Maybe you’re a well-adjusted person who isn’t familiar with the “Am I The Asshole?” subreddit where people write in explaining their situations and ask the forum if they are, indeed, the asshole in the situation. Commenters generally vote YTA (You’re The Asshole), NTA (Not The Asshole), ESH (Everyone Sucks Here), or NAH (No Assholes Here). Akilah and I are obsessed with these because there are some genuinely clueless people posting the craziest things. None we’ve seen, though, get this spooky…

r/AmItheAsshole – Posted by u/Ghosty_McGhostface_3489

AITA for inadvertently causing a man to die to teach him a lesson?

Last Halloween I (54F, 10 deceased) was minding my own business haunting the house I died in when I saw a man (34M) set up in the bushes to leap out and scare some trick or treaters working their way down the neighborhood. The kids were pretty young – four of them and they looked like 10-12 – and I thought it was a pretty messed up thing for this guy to do, especially in front of the house I was haunting.

As the kids were leaving the next house up and he was all ready to scare the poor little kids senseless, I appeared right behind him (but positioned so the kids wouldn’t see me) and announced in my most menacing voice: “Boo!” He squealed like a little girl, and skittered out of the bush and across the sidewalk to put as much distance between me, the scary ghost, and him. But he kept going, scurrying backwards right into the street… and in the path of a speeding Amazon delivery truck.

He was killed instantly, and, in the end, the kids were probably more terrified having watched a man get hit by a truck. That’s on me. But then he doesn’t pass on and instead becomes a ghost himself and haunts the street in front of my house screaming curses at me about how I’m the asshole for causing him to die when all he wanted to do was scare some little kids – one of which was his!

AITA? I never intended the man to die, of course. I just wanted to give him a taste of what he was about to do to the children. Should I have taken the high haunted ground?

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Judgement_Bot_AITA MOD • 12 hr ago • Stickied Comment

Welcome to r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our voting guide here, and remember to use only one judgement in your comment.

OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:

I scared a man who was trying to scare children and he inadvertently got hit by a truck trying to get away.

Help keep the sub engaging!

Spookyfan3294 • 12 hr. ago

NTA
Bro wanted to scare kids – one was his own kid?  Yeah, not cool.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

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NotGhostist234  • 11 hr. ago

ESH – Not saying scaring kids is okay, but two scares don’t make a right.

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ButTheChildren9234  • 10 hr. ago

And those kids having to see the carnage of a man literally dying in front of them? That’s years of therapy right there!
Compared to a little scare by one of the kids’ dads?
YTA

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TheDeadGuy6067  • 6 hr. ago

Just heard this lady posted about literally scaring me to death! Now my kids don’t have a dad, and I’m stuck here in between. Damn right I’m going to scream at her all day and night! She killed me – might as well been the driver of that Amazon van herself!
YTA!!!

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DontBelieveInGhosts7891  • 4 hr. ago

So, no culpability that you were about to haunt your kid and their friends’ nightmares for years to come? Not a little?
Sorry you’re dead, yo, but maybe your kid’s better off without you!
NTA!

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WideEyedWondering2346  •  3 hr. ago

Wow. Just… wow. His kids better off without their dad? You clearly don’t have kids of your own! YTA, and DontBelieveInGhosts7891 is TA, too!

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GoTowardsTheLight2312 • 2 hr. ago

Move on, man.
You’re dead, we get it. You can gripe about it and complain or move on and see your loved ones in the afterlife. I know which one I’d choose!
NTA

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Ghosty_McGhostface_3489 • 2 hr. ago

UPDATE: OP here – after the guy – Dave – saw my post, we talked. Well, we screamed at each other, but it was pretty cathartic, and I think we managed to see specter to specter on a few things.
After reading all your comments, I realized I shouldn’t have scared him in the way I did. But he admitted he shouldn’t have tried scaring the kids either.
I agreed to show him the ropes (rattling chains?) in the hope that he might be able to either move his haunting from in front of my house to haunt his family (for real) – or, hopefully go towards the light!
Thanks again for the great comments everyone!

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