Dear Prudence,
My mother-in-law has an embarrassing and unethical habit regarding bringing outside food into events where it is banned. We’re not talking about putting a couple granola bars in her purse—she will pack whatever food her heart desires in a large, red cooler with a First Aid symbol on it and will lie about having severe Celiac disease so she can bring it in. She even acquired a forged doctor’s note in case security asks for it (which has only happened once, most places take her word for it). She doesn’t even have mild dietary restrictions; she is just a massive cheapskate and openly admits it.
The foods she chooses to bring are never discreet either. She recently brought an entire rotisserie chicken to a baseball game, which she gleefully cut up and shared with my husband and our children (I did not partake), oblivious to the weird looks from others around us. She has prepared an entire charcuterie board inside a water park. I’ve told her that she’s taking advantage of a system designed to accommodate people that have genuine medical conditions, but she just brushes it off and tells me that any system that charges $20 for a beer is not a system she wants to be a part of.
My husband doesn’t think this is worth getting into a major conflict over, because she has been doing this for years, and he doesn’t think she’ll stop anytime soon regardless of how I feel about it. I’m tempted to lay down the law and tell her that I won’t continue to attend any outings with her if she does this. Is this too harsh? I wish there was a middle ground I could find, but I don’t know what kind of compromise I can propose to her that won’t compromise my values.