I’m writing this after 24 hours have passed and my initial feelings cooled off so I can just get a different perspective on the situation. This is my first time writing one of these so please let me know if there’s any more information I need to give.

For background context, I (23M) live about 3 hours away from my family in a different state as I moved away for work and such. My family was currently out of town for a big event so I decided I’d come back home for the long weekend and keep an eye on things while catching up with close friends etc. My brother (19M) had left the house for another event as well and said he would be back after I went back to my state and that he would clean up the house when he got back.

Now, on the day I was planning to head back to my place 3 hours away, I was going to clean up the dishes in the sink before I started driving back, as I’d admittedly filled it up with various bowls and plates, some of which did have some food stuck to them (rice, remnants of curry). Nothing too nasty but definitely something that could attract ants if left unattended for too long.

However, as I was finishing up my packing and getting ready to just clean up, I received a notification on my phone regarding my pet’s enclosure. The power to my room had accidentally been shut off and the temperatures/humidity were extremely low.

Now, to add a bit of context for this part and why this is important, I am a proud owner of a yearling boa constrictor that I managed to get 1 month ago after years and years of wanting one. Not a single person in my friend/family group are unaware of this and even congratulated me on my new family member. I have a camera and various monitoring devices in his enclosure to keep tabs on him whenever I’m not home and my roommates are kind enough to keep an eye on him regarding his water and such.

So when I saw this, I’ll be honest. I panicked. I immediately packed my stuff into the car and sent a text to some of my roommates if they could put a heater into my room focused on his enclosure to bump up his heat while I rushed home.

I successfully made it back and he’s perfectly fine now. He was a little bit cold to the touch when I got home but after proper power was secured along with a bit of fiddling with his thermostats/devices, he’s back to his derpy, exploratory self.

But the next day, my brother got home from his long flight and was apparently furious. He immediately posted a picture of the kitchen sink with all the dishes into the family group chat and proceeded to blast me for not cleaning up and just leaving. I apologized replied that there had been an emergency and said that I would be back in only a couple days so if he didn’t want to clean it up, that was fine, I would do it and to just leave out some ant bait.

Personally, I thought that would have been the end of it, but he promptly stated that he did not give a single shit about emergencies regarding my pet, whether he died or not and that I should have cleaned up regardless. Keep in mind, this is also in the family group chat with my mother and father.

I apologized again and stated that there was no need to be so rude, but he just kept going and going and going. Proclaiming that I was a baby of a grown man who could not cook or clean (my mom sends me back with homemade meals whenever I visit), and that he did not care, he would just stay at a friends house and let the dishes fester until we all came to clean it up.

I’ll be brutally honest, I love my brother, really. Sometimes he’s a really solid guy and he’s a phenomenal athlete, something I slightly envy him for…but holy god above he has an ego the size of Mars and is incredibly selfish. He has always had it out for me and would always poke fun at the fact that I was always the “reclusive nerd” out of most friend groups along with other mockeries. I’m taming his language down quite a bit, but the gist remains the same. I could continue down the list of grievances I have against him but I digress.

Usually I try to take it on the chin and try to be the older, more calm sibling for both his sake and my parents’ sake, but this was the last straw. I expected him to have at least a little empathy for my worries about my pet, especially so considering he was the reason our family got a dog which we all adore and he knows exactly how much I’ve always wanted a pet snake AND how excited I was and all that stuff. He saw how much I cared and all the pictures and things I’ve shown of my lil scaly kid.

I snapped and said something abhorrent along the lines of doing a backflip off a balcony and hoping for a better life next time, blocked him on everything I could think of, and told both my parents that if he is in the house, I will not be visiting, and that I expect an apology from him if he ever wants to speak to me ever again.

However, now that I’ve had 24 hours to calm down and think, I can’t help but consider whether or not I overreacted. It definitely didn’t seem fair for me to make that ultimatum to my parents but at the moment I was so hurt and angry.

So AITA? And if so, how can I make amends?

EDIT: just reading over this post a bit to make sure I put in as much info as I could. When I said I had my roommates looking after my pet, I should mention that they are notoriously bad at checking their messages so I just shot off a text saying to put the heater in the same room as my pet and then immediately started driving to make sure he was safe and okay. Just clarifying a little bit to show my headspace a little more for my abrupt departure