Some people just don’t care. They’ll do or say anything to get what they want, no matter who gets in their way. These parents, siblings, Karens, neighbors, and more are straight-up deranged. How would YOU deal with psychos like this?
1. Netflix And No Chill
My friend got tired of her Golden Child Stepsister mooching off her Netflix account after they had a petty argument over the phone. The sister called my friend screaming at her about what a witch she is. Talking about how she'll never amount to anything, and how she's just a waste of space—meanwhile, the sister is $60k in debt in student loans.
Oh, and she dropped out in her final year. My friend decided she'd had enough. She then also changed the password to her Hulu and Amazon Prime accounts too, cutting her spoiled sister off further. After her sister exploded, my friend simply texted her saying, "You could always pay for your own accounts." The sister’s response was so priceless.
"I don't have any more money you witch! Sephora was having a sale so I'm tapped out! Screw you!” My friend and I are still laughing about this as we binge-watch shows on her accounts.
2. One At A Time, Please
My stepbrother and his girlfriend of three years were getting married. His girlfriend just happens to be my best friend, so I was extremely excited for them. I was chosen to be the maid of honor and my biological brother was the best man. We were all that close—except for one other person in the wedding party. That would be my stepbrother’s best friend. He's the worst guy I've ever met.
I never really liked him because he was a total creep and always tried to hit on me when my stepbrother wasn't there. My stepbrother is quite protective, so I never told him—if I had, he would have been absolutely furious. Also, I can stand up for myself. Anyway, once this friend FINALLY got a girlfriend he stopped annoying me. Well…temporarily.
During the planning of the wedding, nothing crazy happened apart from the normal wedding stress. We invited almost everyone we knew. It was going to be great—or so we thought. The big day arrives and everyone is ecstatic. The ceremony was beautiful and everything went wonderfully. Then the reception came. It got off to a good start—then it took a turn.
The groom and bride plus the bridesmaids and groomsmen were all seated at a table at the front of the venue, while the guests were sitting in front of us, so they were facing our table. Everyone was giving speeches and enjoying the food. Then, out of nowhere, my stepbrother’s best friend stands up, takes the mic, and says he has something important to say.
We're all confused, as he had finished his speech, but let him talk. I wish we hadn't. He asks his girlfriend to come up to the table. I already knew where this was going. He starts a speech about how much he loves her and how they were meant for each other. She's smiling but I think she didn't want this to happen NOW, of all the times.
He then kneels down and pull a ring out of his pocket and asks her to marry him. She say yes. They start running around showing people the ring all the while the bride—my best friend—looked like she was going to cry. My stepbrother and brother were whispering to each other. I couldn't hear what they were saying. Finally, my mom gets up to remind everyone that this was her son's wedding and that we should stop talking about someone else's engagement.
Everyone was quiet. Suddenly, we hear this banshee scream. The girlfriend started screaming and crying saying MY MOM HAD RUINED HER SPECIAL DAY. Then my stepbrother’s “best friend” began screaming at us too, claiming that he did nothing wrong. They got kicked out in the end. My brother lost his best friend that day—but he didn't really care. That idiot lost all his friends.
3. Cake Day
It was my birthday, and my friends and family were over, which included my distant cousin and her nine-year-old overweight son. We’d just got done with the pizza and were about to go eat the cake when we walked in on the nine-year-old, who I’ll call Jake.
Jake had eaten all the cake and had frosting on his hands and around his mouth. Of course, right then Jake's mom comes in and says stuff like, "It's not his fault", and "why is the cake out anyway?"
Right then, I told her, "Get out, NOW". She said that she wouldn't because, AND I QUOTE, "It's not ONLY your birthday, it's all of ours too".
After that, my mom stepped in and told her she needed to leave. Luckily, we had a second cake and ate that instead. Unluckily for me, it had no frosting. Unluckily for her, she's not getting any Christmas presents.
4. A Family Affair
I am a combat veteran and a school teacher at the time of this story, and my wife was a school teacher as well. So, I bought my first house 12 years ago. It was in a low-middle-class neighborhood with a lot of working-class families. My house had a pool in the backyard and my parents bought me and my wife a hot tub as a wedding/housewarming gift.
Two weeks after moving in, we came home to an unsettling sight. We found a stranger and six teenage kids swimming in our pool when we got home. We will call them Entitled Mom, the Entitled Daughter, the Entitled Son, and the others I assume to be their friends and/or boyfriend. The daughter was about 18 or 19 years old and her brother was about 17.
When we told them to get out and get off our property, the mother told me that the previous owner gave them permission to come over whenever they wanted to swim. I explained to her that I was the new owner and that I was not ok with it. I told her that not only do I not know them, but there is a liability for me if they got hurt. I couldn’t believe her response.
She yelled and faked cried, saying I was being a bad neighbor, selfish, and forcing her kids to sweat in the summer heat. She told me that if they got heatstroke, it was my fault for not letting them swim in my pool. I told her to get the heck off my property and never return. Fast forward two weeks. I had put up a "No Trespassing" sign on my property in multiple spots and had gotten to know many of the not-entitled neighbors.
They were great and told me to ignore the mom and her kids. They told us she was already badmouthing us, but no one ever believed her. This is when it took a strange turn. Now I start to notice when I wake up in the morning that there is evidence of people using my pool and hot tub at night when we are asleep or away. Like, I find cans and other stuff.
I figure it has to be the mother and/or her brats. So I install cameras on the grounds and start video-taping. Sure enough, I catch the daughter and a few others hanging out in my pool on Friday nights when my wife and I are out. I figure they must have been waiting for us to leave and then threw a mini-party or were quietly swimming while we slept.
So I discussed it with my wife. We decided to teach the mother and her brats a lesson. So the next Friday night, I park my car a street over and my wife does the same. We wait in the dark house to see if any of them come over. The daughter and I assume her boyfriend, the son and I assume his girlfriend, and four other teen couples come right over and start getting in my pool and hot tub.
I wait 45 minutes for them to get really into their fun. And let me tell you, it was getting hot and heavy out there; they were all undressed. I then spring my trap. I go out with my piece, pointed at the ground but at the ready. When I reach the pool, my wife flips on the backlights and I yell for them to freeze or I'll shoot. Meanwhile, my wife calls the authorities.
They all have the deer in the headlights look on their faces and not one of them tries to speak for a good minute. The daughter then starts to tell us that she has permission to be there and that we need to let them get dressed. I tell them that if they move towards me or their property, that I would consider them to be charging me or reaching for a weapon and I'd shoot.
They must have believed me because they froze. One girl begged me to give her her clothing. Not being a total jerk, I say that I will throw them all their clothing. But there was a twist. I then walk over to their piles of clothing, phones, and purses and throw EVERYTHING into the pool. They freak out trying to save their phones and other goods.
After ten minutes officers show up and they have the kids climb out of the pool wearing their soaked clothes and trying to shake their phones dry. I show the officers the videos from our cameras, the No Trespassing signs, and explain to them that I had told them and their mother they were persona non grata. The kids were detained for trespassing and a bunch of other charges.
The officers recommended that next time, I leave my piece in the safe and let them just come and get them. I told them that I thought they may attack my wife and had to "stand my ground." I proved that I never pointed it at them with the videos, so I couldn't be charged with anything. Then came the very best part. As the kids are being loaded into the cruisers, the mother shows up yelling at the officer, my wife, and me.
She demands they let them go and even tries to open the door on one of the cruisers. The officers threaten her with being detained if she doesn't back off and leave my wife and me alone. I later found out that the charges against the teens were reduced and they all got plea deals. They all got community service, fines, and were put on probation. We got a restraining order against the mother and her brats so they couldn't bother us again.
I then sent a bill to the mother for the cost of draining, disinfecting, and refilling my pool and having a professional cleaning service clean up the kids’ mess. The bill was for about $400. I had my parents’ attorney send it to her with a letter stating that if it was not paid in 30 days, then we would sue her for a larger amount. She sent a check to my attorney and thankfully it did not bounce.
About a year later, the entire entitled family moved away and we never heard from them again.
5. Karens Gonna Karen
My wife needed a few things from the grocery store and on this particular day I happened to be available and I offered to go for her. She works hard and does a lot, so I definitely felt it was necessary to do something for her so she could just relax for the day. I took my stepson with me so she could rest up and just take it easy. I thought it would give me time to spend with him for some bonding—but instead, we both got an afternoon we’ll never forget.
We completed all of the errands, which went smoothly, and then headed to the grocery store to finish up our day. My son, being a typical four-year-old, was full of energy running ahead of me laughing and speaking to everyone he comes across, which I generally don’t mind as long as he doesn’t hit anyone and stays within eye view. As I’m making my way down an aisle looking for canned corn, my son jogs to the end of it when an older lady is entering at the other end.
My son, being the sweet social butterfly he is, approached and exclaims an excited “Hi! Me four and me Ryan”! Bless his little heart. The lady looked down and says “Well hello there. You shouldn’t be running around unattended, let’s go find your parents”. I didn’t think anything of her statement because I assumed she just hadn’t seen me.
“Ryan! Come back here bud, please”! He excitedly runs back toward me and starts turning in circles because you know, he’s four lol. I’m still searching the shelves as the lady walks past me and stops behind me. Again I think nothing of it because it’s a grocery store and you have to share the aisles. I turn my basket around and start to walk toward the front cash registers when this lady literally blocks my path.
I say excuse me and try to walk around her and she moves her cart in front of me again. I honestly thought she was just getting confused and said excuse me once again and tried one more time to go around and she just blocks my path. The following conversation ensues. Me: “Um, sorry about that, we’ll get out of your way”. Lady: “Oh, I don’t think so! You’re not going anywhere with that child”!
Me: “You mean my son”? Lady: “That’s not your child! He’s white! And you’re Mexican. You probably didn’t even know his name until he said it to me”! Me: “Sure, whatever lady, can you just move? My wife is at home and anxiously awaiting for us”. Then, she upped the ante. She said: “Stop your lies. You’re not taking him anywhere, you pervert”!
This whole time my son is standing close to me holding my leg because he was honestly getting scared. I was getting angry because I hadn’t had much sleep and I have a short fuse anyway. Me: “As you can see he’s standing close to me because he trusts me and you’re scaring him so how about you buzz off”? Lady: “No! He’s scared because of you! He just doesn’t know how to express it yet”.
She looks at my son. Lady: “Come on now sweetie, I’m here to rescue you. Come with me”. Thankfully my son was able to communicate to her he wasn’t going anywhere with her. But she was having NONE of it. I still get mad when I think of what she did next. She literally grabbed my son and began to run. It caught me off guard because I honestly could not fathom what was actually happening.
My son starts screaming loudly because he was so scared and this lady is just like “Don’t worry sweetie he won’t hurt you I promise”! Suddenly I snap back into reality and I begin to chase after this crazy witch. While running through the store, I yell for people to stop her and that she’s kidnapping my son and thankfully a worker stops her before she makes the exit.
Lady: “Why are you stopping me? This Mexican here is trying to take my grandson”! My son literally is bawling his eyes out and extending his arms out calling for me. This lady was relentless and would not let go until my son even after he slapped her face multiple times. I laughed a little, not gonna lie. At this point, a manager shows up and asks what’s going on.
The lady spoke before me, saying: “This (pointing at me) pervert is kidnapping my grandson and I was just trying to escape”! I said: “That’s my son you freaking psycho. Now let him go”. The manager didn’t know what to believe. I don’t blame him, he was caught in a weird situation. So I pulled out my phone and showed him pictures of me and my son that dated a year or so back as proof. Her response was infuriating.
This lady still would not give up and accused me of faking them. Like how would you do that exactly? I’ll never know, but whatever. Sadly, there were two other ladies there taking the psycho’s side and said I was attempting to take my own son because there was no way we were family because of our different skin tones. One even called the authorities, which I was actually happy about because I knew they’d be able to review the security cameras.
Even still, I called my wife to see if she could come to the store to get this situation cleared up quicker. As soon I told her what was going on, she zoomed to the store. She got there about the same time as the officers. The crazy ladies were giving their statement to the officers when my wife walked in. As soon as she walked in, my son goes “Mama help”! My wife is a true mama bear and she immediately flew into a rage when she saw this lady holding my son.
She yelled: “Let him go NOW”! The lady said, “Sorry sweetie, I was just trying to protect him from this pervert over here”. Another one piped up, “Yeah we saw him kidnapping him but this lady saved him”! The cop looks at the lady and is confused. He asks: “I thought this was your grandson”? My wife said: “I have no idea who that lady is”.
She takes out her phone and shows the officer a picture of my mother-in-law. Finally, the lady fesses up. “Okay, I’m sorry he’s not my grandson but I was only trying to protect him from this dirty pervert over here”! The other lady said, “Yeah I witnessed the whole thing, he snatched that child and tried to run away with him but this lady stopped it”!
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was another one. She said: “Yes I saw it too. He needs to be taken away. And you (pointing to my wife) should be thankful that this lady was here to save your son because you obviously just let him loose wherever”! My wife says: “Who are you talking about again”? All three crazy ladies pointed at me. My wife replies: “Oh you mean my husband”?!
The ladies were shocked. They said “Husband?!”?! My wife said, “Yeah who do you think called me and got me here so fast”?! I presented my ID to the officer and the manager and my wife did the same. We also each showed pictures of us on our phones to prove we were really a family. The cop nodded in approval and handed us our phones back and jotted down a few notes.
The three ladies for some reason still kept trying to say this was all fake and my wife was in on the kidnapping and said we needed to be detained. My wife lost it at this point and let off some colorful words I won’t repeat here but she definitely got her point across. Then the nail in the coffin came for the psycho trio. The office turned to the manager and asks: “Sir, do the cameras work here”? The manager says yes, and the officer asks to review them.
The three ladies' faces went pale. Like ghostly pale. The officer reviewed the outside camera as I pulled into the parking lot and saw me take my son out of my car and then as I went up and down the aisles and most importantly the instance the woman snatched up my son and began to run. Upon his return, he asks “Would you like to press charges”? The lady pipes up: “Yes I would”!
The officer’s reaction was brutal. He looked at her and said: “Why would I be asking you that question? Shut your mouth and sit down”. He turns to me and repeats the question. I said absolutely. Lady one was charged with attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, providing a false report, and child endangerment. The other two were also charged with providing a false report as well.
To make matters worse for the first lady, my son bruises easily and she left some terrible spots on him from where she was grasping him—but he’s fine! This added more charges to her rap sheet. The officer will be following up with me in a few weeks.
6. We All Go Down Together
Back when my awful sister was planning her wedding, her even worse mother-in-law wanted to be a part of it. Unfortunately for everyone involved, this woman wanted her family traditions involved. The food...okay, the giant line dance...okay, but then she sprang the big one on my poor mother. It was apparently a tradition in her family that unmarried older daughters had to do a dance in a pig trough at the reception.
Well, my sister and brother-in-law thought that would be hilarious. Being that I was the only unmarried older daughter...So funny. My poor mom was getting torn down by this mother-in-law—because it was just a JOKE. That was repeated and insisted on in every single phone call. Meanwhile, my mom is just trying to protect me from that spectacle and wasn’t telling me.
But finally, I saw her crying and she told me what was going on. But there was one thing they weren’t counting on. At that point, I was only a short time out of a very horrible relationship. I didn't remember how to say "no" yet, but I did remember how to say "I'm taking you all down with me.” And oh boy, did I ever come up with a genius plan.
I told the mother-in-law that I'd be happy to do that dance in front of her entire family…undressed. And only undressed. Suddenly, it wasn't so funny anymore. Eventually, they all shut up about it, but that was the last time that woman ever spoke to me. It's been 12 years, by the way.
7. Doggone It
My neighbors let their children scream like they are in unbearable agony. My service dog doesn't like it and will bark three short alert barks at them. And honestly, I didn’t stop him. It scares the kids a little to hear the dog, but they finally stop screaming once they hear it. These kids will literally scream high pitch like they are having their limbs sawed off.
So yeah, when I hear this and my dog hears this he starts to get visibly concerned. He thinks tiny humans are hurt and I think genuinely wants to make sure they are okay. So usually while this is happening, I let him out, he runs to the shared fence, does a few barks until the kids stop screaming, then he stops and lays down next to the fence.
In my opinion, my dog does a better job at moderating the kids than their own mother does. Anyways, this happened again this morning, my dog does his thing, the kids stop. But then I hear one start to cry. This was the beginning of my nightmare. Their mom comes over to my house furious. I answer the door politely and ask what’s the problem.
She says my dog scared her kids and I responded with "Oh, well he was concerned. Your children were screaming extremely loud and it sounded like they were hurt. They scream quite often in fact". She gets angrier and basically says they are kids being kids. I say "No mam, I am a kindergarten teacher and a mother myself—your kids are being excessively loud to the point where it's concerning the neighbors with their screaming”.
She got super angry and said they weren't screaming that loud, to which I responded I can show you my porch ring if you'd like. You can't see your yard but you can definitely hear the noises your children make". It took a bad turn. She then threatened to have my dog taken away. He is a seizure alert dog trained by the academy near here and I have his actions directly on tape.
He simply did three short barks, kind of like "stop it," then laid down. Not a threat at all. I told her she could try, but also maybe work on her kids not sounding like they are in a Saw film. She left more angry than when she arrived. I went ahead and made a call to the local dog trainer to let them know in case this lady makes a false claim against my dog.
Thank God for ring cameras set up everywhere so my husband can monitor my seizures, because I can validate my dog’s whereabouts at any time.
8. The Garden Of Eden
So. My cat didn't come home for dinner. Very strange. He's usually the one (we have two) demanding I get to opening the tins. So I look in the usual spots, is he stuck in a closet or the garage? Nothing. I eat dinner, thinking he'll be around meowing any minute. Well, no sign of Frank (the cat). He's mostly an indoor lazy guy who wanders a bit around outside.
Anyway, my neighbor previously (a month ago or so) had yelled at my wife about the cat "pooping" in his garden. Okay that's not cool, he has a litter box, we have a garden. I get that's a bit annoying. So anyway I go over to his place and knock on his door. Said I understand my cat has been bothering you. I gave him my business card, said if he ever bugs you again please call or text me.
I said I'll deal with whatever mess or whatever. Meanwhile, I'll try to improve the situation. I bought some dirt, catnip, made an outdoorsy litter area for my guy, showed it to him a few times. We made an effort to keep him inside more. But I'll be honest, eight years as an indoor/outdoor cat and he gets antsy and crafty about getting outside sometimes.
Anyhow, I'm wandering around the roads near my place hoping not to find a tire print over my cat. No sign. He doesn't come home so now it's worry time. I kind of know in the back of my mind what happened. I sense that the neighbor did something. So I'm wandering around outside and I approach his driveway, calling for Frank—and I hear him.
He's meowing for me. Okay I follow the sounds and yep, he's trapped in buddy's garage. So I tried the door, figured he could have wandered in and got stuck. Darn, he's gotten stuck in mine before. Door is locked. Knocked on buddy's door. Said I hear my cat stuck in your garage. I couldn’t believe his response. He says, verbatim, "Yep! Bye" and goes to close the door.
I knock again, bit louder. Now this guy is a boomer, probably 65 years old. And he says, "What?" and I said, “Man, you got my cat in there. Just let him out thanks”.
And he says "No". At this point I'm at the front door and as he's closing it I put my foot in there. I'm like bud, let him out. He says no again. I said should I break this window to get him out? He pulls out his phone and starts recording and says "You're threatening me!" and I'm like "Bro you took my cat let him out" and he says no again. Goes to close the door and I knocked hard as it closed and it popped open. Guess it didn't latch. It hit a breaking point.
He tells his wife to call 9-1-1. And she does. He slams the door with his shoulder and locks it. I hear them literally on emergency calling the authorities. I'm like, ok, he took my cat. He can't keep him, that's not a thing. So I dialed the non-emergency line and told my end—the neighbor threatened my cat before, now he has him captive. And she tells me a squad car will be there soon talk to him.
Like five seconds later, the first car pulls up. I give him my ID, tell him my cat is in there. He says how do I know. I said I can hear him. Well, does he have a cat? No I’m pretty sure he hates cats. I show him a picture and say he's in the garage here. Two more cars pull up, four more officers. I'm like wow, this is really something. First officer talking to buddy, watching the video.
But then two more! Five total, one guy is like in SWAT gear ready to take somebody down. They talk to him. Cat is meowing like crazy beside us in the garage. The SWAT guy is like "did you take his cat?" the other guy says "he says he did, says that’s this guy’s (me) cat in there...” “He poops on my property! Right there”! He points to a little dirt patch behind a bush.
I'm like, I'm sorry man I didn't tell my cat to come over here and find a good litter box. I'm working on it. It really devolved at this point. SWAT guy is like, we drove 90 mph up here because... Cat poop? Neighbor says "He was threatening me!" At that point I said I just asked how I should go about getting my cat out of the garage.
SWAT guy tells buddy he's called a break-and-enter to 9-1-1 because I was "sneaking around his garage" and the first cop is like "this guy took his cat". SWAT guy is like "why did you call a break-and-enter?" Neighbor says "I didn't" and the officer is like "should we go down to the shop and pull the tape”? Neighbor starts pulling a "do you know who I am? Don't talk down to me”.
The guy is like it's a crime to call emergency for a non-emergency. Like down to the station kind of deal. First officer is like "let the cat out now" and he finally does. Frank runs out and home. The officer is like this is stupidly unreasonable that you called 9-1-1 over cat poop. Guy finally apologizes. Shakes my hand and says sorry to me. I knew just what to do.
I say “do you still have my number? I'll literally come fix whatever he messes up while I try to get him trained up to stop using your garden there”. The officer says to me to do what I can to keep the cat indoors. I'm like “I do try, but my niece and five-year-old live with us and sometimes he's crafty". Anyway—now I'm not sure what is going to happen to my cat if he gets out again.
9. Grandfathered In
So my fiancée and I have been together for about three years total and engaged for almost a year. We are planning to get married after the baby arrives. She's seven months pregnant and we are having a boy. Here's where the drama starts. My grandfather passed in a heroic but devastating way when I was young. Since then, I have always wanted to name my first son after him.
He was my mom's dad, and she wanted this even more than me. She has always, always stressed to me how important and meaningful this would be, but I've always wanted to do this as well. My grandfather didn't have the stereotypical old-man name but actually had a name that is still common today. His name is also actually my fiancée’s dad's name.
My fiancée never spoke about her dad other than telling me when we first started dating that she does not have a relationship with him and wants to leave it at that. She also told me a shortened name of his name which sounds similar but is different to my grandfather's. But anyway, I never pressed her about it. I didn't connect this at the time, but she never addressed my grandfather by name.
She just called him my grandfather. However, I thought this was normal because she's never met him and that's what I call him. I can't forget her reply when I told her what I wanted to name our son. She said no. I couldn't believe she said no so flat-out like that. I kept trying to convince her, letting her know how important and meaningful this was to me and the name is still common today.
It's not like I wanted to name him an ugly or outdated name. I found her crying a couple times though and she eventually broke down and told me that that was her father's name too and her father seriously mistreated her from the ages of 12-18, when she left for college. I felt horrible and of course, told her we won't call our son that. I love the name and I love my grandfather.
I miss him terribly and would love to honor him in this way, but I love my fiancée more than anything and I don't want her to spend the rest of her life having that name in regular use. I also don't want it to feel like to her or anyone else that we named our son after her father. Selfishly, it really sucks that we won't be naming our son this name.
But I am trying to come to terms with that. But that's not the problem really—my family’s reaction was 100 times worse. My parents and especially my mom and extended family on mom's side as well as my siblings have been doing everything imaginable to try to convince us to call our son this name. My fiancée ended up actually telling my mom what happened and why we won't use this name.
This was hard for her to do because other than her own mom and therapist, she had never told anyone else about what happened. My mom acted sympathetic and understanding but ended up telling everyone else in our family what happened. Now everyone is contacting us to offer "support" and console my fiancée but also to tell her about how wonderful my grandfather was.
They keep saying how the name would be after him and not her father and what a great name it is. I put my foot down (or so I thought) and told everyone that enough was enough and they had to stop contacting us. We blocked a lot of people on Facebook and a lot of phone numbers. This was a few months ago though, and now that the baby will be here in just two months, it’s gotten so much worse.
People have actually started referring to our son with the name. My mom made a post with a lot of photos of baby gifts and equipment and talked about how she was soooo excited to meet her grandson "______" who will be named after her father. My dad shared the post as well as most of her family. My siblings made their own posts about how they’re excited to meet their nephew, calling him by that name.
100% they are trying to name him that so that when he's born, everyone will already think that's his name and we'll think we might as well just name him that officially. I have spoken to my parents and my mom privately so many times. I also gave her an earful when she blabbed my fiancée’s secret. But it doesn't seem like anything is working.
My fiancée is distressed and cries almost every day, and every time she goes on social media. We did change her phone number though so that my family would no longer be able to text her. I'm just not sure what to do from here.
10. Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes
When I was a kid I never cut my hair, no matter what I never cut my hair, so I had very long blonde hair. And as a kid, a lot of people would ask to touch it. And I was fine with it, as long as they had my permission. So when I was six, my mom took me to a grocery store to buy some things for dinner that night. We got to the store and my mom got the stuff she needed, but was missing the bread from the other side of the store.
She sent me to go get it since I was fast and small. When I got to the bread, I picked out the brand we would usually buy, and at the time I really liked baguettes and other types of bread. So when I saw the baguettes, I totally forgot that my mom was waiting for me and grabbed a loaf(?) and headed back to my mom. When I was heading back to my mom from the bread aisle, I felt someone pull on my hair. Not gently, no, they yanked it.
They pulled so hard I thought my hair what going to come out. And I cried so hard my mom heard me across the store. I turned around in shock. It turns out it was a kid about my age who wanted to touch my hair, so his MOM, and I say his 40-YEAR-OLD MOTHER, pulled my hair so her friggin' kid could touch it. My mom rushed over and told the lady to let go of me.
The conversation then went like this: “Let my daughter go”! “My child just wanted to touch her hair, she has very pretty hair”. Me: “She pulled on my hair, it hurts”! My mom: “You could've just asked! You can’t just pull a kid's hair, I can call 9-1-1 for assault”! Her: “You are harassing me, all I did was let my son touch her hair! I can call the authorities on you for harassing me and my child”!
My mom: “Firstly, I am not harassing you, you grabbed my child. And secondly, you can call the authorities. You will only be making things worse for yourself”. She was absolutely right. As it turns out, the entitled mom DID call the authorities and they took both our statements. The entitled mother had given an over-exaggerated and dramatic report, telling the officers, as we would find out later, that I had given consent for her kid to touch my hair and my mom had come out of nowhere and started harassing the entitled mother.
My mother had given the officers the actual report from her side. I had been asked to give a report, but I was too scared and tired from the experience to say much. They checked the security footage and saw what actually happened. In the end, she got what was coming to her. My mom decided to press charges and sued the entitled mom for assault.
She was sent away for six months and fined for providing a false report as the cherry on top!
11. Meet Your New Mom
My mom has 75% and primary physical custody of us kids but my parents share custody. However, my dad is an awful jerk so I refused to see him after I was 13. Later, for various reasons, my mom and I moved to another state. My mom never remarried but my dad had a series of girlfriends throughout my childhood. This never really bothered me.
After all, he left when I was six weeks old and I never actually knew what it was like when my parents were romantically involved. Anyways, one day when I was something like 13 years old, I come back from school to find an odd car parked on the street and my dad basically said “okay, you’re gonna meet my new girlfriend now.” I went along with him and just kind of ignored him with a very bored look on my face.
That annoyed him, but whatever. I walk into the basement and there’s a random woman there. She’s significantly younger than my dad, who is in his 50s. She looks me up and down. I couldn’t believe her next words. With the most saccharine sweet tone she says, “Hi! I’m your new mom” and smiles at me. At this moment I was like “Oh, heck no”.
For what it’s worth, my mom raised me completely on her own and financed everything. My father did not pay child support. My mom took care of me in every way and she is the only one of the two who I consider an actual parent. So this witch was in no way my mom. I told her “screw off,” turned around, and went back up the stairs.
I couldn’t drive at the time but I was not having it. But they weren’t even finished. They followed me up to the driveway and kept bothering me and asking why that offended me. Then this girl tries to come up and hug me and I shoved her off me. I still had my backpack and jacket with me, so I decided to just leave. They followed me for a while and tried to chase me down.
However, a 13-year-old who is very angry is a lot faster than a 50-year-old man and his very annoying girlfriend who should have not worn heels that day. Once I got far enough away and closer to my mom’s, I texted her to come pick me up and that was that. This was one of the last interactions I had with my father before cutting him off completely.
I find this story hilarious, though then again I use humor to cope.
12. Out Of The Flowerbed And Into The Fire
Because the groundhog had no shadow, spring came early, so I had decided to work on the garden strip that borders mine and Karen’s property. There's a fence between the garden and her house. While doing so, I get rid of some of MY daylilies that are on MY property. I finish, return to my house and continue my day, until I hear a shriek from the side of my house.
I rush over, because I'm scared someone got hurt, and Karen, who just got home from work, asks me why I got rid of HER lilies. I say that they were MY lilies, and that I was making space for tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. She then calls 9-1-1 because I had destroyed HER property. The authorities come and basically tell her to go inside and shut up, because it's pretty clear who's flowers they were.
But it didn’t end there. The next day she had a few too many. This put her anger over the edge about the loss of my lilies. She went, with wood and a firestarter, to my neighbor’s house on the opposite side. She then lit their bins on fire. This then spread to their porch, and before long their entire house was on fire.
I'm a light sleeper, and living in a cul-de-sac, was woken up by the orange haze floating through my windows. I called 9-1-1, the whole shebang, witness report and everything. I walked out of the house, with 9-1-1 still on the phone—and I couldn’t believe what happened next. The deranged neighbor fully confesses, all while they’re in earshot.
After a while and as the fire department shows up, she realizes her mistakes. One: she lit a house on fire, and two: she lit the wrong house on fire. She's being charged with arson and the like, and everyone got out. There’s a mother, father, and two kids who are high schoolers. It still feels surreal.
13. Blood Isn’t Always Thicker Than Water
I'm an IT engineer with terrible family relationships. I did cut off my father and my uncles and aunts, yet I keep in contact with my cousins and their children, who somehow I treat as mine. I had none and I'm an only child, therefore they're the closest I got. I always prioritized success over relationships so I'm single, and through the years I felt that my cousins' children weren't mine therefore I wanted to raise one of my own.
It took me some time, but finally, I adopted an 8-year-old kid, as those usually age out of foster care. I love the experience of raising a kid, yet I have had to deal with some entitled behavior from my cousins. Every now and then I spend some money traveling with my cousins and their children, yet this year, for obvious reasons I need to save money in order to get all of the stuff my son would need.
I'm planning on going big and getting the best of the best that I could afford. I just explained this to my cousins and told them this year our trip together will be canceled. They said nothing so I thought they understood the whole situation. Anyway, I wanted my kid to socialize with my cousins' children so I invite them all to a get-together party (after about two months, when my son felt comfortable enough).
Somehow, all of the kids were so mad and refused to play with my kid. He just sat in a corner and tried to not cry, but he did. I talked with the kids and they said he was not part of the family and they deserve more, as he is adopted and they, as my family, were entitled to the trip to the parks in Florida. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was in total shock, but managed to ask them where they got that from.
They told me how their parents have told them the reason why I took away their trip was my son, who comes from the streets and isn't even family. I was fuming, so I told them all to leave. I had a Zoom meeting with just my cousins who all told me that their children must come first, and I told them they made me realize my son comes first, so I canceled their college funds, their private school tuitions, and just told them that if my kid is not part of their family, neither am I.
I cut them all off. I have been called unreasonable, but I think my son comes first and I made the right decision.
14. Stealing Her Thunder
I recently found out that I am pregnant. I am overjoyed as I have always wanted a child of my own. I focused on my career in my life and since I am single, I wasn’t sure if having a baby would ever happen. I was excited to tell my family the big news. My older sister has one child, my nephew who is seven. My brother is married but he and his wife have made it very clear they will always be child-free.
Last night we had a family dinner and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share the news. Since this will be my only child I wanted to make it special and I also wanted to involve my nephew. I got a shirt that read “this is what an awesome big cousin looks like”. I slipped away with my nephew before dinner and had a special moment with him while I told him he was going to have a cousin.
My nephew was very excited and put on the shirt. He put his sweater on over it and I told him he could take the sweater off whenever he wanted at dinner. In the middle of dinner, he took off the sweater and waited for someone to notice. Soon my sister jumped up and excitedly screamed when she saw the shirt. But here’s where it all started to go wrong.
They all then immediately assumed it was my sister-in-law. I wasn’t hurt by them assuming this and I kind of expected it because she is married. I was hurt because my sister-in-law didn’t try to correct them. She just went along with it and began to rub her flat belly while laughing. I must have looked completely hurt because my mother yelled at me to stop being rude and to congratulate them.
I tried to explain that I was the one who gave my nephew the shirt. They all didn’t even hear me and just continued to fawn over my sister-in-law. My brother stood frozen in shock just asking his wife if she was serious. I got up and went home. I received multiple texts at this point from them telling me what a jerk I am for making this all about me.
They said things like it wasn’t my sister-in-law’s fault that I was jealous. I didn’t reply to anything and just cried myself to sleep. This morning my sister-in-law must have finally let it slip that she is not pregnant. They have now all called me to apologize saying that they just got caught up in the moment. But they had to add in a cruel little twist.
They said I shouldn’t have left the dinner and that it’s my fault I wasn’t clear enough that I was the one who is pregnant. My mom said I could have a redo dinner so I can get it right and they will all act surprised. My sister-in-law sent me a message that said that the way I chose to announce was how she wanted to do it if she ever got pregnant.
She said that since she is not ever having a child, she just wanted to experience what the moment would be like. She also said I can have my chance at the redo dinner. I told them no and that I will not be doing a redo. Every single person has now told me I am being selfish and a jerk because I won’t let them make it right. To me, there’s no fixing this.
I will eventually forgive them but I don’t want to do a second announcement so they feel better.
15. Should’ve Laid Off The Bottle(s)
One day last week when I came home from work, I noticed my shed door was open and the padlock that I used to keep it shut was broken. And I had a LOT of bags full of soda cans in there. Me and my friends tend to drink a lot of soda, so I've built up a lot of cans over the course of about a year. And I was going to cash them in at the bottle drop soon, because I like big payouts. It's ten cents a can where I live after all.
But there was more than just my bags of cans missing from the shed too. They took my gardening shears, a steel rake, two shovels, a full two gallon gas can, a cheap power drill I got for like $5 used, an electric hedge trimmer, and a small electric chainsaw that was also used, and a machete. They didn't touch the lawn mower, weed whacker, extension cords, or the old radio I had in there.
No idea why they took what they did, but I guess they figured they could resell them or something. I checked my camera footage to see if I caught anything—and I made a disturbing discovery. There was my three nephews (ages 16, 15, and 14) breaking into my shed with one of their dad's large claw hammers. I recognized the hammer because it's bright yellow and black, and their dad has a bunch of them.
It only took them a few hits to smash that cheap lock. After they first broke into my shed, they took what they could by hand. And then they came back with some shopping. It took them a few trips to get all of the cans. And they didn't bother to even try and close the door when they were done. My sister and brother-in-law first denied their kids took anything from me.
So I went to their house and showed them the security footage from my cameras. I never told them I'd had cameras installed—and there’s a sad reason why. This wasn’t the first time my nephews robbed me. It started with food & snacks. And then moved on to DVDs and video games. Then pretty much anything they thought they could smuggle out after that.
Any time I made them return stuff they'd stolen from me, I was treated like the bad guy and then got the fakest apologies I've ever heard. And they never got in much trouble from their parents either. The final straw happened last year when my nephews broke into my house and took three six-packs of my favorite blood orange ale from my fridge.
But that’s not the worst part. They used my hidden spare key to get in, and also took a huge dump in one of my bathrooms and not only didn't flush, but also peed all over the floor. And I'm pretty sure it was intentional. The drinks they took were hidden in one of their bedrooms when I confronted my sister and brother-in-law about my nephews stealing it.
I was basically given an equivalent excuse to "Boys will be boys" when I wanted them punished. So I had the cameras put in and told no one. Which was a smart move. When my sister and brother-in-law saw the camera footage of my nephews stealing from me, they seemed furious. But they were actually madder that their boys skipped school to rob me.
They'd spent all day making repeated trips to the Bottle Drop and cashing the cans by machine. The bottle drop also pays by machine. So they just kept bringing the cans in till they cashed them all. And then they bought video games and junk food with the money. Said money actually amounted to nearly $200. With that and the destroyed padlock, I told my sister and brother-in-law that they now owed me $200.
My sister and brother-in-law went from being angry at their kids to making excuses for them, and then being angry at me for wanting that money back when I know they have three kids and a mortgage. I said it was either that or I go to the authorities and press charges. They told me to get out, and I said they have two days to decide how to pay me back before I go to the authorities.
I got back everything else my nephews took, machete and gas can included. Though they'd already used the gas for something. But over the next couple of days, my sister and brother-in-law were blowing up my phone with a ton of messages. Both verbal and text. At first they were calling me heartless because it was right after the holidays and they have three kids and a mortgage.
Then they started gaslighting me—and even threatening me. And all of this would go in a repeating cycle. My nephews chimed in from another cell phone and were sending me lots of messages of their own. Which were more fake apologies and gaslighting. My eldest nephew even sent me a picture of himself holding a soda can and giving me the middle finger.
So I guess they weren't taking my threats of going to the authorities seriously because "FAAAAMILY”!. When I last spoke with my sister and brother-in-law, they refused to negotiate any sort of method of repayment for what my nephews did. Even when I suggested they just sell the video games that were purchased with the money from the cans.
Then they had the audacity to say I'd actually tempted my nephews by having the cans in my shed to begin with. Oh yes. I'm the devil snake that tempted my nephews with a shed full of cans that just screamed "MONEY MONEY MONEY”! So that was it. I went to the station that morning and filed the report. Gave them a copy of the video footage of my nephews stealing from my shed.
I gave them the broken lock they smashed. Showed them all of the texts, which were screen-capped and also given as evidence. Heck, I even gave them a copy of the photo my eldest nephew sent me of him flipping me off. I did tell officers that I found it worrisome that my nephews had taken the machete. But they classified it as a tool. Especially since they took a lot of other actual tools. So fair enough on that, I suppose.
But my nephews were indeed caught and detained on Saturday. Officers came to their house and my sister and brother-in-law were forced to let them in because they had a warrant. Apparently, all three of my nephews went from being cocky little jerks to crying like babies when they were being put in cuffs. I know this because a neighbor I'm acquainted with that's sort of friends with my sister was there to see it.
It didn’t end there, though. Shortly after the arrest my sister and brother-in-law were blowing up my phone again. They weren't able to get their kids out till Monday morning. And now the boys are being charged with larceny, willful destruction of property/vandalism, and harassment. The authorities took this whole case pretty seriously as there have been complaints about my nephews for some time—but nothing was proven until now.
The past few months, bags of cans have actually been going missing all over the area. Don't know if it was my nephews or not. But they're likely suspects. And with word spreading of their arrest, let's hope other neighbors with security cameras come forward with more footage. My sister and brother-in-law showed up at my house too. I refused to open the door and told them that this all happened because they are enablers who refuse to hold their kids accountable for their actions.
That made them just scream and pound on my door more till I threatened to call 9-1-1 on them too. And since I've done it already, they know I mean it now. So they left without any more trouble. But they went back to blowing up my phone. I didn't block my sister or her husband. Instead I decided to just save all of the messages they send me because I've made the decision to take them to small claims court over this.
I don't really need or want the money, and have already replaced the destroyed padlock with a much better one. However, the kids aren't the only ones who need to be taught a lesson. In the end, I hope I put them in enough of a hole that they learn not to screw with me ever again. I also have the full support of my family on this. My parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.
They're all supporting me in this because my nephews have stolen from them too. And after banning my nephews from my house, some of them did the same.
16. Trouble In The Yard
When I was a preschool teacher (ages 24-30 months), I had a rather unpleasant and "juicy" child. He was not terribly likable and that is pretty tragic when you are only two. Anyway, our outside play area was covered in soft mulch to protect them if they fell—and they fall all the time.
I bent down to retie a child's shoe. Almost instantly, I heard screaming. I looked over just in time to see him pulling his hand away from a little girl's face. He impaled her in the eye with a piece of mulch. Totally unprovoked and he was not acting out.
He just looked at the stick and thought, "Oh, I'll put that here". So, we sent the girl to the ER with her parents and had a conference with his parents. Apparently, they allowed this child to bite, hit, scratch, tackle, punch, and otherwise attack his other family members.
In fact, they encouraged it and congratulated and applauded him. His father and two older brothers (11 and 13) thought it was fantastic. Their defense was "he isn't big enough to hurt anyone and he has so much fun”. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
They thought teaching him to be a psycho was cute and funny. Listen, morons, your toddler may not be large enough to be a threat to your teenagers, but he is more than capable of putting out the eye of another toddler.
And he will grow in size but not in self-control if you don't start teaching him that random attacks aren't socially unacceptable.
17. Turns Out Indentured Servitude Isn’t OK
My wife and I had just immigrated back to the US and needed jobs and a place to stay. We thought we'd struck gold when a fabulously wealthy woman hired me as a groundskeeper and maintenance guy and my wife as a cook and maid for her elderly parents. The pay was low, but part of it involved being able to live rent-free in the second house on the estate.
The elderly couple was extremely senile, but still the sweetest old folks you can imagine, it was a really nice property so for a few months, everything was great. Then about three months in, my wife noticed the pantry—which was itself bigger than our living room—was not being re-stocked by the grocery delivery company that normally did these things.
We contacted our employer—and her reaction was bone-chilling. She flew into a rage that managing that sort of thing was our responsibility so she had canceled the delivery service without telling us. It became apparent that she fully expected us to notice and take care of it ourselves. When I asked her how she expected us to buy groceries for her parents when she didn't even tell us she had canceled the service, she became extremely irate.
Direct quote: "Then what do I sign a check to each of you every week for?!" Yeah. This woman earnestly thought we should be using our personal paychecks, which were NOT very big, to pay for her parent's upkeep. After much deliberation, she begrudgingly left us a credit card to go out and buy groceries for her parents, which added to our workload at no extra pay, but we didn't have anywhere else to stay and no other job lined up so we just dealt with it.
Well, another few months go by and she contacts us again, she wants us to sign something. The paperwork shows up and it's requests for medical documentation from an insurance company. The chick wants us to attach our timesheets to it, sign it, and send it back to the insurance company. Well, I read it and it becomes apparent she has elder-care insurance to pay for live-in nursing services and has told them we are nurses so she can try to get them to pay our wages.
I contact her and inform her that we have not provided medical care, are not licensed to, and will not fill out the paperwork. Cue the mother of all tantrums. Karen goes nuts screaming into the phone about how much she has done for us and we owe her, how she will report that we are neglecting her parents, and then call immigration on us and have us “sent back to where we came from”.
I don't think she ever realized I am a citizen and my wife immigrated legally. I tell her that what she is asking us to do is against the law, and that I'd rather get fired than get caught. I tell her she has 90 days to find a replacement for us and we will be moving out. Things devolve into her screaming about how much money she has and how she is besties with the authorities and has a bunch of expensive lawyers to sue me with.
I suggest she asks one of those lawyers how they feel about defending her for insurance fraud and hang up. My wife and I continue our services for the old folks while looking for a new place, because they were actually super nice and the situation wasn't their fault. They were also VERY senile, mistaking us for other people they knew, forgetting they had kids, etc. etc., so they can't be held accountable for their daughter's behavior as they lack any ability to intervene.
Then, instead of a paycheck, I get a bill for the last eight months of rent and a note that she isn't paying our wages until we "pay her back for everything we owe her. Plus interest." She had valued the rent of the second house provided in our contract at more than she paid us monthly, so we'd never actually be able to pay it off. Yeah.
This woman actually tried to make us into indentured servants. So, without responding I continue performing my duties. I studiously kept logs on our hours, and retained all the "receipts" for how much more we owed her. 90 days go by without a paycheck. We purchased groceries using the card she provided, which she added to our "debts."
We document EVERYTHING. That’s when we really began to enact our plan. About a week before the 90 day, we contact two government agencies. First, the state department of labor to report exploitation, second, adult protective services to inform them that an elderly couple that requires caretaking are going to no longer have caretakers and that their daughter has refused to provide it.
Then we call her and inform her she is going to be receiving some phone calls from these agencies shortly and should probably contact her attorney. There was about a 60-second silence on the phone, then this deranged laughter, and she hung up. Okay...not the response I expected but whatever, one more week, and we're gone.
Eight hours later she shows up in the driveway in a rental car. This woman bought a one-way plane ticket to come out to the estate and report us to the authorities for trespassing on the property. This, of course, doesn't work because we have a tenancy contract and if she wants us gone she has to utilize the official eviction process.
She then tries to claim we are aliens, which a quick glance in our wallets at our IDs by the authorities proves false. She is starting to shriek at them about if they know who she is or how expensive her lawyers are. The officers look that unique combination of irritated and amused. They advise her not to talk to us or attempt to enter or go near the guest house.
She moves in to their house that night and presumably takes over our duties. I would go out on the balcony every day for the week before I left to drink my coffee, and smile as I stared across the big, luxurious lawn to see her standing in the picture window, arms crossed, glaring at me. To make a long story short, the expensive lawyers she has convince her to pay our back wages with additional interest for violating state labor laws by withholding them.
18. What She Does In The Shadows
I put up a doorbell cam yesterday. My neighbor has not slept and I woke up to 45 new motion alerts. One of which was her throwing herself down the stairs. I now figured out what that thumping in the hallway I’ve been hearing is. It has not stopped going off. She also stands in front of our door and stares at our apartment for random intervals of time. Wonder how long she's been doing that!
19. All This Over A Parking Space
I am a paramedic in a place that has some HOAs and apartment complexes. We hate responding to the apartment complexes because there is nothing but assigned parking and no-fire zones. Basically, if we can't find a space to fit in we have to block the road. My agency also uses first responder vehicles and ambulances. The first responder, as implied, usually arrives first so we do our best to leave room for the ambulance to fit in.
We get a call at the apartment complex. I am the first responder. As I pull up to the address by some miracle, there is a spot only two apartments away. Great, I can leave the road clear for the ambulance. As soon as I park, out comes this guy screaming I can't park there. I do the "are you serious” look and just say it’s a medical emergency.
He says he doesn't care, I can't park there. Keep in mind my vehicle has enough lights to make a Christmas tree jealous. I just grab my stuff, lock the vehicle, and keep going. He is screaming he is going to call the authorities, I tell him they are already on the way. They respond to medical emergencies. An officer gets there while I am in with the patient and tells him basically to pound salt.
The officer enters the apartment—and then this guy really goes full-blown hissy fit. He enters the apartment and comes into the room where I am treating the patient. He starts ranting and raving about how I have to move my vehicle. I look at the officer and say "get him outta here”. The officer then seals his fate. He asks the patient if she wants this person removed from the apartment and did she ever give consent for him to enter.
The patient's response: "Get him OUT, he's trespassing”. Boom, the all-clear. The cop gives him one last chance and tells him to leave or he will be detained. He doubles down, yelling: "I AM ON THE HOA BOARD, I CAN GO WHERE I PLEASE”. At this point, backup is called. The officer at least manhandles the guy out of the room. The ambulance arrives with PD backup and they get him out of the apartment so we can safely remove the patient.
Not entirely sure what happened next, as I was in the back of the ambulance, but when I got out one of the officers approached and said, "Sorry but we need another bus. We had to taze him". Policy for PD is if they taze someone, they have to be transported to the hospital by ambulance to the hospital, as the taser spikes have to be surgically removed due to the barbs on them.
They wait for the second ambulance and take him. I go back in service. I found out a few weeks later that he was charged with trespassing, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, interference with government administration (AKA interfering with the scene of an emergency). All over a parking space that I would have been in for all of 20 minutes if he hadn't created problems.
I can only assume he took a plea deal, as I was never called to testify.
20. Standing Up For The Little Guy
I was in line at Costco Gas. The lines are nuts because gas prices are nuts and Costco gas is cheap and convenient. Everyone is on edge. The Costco gas employees have to periodically sweep the lanes and clean up spilled gas. Just like at the registers when they close a line they stop people from lining up in that lane.
They finish the people currently in the queue and direct other customers into different lanes so they can cone off the lane and sweep. I’m pumping gas and see this go down. A woman drives around the cones and into the lane they are sweeping like she’s exempt from the process and is going to get gas. Employee guy jogs over and tells her in a normal tone, “Sorry ma’am, this lane is closed for the moment, can you please pull around into a different line”?
She says “Why”? He says “This lane is closed… (sees an empty spot not yet filled in the adjacent lane) you can go there”. And points. She starts screeching “You don’t have to talk to me that way! I don’t appreciate! Screech screech screech”! A guy gets out of the passenger seat. Employee guy is babbling and pointing and waving, points at cones, empty lane, broom.
Screeching lady turns into cursing lady and starts dropping expletives about how he can’t treat me this, and effing that. Passenger guy gives employee the finger. Employee is looking around because he’s in over his head. Cursing lady starts with the “Your manager is going to hear about this, you just lost your job, screech screech”! Gets in the car and peels out leaving. I knew what I had to do.
I finish pumping and go find a place to park. I google the store phone number and call. I hit the number to speak with a manager. I ask for the manager in charge of the gas station. “Sorry, he’s gone for the day. Can I leave a message"? Uhm… “Ok, can I tell you then? I just saw this whole thing go down. In a minute you’re going to get a call from a lady claiming she was just disrespected by a gas employee and complaining a storm. Let me tell you what actually happened from an objective observer because no way this guy did anything wrong and it’s going to come down to his word versus crazy lady”.
They replied: "Ok, thank you for the heads up, it’s nice to hear he was doing the right thing, and oh, actually your lady is on the phone with this other manager right here it sounds like, and I’ll pass along your message. Thanks for calling”.
21. Without Batting An Eyelash
I was an eye doctor. I remember one young lady who came in for a routine visit, but her eyelids were very swollen from her fake eyelashes. The adhesive was laid on THICK and was literally blocking her gland orifices, causing a massive infection of both eyelids. Despite the severe swelling, she didn’t seem particularly fazed.
It wasn’t even her reason for the visit. I looked at her under the lamp, then told her that those lashes were going to have to go. I turned around to grab some petroleum jelly and some Q-tips to work the adhesive clumps off slowly when I started hearing what sounded like Velcro being torn apart.
I turned around, and she ripped out both top lids of fake lashes, including every single natural lash she had. It was a startlingly clean job, and she just looked at me completely bald-eyed and said, "Okay, now what?" They were already infected and swollen, and now they were even more swollen and had a ton of ripped-off lash stumps.
So, I prescribed her antibiotics and told her that her lashes would probably grow back over the next few weeks.
Flickr, Marco Verch Professional Photographer
22. She’s Gotta Go
I worked in an ICU. A patient was asked about their goals of care and if they wanted to be resuscitated. The patient said yes, but her daughter said no. The attending said, "Well, your mom is still competent, so we have to follow her wishes".
The daughter pulled the doctor aside and said, "Why don't you just give her some medications to put her to sleep? She won't be competent, and then my word goes, and you pull the plug".
There was silence for a while, and then the attending very slowly said, "No, we don't do that", and showed the daughter out of the room. The patient made it out of the hospital OK that time. I sometimes wonder how she did after that.
Wikimedia Commons, SELF Magazine
23. A Terrible Point Of View
I once had a 3rd-floor apartment that was situated next to a four-story tall parking garage. I woke up one morning to an incredibly loud sound—like, a super loud—smacking noise. I looked out my balcony and saw a grisly scene that still haunts me.
There was a guy face down with bright red blood starting to pour out of his head; it was horrific. About 45 minutes later, my wife got home from her first trip to Mardi Gras with her friends, and I was white as a ghost. It was not exactly a nice way to be welcomed home.
The authorities put up a sheet around the scene, but we could see directly into it. They hosed this dude’s brain matter into a gutter, and a dark stain remained on the asphalt for weeks. It turned out the dude was on trial for some pedophilia-related charges.
He just randomly found my apartment complex to take his life because he’d been found guilty and was set to be sentenced that day. I would get the weirdest feeling when I’d have to park up where he jumped. Just knowing that was some person’s view for their last mortal moments on earth was intense and made me feel kind of nauseous and creeped out.
24. Disco Dumb
I was In a nightclub in the late 80s, and a guy was sitting at a table on his own. He poured what he had left in his pint glass onto the floor, then took a bite out of the glass. The glass severed his top lip and then he sat there bleeding into the glass. There was a lot of blood—it was not pretty!
Freepik, master1305
25. Juggling Act
A girl I went to culinary school with suddenly started juggling her knives in the hall between classes in front of one of the chef instructors. She immediately had her eight-inch chef knife stuck three inches in the middle of her palm. The instructor just sighed, shook his head, and pushed the girl into the office to get her to the ER.
26. Sowing The Seeds Of Something
I was sitting at a cafe once when a man sitting a few tables away from me locked eyes with me. Maintaining eye contact, he leaned over to the vase of pussy willow stems decorating the table and began munching on them. He just took a whole bite of the twig and fuzzy willow bud.
27. Burned From Both Ends
I was in a restaurant kitchen in the middle of the busiest night of the year. Something went wrong, and the sous chef went BALLISTIC, screaming at some people. Then, he made a painful mistake: he reached over bare-handed into the blast oven and grabbed out two scorching hot bowls of baked soup. He ruined his hands and threw them into the window with the skin from his palms visibly stuck to it in places.
He immediately calmed down and walked off the line to treat his hands. He then came back out to try and direct from the front for a bit, then at some point, just went home without saying anything. He came back a week or two later, divorced from his wife.
Freepik, wayhomestudio
28. What A Crock!
I was at a house party. It was around 2am at the time, and things upstairs were starting to quiet down, but the party was still going on in the basement, with a few of us ripping bongs and having drinks. A buddy came downstairs, sat in the middle of our smoke circle in the middle of a couch, and turned the TV on to The Shopping Channel.
Fifteen minutes later, the guy took off his pants and started pleasuring himself while we were all around him. He didn’t stop when we freaked out, and people got up to leave. The dude was getting off to a slow cooker.
29. Scary Sevens
I had a younger cousin who I was absolutely scared of when I was little. I refused to be alone with her and stopped tagging along on holidays in their area. She was the kind of kid who would pull out a box of crickets from under her bed to show me how she tore off their legs and put tacks through them.
Once, she cut my hair in my sleep during a sleepover and flattened her mom's tire because she wouldn't take us to a movie. She was only seven!
Freepik, stockking
30. That’s A Wrap!
There were four of us in San Diego, goodbye partying for my buddy's last day in the Navy. At about 2 am, we hit up a taco stand with a bunch of outdoor tables. As we were sitting down to eat, my friend started elbowing me, pointing, and laughing at three of the biggest cholas you ever saw in your life.
These girls were tatted up, with Crayola eyebrows, tube tops—the whole nine yards—and they were sitting right next to us. My friend thought he was being subtle, but he wasn’t. We were trying hard to ignore him, but the girls noticed. One of them came over to him and said, "Sumptin’ funny? Huh? What, cuz I'm fat? Cuz I'm FAT?"
Every time she said "fat", she patted her gut and thrust it into his head while he just sat there looking down or at us for help. We were far too busy trying not to escalate the situation with laughter. Eventually, three of the girls surrounded him and were belly-bludgeoning the daylights out of him.
The leader said, "Well, since I'm fat, guess I'll need to take your burrito", and she did. Then, they went back to their table, set his nicely wrapped burrito down, and continued their meal. My friend made a weak lunge for his burrito, and she deftly yanked it away and threatened to beat him if he tried again.
She finished her meal, then threw his burrito away and left.
31. Just Ducky
A few mates and I were at a 24-hour Chinese restaurant at 2:30 am. There was a suspicious-looking guy in a trench coat hanging around the front window where they kept their ducks hanging. The guy grabbed one of their ducks, shoved it into his trench coat, ran out of the place, and hailed a cab. One of the chefs saw him and shouted, "Duck", and ran out after him, followed by about three other guys.
They forced the cab's doors open. The driver yelled at the guy in the trench coat, "Just give them their duck back!" They dragged the trench coat guy out of the car and knocked the daylights out of him, then took the duck from his trench coat and hung it back up in their window.
32. She Was A Cruel Cat
When I was about eight or nine years old, there was a girl who lived a few houses down from me and was around the same age. One time, I saw her flinging around a backpack high into a tree, letting it hit the ground. She was swinging it like a helicopter over her head. I asked her what was inside, and was stunned when she opened it.
A big black long-haired cat ran out! Its eyes were so wide it was terrified. I told my mom, and both of us talked to her parents. I was crying the whole time, but her parents didn’t care. A short time after that, I was walking my dog with my brother past her house, and we heard screaming—like gurgly animal screams.
We walked over, called through the fence, and she invited us over. To our horror, we saw her watching a litter of kittens drowning in her above-ground pool. The few that were still alive were fighting for their lives and screaming. Even my dog was barking; he knew it wasn’t right too.
My brother and I tried to hop in, but she started freaking out on us. Then her crazy dad came out. He started screaming and came at us like he might hit us, so we left, sobbing, shaking, and feeling sick. We talked to our mom about it, and we all cried together. She called the authorities.
I don’t remember seeing her much after that, but I will never forget the look on her face and her demonic laugh as I cried, asking her to stop. I’ll always regret not being braver to save those little babies.
33. Smash N’ Bash
Growing up, this kid a couple of years younger than me used to sit alone at the breakfast tables at school, look kids straight in the eyes, and smash little jam packets and milk cartons. When we got older, he destroyed a computer in the computer lab out of nowhere.
When he was 17, he moved in with his grandparents because his parents couldn’t handle him anymore. One day, he went ballistic and took out his grandparent’s cat with a club, beat both of his grandparents, and got into a fiery exchange with the authorities.
They blasted him, and he passed. The craziest part was how we found out about it. After a day at the lake, my buddies and I were hanging out at my buddy’s house. We were randomly reminiscing about how weird this kid was and wondering what had happened to him.
In the middle of this conversation, I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and randomly saw a link to a Go Fund Me for his funeral. The room went silent, and we all immediately felt terrible for laughing at this guy who we now knew had passed.
But when we looked into how he lost his life, we didn’t feel bad for him anymore, and we certainly were no longer laughing.
34. Backseat Beatdown
One day, when I was back in middle school, I was walking to school. I was about two streets away when I saw a woman grab a kid off the street and drag him into her van. She beat him, drove off about 150 feet, then pulled over and threw the boy onto the road, and drove off. I still have no idea why, who she was, and how she thought that was a good idea.
Freepik, wayhomestudio
35. Poo Poo In The Tutu
I was driving past a suburban train station that had a 40km (25mi) speed limit. I saw a guy in a pink leotard and matching tutu doing a gymnastics routine on the grassed area. Then, he did a handstand with his legs at 90 degrees out to the sides and proceeded to poo out of a hole in the leotard.
It caught my attention enough to say that it looked like he was giving birth to a log. He was also wearing a tiara and had a look of complete concentration on his face. I thought about calling the authorities for a welfare check until I realized that the precinct was right next door, so I just kept driving.
Flickr, sissy samantha clarkson
36. Faced With A Dilemma
I had a patient who was in the hospital for a routine and simple surgery. The next day, her demeanor changed, and she was extremely angry. She began throwing herself face first into the floor repeatedly. She'd actually dive into it like she was diving into water, but it was a linoleum floor.
She broke her wrist the first time, so we put her in restraints and she'd seem good. We would then take her off the restraints, and she'd do it again. She was not mentally impaired. She was angry at her husband for having a mistress, so she decided to run up her hospital bill to try and bankrupt them both before he could leave her.
Freepik,tonodiaz
37. What On Earth?
I worked in a dispensary at a pharmacy, and I had a little old lady come in. She was disheveled and had a putrid smell about her, but she was so polite and sweet. The pharmacist and I were worried she wouldn't read her prescription pamphlets, so I took her into the side room to explain her meds and if she wanted me to make her up a pill box.
She listened to me explain each prescription, and she was very sweet about it all. I helped her make her pill box and arranged for her to come the following week for a follow-up. She told me, "Thanks for helping me. You are so nice. I think you deserve to meet my friends".
I asked her who her friends were, thinking I would know them, since we served the majority of the elderly population. I've never been so wrong. She lifted up her skirt to her upper right thigh, revealing a large crusty open wound. It was a deep gash about 2–3 inches long, running lengthwise down her thigh.
She proceeded to gently stick her fingers in the gash and pull out two earthworms from inside of her leg. She smiled a huge smile and told me their names, Stevie and Hank, and held them up for me to see. I had to put my hand over my mouth, so I wouldn't scream/vomit, then I pulled out my best acting skills, smiled, and said, "Nice to meet you, Hank and Stevie".
It took me 30 minutes to convince her not to put Stevie and Hank back into her leg, and that they would be safer and happier in a container full of dirt. She finally allowed me to clean up and bandage her wound once we had her friends in their new home.
After she left, I got social services to make an emergency house call because this lady clearly needed to be supervised and have additional medical support. Thankfully, she was transferred to a care home the following day. I don't know what happened to Hank and Stevie.
38. Up To His Ears In Poo
When I was in solitary confinement, we had a guy on the wing who was a "thrower", meaning he liked to throw pee, poo, rotten milk, etc., at the guards when they passed his cell. After a while, they got tired of it, and they mounted a sheet of plexiglass on the front of his cell, with little holes drilled in it for airflow. It worked pretty well since he couldn't throw stuff anymore.
A week went by, and no one got anything thrown at them. Apparently, during that week, he was thinking, and what he did blew my mind. The man managed to fill a toothpaste tube with his own poo. As the guard was making his rounds, the thrower tried to get the guard's attention, but he was speaking really softly, so the guard couldn't hear him.
The guard put his ear up to one of the little holes, and the dude put the toothpaste tube up to the hole and clapped, injecting poo directly into the guard's ear.
39. His Hands Were Tied
I had a patient once who was unable to be let out of full-body gurney restraints. Any time in trials when he was let out with supervision and under heavy sedation, he would immediately claw and cut into his own abdomen with his bare hands and attempt to pull out his intestines and other viscera.
He was non-verbal and essentially comatose while restrained. He only attempted this singular action any time we tried to free a hand. He will live his entire life in full restraints, strapped to a hospital bed in a constant struggle to disembowel himself.
40. Double Decker Dispute
There were two people fighting at a bus stop. One of them pulled out a large blade and began to cut himself in front of the other guy. He was cutting himself while stepping towards the other guy and screaming, "Come on!"
I didn't hang around to find out what the outcome was but when I tell people this story who know me, they're like, "Typical London". They may have a point, but seeing it first hand was quite scary!
Freepik, wayhomestudio
41. Bad Hair Day
When I was at school, my entire year group was crammed into quite a small space, waiting to go into an exam. While we were all waiting, two girls got into a disagreement, seemingly out of nowhere. One of them let out a shriek I have never heard the like of since, and dragged this girl to the floor by her lower lip.
She then lifted her whole body back up by a handful of hair. Once this girl stood back up, the other girl grabbed a piece of hair near the girl’s ear—probably a couple of centimeters worth—wrapped it around her finger, and pulled it until it came out.
It was so out of nowhere and happened so fast, it really freaked me out at the time. The girl being besieged didn't stand a chance.
Freepik, azerbaijan_stockers
42. Class Cutout
I was in third grade, and a new girl asked to borrow my scissors, so of course, I let her. That was a big mistake. I handed her the scissors, and she immediately started slicing her forearm from elbow to wrist. There was blood pouring out of her arm, getting all over her hand and the desk.
I was shocked, but luckily, our teacher was there pretty fast and got her out of the classroom. Then my mom, who was the teacher next door, brought us all to her classroom. Only a few of us saw what had happened, and surprisingly, we kept our little third-grade mouths shut about it.
43. Fowl Neighbor
I was a young kid in a group of other kids. We curiously gathered around a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest but didn't seem to be injured. It was small, fluffy, precious, and defenseless. We all wondered what we should do to help it.
Then, without any warning or hesitation, the next-door neighborhood kid, who was about four or five years old, intentionally stomped on it and destroyed it. I remember thinking that boy was pure evil.
44. Whopper Of A Wacko
Back in college, there was a local crazy woman who was around campus. I was not sure if she was homeless, but she didn’t seem to be. She clearly had some undiagnosed mental issues or didn’t take her medication. She was always hiding her face and would turn sideways if she noticed you looking her way.
One day, I was in a Burger King near campus with a small group of people. The woman was behind us in line. We basically ignored her until one person in the group turned around and said, "I can see you". I have never before—or since—seen someone flip out so badly.
I imagine someone might have the same reaction if you threw acid in their face or if they were on fire. She was screaming like she was in pain. After a few minutes, she just started yelling some really weird stuff, and throwing anything and everything she could—not at people, but just in the air and all over the place.
The authorities showed up and ultimately got her out. The guy in our group was never allowed back in.
45. Off The Rails
My walk to work every morning crossed a cargo rail line. It wasn't often used anymore, but there was a tunnel for it, and it was a haven for homeless folk, which made sense, as it was an escape from the rain. One morning, I crossed it and came across a horrifying scene. A dude had seemingly passed out on the track overnight. A train came, took off both his arms, and he bled out.
46. Back It Up
When I first started getting into bad stuff as a young man, an older gentleman and I went to go pick up some dope together on a back road out in the boonies. We pulled up, and the guy walked down his driveway and handed us the bag. As we drove away, my friend opened the bag, took out a bit and realized it was just balled-up toe and fingernails. He put the car in reverse, backed over the guy, and drove away.
47. Left Tongue Tied
When I was a junior resident at a hospital, I witnessed a patient who was brought in with blood gushing out of their mouth. The patient was apparently in a fight, and the other person bit a part of her tongue off and threw it out of the window.
Both the ladies who were involved in the incident were probably inmates of a mental institution. The staff who had brought in the patient had searched for that ripped-off piece of tongue, put it inside a plastic bag, and gave it to us to reattach.
48. Pastry Cutter
Many years ago, I worked in a food factory. I'll never forget the day it turned into a horror show. Pastry was produced in huge amounts and put into massive metal bowls ready to be used. To get the pastry from the bowl, you rolled big balls towards you until you had enough to put into the next machine.
Some maniac had placed loads of razor blades in the pastry. The woman rolling the pastry was cut to ribbons. She never ever came back to work, unsurprisingly.
49. The Coach Sacked Him Good
My football coach destroyed our starting quarterback’s Division 1 offers because they got into an argument mid-season. While the main starters were getting offers, he was always wondering why he wasn’t. The last day of his senior year, the coach smiled and handed over the 20+ offers he had, but all too late.
The coach had been telling schools he wasn't interested in going. To this day, I think the player would take him out if they crossed paths.
50. A Bird In Hand
I was walking out of my hostel, heading to the airport to fly back home to London. On the other side of the street I saw a homeless man. This man was crouched down, stock-still, with an ever-growing circle of pigeons around him. He suddenly jumped back up to his feet, and the pigeons all scattered. All except one.
He was holding one pigeon in his hands. He stuffed it into his inside coat pocket and shuffled on his way. I presumed that would be his lunch.
51. Call Me Crazy
I was the store manager for a Metro by T-Mobile in a mall. That specific store had glass doors and windows on the whole front half of the store. I had a customer get super mad that we didn't have a specific phone, so they decided to take a chair from the food court and smash our windows. They felt that was the best way to vent their anger.
52. Not An A-Peeling Habit
One morning on the subway heading into work, I saw an older woman sit down and take a pear—or something like that—out of a bag that she was presumably going to eat for breakfast. Instead of just taking a bite, this woman dragged her teeth across the skin of this fruit, effectively peeling it, only to spew the skin into her other hand before digging into said fruit.
The whole act was something that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It doesn’t sound all that bad as I described it, but the "peeling", the spewing out and holding of the skin in her hand instead of using the now empty bag, and the passion in which this woman did this all gave me the creeps.
53. Local Law Enforcing Lunatics
I was part of a patrol to rescue a small Afghani boy from the local law enforcement agency we installed in the city. We took upstanding locals from the city, trained them, equipped them, and enabled them to keep the peace in the area. The Afghani Army and the Allied forces would assist them, but their main job was local law enforcement.
The idea was that locals taken and trained to protect their own hometown would have a sense of pride, and be more effective. For the most part, that was true. Then, one day, a woman walked up to our base with her hands raised, and begged us to give back her son. She told us that five days prior, the authorities we built up in the city took her son, claiming they had a right to him.
The captain sent a platoon out to get to the bottom of it. I was added to that patrol, as were medics, a civil affairs team, and a HUMINT team. We conducted an inspection, and they didn’t even go to great lengths to keep us from finding him. They had him tied up in a dark room and he hadn’t been fed. They had also been accosting him.
He looked to be between 10–13 years old. The officers argued against us, and claimed the boy was their right. The lieutenant of the platoon told them they were out of their minds and he was taking the boy. Most of the force quit right there. Most of us in the patrol thought we were going to be stuck in a firefight at that moment, but it didn’t happen.
The quick reaction force from our outpost met us at the nearest road they could get to, and picked up the boy. We then walked back to the outpost, expecting the local authorities to start a fight the whole way back, but it didn’t happen. The medivac helicopters took off as we made it back. We also tracked down the rest of the boy’s immediate family, and they were all relocated out of the city.
The next few days were volatile. The fired officers went on a mission to find the rest of the boy’s family, or anyone they thought could have ratted them out to us. They were willing to enact harm on anyone other than the US or Afghani Army to get their revenge. The people in the city ultimately blamed us for letting it happen; after all, we had trained and armed them. We did not win many hearts or minds with that program.
54. Sitting Ducks
I was driving to work and I saw a jerk in a big SUV deliberately swerve to hit a duck and her ducklings that were standing on the side of the road. I stopped to see if any were left alive, but they weren’t. I reported him to the authorities and he was charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty. There was even still blood and feathers on the underside of his truck when the officers caught up with him.
55. A Losing Battle
I worked at a gas station years ago; one of the cooler doors had a full mirror on it. I was working a graveyard shift and someone came in with a gun. They were waving it around and threatening me. They told me to grab all the money I could while they grabbed all the six-packs they could.
When they walked past the cooler with the mirror, they flicked at it and started hollering. They were yelling, "Put that piece down, boi!" and, "I'll cap you if you don't put it down", as well as various other hilarious nonsense. I watched as they were in a battle with themselves in the mirror. They grew extremely paranoid, then blasted the mirror.
After I heard the pop, I ducked down behind the counter, and only remembered hearing their shoes running out the store a few seconds later. I waited a few minutes, then called the authorities and my manager.
56. First Responder Freak Out
I lived across from a daycare hospital for mentally ill people. One day, when I was coming back from work, a guy who usually smoked outside the front door ran and did the unthinkable: he threw himself under a truck, right in front of me. Luckily, the truck saw him run and had time to slow down enough so he just got knocked out on the floor.
I immediately put him in the safety position and called an ambulance. They arrived, but one of the medics was angry. This was the guy’s third attempt at taking his life that year and the medic was angry he had to drive all the way there for him, again.
He was like "He's doing it on purpose or what?" I think the medic shocked me more than the poor dude who tried to take his life.
57. A Dash Of Salt
Once, at Applebee’s, I saw an older lady order two of the fried fish meals. The food arrived and she asked for a side plate. I thought, "Oh, she's going to share it with the others at the table", but no. She popped the top off the salt shaker and emptied it onto the plate. She then dipped her fish in the salt as if it was sauce. I was left wondering what her other eating habits were.
58. Blowout On The Bayou
I made the mistake of traveling to New Orleans with a friend and my friend's friend—who I did not know very well—in his truck. We traveled around for a couple of days, having a good time, eating good food, and visiting local attractions. Then, while we were driving to another part of town, we got rear-ended—bumper-kissed really.
We pulled over and the friend of a friend waved the other car to the curb. The other driver didn’t want to deal with it, so they tried to drive on saying, "There's no damage, dude. It's cool". The friend of a friend wasn't having that, so he started following the other car. In response, they sped up. Next thing I knew we're in an all-out, movie-style car chase through the streets of New Orleans.
Everyone was screaming for him to stop, but he was determined to catch this car, not thinking of the consequences. Finally, he rear ended them, driving them off the road and wrecking his truck. There we were, stranded in another city with a destroyed vehicle, and one of us had basically committed a serious offense. It was a miracle nobody went to prison that day.
My only goal was to get back to my parents' house. The friend of a friend was very confused as to why I wanted to leave. He was ready to get a rental car and continue the trip. That's when I realized how deranged he really was; like, actually psychopathic.
59. What Happens In Vegas…
I was working law enforcement in Las Vegas during a full moon—that should have been my first clue that it was going to be a weird night. I was on the graveyard shift when we got a call about a little girl acting erratically, damaging city property, and stopping traffic. Myself and three other officers arrived on the scene.
When I first caught sight of her, I observed a woman with a very petite build, not a child. She was bashing her head into a metal advertisement enclosure, running over to the next one, doing the same thing, and repeating. She had five friends following behind her—including her boyfriend—who were all visibly concerned about her well-being and afraid of her, so they were keeping their distance.
Upon making contact, I observed something unnerving. She was foaming at the mouth and had lacerations on her forehead and on both of her fists. While foaming at the mouth is usually an indicator of OD, rabies, or a seizure, I had never seen somebody still up and running around while foaming at the mouth.
She was completely incoherent and making what I can only describe as caveman noises that seemed like way too deep of a voice for a tiny woman. The metal she hit with her head was dented pretty good. We called for medical help right away and three other officers and I attempted to detain her for her own safety and the safety of others, while we waited for the paramedics to check her out as her health was our priority.
She immediately became even more combative, shaking off two male officers—both 200+lbs and strong—who were attempting to detain her, which shocked all of us. Myself and the fourth officer joined in to help, and after more struggling, we were eventually able to detain her safely.
Medical personnel had already arrived on scene at that point and we uncuffed her so we could assist loading her onto their stretcher, which had velcro straps for both her hands and feet. As she thrashed and shook, the four of us plus the two paramedics, all worked together to try to get her onto the stretcher.
It took some time and a lot of struggle. Once she was all strapped in, she somehow thrashed so hard, the stitching of one of her leg straps came undone and she proceeded to knock the oxygen tank off of the end of the stretcher and broke it. The sheer amount of strength she exhibited was superhuman and frightening, and combined with her noises, she seemed truly possessed.
As the dust settled and we began getting witness statements from her boyfriend and friends, her OTHER boyfriend showed up. They didn't know about each other, and the two went from screaming at each other to looking at her through the back of the open ambulance doors with heartache.
One of them just walked away. Her eyes were open, but I'm sure she was too out of it to realize her two boyfriends just found out about each other. Between witness statements and her toxicology report, it was concluded that she was on a mixture of powder, booze, Vicodin, and a large amount of bath salts.
From what the EMT told me the following week, she suffered a concussion and some lacerations, but was otherwise physically okay the next afternoon. She was not charged with anything. Some people just can't handle Vegas!
60. He Bet The Ranch
I used to drink a lot with my buddy Dan. Dan had a girlfriend at the time and their relationship was crazy. They would go from zero to 60, screaming and threatening to making out and ripping each other's clothes off. They were a couple of nut jobs for sure.
One day, Dan and I were passing time at the local watering hole. It was wing night, so we were both comfortably tipsy and full of wings, when his girlfriend came in and started yelling at him. She dropped her phone on the table in the process. A couple of bar regulars who were familiar with these occurrences and I were watching, commenting, and getting ready to interfere if things went south.
The girlfriend was RAGING. She threw his drink in his face, smacked him, and was screaming at the top of her lungs. Just as we started to walk over, Dan—who had been enduring this with a stone face and a silent fortitude—grabbed her phone, dipped it DEEP into his ranch dressing, and stuck it in his mouth, licking all the dressing off.
He repeated the maneuver once more before his girlfriend, understandably stunned, grabbed her now blank-screened ranch phone, and exited the bar.
61. Smartie Pants
When I was in high school, a classmate brought in a pack of Smarties candy and, under the table, was sorting out the white ones from everything else. He casually made a row of them behind his book where the teacher couldn't see. Then, he slipped his library card out of his pocket and started slowly and quietly crushing them to powder behind his book.
I sat next to him. I asked if he was going to do what I thought he was going to do, and he nodded. I asked if he was going to use cash to do it, but he said he was broke. I took out $20, and told him to give it back afterward. He quietly rolled it into a tube. The teacher was asking questions around the room.
When he got to the person next to this kid, he moved his book out of the way. He then used his library card to neatly make a long powdery line on the top of the black table we sat at, as the teacher froze in place unsure what to do. He then made direct eye contact with the teacher while using the rolled up $20 to snort the line.
Snorting the Smarties was not the deranged bit. Him making sure that the teacher was watching, and making direct eye contact while snorting the line was.
62. He Went At It Tooth And Nail
I was riding the bus and was sitting next to an unhoused man, which wasn’t a big deal or even that uncommon. He was looking a bit ragged, and more specifically, he was barefoot. He started picking at his toenails, really getting in there. He put his foot up on his seat and went for it.
As he sat plucking his dirty toenails, he began to attract a bit of attention from everyone around him. We all watched in dismay as he ripped the edges of one of his big toenails, and began peeling it like the world’s stinkiest orange.
By the time he successfully unsheathed the toenail in question, just about everyone on that bus was watching.But then, it got even more vomit-inducing. Without a moment of hesitation, this guy raised that jagged hook of a toenail to his lips and started using it as a toothpick. One by one, the occupants of the bus felt their mouths open in horror.
He threaded his dirty toenail clipping back and forth between his two front teeth, and we were mesmerized; we couldn’t look away. I was sitting closest to him and had the clearest view of the whole ordeal. I couldn’t move or breathe. That scene lives on in the collective memories of everyone who had the misfortune of taking that bus that day.
63. School Day Disorder
When I was in Grade 10, there was a kid in Grade 9 who nobody liked. He was one of those kids who used a diagnosis to his advantage. He had what you would call entry level ADHD, the symptoms of which are hard to deal with, but not debilitating. He liked to sit away from everyone at lunch, but it was more like everyone wanted to sit away from him, and for good reason.
One of the better teachers in the school was on lunch duty one day and spotted him in a place that was marked as "off-bounds". When told to go find a spot that wasn't off-bounds, he initially refused, but the teacher was genuinely a good man, so he sat and tried to explain to him why as much as he wanted to let him sit there, he couldn't.
This went on for a little bit until they both got up and started walking, and talking. We couldn't tell what was being said, but we had a view of them pretty much the whole way they walked. Just when they were almost out of sight, the kid flipped out for some reason. He punched the teacher right in the face and began screaming, punching walls, doors, even other kids.
He messed up when he went to punch another kid who had a severe case of autism. That kid literally ripped his shirt off and went Donkey Kong on him. The autistic kid chased him all the way to the admin building, where he barricaded himself in. Three office ladies were punched and the vice principal was kicked when they tried to calm him down.
The kid with severe autism had more self-control than the brat who had, at best, mild ADHD, because he then took it upon himself to smash everything in the office that was made of glass—all the windows, even the glass security screen. His parents were liable for around $15K worth of damage repairs.
64. She Was Out Of Her Mind
I was out with my girlfriend one night and a friend's wife started hitting on me right in front of everyone. I politely rebuffed her advances but she was relentless and I eventually had to get rude. The next day, she took things to a whole other—terrifying—level.
She attempted to go at my girlfriend with a blade while I was at work. My girlfriend called the authorities and they took her away. Then, she came back the next day and did it again—and the next and the next, until they finally locked her up for a few months.
It turned out that she had been humiliated when I turned her down and got it in her head that she had to off my girlfriend to save face. It was REALLY screwed up.
65. Rotten Neighbor
My neighbor—the landlord's daughter—who lived directly downstairs in the same three-family house was nuts. They pounded on their ceiling whenever we walked on the old floor that squeaked. They were full of drama and I used to have nightmares that she was going to burn the house down.
When she finally got booted out for the second time, she left a fridge full of rotting meat and food.
66. She Was A Crazy Old Coot
I was walking out of the library in a small town upstate with my father and stepmother. A really old lady was walking along the road past the parking area next to the library. She saw my parents and said, "Oh, what a beautiful couple, is this your son?" My dad replied, "Yes. Thank you". Then the old lady said, "He's not your only one, is he?"
My dad responded, "Actually, yes". Then, the old lady started in, saying, "Oh, well you really should have more, the white race is in danger". We stopped for a beat. My stepmom and I were stunned but my dad just kept the conversation going, saying, "Oh, but I think it's good that everybody mixes. I think that's a good thing for people to be with whoever they want".
The old lady's face got very nasty all of a sudden and she looked at us with the evil eye, and said, "Well, you don’t know ANYTHING do you?" My dad just waved, and told her to have a nice day and we got into the car and left. She was quite deranged.
67. Barroom Barfer
I was in a bar when some guys got into an argument. The aggressor got booted out, and the guy who he had started the argument with went to the bar, and everyone continued. As I was going outside for a smoke, I saw the non-aggressor going out the door. The aggressor was waiting outside and jumped him.
That's when the dude did the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. He immediately stuffed his fingers down his own throat and vomited on the aggressor. It was a straight-up defense mechanism puke. Then the guy took off. It was one of the wildest things I've ever seen.
Freepik,Racool_studio
68. Out In The Cold
Many years ago, I was with my dad in downtown Edmonton on X-mas Day buying my girlfriend last-minute earrings. It was -30C (-22F). We stopped at a sub shop to grab lunch, and as we were eating, I suddenly spotted something that put a stunned look on my face. My dad asked why I looked so perplexed, so I told him to turn around and see for himself.
There was a 6'4" man, completely in the buff, trunk waving in the cold winter air, barefoot, walking down the street outside. People were chasing him with blankets, trying to cover him, but he shook them off and kept marching. I found out later in the newspaper that he had lost his job and snapped.
69. Something Fueled His Insanity
I was a brand new firefighter. I had responded to a call about a traffic accident at the local gas station. We didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, but we were so wrong. The guy ran a vacuum tube from his exhaust into his car and sat in the driver’s seat drinking a half gallon of booze.
Right before he passed out, he jammed a putter against the gas pedal and drove into the gas station. He ran over an old lady and a truck—with kids inside—and mowed down a fuel pump. The theory was he was trying to blow himself up.
70. The Best Revenge Is Petty
My mother-in-law is very entitled. She visits and plops herself on the couch and expects us to wait on her hand and foot. The couch may as well be her throne. I had told my wife I had one rule for her visit: no news. I can't stand having the news on. It's nothing but things crafted to get you angry or afraid. My mother-in-law was informed of this multiple times.
However, she insists she can't live without knowing what is going on. As soon as we go to put my daughter to bed, I hear the news on. That’s when I decided to get petty revenge on her. My TV is controlled by Google Home. My phone is tied into the system so acts as a home unit. I tell it to turn off the TV. She puts the TV back on. I turn it off, she turns it back on. I then go into the FIOS app and block news channels.
She does something I didn't realize that could be done and had Google turn on CNN on YouTube, but she doesn't know the difference though between the TV and the YouTube feed so...cue pettier revenge. I use the app to pause the playback. My wife is now trying to laugh quietly. She waits a few minutes, has Google start it again and I immediately pause the playback so she again has a frozen screen.
She is screaming about how the TV is frozen, so I shout down it must be the storm we are having and the cable is down. It gave me such a warm fuzzy feeling.
71. Bigger And Better
This post is about my cousin's ex-girlfriend. Back in 2003 (if my memory serves me right), my cousin began dating a woman who was smarter, nicer, and way more successful than he was. As the outsider looking in, I never quite understood why she chose to be with him. More than that, my aunt and uncle (my cousin's parents) never treated her with the respect that she deserved.
In fact, they despised her for being able to outshine their precious prince in every way possible. My cousin's chauvinism too would rear its ugly head and he would pick fights with her over the dumbest things. One such fight that my dad and I witnessed was him telling her not to accept a job offer that would pay her double what he was making at the time.
About a month after that, my dad received a call from her tearfully telling him that my cousin had left her for another girl. And what’s more, he did it over the phone. She said she knew who the other girl was and that she was probably with my cousin when he broke up with her, as she could hear her voice. They had been together for two years at this point.
This sad excuse for a human being didn't even have the decency to break up with her in person. My family’s reaction was despicable. As expected, my aunt and uncle defended their son. According to them, it was obviously his girlfriend's fault for "not knowing her place". My cousin's new girlfriend couldn't hold a candle to his ex in terms of talent and accomplishments.
But she did stroke his ego and didn't threaten his super-fragile masculinity, so he ended up marrying and having a kid with her. Fast forward to now, my cousin was laid off from his last job. The circumstances of his dismissal are not known to me. But there is one juicy truth. What I have found out is that, at his new job, his boss's boss...is the woman he had betrayed and humiliated years ago.
I can only imagine what this is doing to the jerk within my cousin and I cannot help but smile when I think about it. I learned all this from my dad. My dad is still in touch with one of the former girlfriend’s uncles and we decided to get her number and get in touch with her. Yesterday, my dad and I face-timed with her for nearly an hour.
She asked me about my life and I told her all about my job, my boyfriend, etc. She said she was happy for me. She told us she had been happily married for eight years now and had two daughters. She looked confident and radiant. I jokingly asked her how she planned to punish my cousin. She laughed and said she would probably thank him for breaking up with her and making her realize that he just wasn't right for her.
Her smile was that of someone who has completely healed. Someone who can say "thank you for doing what you did to me, my life is better because of it". The sense of pride and vindication I felt was almost overwhelming. She had won and she bloody well knew it!
72. The Making Of A Legend
This goes back to nearly 45 years ago when I built my first house. The neighbor at the back was immediately angry that I bought two lots directly behind him and would not sell them to him or swap. His antics were beyond deranged. The dude would call the county inspectors and report my "violations" constantly. After we moved in the next spring, I began to regrade my property.
I also did things like plant grass and plant 20 trees, including six 5-feet blue spruce trees towards my property line, which I shared on the west with this neighbor. They were a good 10 feet in from the "agreed"-upon property line that HE was using. I spent two months doing all this, and one Saturday morning my neighbor and his wife were out and measuring their property and such.
I paid no notice until he knocked on my door and handed me what appeared to be a "bank survey" of his property that he had for 15 years. It indicated the location of property lines, his house and garage location, etc. He explained that my trees were on top of the "property line" and I need to move them. I kind of agreed with what he said based on his site survey and I proceeded to move them.
Then I looked closely at the survey. What I saw made me gasp. It also indicated the location of an abandoned alley we both had 1/2 possession of with dimensions off his garage. This clearly indicated not only was he claiming ALL of the alley, but a 20-foot strip along the entire back of my yard. Matter of fact, ALL the neighbors were claiming this and did so for years.
My house was the first one built on my side of the block. What makes this interesting? My neighbor had a huge strawberry bed (over 10 years old) along almost the entire backyard ON MY property. 500+ plants, all prime producers and HIS PRIDE AND JOY. I immediately got my own REAL survey done with steel pins driven and stamped hard copies of the site survey.
His bank survey was basically correct. But this was truly bad news for him. It meant that he and his neighbors really were freely stealing this strip of land across the entire block. 12 households in all. This is a small rural farming town (fewer than 800 people) and in all this dust up, I found out this neighbor is THE TOWN's big enormous jerk.
So I took my survey over to this guy and said, listen, no rush to move your plants (this was July) but you need to get them off my property in the next few months. He tore up the survey and threw it at me. Now it was game on. I worked second shift and commuted 25 miles to work. My wife would go out into our garden, which was a huge one, when she got home at night and do some work in it.
About three or four days later, she is out there and the rear neighbors are disrespecting her for all the trouble "us new people" were causing. She told me the next morning and I went to those neighbors (who all refused to talk) and left them copies of the REAL survey in their doors. A couple of days later I am at work and my wife calls me pretty upset.
The bad neighbor along with two of his neighbors screamed at my wife when she was in the garden in such a bad way that she was driven to tears. I told her I will be home in 45 minutes. I called my brother-in-law (a farmer, less than mile out of town) and explained the situation. He told me he can have his John Deere tractor with his tiller at my house at 6 pm.
I next called the country sheriff’s office to request a deputy to be at my house at 5:30, and then I called the local authorities and requested the same. I get home and minutes later, both officers show up. I handed them my survey and walked them to show them the steel pins. I asked them what property are the strawberry plants on? They say clearly on my property.
Then I asked them, it’s my property and I can do whatever, right? They said sure. Now, we have about 20 people mulling around, though not my bad neighbor who ran inside the house. He was not going to face me after how he spoke to my wife. Instead, he sent his wife to the door to order me off his property or he will call the authorities. I said, too late, I already did and you have 15 minutes to relocate as many of your plants as you can.
It was almost exactly 15 minutes later when my brother-in-law showed up, and now it’s getting fun. I showed my brother-in-law where to start tilling. Took him 30 minutes to completely grind up all the strawberry plants. The silence was awesome. The rear neighbors were shocked and I became a legend.
73. When You Assume…You Know The Rest
Being someone that used to fly a lot, I constantly was upgraded to business class, first-class, or simply just upgraded seats using miles. Since the flight in question was a connection for me, I arrived and boarded later than most of the plane. As soon as I walked into the plane, I saw someone was sitting in my seat, since I had been upgraded.
Now, if you fly enough, someone sitting in your seat is not an uncommon occurrence. But this time, it was an encounter I’ll never forget. I said: “Excuse me, I believe you are in my seat”. The man in my seat does not even bother looking up at me, waves his hand dismissively at me, and says: “Let’s just switch seats so I can sit beside my wife”. I say, “Sure! What is your seat”?
He snickers and says a number. Now, I do not remember exactly what seat number he said, but it was the last row of the airplane. Aisle seat. Right by the bathroom. Yes, I have had to fly in those seats in the past. Remember, my assigned seat was in the first class/business class section. Now, I have switched seats with people innumerable times in my life without a second thought, even first-class seats—the look of someone getting to unexpectedly ride first class is priceless.
But the way this guy was behaving and what he was expecting—this was not one of those times. Me: “No. I am just going to sit in my assigned seat”. Now he finally looked at me. He says: “Well I want to sit by my wife so I am not moving”. I reply: “Well, if you want to sit by your wife, I am sure whoever is sitting way back there would be more than happy to switch seats way up here so you can sit back there with your wife”.
He didn’t like that at all, for what could he really say at that point without sounding like a jerk? He just stared at me. Now annoyed, I say: “Move”. He says: “I am not moving”. DING. Darn right, I pushed the call button. The flight attendant approaches: “Yes sir, how may I help”? I hand her my ticket and say that he is sitting in my seat.
She asks for his ticket, checks both tickets, sees his seat number, and gave him a look like, “Seriously”? She says: “Sir, you need to sit in your assigned seat”. He replies: “I want to sit beside my wife”. Well, I wasn’t missing a beat. I parroted my original statement about me being sure whoever was sitting back there beside him would be more than happy to switch seats and sit up here.
Boy oh boy, that obviously made him angry. The flight attendant looks at his wife and says “Ma’am, would you like to switch seats so you can sit by your husband”? His wife: “No”. The flight attendant continues in that all-too-familiar flight attendant voice that lets you know you have no choice: “Well sir, you have to sit in your assigned seat so please gather your things”.
What a sad and pathetic sight it was seeing this grown man act like a baby, gather his things and then sulk towards the back of the plane. Yes. His wife sat beside me that flight and didn’t join her husband in the back of the plane. No. We didn’t talk to or look at each other even once, which was perfectly fine with me. Imagine dismissively expecting someone to give up their first-class/business class seat to sit in the very last row of the airplane by the bathroom.
74. Excuses, Excuses
My aunt and her three kids were usually "accidentally" not told about family gatherings, because she had zero control over the brats. If they ever came to visit, me and my sister would hide our favorite toys, because they'd probably break them.
They were the kind of kids who'd start smashing a toy against a wall "just to see if it would break". Of course, it freaking will! During one of my dad’s birthday celebrations, we'd set out a big buffet table with all kinds of nice food, so people could eat, drink and socialize in our garden.
My cousins went over and took one or two bites out of darn near everything on the table. My mother was so mad she had to be restrained. It fell to my dad to tell my aunt and her kids to leave that day. All the while she's laughing it off, saying "they're just kids", and all the rest. It was so disgraceful.
75. To The Left To The Left
I'm super pregnant. I'm in my last trimester now and we waited until I was 22 weeks to tell my family due to complications. We're fine, but we've been spending all this time building our nursery and being excited to be parents. My husband worked on the nursery himself, without my overbearing family or his knowing about it. He is a very proud dad and it's helped him bond immensely with our baby, who isn't even here yet.
My family, full of awful people, is split in two. My dad's family isn't involved in this story—I'm fighting them on another front, but they took the news of the completed nursery very well. My mother's family, specifically my aunt and cousin, didn't take it well, but they were relieved I only wanted books from them for the baby's library. My cousin has been in competition with me since she was a child.
I don't know why, she’s the golden child and got everything she always wanted. I ignored her my whole life and never competed, which I think made it worse. She has repeatedly told our grandparents and her mom that I'm a thief. She claims I've always taken her things, called her rude names, and she always manages to get everyone worked up about it.
It's always been disproven, her things are always found, but the family always buys it. It hurt so much the last time that I refused to be around my cousin without a second witness to our interactions. Thanks to that, there was no drama for three years because my husband was always with me. After hearing I'd gotten married (we eloped in a ceremony abroad), had a destination honeymoon, and was now having a baby, she wasn’t happy. I think that’s when she snapped. I'm now having the first great-grandchild for both families, which is a big deal for my cultural background. She tried after our announcement to "take over" my baby shower.
However, I told the family I wasn't having one because we already got everything we needed. I have tons of clothes, furniture, etc. So I asked for books instead. Dinner went great with the whole side of the family being excited. However, I knew something was coming my way from my cousin because I'd refused her "generous offer" about the baby shower, thus not giving her any attention.
She texts me several days later (she shouldn't have had my number in hindsight) and told me she'd be coming by my house to drop off "gifts" for my baby. I told her no thanks, we weren't taking gifts. She tells me she's coming by at this time and I told her I'd be out. I also said that even if I was home I'm not taking them, and I'm not having any discussions with her about my pregnancy or baby. You can guess what happened next.
She showed up anyway. She was apparently banging and screaming at my door (I have video footage from my Waze camera) so much that my neighbor called the authorities. They showed up and surprise! She has a warrant for unpaid traffic citations and was driving under a suspended license. So she gets locked up. Between my appointment and an emergency visit to the hospital (bloodwork issues, we wanted to confirm baby was okay), she'd managed to tell my family a different story.
I'd apparently opened the door, called her horrible names and called her gifts cheap, kicked her when she tried to take them back, and then slammed the door in her face with the gifts. I then apparently called the authorities, told them she had a warrant, and lied telling them she'd physically gone for me. She then went to lockup and was treated horribly.
I thought for sure my family had to know she was full of it—I was in the hospital for my baby. I was shocked at their reaction. They believed her. They came at me with texts, calls, voicemails, and all of it nasty. They didn't believe me at all. My mother and bio-grandmother did, however, and tried to set the family straight. I decided I was done.
I'm not defending myself, why should I? I sent out a message to everyone that if they were going to believe my cousin, they were no longer allowed near my family. I would disown them all. I had proof she was lying. They didn’t believe me and kept up the nastiness. I blocked them all. Three weeks later, the church ladies at my work told me that the whole family was talking ugly about me to the whole (small) town.
I then showed them the texts and video since they were so shocked about what my family was saying. Once they saw the video and my pictures from the hospital (I made a video for myself of me watching my baby’s heart rate and the clock, so it kind of proves where I was) they were horrified. They stopped bothering me about it then and it got quiet.
A week ago, my cousin’s story truly fell apart when my grandfather and uncle ran into the officer who detained her. The church ladies and the officer backed my story up, and my cousin crumbled when she was confronted. The family is horrified, and my aunt and cousin are on the outs. They found out she also had substances in her car, so she's lost her golden child status.
My whole family has been trying to come by my house, only to discover my neighborhood has a new key-code gate. My mother called me today to ask what she should do, as my grandfather came by her house sobbing about the whole thing. I told her it wasn't my issue and I was sorry for her being caught up in it, but I'm not budging. I disowned them. And I went one step further.
I removed my family name from my hyphenated last name and just took my husband's. I deleted my Facebook. I changed my number. We are listed privately. I won, as sad as it is, because they're now facing the consequences of their actions. And I'm sad. I want my family, but they need to stay away. I can never give them another chance. What if they hurt me or, Gods forbid, my child next time with their behavior?
I'm at a loss. My mother says they want to send a letter. But do I even read it? My mother has effectively told the entire family I want to be left alone, she will not be passing any messages on to me from this point further, and that any more contact would involve our attorney. It got very quiet today and I'm quite relieved about it. I had my husband block everyone's number.
I also sent my lovely church ladies (who bring me food and visit sometimes) a message detailing that I was too stressed to hear about my ex-family anymore. I asked that we drop that uncomfortable subject when they visit and they were happy to oblige. We had a small visit today and all we talked about was my nursery for the baby. Going forward I've decided to stick by my no-contact rule.
I am not giving these people any more real estate in my mind.
76. Animal Instincts
I had a pet kitten when I was roughly nine years old that we only had for a month. My parents got her from a pet store with bowls, food, etc. And one day I come home from school and she was gone. They said they got tired of buying stuff for her, and that she was smelly and so they gave it away. But here’s the worst part. I remember them buying her because I was lonely and wanted a friend.
Then it happened AGAIN. The second time, I was a bit older, I'll say 12-13ish. Well, they had a bunch of turtles and they gave those away after a year or so. They didn't even do much so I’ll never understand why my parents felt they were a burden. I was the one in charge of cleaning their water and feeding them. I’d let them roam the house and put them back afterward.
They were happy. And I liked decorating their containers to make them look "tropical". Again, one day I come home and they’re gone. The third time, we had a hamster. I was about 17? It was a gift given to my brother. But he didn’t really like it and as such ignored and neglected the poor thing. He didn’t even bother to name it so I did. I named it and went out and bought it food and a rolly ball thing he can get inside of to roam the house.
A week goes by and my parents notice me taking care of it. My mom tells me, "you know why he doesn’t want that thing right?" I say I don’t know and she goes "his ex-girlfriend gave him that thing. He probably gets sad every time he sees it too, because it reminds him of his ex-girlfriend". I tell her, "he saw me playing with it and said it's cool that I want it. He seems fine to me".
She just gave me this mad look and goes "we're getting rid of it because we don’t want him to be reminded of his ex for no reason". A few days later, the hamster was gone. It was a very affectionate little thing too and used to come to me when I called for it. My dad used to make fun when I called for it and to this day when he feels like being a total jerk he will mimic my voice and try "calling for the hamster".
The worst part of it all was that the only pets that lasted long (more than a few months) were my mom’s pets. She had this parrot for years and she made it loud and clear that the obnoxious loud bird was HER pet. She would buy it toys and perches on the walls for it. But she would also tell me I needed to clean the cage for her. So one day, it was summer and I opened her cage.
That idiot bird flew right out one of the open windows (my mom was cleaning the floors and airing things out). My mom ran outside then came back in and screamed her head off at me and demanded I buy her a new parrot immediately even though those things are $500+ and I was a broke college student taking out loans to make ends meet. But I had the perfect response.
I told her "I’ll buy you a parrot when you give me back my kitten, my turtles, and my hamster". She said I was crazy, whined some more, but she never brought up her parrot again after that.
77. Don’t Make A Sound
I moved to my new apartment around seven months ago. Having had problems with parties in my old apartment because the walls were extremely thin, I decided that I would not have them in this one. But I didn’t count on one thing. My neighbors are complete jerks. When I moved in I had a dinner with three members of my family and they complained.
I thought they were being ridiculous but as a gesture of goodwill, I gave my neighbors my phone number so that if there were any problems they could text me instead of coming down. They had then been incessantly texting me, telling me to stop using my phone after 8 pm, and to stop laughing. Might I add, I do not speak very loudly nor laugh very loudly.
Their excuse was that the only room in my house (studio apartment) is under their bedroom. I tried to be reasonable and speak lower, but that didn’t satisfy them and I wasn’t about to whisper in my own apartment. I got to my breaking point after four months of this and I told them to not text me anymore, as they were being ridiculous with their demands and I would from then on consider it harassment.
I had five friends over for the first time this August. All heck broke loose. The husband tried kicking down my door after coming down to complain; I had told him that he could call the authorities because I didn’t care and then closed the door. He got mad because since we didn’t have any music and we were a small number of people, he knew it would be useless.
For what it’s worth, we were playing cards. Now they told me they’ve called the HOA about my being on the phone past 8. I’m so over it.
78. Mi Casa Es Not Karen’s Casa
I just got notice yesterday that my entitled aunt Karen has just passed on. I got a call from her husband asking me to attend the funeral next weekend, and I declined. As did my older brother Mark. Karen was my mother's older sister and she constantly interfered in my mother and her children's lives. She never liked my father and always tried to tell my mother that she made a mistake by marrying him.
She didn't like the name my parents picked out for my older brother. My great-grandmother passed the day before I was born, and when Karen found out they were going to name me after her, she freaked out. She claimed she wanted to name her potential future kid that, so my mother couldn't use it. Then she tried to talk her out of it by saying it's too old-fashioned and kids would make fun of me.
She criticized both my brother's and my choice of friends and even complained when I started playing softball, because "proper ladies" didn't play sports and if her daughter ever tried playing a sport, she would have her removed from the team. Spoiler—she never had children. The day after my 16th birthday, my parents drove on a business trip down to California.
My dad said that when they got back, he would drive me to the DMV to get my license. He never did, because on the drive to California, they hit a patch of ice, spun out, crashed, and didn’t make it. I was a wreck for some time after that, I didn't even want to attend my high school graduation later because my parents wouldn't be there. Their will split everything evenly between my brother and I.
At the funeral, my parents’ production manager Tim was talking to my brother and my brother told him that in a couple weeks, he would step in and take over. He was counting on Tim to run things smoothly until then and help him in taking it over and learning the ropes. I had no interest in the business, other than it was a guaranteed summer job when I was growing up.
I stayed out of it and just collected profit checks until I sold my half to Mark, and he continues to run the business to this day. Mark told Tim that he should assure the employees there that their jobs were safe and that no major changes would be made. Then one day, aunt Karen showed up and began putting her stuff in my parents' office.
When Tim confronted her about this, she said his services were no longer needed and he was fired. Tim called Mark up and Mark went down with the family attorney, some law enforcement officers, and the necessary paperwork, and had her removed. She claimed the place was now hers because it was her sister's, so she was now the owner.
As long as I have known her, she has never had a steady job, and has had three husbands. She milked each one for as much as she could get until she divorced him. The next day, I was leaving for school—I walked, it was fairly close, about 10 minutes—and saw her car and a moving van parked outside. She said she was moving into "her" house…but that’s not the worst part.
She then said in a sickly sweet voice, that for a "reasonable" rent, she would continue to allow me to stay there until I graduated high school. I went in and called my brother, and he again showed up with the family attorney, officers, and all the paperwork, and had her removed from the property. I was at school, so I didn't get to see what happened.
That night, Mark gave me a business card (for a policeman, who I assume helped deal with all this) and told me that if I ever saw aunt Karen on or near the property to call that number and report her immediately, don't even try to confront her or give her a warning, just call. I do know that the movers charged her to move her stuff into the van, drive across town, get turned away, and drive back across town and move her stuff back into her apartment, which she hadn't given notice yet.
I got scared to the point that I didn't like letting our dog into the backyard when I was at school, I used to put her out in the yard to let her play in the fenced backyard while I was in school. For a while, I just put her in the locked and closed garage, and then cleaned up her messes when I got home in the afternoon.
Eventually, Karen moved to Colorado, where I assume she met and married the man who called me and said that she had passed on and he couldn't find anyone from her family to attend the funeral. I chose not to tell him about her and politely said, "Sorry for your loss, but I can't make it". From discussions with Mark, he basically told him the same thing.
Outside of myself, Mark, and Mark's infant daughter, I don't think she has any living relatives. I still own the house (Mark gave me his half as part of the deal where I sold him my half of the business), but still sleep in my bedroom. I still miss my parents and think about them every day, and even though I am 20, own a large home, have a lot of money in the bank, I would trade it all to have my parents back.
79. Shifting The Focus
I work at a large chain grocery store in a well-to-do area. While many of our customers may look like typical Karens, most are actually really nice and amazing people. That being said, I was racking carts and I hear this lady on the phone behind me muttering: "I don’t know why they come to this country, they can barely even speak the language. I’m behind on right now who's probably a terrorist”!
I look in the window’s reflection and I can see that she's walking behind a young woman in a hijab who has a small child. The young woman just put her son in a cart and I can see that she looks like she's about to cry. So I decide, forget it…I'll take the hit for her. I spin around to Karen and shout: "Oi! I take bloody exception to that! Just because I’m Irish does NOT mean I am or ever was in the IRA”!
I look at both Karen and the young woman. Both were speechless and all Karen does is point at the young woman. So I continue, this time speaking to the young woman: "You saw that, didn’t you?! This lady just called me a bloody terrorist! I might speak Gaelige and wear a Catholic cross! I might even be from Ireland! And darn it I’m bloody proud! But I AM NOT A TERRORIST”!
At this point my manager walks over to see what all the fuss is about. I say: "This lady just called me a terrorist”! I turned to the young woman and asked: "You heard her call me that too, right"? My manager looks at the young woman and instantly catches on. He tells Karen that that kind of conduct is not okay in our store, no matter who it's directed at or why, and that she needs to leave.
Karen, still completely speechless, just turns around and walks out. I turn to the young woman and tell her: "I do apologize about the yelling ma'am, but I’m proud of who I am! If you need anything while you're shopping, just let me or one of my coworkers know”. The woman thanks me and pushes her cart away while sporting the biggest grin.
My manager then makes the comment "Entertainment tonight: $0. Teaching Karen a lesson about discrimination: $0. Seeing that young woman walking away sporting a grin like the Cheshire cat: priceless".
80. Giving Them A Taste Of The Local Hospitality
A few years ago I had a side hustle on my days off. My job had a rotational schedule where I worked two weeks then got two weeks off. I made plenty of money at my job, but it didn't hurt to make a little extra cash. I was in essence a tour guide. But for the region I lived in. I didn't have any planned tours but usually just took people to see neat places that they would not know about or think to go to.
I was adamant about getting paid up front. And customers signed an agreement saying that made guarantees to protect my truck from messes or damage. Never had any issues fortunately, and people always enjoyed the places I showed them. Except for one family. They seemed friendly enough when I was having them sign a contract and collecting my fee. I should mention my fee was $15/hour + $75 ($35 if it was a half day).
This covered a tank of fuel, plus paid for my time shuttling you around. I also kept a cooler with free water and some limited snacks. You were paying for my knowledge of the region, plus knowledge about the area’s history and such. Plenty of times I had customers tell me, "I've never seen so much cool stuff in one day". You could maybe find something cheaper, but I didn't care.
Once money changed hands with this family, the attitude changed. They began treating me like I was a second class citizen. But I had their money, so I didn't care. I drove them around to some of the most beautiful scenery you can find. It’s rare people are left speechless by these places and never have I seen someone not be impressed. Until now. Every place I showed them they just seemed disappointed.
One of the places was a ski town popular with a lot of celebrities (not Aspen), and they were just like "Eh, it's ok". I can't deny I was a little offended by their indifference but whatever. They were never outright rude during the day, but were surprised when I didn't buy lunch for them. As I said, you’re paying for my time, food is on you.
But when I got back to town and dropped them off at their hotel, it got interesting. The wife says, "You can just park in the back and leave the keys at the desk. Tell them they are for the Smith family”. Me: "I'm sorry, what”? Wife: "This truck, just park it in the back. We might use it later”. Me: "This is my truck. I'm not leaving it here, that’s not part of the deal"
Wife: "Oh please, there is no way you can own a vehicle like this. It obviously belongs to your company”. Me: "I do this job by myself, on my days off from my regular job. I assure you, this is my truck. I can show you my name on the title". Wife: "Young man (I had just turned 30) If you don't do as your told I will be forced to call your boss". Me: "You mean me? I am my boss".
Wife: "Okay smarty-pants, get your boss on the phone, right now”! I thought about just driving off, but then had a better idea. I called my supervisor at my real job. We'll call him Dan. Dan has been in the oilfield for 14 years and could have quite the potty mouth. Good supervisor, he knew what I did on my days off and even sent people my way a few times.
He answered and I just said, "One of my clients is demanding to speak with my boss, so here she is" and handed her my phone. The wife, sounding smug, said "I tried to tell your driver to leave the truck here so we could use it but he lied and said he owns it”. I could hear him yelling "ARE YOU (BLEEPING) STUPID”? I didn't discern anything else but I know he gave her a good thrashing.
She just walked to the window, handed me my phone, and said, "He wants to talk to you" then walked away. Boss: "That fix your problem”? Me: "Yea, thanks Dan". Boss: "Anytime brother".
81. A Restraining Order In The Making
I'm currently eight months pregnant with my first child. I work as a secretary on the inpatient ward of a hospital, second shift. I started working here when I was 19 to support myself through college. So, my coworkers are like family. When I was four months pregnant, I told my coworkers, who were happy for me. All except Patty. She didn't say anything.
After a while, she started being friendly with me asking about the baby, my health, and my plans for the future. I told her that my boyfriend and I were getting married and moving in together to be a family. Patty didn't like this for some reason, and started asking me about my opinions on adoption. I said NO, I'd never give my child up for adoption
For a few weeks, Patty gave me the silent treatment. Then one night, after visiting hours, a couple in their 40s showed up. told them that visiting hours were over and that they could see their family member tomorrow. What the woman told me made my blood run cold. She said, “Oh, we're here to see YOU! We're so excited to meet you and want to thank you for choosing us to give your baby to”!
I was dumbfounded and shocked—until the woman tried to touch my six months pregnant belly. I screamed so loud all of the nurses came running. The couple tried to explain to security, nurses, and me, that their sister-in-law told them that I was a young unwed mother desperately trying to give up my baby for adoption and choose them.
She said that their sister-in-law promised them my baby, since they have been suffering from infertility for years. I told them that I had no intentions of giving up my baby and to never come near me again. I also told them that I don't even know their sister-in-law, but they kept insisting that I did. The next night Patty comes charging up to my desk, screaming at me.
She’s yelling and asking how could I treat her brother and sister-in-law like garbage, after she helped me with my "mistake". I called security and Patty, her brother and sister-in-law are banned from coming near me or contacting me at work.
82. Eat Your Words
I moved cities six months ago, and my new job site has a 12-hour shift system (8 am to 8 pm or 8 pm to 8 am). And since I have a very high metabolism and am a total foodie, I have been packing a lot of food from home. (breakfast, two snacks, lunch or two dinners, and baked goods for tea time). I usually eat with my team of four people, and they get their meals from the on-site cafeteria.
I share my meals with them, because I love feeding people and I pack extra. But then I got a call from another co-worker, one whose husband is part of my team. She works in our opposing shift. This lady was aggressive from the get-go, demanding that I stop bringing my elaborate meals and that I should just get what the cafeteria is serving like everyone else.
I was firm and said that I was not going to change my habits and that she doesn't have a right to demand that. Then she went on a rant about how her husband has been comparing her to me (cooking, presentability, cheer is what she mentioned) and complaining for the last six months. I admit I felt bad for her. So I said that those kinds of issues should be discussed with her husband, not with me.
But I said again, that I will continue bringing food from home. Then she called me the b-word and hung up on me.
83. What’s Mine Isn’t Yours
My younger sister went through a pretty rough time as a young adult, drinking and doing other stuff and generally being wild, she ended up getting pregnant and giving birth at age 18 when I was just a few weeks away from turning 21. She did not want the child after giving birth, she refused to even pick up the child and would leave her sitting in dirty nappies.
Despite never wanting children myself either, I stepped in and adopted my newborn niece as my daughter. My then-boyfriend who I'd been with for three years gave me a disturbing ultimatum. He said it was him or her, as he didn't want children either. I picked her and he left me, which resulted in me suddenly being a single mother.
The first few years were rough as a single parent, barely making ends meet, but I managed and my sister had nothing to do with us. I never once hid the truth from my daughter that she was adopted, but always assured her I loved her so much and was her Mummy. When my daughter was six, my sister was finally clean and wanted to have access to her.
I allowed it but stressed she would just be an aunt to her and she accepted this, though it's clear she struggled with the concept and sometimes acted more like a mother which I always squashed quickly. Now, my daughter is eight and I've been offered a job in a different country, the pay is almost double my current salary and the company is helping us find a home.
They’re even putting my daughter in an international school and after-school care, so of course I’m going to take it. This resulted in my family having a meltdown about how I can't do this and how it's cruel to take my daughter away from her family and how it's not fair to my sister. My sister has told me she won't allow me to move away with her and that she'll fight in court to get my daughter back.
I've talked to lawyers and it seems she doesn't have a leg to stand on, as my daughter is legally my daughter, but the rest of my family is telling me I'm being extremely cruel and if I cared about my sister I'd turn this job down. I left home at 16 and finished my education. My sister meanwhile is the golden child who gets away with everything, she even now lives with our parents and doesn't work.
My daughter, while sad to be leaving her school and friends, is excited for the move. I've been teaching her about the country every night before bed and we've gone to some authentic restaurants to try food from there. I've also promised her we'll fly back at least once a year to visit and she can facetime/call her friends.
I feel like my family is angling for me to eventually just hand my daughter back over as if I was just a temporary filler for my sister—which will obviously never happen.
84. Ex Vs. HOA: Who’s Worse?
I'll start this off by saying my ex is vindictive as heck. We've been fully divorced since about right before the pandemic started. We sold the house we shared and I didn't have to pay her alimony because she cheated and we're in an at-fault state. It was messy since D-Day. All of the stereotypes. First the sobbing and then trickle truths saying "I love you”! "It was just one time”! "Ok it was two years".
Then the gaslighting, followed by "I'm going to take you for everything”! before packing her stuff and walking out. I feel like I never really knew the woman my ex was in all the time we were together. We were married for five years and together for seven. And in two of those five married years, she had affairs with three other men. The final one being a foreign businessman of some sort from what I could find out.
Yes, I got tested and was thankfully negative. Yes, she got pregnant by the final dude, and no I didn't sign the birth certificate because I found out about all the affairs before the baby was born thanks to a call from the first dude. My ex tried to go full scorched earth on me. But since we live in and were married in an at-fault state, she lost.
We didn't pay equally into our house, and the equity was divided 70/30. So I got a pretty good cash payout when I sold our marital home to put as a down payment on a different house closer to my job. It's a bit of a downgrade. But suits a single guy in his thirties like me just fine. My ex did show up to my house once. But I refused to let her in.
She yelled at me that I'd financially ruined her in the divorce. I said that she was fully willing to do that to me first. Then, the woman had the audacity to say it should have been my life that got messed up, and not hers. I laughed so hard and said it was karma. She yelled that she'd sue me for what was rightfully hers. I said if she was gonna sue me, then to go ahead and sue me.
It'd end up the same way in court, because she has nothing but a false sob story. She was the cheater, not me. I'm no angel, but I didn't do anything to her. And she was the one who ruined our marriage. Then she took it up a notch. She then said she'd tell everyone she could that I abused her. I said I'd sue her for defamation if she did, and I was recording our interaction and had those words saved to my phone.
She went wide-eyed and her jaw dropped. The look people are calling the surprised Pikachu face. Then I asked why she was there, if not to just try and make trouble. Because she had a new man in her life that knocked her up. She just huffed at me and said he isn't around much, and she's stuck in a tiny apartment living off his child support till he comes back.
It was immature of me I know, but I did the bit of playing the world's smallest violin. She raged at me and then got in her car to leave. Haven't seen her since. But as soon as I got her out of my life, I had to deal with an even more annoying problem. There is an HOA in my neighborhood. But I was not legally obligated to join it because the last owner of my house was not a member. I made sure of that through a real estate lawyer as well.
The HOA had no grounds to force me to join and they were not happy about it. The HOA president would show up with forms every week for the first month demanding I sign them. Then she threatened to take me to court. To which I had to get a C&D sent to her from my lawyer to make her stop that. So she started harassing me by looking for any infractions she possibly could to report to the city.
An inspector came out several times and found nothing wrong. In fact, I offered one of them a burger while grilling, and they graciously accepted. Did I mention the HOA hates barbecues and parties that aren't approved in advance? Well, they do. And I like to grill when the weather is good. And my neighbors actually love me for it because I invite them over.
I had the authorities called on me several times for noise complaints because I was playing music on a Saturday afternoon while having my friends over. The HOA president I caught trespassing once when she was trying to peer into my windows. I called the authorities, but she denied ever doing it. So I got cameras. She hasn't trespassed since.
But I still got repeated passive-aggressive letters saying my cameras were not an approved addition to my house. Some months ago I started getting letters for fines in the mail. And when I contacted the HOA, their representative claimed they had it on record that I'd joined, and needed to pay all fees effective immediately. I told them that was not possible.
Then they emailed a scanned copy of the forms, and they had a signature on them. But it was not mine. That’s when I made a chilling realization. It was very similar in some ways, and I recognized right away as being my ex's handwriting. She knew what my signature looked like. But it was a loose imitation at best. I got in touch with a lawyer right away over the forged signature.
But the HOA still demanded to go to court. And it took seven months before that happened. Meanwhile they were stacking unpaid fines against me weekly, and were threatening to put a lien on my house. We went to court and the HOA president looked very smug. But my lawyer pointed out how the signature wasn't the same as mine, and was very inconsistent in the various forms.
I'd never allowed the HOA president in my house, and I'd never requested the forms. The idiot HOA president actually slammed her palm on the table and said it was still binding. But when pressed where the fraudulent signature came from, she admitted my ex-wife called the HOA and they sent her the forms, then got them back in the mail signed.
Then she actually claimed she'd thought I'd signed them. The judge looked at her and asked if she was serious. She confirmed she was. The judge then asked how a woman I was no longer married to, that had never even lived with me in my current residence was supposed to have any bearing on whether or not I joined her HOA. She went quiet and I could see the “Oh no” look on her face as the hamster wheels were turning.
She seemed to finally mentally put the pieces together. My lawyer then counterclaimed that what the HOA did was blatant fraud, and actions must be taken. And they were. I countersued the HOA for the emotional distress of the harassment I'd gotten since moving in. Which I had lots of proof of. That won me about ten grand after lawyer fees, which I decided to put towards my mortgage.
The HOA president was removed from her throne. I like to think she was kicking and screaming. She was also slapped with a hefty fine. I've seen her outside a few times, and she always looks at me like I am the devil. The HOA itself had to pay all of my fees too. I wanted to go after my ex for forging my signature. Unfortunately, not long after she forged my signature on those forms, she apparently left the country to be with her third affair partner.
She's somewhere in Europe from what I can see of the final posts on her FB before she disappeared. So I can't do anything against her unless she ever returns to the US. So that was a wash. I'm not getting letters from the HOA anymore, though. And the new president has promised to keep things completely cordial from now on.
I still don't feel like I got much of a win in this though. Other than the 10k payout, it all felt like a huge waste of time.
85. Turning The Tables
This is my friend’s tale about how she turned the tables on a home invader. At the time this happened, my friend was rising her child by herself in a suburb of in Texas. The area they lived in wasn't particularly safe, with wild beasties of both human and animal kinds so my friend armed herself with a small pistol and took some safety classes to protect her small family.
The years go by, her child is now five and there was a series of break-ins in the neighborhood. My friend hired a security company to install security cameras around her home. One day while reviewing footage, friend noticed a strange man lurking around the house. He seemed to wander around a bit and then wandered away, so friend shrugged and carried on with her day.
Nothing to worry about right? Turns out—she was wrong. A few days later, my friend was working in her home office and saw the same guy walking down her driveway, opening the gate, and entering her backyard. My friend realized the kitchen door was open, and her child was playing in the living room. My friend grabbed her pistol from her purse and ran to the kitchen and got there as the guy calmly walked through her backdoor!
The guy sauntered in, looked and looked around the room—to see my friend standing there with her pistol pointed at him. Guy froze. She yelled: “Who are you and why are you in MY house!? The guy gulped, grabbed his phone and DIALED 9-1-1! He said: “Help! I'm standing in this kitchen and some crazy lady has a pistol pointed at me”!
My friend was stunned but didn't put her pistol down while calmly telling her child to go play in their room then stood there, not moving while staring down the guy, who refused to leave! The guy said: “You are gonna get it when the authorities show up lady”! She told him to get out of her house. The guy actually stayed standing there until the officers came into the kitchen!
The guy saw the officers and started screaming, “Cuff her, she's crazy! Look, she has a pistol on me”! My friend put it down and started shaking. “This is MY house! YOU broke in”! The officers then stopped and stared, looked at the guy, and asked: “You broke in”? The guy said: “Well her door was open, and then she pulled a pistol on me! That’s not how it works! Cuff her for having a pistol”!
My friend said: “I have a license and this is Texas you idiot”! The officers detained the guy—who was STILL howling about my friend. She gave the officers a copy of the video of him sniffing around earlier in the week.
86. Someone Never Learned “Sisters Before Misters”
My sister, who is in her mid-30s, is probably the worst case of entitled I’ve ever seen. She’s always the victim, can do no wrong, and the world owes her for her imaginary suffering. This time, however, she’s reached a new level. She’s recently confessed to our mom and I that she’s started dating someone behind her husband’s back.
To be honest, her husband is also a ginormous dirtbag, but just leave the guy, okay. I don’t think anyone deserves to be cheated on, and even though he totally sucks, an affair doesn’t constitute some kind of just punishment. It’s messy, gross, and not worth it, save everyone the extra heartache. Now, we lost our grandma at the end of August.
It hasn’t even been a month since she passed, and since she was terminally ill, we did have time to discuss some things and make arrangements for others. She lived in an apartment that’s attached to our mom's house, and we had talked about me moving into it after grandma passed. Everyone thought it was a good idea because my grandma had things like no-slip railings, kitchen tools/gadgets for arthritic hands, etc.
I am also disabled and could benefit from the same equipment. Well, I come to find out my idiotic sister thinks it’d be a cool idea to have her marital affair move into our mom’s property instead, so she can use our mom as some kind of cover for her affair. I am absolutely repulsed and livid. We were all just starting to let my sister come around again, because after grandma passed, she seemed like it had really affected her.
We really believed that she was really turning over a new leaf, but it’s all because she wants her boyfriend to move in. I don’t think anyone is going to go with the idea. I just can’t believe that she even thought it would be a viable option and something that she could even suggest to us, why does she just assume that we’ll help her cheat on her husband? I want no part of it, I will not be an accomplice.
Also, her justification for suggesting he move in is because “Sister (me) doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush to get up there”, like yeah? Well, here’s the reason why. I found our grandma, deceased, LESS THAN A MONTH AGO, in that house. Sorry I haven’t been in a hurry to erase grandma from her home. Sorry I haven’t been sorting through all of her belongings and getting them ready to be rehomed or donated.
I wish I could keep every trace of her, and the fact that I have to get rid of anything at all hurts. I’m sorry I haven’t done it yet, but maybe try having a little empathy. Because of this, I’ve decided that I’m kicking my sister out of my life again. Each time I think she’s capable of changing, she shows that she’s still the same horrible, selfish person, and I’m done falling for the charade.
Have fun with the inevitable divorce proceedings. Good luck explaining all this to your kids too.
87. The Art Of The Deal
We have been looking for a car for our youngest. Looking through online ads, we came across an ad for a luxury car that only asked for about 1/3 of what this car blue books for. The says the car just suddenly stopped starting. My husband is a mechanic so we decided to look at it, just to see. Immediately, he sees a couple potential problems as to why it doesn't start.
The car has new tires, the body is nearly perfect, and the interior needs a few easy fixes. Still well worth way more than owner is asking, even with paying for repairs to get it running. Of course, we bought it. My youngest is ecstatic about getting a luxury car for graduation. My husband gets the car running—it was an even easier fix than he originally thought. That’s when we met the crazy lady.
It’s time for plates and registration. Off to the DMV we go. We come out with the temporary tags and as my husband is putting them on the car, this lady walks up. She says: “Excuse me”? But I was on the phone, so I ignore her. Again, she says, more rudely this time, “Excuse me”? I reply: “I'm sorry, do you need something”? She says: “Yes! That car”.
I say: “My car? What about it”? She asks: “Where did you get it”? Me: “We bought it a few weeks ago”. She says: “That's my car”. My husband says: “No, it isn't. Now get away from us”.
She says: "Yes, that is the car I was going to buy from [previous owner] and you stole it from me”. I say: “Lady, I paid [previous owner] what they were asking and nothing was said about you. Leave. Us. Alone”.
She claims she had an agreement to buy the car from the previous owner. She says “You came in and MADE her sell it to you. I want it back and I want it now. I had to buy that piece of garbage over there instead. Now, you take the piece of garbage and give me my car”. I told her whatever, and to get out of my way before I run her over.
She says: “I'm not going anywhere. I've already reported to the authorities that I have found my stolen car and they are on the way”. My husband asks: “Are you nuts lady? You can't just report a car stolen because you missed the chance to buy it”. But there was something this insane lady didn’t know. We were actually waiting on the previous owner to show up to get her plate and registration because there was a mix-up with the title (DMV’s fault).
We had to wait to get that fixed before we could title, register, and plate it, so we were still using the correct plates. The previous owner can then turn in her plate and get a refund for the months not used. Two cruisers pulled up about five minutes later. The previous owner pulled in right behind them. As the two officers are getting out and asking who called, the previous owner walked up to me and my husband, asking what is going on.
She hadn't noticed the crazy lady yet. The crazy lady immediately started yelling how she had paid for this car and we forced the previous owner to give us the title instead. She wanted us taken away and her given the title and possession of the car right now. One of the officers walked over to us. I grinned because it is one my friend’s sons. He grew up with and was friends with my oldest son.
He said: “Hey. Want to tell me what is going on”? I replied: “I don't really know. We bought this car a few weeks ago from her [pointing to previous owner] and while we were waiting for her to show up to get her plate, this woman started screaming at us about stealing the car. Something about they [pointing between previous owner and crazy lady] had an agreement about the car but she [previous owner] sold it to us instead and now she [crazy lady] is demanding we take whatever car she ended up buying and we give her this one”.
The previous owner says: “Oh my god. This is exactly why I didn't sell her the car in the first place. She is my neighbor and she is INSANE! She asked me about it when I decided to sell it and I told her she could buy it, but she wanted me to get it running again but still sell it to her for the low price. I told her I didn't want to deal with it and that is why it was low”.
“If I got it running again, I might just keep it, but I would definitely raise the selling price to at least double. She has called me a few times asking if I had it running yet and I have told her no but she kept telling me to call her when I did”. The officer then (going with procedures) checked all of our IDs, checked the bill of sale, previous registration, and ran the VIN. Everything checked out.
The officer said: “I think we're done here”. Then he turned to the crazy lady and said: “Ma'am, what you have attempted here is against the law. Actually, you made a false report which is against the law and I could cuff you, but I'm not. I'm sure you're just upset and made a bad judgment call so we will let it slide”. Her reaction was unbelievable.
She screamed: “No! It wasn't a false report! That is MY car”! He said: “Ma'am, stop. Just stop. I could also charge you with attempted car theft but we're all just going to walk away now”. She said: “No! I'm not just walking away. This isn’t happening. [Pointing at previous owner] You owe me [amount twice what we paid for the car] And I will get my car back”.
Officer #2 said: “Ma'am step over by the cruiser. We need to have a talk”. I gave the plate to the previous owner and Officer #1 told us to have a nice day. My husband and I went ahead and left while previous owner went into the DMV. The crazy was still ranting at Officer #2 about allowing us to take the car. Well, there was a happy ending. The previous owner texted me later that the crazy lady was in the back of the officer’s car when she left…still yelling.
88. Know Your Worth
This makes me hurt a little, because up to this point my sister was the only one I could mildly get along with within my family, but I guess she is my mother's daughter so the entitlement shouldn't have been a surprise. My sister and brother-in-law are both essential, a law enforcement officer and doctor. So, they've needed someone to watch their kids now that school is canceled and a lot of daycare services aren't around.
Even then the youngest one had been kicked out of two of them and finding a new one is difficult due to that. So I've been watching these kids 4-6 times a week depending on their schedule, anywhere between 7-12 hours a day. I was told to wait until they got paid, then told to wait for the stimulus check to come in and they'd pay me for it.
At that point (and I do have the text) it was going to be $85 a week, regardless of that 4-6 times a week. Well, they got the stimulus check-in. My sister gives me $55 and tells me that this was for the babysitting. I told her this wasn't what we agreed on. I was told that I should be grateful because she has been feeding me. No, she hasn't.
I bought my own food and tended to have to buy the food that these kids were eating for lunch. I was told it was just like “hanging out having fun” playing video games with my nephews. No, it was not. She knows her kids better to know they're monsters. They are both destructive. It's a hassle since I have to chase one of them around all the time to prevent them from climbing shelves, or from getting out the front door because these kids were never taught to mind.
I refused to bring my gaming laptop for the older one to play anymore. I told him specifically if he wanted to play on it, he could only touch the wireless mouse and keyboard and play it at the desk, but not to touch the laptop. So what does he do after getting bored with one game he begged me to let him play? Pick up the laptop and run with it and drop it.
I screamed at him—not my best moment—and he had the attitude of a teenage valley girl of "Whatever. Accidents happen, that's why they're accidents. If it breaks, you can just buy a new one," to which I told him HE would be the one to replace the $1,600 computer. But since that day, he's been whining about me not bringing it over for him to play with.
I have to deal with these kids assaulting me all the time and not being able to do a thing about it. These kids are MONSTERS and the only reason I agreed to do this was because she was my sister and she needed the help, but I was supposed to be compensated for my time away from MY own work. I work commission-based jobs at home, but I can't work on it around them as there's no pause for me to do it less the younger one would probably run away and get hit by a truck.
I know it'll probably be terrible of me if I just don't show up for the next few days until they start paying me what they at the very least owed me, but on the other hand, I really just don't want to be around those kids.
89. Not With A Bang, But A Whimper
So, my boyfriend and I moved into an apartment in August. It’s older so the floors are super creaky. According to our lease, we’re obligated to cover 90% of any room with carpet (except bathroom and kitchen) to help with noise. It turned out our apartment was previously managed as a dorm by the local college, so the floors already have a layer of super thin cheap carpet.
We also laid down more rugs to help with noise cancellation. Our downstairs neighbor moves in about a month later, and within a month of that, starts banging on her ceiling when we get too rowdy. The first couple of times, it happened super late in the living room—our apartments have the same floor plan. We were moving around after midnight the first time.
Later she came to talk to us and asked us to keep it down at night. Sure, fair enough. The next time, was when we walked in from the airport at 10 pm. She came up, banged on the door, and talked over my explanation. I told her I was sorry and asked when she was hearing the noise, assuming it was just the cat running around at night.
No, she tells me that she knows it’s not the cat, she knows it’s us, and she doesn’t live alone. Okay, weird but whatever. We started going to bed earlier as we settled into the apartment and our jobs, but the banging only continued. For months, she would hit her ceiling/our floor whenever we walked around. Bed at 10? BANG. Wake up at 5:30 for work? BANG. Sitting on the couch but decide you want snacks? BANG.
Around Christmas, she comes up to our door again. My boyfriend answered and this time, I recorded. I’m so glad I did. This woman came up and looked my boyfriend in the eye and said “You have to stop following me”. Uhhh? What? She says: “I know it’s not the cat or the dog or your girlfriend, because I know your footsteps. I don’t know how you figured it out, but you’ve figured out how to listen to where I am and you’re following me around my apartment and I’m sick of it”.
My boyfriend calmly responded that she sounds crazy and that we don’t care about her. She again reminded us that she doesn’t live alone. Her boyfriend is a small Latino man in his 60s who is very polite and has never said a word to us. Cool, she’s insane, whatever. The banging continued with us stomping every time we heard it. She didn’t like that, but it made it more fun.
We’d already explained the situation to the landlord and the super and they were on our side. Our town was the first in the US to be locked down under quarantine, so for the first few days, the banging gradually increased until one day this woman lost her mind. I’ll admit that we’re early risers on the weekends. On this particular Sunday, we ended up waking up super early, but not doing much for the first few hours.
We drank some coffee and sat on the couch until almost 11. At that point, we decided to get up and clean the apartment. That’s when she lost her mind. She had to be running from one end of her apartment to the other. She’s banging her ceiling so hard that we’re convinced she’s damaging it. At one point, I hear what sounds like muffled yelling after she followed me into the bedroom.
We had plans that day, so we ignored her, finished cleaning, and started to leave. She must’ve been waiting for us to leave, because for the first time ever, she walked out of her apartment right as we go to her landing. I was holding the dog while waiting for my boyfriend to come down as she starts to descend the stairs.
Of course, she decides to turn around and say something. She says: “Tell your boyfriend to cut it out”. I say: “Cut what out? Walking? You’re hitting the ceiling because of me and the dog moving, not him”. She continues to spew some other dumb stuff as my boyfriend gets down to me. She proceeded to stay exactly three steps ahead of him, slowing us all the way down the stairs.
She tried to block us going out the door at the bottom, but backed off when he just didn’t stop moving. She’s continuing to yell at him all the way to the parking lot. Of myself and my boyfriend, he’s typically the hot head while I’m the calm one. Amazingly, he kept his calm the whole time, calling her only a crazy lady and ignoring her as he walked past her and her car to the dumpster.
As I passed her car, she decided to continue talking at me, and I was just furious that I couldn’t engage. She said: “I’m serious, it’s done”. I replied: “Okay, what do you want us to do, crawl? I already told you we have a 60 lb. dog, and we’re all just walking around”. She was talking over me, saying: “And you need to remember that I don’t live alone”.
I was like…okay…neither do I? You see my boyfriend right there, so what’s your point. By the way, that’s the third or fourth time you’ve said that and that could be taken as a threat. She says: “You think it’s a threat? Fine, it is”. I said, “Cool, I’m calling 9-1-1”. She goes: “Okay me too”. So, we both call the authorities, and they pull up.
They talk to her first and then come talk to us. I don’t know what she told them, but when they came to talk to us, I told them everything she’d said and done for the past six months. The officer explained that it was a civil matter that would have to be dealt with by the landlord, but ensured us that they explained to her that it is perfectly acceptable to WALK AROUND YOUR APARTMENT AT 11 AM ON A SUNDAY.
They also told her not to knock on our door ever again and that she’s not allowed to bang on our floor over footsteps at any point. For a couple of nights, she got back at us by banging at 1:30 am to wake us up. We had already reached out to our landlord again and this time, he told us he’d see what her problem is. That’s still not the last of his troubles with her though.
We ended up talking to the people that live below her and telling them about the banging. It turns out, they’ve heard it this whole time and had no idea what it was. Now that they know, they’ve also reported her to the landlord. The banging has stopped, we don’t expect her lease to be renewed, and we may end up in a better apartment in the next couple months.
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90. The Wicked Stepmother Comes To Life
So, for some background, I only had one parent in my life, as my father was abusive. My mother gained full custody and my father had extremely supervised visits—like a social worker had to watch me with him. He never made an appointment to see me. My mother told me what happened, when she thought I was ready. I was about 15/16.
When I turned 20, a lady who wasn't more than three years older than me contacts me. I mistake her for a person I’d seen in school. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Shortly after, I found out she was engaged to my father, and had a son with him. Big age difference. She was 23, my father 57. Then, I got into contact with my father.
I never met him, as he lived in New Hampshire while I live in Iowa. We never got close. A month later, my father passed suddenly. Shortly after, his fiancée—I’ll call her stepmom, even though she isn't really—lost custody of my half-brother. The authorities put him up for adoption due to her substance problems. That’s when I got a heartbreaking message.
They asked if I would adopt him, as he was my half-brother. I had to decline because I didn't have the space or money at the time. Around this time, I met my now-husband. Fast forward a few years. I am now 25, my husband 26. I have just given birth to our daughter three weeks ago. Right now, there are four people at the house.
Me, my husband, the baby, and my 56-year-old mother. My mom is high risk, and she wants to be around to help with my daughter. When my daughter was two weeks old, I posted some photos of me, my husband, my mother, and our daughter together. It took us some time with the photos but we figured it out. I posted them on Facebook.
About an hour later, I get a comment from my “stepmom” to check my messages. I check and here’s what they said: “Hey, I’m gonna be coming over tomorrow to see my granddaughter. I’m so excited to meet her. I'll stay in the guest room”. I should note she still lives in New Hampshire, and I still live in Iowa. I wrote back: “Sorry, we can't. My baby and my mother are high risk and I’m still learning a routine with my daughter. My mother is also using the guest bedroom”.
I didn't get a response after this. Next morning, there’s a knock at the door. I thought it could be a package I ordered, so I go answer it. When I opened it, I was furious. It’s my “stepmom” saying: "Hey! I'm here to see my granddaughter"! My stepmom tries to open the door, but I push back”.I told you couldn't come. There isn’t room for you and there are high-risk people here. Please leave”.
She says: "But I have a right to see my grandbaby. Your father would want me to meet her. I’m her family. " She tries to give me puppy eyes. I say: “I’m not really wanting to deal with this right now. Leave," and I shut the door. All seems well—until yesterday. She came over again and this time since I was busy with the baby, my husband handled her and threatened her with calling the authorities.
She leaves after throwing a fit. Last night, when my baby is asleep, I got a text from her. "Why didn't you let me see my granddaughter, I’m her grandma! I came all this way to see her and you deny me seeing her. I just wanted to hold her! Your father would have wanted me to see her”! I had to respond to this. I said: "You’re not my child's grandma. Only my mother and my husband’s mother are grandmas”.
I continue: “You weren’t married to my father, only engaged. I don't trust you with her either, as I have no clue if you're still using or recovering. I don't trust you either as you lost custody of my half-brother. I don't care what my father would want, as he was barely in my life, three months max if you include when I was born. Right now, I have multiple people in my home who are high risk. I told you you couldn’t come over, but you did anyway”.
I shut off my phone after this to get the little sleep I can get. Sometime this morning after I rocked and fed my daughter. I got a text from my "stepmom," asking for money for the hotel she stayed at. I hit decline and she sends it again, saying I owe her, since she couldn't stay at my place. I declined again and blocked her.
91. Persistence Doesn’t Always Pay Off
My cousins go to a VERY ELITE PRIVATE all-boys school grade 6-12 in the New England region of the United States. So it's not uncommon to encounter an entitled parent and kid here or there. Now, let me state that my cousins are not entitled. They apply for financial aid and have campus jobs to afford the $60k a year tuition.
My older cousin is the student body president of the school. Because of this, he gets a room that is 1200 square feet, has a fully functional kitchen, and bathroom. The room also had a large living space, balcony, and office. The other rooms just have two beds, two closets, one desk, and a small window. They’re around 150 square feet.
Because my little cousin is related to the president, he was allowed to live in the room versus the standard dorms. My cousin's roommate was also the student body treasurer, so the dean allowed him to live in the room too, because he was my cousin's friend. With three guys living together, there was a surplus of video games and junk food, just guys being guys.
With the new semester starting, student body officers have to help with orientation, helping the parents get the first-year students settled in. This turned into a total disaster. Because little cousin was already settled in, he was just playing games on the PS4 with the door open. Queue entitled mom and kid. Mom: (Nice at first) “Excuse me”? My cousin: “Yes”?
Entitled mom: “I am looking for my son's dorm and I can't find it. Can you help me”? My cousin: “Hey, I'm new here myself so I don't know much. My brother is responsible for helping first years, so let me call him”. Entitled mother and her son wait for about 25 minutes for my older cousin to arrive. This whole time, my little cousin was playing games with the new kid on the PS4, eating junk food, and showing them around the room.
That’s when my older cousin arrives. He says: “Hey, you must be the mom trying to find her son's dorm”? The entitled mom, now rude, says: “Yes I've been waiting for someone to help me”! My older cousin first disregards her tone, as orientation day is hard. My older cousin goes on his phone with the info that the mom gives, and directs her.
Apparently, entitled kid only lives down the hallway to the left. Entitled mom leaves with the kid and his luggage. The entitled kid says in that gosh-awful voice as he's leaving, "I wanna play more games.”! Entitled mom says: "You can later”. Older Cousin has this "JEEZ" look on his face, closes the door, and plays on the PS4 with my little cousin. 10 minutes later, they are interrupted by a terrifying noise.
There are loud bangs on the door. My older cousin sees who it is. It's the entitled mom and her brat. They have returned with his luggage. She screams “I need your help NOW”! as the brat runs to the PS4. My cousin asks: “Uh, what seems to be the problem”? She starts whining: “My son's room is small! It's not like this one! Who do we talk to about this”?!
My cousin says: “Um, I'm sorry If you're unsatisfied with your living situation you'll have to talk to a counselor about his situation, and nobody has a room like this one because I'm the president”. The entitled kid starts rummaging through games and yells: “DO YOU HAVE FORTNITE”!? My cousin asks him to put the games down.
The entitled mom snaps. She yells: “Don't talk to my son that way! Besides, my son needs more living space DO SOMETHING”! The whole time, the entitled kid is still rummaging. That’s when my little cousin then pushes him to the side and locks the game cabinet. He starts screaming. At that moment, their roommate was also returning to the room with his lunch.
The kid screams: “I WANNA PLAY GAMES”! My little cousin replies: “This is our room and you can't use my things if I don't want you to”. The kid just keeps screaming, and roommate asks: “What's going on”? That’s when the entitled mother interrupts, yelling: “These boys won't help me find a room like this one for my son”! The roommate replies: “Oh, that's impossible, this is the only room that is like this one. Besides, this room is only for the president”.
That really sets the entitled mom off. She asks, condescendingly, “Then how come YOU'RE HERE”? The roommate explains the whole situation. The entitled mom then says to my older cousin and his roommate: “You should let my son live here”. Entitled kid overhears his mom. He now thinks that he lives in the room. He goes to the fridge and tries to get a soda.
My little cousin blocks him and says: “You are not our guest, nor do you live here, don't touch our food”. The kid immediately screams: “This is my room too! AND YOU HAVE TO SHARE”! My older cousin asks her to get her kid out, because he is a nuisance and bothering my brother. She says no. My older cousin and his roommate are not having it.
They ask her politely, yet firmly to leave. Her reaction was infuriating. The entitled mother walks in and proceeds to UNPACK her son's luggage. Entitled Kid is also having a fit because my little cousin isn't letting him have any food. He yells at his mom about it, and she says she’ll help him after she unpacks his things. My older cousin and his roommate firmly tell her “Your son is NOT living here”.
The woman replies: “Yes he is. My son is an angel. You should be glad to be friends with him”! My cousin replies: “I am not interested in living or being friends with your son, leave now”! The entitled mom ignores my older cousin and continues to unpack with her entitled kid still screaming" I want donuts”! He then screams at my little cousin: "I wanna play your games”!
My little cousin says "no”. The kid then starts screaming high-pitched. The three of them have had enough of this charade and they proceed to drag them out and throw his luggage in the hallway and lock the door. Entitled mom and son continue to bang and howl. Entitled mom "PROMISES" that she'll get her son back in. So she leaves.
At this time, friends were coming over and someone accidentally let the entitled kid in the room. Confused, the new people ask who he is. He claims he lives there, and then starts demanding to use the PS4. My older cousin sees him and kicks him out again. With him shouting "I WANT TO STAY”! his mom then returns with a security guard.
The mom says: “These boys kicked my son of out of HIS ROOM! DO SOMETHING”! The guard replies: “Lady, I know for a fact that your son doesn't live here”. She says: “He needs to stay here this room is much better than the other ones”! The security guard then asks if the mom is bothering them, and everybody says yes. He says "I'll take care of the mom"—but that’s not the best part.
He asks my cousins to take care of the kid. The entitled kid is dragged out again. The mom was escorted off the campus grounds. My older cousin and his roommate forcibly moved the entitled kid into his room for him. My little cousin ended up becoming friends with the entitled kid's roommate as the months passed. The entitled kid has been so bratty and annoying that his roommate has had sleepovers with my cousins almost every night.
Because of this, the entitled kid packs an overnight bag and almost always follows his roommate and demands to be let in. My cousins and the two roommates have to turn the volume on the TV louder to tune out his pleas and crying. One day, they woke to him sleeping in front of their door at 6 am. He stayed there for 10 HOURS.
92. He Was Diabetic, She Was Diabolical
I am a 16-year-old guy. I’m pretty normal. I play video games, hang out with friends, have a good job, all that. But the only abnormal thing about me is that I have type 1 diabetes. I have been diagnosed for about a bit more than a year and a half. I’ve kept good control over it and the doctors are always impressed when I have a check-up.
Bragging aside, I am a junior in a pretty small high school in the middle of Kansas. One of the things I do is I take insulin 10 to 15 minutes before I eat so it has time to get into effect. With the school lunch there are two options: a chicken salad and a cheeseburger. I decided to go with the cheeseburger. I take my insulin and go up the line.
There are two separate tables each with two white to go boxes with the food in them. I grab a box from the left table and before I take two steps my friend points out to me that that’s the salad. I set the box back down and go to grab the other box but the lunch lady shouts at me. “Hey, don’t you dare”! I look at her and she looks at me like I just slapped a puppy in the face.
I ask what’s wrong and she said that I had already grabbed the salad so I have to take the salad. (Note. I didn’t even open the box). I explained to her that I’m a diabetic and already took insulin. She shakes her head and says in a sickly sweet tone, “I’m sorry, that’s not my problem. Take the salad and go sit down now”!
I tried once more to tell her the situation but she just pointed at the salad table and tells me to take the salad or I don’t get anything. I’m a little angry at this point so I take the salad and go off to my table with my friends and tell them the situation. They removed the vending machines in the cafeteria over the summer so there was no way for me to get the correct amount of carbs without stealing another kid’s cheeseburger.
One of my friends tells me I should go get the principal quickly before the insulin fully sets in. I go to the office and tell him and the counselor the situation a little panicked because it had been well over 10 minutes since I took insulin. I’m very tight with the principal so he walked me back up to the cafeteria and talked to the lunch lady.
He tells her “LL, give him the cheeseburger. He really needs it”. She responds to him by saying. “But he already took a salad. He can deal with it”. Principal just sighs, grabs the cheeseburger box, shoves it into my hands, and tells me to go sit down. I listen to him and walk back to the table. I sit relatively close to the lunch line so I and my friends can barely hear the principal talk to her. “How you acted was truly out of line. I thought you understood to treat his and (other diabetic kids) situation with care and understanding”.
He went on for another minute and ended up just telling her off and heading back to his office and I ate in peace. I’m glad that she got told off and maybe she’ll know better next time.
93. One-Sided Sibling Rivalry
When I was a teenager I was originally saving to buy a scooter to have fun riding around town on. But on my 15th birthday my dad gave me an engine kit for my bicycle and convinced me to get a Learner's Permit and keep saving to buy a car instead. Even after moving in with my dad, I continued doing odd jobs and earning money any way I could.
My dad asked his brother (my uncle) to teach me to drive because he worked as a driving instructor for a while in the 90s. I slowly got pretty good at it. Right after my 16th birthday rolled around we went to the DMV to schedule a driving test. I passed on my first try thanks to all the practice I got beforehand. Not long after getting my license, my dad decided it was time I worked part-time for him at his business after school.
I was happy because it would make me double the money I was already saving from odd jobs. Before I knew it I'd doubled my savings. While I had chosen to live with my father and my sister didn't, dad still had a room prepared for my sister when she came to visit. For the first few months or so Sis didn't bother to come visit. But eventually, dad convinced her to come over one day a week on Saturday.
Dad always picked her up so I wouldn't have to see my mom. Thankfully, she didn't really wanna see me either. My sister by this point stopped asking me for money or trying to break into my room since I was living in my dad's house and not mom's. But she loved to game on the game systems we had at dad's house. Sis would pretty much spend all Saturday night playing games in the den and drinking Coke.
That's probably the main reason why she even wanted to come visit since she didn't have an XBOX 360 or flatscreen TV at mom's house. Eventually, after just over 6 months of working at my dad's business, he approached me with an offer to find a car I liked. He said if I found a good reliable used one that was the right price, he'd help me buy it and would put it on his insurance. I was ecstatic—but I didn’t know it would turn into a total nightmare.
I started looking at local ads and found a silver 98 Toyota Camry with under 50,000 miles on it for sale. It was in great shape, save for the fact that the rear bumper had been dented and a few windows were broken along with a badly cracked windshield because it was vandalized by some thug. The seller offered it to me at $3,500 with the damage.
But my dad talked him down to $3,000 because of the money it'd cost to get it fixed. I bought the car and it went right to a local auto body mechanic my dad was friends with. When we went to pick up the car it looked almost brand new because he'd replaced the broken windows, pulled any dents, and touched up and shined the paint with a buffer. I was overjoyed and thanked him and my father profusely.
I bought the car. But my dad paid for all the repairs. He never told me how much though. But that car was my main ride for the next ten years if you can believe it. And I eventually sold it to a cousin on my dad's side for his first car. But that's not what you're here to read. When my sister first saw the car in Dad's driveway, she asked whose it was. Sis: "Hey? Who's car is this? Is someone else visiting? Me: "Nope. That's my car”. Sis: "No way”!
Me: "Yes way! I just bought it and dad helped me get it fixed. It runs like new”. Then my sister just got really quiet and went back in the house to play more video games. She didn't really speak to me for the rest of the time she was visiting that week. I started driving the car to and from high school, and I got a fair amount of attention for it.
My sister however had complained to our mother after going back home about my new car. Somehow she couldn't process the fact that I'd gotten a car and she didn't, even though she is three years younger than me and was only 13 at the time. She started making a stink to our mom about how she wanted a car too. And mom called me on my cell phone to yell at me for starting this problem.
I told her there was no problem. I bought a car with money I earned. And now I'm driving it. And if Sis wants a car too, then she can either work hard and save up like I did, or hope she gets one as a gift. Mom just got mad at me and said it really wasn't fair. I pointed out there really wasn't a fairness issue at all as Sis wasn't even old enough to get a learner's permit yet, let alone a car.
Mom just said I wasn't being supportive of my sister's feelings. And that when she is old enough to drive I should at least lend her the car when she needs it or give her driving lessons. I bluntly said that wasn't happening as I bought it with my own money, and it'd be put in my name when I turned 18. Plus she couldn't dictate what I do with the car because I didn't live with her anymore.
Mom just angrily huffed, called me a jerk and hung up on me. I thought that was the end of it, but it wasn't. My sister started visiting less after that. She got mad at me one day just for washing my car outside. In a fit of anger, she picked up some dirt off the ground and chucked it at the side of my car. But I just sprayed the spot with the hose and it looked like it was never there.
So my sister just stomped back in the house and didn't talk to me again. After that, she only came over for one more week again. When she came to visit she always had a big backpack with her because she'd bring clothes and other stuff in it. She didn't keep many things at dad's house. But the next morning when she left she was wearing the same clothes. Which was unusual because she never did that back then.
She said she'd just die if she wore the same outfit two days in a row. I later found out the reason for this. When I next went into the den, the PS2, GameCube, and original XBOX were destroyed. And the flatscreen TV had part of its screen smashed. The XBOX 360 was also missing. I then realized she'd hidden it in her backpack and taken it.
The other game systems she smashed and left what remained of them sitting on the TV stand. I checked the various games for the systems and Sis had removed a bunch of the discs from their cases and stolen them as well. And she took all of the memory cards too. When I told dad he was pretty mad. He called my mom and she actually said that since I got the car, letting Sis keep the XBOX 360 and the games was the least he could do.
Then she smugly said that Sis didn't want to come visit anymore. Dad angrily told her she better stop sounding so happy about it or he was gonna make her pay for all the damages. Mom just snorted and finally allowed him to talk to my sister. My dad was pretty heartbroken Sis had done all that. He'd been trying so hard to get her to appreciate him more.
But Sis admitted over the phone that she hated him for divorcing mom. And her taking the XBOX 360 and destroying the TV and other game systems was, as our mother called it, "compensation for her pain". Dad could have called his lawyer to sue for more custody rights. But he believed that if she didn't want to be there, he wouldn't force her.
From then on, over the next decade, I barely saw either my sister or mother. Dad didn't bother to try and get the XBOX 360 back. He said that it and the other stuff Sis broke were just things that could be replaced, and bought new ones. But I could tell he was really hurt by what mom and Sis had done. He actually left my sister's room pretty much untouched for the next few years. But she never came back to use it.
From the way my sister is now though, you'd never guess she was the same person. She's extremely ashamed of her actions back then and wishes she could take it all back and apologize to dad. But can't since he died some time ago. We visited his grave recently and she cried over it. It’s really sad.
94. On My Father’s Grave
My worst teacher asked me, “Didn’t your father ever teach you how to act?” I had to inform him that my father had died four years earlier. Two weeks later, my step-dad comes to pick me up for an appointment saying he’s here to pick up his child. When the teacher was over the phone with the office, he asked, “You mean the deceased father is here for pick up?”
All through high school, that teacher just kept doubling down and never showed remorse for what he had said. He would chase me into other classrooms because I had a hat on and I needed to take it off. This gave me motivation to become the compassionate, empathetic, and awesome teacher that I am today. My kids always get the benefit of the doubt and I respect them.
95. All Part Of A Balanced Diet
My husband is in his hometown for two weeks for work, and he took our four-year-old son along with him to visit my father-in-law, who I call “The Jerk,” and my mother-in-law, who I don’t have a nickname for. It was agreed that, a few days in, I would take the train down with our other baby to visit for the long weekend. The trip is about three hours long. We came back home yesterday. My husband and older son will be back home on Friday.
My father-in-law has a lot of annoying habits. For example, he likes telling grown adult members of his family how to dress. He takes every possible opportunity to criticize other people's appearances and wardrobes, even once going so far as to make snide comments about his cousin's attire (a sweater and long skirt) at HER OWN FATHER'S FUNERAL.
The Jerk and my mother-in-law also insist that whenever we are in town, my husband, all of his siblings, and their respective families stay at their house, even when it means a total of ten adults and seven children in a four-bedroom house with children on cots and a couple sleeping in the living room behind a dressing screen. Totally unnecessary.
But this past weekend was the worst by far. My brother-in-law and his family were also visiting. He has a wife and three kids. The Jerk and my mother-in-law do not have air conditioning, nor do they have screens on any of their windows. I've asked in the past why this is, and my husband simply says, "It doesn't usually get that hot". These are people who just bought a brand new car, own about half a dozen motorcycles, and take trips across Europe every couple of years.
Money to put in central air or a window unit here and there or even screens on their windows is definitely not an issue for them. The bed we were sleeping in during our stay is also an antique that is constantly falling apart. The Jerk literally builds furniture from scratch, so I don't know why he can't be bothered to fix it.
Our first night there was absolutely awful. It was a Saturday night. My husband, son, baby daughter, and I were all in one guest room together, while my brother-in-law and his family were in the other. It was 101 degrees outside, and while there was a ceiling fan, as darn hot as it was in that house, it was about as effective as blowing your breath across the top of a volcano to cool it off.
We had a choice of sleeping in a veritable sauna or opening the screenless windows and waking up covered in mosquito bites. Since we didn't especially enjoy the thought of our kids or ourselves contracting West Nile or being miserable and itchy, we opted for the former. The kids needed lullaby music to fall asleep, so my husband had it playing on his tablet.
I have to have silence to sleep, so this was a struggle for me. My son also woke up screaming in absolute horror at least twice. I suspect night terrors, but who knows. Either way, he woke up his baby sister in the process, so you can imagine how much sleep we got. The kids woke up early the next morning and my husband, bless his soul, got up with them so I could sleep a little longer.
Still, I was exhausted and not in the greatest of moods when I got up. But knowing how critical the Jerk is of others' appearances, I made sure to comb and smooth out my bedhead before I exited the bedroom wearing my typical nighttime attire of a T-shirt over a camisole and cotton pajama pants. The first thing the Jerk says to me as I enter the kitchen is a sarcastic "Snappy PJs".
I am so not in the mood for his garbage, so I say, "Excuse me?" Again, he says, "Snappy PJs". I respond, "What about them?" He can only reply, "Snappy!" I say, "You're going to critique my pajamas? Seriously? What would you prefer I be wearing?" He makes a big dramatic show trying to be funny, saying, "Oh, you know, something silky, a nightie of some sort".
I say, "Dude. I'm going to sleep". He says, "That's when it's most important! That's when you need to be alluring!" and strikes a pose like Leonardo DiCaprio is about to draw him like one of his French girls. He walks away and my mother-in-law, smiling like this creepy act of telling his daughter-in-law she needs to look more attractive for bedtime is some cute endearing quirk of his, brushes it off, saying, "He made fun of the nightgown I was wearing the other night".
My brother-in-law's wife (whom I'll refer to as SIL1, because my husband's sister will be mentioned later as SIL2) comes into the room a short time later wearing her own nighttime ensemble of a tank top and shorts. I make it a point to say, "Hey, SIL1, snappy PJs!" with the Jerk still in earshot. She being the secure, give-zero-hoots person she is, laughed and said, "Thanks! They're all the rage in Cairo!"
I pulled her aside later and explained the Jerk's comment on my wardrobe and that I wasn't taking a potshot at her, but instead subtly calling him out on his behavior. Having had many, many dust-ups of her own with the Jerk in the past, she completely understood and found it hilarious. Most of the weekend went fairly well, relatively speaking.
And when I describe a weekend where my father-in-law darn near sexually harasses his son's wife as "fairly well," you can imagine what fairly poorly would entail. After lunch, owing to the lack of air conditioning and finding ourselves positioned directly beneath Satan's behind, the family as a whole decided to take a dip in the swimming pool for a bit.
The Jerk, my husband, and my brother-in-law have a long-standing tradition of swimming pool horseplay, so they decided to have a chicken fight. For those not familiar, it involves two teams of two people, where one person from each team sits on their teammate's shoulders and tries to topple their counterpart on the opposing team.
The Jerk prompted my husband to sit on his shoulders, but my husband was leery, not thinking the Jerk could handle his weight. My husband has a slight dad bod, as do my brother-in-law and the Jerk himself. The Jerk says, "Oh, that's nothing. The last time SIL2 (My husband's sister, as previously mentioned) came to visit, she climbed on top of me and almost ended me!"
The second the words left his lips, we all recoiled in horror. SIL2 is, by the clinical definition, obese, perhaps even morbidly so, and I'd guess she outweighs her brothers, but in what universe is that an okay thing to think, let alone say, about your own daughter? But of course, because it was the Jerk, we weren't surprised.
That night, my brother-in-law and his family having headed home, we decided to put our son and daughter down to sleep in the same bed in the back bedroom while we remained in the front room, figuring that if they had each other for company, they wouldn't be scared if one of them woke up in the middle of the night.
This part of the plan worked beautifully. They slept peacefully all night long without a peep. When my husband and I went to bed, I opened one of the windows in the bedroom because I could not face another sweat-soaked evening. We slept well. But in the morning, I woke up to about a dozen mosquito bites on my legs. I wasn't too thrilled about it, but I was just happy to have had a decent night's sleep.
I made sure to dress and make myself somewhat presentable before I went out into the kitchen, because I didn't particularly feel like having my wardrobe criticized yet again. I came out and made myself a cup of tea, and the Jerk pounced on me. "Here, sit down and eat your oatmeal! I've already made a bowl for you".
I've known my husband for fifteen years. We have been consistently together for the first eight, and since then married for six. In all that time, I have never once eaten oatmeal. I know that the Jerk hates pears and that my mother-in-law is allergic to passion fruit and can't eat nuts, seeds, etc. due to diverticulitis. As such, I go out of my way to provide foods that comply with these dislikes, allergies, and restrictions whenever they visit.
I'm a picky eater. I know this. But, that being said, it's been pretty well established that I don't like seafood, onions, or mushrooms. My in-laws cook very frequently with all of these things. I have never once complained or asked anyone to cater to me. I've eaten everything they've ever put in front of me, eating around things I didn't like whenever possible without a single word of protest.
And yet, the Jerk always calls me out for it. Several times, I've choked down things I couldn't stand just to try and be polite. But with oatmeal, I just can't. One mouthful and I gag to the point of almost vomiting. So because I really had no desire to vomit, I politely declined. Me: "Oh, thank you, but I don't do oatmeal". The Jerk immediately scoffed and replied: "What do you mean, you don't do oatmeal?"
Me (Trying to be diplomatic): "I just don't really eat oatmeal. It's okay, I'll find something else". The Jerk: "Who doesn't eat oatmeal? I made this for you!" Me: "Well, why don't you have it?" The Jerk: "I can't! I just took medication and I can't eat for 45 minutes!" Me: "So just reheat it". The Jerk (as if I had just insulted the wee baby Jesus himself): "YOU CAN'T REHEAT OATMEAL!"
Me: "Well, I'm sorry about that". The Jerk (being completely unhelpful): "Have you ever had it the way I make it, with raisins and lots of butter and cinnamon?" Me (knowing full well that there's no magical method of preparation that can make me enjoy the texture of cat vomit in my mouth): "I'm set, really. It's a texture thing". The Jerk: "I'm going to have to throw it out!"
Me: "I'm sorry about that. Why don't you eat it?" The Jerk: "I can't!" Me: "Neither can I!" The Jerk: "Why not?" Me: "Because I don't like it". At that point, I was sitting with my back to the Jerk, so I couldn't see the look he shot my husband, but judging by my husband's hapless shrug, I can pretty well guess what it was like.
A few minutes later, my mother-in-law emerged from her bedroom and asked about the oatmeal. The Jerk: "I'll make you a bowl. I just had to throw one out because your daughter-in-law wouldn't eat it". The rest of the morning was decidedly frosty. I was busy packing up our baby's things, as well as my own, for our return trip home, when my husband came into the room.
Me: "So your dad is mad at me about the oatmeal, huh?" My husband: "Well, you could have at least tried it". Me: "I have tried it many times in the past. I don't care for it. It's a texture thing". My husband: "Well, it'd be nice if you could say something to him". Me: "I did! I explained to him precisely why I don't like oatmeal". My husband: "He doesn't get that".
At this point, I wanted to scream. Me: "I told him I was sorry for the waste of food, but that I don't like oatmeal because of the texture. I don't know how much clearer I can make it". I was seething about the whole darn thing for the rest of the morning, and my husband sulked like a child and kept to himself until our baby daughter and I left for the train station.
As we got in the car and we were all saying our goodbyes, I told the Jerk, "By the way, I'm sorry about the oatmeal. I hope I didn't hurt your feelings". He offered a huffy, "Well, it's okay". I know this man well enough to know that he was still mad. In the car on the way to the train station, my husband said, "I appreciate you saying something to my dad".
I responded, "I can't believe he's seriously pitching a fit over a bowl of oatmeal". My husband said, "Well, you know, he was tired. I'm not making excuses for him". I replied, "Gee, it sure sounds like you are". He bristled and said, "How about we just don't talk about it?" So we didn't. That night, after my daughter and I had returned home, I texted my husband and said, "When you get home, we need to talk about your father. I really don't feel comfortable around him".
My husband and son are due home tomorrow around dinnertime, and after the kids are in bed I plan to have a sit-down with my husband about the Jerk and his nonsense. I have another sister-in-law (my brother's wife) who is a complete, certifiable harpy who all but refuses contact between my brother and our family. To be perfectly candid, she's a selfish, controlling witch.
I never wanted to be that person. I never wanted to be that person who can't stand their in-laws, but the Jerk and my mother-in-law have made that all but impossible for me. As such, I've erred on the side of being a complete doormat, putting up with their garbage because I was afraid of rocking the boat. I'm not afraid anymore.
Between the decrepit beds, the lack of air conditioning and window screens, the Jerk's criticism of pretty much anything I wear, and his insistence on playing the breakfast officer, I'm going to tell my husband point blank that while I cannot and will not dictate what he does, I will not spend the night in their house ever again, nor will my children.
If an occasion requires us to travel to their area, we will book a hotel and visit for an hour or two and retire to a room with beds that have been made in this century, central AC, no danger of waking up covered in insect bites, and a breakfast buffet where no one will question our dietary preferences. The Jerk and my mother-in-law stay at a hotel every time they come to visit us, so I don't think it's unreasonable for us to do the same.
I haven't even mentioned the creepiest part yet, but it definitely speaks to the kind of creep factor that emanates from the Jerk. Whenever we women in the family are greeting him, he always demands a kiss on the cheek. He holds his cheek out and awkwardly taps it with his finger until we comply.
Just the other day, he told SIL1 and me (after he'd insulted my pajamas, naturally) that we weren't meeting our "quota" of kisses and that we needed to catch up. YUCK! I've decided that's stopping, too. I'm tempted to tell him I have a disease so that I never have to put my face anywhere near his again. That is one aspect of visiting him I know I will not be missing.
Thank you for listening to my story. I desperately needed to get that off my chest. I've tried several times in the past to have sit-downs with the Jerk and my mother-in-law to try to discuss how I felt, and each time they've just simply stated that they won't change. In a perfect world, we'd be completely no contact, but because I know how much my husband loves his family, I'd never ask him to do that.
I'd prefer very limited contact, but I have no idea how to navigate that. I would greatly appreciate feedback from anyone who has ever been in a similar situation.
96. One Foot Out The Door
When I was 14, I had some neighbors who had about 10 kids. I would ride snowmobiles with two of the younger kids during the winter. I went over one morning and had to wait for them to get ready. While I sat at the table waiting, I could hear some moans coming from upstairs.
I asked what was going on and no one said anything. A moment later, the youngest son said, "Show him, mommy". The mom went to the fridge and pulled out a piece of toilet paper. She set it on the table in front of me and unrolled it. To my surprise, it was a baby's leg with a toenail formed on the big toe.
She explained to me that one of their middle-aged daughters had an abortion earlier in the week and when she got home she was not feeling well. When she went to the bathroom, "this fell out of her". I got up, walked out, got on my sled, and went home. I told my parents about it a few days later.
Apparently, the rumor mill in our small town was running rampant with stories about how the girl was impregnated by her older brother, one of the kids I used to ride with. The image of that leg with the toenail is still in my memory. It's not like the mom saved the leg to go back at the doctor for malpractice. She kept it as a talking point.
Freepik, cookie_studio
97. Bad Suggestions
After my twin brother lost his life in a car crash, my parents sat me down. When they began talking, my blood ran cold. My brother's girlfriend had been especially devastated by the loss, and they were worried about her, so they'd come up with what they thought was an ingenious idea. They wanted me to date my dead brother’s girlfriend.
98. The Mother Of All Pettiness
I had my graduation from engineering on the same day as my mother's birthday. I, of course, had nothing to do with choosing the date. But you couldn’t convince my mom of that. My mother said I "ruined her birthday"—and then she got a cruel revenge. She scheduled her birthday party to be on my actual birthday. Her birthday is in March, mine is in August.
99. Just Think About It For A Minute
It’s definitely awkward this Thanksgiving that my sister's girlfriend decided to show up to my parents’ house in…very revealing clothes. It was a dress with a lacy backless top with an extremely short hemline and fishnet stockings above her knee connected to the bottom of the dress with a few straps.
Just a "Well ok I guess that's happening" experience. This is a nearly 40-year-old woman, by the way.
100. Mean Girl
There’s a lot of drama with my fiancé’s sister. She’s always been rude to me and I don’t know why. When I first met her she seemed nice and I liked her, my fiancé’s friends told me to be careful because she always acts that way at the beginning and then she shows her true colors, which she did.
Even my fiancé told me not to trust her and not share much with her because she tends to use and twist whatever she sees and hears from other people. Despite all that, I always treated her with respect and was nice to her, until I got tired of her behavior.
She started with mean looks, mean comments about my accent to other people, not saying hi to me when she saw me, completely ignoring my presence and talking to whoever was next to me but not me, and then she started making comments about my family (we all speak Spanish so we have an accent when we speak in English).
She started saying things to my fiancé like, “Do you even understand what they are saying”?, which he ignored, then she one day just closed the front door when I was walking towards it after watching me struggle with grocery bags, complaining to her friends about how much she wanted me to go away even though I was engaged to her brother.
She's constantly making offensive jokes at lunch with her grandparents, she even insulted me in Spanish and when I called her out for it, she just laughed and ignored me. My fiancé has talked to her multiple times, but nothing changed, she just got defensive and started yelling at him, which seems to be what she does whenever someone tells her something she doesn’t like.
Despite all that, I tried to be civil around her for her parents’ sake since we get along really well and love spending time together. That was until one night she went off on me when her parents mentioned our upcoming wedding.
We were talking about guests and she started saying who should go and who shouldn’t, how I should think about their family and not mine when it came to guests (mind you, there will be three times more people from my fiancé’s side than mine), all of this because she wanted to invite her friends, so we tried to tell her that it was our wedding and it was our decision to see who we invite.
She said, “Well, we are paying for it”, which is not true, my fiancé's parents offered to help pay for the wedding and we are incredibly grateful for that, but she’s not giving us anything. She even went as far as saying, “We are just doing this because of your dad”, and that set me off.
A little background: my dad can’t come to the US because he doesn’t have a visa so my fiancé and I decided to do our wedding in Cabo. It was our decision because of course I have to have my dad at my wedding, and Cabo is a beautiful place for a destination wedding.
Going back to that night, after she said that, I just lost it on her. Things went bad really quick. She started yelling, I raised my voice because I was not going to let her talk about my family and wouldn’t let her yell at me, and then my fiancé and I left. We saw her only once after that (of course, she never said hi to me or acknowledged my presence), and we avoided her since then.
Now our wedding is coming up in five months and, of course, she’s going. We didn’t want to invite her but we knew we had to in order to avoid a fight with his parents, but now we just really don’t want to have her there because we know how much she likes to start drama. We’re even more anxious because we rented a villa so both families can be together and make a vacation out of it.
We’ll have it for a full week but we totally forgot about having to deal with her, and now we’re regretting it. My mother-in-law said her daughter will only go for the wedding, but it turns out she decided to go for the full week and made (yes, made), her dad buy her a plane ticket for those dates.
Her mom suggested that we could have a sit-down talk with her to talk about these issues and make sure we “clear the air” so nothing happens during our wedding week, but she also said she can’t promise it’ll go smoothly because her daughter is very difficult to deal with, and I don’t know if I want to do that.
I really don’t want to see her again because I know it’ll turn into a fight if we decide to have that talk, I don’t feel like I want to deal with that.
