When you work in a customer-facing role, you quickly become aware that people can be very, very strange. But more than that, people are weird and random and unpredictable – and often quite lovely. Though it is true that for every few lovely customers there are one or two deeply unpleasant folk that you really wouldn’t like to spend any more time with than is necessary to do your job. And unfortunately these people really do seem to pick their times to need help.

For the pizza server in this story, the holidays are always a busy time. And that makes sense, since folk are back home visiting family, and large get togethers book out large spaces of busy restaurants as loved ones all get together and celebrate as one. But in this instance, a whole family getting together meant even more weird behaviour all confined to one table – and if she thought this interaction started weird, she’d never believe how it ended.

Read on to find out what happened.

Hands down one of the strangest families I have encountered in my 11 years of customer service

I am a server in a higher priced pizza restaurant that has wait service at night and on Sunday mornings.

This incident took place on a Sunday morning after the holidays. People were still coming in with their families so our table size averaged six to twelve.

This particular table sat six people, but there were only three main players: a creepy son (at least 45 and balding), a crazy mother, and an emotional daughter-in-law (early thirties).

The son and his mother are sitting across from each other at a table that sits three to a side. The emotional daughter-in-law is sitting on her mother-in-law’s side, but is separated from the crazy moterh by another person.

Let’s see how this interaction went down.

I greeted the table with, “Hello, how are you doing today?” and immediately the creepy son exclaimed, “AMANDA!”

I was startled for a minute, then I realised he was guessing my name. I told him my actual name, to which he replied, “Well I was close!” The table chuckled.

I said, “heh okay, what can I get you guys to drink?” Everybody but the mom ordered water. In a slightly offended tone mixed with disbelief, she said, “ONLY WATER!?!? Well I’m drinking iced tea… sweet.”

She turned and looked at me with a smile that I can only describe as saccharine, but in such a way that it is genuinely terrifying. Like when someone is obviously extremely pissed so the way they express that is by being really really sweet. I replied, “Okay no problem!”

Read on to find out how things got weirder when she returned with the drinks.

I grabbed all of the drinks. When I set down the drinks on the table, each time the son said “Thank you”, “you are wonderful” and so on. I know that this seems very polite, but the way he said it was so enthusiastic that it was genuinely creepy. I felt uncomfortable.

I said, “Are you guys ready to order?”

No response. I stared awkwardly at them for a few minutes, since this usually inspires someone to talk to me. Nobody said a thing so I informed them that I would be back in a short while to give them some time.

I was the only server at the moment, so I carried on attending to other tables. But every time I walked by this family, the creepy son waved and smiled at me.

Eventually, she went back over to the table.

Now at this point, I had been waiting about fifteen minutes for them to be ready to order. They seemed to be talking about things other than pizza so I decided to approach.

I said, “Are you guys ready, or would you like a few more minutes?” To which the creepy son said, “She has a question.”

The emotional daughter-in-law asked me, “Do you sell slices?” I started, “We do, but not in-” I got cut off by the emotional daughter-in-law saying, annoyed, “I can’t hear you!”

Totally understandable since our music is kind of loud some times! I walked around to her side of the table, and talked to her personally. She was interested in one of our specialty pizzas.

So the server clarified the restaurant’s situation.

I told her, “We do sell slices, but not in our specialty pizzas.” To this she asked me, “Can we do a family special but choose a specialty pizza for an up charge?” (A family special is a large two topping with a large salad and four drinks).

I told her, “I’m sorry, there is no way for me to substitute that in the computer, so it has to be a two topping pizza. If you wanted the specialty pizza, you would have to purchase the salad and drinks separately.”

Then, the emotional daughter-in-law said to the mother-in-law, “She said we could do a specialty pizza in the family special, it will just be more money” (yeah, I didn’t say that) “but you guys don’t want three salads, do you? It would be cheaper to do it my way.”

To that the crazy mother-in-law said, “What? No, that won’t work!”

Then, the daughter-in-law’s reaction really caught the server by surprise.

The daughter-in-law, getting choked up, said, “Fine! You go ahead and do whatever you want!”

At this point, the emotional daughter-in-law stormed off to the single stall bathroom, crying. She ended up staying in there for at least twenty minutes. I was still standing at the table with my pad of paper and pen just feeling awkward.

I stared for a minute and nobody was saying anything. The emotional daughter-in-law’s husband, who was sitting next to the crazy mom starts talking to her about the pizza the daughter-in-law wanted. He said, “why don’t we just get the family specials like you wanted to?”

Now in full on super cyan saccharine mode, the mother said, “No, it is obvious that she is upset, so we will get her her OWN pizza, and you two will take it home and have it there.” She was clearly super ******, but smiling the whole time she says this.

But the mom’s solution only made things even more confusing.

He replied to her, “Why don’t we get here a different size?” to which she said, “We can’t, the specialty pizzas only come in a large.” I chimed in, “Actually, you can get them in small, medium or large!” The (non-creepy) son then said, “Well there you go mom, we will get her a small one.”

I was so happy we were making leeway at this point, since I had been standing at this table for a good fifteen minutes, which is a long LONG time if you are serving.

The mom said, “Okay, we will take a small specialty pizza, and two family specials.”

At this point she stopped ordering. Now, a family special comes with a large two topping pizza, but the customer has to choose the toppings they want. I wait a moment, but it is clear she is done.

So the server took a breath and asked the question.

I asked, “What toppings would you like on those?” to which the mom replied, “Oh.” She looked at her family. “What do you all want on your pizza?”

Now this was the point where I tried really hard to not let my jaw hang open in disbelief. These people had a collective time of THIRTY MINUTES to figure out what they wanted. The mom is a regular at our restaurant, so she knows how the special works. I was assuming that it was the stress of the holidays and family tension that had her forgetting this.

They decided on toppings and most of the meal went by without worry aside from a puffy, red faced, emotional daughter-in-law continuing to argue with the mom about the pizza deal even though she got the pizza she wanted, and the creepy son reminding me and uncomfortable amount that I am incredible and fantastic for refilling drinks.

Might I add that they were literally two feet from the coke machine?

But the drama didn’t end there.

When they were almost done eating, the crazy mom stopped me and said, “Come here.” She motioned with her hand for me to get my head closer to hers. I leaned in as close as I want to. This is apparently not close enough for her.

Again she said, “Come here!” She motioned more frantically. I was close to her face and I felt like she wanted to kiss me on the cheek. This was not a thing that I wanted, so I backed away. Then she said again, “NO! Come here! Come here!”

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At this point, the whole table was watching this. I leaned down again because frankly, I had NO idea how to react to this. I got so close to her face, that I could feel her tiny lady cheek hairs grazing mine, and my ear was dead even with her mouth.

She whispered into my ear. “You are really pretty” and just backed away.

Like, what? The server was clearly baffled by this.

In my head I’m all “What the ****?” but outside I’m all smiles and “Thank you!” because customer service.

At the end of the meal, they all stand up to leave. I was standing in front of them, and the creepy son looked at me and then turned to the crazy mom and said loudly, “She’s my new favourite!”

I told the kitchen staff and we laughed about how strange people are sometimes.

This was… perhaps one of the weirdest server stories ever.

To have all three of those bizarre characters in one family must have been challenging to deal with to say the least.

Let’s hope they gave her a decent tip for all the drama and discomfort.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person was understandably flabbergasted by the whole ordeal.

While others thought that their creepiness was bordering on threatening.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who was passed over for a promotion, so got a job with the competition and quit immediately.

Meanwhile, this Redditor was still cringing about the proximity.

Whatever was going on with this family, it really wasn’t healthy. From the creepy son making the server feel uncomfortable to the emotional daughter’s pizza topping related woes, to the weird mom being creepy enough to out creep all the rest of them, it’s clear that boundaries and social norms are very different, or even non existent within this particular family structure. Because personal space and a respect for other people’s time clearly means nothing to them.

Surely this server was pleased to see the back of the family who wasted her time, made her job a whole lot harder, and made her feel deeply uncomfortable throughout – because who wouldn’t be? And if they didn’t leave her a decent tip on the way out, especially during the holidays, it would make their weirdness even more difficult to handle. But at least she can go into the kitchen and laugh about it, because otherwise she’d probably go crazy dealing with people like this.