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

↑ 3.0k ↓ Reply Share …

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!

↑ 2k ↓ Reply Share …

 

It was dusk as I made the turn onto Stonybrook Court, the sleepy cul-de-sac where my brother and his family lived. I had just driven an hour through traffic after a harried day at work because while they were on vacation on the other side of the world, he gets a notification from his alarm company saying there was motion detected in their family room. He called the alarm company and they said it was probably a false alarm, but they couldn’t reset the alarm remotely.

Hence, why I just drove fifty miles for my dumb brother. Oh, just to make sure we’re on the same page, I was hangry and I had to pee.

“Annie’s sister drove by at lunch and didn’t see anything out of place,” he told me earlier. “Still, are you sure you can’t get there any sooner?”

“Darren, I’m at work. I have to, you know, work. Annie’s sister lives the next block over – why can’t she reset it?”

“She doesn’t have a key.”

I thought for a moment about how that put my sibling relationship with him up a level from Annie and her sister, but that didn’t matter – I knew the drive ahead was going to suck. “Fine,” I sighed heavily. “I’ll leave right after work.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah…”

And that’s why, in the fading light I pulled into the driveway of my stupid brother’s house.

I took the flashlight out of my trunk and shone it around the outside of the house – just as Annie’s sister had reported, nothing out of place that I could see.

I let myself in through the front door and immediately saw a red error flashing on the alarm system panel just inside. “Motion detected – Main room,” whatever that meant. I went into the main room and other than the ceiling fan whirring overhead, everything seemed fine. I systematically checked every room, window, and door and nearly shit myself when out of the darkness of my nephew’s room floated a red helium balloon he’d gotten for his birthday just before they left.

“That’s some serious ‘It’ vibes,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I tied it to the small desk chair in his room to make sure that thing wasn’t responsible for any alarm sensor mischief.

Other than that, though, nothing– everything was secure.

I pulled out my cell and dialed my brother. “I’m here. Everything’s fine.” I read him the error on the alarm panel, told him about the balloon – maybe that was the cause… He walked me through resetting the alarm, everything went green, and a warning chime beeped indicating the system was successfully arming.

I locked the door and started for my car. “Looks like it armed successfully,” he said as I pictured him staring at the alarm app on his phone. “Thanks, sis.”

“Yeah,” I said grumpily. “I’m going to find some food and go home.”

“I appreciate it.”

“I know,” I said and clicked off. I know he did, and I know I was being a little petulant. But did I mention “hangry?” Yeah…

Twenty minutes later, I was halfway home, parked in an In-N-Out dipping my fries into my vanilla shake when my brother calls. “It went off again.”

“You’re shitting me?”

His pause told me he didn’t want to ask, but then he continued, “You don’t think you could go back, do you?”

“Darren, your serious right now?” I asked.

“Please, Cilly,” he said using the name he called me when we were little. He was pulling out the big guns there.

I sighed the world’s biggest sigh. “You owe me, D.”

“I know.”

Twenty minutes later I was back at Stonybrook Court, my headlights shining onto the non-descript garage of my brother’s house. Same drill – checked outside, checked inside, nothing. That damn balloon got loose, though, which was weird… So, I popped it. I mean, okay, it was my nephew’s balloon, but it was going to be out of helium and on the ground by the time they got back next Friday. I was just putting it out of its misery early. And he’s six, he won’t notice.

I called Darren. “Everything is tighter than a frog’s butt,” I said.

“I called the alarm company,” he started. “They said it could just be a malfunctioning motion sensor.”

“Okay, what does that mean for the time being?”

“I don’t know. Arm it again. If it goes off again… I don’t know, I guess we’ll just live with it.”

Yeah, no duh you’ll live with it, I thought. I’m not making a third trip. But, tummy full of In-N-Out, I had regained my patience for my dumb brother and said “Sounds good to me.”

I walked to the panel and the same ““Motion detected – Main room,” message flashed on the panel. I raised my hand to the keypad to arm the alarm and the panel went dark. What’s more, the lights throughout the house switched off one by one until just the front hallway light where I stood remained lit.

“What the hell?” I said aloud to keep myself from freaking the hell out.

Words appeared on the alarm panel. “Please don’t go. I’m lonely.”

“Umm, you’re lonely?” I said, then thought I was an idiot for speaking to the alarm panel.

The words disappeared.

Then another message appeared: “Yes. Please stay and play with me.”

Suddenly, their Alexa speaker began playing some kind of demented slowed-down version of Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” at full volume.

I turned towards the door and the red balloon hovered between me and the door as I heard the deadbolt click locked.

Tonight was the last wedding of the season at Dawn Ranch in Guerneville. Even at the other catering company I work with, they’re effectively done for the season as well. The end snuck up on me, but it couldn’t have been a more wonderful wedding – the couple and their families were absolutely delightful. At the end of the night they were still giving speeches when my shift was up and I said goodbye to my coworkers who I’ll hopefully see next spring, but… you never know… So, I’m clearly feeling a little melancholy and nostalgic, and, of course, ghosty.

“Alright, will all the single ladies please make your way to the dancefloor for the bouqet toss!” the DJ announced as Beyonce sang that if you liked it you should have put a ring on it.

A dozen women crowded on one end of the dancefloor as the music returned to top volume. Most of the women were about the same age as the bride with a few older women being cajoled into the crowd. The bride, with her back to the gathering women, took her bouquet from the wedding planner smiling and nodding, their exchange lost beneath Beyonce instructing everyone to put their hands up, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

The music faded out quickly as the DJ came back over the PA, “Just a few more minutes now. If you’re a single lady, please head onto the dancefloor now!”

A few moments later, the DJ said, “Here we go, everyone! On three…” and all the guests chimed in to count it down, “Three! Two! One!” and then with a squeal the bride tossed the bouquet over her head behind her.

The flowers reached the zenith of the arc and began falling back to earth with the crowd of women surging forward to be the one to catch the bouquet. Suddenly, a pale dark haired woman split through the crowd, moved past the other women and caught the bouquet.

The entire room fell silent.

The woman now clutching the bouquet and smiling furiously wasn’t just pale – she was translucent.

The bride’s gleeful smile turned to a curious frown at the silence and she turned around to see who caught the bouquet and froze.

The bride stared into her same blue eyes framed beneath jet black hair. She could only manage to get out one word: “Julie?”

The ghost’s smile turned upon seeing the bride’s reaction. She let out a nervous little laugh and said, “Hey, sis.”

“But…” the bride stammered, “You’re…. you’re…”

“Dead,” Julie finished, sadly. Her eyes falling to the flowers in her hands. “I know.” Then she brightened and looked back up to her sister. “But I couldn’t miss your wedding!”

Tears welled up in the bride’s eyes. “I’ve missed you so much…” her voice cracked. “It’s been 15 years…”

“I know! I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

“You’re… You’re old, too!”

“Hey now, sis, who are you calling old? We’re the same age!”

“I’m fifteen minutes younger,” the bride said reflexively, the words loosing the tears that started down  her cheeks.

The ghost laughed sadly.

“Stay?” the bride squeaked out.

“I can’t,” Julie said. “I wasn’t supposed to do this,” she gestured towards the bouquet in her hands. “But I… you know I can’t follow the rules.”

The bride laughed.

“I’ll be around…”

“I know…”

And the bouquet fell to the dancefloor.