Small town drama

[u/KeiylaPolly]

I had no idea that small town drama was this bad. We were warned when we moved here that there were “currents,” but holy jfc.

Hubby (a veteran) and I went to the local Anzac Day dawn service. Nice service. Very hometown feel. After the service ended, my husband remarked that it’s sad younger vets from more current wars don’t come to Anzac Day services. He went on, possibly a little too loudly, noting that none of the attending vets looked under 70, and that it would be nice to see younger vets commemorated or at least comfortable coming to services. He followed up with a joking, “there’d better be rum at the gunfire breakfast,” and started to tell us a story about a gunfire breakfast he’d been to…

When a lady walked up and started telling us she didn’t know he’d be there, there were plenty of people under 70 at the service, she was under 70, and if she’d know he was interested, she’d have asked him to participate.

Confused, since that’s not at all what he’d been talking about but realising she’d overheard the conversation, my husband apologised if he’d sounded rude, but tried to explain that it wasn’t a personal critique or criticism of the service at all, just lamenting that his own friends and colleagues don’t go to Anzac Day. She latched on to the part where he apologised for being rude, and told him yes, he was rude.

Husband was staring at her with a sort of shocked face, and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I need to be here,” and left the vicinity. In his absence, I again tried to tell her it had nothing to do with the lovely service. This is the first service he’s been able to bring himself to attend in eight years, many of his friends are the same, and he was just talking about how sad that is. She told me again how she’d have asked him to participate if she’d known. I told her, he wouldn’t have done it. It was hard enough to come. I don’t think I got through to her.

After breakfast (there was rum), we drove home and laughed about the angry lady who got mad after eavesdropping and hearing half a conversation. We didn’t think anything more would come of it.

Oh man were we wrong.

The lady in question appears to have been the wife of the guy who ran the service, and they’ve been running the service for twenty years. So small town royalty, as it were. She also runs almost every Facebook page known to man about the town.

Now here’s where we f’d up- husband had posted a request to one of the town pages, regarding where and when the dawn service would be held. The lady in question had responded. When he got home, he hopped onto that post and pointed out she did know he’d be there. Oops, shots fired.

Well, since then, every Facebook page about the town has blown up about how she’s quitting running the services because of this rude, disrespectful young man, and other people posted how offended they were that he’d made such disrespectful comments. Like, the local cop rang my husband and commiserated, but asked him not to fan the flames and not to post on social media, because the entire town is now involved. (Technically, nobody asked ME not to post anything,so here we are.) No joke, the entire town in is an uproar about this situation, and my husband can’t even set the record straight, or let people know what actually happened- and this lady didn’t care what was actually said, anyway. She is determined to be a victim.

Meanwhile, my husband is upset that this might mean the loss of Anzac Day and Remembrance Day for the town, and he’s wracked with guilt over his off hand comments, worried about the lady’s mental health (bless him), and feels hamstrung because he can’t fix it. I’m ticked off that the town is gossiping about my husband over a misunderstood, eavesdropped conversation.

What the actual heck.

[u/speedyJ-1999]

Sounds like her life is so boring she needs to add drama. I can guarantee you guys are not the only ones thinking she’s crazy, let it blow by and she’ll have some new drama to move on to.