AITA

Mom Gets Revenge On Vegan Candy-Stealing Neighbor By Telling Her The Candy Isn’t Vegan

We all know not to take candy from babies, right?

Well, one Redditor discovered that the vegan neighbor who took her children trick-or-treating this year availed herself of a “candy tax” and basically stole at least ten individually packed bags of candy from the OP’s kids.

In order to throw some shade her way, the OP casually mentioned that certain candies contain gelatin, which is not vegan. Now, there’s definite tension between the two, and the neighbor basically leaves the park whenever she sees the OP coming. 

“This happened on Halloween and the day following. My neighbor, 38F (super vegan) has 2 kids. I (26F) also have 2 kids. My apartment complex didn’t do traditional tick or treating on Halloween. Residents were advised to set out prepackaged individual candy bags on their patios/front door areas if they wanted to participate – but the traditional ‘knock on door, physically hand strangers candy’ was not permitted.”

Halloween comes, and the OP ends up having to work late. Her neighbor offered to walk the OP’s kids around with hers. Candy was procured, and everyone was excited. 

“The next day I took my kids to the park directly across from our apartment complex. My neighbor was there with her kids as well. The kids were playing and she took out one of those individual goodie bags with candy in it from her purse and started to loudly rummage in it. She ate several pieces of candy and my daughter eventually noticed, ran up and asked if she could have a piece and my neighbor responded, ‘nope, this is my tax candy, remember that This was my reward for taking you trick or treating last night.’ I was a little weirded out by that statement and asked what she meant. She said that since she is the one who had to take the kids out, she took FIVE bags from each of my kids as a ‘tax.’

“Her son then chimes in and said ‘you only took two bags from us!’ she responded with ‘but I’m your mom, I was doing OP a favor so they get a higher candy tax.’ I was thinking about how to respond when I noticed that she was holding a starburst candy and decided to just smile and nod and go back to watching my kids. I let her continue to finish off the bag of candy and then said , ‘hey, aren’t you vegan? You know a lot of those candies are made with animal products right.’  I explained what gelatin was and how a LOT of those candies are made with it.” 

The woman was horrified and then stormed off. Now, she ignores the OP and if they show up at the park, they leave. 

“My husband thinks I’m an a**hole cause I should have either – not said anything about the gelatin, or said something right away when I noticed. I don’t think it’s my job to tell a vegan what is and isn’t vegan though, and she deserved it for stealing candy from little kids.” 

Literally stealing candy from kids! What do Redditors think? Should the OP have kept quiet or was she right to speak up? 

“Gelatin is like the first thing you figure out isn’t vegan anyways and I say this as someone who did try veganism. It’s takes 0 effort to google that and also 0 effort to not be a dick to kids,” said bratthecat. 

“Ignoring the fact that this candy-tax is just a sugar coated way of theiving candy from children, it’s not your responsibility to inform someone if something is vegan or not. If this mom didn’t know how gelatin is made, that’s her issue and not yours,” said ElectricMoccoson. 

“You would be if she had an allergy to something and didn’t tell her, but this was just good petty revenge. She’s the asshole. Literally taking candy from babies? What kind of person is this?? She took almost have of your kids’ candy. That’s insane. It would have been bad enough to take a bag from each child, but two from hers and five from yours? No. What a horrible person. Also, I was a vegan for seven years and don’t know how she wouldn’t know gelatin is typically an animal product. Lmao good job OP. This was 100% deserved,” noted spookybae95. 

“I am a vegetarian. I remember learning that Starburst had gelatin. While it was very disappointing, it wasn’t anyone else’s job to educate me. I think she’s kind of the AH for claiming to be vegan without learning what that meant (and also for stealing candy from children. Come on, it’s $10 a bag in the store),” said bluebell435. 

Many Redditors thought the story sounded fishy and just a way to dunk on vegans. The OP later added that she thinks the woman must be “really dumb or she eats non-vegan stuff all the time when no one’s watching”: 

“She knows what gelatin is, she knows what it’s made out of, she knows that there are obvious things that she can’t eat. But she had no idea that a lot of candy specifically had gelatin apparently. When I told her that they had gelatin in it, she knew what gelatin was but googled the candies to see if I was correct. I think she is either really dumb or she eats non vegan stuff all the time when no ones watching and had to pretend to be horrified about it at this point, cause a lot of you guys have pointed out that you literally can’t be vegan and not know these things. I’m not vegan, I’m not even freaking vegetarian and I know these things.” 

What do you think? Is it possible for a vegan to not know what gelatin is? And, more importantly, was the OP a jerk for informing her out of a sense of revenge for her children’s stolen candy? 

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Patricia Grisafi

Patricia Grisafi, PhD, is a freelance writer and educator. Her work has appeared in Salon, Vice, Bitch, Bustle, Broadly, The Establishment, and elsewhere. She is passionate about pit bull rescue, cursed objects, and designer sunglasses.