What goes around comes around, and karma has a way of biting us in the butt when we least expect it. Whether it happens to us personally or we witness it second-hand, sometimes there's nothing more satisfying than experiencing karmic justice in action. Here, Redditors share the best moments of instant karma they've ever seen.
1. The Principle of the Thing
I worked as a database administrator for a community center one summer in university. Basically, I created a database for them to track who was donating to them and how much they were donating, as well a who was volunteering, and for how many hours. Very simple work and despite being the youngest person on staff, I got along well with my co-workers.
Well, except for my immediate boss, who was a total piece of work. The next spring, I was applying for jobs and e-mailed my old boss to ask for a letter of recommendation. Much to my surprise, she told me that she didn't write recommendation letters "out of principle." I was pretty ticked off about it because I was finding it very difficult to find a position.
Not being able to count on my most recent employer for a reference was a definite blemish on my resume. However, in spite of this, I managed to land a decent job. Lo and behold, I got to get revenge on day one of my new job. That 3day, my boss happened to email me about a problem at my old work with the database I had worked on.
She had moved some files around, rendering it impossible for her to access the database. She asked if I would come in. I had the best reply. I e-mailed her back and told her I already had a job and couldn't do it "out of principle." From the center's perspective, it effectively made my entire summer a waste of time. Hey, what can you do?
2. Grand Slam
This idiot who harasses me because I’m a bit of an outcast in my high school said something awful me today: "The only reason why you're here is because your grandma was a ho who gave birth to a ho mother!" Well, my grandmother passed yesterday. But I got my revenge. The principal overheard her, and now she can’t walk on graduation.
3. T-Bonehead
I was stopped at a red light waiting to turn right. I couldn't see if there was any traffic coming because of how the intersection was set up and there was a bus in the left-turn lane, so I was just waiting for a green. The person behind me clearly wanted me to turn because she was honking, yelling, and giving me the finger. After a couple of seconds, she decided to drive around me...and was immediately T-boned.
4. Late Vacation
As the low man on the totem pole at work, I got to do all of the grunt labor and random tasks that required working on weekends and such. I was a master engineer working in a 9-5 job, but being paid less than a pizza delivery driver. Then it got even worse. My boss decided that I no longer got compensation time, so basically I was working overtime all the time.
The reason behind this was that I was salaried and "it was part of the job." Well, I found a brutal way to get back at them. When I quit to go get my PhD, they realized that I hadn't used any vacation time at all. This ultra-penny pincher had to write me a check for two extra months' worth of pay as I walked out the door. Never have I tasted a sweeter payday.
5. I Oughta Wash Your Mouth out
I used to be a zookeeper. This idiot was making fun of our llama for looking ugly. The llama was a rescue who had corrective jaw surgery. She was not ugly, she was adorable. Yet the rude woman pointed and laughed at our llama. In return, the llama spat right in her mouth. I gave the llama a treat and told her that she was a good girl.
6. Rubber, Meet Glue
My friend Collin and I were playing Mario Kart once and I kart-slammed him in the last corner and won. He pulls his arm back and punches me as hard as he can in the arm. The karma part: His hand bounced off my arm and made him hit himself in the eye with full force. Just about knocked himself unconscious, the idiot.
7. Little Stinker
One time I saw a truck swerve to purposefully hit a cat. It was the type of truck that you see where the dude is clearly compensating for something—huge tires, lifted, with the balls on the back hitch. Well, he successfully hit the cat, and it splattered all over his truck. Only it wasn't a cat, it was a skunk.
8. Einstein’s Kryptonite
This one student had an ego so large it could barely fit into room. Sure, he was smart, always scored near perfect, and wanted to go to med school. But he would also do stuff like bring in articles about how one small minute detail was incorrectly taught in class. If he got one point off on a 99% exam, he brought in highlighted notes from the textbook.
Unfortunately, for all of his knowledge, he did not get into medical school. When he found out why, he was devastated. His guidance counselor followed up with one of the med school interviews he had, and the school emailed back and told them how much of a jerk the student had been throughout the entire meet up.
9. Your Loss
My ex-wife screwed around and got pregnant. I took my son and moved out, and the new dude moved in with her. Without doing anything vindictive at all, I got to watch as the two of them wrecked each others' lives. They were so thorough about it, I wound up feeling bad for them. Turns out the best punishment for a man who wants to take your wife is to let him have her.
10. Join the Line
My dad told me this story. He was driving back from the shore when traffic got really bad. About a mile ahead, there was an accident that had brought traffic to a crawl. Stuff happens, and my dad decides to be patient about it. Others...weren’t so patient. People even began driving on the shoulder in order to get ahead of the traffic.
This ticks my dad off. We all know how this goes. We do the right thing and are punished for it, whereas these jerks are skipping in front of traffic and will probably get away with it. He thought about following this stream of cars onto the shoulder, but he decided he’d do the right thing and wait. Then suddenly, karma came along.
As he got closer, he saw two uniformed officers waiting around in a parking lot. One officer was directing all of the shoulder drivers into the parking lot, while the other wrote all of those drivers tickets. My dad describes it as one of the most satisfying things he’s ever seen. Definitely a great call by my dad.
11. Phoney Foiled
This dumb kid in middle school kept trying to take my cellphone. Our school had a rule that you couldn't have your phone out in class, and when the teacher left the classroom for a second to have a brief word with an administrator, the jerk kid grabbed my phone. Except the teacher came back in a second later and caught him red-handed. She wouldn't believe it wasn't his phone. He got detention.
12. Defying Gravity
As a kid, I went to Hawaii with my mom and stepfather for vacation, and we signed up for surfing lessons. The car ride there, my stepfather kept saying, "Now, I just want to warn you of something. You might not be able to do this. You're a girl, so your center of gravity is higher. I'm a boy, so my center of gravity is lower."
He kept saying stuff like, “Don't be too upset when I'm standing on the board longer than you, it's just science, okay? I'll be better, but it's not your fault." Screw him, I managed to ride a few low waves all the way to shore while he couldn't even get on his feet. He wouldn't talk to me on the car ride back whenever I tried to bring up what he said earlier.
13. Keep It in Your Pants
I had this one student who kept intentionally farting. After telling him repeatedly to knock it off, I finally lost my cool and said, “Next time you do that, I hope you poop yourself.” Not five minutes later, I see him lifting his butt with that stupid grin on his face. Within seconds, the grin turned to pure terror.
He jumped up and said, "I gotta use the bathroom," and waddled out of the room with a large, wet brown spot on the back of his jeans.
14. Boxed in
My little sister's friend was being a real jerk to me. Following me around, mocking everything I said, making rude commentary on everything I did. I told her she shouldn't do things like that to someone older than her, because it could have dire consequences. Some time later, they convinced me to play hide-and-seek with them, and the rules were to STAY IN THE HOUSE.
I searched high and low for that little brat and couldn't find her anywhere. My sister had no clue either, and neither of us heard the doors open, so we didn't think she could be outside. Well, we were wrong. Turns out, the kid decided to say screw the rules and go outside. She hid in the back of my mom's truck, which has a camper shell that can be locked from the outside.
I guess someone saw that it was open, closed it, and locked it while the kid was hiding inside. Oops. She ended up peeing in her pants because she was so scared. I volunteered to unlock it, but I took my sweet time doing so, staring at her with this smug-as-anything grin. It was a truly great moment of instant karma.
Flickr,DiamondBack Truck Covers
15. Stuck With Double
I'm a teacher, and there was a set of twins in my class who were both pretty loud and out of control. During a group activity, one of them got the bright idea to stick his head into the hole of a plastic chair. He got stuck. He immediately began screaming, with his brother crying out, “My brother!” All the adults were trying not to laugh.
16. A Crack in the Plan
On a trip backpacking around Greece once, I had a bad experience in a hotel and decided to take one of their beautifully painted stone eggs from the bowl in the reception as compensation. But when we were on the ferry to the next island, I started noticing a horrible smell coming from my bag. It turns out that it was not a stone egg at all.
It was a painted boiled egg that had broken in my bag. The whole thing had become so rotten it had turned a nice shade of green and the smell was almost intolerable. I had to borrow a lot of my friends’ clothes for the rest of the trip, but at least it taught me a good lesson. Don’t ever take strange eggs from hotels, people.
17. Sock It to 'Em
I was 17. I went to a party where there were kids from two different high schools. When I went inside, I took off my brand new Nike Air Mada shoes that I had just bought for $140. Hours later, when I went to leave, my new shoes were gone. We had an idea of who took them, a guy from the other school, but didn’t have proof.
I was so sad and so embarrassed. I had to drive home in my socks. But a week later, the girl who threw the party shows up on my doorstep holding something behind her back...turns out she went to a party and saw the guy who took my shoes wearing them! When he took them off after a smoke break, she snagged them. She told me the best part was watching him look for them (just like I had) and then leave in his socks.
18. Badwill
I worked for Goodwill quite a few years back as a supervisor because my mother and I had really fond memories of treasure hunting there and I wanted to try and build up some management experience with a reputable company. I thought it would be my dream gig for a while even though I knew it would be hard work. Except it was a total nightmare.
The manager was an all-right lady, but her assistant manager was a tyrant. Every day, she would threaten to fire the employees if they didn't do their work right. I took offense to this because as a supervisor, I wanted my team to be in good spirits and wanted them to love coming in to work and doing good things for the mission.
Yet because every single day they were being told they could be fired, morale was rock bottom. People were afraid for their jobs every day. It got so bad, I had a meeting with the manager and I said, "I don't want to step on any toes, but I would appreciate it if you could ask the assistant manager to tone down the firing threats."
She said she understood and I felt good about the conversation. The next day, she called me into her office where her and the assistant manager were both waiting for me. They asked me to lock the door. As soon as I did, I got the most hate-filled verbal lashing of my entire life. I truly wasn't prepared for what they said.
“You think you can turn us against each other? You are worthless. You just do your freaking job and don't tell us how to do ours. Who do you think you are??” This went on for about 20 minutes. I'm a grown man and I nearly started bawling right then and there. Finally, I told them to take this terrible job and shove it. Well, they got their comeuppance.
I was the only supervisor they had on a team that required at least two. The manager and assistant manager were already working 60-hour weeks to make things work on a skeleton crew, and when I quit they were going to be working 80 hours each with no weekends until they had at least a month to find someone else. I wasn't really concerned about it at that point.
19. A Tumble and a Laugh
Back in high school, I was kind of being a jerk to a girl I was friends with. Nothing too bad, just some friendly teasing, but still not a great move. Then I turned around and fell down a big flight of stairs immediately after. Even mid-fall, the karma and the justice did not escape me, trust me. We both found it pretty hilarious.
20. Karma’s Cold Hit
I was working with this complete jerk at the sandwich shop where I work. She was 17, I was 18. I was telling a coworker about how my boyfriend had proposed to me, and she comes up behind me and says, "I bet he only proposed because the rubber broke." It caused me to burst into tears—because she didn't know the dark truth.
I'd actually just recently found out that there was only a 2% chance that I could have kids, and I was still very sensitive about it. After coming out of the supply room (I went in there to cry) I asked her to come out the back door with me so I could have a word with her. I didn't want customers to hear us, because we likely would have ended up yelling.
I told her to keep her nose in her own business. She then decided to smack me. Pretty hard, too. I didn't hit her back...because we were directly in front of a camera. So, I went inside and called my boss. He had seen it on the live feed at home and had recorded it. He was already on his way. He came in and dragged her out the back again and fired her.
21. When You Sling Mud…
I was in the eighth grade. I was standing on a bench when I watched some girl fall over in the yard. I started laughing and pointing, and then went to lean back onto the fence that was behind the bench. Turns out it had broken off where I was standing, and I fell straight through and into the mud. Yep, I had that one coming.
22. Choice Behavior
A friend of mine is a kindergarten teacher and had one student last year who would always make fun of everyone to the point of making other kids cry. She had another student who was adopted, and the jerk started making fun of him by saying things like "No one wanted you." The kid shut him down with one sentence.
My friend was about to intervene, but the adopted kid spoke up and said, “My parents got to choose me, but yours got stuck with you.” The kid didn't say anything for the rest of the day.
23. Sweeping the Legs
When I was a teenager, I was in a van with a bunch of my friends. We stopped for gas at a place on a busy intersection. One of my friends points out some action happening in a car parked next to the street and says, "He's beating the tar out of her!" Sure enough, some horrible guy is bouncing his girlfriend's head off the dashboard.
Now, we were no innocent teenagers, and this van was our mailbox-baseball-mobile. We grabbed our bats and prepared to intervene. But just as we were getting out, the girl grabs the keys out of the guy's ignition and throws them into the street. I can see the rest in slow motion, clear as day, even though it happened more than 20 years ago.
The guy races out of the car in a huff, runs into the street, bends to pick up his keys. He gets back up, points at the car, and starts to yell something, his face red with rage. Just then, a little sports sedan turns the corner at speed, and hits him straight on in the legs. Dude does a flip over the car and falls into a limp pile. Girlfriend runs to him, crying in remorse...
At the time, we were in no way prepared to stick around and talk to the authorities, so this was the last I knew of things...that is, until a few years later. One night, back from college on winter break, I was telling this story at a party. A girl looks at me funny, and starts asking me some date and location questions.
She was really freaking out. Turns out, she was the driver who hit the dude, only she didn't know he was a jerk. No one at the scene, including the girlfriend, said anything about the incident. The driver had felt guilty for years about running down some innocent guy, crippling him for life. My chance retelling of the story took a huge burden off her.
24. Not My President
I had a mean girl in the class I taught. I'm gay, and she made it very clear that she didn't support my husband. Mean Girl then ran for senior class president. During this time, she had a thing about me handing her things; she never wanted to touch my hand even by accident. Well, this made her prejudiced ways very obvious, and she lost the election.
25. Swiped
I was targeted to be fired from work. It had nothing to do with my performance, and everything to do with my manager who took a disliking to me. I walked the line of perfection for about a month until I found another job, then I handed in my two weeks' notice. That was victory number one. But I had even more wins up my sleeve.
I then took about a half-dozen of their employees and got them hired into my new company. That was victory number two. I'd like to think that victory number three was the 30 or 40 employees they lost in the following year, but I can’t claim direct responsibility for that. Thing is, when you have employees with high-demand skills like software engineering, you'd best treat them right.
26. Classy Action
I worked for a small lottery chain for the better part of a year back around 2008. It was a single employee operation, so I worked a 10-hour shift with no breaks or a lunch. All in all, it wasn't a bad job and had good tips. Then one day, out of the blue, the regional manager calls me into the store and tells me that I'm suspended.
I was given no warning whatsoever. I asked her why. Her reply made my blood run cold. She flat-out tells me that I'm frightening away the patrons because I’m gay. The next day, she calls me to say that I'm no longer needed. I tried for a lawsuit, but it was a he-said-she-said kind of thing. Not really that much that I could do about it, unfortunately.
Flash forward to last month. I get a call from a lawyer asking me if I want to take part in a class-action lawsuit against this company for discrimination and unfair wage compensation practices. I told them my story, and now I'm a class representative for the case. I'm so ready for this court case, you don’t even know.
27. Eye for an Eye
When I was a kid, I was the youngest of all the kids on my block. The other kids, including my sister, would have fun tormenting me. They would try and exclude me from things on the basis of my age. The worst of them was Marcus, who would always be a complete jerk. One day Marcus and I, along with some of the other kids, went to a nearby school to ride around on our scooters.
Marcus convinced me that to be "cool" I had to jump down a flight of five stairs. I succeeded, but broke my scooter in the process. As the kids rode off, laughing at me for not being able to join them, Marcus' front wheel caught in a crack in the concrete. He FLEW over the handlebars, straight into a flagpole. I nearly keeled over laughing. I broke my scooter; he broke his face.
28. No Tow for You
My boyfriend has a big GMC, and one winter it was really snowy and a bunch of cars had gone into the ditch, as you do. Because he's a nice guy, he was spending his day off pulling people out for free. At one point, while he was helping someone, some jerk FLEW by him, wailing on the horn and flipping him off out of the window.
He got done pulling the car out and headed up the road in the direction that idiot had gone. That's when he witnessed an incredible sight. A mile up the road, they found the jerk standing outside of his car, which was now plowed into a giant freaking tree. Boyfriend honked his horn, waved, and kept driving. Dude just hung his head like a scolded dog. Truly beautiful.
29. Oh Snapple
I go to New York City about once a year to visit family. While there, I always crave the "Grandma's Sicilian" pizza, and the best slice in the city is served near my cousin's place. Well, it's New York, and naturally the joint is crowded as anything. Across from the register you can grab drinks, and paying for them basically comes down to the honor system.
I've never really taken anything before, but my cousin just nonchalantly took a drink and nobody said a word! I do love me some Peach Snapple so I got greedy and took two of them. I paid for the food and we were on our way out. By then, I was on an adrenaline rush. Did I mention my craving for the pizza was so large that I also got an entire pizza instead of just one or two slices?
Yep, an entire pie for myself. So, as we are walking back to the subway station, I trip on the curb and fall. I land on the pizza with my stomach, covering my clothes in sauce. Both Snapples shatter and the glass lodges itself in my knuckles, palms, and legs. The brand new $60 jeans I purchased the day before got ripped and stained. Yeah, karma came for me hard.
30. What’d I Miss?
I used to always show up late for my 10th-grade science class. One day, we had a little chapter review quiz at the start of class, and naturally, I was a minute or two late. So, I walked over to my desk and the teacher put my quiz down. I looked at it, and my face went white as a sheet. It was all super complicated questions I was sure we'd never covered.
After about two minutes, I looked up to see how everyone else was doing on their quiz. Well, everybody was watching me. When I looked up, they all started laughing. The teacher had printed up a single fake quiz with super complicated biology questions just to mess with whatever kid ended up showing up last to the quiz.
31. Playing Engineer
I was trying to sell my apple-seed biodiesel processor. One guy came by who seemed genuinely interested. He said he would pay me $100 to give a demonstration of the whole process. Apparently, he was some big shot with a garage and a fleet of heavy equipment. I demoed the first 90% of the process and explained the rest.
A few weeks go by and I haven't seen my $100 or the guy who wanted to buy the processor. That's when I found out he had tried to make his own processor and failed miserably. He ruined two very expensive dump trucks in the process. They are still sitting behind his house. Yeah, thank you, karma. I may not get my $100, but at least I get some satisfaction.
32. Bossing Around
I worked for a tech company that moved out over a weekend, because the landlords were locking us out that Monday. I'd told my boss we'd want to get the internet set up before the move, since we were, you know, a tech company and it was important the internet worked. He didn't listen. We tried to get someone out on a weekend from the phone company instead.
Got everything hooked up, and gosh, no internet. So, my boss called me in on Sunday to talk to tech support. I'm a family man, and we had a very nice dinner planned. But no, work was more important to my boss. Told him okay, but he'd need to meet me at the office. I did the tech support call, and still no boss. Called him again and told him I really needed him in the office.
When he got there, I handed him my key, the list of passwords to the server, and wrapped them in my resignation letter. Told him I had a family, and being pulled away from Easter Sunday dinner to talk to tech support was the last straw. Told him that I was sure he could find tech administrator on short notice, or he could figure it out himself.
33. Knot Today
In the UK, kids wear blazers and ties to school and a common teasing tactic that jerks used was to run up to kids and pull their ties so they get really tightly knotted. On the bus ride home, the bus was really full, and I was standing in front of one such harasser. He grabbed my tie JUST as the bus had to brake sharply.
He lost his footing and the only thing keeping him upright was the fact that he was holding onto my tie. Except he had grabbed the wrong bit, and it wasn't knotted. I simply untied it and he fell on his bum in front of everyone on the bus. That was the last time I was knotted, and it was absolutely glorious. What a victory.
34. A Close Shave
My girlfriend (now fiancée) and I moved into an apartment together. Things were going great until a buddy of hers needed a place to stay as he was going through a divorce with his wife. I had never met "Saul" before but we got along fine. I worked at a PC repair shop that had a LAN Center in it that we'd have LAN parties at all the time, and apparently he had seen me there.
So, we talk about gaming, beer, etc. He tells me he's looking for work as he was working at his father-in-law’s shop and got canned because of the divorce. No problem, just help out around the house and pay us rent when you can. Two months later nothing, and this was before the economic downturn. There were companies hiring right and left, besides Taco Bell and McDonald's.
Somehow, he scrapes together $200 bucks. He immediately goes out and blows it on finishing up a demonic sleeve tattoo. Fantastic, that's gonna help him getting a job. He uses the kitchen and leaves dirty dishes everywhere. We are washing his clothes and he's using my toiletries...which is where sweet karma comes in.
I inform him at the end of month three that we were sorry, but he needed to either pay the back-rent owed and have a job by the end of the week or he would have to leave. Astonishingly, he asked, "How can you kick me out after all I've done for you?" I was so flabbergasted. Like really dude, what have you actually done except mooch off our generosity?
"Fine! Screw you! I'll get my junk out of your apartment by the end of the day" he finally says. I go to work, come back home, and my significant other tells me that Saul was furious and had packed his stuff. I hear him in the bathroom. He's finally showering after about four weeks of taking a break from hygiene, and I hear my electric razor.
He comes out clean shaven, flips me off, grabs his stuff, and splits. As soon as the door shuts, I'm in tears from laughter. My SO is ticked since she feels like she lost a friend over the deal. I then inform her that he'll get over it. She then goes in to see the wreck he left in the bathroom and sees the razor on the sink. "Saul shaved didn't he?" "Yup." "Isn't that the...?" "Shaver I use to trim 'down there'? Yep."
Both of us are in freaking tears by this point. We find out later he moved to Arkansas, where he was promptly detained for assault. Served time, released, and immediately got hung up on another charge, but was released due to lack of evidence. Saw him the other day, kicking a scraggly beard. I wanted to offer him that shaver.
35. Your Train Can Wait
I'm in the New York City subway. A guy elbows me out of the way to get into the turnstile, first yelling vaguely that he "has a train to catch." No way, really?. He goes through the turnstile, turns the corner, and there are a few uniformed officers set up near a folding table. The dude gets pulled to have his bag searched. I think he missed that train.
36. Baseketball IRL
This idiot I knew in high school was trying to get a mentally handicapped kid to do stuff for a video in a very nasty cruel way behind the gym. Meanwhile, I’m sitting behind a car in the parking lot. Special kid is not dumb enough to play this game, so the idiot decides to get him to hold the camera for him instead.
People are heckling and calling out suggestions, nothing interesting happens, then someone comes out with a basketball, puts it on the concrete sidewalk, then hands idiot an aluminum baseball bat and mimes hitting the basketball, like splitting a log with an ax. Idiot winds up, brings it down, and I hear blaWHANK.
His head shoots back, blood everywhere. Honestly, from where I was I even thought he smashed his skull. Bat clatters like 20 feet behind him and he goes down backward. The bat bounced, nailed him in the eyebrow, split it open, and knocked him straight out. He was okay but had a scar and a wild black eye for a few weeks. But that's not even the best part.
The best part is that the whole time, the mentally handicapped kid he'd been trying to humiliate on camera is filming him and laughing so freaking hard that he's crying. You could tell he was so happy. Security didn’t believe no-one hit the idiot until he showed them the video. Yep, he was just that dumb, security found out.
37. Getting Trumped
This kid used to mess with me while we all waited for class to start in middle school. He'd grab at my stuff, particularly the trumpet I played for this class, make fun of me, all the usual idiocy. We were all bored, so it must've been to fill time. Anyway, this one day I decided I’d had enough of his antics. It was time to act.
So, I swung the case for my trumpet right at his head. I didn't think I hit him that hard, but I heard later he went into his class crying. They made us go into some kind of mediation thing but it was too late. I got my revenge, and he didn't want to live it down. So, we basically never talked to each other again. I was absolutely okay with that.
38. Not Very Prepared for a Prep Student
During my first semester of teaching, I was at a very wealthy school with a class of mostly entitled jerk boys. There was a group of four who were the absolute worst though. They never did their work, said disrespectful things to me, and were overall awful human beings whose parents never seemed to discipline them.
I often overheard them bragging about getting away with stuff like being tipsy at football games or worse. Although I reported the conversations to the administration, nothing ever got done. They ended up getting detained for stealing a car, crashing it, and breaking into a clubhouse. Also, three out of the four failed my class. That was great karmic justice.
39. Make Your Own Karma
When I was fresh out of high school and living with my buddy Brett, we wound up living month-to-month without a lease at a low-middle end apartment complex. The rent wasn't too bad, but me and Brett were 19 and had many more priorities other than rent and bills. So, we got a co-worker of Brett's to move in with us as well. We soon found out how bad an idea this was.
Long story short, the guy turned out to be a total idiot and a bit dangerous. After a couple of months of putting up with his garbage, we had a huge fight where he punched a hole in the wall and broke my computer. So, the next morning, as soon as the apartment complex office opened, me and my buddy Brett went down.
We signed a lease for the apartment, becoming the only two occupants. No more idiot friend, we just couldn’t deal. Then we called the authorities and had them kick the jerk out for trespassing. Authorities woke the jerk and his trashy girlfriend up out of a sound sleep to tell them they had to leave. I was so satisfied.
40. A Move-Worthy Mistake
One time in middle school, this guy who was relatively new at our school was making fun of a girl in our class who fell in the hallway in-between classes. Coincidentally, this was a girl I had a crush on. The guy was a little bit of a class clown, and was mocking her, making her look stupid and clumsy. This did not bode well for him.
Apparently, he misjudged his footing, and while attempting to jokingly ape the way she had fallen, actually fell for real, and landed squarely on his back in front of everybody. He broke his arm in the process. Passing him by in the hallway, I saw him just lying there, surrounded by adults and staring up at the ceiling, face completely expressionless. Pretty sure he moved after that. I would have too.
41. Getting Lit Quick
I was walking down a busy street and a guy shoulder-barged me as he walked past. Unbeknownst to him, though, I had a lit smoke in my hand and it burnt him pretty badly on the way by. I was about 10 feet away when I heard him scream out, but there was too many people and I never saw him again. Oh well, serves him right.
42. Double and Triple Checked
When I was a TA for a freshmen English class, I busted a kid for plagiarism. He was furious and refused to drop the course. He was a slimy, smarmy kid who thought I was dumb, but joke's on him—he ended up failing the course THREE ways: plagiarizing, exceeding absences, and not completing the final. You can argue about one way to get an F. You can't argue about 3.
43. Daughter Privilege
I worked at a coffee chain as my first job during high school. I worked a metric ton, and the customers loved me. The place was run by this super jerk of a general manager who let her two daughters work there. One was a normal employee who got treated like an angel and always got the shifts she wanted, while the other was an incompetent shift leader who got the same treatment.
Well, one week this normal employee girl looks at her schedule then asks if she can trade two of her shifts with two of mine because she forgot about her mom's birthday. I said sure, no problem, because I was just trying to be nice. So, the next week when I get my schedule, I am only working one shift. I'm like, why the heck?
The general manager only told me, "If you don't like the shifts I give you, then you won't get any." She didn't even care why I traded the shifts in the first place—for HER BIRTHDAY—so I immediately put my two weeks in. The last day I was supposed to work was a Saturday morning, which is always PACKED and if one person doesn't show up, it makes the whole morning awful.
Well, I forgot I had to work, and I was out super late that previous night. The next morning, I just kind of said "screw it" and just skipped work altogether. They called and texted me several times, begging to know where I was. I did not even begin to consider letting them know. It felt very, very good. I continue to chase that high.
44. The Post Beckons
In elementary school, all the kids went to the bus stop together. As we walked, one of the second-graders ran into a lamp post. One of my classmates couldn’t stop laughing. We crossed the street and he was still laughing his butt off and didn’t look where he was going. You know what’s coming—he ran into a lamp post as well and instantly got laughed at.
45. The Whole Nine Julliards
I was teaching music and had a flutist who was fantastic. He practiced for hours every day, but unfortunately, he also had an ego the size of Texas. He told the girl next to him, who also wanted to be a professional flutist, that she was abysmal and should just give up. He refused to audition for our "pitiful" local honor band even though it was part of his grade.
He would also complain about my conducting in class when I didn't pay enough attention to him. Then he refused to show up to a concert because he was embarrassed to be seen performing with his high school band. This was the last straw—and the consequences were devastating. He failed band and I kicked that horrible little jerk out.
46. Make Like a Tree…
I was walking to the store with a friend when we were 13. We heard someone yelling at us and turned around to see some kid about 50 feet away. He was yelling and calling us every word you know at that age. As we started to walk over to confront him, he did a 180 to start running. Well, he spun around and ran face-first into a tree and hit it hard enough that he fell to the ground from the impact.
We couldn't stop laughing and hopefully, that was enough embarrassment for him to learn a lesson.
47. Broken & Dumped
I was dating this awful girl for awhile, because you know, I was stupid. She had a temper and was always flying off the handle. One of those people who is never happy and complains about everything. We had a fight that morning about her irrational temper. Later that day, I called her to tell her I had to work late.
She freaked out and punched the wall as soon as our conversation ended. Turns out, though, she punched a part of the wall that was solid behind the drywall and shattered her hand. She was promptly dumped.
48. Told You So
When I was in second grade, there was a boy who was a total jerk, annoying, and an all-around disobedient little brat. He was always getting in trouble with the teacher for one reason or another. Meanwhile, I was mild-mannered and obedient. One day, he was harassing me to no end in the line to go indoors after recess.
So, I say to him, “Kyle, if you keep bugging me, I'm going to scratch your arm so bad it bleeds.” He keeps bugging me and basically calling my bluff, so I do what I promised and scratch him down the forearm, making it bleed a little. When he went whining to the teacher, he must have thought he'd get away with it. Well, he didn't.
The teacher comes to me and asks, "Why did you scratch him?” I told her I'd warned him to stop bugging me or I'd do it. So she only turns to him and says, "Kyle, next time I suggest listening to her warning," and walked off.
49. A Little Something
I was working in a supermarket when a panicked customer came up to me and said he'd accidentally left his cash in the ATM. They wondered if anyone handed it in. I was about to say no when another customer appeared behind him and said he'd been trying to catch up to him. He'd been queuing behind him at the ATM and saw what happened.
He’d got the money for him. It was £200, so a decent amount. The original customer was super grateful and offered him some of the money, but the man wouldn't take it under any circumstances. The good samaritan then bought a scratch card, scratched it, and found he'd won £5. It was some nice instant karma for a change.
50. Moving to the Dark Side
I was working 60-hour weeks, including being on-call 24/7 on weekends, for 12k/year. One night, I was at work alone until about 11:00 PM, and finally decided, "screw it." I locked up, threw my keys through the mail slot, wrote a resignation email, and turned my phone off. I woke up late the next morning to like 10 calls, texts, and emails from my (now-ex) boss begging me to come back.
So, I leisurely went back to pack up my stuff and give him a list of everything he still owed me. A couple of months later, after my remaining co-workers had full-on nervous breakdowns from sharing my workload and left the state for other jobs, he was down to one employee and had to move from his office in an awesome location to one of those sketchy office parks.
51. A Hero Is Made
I was a lifeguard at a well-known chain of indoor waterpark hotels in the US, and a woman was letting her less-than-two-year-old daughter play in the shallow end all by herself while she sat in a chair and read a magazine. I walked up to her to let her know that it was not safe for a child that young to be by herself.
The mom started yelling at me, telling me that it was not my business how she parented and to leave her alone. At this point, everyone around her is staring. Then, as soon as she finishes her rant, her daughter loses her balance and falls face-first into the water, and is too young to know how to stand back up to get her face out of the water and breathe.
I run in, grab her daughter, and bring her back to her. Everyone around who was staring began to clap.
52. Ice for an Ice
Three days ago, I went into a liquor store to buy a bag of ice. I put the bag on the checkout counter and waited while the woman in front of me completed her purchase. This reminded her that she also needed a bag of ice. "Here, take this one," I said, and grabbed another bag. "Is that all you're buying?" she asked me. "Yes." She looked at me and said, "You're done…bye-bye." Before I could figure out what she meant, she turned to the clerk and said, "Put his ice on my bill." Nice karma!
53. Lack of Honors
There was a clique of “popular” kids who were often jerks and acted out in our school. Our city had a living center for the mentally ill that also had a public swimming pool, so we used it for swimming lessons. Well, one day there's a 14-year-old on the extreme end of the spectrum at the pool who had very limited functioning.
This popular “funny” student decides that it'll be hilarious to sit there and growl at the boy aggressively like a hostile dog. The kid loses it and he freaks right out. His support worker figures out what happened, and the “funny” guy is banned from the center. He also automatically fails not only the module, but the entire gym course. He does not graduate on time.
54. Oh, Poop
The other day, I was taking my dog for a walk around the neighborhood. She squatted down to take a poop and I reached for my doggie bags...only to realize I was fresh out. So, I peeked around to make sure nobody was looking, and then I just left it. 10 minutes later, I'm walking across the road and what do you know? I step in dog poo. I wasn't even mad; I knew I deserved it.
55. The Swift Kick of Karma
I was at a party, and this one girl couldn't stop talking smack about this other girl who was coming to the party. When the girl finally showed up, this dude picked her up and hugged her. He then spun her around so fast that she accidentally kicked her frenemy right in the face. The girl's drink spilled all over her and she got a black eye.
56. Collision Course
I got rear-ended in a turn lane because the girl was texting. I went to her court date hoping she'd get a big fine or something. She got a $50 ticket, so I was a little bit upset. As I was sitting at the stop light to pull out of the court, I watched karma in motion. She came out, ran a red light...and went straight into an officer. I laughed my butt off at that one.
57. Bank Shot
I teach the first grade and had a boy who would not stop hitting kids with basketballs. He'd run up and pop the ball right at students. This kid seemed like he was trying to knock other children down, and he'd laugh really hard if he saw someone stumble or if they'd fall after they were hit by his basketball.
After talking with his parents, we told them we'd be taking the balls away from him until after spring break to see if his behavior improved. Well, after spring break was over it didn't take that little jerk even five minutes before he stalked and shot that Spaulding special at this poor little girl, knocking her down.
She cried and pointed at him. As I got up and walked his way, he started to bolt. He ran out of the playground, past the sand pit, and on to the basketball court. He maintained eye contact with me, and before I could take another step, a stray ball from another game bounced off and hit that little jerk square in the face.
He went down like a sack of potatoes. Of course, I ran over to him and made sure he was okay (he's a troublemaker, but he's still a child) and called for the nurse since he was out cold. He woke up with me above him and started crying, saying he'd never do it again. He didn't want to pick up another basketball the rest of the school year.
Flickr, franchise opportunities
58. Slamming the Slow Door
I was kicking a customer out for being racially insensitive and cursing at one of my employees. He yelled offensive stuff and then he tried to slam the door on his way out, but it had one of those things on it that makes the door close slowly. He pushed it hard, it didn't budge, and he slipped and fell on the floor. We had a good laugh.
59. No-Grass Pass
I was on a crowded subway at 2:00 am. Two hammered dudes had a lit joint and were walking around flaunting it. The whole train kept ignoring them, and they kept parading around being a bunch of morons. Then they spotted two taller, athletic-looking dudes and started making fun of them for "looking like the authorities." This turned out to be huge mistake.
It was the line "Which one of you is the sergeant??" that finally put the athletic guys over the edge. They looked at each other, smiled, reached into their pockets, and pulled out their badges. "Okay boys, empty your pockets." The subway blew up in laughter...they would have gotten away with EVERYTHING if they just didn't go bother the two plain-clothes officers.
60. Digging Your Own Hole
I was running laps on a grass field when I was about to lap a guy who would ALWAYS lap the tar out of me. So, as I passed him I yelled, "Gotcha, loser!"...and immediately stepped in a hole in the ground and twisted my ankle. Despite the pain of jacking my ankle up, I thought the karmic payout was hilariously timed.
61. Three Cheers for Tattlers
When I was in first grade, my class had recess and this jerk pushed me to the ground. I fell and was about to go off on the kid when this fourth grader came over, lifted the kid up, and took him right over to the principal. Karma is absolutely amazing and nobody can convince me otherwise thanks to what happened that day.
62. That’s a Penalty
When I was a kid, we visited Montreal, and I had gotten a hockey puck as a souvenir. While we were in our hotel, my sister decided to mess with me by hiding it. I got mad and yelled in my high-pitched voice, "GIVE ME BACK MY HOCKEY PUCK!" before smacking her in the head with a pillow. Well...guess where she had hidden it.
63. Entitled to Proper Treatment
I had a student who was an entitled little jerk. Like, way more entitled than any of the teens I’ve taught. He thought he could cheat on a test, curse out a teacher, be cruel to an intellectually disabled student, skip class, throw things at people, etc. Thing is, he could do all this because his mother thought he was perfect and never disciplined him.
She would then immediately try to turn it around on the teachers, saying how they’re always trying to get her child in trouble. Earlier this year, he made an awful remark to a girl classmate who was this nerdy, sweet honors student who would never hurt a fly. But it turns out he messed with the wrong person.
The girl's boyfriend punched the kid right in the face and busted his nose. It was amazing. Even though I obviously had to discipline the boyfriend, I was secretly glad it happened.
64. From Flipping out to Tripping out
This woman comes to the counter at a fast food restaurant and berates me for under-cooking her beef patty. The patties are all cooked on a timer, and the meat looked normal. Finally, we remade her entire order and handed her the tray. She whines some more, turns around, and then immediately trips and falls, all of her food and drink spilling everywhere.
65. Gnarly, Dude
I'm from San Diego, and during the summer you have to claim the bonfire pits on the beach really early in the morning if you want it for that night. So, my friends and I got to the beach at 8:00 am and stayed there so we could get a bonfire going into the night. Just before sundown, this one couple asked if they could share it with us.
Since our group wasn't too big, we said yes. However, that couple proceeded to bring a group of like 15 others and they literally surrounded the pit and pushed us out. We were furious, but we were so tired from being at the beach all day that we decided to head out. Little did we know, they were going to get what was coming to them.
See, it turns out that that night had an extreme high tide warning. Just as we moved all of our stuff, a huge wave came in and washed out their whole group. The wave flipped over their table of food, took a handful of sandals into the ocean, and destroyed all their stuff. Karma's a witch, you bunch of no-good liars.
66. Taking in the Scenery
My brother was making fun of an old man slowly shuffling across a parking lot for no reason. "Look at Speedy Gonzalez " or something, he was saying. About two seconds later, my brother bashes his foot on the cement parking barrier. He limped back to the car as I laughed wildly. Don’t mess with old people, ya freaking jerk.
67. In the Bag
This awful kid in my class once grabbed a girl’s purse and started rifling through it one day. He then started yelling that she had a knife in her bag to try and get her in trouble. The teacher had the perfect reply. She just quipped, "And you taking her bag is why she has a knife in the first place" before giving the kid detention.
68. Worth It?
When I was a teenager, I was mowing the lawn and noticed a big ant hill. I thought to myself, "Screw those ants," and I positioned the mower on top of the hill and let it sit there while I gleefully destroyed the ants' home. I started feeling stinging around my ankles and when I looked down, I discovered I was standing in an even bigger ant hill. The next day, my legs were covered in swollen ant bites.
69. This Stag Bucks
Last spring, I didn't get a date to the junior prom. I wasn't thrilled but I figured I'd go stag. I found the perfect dress and was actually really excited. Then my group of friends said I couldn't come with them. Why? I didn't have a date and it would "ruin the pictures" if I stood by myself. And wouldn't it just be so awkward for me?
They also said it would be somehow "weird' for me to get ready with them and this girl's house beforehand. And of course, wouldn't I just be so uncomfortable being the only one in the limo with no boyfriend? And what would I do afterwards? Everyone knows what happens at the parties. So, I didn't go at all. Guess whose limo never showed up?
70. Junky Attitude
I had a 5th grader who was a know-it-all menace. He'd interrupt me and say, "Well actually Miiiiissssssssss..." and then state some random fact that was often wrong or irrelevant. Well, eventually while on lunch duty, I see that his lunch every day is a can of soda, a bag of chips, and tons of candy, like the bag is busting at the seams.
I alert the principal because I'm worried that his grandmother, who was raising him, wasn't feeding him properly. The principal calls the grandma and grandma gets angry. She was letting him pack his own lunch and wasn't checking it. So, she's embarrassed that we've called her on it. She tells us that she will only pack healthy food now and tells us he can't have ANY candy.
A week later, the kid is still being a little jerk and ticks off another student. In retaliation, the student runs to the principal and says that the kid has been sneaking candy to school every day. When the principal goes to talk to him, the kid shoves a chocolate bar into his mouth and the principal takes away the Blow Pop sucker he has.
This kid proceeds to roll around on his belly across the entire hallway, screeching and crying so hard that he's choking on the half-chewed chocolate bar. That's when a kindergarten student walks by and says, "You look like a baby." The kid stops wallowing long enough to punch the little student. He got suspended, and I got a peaceful classroom.
71. The Countdown Begins
I work for a unloading service in a warehouse. One of the guys on my crew is an absolute little whiner sometimes. Complains about his work, tries to leave early every day, bums smokes off everyone without ever bringing his own pack, etc. He even owes some of my other coworkers money, I believe. But the worst was yet to come.
On Thursday, he lost his mind over a produce load and threw a temper tantrum: Kicking boxes, tearing down tall pallets of product, and causing a lot of damage...right as the site manager walked by his trailer door. Got suspended without pay and was told he is on his last chance with the company. Sweet, sweet, karma.
72. The Big Boom
This is from my younger years. A friend of mine had a cousin visiting around Victoria Day in Canada, which involves a lot of fireworks. When I went to visit him, I was told he was in the backyard. I go back there and he and his cousin are setting off firecrackers. I ask if I can set a couple off, and they both start tossing lit firecrackers at me while laughing.
I figure that they are both acting like greedy jerks, so I decided to leave. Just as I'm about to, a spark gets into the firecracker bowl they had. The entire bowl ignites, no more firecrackers. The stunned look on my friend and his cousin's face was pure "karma is a witch." I laughed at them, since I'm sure they planned a whole afternoon of setting them off.
73. No Woman, No Cry
Not my story, but my mom's. Apparently when she was a young lass, there was a girl at school who was always a major jerk to her. Hated my mom for whatever reason and always made fun of her. Fast forward to my mom as a college-aged woman, now dating a guitarist from Bob Marley's band. She's out at a bar with him getting a drink.
Dude goes to the bathroom and said jerk from back in the day comes up to my mom and says, "Oh my god, did you see who is at this bar?!" At that moment, dude comes and puts his arm around my mom and says, "Hey babe, what's happening?" She said the look on that girl's face was absolutely priceless. Talk about sweet revenge.
74. Zero Tolerance
It was the very end of the year and I had a student who was failing my class but didn't even bother to try to get help until the last day. Oh, and she failed because she never showed up for class, ever. Like, I didn't recognize her. She came to me and told me, “You're the only class I'm failing and if I don't get a D, I won't graduate.”
I went to check the school grade book to see if this was true and I said, “Hmm, according to this, you have a 13% in Math and an incomplete in Chemistry.” She denied it vehemently, saying that she'd already talked to those teachers and I was the last holdout. Well, I knew just how to get her. I asked, “Why don't we give your math teacher a call ?”
I dialed the extension for her math teacher. I tell him the story and that I've found her 13% in Math in the gradebook. The teacher's response astonished me. He goes, “Actually, the grade in the book is incorrect. I just discovered the one piece of homework she did turn in was actually a photo copy of another student's work. She now has a zero.” She did not graduate.
75. If the Shoe Hits
In high school, a buddy and I found an old shoe in my gym's locker room. I looked around, made sure no one was looking, and threw it a few aisles over. I heard a kid yell "What? Someone threw a shoe at my head!" We laughed and walked towards the exit. As we get to the door, I get hit on the head by the same shoe. Instant karma.
76. Need a Shoulder to Cry on?
I was sitting on a highway late at night because of a bad car accident. The highway was packed and barely moving. One guy thinks he's smarter than everyone else and tries to drive on the shoulder. He makes it a good way before running into an on-ramp, also packed with cars. He had nowhere to go, and no one let him in.
I went from watching him pass me and almost getting out of my view to passing him and losing sight of him in my rearview. Now that’s some sweet, sweet karma if I’ve ever seen it.
77. The Final Karmic Strike
I work in an ER. Once a girl got brought in by ambulance because some stranger had just tackled her to the ground and tried to drag her down an alley. A Good Samaritan managed to chase him off and call the authorities. Well, like 20 minutes later they brought in the same guy having a full-on heart attack.
Turns out the authorities found the attacker and chased him several blocks, when he then collapsed and his heart gave out.
78. Judging by the Cover
I was on my way home from work and stopped at a grocery store to get something to eat. I was wearing a really ratty and torn hoodie that I wear to work all the time. In front of me in line are two kinda-pretty girls. They are not-so-quietly talking trash about the cashier. One of them then turns to me, looks me up and down, and nudges her friend.
Pointing toward me, she says, "Looks like someone can't afford nice things." I looked her right in the face and in my most sincere voice said, "My dad gave me this sweatshirt the winter before he passed." The girl looked horrified and immediately began to cry. I just walked away and got into another line. What a jerk.
79. Sharp Regret
With total glee, I ran over a bee on my tricycle once. Aimed for it on purpose and then SPLAT. Minutes later, I got called into the house and I stepped on that same bee, stuck with the stinger up, in my bare feet. It hurt so badly. I told my mom everything and she told me I got exactly what I deserved. I agreed.
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80. See No Evil
I was in daycare as a child. I had very long hair that my dad always put into a ponytail, and there was a girl who would pull at this ponytail all the time. One day, we were doing a musical chairs thing at the end of the day while parents were picking us up. The girl was behind me and kept yanking my ponytail, while I kept telling her to stop.
The teacher "Didn't see anything" so couldn't do anything about it. There were a bunch of parents waiting for us to finish our game, my mom included. She was watching everything this entire time. The girl kept doing it and the teacher still "didn't see it," so I turned around and punched her as hard as I could.
The girl stumbled into the cubbies where we kept our coats. The teacher knew something had happened and tried to chastise me. My mom's reply was legendary. She was like, "Nope. I didn't see anything." Didn't even get in trouble.
81. Painfully Enraging
A preschooler used to crawl under the lunch tables and jump off the furniture. One day in the lunch room, he got very angry for some unidentifiable reason. He stood rooted in one spot and screamed that he was NEVER MOVING. During this, he wanted to make a point so he stomped as viciously as he could.
He was wearing really flat-footed sandals on a hard floor, and must have hit the ground with a perfectly level foot. Meaning, it hurt like absolute heck. His face was like a cartoon. His mouth made an immediate upside U and he screamed like that guy on SpongeBob who yells, “My leg!!” It just felt like justice to me.
82. Toe-taled
When I was in high school, my city had automatic sprinklers in most of the parks and areas with grass. They would turn on automatically at like 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. So being a young, dumb kid, me and my friends figured out if you kicked them hard enough, the top would break off and the sprinkler would shoot a huge stream into the air from then on.
We thought it was hilarious and we were never caught. We kept on with this until one day they started replacing them with new super-strong steel ones. I kicked one and broke my big toe. Then while in agony, I rolled my ankle so freaking bad it was bruised up for a week and has never been the same since. I am full of regret.
83. Alone for a Reason
When I was in middle school, I was sitting at lunch with my normal lunch group. It turned out that there wasn’t enough room for this one guy at the table, so he sat at the table next to us by himself. One of our friends felt bad, so he left our table and sat next to him. Then the kid dealt him a cold-blooded betrayal.
Without so much as a glance, the solo kid moved to our table, took the other guy’s old spot, and left the other guy completely alone. Well, we all moved to the other table and left him alone again.
84. Rocked
Walking back from job training, I see two young boys, maybe 11 years old, playfully throwing rocks at each other from the top stories of two adjacent construction sites. One boy sees me approaching, breaks the gaze of his friend, and starts shouting insults at me. But his friend made the most perfectly-timed revenge.
The friend winds up and throws a rock directly into his friend’s junk. The kid crumples to the ground, while the other boy and I share a laugh over this incredible moment.
85. Humbled
I was 10 and he was 12. We lived on the same street and he would walk past my house on the way home from school. For whatever reason, I picked on him. After several days of me teasing him, he paused and stared into my eyes. I walked up toward the driveway and got in his face. At that point, he unleashed the craziest barrage of punches and kickboxing combinations that I simply did not expect.
I took a few to my eye and bloodied my face. Needless to say, he made me cry and run away like a coward. This was one of the most transformational experiences of my life. It taught me self-control, humility, and absolute respect.
86. Tit for Tat
I was working at a summer camp this past summer, and all the campers and staff were playing dodgeball. It was Campers vs. Staff, and it was kinda nearing the end of the night, so the rules for the Staff were that if you got hit, you were done. I looked across the gym and saw that one of my fellow Staff was hit and laying on the ground with his hands behind his head.
So naturally, I grab a dodgeball, sneak around behind him, keeping myself out of his field of view, and throw the ball at his junk. As I was laughing and running away, it bounced off him, and without hesitation, he brought his leg up and kicked the ball as hard as he could. It hit me straight in the face with enough force to knock me off my feet.
87. Coming Clean
I was in a bad relationship over the summer. Fights often, and when she got really upset, she would hit me. There was one night I felt the fight coming. During the calm before the fight, I told her she needs to stop slapping me when she gets upset. Well, fight starts, slaps happen. I try to tell her we need to be quieter and not wake my neighbors.
At this point, I'm trying to end the relationship. She's freaking out so bad that she ripped my favorite shirt off of me, and tore it in half. Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. The authorities come in, split us up, and when they ask her if it got physical, she told them she had slapped me. She was in cuffs in seconds. Made things real easy for me.
88. Get Mature, Kid
I worked at a Kmart in high school. It was a small store, so I worked everything: electronics, stocking, cashier—you name it, I did it. One day, I asked a woman and her son, who was about 12 or 13, if they needed help finding anything as I was out on the floor. For some reason, the kid immediately calls me out for annoying him. I ignore it and go about my business, but I think he's a little jerk.
Right after that, I get called to checkout. As I'm working there, here comes the pair. The kid has gone all out back in the electronics area, with some EA sports titles and a GTA game. I'm checking them out when the age prompt comes up for the M-rated game. I decide to take a chance and show the jerk a little karma.
I flip the game over and inform the mother that "This game has been rated M for the following reasons" and read the list off the back of the case. There is a long, awkward silence, and then she angrily informs me that the son said it was only a "little violent," and he must have lied to her. Kid wasn't able to get anything that day.
89. Flexing, not Flexible
A friend of a friend joined our group as we were going to a college football game. He spent the night aggressively hitting on our super-hot friend whose husband wasn't around. She was obviously uncomfortable about it, so I pulled him aside and told him she was married. His response was, "So? A ring doesn't plug a hole!"
In the parking lot, he was goofing off and showed off his athleticism by sprinting across the darkened pavement. The separators in the parking lot were those waist-high poles with chains connecting them. Almost invisible in the dark. This guy ran into the chain full-speed. It hit him just below the waist, and it wasn't a minor injury. He could barely walk for a week and had a concussion.
90. Garfield Comes to Town
At a family dinner, my brother was at a tray of cheese and bread, making a mega bite with all his favorites in it. There was one type of cheese that is his absolute favorite, and he was keeping it for his finale bite. I ask him to bring me a piece of cheese. He quite rudely says "No" in a very loud way, in front of everyone.
I smile and tell him, "You know, I'm not even gonna get mad because karma's gonna take you down." As I finish my sentence, he accidentally drops the mega-bite. It splats on the floor and the cat comes, licks one lick on his favorite cheese, and carries on.
91. Chihuahua VS. English Mastiff
I teach middle school. We had one eighth grader who was the oldest, meanest kid in class. Put a girl up against the wall with his forearm across her throat so that her feet came off the ground. No other kids even stepped in because they didn't want to get beat on too. He was suspended regularly and didn't seem to care.
Then we got a transfer kid. This huge, and I mean huge, kid transfers in. He's a tough kid, but quiet about it. Doesn't do much academically, but he's super respectful and is just kind of quiet. I've seen a lot of bar fights and this kid carried himself like that dude who knew he could take someone apart but had nothing to prove.
Well, jerk kid walks up to big kid in the hall one day and challenges him to a fight by screaming, "YOU WANNA GO?" up at him with his arms spread wide and his face forward. Big kid quietly says, “Yep,” drops his binder, and then drops jerk kid with the most beautiful jab I've ever seen outside of a boxing match.
Jerk goes down like a ton of bricks and big kid calmly picks up his stuff and heads to the office. Jerk gets expelled, the administration was looking for a reason, and big kid gets a suspension but is suddenly the most loved person in the building. The Vice Principal was actually giggling as he helped jerk kid stagger to the office.
92. Down the Ladder
Last year, I felt unhappy with my job and tried to talk to my manager about it to see if I could have a different position. Win-win. I got told that if I didn't like my job I should quit and look for something else. After all my hard work at that company, it made me feel like dirt. Well, a co-worker took my boss's position last month. My manager got downgraded and is now an assistant. Sweet, sweet karma.
93. Toxic Behavior
I'm a chemistry teacher. This sophomore wouldn't put his cell phone away the entire time he was working on his lab. Surprise surprise, he dropped his phone and it slid under the door into the chemical storage area. I told him I didn't have a key and would have to ask the custodian, after school, to unlock it.
94. Dracula Meets the Wolfman
My old manager was a monster. Belittled people, made a hostile environment, denied anything that would make coworkers happy while giving himself every comfort. He even denied me a half day to go to my mother’s funeral, adding, "Would it be a big deal if you couldn't go?" He finally got fired, but he had to stick around to train the new manager...
So, in comes the new manager. Very well regarded, an Air Force veteran, and a humble guy who knew how to handle people. We have our first awkward team meeting, old manager bitterly in attendance. As the new manager is giving his "nice to meet you" speech, he sees the dude glaring around the table. And he shuts him down in the best way possible.
He stops talking, pauses for a few seconds, and then says, "You know, when I was in the Air Force, I learned that if you take care of your people, they'll take care of you." He then stared directly at the old manager and said, "And if you don't take care of your people, they'll take care of you." What a freaking legend.
95. In Your Own Words
I'm a teacher, and I created a "homework excuse" form that the kids had to fill out if they didn't have their homework done. One girl with an attitude problem filled out forms with a few with choice things like, “This class sux,” and “I had better things to do.” Well, her grade goes downhill and we have a parent-teacher conference.
The mom defends her daughter's grade, saying the homework was too hard or not clear enough. So I show her the forms, as signed by her daughter. The daughter is completely stunned and embarrassed and so was the mom. I got an immediate apology from both of them, and all her other homework was done on time for the rest of the year.
96. 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.
97. Vertically or Horizontally?
In elementary school, there was this girl who was super mean to everyone. She was rather big for her age, and she kept taking people's lunch money and making up stories that got people into trouble. One day when she was feeling particularly mean, she was circling a group of 1st graders with her bike and throwing insults at them.
Suddenly, her bike broke in half—like literally it just snapped in half. She hit the ground rather hard and had to walk home all dirty and with torn clothes. Gave everyone a good laugh, and she wasn't nearly as mean for a few weeks after that.
98. Retribution Education
I had a math class in senior year that was held in a science lab with showers, an eye wash station, etc. It was a class that had kids from grades 10-12 in it. One of the seniors was a big dude on the football team who really enjoyed messing with the smaller kids. He was the worst of what high school sports churn out, you know the type.
He liked to get this one dude riled up every day by pretending to pull the emergency shower every time he walked by. He giggled like a smug doofus every time. One day, I had enough and just went, “Hey, Nelson" while he was under the shower. I waited for him to look me in the eyes, then I pulled it. "THIS is how it works!" Didn't even get in much trouble. Still love that moment.
99. Classic Squirrel
Many years ago, a group of us were together with a guy who was nicknamed "Squirrel." He was a small guy who loved attention and didn't care what kind. He would do stuff like jump in puddles to splash people who were just walking along. One day, we were walking down a sidewalk and there was a large fresh pile of dog poop on the walkway.
He dropped back a little behind us, then ran forward and took a leap to land on it just as we were close. Except it was apparently very slippery. His feet slipped out from under him and he landed right in it. It was a thing of beauty.
100. Guess Who’s the New Sheriff in Town?
My high school buddy Steve was a troublemaker. We had a really lax teacher in sophomore English, who was a long-term substitute and not in full control of the class. Meanwhile, we also had a student-teacher named Mrs. Gomez who was good and kind, but obviously didn't have full disciplinary power either in the situation.
This leaves room for people to get rowdy, ESPECIALLY Steve. One day after a particularly loud interlude, Mrs. Gomez gets a belly full and tells Steve to be quiet. Steve looks her in the eye and says, “You're not the teacher. I don't have to do ANYTHING you say.” He then goes right back to whatever he was doing. Mrs. Gomez was LIVID.
Her face was bright red and she looked like she wanted to throttle Steve, but he was right and she knew it, so she kept her mouth shut. She got the best payback. A month later, we walk into class and the old substitute is nowhere to be seen, but there's Mrs. Gomez sitting comfortably at the teacher's desk like she owns it.
The bell rings, and she stands up and says, “Hello, everyone." She then turns and looks directly at Steve, “I'm your new teacher.” Steve didn't get away with much in class after that.
101. Don’t Mess With Traffic
I was working in a pub in Liverpool and had just arrived, about 10:00 am, to start my shift. I knocked on the door and waited for someone to let me in. I became aware of some voices shouting and turned around to see two guys, shirts off, swaggering toward me speaking a language I didn't understand, but they were calling me names.
After insulting me and laughing they walked off toward a busy road. I watched them as they walked out into the traffic, waving their arms at the cars to stop for them, then giving the drivers the finger. Suddenly, one of the cars stopped and four big guys got out. One of the car guys made out like he was going to punch one, drawing his fist far back.
The little dink just covered his face and screamed. They didn't get hit but the car guys and a lot of passersby burst out laughing. They let him go and he ran away. That felt good.
102. I’ll Take It
My last job, I was friends with everyone I worked with...except the boss. She hated me, for multiple stupid reasons. One being I constantly called her out on her awful work ethic. I know you think helping customers is your lowers' job, but when I have both lines on the phone ringing and I'm the only one on register, you walking back and forth outside of the store on your cell with a personal call isn't cool.
She eventually got sick of me not kissing her butt, so she fired me for "insubordination." Then she was fired a week later for not fulfilling her duties, multiple complaints from customers and employees, and falsifying documents. Now my best friend is the manager, but the jerk boss labeled me as "un-hire-able," so now he can't rehire me. I guess we both lose.
103. Sometimes, You Make Your Own Karma
Back in the day, my dad went to college, and his particular dormitory had around 15 floors. There was this dude, Chester, who lived in the center apartment on the 14th floor, facing the north side. This meant that Chester's window was located directly above the entrance to the dormitory. This was not a good thing.
Chester, being the real idiot he was, would come home from school and wind down by throwing water balloons at the people walking into the building. Not even people he particularly hated or anything. Chester just did this to everyone for fun. Well one day, he hits my dad. Big mistake, as he would soon find out.
My dad and his friend bring a garbage can up 15 flights of stairs, head to the bathroom, and fill it with water. They then head up to his friend's dorm, which happens to be right above Chester's. A couple of girls walk up the steps to the door. Chester leans out of his window, prepared to throw the balloons, and is promptly hit with an entire garbage can of water.
104. Like Any Other Coffee Break
When I was in high school, our music teacher was this awesome older dude who was close to retiring. He would openly tell everyone that he was in it for the pension, but was an awesome teacher and could teach any class from music to hospitality to welding to woodshop. One thing he refused to do, though, was putting up with teenager shenanigans.
Luckily he took a liking to me, but he used to do things like throw chalk at kids and other harmless stuff that got the point across. But then there was a rule change, and teachers weren't allowed to lay a hand on any kid in school at any point. I watched kids beat each other, and teachers just having to watch because they’d lose their jobs if they interfered.
One day, this little jerk who was always causing trouble decided that he was going to start a fight in front of the music room. The awesome music teacher comes in, sees this, and tells him to stop a few times. The guy didn't. So he went back into his office, grabbed his large coffee, and dumped it all over the kid.
105. Watch and Learn
My stepdad is a driving instructor. I went to get my license pretty late in the game, when I was 22 years old. One day, he was giving me a lesson and we were going over one of the possible courses that the test takes. While we're driving down a street in the suburbs, a guy is tailgating the life out of me, and he's a really scary looking dude.
Every time I come to a stop sign, I do a full stop, obviously. When I do, he throws his hands in the air and yells. It's starting to stress me out, but my stepdad comes up with an ingenious plan. He says, "Don't worry about it, watch this." As we're going down the street, he says, "Okay, now in about 50 feet I want you to start slowing down a little bit and right when you are in front of that school zone, pull over to the right."
So I do it. Right after I pull over, the scary-looking, furious guy takes off from behind me like a speeding bullet. Aaaannd about five seconds later, a patrol car pulls out from behind a tree and waves him over for going probably double the speed limit in a school zone. We laughed. Hard. Don’t tussle with the driving instructor.
106. The Customer Is Always Right, Especially This Lady
I was out to eat, and this younger lady was acting like a total witch in the restaurant to the staff. Everyone was obviously getting really embarrassed by her behavior…until this middle-aged lady piped up and said from her table, “Oh honey, you’re not pretty enough to act like that.” I seriously could have burst out into applause.
107. Back off My Buns
There was an elementary school next to my high school, and some of the kids who went there were really messed up. They were like eight or 10, standing outside and being rude little jerks to everyone who walked past them. We were actually shocked with their vocabulary. Anyway, one day I was walking by, alone, eating some buns.
This one kid comes up to me with a smug look on his face and yells, "GIVE ME A BUN, YOU IDIOT!" The look on my face was must have been something like shock or disbelief as I replied, "No! Screw Off!" to him before I turned my back on the kid and started walking away to get to my next class on time. Big. Mistake.
I suddenly feel a slight push and weight added to my back. The kid was hanging on my back, pulling my hair and screaming "GIVE ME A BUN!" I felt like I had been attacked by an angry leper gnome. In my panic, the only thought I had in my head was "OH MY GOD! GET THIS OFF OF ME!” In some weird move worthy of WWE, I spun around quickly while straightening my back and loosened my backpack, which caused this little jerk to fly off me.
He spun around in the air and landed face-first on the concrete. He immediately started crying like the kid he was. I proceeded to walk over to him. His teary, fear-filled eyes stared up at me as I picked up my backpack. I turned my back on him again, picked up a new bun, and enjoyed the fading sound of that brat's crying as I walked away, eating my sweet bun.
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