'AITA for selling my nephew's PS5 after he broke my N64 and my brother refused to pay for it?'
Am I petty for keeping my nephew's birthday gift as a punishment for breaking my Nintendo?
GurCompetitive7379 writes:
I fix broken or old gaming systems nas a hobby and to make a few dollars. I have a pretty decent collection that I love. All of them work but they are delicate. The controllers for my Intellivision for example are very touchy. So I mostly play on emulators for the older games.
My brother has a stepson that he is planning to adopt. I thought I would do something nice and give him a refurbished PS5 for his birthday this year. I took a long time cleaning one up and stress testing it to make sure it worked. I did a great job if I do say so myself. I love that I'm going to be an aunt.
My brother, his wife, and their children were over visiting. We played Mario Kart on my Switch and I kicked butt. My big brother whined that I only beat him because it's a fancy new system and that he could destroy me on N64. Challenge Accepted.
I have a translucent orange N64 console that is one of my pride and joys. I brought it down off the shelf, found the cartridge, blah blah blah, crushed my stinking brother the same way he used to beat me.
My nephew wanted to try so I allowed it. I told him that he needed to be careful because it was an old system and kind of delicate. I didn't even try hard. I didn't even pick Yoshi or use any short cuts. I still whooped the kid.
He was so angry that he picked up the console and smashed it on the table. It didn't fly apart or anything but it stopped working. And there was a crack in the casing.
I was pissed. I kicked everyone out of my game room and told my brother I was going to charge him whatever it cost me to fix that console. He said it was old and not worth much and he would replace it for $30 from eBay.
I said sure but it had to be the same color. He looked and only found them for about $250. He said that was ridiculous for an ancient console and he wouldn't replace it. I was upset but I said fine. I sold the PS5 and used the money to fix up my old console. It's not perfect but it works perfectly.
I gave my nephew a $50 gift certificate for Nintendo for his birthday. I had checked with my brother in advance about his first gift to make sure he and his wife were okay with it so my brother was expecting the PS5. My nephew thanked me for the $50 and apologized for getting upset and breaking my N64.
Now my brother is pissed because he had purchased a couple of games for the PS5 to give the kid for his birthday. So he will have to go get one since the only one I have now is mine. He said I was an a^#%ole to sell a gift. I said he needs to be responsible for the actions of his children. Our parents say we are both being petty.
Here are the top comments from the post:
solo_throwaway254247 says:
Your parents are wrong. Petty (but justified) would have been not gifting your nephew anything at all. I'm glad your nephew thanked you and apologized. But keep him away from your stuff until he can be trusted to react better to losing. NTA (Not the a%@$ole). Your brother is the a-hole here. And he's a bad influence on his step-son.
JupiterSWarrior says:
NTA. You didn't give the PS5 to the kid at that point. Until you do so, it is yours. They're not entitled to the console.
DameofDames says:
NTA. He should be responsible for his kid and make restitution. He wanted to cheap out on the restitution part and in the end did nothing. Now he's whining about how you did deal with it. He's the petty one. Besides you still got nephew a present.
Emotional-Base-5988 says:
NTA lmao why is your nephew more mature than your brother?
raikaateabug
NTA. "Now my brother is pissed because he had purchased a couple of games for the PS5 to give the kid for his birthday." Sounds like someone actually bought a bunch of games for themselves and are unhappy they can't play them.
What do you think? Was OP right to sell his nephew's PS5?