They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Some of these stories can attest to that, while others are a little less patient, but just as delicious. Seafood, “gardening”, using the law, and in more than one instance, cooking oil, are all fair game in these creative revenge stories from those who have been wronged. Keep reading to find out more…you might find yourself feeling inspired!
1. Play Silly Games, Get Silly Prizes
It was a bitter divorce and we fought about everything—but my ex went way too far. So, when I left my husband, I went to stay with my mom and dad. For a variety of reasons I let him stay in our home during the divorce. We wound up pretty much splitting things evenly with the exception of items that were being paid on. The divorce was finalized, he moved his things out and was ordered by the court to leave my things in the house, which included a brand new side-by-side refrigerator that had recently been purchased…and that I was paying for.
The next day I carried boxes into the house to begin packing my things. That’s when I made a disturbing discovery. I only found one item of everything that had been in the house. One bowl, one spoon, one sheet, one pan, etc. And no refrigerator. I finally found him (no cell phones back then) and he refused to give me what belonged to me.
I threatened to call the authorities. He finally admitted that the refrigerator and my things were at his mother’s house. After finding someone with a truck and a couple of people to help me load the refrigerator we showed up at his mother’s house. My stuff wasn’t there but the refrigerator was—but my ordeal wasn’t over yet. Both doors were removed and yeah, no screws. He did a great job of avoiding me, took me days to find him and demand my things. He said he was busy and would get my things to me when he could.
Unfortunately for him, he had failed to remember one thing. I still had a set of keys to his car. Revenge is sweet. I waited until he worked late one night so the parking lot where he worked would be deserted. A friend dropped me off and I drove off in his car. I just wish I could have been there to see the look on his face. I held that car for ransom until I got everything he had that belonged to me. Including those screws.
2. Sowing The Seeds Of Revenge
I knew a woman who divorced her high-flier lawyer husband for cheating on her. He managed to retain the multi-million dollar apartment they owned in London. When he was out for a few days on a trip with his new squeeze, she spread mung bean seeds on the carpets throughout the whole apartment, gave the carpets a good watering, turned the heat up, and left.
3. Autopay Avenger
My ex got the court to unfairly award an increase in support payments that would put me into an even deeper hole financially than I was already in. Let's just say she was driving a Porsche while I was struggling to get by in a one-bedroom apartment. The hearing was over before it started because she had a pit bull lawyer and I defended myself, not being able to afford one. Later, I learned the dark truth. She’d been sleeping with her lawyer.
The additional monthly amount awarded to her was US $1,200. I set it up in my online banking to send her 1,200 individual checks for one dollar, every month. It was completely in compliance with the law—there's nothing that says you can't split an amount owed into multiple payments. She never cashed them but sent them back to me in a box one day. I stopped sending any more payments at that point, but put the money in a savings account just in case. Not being deposited after a year, the bank credited the money back to my account. That was in 2003, she has never mentioned it since.
4. Speed Trap
A woman I knew took her revenge on her ex-husband for leaving her for another woman in quite a unique way. During the night of the new couple’s wedding ceremony, she and her brother took the ex’s car and drove past every traffic camera they could find to trip it off. This was right after the fines had increased from $60 to $1,200 in my area. They even moved across the line and reversed to trip the camera off multiple times. They managed to rack up $80,000 of traffic fines in one night.
5. Tag Team Revenge
This was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I dated Todd for one year, while I was in college. I had no reason to think that there would be anybody else in his life, I knew he had an active schedule because of his sports activities and when he wasn't with me that's generally where he said he was. So one day at work, I got a phone call at my desk. When I heard what the caller had to say, my blood ran cold. The woman introduced herself as Todd's girlfriend. She told me that she was seven months pregnant and had been with him for eight years and had found my phone number in his wallet.
I was shocked, to say the least! I told her I'd been with him for years and thought that he was faithful to me, and she said that she wanted to meet and talk to me at greater length if I was willing. So we met at a public place after work and she turned out to be pretty cool, and visibly pregnant. After some laughs at the utter stupidity of this man, a lot of tears, and comparing where he had been on different days and different holidays, we hatched a plan to confront him.
I didn't have a car at that time so I rode with her over to their apartment building. She opened her apartment door, and I could glimpse him through the hinge, sitting on the floor in his underwear eating a bowl of cereal and watching TV. Without even looking up and with a mouthful of cereal, he said "Where have you been? I was hungry”! He could only see her standing there in the doorway, and didn't know that I was right beyond the door. She told him "out" and reminded him that he had been out the night before, so what, and asked where he had been and he said, "you know where I was. I was at basketball practice".
She said, "Uh huh, okay". She was still standing in the doorway with the door open, and he said "So where were you tonight, you aren't running around on me are you”? She said, "Oh no baby, I would never. I was out with a new friend! Would you like to meet her”? And she gestured for me to come in. When I stepped in that doorway, that man jumped from a seated position in his underwear on the floor to the couch to the back of the couch to the windowsill SO FAST I can still see it in my mind's eye today. If we weren't three stories up, I don't believe he would've stopped!
She went into the kitchen and fixed us both a drink, and came out with two chairs and sat me down, and said "Okay Todd, let's talk". Both of us there, him sitting on the floor in his underwear he really couldn't lie about anything and there was smoke pouring out of his ears as he tried furiously to decide which of his girlfriends he wanted to anger the least and most.
We took turns asking questions. She would ask "Todd, who am I and what am I to you”? Then I would ask the same question. She'd ask him where he was on Easter weekend. He had told her he was at basketball camp, but now he had to tell her he was at my house all weekend because I was sitting there. He told us it was getting cold sitting up there in his underwear, and we laughed at him.
The questioning went on until we were good and satisfied. She told him to put on clothes because he was going with her to take me home. But the funniest part was yet to come. She made him ride in the back of the car, on the floor because she didn't want anybody to be seeing her "riding around with his shameless self".
I never saw either one of them again. It was actually very horrible and painful at the time, but in hindsight, it makes me laugh.
6. Milk—Not Just For Cookies
I should've seen the terrible red flags. I was dating a guy for a while but he didn’t want to be very public with it or put on labels but didn’t want me to date anyone else and would be super romantic. So, I’m at a party and unexpectedly see him there and he acts weird. Then I get introduced to a 19-year-old who is his “girl". I call him a jerk, don’t text him back, let people know what actually happened.
Months later he’s at a bar and we’re ignoring each other, but I tell his friend I want to meet him in the parking lot, but in my ex’s car, for revenge. He has a car he is in love with but he lets anyone drive it when he’s drinking.
The friend happily gets the keys, and I make him drive to a gas station for contraceptives, but I get a gallon of milk too and put it in the trunk hidden behind the junk that’s always there. It was the middle of summer and all I heard later was he had to spend a bunch of money on his car. I hope it was for the exploded spoiled milk I put there.
7. You’ve Got Mail
My sister was going through a horrible break up, with a bad guy that cheated on her with another woman. The woman knew my sister and was aware she was in a relationship with said jerk. It was a very serious relationship up until the break up as well. I was living with my sister during the aftermath of all this. Just so happens his father lives down the road from us, and he would frequently visit. His new girlfriend would accompany him from time to time.
One day I came home to our sheared-off mailbox and partially attached post sitting on our porch. I was suspicious it was him but wasn't convinced, so I just set another post and let it slide. Then it happened again sometime later. I rarely get mad, but I was fuming after all the stuff he put my heartbroken sister through and that he had the gall to keep messing with us. I knew exactly what to do. I got a 6'-7' piece of 2" square tube mild steel that I salvaged out of my father's work. I stuck 3 or more feet of it in the ground and poured a concrete footer with the help of my grandfather. I attached a mailbox to it and painted it forest green.
Our suspicions were confirmed a little over a month later as it put his Suzuki sidekick to a complete stop and absolutely destroyed the front end. No one was home to see it, but it was the most satisfying thing I've ever done. My sister may have been happier than I was. We took what was left of the contraption out after it served its purpose. I don't believe it's completely allowed to be done. Sure did work though.
He later said it was his girlfriend driving when my father confronted him about it, which is a lie. It was in a suburban-ish area so I don't think he was going that fast, but he got a bit banged up. We never had a problem with him after that. The new girl ended up leaving him too, a couple of years later.
8. Pre-Planned Public Humiliation
I meticulously snipped the seams in the crotch of every single pair of pants/underwear/shorts my college sweetheart had when I busted him cheating on me.
9. Tag Team Terrors
Years ago I had a girl cheat on me with her ex. I never told her I knew, but inevitably broke up a week or two later "mutually". I knew full well she would return to her ex immediately. I was bitter but held it together. A month later, by a complete stroke of luck (her ex bought something online from a friend of mine), I ended up with the ex/new boyfriend's phone number. I knew exactly what to do.
A female friend of mine wanted to help me and posed as his "side chick" and called him and texted every night for a week asking when he was going to sleep with her again and to "can't wait to see him again when his girlfriend goes to work". I'd listen in and every call we'd hear my ex in the background going crazy about it and sometimes she'd even answer the phone. My friend did a terrific job.
After a week we decided to up the ante. We drove by her house and his car was parked outside with the windows down. We put a pair of panties in the backseat. A few days later I got a call from my ex who had suddenly decided she wanted to return to me. After a bit of talking, she exclaimed that her boyfriend had been cheating on her. Then I turned her down.
10. Air Mail
I found out my husband Gary was cheating with Monica, the wife of his best friend, Rick, who flew helicopter tours on Maui where we lived. I went out to the La Perouse lava field and filled the trunk of my car with little black rocks.
When Rick flew over our house the next day he read "GARY'S SLEEPING WITH MONICA" spelled out along our long white gravel driveway.
11. No Answer
Well, my girlfriend of 6 years and I had broken up. More accurately, she had broken up with me. This was 4 months after us moving across the country from NJ to CO under her request, so she could live near her parents. I had gotten a job but other than that, I was a stranger in a strange land. She asked me to move out of the apartment that we had just gotten even though her parents lived right down the street and she could easily go live with them. She could not afford our apartment on her own—I could and she eventually did jump ship and I lost my deposit—and I had nowhere to go.
I pleaded with her to give me the apartment. She didn't care. Her whole mentality through the whole thing was that she was not giving an inch for any reason, even if it was for the benefit of everyone. Anyhow, one day I went back to “our” place to talk to her. I really wanted her back and I couldn't understand why, out of the blue, she didn't want to be with me after six years or so. I kept asking her if she was with someone else. Because, to me, that would be the nail and I would just move on.
But she insisted over and over that this wasn't the case. Sometime during this conversation, she said she was going to go to my friend's house and have him come pick me up. I had nothing. I sold everything I had, including my car, to get us to Colorado. This friend had dropped me off there after I requested he do so. I was living on his couch and many others. So, at this point, my ex went to get him to come get me.
While she was gone, for some unknown reason, I decided to check the voicemail. What I found was seriously shocking. The first message went something like this: "Hi Tina, listen, you need to change your voicemail. It says "we" are not home. And, well, if Alex calls and hears that he is going to know that you have had a boyfriend the whole time you have been dating him”...And that is how I found out.
I was devastated and fuming angry at the same time. The truth finally came out and she had been lying to me and cheating on me this whole time and she dragged me across the country—by happenstance—to do it! So, I did what any rational person would do under these circumstances.
I changed the access code to the voicemail. I then changed the outgoing message to "Hi! This is [me]. Unfortunately, I'm not at home right now because Tina has been unfaithful to me and has been sleeping with a guy named Alex. Of course, she never fessed up to it and thought it would be easier just to kick me out of the house and home with nothing more than the shirt on my back and her lies denying her infidelity in my head". And I also said some other choice things. But, for the most part, that is the message I left.
Well, since the phone was in my name, she had a hard time getting that message off the voicemail. So, for weeks after that, anyone who called when she was not home was greeted with that message. And since she didn't have much of a reason to call her own number and hear the message, she didn't know I had changed it for some time and was LIVID when she found out.
I'll admit though, I did get a small amount of satisfaction from it. She did everything she could to make the breakup as rocky as possible while I bent over backward to appease her. So, this, as small as it was, was something for me to hang my hat on.
12. Prohibited Parking
I caught my boyfriend, red-handed, kissing another girl in the parking lot of a bar we frequented. I pulled up next to them, said "I hope she doesn't like (the type of car he drove at the time)" and drove off. I went back to my house, where his car was parked, used the spare key to drive it a few miles away and parked it in front of a fire hydrant.
A few hours later I saw him sneaking up the driveway, not realizing the car was gone. I could see him looking around confused, debating with himself whether he should knock on the door or not, then sulk down the road, with his tail between his legs. It felt great at the moment, and it gave me a moment of reprieve from crying.
He was eventually called (two days later) and told where he could go to pick it up by the tow yard. It ended up costing him $800. I know this because I, unfortunately, took him back after a few apologies and empty promises.
13. Right Side Of The Law
I had a girlfriend about 12 years ago who cheated on me and lied to me about it. She was pretty flippant about the whole thing and showed zero remorse for the situation. I guess it was the lack of basic decency that made me do what I did. I happened to know she and her friends were stealing dumb things from the clothing and accessory store they worked at. Well, I thought it was just little things anyway, as it turned out it was a lot more than that…like felony-level amounts.
Working loss prevention for a different retailer, I knew exactly what to do. I got written statements about the thefts from a few friends who were more my friend than hers about her roles in the theft. I then contacted the regional loss prevention manager for her company and turned everything over. A few weeks later she and several of her coworkers were charged with felony theft. Pictures in the paper and the whole deal—it was a small town.
Of course, it wasn’t my intention for all that, I thought she would just get fired. In my quest to get revenge, I started an investigation that led to the felony prosecutions of four people, and the life-long records and consequences that went along with that. Years later I'm not particularly proud of what I did. I don’t regret it though. I may have buried her and some of her coworkers (they were not my intention) but what they did was on them.
14. Debt “Collection”
A boyfriend I lived with 16 years ago now cheated on me. He also continued to talk to the person—but that wasn’t the most devastating part. I overheard him talking very unkindly about me on the phone to her. This was particularly hard as we had moved away from the UK together so most of our friends were mutual too. Even though we both had good jobs, he often pleaded poverty due to past debts and his finance for his car (fancier than mine), so I paid for the majority of everything. He also borrowed money from friends, I'd found out.
When we split he moved in with a friend but we still worked for the same company. I had the spare key for the car still at my apartment and remembering something I'd once read, I bought a bag of frozen prawns and taped them underneath the seat on the passenger side, ensuring it was spread flat enough not to see by looking, just to stink out his precious car. But it wasn’t over yet.
As I was boxing up his stuff I came across some bank statements of an account I knew nothing about. It showed a balance of over £15k. Outraged by his increasing sneakiness, I photocopied it and popped an enveloped copy into the pigeonhole of each person we worked with whom he owed money. Needless to say, this didn't go down well and a lot of people had a lot to say! One month later I'd been offered another job near my home town and last I’d heard he'd decided to leave and go traveling as he was left with barely anyone speaking to him or trusting a word he said.
15. Strange(r) Encounter
I flat-out acted as though I had never met her in my entire life. She said, “Oh my god, how are you”? in a way that made it clear to the person she was with—I think her new boyfriend—that she absolutely knew me, and without missing a beat, I said, “I’m sorry, do I know you”?
“It’s me Amy”…
“I’m sorry I don’t know you".
“We dated for years”!
“I think you have mistaken me for someone else, I never dated anyone named Amy, and I don’t know who you are. Sorry… “
And walked away. She kept talking as I walked away and I gave a little shrug and looked at her boyfriend with a look that said, “What the heck is going on here? This is super weird". and he stared blankly and then I just kept walking. I never once gave a second of indication that I had any idea who she was.
16. Perfect Timing
I bought my boyfriend at the time a very, VERY nice watch. I was waiting until Xmas to give it to him, but in the meanwhile found out he was cheating. I gave the watch to a mutual friend for free with the promise that he would wear it every time the ex-idiot was around. The best part?
I STILL get texts from that jerk, whining about how I could give his watch to our friend. Mission: accomplished.
17. Bonus Airmiles
I had a great job that allowed me to travel around the US and around the world on frequent occasions. I would often offer to take my snobby girlfriend with me, and her snooty reply was always “No, it's not Greece, I'm not interested”. Shortly after I broke up with her, I had a trip to Italy and Israel, with a flight connection through Athens. The connection was very short, just a few minutes. I knew exactly what to do.
I prepared a postcard the day before and posted it from Athens airport to her, "Having a lovely time in Greece; wish you were here".
18. Hide And Seek…Possibly Forever
I was working on a fruit-picking farm with other backpackers in rural Queensland. I'd had a boyfriend when I arrived there, and I left because he dumped me and immediately shacked up with the girl next door (who had been my friend too). The morning I left I was up really early to catch the bus to leave, I noticed that they had been up late drinking and left their room keys in the communal kitchen. I took those keys and hurled them into the fields in front of the camp.
Then I took some soy sauce and poured it into the trainers they had left in front of their room. Soooo petty, soooo cathartic.
19. Would You Like Fries With That?
This happened almost a decade ago with my first boyfriend. He was a manipulative, selfish, raging jerk and I was a 16-year-old with no self-esteem. A match made in “heaven”. He basically lived at my house and had me cook for him all the time. He was trying to impress one of my "cool" dope-growing neighbors so he would have me make them snacks multiple times a day. His favorite thing to eat was French fries.
I would be making 3 or 4 batches a day. Since I was cooking so many fries I would keep the Crisco I used to fry them in an empty coffee tin in the fridge. Over the course of three days, the Crisco smelled exactly like potatoes. So my ex asks me to make him some French fries yet again—I'm the only one paying for them, by the way. When I tried to serve myself a plate of the fries I had just cooked he yelled at me and said these were only for him and his friend. He took the whole heaping plate and ran off!
My blood was boiling—so I plotted revenge. I waited for the Crisco to solidify and I whipped it with a fork so it looked like mashed potatoes. Because of the many batches of fries, it smelled like mashed potatoes too. Now I just had to wait. Soon enough my ex was back and he was still hungry. He had the nerve to ask me for more fries! So I sweetly told him that I'd made mashed potatoes for him while he was gone.
He was so pleased! He said, "Thanks babe”! And took the biggest spoonful he could straight out of the pot. He put the overflowing spoon straight into his gob with a huge smile on his face. His smile quickly turned into disgust and he started violently throwing up in the sink. He never asked me to make fries again in our short relationship.
20. Group Chat
I dated a guy and later found out he had another girlfriend. I messaged the other girlfriend on MySpace (showing my age here) and told her if she wanted to know the truth it would be better to hear it from him, so please call me and I'll call him on three-way calling. She did and stayed totally quiet on the call while he tried to set up some intimate time with me for later that week.
Finally, I said "I don't think I can do that, [she] might have a problem with it. Wouldn't you”? She finally chimed in with a nope and a screw you (to him) and he hung up in a panic. I wished her luck. No idea how it turned out for them, but I blocked him and still get a chuckle at the moment of pure fear we heard in the silence before he hung up.
21. Patience Of A Saint
I moved to America to be with this guy (let's call him Rick). Rick happened to work at the same big box store as my friend J, and one day when I came to meet J from work, a co-worker innocently said "Are you looking for Rick? He's staying with his girlfriend". Me: "I'M HIS GIRLFRIEND".
Now another thing you should know about Rick is he bought his toothbrushes wholesale and lived in the grungiest apartment ever. That’s how I came up with my disgusting plan for revenge.
I cleaned every inch of that bathroom, toilet included, with each and every one of those remaining toothbrushes, documenting every step with photographs. Then I rinsed them in the toilet, and put them back in the box. And I packed my stuff and left. Ten years later, when I'd calculated he was on the last brush, I sent him the pictures.
22. Spoiler Alert
Back in 2005, I was dating this girl who was a huge Harry Potter fan. She took a 2-month trip to Ecuador and was going to move in with me upon return. The Half-Blood Prince came out in hardcover while she was gone, so I bought her a copy as a "welcome home" gift. During our long-distance phone calls, I started to notice she was acting strange. I asked her a couple of times if she had met someone, but she denied it every time.
Luckily some mutual friends were on the trip with her, and they gave me the heads up that she had hooked up with not one, but two different guys. I called her out, and she finally caved and admitted to it. When she came back to pick up the stuff she had left at my house, she was surprised to find a brand new copy of The Half-Blood Prince with an inscription that read. "Welcome Home. Dumbledore dies in the end. Sucks to be the last to know, huh”?
23. Revenge Collectables
My ex collected specific brands of antique and mid-century dishes and pottery. There was a certain coffee mug that was rare and when they came on the market, were usually expensive. He had a few, but could never quite get the whole set.
After 8 years together, I came home from work one day and he announced that he was moving out the following day, and leaving town, as he had been seeing another man for quite some time and they were in love and blah, blah, blah. He left me with the house and the dog, but pretty much nothing else. I was devastated, but also really mad.
Not long after this, I got a huge promotion at work, which came with a huge increase in salary and bonus. Nearly twice what I was making just two years before. He always used to complain that we never had enough money, but he always seemed to have money for his stupid collectible dishware. So that’s how I got my petty revenge.
I spent a great deal of money to buy up all of the available pieces that he did not have in his collection. I was newly single, jilted, angry, and though I, to this day, have no idea if he has even noticed, but I own a sizable chunk of the missing collection and have standing orders with four dealers across the country that contact me first if they come across these specific dishes. They sit in a box in my home office now. It’s petty. I know. I’m not proud. But it feels good.
24. No Soup For You!
My boyfriend at the time cheated on me. We broke up, yadda yadda yadda. Upon moving out, I took the can opener with me. He pretty much only had canned soups and such until payday, and he also didn't drive or live in walking distance to food places. Basically, I made it a pain for him.
A few days after I moved out he asked if I took the can opener—so I knew he had been looking for it—and I told him I didn't. I ended up throwing it out at the new place I was living in because they had a nicer one.
25. Insufficient Funds
When I found out my then-husband was sleeping with a coworker for over two years, he was in Denmark on business. I took every penny out of our joint account and opened a new account at a different bank. When he called to ask why his debit card didn't work, I acted puzzled. This went on for days until he called the bank.
In the meantime, I'd gotten an attorney and filed for divorce, and changed all the locks. I also took his phone and threw it into the Mississippi River.
26. Unsubscribe From Cheaters
Back in 2001, I was cheated on by a guy I dated for a few years. After we broke up I went to Wal-Mart's book aisle. I grabbed about 40 subscription postcards out of the magazines and filled them all out with his name and address. I marked the “Bill me later” option and mailed them slowly over a few weeks.
Five years later we hung out via mutual friends, and I couldn’t believe what I found out. In his garage, there were so many magazines that the two-car garage was a one-car garage. Three years after this we were talking and he mentioned how his credit was screwed up because he didn't pay for some magazine subscriptions and they turned him into the collection agency.
27. Human Resources By In
I dated a pretty awful guy for a while. I found out that he'd used my daughter as an excuse to get out of work and that he'd been married the entire time we dated. I called his boss and filled him in on how the dude didn't actually have any kids at all and that he didn't even have a relationship with the one he was claiming to not have childcare. I also reported him for a food stamp scam. He ended up having to pay back a year's worth of food stamps.
28. Lockbox Treasure Trove
This might be more of me finally snapping than petty revenge, but I was with a man for two years that absolutely treated me horribly and alienated me from everything. Towards the end of our relationship, he started working out of town. One day, I got home from work early to find him at home. He had told me that he wouldn't be home that weekend because they had to work overtime.
Of course, I was excited, thinking that he was home early to surprise me. I was wrong. When I walked past his Jeep to go into the house, I noticed there were two takeaway boxes in the front seat and that my things (he kept one of my necklaces on the mirror and always kept one of my blankets in the back) were gone. Okay, weird. I go in the house and his phone is on the kitchen table.
I go back into the bedroom to find him asleep. I flipped on the light, still excited to see him and he yelled at me. I asked why he was home. "Because I live here. Why are you here”? Right. I apologize and go back to the living room/kitchen. He had cheated on me in the past and I decided to go through his phone. Well, I discovered that he had been in town the previous night and had spent the night with some woman, only returning home when I had already left for work. That was the final nail in the coffin.
I went out to his Jeep. I found rubbers inside (we never used them) so I poked holes in them. I cut open his seats. I took the plugs out of his tires. I cut a hole in his radiator, which had just been replaced. Then, I went back inside, gathered some of my things, his driver's license, bank card (which was in my name), and my lockbox (containing all of my personal documents) then went to my mom's.
Once I was there, I opened the lockbox to make sure I had all of my important documents. I discovered that I had his social security card, birth certificate, and Jeep title. I was still pretty hurt and crazy at that point so I burnt them, along with his driver's license. I remembered that I still had his/my bank card so I transferred the money to my account and then burnt "his" card. I was absolutely nuts but it felt good to let out all of that aggression that I had kept inside (out of fear) for two years.
29. Dirty Politics
Emma agreed to go to the 7th-grade dance with me and then changed her mind publicly in band class and made me look like a loser. Six years later I impeached her as senior class president.
30. Laundry Service
I did his laundry. Yup. Laundry. All the signs were there. Hang up phone calls. This was before caller id, *69, etc. Finally, there were blatant remarks about his girlfriend, made to me, his wife. Hickies on his neck. I didn't say anything. I did his laundry. And rinsed every pair of tighty whities in a heaping helping of bleach. In case you're not quite realizing what I mean and what it does. I poured the bleach into the rinse water. After the spin cycle, I dried them.
They looked clean. They smelled very clean. They were very white. He was pleased with my skills. But soon enough, he felt the effects of my revenge. He became too red, raw, and swollen in his private region to even think of sleeping with anyone. He was probably worried he had some terrible STD, she probably broke up with him and ran to get herself checked. I just stayed and did laundry.
Soon he healed, and so for a while, he behaved. Things were good. Then he stepped out again. I didn't accuse. I didn't cry. I didn't hide in bushes trying to catch him in the act. I did laundry. Soon he was swollen and raw, as was his member. He had a hard, hot, sweaty job and the bleach did a number on him. He and his side piece weren't having fun anymore.
Maybe they were wondering who gave who what. I really don't think the woman got red or raw, but the shape of HIS private area probably scared them both. It was a mystery to me, MY private region was fine. Eventually, he learned he just felt better and was safer at home. Eventually, I got sick of the game and got a divorce.
31. Maintaining The Status Quo
After discovering that my wife of five years was cheating on me, we filed for divorce. My soon-to-be ex and I were in the Armed Forces, and both were stationed at the same post. I knew quite well that she hated the place and was putting in reassignment requests as often as allowed. Since I interfaced fairly often with personnel, a few words and a bottle of very, very good booze got her manning number placed into an “Essential Personnel” slot. I got an assignment to a much nicer post four months later.
Long story short, she retired at the same post, in the same position, 17 years later. I know I should feel bad, but I just can't manage it…
32. Revenge Double Whammy
My ex-boyfriend (we had been together for 7 years), cheated on me with a girl we both knew. Before I moved out I left a raw burger in the heating vents. I heard from a mutual friend that the house was infested with ants after that. Not something I'm proud of. But wait, there's more.
He started dating the girl he cheated on me with, and a week after we broke up he parked directly in front of the massive tinted windows of the gym I worked at with his new girlfriend, and nonchalantly strolled his pompous self across the street with her to the theater. It was like twisting a knife in my chest.
I couldn't help myself. Without thinking I took peanut butter from the gym smoothie section and I smeared a huge sticky feculent-like glob under the door handles of his truck and waited. I still replay the heartwarming schadenfreude in my mind, watching her reach under the handle, grimace with her twisted mouth agape and recoiling in disgust. Then slowly but instinctually smell her fingers and then shake her gross stank brown coated hand. You deserved it, Misty.
33. The Reverse Soapbox
This goes back almost 20 years. I had a girlfriend for 2 1/2 years. We lived together, were very involved and emotionally invested in one another. Then she ghosted me big time. No warning. No quarrel. A couple of weeks later she tries the door and is shocked to see the locks have changed. I let her in and asked if we could talk. She says, I'm just here for my things, move on. It's over. Very cold. Very heartbreaking. I know it's over but who does it that viciously without good reason?
A few weeks pass, and I find one of her purses in the back of the closet. I check it to remove copies of my credit cards that I gave her. I also found her membership card to a video rental store that specializes in rare vintage movies. I happen to know a bit about the value of certain films on video. You'd be surprised. Some items were worth upwards of $800-900 each. I rented three of them using her card. One week return policy. I keep them much, much longer. Late fees no longer apply. They want replacement value. This does affect credit ratings. By week eight, I got a call. She's ready to talk. I'm no longer interested in talking.
My instructions are clear. Start apologizing. Dig deep. I listened for a while. About 20 minutes in, she is saying everything she would never say in her life. "I was wrong", "I'm unforgivable", "I can never make up for the way I treated you…" I knew she meant none of it. If I were her, I'd have just eaten the cost of the movies. She made a good living but I knew she would never do that.
I set the receiver down gently. Took a shower. Got dressed. Returned the videos to the night deposit slot. Returned home. Now we are more than 90 minutes in. I picked up the receiver. Her voice is hoarse and cracking. She's still going on. "I have no excuse", "If I had it to do over again, I never would have been so callous", "I don't blame you for anything. It was all me”.
I break in with a "Hey! You can stop". Her first response is to ask, "Are you going to return the vid…” and I cut her off again with "Yeah and your purse is in the plaza bus shelter garbage can. Better hurry before someone finds it. Never call me again". I hang up, listening to a flurry of profanity.
34. Knot To Be Messed With
My ex-husband couldn't tie a tie, but I could. After I tied them, he never untied them: he hung them, tied, in his closet. When he unceremoniously kicked me out, I pulled all the knots out before leaving.
35. Bad Memory
I lived with a boyfriend years ago. We had been friends for a decade before that. I didn't realize during the years we had lived in different states, he had developed serious drinking and gambling problems. He hid them well, until we started sharing a house and splitting the bills. I did find a way to get back at him for his irresponsible and disrespectful behavior that was kind of genius, if I do say so myself. He had actually bought his car from my mom and, over time, forgot that I had a spare key.
So, sometimes when he'd stay out all night at the casino drinking and gambling away his share of our rent and utilities, I'd move his car to a completely different area of the huge parking lot. One night I stealthily watched him look for it for nearly two hours. He never mentioned it to me because he always assumed he'd been so inebriated he'd simply forgotten where he'd parked, and I never told him it was my version of payback.
36. What’s In A Name?
My uncle's ex-wife was a certifiable lunatic whose narcissistic manipulation really wore my uncle and his brothers thin. When she was about 8 months pregnant, she kept going on about wanting to name her child Chelsea if it was a girl. My dad, with uncharacteristic pettiness, bought a dog and named it Chelsea about a week after her delivery. From all accounts (except my ex-aunt's), the joke was a hit.
37. Ctrl + Alt + Del
After my ex and I broke up because she had been cheating on me with a colleague from her workplace, she thought it prudent to slander my name on social media. I proceeded to log into three of her email accounts and subsequently managed to get her passwords for Facebook and Twitter, to name a few.
I then proceeded to delete all her social media accounts and all her email accounts. She wrongfully slandered my name on social media so I took away her right to use it. To this day she thinks it was some Peruvian hacker called Alvarez.
38. A Gift From Man’s (Not So) Best Friend
My ex cheated on me, and I found out from his four-year-old son. At the time, I had just started working at an animal hospital. Anyone who has ever had to have their pet's anal glands expressed knows how disgusting it smells. We had done some particularly nasty ones a few days before I moved out—I always used a baby wipe to catch the grossness as we expressed them. That’s when I put my plan into motion.
I put those baby wipes in a Ziploc bag and left the bag outside under the hot sun for at least four days. When I moved out, I opened the bag and smeared the contents all underneath his driver seat and on the floorboard under the driver seat of his car.
39. Retribution Reset
My ex cheated on me. But I knew her Apple ID password. So I periodically clear all of her data and restore her phone to factory settings. Of course, I give her enough time between resets to gather more precious photos and contacts so that it is equally devastating every time. I'm a petty man.
40. Who Has Egg On Their Face Now?
When I was in high school I had an ex and her new boyfriend egg my car. I knew it was them since I saw them drive off. Not only did she break my heart, but she had the audacity to drive to my house and egg my car. The next morning I thought about revenge. Deflating the tires, or breaking a window or something drastic—and I found the solution. All I did was drive up, and remove the registration sticker on her license plate. Then I just waited.
About a month goes by and my revenge finally hits the jackpot! She snapchatted a story of her getting pulled over for the first time and getting a ticket. Then a few weeks later posts herself going to court to pay the fix-it ticket for not having her registration sticker. Then she rants on Snapchat about why someone would ever take a sticker. I enjoyed every last bit of it! I felt proud of myself.
41. Inspired By Exxon
My ex took a ton of money from me. As she was moving out, I removed the caps to all of her cooking oils so they would hopefully spill in transit (olive, canola, vegetable, and so on).
42. Music To Their Ears
So while my ex did wrong me, I was by no means completely innocent and I knew this the whole time. The punishment should always fit the crime, so while I was hurt deeply, it wasn't like I wanted to ruin his life. I remembered thinking "Should I do something to his car” and immediately banished the fact. That being said, I wasn't opposed to a temporary modification...
Knowing that my ex was a highly introverted person, I knew he hated being the center of attention, so I bought a cheap harmonica and duct-taped it to the "lip" in front of the grill on his Toyota Matrix. His car would go down the road with this noise attracting attention from everyone, making him really paranoid. I'm sure he eventually found the source of the noise but knowing I was driving him a little crazy for a few weeks helped me get over it.
43. That Plot Twist Though!
Let me preface this by saying I was a teenager whose teenage boyfriend cheated. Specifically, he got to second base with my "best friend" behind a Borders Bookstore. Let me also preface this by saying we were both attending strict Christian schools, and his family was very religious.
Fueled by hormones and angst, I went to a gas station and requested the magazine subscription cards from the smuttiest pieces of literature behind the counter. I proceeded to fill each and everyone out requesting a subscription to be mailed to his family home with the "bill me later" option. In addition to being grounded for most of his junior year, I was later informed that he received smut for the next four years and through three moves.
But there’s a massive plot twist. We reconnected several years later and married. He brought the case of the mystery smut up over dinner one night and I confessed.
44. Revenge On The Road
When I found out that my ex was cheating on me, I knew I had to get revenge. So I planned a road trip as a way for us to heal. We drove until the tank was empty and pulled into a gas station. She grabbed her purse and went to the bathroom. I put a minimal amount of gas in and turned around and went home.
I went to her place, told her roommate what I did, and gave her my ex's luggage. And I didn’t stop there.
I slept with the roommate about a month later. No regrets have been had.
45. The Doctor’s Note
My now-ex-boyfriend—we’ll call him Bob—was cheating on me. Bob had a habit of digging through my stuff and reading my private journals, bank statements. He was just intrusive as heck. The day I found out he was cheating I took my anger and got creative.
I copied the letterhead from my healthcare provider and forged a letter from my gynecologist informing me I had genital herpes and a handful of other nasty STDs. I stuck the letter under the mattress because I knew he snooped around there and waited.
I’ll never forget the look on his face when he found that letter! The panic on his face when he realized whatever diseases I had he had given me. Ahh. So sweet.
46. To Serve And Protect
Not exactly petty, as it was deserved, but too good not to be shared. My grandma's first husband was an abusive jerk and made her life miserable. I could tell she was miserable every time she told a story about him. Eventually, they got a divorce. Now, this was around the time when drafting was still a thing in the US. I’m not entirely sure which war. Her revenge was absolutely diabolical.
I guess because he was married and had two kids, he wasn’t eligible for the draft. After the divorce, however, he was eligible. So my grandmother called the local drafting office to inform them that (insert name here) was no longer married, and therefore, eligible for the draft. He got drafted. My grandmother never heard from him again.
47. Poultry Payback
About 10 years ago, one of my friends was dating this guy that was just awful to her. The final straw was when she ended up in the hospital. I helped pick her up and take her to her new home, somewhere the guy wouldn't be able to find her. She then told me about how she had taken some frozen chicken and had unscrewed all of the electrical plates in the condo he owned. She then put a little bit in every single outlet before screwing them all back in as if they had never been removed.
