'AITA for mocking my parents after they horribly botched the passing of our first ever family pet?'

"AITA for mocking my parents after they horribly botched the passing of our first ever family pet?"

I'm in my early 20s. My dad had fish in a fish tank when I was young (they kept jumping out and killing themselves until the entire tank exploded). I had to beg my parents to get a pet, since I have LOVED dogs since I was little.

Eventually, my constant whining was enough that they half-caved and got us a snake when I was 8 (we still got a dog when I was 10, because I was an extremely stubborn brat when I was little). The snake was an Albino Milksnake, which is a 4ft long nonvenemous snake whose patterning loosely resembles a candy cane.

Because I was 8, I named the snake "Red". Red was our first family pet, and we loved her to death (even though my Dad did try to convince us to get rid of her a few times when I was in high school).

Flash forward to when I'm in college on the other side of the country. I'm in a lecture, when I get a text from my parents. My parents have just returned home after a 3-day trip out of the country to visit family (the snake is supposed to be fed every 1-2 weeks, and they left the dog with other family).

The text says "I think Red passed away last night." And then there is a picture...I'm left gawking at the blackened corpse of my childhood pet, and unable to properly process the situation (or reply to my parents) because the lecture had another hour left in it, and there was an exam on this stuff next week.

This passing was extremely shocking to us since the store lied and said the snake would live 50 years, but we googled it after she passed and the life expectancy is 15 years.

I had a few hours before my next class, so I call my parents from the bar down the street from the university after having downed several long island ice teas. I get on a face time and get details from my parents. To my indignation, they threw her body in the compost bin instead of giving her a burial or cremating her in an urn (which is our plan for the dog).

Unable to get the image of Red's blackened corpse out of my head, my tipsy ass screams at my parents for doing this and insists they fetch Red from the compost and find a crematorium. They said they would, then the next week while my Dad was visiting me he admits they lied and left her in the compost, saying I was overreacting to how they handled the passing.

Now here's where I might be TA (besides the brief tipsy screaming part). In the few years since, I have told this story to everyone including ALL my parents' friends (some of whom finally convinced them they screwed up). I do frame the story in a humorous light by ending it with "so I told my mom that when my dog, or my grandmother dies, do not tell me with a picture and a text."

I'm pretty twisted and sharp with my sense of humor, but my parents think this is just cruel mockery of them for a "teensy mistake," that I am just repeatedly insulting them for the sake of it and ignore all they good they have done for me. I've told them that I love them with all my heart, but I will NEVER let them live this down.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Uarnotme wrote:

Candy cane snakes turn black when they pass?

Edit to add more questions: fish kept jumping out of the tank and killed themselves? The entire tank exploded? (I realize these aren’t questions so much as repeating what you wrote with question marks at the end, but… I mean…what?)

OP responded:

Yes, the saga of the fish tank was also wild. Most of them died because the tank was shaped a bit weirdly in the interior so they would sometimes get pushed by currents into a corner that they had a hard time escaping, so they swam vertically and ended up jumping out.

My dad refused to put a cover on it though for some reason? Also, there were two fans on either end of the tank, one would be off while the other was on and they switched every 12 hrs.

One time, one of the fish was inside the off one when it turned on, and we found its skeleton still attached to the fan the next morning (all its flesh had been blown-off overnight). The explosion was because there was something wrong with the manufactured sealing of the sides (it was done professionally, my dad did not cheep out on his hobbies).

One morning we woke up at 5am and the entire front panel had just peeled off 90% from the two side panels, so all but the bottom 10% of the tank's water had gone onto the floor. And yes, her corpse blackened in the few days while they were out of town. Alive, she looked like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%27s_milksnake. It wasn't pitch black, but still gross.

ippus_21 wrote:

NTA.

The "teensy mistake" was a) not taking your sense of loss seriously and b) straight up LYING TO YOU ABOUT IT. Tell your dad he's going in the compost when he passes.

OP responded:

Re: my twisted sense of humor, I have told him that more than once. He usually responds: with "NEVER! I'm going to live forever because they will freeze me!!!"

thankyoukindly wrote:

Gentle YTA. I can tell this really impacted you and I empathize. However, you are constantly mocking your parents for years ongoing for their miscalculation in understanding how clearly attached you were to red.

I get it, it’s very sad, I fainted when my parents told me my childhood dog died my first month in college, but you need to stop holding this over them. You are not “teaching them a lesson” anymore, you are actually just being mean and trying to remind them of how they failed you. They messed up, yes, but you need to be an adult and let that go at this point.

SpiritualWestern3360 wrote:

NTA: But, have you ever considered that your family misheard the person at the pet store, and that they actually said "fifteen" for the life expectancy and not "fifty"? Like, I highly doubt they would've lied to you.

owls_and_cardinals wrote:

I feel this is an ESH situation. Yes it was insensitive of your parents to put the corpse on the compost pile but in my world it is uncommon to pay for a pet cremation (not unheard of but respectful burial of the corpse is more common). I think their real screw-up was in delivering the news to you by text, with a traumatic and grotesque picture, while you're in class.

But you retelling the story to 'everyone' and 'all their friends' over the course of years that follow, to shame and continually remind them? Odd and unnecessary behavior, and extremely punishing in my eyes. It's not like they caused her death (or, it seems that is not something you suspect) and it sounds like her life aligned the reality of the lifespan for a captive snake.

I understand if this makes you doubt their judgment and I think a tongue in cheek joke about "please don't inform me by text" is perfectly fair. But your intent to 'never let them live this down' puts you in AH territory in my eyes too.