AITAH for assuming my mother was pranking me for an internet post?
Hi, this is a throw away account.
On Thursday night, around 9pm, I got a text from my mom saying my dad was going back for emergency surgery. I immediately messaged her back asking what was wrong, and asked if he’d been in an accident or had a heart attack. To which she responded “No, he broke his (member).”
I immediately thought this had to be a joke. First, what?! Second, why is she the one telling me this? They’ve been divorced for 5 years (they just decided they wanted separate lives after I moved out). It just felt like a bad internet prank set up… so I responded with “haha, very funny.” To which she said she was serious and explained how it happened. Didn’t need to know that fyi.
I doubled down that this had to be a bad joke and it was in pour taste. She responded with a photo of my dad in a hospital bed hooked up to wires and tubes. Which of course lead to me grabbing my keys and heading to the hospital. Sure enough… it wasn’t a joke.
Well now she’s mad at me and said it was incredibly rude that I didn’t believe her and thought she’d do something like that as a joke. To be fair, she messaged me the day before to ask me “how would you describe me to the police if I went missing and you didn’t have a picture of me?” She just downloaded TT a week ago, so she’s catching up on trends.
So yeah, dads now at home recovering, mom is staying with him to help him out, and mom is giving me the cold shoulder because I assumed she’d make a joke of something “so serious”. I feel like my reaction was fair given what happened! I’ve apologized once to try and smooth things over but she says it was sincere. So am I the AH and should apologize again, or was my reaction fair given the circumstances?