Had some guests over the house yesterday. Specifically mentioned that we would have snacks and otherwise. Someone took it upon themselves to make a dip, completely unprompted, and bring it to the house. It was a nice gesture for sure, but as they were leaving I tried to give them their dish back so they could bring it home. They insisted on “getting it another time” even though they had a bag with them to carry said dish. I jokingly mentioned “so what, you bring a dish to my house and now I have to clean it for you? You’re basically bringing chores to my house!” (Channeling my inner Larry David). The guest then got incredibly pissed, called me rude, threatened to never bring anything over again, mentioning how they brought this out of kindness.
Personally, if the dish had been forgotten then I wouldn’t have cared about cleaning it. But it wasn’t forgotten and they clearly refused to take it home when offering their dish back. AITA here?!
The joke is pretty much always that Larry David is being rude. It’s \*funny\* but that’s the joke. Any time you think “this is what Larry David would say on a TV show,” take that extra second and make a different choice.
Realistically, they did the socially appropriate thing by not showing up for dinner empty-handed, and once they left you had the choice of eating the dip or throwing it away. In either event, all you needed to do was say “thank you” and, later, return the dish.
YTA.
YTA. Terrible etiquette. Embarrassing. Respectfully.
YTA
Your “joke” was rude and insulting.
Tell them you don’t have room in your fridge. Tell them you are leaving town and the dip will just go bad. Tell them “no, really, it’s easier if you take it now. That way we don’t forget.”
Telling them they’re “bringing chores to your house” was quite possibly the rudest way you could have gone about this.
YTA in all accounts and a horrible host.
YTA. Holy crap, upset that someone brought food to Thanksgiving? Control freak.
>I jokingly mentioned “so what, you bring a dish to my house and now I have to clean it for you? You’re basically bringing chores to my house!” (Channeling my inner Larry David).
Yah, this part was rude. YTA.
They should take their dish home, but this is not about the dish. You acted poorly and refuse to see it (YTA 2x). Take the dish, wash it, and drop it off next time you see them. I doubt you’ll see them again, without a sincere apology. And maybe re-think the guest list if them bringing an extra dip dish bugs you so much.
YTA funny on TV is not funny in real life. Frequently, the TV joke is funny literally because it would be rude and insulting in real life, but with simplified stereotypical TV characters we dont care.
The thing you said was quite rude and not taking another dip to your house would be reasonable response.
Oh my goodness, YTA. And a massive one at that.
So a guest made you a dip completely unprompted and out of the goodness of their heart and wanted to leave it behind presumably as a gift to you and for some reason your first instinct is to complain about them giving you extra chores????
It’s totally fine if you just didn’t want to have the dip but there was definitely a better way to go about it. Even if your comment was intended to be a joke, it clearly wasn’t a very good one and they’re right, you *were* being rude.
INFO- Was there food left in the dish? That completely changes the context of the post
Either way, please go and apologise to that guest for upsetting them
YTA. Someone brought a dish to your home as a thoughtful gesture and you throw it back in their face with ‘oh great, now I have to clean this dish thanks a lot’. And *then* you try to explain it away by saying you ‘jokingly’ called them out. Meaning you knew it was in poor taste. Try to be a more gracious host and have a little class.
YTA They were being polite. This is how it works. When you take food to someone’s house, you leave the food for the hosts. Your cleaning comment doubled down on the rude. Apologize and move on.
YTA: Do you not understand host etiquette?
YTA.
Real life is not a sitcom, and Curb Your Enthusiasm would be pretty much the worst sitcom to try to emulate in real life.
YTA. You wash the dish right then (how long does that take??), give them the clean dish, thank them for bringing the dip, and that’s it! Don’t host if you don’t know the first thing about how to be polite to guests.
And also, have you never brought an “unprompted” gift of food or flowers or wine to someone’s home when you were invited there? A lot of us were raised to never arrive empty-handed to someone’s home for a get-together. What if they said, “oh, now I have to find a vase and fill it with water? Thanks for the extra chore you brought me!”
YTA. Conversation should have went like this…
“Don’t forget your dish”
“No, leave it. I brought the dip for you”
“Thank you. Just a sec and I’ll transfer it to one of my bowls”
I would have washed it quickly as a courtesy for them being generous and bringing the dip.
That’s how you treat guests.