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Reminding someone to wash their hands after handling raw chicken is about as reasonable as kitchen requests get, but for one sibling duo, it somehow escalated into a full water fight and a “broken” earbud.

One woman was gently pestering her 22-year-old sibling about proper hand hygiene while cooking together with mutual friends, when he got annoyed enough to throw water on her first.

She retaliated in kind, unaware he had an earbud in at the time.

What followed was two days of shifting blame, an initial “it’s fine” from her brother, followed by a delayed claim that the water had somehow destroyed the adhesive inside his earbud.

Now he wants an apology for damage she’s not convinced actually happened, and she’s refusing to give one since he started the whole thing.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for throwing water on my brother, potentially ruining his earbuds, and not apologising?

I’m really frustrated at the moment and genuinely cannot tell if I’m in the wrong at the moment.

Two nights ago, my brother (22), two mutual friends, and I (19) were cooking dinner together, which included raw chicken.

She quickly flagged a safety concern, but her brother kept dismissing her.

I noticed my brother was not using soap when doing dishes or washing his hands off after handling the chicken, so I kept reminding him to.

At this point, I was cutting up a capsicum and was washing the seeds out, so I basically had a capsicum cup of water.

Then the argument escalated.

He, being annoyed that I was pestering him, decided to throw water on me. I responded by throwing my capsicum-cup water at him.

But here’s where things got messy.

What I didn’t know was that he had an earbud in during this and was listening to music. He got upset and started yelling at me that I ruined his earbud, and I told him that he shouldn’t have started it if he didn’t want someone doing the same to him.

He went into his bedroom to check that they were okay and came out after a few minutes saying they were fine.

Now he’s claiming serious damage to the earbud, but she wasn’t buying his story.

Tonight he came into my room and said that me splashing him with water ruined the adhesive on his bud and it was now falling apart. I said that if water ruined it then it wasn’t a good construction, I do not believe that a splash of water caused the glue to fail, but he is adamant that it did.

So now the two are at a standstill.

He stayed for a few minutes bumbling and then asked for an apology. I refused because he started it and he didn’t apologise to me.

I do feel bad that maybe I did ruin it, but I just cannot tell if I am in the wrong here.

AITA?

What a mess.

Redditors flock to the comment section to share their take.

This user sees right through her brother’s little tricks.

Food safety is nothing to play around about.

Her brother really needs to act his age.

This definitely isn’t the most mature young man ever.

There’s one glaring fact that seems to undercut her sibling’s entire story: water damage severe enough to compromise an earbud’s adhesive tends to show up right away, not mysteriously develop two full days after the fact.

Getting pestered about hand hygiene while handling raw chicken is a reasonable, low-stakes reminder, not something that warrants starting a water fight in response.

He may have started it, but she finished it.