Allergies can be a serious thing, with some of the most serious allergies leading to death if they’re not managed swiftly and properly.

So when you have an allergy – especially a food allergy – it’s absolutely vital that you let anyone you’ll be dining with know well ahead of time.

This allows for everyone to plan accordingly, whilst also keeping you safe.

But all allergy sufferers know this, right?

Unfortunately for the Thanksgiving host in this story, his sister-in-law didn’t tell him about her allergy until he was literally cooking the meal.

Read on to find out why he found this highly suspicious.

AITA for laughing about a pretend allergy?

My parents gave up wanting the responsibility of making a Thanksgiving meal about five years ago.

My house is big enough to host and I enjoy cooking, so for the past three years the duties have fallen to me.

I make the turkey, the stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls. Others bring sides and things like chips and drinks.

And this year, my brother and his wife came into town early and stayed over.

But this year, something seriously odd was going on.

Mid-morning on Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law wandered into the kitchen while I’m making stuffing. She saw my pile of breadcrumbs, celery, onion and sausage in a bowl, and me sautéing mushrooms.

She said, “What are THOSE for?” I told her they were for the stuffing. She put her hands on her hips and said, freaking out, “You can’t put mushrooms in the stuffing. I’m allergic!”

I was stupefied. I said, “When did this happen?”

And she just looked at me like I was an idiot, so I said, “When did you discover you’re allergic to mushrooms?”

She scoffed and said, “I’ve always been allergic.”

Uh-oh. This was news to her brother-in-law.

Now the thing is, when I make my stuffing I like things to be well incorporated, and I always chop the mushrooms small after I sauté them. So they’re not actually apparent in the mix as mushrooms among the other ingredients.

I burst out in a laugh and said, “Well, that’s interesting, because you weren’t allergic last year. And you weren’t allergic the year before.”

She asked me what I meant, and I told her I’d been making stuffing like this every year she’s eaten it, and furthermore she’s raved over it, and had zero allergic reaction.

So maybe she’s not allergic. Maybe she just thinks she doesn’t like mushrooms.

Yikes! Things did not go well from there.

She got mad and went to my brother to tell him, and she told him she wanted to leave – but he wanted to stay. So she spent the entire rest of the day shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

They were supposed to stay through the weekend but they left Thanksgiving night.

I confided in my mom and my sister yesterday and they kind of chuckled and said it’s not my fault, but my brother texted me this morning that I could have just not used the mushrooms, and that I made his wife feel stupid for no reason.

I maintain I didn’t make her feel anything.

AITA?

It’s clear that her mushroom allergy can’t have been severe, since she’s unknowingly been eating mushrooms in the Thanksgiving dinner year after year with no side-effects – and what’s more, she hasn’t told anyone about this allergy until now.

But the way that he handled the situation wasn’t particularly sensitive either, and suggesting that he ‘didn’t make her feel anything’ is really invalidating.

This is a really messy situation, and someone has to back down.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person agreed that if she was allergic, she should have mentioned something previously.

While this Redditor pointed out that she didn’t have to eat the stuffing.

And others stuck up for him, saying she was the one in the wrong here.

Of course, people can develop allergies over time – but this would have surely been something she would have told the family about. Being adamant that she’s always been allergic only furthers the confusion.

If she was allergic or even simply didn’t want to eat something, it would’ve been respectful of her to tell the hosts about that ahead of time, so that they could prepare accordingly.

Instead, she made Thanksgiving difficult for everyone, through the negative vibes she was giving off.

And that is completely unfair on everyone else.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.