What would you do if someone volunteered to have a barbque at your house, then proceeded to take over the kitchen like it was theirs?

Occasionally we hang out with my husband’s best friend, *Jack, and his wife, *Mary. Mary and I are not close. She’s loudly and verbally homophobic, racist against all non-whites (especially against “coloreds,”) and disgusted by all non-Catholics. Needless to say, she doesn’t know much about me at all! (How to lose a “friend” in under .00000000000666 seconds!)

She has a couple of horses she wants to get sold and asked for my help. I had suggested advertising on Facebook but she is completely cowed ha ha by Facebook and computers in general.

I told her I’d be happy to work up an ad and post it, however, I needed to work it up on my computer because I know from experience she doesn’t have any Microsoft office programs on her computer, which I need to make the ad, and it’s slower than molasses in winter.

She called late Friday morning and said, “Lets have a barbque at your house at 6:00 tonight and we can do the ad!”

I was a bit taken aback, because it meant I needed to clean, shop, and cook, and only had a few hours to do it in, but I said, “OK.”

So 6:00 came and I had deviled eggs, baked beans, corn on the cob, and a dessert ready to go. She had said she would bring the hamburger and the buns but forgot both. But she did bring a dessert (it was good, too) and two kinds of salad.

So she and I got to work on the ad while the guys ran to get the burgers and the buns. (No critiquing of the ad, please. The color scheme is mine, so you can dis that, but it’s written exactly the way she said it should be written.)

Rick made, and grilled, the burgers.

Fast forward to time to eat.

We started setting all the food out.
When her husband asked where we were eating, I said, “Anywhere you want! You want to eat in the living room?”
He said, “Sure!”
So I started setting desserts and a couple of the side dishes out on the kitchen table, and other food on the kitchen counters.

Suddenly all the dishes I’d set out on the table had been moved to the counter and other places.
I said, “We’re eating in the living room.”
“No, we’re not!” Mary snapped. “We’re eating at the table!”
Well, OK.

My husband had set out a small bowl of melted butter along with a basting brush to put butter on the corn. Before we’d even started serving ourselves, she poured the butter out and threw the basting brush in the sink. Rick asked where it went, and I just looked at him.
Well, OK.

I also had started to cut up tomatoes and lettuce to put on the burgers. She asked what I was doing, and she said, “No! I brought a salad!” Well, she had, but the one she was referring to was a dinner salad. I guess we could have put salad on our hamburgers, but no one did.

So we got through dinner, then Jack, Rick, and I went out on the deck. Mary started cleaning (which I was going to leave for the next day.)
So I came back in to help and she said, “I put some dishes in the dishwasher, but it is FULL! I mean FULL! The dishes in there should have been washed by now!”
Well, they were washed. I just hadn’t gotten around to emptying the dish washer yet. The damn thing was still warm.
Well, OK.

Honestly, I wasn’t really angry, just a little frustrated and bemused at the total loss of control at my barbque! The whole thing just seemed odd.

I understand that she was aware that she had volunteered me to host the barbque, and she wanted to make things as easy as possible, but I think she over-stepped the line when she kept over-riding my plans and wishes.

So has anything like this happened to you before? What would your reaction have been? Would you have said anything or would you have just let it ride, like I did?