Lady: “YOU HIT ME!”

She couldn’t even bother pretending to put on an “I’m so hurt” voice or feign being in pain! The nerve! The laziness! She also didn’t sound like she was any sort of drunk, high, or otherwise impaired.

Me: “I absolutely did not. My foot’s been on the brake for about a minute now, waiting to get out of here.”

Lady: “GOOD LUCK PROVING THAT!”

I lift my finger and point at the dash-cam stuck to my windshield.

Me: “This records video AND sound. You want to try again?”

Her response was to press her face against my hood and rub back and forth to smear her makeup all over it before stomping off. Yes, that sure showed me!

This occurred many years ago, before the turn of the millennium, when I was but a wee “innocent” fifteen-year-old. I was also a very late baby for my parents compared to everyone else in the family (my half-brother was fifteen years older than me and in the middle of everyone else’s tightly packed ages), so everyone in “my” generation was already a grown adult, and anyone in “the next” was still three or less. And being in this weird middle-ground caused even more issues than normal, basically all the out-of-the-loop of being an only child without the stereotypical fawning attention. 

It was bad enough that the now-grown “kids” were conversing with the recently-become-grandparents and great-aunts-and-uncles about adult things; I was well used to people talking “around” me while I was left in my own little world. More and more often, though, they were also now talking OVER me as I was trying to include myself in conversations, because I wasn’t just a little introverted child playing with his toys by himself anymore.

Admittedly, I was also in the middle of my “angsty teenager” phase, but in general, I didn’t really have much in my direct life to angst over; it was just very frustrating being ignored and verbally pushed aside any and every time I tried to interact in the most basic of ways. 

Cue Thanksgiving.

My mom’s already huffy that I wore jeans and a plain t-shirt to the dinner table instead of “dressing nice,” despite the fact that three adults visiting us were dressed the same and nobody said anything.

Everyone’s chatting away. I’m being ignored, as usual; not just in conversation, I often have to ask several times to get things passed to me. The only one being cool to me is my one uncle, who’s USUALLY the most condescending man I’ve met up to that point; maybe he was just the only one that actually noticed my ever-worsening expression.

Finally, FINALLY, someone goes to include me in a conversation; my dad had been going off about something computer-related, and another family member asked me if I knew anything about it, because I was “into that computer stuff.” Again, this was the mid-90s when that was something special.

Me: “Actually, yeah, I ju—”

Family Member: “Oh, hey, you know they’re putting more computers in at my job? We’re totally—”

I just SLAM my hands on the table, stand up, and shout something along the lines of:

Me: “IF I’M NOT ALLOWED TO TALK, JUST SAY SO!”

I then grab my plate and my drink and storm off to my room. Apparently, some called my “outburst” overdramatic or uncalled for. Honestly, I didn’t care. In a rare show of compassion, my dad (who grew up with the “men take care of their own problems” mindset and legitimately thought for years that it was best to ‘just figure it out ourselves’ if there were problems) eventually came to my room and asked what was up. 

I pointed out how I had been talked over and ignored all night long, how a couple of times could just be a mistake, but when it happened literally every single time for over an hour, it was infuriating.

This was when my dad imparted a secret unto me which I never forgot: my mother was the odd-one-out in her family in that she didn’t act that way, and he could barely stand the rest of the in-laws, because that was ALL THEY DID. They were just used to it with each other and would effectively carry on two to three conversations at once, with everyone just yammering over each other. It just “seemed” worse to me because my parents had raised me to actually be respectful, but had forgotten the whole “how to deal with disrespectful family members” side of things.

He asked if I wanted anything else from the table; he’d make me up a plate and bring it over, but I was good until dessert came around, and I’d probably be cooled down by then and just ignore everyone right back.

Dad’s suggestion: next time someone in the family tries that with me, just talk as loudly as I can over them instead. I also inherited his “big booming voice,” by the way; the rest of the night went okay, but come Christmas time and the next big gathering, it worked! The number of people who looked shocked that I even had a voice and actually could use it was quite gratifying.