People Enlighten Us With Their Most Creative Act Of Revenge
13. Power-Tripping Police Officer Gets Serious Payback
He got put in his place real good!
“My woman inherited a house and land and begged me to move there. It was somewhere I knew wouldn’t have anything in either of my fields for employment (physical security specialist and force-on-force analytics and planning), but she got a job offer in her field (wildlife management) at a salary that matched what we were currently making combined, along with an employment contract (rare in the US), control of her own team, and insanely good benefits.
Since we have no children, and I am the adaptable type, and I could see this meant a lot to her, I agreed. We put our house up for sale, and we moved there sight unseen.
While I am used to and even fond of it now, this place was the land that time forgot (literally horse and buggy country), and it quickly became clear that for a while, she would have to be the sole income while I brought our new property into the modern era.
The house literally had no plumbing; there was an outhouse and a manual well pump outside! We decided to buy a used house trailer, place it on the southernmost part of the property, and live in it while I worked on the house.
I am not from this area. And the culture shock was intense! My partner had family from there and would spend a few summers as a child with relatives, so she understood the people better than me, and being the same height and skin tone, she was quickly accepted. Meanwhile, standing 8″ minimum above everyone else and being so white I show up from outer space, I had a bit of a harder time but managed to make some friends eventually.
After some time getting everything updated, we came in way under budget since I had decided to learn the skills and do all the work myself.
It quickly became clear that while our immediate area was lovely with good people and trusting neighbors, the surrounding counties had developed a substance problem, and with all the industries being strict on substance testing once hard substances came into the scene, people were starting to make their way to our area for break-ins, carjackings, and even a few cases of kidnapping for ransom.
A couple of senior citizens just outside of town were broken into just for maybe $300 worth of jewelry, a couple of old firearms, and their pain meds.
Seeing a need in my community. I used the leftover funds we had, and I bought land in the middle of nowhere deemed unfit for development at a steal (soil lead levels were too high for housing/farming and too remote for commercial), and after getting permits/certifications and almost a year of doing all the building and earthworks myself while working a part-time hospital security job a county over, I started a security, self/home defense and firearms training company.
I created local jobs in the nearby counties by training armed guards beyond state standards, helping people develop a neighborhood watch program, offering neighborhood security patrols at cost, making sure local shops got cameras and had plans and training in place in case of a robbery, and worked with individual households to develop their own home defense strategies — along with offering concealed carry training, advanced firearm training, OC spray, trauma, and first aid training and other things.
Somehow without meaning to, I managed to wedge myself into a unique position where I not only trained everyday people, but I got certified to be the guy that all police agencies in the region send their officers to for state recertification and further training.
Turns out that before I came along, they had to send their officers almost six hours north to a state facility, which meant that they also had to pay for a hotel room for anyone that went up there, as well as two meals and mileage if they didn’t drive a squad car.
Not to mention that the tactics taught didn’t always translate well to our area. I offered to do it for a bit less, and given my location, no hotels or anything else was needed. For the first time in my life, I feel like my work really matters, that I am making a positive difference for real people, and I look forward to going into my job!
In my line of work, I have ended up knowing a lot of the police in my area pretty well and can say that I even consider a few of them to be friends. The departments I work with get quite a few officers who are new or transfers from other areas as this region of my state has a pretty median average pay grade, and a lot of officers use it as a stepping stone to get to the bigger paying areas or to get their first bit of experience and head to another state.
Now, the ones who have made a life here and decided to stay learned a long time ago that the locals here don’t take crap that isn’t fair, lightly. The people here DEMAND justice.
Now, onto the story!
I was doing an armed guard gig during a night shift filling in for one of my employees who had a family emergency mid-shift when a police car spotted me on perimeter check and pulled into the lot to see who I was (I wasn’t wearing a uniform), and the place I was guarding receives a lot of raw metals that they then melt into various alloys to be shipped off for use.
It’s a dream looting spot with the way scrap prices can be for some of the materials there. After figuring out it was me, they decided to sit and hang for a bit. While talking with these officers, I listened to them share about a new hire who transferred from a larger city, and they just know is going to cause trouble with the locals.
They mention how he has that I-know-better-than-you attitude and thinks that the piece of metal on his chest means that he IS the law.
Apparently, he had already raised a bit of a stink because he writes citations for things that no other officer in the department has.
(Driving with one hand, burnt-out fog light, plastic being taped over a broken back window in a car, headlights not on in the middle, or the day and it’s raining. He even tried to give a guy a DUI even though he was sitting in the car ON BLOCKS in his driveway, and it had no rear axle.) Apparently, he speaks aggressively to anyone who dares to interact with him if they aren’t a police officer and overall just acts like a power-tripping jerk.
The other officers have noticed that the locals have changed their demeanor towards them and seem more distrusting since this guy started and they were genuinely worried that he would turn everyone against them. In the words of one of these officers, “With everything in the news these days, and the whole nation already being distrusting of us, I hope we can find something to set the idiot straight before he ruins the rep we work so hard to keep here.
I like that people here will just come up and talk to me; it’s the main reason I stayed here.” We brainstormed for a while about how to get through to Officer Jerk and make him change his ways (or career) but eventually came up with nothing legal and had to go back to doing our respective jobs like adults.
Two weeks or so after having this chat, and hearing similar things from other officers I know, I get my first interaction with Officer Jerk.
I don’t advertise my business on my work vehicle, and it is completely unremarkable, but all the officers I know can spot it somehow, so I’ve gotten in the habit of waving anytime I pass a squad car.
On my way to speak with a prospective client about a consultation for their home defense plan, this moron pulled me over for waving at him when we passed each other on a two-lane highway. He slammed his brakes on, whipped around in the middle of the road, and came flying up behind me so close, I can’t see his headlights with flashing lights on and siren blaring.
After enduring his frankly insulting lines of questioning with his hand ON his pistol grip about why I “felt the need to carry a firearm” (in my state it is required by law that anyone with a CCW/CCL has to inform the officer) and him sharing his doubts that “99% of people probably wouldn’t even know how or be able to use it,” the loser wrote me a citation for “reckless operation of a vehicle,” stating that he was justified in doing so because he saw me remove my hand from the wheel.
Trying to be diplomatic I said, “I just figured that you would appreciate a friendly gesture from someone today; I know I like when someone gives me a friendly wave.” This absolute insult to humanity blows his freaking gasket, gets in my face yelling at me, and threatening to “haul my smart butt downtown and see how friendly I am when I am hooked up in the back of his car,” says that if he felt like it, he could “cost me more in impound fees and lost wages than I would make in a month” (he has no clue what I do or where I work), then asked what I “thought about that.”
At this point, I have an internal battle with myself wanting to slam him to the ground and beat his skull open on the asphalt to see exactly how empty it was inside, but saner thoughts prevail, and I simply handed him my lawyer’s business card and stated that any further interactions we had would have to go through her.
He looked at the card, called me a loser, and told me to get out of his sight. Once I got moving in my car, I realized exactly how angry he had made me. I have spent years learning to keep my emotions to a minimum since it could cost someone dearly in my line of work, and this moron was able to boil my b***d in just a few minutes.
He wasn’t a big guy even for the area, and he didn’t carry himself like someone who was confident in their skills. Being that aggressive and having his hand on his pistol grip for most of our interaction spoke volumes as to what kind of person he was.
What would happen if he pulled over someone who didn’t have my level of control and acted like that or worse? I decided that the officers I had talked to were defiantly not exaggerating, and this guy was going to end up getting himself or someone else killed or hurt, and something needed to be done about it.
First, I went to court and showed my dashcam video which got my citation dismissed. I took the rest of the audio and video to the Sherriff of the county he works for and showed it to him, then we had a long conversation.
He agreed with my assessment of this guy but said that he couldn’t really do much but reprimand him for it and admitted that he would love to just toss him out on his butt; however, he knew that the union would fight to prevent that, and at best, he would only be gone a few days to get some training that would most likely go entirely ignored. He even cautioned me against filing against him because he figured the guy was the type to take it personally, and he didn’t want to see anything happen to me.
He promised he would do what he could to get rid of the moron but in most ways, his hands were tied. I could tell he hoped that the guy would just move on and become someone else’s problem when his two years were up.
I couldn’t help thinking that if he’s causing this kind of trouble already, it is only a matter of time before someone around here loses it on this guy and swings at him. Then even though the guy deserves to eat his own teeth at least, some poor guy will end up with his life ruined or worse.
All because officer jerk has a badge.
Feeling as though there was nothing more I could do, I went about my business as usual the next couple of days. Then, guess who came through my door to schedule with me for their recertification?!
He didn’t know me and just swaggered about like he owned the place and whined about this “being a waste of his time” and a “bunch of bureaucratic nonsense.” I had a real Kodak moment when I reminded him of our last interaction!
He tried to excuse it as just being “by the book” and claimed that his “hands were tied” when it came to the citation, and he only acted that way because I had a firearm and he “was nervous about that firearm, so he needed to assert his authority over the situation.” By now, I had had a large portion of the people that live in my area come through for training, and most of them carried daily.
Moron just confirmed my fears for me, and I was going to do what only I could to lay those fears to rest.
Already forming a plan, I told him that I understood completely and that I “operate that way as well.” Not even processing how that could affect him, the guy seemed glad to hear that, and we sat down to get his paperwork started. The whole time we are doing this he is bragging and talking about how good a shot he is and that he “looks forward to the day someone wants to mess around and find out” with him.
(Hearing the ways he thinks made me both sick and angry. Yes, I carry a firearm for self-defense, but I hope that I never have to use it. I spent years learning other techniques to lessen that chance after having to draw it once, and built a career teaching others what I have learned.) After getting all the paperwork sorted and scheduling a time and date, he asked if he could use my range to get some practice shots in.
I even waved my range fee just to see this jerk shoot. After going over the range rules, I ran him out at target at 10 yards and signaled the lane hot. He fired all 17 rounds out of his mag at a RAPID pace, and only managed to hit 5 on the target, only one of which was center mass!
He repeated this FOUR more times at varying distances, and his best score ended up being at 5 yards out with only 10 shots on target of which 4 were center mass. I suggested he slow up his cadence a bit and asked if he wanted my advice.
He told me he’s “forgot more than I ever knew and to shut my mouth,” so I did. Then he proceeded to run it out to 10 yards and shoot one at a time at a slow pace I usually only see from first-timers and didn’t get a SINGLE hit center mass!
After seeing the 13-year-old girl a few lanes down from him load up and absolutely DRILL headshots at 15 yards with my Rangemaster instructing her, he made some excuse about needing his sights adjusted, then packed up, and the brainless loser left thinking we were all buddy-buddy a few minutes later.
The state certifications are a bit simple, so when I started doing this, I met with local union lawyers, training officers, and some reps for our area, and we came up with a standard that surpasses the minimum state requirements, which they in turn used to negotiate better benefits, so everyone wins!
The standards we decided on not only test for accuracy but also introduce a bit of real-world problems that the officers have to contend with. The first is done in full-duty gear with both hands on the firearm at 10 yards.
After running 25 yards, within two minutes, you have to be able to draw your firearm from crouched cover, fire ten rounds, reload a magazine loaded by me with a false round randomly placed in it to cause a “malfunction,” clear that malfunction and get 10 more rounds on target from standing cover.
The second is the same drill in reverse but done with only one hand on the firearm and in under three minutes. In both of these drills, 15 of the 20 shots must be within the #8 ring of the target and all rounds must hit the target.
And the third is a dot torture drill that must be cleared at 90% within 10 minutes, and you have 3 attempts at it. It doesn’t sound too tough if you are an avid shooter, but trust me, under pressure, with your job in the balance, it can be rough.
See, the policy around here is that the county pays for your first test, and if an officer fails to recertify, then they either choose two weeks unpaid leave or sit at the office and do paperwork at reduced pay for two weeks, then they have to pay out of pocket to try again.
Of course, it is encouraged that they come to me for help, but being that I am not a charity some choose to practice on their own, which is fine. If they fail a second time, the Sheriff can cut them loose without any issues from the union, and the officer has to wait one year to even be considered for rehire or relocate to a different area that doesn’t have these standards or the Sheriff orders them to come to my training, and I work with them until we KNOW they will pass.
After that second failure, the officer’s job lies entirely in the hands of their boss. Being that these tests are a bit tasking for most shooters, and even though I log WAY more range time than any officer I know (helps when you own the range) and can still occasionally fail the dot torture drill, I will show mercy for most of them if they seem like a decent person who is just out of practice or nervous and not be a butt when it comes to scoring if they are close to a failing score.
(Counting line breaks as hits when I don’t have to, “forgetting” to hit the stopwatch button if their cadence is just a second or two slow). I decided the moment he signed the papers that there would be no such mercy for this moron!
I fully expected for him to burn through ammo practicing at home after his last performance, and while I doubted anything was actually wrong with his sights, I wasn’t willing to risk being wrong there when I had such a golden opportunity to do some true community service!
I even bought a new set of digital calipers deciding that if he was so much as one-tenth of an inch off on any shot placements at the line, I would mark them as a miss and prove I was just going “by the book.” My mind was made up that since I couldn’t get this guy off the force completely.
I would go “by the book” and at least get him off of any that were close to the people around me, and he would have to perform like an absolute pro to avoid it.
The day finally comes when he is to test, and he shows up wearing shorts and a TapOut tee shirt with only his firearm and duty belt emptied of everything else.
No vest, no range bag, no radio, no eye or ear protection, no cuffs, OC spray, or taser. Not a darn thing that he knew he was supposed to have. After pointing these issues out, he huffs and says, “I brought everything that is important; let’s just get this over with.” Mind you, I could have failed him right then and there for non-compliance.
I had a copy of his signature on the paperwork stating he owned all required gear and would bring it with him for the test and that he would be dressed to listed standards on testing day. But that just wouldn’t have been satisfying enough for me.
I wanted to make absolutely sure that anyone who looked into it would see that he himself was the failure. That this loud-mouthed bolstering loser wasn’t fit to the standards of his peers. Not that he failed due to circumstantial or bureaucratic nonsense beyond his control.
I let the clothing slide and loaned him some rental safety gear, which he whined about wearing but eventually put on. After getting it all sorted, and noting all this in his chart, I let him take his test, and darn it, am I glad that I did!
If he hadn’t made me see him for the piece of trash he is, I would have felt sad for him. As it stands, I worried I may develop muscle issues from holding back my grin! He failed the first test immediately due to sheer ineptitude!
When the buzzer sounded, first he tripped over his own feet and ate the ground face first. Full scorpion! Then after getting up and continuing while drawing from crouch, he somehow managed to catch his front sight or barrel on his holster opening and sent his firearm tumbling through the dirt, then fell over when he tried to lean over to get it.
Losing control of the firearm is an instant test stop, so I sounded the buzzer. Holding back laughter (and putting on my plate carrier instead of just a level 3 vest in case the fool fired a random round my way), I gave him a second chance even though I already had what I needed. (mostly because I wanted to have irrefutable proof he failed on his skills and not on accidental circumstances).
While he managed to keep hold of it this time, he struggled to clear the misfire costing him too much time for his slow cadence earlier, and only two shots were in the #8, and four completely missed the target! For the first time ever for me, someone had failed the first test on all three metrics!
I have had people come to me for the first time they held a firearm or with a legitimate fear of firearms who could outperform this arrogant person! After listening to him try to make excuses, whine demand, and then beg for me to give him another chance, I told him that I couldn’t and he failed. That my report was getting sent in, and he would have to talk to his training officer and we could go from there.
He EXPLODED in anger and started calling me anything he could think of. Claiming I was only doing this because of the ticket he gave me (part of why I wanted so much proof). And cursing me in some honestly creative ways while slamming his fist into my wall like a petulant tween and telling me that he was going to “make sure you all regret this” while pointing at me and my staff in the other room.
By now a couple of my regulars, my Rangemaster, and the local brass goblin have all made it over to watch through the window and listen to the exchange. Knowing I have him on camera with audio punching a hole in my wall, and I have witnesses, a new thought came to me when I heard him say this.
And I decided to steer him just the way I wanted him to go.
All I had to do was ask if what he said was a threat, and the moron responded with. “You bet your freaking butt it is!” and, to my surprise, reached out to give me a shove!
I side-stepped him, and he stumbled past, which angered him even further. I told him then and there to “get the flip off my property” and that he wasn’t welcome back. I looked this sack of trash straight in the eye and informed him that he “just sealed his fate since now he would have to BEG to be sent to the other facility, and I would make certain my report recommended he never work as an officer again, and should they ignore my advice, I would be raising my prices to better reflect the training they get here.” He then decides to spit at me and swing a punch this time!
Not one to miss an opportunity, and easily outweighing him by 50-60lbs, I raised my guard, and the moment his arm made contact with my mine, I used his momentum and my muscle to send him over my shoulder and directly into the ground with all I could muster!
I channeled my ancestors and the ancient gods of their homeland into that throw fully intending to leave a Wile E. Coyote-esque crater in my floor. Rolling him to his back and sitting atop him in full mount position I watched a wanna-be bad boy try to remember how to breathe after meeting the ground that hard and immediately cry like a baby begging for his life when he looked past me to see my Rangemaster (310lb, 6’6″ tatted-up retired Marine-turned bodybuilder) with our less-lethal training firearm (it is BRIGHT green, kinda unmistakable as less-lethal) in one hand leveled to officer jerk’s head and his phone in the other already talking to the moron’s boss.
Apparently, my Rangemaster had been watching everything from his office on the security feed, and when Officer Jerk started punching the walls, my boy immediately picked up the phone and called the sheriff grabbing the firearm on his way out the door to us.
When all was said and done, I got to watch him get hauled off my property by his boss, in cuffs and read his rights since, yes, I will be pressing charges. He assaulted me, threatened me and my employees, and damaged my property.
And I had all the evidence I need to prove it!
Later, when I asked my Rangemaster why he had brought the firearm into play since the guy wasn’t really a threat, he reluctantly told me he had brought it for me!
Apparently, in all the time we had known each other, he had never seen me actually come unglued like that. He said, “Boss, you are the kindest and quietest man I know. And in my experience, when a man like you gets that angry, even the devil himself would pee his pants to get away.” He admitted that his plan was to nail me with a beanbag or two if he needed it and try to turn my attention to him!
Not going to lie, I wasn’t happy to know I had made my friend feel that way, but it did feel good in an odd way to have a certified bad boy feel like he needed that tool to stand against me.
I gave the man a raise for his honesty and willingness to protect others, no matter the cost to himself. After all, that’s a rare quality anymore, and it should be rewarded. And to this day, I refuse to spar with him because I never want him to 100% know he could take me without it!
Despite all the evidence and testimony against him, Officer Jerk ended up getting a pretty good plea deal, but he will never be able to be a police officer or legally own a firearm again, so I consider it a win.
His partner filed for divorce for domestic violence while he was awaiting his court date, and thankfully they had no children together, so it was granted without issue, and he has no rights to see her son. He moved away immediately after his hearing, and last I had heard, he makes minimum wage working at a gas station somewhere up north.”
12. Neighbors Want To Ruin Our Lives, So We Get Them Raided
“As we found out that we’d be expecting not one but 2 kids, we knew we had to move to a real house with more space.
At the time, we were still living in a one-bedroom studio 1 up from the ground floor. With its only entrance being a metal fire escape (stairs). Not ideal for a pregnant woman, let alone to live with 2 small babies. So, we found a privately leased house that was newly renovated and had all the room and a large garden we were looking for.
We signed the lease and immediately collected the keys.
As the owner drove off, the woman next door comes up to me, immediately demanding we not make noise before noon as her partner works nights and sleeps in and a whole bunch of other do’s and don’ts.
So right off the bat, we knew trouble was incoming. As the house was fully renovated and not much had to be done, we were like, don’t poke the bear; we’ll do the things that make noise after noon.
We moved in after 2 weeks, and the whole street was warm and welcoming. My woman was almost due to give birth to my twin daughters, and some offered help with anything we needed — real kind people.
They also told us about our neighbors.
Nobody liked them; he was a big bully and got into arguments with everybody. Also were known as radio pirates (as in illegal broadcasting on radio with all Dutch bangers — this music is just terror on your ears), which went alongside them partying Thursday through Sunday till 5 in the morning.
Loud music, constant yelling, always intoxicated, etc.
Really something to look forward to when moving in, certainly with 2 babies on the way. The partying began immediately, full blast. Real classy for someone demanding to be quiet when he’s the one who claims he needs his beauty sleep.
Then one day, my father-in-law came to put new grass in. He has his trailer parked at the back of our houses, which is public space. Not according to him, though — that exact spot where the trailer (full with grass sods and quite heavy stuff) was parked was “his spot,” and we had to move the trailer.
Not going to happen as I was not planning to walk all the way around the house with the sods. He gets angry right away and demanded I move it; I told him to back off. I was done with him already then and there.
I’m also a ginger, so besides having no soul, I do have a temper that is always in check until you provoke me repeatedly. (Anyone who knows me will tell you that you really had to make an effort for that to happen.) We went on working, and the end of the day comes when my father-in-law wants to leave.
He hooks up the trailer, and bam, there was our jerk neighbor, telling him off, yelling it’s his spot, and he better not do this again or else.
Mess with me all you want; I can handle it, but what you don’t do is threaten my family.
I ran outside and told him in no uncertain terms to back off or he’ll be the sorry one. (Total bluff on my side. Yes, I have that temper, but I’m not impressively built and have no hidden fighting skills.
I do fight dirty.) He backs off. My father-in-law leaves, and I go inside where I find my partner crying. She got scared of him maybe doing something to her father and/or me, and this is something we don’t need right now.
Combined with hormones from being pregnant, and you can paint that picture. So I’m even angrier but had to promise not to act on anything. I won’t, dear, not yet anyway.
Time went on without any real incident and then came the time my partner goes into labor.
Didn’t go smoothly and ended up having to deliver with c-section because Daughter 2 was almost strangled by the umbilical cord. We had to stay 3 nights, excruciating nights due to a lot of things. Finally, we get to go home, and our family had put a giant sign in our front yard welcoming the babies.
The sign was already up for a few days prior to coming home, so our friendly neighbors definitely knew about it.
But did they give a flying flip? No, they did not. From the first night on, they started to party and broadblasted their terror music.
They started at noon and continued until 5 or 6 in the morning. Classy. They also kept going for days, so it wasn’t just Thursday through Sunday; it was all week long and the next. So we were broken, hardly slept, and one of our daughters suffered from heavy cramps combined with all the noise, and her parents at the end of their witts, so she cried a lot.
And then I just had it. I researched some things on radio pirates, the laws and regulations, and on his large, 5mtr+ antenna in his backyard, which was illegal in itself, but he used it to illegally broadcast on radio which meant he had a lot of equipment to do so, which was even more illegal and can even get you jailed, but at the very least, they could seize it all and fine him big time in the $10-45k range.
Now, I did not immediately turn him in but instead was looking for another house to lease first. This is because I figured it wouldn’t sit well with him and having a partner and 2 babies in the house alone during the day because I had to go to work.
I hear you guys thinking, why not involve the police? Well, they are utterly useless in cases like this. We called once, and what they did disturbs me to this day. They rang their doorbell and immediately started off by saying we called them about noise complaints.
Yes, you read that right. No protection or whatsoever, just blatantly told them we were the reason they’re there, told them to keep it down, and that was it. They didn’t even follow up with us or anything.
As you can guess, our jerk of a neighbor now was even angrier and told me the next day, or yelled over the fence that separates our backyards that I really should not do that again, a threat yet again of which I told the police.
(I didn’t report it the first time as I chalked that up to alpha male and heat of the moment). But without witnesses to corroborate, nothing could be done yet again.
Some days later, I walked out the front door, and he just stepped out of his car.
He came up to me demanding I cut back some of our ivy that grew on our side of the fence because it tangled in with his giant antenna. He would be gone for some hours, and I could come into his garden to cut back the ivy that grew through on their side.
And then a lightbulb went on above my head! I told him politely that I would do that immediately. Why? Because that gave me the opportunity to find out the make and model of this antenna to ascertain its signal strength, where the cables go exactly, and what kind of cables they were, again to know the signal strength it handled. Also, it gave me a good view of the equipment he had through the window, so I could snap some photographs of it.
This was the icing on the cake. Because in the meantime, we did manage to find a new home and already had signed the lease, so we would be gone in 2 weeks. Luckily, we only had to paint some walls for the girls’ room and furthermore just pack up our things and move them to the other house.
So after I trimmed the ivy and collected my evidence, I went online that night to find out the proper channels to report a broadcast pirate and which entity was tasked with catching said pirate. Turned out, I had to call the telecom agency but also the police.
Wasn’t too happy with the latter, but I remembered I have a nephew that works for the police — officially his area was immigration but knew enough colleagues that could help us and we could trust not to confront them again saying I was the one that sent them.
That was extremely important for our safety when doing what I was doing.
So I gave both the agency and the police all evidence I collected and pointed them to the frequencies he pirated, so they could listen in. Then they started a neighborhood investigation, which wasn’t really necessary, but this was to cover our butts to make it look like he got caught ‘by accident’ because they had an active investigation in our area.
You never know what he can learn from legal documents and such. We asked them to wait with the raid (yes, they raid pirates’ houses, preferably in the early hours of the day because of his beauty sleep rendering him incapable of fleeing or hide evidence, etc.)
We moved 2 weeks later, and they raided him 2 days after we moved. All of his equipment, computers, radios, cellphones, and his car were seized. He left in cuffs; his partner did too for making a big scene and trying to interfere, all of which was live reported to me by one of my ex-neighbors who were equally ecstatic about this.
It turned out, this wasn’t the first time he got caught but his third time. His car had no insurance on it, and his MOT failed. This would normally have no big consequence because he didn’t drive it while raided, but they had the guy surveilled on for a week and that definitely meant he was seen driving it while not having insurance and valid MOT.
He was fined somewhere around $36,000, went to jail for 12 weeks, and everything seized was destroyed except the car. His partner had to do 40 some hours of community service. They had to sell the house, which made for very happy neighbors as they too were over and done with them.
Like I said, I do fight but very dirty. You have to really make an effort for me to get to that point, and they did and suffered. Over a year later when shopping for groceries, I encountered them. With the foulest of looks, if looks could kill, I’d be a smoldering heap of ash.
But nothing more than that.”
11. Taking Down A Racist Businessman
“This is an old story that has been told in my family for as long as I can remember. We’re talking, my grandfather was told it by his grandfather and so on.
This is the story of my ancestor we’ll call “John” because that’s the name I’ve always been told.
John was a black man in America during the time when slavery was dying out. His Grandparents had been brought there from Africa along with their children.
John eventually was freed through some means (I’ve heard both that he paid his way out, or the state he was in abolished slavery, and he was freed that way) and found himself fighting in the Civil War because he felt it was the right thing to do.
During the war, he became good friends with a man only known as “Mitch” who supposedly came from money but had joined against his parents’ wishes because he believed in freedom for all (again, grain of salt). The two were in the same regiment and made it through alive (though some relatives say Mitch lost a leg or an arm in the war).
Fast-forward to the end of the war, and John and his new wife, Mary he’d met during the war used what he’d earned to set up a small shop on the East Coast (most common city mentioned is Boston) in a small neighborhood.
The shop became successful, John being a charming man and a surprisingly savvy businessman. The neighborhood he’d set up in quickly grew, and as the city grew, there were always customers who needed whatever it was he sold. (I’ve heard everything from groceries to workers’ tools.)
They lived happily and had three children together during the time, spending a decade there when, suddenly, presumably accompanied by the roar of thunder and screeches of crows, “Mister Business” arrived in town.
Mister Business has apparently been on the wrong side of the war but was also smart enough to sell out other racists when he saw how the tides of the war were rolling.
Getting by with no losses except his free laborers.
He’d struggled to find loyal workers that didn’t charge more than the absolute minimum, and after a series of bad harvests, had chosen to pack up, sell his land, and head east to find a new source of income.
He arrived and began buying up local businesses that seemed profitable and eventually found out about John’s successful store. He was more than happy to discuss a fair price for the store… until he saw the skin color of the owner that is.
Ten years is not enough time to erase a lifetime of institutionalized racism.
He began harassing John to sell his “rinky-dink store and find a farm to work on” (don’t quote me), offering way below the actual value and when laughed out of the store, began trying to sabotage John’s business (for instance, getting people to throw rocks through windows, sabotaging deliveries, making a scene in the store).
John soldiered on though, having grown tragically used to fighting against racism. He also had a lot of friends in the community who helped keep the store floating.
Then it was that John’s oldest son who was 13-14 at the time found himself getting beaten up heading home at night from his job (again, blurry details).
John had had enough, and as luck would have it, had an out, having been contacted by his old friend Mitch.
Mitch was starting up a farm in the west/south/south-west and needed loyal workers. He’d offered John a foreman position, good pay, and a plot of land to live on with his family.
This, dear, readers is when the revenge plan begins.
John contacted Mister Business, offering to sell at 75% of what the shop was actually worth, and maybe because his other businesses hadn’t worked out, he took it.
However, John supplied the contract and proper solicitor(?) to make things legal. The contract basically saying that after midnight of the date of signing, the shop and everything inside would transfer ownership to Mister Business.
Little did he know that that day up until midnight, the shop was having a massive clearance sale, selling everything not nailed down at ridiculous prices to a grateful neighborhood.
When they closed up that night and mailed the keys to Mister Business, there was little left to sell in the store if anything.
John never found out what happened next as they left town soon after and never returned, but personally, I’d like to think that Mister Business arrived with his workers to an empty store with no deliveries coming, screaming and crying in the mud as he realized he’d been outsmarted.
John and his family moved to work at Mitch’s farm for the rest of their lives, John supposedly passing away in his sixties.”
10. Blame Me For "Getting The Appointment Time" Wrong When It's Your Fault? I'll Prove You Wrong
“A few days ago, I took my cat to a new vet, so she could get a wellness check and scheduled for spaying. I’d moved in with my man but before that was living in an apartment about 10 minutes away, and after speaking to the leasing manager, had decided that since my lease would be up in a couple of months, it would be less expensive for me to ride the lease out instead of paying what would have been almost double in order to get out of the lease early.
I thought I’d gotten pretty much all of the most important things out, but on the day of my cat’s vet appointment, I realized her medical records were still at the old apartment.
By the time I’d realized, it was about time to get my cat on her way to her appointment.
I feared that I’d miss the appointment, so I called a number that was given to me via the vet’s confirmation text and let them know the situation. The woman who answered was very kind and said that I could just email the records to the office later if need be.
I then let her know that I might be a few minutes late as I’d already made the decision to try and rush to get the documents before realizing I could call and ask what to do. I hadn’t made it too far before I called, and the vet was close by, so she said I’d be fine to be a few minutes late.
I was only a few minutes late when I arrived at the vet’s office and was greeted at the door by a sign that notified people to call the number displayed to let the front desk know of their arrival. It was a different number than the one given to me initially over text.
I called, and the lady at the front desk picked up.
Unlike the first woman I spoke to, this front desk lady wasn’t so kind. She told me that my cat’s appointment had been given to someone else in the 3-4 minutes that I was late.
I told her I spoke to another woman earlier, and upon explaining my situation, I was told it would be okay if I were only a few minutes late. She insisted she couldn’t take me and told me I must have called some kind of call center for the vet instead of the actual location.
She told me that if I wanted to wait in the car with my cat, she would try to fit me in if someone else didn’t show for their appointment. She was very passive-aggressive about it, but hey, my cat needed the appointment, and it was my fault for having been late, so I accepted and blasted the air conditioning so my cat, and I could wait in the car for an undetermined amount of time without suffering the hot weather.
After about 40 minutes, the front desk lady called me to bring my cat to the front door. Without explaining anything, she took my cat from me and told me to wait in the car. I kind of just quietly mumbled in agreement and returned to my car.
But my cat has severe anxiety around vet visits because the staff at the previous clinic I took her to were really aggressive with her (why I chose this new clinic in the first place, and they offered more affordable pet care than the former).
So not even five minutes later, I get a call from the front desk lady saying my cat is hissing and scratching at anyone who tries to touch her. I sighed and explained that this is why I wanted to go in.
I let go of the fact that she didn’t give me any time to explain my cat’s anxiety when she initially took my cat from me. She snootily explained it was procedure not to let me in and that they would have to make an exception for me to be in there with her.
I eventually was allowed in, and although my cat was fine with me handling her, she still did not want the vets to touch her at all. So the vet prescribed my cat anti-anxiety meds, and we rescheduled the appointment.
The vet told me to come back the next day at 4:30 pm and then wrote me an appointment card confirming that time.
This time, I wanted to make sure I was not late. I picked up my cat’s records and arrived with her about 15 minutes before the appointment time.
When I got there, I received a text saying, “Sorry you missed your vet appointment with us!” Confused, I called the front desk. The same front desk lady from the day before answered. We argued back and forth for a little bit because she was insisting the appointment was for 4:00 pm, and because I was “late,” I’d have to reschedule.
At this point, I’m furious because this lady had already been incredibly passive-aggressive the day before and was now trying to tell me I was late for an appointment that I made certain to be early for. I asked her if she was messing with me, and she replied, “I am the head staff member here and scheduled you myself; I can assure you you’re not being messed with.” I started to wonder if I had put the time in wrong on my calendar and had begun to question my own memory.
But I was certain I’d gotten the time right, so I stuck to that and after being placed on a brief hold eventually, she let me in with my cat to be seen.
Turns out, I was right. The vet admitted to both me and the front desk lady that I had been told 4:30, and while I was waiting for the vet to return with the exam equipment, I fished through my purse and found the appointment card confirming this to be true.
In big, black Sharpie marker, it read 4:30.
So on my way out, I decided to schedule my cat’s next appointment in advance. I kindly asked the front desk lady to repeat the time and day of the next appointment, then asked her to write me an appointment card.
Then, I handed her the 4:30 appointment card, making sure she got a good look at it as I said, “Looks like I don’t need this one anymore!” She took it, briefly looked at it, then sarcastically told me to have a good day to which I replied the same in an equally sarcastic tone.
Bonus is if she messes up scheduling again, I have a new appointment card confirming what I was told in her own handwriting.”
Another User Comments:
“Write a complaint letter to the vet, and send it to him via registered mail – Restricted delivery.
(It must be signed for by the addressee, so you will know she will not be able to intercept it.) This will let the vet know you are serious and that what the front desk lady is telling him is lies.
If he is concerned about his business, he will get her straightened out or fire her.” NorskGodLoki
9. Can't Talk To Me For 5 Minutes? It'll Cost You $65,000
“I have been waiting about two months for this fallout in all its glory. I knew my boss would try to make me the fall guy, but I think I employed CYA well in this instance.
I work as an office engineer at a mid-sized pre-fabricated concrete structures plant.
About 3 months ago, our plant manager left spontaneously for a much higher-paying gig down south. Due to this, his responsibilities were distributed to whoever had capacity.
I was put in charge of purchasing with the caveat that any purchase order (PO) over $5k had to be reviewed by that project’s project manager.
This was due to a mistake (due in part to my inexperience and in part to my overconfidence) I made on an order which only cost us a couple of grand but delayed a project.
Also due to lower labor costs and the size of our own steel shop, we have most of our large steel structures fabricated just across the border in Canada.
Anyways, our general manager is the acting project manager on a project which includes a large steel frame surrounded by concrete modules. I was told to get this frame quoted by our Canadian metal fabricator.
I get the quote back and throw together the PO.
When I look back through the project specifications before sending the PO for review, I see our project has a Buy American clause, not Buy America as we had assumed (almost all of our projects are Buy America, and we are very familiar with it).
This little “n” makes all the difference. Under Buy America, a Canadian fabricator can use American steel and meet every requirement; however, under Buy American, all steel must be domestic, and all fabrication must be done in the US.
My general manager was out of town on what was essentially a vacation to a project site we have in Hawaii and was having none of my calls and emails marked as urgent.
I informed him in a couple of emails and multiple voicemails that we had to go to a different fabricator, or the product would be rejected.
I got an angry email back telling me to place the order immediately. I tried one more call in desperation (straight to voicemail) and then sent him over the completed PO with the Buy American spec.
attached, telling him this is well over my $5k limit, and I needed to get him to approve it before I sent it out. He approved it in less than 10 minutes, I sent it and waited for the fallout.
Well, it finally happened. Our product was delivered yesterday, and today, the project owner sent over an inspector to make sure everything was done per project drawings.
He noticed the manufacturer right away and told us he would have to reject the product, purely because it does not meet Buy American.
In less than 20 minutes, I was getting an earful from my general manager asking me why this wasn’t caught before we wasted over 60 grand on something that would clearly be rejected. I let him finish his rant, insulting my intelligence, threatening to fire me, breaking protocol, the works.
I asked him to pull up my emails from the order date and showed him that he was informed of the issue, and my concerns were ignored. He didn’t take this well and told me to get out of his office.
Oops.
Now there is nothing left but to wait. Our project will be delayed at least a month, and the owner of our company is getting involved.
I have the emails saved on a jump drive (at home), and the phone logs (while not recording the conversations, show that I left multiple voicemails on the same date) cannot be touched by the general manager.
Still a bit nervous, but I think I covered myself pretty well.”
8. Keep Coming Back? I'll Charge You With Trespassing
He got warned so many times.
“I work in a corner store. As expected when working at a corner store, there are a lot of thieves that we need to deal with.
Most of them are told to leave and don’t come back. Some come back after a few months but they don’t steal anymore, but one man decided to be different.
This guy is probably about 70 or older and comes in every day and steals something every time he’s in.
When confronted about it, he simply admits he stole and expects to be let off with no punishment.
One day, the boss caught him red-handed and told him he’s not allowed back in. A couple of days later, he came back to apologize and said he won’t do it again if he can still come in.
So the boss agreed, but he printed out a sheet and told everybody to write down the times he comes in, so the boss can look at it later.
About a week goes by, and sure enough, the boss confirms with us that he’s still stealing when he comes in and instructed us to tell him he’s not allowed on the property anymore.
So we did… about 10 times.
We were denying him service at this point, but he kept trying to use the ATM inside the store. We repeatedly told him he’s not allowed, but we never really enforced it because we were usually busy, and he would be gone by the time we had a minute to do something about him.
He usually would say something like, “I’m still not allowed?” or “I’ll just be a minute.”
One day, he comes in, and I immediately tell him loudly and clearly that he’s not allowed in, and if he doesn’t leave, I’m calling the cops.
He told me, “You’ll just have to deal with me!” So I called the cops and asked him what his name was, and he ran out the door before I was done on the phone. This wasn’t over yet.
Using the information I had about his browsing patterns in the store, I made a plan.
I waited patiently for the day to come when he would come into the store when there was nobody else in the store but me, and I had no other obligations. Today was my lucky day.
Today he came in and went straight to the ATM, so I immediately told him to get out NOW, or I’m calling the cops.
I locked up the safe and shut all the doors and locked them, then went outside and locked the store from the outside with him stuck inside.
I called the non-emergency police line, and they sent 2 units to write up a file stating that if he comes back, he will be fined and possibly arrested. I told the police officer that we kicked him out like 10 times, and he told me, “You’ll just have to deal with me,” so I did just that.
The police ended up charging him with trespassing because he’s on parole.”
7. Try To Force Me To Work During School Hours? Okay, I'll Work But Just Not Here
They certainly found employment where they were wanted, and it wasn’t at this horrible fast-food joint.
“I worked at a fast-food chain when I was in high school for 2.5 years. It was a place both my older siblings had worked at, and I knew it as a business that was good for students.
When my manager hired me, it was with the understanding that I would work one evening during the week and be the first person off of the shift and Saturday mornings with the occasional weekend night. We agreed on this because I was in advanced classes and made it clear I wouldn’t be able to work more during the week.
He was fine with this, and work went great for years.
When I say this place was slammed all the time, I mean it. This place offered food that had never before been offered by a fast-food place in my area, and I saw the same regulars every week.
We also had tons of employees because they catered to students who couldn’t work a lot of shifts. I really enjoyed this place and took pride in learning every position and training new employees.
The main manager was eventually let go because of a drinking problem.
They brought in someone else with a completely different mindset. He started to let go of everyone who couldn’t work a lot and brought in people who seemed desperate for work. The atmosphere completely changed. When before the people I worked with were eager and friendly high schoolers and college students, I was suddenly working with people who seemed to have really rough lives.
They were always late, always scrambling, unfriendly to customers, and had horrible attitudes. They also used substances on the property, spent A LOT of time out smoking by the trash cans, and often left, leaving me with the keys (and acting as manager).
Which made me very uncomfortable. Many shifts we had six workers but only me in the front and someone in the back actually working.
My manager started putting pressure on all the high school students who were still working to drop out.
He kept telling us how much we’d make full-time. I thought he was insane, but two co-workers dropped out senior year because of his promise to make the “big bucks.” But, almost instantly, he would not give them full-time hours, and they were really upset.
They wanted to work all the time, but he’d restrict them.
Then, he started giving me shifts during school. I told him I couldn’t work them, and he said it was my responsibility to find replacements or not go to school.
My other co-workers were eager for shifts, so I always got them covered, but he would get very agitated when I wasn’t working the hours he gave me.
Eventually, he stopped giving me hours altogether. When I asked him about it, he smirked and said I would get hours when I could work school time shifts.
So, I’d come in each week, check the schedule, and leave. I ended up getting a job as a nanny, so I came in with my clean, pressed uniforms, hat, etc. I came to him and said that I was going to start working.
Before I could explain, he flew off the handle and was screaming that he told the other managers not to give me hours until I agreed to work during school. I finally managed to cut him off and said I wasn’t working THERE.
That I got another job. I set my uniforms on the counter, and he turned completely red. He threw my uniforms and hat, broke a broom over his knee, kicked the doors to the back, and just kept screaming. He was saying I was one of the only employees that knew all the positions and that he expected me to train all the new hires.
He kept saying he didn’t know what he was going to do now and that I was screwing him over. (Every time I stopped by to check my schedule, the poorly trained newer employers were having a really hard time, getting orders wrong, etc.)
I eventually just left. All my regulars stopped coming. There were never lines. And the business closed.
It was sad to see a place that had been so successful fail, but a petty part of me was glad that at least the manager wouldn’t be torturing any more high school kids.
(P.S. I was seventeen when I quit, female, and in the US, if any of that matters.)”
6. Wanna Be Two Faced At Work? Get The Door
“This all happened years before I was born, but this story has always gotten a giggle out of me.
My grandma worked quite a few jobs in her youth; many of them were office jobs.
At one of her places of work, there was a two-faced witch who was adored by practically everyone there. Let’s call her Charlene. In most of their eyes, she was a church-going, God-loving, apple pie-making, good ol’ southern gal. And she had almost everyone wrapped around her pretty, little finger.
The only exception was my grandma, who had felt the sting of her backhanded comments enough to know that her niceness was all an act. Of course, she would always phrase it in a way that would make my grandma look bad if she ever tried to argue.
My grandma was smart enough to never rise to the bait since she knew the whole building would be on Charlene’s side in a heartbeat. But my Grandma knew how to chuck ice cubes at someone with the coldest tone of voice you would ever hear from a person.
She would always talk to Charlene with that tone and would always say the nicest things to her, so she got no backlash from any of her coworkers or bosses.
“Well, Charlene! How are you?!”
“I just adore your outfit today!”
“Your new haircut really suits you!”
One day, my grandma, grandpa, and dad were hanging out in the backyard, smoking some brisket in my grandpa’s awesome custom smoker. My dad, a teenager at the time, had been drinking all day with my grandpa (this was Texas in the 80s.
NO ONE cared!) and had to go to the restroom. So he goes inside but before he could go down the hall the front door rings. My dad was the only one inside, so he had no choice but to answer it.
It was freaking Charlene holding a dress. Keep in mind that my dad knew all about this unpleasant person from grandma’s rants and already didn’t like her. My dad also has this ability to read people like books. He pretty much knows what a person is all about within seconds of meeting them, and Charlene was giving off vibes that only made him dislike her more.
It wasn’t helping that he had a full bladder, and she was keeping him from the sweet relief of the toilet.
“Hi! You must be Zelda’s (my grandma) son! I’m Charlene, her coworker! I came to drop off this dress for her.
Can you go get her?” she said with a small lip curl, no doubt smelling the booze from Dad.
There is a saying in my family: “I’m only as nice as you’ll let me be.” This wretched woman who insulted his mom on a daily basis came to their house on her day off and was causing him a major inconvenience by keeping him from the toilet all for a stupid dress.
Not to mention she was most likely planning on mooching off of them for a few hours if the look on her face was anything to go by. He had no doubt in his mind that she did this only to further bother Grandma.
He also knew that her hands were tied, and she couldn’t exactly retaliate without it coming back on her… He, on the other hand, could be as rude as he wanted. So on my grandma’s behalf, he grunted at the woman and slammed the door in her face.
He then proceeded to the bathroom and decided to leave Charlene hanging for about seven minutes before he told Grandma that she was at the door. My grandma rushed to go get her and apologized for her son’s behavior. Charlene wasn’t willing to spend more time than she had to over there if it meant dealing with Dad and made a quick exit.
Grandma wasn’t too mad at him since she had it coming for a while now. I’m sure to this day Charlene thinks my dad is the rudest guy on earth.”
5. If I Can't Do It Perfectly, Then Don't Do It? You Got It!
“I worked retail when I was younger. Like most people, it was a mixed bag, and some of my best and worst memories involve my time working in retail chains.
I worked in footwear in a then blossoming sporting goods franchise and had a real knack for it. It was rewarding helping people find shoes in their sizes, and it’s heartwarming at times, especially when people with disabilities showed up and really needed hands-on assistance with things, and that was a core value the company had at the time.
My hiring supervisor, whose name isn’t important, was amazing, and the staff was really cool too. We all liked and respected him a lot.
But alas, like many good things, it came to a sudden and forceful end, and upper management decided change was in order and shifted the supervisors opening a spot in my department.
That’s when the new supervisor henceforth known as Brandie came in. Brandie was a transfer from another store 30 minutes away. The entire supervisor team knew and was not fond of her, but she filled a void, and the district manager and store manager were big fans of her for reasons unknown.
We were warned that she was “a woman of many faces” and would tell you or promise you things you’d never get. I learned this about her fairly quickly, and before she even knew the staff, our strong suits, our schedules, or our names, she had a set list of things SHE wanted to be done and could not be deviated from.
There was also word going around she liked to make staffing changes and hire her own people when she came in. Morale died fairly quickly within the first week she was there. In short: She was a nightmare for almost the entire store.
Now to the actual story
Brandie’s first day was on a particularly busy summer day, and before I could even walk back to my section, I could hear her voice calling over the intercom constantly. Along the way, I was greeted by the morning staff who gave me a quick rundown of her and what she was like.
Then told me to “have fun.” “Oh boy,” I thought to myself. I found her in the back near the cleats and introduced myself. “You have your tasks assigned to you already, and I want all of the displays finished in your areas before you leave today.”
I thought this was strange because I had set the displays for those exact sections the night prior. All according to the franchise standards (firmly stuffed to look like a foot was in them, no visible laces shown, and even the laces changed to go inside the shoe, so they didn’t obstruct the view of the top of the shoe).
They were signed off as completed by the lead on duty and even complimented. I was proud of my work!
I went back to the sections I did the night before and looked them over for a few seconds super confused. I shrugged it off and set to checking or at least restuffing a few to see if I had missed something.
Nope. Nothing. But I continued on as I had been instructed and did my job and things seemed like they were going pretty smooth. Later on that afternoon, Brandie came back up to me and asked me when I was going to finish my displays, and I told her that I had.
She looked at me and then back at my displays and made a look of disgust and said, “You’re going to leave them like that?!”
“Like what?” I said back confused. Nothing I did was ever really a problem in the past, and I really didn’t want to make her angry because I loved my job, and it was my first day with her.
She scoffed and said, “Like this!” And then grabbed a broken metal peg off a sock end cap and proceed to jam as much paper as humanly possible into the shoe until it couldn’t hold anymore. No lie, the shoe felt like someone had filled it with concrete and the fabric even protruded on some shoes because of the pressure.
It was not pretty or guideline. After watching how she did it, I just stood there dumbstruck because, again, this went against almost all of my training up to that point. Then she started in on me. No matter how hard I tried to give her what she wanted I still meet the guideline I’d been trained for.
She didn’t like it and would get me to do them again. This went on for a little bit.
And then she messed up. After an agonizing amount of time, she grabbed a shoe from me and said “No! Do it perfect!
If you can’t do it perfectly, then don’t even try! Just leave it for someone else to do!” Let me remind you that she had a full list of other things she wanted done, but she rang a bell I wasn’t going to ignore.
So, instead of giving me another task, she gave me a loophole. I capitalized fully.
After an emotional wrecking like the one she had given me I excitedly said “Ok!” and walked away to help customers. I left her there with the display still in her hand.
She also said this within earshot of several other employees that were already sour with her. She didn’t want me to try if I couldn’t be perfect? Fine. That was exactly what I did. I did nothing on that list. For 4 months.
I don’t even remember anything it says on it. You might be wondering to yourself, “How did you not get fired?” Well, she tried. Several times. Anytime she would try to write me up, I would quote her exact words to her, the store supervisor, the leads, the district manager, and even someone in HR when they came to visit.
Eventually, she was told to stop because her attempts could be viewed as retaliation, and that was a huge corporate no-no. I still provided excellent customer service and got rave reviews and compliments when customers went to check out, and the store manager and I got along really well, so they were hesitant to push too hard.
A few months later, I changed departments and then met my now partner on a store set-up trip and moved across the state. When she found out I was quitting, she pretended to be upset, but everyone knew she wanted me gone.
She was gone within a year of my leaving. No clue why. Totally worth it. Thanks for the funny memories, Brandie!”
4. Throw My Baby's Laundry Down The Hall? I'll Throw Your Expensive Clothing Out In The Alley
How could anyone be so self-centered?
“This happened a few years ago. I had just settled into a new apartment with my (now ex) partner and our infant son.
We lived on the second floor of a three-story building.
There was a laundry room on the third floor, but it only had one washer and dryer for the whole building (maybe 20 apartments). I went up there a couple of times to do a quick load, but it was always occupied, so I gave up trying.
Instead, we’d go to the laundromat down the street as needed and get it all done at once.
So we’d been living there for about two months, and it’s New Year’s Eve, and there’s a big snowstorm raging outside.
We were running low on pajamas for the baby, and neither one of us wanted to trek out. I decided to try again upstairs. Lucky me, it was empty. The washer and dryer were both free.
I started the wash and went back down to my apartment for a half-hour.
I promise you it was no longer than that. Barely finished an episode of a Friends rerun and then I went upstairs to see where we were at in the wash cycle.
Lo and behold – as soon as I got upstairs, I saw my baby’s onesies and little blankets scattered down the hallway outside the laundry room.
I thought at first maybe someone stole some items and left the rest, but it was actually all there. All wet and soapy and seemingly stepped on. I was kinda scared at that point, so I gathered it all up and was just gonna go back downstairs.
But then I hear the washer is running. Hmm.
The machine was at the spin stage. I open it up, and it was STUFFED. It was a huge load of clothes. I quickly figured it out: very shortly after I started the machine, someone took our stuff out to do their own on my dime.
And if that wasn’t enough of a jerk move, they threw it all out of the room and seemingly kicked it down the hallway. My initial fear of the situation turned into an absolute uncontrollable rage.
The clothes inside the machine were NICE.
Someone could certainly afford nice things but apparently could not afford the $1.50 washing fee. (Or didn’t have quarters?) Lots of nice Victoria’s Secret clothes too.
There is a window in that room that faces the alley where many pigeons like to gather and take poops.
If you look down, you’d see dumpsters and the occasional car driving by turning the fresh falling snow into a yucky, black street slush.
I took all the clothes out of the machine. One by one, I flicked every piece out the window.
Some of the intimates got stuck on little ledges and dangled like haphazardly hung ornaments. I then ran back to my apartment and just kinda sat around. I had mixed feelings. Did I go too far?
Nope! It was during that cooling-off period that I saw that there was even more concentrated damage to my baby’s stuff than I initially realized. A family friend had sewn him a little blanket, and a little patch was ripped right off!
Who takes their issues out on a baby’s possessions!? Any semblance of guilt I had was completely gone.
Took over 2 hours (that part probably confuses me the most. Couldn’t wait 30 minutes for our load to finish and yet it took her so long to check on hers), but I finally heard the shrill screams. Loud enough to know what it was but muffled by the walls and distance.
I wish I could’ve seen her face! Happy New Year’s, witch!”
Another User Comments:
“This would happen to me in college. Jerks in the dorm would hang around the laundry room and throw out your clothes as soon as you started the machine and walked away.
After a couple of times of this, I bought bleach and would go check my laundry about 15 minutes after I had started a load. If mine was removed, I would pour a bottle of bleach into the machine on the clothes of the thief who had stolen my time and soap.” TexasAggie98
3. Get His Car Towed Once? Yours Will Get Towed 3 Times
“I and my three roommates moved into a housing community that is basically just a bunch of cookie-cutter townhomes. All of these homes have garages that open onto streets that wind through the community (this is important later) with your front door opening to a path on the other side of your house.
There are also some free parking spots on the edge of the community where there are no houses.
When we first moved in, we quickly found out that parking could be a bit of a pain during the day, especially when people had guests during the weekend.
Now my roommates and I admittedly have more cars than the average family. Because we usually have to commute for work, we each have one. We try to make parking easier by using the garage, but we all have tons of sporting equipment, so we can usually only get one car in the garage.
When all the parking in all the free spots is full, we’d just park our cars right up against the garage and leave them there during the day or overnight. We’d seen other neighbors do it, and it still left ample room for people driving on the street to get by.
Well, one day, an awful neighbor came up while my roommates and I were in the garage organizing some stuff and told us that we can’t park there overnight as it’s against community rules. Before we had a chance to respond, he added, “And if you do it again, I will personally make sure you’re towed.” His first comment was pretty reasonable.
We’d just moved in and didn’t know that rule. But his second comment really just made him sound like a jerk and wasn’t necessary. One of my roommates simply responded that we didn’t know as we’d just moved in, and we wouldn’t park there overnight anymore.
Well our neighbor, clearly trying to assert his dominance, responded with, “Good. You better not because I’ll be watching.”
Well, from then on, we did follow those rules. If we parked in front of our garage during the day, we would make sure to move before we went to sleep.
This worked out for a while until one faithful day. One of my roommates stopped by quickly after work to grab some dinner and clothes before heading to his girl’s house. This was around 7 PM, so he just parked up against the garage as it would be quicker than the parking spaces.
Plus it was early enough that he didn’t think he’d get towed.
Around 8 PM, he went to head out, and his car was gone. Guess who was there, though? Our neighbor, standing right outside. Immediately, he said to my roommates, “Told you you were going to get towed if you parked here again.” The neighbor and my roommate argued for a bit before my roommate came back inside and called the car lot.
Well, it ends up, they’re closed, so he’ll have to get his car in the morning. The kicker? They’re going to charge him an overnight fee. All in all, it comes out to $500, which isn’t a small amount for us.
This neighbor has been a pain to us since we moved in, and even though it wasn’t my car that was towed, I took this personally. To make sure we didn’t get towed again, we decided to read the community rules, and lo and behold, we found out that the street in front of the garage is actually considered a fire lane, and no one is supposed to park there at any point during the day.
Between our neighbor treating us like trash and the fact that we could hear him yelling at his woman every night (not a big detail to the story but just wanted to say to add to my point that this guy just sucked), I start to plan my revenge.
I’ve been working from home, and my desk conveniently looks out onto the street between the houses. This means that I can clearly see our neighbor’s garage. I start to take notice of when he parks his car out in front of his garage.
For about two weeks, I noticed that he would come home around 1 PM and leave again at 2 PM. On the third week, I decided I would begin the revenge.
On Monday, true to his schedule, he stopped by around 1. After about 10 minutes, I gave the tow company a call and said that he was parked in the fire lane and if they could come and remove his car.
20 minutes later, a tow truck rolled up, hooked his car up, and towed it off. About 15 minutes later, our neighbor came out, and I could hear him start to yell back into his house, presumably at his lady. He then left and didn’t come back until later that evening after he’d gotten his car.
Now it was funny to do this, and I made sure to send snaps to my roommates who don’t work from home, but I wasn’t done yet.
See, this jerk apparently didn’t learn the first time because literally the next day, he parks in front of his garage again.
What do I do? Well, the exact same thing as the day before of course. Again, the neighbor comes out, realizes his car is gone, yells at his woman, and then goes to get it.
Now after this time, he is a bit smarter and parks in an actual spot before going in to get his lunch or whatever it is he does there mid-day.
He does this for about two weeks before he decides that it’s okay to park in front of his garage again. Well, who is still sitting at their desk every day and notices this immediately? Well, me, of course.
And being the concerned resident that I am, I immediately call the tow company, and off his car goes again. And again this is met with yelling.
I wish that this had a more satisfying ending, but after this third time, I decided I would stop because I genuinely felt bad for his woman who he seemed to do most of the yelling at as if it was her fault that he was an idiot.
What I can tell you is that it definitely cost him over $1k.
If he hadn’t gotten my roommate’s car towed, then we wouldn’t have ever found that fun, little rule. The best part was that a number of my neighbors would have their cars parked there at the same time, and they’d never have their cars towed, which made it all the better when his was.
We have had a number of other encounters with him in the time since this happened, and I have another story that involves the actual HOA. That one is still ongoing, though, so we’ll see how it ends up.”
Another User Comments:
“Only three to one. I would have kept it up. Maybe his woman would have gotten tired of his nonsense.” Techn0ght
Reply:
“Honestly, if his woman was an awful person too, I would’ve. Every time I’ve seen her, she’s always been very sweet, so I felt really bad.
Hopefully, she leaves him soon, though.” spec97
Reply:
“Maybe call the police every time you hear him shouting at her? She might get the idea that actually this isn’t acceptable behavior. Abuse eventually escalates to violence in many cases.” TeaJustMilk
2. Shut My Mouth? Struggle On Your Own While I Excel
“The school I currently work at went through an overhaul of assessment marking and submission policies.
Important fact: ALL Assessment marking was done “by hand” because we were still stuck in the dinosaur age.
So, the headteacher holds a meeting stating that all marking is to be changed to an online system where we would have to type a separate comment for each criterion for all assessment tasks rather than write an overall comment.
(You can imagine the uproar from all of the older teachers; they were super comfortable with writing, but can you imagine the two-finger typing method they were used to? Not to mention finding the letters!?)
I had already seen this change coming as all students went online, and it was me who implemented this change for my department.
I had a lightbulb moment when all that happened, so in my own time, I reworked every single assessment by reducing the number of criteria by HALF of what we had, so we would have fewer lines to mark. (More work for me but less work for everyone else, but meh, being a team player is always good right?)
I raised my hand in the meeting to tell them what I had done for all of us, but me being the youngest teacher there, they told me to put my hand down, shut up, and sit in my spot while they moaned and groaned about the changes.
Fine. So I sat there waiting for my time to go home.
Fast-forward a week when an assessment with 6 lines is released to be marked. It may not seem much, but if I have (6 lines) X (~50 words) X (60 students), it all adds up.
It took me about 5 days to completely finish all of the marking for my students in between all of the other teaching and social life activities I had.
But not for the other teachers.
All of them had to bring work home every night, and some were also coming in as early as 5 am as they were falling behind so badly.
(Not to mention the teacher who accidentally forgot his partner’s birthday as he sat at work marking while she sat at the dinner table waiting for his butt who never showed up until bedtime, LOL). The looks on their faces were priceless when I went home on time every day.
(Thank you, speech recognition.) This lasted for about three weeks until all teachers finally finished their work.
After all of the flames settled down, the headteacher calls me into her office and asks me how did I manage to complete my work so efficiently, so I pull out all of my assessment reworks and place them on her table.
I told her remember how you told me to put my hand down, shut up, and sit tight; I was trying to lighten our workload and help everyone out. Then I look up at her whiteboard in her office, and she had written up a plan which stated exactly what I had done for assessment reworking in my spare time to help.
So I turned around and said: Told you so. Then I walked out.
Now I’m the leader of assessment design for my department at school, and everyone cannot thank me enough for ‘giving back their free time’ every time an assessment comes around.
(I still haven’t told anyone about speech recognition, but that’s just my ace up my sleeve.)”
1. Betray Me In The Worst Way Possible? I'll Make You Regret It So Hard
“This all started about a little more than 3 years ago in winter when I (female, at that point, 24) met my ex (male, then 23) in therapy.
We were both patients. We soon became friends, and after a short time, he told me he liked me and wanted to be more than friends. I said no but that I’d really wish we could still remain friends. Yep – the friendzone; it sucks.
I knew that, so I didn’t expect it to happen. But he was quite cool about it, and we stayed friends and became better friends with time.
We spent a lot of time together and were there when the other needed us.
Want an example? I wasn’t feeling well one day, and it happened to be his birthday. His solution? He came over – it’s not as if we were neighbors; he had to take a bus and two different trains – with a cake he got on his way from an amazing bakery everyone loves around here to spend time with me and to make me feel better.
Fast forward some months, it’s autumn now. One weekend when he stayed at my place, we slept together, and from then on out, we had some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement, though I made it quite clear from the beginning that even though we were not a couple, I don’t share, so as long as we were sleeping together, I didn’t want him to have something with someone else.
He was okay with it, and we agreed if either of us met someone else we were interested in, we’d talk so we could end our arrangement first. So far so good.
Oh yes, I know that a lot of you are just shaking your heads right now…
But for quite some time, everything went well. It was an amazing friendship, and we of course enjoyed the benefits. People knew about us and our arrangement, and most considered us more like a couple than friends with benefits. We both met some friends of the other one.
I met his mom, and he met my brother. We were in contact every day either texting or talking on the phone and saw each other quite often.
So for the things coming soon and to understand my reactions, you’ll need some background about me.
The reason I was in therapy was that I suffered from severe depression. The only way to get out was with a lot of therapy and medication. I had to stay there (months, not just weeks) and had a lot of different ambulatory therapies.
This caused me to lose my jobs, and I had to terminate my studies. In the end, I decided to re-orientate myself and get an apprenticeship in an entirely different field which suited me more. The job search was quite difficult cause in that field there aren’t many offers, but a lot of people applying and I didn’t have any luck.
I was growing quite frustrated with the rejections mostly hearing that I was quite talented, but I wasn’t a fit for the team or being the second choice.
It was now early summer, and I got another rejection. This one was especially hard for me because I got my hopes up after some trial days since I thought I got along quite well with the team, and I really wanted this job since I saw that the boss was a stern but excellent instructor.
Of course, I told him about it, and he just said, ‘That sucks. I get off work at this time, wanna come over and get wasted?’
You bet I did.
That was the first time I was intoxicated, not just tipsy.
I ended up crying, vomiting all over his place, the whole package. My self-esteem was really low that night. I felt like I just sucked, wasn’t ever gonna be good enough, and I’d never fit in anywhere, not just job-related. I told him those things and also some things about our relationship, I believe something along the lines of how much it sucked that we weren’t in love.
He was really sweet and told me how amazing I am, that he was glad that we met and that he would never regret that, how he’d always be there for me, that even if I wasn’t their choice, I would always be his and so on.
When we made love later that night, it was different from the other times. It felt special. And – important detail – though I was on birth control, we always used additional protection, but not that night.
That was on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
The same week on Friday, he had plans with a friend. I knew about it, and though I’ve never met her, I knew about her. Never had a problem with it since I’m not the jealous type, and I used to trust my partners.
So everything’s fine, right?
Since I forgot I called him that night to chat a little. No problem — we just agreed to talk the next morning.
When I called him Saturday morning, she was still at his place, and something felt off.
When she talked to him from the background, they sounded just like a couple. Also, he didn’t have a sofa or some extra mattress, so I knew she slept in his bed, which didn’t have to mean anything since I slept at his place back when we were just friends, and he didn’t try anything (though a week later, we became friends with benefits), but it bothered me cause I thought it should occur to him I might have a problem with that.
But I decided to trust him and didn’t say anything. We decided to do something together on Sunday, and he’d call on Sunday morning to make plans.
That whole day I had a weird feeling but I told myself, ‘Trust him.
He has an easy way out if he wants her. He’ll value our agreement.’ In the evening, he didn’t answer my texts. I knew he’d slept with her, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The way he said hi when he called me the next morning confirmed my suspicions. I didn’t say anything cause I wanted to give him the chance to tell me himself. He did. He didn’t say he was sorry and that he’d made a mistake and was sorry to have maybe hurt me.
He just informed me that he’d slept with her. Not during the night but sometime during the day on Saturday. He even told me he considered valuing our agreement cause it might hurt me before they made love but decided against it.
That it was not being caught up in the moment but a conscious decision. He said he was sorry about breaking our agreement (not about hurting me, mind me), but he’d like to pursue a probable relationship with her cause she might be the woman of his dreams. I cried, asked him some questions trying to understand why, and at some point just hung up.
I had a complete meltdown that day.
Together with not having a job and not being able to find one this was too much for me at this time. So some days later, I was in a bad place and he called an ambulance for me.
I spent a night at the hospital and was institutionalized but let go after a few days. We met once shortly after I got out. I asked him if anything could be mended between us. Needless to say, it was useless.
We were civil but couldn’t agree on anything. He thought that because he called the ambulance, we were somehow even.
That summer was awful. Obviously. Near the end of it, I again spent some days in a clinic, voluntarily, but it got better afterward.
In that last clinic stay, I befriended a girl. When we met, I sometimes ranted about my ex. Her reaction mostly was something along the lines, ‘You know, we could just send my guys to rough him up. They’re on my side, therefore, yours.’ No way was I gonna say yes to that.
But it still bothered me. That it was just me that felt like dirt about the whole thing. So we came up with a plan.
Why not pretend I was pregnant just to mess with him? We came up with a whole story about me not telling anyone because I didn’t want my family to know and that I was going to give it up for adoption.
That it was a high-risk pregnancy because of the pills I took and all the stress. That I didn’t want to tell him, but felt he had a right to know and so on. And in the end, I’d lose the child because of the stress.
To clarify: the idea was mine; she just pushed me to go through with it. We tried to contact him with a fake profile, then she tried it with her real one. No reaction. He probably didn’t see. That was sometime in autumn.
I likely would have let it go at this point, but when we celebrated New Year’s Eve together, we happened to talk about it and decided to try one last time. I gave her his email, and she wrote him.
About how she’d gotten his email address from my phone when I wasn’t looking and that he should know I was pregnant cause it was his and that I was a mess and she gave him her number.
About an hour or two later, he called her.
Of course, I listened in on the conversation and had a hard time staying quiet. He was shocked and concerned. She told him a lot about how bad my situation was, about the adoption plans, and so on. I would have believed her if I didn’t know the truth.
I was quite happy about having ruined his New Year’s Eve and thought I’d hear from him pretty soon. Nope. The next day, I only get some motivational Happy New Year message from his mom.
Then nothing.
After some days, he finally texted me (he spent some days in a kind of clinic for crises, one where you don’t have to wait to get in, not much therapy, and you could still work if you wanted to), to digest the news.
I first said I didn’t want any contact. But he was having none of it. He of course wanted to know what was going on and wanted to be involved. Well, he got some lengthy texts from me about how he two-timed me and should just go to her if he wanted a child.
That he was never gonna meet the child. That it deserved a sane father and an intact family with no lying parent as a bad influence, how he hurt me, and some things that I knew would hurt him. He insisted to be involved and wanted the best for the baby.
And so on. When he tried to call, I declined.
Over the course of a month, we texted, talked on the phone two or three times, and met once. Always with some days of radio silence in between. One or two times, my friend would text or call him to get him to write again.
When we phoned, I always cried a lot, since we mostly talked about the betrayal and what had happened between us. Since I didn’t have to lie there, I steered it in that direction. He finally apologized for hurting me, admitting it was wrong, and not at all fair to me because he wanted to be involved and decide what happens with the presumed child.
It was more or less always he wanting to be involved and me telling him no, how the child deserved better, how he hurt me, also that he couldn’t have both me and his new girl in his life.
Sometimes I felt angry because of what had happened in the summer before or about some arrogant message from him, often sad and hurt, sometimes happy cause I finally was getting my revenge, sometimes guilty because he was struggling and trying to do the right thing but mostly guilty because there are women out there who are having high-risk pregnancies, losing children or other things about motherhood.
That was why after a month instead of going through with the original plan of ‘losing’ the baby, I just told him that I lied. I got an angry call and some angry messages, which I frankly deserved after the stunt I just pulled on him.
I was ‘a jerk’ and ‘the worst and most evil human ever,’ he’d ‘love to beat my teeth out,’ I’d never find love. His mother wrote me she hoped I’d survive my evilness.
That was it. Or so I thought.
About a week later, I got a call from a police officer. That I had to go to the station to make a statement. Yes, he definitely was angry with me. I had no idea what his approach was. Lying and pretending aren’t illegal. I didn’t ask for anything.
And around here it isn’t as easy to sue someone as in the States. My legal cost assurance just told me they couldn’t do much at this point. I should just go, listen to what I was accused of and give my statement.
So I did.
The accusation was false pretenses, which isn’t something judicial, and coercion, which by a very strict interpretation of a part of the legal definition given to me would be fitting for every little lie someone told. Well, I gave them my side of the story without lying or trying to hide anything.
The police officer said he had no idea if this would go forward and that he was interested in what a judge would decide. And he told me not to expect anything soon since this wasn’t at all important and would be the last thing on some judge’s to-do list.
A month later, I get a text from my ex that he didn’t want any more drama and asked me to leave him and his loved ones alone. Apparently, his complaint of an offense was declined. I got the letter some days after.
I was happy to comply.”
Another User Comments:
“As a revenge story, I would say the guy deserved what he got. As a form of therapy for you, I would say well done. He screwed up your life with no thought other than his own convenience.
It would not have cost him to do this the proper way. Your retaliation might not have been “nice,” but it was no worse than he did to you. Well done.” Baraboo
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