We never want to damage or ruin our friends’ belongings. When that happens, we can’t help but feel responsible for making things whole again.
But, as a recent post to the “Am I the A**hole (AITA)” subReddit showed, it’s not always so simple.
The Original Poster (OP), known as hidinguser1457 on the site, laid out the setting with their title for the post.
“AITA for refusing to pay for my friends car cleaning after getting sick in it?”
For OP, things seemed awry early.
“I had left to go to out to dinner with my two friends. I had a semi bad headache before I left, but figured I was overtired as I was fine otherwise.”
“Place was about half an hour away.”
Then it ramped up.
“15 minutes in, my vision got a bit off, my head was throbbing and I started feeling incredibly carsick, which never happens.”
“Told my friend I was carsick and didn’t feel good and asked if she could pull over for a second, as we were in a super easy area to do so.”
“Both of my friends started getting irritated like ‘we’re trying to get there before they get busy, it’s only a couple minutes away, we want to get good parking, you’re fine just sip some water’, blatantly refusing to pull over.”
That proved to be an oversight.
“A minute or two later, I couldn’t hold it anymore and uncontrollably barfed all over the passenger side.”
“Instead of asking if I was okay, they were like ‘ew omg gross, etc.’ and were pretty much mad that I ruined dinner.”
“I told them I’d call my fiance to pick me up when we got there and I’d clean up as best I could, and she was like ‘oh I’m going to get it cleaned too, i wanted to anyways because it’s so dirty.’ “
“He got there, we cleaned up the car super well I’d say, even though I was sick as hell and later found out I was having my first ever migraine.”
But then OP received a surprising request.
“The next day, she texts me wanting to talk ‘about the car thing’ and saying she wants 100.00 to have it cleaned.”
“I said no; she said she wanted to do it anyways, and if she had pulled over instead of throwing a fit about parking spots, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Had we been stuck in traffic or something inevitable, I would have absolutely offered to pay, but they were more worried about going to dinner and not having to wait instead.”
“I haven’t talked to either of them in a couple of days, AITA?”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Most Redditors agreed with OP.
They felt it all came down to that prior warning.
“NTA. Someone says, ‘I’m sick, pull over’ everyone knows the other option is vomit in the car. You did what you could to prevent it, you don’t owe her. They sound like awful friends, just leave them.” — LMGooglyTFY
“NTA. You let them know that you thought you were going to be sick and asked them to pull over. They had ample time to do so but chose to prioritize getting to the restaurant faster. At this point it’s their fault you threw up in their car.” — Trashmanjoe
“OP: pull over, I’m feeling sick”
“Friend: No, shan’t!”
“OP: *barfs in car*”
“Friend: *surprised Pikachu face*”
“NTA. They should’ve pulled over.” — UnicornCackle
Some wondered about this friend’s motives.
“NTA You asked them to pull over as you knew you’d be sick, you also cleaned it up as best you could after. Since your friend wanted her car cleaned anyway, I think she just wants to use this an excuse so she doesn’t need to pay for it.” — TheLacosteCroc
“I’m going to say NTA because you cleaned it once you guys stopped. It sounds like she wanted to use this situation to get a free full car cleaning service done. Also just saying, but these people don’t sound like good friends.”
“They ignored you when you were feeling sick and when you finally were pushed over the limit and got even more sick, they decided to mock you/act with disgust other than worry.”
“They cared more about dinner than your wellbeing and once that was done and over with, she cared more about getting her car detailed or some shit. I’d dump these friends tbh.” — HauntinglyEthereal
Others did suggest OP find a compromise with her friend.
“NTA I would suggest you pay half. Yeah, you asked her to pull over and she didn’t but the window was right there.”
“Good news is that now I bet she will pull over if someone said they felt sick.” — snewton_8
“No, but I would offer to pay 1/2 and then block her number. She isn’t a friend” — MD7001
“NTA. My husband gets horrific migraines with little to no warning a few times a year that include puking his guts up, so I feel for you. Butttt if you value the friendship, I’d offer to pay half.” — mrsagc90
And a couple shared stories of their own.
“Lol wtf with some of these comments. Your friends are major AHs. You told them PULL OVER IMA PUKE. And then they get pikachu face when you actually puke in the car.”
“What were you supposed to do? It’s not your fault you puked, that shit just decided to happen. I’ve puked in public three times in my life.”
“1) the flu, no warning 2) bad medicine combo, doc didn’t warn me not to mix them 3) my blood pressure bottomed out, again, NO WARNING. You can’t just swallow the puke back down, and if there’s enough pressure/reflux, you can’t keep your mouth closed to keep it in.”
“NTA. Don’t give them a dime, and get better friends.” — Autumn988
“NTA. You don’t fu** around when someone says to pull over, they’re gonna puke. On a slightly related note, on a car trip once my brother got really, really nauseous.”
“Begged my siblings to roll down the window and they thought it’d be funny to hold him back from sticking his head out. Wasn’t too funny to them when my dad made them clean the barf out of the backseat on a hot summer day.” — shokittyo
And so, with a few differing viewpoints, how to handle her friend will ultimately be OP’s decision to make.