Food can be a tricky thing when it comes to picky eaters, especially at a kid’s birthday party.

One simple joke about hot dogs and bologna left a picky eater and his dad feeling more than a little upset.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for accidentally ruining my friends kids safe food?

So earlier today, we were at a mutual friend’s kid’s birthday party with all our kids.

Standard kid birthday party BBQ food — hot dogs and hamburgers.

I was helping the hosts on the BBQ, slinging dogs and burgers to all the kids and adults.

Here’s where the trouble started.

One of the kids at the party asked if we had any bologna.

I told him, “No bologna, only hot dogs and hamburgers,” and jokingly said, “But hot dogs and bologna are basically the same meat, just in a different form.”

The kid didn’t take either, grabbed some chips, and went off to do their thing with the other kids.

But that’s when the fallout began.

About two hours after the party, I got a text from the kid’s dad, which I found a bit odd.

We went to school together from kindergarten to university, but we’re not “let’s go do something this weekend” kind of friends.

It turns out, this friend had a few choice words.

In the text, he was losing his mind, saying I had ruined the one food they could rely on his son eating — bologna — because I said it was the same meat as a hot dog.

He explained that their son is a very picky eater.

They had no idea their words could have this effect.

I genuinely feel bad because I know how hard it can be to feed a kid when they don’t want anything you cook, but I had no idea how deep it ran with their son.

The hosts texted me, asking if the other friend had reached out.

Some other friends came to their defense, but they still feel bad.

They said I did nothing wrong, that it was being blown way out of proportion, and that if the kid had such a strong aversion, the parents should have mentioned it beforehand.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling like a total jerk all afternoon.

AITA?

Sometimes there’s no anticipating how people react to certain things.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter doesn’t think this innocent bystander deserves any of the blame here.

Without a proper heads up, there’s not much they could have done.

Their intentions were good – and sometimes that’s enough.

At the end of the day, it was just a slip of the tongue.

They couldn’t have known any better.

This harmless joke about bologna led to some serious beef.

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