No kidding. I wouldn't sit in silence and just let them treat me like that. Bad first impression on both ends for OP.

I like your feminilisation of YOU DON'T HAVE BALLS. Btw if the word feminilisation doens't exist. I'm sorry. I'm not a native speaker. (But it sounded cool :)

Mite have been th granny

Might have been the dog

Manners.... Psh ;)

The boyfriend wasn't on the phone too, she received a text from some one else that wasn't at the table

'Specially if it's one of them smarty-pants devices that can tell you the correct usage of to, too and two.

Yeah, except civil people don't STEAL other people's property. Why didn't the boyfriend inform his GF of this rule? Why didn't the parents simply say, "Oh, we don't use phones at the table, please put it away"? Nope, they immediately STOLE her phone from her, which it is. They took her property without her permission and are refusing to give it back based on some arbitrary standard that they have. Not everyone's houses are the same, and what you consider "civil" is not what other people consider "civil." So get off your high horse and please realize not everyone has to assimilate to your biased opinions of how the world should work. I check my phone at the table if I get a text (I have it on vibrate.) Why? Because there might've been an emergency and a lot of my friends and family are more comfortable texting than calling. A text is better because it leaves the notice up on the screen and it's faster to open a text then to dial into a voicemail and input a password and go through the annoying "This call came in at XX:XX time - plays voicemail." So, once again, get the hell off your high horse and don't condone people for stealing other people's property instead of informing said person of the rules of their house. If I was at your house and you took my phone, and refused to give it back to me until your personal standards were met, I would call the police. If you aren't going to respect me by informing me that you don't find what I am doing to be appropriate/respectful, and allow me to correct my behavior based on your rules in your house, to hell with impressing you. I will call the police and make you return my property.

Perdix is right. It is not theft, op should learn some freaking manners. Heaven forbid op have to go 30 minutes without her phone. If she doesn't like the rules there then she should be with someone who's parents raised them with no respect or manners.

It's not that it's technology, it would be rude to have a book or a newspaper at a dinner table. The principle is that you should be giving your undivided attention to the people you are actually dining with.

That depends on your family, though. In my family, we FREQUENTLY have books at the table. We have my whole life. If we go to a restaurant, it is expected that we will all have a book to read while waiting for our food. And it is entirely possible that her family has a rule that she HAS to respond to texts from her parents right away, and she needed to check to see if it was them.

#131, you must be a boring bunch of *******. You can't find anything to talk about with your own family? And if she has to take texts at a table where nobody else has a phone, she should excuse herself from the table to read and respond. Etiquette varies in context. If everyone at a table has books or cell phones, that's one thing, but at the table in the story, only the OP had one.

That's no reason to diss joa76's family like that.. Calling them a boring bunch of *******? Now, that's RUDE

Kinda ironic that I was pontificating on the subject of etiquette, huh?

Etiquette is instilled on how you were raised. How was she to know that no one else at the table had phones? Obviously she didn't, and she wasn't informed in any way that they find it rude to answer a call/text at the table until they took her phone away from her. That's unreasonable. The parents should've requested she turn her phone off or put it away, and if she didn't then they ask her to leave the house. STEALING is NEVER proper etiquette.

As I scrolled down I saw your photo and I was like wow wtf scrolled back and I was thought ohh.

She wasn't texting, you moron. She was checking her phone. God, I hate it when people on this damn comment board assume she's texting when she was not. *******..