"I Can't Eyeroll Hard Enough": 35 People Share Rage-Inducing Stories About Their 'Karen' Family Members

Not my parents, but my grandpa.

We were in the airport to come back from a weekend.

Before getting inside the plane, he sees a black man, and Whispers to me "he's gonna try to get on the plane without a ticket". I was confused and told him that if he went through security, he had to have a ticket.

Then we get in the plane, and there is a woman wearing a hijab in first class.

We go to our seats, and he sees a man getting to his seat, wearing a hoodie, with the hood on, and sunglasses. (The guy probably just slept on the airport's seats)

He calls a flight attendant, and i don't understand.

He tells him that their is a woman wearing a scarf and a hooded man, and that they should be careful about them.

So basically he was afraid the plane was going to be hijacked because of a man in a hoodie and a muslim midle aged woman.

I looked at the flight attendant in a sorry way, and he smiled nicely at me, and told my grandpa that he will take care of it.

Never been that ashamed.

My Mom attempting to change my sister’s diaper on the table in a crowded restaurant. Going ballistic when the waitress asked her to used the restroom.

Then having me change her while she argued with the entire restaurant.

She complained about the food she got from a free food pantry that she was taking advantage of while she was getting $5k a month in spousal support that she didn't have to report as income.

Nephew of a Karen. Was visiting her and she needed to stop by walgreens. She had newspaper ad that stated that some candles were 50% off so she bought like 10 of them. She got charged full price and flipped out. We're talking like paying a dollar per candle instead of 50 cents. The cashier and I both showed her that she was holding an old newspaper and the add even said that the offer expired a week ago...then she shifted to "well you could have told me more nicely" and kept bi**hing. I just kept telling her we needed to leave. Once I finally got her out into the car I said I had forgotten to grab a pack of gum and went back in and apologized to the poor guy.

My mom almost got us arrested for domestic terrorism once. We were at the Mexico City airport flying to *Juarez* and we were bringing back a bunch of plates and s**t she got while we were there in this huge box. We get to check in counter, guy says she needs to have the box wrapped. My mother is *deeply offended by this*. “WELL IVE NEVER HAD TO DO THAT BEFORE!! I BRING STUFF FROM MEXICO CITY ALL THE TIME AND IVE NEVER HAD TO DO THAT!” She yells, causing some bewildered stares in her direction. Keep in mind, this is a *very* white woman arguing angrily in absolutely *flawless* Spanish, so that’s already intriguing enough as it is. Guy again demands she needs to go get the box tape wrapped, and that’ll be an extra charge of about 200 pesos (around $10). Instead of doing that, she storms off, leaving a massive, unidentified box, fully unattended. Yknow, that thing the airport announcements always tells you NEVER TO DO?! My dad and I had already checked in and made it through security while this was unfolding. Mom joins us at the gate in a huff, regaling to us this slight against her honor. Just as she finishes, 5 security officers walk up to her, AR-15’s at their sides, and asks her is she’s [my moms name]. She says she is, they yank her up and start dragging her away. Dad, a lawyer, has an “oh s**t” moment, and we go running after her. To sum up, dad does lawyer things, she doesn’t get arrested for terroristic threats, we somehow make our flight, and we did get that damn box of f*****g plates back home. I make fun of her every time we use them.

My mom is a Karen. Everytime we go out to dinner with her it's an absolute nightmare. Her fork is bent, this dish wasn't as spicy last time, the waitress doesn't address her first, her food is "cold" (read the physical plate wasn't hot, not the actual food), it's been too long since we've seen our server even though she doesn't actually need anything. Each of these complaints of voiced arrogantly at the server and followed up with "I was a waitress and we never had these issues".

She was a part time waitress in the early 90s at a pizza joint. I can't eyeroll hard enough.

When I was about 9, my dad took my sister and I to McDonald's one evening. At this point he and my mum were separated, so he only saw us once a week (and those visits gradually petered out to my relief).
He ordered a quarter pounder with cheese for himself, took one bite and spat it out into the box. He then stormed up to the counter, ignored the line of people waiting to order and started loudly berating the woman at the check out (who hadn't even served him in the first place).
"I asked for a god damn quarter pounder without cheese, why the hell have you put cheese on my burger? You clearly don't know how to do the most simple of tasks, I want to speak to your manager..."
And on and on it went. I felt such shame and humiliation, and I couldn't even finish my meal.
If that wasn't bad enough, when he finally came back with a fresh meal, I told him in a timid voice that he had in fact ordered one with cheese and he started screaming at me.
Yeah... I wasn't exactly gutted when those little outings with dad ended.

This is decades ago, but my mother used to sneak back to our table and "adjust" whatever tip my dad/myself would leave.

Hint: It was never adjusted upwards.

Not my mother, but my grandmother used to scream and yell at anyone who walked their dog or played basketball or rode their bike past her house during the day. When I came out to get her and reminded her that people had the right to use the city street, she turned on me and screamed, "I pay my goddamn taxes so I can have some peace and quiet, so yes it IS my street and I don't WANT THEM ON IT!"

The level of self absorption and entitlement would have been staggering, except we all knew she was a raging narcissist, so it was par for the course. However, when she was younger, at least, she saved her worst behavior for private episodes of verbal vomiting.

My mom. At the early stages of Covid she was a Pro-Covid (somehow. She was just a douchebag whilst doing it). She was in line at the grocery store and an elderly woman didn’t want to keep a distance in the line, so my moms natural instinct was to cough at her (like on purpose). I was so mad at her, it was so disrespectful. She later turned into an anti-Covid person, claiming that no one had “technically” died from Covid, all the millions that had died just happened to have Covid as well, which is once again extremely disrespectful to all the people that has lost someone.

My dad once got banned from Ford (the only place that his car insurance covered the 3 year late oil change he needed) because they had a vending machine that sold Arizona tea for $1.25 while the can said 99 ¢. He didn't even buy it or want to. He was screaming at the front desk people because of it. The vending machine wasn't owned by Ford and they were most certainly not in control of the prices. I have no idea what he hoped to gain out of the ordeal.

Back in the mid-nineties my mom rented Clerks for the family at the rental store in the Kroger's we used to shop at while having no idea how raunchy the movie is. She was so offended by it that the next day she went back in to scream at the manager at how outrageous it was that they would carry such an offensive movie at a family rental store and demanded that they permanently take it off the shelf, and the goddamned thing of it is they actually obliged her. They never carried Clerks at that location again, so if you ever tried to rent the movie from a Kroger's in Lewisville, Texas back in the mid-nineties and weren't able to, I apologize. It is entirely my mom's fault.

This actually happened today:

For context I’m a Trans male who hasn’t undergone surgery. I have autism, anxiety, and depression.

I went to my autism center to go get my meds refilled and had to ask my doctor about possibly upping the dosage on my medication.

My mother (I’ll just call her K for Karen) started giving me this glare, and said, “This better not be because I told you you couldn’t be a boy”

Me having no idea what she’s talking about looked at her and asked why she would straight out me in front of my doctor.

My doctor begins asking me questions and after a good 20 minutes, she came to the conclusion I had gender dysphoria. My mother did not take that very well, and slammed her hand down on the doctors desk, and started screaming, “SHE IS A GIRL. SHE WILL STAY A GIRL! AND ALWAYS WILL BE!”

My doctor looked up at her, “Ma’am please calm down, it’s not as bad as what you think. He doesn’t have to get the surgery yet but when he is an adult, he will have that choice.”

I was embarrassed, and felt completely uncomfortable with the situation at hand. I didn’t know how to react knowing my mother just yelled at a doctor because of her beliefs that altering my body is wrong and against “gods will”

I went to the bathroom, and refused to look at anyone or even speak after the appointment. I couldn’t even bring myself to apologize to the poor doctor.

My mom is always so rude to servers/retail workers/fast food workers, it’s like she considers them beneath her, and god forbid her order gets messed up in any way, or she’ll be right back in the restaurant demanding free food.

One time at Sonic she got the wrong flavor slushie and she spent 10 minutes holding up the drive thru line arguing with the person in the window because they would only replace her drink and not give her free food in addition.

She does this quite often. And I can’t pretend I don’t know her because usually I’m in the passenger seat or right there next to her so all I can do is give the poor person ‘I’m sorry’ eyes

When I was wedding dress shopping, I invited my mom only because I knew she’d be hurt if I didn’t. My friends still recall almost ten years later how rude and obnoxious she was to the poor staff. Keep in mind, my parents didn’t give us a penny for the wedding so it’s not like she was the one paying for the dress and had a say in anything. She kept talking over me and giving wrong information every time a staff member asked me a question and then she was just horribly negative about everything—the sizes that the store had, dress details (as if something low-cut can’t be altered…if I had *minded* a low-cut dress which I didn’t), etc. All this was loudly in front of the staff and the few other people in the shop. She even tried telling them not to bring dresses I had specifically arranged to try on ahead of time. My aunt (her SIL) started distracting her as much as possible because it was so uncomfortable while my friends tried to lighten things up. I did find my dress and when I went to order it at the cash register, the employee asked if I wanted to open a store credit card and my mom goes, “YES, she does!” I did, but 1) it was not her choice to make and 2) I hadn’t discussed it with her anyway so she had no reason to think I wanted to do it. I think that’s when I finally snapped at her and later apologized to the staff.

Went to some hotel one night for dinner. The hotel had a pool that was clearly only for 'Hotel Guests' as was indicated by dozens of signs surrounding the pool. My mother told my little brother and I we were allowed to use the pool and even had us wear our bathing suits under our clothing so we could easily get changed after dinner. Well, they clearly have employees monitoring this and not long after we jumped in the water security calmly walked over and asked to see our hotel room keys. Since we weren't staying there and didn't have room keys we were politely asked to leave. My mother refuses and insists we were within our rights because we ate dinner there. A screaming match insues, hundreds of people are staring at us, and finally the head of security had to escort us off the property before the police were called.

As a son of a slight Karen, I don't have too many stories but this one will always stick with me. So one time in the summer (I was about 10-11 years old) my mom, aunt and I all went to this beach that had a restaurant right next to it. After we finished swimming, we got a little hungry so we decided to go to this restaurant.

The place was incredibly packed, people sitting at tables everywhere and there were only a few members of staff who were serving. There was even another section at the back with more tables. We waited for about 20-30 mins before we order. My aunt wasn't with us when we ordered so I was the one listening to her bs the entire time. When we eventually order my mother started shouting at the wait staff.

"Do you know how long we've been waiting for? It's been 30 minutes!"

The poor staff had to explain that they were (obviously) very packed but my mother wasn't having it.

"I don't care! You should hire more staff then!"

At this point I was off to the side, red in the face because I felt so bad for the employees. We order and walk back. I tell my mother that I was very upset with her behavior and that there were many people in the restaurant. She kept on shouting at me, saying "it's not my place to comment" but I just ignored her.

When I went to pick up our food, I immediately said
"Hey I'm really sorry about my mum shouting at you, you guys have so many tables to serve and your doing the best you can."

The guy who took our order was really nice and said something along the lines of "Don't worry kid, thanks for appologising"

So yeah, my mum's a Karen

My dad isn’t usually a Karen/Kevin, but …

We’re from the Uk , but parents really into country music. So one of our summer holidays when I was probably around 13 was 3 weeks driving around Tennessee. Memphis - Pigeon Forge - Chattanooga - Nashville. This would have been around ‘98/‘99 I think.

Did all the usual tourist s**t; Graceland, Sun Studio, Tooties, Grand Ole Opry, stalking Garth Brooks etc.

We visited this one place - it was a museum with some sort of backlot studio tour, and my dad was really excited about visiting it. Except the backlot tour part was closed (think the roads were closed for roadworks). My dad was not happy about this, especially as he only found out after we’d paid and been around the main museum.

So we went to discuss it with the ticket desk. Both sides made some reasonable points (there was a sign on the ticket desk, albeit it was a little small to have spotted etc). My dad was not getting far, and exclaimed “I’ve come all the way from England to visit this *god damn* place.”

Oh dear … using blasphemy against a employee of a country music museum in Memphis (or Nashville; forget which city we were in) absolutely did not have the desired affect.
“We’ll y’know what sir? I was thinking about giving y’all a refund, but I don’t think i want to do that anymore “

At that point my siblings and I all noped out of that one and headed outside.
Never did find out if dad got his refund.

Shouted associated profanities at a child with mental disabilities for threatening to harm her “little boy”.

My Ex-Mother-in-law was a Karen, and her name was actually Karen. She worked part time in a diner and was not very good. People would get angry because she would mess the simplest things up by not writing them down and mix them up later. Because of this she believed the only way to fix any inconvenience when eating out was to complain loudly to a Manager. Did she go 2 minutes with an empty glass... "MANAGER!!" Was the steak slightly over\undercooked "MANAGER!!".... She would loudly tell the Manager that she worked at a Diner and would have never made this mistake, and if the Manager did not comp whatever was not perfect she pulled out her phone and started loudly dictating her Yelp review with the Manager standing there.

It was so bad that if I found out she was going to the same place as us, I would just not go. She was such a spiteful, hateful, toxic waste of oxygen.