The Cringe Heard ‘Round The World

I’m the author of this story, and I’ve shared the following story as a comment on this story. The way the guy was schmoozing the ladies in said story reminded me of my sister’s one and only attempt at having a sisters’ fancy night out.

It was 2013. I was nineteen, and my sister decided to celebrate my getting a job at an airline by going to this fancy hotel restaurant — think a posh setting with a snobby maître d’ where you had to make a reservation a week in advance.

We put on our nicest dresses and went to the restaurant. During the meal, these two guys in fancy suits, who looked to be in their twenties, started chatting us up. They offered to buy us drinks and pay for the meal, and they invited us to continue at the hotel’s bar. (You can probably guess the rest.)

I decided to nip this in the bud.

Me: *Showing them my wedding ring* “I have a one-year-old at home.”

That was the moment when one of them turned to my sister with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in his voice.

Guy: “Congratulations on your first grandchild, ma’am.”

His buddy gave him a discreet but shocked look, they walked away, and I started laughing at what had just happened, which my sister still hasn’t forgiven me for.

We look quite similar and my sister is twelve years older than me, so I guess it’s theoretically possible for her to be my mom, and the men were hitting on us both, but my sister still doesn’t find it funny that those two might have been going for a mother-daughter duo.