AITA for bringing rotisserie chicken to an all-homemade potluck?

A Reddit user shares their experience attending a potluck hosted by their sister and her friends, where they were expected to bring a homemade dish. After forgetting to defrost their roast chicken, the user bought a rotisserie chicken instead.

While they were honest about it and none of the other guests seemed to mind, the sister expressed her displeasure, claiming it was disrespectful to the group’s tradition.

Now, the user is left questioning whether they were in the wrong for their actions. If you want to dive deeper into this potluck drama, read the original story below.

‘ AITA for bringing rotisserie chicken to an all-homemade potluck?’

My (25F) sister (28F) and a group of her friends from high school meet once a month to catch up and have a potluck dinner together. This month they met at my sister’s place and she asked me if I wanted to join them.

She told me I had to bring a homemade dish, since that’s one of the purposes of these gatherings, to give them a reason to cook something and take a break from fast-food. I said ok.

I was supposed to make a roast chicken, but I honestly forgot to defrost it, so I ended up buying rotisserie chicken on my way to my sister’s house. I didn’t pretend I had made it, I was honest, none of her friends minded, and it’s not like I’d bought KFC.

My sister looked bothered though, and when we were alone for a moment she told me I had to have warned them when I realized I wouldn’t be able to cook.

And that it was rude of me to show up for the first time already disrespecting the rules of their group or what not. I thought that was such an overreaction, but now I’m wondering if I was the AH.

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

StAlvis −  YTA – I had to bring a **homemade** dish, since that’s one of the purposes of these gatherings. You had **one** job.

Princessspunkin −  Girl YTA. Especially it being your first time coming and you literally missed the entire point of the group. It makes you seem careless as you completely disregarded what your sister said.

You could’ve told her what happened and like made some cookies or something that doesn’t require a long defrosting. OR you could’ve bought a non frozen raw chicken and cooked it. It would’ve costed less than the rotisserie chicken.

EDIT : yall keep commetnig about the price of the chicken. A walmart rotiserrie chicken is 5.97 for an approx 2 lb chicken and a perdue brand raw chicken is 1.45 /lb. (walmart.com & google) i live in FL so location may play a role idkkk

Big-Imagination4377 −  Info: When you realized you forgot to thaw the chicken did you message or call anyone in the group to let them know about the error and your planned fix? When you agree to do something and don’t (for whatever reason), I don’t think communication of the error is unreasonable.

Active-Anteater1884 −  Under normal circumstances … “Hey! I’m having a potluck. Everyone bring something” I would have said N T A. But this pot luck is specifically to share homemade food. YTA, gently.

whatshamilton −  If you forgot to defrost, you should have pivoted to another homemade meal. You could have made Mac and cheese or something

slap-a-frap −  YTA – *I thought that was such an overreaction,* Of course you would think that because that’s what an AH would think, This was your first time going to one of these events so how on God’s green Earth could you “think” you know what’s what.

Also, you had one (1) job and you couldn’t even do that. You dropped the ball. Plain and simple. Stop trying to find validation in failing your one (1) job. Own it and do better. Stop with the excuses and deflection. YOU dropped the ball.

Narkareth −  YTA – The purpose of the gathering was to shared homemade goods. Its a collective creative exercise. You then didn’t prioritize actually doing that. So yeah, party foul.

I get why you might be on the fence on it though, generally speaking the point of bringing food to a gathering is more to generally contribute to the gathering broadly speaking.

You probably felt like you were still doing that. It’s just different here because of the stated purpose. You provided some food, and that was nice; it just wasn’t the point. As an example, imagine your sister organized a get together for people to share their artwork/paintings.

Everyone comes with their own canvases, and you walk in with an 8.5/11 printout of someone else’s work. In that instance, would you think you were sufficiently participating in the get together? Or would you come across as kind of phoning it in/minimizing the reason people were gathering in the first place?

hiketheworld2 −  If you forgot to defrost the chicken, leave it in the freezer and go get another chicken. Problem solved.

NeighborhoodTrolly −  She’s the one who understands the rules of the group and event. If the cooking was a fundamental aspect then your inattention led you to violate that aspect. It doesn’t seem like a big deal. YTA

oregonchick −  YTA. If you have assigned dishes at a potluck, you are responsible for bringing what you agreed to provide. “I forgot” is not much of an excuse, especially when you choose not to tell the potluck host (your own sister) that you’re not going to do what you said you’d do.

At a bare minimum, you call the host as soon as you realize what you did, tell them the situation, and offer solutions (“I can buy rotisserie chicken or I can make X dish instead”) and then you let them decide how to proceed.

Instead, you didn’t make it a priority to keep your promise and then made a cheap and low-effort substitution, which you sprung on your sister in front of the other attendees. My guess is that you were trying to avoid having to deal with her understandably unhappy reaction.

And now you’re here seeking validation for your disorganization and lack of consideration for your sister. Look, a potluck isn’t a life-or-d**th thing, so this one incident isn’t something that makes you a bad person or anything like that.

But if you have a pattern of failing to follow through, letting down your sister, and being dismissive of what others are doing (i.e., everyone pitching in to provide fully homemade food), THEN you might be a bad person, or at least a bad sister and friend. So please take an honest look at whether this is a fluke or something more.

Do you think the user was wrong for bringing store-bought rotisserie chicken instead of a homemade dish, or was the sister overreacting to a minor situation? How would you navigate expectations at family gatherings? Share your thoughts below!