In 2002, food writer Sara Perry released the cookbook Everything Tastes Better with Bacon, but that's not really the origin of the phrase "everything's better with bacon."
It's one of those cultural idioms with no clear origin, but that everyone seems to recognize and use.
The saying appears on shirts, mugs, signs and is even an achievement in the game Halo Wars.
For those who partake, is there anything that doesn't go well with bacon?
Sleep.
Apparently, sleep doesn't go well with bacon.
A husband turned to the "Am I The A**Hole" (AITAH) subReddit for feedback after his wife got upset about an early morning bacon wake-up call.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationshipsâboth things that are banned on AITA. However, there are no required voting acronymsâonly suggested onesâand no official final judgment declared.
UriahJordan asked:
"AITAH to quietly cook bacon in the morning when someone is sleeping?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"My spouse was angry this morning because she could smell bacon cooking at 7 AM when she was trying to sleep. She was in the bedroom with the door closed and white noise machine on."
"The bedroom is on the second floor. I cooked a whole package of bacon in the oven. I had the hood fan on and the kitchen window open. I also turned on two oil diffusers to mask the smell."
"Full disclosure, she's been traveling for work and hasn't been getting much sleep. She came back last night and then her parents (my in-laws) arrived around midnight."
"I don't know what time of day or night they were originally coming, but they were scheduled to come two days sooner. However, due to my spouse's work travel, she rescheduled it for them. She had them arrive a couple hours after her."
"I thought it would be nice for them to wake up to freshly made bacon, but my spouse thinks it was inconsiderate."
"Also, I had a meeting scheduled at 9 AM and she had one scheduled at 9:30, so I wanted the bacon to be fully cooked and cleaned up before those meetings."
"My wife texted me from bed about the smell, explaining that the smell was waking her up. Sounds were fine."
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors had a lot of feedback about "noisy" bacon.
"Bacon takes like 20 minutes in the oven. You could have waited until 8, cooked them 20 minutes, ate them quickly, used the rest of the minutes to clean up and then leave at 8:30 and get in time for the meeting. Or even started at 7:30."
"If you were cooking them long enough to be smellable at 7am then that means you put them in some time before 7. You could have given her that extra half hour to full hour or even cooked something completely different. YTA."
"Bacon smell can make sleep very difficult after it starts. A lot of really strong smells can do that. I've woken up to my husband doing the same thing and when you're trying to sleep it's like cold water hitting your olfactory sense repeatedly."
"It's inconsiderate when you know your spouse is trying to sleep and has been sleep deprived and likely has trouble getting back to sleep once awake." ~ spare_scapegoat
"Honestly, I am a light sleeper, hyper sensitive to smells and noise due to neurological conditions. I understand where she is coming from."
"There will be moments like this where complete exhaustion will make everything you do an issue. I think if you had given her a pastry and her favorite beverage you would have probably recieved a similar review. Sometimes work, stress and exhaustion need a pause and a hug. You did nothing wrong. You are not overreacting."
"I would however after work and everyone is calm ask to talk about the earlier episode. Use 'I feel' statements if you can. Simply state that you felt hurt because you felt that you were doing something nice."
"Ask her what she would like for breakfast next time she returns from a long trip. So that she won't wake up to the pungent aroma of bacon. Or something along those lines. Good luck!" ~ Sir_Lobo_Bellaco
"YTA. GROSS. You expected everyone to be excited about eating bacon at 7am after arriving after midnight? They reasonably didn't get to sleep until around one, even if they went straight to bed."
"Or ..what? They could try to sleep past the smell and eat cold bacon? Sounds like some passive-agressive bullsh*t." ~ AuntieZazza
"NTA because you genuinely did not realize it was a risk. Boneheaded/thoughtless, but, not malicious. It happens to all of us."
"The fan, oil diffusers only deal with the scent around you. They do not neutralize the odor. They don't mask the odor past their radius. The smell of the bacon still travels."
"Bacon is the one smell that can wake me like no other. It's strong. It travels. Two stories away from it, it'll wake me up, I won't get back to sleep. I'm now groggy and hungry. My brain knows bacon and coffee = get up. It never fails."
"I won't cook bacon until literally the last person waking up's alarm is about to go off. (IE: they have to get up anyway) That and coffee. Great to wake up to, either naturally or you have to be up anyway, not great when you are half dead and need to sleep in."
"Then, she got in late. she's exhausted. She's not sleeping. She's burnt out. She's got work fatigue on top of travel fatigue. She's got meetings. It's hours before she gets up, and there are houseguests."
"I think she's stretched past her limits. It's not just the bacon, you know? Who wouldn't be murderous if they were in that state and they were finally asleep, and were woken up? My happy go lucky arse would be pissed, too." ~ YoshiandAims
"NTA. Your wife would hate our home. There are 7 of us ranging in age from 20 to 90 all with different schedules (all family plus pets too). There is always someone in the kitchen cooking, people walking around doing stuff and rarely quiet."
"I will admit though when we cook bacon everyone wakes up for that. Your wife was probably just tired (understandably) so donât take it to heart." ~ Weary_Minute1583
"Cooking bacon can be so easily smelt through a house/apartment, even with the range hood on. I get woken up to it when my partner is cooking bacon and eggs."
"When I'm cooking the night before, if it's using the fry pan, I always wash the fry pan because the horrible fried smell in the morning is disgusting to wake up to (it wakes me up if I haven't washed it)."
"You wrote, 'Full disclosure, she's been traveling for work and hasn't been getting much sleep. She came back last night and then her parents (my in-laws) arrived around midnight'."
"Yeah, nah. That's not nice waking someone up if they need rest. Just have a cold breakfast or toast or let them do their own thing." ~ South_Can_2944
"I donât even have the best sense of smell and bacon would totally wake me up in the morning from a dead sleep. Bacon is like cooking with onions or fish. There is no covering up those smells! The whole house will reek of it for at least a day if not two."
"Unlike onions or fish, if you eat bacon itâs like waking up to the smell of coffee, thereâs no going back to sleep, there is only getting up to eat bacon lol. I donât even eat bacon (I canât now, loved it as a kid, but donât crave it anymore as it makes me sick) and it would still force me to wake up as the smell would be so overwhelming anywhere in the house."
"Sound has nothing to do with it. The smell gets everywhere, this is common knowledge I think. So if you donât want to wake people, donât make bacon. Effort was made to prevent this and now OP knows it doesnât work. Also learned wife needs to catch up on sleep, so make sure she gets 9 hours or more tonight." ~ Terrible-Antelope680
"NTA, but also, smelling food cooking esp meat, wakes me up and itâs really irritating. Once I can smell the food in my bedroom, I canât sleep any longer. I always tell my son if heâs gonna cook something at night please put a towel in front of my door so I canât smell it as it just really bothers me."
"I would say not to worry about it, but if itâs a common thing where you have to get up before her and cook bacon and then sheâs probably gonna keep getting mad about it. But hopefully that wonât continue. Maybe you guys will have more of the same schedule soon."
"If you want to keep enjoying bacon while sheâs sleeping, then what I would do is cook it right after dinner in the oven you can like almost cook it to the crispy is that you like but just under and then put it in the fridge then all you have to do is microwave it or pop it in the air fryer for like a minute or less. It wonât smell up the whole house that way."
"I think you did a nice thing, though in this instance. Sheâs probably just really tired." ~ laribrook79
The OP shared an update:
"My wife was crabby because she was sleepy. She apologized about being short tempered regarding the bacon. She's thankful for the bacon."
Alls well that ends well.
