How Every Family Text Thread Becomes a Courtroom Drama Over Potato Salad
Because Nothing Brings a Family Together Like Passive Aggression and Carbs
It always starts the same way. A simple, innocent text.
“Hey everyone! What’s everyone bringing for Labor Day??”
A harmless question. A call to arms disguised as a family bonding exercise.
What follows is not meal planning. It is not logistics.
It is a psychological thriller with mayonnaise.
The Crime
Enter Chad. There’s always a Chad.
Chad is 34, lives in a city where brunch is a personality trait, and drinks coffee that takes longer to brew than his last relationship.
Chad types this and sets the whole world on fire:
“Do we even need potato salad anymore? Seems kinda… outdated.”
Outdated.
The word echoes across generations like a dinner bell for family conflict.
Aunt Judy’s Fitbit alerts her to a spike in heart rate. Grandma’s Samsung Galaxy S3 starts typing in CAPS LOCK of its own volition. Somewhere, a rogue uncle cracks a beer in anticipation of the carnage.
Within 90 seconds, the group chat has morphed from polite planning to The People vs. Chad: The Great Potato Salad Trials of 2025.
The Evidence
The group chat fractures. Factions form.
Sides are taken with the speed and efficiency usually reserved for coups.
The “Traditionalists” come in hard:
“Some of us still like the classics, CHAD.”
“Not everything has to be deconstructed kale slaw.”
Screenshots emerge from family BBQs past.
Photos surface of Young Chad, circa 2003, double-fisting potato salad like a man who has known no greater joy.
Exhibit A is damning.
Meanwhile, Cousin Megan texts from the sidelines with an unsolicited list of gluten-free alternatives and a Pinterest link no one opens.
A rogue uncle types:
“Ambrosia salad. Now THAT was a salad.”
He will receive no further engagement. He never does.
The Verdict
Then… Grandma speaks.
With the quiet, terrifying authority of someone who once survived the Depression and three generations of your father’s mistakes:
“I AM MAKING IT. IF YOU DONT LIKE IT DONT COME.”
This is a binding resolution.
There will be no further discussion.
Aunt Judy responds with a GIF of Judge Judy slamming her gavel.
The matter is closed.
Chad’s typing bubbles appear… and vanish.
He knows when he’s beaten. Not with logic. Not with science. But with sheer, generational casserole-based force of will.
Epilogue: Peace, For Now
The family gathering arrives.
The potato salad is there, perched on the folding table like an ancestral relic. No one touches it. Not out of protest. Out of fear. Fear of waking the Kraken again.
Chad arrives carrying a sad little quinoa salad that quietly dies of loneliness next to the deviled eggs.
Balance is restored.
Until Thanksgiving.
Because God help us, someone’s gonna bring up the fruitcake.
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