Guest Stories | Imamother

amother

Thu, May 21 2020, 2:29 pm

What was your most interesting guest/host experience?
I once ate at someone’s house and they forced me to eat something that I didn’t like Can't Believe It

Genius

Thu, May 21 2020, 2:47 pm

When I was really little I stayed at my aunts and she made me sleep with a summer quilt. I hated her since.
(With my adult seichel I know she did nothing wrong but what role does seichel play here)

Newmami

Thu, May 21 2020, 3:02 pm

went to IL for pesach was staying by family friend.

They got supper insulted that I didn't eat second days by them. I was like its not yom tov for you anymore and I need to hear kiddush.

Same person sorted through my suitcase and double-checked if I'll wear a slip because it looks a bit short (it was a long top worn over a skirt)

Same person insisted on blow-drying my hair (I was 17)

Need I go on?????

israelmama

Thu, May 21 2020, 4:02 pm

I once stayed at a camp friends house in a different town because I had a wedding. I stayed for a few days and she didn’t want me to meet her parents and didn’t offer a shower after the wedding...it was just weird and I was so excited to leave and go home

amother

Sapphire

Thu, May 21 2020, 4:05 pm

Second pesach after I was married we were with my in laws and I asked dh to help me with our baby who was screaming in a bedroom. Fil started screaming at me in front of everyone for taking his precious son away from the table. That was fun.

amother

Rose

Thu, May 21 2020, 4:50 pm

I was a teenager staying at someone's house for Shabbos. I said something to one of the other guests at the table while the father was singing zemiros. He told me very strictly they don't speak during zmiros.
I was so embarrassed but have to say this is nothing compared to some of your stories.
Newmami yours was the worst. I cringed and felt a little sick as I read it. I hope you never went back there again.

amother

Sienna

Thu, May 21 2020, 4:53 pm

My sister and I were being hosted by a relative for a simcha, but she didn't have room for us so had us stay at her neighbor. The bedroom we stayed in was BARE. 2 highrisers with a pillow and blanket and that's it. Not a stick of furniture, not a box of tissues, not a hanger in the closet. It was really weird, whatever I saw of the rest of the house was quite nice. We had to sneak in a mirror up the steps so we could put on our makeup without getting caught lol...

Newmami

Thu, May 21 2020, 4:56 pm

I love this thread brings up memories.
Went to a small hotel we came on thursday eve. Went to dinning room we were ALONE.
There was no one there. We basically ate supper with the owners.....
On friday people arrived for shabboth but Thursday eve and Friday breakfast we shared with the owners.
Was so so so weird

amother

Ecru

Thu, May 21 2020, 4:56 pm

We arrived just before zeman and the husband and wife had a big fight over us. The wife agreed we could stay there, then changed her mind. We were in the entranceway listening to them fighting holding their gifts while DH got the suitcases. The husband told the wife that it's one thing if she does her bu||$/%= to him, but when she does it on guests, he's done. He told her he wants a divorce. She was begging she didn't want a divorce.

The wife finally showed us our rooms. The sheets were dirty. DS found a nightgown under his pillow. They husband and wife didn't exchange talk.

happy chick

Thu, May 21 2020, 5:30 pm

Wow! Interesting indeed. Some of these are more of the dysfunctional or abusive kind of people. Yikes!

amother

Dodgerblue

Thu, May 21 2020, 8:53 pm

When I was little there were family friends we went to for Shabbos all the time, they used to pinch my cheeks and I could not for the life of me understand why they thought it was “cute” to hurt me. In fact to this day I cannot understand it. They are otherwise lovely people, truly, but I harbor an extreme dislike.

amother

Gold

Thu, May 21 2020, 10:06 pm

Oh my. I don’t think there’s enough storage data on imamother for all my stories and I’m totally outing myself to my siblings if they read this but here are some of my stories:

1) When I was a kid we had a homeless house guest who eventually my parents told him he had to leave because he wasn’t following our rules (showering, trying to look for job, etc.) I remember coming home from school and my father told me that he told the guest he had to leave. I asked my father how he knew he actually left and he said I’m sure he did. Well what do you know, my father left the house an hour later and I was upstairs home alone and the guy came up and started using the phone. I hid until my father came home and the guest went into hiding. I told my father what happened and at first he said maybe I was imagining it but finally I convinced him. He was scared to look for him so he had our cleaning lady and her toddler son look for him 😂. She found him hiding in the basement.

2) A regular guest at our shabbos table ended up in jail for stabbing his patient (he was a psychiatrist) with a sword because of some love triangle situation.

3) another regular guest converted to Judaism and then to Islam and apparently stabbed his nephew

4) when I was a teenager I frequently stayed with a family who did kiruv outside the community. They had a regular guest (who wanted to convert to Judaism) who had a MAJOR crush on me that everyone knew about. He would ask me weird questions like did I own a modest brand of bathing suits and could I please hold his cotton candy while he davened mincha. One shabbos I was with a friend at this family and they didn’t have room to host us in their house so they put us in an empty apartment with 3 single guys (one of who was this guy who majorly crushed on me) and to make it somehow better they sent their little daughter who was probably like 8 to stay with us. I still have no idea what they were thinking. 2 high school girls with 3 young single men in an apartment together? My friend who’s hilarious and super blunt told the guys “the rules” and drew an invisible line to tell them where they couldn’t cross and which bathroom they could use but their bedroom was right next to ours...
In a fun turn of events my father befriended this guy who had the crush on me and he started inviting him to our shabbos table 🤦🏼‍♀️ In the end the guy converted conservative instead of orthodox...

5) there was a family who became close to us who wanted to convert. Halachically you can’t have non jews as guests on YT but they really wanted to see a pesach Seder so we had them “work for us” serve, clean etc. Later they found a relatives grave with Hebrew on it and asked a shailah and turns out they were actually Jewish.

6) We once had a house guest over a shabbos. Friday night in the middle of the night he walked right into my bedroom. He claimed he went to the bathroom and got lost but his bedroom was right next to the bathroom and mine was farther away...After he went back home he sent us an entire case of nice dry wine (which no one in my family enjoys) as a thank you gift 😂

Those are ones I can think of off the top of my head but I definitely have more!

amother

Honeydew

Fri, May 22 2020, 12:28 am

I don't have any *horror* stories, but here are the weirdest:
1. I stayed by a non-frum Israeli man. He instructed me to take a shower as quickly as possible and that that meant turning off the water while I put shampoo/conditioner in my hair and only using the water to rinse it off. Also only to use the big flush if I went #2, and to use the small flush for pee. He seemed like a very controlling person in other ways, but luckily most of the time I was able to keep out of the house.
2. Frum kiruv family where someone would go into the bathroom to "clean up" after a guest used it. Weird because there is nothing to "clean up" after I use the bathroom. I'm guessing that once a guest didn't flush and it really embarrassed them so that was their way of ensuring it didn't happen again. They were reasonably clean but not OCD on other matters. I went to them for meals quite a few times and they never stopped "cleaning up" after me, I was hoping that they would trust me after a while.

amother

Sapphire

Fri, May 22 2020, 12:50 am

amother [ Honeydew ] wrote:

Number 1 is pretty basic to many Israelis. If he was a stranger and you were staying very briefly, it's a little odd that he felt the need to give you the whole rundown. If he was a relative, or you were staying for a longer period of time, it's not that weird to fill you in on how things are done.

amother

Oak

Fri, May 22 2020, 5:24 am

amother [ Sapphire ] wrote:

Depending on the year it happened it could make complete sense.

Israel had many years of severe drought and there were times when the curriculum for preschools included education on not wasting even a single drop of water.

As well, tourists were/ are seen to not see things as Israelis do and live...er....let's say not frugally or carefully. So it could be that seeing a foreigner he felt he needed to emphasize the need to be very careful about water use. Also could be (not sure because I wasn't living here during those years) that there was an extra charge for "excess" water usage due to the lack of water in general. They were thinking of levying such a charge a year or two ago but BH it turned out not to be necessary because we got a lot of rain. That said, there are two water tariffs: The first is cheaper, based on how much money they've calculated the number of people in your household needs. The second is much more expensive, and the moment you go over your household limit you pay the second charge. This is regardless of drought, btw.

So yeah....it could be he was b'lachatz because of the drought, and it could be he was b'lachatz also about the money. Who knows.

But, the water issue and those statements are definitely a culture gap issue. I say the same thing to anyone coming in from abroad who stays with us. I do try to say it nicely and in a way that isn't offensive or imposing, though.

amother

Honeydew

Fri, May 22 2020, 5:30 am

He wasn't a family member and I was only there for a couple of nights. It was 2009. Maybe he had a previous guest who took hour long showers, but he came off as super controlling.