Yeah… I do that sometimes… 
I don’t like beets.
I have no idea if I am allergic to beets. I don’t eat them. Fortunately, for me, it’s fairly tough to hide beets in things you make. But, I spit out the very first mouthful of beets I was ever given. I also spit out the second. My mother, a kind woman, never bothered to give me beets again. I was a cook in several jobs I had in my life, and cooked beets for other people. I don’t taste test beets when I cook them, but I was assured by those who did taste the beets that they were quite good.
I tell the folks who get insistent about feeding me beets the story of the first and second mouthfuls of beets. Then if they still insistent, I warn them that I would spit the third mouthful AT THEM. So far, that’s worked without actually putting the vile things in my mouth. I am glad, because I don’t like beets. Or pushy assholes, either.
Tris
Don’t know the puking smiley. Imagine it here.
In their laps.
I used to have a colleague allergic to all forms of tomatoes. It only takes one time to try to catch someone 6’10", 275 pounds, as he collapses and I try to save him from a head injury and admister an EpiPen. Please just remake the burger without catsup and tomato slices. My heart and shoulders can’t manage that!
(And I’m allergic to freaking pepper. I never eat the office potluck, and avoid most chain restaurants, because it’s the commonest ingredient in everything. It took 45 years to convince my own mom that I’m actually allergic, not picky. But it shouldn’t have required an ER visit to convince the stubborn old broad that I’m actually allergic, and hiding white peppercorn in the sauce won’t help me overcome the issue!)
Are you aware that beet juice is becoming more and more common as a natural food coloring?
If it’s extreme dislike rather than allergy/intolerance that might not matter because if there isn’t sufficient beet juice to alter the flavor you likely won’t care, but if it is an allergy/intolerance you should beware of unspecified “natural coloring” even vaguely red/purplish.
This is why I fully support accurate labels on any food product. I get irritated at “natural flavors” and “natural colors” not further specified. Actually, I get pissed. More and more I’m having to write to companies and ask “does that include X, Y, or Z?” I also get tired of explaining why an order of McDonald’s fries can be safer for my health than someone’s “all natural” whatever it is.
What I got the notion of, from the op, was that you were refusing the gift (which upset her), and that your internal reaction to this, expressed or not, is to be unhappy, angry, and “as annoyed as fuck.”
Banging on your door after reasonable hours is something else.
Me, I find being as “annoyed as fuck” to be work that I avoid, saving it for those who are of ill-intent, or at least whose stupidity is causing real harm. (My having to throw something away is not in that real harm category to me.) Maybe some enjoy being annoyed as fuck, I dunno. But to me someone trying to be nice and say thank you with a very unwanted gift would not be worth my spending energy being upset over. Your mileage varies.
As to “banging” on your door? You stated “after dark” … depending on the time of year that could be 7:30. Not sure how at an apartment door she knows your lights are off, but if I was stopping by a neighbor’s house before 9 I would not assume that just because the lights are off in the front room that they are not up and home more towards the back. And personally I don’t keep my neighbors’ work schedules stored in my phone let alone as an item to pay much attention to and clutter my brain up with. Half the time I don’t remember my neighbor’s names. (My wife remembers everyone’s though, store clerks she’s met once before even! It’s a gift.)
To me life is easier when I assume stupidity over malice unless there is very strong evidence otherwise. And speaking only for myself I don’t have the energy to get upset over every bit of well intended stupidity. You must just be much more energetic than me I guess!
No question if the neighbor insisted that I ate her food in front of her I’d be very straightforward and tell her that I actually had really meant it when I stated that I do not eat things that I have not personally prepared and cannot do that. I wouldn’t do anything I felt might compromise my health to be polite. But the behavior of trying to force food on me that I don’t want would not upset me, it would just make me remember and miss my bubbie, who would not take no for an answer over eating her matzah balls that were just horrible (her kreplach OTOH was to die for).
But sure, enjoy your outrage! Carry on.
My first reaction on reading your latest reply, DSeid, was to say, gee, I wish I was perfect like you. On re-reading, I don’t think you meant to sound so smug and dismissive, but I am just letting you know that you did sound that way. Just FYI.
Not intended to sound that way. It does however seem to me that getting angry at or about people who are acting without malice and causing no harm is … something I’ve seen some of siblings do often and they end up spending much of their time stewing over one thing or another offended and annoyed.
Talk to my wife and she will gladly give you the long list of how I am very far from perfect! The least of which is my not remembering people’s names.
You horse’s ass, is your idea of causing no harm up until Broomstick eats something she shouldn’t, that she has told the other party that she shouldn’t be served, and fucking almost dies? That’s attempted murder in my book. And try to not paint everybody with the same paintbrush as your dysfunctional family. Some people have real problems.
Kindly fuck off, Dr S. What others can see from these posts is that, while medical doctors often deserve our respect, it’s not all of them and it’s not all of the time. I used to like and respect you, but that is no longer a blanket reaction.
Pray tell me kind sir or madam, what harm has been caused by the op taking a plate of food from her door to the garbage disposal? The only harm was her getting as “annoyed as fuck”.
And no the neighbor who wanted to express her thanks did not serve Broomstick some specific thing that she was told to not serve her. Broomstick is just not willing to take any chances with food that she has not prepared herself, which is completely reasonable.
If such is your definition of attempted murder then your book is an odd fantasy novel indeed.
I understand the seriousness of significant food allergies and even other less significant food sensitivities. I’d personally be very pissed if someone told me a seafood stew had no mussels in it so I ate it, as mussels are a trigger of extremely bad migraines for me. (Not an allergy.) And those migraines only make me hyperbolically wish I was dead but are not actually “serious” like many other reactions are. Though I’d be as pissed at myself for having not realized I was trusting an idiot. Those with serious reactions are correct to not trust too many others to not be idiots.
This is not that sort of circumstance.
But yes your post illustrates the truth of your point: some people have real problems.
Also please clarify. “Fuck off”? … are you wanting me to engage in such vigorous lovemaking that I fall off the bed or what?
Oh.
Please also note. I do not ask for or deserve “blanket respect” from anyone and give it to no one.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but wasting food offends the hell out of me and yeah, I’d be pretty pissed off if someone I’ve already told not to push food on me insisted on doing so to the point where my only recourse is to either waste food or deal with their huffing and puffing because I won’t eat the shit. Thanks for making me complicit in something I consider to be offensive in order to spare your overly sensitive butthole getting all in a chafe over not being allowed to bestow your largess there, neighbor! You’re a fucking peach.
Wow, must be nice to have Vulcan-like control over your emotions. While I can suppress my angry urges and be polite to idiots, assholes, and jackasses that is mere suppression. I am able to admit that those people still piss me off even if I can control my expression and external reactions.
But hey, continuous to be sanctimonious because you’re so superior. Me, I prefer ranting anonymously on a message board to blowing off steam by getting drunk or high or some other unhealthy thing.
My current residence is two rooms and a kitchen. The front of the unit is 1 door and 2 windows with just the minimal bit of wall to either side required to anchor the windows/doors so even with the shades drawn if there’s a light on you can tell. If you’re standing at the door lights in the front room and kitchen are visible. If not, then either I’m in the bedroom with the lights on or the lights off.
The other things is that she lives directly below me and complains that my merely walking across the floor when I get up in the morning wakes her up. She also complains that my showering at 4:30 am wakes her up… except that I shower at night, before bed (or take a hot, soaking bath) and by 4:30 am I’m gone on a work day. Now there IS another person who is also up/going to work at that hour, on the first floor adjacent to both our apartments and that person DOES shower between 4-4:30 am - because if I’m in the bathroom I can hear the water running in their bathroom. But only if I’m in the bathroom, not in any other room of the apartment.
You probably do not live in a building composed of small one and two bedroom apartments. It’s a bit unavoidable to NOT notice these things.
Or else I pay more attention to things that might actually harm me - like food. I don’t give a fuck over noisy neighbors, local kids swearing, and a lot of other annoyances in this neighborhood that apparently get a lot of other people bent out of shape. The downstairs lady is someone with it seems no noise tolerance, no tolerance for kids being kids (in a harmless manner), and basically is ill suited to living in this environment.
Yeah, well I don’t enjoy people trying to force stuff on my that could literally kill me. How would you feel about someone trying to get you to eat rat poison? Or drink lye?
Why do you assume I have a “garbage disposal”? Because I don’t. The only place I can put such food is in my kitchen garbage can… which means I get to smell what is, to me, poison until such time as I empty the garbage. Or I suppose I could march the poison to the dumpster in front of the old biddy - but I really don’t want the sort of public screaming match that could ensue, especially if it’s on a night the downstairs neighbor is drunk. Which happens a couple times a week.
What harm could it do? Well, tomato juice on my skin generates a rash with a remarkable resemblance to poison ivy. Takes weeks to heal up, looks like hell, feels miserable, and that’s assuming it doesn’t get infected. Fortunately that is the only allergy I have that bad.
^ And this.
Perhaps you prefer assault?
Can you eat potatoes? I have a friend who is deathly allergic to all the nightshades – tomato, potato, eggplant. I do sometimes cook for him. Well, I cook for a group that he’s a part of. I’m careful to tell him the ingredients, and he can usually partake.
But he tells me that “gluten free” means “deadly food”, because usually the gluten is at least partially replaced with potato flour.
I confess that I pride myself in being able to cook for friends with a variety of dietary restrictions. But I cook very carefully. I bought the brand of tomato sauce with no added sugar for the diabetic, and made the frosting with no corn syrup for the woman who is sensitive to corn. And I told the vegan that I’d had to sift beetles out of my flour, and she chose not to eat the resulting food.
Tomatoes are the only member of the nightshade family that causes me a problem. I happily eat potatoes and eggplants… except it’s hard to find an eggplant recipe that doesn’t have tomato in it for some reason…
I long ago gave up figuring any rhyme or reason to my list of food allergies. I can eat such major allergens as dairy and fish and shellfish and tree nuts with no problem. Tomatoes? Barley? Lentils? WTF?
I handed a list of my food allergies to a doctor once. He read the note, got a puzzled look on his face, and asked “what do all of these have in common?”
Near as I can tell, the only thing they all have in common is that I’m allergic to them…
I suppose if, for some reason I wanted make a beet out of something that didn’t already look like a beet, in terms of color, that would be the “natural” choice. My food already has natural colors, and aside from making rice with saffron, and mixing red tart cherry juice with my lemonade I don’t color much of my food.
Oh, I do brown my food. I don’t use brown stuff, though. I use butter, and fire, and iron, or steel. When my greens get to where they aren’t green, I throw them out, after castigating myself for letting them get that way. I then get new greens that are already green.
Of course, my blueberries are not actually blue, and my blackberries are not actually black. I prefer them that way.
I also always ask if they actually have inorganic bananas, or eggs. Or if the free range eggs ever get away. I do stick with brands of eggs where the yolks are dark yellow. I suppose that counts as coloring my Key Lime pie. It comes out yellow. Some idiots think it’s suppose to be green.
I used to be able to get oranges that were not orange, when I got them from orange farmers. They are sort of green, mostly, with a bit of orange and brown. The orange ones are dyed.
I like my food food colored.
Tris
Margarine was invented to fatten chickens and turkeys. But it killed them, so we give it to people now.
Nah. A bit a pepper would be better. Thanks.
Broomstick no Vulcan control needed. More being lazy enough to not make the effort to work myself up. Being angry for more than a short flare takes work. It takes discipline to keep it stoked that I guess I just don’t have for things like someone trying to say thanks but ignoring my request regarding how to say it.
But I’m used to being ignored. Seriously I just don’t sweat it.
I do also want to comment on the calling me a horse’s ass. No horse claims possession of me. I’m my dog’s ass, my wife’s ass, my kids’ ass, but no horse’s.
Yeah, that’s a pretty weird list of allergies. And it’s a lot of my staples, too.
My SIL is sensitive to a weird list of foods, but yours is weirder.
This is nonsense. Anger gives you energy. It tells your sympathetic nervous system to produce adrenaline, which provides you with excess energy. It actually takes more mental effort to shut down anger, whether by distraction or by deliberately calming down.
The anger Broomstick is experiencing is not excessive. She is not becoming violent or even aggressive in person. And her choice to discuss the issue with acquaintances and friends who can both commiserate and provide a possible solution is a healthy way to deal with what she is feeling. She’s coping with her anger and redirecting it into something productive.
Simply calming down, if you can do so, is not without merit, but it doesn’t stop an ongoing problem. And ongoing problems have a way of making someone angrier the more they recur.
Your description of the neighbor is inaccurate. She is not “trying to say thanks.” She is attempting to control another person. She knows she is unwelcome, but persists in an attempt to make the person do what she wants them to do.
It is probably not attempted murder, since she likely does not believe Broomstick and thus has no intent of killing her. There’s a possibility of assault, if she ever throws food at her or threatens to do that (or worse) at any point. But Broomstick’s reluctance to be impolite suggests otherwise.
But she is definitely guilty of harassment, as well as possibly trespassing, assuming she attempts to give this food by entering Broomstick’s property. Broomstick could, if she so chose, get a restraining order, though I would recommend attempting other ideas first.
Broomstick has no reason to listen to someone who has no idea what he is talking about and makes “recommendations” that are thinly veiled attacks.
There is a reason why you are the extreme minority in this thread. Even D’Anconia didn’t go there. When even the troll knows that would be a step too far, maybe you should fine a clue.
And, yes, I am goddamned fucking lecturing. My tone is fucking patronizing. Because I’m explaining the goddamned fucking basics to a goddamned fucking asshole. He doesn’t want respect; he doesn’t get it.