Things We Saw Today: This Woman’s Story About Her In-Laws Trying to Poison Her With Mushrooms Is BANANAS

In the latest “Ask Polly” advice column on The Cut, a woman wrote in with a story that just about broke me. She describes herself as having “a very severe allergy to mushrooms”—one that requires her to carry an EpiPen and has led to hospitalization in the past. Her in-laws have responded to her allergy by apparently developing a newfound love of mushrooms. Not just a love, actually—a need. A compulsion. They put mushrooms in everything, it’s the only thing they eat; they even found a recipe requiring mushroom powder in mashed potatoes in order to ruin a holiday dinner.

In short, her husband’s family is a bunch of actual monsters.

Here are a few especially enraging bits:

When I was pregnant, my husband told them we would not take part in any family meals if they didn’t promise to keep the meals allergy-free. His dad said, “We can’t promise that. Everyone except your wife likes mushrooms, and we’re not changing what we eat for one person.”

Also:

My husband’s sister even called me up, angry about the fact we would not be attending a party at her parents’ house. Yelling that I was overreacting and that mushrooms are “not a poison.”

She says she and her husband rarely see or even talk to his family, all because of her refusal to let them poison her. It is an absolutely bonkers story and luckily, the response from Polly reflects that. In response to the writer saying she “feel[s] terrible that I am the cause of this rift,” Polly writes:

You’re not the cause of this rift. The cause of this rift is TRULY TERRIBLE HUMAN BEINGS. Your letter is a pitch for a dark comedy on premium cable. I wish I could follow these people around with cameras all day long. I want to know everything about them. I want to know what they do every day, how they talk to each other, how they spend their free time, where they vacation. I want to know what kinds of human beings are comfortable behaving this monstrously. Do they look like monsters? It’s hard not to picture them as monsters.

Your in-laws are next-level, off-the-charts batshit.

My favorite line: “Believing that you caused this rift is like believing that you formed the Grand Canyon using only your mind.”

Go read the whole thing. She does some speculating as to how and why a group of people could act this way, but ultimately, she writes, “who even cares? The important thing to know about your in-laws is that they’re literally trying to kill you.” (via The Cut)

•  Looking to stir up a little more anger? Here’s a roundup of the creepiest and most sexist film reviews ever written. (via Pajiba)
• Blizzard has created a tool so you can find your old WoW friends. (via Kotaku)
• This thread is fascinating and taught me the very important phrase “ham vapeurs.” It’s a regional dialect.
  See more

  1. So, each episode of the Simpsons is dubbed into two different versions for French markets. There’s a Quebec French version, and a France French version.

  Fans of the Quebec dub hate the European dub, and vice versa. pic.twitter.com/W4ditVV2My

  — ℳatt (@matttomic) August 7, 2019

• In yesterday’s TWST, we mentioned that Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge has a cookbook coming out. Check out this exclusive sneak peek at the recipe for Rey’s rising bread! (via i09)
• I still don’t know how I feel about the upcoming live-action Lady and the Tramp, but I do know how I feel about all of these dogs they’ve cast and it’s very positive. (via People)

What did you all see out there today on this International Cat Day?

(image: Nicole De Khors from Burst)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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