The saying is "I hate to say I told you so," but we suspect most people who get the chance to utter that phrase absolutely relish saying it—and these stories are proof. In these stories shared by Redditors, jerks got what was coming to them, whether it was on purpose or through some kind of mysterious cosmic karma. Either way, they're deeply satisfying to read, so grab your popcorn and dive on in.
1. You’ve Got A Friend In Me
A guy I went to high school with was caught stealing from my house once and bragging about it to some of our mutual friends, who he thought wouldn't tell me about it. After the incident, we never spoke again. Although we had the same circle of friends, I kept my distance and he kept his.
Flash forward 20 years to now and we are "friends" on Facebook. I have a pretty cool job in the music industry. I make good money and I get to travel the world. I usually add these former "friends" just so they can see that my life turned out pretty awesome, all while most of them are in our old hometown working crummy jobs.
One day, he updated his Facebook status saying that he was devastated because someone swiped something from his son. Among all the posts from his friends being sorry for him, I wrote back a response that silenced him. I simply wrote something like, "Yeah, it's really terrible when that happens, right? Karma does have its way of evening things out, though."
I immediately started getting messages from mutual friends who remembered the incident in school. They were all congratulating me on this hilarious comment. The guy "unfriended" me after that, to my extreme pleasure. It was such an incredible moment for me and I couldn’t have asked for a better example of slow-acting karma.
2. Looking For Love
This jerk who used to torment the heck out of me is now on OkCupid. When I was in seventh grade, he had insisted I was ugly and that I should take my own life. A few weeks ago, he matched with me. He asked if we went to school together and told me I was hot. He didn't recognize me, clearly. It was delicious to know he had been searching for months and no one was biting.
3. Get What Yours
My former tormentor is now unemployed and his wife just left him for another man. Looks like life is already beating the heck out of him. And he’s not even that old! It would have been nice if he had at least apologized to me for all the pain he put me through, or recognized it. Maybe then, I would have had some sympathy for him.
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4. Bad Bike Days
I had a friend who always rode his BMX bike with his headphones in, with the volume so loud that he couldn't hear anything. There had been multiple occasions where he couldn't hear us shouting things like "car" or "don't go" and almost hurt us or himself. One time he crashed into me after I fell, and I flipped out and told him that one of these days he was going to really hurt someone or himself.
A week later he rode directly out of a friend's driveway and got blindsided by a car. He was fine, save some cuts and bruises, but his bike was destroyed and he broke her windshield. Her lawyer basically proved it was his fault and he had to pay for the whole thing. I told you, you idiot.
5. Strictly Business
My girlfriend and I worked at the same place, but I was in a different department and different level than her, so we had no real interaction. One day, she came home and told me about how she had laughed in her new boss’s face when he started trying to hit on her. I nearly choked when she told me his name. He was my childhood tormentor. Warm fuzzies right there!
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6. Crash Landing
A tormenter who messed with just about everyone I grew up with lost his life in a car wreck soon after he turned 16, while we were all still in high school and his teasing was still fresh in all our minds. I went to his funeral. My friends asked me why, and I said I just wanted to make sure he was really gone. Being able to say that one line practically made all the torment worth it!
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7. Self-Defense
A few years back, I was the assistant manager at my karate studio. It was a slow, quiet day when in walked Paul, my old tormentor from public school. I wasn't sure it was him at first. It had been a long time, and it was hard to tell. I didn't say anything. Paul was interested in joining the dojo, so I showed him around, discussed pricing, etc.
At the end of the tour, Paul decided to join our dojo. We sat down in the office and he filled out the paperwork. When he wrote his name out on the application, I knew for sure that this was, indeed, my old enemy. The guy who used to torment me every single weekday. Who made me kneel in dog poop. That's when I came up with an ingenious plan.
I still didn't say anything until after he had pre-paid me for an entire year's membership. As I walked him to the door, I smiled. "I'm really looking forward to training with you," I said. "Thanks, me too," Paul said. I then said: "You don't recognize me, do you?" He replied: "No, should I?" I said: "Yes. We went to school together, grades three through eight. You bullied me every day, and made my life miserable. Can't wait to see you in class."
Paul went white, and walked out without saying another word. He never walked back in. He willingly threw away a year's membership payment, almost $500, rather than have to be in the same class with me. That was one of the single greatest moments of my life. Karma is a beautiful thing, even if it happens many years down the road.
8. Foul Ball
I went to my first baseball practice of the season at 10 years old. I played catcher most of the time, but my father told me: "If they don’t have catchers gear then do not play catcher. You'll get a foul ball in the face." We got there. They had no catcher gear yet. The coach told me to go play catcher. I refused. He got mad and yelled at me to get in there. I refused, repeating again that I needed gear.
So the coach, visibly angry, went in and played catcher. The very first pitch came off the top of the bat and hit him in the eye. He was pouring blood everywhere. He looked at me and before I could even open my mouth he said, "Don’t even say it!"
9. He Shoots, He Scores
When I was a lot younger, I lived in a small town. The people there were awfully lousy. I got picked on a LOT, especially since I didn't play hockey. This was small-town Canada. You either play hockey or you wish you were never born. Instead, I was in Ukrainian Dancing. There were eight guys and eight girls in my group, and THEY all picked on me, too.
One guy in particular would make fun of me and call me names all the time. He also tried to incite others to harm me. I hated that guy, and I will always hate him. The worst incident was when he convinced everyone to persecute me for being gay. But delayed karma is incredible. You will never believe what happened in the end...
A few years ago, I heard that he came out of the closet. That’s right, the guy who tormented me for being gay was secretly gay himself.
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10. Bad Vibes
My ex and I stayed friendly after our breakup. He started dating someone new. After he introduced us, he asked me what I thought of her. I had a bad feeling about this girl and told him that he should be careful. The more I got to know her, the more I just had this sense that she’s bad news. He laughed it off, trying to say I was just saying that cause I still had feelings for him. I didn’t.
A few years later, he needs representation because she destroyed his business, his family, stalked and harassed him, and even had him under investigation by the FBI. Took him a couple of years to clean up the whole mess. I totally said I told you so.
11. Doctor’s Orders
My uncle is a really, really smart guy. The kind of kid who doesn't have to try in school at all. Unfortunately, this made this one other kid, let's call him Bob, see my uncle as a target for persecution. So he got teased from basically sixth grade through high school. However, they parted ways and my uncle went to UCLA and later medical school.
Fast forward thirty-something years. My uncle is now 50 years old, and so is his old enemy. He's living in the Bay area and working as a doctor when, one day, who should walk into his office as a patient but his old high school tormentor, Bob? I was told that they both recognized each other, but Bob kind of blew it off and acted like they were old chums in school. Oh, but it got so much better.
Turns out, Bob came in because he had a little lump in his private area. After examining him, my uncle was the one who got to tell him that he had a venereal disease. Bob apparently reacted by getting angry and saying that he was lying as revenge for all the persecution. Uncle tells him it's for real. Bob gets a second opinion. Second opinion says the same thing.
Bad luck, Bob. To this day, my uncle is still kind of ashamed of himself for finding so much joy in telling him the news.
12. Tax Problems!
When I was in the US Navy, I did work as a tax preparer through a program being offered on base. It allowed service members to have their taxes prepared for free. It was my second consecutive year working on this and I was the only one out of the four assigned preparers at the tax center who had any prior experience.
We go through the training and set up the tax center. We go over the process for how everything runs. The highest rank was an E-6. I pointed out that we needed to have everyone sign a particular form that wasn't included but the E-6 completely blew me off and was basically just like "What? No we don't." I reminded him that I did this last year.
I strongly believed everyone would need to sign this form. Nevertheless, I was brushed aside like the piece of trash E-4 I was and that was that. So the tax year came to a close and we were all but finished with that assignment. For me, my enlistment was coming to an end and I had begun processing out – exciting!
There's a time period where you're released from your normal command so that you can go around gathering and turning in everything you need. That's what I was doing when one day I got a call from a frantic E-6 and you'll NEVER guess why! That's right. The form I had declared needed to be signed did, in fact, need to be signed.
Now they had to call everyone whose taxes we filed and have them come back in to sign it. He needed me to come in and help with that. He called and left a LOT of voicemails saying so. Unfortunately, I was processing out and had no obligation to do that and so I blew him off the same way he did me. I laughed a lot remembering this story as I wrote it. Thanks for the memories.
13. Coming Full Circle
I was one of the least popular kids in my high school, by far. I was too nerdy for even the nerds to hang out with. I spent most of my time with the outcasts. I knew it was bad, but I had a crush on a football player. Can you blame me? What nerd didn't? I decided for once to take charge and do something for myself. I asked him out.
He laughed in my face and told me I was too ugly for anyone to ever date. He called me "crow face," which was a lovely nickname that caught on for a long time. Because of this, I had such awful self-esteem that, well into my 20s, I still couldn't ask anyone out. Even now, I still get too embarrassed sometimes. He ruined my self-esteem completely.
After high school, however, I began doing modeling gigs and cosplay events. It felt great and I looked amazing. Not too long after these shoots started popping up online, that football player messaged me on Facebook telling me how gorgeous I looked and that he should have never said no to me after all. I then calmly rejected him and didn’t hold back in letting him know what I thought of him as a person...
14. Explosive Coffee
I told my friend not to use a drinking glass to make coffee in, because the glass was not tempered and would probably shatter. They looked at me like I was an idiot, then while filling the glass said "I've done this a hundred times..." shatter. Glass shards and boiling water everywhere.
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15. Punching Above His Weight
I once got punched in the pregnant stomach by my ex-fiance. For the record, this man was not the father of my baby. I told him that I hoped he’d get hit by a car. Three days later, I found out that he had gotten hit by a truck while riding his bicycle to a friend's house. He survived the accident, but his life was never the same.
He had to have a whole bunch of extensive surgeries to correct his broken bones and save his life. He was uninsured, so he's now stuck with crippling hospital debt from spending so much time in the ICU and having tons of complicated surgery. He will probably not be paying that off any time soon, given the fact that he is not a particularly rich man…
16. Second Base Success
My little dog will try to stick her tongue in your mouth. I don’t know why she does it, but it is some kind of obsession with her. She’s stealthy. She’s patient. She’s not messing around. She will look positively adorable and innocent while she waits for the perfect opportunity to tongue-punch your uvula. I try to warn people, but they never take me seriously.
I took her to the vet for her new puppy check up, and warned the vet tech this dog was going try to go to first base with him. Me: “Be careful. She will try to stick her tongue in your mouth.” Vet Tech: “No, she won’t. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Me: “I’m serious. She will wait until you let your guard down, and then her whole tongue is in your mouth.”
The Vet Tech sighs, and then snaps at me: “Look, this is my job and I’ve been doing this a long ppptttthhhtt SHE GOT ME!” Me: I told you.
17. It All Came Crashing Down
I was the fat kid in my youth. I still retain some weight, but years of football kind of made it more of a muscle bulk than the butterball I used to be. When I was in junior high, there was this kid named Brendan who was huge. He could bench at least twice what any of the rest of us could and was rumored to have slept with a special needs girl.
Looking back, I think he had been held back a year or two. He used to torment me and my group of misfit friends. I remember he swiped my crutches when I broke my ankle. Well, I was always non-confrontational, but one day my friend Harry, a Japanese immigrant who didn't speak much English, was running on the track with me during gym class.
Brendan ran up, grabbed Harry by the neck, and threw him to the ground. He kept running, but when I helped Harry up, I saw that the skin of his leg had been pretty much shorn off and was bleeding. This angered me. Knowing that Brendan was a faster runner than the both of us, I knew he would lap us on the track. He did as I predicted and laughed as he passed.
When he did, I picked up a rock about the size of my palm and hucked it at his head. It just barely missed, but skimmed his ear. That's when everything went nuts. Brendan lost his mind and started yelling. When I ignored him, he threw me to the ground. I fought like a savage. I dug into his stomach with my nails and bit him on the neck. My friend Isaac saw what was happening and pulled him off of me.
By that point, the teacher saw what was going on. He sent Harry and me to the nurse, and Brendan to the principal. He was expelled after that. I held a deep hatred for him and the things he did to me, but took solace in the fact that I was able to get one good shot in against him. But that's not the karma part. The karma part is this: I never saw him alive again.
Fast forward a couple of years to my sophomore year of high school. I liked to read the comic pages of the newspaper in the morning and noticed a headline, "Local area teen loses life in motorcycle accident." I read deeper and my jaw dropped when I read "Brendan Shanks" as the name of the victim. I read on and saw that he had taken his father's motorcycle and was speeding along a residential road when a car didn't see him and pulled out.
He plowed into the side and, with no safety gear or helmet to speak of, he lost his life almost immediately. The article recapped how difficult his life had become, having been expelled from the local high school and going in and out of rehab. I looked at the picture and, amidst the debris that was now the bike, I saw a lone oversized skate shoe, the kind he had worn back in school.
I let out a breath and that was that. I no longer hold any hatred for the kid. He got more than any petty revenge fight could have given him.
18. Salt in the Wound
I have a simple but excellent story. There was a kid in primary school who loved to prove everyone wrong. Once he tried to prove that rubbing salt in an open wound wouldn’t hurt. I advised him against it, and he dismissed me. Big. Mistake. This idiot put salt in on a scrape in his knee. He immediately screamed and was crying so hard he had to go to the nurse's office.
19. Her First Choice
At university, a guy fooled around with my girlfriend at a party. A couple of weeks later, I met his girlfriend at a party we were both at. When the end of the night came and it was only the three of us left, she pushed him out the door so she could sleep with me instead. She wanted to see me again after that, but I never called her.
20. Standing Up For Yourself
When I was eight years old, my parents moved us out of our hometown to a place with some more room. It wasn’t more than ten minutes out of town, but because of the district boundaries, I had to switch to a new school. The new school was about 1/8th the size of my previous school, and all the other kids had been going to the same school since grade one.
So I was considered “the new kid” to everyone at this school and, for whatever reason, they didn't like me. It started harmlessly enough but, over the next two years, things escalated quickly. From random name-calling to a couple of pushy shovey matches, and eventually to rocks being thrown at me while I was waiting at a bus stop.
My parents had always told me that fighting is not the answer. I stuck to that while keeping my mouth shut about the persecution...until my little sister got hit in the face with a rock and it cut her forehead open. Everything came out after that incident. Meanwhile, the teachers? Didn't do a darn thing. My father finally had enough.
He told me the next time someone messed with me I was supposed to fight back, no matter what. So that started a two-year battle with me going home at least once a week suspended for fighting with someone. I got knocked around a bit at first, but quickly learned I had a natural ability for fighting. But then things got worse.
Instead of fighting one-on-one, it would be three or four of them at a time. Once I got choked out from behind so badly that I had bruises around my neck. I had basically lost consciousness when a parent finally saw and broke it all up. Two kids got a talking to from the authorities for that...and nothing more was done. It took direct threats on my parents’ answering machine to have the main kid expelled from school.
Once that guy got expelled, things calmed down for a while. Well, fast forward three or four years. We are now in high school. The guy from before is basically a burnout within his first year. He doesn't do much, gets suspended all the time, doesn't show up for class. I myself don't touch bad substances, and I do my homework and play sports.
I'm coming into my own in high school, with a good group of new friends. To this day, I don't know what the heck possessed him to do this, but myself and a few friends were outside at a party one day when a baseball bat suddenly comes flying at my head. It hits me in the shoulder and skims the side of my face. I went down to one knee, majorly rattled, but still mostly with it.
I turned around to find that idiot holding the bat and looking at me like, "How the heck are you even still conscious?" At this point, I lose my mind. I come charging at him off the floor with a righteous uppercut that knocks him on his behind. I then jump on him and rain down upwards of 40 or 50 punches while he feebly tries to block. Finally, some people come and haul me off of him.
The final result was interesting. I ended up with a very nasty bruise on the side of my face and shoulder, which hurt quite a bit. I went for X-rays and nothing was broken, luckily. The idiot, on the other hand, ended up with a broken nose, three missing teeth, a fractured jaw, countless cuts, two HUGE black eyes, and ruptured blood packages on the side of his eyes.
The authorities never got involved, and that was the last time he ever messed with me in high school. Him or anyone else for that matter. Fast forward a couple of more years to after we had all graduated. Last I heard, the idiot got snagged by an undercover officer for selling illicit substances. He is now in the slammer for the next five to ten years. Karma is GREAT!
21. One Moment Changed It All
I was a really small freshman in high school, something like 5'2", and I looked like I was probably around 12 years old. I was always picked on for being the smallest. Eventually, I transferred to a private school. Fast forward three years, and I go to a party with all the kids from my old school. I see one of the kids who always had it out for me because he was bigger at the time.
I'm now 6'1", obviously a lot bigger than before. So he talks some smack to me and I give it right back. He shoves me and, without even thinking, in one punch I knock this jerk out in front of a crowd of more than 80 people. Everyone thought I was some kind of hero, and then I got to party with some of my old friends. Great night.
22. A Taste Of Her Own Medicine
I befriended a new girl when I was in grade three or four. Everyone had their own friends and no one accepted her. I didn't have many friends, so I gladly took her in. We became best friends. Fast forward to middle school, and she developed a nice body and wore makeup, so she became popular. I was still a way too tall and too thin awkward girl with a lisp.
Everyone made fun of me...and she joined in with them just so she could be cool. It got worse and worse, until she even started instigating it. She would beat me with other girls and egg my house. Fast forward again to high school, where I filled out a bit and got better friends. Then karma came for her.
About halfway through grade 11, people started realizing how mean and fake she had become. They quickly started turning on her. She was crying in the hall one day so I went up to her, asked if she was okay, and offered her my phone if she needed to call her mom. She transferred schools for grade 12 because she was being bullied.
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23. Cold, But Not Too Cold
I used to work at Starbucks. A total Karen of a customer came in and ordered a cold drink, but without ice. I warned them that the drink would only be as cold as the ingredients, and thus the drink would be room temperature within a few minutes. They said that was fine. I made the drink, handed it off, and guess what happened?
The customer came back to the counter five minutes later and said “My drink isn’t cold!” Yeah, I told you so!
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24. Tree Thoughts
In High School, my English teacher had us read a poem about a tree. She was really into finding "symbolism" in poetry and asked us to analyze the poem. I said, "It’s about a tree." She didn’t like that answer. She thought that the roots symbolized origins, and the trunk symbolized common beginning, the branches of humanity, etc.
I got a "D" on the assignment. A few months later I found a literary journal that featured an interview with the poet. They asked him about the symbolism in his poem, and he replied, "It’s about a tree." I sent her the literary journal. She changed my grade.
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25. Car Trouble
My mom treats me worse than my younger brothers, and it eventually always bites her in the butt. My favorite is the time she saw it coming. See, when we were teenagers, my brothers were always allowed to borrow my mother's car, but I wasn't. My grandmother even warned my mother that she would need me one day and I'd tell her "nope."
Mom blew her off because why would she need me, and it's not in my nature to say no. Fast forward a few years later when I have a car and my mom gets into an accident that leaves her temporarily car-less. Mom never asked to borrow my car even though she wanted to, because she knew I had every right to say no. She admitted as much to me later on.
She eventually apologized to me because she realized she had screwed herself over by not being nicer to me as a teen. The thing is, it's not in my nature to say no. If she had asked me to borrow the car, I almost certainly would have said yes despite the fact that I was upset with her. Nevertheless, her guilt was karma enough as far as I was concerned.
26. Look Who Came Crawling Back
I was always the nerdy picked-on kid in school. Almost ten years after graduating from high school, one of the guys who used to give me problems contacted me on Facebook out of the blue. He apologized for being a jerk, then asked me for advice on going to college for the thing that I have a Bachelor of Sciences in. That one felt good.
27. Egg Salad Blues
"You really shouldn't eat egg salad from the gas station," I told my husband. "But I like egg salad. You can't mess up egg salad," he said confidently. I shrugged. "Okay, but somewhere between six and twelve hours later you're going to regret it." He snorted, shook his head, and went to buy the egg salad. Six hours later, he regretted it.
28. Next Door Scandal
We had a new family move in next door several years ago and caught "domestic abuse” vibes immediately. She wouldn't look at anyone, smile, looked like a zombie. The husband tried interacting with other neighbors and seemed to be doing a good job pretending he wasn't an abusive person. One day, I ran into one of the neighbors and we started talking about the newbies on the block. My neighbor didn't seem too concerned, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that guy was bad news.
Fast forward three months: My wife and I were woken up by some loud banging and screaming. As she called the authorities, I grabbed my firearm to go see what was going on. Next thing I see is the neighbor's wife running out of their front door, naked and bloody, pleading for help. I ended up holding the man at gunpoint until the authorities arrived 10 minutes later.
Turns out he had beaten her so bad he had broken several bones in her face, two fingers, and she had deep bruising on her throat from trying to choke her. The next morning, I said "I told you so" to anyone who would listen.
29. Oh, Poop
The other day, I was taking my dog for a walk around the neighborhood. She squatted down to take a poop and I reached for my doggie bags...only to realize I was fresh out. So, I peeked around to make sure nobody was looking, and then I just left it. 10 minutes later, I'm walking across the road and what do you know? I step in dog poo. I wasn't even mad; I knew I deserved it.
30. The Swift Kick of Karma
I was at a party, and this one girl couldn't stop talking smack about this other girl who was coming to the party. When the girl finally showed up, this dude picked her up and hugged her. He then spun her around so fast that she accidentally kicked her frenemy right in the face. The girl's beer spilled all over her and she got a black eye.
31. House Of The Rising Sons
There was a kid at my secondary school who used to mercilessly torment the kids in Learning Support. Being a small school, they converted the old caretaker's house into a safe environment for the people with learning difficulties to take certain lessons and receive support. It allowed a sort of half-mainstream, half-specialist school environment for them.
Anyways, this awful guy dropped out of school at 16 after five or so years of hanging around the back of this house and harassing the kids inside of it. Three years go by, and he ends up being shot. He now has some serious brain damage, as well as memory and dexterity issues. Now, the only place he can retake his unfinished high school exams is the same old house he spent years prowling outside to harass disabled kids.
32. A Family Matter
When I was about eight and my brother was eleven, he got in trouble for punching a kid in the face on the school bus. My brother claims he was defending someone else, but he was banned from the bus for a good long while. He also faced huge repercussions at school, and my mom made him apologize to the kid he had punched.
A couple of months after the incident, the mother of the kid he punched decided to flip the crazy switch and sued my parents for mental anguish, claiming that her son now had crippling emotional problems stemming from the incident. She showed up at board meetings, tried to get my brother expelled, painted a picture of my family as shady, and called my brother a violent delinquent.
My parents ended up escaping the court battle with a little bit of dignity intact, but feeling ostracized in our community. Fast forward: I'm now 27 and my brother is 30. My mom sends a newspaper clipping to him in the mail. When I read it, I grinned from ear to ear. It's the indictment of the crazy mom from our childhood.
It seems she had been embezzling money from her employer for five years, totaling more than $50,000. It may have taken two decades, but she finally got what was coming for her...
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33. Down to the Slammer
I teach kindergarten, and I had a terrible, terrible child in my class last year. He liked to pull his desk away from the girl sitting across from him so her pencils and crayons would go falling on the floor. Finally, one day she got fed up and slammed her desk back into his. Unfortunately for him, his fingers happened to be there. Justice was served.
34. Bad Car Advice
My mom and I were driving out of state someplace when her 79' Bronco started to hesitate and almost stall. I told her it the fuel filter was probably blocked, but as far as she was concerned, I was a just teen who didn't know anything, so she pulled into some hick-garage. They guy gave her some story about it probably being a "congested catalytic converter."
He cleaned it out while we had to wait an hour or so, charged her $100+ bucks (this was in the 80's, so that was a lot of money), and sent us on our way. About an hour down the road....the same thing happened. She pulled into another place. This time I spoke up about the fuel filter. The mechanic agreed, popped off the air-cleaner, took off the fuel-filter, and tried to blow into it.
Clogged. He grabbed a new one, put it on in like two minutes, charged us something like $20, and we had no problems after that. Vindicated!
35. Rush-Order Divorce
I told my brother once that he should probably date his girlfriend longer than a year before proposing. Two months after the wedding she said she wasn't ready to be married and divorced him. It took him a long time to be ready for me to say “I told you so,” but it was worth it.
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36. The Shape Of You
In elementary school and middle school, I was made fun of by my classmates for being “flat-chested.” By my senior year, I had the most developed body in my entire grade. At least so said the general consensus. And none of them got to ever see it up close because screw them! Take that, high school. Delayed karma at its best!
37. Movie Star
I had a girl in middle school who used to pick on me constantly. She would jab me with pencils, throw stuff in my hair, and kick the back of my seat in class. Everything you can imagine. I held onto that humiliation for a long time because I never did anything about it. I always resented her and hoped that life would deal her some justice.
Fast forward about seven years. My friend and I were browsing through our local online adult website and who do I find performing on it? My middle school tormentor. She was now looking very unhealthy, and was doing some pretty racy stuff on camera for the whole world to see.
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38. T-Bonehead
I got rear-ended in a turn lane because the girl was texting. I went to her court date hoping she'd get a big fine or something. She got a $50 ticket, so I was a little bit upset. As I was sitting at the stop light to pull out of the court, I watched karma in motion. She came out, ran a red light...and T-boned an officer. I laughed my butt off at that one.
39. Slamming the Slow Door
I was kicking a customer out for being racially insensitive and cursing at one of my employees. He yelled offensive stuff and then he tried to slam the door on his way out, but it had one of those things on it that makes the door close slowly. He pushed it hard, it didn't budge, and he slipped and fell on the floor. We had a good laugh.
40. Keep Your Mouth Shut
When I was in kindergarten, a kid looked me straight in the eyes, bit himself on the wrist, and ran to the teacher to blame me. They sent me to the principal’s office, my mom was called down, and I got yelled at. A week later, the kid did it again...and the teacher saw him do it. It felt so good to have the principal apologizing profusely to me.
41. Game Over
In eighth grade, this kid threw a wooden block at me. He was probably thinking, "Oh, let's pick on the punk girl, that'll be so funny!" I blacked out for a good ten to fifteen seconds after it clocked me in the head. When I came to, he and his friends were all on the ground laughing at how funny this was. I ended up having to go to urgent care.
His mom was on the school board and had a large role in the financial decisions of the school, so the administration was afraid to punish him and ended up doing nothing. My math teacher was this kid's football coach and made him run extra while everyone else got to take a food and water break, but that was the only justice I got...at the time.
Fast forward two years, and everyone is freaking out that this guy can't play football that year. He ended up spraining his back and breaking a few ribs from an intoxicated escapade into the woods the week before his sophomore year started. The concussion that he sustained from this was severe enough that a second concussion could have caused serious mental damage.
As a result, he was no longer able to play football and had to quit the game he loved more than anything in the world. Considering there were still many people at the school who had witnessed his initial attack on me with the wooden block and remembered it, it felt like a lot of people recognized the karma he had just endured.
42. Mind Games
I had a guy who used to pick on me for no reason in high school. He was a bit bigger and older, and was also a wrestler. We tussled once when I had had enough of his garbage, but the fight got broken up by a group of teachers before it could get too far. The guy just didn't like me and was relentless in his tormenting. Honestly, he scared me.
When I was 37 years old, I got divorced and took up Muay Thai. Over the course of the next two years, I got myself into ridiculously good shape. I was 5'11 and 190 lbs of hard muscle, with lots of martial skills. I rented out a house that I owned to a single mom with the same last name as the dude who had tormented me. Didn't think much of it at the time.
A couple of months later, though, I was visiting her to take care of a few maintenance issues at the house. When I walked up to the door, my jaw dropped. He opened it. I stared at him for a full minute. He was much smaller than I had remembered. In fact, he was struggling with addiction. The look on his face was priceless when he realized who I was.
It was his sister who had rented from me. Well, he recognized me and knew immediately that I could easily wipe my butt with him. You could feel the look of fear, at least I could, because that dude used to scare the heck out of me all the time. He meekly held out his hand for a handshake. I took it, almost crushed it, then just gave him a big bear hug and a little noogie.
It was a guy's way of letting him off the hook, at least for now. He was so confused and scared of what I could be planning to do to him or his sister. I think he would have rather had his butt kicked than have to live with that fear and insecurity. But the beauty is that I don’t even feel that I have to take revenge. Sometimes, the best revenge is just landing on your feet.
43. Anger Management
When I was in 3rd grade I begged my mom to switch teachers. My teacher was such a mean and negative person. She thought I was overreacting because I hadn’t had a male teacher before. He got fired the next year for grabbing a girl and slamming her on a desk in anger. My mom actually apologized for not believing me.
44. Olympic Coke
My mom is obsessed with soda. One day she came home with some old unopened coke bottles from the 1998 Olympics she got from a yard sale. I was like cool, decorations! No, she intended to drink them. I told her, multiple times, that drinking 20-year-old pop was a horrible idea. But my mom was convinced that coke can’t go bad. All that sugar! All those chemicals! There's no way it could be rotten. Oh, how wrong she was...
I came home the next day and saw that there was one bottle missing. I asked my mom where it went. She just looked at me and muttered that I was right about not drinking it. I told you so was said many times that day.
45. The Punishment Fits The Sin
I got made fun of in high school for being gay. Some kid would always make these nasty comments, and one night he embarrassed me in front of the whole school. I should note that I wasn't the only one he treated this way, and that this had been going on for about two years. Nevertheless, I got my revenge one night a few years later.
He was extremely intoxicated at a party one night and agreed to sleep with me. I then made sure to tell everyone at school about it...
46. The Emperor's New Clothes
When I was in the seventh grade, I was a pretty awkward child. I was overweight, liked to read much more than the average seventh-grader, and did not exactly enjoy changing my clothes on a very frequent basis. My school being the nice one that it was, there weren't any real jerks, save for one boy. That one boy, however, made sure to always make up for what the school was missing...
This kid would laugh at me non-stop whenever he saw me. He would make fun of everything about me, from my body to my clothes to my books. And none of the other kids would ever stop him. The teachers would notice and say something every once in a while, but no real action was ever taken. I was on my own for the most part while I was at that school.
Fast forward five years. I am now going into my senior year of high school. I am 6'4" tall, very good at sports, have a girlfriend, and now change my clothes every day. I still read a ton, though. That other kid? He's now 5'7", unhealthy, and neglects to wash his hair. I don't laugh at him, but I certainly don't go out of my way to be nice to him, either. Five years may not be that long, but karma is indeed a real thing.
47. No-Grass Pass
I was on a crowded subway at 2:00 am. Two drunk dudes had a lit joint and were walking around flaunting it. The whole train kept ignoring them, and they kept parading around being a bunch of morons. Then they spotted two taller, athletic-looking dudes and started making fun of them for "looking like the authorities." This turned out to be huge mistake.
It was the line "Which one of you is the sergeant??" that finally put the athletic guys over the edge. They looked at each other, smiled, reached into their pockets, and pulled out their badges. "Okay boys, empty your pockets." The subway blew up in laughter...they would have gotten away with EVERYTHING if they just didn't go bother the two plain-clothes officers.
48. Digging Your Own Hole
I was running laps on a grass field when I was about to lap a guy who would ALWAYS lap the tar out of me. So, as I passed him I yelled, "Gotcha, loser!"...and immediately stepped in a hole in the ground and twisted my ankle. Despite the pain of jacking my ankle up, I thought the karmic payout was hilariously timed.
49. School’s Out Forever
I had a 1.8 GPA in high school, and my guidance counselor sarcastically told me, "You can still potentially be successful, you'll just never be able to become a doctor or a lawyer." Seven years later, I went to law school and graduated. I made a point of ensuring that this woman heard about it when the timing was right. It felt pretty darn good!
50. No Mercy
When I was in seventh grade, I was picked on mercilessly by these three girls. And I mean mercilessly. They would tease me, hit me, throw gum in my hair, whatever you can dream of. It made my life a living nightmare. Fast forward five years: One's pregnant, one just had her second child at 17, and one is behind bars on a serious charge. I can't help but laugh. Feels good.
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51. Can’t Have One Without the Other
My brother has a friend who is tremendously smart and never really needed to try hard in school. His final semester, all he needed was a final English course to get his degree. I remember him actually saying to me, “Why try hard to get a 90% when I can slack off all semester and get a 50%?” The school ended up expelling him before the end of the semester.
52. Screaming For Ice Cream
When I was about 12, my older sister began dating this guy down the street who teased me a lot. I absolutely couldn't stand this jerk, but was always afraid to stand up to him because he was older, bigger, and stronger than me. On a hot summer day, I came into the house to find my sister and the guy on the couch. I asked them if they wanted any ice cream while I was up.
They both said yes, so I scooped them out some vanilla ice cream into two separate bowls. Before I scooped his ice cream, I rubbed the spoon all over my sweaty body and literally scooped sweat off from wherever I could find it. I then proceeded to scoop his ice cream for him into his bowl. I gave them their respective bowls, making sure I put the right spoon with his bowl, and left the room with the biggest grin on my face. Sometimes revenge truly is a dish best served cold.
53. Shop Around
A few years back, I went home to visit my mother. She asked me to go to the convenience store to pick up some milk. While I'm there, I see one of the local popular chicks from high school behind the counter. I was, of course, a nerd in high school and, while she knew me, she would never have talked to me back then. She asked me how I was doing nowadays. I said "Well, I live in Dallas and work at Microsoft. How are you?" Best feeling ever.
54. Listen More
I tried to tell my mother about what later was diagnosed as a rare form of epilepsy when I was around eight years old. I wish she had listened, but she waved it off like she did with everything I told her. Fast forward to when I was 30 years old. I admitted myself to the hospital because I felt funny. I ended up having an enormous seizure right there in the emergency room.
After I recovered, I couldn’t help myself. I looked my mom right in the eye and told her I knew I was right all these years. She mumbled a half-hearted apology, but I’m still angry. She said she “didn’t know what to do at the time.” I felt like screaming: You could’ve taken me to the doctor!!! Ugh.
55. Weekend Away
This is from over a decade and I still feel satisfied about it. There was a girl in my Girl Scout troop that was constantly being mean to me, just not in front of our troop mates. No one believed me but soon enough, they'd learn I was right in the most brutal way possible when we all went on a weekend trip to an amusement park.
That weekend, this girl was an absolute nightmare. She threw a fit when she didn't get what she wanted. She started yelling at people how they ruined her trip and she was the troop leader's daughter so she should be in charge. Eventually she just cried for hours asking the other girls why they were being so mean. I laughed the entire time.
56. A Perfect Example Of Projection
I knew an idiot back in middle school who called me a "filthy little loser who no one will ever want," just because I did some things differently than she did. Several years later, she found me on Facebook, and I friended her for God-knows-what reason. I learned that at age 22, she is a high school dropout and has two kids from two different fathers.
57. Indoor Voices
The hotel where I work is a small one which is basically an easy and cheap taxi ride away from town. We are also local to a few bars and other party places, so we tend to be rather busy on weekends. As most hotel workers will know, some weekend shifts are nice and easy. But when you get that group that causes problems, it makes your life very difficult.
This one evening, I had a rather large group of "young adults" staying with us. Earlier, they all came in and, to my surprise, were quiet. Well, almost all of them were. One woman came in being louder than an air raid siren. She and her boyfriend came over to me and asked me for some more towels. I went to get them and they both came with me to the linen room to grab them.
While they're there, the woman was talking to the guy louder than she should have been. She didn't seem intoxicated, but holy heck someone never taught her how to use her indoor voice. I gave them the towels and just politely asked her to keep her voice down. She looked at me, confused, and then ripped into me for no reason, coming out with some hurtful comments before storming off.
The guy looked at me and apologized before following her away. Now, we do hourly walks around the building to make sure it's quiet and, thankfully, we were not fully booked that night. Otherwise, we would be getting stupid amounts of noise complaints in the morning. A few doors down from this couple’s rooms are some stairs, which I pass through on my way back to reception.
As I entered the stairwell, I could hear them talking while walking down the stairs. When I say them, I mean her. I kind of stood still a few doors down listening to her. I heard her whining to this guy about his ex, saying "I bet she felt better than me" and then shouting “Don't call me a psycho!” From what I could understand, he had cheated on her with his ex and she had just found out right that minute.
He accused her of overreacting, and she didn't take it well. I wanted to listen to more, but I heard a door opening from the other side of the hall. Someone from their group walked by, so I acted like I was just walking back to reception from the stairs. I just found it funny how she ripped into me for doing my job and then got some karma back the same night.
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58. Three Cheers for Tattlers
When I was in first grade, my class had recess and this jerk pushed me to the ground. I fell and was about to go off on the kid when this fourth grader came over, lifted the kid up, and took him right over to the principal. Karma is absolutely amazing and nobody can convince me otherwise thanks to what happened that day.
59. That’s a Penalty
When I was a kid, we visited Montreal, and I had gotten a hockey puck as a souvenir. While we were in our hotel, my sister decided to mess with me by hiding it. I got mad and yelled in my high-pitched voice, "GIVE ME BACK MY HOCKEY PUCK!" before smacking her in the head with a pillow. Well...guess where she had hidden it.
60. Copy Cat
To the old high school “friend” of mine who always secretly looked at my tests and copied my answers to get an A. Don’t think you got away with that without me noticing. I knew all about it. But at the end of the day, I got all of the scholarships, and you didn't. That’s some karma if I’ve ever seen it! Have fun!
61. Reading Between The Lines
A boy at school was an absolute jerk to me and my group of friends. I was raised as a fairly introverted kid, and thus gravitated to like-minded people. He could basically smell the pacifism on us and exploited it to no end. He kicked the heck out of us at every chance he got. He humiliated us in front of the class, basically assigning us to the lowest social rungs for most of our schooling year.
The relentless intimidation and thuggery reduced me to start hiding in my shell. I would prefer to read in the library than play or eat during lunch, lest his roaming bring us into contact again. Without a word of a lie, I read over 300 novels by the time I had finished school and had sparked a life-long obsession with literature.
Moving out to university led me to becoming a much more confident person, and I slowly got over some of my old social issues. Fast forward to some eight years after school. One Friday afternoon, the old bully walked into my work looking for something we sell. Due to the nature of the business, I was able to infer a lot about how his life had gone since we last spoke.
Since leaving school, he had been caught stealing a car, gone to a juvenile detention center, got busted for substance possession, and had been living at no fixed address. Before you judge too quickly, we had been at a fairly expensive private school, so he wasn’t exactly a “down on his luck” type to begin with. He just never stopped making bad decisions despite the opportunities he had.
I projected an outwardly professional demeanor, politely denied him service, and sent him dejectedly on his way. I was required to deny him by our store policy, and had no actual authority over the decision, but it still felt good to do. Internally, I was completely glad and gleeful. But that's not even the best part. Believe it or not, he didn’t even recognize me!
He looked at the man serving him, and only saw a man. I had grown and changed so much, and he had stayed exactly the same. Looking back, it may be bad karma for me to take pleasure in this. However, it gives me hope that sometimes the bad guy loses in real life. I suffered a horrible school and social life for eight years because of him, and I do not regret feeling happy at his demise.
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62. Liar, Liar, Recommendation’s on Fire
There was a compulsive liar of a kid who told me all sorts of doozies for four years. His senior year, he asked me to write a letter of recommendation. I did—because I had an ingenious plan. I included every lie I could remember him telling me as though it was the truth and I was pumping him up. Oh man, it was so good.
He couldn't even show it to his family because I wrote about how he volunteers at homeless shelters every night, raises hundreds of rescue dogs to become service dogs, how he donates blood every week, etc. Any one of the statements was obviously impossible to be true. I hope he didn't try to use it, but I never got a call from anyone to verify my recommendation.
63. Making Up For Lost Time
Growing up with hatred based on your background definitely isn't the easiest thing in the world. Aside from being bullied yourself, you have to cope with the fact that your siblings and friends deal with the same garbage. You don't deserve it, nobody deserves it. But it exists. That is why standing up to my enemy in Grade 9 of high school was one of the greatest moments of my life.
All I remember was a snarky remark from him. "Shut up, you're (insert my background), you don't have the right to speak!" That’s when I lost it. I mostly remember grabbing him by the shirt and then throwing him against a wall. Once he was pinned against the wall, I alternated between punching his face and making sure he didn’t move.
The details are mostly lost to me now, but I definitely remember winning that fight. And it wasn’t even close. I was suspended from school for the rest of the day. He was suspended for three days due to the terrible nature of his remark. It was incredible. And also possibly one of the greatest turning points of my entire life.
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64. Fine Dining
A kid I met in sixth grade became that kind of "your friend but secretly your enemy" type with me. I knew he was going to fail sixth grade and get held back. On the inside, I hoped this would be the case. My prediction came true. I saw him a couple of times in the hall after that, but I haven't really heard from him since. He used to talk about how he wouldn't mind ending up in the slammer, because you get lots of coleslaw there and he likes coleslaw. Maybe his wish came true…
65. Salmon(ella)
Last year, I told my housemate the salmon he just bought from the shop smelt really bad and he shouldn't eat it. Of course, he’s dismissive and rude and says, "I just bought it there's nothing wrong with it." Cue being woken up in the early hours by said housemate vomiting his guts up with foodborne illness. I told you, Tim!
66. Fake Gamer Guy
When I was 14, I was hanging out with a guy after school. Two of his friends randomly decided to invite themselves, and started talking about a FPS video game they all enjoyed. I mentioned how the new one coming out had amazing graphics because my dad was planning on going to the midnight release. One of the friends said, "There’s no new game coming out, stop trying to pretend to be a gamer." I argued there was, he argued there wasn’t, so I came up with a brilliant plan.
I said we could settle it once and for all by going to the mall and asking at then GameStop. Lo and behold, when we got to the store, there was an enormous cardboard cutout advertising the game. The guy’s face dropped. It was so beautiful.
67. From Flipping out to Tripping out
This woman comes to the counter at a fast food restaurant and berates me for under-cooking her beef patty. The patties are all cooked on a timer, and the meat looked normal. Finally, we remade her entire order and handed her the tray. She whines some more, turns around, and then immediately trips and falls, all of her food and drink spilling everywhere.
68. Gnarly, Dude
I'm from San Diego, and during the summer you have to claim the bonfire pits on the beach really early in the morning if you want it for that night. So, my friends and I got to the beach at 8:00 am and stayed there so we could get a bonfire going into the night. Just before sundown, this one couple asked if they could share it with us.
Since our group wasn't too big, we said yes. However, that couple proceeded to bring a group of like 15 others and they literally surrounded the pit and pushed us out. We were furious, but we were so tired from being at the beach all day that we decided to head out. Little did we know, they were going to get what was coming to them.
See, it turns out that that night had an extreme high tide warning. Just as we moved all of our stuff, a huge wave came in and washed out their whole group. The wave flipped over their table of food, took a handful of sandals into the ocean, and destroyed all their stuff. Karma's a witch, you bunch of no-good liars.
69. First-Grade Justice
Last year, I had a 7-year-old in my class who was just a pain. He would throw things around the classroom, pinch other children, poke them with pencils, and he was rude to everyone but would always blame it on someone else. Talking to his parents wouldn't help because they believed everything their little "angel" said.
One break time, he was harassing another child, and I guess they just had enough. This usually mild-mannered child punched him in the stomach. It was so hard, the horrible child even wet himself. Then, all of the other children who witnessed it completely closed ranks and denied that it ever happened. We couldn't follow it up.
70. We Need to Talk About Kevin
I taught a dissection lab section back in college. I had one kid in a section, Kevin, who never listened to instructions and just dove in with a scalpel, dicing and chopping and generally causing a horrific scene. This led to his first karmic warning when we were dissecting squid. He got squid "juice" on himself, and it smelled awful for the rest of that class. But he didn't learn.
He kept on ignoring instructions and hacking away, so this time karmic justice struck on our very last dissection project: The fetal pig. Kevin really wanted to see the pig's brain. Kevin couldn't get through the skull, though, so he started whacking away at it. I told him to stop, but he had to give it one last, mighty thwack. Crack!
The skull breaks and rubbery piglet brain bits come flying out everywhere, mostly over Kevin. Unfortunately, while he was protesting my clear instructions, Kevin had his mouth open. Thankfully, preserved pig brain, ingested orally, seemed to have a calming, subduing effect on Kevin for the last couple classes.
71. Times Have Changed
Tonight, a guy walks into my family's convenience store to buy a pack of smokes. I know him from my days growing up here, and he and his younger brother used to give me a hard time. They were real jerks, hateful types who encouraged others to pick on me and even to turn violent against me. I hated him and his family for ruining a part of my childhood.
He was unusually friendly tonight, smiling at me and cracking cheesy jokes that I smiled politely at but didn't really respond to. He counted his money with his damaged hand, which had been partially blown in half by fireworks a few years ago. I gave him his items and his change, said thanks, and went about my business. But that's where it all changed.
Before leaving, he stops, hesitates for a moment, and turns around to ask me if there are any job openings at the store. While I had heard him correctly, it was almost as if the words didn't register in my mind, so I asked him to repeat himself. He asks again, “You wouldn't happen to have any jobs available, would you?”
I explain that we're sufficiently staffed at the moment, and that with my sister and me around for the summer, we wouldn't be needing anyone else to fill in the hours. I told him to ask again in the fall, when I'd return to university. He said that it was okay, but that he needed something now....because his wife had just left him.
He said thanks anyway and walked out. Memories of him being a jerk flashed around in my head, and through these, a clearer picture began to form. When he had just graduated high school, his parents broke up in a massive way, leaving a fractured home for his younger siblings to grow up in. Sometime in his life, he experienced his hand being blown apart by an explosive.
He had amounted to very little, and his marriage was falling apart. And now, he had come asking for a job from the local kid he used to make fun of and claim superiority over based on my mixed-race background. Realizing this didn't feel good. I should have enjoyed it, but I didn't. While I don't feel bad for him, not in the slightest, I don't feel like any kind of justice was served.
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72. Financial Freedom
In high school, most of my friends insisted on going to big, fancy four-year colleges and bragging about it to my face. They all went off, forgot about me, drank themselves silly, and made plenty of friends while I spent several years at home, alone, working and going to community college. All they cared about was the prestige of telling people where they went to school.
Now, five years later, we're all living with our parents, working lousy jobs, and trying to find any decent work we can. The only difference is that I don't have $80k in student debt. Feels great, even when my situation isn't so desirable. Was it worth it, friends? In a few years, I’m going to reap the rewards of my hard work while you are all still paying back the money you owe.
73. Compass Points
When I was in elementary school, a teacher taught us compass directions, like N, W, NW, etc. I causally remarked; "Then there's NbW, NNW and NWbN." “What?” She asked, confused. That started an argument where she said I was making those up and to stop disrupting class. I talked to my father who was in the air force. He sent me to her next class with a book explaining the 32-point compass. Vindicated!
74. Handwriting Incidents
There was a substitute teacher at my school who offered to do "handwriting analyses" to pass the time. All the girls loved him. I had bad vibes from him from day one but finally I gave him my sample of handwriting. He started with "Oh honey, you're in real trouble aren't you?" I was confused. I wasn't. I had a fine home life.
I told him so and then he put his hand on my shoulder and said "You can tell me anything" and looked deep into my eyes. It made me VERY uncomfortable. I told my friends I did not like him but they couldn't understand why. A few years later, I learned the awful truth. This guy got put away after taking advantage of students. The newspaper article went in to detail about how he used handwriting analysis to prey on vulnerable kids, mostly girls.
75. Local Cues
About five years ago, during the protests in Turkey, I was sitting outside at a back-street cafe in Istanbul (where I live) having a drink. At the table behind me, another male expat was chatting to two 20-something Turkish women telling them about his brave exploits. Everyone at the cafe was keeping an eye on a group of riot officers at the end of the small street.
When they started to put their helmets on, I knew it was time to go indoors. I turned to the three of them behind me and politely suggested they do the same. The guy said something like, no, it’s ok...we’re safe here. He should have listened to me. About five seconds later, the whole street was filled with teargas canisters and fireworks being shot from a group who had been waiting around a corner.
After they ran inside, he asked a waiter to get his drink from the table outside.
76. Rainy Day Friend
My sister had a horrible narcissistic "friend." This girl never gave a hoot about my sister’s life. She only wanted the attention on her. She was super possessive of my sister. She was jealous of my sister’s boyfriend and would say my sister should kick him out so she could move in. I told her the friend was bad news but did she listen? Of course not.
Two weeks ago, my sister had to terminate her pregnancy due to complications. She called up her narcissistic friend to talk about it, expecting sympathy. Nope! Her response was so cruel. She told my sister to “get over it” and instead listen to HER “real” problems. My sister had a light-bulb moment, and realized. Her friend was a mean person, and not a good friend! Definitely told you so, sis.
77. Inconvenient Truths
My pregnant wife and I were staying in a well-known hotel in Killarney (Kerry, Ireland). There was a second story being built onto an existing extension, visible from our window. It was being built by a huge well-known contractor. I noticed something about the build that I thought was very unsafe and reported it to management.
I'm not a builder or a civil engineer so they didn't take much notice. I then went to the building foreman and told him of my concerns. He assured me everything was safe. I wasn't convinced and they continued with construction. I went back to management, but it was obvious they considered me nothing more than an inconvenience.
To cut a long story short, within hours a very large portion of the new wall collapsed, missing a bus full of tourists by a few yards. I got my "I told you" moment, but they never acknowledged their fault or mistake.
78. Miscommunication
When I came home from high school once, my mother told me that my grandmother was having chest pains, so my mom was going over to "sit with her for a bit." Confused, I asked, “By 'sit with her' you mean call an ambulance, right?” Apparently not. The next day, my mom couldn’t get ahold of my grandmother. She went over there to check on her. No prizes for guessing what she found.
79. Best Served Cold
I had an art teacher once who told me cartooning was not “true art” and that no one took cartoonists seriously. A few years later, I was teaching an animation class in the local art museum for grades k-12. One day at work, I received the most satisfying call of my life. It was from my old art teacher. He wondered if he could have his classes come down and take part in the studio. Getting to re-introduce myself as a successful artist and cartoonist was the ultimate "I told you so."
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80. Picture That!
My mother had a friend that nobody liked, but everyone felt bad for. She was a horrible person, and I hated her. I always warned my mom that she would backstab us one day. They had occasional arguments, but always made up. She would talk bad about me in particular, behind my parents back. My mother’s friend’s kids were ALSO huge liars.
One day, my mom found out that they had accused my younger brother (not even a teen yet) of asking their daughter for some risqué pictures. It was totally ridiculous, and they could offer absolutely no evidence even though he supposedly asked over text. My mother was so furious. I looked at her and said, "I told you so!" We don't talk to them anymore.
81. Leaving Litter
Dad leaves his stinky shoes on the balcony next to the kitty litter. I told him not to because the cat will smell them and puke in the shoes. He told me to mind my own business. One morning, the cat pooped in his shoes. I definitely said I told you so.
82. Too Old
One of my good friends dated a much older guy when she was 16. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, and told her. She didn’t listen to me. Then he asked her to help him find a job. And help him pay rent. And help him pay for contraband. She finally dumped him, calling him out for everything. Well, I bet you wish you listened to me now don't you?
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83. Driving Me Wild
During my driver’s ed test, the examiner told me to continue backing up. I looked at him, and then at the huge snowbank inches from the back bumper of my car. I said, “Sir, I’m going to hit that snowbank if I do that.” He disagreed. So I proved him wrong in the best way ever. I backed into it and just looked at him in the post-crunch silence. He was embarrassed, and I got my license anyway!
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84. When Life Gives You Lemons…
One day, when I was a little kid, I came home from school the urge to plant a tree. So I took a lemon from the kitchen counter, cut it open, and extracted a couple seeds. My mom asked me what I was planning to do, and said, "That'll never work! Lemon trees grow in the tropics, and besides, these lemons are genetically modified!"
More than eight years later, a huge lemon tree sits in the corner of my kitchen. I always point it out to her whenever my mom comes over.
85. It’s Nuts!
I told my mum that I felt sick after accidentally eating her Crunchy Nut cereal and that I was worried I was allergic to nuts. She told me that she allergy tested me as a baby and I was not allergic to anything. I told her that allergies can change and asked for a second allergy test. She told me I was overreacting. But then a few years later, I ate Thai food with peanuts.
I vomited and had a swollen throat. My roommates were so worried that they offered to take me to ER but I declined. I told my mum about it once I had recovered. She still didn’t believe me and kept saying, “Nut allergies don’t just develop!” Last year, I ate some chicken. I only had one bite before my boyfriend realized it had peanut butter in the sauce.
He forbade me from having another bite. My lips swelled up and my stomach was so badly affected that I had to stay in bed for the night. After that, my mum finally believed me. It was a long haul!
86. Pest Vindication
When I was young and still living with my parents, there were a lot of squirrels in our neighborhood. One morning, I was pulling weeds in the front yard when I heard the sounds of squirrels moving around in our porch ceiling, just under our attic. I told my dad immediately. My dad told me that I was just hearing squirrels on the top of the roof and there was nothing to worry about.
This happened a few more times over the summer but each time my parents said the squirrels couldn’t possibly in the attic. Cut to several months later, during a peaceful Sunday morning breakfast, when what can only be described as a ball of loud, angry squirrels THUMPED down in between the walls of our kitchen.
We listened to them trying to climb back up and squabbling with each other for hours until a pest control guy came. The pest control guy got all of the squirrels out, confirming that they had entered through a hole on the roof and set up a nest in the attic, which fell into the cavity between the walls. All the squirrels were safely removed and relocated outside. I’ve never felt so vindicated in my life.
87. Heart Problems
I was 33 years old and otherwise perfectly healthy. But I could not walk across the living room without feeling sick, like I was going to pass out and/or throw up. I went to the E.R. They said I was fine. Then one day I vomited and passed out. I went to the E.R. again. They said I was fine. I was silly, and trusted them.
One morning I passed out in the bathroom and hit my face on the bathtub, where my wife found me unconscious and bleeding. We went to the E.R. They continued to say I was fine. It seriously got to the point where I was convinced it was psychosomatic. But this time my wife wouldn’t let us leave. She clearly told the doc we weren't going home.
They needed to transfer me to another hospital, three hours away, where they have a specialized heart center. I needed to be checked out, and she was not going to take “he’s fine” for an answer. We got to the new hospital. They ran a test to see the pressure of my heart, like, how effectively it's pumping blood. Turns out it sucks... really bad. Worryingly bad!!
I had a congenital heart defect. I was immediately put on a transplant list. A month later got a new heart. That’s how bad it was! I knew I was sick! And yet those E.R. doctors almost had me convinced I was exaggerating my symptoms. I told them so. We told them so. I’m so glad we fought them. It’s been almost two years post-transplant with zero problems.
88. Fire Warning
I warned my girlfriend that when drilling in concrete, the drillbit can get fairly warm. We were mounting a shelf and I had just finished a 6mm hole with the impact drill. She responded with "But, like, how warm?" while reaching for drillbit and immediately got a fairly severe burn. The only thing I got out before she went for the cold water was an: "I just said..."
Oh, but it got worse. When she came back, she reached for the drill and asked: "It's cold now right?" and then immediately burned herself again on the bit.
Flickr
89. Soft Girls Don’t Play Softball
I got hit in the face with a softball when I was 8. I told my mother that it really hurt and that I thought it was broken. But since I wasn't crying enough, she thought that it must be OK and ice would be sufficient. Eight entire years later, I was at the doctor's office with my mother when he asked when I had broken my nose. My mother was horrified.
90. Projectile Defenses
In third grade, we were doing quiet small group work when I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, which was very unusual for me. So, I got up, walked over to my teacher’s desk, and told her I thought I was going to throw up. She said, “You’ll be fine, sit back down.” I walked back to my little row of desks, turned to the right, and projectile vomited all over the girl next to me.
I think I literally finished and said “I TOLD YOU SO.” Also, sorry for yacking on you, Elaina from third grade.
91. Contraband Checks
We were camping in a state park. I kept telling my friends to keep their voices down, or the rangers would come. Since we had some contraband, we didn’t want any extra scrutiny. Just as one of my friends was saying I'm overreacting, park rangers walked up to our fire and started chastising us. I laughed.
92. Brace Dreams
I was 16 when I first told my parents I wanted braces. Mom said, “you don’t need braces.” I went to the dentist, and the dentist told me I needed braces. My mom still disagreed, saying the dentist was just trying to make money off my teeth, which she insisted were "Fine." Fast forward many years. I’m 27 now and I've been struggling with brutal migraines for years.
When I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning, he looked at my teeth and said, “Have you considered braces? You should really think about them. Realigning your jaw will help with your migraines and it’ll fix your overlapping teeth.” I was furious, and immediately called up my mom. I was right! All along! I should have gotten braces! Extremely unfair.
93. Eat Your Words
A while ago I decided to treat myself to some Burger King. I was having a bad day and had a headache coming on. So I was waiting in line at the BK, when suddenly this woman comes in with a monster of a child. He was out of control, screaming, punching his mother, throwing things around. The mother didn't pay any attention to him and he continued yelling, "I want a PIE."
My headache turned into a full-blown migraine. I calmly turned and asked if she could please calm her child down. Immediately she got up in my face, telling me to mind my own business. I nodded and turned around, when the child cried out again how he wants a pie. I then decided to ruin their day in the most devious way I could think of.
When I got to the front of the line I asked the person at the register how many apple pies they have left. They told me and I bought all of them. I ate one and made sure the kid saw me throw the rest in the trash.
94. Taking in the Scenery
My brother was making fun of an old man slowly shuffling across a parking lot for no reason. "Look at Speedy Gonzalez " or something, he was saying. About two seconds later, my brother bashes his foot on the cement parking barrier. He limped back to the car as I laughed wildly. Don’t mess with old people, ya freaking jerk.
95. Defying Gravity
As a kid, I went to Hawaii with my mom and stepfather for vacation, and we signed up for surfing lessons. The car ride there, my stepfather kept saying, "Now, I just want to warn you of something. You might not be able to do this. You're a girl, so your center of gravity is higher. I'm a boy, so my center of gravity is lower."
He kept saying stuff like, “Don't be too upset when I'm standing on the board longer than you, it's just science, okay? I'll be better, but it's not your fault." Screw him, I managed to ride a few low waves all the way to shore while he couldn't even get on his feet. He wouldn't talk to me on the car ride back whenever I tried to bring up what he said earlier.
96. What A Beautiful Sight
Over the course of six months, through countless phone calls to different union offices and the department of labor, I eventually got my boss fired for changing people's time-keeping information to steal overtime from them. During those months I was treated like dirt by this guy, but I never actually did anything wrong so I couldn't be punished. At one point, management—against contract rules—denied my time off request to be at my best friend’s wedding and my boss brought me into his office and threatened to fire me.
At this point, I had called the northeast district business associate on him, and I will never forget the look on my boss’s face when he realized I knew he couldn't do anything to me.
97. Don’t Stop Believing
My dad is out of state on business driving through some no-name town when he goes through an intersection. Suddenly, a cop pulls him over and tickets him—stating that he ran a stop sign. My dad insisted that there was not any stop sign, but the cop did not listen. Furious, he went back to the intersection and saw that there was indeed a stop sign hidden behind a tree and twisted in the wrong direction!
Even more angry, he went into a convenience store and bought a disposable camera. The clerk laughed because he saw what happened and knew what was up. Luckily, my dad had to be back there in a few weeks for work. The cop assumed that someone with out of state plates would just pay the ticket, and was shocked when my dad turned up in court,
He calmly presented his evidence to the judge, and strolled out in five minutes scot-free.
98. Blastoff
Neil Armstrong's nephew or grandson or whatever was attending Space Camp the same week I was. There were many rumors of him being a little brat. It was confirmed true that almost every day he was at risk of getting kicked out. The last day of camp Neil actually spoke to a huge crowd of space nerds. Minutes before the speech, that little brat got kicked out, publicly, in front of mostly everyone at the camp. Neil must have been so embarrassed.
99. Ex, Lies and Rock and Roll
My ex, with whom I was still friends, started dating this girl who used to be one of my friends. I got over it fast but I did warn him about her. I knew enough of her character to be suspicious of the pairing, especially since they were going to be in a long-distance relationship. He didn’t listen to me, and after a year it turned out that she was jealous, manipulative, obsessive.
Near the end of the relationship, she was even cheating on him. That was easily the most satisfying “I told you so” I’ve ever said.
Pexels
100. Food Fight
A girl used to tease me and my brother in elementary and middle school. I HATED her. Well, a lot of time has passed and I now co-own a fairly successful, up-and-coming restaurant. About this time last year, this same girl comes into my place after about ten years of not seeing each other. She recognizes me and strikes up a friendly conversation.
It seemed she had forgotten all about the torment, but I hadn't. She then tells me that she has fallen on hard times and needs a job. My response was a firm NOPE! In retrospect though, I should have hired her and made her life a living nightmare. But whatever, seeing her face when I said no was incredible. That's what you get for spreading nasty rumors about me!
101. Room Service
Back when I was in college, I routinely took more than a full course load and was in math and science classes or study groups every morning. One day, I came back to my dorm room early after a canceled class. I walked in to see a horrifying sight. My roommate and my boyfriend were in bed together, right in the middle of doing the deed. Even worse? They'd been doing it the whole year.
I moved out. I was more angry at her than I was heartbroken. I also lost most of my friends through the breakup, and they stuck together for a good while. Fast forward five years later. Those two throw a crazy expensive engagement party at the guy's parents' beach house, which was attended by some still-mutual friends who told me everything that went on that night.
At the party, she caught him sleeping with one of the waitresses from the catering company in a bathroom. They still got married. I feel a little bad for her despite the karma balance. She feels like she can't do better than being with a cheater.
Unsplash
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