The reason the whole room went quiet when the poster questioned the sweetened potatoes it was because everyone there knew the potatoes were weird, possibly they all hated them, but there was a unwritten rule not to bring it up at the table. It was collective embarrassment.

Porkies is short for porky pies, rhymes with lies. Cockney Rhyming Slang, from London.

Story 1: NTA, the fact that you even lent the E-Reader in the first place was EXTREMELY generous already, honestly, her passing around the E-Reader means it's more likely to get damaged or lost, it's bad enough when someone takes one of my books and doesn't give it back, but E-Readers are expensive!

Story 3 date night: you literally made your wife think date night on the sofa was going to include snuggling and more, since the children were accounted for. Definitely the AH and I would have stolen your book to make you wrestle for it. You owe an apology and an extra date night with dinner.

With the sweet potatoes I actually don’t think she was that rude. Like I feel like she’d not have said more than ‘oh I just wasn’t expecting it’ if the mother in law hadn’t purposely paid attention to it and made a point of asking her didn’t she like them? As if people don’t just like different things. I get usually you don’t say anything but I feel this was a bit unavoidable. Plus you know someone for many years, you should be able to not walk on eggshells with them. I don’t think she’d have said anything if she wasn’t so surprised.

50:30 I'm giving OP the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't actually rude. It sounds like she accidentally stepped on a well-known landmine. It's likely not a coincidence SIL has made the mashed potatoes every year, likely so she and the other spouses don't have to eat MIL's.

Cereal story: just buy two boxes of Lucky Charms. Hide your own and give your son the other. Tell him, you're going to buy him a new box as soon as the old box is finished including the regular pieces without throwing them out. Teach your boy some manners and respect for food items, especially communal ones.

Story six makes me mad because if someone is cold the easy solution is more layers or a blanket, but if someone is hot and is already take off the layers, there’s nothing you can do. I think it’s very inconsiderate to make people excessively hot for this reason.

I'm kind of offended as a Canadian that someone made mashed potatoes sweet because mashed potatoes are not supposed to be sweet as far as I'm concerned 🤣

"Hiding my cereal" the marshmallows in lucky charms and like cereals are called dehydrated marshmallows. They can be bought in bulk. Just get the kid a bag as a gift for a holiday/birthday. But for Pete's sake here it is your job to ready this child for the world. Teach him some manners and food safety lessons.

If the reader is returned to OP with some function broken or not working the same way as before, everyone will feign ignorance and innocence. And then when OP tells co worker that she needs to pay for the repair she’ll explode, and tell everyone at work how awful he is.
Lesson learned, I hope.

49:33 Christie I think you’re being way too critical here because OIP stopped eating them and didn’t say anything until a boyfriend’s mother made a comment about her not eating them and all she said is she didn’t expect them to be sweet. I don’t understand how OP is possibly the asshole or how she was rude.

Sweet mashed potatoes should be a jailable offence..

You never lend something that’s not yours.

Sweet mashed potatoes - I don’t think the was necessarily rude. She has 5 years of Sunday dinners and rapport with this family. I think bf’s mom potentially overreacted. Maybe this is a sore spot…why does SIL always bring the mashed potatoes? 😅

On the inlaw vacation: they should invite the inlaws to visit them instead where OP can control the AC herself.

If something belongs to another person, it's not "just a reader". It's another person you think is less important than his reader.

Common sense should tell anyone not to lend out other people's property to strangers they don't know.

I like how you make it sound like the non non-marshmallow part of Lucky Charms is a health food. Yall, those pieces are also mostly sugar. 😂

Potato story - Sister in Law doesn't like the potatoes either, that's why she always brings them.
Also, if I tasted regular looking potatoes and they were as sweet as OP is describing, I would probably react out of shock too.
I think the mom heard about sweet potatoes and thinks this is what that means, it gives big Alberta energy.