We’re all for treating everyone according to the golden rule—until they do you dirty. Then, it’s time to settle the score. Payback is the name of the game—and these stories are delightfully satisfying.
1. Poo Patrol
A boss was worried we were "taking away time" by using the bathroom for too long. So, being the nutjob he is, he locked all the bathrooms in the building except the ones he could see from his office door, shut off water to them, put out of order signs on them, and would sit there with a stopwatch timing us between walking into the restroom and walking out, and then would call out the time.
This was ridiculous, over the top, and probably against the law, but he never made a policy officially restricting bathroom time...he just wanted to make everyone feel uncomfortable if they took too long. I discovered that with my height, it was really easy to go through the drop ceiling and over the half wall, and I was the only other person using the men’s room besides my boss, who is short. So, I came up with a devious plan.
I went in, locked it from the inside, did my business, and climbed out the ceiling, leaving the door locked so my boss could not get into the bathroom when he needed to go and was forced to use the ladies...which led to our female employees complaining that he was taking too long in their bathroom. To this day, I don't know if he ever figured out how I was doing that.
2. Feeling Hot Hot Hot
When I was 11 years old, I was bullied by a 12-year-old boy. He would take things from my lunch every day. I got sick of it—and I decided to do something about it.
One day, I brought a super-hot pepper in my lunch and pretended to be really excited about it. Sure enough, the boy comes over, snatches it from my hand, and pops it into his mouth. His reaction was priceless.
He practically exploded in pain. Writhing around the floor, unable to handle the heat. But I wasn’t done yet. I calmly looked at him and told him that drinking a nice glass of cold water would help immensely.
He did so. This promptly magnified the pain 100x. He never took food from me again. I regret nothing.
3. Grounds For Revenge
About 15 years ago, I used to go to a Starbucks around the corner from my then-boyfriend’s house. I always went in grudgingly because it was very busy and touristy, and there was this one particular “barista” who freaking enraged me.
He was the most self-righteous, put-out, indignant, huffy little jerk to ever stand behind a coffee machine. Boston is lousy with philosophy-spewing undergrads, and he was their self-appointed king.
So one morning, I walked into this Starbucks in a particularly bad mood. As I was waiting for my tea, the little dolt launched into some overwrought drama with one of his coworkers, so I just said, “Listen, dude, can I have my drink before this goes any further”? I regretted it instantly.
He completely lost it on me: yelling, blaming, using big words...the whole victim shebang. In the end, he 86’d me and told me that I was never to step foot inside his castle of coffee again. Fast forward a few weeks, and I was in a different Starbucks.
I noticed that they’d begun to use stamp cards (10 stamps and the next coffee is free). I came up with a genius plan. As I was leaving, I swiped the official Starbucks stamp from the counter. I then proceeded to stamp HUNDREDS of cards that summer.
I was the summer intern for a company, and I made sure that not one person in that office ever paid for coffee while I worked there. I stamped so much that I had to purchase a green stamp pad expressly for the Starbucks stamp. Treat me badly, and I’ll take your freaking stamp. It’s really the little victories in this life.
4. Private, Keep Out
So, I'm married to a wonderful woman. She's smart, funny, and very kind. Her mother is generally very nice and tends to have a great attitude and be very enjoyable. Sure, she’s a bit of a prude, but still generally enjoyable. However, she can be a bit of a major snoop.
If my wife leaves her phone sitting around, she will just pick it up and start going through it. My wife has kind of laughed this off as a remnant of her mom being controlling when she was a kid. I'm not a fan of this because my wife and I will sometimes text about things that simply don't involve her mother and I don't feel are her business at all.
So over Christmas, I saw my wife set her phone down on the kitchen counter, and I had a brilliant idea. Her mom was still in the kitchen and I sent my wife the most racy and depraved text about all the things I was going to do to her when everyone left.
Honestly, most of them are things we haven't even done, but I had to make it extra scarring. I sent this text from the bathroom. And maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear I could hear an audible gasp shortly after her phone went off.
When I went out, her mother absolutely would not look me in the eye. Then not so discreetly, she asked her daughter to come to talk to her in the other room. When my wife came back into the living room, I thought she had been crying, however, upon closer inspection, she was laughing.
Her mother had questioned her about me “harassing” her and asked if I always talked down to her like that. My wife had told her kindly that what we do is between us and us only. Probably the best gift this Christmas.
5. At A Loss For Words
I’m in a class where a group research project and presentation is a huge chunk of overall points. Everyone knows that in group projects, you always have that one slacker who doesn’t do anything that you have to compensate for. However, I got stuck with possibly the worst three people to be in a project with in the class.
I did the entire research, presentation, poster boards, etc., among many other annoying things myself. I tried talking to them and telling them they needed to put in their share of effort. Ignored. I’d send them tasks to do, ignored. I’d try to schedule meetings, they’d say they were coming and then leave me alone at the library.
This happened from the get-go. It was abundantly clear that they expected everyone else to do the work, but “everyone else” turned out to be just me. So here was one rule: We couldn’t have things 100% memorized word for word, and we couldn’t read off of anything. Basically, we had to actually know the subject we were discussing.
I was fully prepared to do most of the talking and even wrote down a small script for them and told them to know what to say during their part, at the very least. The night before, I told them we had to meet to at least go over the whole thing one time. Once again, none of them showed. At this point, I’m livid and decide they can just do it themselves.
This means they’d get up there, not know a darn thing to say other than the small info I gave them, and they couldn’t even make up anything because they did no research. Thing is, if we miss the presentation without an excuse, we fail the project. If you have an excuse, you have to have documentation. That’s when I came up with the perfect solution.
I commute and live an hour away, so I decide that I’ll conveniently have a flat tire right before class. I went out and actually bought a tire so I could have the receipt to prove it. I emailed the professor, who said I could present by myself during his office hours.
Turns out, they COMPLETELY tanked, and not only probably failed the project but since they’re bad students, the professor might even make them fail the entire class.
6. Cutting Corners
My ex cheated on me and moved out. However, she moved out slowly over time, which meant I still lived with a lot of her stuff. Some of her clothes were left in the closet. I cut teeny tiny corners off of every sleeve, but barely enough to be noticeable.
You'd have to think you were going insane to notice it...but then again, over time, each sleeve did look...somewhat off. She eventually asked me about it months later. I denied everything. I regret nothing.
7. Comfort Food
When I was in high school, I went on vacation with my family and I bought my then-girlfriend earrings to surprise her when I got back from my trip. But upon my return, she introduced me to her new boyfriend and subsequently kicked me to the curb.
Then two years later, she and I started talking over Facebook, and I initiated a booty call. Afterward, she told me she had feelings for me again, and I responded with, “Cool, I’m late for dinner. Talk to you later”. I HAD THE BEST MASHED POTATOES EVER.
8. ER Karen
I worked in an emergency room (ER) for six years. Every person who has worked in the ER knows that Mondays are the busiest days of the week, and also when all the crazies come out. This day was no different.
I worked as a nurse in triage, where you initially get assessed in the front before going to the back. Here we determine who needs to go back first and who can wait. It's NOT a first-come, first-serve situation as most people think.
We had a few stretchers in the front for people who needed to be monitored a little closer or needed IVs, blood draws, labs. There were six stretchers, but this day was so busy that all stretchers were filled, plus five more in the hallway.
This lady comes in on an ambulance but because her symptoms did not indicate an emergency she was put in stretcher triage to wait her turn. To be fair, she was in a lot of pain. After an assessment, I recognized her symptoms as being caused by gallstones (painful but not life-threatening).
We put her on a stretcher, started an IV, drew labs, and hooked her up to the monitor just in case. A few minutes later, the patient’s daughter comes in the front door. One look at her and we knew she would cause problems.
She had everything from the shoes to the haircut. A classic rich Karen. When she saw that her mom was still in the front and hadn't seen a doctor yet she started screaming that she knew the CEO of the hospital and that we would all be fired if we didn't get her mom back to see a doctor RIGHT NOW!
We explained that her mom has a history of gallstones and even the patient was saying that she has had this pain many times because of the gallstones. We explained about being really busy and that there were no rooms available in the back and will get her back as soon as we could.
She eventually calmed down but was still antsy. About an hour later another patient comes in and was put on the stretcher beside the mother and her daughter. This patient had worrying complaints, but on initial assessment, we could not find anything wrong.
However, as a nurse, you learn to ALWAYS trust your gut. When your gut sounds an alarm, you listen. Something about this patient was setting my alarm bells off but all his vitals were normal and I had no solid evidence to declare him an emergency. I hooked him up to the monitor and kept a very close eye on him.
I let the charge nurse know of my concerns and she said to let her know as soon as something changes. Not five minutes later, something changed. Now, at this time I should explain that this hospital was a level 1 trauma center, meaning we get all the bad cases from car crashes to shot victims.
Since we had to be ready for any traumas, we had a room with three beds that was closed off from the rest of the beds because traumas usually involved a lot of people and a lot of blood. Even on busy days like this one, those rooms were empty unless there was a trauma patient.
Now, back to the second patient. I was taking the vital signs of the mother when I looked over to the second one. I noticed a worrying change in his rhythm and stopped with the woman to start assessing him to see what was going on. Well, that did not sit well with the daughter.
She actually grabbed my arm and told me to finish with her mom. I jerked my arm free and said I had to make sure the man was OK. As I turned around, his rhythm went life-threatening. I called the charge nurse to inform her of his condition, all the while unhooking him from the monitor and throwing his bed into drive. This is where the crazy ramped up.
As I started pushing him back, the daughter actually jumps in front of the stretcher and stops it. She's screaming that her mom was here first and needed to be seen before. She kept screaming that I was a liar and that she was going to get me fired.
I'm usually a mild-tempered person, but knowing this guy was literally minutes from crashing, I said to the woman, "You have a choice: get out of my way or get run over". I started pushing the stretcher forward. Now, I'm really good at pushing stretchers fast and getting the patients where they needed to go in a hurry.
The daughter tried to stand firm but she saw I wasn't going to stop and jumped out of the way just as I was an inch from hitting her. Unfortunately, she did not move fast enough and I ended up running over her foot. At this point, I didn't care and got the patient back to the trauma room, leaving the daughter screaming and lying on the floor.
We spent about 30 minutes on the patient but he ended up coding. By the time I got back up front, the mother and daughter had been taken to the back to see a doctor. Still, my charge nurse warned me that they were filing a complaint against me.
A few days later, the actual CEO of the hospital came to visit me on my next shift. He was known to be a kind and fair man. Since this happened during a time before cameras were put in the ERs, he had to take what happened from word of mouth.
Apparently, the daughter said I lunged at her her several times and put her mom's life in danger by not assessing her properly and that I should be fired. It turned out that the mother did actually have gallstones and nothing else. However, the daughter’s foot was broken due to me running over it.
I calmly explained exactly what happened and that the daughter’s action might have ended up in the patient dying because of the delay she caused. When I got to the part of what I said to her and running over her foot, the CEO actually started laughing.
He then tried to cover his mouth to hide his laughter. He explained that the daughter was a friend of his sister’s and he knows exactly what kind of person she is. Not only did I not get fired that day, but he also put a personal note in my file praising my actions. On my next review, I got a large raise and a bonus thanks to the CEO's note.
9. Ice Cold Revenge
My friend was savagely egged by a bunch of teenagers one Halloween while riding his bike. My car, traveling at 60, was also egged from an overpass around the same time and same suburb. My bruised and egg-soaked friend managed to catch the license plate of the offending car and commit it to memory.
We were determined to find the offender, and months later we came across the same car parked outside a house one suburb over. We started planning our long revenge. We bought a dozen eggs and let them sit outside for a couple of months in the summer.
Late one night, we stealthily and strategically egged the heck out of the car. Revenge is a dish best served cold. And eggy.
10. What’s Mine Is Yours
I don’t mind when my roommates borrow my stuff. We’ve all been there. All I ask is that they replace what they take. You drink my milk? Just buy me new milk. It’s as simple as that. Unfortunately, my current roommate doesn’t seem to get this.
She keeps taking my stuff and when I ask her to please replace everything she takes, she’ll buy one new thing and “forget” to do it the next time despite having more money than me. I finally snapped when I wanted to wash my clothes but only found an empty box that used to contain my washing powder.
I don’t buy fancy or expensive stuff and I don’t care about brands. After using the last of my powder a week earlier, she could literally have bought the cheapest no-brand powder in the world and I would have been fine. So I just snapped.
I had told her over and over to not use my washing powder if she wasn’t going to replace it and I just had enough. I bought a new box of washing powder, some Dylon machine dye, mixed it with a bit of the washing powder, and dumped it into the old box. When the dye is dry, it looks like washing powder, especially if you’re not expecting it.
I took my new box of washing powder to my room and waited. A week later, I came home from work and saw her laundry hanging outside, all with a mysterious pink color. She stomped up to me and demanded to know what I had done.
I told her I was going to dye my own clothes and someone had told me the shade would be lighter if I mixed it with powder (lie), then asked her why she had used it when it had clearly been in a box with my name on it when I had told her not to use it because she never replaced it?
I don’t think she believed me, but she finally got the message. She almost never takes my stuff now and when she does she’s quick to replace it.
11. There Isn’t Room In This Town For The Both Of Us
So I’m at Costco, in need of dog food, and it’s ridiculously busy for a Monday. Barely any parking spots, until I spot one at the end of the lot. I make my way down the aisle and am about to turn into the parking spot when a lady RUNS OVER THE CURB and almost hits me to take the spot.
Thankfully, I tapped my brakes in time or she would have taken off my bumper. I look up and she is shaking her head and wagging her finger in a “no” motion at me. What the heck? I was like okay, I’ll just wait for her to back up since I’m obviously turning into the spot. She doesn’t.
My girlfriend is with me and was so angry that the lady wasn’t budging. So I gave her my Costco card and just sat in the aisle in a face-off with this lady. My girlfriend goes inside, gets the dog food, comes back out, and loads up the car. She then pushes the cart into the spot we were waiting for and hops in the car. T
he look on the woman’s face was enough to give me satisfaction for a week. She had to get out and move the cart so she could park once I reversed through the entire aisle. Worth it.
12. Cheaters Never Prosper
When I got divorced—my alcoholic wife of 18 years had started another affair, this time with her addictions counsellor—my lawyer and I laid a trap for them. Just in case you don't know, intimate relations between a counselor and patient are very frowned upon by the regulatory bodies. And I was more than angry after putting her through rehab ($25k, which I didn't have to do) only to have her fall back into her old behavior.
Shortly before the divorce was finalized, I filed a complaint with the State body licensing health professions. Knowing they were in some peril because of their unprofessional relationship (I had already gotten him fired from a major teaching hospital), she had backed off her exorbitant demands. I paid her a very modest settlement, kept the house, got custody of the three tweenage kids, plus got child support.
Her lawyer naturally included a clause in the divorce where I had to agree to not say anything negative about her lover and their relationship. But the lawyer messed up and never asked if I had already filed charges and thus didn't require me to rescind them. Her lawyer had assumed I was just bad mouthing them to neighbors and friends, and it never occurred to the lawyer that we were doing much more. But we were doing much more.
When the Board of Health Professions responded to my complaint shortly after the divorce was finalized, I told them that it would take a subpoena to get me to testify, since a subpoena trumps an agreement in a divorce settlement. They were happy to oblige. They stripped his license and placed him on a register of sanctioned health professionals.
He never worked again. They were broke in a handful of years and she divorced him when the money ran out. Oh, and the frosting on the cake was that his wife and I traded notes, notably hotel receipts from the time of their affair, that helped each of us in our respective divorces. In the end, justice was very much served.
13. All That Glitters
I work for a construction company and we do remodeling on homes. We have a rule here that we get to keep anything we find hidden behind the walls. We hired this guy (we really needed a worker badly) who was a total jerk from day one. I’ve been working for this company for five years and this guy has only been doing construction for one year after he got fired from his accounting job.
Anyways, he would always make fun of my clothes and my accent, and one day he went too far by telling my boss about my private Instagram account pictures. He got on my phone and looked through my Instagram page and showed my boss pictures of me with weed. Joke’s on him; my boss is my friend from eight years ago and this wasn’t a surprise to him.
Still, I was so mad that he violated my privacy—so I made a plan to screw him right over. He was the kind of guy who would always come in late and complain that trains or traffic is why he was always late. One day, I overheard him saying that if he won the lottery he would quit this job for not getting the "respect" he deserves.
You know, because you have to earn your respect here. So a few days later, I bought some fake gold coins online and put them in a metal box I found at the antique store. Then I waited for a chance to hide it in a wall. Luckily, I did not have to wait long. The day he found the coins, it seemed like it was his best day ever.
The first thing he did when he opened the box was call my boss a loser and quit immediately on the spot. He said, “screw this place, I’m rich". Little did he know, that was the best day of my life. After he quit, my boss told us that he was going to fire him anyways for always showing up late...I wish I could see the look on his face when he finds out the gold coins are fake. Best $40 I spent in my entire life.
14. Sort Out Your Priorities
I am 5'4" male who looks less muscular than I am. I was in line for priority boarding and it had just started when the woman behind me said "Excuse me, this is for priority boarding. You need to wait with everyone else". I ignored her and presented my boarding pass with my active duty ID. My only revenge was when the attendant said "thank you for your service".
I turned to the woman behind me, grinned, and said "thanks!" Before boarding.
15. Cooking With Gas
Several years ago, I lived in the northwest coast of Puerto Rico. It’s a very relaxed area, with tons of good restaurants and lots of green space. My apartment was on a cliff, not far from the water. The electric infrastructure was a bit old, so when it was rainy season, we’d lose power for a few hours at a time. Not a big deal—I had a gasoline generator.
Enter a new neighbor. He lived two doors down from me, and drove an amazing custom Chevy van from the 70s. All it needed was an epic airbrushed Wizard on the side. Sadly though, that’s where anything good about him ended. I caught him taking the gas out of an orange jug I’d leave outside in case the generator ran out. Although I saw him do it, and called him out on it, he denied it and played stupid.
So after the second time, I took all of the gas in the jug, filled the generator with it, and put the rest in my car. I then went to the nearest gas station that had diesel and filled it up with diesel. A few days later, I am woken up by a tow truck backing up to pick up his now disabled van. I looked out the window and you could see the anger on his face. He moved out the next month, and from what I gathered from talking to people in the community, he was a general piece of trash human and what happened to him was deserved.
16. Noise Pollution
I used to have a terrible work schedule. I'd have to wake up at 2:30 am every morning so I could be at work by 4 am. My downstairs neighbors would blare loud music at all hours of the night and I could feel the bass through my mattress. I went downstairs and politely asked them to turn down the music, and they seemed to kindly agree.
As soon as I got back into bed, they turned it up even louder and kept it going until about 1:30 am. They didn't know who they were messing with. Before I left for work at 3:30 am, I turned over my amplifier so that the speaker was facing the floor. I turned the volume up and set my guitar on top of it. I left for my 12-hour shift, and the feedback was still screaming when I came home. The neighbors never blasted their music again.
17. A Messy Message
We lived in a neighborhood of townhouses. One neighbor let her dogs go #2 all over everyone’s lawn and she never picked it up. We tried asking her to be more considerate, but she didn't listen. We even tried picking the mess up for her and putting it on their doorstep, but she still refused to do it. So, my one neighbor decided to get a piece of it and smear it all over the front of the house. After that, she started picking it up.
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18. Don't Be Crabby
My mom's neighbor called the city on my mom to force her to repair the fence that divided their yards. This lady had always been a crabapple for 10-plus years, but this move really ticked my mom off. The fence did need a few mild repairs, and my mom would have done them right away if the neighbor just talked to her about it (she was already in the process of getting quotes).
The city contacted my mom and told her that she needed to maintain her fence. My mom asked if she had to have a fence by law and the person she talked to could already sense where this was going. Turns out, there are rules about maintaining a fence, but she was not required to have one. So my mom paid a contractor to tear it down entirely.
The neighbor came to talk to my mom and asked when the new fence will be built. My mom replied, "If you want a fence, build it yourself!" A couple of weeks later, my mom had a nice new fence, courtesy of her annoying neighbor. A little petty, perhaps, but hilarious nonetheless.
19. You Are What You Eat
A couple things about me that made it really suck to have a food thief: I have a lot of food allergies, so I can't just get lunch at the cafeteria or at a nearby restaurant. I have a new baby, who I'm breastfeeding, and who I pump for when I'm at work. You know how hungry pregnant people are? Yeah, the caloric requirement for breastfeeding is 100-200 calories higher. I am always hungry.
Because I have a new baby, half the time I don't manage to show up at work with a lunch. I either run out of time to pack one, or if I did remember, I leave it on the counter. My solution to all of this was to leave lots of non-perishable snacks in my office. And also a lot of candy, because I also have a three-year-old and therefore work is the only place I can shovel Skittles into my mouth without a little hand extending into my field of vision and a little voice saying "pwease?"
These were snacks that were specifically free of my allergens. Some were also specialty foods because of this. The type of specialty food that just doesn't taste as good as food that contains the allergen, and also costs twice as much. Because I'm not getting a lot of sleep right now, I deserve nice things. So, because I'm not getting a lot of sleep right now, when I first came back from maternity leave, assembled my snack hoard, and started having things go missing, I genuinely thought I was just losing my mind.
Boxes of candy were running out faster than I thought I was eating them. I'd come in in the morning and things wouldn't be where I'd left them. At one point, I brought a bag of chips to work, folded the rim of the bag down so I wasn't plunging my arm elbow-deep into a grease pit, and then put a bag clip on it when I went home. When I came in the next morning the bag was unrolled and re-clipped.
I went "Wow, I must be more tired than I thought," rolled the bag back down, and the next morning it was unrolled again. Just little things like that, almost every day, that made me go "Wow, the post-baby brain is worse than I thought!" And then. And then! Then I got the flu. I got sick, and I was out for a whole week. Left behind at the office was an almost-full box of Enjoy Life cookies, which are not enjoyable but are free of all major allergens, and are also $5 a box for, like, 12 sad little sand pies with some cinnamon on top.
I ate one row of these cookies, and then I was out of the office for a week. For one week, I was not eating any of my snack hoard. But someone else was. Because I came back to work, opened my box of cookies, and found one. There was one single, solitary cookie left. And, on further examination, the one box of candy that had been opened was nowhere to be found, and on top of that the thief had done me the courtesy of opening a new box for me, except that they actually followed the "push here to open" instructions instead of just ripping one end of the box open like I do.
The combination of these two things—the sheer freaking audacity it takes to open a new box so you can continue taking from someone, on top of the consumption of almost a whole box specialty cookies that aren't even GOOD—enraged me enough that, after going to my boss and getting some vague promises about checking if the security cameras in my wing of the building are functional or not (what??) I went straight to Amazon and ordered myself a nanny cam.
Not for my baby. For my snack hoard. Conveniently, it arrived the day before Valentine's day. I set it up on top of a file cabinet looking down at my desk. On the desk, I laid out a fantastic spread of snacks. I got all my thief's favorites, and then I took it one step further. I bought myself a Valentine heart, broke the seal to make it more inviting, and left it out on my desk.
The next morning, I came in to some very obvious snack carnage. My thief had slowly been getting more brazen (again, who OPENS a new box of something?? And opens it DIFFERENTLY than the person they are taking from??) but this was just on another level. Individually wrapped things had been dumped out of their boxes. Bits of packaging had been thrown away. And, yup; they'd eaten some of the Valentine candy.
For shame, office thief! Don't you know that's from someone who loves me?? I played back the video. All was quiet throughout most of the evening, and I was just watching the shadows lengthen as the sun slowly set through the hallway window. And then! Shortly before midnight! The night janitor arrived! And went right ahead and took a 12-minute break in my office, sitting in my chair, eating my food.
I started taking screenshots. I got him shoveling candy into his mouth with full palm-to-lips intensity. Pouring things out onto the desk to pick his favorite flavors. Not even bothering to put them back where he found them. And yes. Eating my Valentine's candy. Screenshots went directly to my boss in an email. I went directly to my boss's door to hover and grin and ask if he'd read my email.
And I got assurances of a strongly worded email to the cleaning company and the barring of this particular employee from our place of business. I was also, tactfully, asked to please take my unauthorized spy camera home, which I did. I thought this was over, but it wasn’t. One day, the girl who works the concession stand dropped by to thank me. Apparently the food thief would start his shift just as she was closing down for the night, and would try to get free coffee in that "creepy guy" way.
And then one of the reception staff came by with the same sentiments. I'd never met the guy face-to-face, but apparently, as a woman, it was not a fun experience to have. I'd shown my screenshots to a few co-workers and word had spread fast. I worked an earlier shift, so I didn't recognize him, but people whose shifts overlapped with his did.
I hadn't told my husband about what I'd done because when I came home raging about the blatant theft that had gone on while I'd been sick, his only response had been "You really shouldn't be leaving food at work, then". But, when I came home with the nanny cam and explained where and why I'd gotten it, his reaction surprised me".
You know, I think this is the first time I've seen you stand up for yourself. I'm proud of you". Y'know what? I'm proud of me too!
20. Yeah, That’s Not How This Works
We don't own a car and live at the end of a cul-de-sac, and I have people use my driveway all the time to turn around. It's not a huge deal to me, a little annoying when they compact the snow and it's harder to shovel, but whatever. One of my neighbors had a ride service come pick up their child every day. The van would park in my spot and begin honking at like 8 am (I worked nights at the time).
Half the time he'd be half parked on my grass. I told my neighbor that I don't overly mind my spot being used, but not if the guy is going to honk like that every morning and especially not if he's going to drive over what little lawn I have every time. She spoke with him, he ignored it. I spoke with him and got "what's your problem man, it's not like you're using it".
To which I repeated that I don't mind him using it if he stays off my grass and doesn't honk every morning. Apparently suggesting he wait until the kid notices he's there or, god forbid, he have to drag his butt out of the car to knock on a door was just ridiculous and inhumane of me. So I left a recycle bin at the foot of my driveway. He just ran over it.
I called the dispatch for the ride service and was told they are sub contractors and technically self-employed but they will pass along the message. I wake up the next day to pounding on my door. Dude is ANGRY. Him: "How dare you call my boss you stupid piece of trash! What is wrong with you? Me: "Well it's quite simple, you were told not to use my driveway if you were going drive on my lawn and wake me up every morning. Now get off my doorstep".
Him: "I'll sue you if I lose my job because of you". Me: "You've been warned. Don't trespass on my driveway or property again!" Dude storms off in a huff spouting curses. So this happened on a Thursday, the kids had a PD day the next day, and it's supposed to be one of those delightful Canadian weekends where it drops to like -40 Celsius.
For my American friends, -40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet up, so it's freaking cold. So that night, I grabbed one of my more beat up plastic garbage bins, made sure to plug all the holes with a generous amount of duct tape, stuck a sign on it that read, "private property, driveway not for public use" and proceeded to fill it to the brim with water.
Now, before anyone thinks I'm a jerk willing to potentially endanger the other kids in the car, I'd like to point out that my neighbor's kid is the first to be picked up, so it's just him in the car. Queue Monday morning. He sees the garbage can, backs up a bit more, and defiantly charges the can as if to teach me a lesson. He then proceeds to cause some pretty serious damage to the front end of his car. Dude gets out fuming, calls the authorities and comes pounding on my door, screaming about how I'm going to buy him a new car and that I’m about to go to the slammer.
Officer: "So let me make sure I understand this situation. He asked you not to park here if you couldn't refrain from honking, then warned you not to park here and put up a barrier. Now you expect him to be charged and pay for damages you caused yourself to your vehicle in an attempt to destroy his own personal property?" I will never forget the look on his face when the officer said, "Yeah, that's not how this works".
He then turned to me and asked if I wanted to pursue charges for him damaging my personal property. I just gave him the biggest grin I could muster and said, "Nah, I think we're good". I then went back inside to enjoy a morning coffee while watching him from my kitchen window as he paced back and forth in the cold waiting for a tow truck and having to call the company he worked for to explain why they needed to send out another driver to complete his route.
21. Dad Of The Year
So, my daughter, who was about eight at the time, was REALLY into Minecraft, as most kids are these days. She was also desperately wanting to join the YouTube/Let's Play culture, so I had installed some screen recording software that would let her make videos of the games she was playing so she could later upload them to YouTube.
Anyways, one day I'm minding my own business when I hear her quietly sniffling over on the computer. I asked her what was wrong, but she didn't want to tell me so I let it go, but decided to keep on eye on her. A few minutes later I discovered what was happening. Someone was harassing not only her, but also all the other kids playing on whatever server she was on.
This kid was saying stuff about how he was going to harm my eight-year-old daughter (she told him how old she was hoping he would stop), how he was going to hack into her IP and take her information, swearing profusely (remember, this is a game for kids), etc etc. By this time I had gotten my fiancée involved, and she was also obviously quite upset at what this kid was doing.
We then realized that our daughter had been recording the entire incident, and a plan began to form. I started by googling the kid’s username. There were several hits immediately, the most interesting of which involved a page where he was publicly applying to be a mod for a server on Minecraft. I was able to learn a lot about this little idiot.
He claimed to be 15, likes hockey, used to live in Toronto but now lives in Florida. But the shocker was easily his Skype contact info; it was literally firstname.lastname. I know your name now, you jerk. So I head over to Facebook and search for the name. Nothing. Hmmmm. On a hunch, I searched for just the last name, while narrowing my results to only the state of Florida.
Several dozen hits. Hmmm. So I have to start combing through each one, until I find what I was looking for: A middle-aged man with the same last name, whose profile indicates he was born in Toronto and now lives in Florida. I FOUND YOUR DAD, YOU LITTLE JERK. So I sent him a message on Facebook, asking if he had a son named firstname who goes by his username on Minecraft.
Dad confirmed I had the right guy. So my fiancée begins telling the dad everything that his son was saying to my daughter, and we sent him the recorded video as proof. Radio silence for a few days. Then we got the message back. This jerk had his computer taken away from him for the entire summer. He had also been lying about his age; he was only 11, I think.
His parents were livid with him, and he surely hated the next few months of his life. No one screws with my daughter.
22. Take Your Time
I was in line at a grocery store cashing out a 12-pack of drinks. A woman walks towards me and takes her place in line, however instead of standing behind me in line, she decided to stand right beside me. The woman in front of me finishes her transaction and what do you know, the lady beside me actually pushes past me and tries to cut me.
Honestly, in my head, I was about to just let her go because she clearly was in a much bigger rush than I, and I personally didn’t mind waiting an extra two minutes. No big deal to me. However, the awesome cashier (who has cashed me out frequently) says to her “Uh, I’m sorry but she was waiting here before you". The lady scoffs and steps aside.
With a huge smile on my face, I make sure to have a nice and lengthy “How’s your day?” “Yeah thank god it’s Friday!” “Did you do anything fun on Halloween!?” chat with the cashier. She knew, I knew. The lady knew. The whole time I felt the lady in a rush’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head, and I was just loving every minute of it.
23. Hit And Run
I was trying to find a parking spot at my university. The lot was notoriously crowded but my campus didn't have a lot of options. While searching, I saw a Corvette taking up FOUR prime spots near the front of the lot. After about 10 minutes of waiting and looking for a spot, one opened up towards the back of the lot finally.
Furious at the nerve of the Corvette driver being so inconsiderate, I then wrote a note saying, "Sorry I hit your car, you probably won't even notice the damage," and left it on their windshield. When I got out of class and was headed back to my car, I saw a very stereotypical college-aged Corvette owner frantically searching their vehicle while yelling into their phone.
I don't know who they were talking to, but I feel bad for them having to deal with this person.
24. Sibling Rivalry
So a few weeks ago my brother, sister, and myself (all in our early-to-mid 20s) took a little siblings vacation to California for a week. It was the first time we’ve ever done anything like this. A few nights into the trip, we went to a basketball game in Sacramento, after a day where we had been drinking on and off.
As we took our seats, I took my jacket off and placed it on my seat. Knowing I have a penchant for being somewhat forgetful, I asked my sister if she could remind me about it as we left, to which she looked absolutely disgusted and remarked, “I’m not your mother". Well sheesh, we were having a very nice trip to this point and I had no clue that kind of reaction was coming.
But whatever, I figured she was cranky or something and let it go. Wellllll, wouldn’t you know a few nights later we had gone out to eat, and she was the first one to stand up and walk away from the table, leaving her purse on her seat. I did what any responsible older brother would do and quickly snatched it up and hid it inside of my jacket.
After we had walked about 7-8 blocks away from the restaurant, I made some remark about how weird someone else’s purse looked and she immediately realized what she had forgotten, and began running back towards the restaurant. I filled my brother in and we took a nice casual walk back to the restaurant where my sister was freaking out because her purse wasn’t there.
I simply held up her purse, looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I’m not your mother". It was gloriously cathartic.
25. Nature's On Her Side
My grandmother had a neighbor who refused to help her repair the fence between their properties. It was still fully functional as a boundary line, but it was falling apart. Any conversation about fixing the fence ended with him saying that it was on her property, so it must be her responsibility to repair it. I guess that was fair.
She took a fall and was hospitalized for a few weeks. Upon her return, she found a new fence built an extra five feet into her property and a bill in the mail from the neighbor. He argued with her for months that she owed him, saying that the original fence was actually on his property and that where it was now was the boundary line. So my grandmother got a surveyor and...surprise!
The neighbor had taken five feet of her yard. At that point, she was already very old, frail, and tired of fighting her neighbor. But she had an ingenious way to get her revenge. She planted blackberries along the back fence and within two years, it was covered. Every year, she’d walk the fence and throw seeds over it because, of course, it was still her yard.
After five years of fighting, the blackberries had reclaimed her property. She’s been gone for a few years now but the blackberries remain, and it's her way of haunting her neighbor. He’s tried ripping up the ones on his side of the fence on numerous occasions, but the plants reseed themselves and grow back every year from her side.
26. A 'Hole' Lotta Trouble
My great-grandfather was one of the last people in town to get indoor plumbing, and as such, he had an outhouse in his backyard. Every year on Halloween, the neighborhood kids would come into his yard and knock over the building, exposing the cesspit. He got tired of it. So one year, the night before Halloween, he moved the building forward and covered the fess with burlap, disguising it in leaves and grass clippings.
In the dark, it was almost impossible to tell it was there. On Halloween night, he sat in the outhouse and waited. It wasn’t long after sundown when he heard the wet splat outside as a couple of kids fell into the muck. He lowered a ladder into the cesspit for them and said they could leave, but only if they promised to never mess with his outhouse again.
The kids honored their promise and even spread the word around the neighborhood not to mess with that outhouse anymore.
Pexels
27. Shade Of Blue
My dad was talking to our neighbor about what color he should paint the house and he said, as a joke: “Well, I might as well paint the old house blue". The neighbor became angry and responded, “You can't do that! A blue house? How stupid and annoying! Don't be dumb,” etc. And that’s how I grew up in a blue house.
28. Droning On And On
About six or seven months ago, my neighbor got a drone. I don't mind people having hobbies, but for some reason he insisted on flying like the biggest jerk possible. He would hover in front of other houses and windows, try to "race" cars going down the road, and worst of all he had a habit of flying his drone in my fenced backyard.
He would start buzzing over my dog, diving low just over my dog’s head before circling around to do it again. My dog isn't small, he's about 70lbs and a Malamute, but the drone terrified him, and I was worried what would happen if it hit him. I asked my neighbor several times to please not fly in my yard and explained that it was scaring my dog. His answer made my blood boil.
He basically told me to get lost and laughed in my face. When it still continued, I called the authorities. Unfortunately, there wasn't much they could do other than ask him to please not fly over my house and property. Finally, in late December it happened—my dog got tired of his torments and managed to catch the drone right as it was diving towards him.
He shredded the drone, and the thing was just a jumbled mess of wires and plastic. Neighbor was ANGRY. He stormed over to my house swearing and threatening me, which I ignored. A week later, I got a summons to small claims court. He wanted $900 for the cost of his drone and an additional $300 for supposedly denying him access to his property.
See, the drone sat in my yard for a couple hours before it was retrieved. Screw that. He could have hurt my dog. I don't have kids or a girlfriend, I just have my dog who is my best friend for the past seven years. That dog has moved with me three times, was there when I graduated college, saw me buy my first house and my first new car.
I love my dog. But turns out, him suing me was the best thing to ever happen. When we got to small claims court, the judge basically laughed away his claims that I had intentionally trained my dog to attack his drone. But little did he know I was prepared. I had dozens of photos of my yard showing it was impossible for him to "accidentally" fly that low to my dog.
I also had videos of him harassing my dog in the past, and I had saved all my medical bills from taking my dog to the vet. $700 for an X-ray? Check. Another $250 to sedate him during? Why not, don't want him being uncomfortable. Full dental exam with tooth cleaning/repair? $400. Then there was the cost of anti-anxiety meds and a secondary check-up, wet food for a week in case his teeth were hurt, and extra just for good measure.
In the end, the jerk ended up owing me almost $2,000, and now is being investigated by the FAA for not having a registered drone and violating several regulations concerning drone flight, too near an airport, too close to other people, out of sight of operator, and waaay above the maximum altitude. Enjoy never being allowed to fly drones again, buddy.
29. Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out
Four years ago now, when I was 24, my mom passed from mammary cancer, and as both my grandmothers had also succumbed to, it I saw a specialist for a screening. I found out I had some cells in one of my mammaries that could have turned cancerous at any given moment. I was told I had a few options: First, I could have regular screenings every three or four months until it does develop into cancer.
I was told the risk of the cells becoming cancerous was very high due to family history. However, it could also potentially never could turn so I'd just be getting these screenings for no reason. Second, I could get a single mastectomy on the bosom with the bad cells, but they'd need to keep an eye on the other one, so I'd still need regular checkups for the other bosom. Or three, I could get a bilateral mastectomy and remove all of my tissue, basically eliminating the risk.
I went for the bilateral mastectomy. It was admittedly the most drastic option, but after seeing what cancer did to my mom and grandmothers I didn't want to risk it. I was warned about scarring but told it should be fairly minor. They were so, so wrong. It wasn't and I was left with two huge, pink, jagged scars on either side of my chest.
Each was about an inch long and half an inch wide, and it caused me to go into a severe depression. It got to the stage of me not even leaving my flat because I didn't want people to see me, throwing out my mirrors, and getting physically sick looking at myself. I went to a therapist, who suggested a plastic surgeon. The therapist said they'd never normally do that, but it was clearly something I was struggling with and I might never get over it, and the therapist could see why I struggled with it.
Although I'll admit the therapist did send me to ask about scar reduction, the plastic surgeon suggested a cream, a laser, or implants. The cream didn't work, and the laser was both expensive and risky, so I went with the implants. My natural bust was an F cup, so I went with a slightly smaller DD. Since then, my mental health has improved and I feel a lot better about the way I look.
My confidence has gone up, as has my self esteem. I know I shouldn't put so much into my appearance but I wasn't exaggerating about these scars. Huge, bright pink, jagged, raised, just really awful to look at and I hated seeing myself, and they are now nicely hidden away and you can barely feel them. But then came the drama.
In the present day, I'm 28 years old and working in an office. I'm doing a lot better than I was. My co-worker, Jill, found out I'd had a chest job (but not about the cancer thing), when myself and my friend from years before the mastectomy were planning a holiday and she made a joke about me going on a plane with my implants, and Jill overheard.
By the end of the day, the entire office knew I'd had implants, but not why, and half a dozen people confirmed Jill had told them. Over the next few months, Jill made many "jokes" and comments about my chest to co-workers when I was in earshot, at one point saying I had "more plastic than Barbie" and calling me "fake in two ways".
I didn't hear this one myself, but a friend in the office told me that Jill had at one point referred to me as a "sack of silicone". I don’t know what her problem was exactly but at one point she mentioned the hospital system, so I assume Jill thought that I'd got my chest done for free on taxpayer money. I asked her to stop more than once, but unfortunately the places I'd talked to her were places like the elevator and the women's bathroom, where there weren't any cameras.
Jill just kept making comments no matter how often I asked her not to. I wouldn't say it was every single day, but I heard at least three comments per week for three months. So I hit my breaking point. Me, Jill, and a few other co-workers were having lunch, and I referred to something as being shallow. Jill said, "You'd know all about being shallow" while gesturing to my chest. I snapped.
I said, "Do you know why I have these? A few years ago the doctors found potentially cancerous cells in my tissue, I was advised to get a mastectomy and was left with huge ugly scars on my chest. I went to see a therapist who sent me to a cosmetic surgeon, who advised me to get implants to hide the scars, and I did it just so I could look at myself in the mirror without crying".
I took a breath here, then said, “So maybe next time you want to judge someone for having cosmetic surgery, you should ask them why they had it first". And feeling like that was a mic drop moment, I picked up my food and left. For the rest of the day, I had about 1/3 of my office come up to me and offer support, and the rest tell me that Jill was just joking around and I was being a witch.
I replied that Jill was being a witch long before I was. But that wasn’t the end of it. I then got an email from HR saying they wanted to talk to me the following day, and when I called for clarification, they mentioned a "hostile work environment". I knew the person who signed off the email and who I'd spoken to. Her name was Debbie, and she was Jill's friend in HR, so I was fairly confident on who had reported me.
I realized that if this was already being sent to HR, I needed as much ammo as possible, so I went about collecting my information. As Debbie had dealt with me so far, it was safe to assume she would be the person reviewing the complaint with me, and if that was true I was screwed. However, I vaguely remembered a section on complaints that was in my contract when I first signed with the company.
I flicked through the contract, and there was a part in the complaints section that said I was contractually allowed to request a change of reviewer if I felt my allocated reviewer was biased. It was called an "impartial overseer". I photocopied the page and highlighted that part. Then I messaged the people who had offered their support over Facebook.
I said basically "HR has asked to see me. Do any of you remember Jill insulting me to your face and are you willing to write and sign something saying what you heard and when?" Not everyone was willing to help as Jill is somewhat feared in the office due to her befriending HR and management, but about 20 people were willing to help me.
I guessed roughly when I'd asked Jill to stop previously and I wrote them all down, along with a rough time of when the lunchroom confrontation happened and a list of names of who was there for the lunchroom confrontation. I got to work slightly early the next morning. I went around to everyone who had messaged me and most of them managed to give me a printed and signed letter.
I wound up with about 16 letters, all from different people, and one of them was in the lunchroom for my conversation with Jill. Some even had bullet-point lists of everything Jill had said to them about me or other people, as it turns out Jill has issues with a lot of people's appearances. She apparently made comments about one co-worker's weight, and something awful about a different co-worker's nose, all of which were put in these letters.
There are about 45 people in the office so while 16 wasn't a majority, it's still a decent amount. The letters weren't hugely long, most were only a paragraph, but they had all the necessary information. I was asked to come to HR at 10 am. I took the letters from co-workers, the photocopy of the page in my contract, and my dates and times in a little folder with me. I got there and Debbie was the one overseeing the interview.
She got up from her desk, ready to lead me into another room. That’s when I put my plan into action. I immediately turned to the other HR worker that was currently there and said, "So is my meeting with you, then?" Debbie said "No, you're with me". I replied that this wouldn't sit well with me, as "My contract states I have a right to an impartial overseer".
As I said this, I took the contract page out of my folder. Debbie read it and said she could be impartial. I replied that I really didn't mean to be a pain, but I had it on good authority that the person on the other end of this complaint is her friend, and my contract does say I'm allowed an impartial overseer. So Debbie stomped off to get a supervisor.
The supervisor asks how I know she can't be impartial and I tell him that I have it on good authority that Jill, who was on the other end of this complaint, is a close friend of Debbie. He asked Debbie if this was true, to which she only replied "I can be impartial". The supervisor took a deep breath, asked the other HR rep to come with him, and the four of us all went to review the complaint.
I thanked them for being so accommodating (I was worried I'd annoyed them), Debbie took out the complaint, and all three of them went through it with me. Debbie looked homicidal the whole time the interview was happening, as she had clearly anticipated firing me or at least recommending me being fired. The interview went something like this.
It took over half an hour and they kept asking me the same questions but phrased different ways, so this is a really drastically condensed version. Q: You said outside that you think Jill Lastname reported you. Why is this? A: Jill has had an issue with me for about three months now. Q: Why didn't you come to us when you realised Jill had an issue?
A: I had no issue with her. Q: What issue does Jill have with you? A: Four years ago a specialist identified potentially cancerous cells in my mammary tissue. I had surgery to remove the tissue, thereby removing the cells and the risk. After the surgery I was left with large scars on my chest. I went to a therapist for low self-esteem and depression.
The therapist suggested a plastic surgeon, who suggested implants to cover my scars. All of this is in my medical history which you have a copy of in my file and my full permission to review. Jill found out about my implants but didn't know about the cancer. Jill had a problem with my implants, and decided to communicate this problem to our co-workers.
Q: Why do you feel this is true? A: Here's 16 signed statements all from different co-workers, all testifying that Jill told the entire office I'd had implants on the day she found out and has since made comments about these implants frequently. They have quotes of what Jill said to them about it and rough dates and times.
Q: Rough dates and times? A: No one knew this would be escalated to such an extent so no one really took notes when it happened. Q: What event or events do you think directly led to this complaint of harassment? A: For me, harassment began when Jill told everyone about my implants without my consent, but as to the complaint placed against me, it would probably be what happened at about [time] yesterday in the lunch room.
Jill made a comment about me being shallow while gesturing to my chest and I replied by giving her an abridged version of my relevant medical history and ending with a comment about the importance of getting the full story. There are cameras in the lunch room, so I'm sure you'll be able to find that conversation. I'll admit I could have handled the situation better, but after three months I felt I had to put my foot down.
Here's a list of names of people who were also present. There were six people at the table, including myself and Jill. One of these people is also in those letters, and has written their account of the conversation and signed it. Q: Had you had a conversation or conversations with Jill prior to this regarding her comments about you?
A: Several, spaced out over the last three months. Each time, I communicated to her that I felt uncomfortable and upset with these comments she was making and would appreciate it if she were to stop. Q: To your knowledge, was Jill made aware of your former cancer at any point in this time? A: No. It wasn't mentioned in the conversation with my friend she overheard and I didn't tell her because frankly it's none of her business and I did not feel the need to detail my medical history to a co-worker in order to avoid further harassment.
Supervisor stands up and says, "Well, I think we're done here". He shakes my hand and sends me back to my desk, saying that I'd hear from them after they reviewed the evidence (letters, CCTV, medical history and anything they had already) and made a decision on the case. I got back to my desk, pulled up my CV, and prepared to start the job search again. Then something strange starts happening.
About an hour goes by, then the person who wrote the letter and was there for the lunchroom conversation gets called for a meeting with HR. They come back 10ish minutes later. The other people who were also there for the lunchroom conversation get called one by one, except Jill. All of them are gone for about 10 minutes then come back, find a co-worker, and say that HR wants to see them.
Then the people who wrote letters but weren't there yesterday are also called one by one and are each gone for about 10 minutes each, some longer, some shorter. By about 3:30, it looks like everyone who wrote a letter or was there in the lunch room has been interviewed. Then, finally, Jill gets called in. She's gone for about 30 minutes and comes back fuming.
She glares at me while I work, but I ignore her. 4:30ish, Jill gets called into HR again. 5 pm rolls around, everyone is either leaving or getting ready to leave, when Jill storms back into the office. She glares at me the whole time she packs up her desk. She then starts telling anyone who will listen that I got her fired before shoving her way onto the lift. An email comes in from HR. My case is closed.
30. Moms Gone Mad
So this happened earlier today, and it was too perfect. I work in construction as the foreman for a new house build. The location is kind of strange. The house is 250 feet up a hill via a footpath only. All of our materials have to come up this footpath by hand. It’s a pain in the butt to manually carry, quite literally, an ENTIRE HOUSE up this hill.
One of our saving graces is having the two parking spots on the street at the bottom of this hill marked with official “No Parking” signs. Unfortunately, there is an elementary school about half a block away and the parents of children seem to regularly (at least twice a day) think it’s ok to park in our spots. Now, I consider myself a reasonable person, so if someone is parked in the spots and we don’t have a delivery or a need to park a truck, I will let it go.
If we need the spots and there’s someone parked there, however, I will ask them to move nicely and most of the time they do so immediately. Until today. I get a phone call from the lumber delivery truck that is en route to our location. He says he’ll be there in about two or three minutes. I let him know I will meet him at the street and make sure he has space to park.
He’s carrying all of the material to frame the roof of our house, which is a lot of really big lumber and will take easily an hour to bring up the hill, so naturally I didn’t want him parked in the middle of the street with his hazards on for an hour, especially when we have a perfectly good parking spot for him. As I begin my trip down the hill, I notice there is a school parent sitting in her car idling.
Assuming she’s just waiting to pick up her child, I walk up to her car and politely let her know that she is parked in a no parking zone and we really need her to clear it to park a delivery truck. She scoffs at me and rudely states back, “I’ll just be a few minutes, and your truck isn’t here, take a chill pill dude". Before I can respond, a giant lumber truck comes around the corner.
I wave to him, and then gesture towards him to the woman in the car who has now put her window back up to ignore me. I put on my best customer service smile and wave at her through the window. She put it down halfway and angrily shouts, “WHAT!” By now the truck has pulled up alongside her car and I politely ask her again, with a stronger tone of voice to move her vehicle.
I remind her that she is parked in a tow away zone. Then she gives me this wonderful idea. She says, “Can’t you guys just unload around me? Jesus, it’s not that hard". I give her another smile and walk away, a brilliant plan forming in my head. I instruct the delivery driver to park as closely to her as possible and block her in with the porta potty that is at one end of our reserved spots and the parked car that is parked just adjacent to our spots on the other end.
He smiles because he immediately gets what I’m trying to do, and proceeds to expertly block this lady and her car into a little two parking spot cell. We unstrap the lumber and my guys begin humping material up the hill, meanwhile I call the parking enforcement to let them know the situation. At this point in time, I wasn’t trying to get her in trouble, I just wanted a record of why we were blocking part of the street so we don’t get in trouble with the city.
The very friendly traffic officer lets me know that she can be there in about 30 minutes and deal with the situation for me, wonderful! As we continue to unload lumber, the child of the parent shows up, and wouldn’t you know it, mom is just now realizing that the lumber truck is parked so close she can’t get out of her driver door to meet her kid.
She awkwardly clambers across the inside of her car and stumbles out the passenger door, sending glaring looks at me and the truck driver in the process. She loads her kid into the back and then begins to realize that she has no way of leaving. She comes storming up to myself and the driver and states, “I’m in a big hurry, you need to move your truck right now so I can go".
Before I can respond, the driver gets a grin on his face. He says, “Ma’am, in order to unload the lumber on the truck we had to unstrap it, and per our company policy I’m not allowed to move the truck with any unsecured load on it. Sorry". This sends her into near aneurysm levels of blood pressure, meanwhile I can barely contain my laughter.
“Screw your policy, I have somewhere to be!” She barks back at him. At this point, with impeccably convenient timing, the parking enforcement officer shows up and parks behind the truck. The woman doesn’t see the officer arrive, and while the officer is still getting out of her vehicle I just casually say, “Can’t you just pull out around it? It’s not that hard".
I say this with the biggest grin I’ve ever had. I watch as she realizes that I just used her line on her. “Screw you!” She yells, and storms back to her car and angrily clambers back in through the passenger door and into the driver’s seat. Now the officer is walking up to myself and the driver, and before she can even introduce herself the mom in the car slams it into reverse and stomps on the gas.
She crashes into our porta potty and knocks it over, and then throws the car into drive and tries to mount the curb and drive onto the sidewalk. The officer, driver, and I are staring in disbelief as she gets halfway over the curb and gets stuck. I can hear her screaming over the idling truck from inside her car. The officer promptly walks up to the door of the car and orders her out.
My favorite part of the entire thing is watching her face go to shock as she realized she just did all of that in front of an officer. She gets placed in cuffs as the parking officer calls for a second unit and she is promptly sat on the very curb she tried to drive over. She sits on the curb yelling to the now two officers about how we told her she could stay there and that we never asked her to move.
The traffic officer responds that she was the one who was originally called when she first refused to move and that she already knows what’s going on. While myself and the driver are giving a report to the second officer, my guys finish moving the remainder of the lumber and the driver finishes his statement and takes off to go back to the yard.
By the end of the ordeal she was charged with Child Endangerment, (her kid was in the back of the car the whole time) Reckless Driving, Destruction of Property, (the porta potty) and Driving on a Suspended License. On top of all that, she also got her car towed; the kid went home with his grandma and she went to spend some quality time in a cell.
I never expected her to actually heed my advice to “Just pull out around it". But I think next time she’ll probably think twice about parking in a tow away zone, if she ever gets a license again.
31. Full Of Hot Air
This happened to me last night. I got in my car to pick up my girlfriend and my tire pressure light came on. I have a 12v air compressor in my backseat, but it’s loud and fills up sort of slowly, so I opted to drive to the local Wawa. For those who don’t have Wawa, it’s like if 7/11 got clean and went to college. Wawa’s air pumps are free to use, which usually means there are at least a few cars lined up, but when I pulled in there was only one other car.
Score. I pulled behind the guy filling his tires, and an older gentleman in a BMW pulled in behind me. After about three minutes, a woman in a brand new Lexus pulls up directly next to me and puts her window down. “I only have to fill one tire, do you mind if I go in front of you?” she asked. I said, “Actually I do, we’ve been waiting here for a little bit, sorry".
She muttered something while rolling her window up and I put up mine. About a minute later, the guy at the pump was done. He backs up, and before I can even put my car in gear, the Lexus woman pulls her car in front of mine diagonally, blocking me from pulling into the spot, and then pulls straight in after the first guy has moved.
She climbs out of her car and gives me the MOST INFURIATING little wave. At this point, my anger gives way to a ninja-like calm, and I know exactly what must be done. I pull my car forward and stop ~6 inches from her rear bumper. The air pump is in the corner of the lot, so Lexus woman has a curb in front of her, a curb to her right (where the pump is), an open spot to her left, and now my dirty car right behind her brand new one.
She is busy filling her tire and doesn’t notice that I’ve pulled right up to her car. I step out of my car, grab my air compressor from the back seat, and start setting it up to fill my tire. Mr. BMW, who has remained completely still and silent this whole time, sees what I’m doing and asks if I can fill his tires, too. I say “of course” and motion for him to park in the empty spot to Lexus lady’s left.
As soon as he pulls in, she notices what’s happening and starts yelling. I flip on my air compressor and begin filling my tire, her cries drowned out by the sound of 250psi of justice. She comes and stands in front of me, face beet red and little flecks of spittle popping out from between her teeth as she calls me all sorts of names.
I calmly say “Ma’am, I only have one tire to fill. You don’t mind, do you?” Mr. BMW is absolutely loving this, and as I finish my tire and move to fill his, she starts up again. I finish Mr. BMW’s tire and he thanks me for my help, climbs in his car, and pulls away grinning. I wrap my compressor up nicely, pick a good song, and set my climate control to a balmy 82 degrees, all while Lexus lady is trapped in front of me.
I calmly back up, give her a little wave, and drive off into the night.
32. Justice Is Served
Many moons ago, after my divorce, I saved up enough money to move from my apartment, which was a building with 12 units, and buy a house. I was really excited and told my favorite neighbor about it. That’s when I made a disturbing discovery. He told me not to even bother trying to get my security deposit back, because the landlord never returned security deposits.
I turned in my notice. The landlord didn't even bother to do a final walk-through. After 30 days, I emailed her and asked about my deposit. No response. I filed a small claims court case for the deposit. This lovely lady's strategy was to hire a lawyer and bump it up to the next higher court. Most people quit after she bumped it up to the next higher court, but I’m not most people.
I had some spare time, and have always loved a good game of strategy. I double-checked with the court to make sure I could represent myself (FYI—anyone can). I then sent a certified letter to her attorney asking for a full disclosure of the evidence being presented. A huge thank you to all those TV shows that explain what full disclosure is, by the way.
A week later, I received a call from the lawyer, asking what I wanted in order to avoid court—settlement accomplished. Ok, but here’s the really petty revenge. I let my neighbor know how to get his deposit back when he was ready to move. He let the other tenants know how to get their deposits back, too. Me: +1, Landlord -12.
33. Perfect Strangers
We live in an apartment block, and occasionally have new people move in and out, yesterday we encountered a new resident, a short red-haired lady. My boyfriend greeted her with a simple "Hello". He also tried to say "welcome," but she cut him off with, "Shut up, I don't know you". Okay, not the sociable type, neither are we, let’s not get friendly then!
Today when returning from grocery shopping, we found her trying to pick the lock with what looks like a piece of a paperclip, because you know, that's going to work. She's apparently been at it a while, because before we could open the door with our key, a patrol car stopped and an officer called out to her. We stopped to watch because, well, it was happening.
The officer asked her why she was breaking in. She responded that she lived here. She then turned to us and said that, "They know me". My boyfriend smiled and said, "I don't know you". We entered the building after the officer asked us to confirm, and mu boyfriend repeated, "We don't know her". Can't wait to have more contact with her...
34. Instant Replay
I had a neighbor that had a dog that, I kid you not, barked from bout 7 pm until 5 am NON STOP. They worked nights, I believe, and they kept it outside. I knocked numerous times, and they only said: "Dogs bark, what do you expect?" Their house was directly behind mine; we shared a divided wall. So I recorded their dog for a full day.
The minute they brought him in, and I felt like they were sleeping, I popped my phone into the dock and played it on my stereo full blast facing their yard at 9 am. They came over raving mad to my wall by about 12 noon, asking me to shut my dog up. I said "It’s your dog. I recorded him, since you miss out on what dogs do. I'm just playing the radio at normal allowable city time, and I will do this every day".
They started bringing the dog in at night after that.
35. Spanglish Strikes Again
This happened to a family friend, let’s name him Sean. His parents are American but lived in South America when he was born, he was also raised there so naturally, he grew up speaking perfect Spanish, though he obviously didn’t look Hispanic. He was blond with green eyes and fair skin. Fast forward a couple of decades, he’s now in his late 20s and has moved back to the US, where he’s lived since his teens.
Both his Spanish and English are perfect at this point. He goes to a certain “Mexican” fast food place, let’s call it “e. Coli,” where employees add your ingredients down the line and you pay at the end. As soon as he starts ordering his food, two of the workers, both Hispanic, start to make fun of his hair, his skinny jeans, and essentially his entire appearance.
I remember him mentioning them specifically wondering where his balls fit in those tight jeans and concluding he probably didn’t have any, all while subtly laughing and still maintaining a professional demeanor as they fill his bowl. Sean was able to stay composed and quiet and acted completely oblivious to everything they were saying and just carried on down the line ordering.
By the time he gets to the cash register, the cashier, who was not one of the two employees, rings him out. That’s when he calmly asks the cashier to call over the two employees, which they did since there was no line at the time. When the employees come, wondering what was up, Sean says, in English: “I really appreciate the service both of you provided. Your commentary was also top-notch. Now if you could be so kind…”
And then without missing a beat he says, in perfect, zero accent Spanish: “Me pueden llamar a su jefe?” Which translates to: “Could you call over your boss?” He says their reactions were something he will never forget. The manager comped his meal and gave him 10 gift cards to the restaurant. He lived close to that specific location, he never saw those two employees again.
36. Casa De Cheater
My boyfriend and I had met online well over six years ago through an online game by the name of RuneScape. He was 14 and I was 17, but it had felt like we had been friends forever. We both played the game very often and connected through it, eventually leading us to start a long-distance relationship. Things began to escalate as the years went on and we began seeing each other in person every few months or so.
We were about 1,500 miles apart, so one of our main priorities for the future was moving in together and closing the distance. My job had prevented us from doing that, but we had finally set a date for me to move in with him in December of this year. Our relationship never had any serious issues and I was more than happy to have him in my life as he was happy to have me.
As I got older, I began to play RuneScape less and less, as work took up most of my time. He continued to play regularly, if not more than he had when I first met him. He could never really hold down a job and barely had an income, but I supported him throughout the years and even paid his rent from across the country after he moved out of his parents' house a few years ago.
I never really minded it because he was a sweetheart, but we began to have problems. In November of last year, I couldn't help pay his monthly rent. I was short on cash after having to pay my own living expenses alongside car repairs and bills I owed to the state, and I just couldn't afford to support him at the time. When I called him one night to discuss it, he freaked out and started crying that he didn't want to live with his parents again.
I tried calming him down and even suggesting that I could help him find a temporary job until I could start providing for him again, but he wasn't having it. He claimed his parents would harm him if he returned home, which I know for a fact isn't true because him and his parents have stayed with me several times. They've given him the world.
I eventually did calm him down, but he remained passive-aggressive the entire night and we eventually hung up. Because I cared about him, I reached out to his father the next day and informed him that he would probably be moving back home after his lease expired that month. I explained how I wouldn't be able to afford paying for his living for a month or two and if there were any local jobs he could work in order to... y'know, MAKE AN INCOME.
Apparently, a friend of his father needed help managing a small warehouse for his business and was looking to potentially hire my boyfriend for the season. It paid $15/hour and was super easy (lifting boxes, sweeping the floors, and taking inventory). I brought it up with my boyfriend that same night and he was not having it. Not only did he not want to work in a "stupid warehouse," but he didn't want to work at all.
All he planned to do day in, day out was play RuneScape. I brought up a few other job listings I had found in his area and he immediately shot all of them down as well. Then it got ten times worse. He then had the audacity to comment about how he thinks I should work harder and possibly work a second job. I kept my composure and simply argued against it until we eventually hung up.
I collapsed on my bed and cried for a good hour or two afterwards because of the intense emotional stress I was under. Not only do I work eight hours a day, six days a week, I'm also an industrial meteorologist. If I remember correctly, that's a lot more work than playing RuneScape every day and using my Hulu account. I really considered breaking up with him right that moment, but I changed my mind and decided to give him another chance. Looking back on it, big mistake.
I messaged him throughout the night and we sort-of made up, but I was still a little uneasy about the entire event. He had moved back with his parents by the time December had come and I began to help him look for jobs while he threw his life away playing video games. I eventually persuaded him to start working at a small retail store near his house and he thankfully began to make some money!
I would still buy him video games and transfer him money like normal because I spoiled him, and our relationship began to feel somewhat okay again. Last month, both him and I put our money together to fly him across the US to stay with me for four days. We hadn't seen each other in person since last summer, so we were both looking forward to it.
He arrived and we had a great time for the first few days because he could actually take me on dates for once with his new income. Everything was perfect…until I caught a glimpse of his phone's lock screen while he was taking a shower. "When are you gonna leave herrrrr," the Discord message read. I could have ran into the bathroom and snapped his neck in that moment, but I kept myself together as best as I could.
I had never felt so used, disrespected, or hated in my entire life. When he came out of the bathroom, I gave him a fake smile, but I genuinely hated him from that moment on. He could have dropped on the floor and I would have hocked a loogie on him. I spent the remainder of the night watching him play RuneScape and I remained very quiet. He took notice of this and asked me if everything was okay, and I lied and told him I was fine.
When it came time to go to sleep, I let him climb into bed with me and he tried initiating intimacy because it was our final night together. I rejected as politely as I could without tearing his member completely off. He was disappointed, but went out like a light. Immediately after he went to sleep, I reached over and unplugged his phone and started digging through his messages with that girl.
I feared that I had misinterpreted the message I had seen, but I was completely right after all. Not only had he been cheating on me, he had been doing so for nearly six months, leading me to believe that he hooked up with another girl directly after I couldn't pay for his living in November. I scrolled through probably 100,000 messages and wanted to vomit my insides out by the end of it.
He had talked trash about me, claimed I was emotionally mistreating him (just as he had done with his parents), and even sent this girl photos of me unclothed so they could pick me apart physically. When morning came, I had slept in because of how late I was up reading his messages. I woke up to find him on my computer playing RuneScape and eating my food.
It was like all of our relationship had been wiped from my mind and he was now an evil stranger sitting in my house. I wanted to scream at him, I wanted to tear him apart and kick him out of my house onto the street, but I didn't. In fact, I gave him as much love and attention as I could muster that morning because I wanted to leave things feeling normal between us.
I dropped him off at the airport and we had a quick and somber goodbye before I left him forever, unbeknownst to him. I drove back home as calmly as I could before crying my eyes out in a mix of complete anger and emotional pain. I ended up kicking my bed frame so hard that the wood split and I had to buy another one recently. If only it were his face.
I wanted to break his heart by the time he arrived back home, but I wanted it to really hurt. I logged into our joint RuneScape account that we had made several years ago, where him and I would work on training the same account and raising it almost like our "baby". We had always joked that if we were to ever split up, he would take half of the account's bank contents and I would take the rest. So I got him back good.
I took my half and transferred it to my main account, before taking his half and giving it away to random people throughout the game. Every last bit of it. Even items I couldn't normally trade away, I used a spell to convert the items into coins, which I then gave away as well. The bank was now empty. And then another idea came to mind.
It then occurred to me that the credentials to his main account were written down in my desk, as he would frequently have me train his Farming skill every so often. I didn't hesitate at all and logged into his precious 14-year-old RuneScape account. I immediately took all of the contents of his bank and sold it all on the Grand Exchange, a marketplace in the game.
It took an extremely long time to clear out his bank, but he would still be flying home for about another four hours so I had plenty of time. By the time I had sold/destroyed everything, I had four stacks of coins totaling over 8.5 billion. Now what to spend it on, hmm...I wanted to waste his "life earnings" on the most useless, stupid thing I could think of, besides him.
I logged back into my main account to reach out to a friend of mine who collects massive stacks of burnt food. For the unaware, burnt food in RuneScape has no use. You can't "unburn" them, eat them, or even sell them on the Grand Exchange. They are, however, tradable amongst players. I've always poked fun at this guy for collecting burnt food, but I was now more thankful than ever to make his acquaintance in my revenge.
I asked him what the most obscure, unwanted item of the burnt food variety was and he replied "Burnt spider". Lo and behold, he had roughly 6,000 of the item "Spider on shaft (burnt)" in his bank that he was willing to sell me. Feeling generous with my ex-boyfriend's coins, I gave my friend a full stack of 2.147 billion coins and left a very happy customer.
I dropped the 6,083 burnt spiders in his bank, but still had about 6 billion coins left to spend. With the remaining money, I decided to treat myself. I went onto the Grand Exchange and ended up going on a shopping spree! The first thing I bought were 100 bonds. If you're not familiar, a bond in RuneScape grants you 14 days of in-game Membership. After trading all 100 bonds to my account, I now have almost four years of Membership paid for me.
I spent a majority of his coins on extremely nice armor, all of which went straight into my account. He still had about an extra billion, so I spent it on the supplies I needed to level up an expensive skill of mine. By the end of the afternoon, he was left with a measly 150,000 coins in his bank, all of which I gave away to a guy cooking pizzas outside of the Exchange.
Nothing was left, so I decided to pick up a pile of bones off the ground and leave it solely in his bank. It might sound petty, but I laughed for a while. Now, I know what you're thinking. This is so cruel, you ruined the tens of thousands of hours he had put into a game! Well, it was time he learned that I can be a witch, and a MEAN witch.
On top of spending every last coin he had ever made, I levelled his Defense skill. This may not sound bad; in fact, it sounds like a good thing! I helped his account progress, right? Well, no. Unfortunately for my ex, he had what players commonly refer to as a "pure" account: meaning he never, EVER dared to level his Defense skill from Level 1, in order to keep the lowest defense stats but have high offensive stats. Well, not anymore. Have fun with your permanent Level 6 Defense.
Cycling through hundreds of possible forms of revenge in my head, I then settled on getting rid of his house. It's quite an achievement in RuneScape to have a nice house of your own. In fact, he had one of the nicest I had ever seen in the game. In order to have built it, he must have spent well over a few billion coins. Too bad I had disassembled it all in a matter of minutes, deleting it all into cyberspace.
And there's no insurance either, he's going to have to re-buy everything with his non-existent money if he wants a new house. Bye bye, Casa de cheater. Scrolling through his friends list, I decided to act as him and pay a visit to his friends who were currently online and admit that I had cheated on my girlfriend and was fully proud of it.
If his friends hadn't removed him by that point, I removed them. All of them. Lastly, to add a beautiful little cherry to this revenge-filled cake. I changed his username. You're able to change your username once a month on RuneScape, so I changed his to let everybody know that he's a dirty cheater. I obviously won't drop his username here, but I did the best I could to embarrass him with a 12 character limit.
He should be able to reclaim his previous username in about three weeks, but if he waits too long, I'll be able to swipe it and put it on a throwaway account of my own forever. He sent me a very hateful and aggressive message later that night, followed by pictures of him crying. I wrote him a sincere message officially ending the relationship, while also scaring him away by threatening to "take him to court" over sharing my intimate photos possibly filing a cease-and-desist if he were to contact me any time soon.
I don't plan on doing any of that, I just don't want to speak to him ever again.
37. Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls
My ex-husband and I bought our home from his parents. They had the house built in the 50s. For years, my father-in-law wanted to install a shutoff valve in the utility room to, you know, shut off the water to the whole house to do some repairs. The plumber told him it would cost a large amount of money because they could not find the shut-off from the city water main at the street, the "buffalo box,” AKA the water main shut-off valve.
Since the buffalo box was MIA, they would have to freeze the pipes to stop the water before installing the shutoff valve. It was an expensive process to freeze the pipes, so it never got done. When we bought the house, we decided to get the shut-off valve installed. We called the water department and they sent two workers to shut off the water.
When they arrived, I explained the problem. They went out to the front yard, walked around a bit, and told me there was nothing they could do for me. According to the two workers, it was my problem that they could not find the buffalo box and that I should call a plumber to dig up my front yard, sidewalk, and city easement to find MY buffalo box.
Well, I have a background in residential real estate construction and I was familiar with how water mains and buffalo boxes are installed, and I told them it was the city's issue, as they were responsible for the buffalo box, not the homeowners. According to these guys, as a woman, I did not know what I was talking about and they left.
They were incredibly rude about it, but peons like these think they can get away with being rude to an “ignorant” woman like me. They were so, so wrong. Fast forward to a year or so later. I get a call from the city manager asking why I hadn't paid my water bill for over a year. I told him that I wanted to pay my water bill, but I wanted them to first turn off my water.
He was a bit taken aback that I WANTED them to turn off the water. So, I explained what the city workers told me about locating the buffalo box and their attitude about women not understanding those type of things. I also told him that if the city could not turn off my water, I would be happy to have free water forever, because I would never pay another bill.
We had a nice long chat about the situation and he said that he would resolve my concerns. The next day, these same two guys show up at my house with some digging equipment and spend the whole day digging up the sidewalk. Their attitudes were rather somber, because the city manager told me he was going to give them a talking to about how they mishandled the situation.
I even got an apology! They found the buffalo box, under the city-owned sidewalk! They fixed the buffalo box so it would be accessible and came the next day to fix the sidewalk. They asked if I wanted the water turned off. I declined, and I told them I would have my plumber take care of it when we had him install the interior shutoff valve. And then I paid the water bill.
38. The Foolproof Solution
I was visiting my aunt a couple of years ago in Arizona. She lives outside of Phoenix. Her next-door neighbors had three or four kids who were super annoying. There was a brick wall dividing their backyards, and such is common for the area. Upon my arrival, I found out that the kids next door were throwing things over the wall for fun.
Not just like harmless objects like twigs and pebbles, but like rocks, toys, garbage, and even knives. My aunt’s family had to keep their trampoline on the other side of the yard so it wouldn’t get stuff thrown into it. I asked my aunt about it and she said she talked to their parents, but they still kept throwing stuff. So that night, I went online and filed a report with their address.
A couple of days later, the neighbors left a note at the front door with a long apology that basically said “it won’t happen again". It pretty much stopped after that.
39. This Land Is My Land
When I was really young, our neighbor demanded we move our septic tank because he claimed it was partially on his property. He was a complete jerk about it and just kept hounding us to do it. My dad's a really laid-back person, but eventually, even he got annoyed. So one day, he had the property line surveyed. Turns out, not only was our septic tank on our own property, not his, but the corner of the guy's house and part of his driveway was actually on our land as well.
My dad spent the next few months asking him when he was going to move his house off our land.
40. Lawn Invaders
My neighbor had a super annoying son. His friends were constantly running over into our yard and breaking stuff. So, we got a dog named Molly. Every time she had to poop, I'd put her on a leash and walk over to the property line so she could drop off some landmines for the kids. They were always on my property so the neighbors couldn't complain about my dog pooping in their yard.
Finally, the bratty kid had his bratty friends over for a bratty birthday party and his parents sent them all outside to play. Of course, they were running over into our yard. I ended up getting three or four of those little jerks with Molly's landmines. After that, they never came into our yard again. Molly got belly rubs and a hamburger that night.
41. I've Got The Power
My upstairs neighbor was noisy late at night. At like 2 am, he'd blast music and walk around with heavy feet. We had repeated conversations about it, but he blew us off. He bought us earplugs and told us to simply "deal with it". Unfortunately for him, the breaker box for the building was in our unit. After conducting a few tests with his friendly roommates who hated him just as much as we did, we zeroed in on the breaker to his room and an unoccupied area.
Guess who had strange power issues at night while he was being disruptive? He wasn't the brightest bulb in the box and he never suspected us. The landlord was aware of his disruptiveness and he was already on thin ice, so we asked him not to follow up on the guy's complaints and he was on board. After he got aggressive toward one of his roommates over an unrelated incident, he was kicked to the street at the end of his lease.
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42. Those Who Can Do, Teach
Ok folks, I want you to delight in my destruction. The particular flavor of this revenge comes from the fact that everything that goes down is the result of a domino effect that leaves devastation in its wake. Dedication: This story is for anyone who has ever been screwed over in a group project, and I certainly hope you enjoy it.
My Backstory: I've been teaching for many years, but it's important to understand that in my first year of teaching, I got put on blast by an elite group of parents and their kids. Not a week went by without someone either demanding my job, trying to undermine me or just calling me a piece of trash. I nearly quit halfway through the first semester, the verbal and emotional mistreatment was so bad.
This was at a school in a tough area, so I was accused of horrific things just for asking kids to stop talking, was ripped into for giving failing grades for missing work, and even enforcing the rules in the student/parent handbook got me in hot water. My principal reprimanded me for being a negative influence on the school, and was I told that I needed to let more rules slide because he was tired of hearing from parents.
I would have parents just show up unannounced to sit in on my lessons and then tell me I was a bad educator, a bad human being, etc. I have plenty of horror stories from that school alone, but the point I want to make is that this experience defined the kind of teacher I became going forward to my next school. I needed to be that person who was untouchable, because I needed to focus on the one job that mattered: teaching kids.
My next school was in a fairly affluent area. It wasn't uncommon for me to find out that my student's parents made millions, which brought its own unique set of problems. However, my new principal was super supportive of me as long as I followed the school's handbook to the letter because, by doing so, I was in line with the school's philosophy and protected by law—we seriously had parents filing frivolous lawsuits all the darn time.
This school had long ago learned that caving to parent demands spilled blood in the water and brought the rest of the sharks in droves. My first year at this new school was successful for many reasons, but primarily because the school culture was easily adapted to. By planning ahead, I was able to head off 99% of all negative parents at the pass.
The few times a parent tried to rip into me at conferences, I ripped back so hard that I developed a reputation amongst the kids and parents as someone you couldn't mess with. Everything I did was in line with the rules, and any attempt to take me down got stone walled by my principal, who would have to say "He’s following school policy, so I'm afraid the ultimate decision is his".
No joke, I had some parents in tears because their kid could no longer get an A in my class. I wasn't the teacher who wanted to destroy kids, I just wanted them to be accountable, and sometimes that meant letting them fail. Needless to say, this job became a lot of fun, because instead of waiting to be ambushed by parents, I could work on making my class fun for my students while still teaching them something.
I made ironclad rules for the classroom that brooked little argument and would adapt the following year to make it harder for students or parents to ruin my day. I have many stories like this, but this is one of my favorites. The year this happened, I taught a high school class with grades 9-12 (that's 14 to 18 year olds for you overseas guests).
My class wasn't necessary to graduate, but did count as a core requirement. One of my beginning of the year rules was "I never want to hear 'when will we ever need this?' because you didn't have to sign up for this class". How I structure my class is that I try to make students accountable for their own actions. My class was built so that it had something to offer everybody.
If you tried your best, you were guaranteed a C. If you worked really hard, you could get a B or an A. I would bust my butt to help a student with any reasonable request. The best example of this was a student was working hard on an assignment who said, "I think I understand it now, but can't turn it in on time" to which I answered, "Then turn it in tomorrow for full credit. This is how hard work pays off".
Other than a few hard deadlines in my class, I would do whatever it took to see you learn the material. Mess around in my class? I have already found ways to run circles around the pathetic excuses you throw at your parents for your poor performance. It sounds callous, but I was the teacher who would stay for 90 minutes after school to help you catch up, to help fix your project for another class, or even to listen to you cry about your parents’ divorce.
But if I caught you goofing in class instead of doing your work (my rule was that at least 70 percent of class time was intended for homework, quizzes, etc.) I would warn you a couple times, email your parents, and then wait and see if they even cared. If they didn't, I would let you keep digging that hole until you were hip deep in water and begging for a ladder.
And then I would toss you a rope instead. You could still climb it if you tried hard enough, but a lot of kids would just cry until that hole caved in and buried them. I also utilized my school's online grading/assignment system for nearly all of my assignments, which meant I could document when a student looked at the assignment, how long it took them, etc.
All of this allowed me to see what my students were doing, when they did it, and also if they were plagiarizing. This was one of the tools that helped me make important decisions about leniency, and also allowed me to say things at conferences such as "of course the test was hard, your child didn't attempt the nine homework assignments until 11 pm the night before the test".
Being able to prove that a student wasn't trying made it impossible for blame to be laid unfairly at my feet. It also meant the worst kids avoided my class. Bonus. However, this year, something magical happened. Every other year, I would get a wave of kids who just wanted to screw around and blame everyone else for doing poorly.
At the end of the year, students would trash talk me, my class sizes would drop the following year, then I would receive high praise from those kids, so everyone would sign up, so on and so on. But this year, not only did I get a giant wave of knuckleheads, but they came with parents who loved to Make Trouble. I had already heard tales of some of these parents.
Other teachers were just dying to hear stories about our interactions, because these parents were very much Entitled. They would name drop lawyers when they didn't get their way, try to badger teachers into giving their kids extra credit, and would largely deny any wrongdoing on their kid's part. These were the parents who would get called in because their student was busted cheating, then accuse the teacher of making the class too hard, therefore validating their student's need to cheat.
So about these knuckleheads. It was a group of roughly seven senior boys who all shifted their schedules to be in the same period with each other. The other teachers could not believe that I had all of them at the same time, but I just shrugged it off. Every week, the staff lounge was dying to know how I dealt with their shenanigans, but for the most part, I had shut down most of their stuff from day one.
I actually got along very well with them, despite their constant goofing, because they had mastered the ability to appear busy and didn't distract my other kids. Then came the first group project. My class size was just right for seven groups of four to form. The idiot collective formed two groups of 4 by pulling in a kid who had been absent on the first day of the project.
These two groups crashed and burned on this project super hard for several reasons, but the biggest were that a) they screwed around during class time and b) put off a two-week assignment until the weekend before and then dumped all the work on everybody else, which resulted in everybody doing minimal effort. I handed out the bad grades and was immediately pulled into parent conferences with several of them (one at a time, obviously).
Every meeting was the same. "My kid did all the work, so he doesn't deserve a bad grade" or "My kid didn't understand the assignment" to which I handed over my hyper specific rubric (which is a checklist for how I grade things—I never wanted to be accused of grading based on not liking a kid). These exchanges largely went like this:
Patent: My kid did all the work and I don't think it's fair it should hurt his grade. Me: Here is the work your student turned in. *hands it over* Here is my rubric which I printed and emailed to your student the day the project started *hands it over* As you can see, I have itemized the grading for ease of use. I would be happy to go over the grade your student earned.
Parent: *Reads through all the evidence, looks at kid* Where are the missing parts? Student: Uh, my group members were responsible for that. Me: I can't grade what I never received, so I can't reasonably just raise your kid's grade. Sorry. Now, good news for all my students. I make assignments worth more throughout the semester with the idea that kids who screw up early on can make it up later by working hard.
I seed Extra Credit throughout the semester and all of these parents are disgruntled, but happy to hear that their entitled embryo can still get an A in my class. Now, the end result of these meetings was that it clearly wasn't my fault (remember, I had all this data to prove that I made every effort to contact everybody, etc.)…so it must be the other kids' faults.
So these parents all decide that their perfect angel is no longer allowed to work with their previous group mates. Like a cancer, this failure of friends distributes through the rest of the class. Like the genius that I am, I make my students write a group contract for every project that details who does what and when it is due. Why is this important? Because the contract provides me the documentation necessary to allow me to dismiss a bad group member and give them a zero without their parent ruining my day. So here is where the problem begins manifesting.
These seniors begin bouncing from group to group like cancerous ping pong balls, wreaking havoc. I let students choose their groups, so these seniors are desperately integrating with anybody that will have them. Because of my class size, every group has at least one coddled child to deal with, and these children just end up rotating until all of my students have worked with one of these seniors at some point.
Now I am getting constant complaints from parents of other kids about these boys. Their kid wanted a good grade, which means they ended up doing all the work while the senior slacked. This is usually after the fact, at which time I bring up "I would love to yank that leech out of your grade pool, but you have to use the contract".
Students don't want to say anything because they fear retribution from the seniors, but I can't do anything because I will be accused of harassment. The contract can provide me with the leverage I need to prove that these kids were doing no work, because these seniors have been playing their parents for years. I make my class utilize Google docs, because the changes are time stamped.
No joke, I've had students produce all the work the morning of a parent meeting to try and lie their way out and make me look like a piece of garbage, but that time stamp is a godsend. Luckily, my class is balanced. A bad group mate can make things hard, but not undoable, and parents are appeased that I have an out for their kid, but disappointed that their kid doesn't use it.
Every time I announce a group project is on the way, some of these seniors sucker up to the other kids to the point that it is expected that a spot will be made for them. I'm talking buying kids lunch, bringing them gifts, etc. Seriously, the day before a group project starts, all of the seniors now sit at separate tables from each other so that they could pull the "I'm already here, let's be in a group" card (which works most of the time).
The strain on class morale is difficult, but I am biding my time. The other students are grabbing at Extra Credit opportunities constantly so that their grade can absorb the damage, and parent complaints are completely mitigated because I am still offering every chance for success. My principal has a copy of my syllabus in his computer so that he can quote student policies that the parent signed off on.
It’s not uncommon for him to hear "I don't read that, so it doesn't apply" but he reminds them that the clause above the signature line says "My signature denotes that I have read this document in its entirety and agree to abide by all the rules" or something similar and that this should be a lesson to the parent and the student that when you sign something, you should read the fine print.
So right now I have seven slothful seniors, but I shall name the worst of these Larry, Curly, and Moe. The fallout affects all of them, but these three are the ones whose parents have a thing for Making Trouble. Every time they threaten a teacher into compliance, I imagine they sit around in a room, laughing at how they got their way yet again with a lowly teacher.
I know that anything I do will be heavily scrutinized once the grades start falling and I need to be able to shrug it off because I have other stuff to do, and I refuse to be the smiling topic of discussion in their celebratory conversation. However, a special note about Larry—since he turned 18, his parents now travel nonstop and are impossible to reach. Larry is now just a huge jerk, because his parents no longer care about what he does.
I closely monitor their grades in my class, but also in others. This may sound sketchy, but I routinely do this with any of my students who struggle with the material so that I can identify if the issue is my class or all of their classes. Students have been known to fake their grades using Inspect Element and I got tired of hearing "But they have As in their other classes". because then I look like the liar.
Anyway, after a check, I speak with the other teachers. It isn't hard to find out that these boys are doing minimal work in other classes, and I actually discover something worse about Larry. He has been finding ways to get other kids to do the work for him and then disseminating it among his friends. Other teachers have been threatened into lowering test percentages in their class, and guess what? He and his friends are enrolled in these classes.
Despite failing these tests, homework and project grades give them a comfortable cushion so that most of them are floating at low Bs. I can't prove this (they are using Snapchat) but when I bring it up with their teachers, the teachers don't feel like trying to prove it and duke it out with the parents. Now, they are gaming other classes for minimal effort.
However, their only recourse in my class is to keep rotating through groups and leeching off of their hard work to maintain Cs and Bs, and the other kids are too nervous to utilize the group contract to get them fired. Remember how I mentioned that I steadily increase the value of my assignments to keep kids working and give them a chance to fix their grades? Well, it was about to come due.
Me: *Random Day in Class* Hey everybody, I was looking in the schedule and realized that your last project before finals may stress you out unnecessarily. Would anybody mind if I dropped it? My class: *Tired of getting banged on Group Assignments* Nope, drop it, Best Teacher Ever! Me: Okay, well just so you know, I'm going to move our next project back a couple of weeks and extend the deadline by a week. Also, since I cancelled the last project, this means that the next project will now be worth roughly 20% of your final grade, so do your best. Screwing this up could ruin your grade.
My class: Whatever. So in one step, I have inflated this assignment and also moved it. I send out an email to parents and students letting them know about the change to the syllabus and the assignment. Get no responses other than happiness that I am removing stress from the end of the semester, etc. I actually did this primarily because another teacher (who was a huge jerk) plunked down a monster project that same week and I knew it would burn out my students prior to finals, so figured a break was in order.
Win-win for me, really. Now why did I move it? Well, there’s the rub. The Friday before the project started, I announced at the start of class, "Okay, I am introducing the project now so that you can get into groups today and we can do it first thing Monday morning without delay, since this project is so important". This announcement elicits a room full of grins. Why? It was Senior Ditch Day.
Our school didn't condone a ditch day, so the kids tried their best to keep it a secret, but I found out a month in advance. All seven of these kids were absent from class, which meant that I had just given the entire room freedom from these weights. Immediately, groups are formed, and even better, I had a couple kids transfer out of my class, which meant, numbers wise, these knuckleheads will have to work on this last group project together (in two groups).
I emphasized that everyone needed to get to class as soon as possible so that they could start as soon as attendance was called. My original intention was to light a giant fire under all seven of these chumps, to get them to actually put in the effort they had neglected to do all year. Most of them had grades in the low C range (except for one in the low Bs).
As a bonus to all my students, I put an extra credit portion on this project so that they could recoup their early semester losses, but also allow these seniors to do very well if they put in the effort. This wasn't meant to be a revenge tale, but an attempt to give them one last lesson in responsibility. Before the end of the day, I send out a parent/student notification that the project had been started and that any absent students needed to contact their classmates to establish groups before Monday morning. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.
The next Monday, the seniors come traipsing in seconds before the bell to discover that there are only two tables to sit at. Whatever, they take their seats. Me: *After attendance* Okay, everybody has a copy of the rubric, so go ahead and get started. Rest of Class: *Immediately pulls out rubric* Seniors: *looking around frantically*
The seniors quickly realized that they have been played, and the arguing starts. First thing that happens is that Larry, Curly, and Moe decide that they now belong with whoever they happen to be sitting with and scoot their chairs over to sit with different tables. I catch this right away and tell them that the groups are already at maximum size (4 people per group).
The other four seniors are already fighting with each other because they know that none of them will actually do any work. Larry (who thinks he's God's gift to everybody) tries to sweet talk me and his group into special privileges and allowing a group of 5. Now, I see some of the other kids wavering and I know that Larry is putting pressure on them to argue his case.
I designed this project for specifically four people and had a job for each one, but I extended a separate offer. "I will let you join, but since there will be five of you, I expect double the work". Literally, I told them they would have to do the project twice. Larry tries to argue, but I point out the roles I have established and inform him that if four people could do it once, having five should make it easier to do it twice.
Sounds like a jerk move on my part, but I have now intimidated the other kids into saying HECK NO and even have them put it to a vote. Unsurprisingly, Larry is the only one who votes that this is a good idea, and when the other kids catch wind of my offer, they physically shoo off the other seniors trying to pull this deal as well.
You will all be delighted to hear that the rest of the period for my seniors is spent arguing over who will work with who. They end up forming three groups and I nod my head, make sure they have the rubric, and then wish them the best of luck. Being the smart teacher that I am, I email Curly's parents and Moe's mommy that they have chosen to work with each other.
Moe's mommy shows up to argue with me all the time, but has quickly learned I won't take her baggage. At a previous meeting, she even laid into Moe and told him "I'm tired of fighting all these battles with your teachers and I'm starting to think that you're the problem," but I suspect this is for show. Curly's parents email me back and say they will make sure Curly writes a group contract.
You see, Curly has sold himself as the best student ever, and clearly he will do the work and fire his classmates. Moe's mommy immediately requests a meeting with me. Per school policy, I do not have to respond to an email for 48 hours. I wait until hour 47 and email a noncommittal, "I would love to meet, when are you available?" and wait for a response. I then wait another 48 hours to inform her of a time the following week that works for me.
Now, some of the other senior parents have emailed me angrily demanding why I let their kids choose to work with "the bad kids" again. I had to inform them that I didn't expect all of them to be absent. Immediately, some of my seniors get burned at home because they ditched and their parents tell me "Just try to help them pass," which I agree to.
Some of them need this class for graduation, after all. Moe's mommy, on the other hand, shows up ready to wage battle. She starts by demanding that I put Moe in a different group. I decline, because the project has now been going on for a week and it wouldn't be fair. She demands that I add him to another group. They're all full and students have already done the lion's share of the work.
She demands that I let him work by himself with an extension. I gladly offer him an extension and slide a copy of the rubric over to him…and he goes white. At this point, he knows that he is never planning to do any of the work. In fact, I know that his group hasn't even started. I have a copy of their group contract, which was hastily scribbled in pencil with no due dates on it. He starts arguing with his mom that he would rather work with his friends and that he is upset that he got stuck in this situation.
Contemplating this, she accuses me of deliberately waiting until that day to screw the seniors over. After all, it was a school-sanctioned event and I'm being a jerk about it and she'll go to the board with her story. Wrong. The joy I get from all of my prep work is shutting down stuff like this. All seven of the seniors hung out on ditch day at her house and told her that the principal had given them the day off.
Even better, they called in and pretended to be their own parents so that it was an excused absence. He is immediately busted and his mom flips her switch and jumps all over him. You see, she can keep pressing me on this issue, but I now have evidence that he pretended to be his own dad, and this is a suspendible offense. I buy myself into her graces by telling her that I had no idea that Senior Ditch Day was that Friday, but I gave her kid a free extension on the homework that was due because I thought seniors deserved their own traditions, blah blah blah. She buys it.
Also, I can prove that I emailed him (and her) and gave them plenty of notice before Monday morning that they needed to pick groups before something like this happened. Obviously, once I found out about Ditch Day I tried to give her precious treasure a heads up, but I don't know why he didn't take it. So she makes him open his email. When I saw it, I nearly burst into laughter.
My email is sitting there, unopened, and I have won this battle. She thanks me and takes him home. Class morale is now super high, unless you are one of the seniors. A week before the project is due, neither group has actually started and the H.M.S. Class Average is about to hit an Iceberg. Then the project comes due, oohhh boy.
It comes as no surprise that my enterprising seniors have turned in easily some of the worst work ever. One group got into a text argument the weekend before it was due and made one of the kids do all the work. Moe and Curly are in this group. The other group (with Larry) has also turned in a steaming pile. I make sure to grade these two projects first because I know the fallout is going to be big.
All the seniors dropped at least one letter grade. A couple drop two. This is four weeks before graduation. Larry appears to take his F minus in stride (they got something like a ten percent on it), so I know he's plotting something. Curly's parents demand a meeting and so does Moe's mommy. Curly's parents are super upset that they got a bad grade and demanded to know why.
What they didn't know was that I had already met with the student who did the entire project (poorly) and his parents. I informed Curly's parents that I had seen the text exchange between the seniors that pretty much ended up with "You freaking do it". Curly refused to turn over his phone to his parents for confirmation. I also show them Curly's project and hand over the rubric.
Mom and Dad are not happy. You see, Curly has been blaming everyone else for his mistakes since the dawn of time and his parents have bought in completely. Until today. Dad pointedly asks "Which part did you do?" and this causes Curly to spout actual tears. I then pull up a spreadsheet of all of the group project scores from the year and have highlighted his scores, which are among the worst.
The purpose of this was to use data to prove that their son, frankly, never does the work. Curly is absolutely destroyed by this. His parents kick him out of the conference because they are tired of his excuses and ask me what they can do. I tell them I would be happy to offer one-on-one tutoring and that he can still pass the class if he does his homework and gets a B on the next exam. They agree to this, we all shake hands, and they leave.
Curly's story largely ends here. He never shows up to tutoring, and I email his parents. After three emails, his dad finally responds with, "His mom and I have decided that he needs to learn to be an adult and are leaving him to his own devices. Thank you for your efforts". Curly will spend the rest of the semester doing little to no work.
Because he is grounded at home, he is now just watching YouTube videos on his phone during school. The ripple effect is glorious. Because now Curly is doing this in all of his classes. I speak with his teachers and they all email that he has quit doing work in class and get the same reply I did rather than the vehement responses they are used to.
When Curly fails his classes, he still graduates, but his parents have informed him that they are no longer paying for his college and it's time to get a job. Moe's mommy, however, flips her lid and demands answers. Unfortunately, Moe is in the same group as Curly and she gets the same answers from me. Strangely enough, once she's exhausted every effort and attempt to somehow blame me for this, she admits that she knew Moe was part of threatening the lone senior and that he should be ashamed of himself.
She deliberately tried to play me but outed herself once she knew that I already knew everything. Super annoying, but I agree to help tutor him one-on-one too, which makes her happy. So Moe's mommy is emailing me every few days now. "Is my son doing his work, did he get help with his homework, etc". Non-stop, but she knows better than to fight with me. And then there was Larry.
Larry is unusually chipper, and is no longer doing his work. I find out that Larry is supposedly going to a college where he just needs to maintain his GPA over a super low number. He claims an F in my class won't change anything, so I make sure he doesn't distract the others. Moe shows up only occasionally, but strangely enough, Larry pops in "just to say hi" whenever Moe is getting help.
I can't fathom why he does this, but suspect he is up to something and already have a backup plan in place. You see, Moe's mommy is nuts, and I make sure that there's always another person in the room with me when I tutor him. Anyway, Moe's mommy is constantly checking in. I start waiting 48 hours between emails (cause I can) and she starts dropping by in person unannounced to check on him (me).
She's been acting cagey lately and I'm starting to suspect something. It’s freaking Larry. Larry is a friend of Moe's, so he's been in her home feeding her made-up stories to convince her that I have been emotionally mistreating Moe when other students aren't around. Stuff like I was calling him names after school, etc. and then telling her, "you can even have the school check the cameras to see that I'm there".
This starts a whole thing where she is now demanding answers from admin. BUT! I’m smart. Admin asks me about details regarding my interactions with Moe and I end up sitting down with my Principal, Moe, and Moe's mommy. She details that Moe is struggling, might not graduate, and that she believes that I have singled her kid out and wants his grade raised.
You see, Moe is dumb and lazy, and his mom is just as bad. When Larry went to her with his story, she never bothered talking about it with her own son. He just agreed and went along with it, so I asked Moe point blank to please describe what has been said during our sessions and then offer to leave the room so that he can tell the principal without me there.
She tells me to stay because she wants me to hear from her son what I've done to him. What neither of them knew was that I was a mentor teacher. That meant I had a first year teacher as my mentee and I had her working on grades and such in my room after school on the days I agreed to meet Moe. She was young, so Moe thought she was another student and never questioned it, and couldn't even remember that she was in there.
My Principal already had statements from her detailing my interactions with Moe, and Moe was unable to give any actual details and suddenly forgot what had been said to him. This lands Moe’s mommy in hot water with admin, and she blames the whole thing on Larry and becomes visibly upset that she fell for such a stupid ruse. This results in an email cautioning teachers from being alone in a room with either student.
Suddenly, after school help evaporates for both, but hey, I always have someone in my room, so whatever. After that meeting, Larry is now suddenly super concerned about his grade. I rationalize that he was hoping to burn me out of my job and then use the fallout to get a free passing grade. Obviously it doesn't work, so screw Larry.
I have kids who actually want to succeed. My free days are now on days I know he works, and he never shows up for tutoring anyway. Now that other teachers are hesitant to meet with him, he is unable to cut deals to raise those grades either. Moe's mom makes a last ditch effort and tries to convince me that the parents of the seniors have scheduled a meeting with my boss to have me fired for giving their kids a bad grade and that she would be willing to put in a good word for me if I meet with her first.
I'm sitting next to the principal when I get this email, and he has no idea what she's talking about. I tell her I'd be happy to meet everybody but that I would probably eat my lunch during such a meeting and that I hoped people didn't mind the smell of fish. I got a "No, seriously, they are threatening to sue you," but I had the perfect response. I feigned stupidity and informed her that I couldn't be sued for eating fish during a meeting.
She now realizes I don’t care about anything and can't be threatened. Again, there's nothing she can do because I am simply following policy. The last few weeks are frantic for these seniors. One by one they fall, because they've done little to no work for a couple years now and they have no idea how to apply themselves. Other teachers are emboldened by how hard I shut them down and finally hold them accountable.
A few of them just barely manage Ds in my class, and the rest fail. I get a few last second squeaks of "What can I do to raise my grade?" but have now documented that none of them attempted the extra credit assignments and that was their chance. It's hard for a parent to get angry at you when you can prove you actually tried to give their student extra credit, and can then prove they never opened the assignment online.
These guys are now failing some of their other classes, too. A couple have breakdowns in my class and leave crying. Their friendships are fracturing with each other because they now all hate each other for what happened (which they will get over during the summer). My last test came and I made it an online multiple choice test.
It was easy enough to have the questions and answers shuffled in random order, meaning they couldn't cheat off each other. You see, I knew for a long time that they would sit next to each other to try and cheat on the exam, and Larry had blown a ton of money on a tutor to try and carry his friends. This throws them all off, and when Moe's mommy accuses me (again) of trying to trick her kid with a much harder test, it was easy enough to shoo her away with a simple email.
Larry passes the exam, but his grade moves up to a meager D minus. Here are the final results. Of these seven seniors, one didn't graduate and had to transfer schools. His parents were embarrassed that they paid to fly the whole family out for a graduation that he didn't get to take part in. Two of the seniors lost all of their scholarships and could no longer attend the schools they wanted.
Their fallback plan was to attend the same school together and become roommates, which they did with three of the other seniors, including Moe. Larry's college was not happy with his final GPA. I'm not sure what his long game was, but it sucked. The college kicked him out before he could even start, and I found out his huge web of lies extended to his parents too.
He toured Europe over the summer and tried to surprise his parents by coming home instead of going to school. Apparently, they kicked him out immediately after because they were selling their house to get a condo somewhere else (remember, they travel for work all the time now so wanted to downgrade). Last I heard, he made up a story that he joined the armed forces but got released due to sickness.
Curly's parents relented and decided to pay for Curly to go to college after all. Curly got kicked out halfway through the year (he got busted more than once for underage consumption) and then they kicked him to the curb after living at home for a year and refusing to get a job. Last I heard, he works in a vape shop. Moe went to school and used his book smarts to try and pay other kids to do his work for him, since his mommy is rich.
When that failed, he faked his grades to get his mom to keep footing the bill. Eventually, the school kicked him out and he moved back home. The story his mommy told a friend of hers (who I ran into at a school function) was that he decided that he would rather be an entrepreneur than go to college and that he bought a drone to film weddings with.
Last I heard, he was acting as a distributor for his weed dealer but had moved up to selling acid on the side. His mommy thinks he is working weddings. But there was one happy ending. One senior went to college with his friends and immediately realized he needed to change. He quit hanging with his friends and, last I heard, graduated with honors in a lucrative field.
He emailed me once to thank me for challenging him in high school, because it prepared him for college, so that was nice.
43. Playing The Long Game
In the late 90s, my wife and I were just married, just getting started, and we decided to DINK (“double income, no kids”) it for a few years to save up for a down payment on a house. The dotcom bubble was still rising and I was a newly minted software developer. I had an entry-level job for a while and then got recruited to a new city and a new job that paid three times what I was making before.
It was an offer too good to pass up. I ran the numbers and it was a no-brainer: By living frugally and saving my entire salary, living off just her income, we would easily have enough in a year to put a 20% down payment on a new house. We rented an apartment in the new city that was listed for $950/month. The landlord was a real estate agent who owned a two-bedroom condo as an investment property.
Let’s call him "Hank Wazowski". Hank was a thin, gray, no-nonsense guy. He was pleasant enough, but perfunctory, dry, and had no sense of humor. He made a point of explaining that under no circumstances was he responsible for maintaining the garbage disposal and that it was NOT included in the rental agreement and he would not be responsible for fixing it if it were it to break. Um, ok.
He seemed slightly amused by us, a clueless, young, newlywed couple, but I could tell he wanted to rent to us because we were very obviously a safe choice as renters. We filled out the rental agreement and the credit check, and this is where my troubles began. Hank looked hard at the credit application where I listed my job title, “Software Developer,” and my income, $75k.
For a 23-year-old in his second year out of college, in the late 1990s, this is a small fortune. Throw in my wife’s salary and we were over six figures in income, renting an apartment far beneath our means. Like I said, DINK is the way to go when starting out. “I can’t believe how much money you make,” Hank must have said half a dozen times, muttering under his breath.
I explained we were saving to buy a house and that we were only going to stay in the apartment a year. “We might stay a few months after the term is over, would month-to-month be ok after a year?” Hank assured us that would be fine. We saw Hank only once during the year and he again mentioned my salary and how he couldn’t believe that’s what software developers were making.
It was awkward and I gave a vague reply. Anyway, a year later we had found a house to buy, signed all the papers, and were making plans to move. The new house wasn’t going to be ready until two months after our rental lease was up, so I called Hank to ask if we could, as discussed, simply extend the lease by two months before moving out.
Hank assured me on the phone it would be no problem and he would send over an extension for us to sign. The extension arrived in the mail. When I read it, my heart stopped. It included a month-to-month clause and a $500 increase in the rent. I flipped out and called him. “Hank, why are you increasing the rent over 50%? That’s too much! That’s more than my new mortgage is going to be!”
He was super condescending to me, “It’s what the apartment goes for now. I would be losing money by renting it for less". I tried to reason with him, but it was very clear he knew we could afford the $500, had no choice in the matter, and he was going to screw us over as best he could. He got angry with me for arguing my point, and I’ll never forget his parting words: “You don’t have to like it, you just have to pay it".
My wife and I tried to figure out a way to move out early by putting our furniture in storage for a couple months and crashing with friends, but it just wasn’t going to work out. I swallowed my pride and wrote out the check for $1,450 for the extra month. A month later, I wrote a similar check, and then we moved out. I made sure the apartment was spotless before moving, but still Hank withheld $300 from our security deposit for stupid things that were just a way for him to squeeze a few more dollars from the kids who made too much money.
$100 for cleaning, sure? But $300 was obscene. In my mind, he had screwed me over for $1200 and there was nothing I could do about it. What made it even more infuriating is that I saw the ad Hank put in the paper after we moved out and he listed the apartment for rent at only $150 more than we had been paying originally, not the grossly-inflated $500 increase.
And it didn't rent. A month later, I saw the same ad and he had lowered the price to $75 more than we had been paying, and I assume it got rented since the ads stopped appearing. Fast-forward about five years. Life is good, the house is good, we have a baby, and even though the dotcom bubble has burst, I’m still employed. One day, out of the blue, I overhear one of my co-workers, Phil, a senior developer, talking to the guy working the reception desk.
“Hey, Mike, I’m expecting someone to drop off some paperwork for me. If a Hank Wazowski asks for me, tell him I’ll be right out". I freeze and get a taste of bile in my mouth. I’m remembering how I had to write out that name on those checks all those years ago. There’s no way it’s the same guy, right? I walk over to Phil, who is still by the reception desk.
“Phil,” I say, “How do you know that name, Hank Wazowski?” Phil explains that Hank is his real estate agent. “I bought my condo through him several years ago. I’m selling my condo now so I can buy a house. So I’m going to ask him to be my agent again. Do you know him?” I tell Phil that I used to rent an apartment from Hank and described what he looks like.
Phil confirms the description: It’s the same guy, wow small world, right? And on cue, right then the front door to the office opens and in walks Hank Wazowski. I stare in disbelief. He’s carrying a folder of papers and doesn’t recognize me. Phil and Hank shake hands and they talk for a few moments. I stand there silently, wondering what to do.
Phil finally says, “Hank, this is my friend. I think you may have already met?” “Yes, hello Hank. Good to see you again. My wife and I were your tenants a few years ago. Remember, the software developer who rented for a year saving to buy a house? Well, this is where I work. Here. With Phil". Hanks eyes indicate he now remembers me, and he’s starting to put it all together.
We shake hands and he says yes, of course he remembers and asks how we are doing. “Oh we’re just fine, thanks for asking. Phil says that you’re his real estate agent. Small world, isn’t it?” Hanks nods pleasantly. He still doesn’t remember the details of our last conversation. I do some quick math in my head. This is the early/mid 2000s, the real estate market is very strong and easy money for any agent.
The crash of 2008 is still a few years in the future. I start to think out loud. “Selling the condo for around $150 to 200 thousand, and you’re looking at houses in the $500 thousand range, so that’s $650 to 700 thousand in total transactions. An agent getting 3% on the sale AND the purchase is getting around $20k for his trouble. That’s a good commission for the agent, isn’t it?”
Hanks eyes flash and I can tell he remembers everything about me now. Phil is surprised at my passive-aggressive tone. I am enjoying the uncomfortable silence. Hank deflects my question, saying it’s complicated, and tells Phil to send back the papers as soon as possible. He shakes hands with Phil, looks at me, nods, and goes to leave. “It was really good to see you again, Hank". I call behind him.
He exits the building. As the door is still shutting, I say a bit too loudly, so that Hank can hear, “Phil, don’t sign anything just yet, I have a story to tell you". Phil looks at me and says, “What the heck was that all about?!” He looks angry and confused at my behavior. I tell Phil the whole story, the rent, the $500 increase, the security deposit, "you don't have to like it, you just have to pay it," everything.
“Phil, you can’t use this guy to sell your condo and buy a house. I hate him. He’s evil. I’ll help you find another real estate agent, just use ANYONE BUT HANK!” So the great thing about Phil is that, well, he’s a great guy. He says he’s a little surprised at my story and has always known Hank as a straightforward guy. “But I totally see him doing that to you,” he admits.
“There’s no way I could use him now. What a jerk!” Then Phil’s eyes lit up a bit. “What do you want me to say when I fire him?” (I have special feelings for Phil now.) We came up with a plan and I made sure there were some key phrases in Phil’s repertoire. We planned it all out together in advance. My only regret is that I didn’t get to see Hank’s reaction in person a day later when Phil made the following phone call while I stood behind him listening:
“Hi, Hank? It’s Phil calling. Yeah, about that. I’ve decided to get some other quotes from other agents. I’m not going to sign up with you … [pause] “No no, you shouldn’t give a discount. You’d be losing money if you did that . . . [pause] “No, this is just a decision I’ve made . . . no, it has nothing to do with anyone else . . . [pause]
“Well, you don’t have to like it, Hank. You just have to accept it. Good bye". CLICK And it was the greatest revenge I could have ever imagined: Through a chance meeting years later, Hank got screwed out of 20 thousand dollars in easy commissions. And the best part is Hank absolutely KNEW it had EVERYTHING to do with me!
44. You Go, Grandma
My grandmother was a member of a large conservative "Bible Believing" church for her entire adult life. This church, which I'll call BigWhiteChurch, was a member of a large Evangelical denomination. BigWhiteChurch was located in a prosperous suburb of a large city in the Bible Belt of the Deep South of the USA. Grandma was very active in BigWhiteChurch.
She worked in the nursery every Sunday morning, helped cook hundreds of church fellowship breakfasts and dinners, accompanied her children and grandchildren on dozens of church retreats and choir tours, taught Youth Bible Study on Sunday nights and was very active in supporting Home Missions, as well as helping with other youth programs.
She always tithed, and often gave extra for missions and special offerings. Grandma's greatest talent was making other people feel important. I've seen this firsthand many times. Although I belonged to a different church, I often visited with Grandma, and when I did, I usually went to BigWhiteChurch functions with her. I've seen her single-handedly cook breakfast for dozens of BigWhiteChurch Youth, a task that took over two hours, even in the church's large kitchen.
Then, after the meal, she asked the group for a round of applause for the high school student leader for, "Doing such a great job of organizing the Prayer Breakfast". I remember that, on a BigWhiteChurch youth retreat at a rural Church Camp, she drove most of the night to go back to the city and retrieve a big box of evangelistic materials that one of the Assistant Pastors (whom I'll call JerkPastor) had forgotten and asked her to get, in time for our morning program the next day.
His boss, the Senior Pastor (I'll call him PompousPastor), never found out that JerkPastor had screwed up or that Grandma had fixed it for him. JerkPastor never even thanked Grandma. Even though I was a child, this bothered me so much that I asked her about it. Her reply broke my heart. She said that she didn't mind at all; she told me her reward would be that those materials "Would help children find Jesus".
Grandma's service to her church ended abruptly at the age of 73, when she broke her back in a car accident. Afterwards, for the last 10 years of her life, she was homebound and could not go to church because of this injury and declining health due to old age. Her mind was just as sharp as ever, and her faith remained sincere, but her body wore out a little more every day.
During those 10 years, she made many efforts to reach out to her church, its leadership and her church friends, inviting them to visit her at her home, etc., without success. Every one of these invitations was declined or simply ignored. Near the end, when she was in home hospice care, she decided to plan her own funeral. She and my Grandpa called her church and asked for the Senior Pastor, PompousPastor, whom she had known for over 30 years, to visit her so that they could plan her memorial service, which she and Grandpa wanted to be held at the church.
PompousPastor was too busy, but JerkPastor stopped by a few days later. According to my Grandpa, here's what happened at that meeting, with my Grandma literally on her deathbed: Grandma, Grandpa and JerkPastor discussed her funeral for a couple of minutes. Then JerkPastor started pressuring her to, "Lay your treasure in Heaven" by "Remembering your church in your will".
Grandpa told him firmly that, "This is neither the time nor the place to discuss her will". They went back to discussing the funeral for a few minutes. Then JerkPastor steered the conversation back to Grandma's will, with liberal injections of how badly "her" church needed "her support". Grandpa told him several times that it was inappropriate to talk to Grandma about her will or the church's financial needs, because she was terminally ill and in an enormous amount of physical pain.
JerkPastor would agree and briefly talk about the funeral, but would then go back to talking about the church's financial needs, heavenly rewards, "Where your treasure is your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34), etc. My Grandma started crying. To put this into context, Grandma was more than a "Steel Magnolia". She was "Titanium Coated With Diamond Wrapped In Kevlar".
She rarely ever cried, and never EVER cried about herself. Not one tear when the doctor told her that her back was broken so badly that she would never walk again, nor during the following six months in futile rehab. She would shed sincere but well-managed tears at funerals and while visiting family members in the hospital when they received bad news.
She would cry to console others, "Weep with those who weep". But nobody—not Grandpa, not her daughter (my mom), nor any of my uncles or Grandma's siblings—ever remembered her crying for herself. My Grandma was sobbing uncontrollably. Grandpa, a retired steelworker, former Marine Sergeant and Korean combat veteran, physically grabbed JerkPastor and "guided" him out of their house, not too gently.
Contrary to everyone's expectations, Grandma lived another six months, mostly because of sheer force of will. Eventually, though, Grandma passed and we held her memorial service at the funeral home, not BigWhiteChurch. PompousPastor and JerkPastor were conspicuously absent. In fact, there were no "Professional Christians" from BigWhiteChurch at the service at all, not even in the audience.
To start the service, Grandpa stood up at the podium in front of the crowd and said, "Some of you may have heard that I dis-invited PompousPastor and JerkPastor from this funeral service. This service is not an appropriate place for me to give you my reasons for doing this, although you all know me and so you know that my reasons are good ones. Also, my wife asked me to exclude them"".
This funeral service may be different from other funerals that you have attended. It is going to be an ‘open microphone’ funeral. Everyone who wants to say something is invited to come up here and describe your friendship with my wife, tell a story about her that is worth remembering, or anything else that you want to say that will honor her memory and bring comfort to everyone here today. I have asked several family members to prepare statements, but you don't have to have anything prepared. Please, if you want to say something, come up here and do so".
There were about a hundred people at the funeral service; at least a third of them eventually stepped up to the microphone. The service, which we had planned to last about 30 minutes, lasted for over two hours and, as best I can tell, not one person left early. There was laughing, crying and hugging, three of her grandchildren played some of her favorite songs on the piano and guitar, and we all joined hands and sang her favorite hymns.
Afterwards, dozens of people told my Grandpa that it was one of the most comforting and uplifting funerals they had ever attended. More than a few remarked that, "Funerals are better without preachers anyway" or something similar. But the thing is, my grandma also had a great revenge from beyond the grave. A couple of weeks later, it was time to start distributing the bequests in Grandma's will.
Although Grandma and Grandpa dearly loved each other, they had separate wills because, she told my Mom, “That makes it easier for us to respect each other's turf” and because their lawyer had recommended it. Nobody thought that my grandparents were wealthy. They had lived in the same small but charming house in a prosperous, well-maintained suburban neighborhood for the past 50+ years, and had worked hard and lived modestly.
But it was rumored that they had a very nice nest egg. Of course, there is no requirement for anyone to attend "The Reading Of The Will" or to even have a "Reading". Modern telecommunications and near-universal literacy have made this quaint custom practically extinct. But "The Reading Of The Will" was a tradition in our family because it was one of those events that gave our close-knit, extended family an excuse to get together.
We never had "Family Reunions". They were too difficult to schedule for our large family. But we got together at birthdays, holidays, funerals, baptisms, etc., so that if you attended several of these, you would see just about every one of your cousins, aunts, uncles, and even great aunts and uncles who were Grandma's and Grandpa's siblings and in-laws.
With this family tradition in mind, many of our family members' wills often contained very personal bequests of items that had little cash value, but were the departed family member's way of telling their loved ones that they wanted to share a cherished memory with them one last time. As an added incentive to attend, the family rumor mill had been buzzing with speculation, encouraged by Grandpa, that Grandma's will contained some "surprises". And oh, there were surprises aplenty.
The "Reading" was held in a conference room at a lawyer's office. The attendees included my mom, as well as aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles and many of the grandchildren. We were all surprised, however, to see PompousPastor and JerkPastor from BigWhiteChurch. They informed us that Grandma's lawyer had told them that Grandma's will had bequests not only for BigWhiteChurch, but also for them personally.
Maybe it was just our imagination, but my siblings, cousins, and I couldn't help noticing that these preachers appeared to be actively salivating over their good fortune at Grandma's generosity. Grandma had a large family, so a sizeable number of beneficiaries were named in her will. The lawyer's conference room was a bit smaller than an average middle-class living room.
Extra chairs had been brought in, every seat was filled and people were standing in every remaining space. There was barely space for all of us. Grandma's lawyer suggested that PompousPastor and JerkPastor sit in chairs that were in the front of the room, next to himself. Since there was a large table in the room, this meant that the lawyer and these two preachers were the only ones who were directly facing everyone else.
Although the preachers were gratified to be physically next to the center of attention, they did not notice, as all of the rest of us quickly noticed, that these seats made it easy for everyone else in the room to watch them closely, and practically impossible for them to leave the packed-to-more-than-overflowing room before the entire meeting was over, because they were farthest from the room's single door, and there were almost two dozen people standing or sitting between them and their only path to escape.
The bequests were quite generous, but pretty much what we had expected. Grandpa kept their house, its contents, their retirement accounts and everything that remained after all of the bequests had been satisfied. Children, grandchildren and several local charities received nice, but not extravagant, amounts of money. Several sentimental items were named and given to various friends and relatives.
Grandpa was first beneficiary listed in the will. But, after him, all of the other bequests were arranged in order of increasing worth. They started with sentimental items, which had very small cash value. Then each grandchild received several thousand dollars, then each son, daughter, brother, sister, niece and nephew received a little more, then several local non-profits received very nice amounts, etc.
Bequests to BigWhiteChurch, PompousPastor and JerkPastor were (almost) the last ones listed in the will. They listened politely to the other bequests, but with steadily growing anticipation, as they noticed the exponential upward trend in Grandma's largess. When Grandma's lawyer got to the BigWhiteChurch and preachers' part of the will, he said, "This is a bit unusual, but before I announce these bequests to BigWhiteChurch, PompousPastor and JerkPastor, Ms [Grandma's name] requested that I read the following statement to everyone present".
He opened a letter that was written in Grandma's own handwriting. It shocked the room into silence. "For the past 10 years, NOT ONE person from BigWhiteChurch has ever called me, come to visit me, or sent me a note to tell me that they cared about me. Not one minister, not one deacon, not one of the church women, not one of the church members who I worked with for all of those years, loved dearly and thought were my friends. I worked very hard for you when you needed me, for many, many years. But when I needed you and your church, you all pretended that I didn't exist"".
I only got one visit. When I was dying and I invited PompousPastor to come to my house and help me plan my funeral. This was my last attempt, after many attempts that I had made over the past 10 years, to reach out to my church and pastor, whom I still loved dearly even though they had made it clear that they did not love me. If only I could have my funeral at my church, maybe some of my church friends, whom I had not seen in a decade, would come to the service to see me one last time.
And I know they loved to hear PompousPastor preach, so if he preached at my funeral, maybe they would come to my funeral to hear him, even if they would not have come to see me. But PompousPastor couldn't find the time to visit me, or even call me to tell me whether or not he was willing to preach at my funeral. JerkPastor came by my house, but he didn't want to talk about my funeral. He just wanted me to, 'Remember his church in my will.'
That's all. Just, 'Remember his church in my will.' It was then that I realized that I had allowed my church to break my heart for one last time. But that was the last time. The VERY last time. JerkPastor did not know it when he visited me, but Grandpa and I had already prepared my will, long before his visit, which did include a double tithe. TWENTY PERCENT of my ENTIRE ESTATE, for what was now my former ... FORMER ... church ... BigWhiteChurch.
This amount was [named the amount—an enormous load of money generating muffled ‘wows’ from many of her heirs, including me]. But I got to feeling badly that we had not personally remembered such nice people as PompousPastor and JerkPastor. So I changed my will to include them by name. While I was at it, I changed the amount of money that I left to BigWhiteChurch to match all of the love that they have showed to me during the last 10 years of my life, when I was suffering and lonely, and no longer able to work for them, for free, like I had done for almost half a century"".
That is her entire written statement," the lawyer said. "Now let's get back to the bequests in the will". "Bequest to JerkPastor: One Cent". "Bequest to PompousPastor: One Cent". "Bequest to BigWhiteChurch: One Cent". The PompousPastor and JerkPastor sat there looking like someone had just injected a gallon of novocaine into their jaws.
Every one of Grandma's family and friends felt an overwhelming urge to laugh out loud. But we kept quiet because we knew Grandma. We knew she wasn't finished yet. Grandma was simply setting them up for a one-two punch. The best was yet to come, and we didn't want to miss it. "There is one last bequest," the lawyer continued, "For a charity called ..." which he named and I'll call "BlackCharity," then he paused before naming the amount.
Most of us had no idea what BlackCharity was. But, by the looks on their faces, we could tell that PompousPastor and JerkPastor knew BlackCharity very well. Their faces displayed the same expressions of shock, dread, and horror that they would have if the lawyer had said, "This bequest goes to The Demonic Baby Eaters to buy extra large rotisserie barbecue grills and tons of charcoal".
Every eye in the room was now fixated on PompousPastor and JerkPastor. The lawyer, who happened to be my uncle, one of Grandma's and Grandpa's sons, let the silence continue a few seconds more....If we had been able to read PompousPastor's and JerkPastor's minds, we would have known the history behind the looks on their faces.
BlackCharity was sponsored by a large Black church just a few miles from BigWhiteChurch. They ran a free food/clothing bank, assistance programs for foster children, home delivery of pre-cooked meals for homebound seniors, and other social services. A long time ago, BigWhiteChurch, which was (and still is) 100% Caucasian, had provided a few years of financial and other support to BlackCharity.
Then there was a very bitter, acrimonious breakup, allegedly because BlackCharity was practicing "The Social Gospel" while BigWhiteChurch was preaching "The True Gospel". BigWhiteChurch even sued to try to get some of their money back, although the suit was eventually settled and very little money actually changed hands. But, this being The Deep South, everyone knew the real reason why BigWhiteChurch, or any white church, would stop supporting a Black charity:
"They were getting uppity and not staying in their place". Grandma and Grandpa had seriously considered leaving BigWhiteChurch at that time. But they had reasoned that it was better to stay there and teach tolerance by their words and example. They knew they would never persuade everyone, but maybe they could reach some of the youth at their white church and break the generational cycle.
Grandma used to tell us, "My church is my Mission Field". We did not learn the true depth of her statement until after she passed. Since then, Grandma and Grandpa had secretly sent a portion of their "Tithe" to BlackCharity every month. Most of Grandma's family, including me, didn't find out about any of this until after the meeting had ended.
But PompousPastor and JerkPastor obviously understood what Grandma, by her actions which are more powerful than words, was saying to them. If you had grown up as a white person in the Deep South, as Grandma, Grandpa, PompousPastor and JerkPastor had, you would understand. To many white Southerners, this was one of the most personally insulting things you could do to them.
It simultaneously labeled them as racists, condemned them, and crushed their delusions of white superiority by saying, "These Black human beings, whom you hate, disrespect and have mistreated, are better people than you are. So they deserve my money more than you do". Having allowed time for everyone to observe PompousPastor and JerkPastor while they thought about how their white church had treated this Black charity, and how they AND their church had treated our Grandma...
The lawyer said, "The amount is...". Then he named the EXACT SAME AMOUNT that Grandma had named in her handwritten letter, the huge amount of money that would have gone to BigWhiteChurch if she had not changed her will.
45. Pencil Me In
When I was hired for the job where I currently work, I was hired to work on Tuesday through Saturday from 2 pm to 10 pm. This had been my schedule for months, never changing. I was verbally told that this was my set schedule, and I even clarified this because I had to arrange for childcare. For example, one week I was accidentally left off the schedule entirely and was told to just work my normal schedule.
Around Thanksgiving time, we closed down for a week. The company policy is that you have to work your last scheduled shift before the break and your first scheduled shift after in order to get your holiday pay. On the Monday following Thanksgiving (remember I’m normally off on Mondays), I got a call saying I was scheduled to work and that because I didn’t come in, I wouldn’t get my holiday pay.
This kind of ticked me off because I had been told I would work Tuesday-Saturday and thus had only arranged childcare those days, so I couldn’t even come in that day if I wanted to. The exact phrase I was told over the phone was, “It is your responsibility to check the schedule every week because we don’t have set schedules".
Fast forward to this week. While checking the schedule, I noticed that my schedule is the same as normal with the exception that I am off the schedule on Saturday. So, I decided to not look a gift horse in the mouth and just take the three-day weekend and don’t mention to my boss that she left me off. So Saturday (which I normally would work), I don’t go in since I’m not scheduled.
I got a call from work and didn’t answer, and they didn’t leave a voicemail. Then I receive a text from my boss saying that my schedule “never changes” and it will be a no call/no show on my attendance record for not coming in to work. I reply that I am not on the schedule and so I’m not required to come in, as it is my responsibility to check the schedule every week because we don’t have set schedules.
I received no further reply and am looking forward to seeing how work goes on Tuesday. I also took a picture of the schedule to make sure that I can prove I was off on the schedule in case my boss tries to write me up. By the way, I do have a new job lined up and am just waiting for my start date before I quit this one.
46. Lost In Translation
I am a light-skinned Latina American and I lived in Korea for a couple of years during university and grad school, as my major was Korean Interpretation and Translation. During my time in Korea, I was lucky enough to attend music shows from time to time. For the K-pop uninitiated, music shows are free to enter, provided you have at least one of three items.
They would be: A) a copy of the album of the group you’re coming to see, B) proof of purchase of the album digitally on one of the approved music vendors in Korea, or C) the official lightstick from the most recent concert. Priority entry was always given to official fan club members who had all three, then fan club members who had two of the three, and then fan club members who had one. After that came non-members in the same priority tier.
The group I had come to see hadn’t opened official fan club registration in almost a decade, so the group’s management decided to do away with the fan club priority and did it on a first-come, first-serve basis, but kept the whole three items go first, then two then one thing. I had all three and I got there early, so I got a good spot in line.
These queues often had us waiting outside for hours while the previous round of filming finished up. The thing about these music show venues is, they’re very small. They have limited capacity and allow two-three groups’ fans in to watch them film at a time, so not all people who queue for a group get in. In this particular instance, there was trouble with foreign fans causing trouble by taking pictures, not listening to instructions, etc.
So the venue staff literally went through and QUIZZED each foreigner in line on their Korean. If you couldn’t understand, you were booted. I passed with flying colors and kept my spot in line. Here’s where the revenge starts. Because of the aforementioned issues, a lot of Korean fans HATED international fans with a passion.
For this group in particular so many people were VERY ANGRY that they had to wait in line behind foreigners because they’d done away with the official fan club priority. Now here’s me, sitting alone in a queue outside on a hot summer day. A group of Korean girls sat in front of me, and a lone Korean girl talking on her phone sat behind me.
I was minding my own business, playing games on my phone after passing my Korean quiz with the staff, when I heard the girl behind me talking trash. She was chatting with a friend I suspect because she was dropping a lot of curse words, and specifically mentioned “these foreign roaches ruining things for us. I want to kill them".
She mentioned me in particular and said that she bet I’d paid the staff to keep my spot in line even though I couldn’t understand Korean. Okay so. It’s harmless trash talk, I don’t know this girl and I don’t know her friend. In the long run, it doesn’t affect me, right? But it really rubbed me the wrong way, especially because she was talking quite loudly.
So I grabbed my wallet, politely and quietly asked the Korean girls in front of me to watch my bag and hold my place in line, and went to the convenience store. I bought a round of water for everyone. It was heavy. I had about a dozen bottles of water. I get back to my spot in line, thank the girls in front of me for holding my spot, then gave them each a water.
I gave water to the group in front of them, too. Then I kept one for myself and turned around and handed one to the girl on the phone with a smile. Immediately she lit up and thanked me in English, smiling bright and taking her phone away from her ear. As I hand her the water, I say in perfect Korean and still smiling, “The next time you loudly trash talk the foreigners, make sure they can’t actually understand you".
When I tell you it went silent in the immediate area, you could hear a pin drop. Her smile melted off her face faster than an ice cream cone on Florida pavement. She turned beet red and muttered to her friend on the phone that she had to go and sheepishly apologized. I accepted, she had water, and I felt better about myself. Bonus: The girls in front of me heard the whole thing and adopted me into their group for the day. Fun was had all around.
47. Just Desserts
I've been enrolled in a cooking school for over a year and my mom has never been supportive, mostly because I dropped out of a nursing program to get into this cooking school. She's always making snide comments about how I should've been a nurse or a lawyer, or how I'll only ever be a subservient housewife with this profession.
When I do make something, she always criticizes it. Like she's Gordon Ramsay or something: "Oh, too much salt". "It's undercooked". "It looks disgusting". Even though pretty much everyone else says the opposite. She's looking for any little thing she can critique about my cooking. She keeps telling me I can't cook and need to get into a real career.
I've cooked three-course dinners for the family and they always get positive reviews, except for her. She had a party for her work friends, I made a whole tray of my specialty take on homemade meatballs. It’s a recipe I conceptualized myself, and my signature dish. Everyone kept going back and getting more, so many that they ran out.
I asked mom what she thought, and she said, "They were drinking, they couldn't taste anything". So I figured if I wanted to get her to compliment my cooking, I'd have to trick her. I cooked her a meal, one of her favorites from scratch, which was her biggest weakness that she can never resist. I dressed it up to look professional and put it in a generic To-Go Box and had my boyfriend take a video of me preparing it, start to finish.
I called her and told her that my boyfriend and I were eating at this diner (that doesn't exist), and made up a fake name for it and everything. I told her they had her favorite meal and asked if she wanted us to bring her one. Of course, she said yes. I brought the dish and told her more about the fake diner. She started eating it and complimented how good it was.
She even said how she wanted to go to the diner and get another one. After she was almost through with the meal, I asked her for her honest opinions, so we could write a review on Yelp. She went on for 10 minutes about how great it was, and then I sprung it on her. I had cooked it. Her tone changed. She put the fork down and said she was lying, that it tasted like garbage.
My boyfriend showed her the video, and she googled the restaurant and it didn't show up. She then started pointing out flaws with the meal, like how there was too much sauce and it was really spicy and burned her mouth. I asked her why she almost finished the whole thing if it was so spicy. She didn't say anything, so I just asked her if she was ready to admit it.
She said no, so we left, but I spotted her eating it from the other room. I asked her again and she laughed and finally told me yes, that I'm a good chef. So, after a year of doubting I was a good chef and holding my dreams back, she finally admitted it.
48. Little Light Lie
Some years ago, we had some new neighbors move in next door. Nice enough people, but we had a problem with them. The husband traveled a lot and his wife was afraid of just about everything—the dark, thunderstorms, you name it. The problem was the floodlights over their garage doors. She would leave them on all night, every night, even though you couldn't see them from inside of their house.
They were positioned such that they would shine into our bedroom at night. We were not able to block them effectively with our curtains. We asked them politely several times if they could turn them off at night since they served no effective purpose. They adamantly refused. I offered to pay for a timer that would control them.
No way they would consider it. I thought about taking the bulbs out, smashing them out with my pellet blaster, etc. The solution that I arrived at was to simply loosen them up enough that they wouldn't come on. Since they couldn't see them from inside the house, it was about five-six months before they realized that they were not working. They screwed them back in. I waited a couple of weeks and unscrewed them again.
Another few months went by. Finally, one day, my neighbor asked me if I ever had any trouble with my outdoor lights. I told him yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I said that they would loosen up occasionally and I would have to retighten them. I blamed it on vibration from the traffic on our street. He said that he had the same problem.
I told him that I finally just gave up and left them off. He eventually did the same. We were happy with the final outcome and we were able to keep pace in the neighborhood.
49. Hitting Back Where It Hurts
I had two freshman roommates that kept eating all of my food. Within the first week, when classes hadn't even started yet, I went to make myself a peanut butter sandwich. My first peanut butter sandwich in this dorm. A special moment. But when I arrived at the kitchen to prepare it, the entire tub of peanut butter was completely gone. They also left the empty tub in my cupboard.
Anyway, I flipped the heck out, because who on earth eats a whole tub of someone else’s peanut butter by themselves, without even bothering to introduce themselves first? These girls would literally scarf down all my food, yet complain if they thought anyone was touching theirs. So I came up with a plan for revenge.
I started buying really fattening food, lots of chips and doughnuts, etc. I was trying to teach them self-restraint, but these idiots would go through these bags and boxes within two days. So I kept buying doughnuts. And then, one day, they started complaining about how they couldn't fit into their jeans anymore. Success.
I also put laxatives in my peanut butter. That’ll teach ‘em to mess with me and my food!
50. It Didn’t Add up
I interned in a class with this kid who always thought he was smarter than everyone else. He was pretty smart, but not by too much. Yet he always got paired with kids who weren’t as smart as him, so he would always be super smug when dealing with them. During one parent-teacher conference, we found out exactly where he got it from.
His parents thought he was the smartest kid in the school. They built him up as that and they got him thinking it, too. In this meeting, they even went off on the teacher, saying she “was bringing him down” and that she “was terrible". The conference ended when the teacher left the room crying. But it didn't take long for sweet revenge.
About a week later, there was an event where parents came to watch their children do math games with other students. Well, the teacher paired this smug little kid with the actual smartest kid in class. The kid got destroyed in the math games. His parents were so flustered, they left before it was all done and took him out of school for the rest of the day.
51. Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew my ex wife was cheating but didn’t tell her that I knew. Took her out for a dinner date and I casually asked questions about who she had been spending time with while I was at sea, she barely worked so she had to spend her time doing something. She failed to mention the guy that had been staying at my house for nearly two months, the guy she had to call the authorities on just to get to leave because I was coming home in two days...
Soooo I slid her a copy of the official report that was filed for the incident and watched as she crumbled over the fact she had been caught, and I didn’t have to say a word.
52. The Cost Of Cheating
We dated for four years and had what I thought was a great relationship. We were both well-established professionals who both owned homes in the same neighborhood and both had daughters in the home. Her daughter was 11, and mine was 16 when we met. We had actually planned to get married, build a house, and raise the two together.
We planned the house build because she had recently been diagnosed with a neurological illness that would eventually put her in a wheelchair, and needed something disability-friendly. During the planning stages, I began doing landscape and construction projects on her home to increase the resale value. All in, I invested roughly $30K into the home, running everything through my side construction business for tax, permitting, and resale purposes.
We had a contract that "payment" would be made upon the sale of the home. I produced invoices for each and every project, but never pushed for payment because of the prior agreement. Fast forward six months, we're looking at property to develop and finalizing drawings on the home when I began feeling ill. I couldn't eat, constantly vomiting and passing blood.
I began noticing that my abdomen looked swollen, which was odd because we were both very clean eaters and were in the gym every day. So I went to the doctor and began having tests done. During this time, she began having small cognitive issues, and the stress of her current position was exacerbating her condition, so she took a $20K per anum cut in pay along with a lesser position inside the company.
After a month or so of different tests, and a biopsy, it came back that I had a golf ball-sized tumor in my stomach, and would need to begin chemotherapy. So I began chemo and radiation treatments, which made me, expectedly so, extremely ill. She was spending time helping around my place on the weekends and staying over more, to the point that both her and her daughter were at my home more than theirs.
At this point, I suggested that we go ahead and put one of our houses on the market, and move in together until the new house was built. I have great supplemental insurance as well as a long-term health plan, so using that coupled with the sale of one of our houses would push us through comfortably, and help ease the financial stress on her. This backfired on me horribly.
Shortly after this discussion, she became extremely distant. Her daughter wasn't coming down and hanging out with mine anymore, and she had excuses for not getting together. She quit driving me to treatments and stopped staying over. She then dropped the truth. A sentence that will forever be burned into my psyche: "I love you, but I can't see myself taking care of someone this sick in the long-term, and I don't think we should see each other any longer".
A. TEXT. It broke me. I won't lie. This was the first woman I had ever opened up to and planned a life with since my wife passed when my children were 1 and 3. However, I tried to be mature about it. I forced myself to understand her position and to accept what I could not change. I calmly, the next day, gathered all of her things, packed them neatly, loaded them in my truck, and took them to her house to leave on the back porch while she was at work, in order to avoid any awkward exchanges.
Walking around the back and under the porch cover, I sat down on a box, and saw her in her back living room. I wish I could unsee what came next. She was there getting it on with a man that she had introduced to me as a life-long friend. I had once had dinner and drinks with this man and his girlfriend. We had gone on vacation with them as well.
I never spoke of the incident with her, and simply sent her a text later, explaining that I would leave her things on my side porch to pick up at her convenience. I discovered eight or nine months later from his now ex-girlfriend that they had broken up due to him confessing that he had been sleeping with my partner, dating back to about the time we were finishing drawings on the new home.
Now I’m angry. Revenge time. At this point, I had finished chemo and radiation for the time being and was feeling healthier. I was going through some much-neglected paperwork when I ran across the file that contained $32,680.00 in unpaid, long overdue invoices, which were promptly sent to my attorney to begin lien proceedings on the home.
It turns out that I couldn't have done this a moment too soon because she was set to put her house on the market. Coupled with interest over the course of, what was then, 19 months overdue, the invoices were hefty. That, along with the agreement of settling them when the house was sold and attorney fees, left her with roughly $10K after the sale of the home and settling her current mortgage.
She promptly had to back out of the purchase of another home and moved in with her oldest daughter and two grandchildren. She also had to leave her job and begin receiving disability. I ran into her a little over a year ago, and she looked as if she had aged 20 years, and was in the wheelchair we had talked about. We chatted cordially but briefly and I excused myself and went on with my day.
A few days later, her younger daughter called me and spoke of my running into her mom, and could we hang out sometime. I gave a vague answer, thanked her for calling and again, went on with my day. The ex then called me a week or so later, and began apologizing for leaving me as she did. Again, cordial but short, I thanked her for calling and hung up.
She began texting, and this went on for several weeks until once she asked if I could ever see us rekindling what we had, to which I replied: "I can't see myself taking care of someone so sick in the long-term. Remember the box on your back porch? Did you think that (life-long friend) brought that over to you from my house? Good luck to you. Goodbye".
53. The Mother Of All Pettiness
I had my graduation from engineering on the same day as my mother's birthday. I, of course, had nothing to do with choosing the date. But you couldn’t convince my mom of that. My mother said I "ruined her birthday"—and then she got a cruel revenge. She scheduled her birthday party to be on my actual birthday. Her birthday is in March, mine is in August.
54. 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.
55. That’s On You
I film and edit promotional videos, then post them on my company’s YouTube channel. The day after I uploaded a particular run-of-the-mill video, my manager called me into his office because one of our directors, who hates our department and loves undermining me in particular, sent an email to my manager and a few higher-ups. That's when it got cringey.
In the email, he stated that I had messed up the promo video, because there were “all of these other disgusting videos attached to it". As proof, he included a screenshot of the end of the video, where all of the recommended videos appeared to star scantily-clad Asian women in suggestive poses. Neither he nor my manager knew how YouTube algorithms worked.
He didn’t realize that the videos were suggested because he, or someone on his account, viewed that kind of content before. I have no idea how my manager explained this to him.
56. Getting The Message
Sooooo, I have a huge number of stories about this monstrosity of a man that I call my father-in-law. I really didn't expect to have many more new ones at this point, but life is full of surprises. Some back story is that this man has been awful towards me and mistreated me for many years. Never physically, mostly in the form of extreme name-calling.
Some of the other things he’s done to me have included gaslighting, making me feel guilty for completely normal things, blaming me for his lack of relationship with my son, etc. It goes on and on. Some more backstory is that I was pregnant with twins until January—when tragedy struck. They were stillborn. My husband and I were heartbroken, and are still trying to grieve and move past this.
Anyways, this morning I was at my computer working from home, making my to-do list and relishing the fact that I lost another pound on the scale, when suddenly a Facebook message comes through from my father-in-law. Now, this is weird because we're not friends on Facebook, even though we have sent messages to one another in the distant, distant past.
Also, I don’t really use Facebook anymore. I haven't for years at this point. But nevertheless, this man apparently somehow found out about my babies dying. He sent me a message so disturbing, it’s impossible to forget. It said: "Doesn't karma suck? The worst part is you still have a lot more coming :) !" Word for word, complete with the emoji and all. I was fuming—but, only for a few minutes.
It was like a PTSD response or something, because my adrenaline was running, my hands were shaking, I was afraid, the whole nine yards. But then I realized that this guy is just sad. He's sick and hateful. He doesn't love my son (his grandson), he loves his possessions and he hates me for taking one of his possessions (i.e. my son) away from him when we moved out of state.
He never even asked how my son is doing after losing his baby brother and sister. Sick, sick, sick. So, I made up a plan for revenge. I came to the decision to post on Facebook for the first time in like four years. I told all of those friends about the babies, the tragic loss, and finished off with the beautiful message my father-in-law sent me this morning.
Behavior like this cannot live in the sunlight. It thrives in the shadows. I was afraid of him for years, but I'm not afraid of him anymore! He doesn't have anything to take from me. He doesn't hold any power over me. I'm already getting messages from his family telling me how disgusting he is. I'm sure he's heard about my post by now. Public shaming for the win! In addition, my son is going to be 14 years old this month.
He's old enough now to hear the truth about his grandfather. So, if he wants to hear about it, I will tell him. If he doesn't, I'll respect that. My response to my father-in-law? "My son will know who his grandfather is. He loved those babies too". So, good luck to my father-in-law in trying to have a relationship with my son any time soon.
Does he not realize that my son actually loves me and our family? What a doofus. I'm sure he doesn't even realize that my son isn't a sweet six-year-old anymore and that he's capable of having his own thoughts and opinions now.
