AITA for showing up to my nephew’s birthday party without the cupcakes I said I would bake
A couple of weeks ago was my nephew Sam’s 10th birthday. I love Sam so much. I will probably not be lucky enough to have my own son so I am so happy to be able to know him. But I don’t have a great relationship with my older brother. He did everything the right way, good grades, good school, good job, good wife. I have always been jealous at how easily being “normal” comes to him. I did not do well in school, got in a lot of trouble, didn’t finish college, I’ve picked shitty boyfriends, basically every wrong choice you could make. Suffice to say he and I are not on the same page, and he doesn’t take me seriously. But the one thing he does appreciate is that I can bake. He asked if I could bake cupcakes for the party in a Spiderman theme. Of course! Edited to add that Sam did not know. They were going to be a surprise. Spiderman is just his favorite super hero.
Well then I was laid off. I didn’t do anything wrong except be the last person hired. I was devastated and ended up drinking with my roommates instead of baking the cupcakes. It just felt like another in a long line of stupid things. I ended up going to the grocery store and buying cupcakes at 2 different stores which was hard on the bus but it was important. Thank god it’s graduation season. I showed up and told my brother up front what happened and apologized.
He said “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me” He was furious. I apologized a bunch of times. I never once made an excuse. It was 100% entirely my fault. He told me that I shouldn’t have even come and the cupcakes were the only reason he’d invited me. I felt awful and left without seeing Sam. My mom called me when I was on the bus ride home to ask me why I would be such an airhead and show up without the one thing I was invited for. She said she thought she raised me smarter than that but then said “well I guess not” with an ugly little ha at the end.
I accept that I am fully 10000% responsible for not having the Spiderman cupcakes. But I think I did my best to try to make up for it by getting any cupcakes I could find. I didn’t show up empty handed, I didn’t put it on them to come up with a solution. Am I wrong and was it the wrong thing to do?
