There are few situations more frustrating than receiving something you were greatly looking forward to and that doesn’t meet your expectations.
Sometimes, we try and put on a good face, trying not to make the person who worked so hard on the product feel bad.
Other times, it’s difficult not to be sad or angry, as we might feel our money wasn’t well spent.
Or worse, the person we ordered the product from clearly didn’t listen to us.
A recent Redditor recently agreed to make a cake for his sister to commemorate a very special occasion.
Complicating matters, however, was the fact that the original poster (OP)’s sister was a bit vague on how the cake should look.
Leading the OP to make a judgment call as to the cake’s appearance.
A judgment call the OP’s sister didn’t appreciate one bit.
After being called “passive-aggressive” by his sister, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for making my sister’s gender reveal cake grey because she wouldn’t tell me the gender?”
The OP explained why his “neutral” gender reveal cake didn’t sit well with his sister or family:
“I (23 M[ale]) bake as a hobby, and I’m actually pretty good at it-like I get paid under the table for weddings and baby showers kind of good.”
“My sister is pregnant and wanted me to make the cake for her gender reveal.”
“Cool, no problem.”
“I asked her to send me the info so I could prep the inside-classic pink or blue filling.”
“She says, ‘Oh no, I want to be surprised too’.”
“Just make it neutral for the reveal and we’ll all find out together’.”
“I was like… huh?”
“So you want a gender reveal cake with no gender revealed…?”
“She says she’ll have someone email the info to me later.”
“That someone never did.”
“Deadline comes, and I still have no gender.”
“So I make the cake.”
“It’s grey inside.”
“Grey outside.”
“Just full on cement vibes.”
“I even added little fondant clouds for effect.”
“It still tasted great, but visually?”
“Grim as hell.”
“The reveal day comes, they cut into it, and my sister looks pissed.”
“Her husband is confused.”
“People start murmuring.”
“Then she pulls me aside like, ‘Why would you make it grey? That’s so passive-aggressive’.”
“Calmly reminded her that no one told me the gender.”
“I literally had no data to work with. I told her I wasn’t about to guess or go full improv on someone’s baby cake.”
“Now my mom says I embarrassed her in front of the family and that I ‘should’ve tried harder’.”
“Tried harder to do what, summon the gender through vibes?”
“I actually did follow up-asked her a couple days before the reveal if the info had been sent, and she just said something like ‘yeah, someone’s taking care of it’.”
“I figured it was handled.”
“I didn’t want to pester her since she seemed chill about it at the time.”
“So… AlTA for making the most neutral reveal cake in history?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The OP found little to no sympathy from the Reddit community, who generally agreed that he was, indeed, the a**hole for delivering his sister a gray cake.
While some understood that matters were complicated by the fact that he didn’t know the child’s actual gender, just about everyone agreed that the OP could have still put a little more effort into it and made a nice-looking cake that could have been just about any color other than gray:
“Why couldn’t you have made it yellow and baby-themed or something?”
“It seems pretty vindictive to make the cake a ‘grim cement vibes’ for an important event where you’d be serving many more people besides your air headed sister.”
“I understand you were frustrated, but damn, that’s all anyone is going to remember from that event now which was kinda YTA.”- Ok_Copy_8869
“YTA.”
“You should have let her know you didn’t have the info.”
“You could have just gone with a cute, normal chocolate or vanilla cake.”
“But no.”
“You chose to be mean and petty and make it look pathetic.”- Disastrous-Nail-640
“Deadline comes, time to make the Cake.”
“Pick up the Phone> Hey Sis, nobody told me the gender and I have to make the cake now, what do you want?”
“Instead you chose to be a jerk.”
“YTA.”- TMNTerps
“YTA.”
“I understand the frustration, but you could’ve told her nobody sent the info over and just made a cute baby shower-style cake.”
“It was, in fact, unnecessarily passive-aggressive.”
“Especially crappy to do to an emotionally fragile pregnant person on their special day.”
“Communication sucked on both sides.”- SessionBoring9259
“You had to actively try to make it grey.”
“Most natural cake colors would have been white, yellow, tan, etc.”
“You went the extra step to not only make the outside grey, but the inside too.”
“JFC.”
“YTA.”
“Next time, just say no instead of going the extra mile to be an AH.”- DrunkRespondent
“YTA.”
“Yes, you absolutely should have told your sister you hadn’t reveived the info you needed instead of baking her a punishment cake because someone else let things fall through the cracks.”
“To be clear, this was not passive, it was nasty.”
“I’m leaving my feelings on gender reveals out of this.”- dryadduinath
“YTA.”
“Cakes don’t need added color.”
“I make cakes.”
“I’ve even helped my wife do the cake for a friend’s wedding.”
“I’ve colored a cake before but that’s a wholly unnecessary step, as in a step that would only happen if there was a specific request.”
“The specific request was neutral.”
“Because you’ll all be finding out at the same time, it would be impossible to do the extra step of coloring the actual cake, which isn’t necessary in the first place.”
“Gray is an unnecessary choice.”
“You knew what you were doing by making it ‘grim’.”
“That was a choice you made.”
“Just try harder not to be a jerk on purpose.”
“If they don’t request a color, you don’t fill in cement grim.”
“That’s definitely passive-aggressive.”- rlrlrlrlrlr
There were also a select few who felt that the OP didn’t do anything wrong, as he was providing a free service to his sister, who gave him virtually no instructions:
“Op was not paid for time OR ingredients.”
“Also, they followed up to ask about the gender a few days before and was brushed off.”
“NTA in my opinion.”
“Sis was pretty demanding, and then all the other stuff…yeah – gray was a bit harsh.”
“But then be respectful of your family and their donated expertise.”
“This thread is not titled ‘Would I do the same thing as the OP in a similar situation?’”
“It is ‘Am I the a-hole?’”
“You could equally go with everyone who sucks here, and it would be a valid judgment.”
“But if OP is spending his money on ingredients and Sis can’t send a simple text message with the details needed to make the free cake, then I’m not really sure what to say… would I have made it gray?”
“No.”
“But do I fault that OP did?”
“Not really.”- PracticalPrimrose
There were some, however, who also had trouble sympathizing with the OP’s sister, being a bit confused by her wanting a “genderless” gender reveal cake… even if they still felt the OP could have chosen a better color than gray:
“ESH.”
“Your sister shouldn’t be asking for a genderless gender reveal cake.”
“‘Make it neutral and we’ll find out together?'”
“Like what’s the point of the cake then?”
“Why not just ask you to make a cake that tastes good and is cute/appropriate for a baby shower?”
“Your sister should have made sure you had the info you needed.”
“You on the other hand … yes, making it all grey was a d*ck move.”
“People who choose not to find out the gender ahead of time are typically called ‘Team Green’.”
“Green would have been a great color if you didn’t know the gender.”
“Yellow is neutral too.”
“So is white.”
“Even orange or red would have been better than grey.”
“You DID go full improv on someone else’s baby cake, and you intentionally made the cake something you knew she wouldn’t like.”
“You also could have followed up with your sister to remind her that you didn’t have the info you needed, and to run your ‘neutral’ plan by her first.”
“Not doing those things makes it look like you just wanted to piss her off or embarrass her.”
“If you didn’t want to make the cake – because she’s not entitled to a cake from you – then you should have just said so.”- peony_chalk
It sounds like the OP’s sister didn’t want a “gender reveal” cake but simply a nice cake to be served at her gender reveal party.
If that were the case, she could have given the OP slightly more details about the sort of cake she wanted. Even so, it’s a bit hard to imagine what led the OP to settle on gray, a color one never associates with joy or celebration.
Considering that he also knew the cake looked “grim as hell,” one has to wonder what sort of response he expected it to get.
One can at least hope he wasn’t lying when he said it still tasted good.