Traveling can be stressful enough, but adding an entitled family member or complete stranger to the mix can make everything worse. We all have had our fair share of encounters with entitled individuals, but these users may have us all beat. Here are the ways that entitled parents completely ruined these people's vacations. Content has been edited for clarity.
It’s All There: Karen + Fireworks + Capitol Police + Assault + Arrest
“Backstory: Joined the Army right out of high school. During basic training, I volunteered for a unit within the army known as The Old Guard. (TOG from here on) TOG is responsible for ceremonies in the DC area and funerals in Arlington National Cemetery, amongst other duties. TOG consists of units you may have heard of, such as the US Army Drill Team and the Sentinels of the Tomb of the Unknowns, as well as lesser known platoons such as the US Army Continental Color Guard and is the oldest active unit in the army. (I only say this to emphasize that TOG isn’t some unheard of group from nowhere, it’s a fairly big deal in the army and in the DC area in general.)
Story time: So there we were. It’s the 4th of July in DC. Big celebration, all kinds of stuff going on, I’m sure you can picture it. Most of the celebration goes on in front of the Capitol on the National Mall. As part of the festivities, my unit fires the bass line for the performance of the 1812 overture. (3 inch anti-tank longarms firing blanks) Only the more seasoned guys in the platoon get picked to do it, so the rest of us are given a cordoned off area in the very front. We bring some food, some chairs, our families, and we have a cookout during the day and watch the show when it starts.
During the earlier parts of the day, it isn’t too crowded, but as evening draws near it becomes packed in nearly shoulder to shoulder. Fortunately, as I mentioned before, we had our own area at the front roped off from the general public giving us ample room to have our cookout. (Perk of working for the government) Throughout the day we would have people politely ask if they could join us, we said no but were always respectful. We weren’t in uniform, but we had our unit T-shirts on so we were still representing the army.
Enter Karen. It’s midway through the afternoon, still a few hours before the show. We’re enjoying the weather and the time off. I happened to be near the edge of our area when I hear someone behind me. I turn around and there she is, pinched face and a haircut that says ‘I want to speak with your manager’s manager. ‘
Karen: ‘Excuse me young man, could you ask your father to take this rope down? This is supposed to be a public area for everyone and my kids can’t see the Capitol. (Mind you there are signs hanging on the rope every 5 feet explaining the purpose of the rope)’
Me: (with my best PR smile) ‘I’m sorry ma’am, this area is reserved for members of TOG and their families. If you’d like to come back a little closer to dusk, we’ll be taking the rope down around then.’
Karen: ‘TOG? I’ve never heard of that before.’
Me: (always happy to drop knowledge) ‘Ma’am, TOG is the primary ceremonial unit for the US Army and group to accompany the President of the US of A’
Karen: ‘I don’t see the president. Shouldn’t you be escorting him or something then?’ rolls eyes
Me: ‘Uhh….’ ( I had no idea how to respond to that, fortunately I was saved. )
Platoon Sergeant (PSG from here on): (Places hand on my shoulder) ‘Good afternoon ma’am, I’m Sergeant First Class Guyincharge (obviously made up name) , what seems to be the problem?’
As I knew this was my cue to step back, I went back to my chair and observed their interaction. Couldn’t hear anything, but the interaction concluded with Karen walking away looking annoyed. Didn’t think anything else of it until about 2 hours later.
We’re cleaning up our trash, breaking down the chairs and tables and such. Out if the corner of my eye I see Karen approaching again, this time with two Capitol Police officers in tow. PSG must have noticed too, I heard him mutter “what in the world?” under his breath as he walked to intercept the trio.
I didn’t hear all of the conversation, but we all heard about it later.
PSG: ‘Officers, what seems to be the problem?’
Cops: (Obviously exasperated by the situation) ‘Sergeant Guyincharge, we received a report that your soldiers were making lewd gestures and comments towards this woman’s family. Is there any truth to this?’
PSG:laughs ‘Absolutely not, I’ve been supervising them all day, nothing even close to that has happened today.’
Cops:(nodding as though this was what they expected) ‘We had assumed that, but we had to follow up. Sorry to bother you.’
Karen: ‘You mean your going to just let them sit there and hog up all of the space!? I drove my kids 9 hours to see this!!!!!’
Cops: ‘Ma’am, these men are here with the expressed permission of the Capitol Police and the District of Columbia. There are signs there (points to a sign not 3 feet away) that explicitly state that.’
PSG: ‘(trying to diffuse the situation) Ma’am, we’re cleaning up our area right now, as soon as we are done we will be removing the rope to let everyone in. If you can be patient and wait, we can get you and your family right up front here in about 20 minutes.’
Karen proceeded to stare at them, much like a cow stares at an incoming train. Then she spun around and walked away without another word. We think it’s all over, we go back to what we were doing. We were wrong.
We’re just finishing up, taking the ropes off of the pylons and stacking the pylons in the arms of another dude in the platoon. Out of nowhere, here comes Karen, trailed by her 4 children and obviously stressed spouse. (I’m assuming spouse, could have been boyfriend or, baby daddy) ‘It’s about time! Get out of my way!’ Karen all but screams as she goes barreling right through Private Anotherguy.
Gotta pause here for a second. To be in TOG you have to be between 5′ 10″ (178cm) and 6′ 4″ (193cm), and maintain the army standard of physical fitness. To add to that, TOG is an infantry unit. If you aren’t aware, infantry are generally the front line soldiers in combat, and we are trained for just that. So, suffice to say, none of us were small, nor weak. Karen was probably around 180ish. So when I say she barreled through this dude, I mean it. She put some force into it.
Anotherguy goes sprawling to the ground, steel pylons fly in every direction. A couple hit him in the face, chipped a tooth and split his eyebrow open. One pylon bounces of the ground and hits one of Karen’s kids in the leg. The kid, probably 12 or 13, starts wailing like he lost a limb.
As we are helping Anotherguy to his feet, Karen is losing every last ounce of her mind. Red-faced, screaming about how she’s going to sue us for hurting her, how we probably aren’t even real soldiers, how we’ve ruined her family vacation blah blah blah……
At this point PSG is done with her. If Karen thought she was being loud, she quickly learned there are few things louder than an angry senior NCO.
With a single word he quieted everyone within 50 feet of us.
PSG: ‘STOP! (paused for dramatic effect) THAT IS ENOUGH. YOU HAVE BEEN HARASSING ME AND MY SOLDIERS ALL AFTERNOON. WE HAVE TRIED TO BE NICE, WE HAVE TRIED TO BE RESPECTFUL. YOU HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT RUDE. NOW YOU’VE INJURED ONE OF MY SOLDIERS. THIS. STOPS. NOW!’
I think Karen might have had a small stroke right then. She stood, mouth agape, not able to utter a single word. And then, as if right on cue, here come those two Capitol policemen.
They hadn’t been far away, and had seen the entire incident. I didn’t think Karen’s eyes could get any wider, until the first officer pulled out a pair of cuffs and said, “Ma’am turn around and put your hands behind your back. You are under arrest for assault and harassment.”
She tried every excuse she could think of, but the cops were having exactly none of her nonsense. They talked to Anotherguy, he wanted to press charges. So they carted her off. I don’t know what the father did with the kids, they disappeared when the cops took Karen.
Come to find out after Anotherguy comes back from the court hearing, Karen had been carrying 3 bottles of pills that weren’t hers, and 2 stolen credit cards when the cops searched her. No idea what kind of time she got, but it wasn’t enough.
After all was said and done, we watched the 1812 overture and laughed about Karen for weeks afterward. Anotherguy was fine, a chipped tooth and a little bit of bruising. Nothing major fortunately.
Moral of the story: Read signs. Don’t mess with the infantry.”
I Just Want To Measure Your Bedroom
“So, this happened 3 years ago. I was renting a basement apartment that I loved, my landlords were great (aunt and uncle of my childhood friend) and I lived there for 3.5 years. Halfway through, they told me they wanted to sell the place, but probably not that soon, since the husband was working on a commercial ship 9 months at a time. I just asked them to tell me when they decide to sell. Anyway, 13-14 months pass and they decide to start the process. They introduce me to the realtors, everything gets sorted out. Up to this point, everything is going great – realtors give me 24 hours notice before they bring buyers, I can stay home during the showings or go about my business. I have no complaints about them or my landlords throughout the entire process.
Then one day I just got back from work and didn’t feel like going out again, realtors came with a family of 5 or 6. It was announced, I just forgot, so I decided to stay. Family consisted of mother, father, adult daughter and 2 or 3 kids, can’t remember. Father was a piece of work.
Now, thing is – I lived in a touristy town on the Mediterranian coast. It was summer. People try to pull all sorts of cons here.
Entitled father: ‘I know you said someone lived here, but we hoped to stay couple of days to get the feel of the apartment.’
Realtor: ‘Um, what? This place isn’t for rent, this man already lives here.’
Entitled father: ‘Well, I can’t buy something just like that, but okay, obviously we can’t stay the night.’
Me: ‘Sorry, no, you can’t, I live here.’
He moves on. Measures things left and right. Wondering out loud if their large wardrobe will fit into the bedroom. How he wants to buy an apartment for his daughter because she wants to go to college here. Eventually, they pack up and leave for the beach (I saw them later, beach was 2 min away from the apartment).
The next day there were no scheduled showings, so I decided to do one thing everyone does when they live right next to the beach – take a nap after work. But, before my head even hit the pillow, I hear someone coming down the stairs. There were only two basement apartments and my neighbors went away for a week. I get up and go for the door to spy, but before I even made it halfway there, someone rattles the doorknob and then, 10 seconds later, start knocking. I was really confused and freaked out. I go to the door, and lo and behold, it’s entitled father from yesterday. I do not open my door.
Me: ‘Who is it?’
Entitled father: ‘It’s me, entitled father, we were here yesterday.’
Me: ‘What do you want?’
Entitled father: ‘I want to measure the space in bedroom to see if my daughter’s wardrobe will fit.’
Me: ‘No. You’re not getting in.’
Entitled father: ‘But I can’t buy the place if I don’t know, it’s for my daughter!’
Me: ‘Then call the realtor, they have all the measurements on file. I’m not letting you in.’
Entitled father: ‘I’ll buy this place and evict you!’
Me: ‘Good luck, I have 3 months left on the lease, you can’t do anything about that. (My landlords told me that if the place sells before my lease is up, contract will state I can’t be evicted before my lease is up. I already had a place lined up.)’
Entitled father starts cussing out and I hear him go away.
I called landlords and realtors after that, they were all mortified and worried someone like that just came to my place, tried to let himself in and threatened to evict me. Entitled Father did not buy the apartment after all because landlords refused to ever deal with him again. Realtors told him it was sold.
To this day, I believe their plan was to find a place to crash at for a few days for a free vacation under the pretext of ‘buying the place for their daughter’. I still had to improvise webcams around the apartment to keep an eye on it while I was at work, for the remainder of my stay there. I spent the entire summer not feeling safe in my home.”
Entitled Mom Tried To Steal My Wheelchair At Disney World
“My Family and I were on vacation in Disney World for a week. We were having a wonderful time until Wednesday. We were at Animal Kingdom and in line for Kali River Rapids, Enter entitled mom, entitled dad and his poor dad. All of a sudden the mom starts talking nonsense:
Entitled mom: ‘Hi, can my son please borrow your wheelchair to sit in?’
My mom: ‘I’m sorry our daughter has to sit there, she can’t walk well and it will hurt her to walk (I have a disability to where I can walk, but not far without excruciating pain).’
Entitled mom: ‘It’s not that far, she can walk it off????’
My mom: ‘If she can then so can your son.’
The entitled mom ain’t having it
Entitled mom: ‘JUST GIVE ME THE GOSH DARN WHEELCHAIR!!’
My sisters and I couldn’t believe the utter foolishness this lady had in her
My dad: ‘This is a theme park for kids, don’t swear in front of children.’
Entitled mom: ‘I WILL REPORT YOU TO THE WHEELCHAIR RENTAL SERVICE THEY WILL TAKE YOURS AWAY!!’
My dad: ‘Go Ahead, this is our wheelchair, they can’t take it.’
Entitled mom is very upset, but doesn’t speak for the duration of the wait and ride.
We thought this was the end of it, but no, it gets worse.
My family decided to split up because my mom and I loved rollercoasters and I haven’t ridden Expedition Everest in years. We get in line and it turns out the entitled mom and her kid we’re following us. Their dad wasn’t there, so I assumed he didn’t want to ride the coaster. I’d say that the kid was maybe 6-7 so I didn’t know if it would be okay to let him ride because I would’ve been terrified to ride the ride at that age, Here’s round two of this idiotic lady’s rampage.
Entitled mom: ‘Hi again is it okay if we go ahead of you, My husband is waiting for us and we have a fast pass soon?’
My mom: ‘I’m sorry, but from the way you treated us earlier, I couldn’t care less if you missed your fast pass.’
Entitled kid: ‘I need to sit in the wheelchair, my legs hurt.’
Entitled mom: ‘LET US THROUGH NOW OR GIVE ME THE WHEELCHAIR.’
Me: ‘Look lady, I have to sit in this chair, he can’t just sit in it with me in it.’
Entitled mom then pushes me out of the wheelchair and shoves her kid in it. She then tries to leave but other guests don’t allow her as they were watching this unfold. Just then a security guard comes and assesses the situation because he heard the commotion.
Security guard: ‘What is going on here?’
Entitled mom: ‘THESE TWO PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO STEAL MY WHEELCHAIR!’
Security guard, to my mom: ‘Is this true?’
My mom: ‘No, this woman stole our wheelchair that my daughter needs.’
Bystanders start telling the cop what happened.
Entitled mom: ‘THEY’RE LYING, I RENTED THIS WHEELCHAIR OUT FOR MY SON WHO IS DISABLED.’
That was the sentence that caused her to ruin her vacation.
Security guard: ‘Ok, I’ll have to take this woman into custody until further notice.’
Entitled mom, thinking she’d won: ‘WHAT??? But I did nothing wrong!!’
Security guard: ‘You just lied to an officer, this wheelchair doesn’t belong to the park, so it must belong to them.’
Eventually the security guard and his friends asked if we wanted to press charges, we said yes, and charged her for assault. After that my mom and I enjoyed the ride and told the rest of the family what happened. They were dumbfounded and we still laugh to this day.”
You Can’t Propose Here And You Certainly Can’t Do THAT
“My boyfriend and I drove from our apartment early one morning to catch a cruise. It takes about 3-4 hours to get there. I am totally not a morning person, but my boyfriend was completely exhausted that morning from work, so I decided to drive so he could sleep some more. We got there about 30 min before departure so we parked the car and went to check in.
Enter the entitled witch and her little terror of a child:
Entitled Mom: ‘move over, my son and I NEED to check in right now.’
We moved over since it wasn’t our first encounter with an entitled mom. She finished checking in her son and herself so we got back to the counter and finished up as well. All the while, we talked with the woman behind the counter about entitled parents. We got aboard and went looking for our cabin. It had a nice double bed, big TV on the wall, a nice view etc. We packed out our luggage and settled in. We turned on the TV and watched Smokey and the Bandit while waiting for the announcement that we were departing. When it came, we went up to the adult zone (one of the upper deck next to the bar) and who do we see, yup entitled mom and her kid. The kid can’t have been older than 9, and this zone was only allowed for people 18 and older. As a backstory, my partner and I are gay, and I’m a man that acts more feminine, and in most occasions wear women’s clothing. Anyway, there we were on the upper deck. We stood there remaking our own Jack and Rose from Titanic. That’s when entitled mom comes over.
Mom: ‘You shouldn’t act like that here, my son is here watching the two of you. But you did well kid, having a cute girlfriend like that (to my boyfriend). And Nice dress, by the way (to me).’
We just thanked her and went back inside to rest a bit. In the evening we had a reservation at the more finer restaurant onboard. We got there, and since we had a reservation, we could skip the huge line. Some people didn’t like it but stayed quiet, but not her.
Mom: ‘Why do they get to skip the line while the rest of us has to stay behind? Let me trade with you, my son is very hungry.’
I got tired of meeting her everywhere but hey, it’s a ship, surrounded by water, we can’t avoid her for long. We got our table, still hearing the mother yelling at the workers. We ordered some expensive bottles and food. We actually ordered some fine food that I can’t even spell the name of. My boyfriend told me that he had something to ask me. He took his chair and pushed it out so he could stand, eyed the waiter and the waiter came over with a little black box. I knew what was happening and started getting tears in my eyes. I had been waiting for some time for this to happen. He got on one knee and asked, ‘Will you make me the happiest man on earth?’ He barely finished the sentence when I said yes! Everyone started clapping and I gave him a long kiss. The entitled mother finally got through the line and saw us kissing.
Mom: ‘Can’t you kiss your girlfriend somewhere else? My son is with me!’
My boyfriend: ‘First of all, I just proposed and kissed to make it official. Second, that is not my girlfriend, that’s my boyfriend’.
You could see all color disappear from her face.
Mom: ‘How could you do that with children present? You (homophobic slur) should not do something like that at all.’ Blah, Blah, Blah.
While she kept yelling I noticed that something smelled like feces and I couldn’t see the woman’s kid anywhere, until…. I looked down and there he was, trying to pull down my skirt. I quickly grabbed his hands and yanked him away from me. Remember how I said it smelled like feces? Well… It really hit the fan.
Mom: ‘HOWDAREYOUTOUCHMYBABY????’
Like that, yes. I don’t think she breathed at all during that sentence. And here we go…
Mom: ‘I will sue you for this you (homophobic slur). And stop wearing girls’ clothing, it is not ok to walk like that.’
And all the usual homophobic stuff. My boyfriend was furious. He normally never lays a hand on anyone, but had I not seen it and stopped him, he would have slapped her into the next century. The woman saw what he was about to do and acted like he actually did it, with the employees and the other guests looking at her. She got walked out and we got our meal on the house.
After resting in our cabin, we set out to find the bar. We heard there was live music and good drinks so we had to try it. After wandering around for a while, we made it to the bar. We entered, ordered some adult beverages and sat down. We drank quite a bit and decided to dance as fiancées. And who brought the storm during my waltz? You guessed it.
Mom: ‘STOOOOOP THE Music.’
It got quiet.
Mom: ‘Don’t start the music until these two (homophobic slur) leave.’
She starts to sound like that typical homophobic priest while pointing at us all angry. The other guests looks at us and start debating what kind of awful person she was. Enter the bartender.
Bartender: ‘Miss, I have to ask you to leave the bar.’
Mom: ‘Why do we have to leave while these two get to stay?’
Bartender: ‘First of all, you brought a kid that most certainly is not 18 years or older. Second, we do not tolerate homophobic abuse. And last, you’re just a nasty person.’
You could almost hear her jaw drop to the floor as she looked for a response. She ended up leaving, music started playing again and we gave an extra big tip before leaving to our cabin for some cozy time.
The rest of our vacation went pretty much without meeting her and her devil spawn again.
We are getting married in August.”
