rSlash - r/AITA My Mom's Mac & Cheese is a Crime Against Humanity

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

0:00 Intro 0:10 Crazy Mac and cheese 4:22 Privilege 10:15 Babysitting 13:18 College money Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See you after details. Welcome to our slash Am I the Butthole, where we have the most disgusting, bizarre, crime against humanity mac and cheese you have ever heard about. Am I the butthole for finally telling my mother-in-law that her mac and cheese tastes terrible?

I'm a 28 year old woman and my husband is 30. We've been married for two years together for five and we're currently six months pregnant. We're very excited and blessed because I've had some complications in getting pregnant. I have a very good relationship with my in-laws and if any of us ever had a problem, we're able to talk it through. Except for one thing. My mother-in-law has her famous mac and cheese that everyone in her family absolutely loves. I, however, found it disgusting on day one, but I didn't want to come off as rude and ungrateful, so I pulled through it without saying anything. I told my husband about it, and he said that his mother has been making it for decades, perfecting the recipe, and she would be deeply offended if anyone told her anything bad about her mac and cheese.

So I never found the right moment to tell her. My husband, for some reason, loves it, so he didn't want to be the one to tell her. Which yeah, I totally understand because it's my issue and I had to deal with it. It's been almost two years of me pretending to like it. So two days ago, I decided to just tell her. It was a family dinner where my husband's parents had invited us over, and of course, his mother was making her so-called famous mac and cheese.

I almost threw up at the smell and I couldn't bear the thought of eating it, probably because I was pregnant. So at dinner, when I was offered the mac and cheese, I politely declined and said, no thank you. My mother-in-law looked at me and asked, why, you should eat it, it's good for the baby. I just came right out with it. I'm sorry, but I don't like your mac and cheese.

Everything else tastes delicious, but this is the one thing that I simply can't eat anymore. She looks so deeply offended that she snapped. Well, thanks for being honest, and didn't even look at or speak to me for the rest of the evening. My husband was on my side and tried to speak to his mother, but all I know is that it didn't work because she's been cold to me ever since. So, what's wrong with her mac and cheese? Her perfecting the recipe ended up with this result. Mac and cheese combined with salmon, kimchi, pineapple, seaweed salad, collard greens, onion, and garlic.

I don't have a problem with the greens or the onion, but the rest tastes so disturbingly wrong with mac and cheese. However, the reason why I think that I might have been a butthole is because my husband said that she's been perfecting this recipe for years. Her entire family clearly loves it, and I tell her that her perfected and loved mac and cheese is terrible. Am I the butthole? For context, OP is French, and her husband's family is Korean. Okay, OP, after I finished recording everything, I had to just stop the recording for a second and just spend a good 60 seconds with my eyes closed, imagining what that tastes like. It's savoury because it's got mac and cheese and salmon, but it's also spicy with the

kimchi, but it's also sweet with the pineapple, but it's also salty and fishy with the seaweed salad, and then it's bitter with the collard greens, and then it's intensely seasoned with garlic. I literally can't do it. Opie, I can't do it. I have no idea what this tastes like. This mac and cheese dish just feels like your mother-in-law took every single random left over in the fridge, dumped it into a casserole tray, threw it in the oven, and was like, would you like some mac and cheese?

This isn't mac and cheese, this is a Frankenstein of leftover dishes. I'm on your side OP, this isn't a beloved family dish, this is a war crime. OP, I'm giving you zero out of five buttholes, I'm giving your mother-in-law one out of five buttholes. And also, let's keep in mind that even if Gordon Ramsay himself said that this is the most delicious mac and cheese ever created, so what? OP still has a right to not enjoy it, doesn't she? Especially if she's pregnant when certain foods can make you nauseous. If you don't want to eat it, girl, don't eat it. And she's gonna get offended at you and give you the cold shoulder just because

she doesn't want to eat your dish that she's been silently stumbling for two years. Grow up, man. Am I the butthole for telling my poor friend that actually he's the privileged one now? I'm a 28 year old man. I met one of my very close friends, Nathan, during our first post-college job at a prestigious finance firm. We immediately bonded over the long work hours, awful middle management, and generally soul-sucking nature of making powerpoint slides and excel sheets all day.

For the next few years, a lot of our friendship revolved around talking about work and how much we hated it. A few years ago, I decided that I couldn't take the corporate grind anymore and I quit my job and moved to the nonprofit world. While I now certainly make less than I would have at my old job, I'm exponentially happier, healthier, and absolutely love the work that I do. I also make a very good salary of 80k a year, which I feel is more than enough money for me and my needs. Nathan has been ambitiously climbing the corporate ladder and recently became a VP at his firm. He makes well over $300,000 a year.

Nathan grew up in a very poor family and his relatives are still financially unstable and often ask him for money. I, on the other hand, grew up in a comfortable upper middle class suburb with parents who have always been financially stable. They're not millionaires, but if anything ever happened to me, they could and would help me until I got back on my feet. Nathan does not have that privilege. I recently got offered my dream job where I'd be making slightly less money than I am

now, 75K a year. Despite the money, I'm genuinely giddy about this job prospect, and I was pumped to tell my friends. However, when I told Nathan, his response was, I'm glad you have the financial privilege to take a pay cut. Not. Wow, OP, I know you've been really wanting this job for months now, and you've told me all about how excited you are about it.

Congratulations, or anything along those lines. I admit that I snapped back at him, and I told him that he makes triple the amount of money that I do, and that at some point he needs to realize how he's got privileges of his own instead of pointing out mine. The conversation got a bit heated, and we agreed to hang up and cool off before talking it over later. Now I'm wondering if I should apologize to Nathan for what I said, or if I should stand my ground.

I'm feeling angry and a bit defensive, which I realize is exactly the reaction that a spoiled rich kid would have. However, I also do think that it was a bit mean of him to say that at that exact moment when I was so excited. And while generational wealth does have privileges, income alone doesn't. He literally makes overtriple the amount that I now make, so it seems like a tiny bit hypocritical for him to be calling me privileged. Also, as a final note, while my parents certainly are well

off, they don't support me financially in any way, and they haven't seen me since I graduated from college seven years ago. So I'll leave the judgment to you all. Am I the butthole? The one thing about this post that really surprised me is that after you and Nathan got into an argument, you both agreed to just hang up, cool down, and talk about it later. To me, that indicates that you're both relatively reasonable people, and that you both care about your friendship.

I'm so used to stories where people go to the absolute extreme reaction where they cut people out of their lives and they never talk to each other again, things like that. So I would say that in this post, it's less important who's right and wrong and what's more important is that you guys care about each other and that you're good friends. So instead of giving a butthole score, I think I want to remind you OP that you're good friends. So, instead of giving a butthole score, I think I want to remind you OP that you're both dealing with privilege and non-privilege. OP, you have privilege in the sense that you grew up very stable

and probably that financial stability contributed to you giving up a high paying job to take a job that you really wanted. And as a result, you're now personally less financially stable. So your family background is a source of privilege, but your current income is less a source of privilege. But Nathan's in the same boat, just the opposite. He grew up super poor, which means he wasn't privileged,

but now he's making a lot, which is a source of privilege. And actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason why he climbed the corporate ladder so aggressively is because he came from that background and that was probably a motivator for him. So just like calm down you two. You both have privilege, you both don't have privilege, so just meet in the middle, understand that someone said something they shouldn't have and try to work it out because I think you two are real friends. Okay, we have an update. Nathan's been my buddy for years through thick and thin, so I called him back up to apologize.

I mentioned that I really didn't know what his experience had been like, and that I was so proud of him for all that he's accomplished, and that I just felt a little hurt and unsupported when he called out my privilege from the get-go instead of being happy for me. It felt like he was minimizing my success, but it turns out he's just been having a tough time at work and didn't respond in the best way to my job news. He apologized too, and we had a really nice conversation. I think that since we started our careers at the same place and time, that it's easy for us to compare ourselves, and we're both guilty of the competitive comparison game with each other. Anyways, it's all good now, and I think that we've opened up a good dialogue where I can learn more about my buddy's past and what it's been like for him.

And try to support him with some of the mental struggles of coming from poverty. Also, Nathan and I will be going to a baseball game next week, and he offered to buy the tickets because he's loaded and I'm a non-profit schlub. Both his words, both said with love. Alright, I'm really this has a happy ending. Honestly, it sounds like you both got your dream jobs, but each of your dream jobs has its own, you know, ups and downs. You have quality of life, but no income, he has income, but no quality of life, which is what each of you values.

So I'm happy this one worked down in the end. Am I the butthole for threatening to call the cops on my brother for trying to force me to babysit his daughter after I already told him multiple times beforehand that I don't want a babysitter? I'm a 27 year old man. I have a 27 year old brother who has a 4 year old daughter. His daughter's mom passed away because of birth complications and he's been raising her mostly alone ever since. Recently, he asked me if I could babysit her for the night so that he could go on a date, but I refused because I'm not experienced with kids, and frankly, because I simply don't want a babysit. My brother kept insisting, saying that he's too tight with money to pay for a babysitter, but I kept refusing to do it. However, one day around 7 pm,

I suddenly hear a girl knocking at my door, and there was my niece while my brother was nowhere to be found. I let her in my room, and then I started calling my brother multiple times, but he wouldn't pick up any of my calls. After half an hour, I sent him a message that if he doesn't come back in 15 minutes, I'll report him to the cops for child abandonment. He came back after 20 minutes, but luckily for him, I hadn't called the cops yet. He was absolutely furious with me and started berating me literally in front of his daughter, but I eventually made him leave my house with my niece.

However, afterwards, he kept sending me message about how I failed as both a brother and an uncle. That I proved to my niece that I don't love her and that I see her as a burden, and that I couldn't even allow him this one night of fun when he hadn't passionately hugged since his daughter was born. I messaged him that that last thing was his problem, not mine. So he needs to figure that out on his own instead of putting it on me. However, this only led to him sending me even more venomous messages.

My boyfriend, however, thinks that I'm acting like a butthole to my brother, and that we could have taken care of my niece for this one night without creating a scene. So am I the butthole? Will I be the butthole for revealing where my kids' college money came from? I'm a single mother of two kids, an 18-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy. Their fathers are not in the picture. Recently, I was contacted by my ex-brother-in-law.

He told me that when he was married to my sister, he had started a college fund for my kids. They separated, but he still wanted to give the money to my kids. It's not a full-ride amount, but it will mean that my daughter won't have to work during college unless she wants spending money, and it's more than me or my parents can give her.

Obviously, I was overjoyed at this, but I asked him not to tell anyone because my sister has grown quite bitter about their divorce. I'm not really sure what went down, but as far as I know, they had separate finances, so I don't think that it was because of money reasons. When I told my family that we'd received a donation to my daughter's college fund, everyone

was overjoyed, but also really suspicious, because there were times in the last few years that money would have really helped. Someone in the family started the joke that I got this money for my boss for favors. The rumor is not true, but my sister and brother won't let it go. For example, let's get take out tonight. Hey, OP, go sleep with your boss and get some money. It's quite hurtful to have my family saying these things. Even as jokes, I'm considering telling them that my brother-in-law is the one behind it. It'll stop them insisting on knowing the source, but it might also hurt my sister

to know that he helped us. I can't really ask people for advice without leaking it. So OP, if you don't want to tell people where the money came from, then that's entirely your business. It's literally urine your daughter's finances at this point, so everyone else can pound sand. As for the joke that they won daughter's finances at this point so everyone else can pound sand. As for the joke that they won't let go, this is a completely separate issue. If your brother and sister won't respect your boundaries, then you need to enforce those boundaries by simply not being around them.

They'll either get your point and change their behavior, or they won't, in which case, you're better off because you're not hanging out with them. So I'm giving you 0 out of five buttholes. I'm giving your brother and sister zero point five out of five buttholes. That was our slash of my the butthole. And if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast

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