There are bad customers, and then there are Karens. The moment you hear someone ask to "speak to the manager," you know you're in for a show. Here are some of the most outrageous stories of Karens causing chaos:
1. Keep It Together, People!
My wife and I were waiting for a flight home from Vegas. It was around 3 pm and our flight was overbooked. We were hanging out at the bar right next to our gate, still getting our drinks while we waited. We then began to hear this horrendously loud argument happening at the counter. It turns out this couple—both in their mid-50s—were throwing a raging tantrum over not sitting together.
They had booked their flights on Expedia together, but the airline had moved their seats because the flight was so full. They were offered the next flight, but they continued to scream and moan. This went on for about five minutes. You could see this poor 18-year-old-girl behind the counter was just starting to break down. She needed help immediately.
Out of nowhere, my wife proceeded to get up, walk over to the counter, and just said straight to the poor girl, ignoring the couple, "They can have my seat and my husband's seat together if they promise to shut up and leave you alone. We'll wait for the next flight". The couple was shocked. They just stared at her and started giving her the stink eye, but they stayed silent.
We then proceeded to exchange our tickets and got our seats for the next flight. However, the flight was overbooked, so we received vouchers for two free round-trip tickets to anywhere the airline flew because we had volunteered our seats on an overbooked flight. We ended up using them for flights to go to Hawaii later that year. And the next flight was only 30 minutes later.
2. Facebook Is Karen’s Kingdom
One of my cousins is married to a Karen. He lives at the office day and night just to hide from her. We also suspect he’s not faithful from time to time. She was a very slow hatching Karen, so he was basically trapped on a ship with a “xenomorph” and didn’t know it. Once they tied the knot and baby number one arrived, she took her ultimate Karen form.
I won’t go out to eat with them, because she will complain about everything the whole time. Facebook is her kingdom, and the other Karens reinforce these terrible behaviors by liking all of her posts. Her favorite activity is complaining about how hard it is being a full-time mom—even though her kids are in school and she has a housekeeper.
3. Is The Cup Half Empty, Or Half Full?
I was once a witness to a silent owning that I still get giddy just thinking of. A buddy of mine was serving a table and the kid at the table was around eight or maybe ten years old. He gives her an adult glass for her apple juice. The dad pipes up and says he doesn’t want her to have all that sugar, so he needed to take it away and come back with a kid-sized one.
My friend replied that the glasses are all the same size, the adult size just looks bigger because they have thick bottoms. The dad responds that “the adult glass is clearly bigger and LIKE I SAID I don’t want her to have all that sugar.” My buddy is a jerk. He gives a super deliberate exaggerated nod, says nothing, and marches to our little service alley behind the bar.
That’s when he put his plan into motion. A few moments later, he re-emerges with a kids’ cup, sets it down beside the glass, picks up the glass, and pours the adult glass into the new one, lifting it progressively higher and higher until the last drop drips down into the glass, perfectly fitting into the kid-sized cup. He then darts the heck off to the kitchen without even looking at the guy, like he didn’t even exist. I exploded with laughter.
4. The Sounds Of Silence
My wife and I were at the movies. A group of loud and annoying teenagers sat next to us. They were talking to each other and commenting on every single line in the film. I let it fly for the first twenty minutes, thinking they would eventually shut up and actually watch the movie. When I realized they wouldn't stop, I made my move. I gently poked the arm of the girl who was the closest to me.
I calmly but firmly told her, "Would you please tell your friends to SHUT UP. Thank you". She nodded and said, "Yes, sir". They didn't utter a word for the rest of the movie.
5. “Karenasaurus” Rex
I was married to a Karen. She was very nasty and could not lose an argument. She was physically and mentally abusive. But the worst thing she would do is, if she had the idea that I might walk out on, she would physically corner me and scream in my face for over an hour. She'd try to egg me into touching her so she could "Call 9-1-1 on me for assault."
She rear-ended someone in her Geo Tracker—the poor woman's Karenmobile. The accident only shattered her grille. I went to a few Pick ’n Pulls to see if I could find a new grille. There were No Geo Tracker grilles, but I found a Chevy Tracker grille. I bought it—but I had to have permission to spend a dime, so I told her I got a Tracker grille.
Unfortunately, she saw the grille before I had a chance to de-badge it and put it on her Tracker with the Geo logo. That resulted in two weeks of torment from her. I told her I'd take it back and get a Geo Tracker one...and I did take it back...but I still had my devious plan in mind. I went and found the badge I’d seen the other day (that wasn't sun-faded like hers), stuck it on the Chevy Tracker grille, and installed it.
She had no clue about my deception. She did, however, go on for days about how stupid I was to buy a Chevy grille, which was obviously not the same vehicle, and how she had to wait a whole extra day to be able to drive it to work. She also went on to complain that I should have used the original badge so it wasn't obvious, even though that's what I did.
It was also my fault she rear-ended the guy. My fault her brakes weren’t good. My fault that she drove the faster route I found to her work. My fault that she still worked there. My fault I didn't force her to move to San Diego. My fault I didn't make her a new child. All my fault. When she couldn't win a fight, the past would win it for her.
If that wouldn't win, she would get straight abusive until I would submit. After I left her—which was the second largest battle and longer story—I found out that she cheated on me with every male employee she worked with on "business trips." And yes, it was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario. All the way up to the wedding, she was outwardly a great person. The wedding changed her into Karenasaurus Rex.
6. Staying Hydrated
Table of 10, Sunday brunch, fancy restaurant, I'm hungover. A crowd swarms in at the opening and my whole section is filled at once. I'm efficient and cool. I'm used to this. I get to the big table and preface that water is being brought as we speak. I then begin taking everyone's drink orders. As I'm taking orders around the table, one woman blurts out that she wants water.
She then starts screaming not to forget the water, interrupting her friends and family as they make their meal requests. I acknowledge her each time until after the fourth time. That’s when I lost it. I told her: 'If you ask for water again, I'll make sure everyone here gets water but you.” She sinks back in her chair looking dumbfounded. I go put in the order, then head to the bar.
7. A Day At The Zoo
My wife and I were enjoying a great walk around the Omaha Zoo. We went into the primate area and we started checking out the monkeys, apes, etc. This one small enclosure had a climbing rope inside with a baby primate crawling around on the rope. A small girl edged closer to the glass to get a better look. Just as she did, this woman stepped up right in this other lady's face and started chewing her out.
She very loudly said, "Ma'am, your daughter is extremely rude. She just pushed my son out of the way, stood right in front of him, and blocked his sight. You need to learn how to control your children". The lady being chewed out was speechless. And the thing is, that wasn’t even the worst of what happened. Before the woman could even respond, I turned to face the accuser and just as loudly said, "No, you are the one being rude.
“I was standing right there, and the only thing that her daughter did was take a step closer to the glass. The area is crowded; everyone is just trying to see better. She never pushed your son out of the way, and his sight was not blocked. You're the one setting a terrible example. You need to learn how to behave in public because of this little display of unprovoked anger isn't it". Then, my wife and I just turned and walked off.
Every now and then, one of us will turn to the other and say, "I can't believe how rude that lady at the Omaha Zoo was"!
8. Karenism Explained
My girlfriend desperately wanted to be a Karen when we were younger until she started losing all of her friends. Then she started losing all of my friends, and we discussed in a healthy manner how unhealthy and unattractive rudeness is. But the worst part is, in her head, it was because that’s how she needed to act in order to ever feel like she's being heard.
So, I made a point to be more aware and she made a point to be less rude. Now, disagreements are normally thought out. Our big problem has always been that I react by calculating and thinking things out, and she reacts by whatever the most powerful emotion she’s feeling tells her to do. We both have worked on that.
The problem is soft-spoken women are almost always walked on, especially in scenarios where they aren't satisfied: you can almost hear the New York deli guy going "Listen, lady..." (cringe). So you start Karen-ing and it gets immediate results.
9. It Was The Same Old Story
Almost every year as an English teacher, no matter what book or theme I go with, I have at least one nutjob parent who thinks it is inappropriate for some reason or another. I had just finished teaching a unit on the Holocaust. I was not one to coddle students, so we went to the museum, saw a lot of documentaries, and read books and accounts that didn't really hide or sugar-coat anything.
I was proud of how they handled it. Next, I started a unit on The Hunger Games. Parents tended to be afraid of any contemporary literature, so I sent home a note explaining the book and my justifications for teaching it over Christmas break. I asked the parents to contact me immediately if there were any issues. I didn’t hear anything back, so in February, I started the unit.
A week or so into it, I had a parent come and say that he thought the book was too violent for his sons, both of who were in my classes. I said, "Ok, well, we just learned about the Holocaust, which was much more violent". Then he said, "Well, that's OK because it really happened". The funny thing was that I saw one of his sons with the sequels during independent reading time later in the year.
10. Polite Request From Karen
My mom is a Karen. Literally, her name is Karen. But she is like a complete angel. So selfless, so loving, and so pure. I have never met anyone who has the heart she does. I swear I think she is just an angel god placed on this earth. Anyway, she is pretty upset about this “Karen” thing going on. She doesn’t understand why people are attacking her.
She thinks she’s been nice to everyone, and she has. She’s truly amazing. But she doesn’t understand why this is a thing. She would like to kindly request that we change “Karen” to “Susan” and I agree. She doesn’t deserve a meme about her. Her heart is too pure.
11. Pumped Up
We lived in southeast DC which wasn’t always the safest area. My wife and neighbor were sitting on the front porch when there was an altercation at the gas station across the street. Two men had tried to pull up to the same pump at the same time. They both got out. One was in his 70s and the other in his late 20s. The younger man looked like he spent a lot of time at the gym.
The men started shouting at each other, and at one point, the younger man did the most shocking thing—he pushed the older man onto the hood of his car. Our neighbor was a quiet woman who worked with the deaf community and was probably 5'10" and 130 lbs. When she saw the push, she ran across the street and got in the younger guy's face. She yelled at him, saying, "What is the matter with you? You're much bigger than him!
“You didn't have to push him! I have two young boys at home and is this the sort of behavior I should expect when they're older? What is wrong with you"? The guy apologized to her, saying that his mother would be ashamed. He said he'd just had a bad day and that he overreacted. My neighbor told him that he didn't have to apologize to her.
He apologized to the older guy and drove away, presumably too embarrassed to get gas in front of the people who had just witnessed what had happened.
12. She Couldn’t Take The High Road
When I was a teenager, my Karen mom picked up my two best friends and me from the mall. While driving us home, someone cut her off when she was trying to change lanes. She went into total road rage and started screaming at the other car. Words were coming out of her mouth that would make a sailor blush. She swerved the station wagon so hard it banged into the yellow concrete dividers.
The tires scraped the sides and almost went over them. None of us said a word on the way to my house. We didn't know whether to laugh or be scared, so we kept silent. The next day my dad was about to get in the car to go somewhere, and he noticed the tires on the one side were yellow. He asked, “Hey, who painted the tires yellow”? I didn't want to squeal on my mom, so I said, “Boy, that's weird. Heck if I know”.
13. Gloves Come Off
My aunt is a Karen. She is exactly what a Karen is portrayed as. Everyone hates her. At a recent family reunion, my mom had had enough of my aunt apparently, and got into a huge argument with her—I can’t remember what it was about. I went to try and break it up, and as soon as I got to them, my mom delivered the final blow: “You’re such a despicable person,” she said, before decking her.
My mom walked away and I stood there trying not to laugh. My aunt started crying.
14. Quite The Ride
A small group of friends and I decided to go to the state fair. There were about four or five of us. One of my friends wanted to go on one of the faster, more intense rides, and everyone else backed down. This was a ride where single riders weren't allowed, so I told him I'd go with him. He was new to the city and had heard things about this ride from other people, so he really wanted to go on it.
There was a good 40- to 50-minute wait. While waiting in the long line, a group of teenagers decided they would ruin everyone's day—they basically snuck past everyone, cut in line, and merge in with their friends. I looked behind me and saw people whispering and looking a bit angry. I’m 6’4” and somewhat muscular, but I usually don't like to use my size to my advantage, and I certainly don't like to use it to intimidate people.
I poked my head out of the line at the teenagers who cut in front of us and said nicely, "Hey, do you guys think you can go to the back of the line? Everyone back here has been waiting for at least half an hour". One of them looked back at me—getting smart—and said, "Deal with it". I told him again, a little more sternly, "Just get to the back of the line, alright? People are getting mad at you for thinking you can do whatever you want".
This time he thought it would be cute to come back to me and get in my face to try to make me back down. At that point, he was clearly getting angry and told me, "Tell me one more time, and I'll knock you out”. I told him again to get to the back of the line. He laughed, then he went for a punch, but that was a BIG mistake on his part. I grabbed his fist, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and threw him to the ground, lifting him off his feet.
Without thinking, I just took off my shirt in a blind rage and self-defense and told him, "Get your spoiled behind to the back of the line and quit acting like a pretentious little weasel before you regret it". His friends signaled for him to come back to them since they figured out I wouldn't be an easy pushover. I wore glasses, so my guess was that they assumed I couldn't put up a fight. They left the line, and it felt good.
15. No Time For A Dip
I went to a hotel one night for dinner. The hotel had a pool that was clearly only for hotel guests, as was indicated by the dozens of signs surrounding the area. Did this stop my mother? Absolutely not. My mother told my little brother and me that we were allowed to use the pool and even had us wear our bathing suits under our clothing so we could easily get changed after dinner. However, they had employees monitoring its use.
After we jumped into the water, security calmly walked over and asked to see our hotel room keys. Since we weren't staying there and didn't have room keys, we were politely asked to leave. My mother refused and insisted we were within our rights because we ate dinner there. A screaming match ensued, and there were hundreds of people staring at us.
Finally, the head of security had to escort us off the property before the authorities were called.
16. A Coven of Karens
I’m surrounded by Karens. They’re everywhere. First off, my father is the biggest Karen of them all. He's just insufferable out in public if everything isn't his way. He refuses to wait in any line that is more than 30 seconds of wait time. Absolutely everything has to be his way or the highway....these are his words, not mine.
My mother-in-law is also a full-blown Karen. Just the worst. She makes everything about her. Everything. If it's not, she will make a scene or a fuss and turn all the attention on her. How she reacts afterward boils my blood—without fail, she'll play the victim. It's nuts. My wife is a Karen in training. Her shyness keeps her from being a full-blown Karen, but behind closed doors, everything is gaslighting and my fault.
17. Those Mean Girls Got Shut Down
I worked a lot with the special needs students at my school and I have worked with people who have disabilities my entire life. One day when I was about 13, I came into one of my classes to find one of my fellow students with Down syndrome huddled on the floor with a bunch of girls standing around him, pointing and jeering. I immediately dropped to my knees to talk to him.
I found out that he’d had an accident, and the girls were making fun of him for it. He was crying and shaking. I soothed him, managed to get him to stand up, and got one of the other students to take him to the special needs classroom. I then turned to these girls I barely knew, looked every one of them in the eye, and proceeded to rip into them verbally.
They got such an earful that they were all blushing and hanging their heads by the end of it. I even made one girl cry. I didn't have many friends in middle school, but I eventually blossomed in high school. I remembered every single one of those girls. The looks I gave them when they tried to talk to me reminded them every time about what heartless little meanies they were. I still get mad about it.
18. In The Heat Of The Night
At the store where I work, we have sweet biscuits with icing on top. Every weekend, this lady comes in and wants them fresh, with extra icing. But every time, something is apparently wrong with them. Her main complaint is them being “too cold,” which is usually probably due to the extra icing being added on top of it. We have told this to her repeatedly.
Well, this last time she came in, we gave her the biscuit, fresh out the oven, loaded it down with icing, and she still says it’s cold. The manager tells her the only way to get it any hotter would be to melt the icing in the microwave, which we refuse to do. The lady has a conniption, demanding to know why. My manager, God love her, says “Because sugar is hotter than the seven sons of the underworld when it’s heated up like that, and no matter how much you deserve it, I’ll be darned if I give you an excuse to have a lawsuit against us.”
19. Karen, Meet Kevin
Karens tend to marry Kevins. Kevins drive trucks even though they work in offices. They think the check-out ladies are flirting with them, and start fights over parking spaces. They're the jerks that rush to overtake you and then slow down. They flirt with the waitress while their wives are in the bathroom, but only tip ten percent.
Kevins have “conceal carry” permits for their pistols, but let everyone know they conceal carry, by showing them off every chance they get—with trigger discipline. They also think calling Black people “urban youth” means they're not prejudiced, and they like to unironically wear T-shirts that threaten their daughter’s dates.
They let random law enforcement officers know that they pay their wages, every chance they get. But their darkest tendency is that sometimes they hit their wives, and they certainly hit their kids. It's easier than talking to them.
20. Bus-ted!
I was on the city bus in Ann Arbor, MI. There was a very old couple that I would sometimes see getting off at the hospital’s cancer center. On one particular day, the woman got out of her seat 30 seconds too soon before the bus stopped and quickly lost her balance. She fell over onto a man who was roughly 55 years old.
He looked at her with utter disgust and pushed her off of him. She then fell to the ground. Some nice young men helped her up. She was obviously shaken up and off-balance. She then fell on the man again. He shouted out, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU DUMB WOMAN"! She seemed very disoriented and confused at that point, and her husband didn’t appear to see what was really going down.
The man got out of his seat and loomed over her in a threatening manner. He yelled, "I HAVE A BAD BACK AND YOU COULD HAVE HURT ME. GET OUT OF HERE". But here's the thing—this man was maybe 6'1'' and 200 lbs, and the old woman appeared to be in her late 80s and no more than 100 lbs. I couldn't believe what was happening. The bus driver stopped the bus out of confusion. I jumped up and told the man to get off the bus.
I said that I would call the authorities and that he had no business being on public transportation. He moved towards me. At the time, I was a 21-year-old female who was not too physically imposing. I looked him in the eye and told him to get out of my face. The bus driver finally saw what was happening and ordered the guy off the bus. I never saw the guy again on the bus, and some hot guy gave me his number when I got off. Score!
Shutterstock Bus
21. I Went Karen Over A Hot Cake Craving
I had a Karen moment a few years ago. My poor boyfriend and my stepdaughter had to deal with my anger during the ordeal. We were going camping for the long weekend, and we got up early to head out. My boyfriend asked if I wanted to grab breakfast before we hit the road. I said, “No, I will be OK until we get to a town an hour away, and I will get hotcakes from McDonald’s".
We rushed to get to McDonald’s in the town because it was 10:45 AM and breakfast was done at 11. I had a one-track mind, and all I was craving were their hot cakes. That was all I wanted to eat. When I got inside the restaurant, there were ten people ahead of me. So, I asked an employee if they were still serving breakfast. I got a yes from them, so all was good.
I would get my pancakes. I was three people away from the cashier, and the breakfast sign flipped to the regular menu. They announced breakfast was OVER! I just lost it! I freaked out and yelled—at no one in particular—for wasting my time in line and stormed out. I went outside, flipped out on my boyfriend, and pouted in complete anger for the next hour and a half in the vehicle.
It was NOT A PROUD moment, and I was completely embarrassed. I was still mad when we got to our destination and angrily cooked lunch after we unpacked our trailer. I am pretty sure my stepdaughter would have cried from embarrassment if she had come in with me inside the restaurant.
22. Revenge Of The Nerds
I was on the train from Stratford-upon-Avon to Birmingham with a lot of college students. I was seated between two groups. I guess you'd say the "popular" kids and a group of "nerds". You could tell mostly because my friend and I could hear the rude twitters behind us, and I got smacked with a chip they were throwing at a girl across the way. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
One girl, who was quite large, got up to go to the restroom. I was already annoyed with what was going on but I had not said anything until the moment when the "pretty" girl put her legs up and refused to let the girl go. At first, the first girl took it in stride and made a joke about it, but the other girl just taunted her before finally letting her pass.
It didn't stop there. As the first girl walked away, the group with the second girl made oinking sounds. When she came back, this girl pulled the same thing, so I turned around, looked at her, and said, "You're so cool". She put her legs down, looked at the ground, and the other girl walked by. I turned to my friend and said loud enough so the whole group could hear, "It's such a cool thing to taunt and make fun of other people.
“Because obviously, you're so much better than the person you're making fun of if you stop to tease them. Yeah, it shows them you don't care about them". I paused, turned to the girl who was now blushing, and said, "No, actually, it shows people that you care more about them than they do about you. Grow up. Be nice". She didn't say a word for the rest of the train ride.
23. Driven Out
My dad once got banned from the Ford dealership, which was the only place where his car insurance covered the three-year late oil change that he needed. Why? Well, for the dumbest reason imaginable. They had a vending machine that sold Arizona tea for $1.25 while the can said 99¢. He didn't even buy it or want to. He was just screaming at the front desk people because there was a discrepancy.
The vending machine wasn't owned by Ford, and they were most certainly not in control of the prices. I have no idea what he hoped to gain out of that ordeal.
24. Supermarket Hog
Whenever I see anyone litter or act in an incredibly rude manner, I tell them off. One day, I was at the supermarket, and there was a woman who had about three items on her belt, talking away on her phone. When a little old lady went over to put her stuff on the belt, the woman on the phone said, "What are you doing? This is my space. I'm just waiting for my husband to come with the rest of our stuff".
That got me cross enough as it was, but then her husband strolled up with a cart that was almost over-flowing with stuff, and I just couldn't hold my tongue. This woman had been hogging space on the belt and telling her husband what to get over the phone! I was in the next line over, but I told her that she and her husband could go to the back of the long line they were causing. They did not like that one bit.
They called the manager and I explained how vile and selfish they had been. To his credit, the manager told me I was right. He sent the people to the back and comped the old lady’s groceries to apologize for her inconvenience.
25. Mega Burger Mayhem
My mom was totally a Karen. One day, we were at a fast-food restaurant, and I asked for my mega burger without bacon. I'm not allergic or anything like that; I just don't like it on burgers. My mom turned into a monster. She actually asked for the fryer to be heavily sanitized, and when they said no, she stormed into the back and tore the place apart.
26. Do I Have To Paint A Picture? Your Kid’s Rude!
Some kid was in a restaurant where my mom and I were trying to have a quiet lunch. This kid started to throw crayons at my mom, literally from the next table. The kid's mom was too busy talking on her phone to care. I tried glaring, but she couldn't care less. In the end, I walked up to her to confront her, and she actually gave me the "one-minute finger".
That was it. I picked up all the crayons that were on the floor, on the table, and from in front of the kid, dumped them on her lap, and sat back down. I think she was so shocked, she just left. The manager of the restaurant gave us a free meal. Apparently, that particular woman was known for just letting her kid run wild.
27. Well-Done
I was a server at Applebee’s. One Friday night, just after the happy hour had started, I had one table come in—a father and daughter. Things took a bad turn real quick. I got their drinks, brought them to the table, and began to take their orders. The father ordered our Southwest steak salad—which only comes medium rare and is clearly stated on the menu—and the daughter ordered the same thing.
The daughter, however, asked if she could get the steak medium-well. I informed her that it was the restaurant's policy that it only came medium-rare but that I would talk to my manager to see if I could make it happen. She said, "No, that's alright. I'm good with medium-rare". Her father then told her to shut up and began to ream me on how all of our food is pre-cooked.
He said that it's ridiculous that we couldn't further cook the steak on that salad. I took it like a champ, apologized, and told him that I would speak with a manager right away and make sure we got the steak done medium-well. I left and talked to the manager, who gave me the "okay" to get that steak cooked medium-well.
When I came back to the table to deliver the good news, I couldn't believe my eyes. The father was now face-to-face with a gentleman—a regular—from the table I was serving directly behind them. They looked like they were going to come to blows. I ran over and tried to diffuse the situation, as it was not something we wanted happening right in the middle of the busy restaurant.
Apparently, the gentleman who was a regular overheard how the father was speaking to his daughter and told him he needed to treat the two of us better and with more respect. The father then got upset at this statement, fired something back at him, and the two stood up to exchange words and undoubtedly fists. The situation escalated quickly.
I tried to offer to move their tables and let them know that we couldn't have them acting this way in the restaurant. Nothing worked. I ran to grab my manager. When we returned, the two were brawling on the floor. We broke them up, had to kick them both out, and I then had to finish the last three hours of my closing shift feeling rattled and out of it.
28. I Had This One In The Bag
I was pulling weeds from the outside of my fence on the sidewalk. I had a big paper lawn bag next to me, and I was almost done with the whole yard. This guy came walking down the street, opened a package of smokes, and dropped the cellophane wrapper on the ground in front of my house. I lost my marbles. I yelled at the guy, "Hey, I might be pulling weeds, but I'm not cleaning for you. I'm trying to make my house look nice".
So, he came back, picked up the wrapper, and put it in the lawn bag.
29. Lunchtime Loser
I was seven months pregnant and working at McDonald’s. Some customers would ask for orders to be brought to their table, which was fine. Some people are slightly disabled or have big orders and would rather watch their kids than wait for their food. I was carrying a big tray of food. That, along with my belly, meant I couldn't see my feet.
There was a small stool in the middle of the floor that I didn't see. I tripped and fell and partially landed on my belly. As I slowly got up in shock, my colleagues ran to make sure I was okay. However, the customer had a more disturbing reaction—she stood over me and berated me for dropping her lunch and insisted I personally pay for a replacement.
30. Dis-concert-ing Behavior
I was at an Atmosphere concert with my girlfriend and best friend having the time of our lives. I drank a large quantity of booze at the many venue bars we'd gone to and I had gotten myself to the holy grail of sloshed. I was charming, funny, making friends—all the good stuff. It was perfect. Something made me look away, but when I turned back to the stage, I saw my girlfriend getting shoved by some dimwit.
It started small. He was trying to push his way to the front of the stage well after the concert began, and we had all gotten our good spots by waiting. When he tried to push her out of his way, she pushed back and held him back like a tough chick. That angered him, and he just started shoving her as hard as he could over and over.
What happened next will forever be etched into my brain. I reached up above the crowd and brought my fist down like a meteor scolding the heck out of his face. All he could do was stare blankly at me. Two beats later—as if it were planned—a dozen arms were wrapped around him and he was removed from the crowd. The other concertgoers and security saw the whole thing go down.
They promptly took him out. Even the people he was with disowned him and gave me handshakes. However, his girlfriend later threw a drink at me from the edge screaming, "YOU BROKE MY BOYFRIEND'S NOSE"! It was the best concert of my life.
31. Garlic Lovers Surprise
Every so often, this woman and her sister would come into the pizza place I worked at. They always started off the phone call with how much they loved our food, how fantastic the service was, etc., then would say that we also never put enough garlic on the crust. There were five minutes of buildup just to tell us she wanted extra garlic.
I told her we would make sure to put extra garlic on the crust. They came in, got their food, and left. Five minutes later, they were back. She started grilling me on how there was almost no garlic on the pizza. I took a look at it, and there was considerably more garlic than average on that cheese disc. Not only did she get a free pizza, but she kept the one she complained about!
This happened a few more times, each time with more and more garlic. She got about three free pizzas total. I remembered the name that came up whenever they ordered, so a month later, when they called, and I saw her name come up, I prepared myself. I took their order, went through the garlic spiel, and ended the call. My manager and I were both fed up with her by that time.
The garlic bottle needed to be refilled, but it still had enough garlic for about six pizzas. My manager said, "Hey, watch this", and his next move made me gasp. He dumped the garlic on the entire pizza, not just the crust. It was an apocalypse of garlic. Lakes were forming on the pizza's cheese, and the crust was stained a bright, sickening yellow-orange.
It soaked through the box and stained the table underneath it. It was truly an unhealthy amount of garlic for anyone. Had I seen it without context, I would likely advise not eating it. The woman showed up, opened up the box, and seemed satisfied. She paid for her order and left. I was dumbfounded. I was seriously concerned about her well-being. She hasn't been back since.
32. I Tried To Put Her In Line
It was a Friday at around 6 pm, and I was in line at a supermarket. The lines were longer than normal. This entitled late-40s soccer mom was in front of me, tapping her foot and getting all sorts of agitated. We got up to the register and the woman started going off about how slow the line was and how ridiculous the wait had been.
The girl checking items through was young and obviously couldn’t say anything, so I stepped up to the plate. I said, "Lady, you need to CALM DOWN. You aren't the only one inconvenienced by long lines. Being nasty to this poor girl isn't going to make your groceries slide through any faster". Her jaw dropped as if everyone in her life just sat around, taking her verbal garbage wherever she went.
She shut up and continued through, glaring at me as she left. I sat back, looking satisfied with an “I don’t care” look. The female clerk smiled and said she couldn't have ever done that. A week later, I saw the clerk again, and she told me that the woman came back in, talked to her manager, and she got in trouble for not telling me that I was out of line for calling her out!
33. Old McDonald Had A Farm
My brother was a waiter and was working with a really difficult woman. She ordered the salmon and asked when it got to her table if it was “farm-raised.” She got mad at him because he didn’t mention that the salmon was farm-raised when she was ordering, even though it clearly states that it is farm-raised on the menu. She ordered the chicken to replace the salmon, and my brother said “I have to warn you, it’s farm-raised”.
34. Told Off In A Tiny Space
I was on vacation with my parents. My dad had planned for us to have this amazing dinner at a fancy restaurant. The restaurant was literally on the first floor of a small or medium-sized house. Seeing as the place was so tiny, all the customers had to keep their voices down so as not to disturb everyone else. We sat down for dinner and were immediately overwhelmed by a man talking loudly at the table next to us.
Not only was he basically yelling, but he was saying very inappropriate and prejudiced comments. He obviously had too much to drink, but everyone at his table looked too scared to say anything to him. My family and I tried to have our dinner and ignore him, but it was becoming very difficult. My poor dad, who had planned this great dinner, looked so crestfallen.
Whenever someone upsets a family member of mine, I snap. And that's exactly what happened. I turned around and said very clearly and loudly, "Could you please keep your voice down. I can hardly hear anything besides your voice". The guy was speechless, probably because I was an 18-year-old girl telling him nicely to shut up in front of an entire restaurant.
35. Just A Coke And A Smile
A man came in alone. He looked to be in his late 50s or early 60s, and he gave me a bad impression from the get-go. He snapped at me to get my attention, and before I could speak, he said, "Coke. With a lemon wedge". We were a tiny little cafe without the funding for a machine or the attention for a sponsorship, so we didn't serve soda.
I told him that, and he said, "I don't think you heard me. I want a Coke with a lemon wedge". I was pretty confused because I made it pretty clear we didn't have Coke. It turned out he wanted me to walk next door, buy him a Coke, and then bring it in and serve it to him. I told him as politely as I could that this was absolutely not happening.
I was hoping that would be the end of it. His reaction made my jaw drop. He picked up the porcelain tea cups we put at each place setting and threw them on the ground, shattering them and cutting open my ankle just a bit. The whole cafe went very quiet. I just kind of stood there looking at the mess of broken china all over the place.
These were beautiful, rare cups that were impossible to replace, and I just didn't know what to do as an 18-year-old facing up against an aggressive older man. Fortunately, just a few seconds after the cups hit the floor, a man got up from his table across the cafe and walked over. He then reached into his back pocket and showed the man his badge.
He was an off-duty officer. The guy did not get his Coke with a lemon wedge or any food, but he did get taken into custody and administered a ticket for making threats and breaking public property. He didn’t let up, yelling, "I JUST WANTED A COKE! IF THIS LITTLE GIRL KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT SERVICE, I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO SET HER STRAIGHT".
36. Oh, That Holiday Spirit
I was flying home for the holidays. The guy in the seat behind me was very inebriated and very loud. He was clearly bothering everyone around him, but no one said anything. The flight attendants stopped serving him and half-heartedly shushed him, but it didn't work. He was sitting next to a teenage brother and sister duo.
He started waving his arms around and grabbing at the air. He smacked the back of my seat, and I turned around to see the sister shrinking as far back into her chair as she could to escape his flailing arms. She whispered to me, "Please say something". So all 5 feet and 4 inches of me stood up. I put some bass into my voice and said, "HEY! You need to be quiet".
He replied, "Huh? I just wanna get home and nobody will give me a drink". I said, "YOU just want to get home? That's all any of us want, and all we've heard all night is your darn mouth. You need to keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself and be quiet"! Luckily, it worked.
There was peaceful silence from him for the rest of the flight, and several people thanked me when we exited the plane. It was one of the prouder moments of my life and the only time I had ever done anything like that.
37. Thinking Inside The Box
For context, I’m a female in my twenties working at a fine dining restaurant. This older guy kept giving me trouble all night. Doing stuff like ordering crudités and then calling it rabbit food and sending it back. At the end of the meal, he says: “Where do I put this comment card?” Me: “See that black box over there? Right in there!”
Guy, thinking he’s being incredibly witty and funny, when he’s actually being a total doofus: “Did you just ask me to stuff your box?!” Me: “Nope, mine isn’t black, sir. Bye! I need to actually help people now.” His friends started cracking up and his face turned bright red. I don’t understand people who make inappropriate comments like that in public.
It made the entire meal uncomfortable for the rest of the evening, and his friends were clearly not impressed by the way he was treating me.
38. Big Time Loser In A Small Town
I was at this bar in a small town I had never been to. A trashed redneck was being inappropriate to a cute girl and making her very uncomfortable. I can't stand people who do that. No woman should have to listen to that garbage, and it also makes all men look worse. I'm a very passive, non-violent guy, but I'm 6'6" with a pretty solid build, so I guess I can be intimidating. I knew I had to do something.
I stood right in front of him and told him that he was way out of line. I also threatened that if he kept it up, there were going to be problems. We stared each other down for a couple of seconds, and he left the bar. Several people thanked me, and the bartender gave me a free drink.
39. Putting Your Foot In Your Mouth
My mom had a rule about no shoes in the house under any circumstances—but one day, it came back to bite her. My brother's friend had prosthetic legs, so he always had shoes on. He came over one day and my mom got really mad and confronted him, yelling: “Why do you think you're so special that you don’t have to take your shoes off in our house when everyone else does?”
He responded by lifting up his jeans and showing his Air Jordans resting in a pair of fake legs and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. If I take them off, I'll have to take my legs off, too". My mom offered a half-hearted apology and went upstairs. She never commented on it again.
40. They Got Served A Cup Of Courtesy
Years ago, I was at a Panera Bread around the holidays. It was a full-on shopping season, and the place was close to some shopping malls, so it was extremely busy. This older couple ordered coffee, and the lady behind the counter gave them a to-go cup, saying, "I'm sorry, we ran out of clean mugs, and the dishwasher is running now, but I didn't want to make you wait".
She was very polite, but the lady got mad and started screaming about bad service. She actually yelled, "I need a FOR-HERE cup, not a to-go cup"! The poor girl behind the counter kept apologizing and saying they would be done in a minute, but the woman just kept complaining. Meanwhile, another employee came up to take my order. I saw my chance to get extra petty then.
I ordered my drink and said as loud as I could, "And a to-go cup is FINE with me. Unlike some people, I understand the drink will taste the same"! The old lady freaked about how rude I was while I waited for my drink. The manager came out and gave me a free loaf of their holiday bread "for being so patient". The old people left, still angry.
41. Life Is A Box Of Chocolates
This conversation ended with a customer throwing a large bag of Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion potato chips at my head. It was a woman who came into the store looking to buy a box of chocolates. But there was one huge problem. She didn’t have any money. So this customer proposed that she take the chocolates now and come back later to pay when she had money.
“Do you expect me to go all the way home and bring back the money?” she asked. I said, “Yes, because other than that it’s called shoplifting and we will call security.” “But I need these,” she pleaded. I just said no. That’s when the chips started flying.
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42. He Was In Line For Some Embarrassment
I used to live in one of those "I live in a million-dollar house so I'm better than you" suburbs. It was the "poorest" of the surrounding towns, so the people there felt insecure and seemed to try to make up for it. I would make it a sport to counter any bad behavior. One day, there was a huge line at a coffee shop during lunchtime. They were taking orders and processing credit card payments on a mobile device to speed things up.
This guy had paid but was waiting for his drink. He said, “Wow, they can take your money fast enough; they just can't do their jobs fast enough. Ridiculous”. The employee gave me my drink and said, “I'm so sorry about the wait”. That's when I gave my epic reply.“Well, barring complete blindness or some mental disability, everyone here should know they'd be waiting, considering the size of the line”.
She started laughing uncontrollably and trying to hide her face. The other guy just glared at me, trying to intimidate me. I just responded to him, "What are you gonna do about it"? The server gave me a complimentary drink for the next time.
43. No Connection
A very grumpy high-society woman came to the store saying her brand new 3,000-dollar Microsoft surface bought by her husband was defective because she could not get internet when she was on the move. I quickly realized she was talking about Wi-Fi, so I tried explaining to her how Wi-Fi actually works. Boy, was that a mistake!
I told her that she could not use her Wi-Fi outside her house, but that she could share her smartphone internet connection. She would have none of it. She said I was lying to her and making fun of her. She even asked to speak to my manager, who then proceeded to tell her the exact same thing, almost to the word. She left screaming.
44. Priority Seating Is Just That
I was taking a packed train on my way to work. There was a group of college-aged people standing in the middle of the train, close to an old lady holding three or four bags of stuff. At one stop, a person who was sitting down in the elderly seating section got up. One of the obnoxious college girls sat down and continued to gab with her friends. I was not going to let that fly.
I looked at her and said, "Nope, get up". She gave me this look like, "How dare you talk like that to me", and didn't respond. I told her she should give her seat to the elderly woman, but she still did nothing. So, I loudly said that she was selfish and should be ashamed of herself. She then got up, and the old lady sat down and gave me an appreciative smile.
45. Thanks For Playing
Last week, it was a glorious night. A party of six comes in…headed by a Karen. This Karen wants two four-seater high-tops pushed together. Our host says she can’t do it because the restaurant was too busy. Karen looks her up and down and says, “Let me speak to the manager.” She’s calm, just insistent, and it’s obvious she’s played this card before.
So I roll up. “How can I help?” “Can we push those two tables together?” Nope, I say. “You can have that table that’s for six in the corner, you can have that booth for six after we clean it, or you can have that table for six outside after they get up—in about 10 minutes.” All the while, I’m pointing to each table like I’m showing them emergency exits on an airplane.
“You can’t push those tables togeth—” “No, we will not be moving the tables. You can have......” and I point out the tables again. “You know what I think? begins turning to her friend You know what I think?” both of them together “We go somewhere else?” But I had the absolutely perfect response to this. At this point, I clap my hands together.
Then I say, “Thank you and have a great night,” and immediately turn around and walk away. The best part? The Karen stares at the back of my head for a solid two seconds before she shuffled out. I didn’t realize this until I watched the video of the exchange.
46. I Couldn’t Look The Other Way
I was at a gas station. There was a line of about five of us. The kid ringing everyone up had gauged earrings. He was doing an awesome job, being super polite, etc. This old lady behind me said to the other, "This kid is so disgusting. I wish I didn't have to put up with people like that". My ears were gauged, but I had no plugs in, and I had a very large septum piercing, but I didn’t have it in.
For some reason, the ring was in my pocket. This old lady went on and on, making sure she was loud enough that the kid could hear her, and she was embarrassing him. I knew exactly what I was going to do in that situation. After he rang me up, I turned around and said, "I'm so sorry to eavesdrop, but I couldn't agree more. I hear some people put stuff like that through their eyebrows, lips, and even their noses."
She smiled with satisfaction. Then, I took out my nose ring, which looked very sharp, and said, “I wonder if it hurts”? I started pushing it through the hole very comfortably but was making screaming noises as if I was piercing it right then and there. There was this BIG dude behind her, and his eyes went huge. After pushing it through and letting out a sigh, I said to her, "It's not so bad after all.
“Honestly, I am glad to see this young man has a job at all in today’s economy, and the only thing I find offensive is your blatant disregard for other people's feelings and that perfume you are wearing that smells like a flower threw up. Oh well. Have a great day"! The look on her face was priceless. The kid was smiling for the first time since I had entered the store, and the big dude behind her smiled and gave me a thumbs-up as I left.
47. Sounds Wrong
My uncle is a deputy sheriff, and one time, he was at an airport speaking to my aunt over the phone in Spanish. Once he was done with his call, some nearby Karen who overheard him went up to him and started demanding to see his green card. Huge mistake. My uncle decided to mess with her and said he didn't know what a green card was.
He told her he had never even heard of it. She became more upset and kept demanding to see it. He messed with her more and then eventually went, "Well, I don't have a green card, but I have this," then brought out his wallet and showed her his badge. She immediately walked away while my uncle just kept laughing at her.
48. It Was A Targeted Move
I was at Target. There was a shopping cart in the middle of a parking space. I was alone, so I got out of my car and moved it into the corral directly across from the spot I was about to enter. Then came an inconsiderate Karen—she pulled around my car and parked in my spot, the one I had just moved the shopping cart out of.
I went up to the window and told them they were welcome for my moving the cart. They started sputtering and lying about not having seen me. So I put thumbtacks behind the wheels of her car and left.
49. Harpy 0, Karen 1
I work at a hospital as an ER nurse, which means when I start at 7 am, by 9 am all the patience I possess is gone, and by the end of my 12.5 hour shift I’m pretty much just done with people in general. So after a rather grueling shift, I stopped by the grocery store for dinner. I’m tired, and feeling super lazy at this point so even though I’m only grabbing a couple of things I use a regular cart—coz, you know, I can lean on it.
I do my shopping, pay for my goods and head out to my truck. Just to inform, no khakis were involved here. Store employees wear dark brown slacks, white collared shirts and ties. I was wearing an Incredibles scrub top—yes the animated movie, no you can’t judge me—and bright blue scrub pants. After loading my groceries, I, of course, return my wheeled crutch (ahem, shopping cart) to the corral.
I get back to my truck when a harpy with a resting witch face that would make Lois from Malcolm in the Middle proud screams across the lot. She yells, “Boy! I’m done you can take my cart now!” I’m like, “Huh?” I know I look young but, really? Boy? She continues, “Come over here and take my cart!” I say, “Yeah I don’t work here, sorry.”
She replies, “Just do your freaking job and take my cart!” I shoot back, “That’s gonna be a hard no from me, sorry.” I start (again) back towards my truck. The harpy, at this point, decides to thrust her cart towards me. It rolls (as carts with wheels are wont to do) and to me, it’s like a train wreck. I want to look away but I can’t. I’m mesmerized by the free range movement of this cart as it runs right into a Jaguar...a nice clean one...with dealer plaques still on where the license plates should be.
A woman who totally looks like a Karen (you know the type) is just getting out of it. The Karen obviously starts screaming and hollering, as only a Karen can. Harpy is trying to blame me for not running out to catch the cart. I’m trying very hard not to start laughing. I finally get back to my truck as Harpy is screaming at me to stop, because this is my fault because I should have collected her cart in the first place.
The last thing I heard before closing my door and driving off was the Karen screaming at Harpy about how, “He’s wearing scrubs! How could any idiot think he works here?” I think this was the first time I’ve ever rooted for a Karen.
50. That’s What Big Brothers Are For
When I was in the fifth grade, a lady grabbed my brother who was in the third grade by the neck. She picked him up and threw him three to four feet against the lockers. She was mad because he had pushed her child out of the way when her kid cut in line in front of him at the water fountain. I couldn't believe it. I just started going off on her.
I was calling her every name I could think of while following her out the door. I wasn’t using your standard fifth-grade insults. My dad was a Marine, and I was saying all the stuff I wasn’t supposed to have heard from him that I amassed over the years. I followed her and her kid out the front door and got to the circle where buses pulled in to pick up the kids.
Then, she turned around and came at me like she was trying to destroy me. There were no teachers around. They were all inside, trying to find out what was going on. It was just her and me, and I could see in her eyes that she was really going to hurt me. She grabbed me by the shoulders, picked me up, and shook me as hard as she could the whole time I was screaming.
Then I heard car breaks, and my mom football tackled her and beat the bejesus out of her. My mom had layers upon layers of that lady’s skin caked under her nails and bruised knuckles from punching her so hard. That night, I got ice cream for trying to protect my brother and was sent to bed early for saying the words I shouldn’t have.
51. Every Office Needs An Otis
A while back I was working in an office that allowed dogs. It was an open floor plan and since customers never came into the office, we kept the dog food and water bowls right by the front door, just because it was the most convenient space and no one else would see them but us who worked there. Of the six of us who worked in the main office area, I was the only one who didn’t have a dog and I always felt horribly left out.
To make matters worse, across the way was a doggie daycare. One day, a very frantic woman came in and she had an absolutely massive Basset Hound with her. Usually, the only people who came into the office were associates who had appointments with someone working there, but it was rare they brought their dogs. She ran up to me and said, “Do you work here?”
I said, “Yes, how can I help you?” And she said, “I wasn’t sure if you took walk ins but I read online I could just drop him off? I tried to call but no answer.” I didn’t know what she was talking about at that point and I said, “Come again? Who did you call exactly?” Thinking if I could just saddle her off to whoever she came to see, I wouldn’t have to decipher her problem.
She said, “Well it doesn’t matter now. Look, something urgent has come up and I really need to leave him here. Here’s his food he likes and I’ll be back in a few hours and—" At this point I wasn’t thinking of the doggie daycare. I thought maybe she was a friend of someone here. I said, “Well alright, can I get your name please?” And she said her name and then asked if I needed her to sign anything.
I was so confused at this point I just said, “Why would I need you to sign something?” And she left almost immediately. So I took Otis (the dog) to the back and showed him to my coworkers and no one knew the woman or dog. I was worried she wouldn’t come back, but at the same time, my wish for an office dog had been granted! And Otis was supremely chill.
All he did all day was lie around and drool onto his own ears. I just freshened him up every now and then, took him out every couple hours, and he was happy as a clam on a big cushy dog bed we thankfully had an extra of. He just loved attention from anywhere he could get it. At the end of the day the woman, thank God, came back. She said, “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver. How was he?”
I said, “He was a champ.” And was about to say “But why is he here” when she said, “That’s a relief. Most kennels say he gets anxious around other dogs. I heard you operated at a much higher capacity, I was thrilled to see you had so few clients in the room at one time. So, how much do I owe?” It honestly took me this long to realize what had happened.
She thought we were the dog daycare. Now, I probably should’ve corrected her. But I loved my day with the office dog and I did want to get paid for supervising this strange dog all day. I just threw out the number that sounded fair and appropriate “That’ll be $20.” I said. She replied “Reaalllly?!” In this very high tone, and I couldn’t tell if I’d overshot or undershot.
But she paid me and left. My coworkers were laughing hysterically when they realized what had happened and we thought it would just be a good story for the future. Wrong. The next week...she came back! She said we were so much more affordable and less overcrowded than her other place, and that she was happy to use us. I was glad for the company so just took him.
I didn’t think there was any way she couldn’t have at least some idea we weren’t a dog daycare. The whole ordeal was so strange I just figured, “don’t question a good thing.” I was much younger and dumber then. Not long after, Otis started getting dropped off two, sometimes even three or four days a week. I was in heaven. He was such a love. And he made fast friends with the delivery guys and visitors.
One day, we took our office Christmas card photo and Otis was over that day, so we included him. In a Santa hat. It was pretty great. But it turns out Otis’ owner was friends with one of our clients who I guess happened to have the card out on her table or was kind enough to display it alongside her other holiday cards. Because one day, Otis’ owner came in holding the card and walked up to me and said, “I can’t even believe I’m asking this but... is that my dog in this photo? This isn’t a dog daycare at all. This is just an office, isn’t it.” I froze in my tracks.
She said it with a note of surprise, as though she was looking around and putting it all together for the first time. No coincidence that this was the first time she wasn’t in some crazy rush either. She was like, “Then who are all these other dogs?!” And I explained. I was terrified she was going to demand her money back, or worse, take some sort of action against us for misrepresenting ourselves as a dog care business, or complain to corporate.
Instead, she basically said, “Why didn’t you ever say anything!” And I explained we just really liked having Otis around. She stopped for a minute and seemed to be thinking and said, “Is that right?” And I said yes and told the story of how I was the only one in the office without a dog so loved the company. She seemed a little flummoxed or hesitant, understandably, because the whole thing was so weird.
She turned to my coworker and asked if I was telling the whole truth. I don’t know why she thought my coworker, also a stranger to her, was any more trustworthy than me, but hey. Strange times. Coworker backed me up. So she said, “Well, I wish you’d said something sooner. Could’ve saved me a lot of embarrassment with my friend back there. Alright, I have to get going. See you at 4:00.” And she left Otis!
I couldn’t believe it! I said, “So he can stay?!” And she replied, “Where else could I find someone to watch him one on one all day for $20?” And off she went. Otis stayed my office dog until his family moved away, luckily right around the same time I took a new job.
52. Patience Wasn’t My Strongest Suit
I went to see the Wolverine movie in a very large theater. About halfway up the rows of seats, it had an aisle that cut across horizontally from one side of the theater to the other. Some idiot father was there with a toddler, and he let the kid run back and forth across the aisle, squealing the whole time. I put up with it for about 30 minutes.
Then, I finally had enough. I went down to the father and said, "Do you realize the entire movie theater can hear your child and that it's ruining the movie for the rest of us? Please make him be quiet". The father stared at me in complete shock, as if the concept had never crossed his mind. He immediately left with his kid. Several people around me said “thank you” as I sat back down.
53. I Couldn’t Skirt The Issue
I had a first grader's parent come in after the first day of school, obviously very upset. She told me that her daughter was touched inappropriately by a boy, and I didn't do anything to help. I informed her that I was not told of the incident until that moment. I got the details from the daughter. Apparently, the daughter was bent over to get a drink at the water fountain, felt a tug on her skirt, and turned around to see a boy letting go of it.
She didn't know the boy's name since it was only the first day. I told the mom that I would have her secretly point the boy out tomorrow and that I'll talk to him to get his side of the story. I thought that was enough for her—but I was so wrong. She said to me, "What do you mean his side? He's a perv. That's the story". I told her, "Ma'am, he's in first grade. There are lots of reasons a six-year-old might touch a skirt that are completely innocent.
“He could've been trying to figure out the material. He might've seen a bug. Until I know exactly why I can't assume he was doing something with the intention to do harm. Not at age six". She wasn't happy to hear that, but that was pretty much the end of it. The next day, the girl let me know which boy it was. I talked to him privately.
The girl was wearing leggings, and her skirt was polka dot. The leggings were striped. He was trying to figure out if it was one whole unit or if the leggings were separate from the skirt. I talked to him about appropriate touching and what to do if he was ever curious about a girl's outfit again, and that was the end of it.
54. She Took Matters Into Her Own Hands
I worked at a popular restaurant. During dinner service, we usually had 30-40 minute long wait times. People were told about this by the hosts. There was this lady who got fed up with the wait after 10 minutes. She stormed into the restaurant, stood next to a table of four people, and literally asked them, "Are you guys done? We've been waiting for a long time now and would like to have the table if you guys are just chatting".
55. Second Grade Struggle
There was a mom who was mad that we wouldn't let her son be in the class that he wanted to be in. Her son was in grade two, but for the first two or so months of the school year, he would go to the kindergarten classroom every day. We were not a big school, so there was only one grade two class. Developmentally there was no reason her son should’ve still been in the kindergarten class.
He just kept going there because he liked the toys better. But that’s not the worst part. When he was in there, he would make fun of the younger students because he was older and smarter than the rest of them. He would also hit them if they were “stupid”. When we told the mom what was going on and that we needed her to support this transition, she thought we were doing this just because we didn't want her son to be happy at school.
We finally got him to go to the correct class, but his troubling behavior—hitting, swearing, making messes, being purposefully distracting, disrespectful, and generally inappropriate—still continued. The mom's idea that we were picking on him and were being mean to him also still continued.
56. No Can Do
I once caught two men around 12 years old about to throw a Coke can at an old woman from across the street. I got in the way and yelled at them, saying, “Try it and see what happens". They stopped in their tracks and attempted to deny what they were about to do. Afterward, I felt terrible and thought maybe I had overreacted. I thought perhaps I could have used less threatening language toward two kids, but it was probably the only way I was going to get through to them.
The old lady was completely oblivious to the whole thing.
57. Things Got Pretty Heated
I had a parent complain that we unfairly sent her kid home after he was running a 101-degree fever and vomited right in the middle of the cafeteria. She really took it to an unhinged level. She insisted that every witness—in the whole cafeteria—was lying about the vomiting and insisted that the 101-degree fever was caused by her child wearing a sweater.
This mom was not called away from a job to pick up her sick child. She was a stay-at-home mom. She was literally at home when the school nurse called her home phone number.
58. Blonde Boomerang
I worked for a big chain grocery store as bagger and cart wrangler. There was this one overweight blond woman who would come in all time and cause chaos to no end. One example of her ridiculous and unnecessary nonsense included buying a 15-pound turkey and complaining that it tasted bad and wanting to return it.
She presented a platter with an empty carcass except for one piece of meat on one bone. Another time, she bought a $37 plant, did not water it, showed up a year and a half later with the plant dead as a doornail, and demanded a refund. Then she bought a grill, used 10 gallons of gasoline as fuel, caused an understandable fire/explosion, came back with receipt and charred grill, and demanded a refund. I could go on.
This would be a weekly, if not bi-weekly, happening. It got to the point where many cashiers would see her enter the store, turn off their light, and leave. Now, when I say she made a fuss, I'm not talking about your normal "I want to speak to your manager" type deal. Oh no, she went beyond that and went even further.
She would rant and rave, throw herself on the floor, roll around, throw things, call the authorities, which I witnessed and kept count at 87 times, and pull out her cell phone filming herself being "victimized" to report us to the media. She was eventually banned from the store after years of this. I heard stories that she began terrorizing our neighbor branch 7 blocks down the road.
59. Just Deserts
My neighbor has been harassing me for nearly five years, though he's been mostly quiet for a few months. Today, I heard screaming and saw several of his siblings and their mother storm out of his house while he screamed at them to get out. He allegedly threatened to shove his 80-year-old mother down the stairs and his sister called him a lunatic.
Why? Heh. He committed bank fraud. He forged their mother's signature on a loan for 50k and they just found out about it. While shamelessly listening, I found out he lives in the house for free, his mother pays his electric bill, he claimed her on his taxes without her knowledge and took her stimulus check. His sister kept saying she is calling the authorities and that they're going to sell the house.
I'm not holding my breath on anything but I love that he was so stupid as to do this. He's probably over there panicking and I truly hope that he is no longer a thorn in my side someday soon. I'll be on the lookout for an outburst coming my way, anytime he’s angry about something he winds up screaming at me while I'm outside. Hopefully he doesn't go completely nuts.
60. Can’t Keep Up
During an insanely busy weekend before Christmas, a Karen was complaining to every associate about how messy our store was. The manager had relieved the girl at the fitting room and was helping to hang up the clothes. Karen pulled her stunt and was trying to make a point that we were messy and a horrible place to shop.
The manager’s response was legendary. She told her, "Ma'am, we're messy at the moment because we're a popular store. And the biggest reason is because of women like you who can't be bothered to pick up after themselves. It's not the associates making the mess. Your type has us outnumbered." That’s when I witnessed someone deflate.
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61. She Got A Doggone Sweet Surprise
I used to clean a local gymnastics facility on the weekends. The owner would rent out the place for birthday parties, and one of the coaches was always present for them. One weekend, I saw a car pull up about an hour before the party was to start. I was finishing cleaning the lobby, and we had no power as our lights were being replaced.
This woman came in and headed upstairs. About ten seconds later, she came STORMING down the stairs, got in my face, and started yelling, "WHY is there no power?! I'm supposed to set up for this party. HOW am I supposed to do that WHEN I CAN'T SEE WHAT I'M DOING?!" I was a little stunned and told her that, per the owner's policy, she couldn’t be in the building until the coach arrived.
Her face went purple. She yelled, "HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN NOT DO! THE OWNER SAID I COULD BE HERE WHENEVER I WANTED. I WON'T TAKE THIS GARBAGE FROM SOME STUPID KID!" I said, "Fine, but your power won't be on for another 45 minutes. You might as well go wait in your car until the coach gets here".
She stomped off, tried to slam the door, and proceeded to try and call the owner. When the coach finally arrived, I told her what had happened and how she acted towards me. I also left a note for the owner and called her to inform her. I left the gym and went home for the night. The following day, I went in to get paid. The owner pulled me aside and told me I did everything right in that situation. Then I found out the whole story.
I found out that not only was that lady completely nasty to the coach as well, but that she didn't pay for the party, and she stayed a full hour longer than what was rented. Then, I got the best news possible. When the parents were all inside, her dog had gotten into the cake that was in her car and ate about half of it. Her reaction was deranged.
She then said, "Oh, we can still use it. We'll just cut around the parts the dog ate". 40 minutes later, she came running back into the gym, grabbed a bunch of paper towels, and returned to her car. Within the time that she brought the cake inside to the time she went back out, her dog had pooped and puked EVERYWHERE in her car—on the seats, floors, armrests, even the dashboard. This car was COVERED in poo and vomit.
62. Having Your Chocolate and Eating It Too
I worked at an independent chocolate shop that sold various flavors of truffles, brownies, and drinks. We also had non-dairy options, vegan options, and nut-free options available. A woman demanded to speak to the manager because we did not have a “dairy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, vegan” option. Luckily, the owner literally just laughed and said, “We do have one, it's called water". I have never seen such entitled rage in my life!
63. Nothing Personal
I was a property manager, and the owner was an absolute jerk. He was heartless and rude, and I loathed him. I hated going to the job every day, but I needed the money. I was applying daily to my dream company in hopes that eventually I’d get it. In the meantime, my supervisor would tell me to shut up when I complained.
If I mentioned anything to my supervisor, he’d tell me to shut up and to just get on with it because, “he was paying me too much to have opinions.” Three years after, we were a small office, and the receptionist and assistant managers had quit. My dream company finally hired me, and I happily put in my two-week notice.
In desperation, he offered more money, a higher position, and better benefits, which were laughable. When I said no, he asked why. I have never felt happier than that moment when I replied to him. I said, “I don’t know. I’m not paid to have opinions here.” That was a year ago, and even now, the look on his dumb old face gives me joy.
64. Sounds Wrong
My uncle is a deputy sheriff, and one time, he was at an airport speaking to my aunt over the phone in Spanish. Once he was done with his call, some nearby Karen who overheard him went up to him and started demanding to see his green card. Huge mistake. My uncle decided to mess with her and said he didn't know what a green card was.
He told her he had never even heard of it. She became more upset and kept demanding to see it. He messed with her more and then eventually went, "Well, I don't have a green card, but I have this," then brought out his wallet and showed her his badge. She immediately walked away while my uncle just kept laughing at her.
65. A Little Too Late
I worked at a poor school teaching kindergarten. It wasn’t unusual for students to enroll late. I don't know why, but that was just the way it was. School began in late August, and I had 14 students. My last student enrolled in mid-October, giving me a final count of 22. During week 8, a parent enrolled her daughter. She sent her teenage daughter to bring the student to my classroom while my class was on the carpet.
I got up, had my class play a game, greeted both of them, and specifically told the teenager, "Let your mom know that if she has any questions for me or would even like to come sit down and observe for a minute, she is more than welcome to. Just have her walk on in, and I'll talk to her in a break". I showed the girl where to put her stuff and had her sit down on the carpet.
I had given everyone assigned seats, and since my class was bigger, I had to find a random spot for her close to the back. I started teaching again when there was a knock on the door. I went to answer, and got an unexpected surprise. It was the new girl's mom—and she was livid. She said, "Why is my daughter in the back of the room"? I tried to use my professional voice and explain that this was not her permanent seat, that seating was based on the needs of the students, and that I would regularly change it.
She didn't want to hear any of it. She wanted me to move her to the front and promise that would be her permanent spot, which I refused to do. After an exchange that lasted way too long, I basically told her that I needed to return to my students and she could contact me later for a conference if she felt I wasn’t meeting her daughter's needs.
She stormed off, said something to the office that made no sense, and left. Later on, the assistant principal came by and asked what it was all about, and I told him exactly what was said. He replied, "What does she expect enrolling her kid late"?
66. You Are What You Eat
I’ve only been living in this apartment for about two months. The first time I ordered DoorDash late at night, the delivery driver let me know they gave the order to “my girlfriend”. Just one problem. This was a clear indication my food was taken. I live alone, while my neighbor and his girlfriend live together. So, yeah, I knew for sure that it was them.
The second time this happened was yesterday. It was my fault for falling asleep and never going to the door for my food. I had a feeling my neighbor took it again but had no proof. This morning, though, I found a box of what I ordered half-eaten and thrown on the ground of the parking lot. I’m of course angry because it’s a respect thing.
Like, who proudly takes from their neighbor? On one hand, I’m ready to simply ask them did they take it and explain all this, letting them know I don’t appreciate it. However, I don’t feel this conversation will even matter. Any neighbor who brazenly takes from you is a shady person with NO SHAME. Instead, I’m thinking of the perfect revenge plan.
I want to order delivery again, then add something to induce diarrhea—no real poison or anything—and put it out for them to take the bait. They need to be taught a lesson. I’m a single mom and live alone. It’s pitiful to think a family with TWO HEADS sees no shame in taking from me. Whatever I end up doing, my next move will be cold and calculated.
67. Check Out This Piece Of Work
This happened a couple of times over many years when I was a cashier. Every time, I would scan her 1,000 items and hit total, then she decides to start digging in her purse to find her checkbook. After a few minutes, she finds it, and then starts to slowly fill it out. Of course, a line has built and people looked like their life was slowly draining out of them. I felt it too.
I ran the check through the register (it scanned it or whatever) then put it in the bottom of the cash drawer. I hand her the receipt then she held her hand back out. I am not entirely sure why, because I wanted her to go, not give me a high five. She just went ahem at me and said "Where is my check"? I looked at her confused, "In the drawer, where I just put it after the transaction".
"I want my check back," she yelled. "Ma'am we have to keep the check in to deposit in the bank, in case there are any transaction errors". She was shaking her head no the entire time, "No, I have to get it back, otherwise somebody could steal my identity”. I tried to assure her that from the register we put it in the safe at night, then in the morning, and the armed guard takes it to the bank for deposit.
She would not accept it and said that if she could not get it back then she would return her purchase and get it back to buy things elsewhere. This must have been a power play for her, but she messed up. You see I was on my last week at that job. I asked for her receipt, which I got, pulled up her transaction, and hit void previous transaction.
I grabbed her check, the receipt, and the void receipt, then handed it to her, "There, I have voided the transaction and returned your check. Good luck at the next store”. I then started removing her items from the bags and making a stack beside me on the floor. She looked dumbfounded, jaw dropped. "NO, I purchased those, those are mine”.
I kindly, with the most customer service voice I could muster replied, "You told me that if you could not have your check back, you would buy things elsewhere, and I had already told you we were not able to give it back, so I voided your purchase and now you have your check back. " I looked at the next person in line, "I can help the next person".
That beautiful customer stepped forward, right next to the lady, and started a conversation about some cereal she bought. By that time the manager had come over, and the lady began yelling at him. He ended up ringing her items back up in the aisle next to mine and she paid by check but was again unable to keep the check. I could hear it all well, in fact, half the aisle was watching their show of an interaction.
The BEST part was when she was demanding her check back (again) he asked if she wanted him to void it out so she could go elsewhere. She nearly exploded, ripped the receipt out of his hand, threw the bags in her cart, and breaking things by the sound, and stormed out yelling. The cherry on top was that on her way out she turned back to yell more at us and ran into the door frame with her cart.
Laughter erupted from a few kids nearby. What a great day.
68. Taking A Bow
Several years back, I was working at a small beauty supply store in the southern part of the US. Among other things, we sold little clip-in hairpieces. A family of four had come in and the mom and dad were discussing products in the first aisle while the two little girls were running unsupervised through the store, being loud and making messes.
It was truck day, and I had been stocking shelves out of a shopping cart, referred to as a buggy by many people in that area. It was chock full to the brim. I had gone to the stock room and when I came back 30 seconds later, I saw one of the little girls pushing my cart around the corner of the opposite end of the aisle.
She was standing on her tiptoes and still could not see over the handle. I heard her say something to her mother and her mother told her, "Put that back where you found it". By that time, I had nearly caught up with the kid, who had turned the basket around. She pushed the cart up to me and said proudly, "Ma'am, are you lookin' for yer buggy?"
I replied, "You do not need to be messing with that". That's when the mom's Karen came out. She came roaring around the corner saying how I should not speak directly to her child and that if I had something to say, then I should say it to her. Never mind the fact that the kid had run into a shelf, slipped a bit on the tile floors, and almost turned the basket over on herself on the opposite side of the store from her mother's location.
I did not bother to argue about safety concerns and instead went back to stocking shelves. A little while later, the mother asked me to help her match the color of her hair to the hairpieces. I helped her pick one out, then heard her confirm to her husband that it was the one she wanted. I then went up to the register, while she rounded up her kids.
When she got to the checkout, the hairpiece that she put on the counter was a different one than what I had seen her discussing. I asked her about it and she indicated that the other one was more than she could afford, but she planned to come back for it. I rang her out and they left. The next day, I got to work and the opening clerk said, "I got one of your customers today".
I said, "Oh yeah?" I didn't get customer complaints often, but that particular week, I had someone else come in, while I was off, saying that I was rude. They had been unhappy that I had prevented them from shoplifting but they gave some other bogus reason to complain. When my coworker confirmed this, it was in a tone that made it clear I was in for a ride a bit later.
So, I asked, "Have you ever seen me be rude to a customer?" "No," she answered. "It always seems like you're sweet, but to hear them tell it, you're big and bad". About that time, the door opened, and in walked the hairpiece woman and her kids. It was about to go down. She started laying into me about how she had come to return the hairpiece that she got yesterday.
We did not take returns on hairpieces in the first place. However, she said that in the process of trying to return it with my co-worker, they had found a discrepancy between the item that she was trying to return and the one I had rang up. So, my coworker had asked her to come back during my shift so I could assist with the return.
This woman pulled the product that she wanted to return out and it was a different product than the one she purchased from me—in fact, it was the one that I had heard her tell her husband she wanted...and it was in a different product box. I told her as much, and she started screaming, saying that I better not be calling her a liar.
She also started making thinly veiled physical threats. In the meantime, one of her darling kids had come back around the sales counter where I was standing and she was trying to get my attention to get in on the action. I was ignoring the girl, but she kept tapping me on the hip. I whirled around and curtly said, "Don't touch me".
Then, remembering the scene from the day before, I snapped my head back to the mom and smiled sweetly. Through gritted teeth, but with the most upbeat voice, I said, "I am sorry, could you please tell your child not to touch me and remove her from behind the counter. It's not safe for her to be back here". She snarled, "That's better".
She barked a command at her kid, then made it clear that she would be back in an hour to continue her reign of terror. Shortly after she left, our store manager arrived unexpectedly early for the closing shift. We brought her up to speed on what had been going on. When the lady came back, I happened to be in the stock room.
My manager closed the stock room door and told me in the sternest voice ever: "Do NOT come out". I could only hear snippets through the door, so I don't know exactly what happened. I got the picture that we must have given her some money back as a one-time thing, probably because the other option was to refer to corporate, who would have given her money back.
But then I very clearly heard the woman's voice ring across the store, "Go get her and bring her out here. I am going to snatch her up and…" "You will not lay a hand on my employee," my manager emphatically interrupted. I did not hear any of the exchange after that, because I was so shocked at my sweet, proper manager's firm retort.
My coworker, apparently, was similarly surprised. The consensus among the employees after that was that we were pretty proud of how tough our manager could be if needed. They also decided that if I was being rude to a "customer," it was probably someone stealing.
69. Food Fight
I spent two awful years at an overpriced private Christian school in California. I’m not going to outright say the name of the company that caters to their cafeteria, but they are notoriously terrible. Important background: I have anaphylactic allergies and we are paying about 10k a year for our meal plans. A few months in, I realized I was getting sick from cross-contamination.
In one instance, they said on their menu app that they were serving fettuccine Alfredo for dinner and it didn’t contain any of my allergens. I grab what was advertised as fettuccine Alfredo. Turns out, they last minute switched to pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce (I’m allergic to mushrooms) but neglected to change the menu. After this incident, I tried to get out of the meal plan but the school refused, claiming that if I see something unsafe for food allergic people, to speak up.
My worst allergy, though, is sesame seeds. They would never change the cloth in the bread baskets between morning seedy bagels and dinner rolls. I politely ask a worker if they could change the cloth. The worker rolls her eyes and asks why. I say, “I’m allergic to sesame seeds and was told to speak up in order to make the cafeteria more accessible.” The woman rolls her eyes again and tells me my allergies aren’t her problem.
I ask to speak to the supervisor and she says the manager is out, and she is the floor lead. I tear into her, telling her that if I die due to her unwillingness to do her job she has at the very least a lawsuit. After this incident, my allergist emails my school, threatening a lawsuit if they don’t release me from my meal plan. They thankfully released me, but I felt like such a Karen.
70. Half-baked Notion
I work in a bakery in a grocery store, and we have plexiglass in front of us and in front of our artisan bread for obvious reasons...Or maybe, not-so-obvious reasons to some people. Today, I had a lady reach over the glass, over my case full of cakes, to grab the cake from the top of my pile. She had to struggle to reach it.
Not only that, but all throughout COVID, we had to put all our bread in bags instead of leaving them out in the open. The glass is literally two feet tall. All I could think was, “If you have to struggle to reach over the glass, it probably means you are not supposed to be doing the thing you are doing!” This phenomenon has actually been happening even more since COVID and I'm really just over it.
71. Front Float
I was a lifeguard at a lake. There was a mom with a baby and a toddler, and the mom had a friend with her. She was sitting in the shallow water with her newborn, talking to her friend and facing away from the water toward the beach. I had an eye on her toddler because it was driving me nuts that she wasn’t paying attention to him.
He dropped his ball and the small waves started taking it out. Of course, he reached for it and fell over. He slowly started floating and struggling, face down, getting father and farther away. I jumped down, ran in and grabbed him, and probably terrified him as I patted his back over my knee while he vomited out water.
The poor kid kept trying to look at me. His mom noticed nothing until I was carrying him back over to her. She casually thanked me and I tried to warn her of the possibility of dry drowning. Her response made me so mad I wanted to scream. She snapped at me, yelling that she was a nurse and that her son would be fine. I saved her son’s life, and she repaid me by yelling in my face.
72. Dog Day Afternoon
My vet has been after me to take my dog to get his teeth cleaned. I made an online appointment to drop him off and received a confirmation email of my appointment time being 9 am. A couple of days before the appointment, I received another reminder email with 9 am. I arrive to the clinic at 8:45 am and check in with the receptionist. They ask me to have a seat and they’ll come get my dog quickly to take him back.
About 30 minutes later, after no one had come, I asked the receptionist if there was a delay and she responded, “Well, you should have been here at 7 am. So since you’re late it’s taking longer.” I replied that the appointment time I received and confirmed was for 9 am. She refused to accept my answer and continued to say that it was 7 am and it doesn’t matter what I received.
I politely sat back down to wait again instead of engaging in an argument. Shortly after, they came to take my dog back to clean his teeth. I spoke with the vet tech and they said that the reason for the 7 am arrival was for blood work but it wasn’t a big deal and they’d get it done still. Before leaving, I looked up the email on my phone and of course, it said 9 am. I proceeded to try to show the email to the receptionist, who didn’t even look at the email and instead said, “I don’t have control over the emails sent. That’s corporate.”
I responded that she may not be responsible for sending the emails but she works for the company that does and should be able to provide the feedback. She smirked at me and kept to her story, that it wasn’t her problem and it was my fault I wasn’t informed of the early arrival. The smirking is what sent me over the top. She began to act as if she wanted to physically fight, which was fine with me, but the lead tech came out to defuse the situation.
Eventually, I left to do a few errands while they completed the teeth cleaning. But it was far from over. 3 pm rolls around and I began to get worried that I hadn’t heard from the vet since 9 am. I attempted to call with no answer. After a few tries, someone answered. I asked about my dog and they simply responded with, “He’s doing good. He’s been out to pee and they should be calling you soon.” We hung up. 4:30 pm comes and I’m starting to get more and more upset that I have no idea what’s going on.
I tried calling and despite numerous calls, I couldn’t get through. I called corporate, who also was having trouble getting through. Corporate told me the only way to truly speak with someone was to GO THERE. I tell the guy on the phone he better hope he gets a hold of them before I get there to warn them I’m coming, because it won’t be pretty. I drive 30 minutes with corporate still trying to get a hold of them.
I park, get out of the car, walk up to the front desk and wait for the receptionist. Corporate comes back on the phone saying they still can’t get a hold of them. I tell the guy “I know. I’m right here waiting for the receptionist to stop ignoring me and I’m watching them ignore your phone calls.” At the vet, I ask about my dog. THEY HADN’T EVEN COMPLETED THE TEETH CLEANING. MY DOG HAD BEEN KENNELED FOR 8 HOURS FOR NOTHING.
At this point, my voice is raised and I’m not holding anything back. The same lead vet tech comes out to discuss with me and while I’m explaining that just that morning the receptionist (who wasn’t there anymore) had argued with me about needing to be there at 7 am FOR NOTHING. That it wouldn’t have mattered whether I got there at 7 am or camped out in the parking lot, they wouldn’t have completed my dog’s cleaning anyway.
I also pointed out the fact that NO ONE communicated with me about them not being able to get to my dog. Then I got sent over the edge. What does this vet tech do? SHE SMIRKS AT ME. I couldn’t even contain the rage anymore. I started lecturing her about the smirking and the fact that the SAME behavior is what set me off with the morning receptionist.
She swore she wasn’t smirking and apologized but it was too late. I told her if they don’t bring me my dog I will go back there myself and get him. An employee in the store (the vet clinic is inside a pet store) who was leaving stopped in his tracks and began watching the altercation between me and the lead vet tech. He stood there for about five minutes, holding an empty water jug, about 15-20 feet away.
After I finished giving the vet tech a lecture I turned to the employee and said “Can I help you? You can keep it moving. This isn’t a show.” His response was to turn around and walk back into the grooming salon that was right next to the vet and point at me as he gossiped to his coworkers. Me? I waved! I yelled: “Where’s YOUR manager?” He came back out and told me HE was the manager and he was worried about the vet tech’s safety.
I turned to the vet tech and asked her if she felt threatened and she replied no. I pointed out to him that he wasn’t needed and if he was soooooo worried about her safety he should have been much closer than 20 feet away for so long and shouldn’t have retreated to his grooming salon until I called him out for gossiping. As I’m talking to him, a woman appears and asks what’s going on. It got real interesting.
Guess what? SHE was the manager. I tell her that homeboy wanted to be an onlooker and then go and gossip to other employees. She tells me he wouldn’t do that. I tell her at this point all I want is to leave. All I want is my dog and I’m gone. They bring my dog out while the manager, grooming employee, and lead vet tech are there. Homeboy tries to pet my dog!
As I’m trying to leave, the lady who runs the clinic comes out and tells me she wants to talk. I respond that I’m done talking and they’ve lost my dog as a patient. She continues to try to get me to speak with her so finally, I give in. I don’t wanna be rude to an older lady. As I’m describing everything I’ve been through, the incorrect time on the email, the receptionist with the attitude, my dog being contained for 8 hours for no reason, the lead vet tech’s smirking, the employee who couldn’t mind his business...she proceeds to tell me that they KNEW when I dropped him off that they wouldn’t be able to get to him because of another emergency.
SAY WHAT?! She also tells me they’re having a lot of trouble with the employees at the clinic and she’s upset at my experience and wants the opportunity to do better. She offers to clean my dog’s teeth if I bring him in again, to which I replied absolutely not. I’ve got problems with at least two of your employees and you want me to trust your team to take good care of my dog?
You’re crazy. I left and vowed never to shop at the pet store nor use the clinic or grooming salon ever again. Good riddance!
73. Dog Days
Several years ago, I used to work as a dog trainer at a very well-known pet supply store. While I was a dog trainer, it was still retail, so of course, I had to do 100 things outside of my job description. As a result, I was working the cash register, stocking, and yes, helping our loyal customers. The store I worked at was an absolute disaster with Karens, too.
Big, white suburban neighborhoods were situated around this store, so they came in like hordes. Well, on this particular day, it was vet day. Basically, a local vet service partnered with the store to offer quick walk-in vet checkups for things like vaccinations. Of course, put "cheap" and "Karens" together and you get the worst workday of your week.
This week, the store was packed. The line went all the way to the front, and we were the biggest store in the area. People were asking me questions left and right, dogs were relieving themselves everywhere, and kids were playing with the dog toys. It was the whole shebang. I was already like a headless chicken, having to juggle five tasks while also prepping for a dog training class. Yay.
But as I was making my way from the vet station helping another customer, I saw her, and she definitely looked like trouble. She had a dark tan, shoulder-length straight hair, sunglasses, and she was dragging a couple of kids down the aisle toward me. She looked like she was wanting to turn into the Hulk and was ready to fight. I prepped myself before I started to say, "How can I help—"
She stopped me in the middle of my sentence by saying one loud word, "Dogs!" She had a crazy gleam in her eyes. I tried to decipher her cryptic message and asked, "Dog...toys? Dog...food?" She then said, “Where are your dogs?” It took a second for my brain to catch up with her shrieks; to understand that she was hoping that we sold dogs.
Now, luckily, big box stores like this one tend to not sell dogs directly. Otherwise, they would get them from puppy mills. But now, unfortunately, I had to inform this lady that we were not that kind of store. I geared myself up for a battle, then said: "I am sorry, ma’am, but we do not sell dogs he—" She cursed and shrieked, then immediately spun around, pulling her kids like ragdolls the entire time.
She then stomped out the door again. It felt like I got hit and run over by words. This interaction was less than 30 seconds, so it was like a new record. It was then that I decided it would be best if I took my break before doing my next class.
74. 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 supremely Karen 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.
75. Greasing The Parts
At the time, I was the front desk receptionist at a car dealership that had an attached service and parts department. I dealt with all kinds of people, but this one customer particularly left me dumbfounded. It was around 7 pm, about an hour after the service and parts department had closed. The sales department was open until 8 pm, so I was just going about my business as usual.
A woman walked up to my desk and slammed a 19-liter jug of motor oil down on the counter. That scared me since I was looking away at the time. She immediately demanded that I sell her the oil. I was confused and just kind of...looked at her for a moment. There was no checkout counter at my desk as we were in an entirely different part of the building.
Also, where did she get that? The parts department was closed and the window into the storeroom was locked with a fold-down metal cage. I finally got myself together and told her that the parts department was closed and that I would be unable to sell anything. Her reaction was priceless. She immediately got angry, blowing her top while gesturing to the closest window demanding that I give her the oil.
I suggested for her to go to another shop nearby, as they were open until 9 pm. Surely, she could get oil there. She didn't like that answer and scoffed at me. "I need Kia brand oil, for my Kia brand car". She said it incredibly matter-of-factly and stared at me like I was the dumbest person on the planet. That again caught me off guard.
I have pretty bad anxiety, so I was still mentally and physically reeling from her slamming the bottle down and I was not getting very collected thoughts. I tried to explain that any brand of oil would do and that I'd be happy to help her figure out what would work best so she could pick it up there...but she just kept shaking her head at me.
Finally, she shouted out that she would just come back the following day, that I had been absolutely no help, and stormed out. I noticed then that she had a kid with her. What a great example she set for her children. I did figure out that she had pulled the oil jug down off of a display case in the service department. That was extra amusing to me, imagining someone taking something off of a clearly not-for-sale display shelf because she was mad.
76. Leave It Well Enough Alone
For the past few months, I've suspected that my upstairs neighbor has been taking some of my mail. I buy a lot of things online like books and craft supplies and every now and then there's been small things that were meant to arrive on a certain day that never did. One day, I caught her wandering around my front door. When I asked her what she was doing she said "Oh, I was looking for something I think I dropped into your yard”.
I got surveillance cameras installed a while ago, which were not noticeable to my neighbors. The camera that's pointed at my front door isn't visible from the driveway. So here comes the trap. I purchased a few postage boxes to set up for her. The first one was a glitter bomb. I set up the box to make sure she would get glitter to the face as soon as she opened it.
I packed it to make it look like a postage parcel, then sat it at my front door. 20 minutes later I saw her walking to my front door. She looked around then picked up the box and walked away. My only regret is that I didn't get to see her reaction when she got a face full of glitter. I haven't noticed any other mail going missing after that, but she will regret it if she does it again.
77. Hotel Havoc
I used to work as a front desk agent at a boutique hotel. A guy who was obviously very full of himself came in with an online reservation that he had booked at a shockingly cheap nightly rate. He proceeded to give me a hard time about EVERYTHING, from telling me he shouldn't have to give me his credit card info since he had prepaid his reservation, to telling me "Um yeah, I'm pretty sure I can find the elevators, I'm not stupid".
He was just being an all-around jerk. About 10 minutes after checking him in, he came down and demanded that we give him a bigger room with a king bed and a view, even though he had booked a standard queen bed online. I complied, as we had extra king beds available. 10 minutes later, he came down again to complain about the size of the room.
He told me, "I'm only going to give you one more chance to make me happy," and asked for the general manager. After much arguing between him and my manager, we ended up giving him our nicest suite AND free parking since we had "Given him trouble". He got all this for a way cheaper rate, like $40 per night! Oh, but he outdid himself.
Get this: He informed us shortly after the ordeal, while on his way out to dinner, that he was not even going to be in the room for the majority of his stay, as he was visiting friends and would be staying at their home. What the heck! So I made it my personal mission to make his life a living nightmare from that point on.
I reset his room keys every time I saw him leave the hotel—which was quite frequently, 3-4 times a day. It was particularly funny when he came back tired from a night out and had to come all the way down to the front desk to get his keys fixed. Needless to say, he was very frustrated by the end of his stay. I doubt he'll be staying with us again.
78. New Account Balance: $9.11
I work in the dispatch center for a department that serves a city with a population just shy of a million, so we get a buttload of calls every day. Naturally, we get some wild stories about various cons, especially these days. Because of this, I quickly became numb to some of the mental gymnastics people do while they rationalize why they sent the IRS $5,000 worth of Best Buy gift cards purchased from five different Best Buy stores.
Half the stories give me a chuckle, but an overwhelming majority of them just cause me to feel bad for the caller because I know they’re not getting any of that money back. This brings me to a call that I took last year from a younger woman who was likely in her late 20s or early 30s. Her story started off like any run-of-the-mill scam: Someone claiming to be from the FBI called to inform her that she had a warrant out for her but that she could “clear her name” if she sent them money.
Well, how much money did they ask for? They told her that all of the money in her checking account would suffice...Yup, that’s correct. Whatever random amount of money she had would do—so, that’s what she sent. The total amounted to about $4,000. But wait—there's more. After feeling bad for her and gathering some additional information, I began to let her know about the various reporting options and whatnot. She cut me off and asked, “Well, what can I do about the verification pictures?”
I was like, “What are you talking about?” What she said next blew my mind. She explained, “Well, yeah, they said they needed to verify my identity through their body verification system. So, I sent them several undressed photos as they asked me to—pictures from the front, the side, and from the back while I was bending over.” I was absolutely stunned.
She had to do a quintessential, “Ya there?” into the phone so that I could come back to freaking reality for a moment. At this point, I thought I was the one getting messed with! But she was bawling her eyes out by this time, so I made no assumptions, other than the fact that there was probably even more to the story—WHICH THERE FREAKING WAS.
Like a respectful kid listening to a bedtime story, I was just like, “And then what happened?” She proceeded to tell me that they threatened to send the photos to her friends and family if she didn’t pay them even more money. How much money? Well, in true FBI-Body-Verifying-Agent form, they doubled down and said that all the money she had in her savings account would be enough, WHICH WAS $25,000!
I’m just sitting there in my chair like, please God, no. But of course, she sent it to them. I’ve considered getting into the scamming business ever since.
79. Negative Nelly
I had a parent complain to me about her child who was doing really well. Her grades were over 90%, and she showed consistent effort in her classwork and homework. When I told the parent that her daughter put a lot of thought and effort into her work, her mom’s reaction left me stunned. She asked, “She sucks up to you”?
I told her, “No, she wants to do well and be successful. That being said, we'd like to improve her grammar a bit”. Then her mom went bananas. She said, “I knew it. She's stupid. She doesn't do anything. She will fail”. I reassured her that wasn’t the case and told her that her daughter just needed a little more rigor in that department.
The mom responded, “She's such a disappointment”. Every once in a while, I would get a complaint from her whining to me about her child. I couldn’t believe it. Her kid was a joy. I would always take care to affirm her efforts whenever possible and assure her that she was doing great. It may not offset the negativity her mother imposed on her, but the other teachers and I tried to make sure she didn’t doubt her ability to do well.
80. Paying The Price
I worked at a high-end store, so it was common to see customers with a sense of entitlement. At Christmas time, I had a customer who was being absurdly rude to me and my co-worker. I had already told him quite clearly that there was a line and he would have to wait for his turn like everyone else. Once he got to the register, he called my manager an idiot after he had to re-ring something in. Little did he know karma was coming to him.
Another customer behind him who was about half his size tapped him on the shoulder and said loudly, "Would you mind shutting up and letting these people do their jobs? You are seriously ticking us all off". The guy then threatened him, but the smaller guy wouldn't have any of it. "If you were as tough as you like to think you are, you wouldn't have to be such a jerk. Just shut up". I magically found a 50 percent off coupon for my new favorite person.
81. I Couldn’t Skirt The Issue
I had a first grader's parent come in after the first day of school, obviously very upset. She told me that her daughter was touched inappropriately by a boy, and I didn't do anything to help. I informed her that I was not told of the incident until that moment. I got the details from the daughter. Apparently, the daughter was bent over to get a drink at the water fountain, felt a tug on her skirt, and turned around to see a boy letting go of it.
She didn't know the boy's name since it was only the first day. I told the mom that I would have her secretly point the boy out tomorrow and that I'll talk to him to get his side of the story. I thought that was enough for her—but I was so wrong. She said to me, "What do you mean his side? He's a perv. That's the story". I told her, "Ma'am, he's in first grade. There are lots of reasons a six-year-old might touch a skirt that are completely innocent.
“He could've been trying to figure out the material. He might've seen a bug. Until I know exactly why I can't assume he was doing something with the intention to do harm. Not at age six". She wasn't happy to hear that, but that was pretty much the end of it. The next day, the girl let me know which boy it was. I talked to him privately.
The girl was wearing leggings, and her skirt was polka dot. The leggings were striped. He was trying to figure out if it was one whole unit or if the leggings were separate from the skirt. I talked to him about appropriate touching and what to do if he was ever curious about a girl's outfit again, and that was the end of it.
82. Obey Your Commander
My buddy and I were at a movie and these dudes were talking about how they had just gotten out of basic training. They then proceeded to bash the movie, making rude comments out loud and ruining everyone else's experience. My buddy told them, "Pipe down". They flipped him off but obliged. After the movie, we were at the front of the pack, right behind the six or seven guys who were being rude.
My buddy said, "That was really rude, how you were behaving", and one of them—the loudest guy—whipped out his ID and said, "Yeah, well, I'm a Marine, and I fight for your freedoms". All my buddy could do was smirk. He just so happened to be an officer, so he whipped out his ID and said, "I'm a Marine officer, and just because you have the honor of wearing a uniform doesn't give you the right to be a jerk".
Then he made them stand at attention right at the door of the movie theater and apologize to every patron exiting.
83. Boy Vs. Girl
I used to teach phonics (basic reading skills) to kindergarten-aged kids. One parent came in after class, irate, and demanded to know why I had taught the er/ir/ur diphthong before the oi/oy diphthong. The reason why was infuriating. He didn't want his kid to be able to read the word "girl" before being able to read "boy".
He kept going on about how "boy" was just more important and common as a word. He told me that teaching kids less frequent words before more frequent ones would slow down their reading progress and was bad pedagogically, and so on. In hindsight, I was impressed that he managed to squeeze so many justifications into something so pointlessly stupid.
84. Master Of None
A colleague of mine at my school had the most helicopter parent I had seen in my eight years of education. I didn't think people this nuts existed. This mother felt that each school and grade level should vote for a child to be “master of their peers”. She felt that her kid would one day be the president of the United States and that their early elementary public education should reflect so.
She thought her kid should be voted upon to rule the rest of the grade level, delegating responsibilities to his peers. Her son had just turned five and had skipped kindergarten based upon parent request despite his kindergarten-level formative assessment levels. She forced her child's teacher to have him present PowerPoints each month on complicated issues such as segregation and photosynthesis.
She would come in on those days to videotape the presentations that were clearly done by her. She would keep him after school three times a week to make sure his reading points not only met what was expected but were ten times what was expected. She left the district with her children in search of a private school where a second grader could be voted as the “master of all grades K-6” to learn how to lead his peers.
85. These Lunchtime Losers Got Chewed Out
When I was in high school, a guy I knew from my math class was sitting with his homework at a table in the cafeteria. He wasn't being a bother or attracting any kind of attention in any way. Out of nowhere, this guy came over, started calling him names, and asked him why he only had girls as friends. He was using all the gay insults his ignorant little pea-brain could come up with.
Nobody in the room really knew this kid, but he had admitted to being openly gay, and he was getting torn to shreds while the other guy and his buddies laughed. So my friend, who was about 5'10 and 150 pounds, decided we should go up and do something. This other guy was 6'3" and had five of his friends with him. Regardless, my friend marched off unfazed by their advantage, and I followed. They had no idea what was coming to them.
I watched as he tapped this guy on the shoulder and proceeded to chew him out for being ignorant and picking on a random kid just because he had no backup. The jerk tried to pick a fight, but my buddy just kept ranting, "You think you're tough for picking on a kid because he's gay? Do you think that being gay is a problem?
“That he had a choice in the matter? What if you were gay? Do you think you would have had the balls to let high-school punks like you know about it"? The other guy just shrugged it off, said, “Whatever”, and took his goons somewhere else. The kid was so happy that someone had stood up for him that he bought us lunch.
86. A Waste Of Space
I had a student who was a waste of a seat. He was lazy, manipulative, and arrogant. His mom was a single mom, and based on our first contact, it was pretty clear she was going to be a nightmare. By the end of the first nine weeks, I already had a folder in my email just for emails from her. Despite being a helicopter parent, her son never improved.
She would give me the standard, "We are going to study for the test on Tuesday over the weekend". Then, he would come in on Tuesday unaware that there was going to be a test and then fail it. Naturally, he failed the first nine weeks, and his mom went berserk. For the next six weeks, not a day went by that I didn't receive an email or phone call from her.
Finally, right before Thanksgiving, I had her come in for a meeting. I showed her my failures log. I kept a record of the day-to-day behavior of students who had chronic issues. I showed her what her son had been doing. She refused to believe it—just outright refused. After that, she transferred him out of my class and into another with the same results.
He had four English teachers during his first ninth-grade year.
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87. Fight Or Flight
I'm a pretty mellow guy who travels for a living, and I don’t really let small things get to me. However, a couple of years ago, I was on a flight that was running 30 minutes late. I was already thinking to myself that the connection was going to be tight and it would most likely require me to run or briskly walk for a mile or so through the airport.
I was one of the last passengers to board the plane, and I had to check my bag since there was no more room. The four or five people behind me did the same thing. I worked my way down the aisle, and there was a guy asking people to shift their bags. He was trying to get his oversized bag to fit, and there was no room. He called for the flight attendant, who walked up and said, "Sir, we are out of the room. You will have to check your bag".
That was it for him—he went OFF on her and started yelling, "This airline sucks. I'm a million-mile member. I want your employee number and name", and so on. At that point, I pretty much mentally snapped. I felt horrible for the flight attendant who was just doing her job, and this guy had spent five minutes making an idiot out of himself and burning up time.
People were gawking, cringing, and just hoping he would stop so they could move on. I just yelled, "SHUT UP. SHUT THE HECK UP"! I was shaking with anger. Then, I went off. I said, "Take your bag to the front of the plane, check it in, and stop with this insanity. You are what is wrong with air travel. Your sense of entitlement makes me want to puke. If you are a million-mile flier, you know the rules of flying. You should know how this works".
"Why punish everyone on this flight? You have insulted this lovely young lady, you have made everyone on this plane uncomfortable with your little show, and I'm now another five minutes late for my connection. I want you and your little Napoleon-complex issues to shut up and sit down. Do WE have a problem"? He started spluttering and looking all flustered but didn't say a single word.
Somebody at the back of the plane started clapping. Soon the whole plane was applauding me. I just sat down and waited while everyone clapped, and this guy took a long walk of shame to the front of the plane. The flight attendant thanked me, and so did everyone else. I didn't mean to do it, but I just can't stand people like that. The best part was I had free drinks for the flight, the attendant gave me a stack of free drink cards for my next couple of flights, and one of the passengers gave me a voucher for free WiFi that he had won.
It was very satisfying.
88. It Was A Sign Of Things To Come
When I was in high school, one of the lunch ladies was deaf. She was always the one to cash the students out. Once, I heard some dude saying how he pretends not to understand her—basically mocking her—and that he never pays what he owes. I got so mad that I just went off on him.
I told him what a horrible person he was and how I hoped he would lose one of his senses so he could see what it was like. It may not seem like much, but I think I got my point across because I didn't hear him talk about her anymore. She was super nice too and she was really pleased when my school started offering sign language courses because the students could then communicate with her.
The look on her face when I started signing with her the first time almost made me cry. I could tell she was extremely happy people were trying to actually talk to her and not just pretend she wasn't there.
89. Dealing With This Parent Was Ruff
I worked at an inner-city Catholic school where most of my students had some serious learning disabilities. Their parents would get second jobs to pay for Catholic school because they didn’t want their kids in the dangerous public school. However, the Catholic schools didn’t have a special needs teacher that could really help them.
For my students who had severe ADD/ADHD, I had a rule that if they were acting up too much, they could leave the room and “take a lap” for a couple of minutes to get some energy out. This had been incredibly helpful and caused far fewer distractions in class. One day, I had to call home about a student who was constantly on her phone and talking back.
The mother then proceeded to tell me that I called her daughter a “dog” by saying some students could take a lap and that I was bigoted for describing my students as dogs. I never said the word “dog”. When I told the kids "take a lap", I meant to walk to the water fountain/bathroom, then come back.
90. Gym Rats
There were these two teenagers at the gym who went around to every single bench and machine, threw a small amount of weight on, proceeded to knock out a couple of reps, and then moved on to something else, all while never re-racking their weights. I tracked them down when I realized they were never going to put anything away. Being the big and muscular guy I am, I decided to put an end to it. I simply told them to rack their weights.
I watched and waited while they put every single weight back where it belonged before I went back to my own workout.
91. This Parent Was A Complete Idiot
My class was about to take a unit test in physical science. It had been about a month since the last test, so I sent home a two-sided review sheet. I was checking them for correctness but grading for completeness. The plan was to hand them back out as a study guide. I noticed one paper that had no answers on one side of it.
The child had written their name at the top of the blank side, so they had seen it and just decided not to do it. I gave the child a 50% on the assignment since they had only done half, which I thought was pretty reasonable—but apparently, it wasn’t. The parent complained, but to the other teachers in the grade, not me.
It seems as if giving a 10-year-old a completeness grade based on the amount of work they did was entirely unreasonable. None of the other teachers were that mean, so it wasn't fair for me to be either.
92. Hard To Handle Nonsense
When I was teaching overseas at an American school, I had a parent of a fifth-grader who felt that her son wasn't being challenged enough. So, I ramped up their work and challenge level to a degree I thought they could handle. The student’s grades dropped a tiny bit. At the next conference, the same parent complained that I was being too tough on her child. There was no winning.
93. He Got His Just Desserts
I was a student in a culinary arts program. We rotated through stations and ran a full cafeteria on the university campus. One of the stations—desserts—required that you serve and plate the food in front of the customer. I was helping this one woman when another guy, a regular, came in and budged in front of her. He was the rudest customer I had ever dealt with.
He cut in front of her and reached for the dessert that I was still plating. She said loudly, "Excuse me. That is mine. She's not done, and you can wait and not be so rude. You are unbelievable". He walked away with an unhappy, childish look on his face. She looked at me and said, "Sorry, I can't stand rude people". I couldn't have been more grateful.
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94. I Swear She Was A Kook
A parent came in to tell me that their child had heard someone using swear words. The child was 16 years old. I thought it was odd, but if a student, or worse, a teacher, had sworn at him, it's not good. So I asked the parent, "Was it a teacher or someone else at the school"? They said no, so I asked, "Ah, it was a fellow student then"? Again, they said no.
I then asked, "So it was someone else in school? Did it happen on the school campus"? They said it did not. I continued trying to get to the bottom of it. "During school hours"? The parent again said, “No”. I said to them, "So you're saying your child heard someone swearing outside of school grounds and outside of school hours, and that person had no connection to the school"?
They replied, “Yes, I want to know what you're going to do about it”!
95. His Words Hit The Spot
My dad was driving around with his terminally ill friend. They needed to go to a pharmacy, and seeing as how my dad's friend would become short of breath easily, they were hoping for a handicap spot. Unfortunately, none were vacant, so they had to park farther away. As they were walking up to the store, a squat, muscular man came walking out of the pharmacy.
He started to open up the door of his Ford F150 that was parked in a handicap spot. He clearly didn't need to be in that spot, nor did he have a sticker. My dad's friend was fuming when he saw him. He called out to him as he was getting in and said, "Excuse me? Is your handicap physical or mental"? The guy's face went white as a ghost, and he quickly got into his truck and pulled away.
96. Understanding Limits
A mother came into the teacher's room one afternoon because both the chemistry teacher and I agreed to send her autistic son to the special needs class, where they had two fabulous teachers who worked WONDERS with children who couldn’t follow the pace of other kids. The parent was angry because we couldn't keep stopping the entire class so her boy could understand some subjects.
He couldn't understand them because he had been passed in previous years just to appease her. Unfortunately, the student couldn't even divide or subtract in the 8th grade. She wanted him to have a "normal" life with other kids, but he had no interest in interacting with any other boys. He would also get angry when we tried to explain things to him calmly.
We knew how hard it was for him, and I had been yelled at and scratched by him several times.
97. They Were In For A Rude Awakening
While on my lunch break, I was at the grocery store. This older woman, who had some obvious mental and emotional problems, was walking up to a checkout line. She went to take her salad out and it opened up, spilling everywhere. She then started crying, saying how she couldn't afford to buy another salad, and apologized for the mess.
A clerk and I went over and started helping her. The clerk told her it happens all the time and that they wouldn’t charge her, but the woman was still visibly upset. She continued to apologize and cry. Then, I heard two middle-aged women—hair all done up, expensive clothes, etc.—giggling and having little laughing outbursts every time the old lady said something. I was appalled.
To my amazement, they started to openly mock her, loud enough so we all could hear. At that point, I stood up, grabbed my basket, walked over to them, and quietly said, "Come on, quit it". They both stopped laughing and got beet red with anger. One of them said, "Excuse me? Who the heck are you"? I calmly replied, "She's obviously upset. She can hear you over there, and it's embarrassing for you and for her".
That was when they both lost it. "Who the heck are you? Who the heck do you think you are? Don't ever talk to me like that", etc. To which I replied, "Listen, I know you're both really unhappy because you married a man for money, and now he's cheating on you with a much younger woman, and your kids probably don't like you or respect you because you're obviously a terrible person, but you don't have to be mean to strangers.
“If you want to laugh, whatever, but don't start mocking people. Try to contain yourselves and act like the adults you never became". They were shocked, and it was so amusing to watch. They said, “We're not paying for this", and just walked out, leaving their food behind. Then the checkout clerk started laughing, and the guy behind me went, "Oh, yeah". I kind of think I did a bit of an overkill, but I was really shocked at how mean they were being.
98. Missed Photo Op
I had a parent complain that their child wasn't in a group picture from a field trip. Their child wasn't at school on that day. She inferred that I clearly didn't like their child and made him sit out of the picture. The parent insisted that his child was there because he got a sticker from the place we visited. The kid had received a sticker because I went out of my way to get him one since he wasn't on the field trip.
I told him that he could take a look at my attendance book to prove that he didn't send his preschooler to school that day.
99. Back Of The Line!
I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I was a big nerd, but also 6'4" and 250 lbs. We were waiting in line for about an hour or two before the movie started. The line was around the corner and snaked around the block. They started letting people in, and the line behind us began to push forward, becoming a mob.
People who were waiting an hour were being cut in front by people who had gotten there five minutes prior. People in line started whispering, "We should say something. They're cutting”. So, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Hey everybody, no cutting! Back of the line"! At that point, I saw an old friend in the midst of the crowd.
I called him by name and shouted, "Hey, yeah, I see you, back of the line"! Every person who was line jumping then shrugged, exhaled collectively, and proceeded to move back to their respective places in line. I heard a few people whisper, "You see that big guy? He told them to go back, and they did". It felt good.
100. I Was About To Cart Him Away
One day, I was helping my grandparents run errands. When my grandfather stood up out of the store’s mechanized wheelchair to use the ATM, some 19-year-old thug walked up and sat down in it. I gave him three polite versions of "He's using that" before he responded, saying, "Chill out, I'll get up in a minute". I started to explain that we needed the wheelchair available in case he lost his balance.
When he wouldn’t listen, I stared him in the eyes and said, "Get up", to which the dude responded, "Who do you think you’re talkin' to"? I told him, "I'm talking to you. Get up. Now". He again responded, "Who are you talking to"? At that point, he still hadn't gotten up. So, I showed him who he was dealing with. I rushed the cart fully intending to flip it over, and when he saw that I was serious, he jumped up and started muttering about how I'd better hope he never sees me again. My grandfather was 91. I don't think I've ever seen him prouder than he was at that moment.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, Reddit,
