If there’s one thing the greeting card industry never bothered making room for, it’s the «Spectacular 82nd Birthday!» aisle. But in some families, aging into your early eighties comes with more pomp than a royal Quinceañera, except instead of a coming-of-age, it’s a coming-for-your-wallet. While most folks would mark 82 with a modest cake and a few laughs about lost reading glasses, this family’s matriarch expects an annual gala at a price point just shy of a destination wedding. Move over, Sweet 16, there’s a new diva in town, and she wants the wine list.

In this family’s sacred tradition, each year’s Big Dinner relies on the world’s most generous event sponsor: the daughter-in-law with a credit card and a well-honed ability to swallow pride along with overpriced appetizers. The rest of the family rotates through acting roles: silent bystander, dramatic crier, or amateur Facebook novelist. All perform their parts admirably until, gasp, this year’s patron saint of birthday dinners finally declines to treat a gathering that’s less birthday bash and more financial ambush.

The fallout involves more drama than a soap opera marathon. The social media wailing, the claims of abandonment, the horror that anyone could treat Grandma’s 82nd like, well, any other Tuesday past 80. Who knew that not paying for a steak could trigger a geriatric tantrum?