People Explain How They Outsmarted Someone To Teach Them A Lesson
29. The Pancake War
“Back in 1998, I was in the Hungarian army, and we were drafted. Conscription was abolished some 3-4 years later but we still got the opportunity to serve our nation, mostly with menial tasks like washing up and digging ditches.
I served in a signals regiment that was already almost disbanded: it only had two battalions. For some reason they were numbered 1 and 3, there was never a 2. Battalion 1 was a full one with three complete companies and a support squadron, but ours was only about 30-40 men, divided into two companies. This barely made them a squad, but they were called companies for some reason.
For some reason, Battalion 3 was always forgotten when it came to good things, including food. There was never enough for us. Battalion 1 usually went to the mess first, devoured everything, and left us only the scrubs, maybe some canned fish. It was ridiculous but we had to buy our own food or starve.
One day I was on company duty. It means that for 24 hours I was in charge to keep the company’s everyday schedule running, from waking up the soldiers in the morning to taking them for meals, reporting whenever the officer on duty wanted a report, and call whoever had to be called in case of an emergency.
Also, I was to tell the guys if a war broke out that day. (It never did.) It was the weekend, and for some reason, most of the battalion was out. There were only 2-3 men left from each company, so there wasn’t really much to manage.
Since I was an old fox I took steps to prevent Battalion 1 from snatching our food again. First I called the kitchen and asked what is on the menu because if it’s something nasty we don’t have to worry.
Pancakes, they said. W*F pancakes?? Are you kidding?! No, he didn’t, it was friggin’ pancakes, really. OMG we got to get some! I told the guys that we’ll go to lunch a bit earlier today so we’ll arrive before Battalion 1. Of course, they agreed. We got into formation, 5-6 guys and me, the lance corporal, and marched off to the mess, in tight formation, as per the stupid regulations.
We looked silly in a battalion formation, but at least nobody saw it.
As it happened I was not the only old fox in the forest. As we approached the quarters of Battalion 1, which was halfway to the mess, they were also pouring outside and getting into formation. There were some 300 of them. They finished it exactly as we passed by them, and their corporal gave the order to march.
So we marched head to head for a while, the big battalion and the tiny one. But we both knew that whoever reaches the mess first will take all the pancakes. It’s on.
A formation can only march at a certain speed without falling apart. The larger the formation the more difficult it gets to keep it in line. Incredible it may sound for anyone who has never been a soldier, but goose-stepping has to be practiced and it takes some time.
Keeping the pace with a whole company needs concentration. Yes, it may sound odd that we had to march to eat as if we were on a parade, but that was the rule. And we had a good reason to keep it. A few hundred meters away, right before the mess, there was the room of the officer on duty. And the major who was on duty that day was a particularly strict guy who mistook our army for the Prussian Royal Guard sometime in the late 19th century.
And I already saw him standing outside.
I sped up, and so did my little battalion. We broke step. How come? It was because Battalion 1 was hiding us from the major’s sight. He couldn’t see us and we could pull up with Battalion 1.
Seeing this their corporal also sped up. Battalion 1 followed him, but their steps were not as nice as before. Still, they were in formation.
The other corporal looked at me smiling. ‘Forget the pancakes’ was the message in his eyes. I looked at him and we stared at each other as we marched. I had a good reason for this. If he stared at me he couldn’t see what’s coming ahead.
‘Battalion 3, on the double,’ I said calmly into his face. My guys heard me and we switched to a faster pace.
Battalion 1 switched too. Their steps now sounded like rain. The major looked towards us already. The other corporal still stared at me. Tension grew. The soldiers stared at each other. Pancakes, man! It’s about the b****y pancakes!
I let Battalion 1 bypass us a bit, and then: ‘Battalion 3, run for it!’ I still needn’t say it loudly as I only had six men. We run!
Battalion 1 saw us running and immediately broke formation to race us. They lost all discipline and rushed towards the mess as an uncontrolled mob. Some even yelled ‘Hoorah!’ as if they were storming the enemy.
And suddenly I said: ‘Battalion 3, halt, and into formation!’ In a split second Battalion 3 was a tight and neat little formation again. But Battalion 1 has already lost all control and poured down the road in a very, very unmilitary way…
… until they were stopped by the loudest and angriest yelling I’ve ever heard in the army, and I seriously don’t understand how the major did not explode shouting this badly. ‘Battalion 1 HAAALT! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING! WHO IS IN CHARGE?! YOU’LL ALL GO TO JAIL RIGHT AWAY! WHAT ARE YOU, THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION STORMING THE TZAR’S PALACE?!’
Battalion 1 got no pancakes, but the longest speech of discipline they’ve ever heard and a week of particularly menial jobs throughout the base, without their weekend leave.
As we passed them, the major took time to point at us marching in a perfect formation with me stiffly saluting him, and lecture them about how we can keep a nice formation, as expected from soldiers, unlike the untrained, lowlife mob they are, the shame of our military, apes from the b****y jungle, etc.
Half an hour later we were marching back, our bellies full of pancakes, and a few trays in our hands as well.
We took all of them, even if we could never eat that many. They were still standing in attention in front of the major’s room. I think their stares towards us violated the Geneva Convention.”
28. A Petty Fight Over Some Wrapping Paper
“When I was young, I worked part-time at a small bookstore/gift shop. The lady manager hated my guts simply because she thought I was in a church. It’s weird because I never even mentioned anything about religion. I grew up in a church, but haven’t gone to the church for years at that point, and my view on religion vs non-religion is fairly close to an agnostic than anything…so she based her view of me on assumptions from sources that I have no idea about.
But then again, even if I was part of a church, her behavior would still not be justified. It’s kind of besides the point, but just a background story to sort of give you the idea about how she draws conclusions without much thought.
I am fairly quiet and fairly easygoing and like to get work done efficiently, and I never had any trouble in other workplaces.
While she treated all her other coworkers nicely, telling them jokes, listening to their inputs, and treating them like a friend, she would be incredibly curt, standoffish, and occasionally burst into long angry ridiculously condescending rants throwing in assumptions about my family and personality into the mix. Mind you, I never said anything to purposely make her feel this way (heck, I hardly said anything at all), but it was as if she listened to everything with the intent of twisting it into something to be angry about.
At some point, we had paper to wrap some of the ceramic gift products that we sold in the store. The paper was excessively big and hard to use for the products, so another young coworker courteously cut it and folded it into a size that was easier to use. A different older coworker (the manager’s sidekick who also liked making big deals out of nothing) made a long note (thinking I was the one who did it) with the gist of it saying, ‘Don’t cut the paper.
We don’t have time to be doing that and it is not necessary.’ Mind you, this store hardly ever had customers, so we have plenty of downtimes to cut it if one wanted to…
At one point after seeing the note, I mentioned it to the manager when I was alone with her and I made a comment saying, ‘Is it okay if I cut some of the paper?
It’s a bit easier for some of us to use. If some of the other people here don’t want it that way, I can even leave some of it uncut.’ I thought my statement was pretty reasonable enough, but she instead went on an angry tirade saying that I don’t try hard enough to comply with what everybody else thinks and my view on the matter is incredibly ridiculous.
And she went on and on like a crazy ferocious fire-breathing beast. That is all I can say because I have never seen anybody get so angry over something so small.
I never mentioned it again, and a few days passed and again the other young worker who initially cut the paper did it again for us to use (probably out of boredom with nothing else to do), but this time nobody left a note or seemed to notice.
When it was my shift and I had a customer who bought ceramic items, I wrapped them with the cut paper.
The manager was there at the time and surprisingly made a nice comment by saying, ‘Oh you wrap the items so neatly and quickly!’
And I told her after, ‘Yes, it’s really easy to wrap it neatly and quickly when the paper is cut.’
She didn’t say anything, but I saw her expression change before walking away.
Yes, it is an INCREDIBLY petty ordeal that didn’t even need to happen in the first place. But man, did it feel good to see her prove my point out of her own mouth after all the ridiculous yelling she did over it.
She kept her temper in check more often after that.”
27. Refuse To Ask For My Help? You'll Struggle To Find What You're Looking For
“I used to work in the electronics section of a department store, which also included taking care of the photo area. One day I went into work, got clocked in, and not ten seconds after I had stepped out on the floor, a customer came running up to me asking if Sarah was working today.
I told her I don’t know and was trying to add that I could find out, but ‘I don’t know’ was all the lady managed to process and it sent her into immediate apoplectic fits. ‘You don’t know?!’ she yelled at me. ‘How can you not know?! You work here, don’t you?!’
I calmly tried to explain to her that I had literally only gotten there a minute or two ago and that as a consequence, the only electronics employee I was absolutely certain was there at the time was myself, but she wanted none of it.
‘I’ll just go find someone who does know something!’ she said, then stormed off in a huff.
There was nobody at the electronics counter when I finally got there, but if the unduly angry lady had simply followed me over there, I could have checked the schedule to see if Sarah was on there and then called for her over the PA system. I get the feeling that still wouldn’t have been good enough for her.
Oh well.
After checking the list of what needed to be done for the day, I went back to the photo area to make sure everything was going fine back there. I did some routine checkups on the machinery and noticed that on the counter there was a red camera sitting on top of an envelope that had a name on the outside and a battery and memory card inside.
I’m sure a lot of folks reading this can already guess who the camera belonged to.
Anyway, I finished up there and headed back out to electronics, and about five minutes later Melanie, the head of the photo department who had also only come in a short time before, comes up to me and says she’s got a customer that’s looking for a camera that was left with us to work on, and have I seen it?
I look over at the customer in question and we of course immediately recognize each other.
‘Oh, I already talked to him!’ she blustered. ‘He doesn’t know anything!’
Instead of saying anything myself, I simply held up an index finger and then motioned for both of them to follow me. They do, though the customer does so under protest, muttering things like ‘I can’t believe we’re following him!’ and ‘This is a complete waste of time!’ just loud enough to be sure we could both hear her.
I left the two of them on the customer side of the photo counter, which was behind a slight partition so neither could see exactly what I was doing. Melanie watched with bemusement and the customer simply glared as I picked the camera and parts up, deftly put them back together, and then handed the whole thing over the partition, a wide, perfect smile on my face.
The look on her face as she took her camera back is one that will warm the deepest, darkest parts of my heart for the rest of my life.”
26. Switched The Bully's Instrument Oil With A Certain Smelly Yellow Liquid
“When I was in middle school I was in the school’s band. The brass section to be specific.
One of the other brass section members was an obnoxious jerk who was always scornful of others and made a lot of put-downs towards those who weren’t as good as he was. (And unfortunately, although he was a jerk, he was a VERY talented player, so the put-downs and insults were frequent). Anyways, two of my buddies and I realized that all the brass section used these little bottles of oil for either their valves (trumpet, cornet, tuba) or slides (trombones).
The oil was a rich golden yellow color and quite thin, almost the consistency of water.
Well, one day, after one too many insults and put-downs, I and my two friends came up with an idea. We… er… replaced the oil in this kid’s instrument case with another, more ‘natural’ liquid, also a golden yellow in color. Which he used to lubricate his valves.
And they continued to stick. So he used more. And they stuck more. And he used more. And then his instrument began to stink. Badly.
After the band director sent the instrument in for repairs, he just happened to meet up with our little trio when we were hanging out after school one day. He inquired as to whether or not we ‘did something’ to one of the bottles of oil in another student’s instrument case.
With angelic expressions, we, of course, had no idea what he was talking about. With a bit of a suppressed smirk, the band teacher said that if he ever had that happen again, he would have to do a more thorough investigation into who had done such vandalism… (and then he added)… even if the victim really, really deserved it.”
25. Keep Tailgating Me And I'll Turn Your Car Into A Dumpster
“I hate it when people tailgate me. I pull over and let them by mostly, try not to do any road rage/brake job crap, etc. Don’t flip people off, don’t yell..remain calm.
If a kid/animal/other driver causes me to need to do evasive maneuvers/sudden braking, there is no way they won’t hit me so I really try to keep a clear area around me.
Cruising with my son, sunny day, top-down, in my 1991 vintage BMW 325ic down Blackstrap hi recently, speed limit 35, rolling 40ish, lot of cops in Falmouth.
Tailgater climbing my butt. Really made me furious, plenty of room to pass, no traffic, just about to flip a blinker on, pull right and let them by.
What is this I spy in the road ahead? Looks like a ‘teachable moment’ to me.
Overstuffed black Hefty bag of trash laying in my lane.
Son in the passenger seat, going to get his driver’s license soon.
HMMMMMM… the guy behind me really getting on my nerves.
The bimmer I’m driving has a ‘sports suspension.’ This means I ripped the wheels, brakes, tires, shocks, struts, and springs off, and replaced them with $2,000 worth of German competition trash directly from the full race version of this car, the legendary BMW E30 M3, first-generation.
Think German Autobahn/racetrack/autocross sports car.
This car will change lanes so fast it will suck your eyeballs out of their sockets.
‘Jake, look at this idiot tailgating me, hate this stuff, no time to react, he will hit us if I need to stop fast for any reason. Watch this….’
If you have hung around with me at all you know that if you ever hear the words ‘Watch this’ coming out of my mouth, HOLD ON!!
The evil twin is in the room. Probably a good time to step back if possible, or leave, or put your jacket over your head.
Continued at my 40 mph cruise, steady as she goes, in my lane, jerk behind me can’t see the trash bag as he is busy inspecting my muffler 1/2 car length behind me and messaging on social media with his homies.
Run right up the big ol’ black bag of who-knows-what (I have been known to throw away anvils, safes, old brake rotors, outboard motors).
Like about 4 feet from it.
Jake seems to be braced for impact and has 2 hands on the ‘Oh crap handle’ (Poor child knows me well and heard the words ‘Watch this.’)
I give the wheel a quick flick into the passing lane, snap roll the car on/off its springs, and back into our lane (Rally driving term for this is ‘Swedish Flick,’ made famous by SAAB driver, Eric Carlson of Monte Carlo Rally fame).
It is often used to bounce the car and set it up for a parking brake 180 turn, (a maneuver best done in rental cars, especially on snow/ice, but that is another story.)
The whole move took less than a second.
A fast driving reaction time is about 2 seconds.
If you were paying attention and ready.
Remember the ‘2-second following rule’ from defensive driving class?
It is a good rule to live by. (Jake tells me they are teaching 4 seconds now.)
The car takes this all in stride. The hapless tailgater/object of my ire/victim of my sadistic streak, on the other hand, was caught napping on watch.
Rearview mirror; BA-BAM!!! Cloud of trash EXPLODES!! Over the roof, cascading over the windshield, a cloud of paper goods flying in the air, brakes coming on!
I think they are fully awake now. Probably changing their shorts. COOOOOLEST!
Glad the bag was not filled with surplus bowling balls! (would have really felt bad had someone gotten hurt, especially if It was us getting rear-ended by this b**b). He (or she) will probably follow a little farther back for a few days at least. Bet they thought I was a jerk.
We were laughing so hard tears were streaming.
Ahhh parenting. Poor Jake, what a role model.
Be careful out there.”
24. She Doubted My Skills Because Of Her Prejudice Against Me, So I Proved Her Wrong
“I am a pediatrician and do come across very anxious and tense parents – with whom communication can completely go off the rails with one single word uttered without giving a second thought.
But one mother remains in my thoughts as a burning memory.
I was working under a neurologist Dr. F in a tertiary referral hospital as a senior registrar and was assigned to do Epilepsy clinics independently. I was asked to see Miss P on my list. I went out of my clinic room to the waiting area and called out her name three times. No-one turned up!
I returned to my room disappointed when the nurse in charge rushed in and told me that ‘I had mispronounced the child’s name and that’s why mom wasn’t coming in’. I asked her to point her out to me, went out, apologized for my error, and politely invited them in. Mom and Miss P strode in behind me looking visibly cross, sat down, and in a huff rather rudely point blank told me ‘we have come to see Dr. F and not a junior foreign doctor.’ Taken totally aback, yet keeping my cool, I asked her to provide me with history, so that I could relay the history to Dr. F and come back with any different advice other than what I had to offer.
She told me ‘it’s all there in the notes!!’ Normally we need to take details on seizure frequency, severity, and changes besides side effects of medications.
I asked ‘Anything new since the last time we reviewed Miss P?’
‘You should read the notes before you see a patient’ she said rather curtly. I conveyed to her that I knew that Miss P has epilepsy and has been put in my clinic in an urgent slot as she was complaining of intermittent severe tummy pain.
I also described to her how I and Dr. F held separate lists and empathized with her for her frustration.
I was relieved when some further history was given in bits and pieces, in a rather unsatisfactory manner, as mom clearly could not disguise her disappointment with me!
I apologized for mom’s disappointment and said that I shall go across and ask Dr. F if he could see Miss P if possible.
I went and conveyed the story to him.
He silently came back with me to my clinic, popped his head in through the door, and told to a profusely gushing Mrs. P ‘ Dr. W here is a very senior clinician and I totally trust his judgment. If he cannot help you, neither can I,’ and turned around and unceremoniously walked away! I was truly astonished by Dr. F’s response!
Mrs. P turned around and there on docilely conveyed the rest of the history. I examined Miss P – and discovered she had mild jaundice. Knowing that the medications she was on could produce gall stones, I organized an emergency ultrasound of her tummy using my personal connections in the radiology department. I also called the pediatric surgeon on call and got Miss P to be reviewed the same day – all within the next 30 minutes.
I must say for not one minute did I show my exasperation – knowing how much poor little Miss P must be suffering.
As they left, Miss P thanked me profusely followed by her mother.
I received a ‘Thank you’ card from mom a week later – for my diagnosis and prompt action. Miss P had been operated upon 4 days earlier.”
23. Keep Bad-Talking Everyone? I'll "Accidentally" Expose You
“I worked for a food supply corporation as a ‘Delivery and Service Truck Driver’, and I worked with a very rude and objectionable narcissistic guy who felt he was smarter than everybody around him and that he was entitled to be the alpha in any work situation. We drove tractor-trailer semi-trucks and worked in 2-man teams. One driver would drive while the other would sleep to keep the delivery route moving without the need, if it were only one driver, to stop for 8 hours to sleep when he’d maxed out his legally available hours for driving/working.
The different routes would vary between about 20 to 36 hours each to complete.
As all of the drivers worked a rotating schedule through all of the routes as well as rotating with all of the drivers there was NO WAY to avoid working with this JERK and be forced to endure his company for those 20 to 36 hours at a time. He was dismissive, arrogant, abusive, condescending and a big bunch of other adjectives too rude for polite company.
(I’m not known for my politeness, but restraint is often the better part of valor.)
This guy’s mouth ran non-stop and he would ‘stream-of-consciousness trash-talk’ anybody and everybody… friends, enemies, family, romantic partners, his, mine, me to my face… anybody could/would be his target and there was no end to it.
The company we worked for treated all of the employees and each a guest to admission tickets to a rather prestigious sports event, playoffs for the World Series of US baseball, at a huge arena.
When the event was over (our team won) I found myself and my partner along with one of my friends from work, and an all-around nice guy, walking out of the arena alongside ‘the Jerk’ that was accompanied by his then partner. As we made our way outside ‘the Jerk’s’ partner introduced herself to us as he had not bothered to make introductions.
At this point I turned to him and asked him, as a setup to suggest he had previously been talking about her at work, ‘Steve, is this the same girl you’ve been seeing for a couple of months?’ To which he replied she was.
I then firmly stated in a tone and demeanor that the subject had been previously talked about, ‘Steve, SHE’s not FAT!’
My partner and my friend looked at me with a bit of shock at my comment, and the aftermath of the ensuing heated argument between Jerk and his partner surpassed any and all of my expectations. As I had guessed, Steve had no idea if he had or had not spoken on that subject at work because his trash-talking never stops.
And with the ferocity of the ‘discussion’ between the two of them, it came out that just a few days before he had told her how much better he thought she would look if she lost 10 pounds (4.5 kilos). They were going at it hammer and tongs! I was inwardly L***O!
I do feel a bit guilty for putting his partner in the middle of all that as she seemed to be a nice person, albeit with poor taste in men.
But then Steve is such a horse’s butt I can only hope that she could start to see that perhaps she could do better with men and move on to a guy that will treat her better.”
22. Creepy Guy Assaulted Me So I Got Everyone Against Him
“On my way to work one day, the train was delayed. By the time it got to the station, the train car was packed. I was standing perpendicular to the doors, squished with my back against the bars on the ends of the seats. Let’s call them ‘grates.’ Right after the doors closed, I felt a hand go under my jacket.
The guy tried to grab my butt but missed. I turned to look him dead in the eye but he just grinned.
This man had an unsettling face, perhaps even more so because he was proud and not the slightest ounce ashamed of lewd actions. To further paint a picture, he was a bone skinny punk, probably in his mid-40s, and not very tall.
I got really creeped out but there was no room to move and I couldn’t get off at the next stop for another 3–5 minutes. I felt him try to attempt a 2nd grab, and I swatted his hand away pretty roughly. He still had the same, creepy grin on his face.
Only seconds later, he tried again and grabbed me twice, once on each butt cheek.
This time, I was furious. I stared him down and shouted, ‘Care to tell everyone here what you just did to me.’ He just kept smiling and didn’t respond. I probably looked like a crazy person with my loud outburst but people were now paying attention. About a minute later, he still had the nerve to try again but this time, people were watching and one woman nearby shouted ‘hey’ at him.
He took this new attention as a sign to hold onto my butt instead of pulling away, knowing the train car was so busy that it would be hard for someone to intervene. This weirdo now has his hand latched onto my butt and that’s when I got so grossed out that I flew into a rage. Since he stuck his hand through the grate, I grabbed his wrist so that it would be difficult to get his hand through the grate and as he tried to pull back, his hand got stuck on a bar.
I intended to grip his wrist until I could get out at the next stop but he kept twisting his hand and even tried to bite my hand. Thankfully, his skinny, creepy face didn’t fit through the grate. He did slip away for a second, but I then got a hold of his thumb, afraid he was going to try something again. While I gripped his thumb, he vigorously tried to pull away and ended up cracking his thumb, only mildly.
I heard the crack and told him ‘good luck grabbing anything now.’
I then had this adrenaline rush go through me and I told him to get off the train before I purposely crack the other one. He was bent over in pain but refused to get off the train, stood up, and started threatening me! A gentleman then stormed over from a few feet away and proceeded to violently drag him out by his shirt.
He unnecessarily apologized for not being able to help sooner. I thanked him for ‘taking out the trash’ and he kindly accompanied me to fill out a report profiling the idiot.”
21. Being Rude Isn't Going To Get You Where You Wanna Go
“I worked as an admissions clerk for a juvenile detention facility.
My desk had a high counter in front so my information on youth could be protected. I had to check the visitors’ IDs and scan them with a metal detector, also enforce the rules such as no hats, no booze allowed in. The visits were allowed once a week for 2 hours. The rules and hours were sent to the families and posted on the top of the counter where they signed in.
After being checked in, I would alert the staff by radio to come escort families to the visitation area in the unit to which I also controlled the lobby and unit doors with a switch to the magnetic locks. Once the visitation started nearly all staff were observing the visits to ensure no contraband was being slipped in. It was hard to get an escort after without a significant wait.
Ironically, a woman and her bf arrived to see her son 45 mins late. I explained there might be a wait but we’d get them back asap. I scanned them with the detector they signed and I asked for their ID. The woman said she didn’t have hers. (?) I showed the sign and desk info saying no visitation without ID. She said, ‘You expect me to go back to the car and look for an ID?
You are wasting time on my visit!’ I told her she couldn’t go back without it. She argued that I was stupid and the guy with her could tell me she was the boy’s mother. I apologized and said please go get your ID if you have it. She turned around and said, buzz the GD door!!!! I buzzed the front door’s magnetic lock and as she exited she said I was a stupid witch.
She returned from the 75-foot walk, I buzzed her in and when she got to the counter she tossed the ID so that it launched off of the counter, bounced off of my face then chest, and landed on the desk in front of me. I breathed in deeply and nicely said, thank you, now have a seat.
By now an hour had passed. She sat in the lobby with her bf quietly as did I at my desk.
I continued working answering phones and doing paperwork. A half-hour later she probably caught on that I hadn’t radioed for her to be escorted. She came up to the desk and said, when are they coming to escort me back!!?? I responded, oh just a minute we are short on escorts. Then I waited another 5–7 mins to request her escort. When the unit person arrived he rescanned her and her bf.
She piped in about how she had to wait too long and wasn’t going to get a decent visitation in a very rude manner with him as well. Ah, but the burly 6′5” 275 lb unit guy in his powerful voice sternly said, ‘Ma’am, I understand your frustration but if you are going to come on this unit agitating our staff and youth I will not take you back.’ Ah, the beautiful sound of no retort and silence then the escort said, ‘buzz us in.’ Once that door closed it took a lot for me to not die laughing at her being shut down.”
20. Treat Me Like Trash? I'll Throw Your Keys In The Trash
“I was a server in a restaurant during lunch one day when these two ladies came in with four kids, all under the age of eight. I was not particularly busy during that shift, so I was very attentive to the ladies and children throughout their meal. However, the ladies were busy trying to chat with each other and ignored the children, and were oblivious to the fact that their unsupervised children were misbehaving as unsupervised children often do.
In fact, whenever I passed by the table to see if I needed to be of any service, the kids would notice me, ask for a bunch of random things, which I would either politely bring them if possible, or I would politely suggest they ask their mother for permission first if it was something like a milkshake which would be an additional charge.
The ladies would never even make eye contact with me after they placed their order, so I would quietly refill their drinks when needed while they kept yapping on at each other while their kids were just getting rowdier and rowdier.
The restaurant was pretty empty as there was a big thunderstorm moving in, so it wasn’t really a big deal about the kids until the moms (who never even gave me any attention when I was at their table) started sending the kids on field trips around the restaurant to find me whenever they ‘needed’ something. Those of you who have ever been servers know that if you are already taking great care of a guest, but then the guest keeps sending kids around to find you in the kitchen or wherever to get extra napkins (hmmm… I just gave them a giant stack PLUS wet naps for all the kids) or some more bread (that’s interesting… the two baskets full on their table are still fresh), you are about to get a stupid tip from these people.
They are obviously trying to make me feel like I haven’t been taking care of them, and now that they’ve ‘had to send the kids to hunt her down’ they will feel justified in stiffing me on the tip. So even though I know it’s coming…
As the sky starts to look even eviler outside, the group finally leaves, and of course, they leave a giant mess everywhere.
Food is matted into the carpet under the table, mashed potatoes are smooshed into the upholstery, there are (ahem) three baskets full of untouched bread with another three baskets full of breadcrumbs all over the place, and I get to work immediately on cleaning up the mess. I’m using that old server motivation of ‘Maybe they left my tip somewhere underneath all this mess, so if I clean it up really fast I’m gonna find it!’
Well, one thing I DID find was a full set of keys; house keys, car keys, gym key card, work keys, I don’t know how many keys, but probably at least a dozen things were on that fob. I stuck them in my apron pocket intending to turn them in to my manager. But by the time I got this exorcism-level mess cleaned up, I was pretty steamed about how those ladies had treated me and honestly, how they had treated their kids.
Then about 45 minutes after they had left, one of the kids comes into the restaurant, soaked by the roaring thunderstorm that is now in full force, and asks, ‘Did my mommy leave her keys here?’ and I realized at that moment that this lady must have gotten a ride to lunch with the other one, and didn’t realize about the keys until she had gotten all the way home in the thunderstorm, and then had probably emptied out her purse looking for them, then freaked out about where she had seen them last, and then realized she had left them at the restaurant!
Then she needed to hitch a ride back to the restaurant in this godawful weather and had sent her poor kid into the roaring rain to collect the keys from inside.
So back to, ‘Did my mommy leave her keys here?’ I walked the kid over to the now perfectly clean table and pretended to look for the keys as I truthfully answered, ‘Well, I sure don’t see them!’
And as the kid quietly walked back outside into the storm, I silently walked back into the kitchen and dropped the keys into the most disgusting trash can I could find.”
19. I Reminded Him Of Where His Priorities Should Lie Every Father's Day
“I was in the Navy a long time ago, and one of my jobs on the ship was to go to the ship’s Post office, collect the mail for the Engineering Department, and pass it out in each of the 2 fire rooms, the 2 engine rooms, and to the A-gang (auxiliary department).
I had been on the ship for about a year, by this point.
When I was new to the ship, I made friends with a guy named ‘Jack.’ He was cool, funny, and liked to go out most every weekend. We hung around various bars in the Norfolk area, and he was always trying to pick up the girls (okay, we both were).
Now please don’t think I’m some kind of chauvinist pig here, but I noticed that Jack – who was a relatively attractive guy – didn’t have very high… standards when it came to who he was going to hit on.
It seemed to me that he was more interested in quantity than quality.
Anyway, most nights we went back to the ship, but some nights we didn’t go straight back.
About six months after I was assigned to this ship, we had something called a dependents cruise. This had to do with going up the Chesapeake Bay to change out missiles and other ordinances at the Naval Weapons Station.
This was a slow cruise, that usually took all day, and there was usually nothing else assigned to do. The Navy allowed people to bring their wives and children on the ship for the duration of the cruise, usually about 8 hours.
This was when I met Jack’s wife and daughter.
Jack’s wife was very pretty, very nice, and very attentive to him. She would get up from the table in the mess decks multiple times to get him a refill on coffee or soda and to get their 4-year-old daughter some more water or milk.
His daughter was adorable. I remember thinking something like, ‘Why is this guy out all the time, chasing girls when he is married to her and has this adorable daughter!?’ Needless to say, our friendship took a turn for the worse, at this point.
It was probably three months later when I was delivering mail to the #2 Engine Room, that I passed out what looked like three birthday cards to Jack.
All the married guys were getting cards as it was in the vicinity of Father’s Day. I stood there and opened a letter I had received from one of my sisters, (did I mention that I also worked with Jack?) and saw Jack’s face go white as a sheet. It seemed that only one of the cards was from his wife, the other two were from two different women, wishing him a happy Father’s Day!
The next year he got four cards.
By the time Father’s Day rolled around the next year, I was out of the Navy, so I only sent him two! I wonder if he ever figured it out! He certainly never seemed to stop chasing women.”
18. I Left My Bad Roommate With No Extension Cords And Disrupted His Game
“I’m going to go right ahead and say that this wasn’t the coolest thing I have ever done.
I was living in a room in an apartment above a restaurant in Cambridge, MA.
One of the rooms in the apartment opened up, so I had my little brother, an undergraduate in electrical engineering, come move in with me.
We had a third roommate, we were all ‘tenants at will,’ there was no lease, and this guy was just a professional victim. He was always contacting the landlord about this or that problem, but our rent was so low, so I always preferred to just fix the problems myself by replacing things that broke with identical units, because I didn’t want the landlord to raise the rent.
This difficult roommate’s family lived a little west in the beautiful town of Newton, and I could tell that what this person wanted was freedom from living with his family, but he had nothing on the line – if he is evicted, he goes and stays back at home in Newton, just down the street. If I get evicted, my little brother and I head over to the Salvation Army in Central Square until we can find a new place.
In any case – this guy was difficult to live with. I was usually out at work in the Longwood Medical Area, but my little brother (a college student with a loose schedule) let me know that the third roommate was usually home and cooking in the kitchen, or playing music very loudly.
Personally, none of that mattered to me. I just needed to microwave a little bowl of Campbell’s soup for dinner every night at ~8:00 pm, otherwise, I got my food at the hospital cafeteria.
What mattered to me was, at this time, I was doing a lot of early-morning Guinea Pig b***d draws to support ongoing “getting the jab” studies. This procedure is a bit difficult, as you need to draw a relatively large volume of b***d via the vena cava- which is a large vein that rests right next to the heart.
The point is, I had a lot of stress regarding this, but this guy would play Call of Duty (the video game) all night long.
I spoke to him about it, he stopped for a night, and then he just continued again.
As this continued, my patience ran thin. Passive aggressively, since he wouldn’t be respectful, I would switch off the circuit breaker to his room, shutting off all of his electronics. I would stand by the breaker for him to come out and then just say ‘whoops, I think something happened with the breaker.’ He was a bit odd and didn’t want any trouble, so he would just go back into his room, wait for me to go back to bed, and then turn the breaker back on.
Cue Call of Duty explosions and noise all over again.
Then, finally, we get a letter. Indeed, it’s a rent increase. The issue was that it was still, from my perspective, below-market.
I indicated to the third roommate that I was interested in accepting the new rent, and I would cover my little brother as well. The third roommate, though, told me it was his intention to NOT accept the rent increase and to call his attorney instead.
I spoke with him a few times to reconsider, but he didn’t care – what’s the worst that could happen for him? He goes back to Newton?
So I had to start making moves. We had one month. I found a new place – a 1 bedroom apartment, my brother and I could partition the apartment appropriately so we would both have a room, and our own kitchen.
I had some coin saved, so I put it on the apartment ASAP, and my brother and I slowly began to move our belongings there.
August 21st, and my brother and I had moved everything to our new place without telling the third roommate at all. We went into our old apartment for the last time, collected all the extension cords that powered everything in the kitchen, all the while we heard music and Call of Duty blasting from this guy’s room.
With all the extension cords in a plastic bag, essentially rendering most of the equipment in the kitchen useless, my brother left the apartment. I went over to the circuit breaker outside my old room, flipped the breaker to the guy’s room. I heard the music and Call of Duty noise stop abruptly.
I turned, left the apartment, locked the door behind me, took the train to my new apartment with my little brother, and slept like a baby that night.”
17. All Aboard The Passive Aggressive Express
“I worked as a railroad brakeman from 1979 to 1984. I was there long enough that my seniority level was in the middle of the pack about halfway through my tenure. I could hold down some jobs without getting bumped by higher-seniority guys, at least for a while, but some popular jobs I could never bid on and win because they would usually be won by somebody with higher seniority.
One time, for a period of a number of months, I was able to hold down a pool crew job, however, I was the youngest seniority-wise of the two brakemen on the job. Seniority convention was that the senior brakeman got to choose whether he wanted to work the head end (locomotive) or the rear end (caboose), so I usually worked the locomotive. However, if the senior brakeman was on personal, sick, or vacation leave, the junior brakeman could pick which end he would work, regardless of the seniority of the extra brakeman sent to protect the senior brakeman’s job.
One day, my crew was deadheaded by van to a midpoint station to run a train back to our home terminal. We had an extra brakeman (off the extra board) senior to me, so that meant I got to choose which end to work. Normally, a brakeman would choose the rear end because that was safer and easier work. As we were waiting around on the station platform to make the exchange with the crew that was bringing the train into town, I could tell by the talk between the extra brakeman and the conductor, that the extra brakeman thought he would be working the caboose.
He was senior to me, and I had already been working for several years, so how he didn’t know this seniority rule is hard to explain.
I probably should have brought it up with him on the spot, and stated that I was going to work the caboose, but I didn’t. Here’s what I did instead: The train was being brought up to the station by the inbound crew, and we were going to do a running exchange, i.e., the train would not stop, only slow down enough where everybody could get safely off and on.
I saw where the extra brakeman had stationed himself to board the caboose, so I stationed myself about 50 feet down the platform closer to the direction the train was coming from. When the locomotive came by me, I let it go by and did not get on. I turned my head towards the extra brakeman, and I could see that he was totally confused by my not boarding the locomotive.
I added one more ingredient: Just before the locomotive steps got even with him, I said, ‘You’d better get on.’ He got on the locomotive, and I ended up boarding the caboose as was my right.
When we got to our home terminal about five hours later and were boarding the van to go to the yard, I overheard the extra brakeman asking the conductor about what I had done, and the conductor backed me up by stating that that was the way seniority worked on freight trains between a job’s regular brakeman and an extra brakeman.
The extra brakeman was a nice guy and didn’t raise a fuss, but I still wonder how he went through at least three years of work and never came across a situation where that seniority convention came into play.”
16. Won't Pay Rent? I'll Wreck Your Bike
“When I was in my last semester of undergrad, I had possibly the worst roommate ever.
Not only was he cheap, (he convinced me and the 3rd roommate to pay the apartment deposit citing he’ll give it to us later as some of his coin was stuck in his previous house: we never got it back) he was a huge online poker addict eating up all our bandwidth so much so that I couldn’t stream YouTube videos.
He would get inebriated and drive his bike really fast and would think it was cool (I sat behind him once by mistake and vowed never to sit pillion behind this guy again.) Let’s call him A.
By the end of the semester, we all kept to each other and had minimum interactions. One day I was drinking at my friend’s birthday party when I get a call at around 11:30 pm that A has been in an accident and that I should get back home asap.
Just that morning A had angered me over something inconsequential and I really didn’t want to leave the party since I knew the other roommate would take care of him.
But for some inexplicable reason I felt I wasn’t doing the right thing so decided to head home early. As it turned out, big mistake.
I knew something was wrong when I went to unlock the door as I could see b***dstains on the handle.
On entering, I saw something I’ll probably never forget.
A was standing a few feet away from me. He had at least half a dozen cuts on each hand. I couldn’t tell the exact number cause there was so much b***d on him. His face was even worse with half his skin over the right eye protruding outside. He had so many cuts and was bleeding from so many places I was numb for at least 30 seconds.
His jeans were completely ripped and they had turned red as well. He wasn’t wearing his shirt anymore but I could see some parts of it stuck to his wounds. All in all, it was the stuff of nightmares.
I and the other roommate cleaned up his wounds for over an hour and made sure they didn’t get septic. He point-blank refused to go to the hospital saying that the cops might confiscate his bike and put him in jail for driving under the influence (the reason he got into an accident was cause he was driving really fast and hit a crossing stray dog) I found that really stupid but he was inebriated, hurt, and adamant so we dropped it.
He promised that he’d go in the morning when he was sober.
Anyway, so we put him to bed and reassured him to ask us for anything. The next morning he wasn’t home so we figured he had gone to the hospital on his own. Later in the day when I saw him he was bandaged up and told me that his parents were coming to pick him up.
(Not once did he thank either of us for taking care of him and he didn’t even have the decency to apologize for being a doorknob for the past few months.)
Well, so his parents came, spoke to us briefly and took him back home. Before leaving I told him that we still had to pay rent which he said he’d send us once he was home.
Not only did he not pay the rent, but he would also lie that he’d do it the next day or that the bank was closed or some BS excuse. Oh and neither did his parents tell us thanks for saving their kid from bleeding out, instead they told us we shouldn’t have let him drive when he was intoxicated. Yep. They were that delusional.
Anyway, at the end of all this, I had had enough. The bike that was wrecked in the accident was still lying in the garage and I decided that I wouldn’t let this guy get away with it so easily. So every day for about 3 weeks, I’d go to his bike and remove some part of it and chuck it away. I even googled what parts are the most important of that particular model and I made sure I wrecked it so bad that it was impossible to fix it without spending a lot.
I even invited a couple of my friends to mess it up and boy was it fun.
The best part? Since it was involved in an accident there was no proof of what I did to his bike and he never found out.
Was it petty of me? Most certainly.
Did I enjoy it? Oh yes.
Did he deserve it? 100%.
Passive-aggressive? Yep.
Oh, and did I mention I also broke the remaining tail lights that weren’t already broken in the accident.
With parts of his own bike.”
15. Egotistical Actor Forgets His Lines And I Refuse To Help Him
“As a young actor right out of college, I got a job working at an old, well-established theater in a small, picturesque Virginia town. The venue had just been taken over by a new artistic director, a man who had directed me in summer stock while I was still in school and who liked my work.
The former artistic director, a man I’ll call Ed, was also working as an actor in the company that year.
At first, he seemed perfectly pleasant, a larger-than-life fixture in the little community who was quick with a joke or humorous anecdote. As time wore on, however, it became clear that he was an egotistical pot-stirrer who didn’t necessarily want his successor to succeed.
In addition, he could be pretty jerky to junior company members, of which I was one. Not yet a member of the stage actors union, I was required to perform menial chores and maintenance that Ed and the other union members could not be asked to do.
He was known to take advantage of this, treating some of us like personal servants. That got old quickly.
The theater world is a tight community, and actors always look out for one another, especially when in front of an audience. Anyone who has done even a handful of performances knows that, in live theater, things go wrong. People are late for entrances, lines are dropped, and props sometimes break or don’t make it on stage.
One of the earliest skills an actor develops is how to recover from those situations without breaking the reality of the play. If an actor ‘goes up’ (forgets his or her lines completely), we are trained to steer the show back on track. Someone will say the line for the actor if they can, or if not, someone will say something that reminds the actor what he or she is supposed to say.
In the company’s production of Lillian Hellman’s ‘Little Foxes,’ a drama about the greedy machinations of a wealthy family in the post-Civil War American South, I was cast as Mr. Marshall. Marshall is little more than a plot device in the story, a businessman from the North who bargains with the family to help them get their cotton to market, thus setting up the remainder of the play.
I had one scene early in the show with Ed, who played one of the show’s leads.
One night, during a performance of ‘Little Foxes,’ Ed went up. I had just delivered my line, and he was supposed to respond with something to the effect of, ‘If we cannot bring the cotton to the gin, we shall bring the gin to the cotton.’ Instead, he paused, looked at me with the familiar, deer-in-the-headlights expression of an actor lost, and said ‘… That’s a very fine sentiment… Mr. Marshall.’
Had this been anyone else, anyone who had treated me with a modicum of respect, I would have saved him. I would have seen a fellow actor in trouble and responded accordingly. Instead, I saw a jerk who had been treating me like dirt to be scraped off the bottom of his shoes.
I pulled the prop pocket watch from my vest, gave it a glance, and said, ‘Well, I must leave for my train.’
And with that, I exited the stage.”
14. Rude Client Ends Up Costing His Employers Lots Of Dollars
“At the time I worked in an ad agency and we did lots of different jobs for our client which was a large company with more than 30,000 employees.
These jobs could include ads, brochures, etc. Basically any form of communication between a company and the public and its customers.
Our clients were very demanding, gave us short deadlines after they had sat on the project for weeks doing nothing, and were often high-handed and rude.
Our contract with them meant that we issued quotes for each project which they had to approve.
For example on a tiny project for a limited number of brochures, the cost of the printer might be $60,000. Normally we add on a 30% profit margin so the cost to the client would be $78,000.
But the clients were being particularly abrasive and rude and demanding, so we thought forget them and we just arbitrarily decided to whack on an extra $30,000 rudeness tax bringing their cost to $108,000.
As they were rude and nasty, we did this all the time, saying to ourselves, that person was nasty as heck in that last meeting.
Let’s add an extra $20,000 to their next project, so that rude remark cost their company $20,000.
Now this money didn’t come out of their pocket but rather their employers but good enough for me.
The account I worked on was insanely profitable for my employer.
We also got bored sometimes so we would decide to catch a cab to the downtown shopping area a few miles away and would always charge the cabs to the client company. The cab forms just included a reference to a job number and no explanation of what for as we used cabs all the time.
The client spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on cabs for itself so our little “fudge you” with the cabs was too small to be even noticed.
After all, for the ad agency and the media agency to go to a client meeting first thing in the morning at the company’s offices, meant 6-8 people catching cabs from home to client office and back to the media agency and ad agencies offices, with each return trip per person being around $100 in cab costs. The client company’s offices were on the outskirts of the city.
So these meetings cost them $600-$800 just on cab costs alone for just 1 of many meetings.
So we stuck it to them for being rude and felt very good doing it.”
13. My Sarcasm Rushed The Snobby Food Critic Out Of There
“There’s this rich snobby food critic who worked for the local newspaper and she happened to be in the 5-star restaurant my sister worked in as a cook that served European cuisine. I’m not a wealthy person myself, but at the time I was working on average 90 hours a week and brought in close to $4,000.
My joints ached, I was chronically tired from barely sleeping, and never had time to do anything. I myself worked in a fine dining restaurant and it was for a major league baseball team. When you work for a sports team, they will work you to death depending on which department you were in. I was inside the stadium from 4 in the morning until 10:30–11:30 at night.
Once I worked literally 30 hours straight with no sleep whatsoever. I came in at 4 am on a Saturday and did not get off of work until the following day on Sunday at 2 pm.
I finally had the day off after working 16 days straight logging close to 200 hours of work within those 16 days. I made $1,600 for those 2 weeks and after a very loooong nap from the sleep deprivation, I decided to get something to eat.
I decided to go to her job. I still had the work clothes I accidentally fell asleep in but was too tired to change. I hopped in my raggedy clunker and went in. I was that tired still after the nap that I was beyond not caring. I get that way when I got that tired and worn out.
The snobby little food critic was sitting near the entrance and was trying to get customers’ opinions about the place.
All I said was hello to her and to be nice because she looked up at me. I know I wasn’t dressed to the tee to be up there, but I didn’t give a darn at that moment. She saw I wasn’t sporting the best either and she asked in a snobby tone ‘What is a person like YOU doing in a very exquisite and expensive place?’ I sarcastically told her I was outside panhandling and stole a woman’s purse not too long ago so I could eat here.
My sister and the owner (her boss) heard what was being said and they closed the kitchen door and I could hear them dying from laughter in the back-they knew I become a smart alec when someone asks me something stupid and ignorant. I get very ornery when I’m that tired, but who isn’t when you just spent two entire weeks sleeping four hours. It took me an hour and a half to travel by public transit to and from work just to be there and this is why I didn’t get any sleep on top of the long hours.
She didn’t pick up on my sarcasm and she ran the heck out of there scared. She never reviewed the place or came back, lol!”
12. Steal My VHS Tape? I Won't Return Your Deposit
“When I was in music college, I sublet my bedroom of the apartment that I shared with roommates out to a student who was just doing the Summer session while I was taking the Summer off to be with my family and work.
I rented it out to a nice kid, and I left all of my furniture there for him to use. He gave me the security deposit, and all was well.
At the end of the Summer, he left and went back home the day before I got back into town. When I got back, everything looked ok and I was going to mail him his deposit back.
Within a day or 2, I went into my closet to take out my VHS tapes that I stored there for the Summer, and I was going to watch one of them with a friend. It was a drum instructional video made by the drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
When I popped it into the VCR, one of my other videos came on instead.
I popped the video out, and it had the correct title that was stickered on the tape, so it threw me off for a minute. Did somebody tape over my video? Then I looked at the title tag stickered onto the tape, and it was on a little crooked. Then I went into my box, and sure enough, the case of the movie that came on instead of my drum video was empty.
It turned out that he was a big Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, and he stole my drum video, but took the tag off it and put it on another VHS tape of mine, and put it in the drum video case. He was probably thinking that by the time I noticed, he’d be long gone.
I still had his $320 security deposit that I hadn’t mailed out yet.
Shortly after, there was a message on my answering machine from him, and for me to call him back. He was obviously calling to get his deposit back.
Because of his act of theft and deception, after I nicely rented my room to him with all of my furniture, TV, and everything, I didn’t feel too compelled to give him back his deposit.
Instead, my current roommate and I decided to fabricate a crazy story, and my roommate would call him back and tell it to him.
To maximize the entertainment, I went to Radio Shack and bought one of those $4 recording microphones that you attach to the phone, and connects to a tape recorder. Then we could share the laugh with our friends.
She called him acting like she just called to say Hi and chat. After some initial small talk with him, she happened to nonchalantly mention that things got a little crazy that week.
Naturally, his response was: ‘oh yeah? Why?’
She then proceeded to tell him that I noticed that my drum video was gone and that I accused her of taking it, and I went ballistic on her and beat her up until the cops came and arrested me. I was now sitting in jail for the incident awaiting my day in court, and she was going to testify against me.
His response consisted mainly of ‘oh yeah?!’ ‘wow!’ And ‘he’s gonna feel stupid when he finds his tape after causing all of that trouble.’ After elaborating the details of the story with him, she brought the discussion back to small talk and concluded the conversation.
When they were saying bye and wishing each other the best in their respective futures, he added: ‘and lock him up!’ And that was that.
He never did bring up his security deposit after hearing that story, and that was the last communication with him.
He admitted to nothing and seemed to be ok with the incident that was told to him, with no hint of remorse or guilt about his theft being the catalyst that led to my supposed violent assault on my roommate, which supposedly led to my incarceration.
With how it all ended, his stupidity gave us a laugh which made us glad that he took my video, and I kept his security deposit which would’ve been enough for him to buy 10 copies of that video.
I probably still have that taped conversation in a storage box of cassettes somewhere. After 22 years, maybe it’s time to find and listen to it again, and laugh about it with friends over some drinks.”
11. My Foolproof Plan Makes It Difficult For Bad Drivers To Get Back In Their Car
“I have trained my children to get out of the car so I can park. Please allow me to explain, my children are all over the age of 10, I live in the U.S. I drive a small car, and I have 5 years of experience driving large vehicles into small spaces (think a 30 foot long Hummer limo into a shipping container with 2 inches down each side.)
Many parking lots in the US use parking lots where all of the cars are parked perpendicular to the lane of travel, and for some reason, we citizens have an affinity for LARGE trucks and SUVs. We are also very self-centered and obsessed with our cars. My children have not dinged a car since they were 5 years old because I understand the love affair that people have with their cars, and many people don’t pay attention to when they get out of their cars and will chip the paint on the car next to them or even leave a small dent.
I understand taking up two parking places because you have a nice car, and you don’t want to take a chance that someone will damage it through their carelessness. I have several members of my family who will routinely take up two spaces at the far end of a parking lot and walk. If you do this I will respect your decision and leave you alone.
But if you park within about the first five rows, I will stop my car near the half-space that you left and three doors will open without my saying a word, three children will get out and walk behind your vehicle, and I will leave about two inches between my passenger’s side mirror and the side of your car. I will not touch your car, I will not hang over the line with my own vehicle, but I can promise… you WILL be climbing in from the passenger’s side to be able to drive away.
And to defend me in advance, if your vehicle is too big for you to fit it into a parking place, either park farther away, get a smaller vehicle or learn to park. If I can pull a full-size truck into a parking place, so can you…”
10. He Cut In Front Of Me And Then I Had To Help Him Catch His Train
“I live in NY but am from London and was back in Surrey briefly whilst working up in town. I arrived for the early train at the local suburban station.
As I waited in line for my ticket, bleary-eyed and staring down at my phone, I suddenly had ring-side seats for the boldest push-in of my 33 years on this earth.
A tall, thin, slightly red-in-the-face gentleman in an ill-fitting suit assumed the position in front of me, unabashed by the now tense situation he’d created. Needless to say, this didn’t thrill me, as at that time in the morning everyone is in a bit of a hurry and generally doesn’t suffer fools who interrupt their routine.
I looked around to the guy behind me to exchange a ‘is he serious?’ look.
He obliged. I turned back to our new queuing neighbor and politely said:
‘Scuse me, sir, I think the line starts back there.’ Now…what he said next wouldn’t have been so shocking but for his demeanor.
‘Yeah?’ He awkwardly points to the BACK of his head ‘you see that?’ (To which I felt like saying ‘no, you’re facing me,’ but didn’t want to spoil his delivery.) ‘That’s the back of my head, and you’d better get used to it because I’m here now!’ Verbatim, seriously.
And let me remind you, this wasn’t Harlem or Hackney, this was Coulsdon South! As I stood, aghast, he turned around and shuffled forwards. The only option I had to take things further at that point would have been physical, and that’s not really my thing. So, half smiling at the bizarreness of the situation, half angered, I watched him get to the front of the line.
At this point, as he stood at the ticket machine, I am not sure if the guys in charge of karma were looking down thinking ‘nah, we can’t let that one go’, but his train (which was not my train) began to pull in.
To my intense, inner satisfaction he went to pieces. Clearly, the three Shredded Wheat (and five cans of Monster) he’d had for breakfast weren’t helping now.
I seized the opportunity and strode forward to reinstate some focus on the transaction. Asking him which station he needed to go to and even pressed one of the buttons for him.
Whilst I tried, he never looked me in the eye as he dashed off. He made the train.
Morally, it was a knockout.”
9. If You Sneak Up Behind Him, Be Prepared For The Consequences
“I was a buck sergeant in the Army, decompressing with a large number of my fellow soldiers at a very rough, honky-tonk Texas roadhouse.
Things were getting really out of hand, especially with regard to a thoroughly soused PFC in my squad. A little, wiry fellow with a prankish sense of humor, he had got it into his head that sneaking up behind people, smacking them good and solid across the back of the head and then scampering away unseen was a great lark.
This was bad news for me since inevitably I would be held accountable for his behavior, given my rank.
The Armed Forces do NOT look after their own in this regard, and I was certain to be punished along with him if things got further out of hand.
A serious problem would certainly emerge if he suddenly decided to whack a local instead of a fellow soldier. This would lead to an all-in donnybrook, which the cowboy owners of the bar would blame us for (since they could charge the local base a fortune for ‘damages’).
To cover my butt, I informed my superior, a platoon sergeant, of what was transpiring. He was a thin, bookish-looking individual with a scholarly expression and round glasses, totally unimposing and civilian in appearance.
He noted my concern somewhat dismissively, remarking only ‘Well, let me know if XX creeps up behind me,’ and went back to his conversation. I felt a little ignored, but, sure enough, a couple of minutes later the inebriated reprobate sneaked up behind the E-7.
I whispered, ‘He’s right behind you.’ The platoon sergeant, without even lifting his gaze from the farm girl he had been in earnest conversation with, let loose a lightning jab over his shoulder, connecting squarely with the face of the mischief-maker and knocking him out cold. He then nodded matter-of-factly at me and went back to his personal life.
I dumped the poor PFC in the back of a friend’s pickup truck and the night proceeded without further problems. The fellow woke up with two chipped teeth, a sore jaw, and absolutely no recollection of the previous night.”
8. You Want Me To Crash The System? If You Say So.
“At the start of my software engineering career (decades ago) I was given the task to advise another engineer on how to use the interfaces for our operating system to write a device driver. This was about 6 months before the release. After a couple of months, I advised my manager that this other engineer was ignoring my advice and dodging calls. I told them that though the engineer knew the device inside and out, he was flailing on writing the driver for our system.
My manager told me to not worry. After many versions of the driver, all of which crashed our system, with about three weeks to go before it had to be released, my manager assigned me the task of rewriting the driver.
After two weeks of working weekends and nights, with my manager constantly checking my progress and trying to pressure me to work faster, I told my manager I had the driver done on a Friday afternoon.
Because of the tight schedule, he asked me to do a code review with a senior engineer. That senior engineer pointed out a couple of good changes to make, but also one that I knew was wrong and told him.
Late in the day, my manager asked me how the code review went and I told him that there were a couple of good suggestions I had implemented and they worked great.
I also told him that one of the suggestions was bad and would cause a system crash. His response was ‘make that change.’ I said I knew it would crash the system and tried to explain why. He got exceptionally angry and told me he didn’t care and that the other guy knew more than I did (which admittedly he did). Then he said, ‘Don’t go home until you’ve made the change.’
I was very annoyed by the manager’s attitude. I had already been putting in long hours over the last couple of weeks to recover from his bad decision to rely on an engineer whom I had told him was not going to succeed. So, I stayed late making the change and running tests. Sure enough, the system crashed. So, I went home and enjoyed my weekend.
On Monday morning, my manager came to me with a growling attitude and asked if I had made the change the reviewer suggested. I said ‘yes.’ He asked how it worked out. I told him ‘the system crashed as I had predicted.’ He asked if I had worked over the weekend to fix it. I told him ‘no, I just did what you told me to do and then enjoyed my weekend.’ His face turned bright red and he started to yell at me to make it work.
I told him that I had already removed the change and scheduled time on the test system to rerun the tests. If looks could kill, I would have been dead. I got some satisfaction at the time paying him back for his bad decisions and stupid attitude.
The postscript to that story is that a bug was discovered in the driver after it was released. The bug was related to the problem the senior engineer had suspected existed, but for which he suggested an incorrect fix.
My passive-aggressive action in response to the rude and abusive treatment of my manager ultimately resulted in a bad experience for our users. The silver lining is the experience taught me to be careful to avoid being pushed into and pushing others into malicious compliance.”
7. My Dad Stood Up Against My Bully For Me
“I was one of those kids who was bullied in high school— not so much actively humiliated but mostly ignored. With one exception, and that was a person I will call Jeff.
Jeff whispered nasty things to me under his breath in art class. We lived near each other and he said nasty things at the bus stop. He sneered at me and called me nose picker and Lizzie Borden.
Finally, one day we were both walking to the bus stop and he threw a big tree branch at me, and I realized it was time to go to my parents, who were divorced.
First, you have to know something about my dad. His fits of anger when he feels that he’s being deceived are legendary. When he’s mad, he’s MAD (but not at us). I’m not condoning his actions. I’m simply prepping you for the next part of the story.
He once got lost on the tollway and went back and forth paying toll after toll and getting more and more agitated as we all do when we’re lost. Finally, he got more directions and explained to the next toll taker he had already paid the toll many times, but the guy didn’t care.
Dad ended up screaming and throwing the change at the toll taker.
Another time, we went out on a rented boat that turned out not to work. Same thing. The guy who rented us the boat refused to refund our dollars and again my dad threw a bunch of change at him, most ending up on the ground.
Back to the present. I was ashamed of the bullying because I figured it was justified and there was something wrong with me.
But one day my dad was visiting and I mumbled that this guy Jeff, who lived near us, was bullying me, and I described what he had done.
Up until then, my dad had been very preoccupied with the divorce and moving and his new life. So I was unprepared for what happened.
When he heard what Jeff had done, he got livid. He wanted to call Jeff’s mother, but the number was unlisted. My dad said words that are forever etched in my memory ‘Well, he doesn’t have an unlisted house.’
He thunders in the direction of Jeff’s house and I meekly follow. Then we were in the middle of Jeff’s living room with his mom, my dad in full red-faced mode brusquely telling her what her son had done.
She called, ‘JEFF COME INTO THE LIVING ROOM. Of course, he had heard the whole conversation. He meekly slithered his way in, knowing what he was in for.
‘Is this TRUE????’ his mom asks.
Big old bully Jeff, who was really a scrawny kid, meekly nodded his head up and down. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. He didn’t say a word the whole time.
The obvious double-teaming ensued, and I don’t remember what was said (I was 16), but believe me, I don’t think it’s something Jeff will ever forget.
As I stood there and watched the show, my feeling was not vengeful. Instead, I had this overwhelming feeling of love for my dad.
You see, he had not paid that much attention to me in a very long time. The divorce had taken him away and he was busy with his new life. I had no idea that he cared that much to do this.
It was, in his own way, a sign that he still loved and cared for me.
Jeff never even glanced my way again. Ever.
This was the day my dad stood up for me. And Jeff got what he deserved. It is one of the fondest memories that I have of my dad, nothing but unselfish love, and it has sustained me for a long time.”
6. Rude Customer Demanded I Give Her The Mannequin's Jacket So I Hit Her With The Truth
“Years ago I worked at Abercrombie. I know, don’t judge. I was a manager at one of the more successful stores in the company, we were in a very high-end mall called King of Prussia, just outside of Philadelphia.
As is the case in any retail store you get people, in this case, mostly parents of spoiled rich kids, who want something we don’t have in stock and would insult the managers as if we had any control as to what was delivered to the store.
During Christmas time one year, there was a very popular denim jacket that had been pretty difficult to find after Thanksgiving.
This was about a week before Christmas, so we had been telling people much to their dismay that the jacket was sold out. I was used to the insults about how much of an idiot I was at this point. But this lady took the cake. Towards the end of the night, one of our reps came over to me, and she looked terrified. I said what’s up, and she said, this lady is being really rude, and can you help her.
So I walk over to the ladies’ section. This lady is standing on our table, looking at a mannequin with the jacket on it. I ask her if I can help her and if she could get down. She says I want this jacket it is my daughter’s size and you are going to sell it to me. I say politely that we don’t sell clothes off the mannequins as is the policy of the company.
She doesn’t take that well. So I say, ‘Here’s the thing. In order to get that jacket on the mannequin, first, we cover it in hair spray to make sure it’s rigid. Then we use pins all over the place to keep its structure in place, and lastly, we typically pull and stretch the garment to look as good as it does on the mannequin.
I’ll be happy to sell this to you. But it’s far from your daughter’s size anymore. Would you like me to take it off?’ She looked at me, and shook her head, and walked out of the store. PS All of the above is true, at least for Abercrombie mannequins, so when you see something on display, there’s a reason why we aren’t selling them to you.”
5. Think You're Smarter Than Me? Think Again
“I work on cars at a dealer, and we had this new service writer start. Guy thought he was better than everyone, knew more than everyone. Had a terrible attitude when he dealt with technicians. He’d throw tickets at us, call us names, and yell. If we didn’t do what he said he’d go crying to the manager, make up lies and start a mess.
So I generally don’t start trouble, if someone asks me for help or a question I oblige. I’m considered pretty knowledgeable when it comes to cars, I don’t know everything though, enough to diagnose. I had trouble dealing with this guy, the constant superiority attitude, never getting back to me about customers, and generally trying to make me look bad.
Well, one day, I got another of his tickets, customer states their check engine light is on.
Code is a P0456, an evap leak, very small. It’s still under warranty so I go ahead and run my tests, I pressurize the system and determine the purge solenoid is bad. I write it up, fill out all forms, get the new part and replace the faulty solenoid, and run a test to make sure I fixed it. Everything comes out good, the vehicle passed and I’m feeling relief, like cool I don’t have to deal with this butthead of a service writer.
I park the car after a test drive and hand it to the guy. I’m about to walk away and he stops me. He asks me, ‘What was wrong with the car?’ I inform him it was a bad solenoid. His response to that is, ‘What was wrong with it?’ I look at him like W*F? Why are you asking me what’s wrong with the solenoid?
I realize he’s trying to make me look stupid, and everyone in the office is looking at us. I get mad, tired of his garbage. So I respond with what I could base on my understanding of solenoids.
My response is, ‘Well if you could read what I wrote, you’d see the solenoid went bad. Do you know how a solenoid works?? Don’t answer that, a solenoid is a coil of copper wire that when energized creates a magnetic field, that field will apply magnetic force onto a pintle or plunger that makes it move.
When that plunger moves it moves the seal attached to it, generally that’s how this particular solenoid works. Now it has gone bad based on the readings I got with my multimeter, I could take the solenoid apart and show you exactly where in the copper coil it has failed due to either a build-up of high resistance or a broken connection, however, I am not paid to disassemble these tiny parts.
Instead, I’m paid to repair the vehicle and keep the customer happy so we don’t waste their time or mine…kinda like what you’re doing now. Any questions?’ He is speechless, his mouth dropped open in disbelief. I finish by telling him to next time read what I wrote. As I turn around to leave I hear the writer next to him laugh and say ‘d**n dude, you shouldn’t mess with him especially since you’re going to need his help.’
I promptly went to the manager after this and requested that he be terminated. He didn’t get fired despite his constant bad attitude and lying to customers and technicians, or his obvious substance habits. Instead, he quit to ‘pursue’ better avenues of employment. He did however refrain from showing me an attitude after that day. So I passively and aggressively shut down this loser by playing him at his own game.”
4. Steal All My Sugar? I'll Replace It With Salt
“As a student, I was living in a flat together with other students sharing the bathrooms, toilets, and kitchen.
Sometimes, things in the kitchen vanished. Well, such things happen. Occasionally, I found a replacement in my place in the fridge or shelf or some other delicacy in exchange. Occasionally, something just vanished. Oh, well. No big deal.
But two things really aggravated me:
- My nice, tasty original Heinz Ketchup (no advertisement here, I just really liked the stuff at that time) was used up incredibly fast, even when I was absent.
- The same happened to my sugar, which I kept open in a nice sugar bowl with a spoon in the kitchen.
This stuff was never refilled. It just vanished. Well, I knew how to get them…
My parents used no-name ketchup from a very cheap store, so when I once went home I picked up an empty bottle, thoroughly cleaned it, and filled my lovely, costly, and trademarked Heinz ketchup into that bottle.
I could store it for ages. Nobody took it. Heck, even when I actively offered it, nobody wanted it. Problem solved.
The sugar thing was a bit more tricky.
Of course, I could have taken it into my room, but then I would have to drink my morning tea in the kitchen either without sugar or take the sugar with me and remember to lock it up again. In addition, this wouldn’t have been fun, would it?
So I exchanged the sugar with salt. Left it a few days. With satisfaction, I noticed that some of my ‘white gold’ has vanished, but not as much as if it was sugar.
I enjoyed the picture of disgusted facial expressions I imagined and the thought of coffee or tea being poured into the sink, ‘cause it was salted. Later I exchanged it with sugar again and used it, but on random occasions, I exchanged it with salt again, so nobody could ever guess if it was really salt or sugar in there.
Sometimes I even salted my own tea, which was useful when I was doing sports (one of the things I learned during military service), which probably helped to fool any observer.
It did not take long and nobody dared to touch my sugar again…”
3. Be A Jerk On The Road? It's About To Get Super Bright
“I have a one-hour commute every morning. My wife works with me, so we usually commute together. About three years ago, I had about a four-month period where my wife was at home after the birth of our daughter. I hate to say this, but somehow my wife slows me down when I start my commute. If I’m on my own, I can get out of the house by 6:05 with no extra effort.
Somehow she adds on about 20 minutes. That 20 minutes makes an extreme difference because the highway gets crowded about then. So for about four months, I was able to avoid the crazier part of the commute.
One morning I got out extremely early. I hit the road at about 5:50. The highway was almost deserted. I was tooling along at a respectable 65–70 mph. There is no one in sight ahead of me and just one car way off in the distance behind me.
The next thing I know, the car behind me decides that he has to pass me. That’s fine. I’m a fairly easy-going guy. For some reason, he decides that he has to make a big show of it as if I’d been slowing him down. He cuts into the right lane, barely missing my bumper, and then does the same coming around in front of me.
I’d say he had maybe two or three feet of clearance. Why he did this, I cannot fathom except some people are just complete idiots. I see them all the time on the commute, including people who pass off the road, people who play chicken with big rigs, even people who tailgate CHP.
Still, this kind of rankled. Mr. 1995 Ford Probe With Authentic Pre-Crumpled Door had decided to be about as rude as you can be.
With a completely deserted highway and no real reason why he couldn’t have passed me even a hundred yards earlier and then re-merged a hundred yards later (even three hundred!) had to show how cool he was. How cavalier he could be with my life, just so that he could show me that driving a hair above the speed limit is rude when he wanted an unobstructed race at 85mph.
So… I guess I can go 85. Heck, why not 90! There is literally NO ONE ELSE OUT HERE. I get to about five car lengths behind him. He rolls down his window and flips me off. Or at least… I think he’s flipping me off. It is, after all, still before dark. The sun isn’t even thinking about coming up yet. Just to be sure, I turn on my brights.
Sure enough, he is holding his middle finger out there. Well, that’s fine. Again, there’s no one out there, and since he’s so enamored of sign language and so eloquent, I don’t want to miss a thing. I keep my brights on for the next ten miles, only turning them off when cars are (rarely) coming in the opposite direction.
As I’m within range of my exit, I speed up until I’m right next to him.
Just to show him that I bear him no ill will, I flash him my biggest, sunniest smile, making sure to show him all of my teeth. Joe (I assume that’s his name since he has it tattooed on his neck) again shows me his middle finger. Then he drops down in speed to get behind me. His ’95 Ford Probe’s ‘brights’ come on. At least I think they’re brights.
They’re scarcely brighter than his regular lights, so I’m not sure if they deserve the name.
Alas, Joe and I parted ways there. He went off to… buy illegal substances I guess? I went off to my job. Perhaps we’ll meet again. Don’t know how don’t know when… But until then, Joe, if you ever read this (assuming you can read) always remember that your lights are about three feet up there.
Your brights are roughly level with my bumper. The brights of my truck are level with your window. I’m going to win every time.
Also, thanks to the earlier commute and the extra speed, I got to work early enough to check my mailbox where I found a nice little overtime check. I hope Joe got one as well… but I doubt it. If so, he should buy new tires.
It looked like he was riding on watermelons.”
2. Cop Tricks Driver Into Believing He's Getting A Warning In The Mail
“As a Police officer, I stopped a man who was curb crawling around a red light district in London. I could have arrested him but we were short of officers that night and arresting him would mean next to no one on the streets to deal with more important matters.
I explained to him what I had seen him doing and that I was going to give him a verbal warning for his behavior and he should leave the area.
He was a jerk saying the usual things like why wasn’t I out stopping predators and murderers etc. After telling him that I might just have done that by taking his details he began ranting and raving. He was so close to being arrested and would certainly have been if it wasn’t for the lack of officers.
The interesting thing was the car was registered in his wife’s name.
When I asked if his wife knew that he was in her car looking to pick up other women (which he did not deny) he became very quiet and promised to leave the area.
Before he left I said that he would receive official confirmation of the warning through the post at his home address. He pleaded not to send it to his home address saying that he would have to intercept the letter as his wife opened all the mail and asked when it would arrive.
I told him sometime in the next two weeks.
The thing was I was only giving him a verbal warning and we do not send such warnings through the post. I just imagined him for the next several weeks getting up early to check the mail for a letter that was never to be sent.
Ok, I may have been wrong but honestly, I put up so much abuse you wouldn’t believe when I was just warning him and being quite pleasant.
He was also two-timing on his wife in a low-class red-light district with a distinct chance of catching something pretty nasty and passing it on to someone who did not deserve it.”
1. The Case Of The Mysterious Flying Diapers
“I live in a quiet part of London, on a road of semi-detached houses. On one side is a great neighbour – almost as close as family. On the other side is a not too bad neighbour – we have no issues with them, but not really close either.
They’re kind of neutral. All three families in these houses are of the same ethnic background.
What happened? Nappies happened.
One morning early in the new year, I saw a dirty nappy on our back lawn. Eh? How did it get there? We assumed an animal had dragged it there. Not sure why it would do that. I got rid of it but had my suspicions.
Since it wasn’t a brand we used, I knew it wasn’t from my house.
A few days later, another one. This time, I noticed they had an odd way of extracting rubbish from the house – instead of collecting in a small bin inside the house and then taking it out to the wheelie bin, they were leaning out of the upper story window, and dropping it straight to the ground to be dealt with later.
Hmmm, was this the source of the flying nappy?
I threw that one back over the wall, to their garden. (The neutral family I mentioned earlier.)
A few weeks later, again on the front lawn. Another nappy. This time, I had to put a stop to it. My dad was in the hospital, my baby daughter was keeping us awake at all hours. There’s enough going on without dealing with other people’s nappy litterbug habits.
I walked over and dropped this one on the porch, with a note: ‘I have enough nappies, fresh and soiled, of my own thanks.’
Ten minutes later one of their family comes back and vaguely says something about maybe it got over the wall by accident. (You’d have to have a really bad aim when you’re throwing crap out of your window and it keeps ending up next door, quite a good distance too, like 4 meters).
Well, that put a stop to it for a while. Except for a few more months later on, and another one. I made sure it landed on the bonnet of their car when I returned it via airmail. My mom raised it with their mom, who said she had already jolly well shouted at all those with nappy wearing kids, and warned them to stop it, embarrassing as it is.
They claimed this one must be from random strangers throwing litter in from the street (Really? It hadn’t been a problem in 20 years ago far. My street is very quiet, and rarely used as a through route). And animals? Animals open food bags. They can smell the nappy and would leave it alone. Why would they want to drag nappies around the garden?
Anyway, they’ve totally stopped now.
Even the open-window-garbage-disposal system. We’re still cordial, and we even return their kids’ garden toys that stray over the fence. I’m glad I didn’t end up having to report them, as I’d been ready to do if I see another darn nappy on my lawn.”
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