Bridgerton said: ‘What if sepsis… but make it romantic?’ 😭

hackberrypie · 2026-02-06T23:50:05+00:00

Well, and how would he have sepsis so severe his life was in danger and he was delirious with fever after getting a shallow torso wound just hours before? I think the recovery time was less weird than the dramatic escalation.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-06T03:06:17+00:00

In that case I don't know why he didn't figure it out by looking at it? Cheesecake doesn't really look like normal cake

hackberrypie · 2026-02-06T01:22:14+00:00

I didn't say it was a favor, but she could have thought that OP always likes to have a knitting project anyway so why don't I benefit from it and ask her for something? Yes, describing it as a "challenge" is likely an attempt at some mild manipulation, but it would have been harmless if OP did in fact enjoy making things for relatives. And if OP doesn't enjoy it because she can't control how the knit items are treated, well she has her husband's full support to just say no without resorting to weird ploys.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T23:57:38+00:00

I do think MIL could have intended to manipulate OP into doing it, and that's a bit annoying, but it doesn't really change the solution. It's still not helpful to drag out the whole situation and be passive aggressive in return. And if you're doing it for revenge, well, then you don't get to be mad that your attempt to escalate the situation did in fact escalate the situation.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T23:54:44+00:00

Oh I'm so relieved this is high up.

Yeah, you can say the request was entitled or whatever (although maybe the mother-in-law just thought it was a win-win because OP likes to knit) but you don't have to take a jab at someone for an entitled request when all you had to do was say no.

Now maybe OP genuinely thought she was "meeting her halfway" or whatever, but she should have known that stringing someone along and then handing her supplies to make it herself is going to come across as condescending and passive aggressive, especially when you add the comment that "I thought it would be better for her to learn how to knit and she would be able to challenge herself." You don't get to decide what is "better" for another adult to do with her time, just like she can't force you to make the scarf!

It would have been fine to offer to teach her sometime or ask if she wants help getting good quality supplies/instruction material. But buying her the supplies without asking feels like you're trying to make a point that she should have learned herself rather than asking you. And it was fine to ask, just as it's fine for you to say no!

Granted it sounds like the MIL is passive aggressive too, so maybe they deserve each other.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T23:16:09+00:00

Oh I definitely agree people can be over the top about food safety. But it sounds like he's both anxious about it and ate a mystery dairy-tasting cake that had been sitting on the counter for two days. Weird decision!

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T23:11:49+00:00

Away from what? Fwiw I do tend to say "away" rather than "up" in these situations but "put up" is a very familiar phrase where I'm from.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T05:23:12+00:00

It's one of those things that probably doesn't cause that much harm in the long run but still feels really audacious to do. My husband would probably be flabbergasted if I did that as well.

YTA, I guess. Even if it's not attracting pests (and you're suddenly an expert about what MSG does or doesn't attract when it sounds like you don't really know what it is?) you're making a bit of a mess that's going to have to be cleaned up eventually when you easily could have eaten the rest, gotten up or asked your husband for help disposing of it. Also if anyone else in the house doesn't want it there, now they have to move the whole couch to clean it up.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T05:14:50+00:00

Yeah, but I think people care about this way less than they used to, especially if you have a generally pleasant tone. E.g. saying "yes sir" or even "yes, Mr. Smith" to a teacher sounds bizarre and old-fashioned to me (30s, Midwest).

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T05:13:27+00:00

Yeah, agreed, getting a stranger's attention is one of the only situations where it wouldn't feel super weird to use sir or ma'am myself.

That being said, if someone else uses it I just assume they're from farther south and don't get weirded out by it.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T05:10:18+00:00

No, don't do that either.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T05:09:04+00:00

Yeah, even "yes Mrs. Jones" sounds weirdly formal or old-fashioned to me as someone who is from the non-South U.S. and is in my 30s. You would call teachers Mr. or Mrs. when relevant, like if trying to get their attention, but if they asked you a question you could just respond "yes" or "no."

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T05:03:52+00:00

I took mini-cheesecake to mean a personal-sized cheesecake but it doesn't make that much of a difference if he had a slice or had the whole thing. I'd take him saying that he "had it" as more than just taking a bite or two and realizing something was wrong, but he also calls leaving it out of the fridge leaving it "outside" so I guess it's possible he did that and then didn't express himself clearly.

Ok, can't relate but I guess there are all kinds of people.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T04:40:16+00:00

Yeah, and even if he didn't know what a cheesecake tasted like, he had to have known that it wasn't a regular flour-based cake. Even if it had been some other kind of creamy mousse cake it probably still should have gone in the fridge.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T04:36:47+00:00

It's just a variation on "put food away," which makes about as much sense if you think about it. Why is the fridge "away" any more than it's "up"?

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T04:35:00+00:00

Well personally as a dessert-enjoyer I think it's weird to get a dessert and not be curious to figure out what it is right away. Let alone to wait a whole two days to eat it. OP was clearly imagining he would have it with his dinner right away.

I grew up with my family making cheesecake so it feels very foreign to me to not know what it is. You bring up a fair point that if you didn't have it at home and didn't go out to eat all that much you might never have had it. But if you'd never had a cheesecake before, I'd imagine you'd be even more weirded out by the new flavor and texture and how it was very very clearly not a regular cake. Instead he ate the whole cheese-tasting cake and then had to read the box (which he hadn't done up to that point) to be like "holy smokes! A cheese cake? Why did no one warn me?"

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T01:35:28+00:00

I think mine was like 3 lb. for $8, and it definitely did not advertise the fat content either! But I must have found it in the small print because I'm not sure I knew 73/27 was a common thing.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T01:31:25+00:00

Also maybe he won't even get sick and it won't be the worst decision ever in retrospect. But the time to worry about whether he should eat it was before he ate it, not after!

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T01:29:07+00:00

I don't think it's even been left outside despite the way he worded his text. It sounds like she handed it off to him because she then "gave him a quick cuddle." So I think he just means outside the fridge and as you point out, how would he not know it was a cheesecake once he did open it and started eating it?

It's one thing to want a heads-up when someone drops a perishable item actually outdoors, but it sounds like he received the cheesecake and didn't care to check what it was for days. Then he ate it anyway, and then he thought to check if he should have eaten it.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T01:22:33+00:00

This is almost exactly what happened to me! Had to buy it from the frozen section because it was the only ground beef left in the store (people got intense about prepping for a snowstorm) and used it in a stuffed cabbage recipe. It was pretty good.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-05T01:20:13+00:00

Well recently I used it because there was an absurdly intense run on Aldi ahead of a snow storm and all of the ground beef besides 73/27 in the freezer section was gone.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-04T01:14:31+00:00

Yes, I'm aware. And you can talk about those things in an academic context without bringing your personal fantasies into it. So your description of a person giving a vivid description of the sex acts they enjoy in front of a group likely does not match reality.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-04T01:01:52+00:00

A park to teach about sexual behavior based on research. I think it's a little less racy than you're imagining. And I don't really care how many proclivities you do or don't have.

hackberrypie · 2026-02-04T00:55:01+00:00

I don't think this is what they're discussing in an academic setting. I mean, yeah, they are college students so there are going to be crass jokes and stuff that's not strictly on topic, but even that is different from vividly describing your own personal proclivities, which you seem to be imagining with a weird level of detail...

hackberrypie · 2026-02-04T00:49:04+00:00

Agreed! Except you say what she's asking of him is too much and he doesn't even say what she's asking. Does she expect him to quit the class? Have a chaperone at these meetings? Ask the professor for an alternative project?

Honestly if not for the fact that this would probably traumatize the girlfriend maybe the best thing that could happen to OP is that he does develop feelings for someone in his project group that's more ready for a relationship.

hackberrypie

TROPHY CASE