Woman Upset After A Guest Brings A Generic Product To A BBQ Instead Of The Name Brand — 'I Asked For One Thing And He Couldn't Deliver'
A debate for the ages.
Prostock-studio / Shutterstock A young man saw another side of his girlfriend’s mom after attending a family event, leaving him to ask the subreddit r/AITA if he was wrong for something he did, something that started a "silly" disagreement, then became "such a big deal."
His girlfriend’s mom got upset after he brought a generic product to a barbecue instead of the name brand.
He explained his side of the story, saying, “I was always raised to never show up anywhere empty-handed, so I asked my girlfriend’s mom what I could bring, [and] she asked that I grab Cool Whip for a dessert she was making.”
“Easy enough,” the man thought. “I figured it won’t be hard to find, so I decided to wait until the morning of [the barbecue] to grab it on my way there.”
Natallia Nagorniak / Unsplash
“I get to the store about 20 minutes before the BBQ starts, and they’re somehow out of the name brand,” he said. “They did, however, have the store brand’s ‘whipped topping.’ As I didn’t have time to go to another grocery store, I just bought the generic brand and headed off.”
When he gave the store-brand whipped topping to his girlfriend’s mom, she got “a weird look on her face” and asked where the Cool Whip was.
The man explained that the store was out of Cool Whip, then said, “This is pretty much the same thing, right?”
“She looks a little irritated with me but just tells me to make myself at home,” he said. “As I’m putting my stuff down, I hear her asking her husband to run to the store and grab the Cool Whip.”
‘I asked for one thing, and he couldn’t even deliver,’ his girlfriend’s mom complained.
She never said anything directly to him but made passive-aggressive comments for the rest of the day.
“When the dessert was served, she again made a comment about how it’s made with ‘real Cool Whip.’ I didn’t want to make a scene, so I took it on the chin,” the man said.
When he asked his girlfriend about the Cool Whip incident, she called her mom “overdramatic” but said he should have called to check if the store brand was acceptable.
“I asked if there was really a difference, and she said she [didn’t] know, but it was what I was asked to bring, so I should’ve communicated better,” he said, wondering if he was wrong.
The comments section was divided between those who believe Cool Whip is interchangeable with the generic brand, those who think he was wrong for choosing a lesser replacement, and those who maintain that his girlfriend’s mom was an ungracious host.
“Anyone who is using Cool Whip versus making homemade whipped cream doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to taste,” noted one person, who believed that “the disrespect she showed a guest was gross.”
“I could see if she asked for real whipped cream and he brought Cool Whip, but it’s basically a collection of chemicals with some sort of dairy,” someone else in the anti-Cool Whip camp said.
“Imagine being on your high horse about COOL WHIP,” exclaimed a different person.
Spencer Davis / Unsplash
As another person noted, saying it’s “Real Cool Whip” is “like saying it's made with ‘real American cheese’ or ‘real imitation crab meat.’”
Yet some people believed he’d done his girlfriend’s mom wrong by showing up with a different brand of fake whipped cream than the one she asked for.
“Cool Whip has a distinctive taste, and off-brand isn’t identical,” said one Cool Whip defender. “It also has added ingredients to stabilize it: It doesn’t deflate over time like fresh whipped cream.”
“You were asked to bring Cool Whip. If you couldn’t bring Cool Whip, you should have called your girlfriend.”
Others picked up on the mom’s passive-aggressive behavior and found it concerning that his girlfriend didn’t stand up for him.
The initial fallout from Cool Whip-Gate may have ended with dessert being served, but the man got an inside view into how his girlfriend’s family operates, which holds more weight than Whipped Topping.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.