Some people just don't get that they aren't the only ones on the planet. And even if we can convince them of that, good luck trying to get them to realize that everybody else aren't their own personal servants. These incredibly entitled people tried to have it their way or the highway. Infuriatingly, sometimes they succeeded. But in others, they got a sweet dose of karma.
1. Crazy For Love
I worked as an employee with the Marines. Got a call that the spouse of one of the officers was in the hospital. The details sounded horrific.
Her place on base housing had gotten broken into, the nine-month pregnant spouse was beaten and taken by ambulance to the hospital. The assault caused a miscarriage. I was devastated and went to the hospital with several officers in the Marine’s chain of command. But I had no idea what I was in for.
One of the nurses tending to her looked me in the eye and said, “I am very interested in how this is going to play out”. I was so confused. The nine-month pregnant assault victim was given an ultrasound and blood work performed upon being admitted to the hospital. That’s when the truth came out.
She hadn’t been pregnant. She wasn’t assaulted. Her “due date” was the next day and she’s been faking the pregnancy the whole time. She beat herself up and made up the story resulting in miscarriage as a way to cover up the nine months of lying to her husband about being pregnant.
I’ve never seen this level of crazy until three months later when said Marine reunited with the crazy girl even after all that.
2. Stay Hydrated For The Haters
I'm on a diet that requires me to drink a metric ton of water, so I carry around a 1 liter Nalgene bottle at all times. I'm a mid-level manager at a 60-person company. At the end of the work day, on my way out I pass the water cooler and fill my bottle up for the commute home. I thought this was no big deal—I was extremely mistaken about that.
Yesterday I was doing just that when our office manager walked up and said the following: "You're leaving for the day, water is for employees to drink when they are working in the office only". I laughed it off, finished filling my bottle, and headed home. I thought she was kidding, or at the very worst having a bad day and lashing out.
Well, she wasn't. Today I get into the office with an email from her to myself, my boss (our CEO/founder), and our HR person saying that I am stealing from the company, that I didn't stop filling my water bottle and immediately apologize when confronted, and that she is officially reporting this behavior and asking to have it documented.
Needless to say, we all had a pretty good laugh about it, my boss/CEO called me in an absolute fit of laughter—he could barely form a sentence he was laughing so hard. Someone else wrote "Is proper hydration good for the company?" on my water bottle. Our office manager, however, is just walking by my office and glaring at me this morning.
3. The Shrill Of Defeat
I worked for a local computer shop. We were located less than a half-mile drive from the school in the center of my city. Every once in a while, we would get a call from the tech support guy there with a semi-advanced question or simply something he didn’t know. The school became acquainted with us well enough that either me or my boss—the only two who worked there—would sometimes be called in as sort of subs for their tech guy.
The board knew us, the administration knew us, and I became really close friends with the SINGLE janitor this entire high school of more than a thousand kids had. I was substituting for their tech and got a call from an irate mother about her child. I was really curious at first, but then the principal came in and signaled for me to hang up NOW.
However, I kept listening. Apparently, her kid got a 79 on a test, and she wanted him to retake it. As lenient as this school was, it was a state exam, and I knew that because I had gone to this school. My explanation didn't appease her in the slightest. She began screaming in the most high-pitched voice she could. I sat there, shocked.
I had my phone volume at one, and the principal was able to hear it from a good eight feet away. The principal leaned up against the wall, and at this point, we were waiting for her to stop screaming. It suddenly ended, and I could hear that she was out of breath on the other end. She was panting like a dog but wheezing like a pig getting slaughtered. Well, she’d messed with the wrong person.
I gave a good ten-second pause and asked, "Would you like fries with that"? A foul word came out of the phone, and she screeched. There was no annunciation, no vague dictation, just a loud, piercing screech that permanently damaged the phone’s speaker. Then a click. The principal and I never laughed harder in our lives.
He said, "Thank God you don't work here, or I'd have to fire you". All that fuss because the kid got a 79.
4. Don’t Mind Me
When I was in college, a student came in and sat in their chair, leaning back, taking that standard “don't care” posture. Meanwhile, another woman in her mid-50s came in and sat next to him. No one took any notice at first because, again this was college, and everyone could attend at different times in their lives. But it got weird fast.
Usually attendance wasn’t taken, but it was the first day of a 101 class, so the professor wanted to make sure everyone who was supposed to be there was. The woman had a notebook out but wasn’t on the class roster, nor was she someone who was waitlisted. The professor asked her if she missed the waitlist announcement, to which she replied, "No, Don't mind me".
The professor frowned and asked, "Why not? What are you doing here"? Her answer blew our minds. The woman replied, "Taking notes for my son. Like I said, don't mind me". The professor stood there stunned. He stated in a confused voice, "Lady, he is in college". The woman nodded and replied, "Yes, but notes are hard for him".
The professor asked, "Does he have an IEP? If so, we have a program for that". The woman said, “No. Like I said, Don’t mind me". The professor told her, "I do mind. You have to pay to be in this class". The woman persisted, "I’m not learning anything. Just taking notes". The professor was left dumbfounded by that. He pointed her to the exit at that point.
He just said, "No. You’re gonna leave the classroom because your son isn’t 12 anymore and can darn well take his own notes. You didn't pay for classes, so you're not allowed to be here. Goodbye"! The woman still had the nerve to say, "Well! I will complain to the head of your department". But the professor still had one more trick up his sleeve.
He told her in no uncertain terms, "I am the head; now leave".
5. All Yolked Up
Once, when I was working at this insanely popular breakfast joint, this seemingly adorable old couple walked in. After I ran them through our specials at their request, the woman ordered the duck hash, and the man ordered two boring poached eggs on toast. All was good...until I brought them their food. The guy started freaking out, and when I asked him what was wrong, his response made my blood boil.
Apparently, he was upset that I didn't bring him a tablespoon for his eggs. Granted, he didn't ask for one, but according to him, everyone knows that poached eggs are supposed to be served with a tablespoon. I've been a waitress for nearly a decade and I've served many poached eggs—yet I never heard this rule. Nevertheless, I apologized profusely and told him I would go grab him a spoon.
I thought that would be the end of it, but I was wrong. He proceeded to yell, "No! My breakfast is ruined now!" Then, he threw his plate of food at me and stormed out. His wife gave me a sympathetic smile as she slinked out behind him. I had to work the next eight hours with egg yolk stains all over me.
6. Dependapotamus To The Rescue
I've been living in Japan for a little over two years with my husband. He was born here and we decided to move to his hometown. It's a small city, but there's enough to do without getting bored. I'd describe us as an AMWF couple (Asian man, white female for those who don't know). It's not so common in Western countries, and it can feel like we are some rare shiny Pokémon as AMWF in rural Japan.
Lots of staring, an occasional secret picture, or even small chats if an old lady is brave enough to approach us. It can feel uncomfortable eating at a restaurant because kids will turn around in their seats and stare at us the whole time with an open fish mouth. Coincidentally, there's a small US base located in this city. The closer you are downtown, the more American families you see.
I'm constantly mistaken for being in the armed forces by Americans and Japanese, which is understandable. Besides myself, I only know five other mixed marriages here. It's always locals who ask about my “American husband” when I'm out alone, which I respond in Japanese "Watashi no otto wa nihonjin desu. Koko ni sunde imasu" (My husband is Japanese and I live here) or something along those lines.
Americans never ask about my marriage as they assume my spouse is American. When we are together in public, we do abnormal couples behavior such as holding hands—honestly, this is abnormal, I’m not being sarcastic. Couples here rarely hold hands in public, let alone say “I love you”. We don't go downtown too often since it's all pay to park and it's a nightmare to find a place.
Anyway, it was a beautiful warm day for the first time in months, and we decided to battle for a spot and walk around the shops. The crowd was heavy since the weather was great and winter was ending. The season for new American families to move here just finished, so I'm sure this was many people's first time leisurely walking and shopping outside.
We find a parking spot and made our way to the outside shops. Of course, we are holding hands and casually talking and laughing. Then it begins. "WOW”. I hear this from an American woman about 10 feet behind us. You should know that a Japanese stereotype against Americans is that we are rude and obnoxiously loud.
And this “wow” was loud enough for me to turn my head around at the noise. She was with two other moms who had like, three kids each. They were staring at me, but perhaps we just accidentally had eye contact at the right time. "Seriously, another little homewrecker is doing this in PUBLIC?" Chill woman, you're so loud even I can hear you.
We find a table nearby at the Starbucks outside. We are enjoying our drinks when the same group of women approached us with their strollers in tow. They definitely had some sort of purpose with something to say to us. But the words out of her mouth shocked me. Let's call her Onna (woman in Japanese).
Onna: "Excuse me, but you need to keep whatever you're doing in your messed-up home. Doing that in public in front of families to see is disgusting and immoral. My kids don't need to see such a bad display of marriage”. I'm SO confused, as was my husband who can speak English. Who knew drinking coffee outside was against humanity and marriage? Then it became all too clear.
Me: "I'm sorry? What...did we do?" Onna: "You know exactly what you're doing”. *She points to my wedding ring* Me: "No, I don't...”. Onna: "Good lord, does your husband know about this? Is he on a ship right now? That's soooo like a dependapotamus!" Her friends laugh. In case you don't know the lingo, a dependapotamus is slang for a base wife who stays at home all day, doesn't clean, uses their spouse as an ATM, and looks like Jabba the Hut. At that moment, it dawns on me.
She thinks I'm a base spouse and I'm cheating on my American husband! I started laughing because she's suggesting I'm cheating on my husband…with my husband! Me: "This IS my spouse. I'm actually not part of the Armed Forces and have a Japanese visa”. Onna looks at my significant other up and down. The two women behind her apologize, but the Onna didn't believe it.
Onna: "No one would voluntarily WANT to live in this little town. Nice lie, but you're not representing our community. You make all of us wives look bad! Who is your husband and what's his rank? Also, I need to know your dependent ID. MY husband is a high rank so he'll make sure your husband is aware of your infidelity”. She pulls out her phone to probably type my response.
I'm offended since this is actually a nice place to live and very open to foreigners. Me: "Look, my husband's name is Rei (not his real name; I don't want to reveal personal info) and he's sitting right here. I'm not going to show you my ID since I don't have one, and you're not the authorities. As proof, you can obviously see our wedding bands match, and here's a picture”.
I show her my phone screen, which is of us in traditional Japanese clothes on our wedding day. Her eyes became huge at the picture. Her two friends and their spawn have already started walking away. Then it ratcheted up. Onna: "Why are you in a relationship with HIM? You should be in a normal relationship and start having a family with American kids”.
She says some other statements which I'd consider against the Asian race. It's so ironic because we are in JAPAN, and she's fussing about me being married to a Japanese man. My husband has been quiet throughout the whole exchange and says to me we should go. I agree and stood up.
Me: "STOP. The things you are saying are extremely offensive. I was part of the base community myself some years ago and what you're doing is against spousal conduct”. She smirked. "Go ahead and tell people what I did, then. My high-ranking husband is an E-7, and everything will be swept under the rug no matter what happens. You can't touch me”. So that's what I did.
Note, this is a small community. Someone does something minor and it's talked about between wives like chickens. So later that day, I run into my friend who works on the base and she's well known in the community for being one of the main event coordinators. I don't miss this chance to comply with Onna's demand and explain to my friend about the exchange and how it made my husband extremely uncomfortable with her remarks.
She asked me if this person looked like so and so, to which I said yes. My friend rolls her eyes. Friend: "She just arrived a couple of months ago and is already causing problems with rumors and drama. I'll make sure what she said is passed on”. It's been half a year later and I didn't hear anything about Onna again since I distanced myself from making base friends here.
I've only been in my new city for a little over two years and experienced more drama from those families than I have my whole high school career. That is, until now. Last week, I ran into my friend, who's getting ready to leave back to the United States.
We had a little discussion about her moving and my family planning, and then she dropped a bombshell. Friend: "Do you remember Onna, who accused you of cheating on your non-existent base spouse and called your husband an awful name?" Me: "Of course! I haven't heard anything from her since”.
Friend: "Well, I mentioned we were already having problems with her not long after she got here. I told my boss that there's a person who was bothering and threatening civilians and asking for IDs, which isn't allowed for someone with her status”.
“My boss was extremely interested after I mentioned her name because Onna was scheduled for an interview in my department! I suggested we look at her social media accounts from her past behavior, because we don't tolerate that stuff. It was easy to find her Twitter and Facebook, particularly Facebook since we have many mutual friends. It was SHOCKING”.
“While she set her Facebook to private, her Twitter was littered with malicious tweets and retweets. She made it very clear that she 'wants to see her current city burn to the ground' and 'why would anyone want to learn Japanese since it sounds terrible'. We printed some of the more extreme things she posted and we still invited her to the interview”.
"Oh, and did I mention my boss is JAPANESE?!! So she comes into the interview, which I was part of. I asked three good things about her, to which she says 'dependent, gets things done, and friendly'. My boss just looked at her for a second before he pulled out her Tweets and asked her to explain how she can actually serve the local community if she hates it so much”.
“Onna was FLOORED and said someone hacked into her account, despite there being at least three years of slanderous tweets. We thanked her for coming and said we can't accept an employee with this conduct. As far as I know, she's still not working because some spouses found her Twitter not long after the interview and it was shared in all departments. No one will touch her application now”.
Me: "So all of this was discovered because I told you about her accusations?" Friend: "Yes! Oh, and she's kind of an outcast socially right now because she cheated on her husband a couple of months ago”. There you have it folks. Because one person couldn't mind their own business, they lost a potential job and had their social media exposed. Super ironic since she became the dependapotamus and adulterer—the same thing she was accusing ME of.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Her Entitlement Got Knocked Out Of The Park
I worked as a nanny and frequently took the baby to the park, where we did the normal "make friends and play" routine. There was a mom I frequently saw whose youngest child we would play with. One morning, we were playing, and when I looked up, I noticed that I was alone with two toddlers and her older pre-school-aged child.
I called for her and looked around for 15 minutes before calling the authorities. Twenty minutes later, I still didn’t see her, but the authorities and a social worker arrived. They took my statement, then left with the abandoned children. As I was walking down the street, about a block from the park, the mom came running up to me and pointed to the park.
She asked where her kids were. I told her what happened, and an argument ensued. I couldn't believe what she was saying. She was enraged that I didn't just sit and wait at the park with her kids while she ran to the store because I was a nanny. Apparently, I should be able to handle extra kids, even though they weren't my charges.
I proceeded to tell her— as calmly as I could with the baby present—what kind of mother she was and how much she endangered her children. I also gave her a general earful about being an irresponsible, expectant, idiot. There was some kind of court hearing after that, where she claimed I was babysitting her kids. However, when she couldn't provide the judge with my name or contact information, I was in the clear.
I was not privy to how it worked out for her and the kids, though.
11. Big Swings, Big Misses
Several years ago, I was working for a sporting goods store as the customer service desk guy. Mostly what I did was returns and some special stuff with Ticketmaster and hunting/fishing licenses. While it wasn't a glamorous job, I liked it because I'm an outdoors guy, and so the clientele were fun to talk to. One day, we were informed we were getting a new general manager.
The old one—who decent guy, but distant—was being transferred. The new manager was a raving harpy. She enjoyed making employees upset, didn't care at all about our customers, did nothing to improve anything about the store, and kept the other managers in her office with endless meetings about "improving" the store. After a few months of this, and seeing some of the high school girls hired to work crying after her ranting at them, I had enough.
I wrote a rather eloquent letter to corporate about her behavior and actions, and had several employees sign it. Two days later, several regional higher-ups arrived and proceeded to chew her out big time. She was suspended for two weeks and told that if the store didn't improve within the next quarter, she'd be fired. But that's just the beginning of the story.
I thought I had won. But no, I had not. Apparently, she found out it was me who wrote the letter and wanted revenge. So she got into the computer system and started to fake records showing I had been selling gift cards to myself, pocketing the cash difference, and then buying merchandise with those cards. It was mostly candy/pop/small stuff, which she was probably pocketing since our counts weren't ever off.
She then called in loss prevention, who weren't doing their jobs too well, because they didn't look closely at the files because they believed it and called in the county sheriffs. Two deputies came and looked over the evidence. To their credit, they asked "Are you sure?" and "Can you explain this?" several times, and I got the feeling they were unsure about the whole mess.
Nice guys, too, they offered to take me out through the back instead of parading me past customers, and were generally courteous and respectful. Still, the hammer came down hard. They ended up arresting me on theft charges. Taken to the pokey, booked, the whole shebang. I was in tears for pretty much three days. But I knew this was garbage, so I got my parents to help hire a lawyer for me.
I told him the whole story, and said under no circumstance were we pleading out to anything. He said ok and set up a meeting with the DA to talk about motions and such. When we arrived, the DA was all smiles and very polite. His response made me want to burst out laughing. He informed me that the paperwork wasn't quite done yet, but that they were dropping all charges and filing False Report charges against my old manager.
The investigators had looked over the evidence, and found that A) the files for almost three months’ worth of "thefts" had all been edited on two days, both of which I had not been present for, but that she had, B) they had all been edited from her computer, a computer I did not have access to, and C) several of the "thefts" occurred on days when I was in the system as being out of state on vacation.
I felt a lot happier after that, and felt even better when my ex-boss was found to have fled the state. She had checked herself into a mental hospital for a "nervous breakdown". She was eventually brought back, charged, and convicted. Last I saw she was an assistant manager at a gas station, while I'm now a federal firefighter and in school. It's only after I saw her pumping gas that I could claim victory over her.
12. 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.
13. A Recipe For Disaster
I worked part-time as a busboy when I was in high school. We had this family that would come in—a man, his wife, and their two small kids. They seemed like the most ordinary family, but they were actually the destroyers of tables and they always left a disaster. There would be fries everywhere and stuff all over the floor. I sat and watched as one of the kids put the salt and pepper shakers into a glass of milk.
I was already annoyed at that point, but when the dad called me over, I almost lost it. He asked me: "Hey, can junior have a new milk? He had a little accident".
They would scream the entire time with zero reaction from the parents. It was chaos for the entire hour they were there, every time. I had to clean up after them over a dozen times before the hostess asked them not to return. They threw a fit but at least they didn’t come back.
14. What A Load Of Garbage
I had an employer of mine write me up for stealing trash. In reality, at the end of my shift, one of my duties was to gather all the trash. Oftentimes, I would pick through the trash and sort all the paper, pop cans, and water bottles into our company's recycle bin. We had a special promotion with our trash company in which our company would get money based on the number of pounds we recycled.
It ended up being $1,500 per month AND we didn't pay our trash bill. So long story short, I got a final write-up for stealing company time for sorting our recyclables. But it gets worse. So I stopped, and the following month, our manager was angry that she had to pay a trash bill. She called the trash company and the company told her that the past two years she didn't pay for trash because our company would recycle so much.
Like, we would get a $1,500 check AND free trash service. Apparently, my boss thought that the checks were a bonus for her. Anyhow, the district manager was reviewing the write-ups and saw I got written up for stealing trash, so he called me up and asked me what was going on. I told him the story about the trash company and their promotion.
He congratulated me for a job well done. Then it got so, so good. The next day he flew in to talk to my manager. He asked my manager what happened to the $20,000 that she got from the trash company. Apparently, she tried to pin it back on me, and our district manager promptly fired her. After escorting her out, he called me into the office.
He told me what happened in that meeting and offered me a promotion to Assistant Manager.
15. Be A Jerk For No Reason, Great Idea
I was on guard duty in the military. An old Jeep Cherokee with an officer’s decal comes through. I come to attention and render the proper salute. This woman returns a two-handed salute, basically mocking me, my service, my country, and my etiquette. I figure that she’s an idiot, doesn’t know any better, etc.
A couple of days later, the same car with the wife and the active-duty husband comes through. I salute—and the reply made my blood boil. He too does the two-handed salute in return. Alright, whatever, be a jerk. A few hours later, as a chow relief, I’m on the gate when the same car comes through again. I just wave it through without saluting.
The car comes to a halt and the window rolls down. The officer asks why I didn’t render proper honors to a superior officer. I told him that I did not appreciate having my salutes getting mocked by him and his wife. I volunteered that I would be more than willing to go on report and submit my statement to his commanding officer as well as the base commander.
Then I saluted the blue decal and told them to move along, they were holding up traffic. From then on, whenever either of them came through the gate, I made it a point to slightly bend at the waist to salute the decal on the bumper. Just my little way to remind them that they were being jerks to someone who was just doing their job.
16. 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.
17. Not In Your Wildest Dreams Lady
I'm a teacher, and I was organizing a graduation dinner. One mother came in and demanded her daughter perform her music. I informed her that the grad class had picked someone else other than her daughter. But then the hilarious truth came out. She got even madder and corrected me that she wasn't even talking about her daughter who was graduating.
She was talking about her other daughter, who had graduated years ago and was now trying to launch her music career. I laughed and professionally informed her it would never happen. A couple of days later, she called the conference center and tried to make all the meals kosher and a bunch of other stuff. She was a wild lady.
18. Not A Good Enough Reason
I once pulled over the same lady on three separate occasions for speeding in a school zone. I was trying to be nice the first two times and let her off the hook, but she started bawling the third time and I lost my patience. She kept sobbing, saying her husband was deployed. I let her keep doing this for a couple of minutes while I was writing everything she said in my notes.
It felt like a Hot Fuzz moment. I finally asked how her husband being deployed was relevant to her speeding in a school zone and then she just stared at me. Like she couldn't believe I would question it. She got quiet afterward and I handed her the ticket and walked away without saying anything else.
19. Mine, All Mine
My brother was a service member. He passed in 2011. At the funeral, it turned into an utter disaster. His wife screamed at my mother and told us all to sit in the back because she was more important. For eight years now she has run around various news outlets and government agencies demanding more free gold star wife stuff.
To date, she has been given two houses, six figures worth of stipends, and multiple televised recognitions. She knew my brother for a total of two years but they were barely together from the first date to his passing. She acts like his family doesn't exist and she squashes any attempt by the rest of us to receive any sort of recognition.
She has alienated all of the other gold star wives in her support circle and constantly belittles other fallen servicepeople. The last thing he said about her, about two weeks before he passed, was that when he returns to the states he's fixing his mistake and divorcing her for being "a real piece of trash”.
20. 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.
21. She Had Me Tongue Tied
I worked at a quick-service restaurant, and my store location was near some sort of convention in Ottawa. The city is pretty bilingual, but not everyone is. I am most certainly not—I grew up in the prairies, where French is NOT a mandatory subject. Anyway, during one of my shifts, a woman was trying to order but she was speaking French. Although I can get the gist of things if I hear certain words, she spoke rather fast, so I was having trouble.
After a couple of minutes of back and forth trying to answer her questions, I turned to a bilingual co-worker and asked her to help. That's when the woman gave a response that made my face turn red. She said, in totally PERFECT English with as much disdain as she could muster: "This is Canada. We speak French AND English". My mouth dropped. Not only because of the comment but because SHE UNDERSTOOD ME THE WHOLE TIME AND DIDN'T TRY TO HELP.
I couldn't wrap my mind around why someone would do that. All I could do was stare at her for a few seconds and walk away.
22. Playing The Long Game
My Sergeant’s wife still needed to become a legal citizen. When we deployed, she got detained selling drinks to an underage/undercover officer. So while we're deployed, my Sergeant and most of my command are spending extra time and effort trying to fight the court system in the US and keep them from deporting her back to Mexico, due to her now being charged plus also overstaying her work visa.
So my command and the Sergeant fight and eventually win. The wife gets to stay in the country and gets to become a citizen. Fast forward two months and it turns out his wife's brother is not actually her brother but her boyfriend and my Sergeant’s daughter has been calling her own father "uncle" for a few years.
The wife's family apparently knew that the daughter belonged to the boyfriend who was also in the country illegally and just never said anything so that the daughter would be claimed by my Sergeant and be considered a US citizen and it would help the wife get citizenship. Now this woman, her boyfriend, and her entire family were in on a plan to help the wife get citizenship through an active duty Marine.
I'm not saying I think they planned the conception or anything, but an opportunity arose and they took it. In my book, they are all human scum and I hope the daughter never learns about any of this. My Sergeant eventually, and still is, in deep denial about the daughter now being his and believes his wife simply cheated on him.
He forgave her and they are still married eight years later.
23. Time Is Of The Essence
My boss once accused me of "time clock thievery" while I was doing volunteer work. It was a simple volunteer gig, like it wasn’t a major organization and nobody was keeping track of hours for anything. My volunteer work was also not court-mandated. We were cleaning up at the end of the day and I answered a phone call. The supervisor got all angry at me, saying "Get off the phone! That's time clock thievery!"
24. She Was Whining For No Reason
A lady and her husband came in to my restaurant. Before sitting down, they told us that she was highly allergic to white vino, saying, "If you feed me white wine, I will die". So I ran around double- and triple-checking recipes, ensuring the kitchen was ready so that her food would be safe when she ordered. Her husband ordered the special.
I made sure to tell her not to eat any of his meal because it was dressed with a beurre blanc sauce that was made with white vino, and I would like her to survive her dining experience. I brought out their food, and the first thing she did shocked me—she took a big ol' forkful of her hubby's special. I cried out in dismay as she shoved it in her mouth. While chewing, she said, "Oh, one bite won't hurt".
She also single-handedly weeded every server on the floor by forcing them into inane, inappropriate conversations while they were trying to take care of their busy sections. She also cornered another guest in the tiny corridor leading to the bathrooms to aggressively tell him that he was being too loud.
25. You Get What You Give
This military guy’s wife left him and moved in with her boyfriend off base while he was deployed. She got knocked up. Since they were still married, she was still going to the base for medical care. Their divorce wasn't final by her due date, so she still got to go on base and deliver. But the guy got his revenge in the end.
Her soon-to-be ex-husband had his buddies in security forces put a security flag on his soon-to-be ex-wife's boyfriend. The boyfriend couldn't be on base for the birth of his child.
26. She Was A Mutton For Punishment
I waited tables at a country club. I had a couple come in once, and as they were sitting down before I had even introduced myself, the woman was already complaining that they had to wait five minutes while we reset their table. She started off by telling me every time she gets the filet mignon, it is awful and cooked wrong. I suggested she try something else, but she declined and ordered it again.
I gave the kitchen a heads up to make sure it was perfect, as to save us all a headache. Her steak came up, and it seemed fine. I dropped her plate in front of her, and I could see she had a smirk on her face indicating she was not amused. She grabbed her butter knife and hit the top of the steak with the flat part three times. At that point, I knew she was about to go off...big time.
She hadn’t even cut into it or tasted it before saying, "This is disgusting". She had me take it back and bring her a new one. So, of course, we did, and she got her new one. She ate half of it and took the rest home. Before leaving, she wanted to talk to a manager. She complained profusely and got her whole meal free, along with a dessert, and left me a garbage tip.
27. Slow Your Roll
I used to work for a Kroger in Little Rock, Arkansas as a cake decorator part-time. I was never actually trained for the job except how to properly put frosting on the cake or how to make a shell border. Everything else was pretty much self-taught. I used what artist skills I have to not only do a shell border, but also add art nouveau style borders with it, as well as create custom character cakes for birthdays if our store didn't have the cake kit to make it with.
I had created cakes that were unique. I created a "premium" chocolate cake by using chocolate frosting, then using malt balls to create grape vines all over it. It sold 15 minutes after I put it on the cooler, so I had to make another. Also, you know those little "cupcake cakes" where they take a bunch of cupcakes and make a character? Yeah, I did Goombas and Mario mushrooms from those.
After working there for about three months, the bakery manager called me over to the side and told me that the "head cake designer" complained that I was too slow at making the cakes, and because of that, I was now required to stand up for seven hours straight making sandwiches until they feel I can become fast enough to make cakes again.
I later found out from other employees that it wasn't that I was slow…it was because no one was buying the cakes she was making.
Wikimedia Commons, Michael Prudhomme
28. Whine And Dine
I worked in Postal in Italy for the military. There are so many wives that come in screaming that their husband is a Captain/General, whatever, so you totally need to let her mail wine to her friends in the states. Sure, lady. I'll totally break federal law because you are married to one of two dozen Captains sitting in this base.
They scream louder when I explained that it was against the law. This happened at least twice a week. Couldn't get out of Italy fast enough.
29. Never-Ending Nightmare
I was a server at Olive Garden for two years. It was a typical busy night during our “never-ending pasta bowl” time of year. One of my first tables of the evening was a family of five—a mom, dad, two sons, and a little girl around two or three. They were all exceedingly overweight, and the daughter had on a dirty shirt and no pants, just a diaper.
When I checked back with them, I noticed an overwhelming scent of poo lingering around the table. I returned with some refills, and the odor was just as intense as before. On my way around the table to pass out beverages, I passed the high chair and noticed the little girl had her hand in her diaper. Her next move almost had me sick—I watched her pull out her mess and throw it on the floor to join an even larger one that was already there, slightly covered by a napkin.
I could not hide the disgust on my face. I don't remember exactly the words I used, but I turned to the parents and said, "Umm, your daughter has a situation going on over here". The mother replied, "Yeah, I know I threw that napkin over it", then continued to devour her third refill of never-ending pasta. I was in disbelief.
Not only were there two pieces of fresh Honey Boo-Boo style poo on the floor, but the girl’s hands were obviously covered in it, and not one family member seemed to care in the slightest. One of the brothers even asked me for another Dr. Pepper while I was standing there still in shock. I immediately told the manager on duty, and she didn't believe me.
I told her to go see for herself. She politely asked the mother to clean it up immediately and even gave her disinfectant wipes. That's when mom blew her top—she claimed it was not her job and she felt discriminated against that we would ask her to do such a thing. She demanded everything to be paid for. She picked it up, but she didn't wash her hands, didn't clean up her daughter, and continued to finish her meal.
I thought it was over, they would pay and leave, but as I was dropping the check, the mom said, "Uh, it's my son’s birthday. Don't y'all sing and give us dessert"?
30. Too Much Power In One Woman
A guy in my shop (Air Force) deployed to Iraq for four and a half months. Before he left, he signed over general power of attorney to his wife. It was just the worst mistake ever. While he was gone, she started sleeping with another guy in our shop, then signed the divorce paperwork as his power of attorney and his rights to see his kids, as well as draining his bank account.
She went to live with the other guy in my shop and his friend off base. They were both detained for check fraud when trying to pass off a check that was the roommate’s. The guy she divorced eventually got full custody of the kids and the other guy in my shop got kicked out of the Air Force.
She actively worked to ruin his life when all he did was love his kids and get deployed to Iraq.
Don't give anyone general power of attorney, ever. I don't care how much you trust them or how much you think they love you. Don't do it. You can give them specialized power of attorney that only allows them to handle your affairs that you very specifically need them to handle.
31. It Doesn’t Cut The Mustard
I worked as a shift supervisor for a sandwich shop. We had a girl come in and order a number of sandwiches. It was obvious that they weren't all for her, because she wasn't sure what the rest of the people wanted. Well, she ordered a sandwich with Dijon mustard on it. She only specified "mustard" but I'd been working here for a few years and knew the routine.
I asked her repeatedly if DIJON MUSTARD would be ok, she said that it would be fine. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. About 20 minutes later, one of my employees says to me that there is a customer on the phone who would like to speak with a manager. The minute I pick up the phone I hear somebody shout, literally at full volume, "WHY IS THERE DIJON MUSTARD ON MY SANDWICH?"
I asked him what he had ordered. His answer was " I DON'T KNOW MY DAUGHTER ORDERED IT FOR ME". I remember the young girl who was in the store earlier and say, "Oh, that's because she ordered the #8 for you, it comes with Dijon mustard". He began screaming again "I DIDN'T WANT DIJON MUSTARD, WHAT THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT DINNER?"
I kind of stammer now, because after all, a grown man is asking me what he should do for dinner. Once I began to talk, he exclaims, "WHAT ABOUT MY DINNER?" and every time I try to speak he begins yelling. I knew just what to do. I sit in silence. About 30 seconds of silence goes by and then he asks condescendingly, "Oh, nothing to say, huh?"
To this I reply, "Sir, if you are going to cut me off and yell at me I cannot help you". Well, he hung up. I thought it was all over…until he calls back even madder. “LET ME SPEAK TO THE MANAGER" "Sir, I am the manager" "NO YOU’RE NOT YOU'RE A KID" "I don't believe my age has any relevance to my ability to run a sandwich shop" "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT MY DINNER, IT'S RUINED!?"
"Sir, that is the sandwich your daughter ordered, I will gladly give you a new sandwich if you return the defective one" "OK I WANT IT DELIVERED" "Sure thing, where do you live?" Whatever he said was WAYYY out of our delivery range. "Sir, I cannot have our driver go that far, but if you would come back, I would gladly make you a new sandwich".
Incoherent screaming from that point on. I called the store owners and warned them that a corporate complaint was about to be lodged against me. I told them the story. They laughed, and said "good job". The rest of the night I thought at any moment there would be a very angry man who hates Dijon bust through the door and fight me. I felt really bad for his daughter, too.
32. Get A Handle On It!
I worked as a bar back. I accidentally dropped a fork on a very sloshed dude's foot. He got angry, shook his head, and grumbled about it. Bits of food fell on the ground as well, so I grabbed a towel to clean it up. I looked the man in the eye to let him know that I was on the floor cleaning next to him. What he did next was unforgivable—he proceeded to stand up and step on my hand as he walked to the bathroom.
I yelled out in pain. He didn't acknowledge it at all but instead chuckled as he walked away. Sadly, there wasn't much I could do. I had to walk to the back to calm down.
33. Back-End Shrimp Deals
I worked in a restaurant for a couple of years as a day supervisor. One of my duties was doing the twice-weekly ordering. When the deliveries came in, I would have to verify that we actually got everything on the invoice and reconcile it with the driver if there were any problems. One day there's a case of shrimp missing. I note this with the driver, he marks it on the invoice, removes it, and updates the total.
About a month or two later the same situation happens again, with the same result. As a quick aside, I had almost no power to do anything as a "supervisor". I didn't make hiring decisions, I couldn't fire anybody, and nobody would really listen to me since my other coworkers were all in their 40s or older and I was some 19-year-old kid in college with a better position than they had.
Despite all that, I still had a good relationship with everyone. So anyway, one of the cleaning people would drink during their shift CONSTANTLY. I complained to the head chef, I complained to the general manager, and nobody cared. Finally, one day, it became a big deal because she no-call/no-showed or something like that. That’s when I found out what a snake she was.
She accused me of stealing stuff to get some heat off of her. Shortly after this, I'm approached by the HR/finance lady about these missing cases of shrimp that we didn't pay for and never got. She comes out acting very suspicious of me, saying, "Somebody sure likes shrimp!" suggesting that I was in cahoots with the delivery driver to take shrimp.
I HATE seafood, so naturally, I laughed at first, but got really angry when I found out she was serious. After that, it was tense between everybody I used to have good relationships with because they thought I sold this other person up the river to save my own shrimp-stealing butt. I quit shortly after. Still one of the most ridiculous sagas of my life.
34. A Case Of Mistaken Identity
When my wife and I first moved we had a neighbor that was super friendly. This woman told us she had cancer so her brother was staying with her to take care of her. We think nothing of it. A few months later, they moved out. Normal thing, so no reason to be skeptical.
Fast forward a few months and I'm shoveling the driveway and a guy from next door comes over to say hi. I say hi and welcome him as a new neighbor. But no, he’s not a new neighbor, he’s had that house for a couple of years. I got confused and asked about the woman who had moved out recently. That's when I learned the dark truth.
He told me that woman was his wife, the brother was her lover, she didn’t have cancer, and she spent all his money on Farmville then moved out with everything they owned.
35. Tossed Out Of Target
When I had just graduated college, I did a stint at Starbucks as a manager. We made this woman's iced tea wrong. It was a silly mistake and it would have taken all of thirty seconds to remake it. Instead, she reacted in the most appalling way—she threw it back across the counter, turned to her daughter, and said in the nastiest, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life, soccer mom, "trophy" wife voice: "See, this is why we finish high school".
Being the manager, I refused her any further service. She thought she had me by the hair when she went to get the Target store manager. She didn’t know that the Starbucks I was working in was inside the Target I had previously worked in. A number of other customers backed up my story, and she was removed from the store altogether.
36. V For Vendetta
I had a friend in my platoon. His wife falsely accused her ex-boyfriend, also in the military, of assault. She went as far as stabbing a mattress to set him up. The dude spends weeks behind bars being cleared of all charges. When it comes to light that she was vindictive, she only goes more crazy.
One night, she handed her baby over to a friend while she watched a movie. My platoon mate, whose baby it was, went to check on the baby and saw it was missing. It prompted the first amber alert in Alaska history. When all was said and done, she tried to pin it on the ex AGAIN as another act of vengeance, even though she knew darn well what the story was.
I can only imagine what the poor dude was thinking when officers came to him with this. He was very quickly eliminated as a subject and they figured out that the baby was safe rather quickly.
37. On To Bigger, Better Things
A year after I started working for a company as a designer, my wife got pregnant with our first child. This was an office filled mostly with middle-aged women (I was in my mid-late 20s) and they were all excited. They even threw us a baby shower. All goes well and my son is born. I take two weeks’ vacation time to be with my wife and child.
It was two weeks that I had saved up. I come back to a nightmare. First, my boss is suddenly very aloof and non-communicative with me where previously she and I were pretty close. This goes on for several months…until I learn budget cuts have eliminated my position effective in six months from the time I found out. Except…that wasn’t the real reason.
Through my co-workers, I found out that my boss was angry that I had a baby and that I "wasn't dedicated to the cause". She was also at the budget meeting and initially, there were no cuts to our division, but she threw me under the bus saying my work was non-essential. So here I am with a young family and staring down the barrel of unemployment.
Turns out, though, that another company had been following my work and were eager to sign me on. Needless to say, I didn't do anything for the next six months and am now happy at my current position and making more moolah to boot. Their company is now failing and I poached one of their biggest clients on the way out.
38. My Shift Was Turned Upside Down
A group of 10 came in to my bar to have drinks and sing karaoke for a birthday. I went around the table asking what each person would like, and I got to the “princess” of the group. She asked me for a drink menu, and I told her I had a brew list but not a cocktail menu. It was a dive bar, after all. She asked about pineapple drinks, and I told her we could do rum and pineapple, called a "Pineapple Upside-Down" drink, etc.
She was still trying to figure it out when I had two more tables sit down. I was trying to speed it along, offering her more options, and she just kept asking, “Well, what other things do you have with pineapple?” So I told her, "You can pretty much make your own drink”. Her facial expression immediately changed, and at that moment, I knew I had messed up...big time.
She took that as me saying she should go back and make her own drink. She got incredibly angry and started making a scene, spewing expletives at me and calling me incompetent. So I backtracked and said, "What I mean is we can start with a spirit and add pineapple and whatever other fruit or liquids you want". She FINALLY just got a Pineapple Upside-Down drink.
The night went on, and everyone in her group was super chill, except for her. She had daggers on me the entire time. They finally cashed out, and I gave her her bill, which was $5.01. The place was cash only, so I asked if anyone needed change. Everyone said they were good and left. I looked at her ticket, and she left me a $5 bill. Nothing else. She owed me a penny.
39. Unloading On Her
The following conversation occurred not so long ago while I was working at a military camp. A dependent spouse was unloading boxes of what I assume were girl scout cookies. She turned her attention to me as I walked by.
Her: "Hey there! Give us a hand”. Me: "Excuse me ma'am, but who are you?" Her: "My husband is a gunny, and I just told you to help me!" Me: "Oh...actually ma'am, you have no authority on board this installation. Your spouse's rank is irrelevant”.
Her: "Excuse me?!?" Me: "I said you don't have any authority here. I don't care what rank your husband is?" Her: "Oh Marine, you sure you want to play this game?" Me: "It's not a game ma'am. Have a good day”.
I began to walk away. Her: "I'm gonna find your command and tell them how disrespectful you were!" Me: "That's your choice ma'am. If you reach them, tell them I told you to go screw yourself too”. Her: "Excuse me?!?!" Me: "I said go screw yourself!" I caught a little heat for cursing loudly, but that was about it.
40. Say Yes To The Dress, But No To The Karen
When I was wedding dress shopping, I invited my mom only because I knew she would be hurt if I didn’t. Ten years later, my friends still recalled how rude and obnoxious she was to the poor staff. My parents weren’t giving me a penny for the wedding, so it wasn’t like she was the one paying for the dress and had a say in anything.
Every time a staff member asked me a question, she kept talking over me and giving them wrong information. She was also just horribly negative about everything—the sizes that the store had, the dress details, the alterations, etc. She did all this in a loud fashion in front of the staff and the few other people in the shop. She even tried telling them not to bring dresses I had specifically arranged to try on ahead of time.
My aunt started distracting her as much as possible because it was so uncomfortable while my friends tried to lighten the mood. When I found my dress and went to order it at the cash register, the employee asked if I wanted to open a store credit card. My mom quickly piped up and said, “YES, she does”. I did, but it was not her choice to make, and I hadn’t discussed it with her, so she had no reason to think I wanted to do it.
I finally snapped at her and later apologized to the staff.
41. Clinging To The Vine
I worked at a vineyard where we got the occasional limo full of sloshed people. We do not allow them in because we are not a bar and do not serve trashed people. Occasionally, the manager is away from the door, and that is when these people will attempt to sneak in. I had to approach one of them and tell them politely that their party had too much to drink and had to leave.
Her response made me clench my fist: "I'm not going anywhere". I assured her that my staff would not serve her, so it was pointless to insist on staying. I told her if she didn’t leave within five minutes, she would be escorted out by an officer. She didn’t believe me, so I called the local officer we have on-call right in front of her and said, "He is on his way. I suggest you leave if you want to save yourself the embarrassment".
As I was going out the side door to get the number off the limo’s plate, she followed me into the back office. Her next move had me livid. She pushed me into a filing cabinet and said, "WE AREN’T LEAVING". Then, her group came back, grabbed her, and they sped off in their limo. The officer arrived a minute later, and I gave him the plate number to give them a little scare. All this for a glass of vino. It happens at least three to five times a year.
42. Not My Problem
A military wife was partying over on the wrong side of the base. I don't remember if her husband was enlisted or an officer, but she belonged on the opposite side. While driving (after partying) back home, she ran over a member of the base who was passed out on the road.
She only called 9-1-1 SEVERAL HOURS LATER to say she "thinks she ran over a bag of trash in the road" at 1 am, on a part of the base that had nothing but living quarters. When they brought him in, he was making the most god-awful noises I've ever heard a human make. He lived and kept his limbs. She went behind bars for a hit-and-run.
43. An Honest Day’s Work
Last night, my manager called me stupid and uneducated. Her reasons were mind-blowing. It was for not cheating a customer out of 15 dollars due to a computer error. She thought it was obvious I should lie about the error and garner another whopping 15 dollars from the struggling hospitality industry. Today I go in for a meeting to get scolded for not lying, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to burst into tears.
44. Wedding Woes
I work in a bakery. I had a customer who ordered a full-sheet wedding cake with whipped cream in the middle of summer, and then she would only let me put it in the back of the car without putting her backseat down. When the whipped cream melted in the heat, it damaged the box and got onto her backseat, so she got mad.
The funniest part is she became further ticked off that I—who am not a cake decorator— couldn't fix it. She demanded a manager. The manager, in turn, asked her why she wasn't more accommodating in giving me access to her backseat while I was trying to put a large and heavy cake back there. She wasn't given a discount.
45. Ruin My Life, Why Don’t You
So I was assigned to Pensacola for some military training once. I wasn't going to be there long and shouldn't have dated. 21-year-old me was stupid. I met a girl off-base and we started to date. She loved that I was in service while constantly saying she didn't like military guys. It should have been a red flag.
She literally pretended to be the perfect girlfriend. Whatever hobby I mentioned, she said, "Oh my God, I'm into that too!" She did everything possible to act like we were a perfect match. She even said she worked as a FEMA office manager when I told her I joined because I like to help people. Four months go by and I get orders to New Mexico.
I mention that I have to go soon (she knew I was just there temporarily), and she starts hinting at wanting to go with me. Thinking I'm in a really good relationship, I agree. I have never made a worse mistake. We get to New Mexico and I rent us a place. I was actually supposed to live on base in dorms for about a year until I ranked up to Senior Airman.
Things between us go downhill immediately after moving into our place. She suddenly didn't enjoy doing anything I did and had a really bad attitude. She said it was just nerves from moving so far. Fast forward two months and I'm getting reamed out by my Captain for living off base without authorization. I explain my situation and he said to send her back or get married.
Yup, you guessed it. Got married. We were married for nine years. She was a miserable witch the whole time. Refused to get a job, so I had to 100% support her. This is where it all started to unravel. Turns out she really couldn't get a job because she just had a GED and her only work experience was as a receptionist for maintenance at a trailer park.
She lied about the FEMA job. But that wasn’t all. Right before our nine-year mark, she begs me to get out of service so we can move back to Florida. Her grandmother passed and she said we had to take care of her grandfather. Stupidly, I did it. We get to Florida and her grandfather is fine. We only saw him a handful of times over the course of two years.
Eventually, I catch on that she’s been cheating on me and I throw her stuff out of my house and she moves in with her boyfriend. Apparently, she wanted to go back to Florida because there were some guys there she wanted to hook up with. I initiated a divorce and she wouldn't cooperate. She kept breaking into my house with her boyfriend and looting my place.
I'd bring home groceries and they'd be gone the next time I left the house. The authorities wouldn't do anything because we were married, and the same with the landlord. I decided to move and she caught wind. I'm at school and she clears my house out. I go to her place to confront her and she calls the authorities.
Now I get accused of burglary and battery and the officers believe her because the sociopath can cry on command. I end up getting a plea deal. My lawyer convinced me to take it. But then the bombshell dropped. During the process, I find out she was never legally married to me. She was (and still is) married to someone up in Michigan.
She had me take care of her for nearly a decade, while miserable the whole time, and she heavily utilized her medical benefits from being a military dependent…and she was never actually my wife. My Probation Officer felt bad and I was able to get off my probation at a year and five months.
The charges were lessened so they could be sealed and eventually expunged. She literally has suffered ZERO consequences for what is basically bigamy and more. Florida won't help because they said New Mexico has jurisdiction. New Mexico won't do anything because she is out of state.
46. 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.
She 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.
She 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 truly couldn't hold it in any longer and 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". He started spluttering and looking all flustered but didn't say a single word. And then the best thing happened.
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.
47. She Made A Mountain Out Of A Molehill
My mother had a dreadful Karen moment once. She paid me a visit shortly after I moved to Switzerland. We went shopping for groceries together. Everything in Switzerland was at least twice as expensive. My mother proceeded to brutally embarrass me. She let the entire shop know how overpriced each and every item I put in the cart was while also insisting that we needed to buy bottled water because she couldn't drink the tap water.
Meanwhile, she would drink tap water at home, and Switzerland had better quality water. So from everything she complained about, the $12 for four bottles of non-sparkly water was somehow completely fine. I never went shopping with her ever again after that.
48. Pasta Prima Donna
I worked at an Italian family restaurant that was locally owned and basically a staple of the area. My very first day on the floor without a trainer was on Mother's Day. A lady ordered gnocchi, and I wrote down her order. I got over to the computer and couldn’t find gnocchi anywhere, and for a good reason. It turned out we didn’t serve gnocchi.
I went back over to the table to let the lady know we didn’t sell that here. Her reaction was something else—she started screaming at me that I ruined her Mother’s Day, and the entire day was ruined because I didn't know we didn’t serve gnocchi. I could understand her being a little irritated at me. I really should have known that, yes, but she should have looked at the menu.
49. Fired Up On The Home Front
I was at a parent-teacher interview. A mother came in and said that she was concerned that her daughter was failing. I explained to her that although I thought her daughter was capable of passing, she would have to put in more work at home. After all, she hadn't completed basically any of the homework assignments. Big mistake.
I then spent the rest of the interview listening to her rant about how I wasn't allowed to suggest what she should spend her home time on. She told me how I should focus on teaching her daughter more than the rest of the class during lessons just because she was struggling. I politely explained that I couldn't do that because that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the class.
The mother then stood up in the middle of the hall and yelled, "YOU ARE THE WORST TEACHER EVER! I'M GOING TO THE PRINCIPAL, AND YOU WILL BE FIRED". Spoiler: I wasn't.
50. Two Isn’t Better Than One
I knew a couple who shaved all of their kids’ heads, even the girls, and named them stuff like Manson, Lewellyn, Satan, etc. They were devil worshippers and came in all of the time saying they were being tormented for their religious beliefs. They planned on sacrificing the 7th child to Satan or something.
We called CPS and their kids were taken away. Then the husband was put in the brig short term to await some court proceedings. He did an “invisibility spell” and got caught lifting lots of expensive electronic equipment from the comm schools. The wife came in threatening to take her own life, telling me I "had to" get her husband out.
It was sad, because SHE was really sick. Her husband was just a jerk and a loser. But man, they made a pair. And those poor kids.
51. Facebook Fiend
One Christmas, I was serving an older man who came in during a rush. I helped him like any other typical customer. The cooks had messed up his order, and I mistakenly hadn't noticed. The dude was mad. He cursed me out in front of multiple other people and my manager and filed a complaint. That was just the beginning. The guy found my Facebook and messaged my parents, saying how much of a mistake I was.
The only good thing that came from it was that another customer saw how terrible he was to me and left me $20.
52. Cut And Run
My brother went to work one day, had a normal day, then came home. When he arrives home, his wife's car is gone. He thinks nothing of it. He goes into the house, and it’s a disaster—clothes strewn everywhere, appliances in weird piles all around the house, and a bunch of stuff is missing (washer, dryer, fridge, light bulbs, their bed, couch, etc etc). But it got scarier.
Most terrifying of all is that their son is also missing, along with a bunch of his stuff. He starts to freak out, because there's no note about it ANYWHERE. He tries to call his wife, but her phone is off. He tries to get a hold of his wife's family, but nobody answers. He calls mutual friends, but nobody has any idea.
He then calls the authorities and reports that they've been kidnapped and states that her car is missing, and thus it must have been stolen during the kidnapping (remember this part, it comes up again in the future). Officers come out and take a statement…and then she finally calls him while they are still there.
She tells him that she's staying with her family and that they are getting a divorce. She also has a restraining order on him, as she has told a judge that he is violent. He is not, and she later admitted she felt bad about lying, but she wanted custody and her lawyer advised her to say that.
This woman knew when he would come home, and waited 45 minutes until after the fact to call him and let him know his life has been screwed. Their son is fine. He relaxes as much as he can, but she has really screwed him here. The restraining order gets him in trouble with his boss, and he's messed up for a while by how bad he was blindsided.
Keep in mind, this brother of mine served three tours in the Middle East. This shook him up more than that ever did. Anyway, everything is "okay" at least. A few days go by, and they start working with lawyers to solve everything. Well, guess what? Remember when he reported that her vehicle was missing/stolen? The worst happens.
She used that in their custody battle as evidence that he was malicious and vindictive because he did it "to cause her trouble with the law, and to scare her”. The judge ends up siding with her and punishing my brother for filing a bogus report when he thought they had been kidnapped. No joke.
My brother's lawyer was a buffoon and the wife came from a family with money who got her good lawyers. She took him to the cleaners and got everything she wanted...even the very house she abandoned when she left him. She didn't move into the house though, she just evicted my brother and then sold it months later for much less than it was worth.
It took him years to recover mentally and financially. He's now getting his life on track. He has a great relationship with his son, and his ex-wife continues to be a constant source of pain and misery. My brother handles it like a champ though, because (as he puts it) "No matter how horrible and demanding she is, he has faced far worse”.
My brother is an absolute legend. His life has been full of ups and downs (more downs than ups), but he still keeps going. I respect him more than anyone else out there, and without a doubt, he is my hero. Love that dude.
53. I Broke It Down For Her
I used to work in the toy department of a retail store. The Leap Frog laptop had just come out, and they were REALLY expensive. I was straightening shelves and I noticed a kid just wailing away on one of these laptops. The mom was nowhere to be found. I approached the kid and asked him nicely, "Is that how you play with your toys at home"?
The kid gave me a sheepish "No" and placed it back on the shelf. I was feeling pretty good about myself...until the kid's mother came out from nowhere. Her next move took me aback. She very rudely told me that I had “NO RIGHT” to speak to her child that way. I calmly looked his mother in the eye and proceeded to tear into her.
“Ma’am, your son was about to break a $150 toy. Our store has a you-break-it, you-buy-it policy. If you would like me to give it back to him so he can continue hitting it, I would be happy to ring you up at my register for the damages”. She then gave me a dirty look, grabbed her son, and walked off.
54. A Chili Reception
I had worked at Chili's for about five years. I had so many experiences with rude people that I lost count, but one was by far the worst. I was waiting tables around graduation time and I had a party of 25 call ahead at about 7 pm, saying they would be arriving in 30 minutes. We set the table up for them and were anticipating their arrival.
They actually showed up about an hour and a half later than they said they would. We had since broken up the big table and seated other smaller parties there. When they arrived, they were angry that their table wasn't ready for them. The really soft-spoken, sweet hostess who was working that night simply explained to them that we thought they had chosen somewhere else to go since they hadn't come sooner. That's when the Karen came out.
The lady who was speaking to the hostess immediately burst out, saying that we should have known that they were still coming. She then said out loud that she knew Chili’s "was a terrible idea," and that we were all terrible at our jobs. Almost in tears, the hostess said that we would set up another table for them in a closed section and that I would take care of them.
These same people would always come in, be rude to everyone, NEVER tip, and constantly complain so they could get free food. When I waited on large parties by myself, I always started everyone with water just because it takes some time to get everyone’s drink order and get it out to them. I figured it was better to at least have some water available while waiting.
As soon as we got them settled in, several started complaining that they didn’t have water and that I was rude not to offer them a different option. I simply explained I would be bringing them whatever they would like and that the water was just to hold them for the time being. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for them.
They told me I was an idiot and said, “Get this mess out of my face", referring to the water. Most of them ordered strawberry lemonade, so I made all of the drinks and brought them out to them. The group then started to complain, “This stuff tastes nasty”. They told me it didn’t taste anything like what it did last time.
I told them that we made it by the same measurements every time, but that I would be glad to make a new batch for them. I went and poured out what we had and made another batch of strawberry lemonade. I took it out to them, and they again complained that it was nasty. I offered to get them something else then if they didn't like it.
They said, "We just want a waiter that isn't an idiot and knows how to make strawberry lemonade”. I got the manager to explain that we made our strawberry lemonade the same way every time. They rolled their eyes and told the manager that I was being rude to them. Then, when they started eating their meals, they began to be even more disrespectful to me.
They started pouring their drinks out on the floor on purpose, throwing food at me and insulting me right in front of my face. I had a couple of other tables complain that this large party was being extremely loud, which they were. I went over and asked if they minded being a little quieter as they were disturbing the other tables in the restaurant.
One kid then yelled, “OH, YOU THINK I'M TOO LOUD”? They all started being even louder than before, and some tables even got up and left. That was the final straw. I yelled over them and told them they were no longer welcome at our restaurant. That shut them up. One kid told me that I couldn't do that to them, like he was my boss.
I said, “When you start causing our other good paying customers to leave, I can do what I want, now get out”. They had the nerve to ask for boxes of their food that they hadn't touched because they were too busy being loud. I told them that I couldn’t care less if they wanted their food and that they needed to leave. My manager and I stood at the door smiling, watching them all walk out.
One girl told me that I had ruined her graduation party. I informed her that she had no class and got what she deserved. A few of them stayed and talked to my manager, begging him to allow them back because it was their favorite place to eat. He told them they cost the company money when they came in, and they were never welcomed back.
55. This Parent Spelled Trouble
My mom was a teaching assistant for a while when I was a kid. A student’s mom was irate because her son failed his spelling test. He got a zero, and the mom insisted that was impossible. She said that she had made flashcards, and they studied for an hour. The parent claimed that the real reason my mom failed her son was that she must be prejudiced.
The parent got so mad that she came down to the school to file a complaint against my mom, and almost every word was misspelled. She slammed his test on the desk, demanding that his answers were correct. But this actually led to a tragic revelation. Turns out that the mom was spelling at a level that could not pass a third-grade spelling test.
She was teaching her incorrect spelling to her son when he came home with a paper of the words to learn.
56. One Giant Headache
I was accused by my general manager of stealing toilet paper…because I had a cold and was blowing my nose in the bathroom after I ran out of Kleenex. Yep, that was it. That same general manager also threw a stapler at my head once, just to give you an idea of the specimen we are dealing with. I should have gotten him fired, but I was happy just to leave.
57. 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.
58. No One Could Hold A Candle To Her
My aunt was a Karen. I was visiting her, and she needed to stop by Walgreens. She had a newspaper ad that stated some candles were 50% off, so she bought ten of them. She got charged full price and flipped out. The cost was a dollar per candle instead of 50 cents. The cashier and I both showed her that she was holding an old newspaper.
The ad even said that the offer had expired a week prior. Then, she shifted to "Well, you could have told me more nicely" and kept complaining. I just kept telling her we needed to leave. Once I finally got her out into the car, I said I had forgotten to grab a pack of gum and went back in and apologized to the poor guy.
59. A Hair-Raising Tale
Way back in the day, when I worked in the food service industry, we once had a customer who got a salad and, when she was just about finished eating it, she intentionally placed one of her hairs in the bowl in order to try and get it refunded. Instead, she got the complimentary “I’m sorry” free bakery item to make up for it. This happened several times, and eventually, it got to the point where she was doing this every single day.
Finally, the store manager sat down at her table and told her this was her last day eating in the cafe, and that they would refuse her refund today and refuse her service in the future. She started to say something about the customer always being right—but he already had a brutal reply ready for her. He just put up a hand to cut her off. He said “You cause us to lose money every day. You’re absolutely not our customer. You are a liability, and you are no longer welcome here”.
Unfortunately, this confrontation took embarrassingly long to get to. I worked in training support and the issue came to light during an associate-level customer service class. They had been rolling with it for at least a few weeks, hoping she would just stop at some point on her own. I’m not sure if the managers all knew what was going on, but I called them after class and it was taken care of between the two of them by the end of that week.
60. Spell It Out
I was in the fifteen items or fewer lane at the store, and after I got all my stuff out of the cart, I realized I actually had maybe seventeen or eighteen items. I noticed the guy behind me was counting my items, so I turned to him and apologized for not estimating correctly. He then began lecturing me, telling me that I'm old enough to know better, and so on. When I realized he wasn't joking, I knew I had to put him in his place.
So I looked at him and I said, "You know, guys like you need to wear a warning sign across your chest that says 'JERK' in big bold letters". He was actually kind of stunned by my response. Good.
61. Fake News
A prior coworker of mine was a total piece of work. The worst thing she ever did was, while we were arguing about something in the news, she randomly threatened to report to Child Protective Services that I was harassing my daughter. She was really shocked and surprised, that I reported this to our manager. When she was finally fired, I brought in cupcakes and cookies the next day for everyone.
62. Lesson Not Learnt
When I was 15 years old, I interned at a New York ad agency. There was this French art director who was incredibly arrogant. I hated him. Almost everyone there did. Because of this, the staff decided to pull a very elaborate prank on him. I was there for the preparations, but not the prank itself. It seemed like a good idea to blow off steam at the time, but things quickly got out of hand.
The whole office was into the McDonald’s Monopoly game, the one where you'd tear the game pieces off of the french fries carton. The piece you wanted to find was Boardwalk...that and Park Place. With those, you would win the grand prize of one million dollars. We had an incredible studio that made mechanicals. This was in 1995 before the digital mechanical process had taken over.
So the craftsmen in the studio made a perfect Boardwalk piece along with another random fake piece and adhered it to a pristine french fries carton, serrated edges and all. The next Friday when the whole office ordered McDonald’s, they made sure the French art director was given that carton with his order. As expected, he discovered that he had the winning game piece, flipped out, and went around boasting and bragging that he’d won a million dollars and how everyone can kiss his butt, etc.
The other art directors and account executives who came up with the prank let this go on until he had done a complete lap of the entire office. Once he made his way back to the area where everyone was gathered, they let him know his game piece is fake. His reaction was priceless. The extreme heartbreak, embarrassment, and humiliation blunted his arrogance for roughly a month or so, but he eventually got over it.
Though, he turned into an even bigger jerk after that. He was finally fired a few months later.
63. A Raw Deal
My best mate in the Army married a girl he just met, and then deployed. BIG MISTAKE. While he was gone, she kept begging him for money to buy everything that she needed to set up house when he got back. When his tour ended the girl was genuinely angry and wanted to know how soon he was deploying again.
After some days of heated discussion, the absolutely bizarre truth came out. It turned out that she expected he would die in combat. She told him that her, her family, and her boyfriend were "counting on the money". He was an Aircraft Tech and never left the airport. He threw her out and told her they were getting divorced, and she offered up her sister as a replacement.
64. Diaper Duty
It really is the worst when the Karen is coming from inside your own family. We were at a restaurant, and it was crowded. My mom attempted to change my sister’s diaper on the table. The waitress asked her to use the restroom, and my mom started going absolutely ballistic. My mom then had me change my sister’s diaper while she continued arguing with the entire restaurant.
65. 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.
66. They Got Served A Cup Of Courtesy
Years ago, I was at a Panera Bread around the holidays. It was 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.
67. 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.
This was after he had to re-ring something in, that was it. 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".
I magically found a 50 percent off coupon for my new favorite person.
68. And That’s The Tea
I had worked in a cafe for about three years when my (lovely) boss sold it to what I can only describe as the most mental creature I have ever met. The new owner lost about 80% of regular customers in a month, all while cutting quality and raising prices. She made the cafe into a tea shop and bought hideously, and I mean hideously, expensive new crockery and decorations.
The crockery was mostly antique and very fragile, and thus had no place in a cafe where it must be durable. Enter me: Hardworking, sincere, and friendly…but incredibly clumsy. I first met her rage for breaking a $40 cup that I was trying to wash quickly. We were busy and understaffed, and of course, her antique tea sets were far too delicate for the dishwasher, so the wait staff had to do it.
In the course of about a year, she hired and promptly fired about 15 members of staff, both waiting and kitchen. She would hire them and create an idea in her head of what she wanted, and when they didn't match up, she would scream at them in front of customers and tell them to get out of her sight. She gave me the title of “Saturday supervisor”.
I only worked there for eight hours on a Saturday for a bit of spending money, and there were many customers who would only come in to see me. She would constantly go over my head over decisions I'd made and intentionally make me appear thick and slow in front of customers. When the last chef walked out, she had to go into the kitchen and I was left to run front of house with no extra training.
The two members of staff under me—which was not enough as it was—were usually only there for about two or three weeks, and often with no waiting on experience whatsoever. It was an absolute nightmare. I would often go home in tears, and when the mental new owner bumped into the back of my dad's car and didn't apologize, I had to physically restrain him from going after her there on the street.
She literally told me the reason her business was failing was due to my “inability to cater to customers’ needs, and the service I provide is downright abysmal”. Blatant, blatant lies. I only worked there for eight hours on a Saturday! During the summer, she put me in charge of the takeaway service, a job I was terrible at, something I repeatedly told her.
When she eventually fired me, she said I couldn't hold her back anymore, and I would only do half a job. She listed the tasks I didn't perform, which I was not EVER told I had to do. In fact, they were tasks SHE should have done. She had no clue. I tried to tell her what I thought, but I was so angry and frustrated that all I could do in the moment was cry.
The business shut down two weeks later. I currently work in a similar job, where I am often praised for my skills as a waitress, and am looking forward to fast promotion.
69. 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.
70. Crowdsourcing Karen
My mom had a Karen phase for a few years. She literally told me, "You know, if I'm mean to people, they do things for me," as if she had a revelation. So, she yelled at a cashier once because she didn't read the signs that were plastered everywhere. The cashier had to call his manager to cancel her transaction. Then she said she deserved free booze from all the hassle he caused her.
She was actually looking around, trying to get the crowd to join her in her single Karen riot. I decided to step up and put her in her place. I told her—very loudly in front of everyone—that she needed to shut up because she was acting like a child. I said that no civilized adult would be acting with such a low IQ and as barbaric as she was acting. You can't cause a problem and then get mad about it.
71. Just A Coke And A Smile
A man came in alone to my store. 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. 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. 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".
Later, I learned he was the town looney who had done something like this at several other locations in town.
72. Enough, Mom
My mom was a Karen. Every time we would go out to dinner with her, it would be an absolute nightmare. She would complain about everything—her fork was bent, her dish wasn't as spicy last time, the waitress didn’t address her first, her food was cold, it's been too long since we've seen our server even though we don’t actually need anything.
The list went on. She would voice each of her complaints arrogantly at the server and would follow it up with, "I was a waitress, and we never had these issues". She was a part-time waitress in the early 90s at a pizza joint. I can't eye-roll hard enough.
73. Don’t Be Like Andy
It's not too often I get to tell this tale, but hear ye hear ye children. Today is the day I tell the parable of Andy and why you should really take advice. Andy and I both joined up to be nuclear propulsion plant technicians in the Navy in late 2012. Now, surprising fact about navy nukes—we're usually pretty awkward.
We come in all different flavors of awkward, not just the "this guy can't talk to people" type. Andy was one of those special types of awkward where he wouldn't stop talking to you. Andy had zero problems being social! However, he was a pretty short guy with a flair for the dramatic and had about as much impulse control as he did inches.
Andy's general routine was, as far as I could tell, hang around dating sites and try to hang out with anyone that had a woman in their friend group. This was back in 2013, so Tinder didn't exist in full force quite yet. Andy went out every weekend and tried his best. He failed, and failed, and failed again.
One weekend, about…oh, maybe eight months since basic training, Andy met this girl. We'll call her Becky. I didn't think anything of it at first. I was happy for him! We agreed to go on a double date with my at-the-time girlfriend (now wife). We all go out to some hookah bar in downtown Charleston. That's when I met Becky.
Becky was a fiery girl. She had about six inches in height on Andy and was...well, loud. Very loud. She talked a lot, cursed a lot, and had a long history of dating servicemen. In fact, the night before we all went out together, she broke up with her Marine boyfriend. My girlfriend and I thought it was a slip of the tongue when she said it.
Nope. She had just broken up with that guy to go on a date with Andy. That really is where it should've ended, but it didn't. Fast forward four weeks. Andy and Becky have been nigh inseparable and Andy decided that he wanted to get married. I tried to talk him out of it. So did his other friends. So did his Chief. So did the Master Chief in charge of that Chief.
It turns out though, guys, they can't stop you from marrying someone if you really want to. So Andy got married. He and Becky moved into on-base housing and...well, surprise surprise, things weren't great. There were a lot of arguments that continued to escalate in both volume and length.
Neighbors would call the base authorities to get them to settle down. Eventually, six weeks pass and I see Andy in the galley on base. "Andy, what are you doing here? You can go eat dinner at your house, man”. "Uh... I'm living back in the barracks”. "Huh? Why?" "Becky and I are getting divorced”. I wish this was the end of the story, but it turns out things were worse than I originally knew.
Remember how Andy was kind of short and scrawny and Becky...well, wasn't? Turns out, that's a great recipe for physical attacks when your spouse is already crazy. Becky would regularly hit him during arguments. She also cheated on him, with her cousin, during a trip to New York. Perhaps the worst part of it all was that because they were getting divorced in South Carolina, they needed to wait a year before they could actually file for divorce.
During that entire time, Andy had to provide for her as his spouse. He paid for that nice house on base that she just brought dudes over to constantly. She also destroyed that house before she left, which Andy was ultimately held responsible for. Andy spent 14 months in South Carolina getting divorced for about 10 weeks of getting laid. Don't be like Andy.
74. Who’s The Dumb One Now?
This girl I knew in high school had a massive superiority complex. She refused to interact with people who she deemed "below" she and she would constantly brag about being in classes with seniors. I wouldn't be nearly as mad at her if she was actually as smart as she claimed to be. She also used her mother's cancer diagnosis to get whatever she wanted.
Like, "I can't help with the group project because my mom has cancer, so you can all do it for me and I'll take credit for it". But she'd later get what she deserved—she ended up graduating without any honors despite all her boasting. I have to say, it was satisfying to be wearing a bunch of regalia in front of her face.
I know it's petty, but she made my life miserable for years, so I don't really care about her feelings.
75. All Work No Play
I teach drama, and I once had the displeasure of meeting the most terrifying Karen I think I'll ever know. So I directed some of the kids in my school's middle school division in a play of Treasure Island. One day, when we weren't allowed access to the theater, we did a rehearsal at one of the girl’s homes. Her mother had invited us to come over.
At first, I was wary as something always seemed a bit "off" about her. She was always in an insane rush to get her daughter home after all of our regular rehearsals. However, they had a very large house, and I didn't want to give up the space, so I agreed to rehearse there. Once we were there, the mom politely greeted us. But something was wrong from the start.
She said the girl was holed up in her room. I asked if she could come and join us, but her mom kept insisting we start the rehearsal without her. I explained to her that her daughter was one of the most important parts of the play, and it would be hard to practice without her. She just kept saying that her daughter had work to do and wasn't available.
Finally, after about half an hour, the girl came out to meet us, but her crazy mother told us that she could only stay for 15 minutes and then she had to return to work. The girl then turned to her mother and said, "I don't have any work", to which her mother responded, "Yes, you do, sweetie", in the most passive-aggressive way I've ever heard someone talk to their child.
I decided to stay out of it, and we started rehearsing with her. I then opened my laptop to show the kids a video of what they did. The mother happened to be walking past at the time, and she ran over and slammed my laptop's lid down, shouting, "No Media"! But she didn’t stop there. She then lifted up my laptop and ran away with it somewhere.
Since it was my computer, I followed her and asked for it back. She carefully explained that they were a "no media" family and that it was important that the girl wasn’t exposed to that. She then said that her daughter should get back to work anyway, but I said we needed five more minutes. When I returned to the kids, the girl said, "Isn't my mom so annoying"?
I wasn't sure how to respond. That’s when I found out the truth. It turned out that this girl wasn't allowed to watch TV, go on any computer, or even listen to music on an iPod. She was just supposed to do her schoolwork and read books that her parents had already read. She was in sixth grade, so she didn't have that much work to do.
Nonetheless, her mother would make her study her notes from the day every day and would frequently make her do homework again as it wasn't long enough. I finally decided I needed to do something and told the mom that she shouldn't put so much pressure on her daughter. She responded by throwing me out of the house.
76. Always Hard To Get The Timing Right
While delivering our fourth baby at a hospital, my wife and I were talking to one of the nurses about infidelity and crazy things she had witnessed. She told us about a woman coming in with her husband for a C-Section that was not scheduled. The woman insisted that she was scheduled for a C-section that day.
They did an ultrasound and found that she was three months pregnant, not nine months pregnant. Her reasoning was chilling. She was willing to deliver a baby six months early so it would appear the conception lined up with when her husband was home from deployment.
77. No Place For Hate
My mom was diagnosed with triple-positive, stage 1 breast cancer last year and we all went on a breast cancer walk and run in my hometown. My mom is close friends with the event's organizer who lost his wife to cancer several years ago and he made the event in her name to raise funds for cancer research. Me, my sister, my dad, and my mom were all dressed in hot pink shirts and sparkling rainbow tutus.
My mom was still undergoing aggressive chemo treatment so she couldn't participate even in the walk, so she hung out with the event organizer near the finish line for the runners. My dad was going to shoot pictures for the event organizer's website. My sister and I did the walk with several of my mom's coworkers while my dad hung around the finish line to get photos of the runners as they came in.
When I returned with my sister, I saw my dad taking pictures of several runners and walkers who were all dressed in pink and had pink facepaint on. One guy came up behind my dad, noticed the rainbow tutu he was wearing, and then made a blood-boiling comment: "Hey it's your song, buddy!" They were playing "Dancing Queen" on the loudspeakers by the finish line.
My dad isn't a confrontational person, but I am, especially when it comes to my family. My dad was ignoring him, but it was pretty obvious that he was getting frustrated with this guy. I walked over and the guy was still making comments to my dad, talking about the tutu and stuff.
I came up behind this guy and yelled up at him. I'm a 5'3" woman and this was a very tall, bearded guy. "Look idiot, his wife is going through a lot right now and we all dressed this way to support her. Be thankful you don't have to walk in either of our shoes!" The guy was visibly shocked. "Oh...I didn't know about that".
I said, "Well maybe you shouldn't speak to people this way if you are so ignorant. This is a breast cancer walk and run. Do you really think this is the place to be so disrespectful?" The guy didn't say anything and just walked off. I talked to my dad afterward and it turned out this guy was basically troubling my dad since we left on the walk. Screw people like that.
78. It’s Payback Time
Back when I was in high school, I worked for my town's parks department. One time, my boss—who was a total sleazeball and hated me mostly for not being female—calls me into his office. While there, he accuses me of taking a $3 check, and then says that I have to be let go. I tell him point-blank that if I was to take from the department, it would be something a lot more than a measly three-dollar check.
I mean, what the heck would I do with that anyway? Later on, I find out from a friend of mine that he found the check underneath his desk, and then a month later someone finally reported him for harassment, and he got fired too. Karma's a witch.
79. Film Freak Out
Back in the mid-90s, my mom rented Clerks for the family at the rental store inside the Kroger's we used to shop at. Meanwhile, she had no idea how raunchy the movie was. She was so offended by it that, the next day, she went back to the store, seeking vengeance. She started screaming at the manager, saying how outrageous it was that they would carry such an offensive movie at a family rental store.
She then demanded that they permanently take it off the shelf. Here's the crazy thing. They actually obliged her. They never carried the movie Clerks at that location again.
80. Sucks To Be You
A minor tornado hit our neighborhood around fifteen years ago, and my house took the biggest hit out of all the houses. After the storm ended, neighbors came over to check on us as a tree partially fell and landed on my house. One neighbor came over and looked my dad in the eyes. He made the most uncalled-for statement ever: "I am glad it happened to your house and not mine".
81. There’s Bad Parenting, And Then There’s This
The worst thing I ever experienced with entitled people was the passing of a beautiful five-month-old baby girl. This couple we knew were awful. This guy and his wife were serious gamers. The wife also suffered from mental health issues. Both were weird and ignorant. Nothing prepared me for what they did.
The wife was tired of the baby crying and not sleeping. So, she propped a bottle on a pillow, used more pillows to cushion her, and left her in the master bedroom while she and the hubby gamed. The little girl suffocated. Neither parent checked on her for 12+ hours. They said they thought she was sleeping.
They found her, left her for several more hours, and made a failed attempt to resuscitate her while they were on the phone with 9-1-1. They're so stupid, the authorities shared with me that rigor mortis had already set in and it looked as if the baby had been gone more than 24 hours.
The parents went back to gaming because they wanted to finish their match or whatever. The mother showed zero remorse. However, she was completely fascinated with how popular she was becoming on social media. So much so that she was super giddy with her local fame and said her kid dying was worth the fame and GoFundMe. The husband was super indifferent to the whole thing.
82. Border Brouhaha
My mother is a Karen who also happens to be totally fluent in Spanish. We were at the Mexico City airport flying to Juarez. We were bringing back a bunch of plates and stuff my mom got while we were there. They were in this huge box. When we got to the check-in counter, the guy said she needed to have the box wrapped. My mother became deeply offended by that.
She yelled, “WELL, I’VE NEVER HAD TO DO THAT BEFORE!! I BRING STUFF FROM MEXICO CITY ALL THE TIME, AND I’VE NEVER HAD TO DO THAT”! Her screaming caused some bewildered stares in her direction. This was a very white woman arguing angrily in absolutely flawless Spanish. That in itself was intriguing enough.
The guy again demanded that she needed to go get the box wrapped with tape, and that would be an extra charge of about 200 pesos (around $10). Instead of doing that, she stormed off, leaving a massive, unidentified box completely unattended—just what airport announcements always tell you NEVER TO DO. My dad and I had already checked in and made it through security while this was unfolding.
My mom joined us at the gate in a huff, regaling us about this slight against her honor. Just as she finished, karma came for her. Five security officers walked up to her—AR-15s at their sides—and asked her to confirm her name. When she did, they yanked her up and started dragging her away. My dad—an attorney—had a “holy cow” moment.
We went running after her. My dad did his lawyer thing; she didn’t get taken in for terroristic threats, and we somehow made our flight. We also managed to get that box of plates back home as well. I make fun of her every time we use them.
83. Finding God
I had a trashy roommate in college who would always park in the only handicap spot near our building. We had an older neighbor who moved in that was actually handicapped, so I kept telling her to not park there. One night, I got home from work and she was still parked in the handicap spot, so I called the non-emergency line. Her parents, who were both pastors, were informed.
They got the ticket and came over to the apartment—but they were in for quite a surprise. They knocked on the door when she was in the middle of doing something lewd. I came home from class to change before work and walked in on some intervention with Jesus.
84. Take An Umbrella, Cause A Ruckus
My friend works at a very large pharmaceutical company at the San Diego office. Now, in San Diego it hardly ever rains, so very few people have umbrellas. Well, on the day of the company Christmas party, it happened to be raining. In the lobby at the security desk they have a pool of umbrellas to loan out to people that don't have umbrellas. Great!
So my friend borrowed one, went to his car, and drove off to the Christmas party. A good time was had by all. At about 10 pm, after leaving the Christmas party, he gets a phone call from his department manager. "Did you take an umbrella?" "Huh?" "Did you take an umbrella from the lobby today?" "Oh…yeah". "Dude, return the umbrella".
"Yeah, I will bring it back tomorrow". He couldn’t believe his boss’s next reply. "No…I need you to go bring it back. Right. Now. You can’t imagine the trouble this has caused". Well, it turns out that the understanding on the umbrellas is, you return them on the same day. Like, you are supposed to take the umbrella, go to your car, then come back to the front and run in to return the umbrella.
Someone who I can only imagine is both a huge witch was having a bad day, needed an umbrella, and went to get on from the front desk to find there were none there. She asked where they all were and the security guard, who I imagine was also having a bad day and is a huge jerk, told her “Well, this guy borrowed one hours ago and never brought it back”.
This woman then went on a rampage, calling HR and the manager of the entire site, and my friend's boss, and everyone else she could think of to complain about the sanctity of the shared umbrellas being ruined. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and nothing came of it, but for a few hours, the fact my friend borrowed an umbrella was treated by many people at the pharma company as if he had pilfered the recipe for the cure for cancer.
85. At The Tipping Point
My mom is a Karen. She was always finding coupons for restaurants, and that decided where we would eat. My family was not poor. One day when I was about 15, she and I had lunch at a Tex-Mex place with a buy one get one coupon deal. The total bill ended up being around $11. My mom tipped $1. Oh, but she got what was coming to her.
The server ran out to the parking lot and handed it back to her saying, "You must need this more than me".
86. Looking For A Fight
I got accosted by a military Karen at a Home Depot parking lot because I parked in “her” space. I parked in a Veterans spot at Home Depot. I am a veteran, I had my two toddlers with me, and the spot was next to a cart stall. As I am pulling my kids out of the car, this lady walks up to me and starts asking me questions.
Simple stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, but I had a bad feeling and leave my kids in the car to be safe. She then starts asking about my veteran status, which was weird, but again not bad. I told her “I’m a Sergeant” etc and tell her about my brigade. Her response floored me. “Well, my husband’s a Lieutenant Colonel, which means he’s a higher rank. So you should give me your spot”.
I was dumbfounded. I told her to pound sand, to which she wanted my information, rank, name etc. So I said, “Yeah sure, and I’ll make sure to give you the spot next time”. But that wasn’t the end of the story.
No joke, three days later, I get a call from my commanding officer. He puts me through to this woman’s husband. “I wanted to apologize for my spouse’s behavior the other day. I jokingly told her she could parade up and down the street ordering other men to do things, and I had no idea she would take it literally. I’m sorry this happened and I hope we can put this behind us”.
I accepted his apology, because up to this point, no Commanding Officer has ever apologized for their actions. Chillest Lieutenant Colonel ever.
87. The Man Of The House
When my mother-in-law (who was a military spouse) gave birth to my now-wife, she was advised to make a sandwich or two...in case her husband got hungry while she was delivering her child. Her husband did not attend the delivery, so all she had in the delivery room was a drill Sergeant yelling at her to push.
When she got home, the father had his car engine disassembled on the table. He asked whether she’d had a boy or girl, got told “girl”, said “oh” and went back to his engine. He really wanted a boy to carry on the family name, but when, in an attempt to save the relationship, they had a boy together, he moved out shortly afterward and never (or rarely) spoke to the son again.
The son changed his last name to his mother’s name as soon as he legally could.
88. The Punishment Doesn’t Match The Crime
A friend in my unit walked in on his wife cheating on him with someone else from our unit. They separate, she moves in with the other guy and leaves the unit. Eight months later, we return from a deployment, and my friend goes on one date with a girl. The consequences were brutal.
His soon-to-be ex-wife finds out and calls the Sergeant to charge him with adultery. He gets taken down a rank—the other guy only got switched to a different unit.
89. Too Little, Too Late
I once watched a grown man get screamed at over the phone because he missed calling his unemployed, useless waste-of-skin of a wife for her daily noon wake-up call by 15 minutes.
90. 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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91. Sizing Her Up
I was shopping with a friend. She was a smaller person than myself. She was trying on a shirt and needed a size up so i took it back out to find a bigger size. I couldn't locate it so I ask a sales girl if she could help me find a bigger size. She takes the shirt in a gruff way. I ignore it. She comes back with a hat and hands it to me. I say, "Um what's this?" She said, "This is the only thing in this store that will fit you", contempt dripping from her lips. We walk out, I go to the register with the hat, it's busy. My friend asks what's up with the hat. I say loudly, "According to that girl this is the only thing in the store that fits me". My friend, shocked, lost her mind. Because her parents owned the store. That's how I got a girl fired because of her horrible service.
92. I Now Pronounce You Co-Beneficiary And Wife
My sister-in-law's first wedding. Never really liked the groom from the first time I met him. After a year or so, he proposed. They started planning their wedding that was to take place in a year. But then, on whim, they get married in a civil ceremony with plans to still have the big ceremony later in the year. A few months after the civil ceremony, the groom goes in for heart surgery, for a bad valve he's had since he was born.
The big ceremony finally comes except every major aspect of it has been stripped away. Less than a year into the marriage, my sister-in-law brings me a credit card bill and asks me if she knows what this $600 charge her husband has on it. A little internet research and I find that he's tipping cam girls. They're officially divorced about a year after that.
In retrospect, it became obvious what had happened. My sister-in-law was grifted for a new heart valve. He didn't have the insurance at his job to cover the surgery, so he convinced her to marry him—earlier than expected—to get on her insurance, get the heart surgery, and then split.
93. All Out Of Spite
I worked very briefly with a woman who showed herself to be both an idiot and a jerk. Her grandmother died and she and her relatives discovered that the man she'd known as her step-grandfather had never even been married to her grandmother. She bragged about the family kicking him out of the only home he'd known for three decades because, "If he wasn't good enough for my grandma to marry, he's not good enough for us".
He was an elderly man who lived as this woman's husband and had everything taken from him out of pettiness and spite. It showed me how stupid she was, and I was right. She was fired a week later.
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94. Good Grief
My mother and I were out walking and we came across an older couple we knew from the local church. Their eldest son had died the previous year from an inoperable brain tumor, and their younger son just moved out for university. Mum starts with, "Must be nice to have the house to yourself! More time for Church!"
The conversation devolves from there. She ignores all hints to drop the subject, including the mother stating they hadn't been back to the church since their son died. The couple were obviously horrified. I couldn't end the convo quick enough. Afterward, my mother told me I was just being immature and had no conception of what "polite adult conversation" was like.
95. One Per Person
I was recently on a Megabus from DC to NY, and a family with several young children was trying to find the last untaken seats. There was clearly a seat open, but when they asked the girl, she was like, “Sorry I want to leave this seat open so I can sleep”. The family was like, “Uh, no, that’s not how it works”. They had to go get the bus driver and bring him to the back. The lady said the same thing to the bus driver. And the bus driver was like, "Uh, no, that's not how this works". So, the kid ended up sitting next to this girl. How did she think this was going to slide?
96. This Customer Is Always Wrong
Over the years, I have met plenty of entitled people while working in retail, but there's one individual who stands out in my memory more than any of the others. This particular woman had by far the most entitled attitude of anyone I've ever met. She was also a regular customer, so we had to deal with her crap at least twice a week on average.
This customer's favorite pastime would be to literally fill a trolley with clearance items. These items were always a nightmare for cashiers, as you would have to reduce the price on the till for each one manually. Our management was worried about scanning fraud, and so they had disabled the multiplication button on the till.
This meant that each item had to be scanned and discounted individually. Once all of her items had been scanned and discounted, this customer would always, without fail, kick up a fuss over the price, accusing us of overcharging her and demanding to see a manager. Some managers would give in to the persistent lady, which meant voiding the transaction and starting all over again from the beginning.
If they told the woman to get lost, she would complain about "never shopping here again" and storm out, leaving a full trolley of goods for us to have to go through and put back. Gee, thanks! How kind of you! Either way, the entire spectacle would usually take up at least an hour of our time when all was said and done. And, I repeat, this happened on a very frequent basis.
There was eventually a nice moment of karma for this person, however. One winter, we had an especially heavy snowstorm in our area. Our policy, in this case, was to clear the car park’s access to the spaces closest to the door. We would always do this as very few people come out when it's snowing, and it lets people park as close as possible if they do decide to make the trek.
Not this customer, though. Oh no. She pulled into the car park, drove directly into the uncleared section, and tried in vain to drive through a snowdrift, hitting a covered bollard in the process. She then clomped on into the store, demanded to see the manager, and proceeded to yell at him point-blank about the excess snow in our parking lot and the damage it did to her car.
Apparently, she was going to sue us and get every employee fired for "not clearing her usual parking space of snow". Our manager responded by permanently banning her from our store for being consistently abusive towards our staff. Good riddance!
97. Get The Message, Stephanie
This story actually begins two years ago. I work at a university doing somewhat specialized technical and project support type stuff for a large department. I've got this co-worker we'll call Stephanie. Stephanie is one of those people that demands everything now because she's Very Important. A couple of years ago I ran afoul of Stephanie because I was out of the office on leave—that had been approved by my supervisor and the department, mind you.
I was out for two weeks taking care of my mom after she had surgery due to cancer—which I was very open about because I didn't want to deal with people asking how I enjoyed my vacation. There's no way Stephanie didn't know why I was out. She went to my office and was told I wasn't in, and she was upset because I needed to help her now. So she called my personal cellphone. We have a list of people's personal cellphones in case of emergencies like, y'know, a campus shooter, not "I need something done".
And she called again. And again. And again. Finally, I picked up and she ripped me a new one because I needed to answer her Very Important Question. I told her I was out on leave to care for my mom and her response was something to the effect of "It's not my problem your mom's sick. I need this taken care of now and you're holding things up. I'm going to report you for never being at work”.
Never mind the fact that other people could have helped her. Or the fact that this was the first time I used any leave in ages. And she did, in fact, report me to the Dean to whom I sent my approved leave forms and my call log showing she'd called me I believe ten times in a row. Stephanie got a tiny punishment for that incident.
Fast forward to now. I'm leaving for my dream job...hurray! I sent an email out to the department mailing lists saying "Hey, I'm going, it's been a pleasure”. The thing is they're not sure they're going to fill my role in an effort to save money, which people are pretty upset about because I support a lot of things. However, because most of my coworkers are logical and awesome people that anger is directed at the college and not at me.
Stephanie is not logical. So, I get a Facebook Messenger message from Stephanie, who I'm not FB friends with. I accepted the message out of morbid curiosity mostly. And the entitlement continues folks. I'm selfish for leaving my job because of all the department has done for me. So apparently I owe it to them to stay or something—haha what?
I especially like that her spelling degrades as the messages go on. I'm sure she was just on mobile or something but I'd like to imagine she worked herself into such a rage that she couldn't type. I won't miss Stephanie.
98. If You Can’t Take The Heat…
While my brother Kyle and his friend Josh were surfing, Josh’s girlfriend Luna and I were sunbathing on the beach. It was hot and about a hundred degrees, so we were in bikinis. We were talking about the usual stuff when I noticed some teenager, who looked like he was 15 or 16, watching us. Luna and I ignored him, but only until he started getting closer and closer to us.
Luna is short, but she's incredibly muscular from working out hours every day, so she seems intimidating to a lot of people. Anyway, when the guy was too close for comfort (arm's distance away from Luna and me), I asked if there was something he wanted from us, because he'd been watching us for at least 15 minutes. The guy never looked at my face, just my chest.
Yeah, I was in a bikini, but I was covered. The guy's mom (our Karen) came over to Luna and me at this point, then asked if we could cover up. Luna looked at Karen with a “Really”? expression, and Karen had that entitled face. "It's only fair. You're distracting my son, and I'm afraid you'll seduce him with your bimbo wear". Luna and I looked to each other and burst out laughing.
I know it was kind of rude, but when would you hear “Cover up”! at the beach during a heatwave? Kyle and Josh came back to us, and Josh asked if everything was OK. Karen pitched a fit that Luna and I were seductive and flashing her son. "Only in your son's dreams, lady. We were not flashing your son". Karen looked like she was going to smack Luna, so Josh stepped between them to keep them apart.
Kyle saw a patrolling cop on the boardwalk and waved him down. The officer had red hair, like my brother and me. He waved to Kyle and me, then came over and asked if everything was alright, and if there was a problem. Karen looked smug. "These harlots were trying to seduce my baby boy! Arrest them for exposing themselves to a minor!" The officer just looked from Kyle and me back to Karen.
What he said next was epic. "Lady, my cousin is not a harlot, your son isn't a baby, and if you had any brains at all, you'd teach your son to respect women and not see them as 'scantily clad objects' during a heatwave. By the way, do you see the ocean? We're at a beach. My cousin can wear anything she likes". Karen's jaw dropped, then she grabbed her son's arm and pulled him away while Kyle and me, Josh and Luna were just grinning.
I didn't just soak up the sun, I basked in the awesomeness of my officer cousin!
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