Those of us who have lived with annoying roommates could relate to Redditor gottmilk_’s situation.
He lives with a roommate who allegedly violated the cardinal rule of stealing by helping himself to a grocery item in the fridge that doesn’t belong to him.
To confirm suspicions of his roommate’s pilfering tendencies, the Original Poster (OP) pulled a switcheroo with the almond milk that seemed to be mysteriously dwindling on its own.
While the experiment proved to be successful for the OP—and disastrous for the roommate—the OP wondered if he went too far and went to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit and asked:
“AITA for switching to regular milk to prove my lactose intolerant roommate keeps stealing from me?”
He explained:
“Me and 2 other guys share an apartment together and we split all the bills. The only thing we don’t split costs on is groceries.”
“Everyone’s in charge of buying their own food and we don’t touch whatever doesn’t belong to us in the fridge. We put our names on everything so no one gets mixed up.”
“This issue has been going on almost a year and I’m sick of it.”
“One of my roommates, R, keeps stealing my food. I get home from work and containers with my leftovers are sometimes missing (they have my name written on it), or my stuff finishes too quick. My gallon of milk for example.”
“I buy almond milk because I like the taste. But it seems to finish after a week even though I’ve only drank once or twice.”
“I confronted R about this lots of times and that’s caused a lot of arguments. He outright denies it and tells me I’m crazy even though it’s so obvious.”
“My other roommate and I carpool together because we both work the same early morning shifts around the same area so I know it’s not him. It’s always after we get back home and R’s already left for work that I notice my food’s gone.”
“My roommate’s also had a similar problem but not as often as I do. I’m guessing cause R doesn’t like what he buys.”
“The funny thing is R buys a lot for himself and is even more stingy about his food. He will literally point out what’s his when he comes back from grocery shopping and tells us not to touch it.”
“Last week, my milk was nearly empty again and I got fed up. I went to the liquor store and bought regular dairy milk. I drank what was left of my almond milk and refilled the gallon with the one I bought. This was to catch/prove R is the one stealing since he’s lactose intolerant.”
“The next day, Saturday, we get back from work and R is pissed. He yelled at me that he was stuck in the bathroom for 40 mins with diarrhea because of my milk; he was using it to make a shake.”
“I only responded with ‘So then you’re the one who’s been stealing?’”
“He freaking exploded. Yeah he admitted he was ‘sometimes’ drinking my milk and eating my food but he was more mad that I switched milks than the fact that he was caught.”
“I told him I wouldn’t have done that if he’d just stopped taking my stuff from the fridge or at least told the truth instead of tryna make it seem like I was making it up.”
“My roommate backed me up and thought it was kinda funny he got payback for stealing from us.”
“It’s a little tense rn and my roommate told me R is trying to convince him to agree to kick me out. Little does he know we’re both looking to move somewhere else together cause we are sick of his sh*t.”
“I told some buddies what happened and a few think I was an a**hole for that. I feel like I’m not in the wrong here.”
“He was taking my food and not even owning up to it and I wanted to prove it, does that make me TA?”
Anonymous strangers on the internet were asked if and where guilt belongs by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Redditors agreed the roommate only had himself to blame for his intestinal incident.
“NTA. As you said if R wasn’t stealing your food, he wouldn’t have had a problem.” – Jayney__
Y”ep. I basically don’t trust dairy products I don’t purchase myself so it’s his own damn fault, just like it’s my own damn fault when I forget to ask for a substitute and get regular dairy.” – BloodBurningMoon
“Not to mention the two have a vastly different smell to me. I ALWAYS smell the milk to make sure it didnt go bad since the last time I use it.”
“How does one drink most of the almond milk and the next day honestly believe the same carton somehow replenished itself. Not only is R an AH but he’s a dumb AH. He literally has only himself to blame.” – PlayaHatinIG-88
“10/10 malicious compliance almost. You can do whatever you want with your milk, like put it in another container. Massive NTA.”
“I wish I was as creative as you when I had a roommate taking my food. You made my day.” – TN_Yeti
“NTA, as someone who IS lactose intolerant I would have done the same thing as that’s hilarious revenge. f’k R.” – chuckiebronzo
“NTA. It’s your food. You could have put your medicine in it or even your pet’s medication in it. You could have put a laxative in it or even syrup of ipecac. And I would still say NTA.”
“When people steal food, lie about it and don’t replace it they reap what they sow. Food is expensive, especially milk substitutes. Without replacing the food he was essentially stealing money from your wallet.” – hcp56
“NTA. You can tell him you could have done something much worse like peeing in the milk.”
“Or putting vinegar in it. Instead, you went a somewhat more mature way by buying real dairy milk.” – Plenty-State2879
Overall, most Redditors agreed that the OP was NTA in this messy dairy tale.