We all deal with rude people now and then...but sometimes they go too far, and they have to be taught a lesson. These real-life stories of jerks getting humbled are proof that sometimes, good does triumph over evil.
1. Picked The Right One
My friend and I were biking and I decided that I had to go to the bathroom. I left my bike outside of McDonald’s and told my friend to wait for me. For some reason, he decided to go in and get a McChicken while I was in the bathroom, which meant our two bikes were left unlocked for a few minutes in a shady neighborhood.
As I came out of the bathroom, I just so happened to see a guy taking my bike. I started sprinting after him but he was going too fast. I asked a middle-aged lady in a car if she could help. I was desperate as it was a brand-new bike! She instantly did a screeching 180-degree turn in the parking lot and started chasing him…
I couldn’t believe it when she screamed: “GET OFF THE BIKE YA LITTLE CROOK!! I’M CALLING THE MOTHER TRUCKING BOYS IN BLUE YOU SON OF A—”! This guy was determined, though, he just kept pedaling as fast as he could. The lady swerved onto the grass and went around behind a school. I was exhausted from running to catch up with her.
As I came around the corner, I saw her grinning and holding my bike as the guy ran off across the field. I was speechless. All I could think to do was hug her. She handed me my bike and said, “I told him I was going to call the authorities, but I didn’t”. As she got into her car, she shouted to the kid who was still running, “PULL UP YOUR PANTS YOU HOOLIGAN!”
2. Plot Twist
In my high school algebra class, my teacher started yelling at a shy kid because he didn’t understand how to factor binomials. The kid started to tear up, but the teacher didn’t stop until he was all-out bawling. It was so bad that some other kids jumped in and told her to stop. She silenced them by threatening to call their parents.
Finally, I stood up and said, “Stop, lady”. She threatened to call my mom and I said, “OK, fine”. Then I walked over to the school phone, dialed my mom’s cell number, and put the phone on speaker. The teacher didn’t want to back down, so she played along, told my mom everything, and then ended the conversation by telling my mother she should ground me for a very long time.
After hearing the teacher’s long story, my mom—in her thick Asian accent—said, “Please say to my son I am so proud of him”. Mom Win.
3. A Very Happy Birthday
It was my 15th birthday and I was heading home on the school bus. First off, everyone hates riding the bus because you can be stuck on there with a jerk, plus there’s the utter embarrassment of just sitting on one. Anyway, this guy who was tall and about 110 kg (250 lb) made a habit of tormenting anyone that he could on the bus.
Unfortunately, I was always one of his victims. So on this specific day, he kept calling me names and smacking me on the back of the head over and over and over. I lost it, it was my birthday after all. I spun around, screamed at him to shut up, and punched him right in the face. He screamed and grabbed his face.
Blood was spewing out all over his hands, his shirt, and the floor. He started crying and screaming that I broke his nose.
The bus driver slammed on the brakes and flipped out. He said he was taking us all back to school and we would be going straight to the principal’s office. The principal met with him first and then with me.
I got into the principal’s office and explained what happened. When I was finished, I nervously said, “How much trouble am I in”? The principal looked at me for a beat and said, “None. It’s about time someone put that kid in his place”. Needless to say, I left his office with a smile. That was 100% the best birthday gift ever.
4. A Night To Remember
I got out of a club in a downtown area and needed a ride. I had no cash and I didn’t have a cell phone at the time. It wasn’t an area of town where one should go looking for anything at 3:00 am. Fortunately, there was a phone booth about half a block away. As I approached it, I realized it was being used by a very hot, scantily clad blonde.
I slowed my pace and hoped she would wrap it up before I got there. Her back was to me, so I kept my distance, not wanting to frighten her. I stood there for about a minute before I got an uneasy feeling in the back of my neck. This phone booth happened to be on a corner surrounded on three sides by planters with tall bushes coming out of them.
I took a quick look around and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy standing, slightly crouched, behind one of the planters, staring at the girl. Her back was to the guy as well and I could tell he hadn’t seen me yet. I realized pretty quickly by the look of him what he had in mind for her once she got off the phone.
I circled to the other side of the phone booth, which was about three meters (10 feet) from her, and leaned up against the opposite planter, making sure that both the shady guy and the girl could see me. When he noticed me, his eyes locked with mine. We stood there, staring each other down for almost five minutes.
The girl, who was oblivious to him and ignoring me, gabbed on the phone for another five minutes. During the second five minutes, the guy bobbed his head to the side in a get-outta-here gesture a few times and the girl started to glare at me like I was creeping her out. I’m pretty sure she was starting to wonder what my problem was.
I was scared out of my mind. I was worried that the guy had a blade or something worse. Suddenly, he came out from behind the planter and circled me and the girl—and by this time he was starting to look like he was about to cut my throat. He walked the full 180 degrees around the corner, all while staying on the sidewalk, and then disappeared past the intersection.
My heart finally started to beat normally again. I heard the girl hang up the phone. She then turned to me with an indignant look on her face. “What’s your problem”? I shrugged and told her I needed the phone, to which she replied, “Pfft, whatever freak”! As if right on cue, a cab pulled up and she got in. As she pulled away, I couldn’t stop laughing.
5. Showdown At The Service Station
When I got out of my car at the gas station, I heard some woman screaming and sobbing. I looked over and saw a man reaching into the window of a pickup truck attempting to either hit or grab her. Suddenly, another man at a different pump asked the violent guy what was going on. “Mind your own business”! the guy yelled back at him.
Looking around, I saw a third guy approaching the truck. I walked over and said, “Hey buddy, knock it off or you’re in trouble”. Silence. Now, I’m not an imposing guy, by any means, but the violent guy looked around and realized that there was now a posse circling him. The woman continued to cry and one of the guys went to the truck to check on her.
Another guy pointed at the abusive dude and gestured to him to back away from the truck. I went inside and told the cashier to call the authorities. When I got back outside, there was a solemn silence. Two guys were holding the jerk against a pump until the authorities showed and an older guy and his wife were talking with the woman, so I just left.
I’m a giant nerd, so this was probably one of the most heroic things I’ve ever done in my life. Sigh.
6. Locker Room Nightmare
I took Judo all through high school and was on the wrestling team for three years—until this incident. I had a lot of issues with many of the people on the wrestling team. There was a significant amount of student-on-student intimidation that went on. The school faculty tried to ignore it, and the wrestling coach encouraged it believing that it made us tougher.
I was 180 cm (5'11") and 78 kg (171 lbs)—big enough that I didn’t have too much trouble, but many of the smaller underclassmen were consistently getting hazed and harassed. One day, I walked into the locker room and found two teammates ganging up on another kid. One held him down and the other had his shorts around his knees and was sticking his junk in the victim’s face.
I don’t know if they were teabagging him, or if something even more serious was going on. Either way, I lost it. I came up behind the guy who was holding the kid down, put my left hand on his shoulder, and nailed him as hard as I could with my right fist as soon as he turned to look at me. The guy with his junk out tripped over his shorts in fear when he saw me hit the first guy.
I grabbed that guy’s face and smashed the back of his head into a locker with all my strength. I then took off before either of them got up. I never went to another wrestling practice after that. I don’t even know if the two guys were seriously injured, or if the kid they were attacking was OK, but my hand hurt for weeks afterward.
Nobody ever approached me about the incident and I didn’t see any of them again for the rest of the school year. My mother is still angry that I quit wrestling in high school but I’m sure she’d understand if I told her why.
7. Kids Say The Darndest Things
I am a special ed teacher for nine students, all of whom have the academic label of “autism”. My students are all in the first and second grades and can participate in the general education setting with minimal support for most of the day. This happened on the second day of school when I was still getting to know everyone.
I witnessed one of my students smelling a mural in the hallway. His sense of smell is one of his preferred ways of learning about new places, people, and activities. Just then, I saw a cluster of eighth graders rounding the corner…
One of the older boys said, “What are you doing, freak”?
I rushed over to “handle it”, but before I could speak up, a soft-spoken little wisp of a first-grade girl, all freckled and missing teeth and small even for her age, interposed herself between my student and the eighth graders. She crossed her arms and lowered her eyebrows menacingly.
In a firm voice that I’m sure everyone along the entire hallway heard, she said, “He is just being himself, OK”?
The older boy looked cowed and actually APOLOGIZED to her and then to the student he made fun of. As he and his group walked away down the hall, his friends teased him for being a jerk, but not once did I have to open my dumb teacher's mouth.
Dmitrii Pridannikov, Shutterstock
8. Rude For Noods
I was an assistant manager at a dollar store, so it was technically my job to tell off jerks, but I am generally quite shy so I was grateful that I had never really had to confront any customers (before this incident at least). One day an idiot came in who I just could not abide. He started making my sweet little 15-year-old cashier cry.
This cashier in no way deserved the verbal lashing that he was giving her. You see, we had two types of ramen—the bricks and the cups. Bricks were 4/$1 and cups were 2/$1. Captain Literacy grabbed the cups thinking that they were the 4/$1.00 price. He said absolutely nothing to contradict my cashier when she told him the total of his bill.
He paid and left, and then he returned to freak out. Instead of listening to her take the blame, tell him that she was sorry, and offer to get me to fix it, he continued to bust veins in his face screaming at her and calling her a moron. That's when I had enough. I stepped in acting cool and polite, acting as though I was on his side to get the story.
Another customer piped up and said, “The girl did nothing wrong, this guy is an idiot”. I politely and professionally shut them down. The jerk was so happy that he was being vindicated that he was just about to do a little dance right there on the spot. Then I started to repeat the story back to him, you know, just to make sure I have it straight.
All the while, I was walking him slowly toward the noodle shelves—the marked and delineated noodle shelves. The noodles I shelved myself. I turned and looked at him and said, “It looks like the only illiterate moron here is you sir. You will not be getting a refund, you will not be getting an exchange, and you definitely will not be getting an apology”.
But i didn't stop there—I really let him have it: “What you will get is my demand that you never set foot in this store ever again because you sir are a complete and total jerk and unfortunately we don’t let jerks shop here. We only like nice people. The kind that doesn’t make people cry. So get out and stay out”. He attempted to stutter out a rebuttal but the applause from the other customers drowned him out.
Later that week, I got a halfhearted lecture from a grinning district manager for using profanity and yelling in the store. But I also got to be a hero to my cashier who was one of the best employees I ever had. I will always fondly remember my first real shutdown of a really big jerk.
9. Not-So-Sweet Dreams
I was staying in a hotel recently, and at about 10:00 pm I heard a bunch of kids making a ruckus in the hallway. I got up to see what the deal was, and it turned out that four kids and a baby (one of the kids who was maybe six was carrying the baby) were running down the hall wailing. I decided to go to the room that they came out of.
The door was ajar. When I pushed it open I saw a 4-year- old girl with a bloody nose and a very inebriated father rambling unintelligibly. The room was a mess. The mother showed up shortly after I got there. She looked scared and I figured that they had probably been fighting. I forced the boozer to back off (and I’m not a big dude) and took the kids and mom to my room.
I called the authorities and while we waited for them to come, I treated the kids, who seemed pretty unfazed, to some cartoons I had on my laptop. The authorities took the guy to the station, but I’m sure it wasn’t for long. During this whole time, strangely, not a single person on the entire floor came out to see what was going on.
10. And The Oscar Goes To…
I was waiting for my train to arrive when a girl about my age walked past, followed closely by an older man who was annoying her. She was trying to get rid of him by saying things like, “I’ve asked you to leave me alone” and “Please just go away”. The guy was wobbly and looked a little smashed on something.
I turned to the girl, lit my face up, and exclaimed, “There you are! Hey, who’s this”? I turned to the pest and said, “Do you know my friend”? He looked at me a little apprehensively. At this point, the girl had picked up on what I was trying to do and began to play along. She acted like I was an old friend and we started to “catch up” with each other.
After a few minutes, the pest got the message and left. I smiled at her and asked if she was OK. She replied, “Yes, thanks. My boyfriend will be here in a minute”. At this point, she moved to board the train, which had just pulled up to the platform. I have a girlfriend. I wasn’t hitting on her. She couldn’t have spared my feelings and come up with a less ridiculous lie?
11. Faceoff
Growing up, my dad would often give snide little comments and the odd implied physical threat when he wanted to belittle us or put us in our place, which was often in our house. He was a total hockey nut and put all of my brothers and me into hockey as soon as we could fit into skates. He was one of those sports fathers who was a total jerk on the side of the field or rink.
By 17, I’d had enough of sports even though I was good at most of them, so at a family dinner I announced that I was quitting hockey for good because I wanted to become a runner instead. My dad launched into a rant about quitting. He told me how I would be a loser my entire life, how he knew that this was what I was meant to do, and on and on.
After some time, I finally interrupted him and said, “Dad, you’re the deluded one. None of us will be in the NHL and none of us will play professional soccer. None of us will play professional baseball either. The only loser in this room is the one who browbeats his children into trying to fulfill dreams they don’t even want”.
He made a move to come at me, so I pushed the table out to give me some room and told him to come on down because I wasn’t 12 anymore and I was tired of putting up with his garbage. He backed down and took off to his bedroom. A few months later, my younger brother quit hockey, too, and Dad barely yelped. It was awesome.
12. Best Served Cold
I have an older sister who is not able-bodied. She and I and some friends were up in Vail, Colorado, because, despite her challenges my sister loves nature and life and tries to immerse herself in all of it. We were walking in the town square area outside of these posh bars and really expensive restaurants when this happened.
A group of young women brushed by us in their Uggs and pearls and Louis Vuitton. I was telling a hilarious yarn to my sister and she was laughing. She has a distinct and contagious laugh and one of the smelly Paris Hilton wannabes started mocking my sister for her friends’ amusement by calling my sister a donkey and a yipping dog.
I looked at my sister and her momentary laughter was gone. She was looking down like she used to do in high school when kids picked on her. Without thinking, and because I was seeing red, I had the most shocking impulse—I grabbed the closest, most frozen, poo-brown snow chunk I could find and whipped it DIRECTLY at the ringleader chick.
The snow blasted her in the back of the head (since they were now walking away from us) and the girl stumbled face-first while grabbing for her friends. They all fell on each other in a spectacular lump. Silence hung in the square for a moment and then a bunch of people burst out laughing and clapping. Seeing my sister’s expression after that made any potential lawsuits worth it.
13. Very Unappetizing
I was eating at a restaurant once with my mom and this redneck guy at another table was talking very loudly about immigration and libtards. There were children nearby and he was beginning to yell and use a lot of profanity. The woman he was with was also talking, but she was very hushed and I couldn’t hear anything she was saying.
I figured it wouldn’t be long before he started talking about Mexicans. Since I’m half Mexican, I told myself that if he did, I was going to speak up. Sure enough, he suddenly got loud and said, “…and DON’T THINK I WON’T TAKE EVERY ONE OF THOSE GAWL-DARN, POOP EATIN’ MESSCANS BACK TO MEXICO MYSELF”! Everyone in the place got quiet.
I shot up and walked over to his table. He was looking at the woman who glanced up at me with an “uh oh” look on her face. I said, “I’m Mexican, you gonna take me to Mexico”? He started to get up from his seat, but when he turned and saw that he was about 45 kg (100 lbs) lighter than me and the top of his head came to my chin he stopped.
The funniest part was when he was starting to get up, he said loudly “MAYBE…” and then when he saw me, he trailed off with a quiet “...I will”. I said, “No, you won’t. There are children here and you need to keep your voice down and your ignorant comments to yourself or I’ll drag YOU to Mexico”! He said something about not meaning me, but I just told him to shut up.
A couple of people clapped and I looked into the kitchen and the Mexicans working back there were all grinning and one of them gave me a thumbs up. He sat there quietly and mumbled a little, then they both got up and left.
14. The New Kid
I transferred to a new school in my freshman year. I was very shy and I just wanted to blend in. I was riding the bus home when these two older boys started picking on a chubby, awkward kid in my grade. They were several rows away from the kid and I was in between. They were throwing things at him and making fun of him because his dad perished the year before.
I was getting more and more angry. So I finally stood up and yelled, “Stop being such jerks! You don’t make fun of someone’s father's passing! What is WRONG with you”? I don’t know if my righteous anger was so intimidating or if they were just surprised to hear the new girl talk, but they just looked at me in stunned silence.
I sat back down in a huff with my face beet red. When I got off the bus, the sort-of-scary-but-probably-just-sick-of-punk-kids bus driver told me that I did a good thing. I still don’t know where that courage came from, but I am proud.
Sean Locke Photography, Shutterstock
15. Now, That’s Awkward
A few years back, I was riding a subway train home. I saw this girl sitting there minding her own business, and a group of three slightly older guys sitting a bit farther off. One of the guys started throwing some derogatory comments at her and he was getting louder and more aggressive by the minute. The other passengers on the train are watching the entire scene unfold.
No one was doing anything, either. Finally, the guy who was taunting her snickered and said, “Watch what I’m going to do next”. He then started walking over to the girl. Being physically larger than he was, I intercepted him before he reached the girl and yelled at him to stand down. He walked past me.
He sat down and slid over in an attempt to sit next to her, but I squeezed in between them. For the remainder of the ride, I sat between the girl and the guy, who was now visibly uncomfortable at having been put in his place. Before I got off at my stop, one of the older passengers made eye contact with me and smiled.
16. Mwahahaha
When I was about three, I would play with another kid my age. Unfortunately, all he ever wanted to do was wrestle but every time he would end up hurting me. Finally, after running to my mom crying for like the seventh time, she just said, “Go kick his butt then”. So, the next time we wrestled, I took him down hard and did the leg bendy thing. This time he was the one running to his mom crying.
17. Something Wicked This Way Comes
I went to a very conservative Christian high school—Baptist in case that means anything to anyone. It was so conservative that they refused to acknowledge and observe MLK Jr. Day. While MLK was a Baptist there is more than one flavor. The school I went to was in Northern California and there wasn’t a single black person in the entire congregation.
My school was full of uber-conservative white people who believed in literal Genesis creationism, thought drums and amplified guitars were demonic, thought Christian rock music was as dangerous as secular rock music, and prayed that George W Bush would win his elections (and thought that their prayers were essential in the eventual outcome).
In my senior year, for two weeks we had our schedules completely rearranged so that we could do a study on a Shakespearean play. Some friend of the school and her husband were “experts”, so our first and second periods (Bible and English, respectively) were bunched into a single period for this in-depth Shakespeare study.
Bible was not taught for two weeks and English became essentially a two-period class. The play we studied was Macbeth. During a history class that took place during these two weeks, my history teacher (who was also my English teacher) was going on about the dangers of rock music. He had some stupid book that outlined the occultic activities of all these famous bands.
As he was ranting, I raised my hand and said, “Mr. Anderson, you’re saying that these bands are a bad influence because of their occultic activity, right”? He agreed. I said, “And you’re saying that listening to these bands opens the doors of your soul to the devil because by accepting this music and allowing it around you, you are inviting demonic influence”? “Yes”, was again his reply.
“So, why,” I asked, “are we enthusiastically canceling Bible class for two weeks to study, voluntarily, a play by Shakespeare whose entire plot is based around witchcraft and the occult? Why are we studying a play that contains carnage and hedonism? What is the difference between Shakespeare and Led Zeppelin exactly”?
As soon as I was done asking this, the look on his face was pure terror. The entire class was silent as he stammered for a response, but he couldn’t even put half a sentence together. The class erupted in laughter. I got pats on the back, handshakes, and “Good job, man” from everyone. I felt like I just slayed a dragon.
Krakenimages.com, Shutterstock
18. Hold Your Applause
This happened when I was about 21 years old riding the Skytrain back from the city to the burbs. An old lady was sitting alone in a seat by the door and a group of three young and hammered punk teens got on. Almost immediately, one of them made a beeline for the old lady and hovered over her as he leaned against the side of the train with his arm. She was totally frightened.
At the time, I was a long-haired rocker and probably looked as punky as the kids, so when I stood up I’m not sure the other passengers knew which side I was on. I moved in, slipped my body underneath the guy’s arm, and rose to stare him in the face (I was between the old lady and him now). Not a word was spoken. The whole train froze.
The next stop came and no one moved. When I heard the chimes signaling that the doors were about to close, I immediately flung the punk—butt first—through the closing doors and onto the platform just as the train pulled away. His two remaining buddies looked on in shocked silence. Not a word was spoken by anyone on the train until the next stop.
After that, the doors opened and the other two guys beat a hasty retreat. I slowly sauntered off the train to the smiles of all there—especially the old lady. Those smiles were all I needed.
19. Wound Of Honor
I was eating lunch with my friends, the “lame” kids, one time during high school. Our clique sat next to the bros. A mentally challenged kid walked by our two groups and someone from the bro group decided it would be funny to jump on this kid’s back and start riding him like a raging bull.
Some people were laughing but most were in shock.
For some reason, skinny little me decided to throw this massive guy off of the kid. I started yelling at him and telling him that he is a piece of trash. I then proceeded to get beaten up—broken nose and all. Out of nowhere, a group of kids started attacking the bro, which probably saved me. They thanked me for doing the right thing. To this day, my nose is still crooked.
20. Not-So-Smarty Pants
I like to go to one of the campus bars to have a drink while I read, mark students’ work, and so on. Some evenings that bar hosts a trivia contest where teams of people answer questions to win free food and drinks. Fair enough. Last winter I was there marking, and there was a team of middle-aged to elderly men sitting at the next table.
These guys had chosen “The Inklings” as their team name, after the well-known drinking/writing group comprised of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, and others. Judging by their talk, they seemed to be professors in communications, information tech, and that sort of thing. I’m in English and the Inklings are one of my areas of interest.
I was pleased by their name choice, anyway, though unsure why they chose it. As the contest went forward and the empties piled up, one of them started to get aggressive. He was doing a lot of sloppy cursing and loudly accusing other teams of cheating and denouncing any question that he got wrong. It was becoming annoying—and I knew I had to shut him down immediately.
The tipping point came when he started ranting about the endless cheating perpetrated by “those witches over there”—a small group of young female students who weren’t doing anything more egregious than occasionally getting a question right. Finally, I stood up in as ostentatious a way as I could (I managed to make my chair fall over as I was doing it).
I walked two paces over to their table, slammed my hands down on it, looked him right in the eye, and said, “You’re a disgrace to your name. Any one of the Inklings—even Hugo freaking Dyson—would punch you in your mouth for what you’re doing here. Stop it”. He was shocked. The best part was when one of his companions turned to him and muttered, “You know he’s right, Tom”.
TheVisualsYouNeed, Shutterstock
21. A Living Legend
During my junior year of high school, I was riding the bus because I couldn’t afford a car at the time. A pair of annoying sophomore guys were tormenting a freshman girl for being overweight. She just had natural curves and was by no means unattractive. Nevertheless, these two were bashing her for not conforming to a drastically distorted view of beauty.
I was glad to see that the girl, to her credit, was throwing some insults right back at them. Now, I don’t mind watching a good insult fight—that’s how I sharpened my wit back in those days. However, it was when one of the aggressors tried to grab her chest that something inside of me snapped. I jumped into action…
The guys were near the front of the bus, and I was in the second to last seat. I stormed the length of the bus and grabbed the bigger guy by the back of his head. I then slammed him against the window on the opposite side of the bus and stuck my forearm across his neck. He was flailing and trying to get away, but I just unleashed on him…
“YOU LITTLE ROTTEN SACK OF TRASH”, I roared. “YOU’D BEST FEEL PRIVILEGED THAT I DIDN’T THROW YOU OUT THE WINDOW FOR WHAT YOU JUST PULLED. IF YOU OR YOUR DESPICABLE LITTLE BUDDY LAY YOUR HANDS ON HER AGAIN, YOU WILL BECOME INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH THE TASTE OF BLOOD AND TEETH FRAGMENTS”.
Now the other guy, suddenly feeling brave, decided to try and lay into me. I’m not a big guy, but they weren’t exactly fully developed either. He definitely messed with the wrong one—the kid punched me in the back of the head and started telling me to leave his friend alone. I promptly wrapped my right arm around the kid’s head, spun around, lifted him WWE-suplex style, and slammed him onto the floor.
I then took the girl’s hand, and led her back to my seat, stepping over the still-facedown brat as I went. She rode with me for the rest of the year and the two little jerks were put in the front seat so the driver could keep an eye on them. I should also mention that after the incident, my words became law on that bus.
Bonus: It’s been about two years since the end of that particular school year, and out of the blue I got an email from the girl, saying how much she appreciated what I did, and how after that happened, she had the biggest crush on me. So now, when I get home from college, I have a girlfriend waiting for me because I did what someone should have done a long time ago.
22. Fifth Time’s The Charm?
I hit a guy over the head with a half-full tub of butter popcorn while screaming, “YOU FREAKING SUCK”! In my defense, I did it after the FIFTH time he answered his phone during Avatar. Does this count?
23. 10/10 Clapback
I was at a Dollar Tree when this woman was harassing the cashier. The cashier kept telling the customer that she needed a receipt if she wanted a cash refund otherwise the cashier was only able to offer store credit. I mean, this poor cashier was doing everything in her power to remain polite as this woman was swearing at her.
I started to clap. The rude customer turned around and said, “What do you want, idiot”? I told her she was putting on a beautiful performance and that she needed to shut up and stop being so rude to the cashier or get out of the store. She started to say something nasty to me, but I held up my hand and said “Conversation over”.
She was mad. She released an avalanche of swear words at me and proceeded to stomp out. After she left, all of the employees and customers applauded and the cashier thanked me. I told her that no one deserves to be treated like that and then I went next door to the food store and bought cake for all of the cashiers.
24. Simple, Yet Effective
In English class last year, a girl spilled her water bottle. The girl next to her started to slow clap and said, “Well done”! I pushed my chair away from the table, stood up, and said, “Don’t clap. Help her”! I walked out to get some paper towels and helped clean up. Sure enough, the mean girl was silent for the next week.
25. A Very Sneaky Sando
One of the special needs kids at our school, Robbie, was very friendly and talkative. The other boys used to make fun of him and would get him to do things to embarrass himself or injure himself (it was nothing too serious, but still). One of their favorite things was to take away his lunch on Fridays. That was the day his mother let him have a Nutella sandwich.
On one particular Friday, I convinced my mom to let me have a Nutella sandwich instead of something healthier. I went to the park at recess, found some dog poop, and loaded it into the sandwich. At lunchtime, I told Robbie to hold my sandwich and sit still as we waited for the guys to come looking for him—and they did, right on schedule.
Matt, who was the second biggest in class and also the meanest, ran by and snatched Robbie’s sandwich, stuffing it in his mouth as he ran. I watched, totally mesmerized. He got about halfway through it before he knew something was very, very wrong. He started sputtering, gagging, and trying to throw up.
During the throwing-up stage, Robbie was laughing and chanting at the top of his lungs, “YOU ATE DOG POOP! YOU ATE DOG POOP! YOU DIRTY POOP EATER”! I didn’t even know that he’d figured it out! Everyone was falling on the floor laughing. Eventually, Matt recovered and immediately went for Robbie, which was something I hadn’t thought about…
Anton, Matt’s sidekick and the biggest guy in class by a wide margin, stepped in and told Matt to back off. To everyone’s shock, Matt quietly backed down and lost a LOT of his cred with the guys. His desperate attempts to get it back made the other guys realize that he was, in fact, not a god, and they started to stand up to him a lot more.
26. Above And Way Beyond The Call
I was working in the tool department at Sears and a guy came in with a defective Walmart-brand wrench wanting us to replace it with a Sears-brand like it was a normal thing to do. He was talking to a cashier who denied his ridiculous request. When he started yelling at her, I decided it was time to step into the situation.
I googled the name on the wrench and offered to call the company, which, remember had nothing to do with Sears, and he accepted impatiently. I spoke to a representative who offered to overnight a new wrench straight to his door. When he heard this, he flipped out. I guess his gorilla tantrum put me into some mental zone of trying to protect the girl…
I stood there and calmly told him it was the best I could do, and that if he won’t accept the company’s offer, there is nothing else I can do. I completely zoned him out as he went so far as to threaten my life. My replies were just all very calm as I stood between him and the girl who at this point ran away and called a manager.
Anyway, loss prevention showed up and the guy almost started a brawl. He was finally kicked out of the store and banned. For the entire day, everyone was talking about how even though the guy wanted to kill me, I stood up to him as I did. It was pretty cool that they were so amazed and the cashier girl and I were friends until I quit.
27. Guardian Angels
My good friend and I were waiting at a red light and across the intersection, there was a young couple in their 20s. The guy was screaming at the girl so loudly that we could hear it over the traffic, and his posture looked like he was about to hit her. As we passed them, I screamed out the window “Don’t talk to her that way”! That's all I was going to do—but then my friend took it even further.
My friend yelled, “Leave her alone, you piece of trash”! We didn’t plan to yell, it’s just that we both were extremely angry about it. As I continued up the street, he threw his bike and backpack down and started running after us, screaming that he would destroy us and her too. As soon as he started running after us, I dialed the authorities. He was eventually apprehended.
28. Desperate Times…
I was always big for my age, so when I was in elementary school, my parents told me never to fight and to always just ask a teacher or an adult for help because the larger kid is more likely to get into trouble, even if he was just defending himself. This meant I was usually the target of mean kids, partially due to my size and partially because I didn’t fight back. It made me feel horrible, but I'd eventually have my shining moment.
One day, the teacher told my parents she couldn’t stop the mean kids because nothing happened in front of her. My mom sat me down, sighed, and said, “It’s OK to defend yourself”. The next day, the mean kids came around, not knowing that things had changed. As soon as one threw a punch, I knocked two out, threw a third onto a fence, and sat on the fourth until he cried. I did not get in trouble.
29. Speaking Truth To Power
For a variety of reasons that are irrelevant to this story, I started going to a Catholic high school in the tenth grade, but I am not Catholic. So, one day we were in theology class and the priest/teacher was talking about the evils of gayness and how you shouldn’t allow your son to have their lover in your house because blah, blah, blah.
I raised my hand and asked him why he would encourage the class to treat their potential future children with contempt for any reason whatsoever. So he started asking me a bunch of questions along the lines of, “Oh, so you would want to see them kiss”? I told him that I would want to see my children happy and that following his advice would surely lead them down the opposite path.
I should mention that I didn’t exactly say it respectfully, so he sent me to the principal who then started asking me the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS. I told him I was leaving and he told me that was technically against the law without permission. I told him he should probably call the authorities because he and his administration weren’t going to be able to stop me.
I got home and my dad was outraged that I skipped school at least he was until I told him everything that had happened. He was proud of me. After all, his brother is gay.
30. Stroke Of Genius
When I was in high school, I was the biggest person, no joke, at 198 cm (6'6") and 159 kg (350 lbs). My parents have raised me to be an open-minded person, so whenever I would see people pick on a good friend of mine who just so happened to be gay, my go-to response was to make the persecutor as physically uncomfortable as possible.
First I would start lovingly stroking them and do all other sorts of affectionate gestures. Then when they called me derogatory names, I would explain that I was indeed straight, just comfortable enough with myself that I didn’t get freaked out by my campy actions. It didn’t take long to teach these intolerant jerks a lesson.
31. Crotch Fruit Gone Wild
I was in a coffee shop and this woman was letting her five-year-old kid run amok in the store. He was knocking things over, breaking stuff, and annoying people. The last straw was when he kicked the granny in line behind me. The kid’s mom saw it and just grinned, so I realized it was time for me to do something…
“Excuse me, ma’am”, I said loud enough for all to hear. “It’s blatantly obvious that your nanny has the day off, so would you mind if I showed your kid what a firm smack feels like so that you can continue to not act like a parent”? The woman stormed out and the granny gently touched my arm and said, “I thought there was no hope for your generation, but I guess I was wrong”.
32. Cool In The Face Of Danger
I tried to strike up a conversation with some guy in line for drinks at a rough bar in a small Canadian town. But instead of talking back to me like a normal person, he punched me in the face. I was pretty loaded and said (in sincerity, I was pretty surprised and it must have been a bad punch), “Did you just punch me in the face?”
He replied with another lame punch to my face. To which I said, “You did punch me in the face! You suck”! I then turned around, went and got my drink, and had him tossed out. I’d always fantasized about being some kind of surprise brawler in such a situation, but I learned that I’m much less reactive than I could even imagine.
33. Panic On The Dance Floor
Recently, some friends and I were in a redneck biker bar in a medium-sized town. The place was full and I was one of two Pakistani/Indian people in the whole place—there were maybe five or six other non-white people floating around if that many. Anyway, I got separated from my group and started looking for them on the dance floor.
Some guy grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Shouldn’t you be driving a cab or something”? I walked up to him, gave him a huge hug, and said, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I found you. Your mother probably never told you, but I’m your father. That’s right. I was screwing your mom for a while”.
I then turned around and walked away. He was too stunned to respond.
34. Heckling The Heckler
This happened when I was a week from graduating from a liberal arts hippie community known as Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. A graduate from the 1970s came and read his memoir. It was ill-received by the lecture hall of students and the author was even harassed by a student who questioned his scathing portrayal of the college in his day.
This person seriously tried to make the author feel guilty about his personal experience. In her last heckle, she admitted that she hadn’t even read his book, only a portion of a review. The next time she spoke, I interrupted her and said, “You didn’t even read the book”. It was met with glorious applause, and I even got a smile from the guest.
ESB Professional, Shutterstock
35. Lost In Translation
When I was 10, I was taking my four-year-old brother to the grocer a block from our house to buy some candy. On the way back from the store, a little kid ran up and took my brother’s candy. My brother was fast enough to hang on to him and get his candy back—almost. Both kids were about the same age and build so their struggle turned into a tug-of-war.
Just then the kid’s mother stepped in and her reaction was totally unexpected—she started YANKING on my brother’s arm. I tried to tell her in broken Korean to let my brother go, but all she saw was that my brother won’t let go of her poor, now screaming son. I’m frantic because I can’t get her to understand that her kid started it all and my brother was only trying to keep his candy.
By now, she was about to yank my brother’s arm right out of the socket. That’s when I karate-chopped the lady. Hard. I hit her forearm with everything I had and it worked! She dropped my brother’s arm and then came for me. I snatched my brother and ran home with the RAGE of the Korean nation behind me. Little did I know, my dad had been looking out of the apartment window because of the commotion.
As I was breathlessly telling my dad what happened, the angry mother came running down the hall, babies in tow. She screamed at my dad and the whole time. My dad was nodding politely, smiling apologetically, and then he dropped the mic: “Get away from my kids. You lay your hands on either one of them again and I’ll call the authorities. Now go on your merry way and I’ll tend to my poor children”.
The Korean lady gave my dad a little bow, shot me and my brother a glare that said, “OH, YOU’RE IN FOR IT NOW”, and walked off, completely placated. Man, I’m glad she didn’t understand English! My dad’s been my hero ever since.
36. A Nose For Trouble
I was constantly made fun of throughout grade school. I lived in this in a small rural college town, where I was the only Indian kid in the whole middle school. In gym class, there was this idiot farm boy who would always sit behind me and make fun of me during attendance. Normally I would tolerate it, but one day he went too far…
On the day in question, he called me the most offensive name he could—Osama Bin Laden. I snapped. I charged at him and kicked him right in the nose, while he was sitting there. His nose shattered and I was held back before he could even react. I received a day of in-school suspension and he received a whole week, plus he was charged with a hate offense. Needless to say, he never bothered me again.
37. Tough Guy
A friend of mine is a gay man. Once at a gas station in small-town Iowa, an employee called him a derogatory name as he was leaving. My friend stopped, turned around, picked up the guy by the collar, and lisped, “Sometimes we bash back”. He then threw the guy into one of the large candy displays. Everyone, including myself, was in total shock.
38. Worst Excuse Ever
I was on the last week of my month-long Tokyo trip when I happened to be outside Shibuya station, having a smoke on those circular benches they have there. This is one of the best places in the world to people-watch as almost all of Tokyo makes it their meeting spot when going out with friends. Anyway, I was sitting there when I noticed this mid-thirties European guy.
He was playing pickup artist to any girl sitting by herself and getting rejected every time. At first, I could only chuckle to myself at how bad his game was. Suddenly this guy planted himself down next to two middle-school-aged girls who had been sitting beside me on the same circular bench. He started talking them up in a bad combo of English and Japanese.
I noticed that the girls were looking rather uncomfortable but were still attempting to be polite. By this point I was getting disgusted, so I leaned over, gave him a serious stare, and said, “You realize they’re only in middle school right”? I should note that I am Asian-American but he probably thought I was just another Japanese bystander.
I could tell he was pretty taken aback but he muttered defensively, “I just like girls”. I rolled my eyes at his lame excuse and the two girls took this opportunity to escape. I took another drag of my smoke, shook my head, and watched the creep quickly walk away from the area.
39. My, How The Tables Have Turned
One of my friends had to ride in a train compartment for four hours with a mother, her kid, and another woman. The kid was about five and was running around everywhere screaming, jumping on seats, and annoying everyone. At some point, he purposely blew saliva on the woman.
The disgusted woman wiped it off and asked the mother to deal with her kid. The mother said, “You know, I think that the best education is through discovery, that’s why I don’t want to put up barriers for him”. As the train entered the station, my friend stood up, spat on the mother, and said, “You know what? My mother thinks just like you”.
40. Malicious Compliance For Sure
In high school, I used to wear a shirt with George Bush’s face on it and the words “international monster”. One of my teachers was an American (I’m Canadian) AND she was a Republican. Anyway, she told me to take off my shirt, thinking she had the upper hand. But she was in for quite the surprise—I knew she meant that I should put on another shirt, but I just took off my shirt and sat there in the middle of class glaring at her.
The whole class started laughing deliriously. To make a long story short, she had me suspended for that. I decided to write a 12-page letter to the school board threatening to sue every teacher, faculty member, and all of the administration in Quebec for violating my right to free speech. They let me come back to school two days later.
41. Like A Ton Of Bricks
When I was in second grade, one of the girls in my class had a puppy love crush on me. One day during recess, one of the other boys started throwing dirt and pine needles at her. I decided to be the good guy and stand up to him. I told him to pick on someone his size. Corny, I know, but I was a big comic book fan at the time.
The guy picked up a big block of dirt and gave me a menacing look. I thought I would duck just as he threw the dirt and it would fly awesomely right over my head. It turns out the dirt was a brick covered in dirt. The jerk threw the brick and I tried to duck, but the brick hit me right in the face and knocked me back a few feet.
I stood up with blood rushing from my nose as the teacher finally rushed over and took me to the nurse. I still get nosebleeds easily because of that, and I never did get to date that girl. Although this story didn’t have a perfect ending, it helped me realize that even though life can suck for the good guys, someone needs to stand up to jerks.
42. Snappy Comeback
I was at a Cher concert with my partner and to the left of us were two other gay guys and to our right there was an older woman who was sitting apart from her friends. She was very nice and was enjoying the concert much more than we were. The two guys to our left kept getting up to get drinks and use the facilities every few minutes, which was pretty annoying.
Finally, one of them noticed that we were getting ticked off, and tried to buddy up to us. “Look at that woman down there”, he said. “I bet that’s not even her real hair”. To which my partner replied instantly, “I wish you wouldn’t talk about my Mom that way”. I’ve never seen so much backpedaling in my life. At least they started going the other way down the row.
43. Now There’s A Happy Ending
I was at a fancy business dinner party where everyone was in suits. One guy there was HUGE—tall and heavy—and completely smashed. He thought it would be a good idea to lift a good-looking woman from behind by wrapping his arms around her chest and swinging her back and forth. As he did this, the look on her face was sheer horror.
I am an average height and weighed about 68 kg (150 lbs) at the time. I walked up to him and said, “If you don’t put her down RIGHT NOW I am gonna kick your butt”. He put her down. I got laid.
44. What Happens On The Plane To Vegas…
When I was 21, I was on an airplane to Las Vegas. It was one of those old Southwest planes that had some rows of seats that faced backward. I grabbed one of the backward-facing seats. Sitting across from me there was a very attractive 20-ish woman in the window seat and some random 40-year-old guy in the aisle seat.
Now, I’m not averse to talking to people, so when the 40- year-old started chatting with me about whatever, I didn’t mind. Out of nowhere, he nodded toward the young woman and said in that stupid guy way, “Well.. at least you have something pretty to look at during the flight”. She was annoyed. I feigned confusion and said, “Um, yes, your daughter is lovely”.
He was so flummoxed that he didn’t say another word for the rest of the flight.
45. It’s Called Fashion, Sweetie
Once upon a time in high school, the class jerk came up to me and, in front of a group of people, said, “I thought only girls cuffed their jeans”. I quickly answered, “I thought only girls cared about what other people wear”. It was a triumphant moment when everyone laughed at him. Best of all, he never bugged me again.
46. You Got Told
My four-year-old stepson and I were on the bus headed to the local pool. There was a loud group of college-aged boys, who were swearing profusely. My stepson, the brave little soul he is, decided to set them straight. “THAT’S A BAD WORD! DON’T SAY THAT OR MOM WILL WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP”! Needless to say, the group was pretty shocked to be called out by a preschooler.
After that, they kinda looked at me, but I just gave them an eyebrow and tried not to laugh.
47. Boom! Roasted
I was at the store with my mom and some kids were running around causing problems. It was Christmas, so my mom said, “You guys better be good or Santa won’t bring you anything”! The kids’ mother stormed over and yelled at my mother that what she did with her kids wasn’t any of our business. My mom coyly replied, “Oh, my mistake! From the way they were acting, I thought they were orphans”.
48. Life Of The Party
This happened back in 1997 when I went to the University of California, Santa Barbara. The authorities barged into the house we were partying in to tell us to turn down the music because neighbors had complained. We turned down the music but they started checking bedroom doors. Since we lived in quite a party house, all of the roomies knew to keep their doors locked.
One officer yelled, “WHO LIVES HERE?! SOMEONE NEEDS TO OPEN THESE DOORS”! So, I walked over, drink in hand (I was over 21), and I silenced the room with my next few words: “I’m no lawyer, but we’ve turned down the music and unless you can come up with a search warrant, you’re breaking the law and I will have to ask you to leave”. That same officer started to get in my face.
She started threatening to bring me to that station. I told her that I was on private property and obeying all laws and that if someone did not show me a search warrant, I would press charges because they were trespassing. The oldest cop came over and grabbed her by the arm and said firmly but quietly, “We need to go”. I felt like a hero!
49. The Ride Of His Life
One afternoon my friends and I were driving on a quiet road in my little Mini Cooper. Suddenly there were a bunch of jerk kids throwing stuff into the road. I swerved to avoid a stone and they started jeering at us and shouting “wankers”. I carried on driving until my friend said, “Let’s go back and scare the poop out of them”.
I slammed on the brakes and put the car in reverse. I was intending to just quickly back up next to them and throw some rubbish from my car at them. Unfortunately, because I suck at driving I reversed too fast, and when I braked again I must have moved the steering wheel involuntarily because I somehow performed an epic and pretty much exact 180-degree spin.
I made the tires screech and everything. The best part was that my move was so (unintentionally) perfectly timed that the car ended up stopping right next to them. They immediately did poop their pants and started to book it out of there—all the while ignorant of the fact that I had no intention of looking so awesome.
50. Big Man Off Campus
I was home from college for the summer and saw two of the biggest idiots from my grade school days as I was walking into Chipotle. They saw me and one decided to call me a nasty name. That's when I had a genius moment of pure impulse. I turned and said in the most sunny tone you could imagine, “Hey guys! How’s college”? They were speechless. I won.
Cast Of Thousands, Shutterstock
