People Share The Way They Slyly Got Back At Someone
39. Think You're Better Than Me? Time To Finally Show Off My Accomplishments
“There was this one girl in my high school class.
She was Miss Popular, but not someone friendly and nice, more like the mean kind of popular from the movies. She was really nasty, downright cruel for fun, loved to brag about how great and pretty she was, and sucked up to every teacher like it was her life’s goal. She manipulated everyone she could for any little reason and bragged about how much fun it was to manipulate people and get others to do her bidding.
We’re from an Ontario high school, so there were very few of us actively trying to get into top US colleges. Both of us were among them. For several years, all she could talk about was Columbia University. How perfect of a fit she was for Columbia, how much she couldn’t wait to go, how sure she was she would be accepted. She was talking to all these admissions people to secure her acceptance.
She was in the ‘know.’ Columbia was her dream, but, ‘you never know,’ she claimed, ‘I’m going to have a hard time deciding between Columbia and Harvard.’
App season comes around. She’s decided she’s too good for Columbia ED and applies to Princeton SCEA. She wants to keep her options open.
She’s deferred, unsurprisingly. I, too, was deferred from my EA (early action) school.
In the RD (regular decision) round, I was accepted to Columbia, two other Ivies, and a bunch of comparable universities, most on more than 50% ride (scholarships + aid). The only US college she was accepted to was NYU, with a $1K entrance scholarship.
The little brat was down for a while, but man. She could not shut up about that $1K scholarship. She was totally smug about it, too, and would mention it every time we ran into each other.
I assume she thought I didn’t get into anywhere good, either.
Decision day rolls around and I come into school wearing my Columbia tee shirt.
The look on her face was amazing.
I wore some sort of Columbia gear (whether that tee-shirt, my Columbia hat or my Columbia sweater) every single d**n day the rest of the school year.”
38. Cut The Line? I'll Place Unwanted Items In Your Cart
“So I was in a supermarket once, in the middle of a line which went all the way around a corner. A woman came up and pushed in front of me as I got to the ninety-degree bend.
She didn’t mistake it for the start of the line, it wasn’t that kind of corner.
The wall was actually a waist-high parade of baskets full of impulse-buys, like chocolates and so on, as shops are accustomed to display near the checkouts.
I could hear mutters and tuts from behind me but of course, I couldn’t say anything directly (cf. British) so I started picking things off the shelves every time she wasn’t looking and put them in her trolley.
I started off small, like with a bag of chips.
People quickly caught on to what I was doing and I heard a few of the mutters change to noises of approval.
I ended up managing to put an entire umbrella in there. That got widespread laughter from the shop behind me but the woman was oblivious.
I rushed through the self-service checkout as she went to a conventional human-powered checkout. She was clearly not paying attention because I was nearly out of the shop when I heard her say, ‘where the **** did that come from?'”
37. Cheating Ex-Husband Finally Gets What's Coming To Him
“For almost 20 years, I was married to a chronic cheater who decided his current mistress was ‘the one’ and divorce had to happen.
It was something I already knew. I was sick of the lying, the games, manipulation, all of it. He was so anxious for this to happen, he said he’d pay all legal fees. It took more than a year and 40K in fees. From the day we split, he paraded his next wife all over town, took her to family functions (both mine and his), and never missed a chance to tell me and others how much happier he was with her, blah, blah, blah.
Fast forward a year and he’s now married to this woman. I had heard several times he wasn’t faithful to her either and frankly, I didn’t care. Meanwhile, I’ve changed and grown into a person he doesn’t know anymore. The new me doesn’t accept behavior he once got away with. And I don’t negotiate. Also, I’ve never looked or felt better, I’m back in school, my life is full and I’m happier than I’ve been in years.
I started noticing that whenever we met to drop the kids off or ran into each other at school functions, more and more he was lingering and being a bit friendlier. I figured this was good. We had children and should at least be civil.
And then one day, at a celebration for one of the kids, I realized I had it all wrong. I’m in the kitchen by myself and as I’m bending over to get something out of the oven, I feel a hand on my a*s and it’s his.
And I was P*SSED. I stood up, looked at him, and calmly said, ‘The only married man that can do is the one I’m married to and you’re not it. Does your wife approve of you grabbing my a*s? Let’s find out. She has a say in this, given her position.’ She was standing right around the corner and heard every word.
BAM! went the front door and she was gone. This is a man who’s arrogant, entitled, and extremely image-conscious. And I no longer gave a d**n. He was FURIOUS and I simply stood there and smiled.
He quickly made his excuses and said goodbye and flew out of the house. As he’s getting into his car I said, ‘Thanks for being here! Have a wonderful evening!’ And I just kept smiling.
Yeah, there was fallout. But it was his, not mine. What a sleaze….”
36. Steal My Food? Enjoy This Spicy Surprise
“I teach in a middle school. We have custodians who work staggered shifts, with a few beginning work before the school opens, and a few who work about four hours after the rest of us leave for the day.
I am almost always one of the last teachers to leave due to my job.
We have teachers who leave candy in their rooms for rewards (I truly hate that strategy), others who make use of the refrigerators in the workrooms to store their lunches or leftovers, and me, who happens to have an office separate from my classroom where I can keep my stuff fairly secure.
A few years ago some of the teachers start sending out emails complaining that their lunches were disappearing from the staff lounges. Not long after, a few more start complaining about candy or food being taken from their classrooms. One morning I opened my office to see things that had been in my desk strewn across the floor, and a granola bar wrapper in the otherwise empty trash can.
Before leaving work that afternoon, I saw both evening custodians talking together in the hall. I walked up and told them I didn’t appreciate whichever was stealing my food. There were two locked doors between everyone else and my stuff, so only someone with a key could steal from me. I mentioned they both had jobs and to buy their own stuff.
Stealing is wrong.
Knock it off.
They both stammered ‘It wasn’t me.’ But the next morning my stash had been hit again. Fine.
One of my brothers-in-law loves hot sauce. He used to put it on everything. I once tried to give him a sauce made from ghost peppers and habaneros. He tasted a drop and said it was just too hot, so he gave it back.
That bottle just sat at home, waiting to be useful.
I bought a candy bar. Snickers, because…poetic justice. They have a flap on the bottom of the wrapper where they are sealed, with the flap folded over to lay flat. I also bought a small bag of insulin syringes.
Before leaving work I sucked a few drops of hot sauce into a syringe. I carefully pierced the candy bar wrapper just at the crease under the flap.
Three drops at each end. A few more in the middle. Into my desk drawer goes the bar, and I’m headed home for the evening. I snickered the whole trip because I like symmetry.
The next day there is a nasty half-chewed piece of chocolatey-peanutty goo in my trash can. The rest of the bar had been thrown across my office. One of the evening custodians didn’t come to work that day.
Stomach-flu, which kept him out for three days. Something about explosive diarrhea and severe stomach cramps. That custodian left our building not long after, and I have never had anything disappear from my room again.”
35. Want To Make A Scene? I'll Give You A Show-Stopping Performance
“Years ago I used to work in retail and would have to attend to rude and/or willfully ignorant people on a daily basis. Rude people mostly bemuse me because they are oblivious to how mean and stupid they seem to be. I would often entertain myself by seeing how much I could mess with them without them noticing or me getting in trouble. I think that qualifies as passive-aggressive.
Here are a couple of stories.
Pet Store Mime:
One day, while working at a popular big-box pet store, I watched a customer walk in the door, look at one shelf, and then walk directly to me. Before I can say anything this person yells at me, ‘This is a pet store, why don’t you have any f*ing aquarium filters?!?’ I held up one hand in a gesture for them to stop and smiled. Then, like a mime, I gestured for them to follow me, and walked away so quickly they had to jog to keep up.
I led them directly to the entire aisle dedicated to aquarium filters. Yes, an entire 20-foot aisle, 3 shelves tall of filters. I did a grand gesture encompassing the literally hundreds of filters we had in stock, and then put a ****er to the side of my mouth making an ‘o’ of surprise with my eyebrows ridiculously high. Then I grinned really big and shrugged as the customer spluttered. To exit, I bowed and did a 180 turn while bowing, then stood up straight and strolled away.
Holier Than Thou:
When I first started working at the national bookstore chain they put me as a cashier. One of the many things I had to learn was what adult magazines we kept under the counter. I have never seen a grown man blush so hard as when my boss had to go through and show me all the magazines we sold. Technically he didn’t have to show them all to me one by one.
He just turned so red at the mention of the ‘dirty magazines’ that I couldn’t help but play dumb and have him explain each one to me individually. Anywho, about the time he was explaining Biker B********, the door dings as a customer walks in and my manager lets out a long groan.
Apparently, the frumpy-looking woman who had just walked in the door was a trouble maker.
Every month she would come in and buy the trashiest romance novels she could find in the bargain racks and try to use expired or fake competitor’s coupons to take 40-60% off the clearance price. If the cashier refused (as they should) an argument would ensue. It always ended with a manager coming over and giving her a discount to get her to leave. That’s not why he groaned though.
Before she starts shopping, she makes a point of approaching as many of our other customers as she can find and says something like this:
‘Did you know they sell Adult Entertainment here?’ she would say with an indignant scowl, ‘If it wasn’t the only bookstore within walking distance I wouldn’t set foot in here, I can’t see how any GOOD Christian would!’ ‘Good’ would be emphasized in such a way as to imply that all other people in the store were the spawn of Satan.
My manager and I eavesdropped on one of her exchanges because he thought I didn’t believe him when he said how bad she was.
So here’s a lady that would buy books that make adult entertainment workers blush and she was judging? When my boss and I got back to the register he told me to give her what she wants, any discount, just get her out.
He hurries away so as not to be caught, and I make a small purchase in anticipation of my interaction with her. Shortly thereafter she comes to the register with her cut-rate romances and slams them down. She squints up at me and says:
‘I can’t believe a good Christian boy like you would work in a place like this!’
‘What do you mean?’ I say.
‘They sell magazines here!’ She says waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
‘Yes ma’am, the magazines are at the back of the store, did you need help finding one?’ I say helpfully.
‘No, DIRTY magazines!’ she says wagging her finger in my face.
‘Yes, we have those too, which would you like?’ I say pulling out a stack of the raunchiest ones I could grab and putting them on the counter.
Her face blanches. ‘Put those away I don’t want them!’ I don’t know how she managed it but she seemed to whisper and yell this at the same time.
‘But I thought you…’ I say innocently as I put the offending material back below the counter.
‘Never mind what you thought,’ she says, ‘just ring up my books, and here’s my coupon!’
‘Yes ma’am, not a problem ma’am!’ I say as she hands me three books marked down to $3 with an expired Borders coupon for 40% off one book. I ring her up. ‘That’ll be six dollars and twelve cents, is there anything else I can help you with today?’
‘Here,’ she says handing me her credit card, ‘and for heaven’s sake find yourself another job.’
I handed her the credit slip to sign. While she was preoccupied I slid her books and the copy of Biker B******** I had purchased when my boss had walked off into a plastic bag.
‘Have a great day!’ I said cheerfully. She grabbed the bag and humphed out the door. As far as I know, she never came back.
Birdcage:
So I’m working in the live animal section of that popular pet big box store and a lady walks up to me.
Me: ‘Hello ma’am, is there something I can help you with?’
Her: ‘Do them birds have to have a cage?’
Me: ‘The parakeets? Yes, they have to have a cage.’
Her: ‘Why?’
Me: ‘Well ma’am, besides being extremely messy, they are also basically babies. They aren’t trained to be friendly yet and will try to and inevitably escape. After they escape they will either fall prey to other animals or starve as they don’t know how to find food.’
Her: ‘What do you mean they can’t find food?’
Me: ‘I mean, they don’t know what to look for in the wild. They will look for a bowl to eat from and die if they don’t find one. It’s just like people. If you were dropped in the middle of the woods how long would you survive?’
Her: ‘Are you saying I’m stupid?’
Me: ‘No ma’am, I’m sure you’d last longer than me, I’m a city boy (untrue but I was trying to mollify her still).’
Her: ‘Well, what if I don’t want a cage?’
Me: ‘Then we can’t sell you a bird.’
Her: ‘What if I get a cage at Walmart?’
Me: ‘That would be fine, you don’t have to buy the cage from us.’
Her: ‘Then I’ll buy the bird now and get the cage later!’
Me: ‘I’m sorry ma’am, you’ll have to bring in the cage so we can be sure it meets the needs of the bird.’
Her: ‘What cage?’
Me: ‘The one you are going to buy at Wal Mart.’
Her: ‘I ain’t buying no cage, and what business is it of yours, anyway?’
Me: ‘We guarantee these birds if they die and we have to issue a refund because we didn’t make sure the customer will take proper care of them we get in trouble. (And they are my babies and I’m not giving them to someone who doesn’t want to take care of them properly, is what I wanted to say.)
Her: ‘I want to talk to the person in charge.’
*I go look for a manager only to find I was the most senior employee on the floor at the time*
Me: ‘I’m sorry, the manager is on lunch and I am in charge.’
Her: ‘Then you,’ she said poking me in the chest, ‘need to sell me my bird!’
Me: *Thinking quickly, I cough, then looking around as if I’m going to get into trouble, I motion her in close and whisper* Don’t tell anyone I told you this…
Her: *leaning in, suddenly confused rather than upset, she mimics my whisper* What?
Me: *still whispering and looking around periodically* I’m not supposed to sell any of the birds…
Her: What? Why not?
Me: *I cough again* They don’t want a panic, so I’m just supposed to put everyone off buying them…
Her: Why would anyone panic?
Me: Our birds are all sick!
Her: What?
Me: *cough* Yeah, *cough* with bird flu!
Her: *her face drops in fright and she starts backing away from the cages* What?
Me: *coughing throughout* We don’t have anywhere else to put them, and corporate doesn’t want to waste money by destroying them so we just have to hope they get better.
Her: *covering her mouth and nose with her hands* Why didn’t you just say?
Me: *wheezing now* I could get fired if word gets out, and I need the money for the doctor. Please don’t say I said!
Her: *starting to leave* I won’t!
Me: Please! *I plead pitifully as she is walking hurriedly away.*
I never saw that lady again.”
34. Leave Me With Nothing? I'll Steal Your Car
“My abusive then-spouse decided to leave me, which I didn’t mind, but his family was visiting from overseas, having a great time, partying, going on road trips, and inviting him.
They were horrified by his stories of what an American, awful, disobedient wife I was.
He was going to casinos with them, losing all our money.
I was pregnant (high risk, no less), on maternity leave from graduate school so no job, and had another infant at home.
One day he starts packing his ***, tells me he can’t take it anymore, he’s leaving.
Fine, except:
– I had no money
– The rent was overdue
– We had impending disconnect notices from the phone and electric companies (there were no cellphones or social media back then, so pregnant and with an infant, I needed that phone, and of course, the electricity)
– He had promised to make payments that payday but instead he was off to another casino
– No groceries, food, diapers, etc.
So.
As he’s stacking his *** in a corner of the living room, I tell him I’m going to the lobby to get the mail.
Instead, I moved his car. I parked it a few blocks away, went upstairs with the mail, and waited for him to leave. He takes his suitcases, loads them all into the elevator, tells me I brought this on myself, and leaves in a huff.
A few minutes later the intercom rings: ‘Do you remember where I parked my car?’ No.
He comes upstairs, all sweating and confused. Calls his brother. ‘Do you remember where I parked my car?’ No. And even if he did, he couldn’t read English, so wouldn’t have known the street name, anyway.
Calls the police. They arrive. He talks to them privately. Then they come in to talk to me.
‘We understand there are marital issues. Did you steal his car?’
I hated being dodgy with the police. I simply stated, No. (I didn’t steal it.)
I told them my side of the story and they became more sympathetic to me. No food, no diapers, no money, pregnant, etc.
The police told me to apply for WIC assistance and lectured him.
They take his report, warn him about his behavior, and leave.
Okay. So his was the car the visiting family was gonna use for their road trip.
So the road trip was canceled. All packed up with no place to go.
I decided to outsmart him. ‘Honey, since now there’s no chance of you winning anything at the casino, maybe we should make the payments you promised the utilities so they won’t cut us off.’
Since he was stuck there now himself, he gave me the money.
Of course, he begged to use my car, but I had never given him a key, and I told him the brakes were shaky and it cost too much to repair them.
For two months this idiot had no car and had to take cabs and buses to work. And the visiting family couldn’t rent a car so they went home early.
Meanwhile, I had applied for WIC, gotten a social worker, and spoke with the idiot’s ultra-religious boss who agreed it was best to give me the idiot’s salary (he was paid in cash).
He was furious but I was protected by the religious community, and the social worker’s home visits helped.
He realized he had to start acting like a human being, so he became much more agreeable to live with, but I wanted him out of my hair.
So one day I told him, ‘OMG, honey! I was driving around looking for parking, and I think I saw your car!’
We excitedly jumped into my car and I drive him there. ‘Is that it?’
He was thrilled. To this day he thinks he parked it there after partying and couldn’t remember.
We’re divorced now (can I get a Hallelujah?) and the kids are grown.
They know the whole story. But he’s serving life now, so we’re all estranged from him.”
33. Eat My Cupcakes? I'll Eat Your Favourite Dessert In Front Of You
“A few years back, I had my first birthday party in around fifteen years. I don’t generally celebrate my birthday, but this year I did, and we had a small party – mom, my partner at the time, my brother and sibling-in-law, my niece, my nephew, and my nephew’s partner Olivia.
And Olivia, who’s as handy with baking and crafts as she is sweet, made me a plate of twelve beautifully decorated birthday cupcakes for a present. You know the kind, swirly icing and sugar roses, the kind you buy in posh bakeries for like five bucks apiece. She must have spent hours on them, and I was so touched. Nobody had ever made me cupcakes before.
So I rushed around for the whole party, cooking and making sure everyone was well-looked-after, and I didn’t get a chance to eat any of my cupcakes, so I put them in the kitchen to store later. I fell into bed, exhausted, and when I woke up in the morning I immediately thought of cake.
I went downstairs. No cupcakes.
‘Mom, where are the cupcakes Olivia gave me as a present?’
She wouldn’t even look at me. She won’t when she’s feeling guilty about something. Eventually, she admitted that she sent six home with my brother and ate the other six in the night. She didn’t even leave one. I didn’t get one cupcake. And Olivia had been very clear that they were a present, not her contribution to party food. She put them in a pretty box with a ribbon and everything.
I totally lost my temper. I rarely get angry, but when I do I go nuclear. I yelled, I threw fruit at the wall, I threatened to leave home. After that, I refused to talk to her for most of the day. And in the evening, I made a pan of brownies – the cake she loves above all others – and sat next to her in the living room while she watched TV.
And I ate the whole pan.
I had a stomachache that night and had to swim an extra mile every day for a fortnight to make up for the calories. Totally worth it.”
32. Keep Being Entitled Neighbors And We Won't Help You When You Need Us
“12 years ago new neighbours moved in. They were young and arrogant with an air of superiority. We were middle-aged, kind, helpful, respectful towards all people.
They started slowly but surely to adopt this really bad attitude against us.
Unfortunately, we share a driveway between our semi-detached houses. When they wanted something from us it was banging on the door to move the car, which as it happened was not even in their way. Fix the fence immediately when their grass was up to the knees and no one was even using the garden. They would knock and complain about our friends’ parking on the driveway even though they could get a bus out of their side if they wanted to.
There were letters through our door, and threats of solicitors etc. – all to no avail as we knew our rights and did nothing wrong.
When we wanted something from them. i.e. their drainpipe was leaking for a month on my side of the driveway outside my kitchen. Drains blocked with dirty sewage running across the path for 2/3 weeks before they deemed to get a plumber in.
Polite requests went unheeded. They just ignored us. You get the picture – one rule for them and another for us.
One day about 10 years ago, I was extremely angry at their attitude for no reason but to be awkward and I said to my husband I am going over. I was at the time in a temper but I did calm myself down because I knew in temper you get nowhere in life.
The husband came to the door, and I saw the wife on the hall stairway in the background – we do not even make eye contact now. And that does not happen to me because I have never had occasion for it to happen.
I said to him. ‘Look I am just going to say this once and once only. I do not know why you have come with such an attitude when we are really nice neighbours and cannot understand what you have against us.
But let me tell you something – one day in the future this will go against you big time. There will come a time when you want something from us. You will go on holiday and your house will be vulnerable to burglars and such. Neighbours should join together in their best interests. You will want a parcel taken in when you are out. You will want something to do with our joint ownership of the drive.
Mark my words, something will come up and you will be sorry.’
Fast forward a few months ago, the neighbour started saying good morning and being a bit civil. I said to my husband, I am suspicious – they want something from us. Two weeks later he came to my door – asked how my family were. Smiled. And here I stood waiting for the punch line.
It came.
Turned out they wanted to build an extension and swap the rights of the shared drive so we each owned our own half. This meant if either of us wanted to build a slightly larger extension taking in the half driveway we could. He tried to persuade us that it was beneficial to both properties, and he would be paying for all the legal fees etc. My husband wanted to think about it but I immediately said no. I said:
‘You know it may well be of benefit to us, and in different circumstances, we would consider it, but I do not know if you remember the conversation I had with you about 10 years ago when I said one day because of your obtuse attitude for absolutely no good reason on earth you will be sorry. And now I am pleased to inform you that day has come!’
With that, I closed the door. Turned about-face. Nodded slightly and thought – justice has at last been served.”
31. Want Me To Get Out Of Your Way? I'll Make That Difficult
“When I lived in the UK, it was common for lorries (18 wheelers) to limit their speed to around 60mph in order to boost their MPG.
One day I was driving from my parent’s house to my apartment, it was a drive of some 200 miles. I was driving down a dual carriageway, which is a two-lane highway, doing the speed limit of 70mph.
I was passing a long line of lorries when a guy came flying up behind me in a black BMW, as he came up on me he started to flash his lights to tell me to get out of the way. Now please note he was not a police officer (the explanation of how I know this will come by later), nor was he responding to an emergency, he was just a self-important jacka*s who wanted me out of his way.
As I say, I was passing a line of lorries (something like 12 of them in total), when he came up behind me, and when he started to flash his light I was thinking to myself ‘where am I going to go, I have a lorry on one side of me and the central reservation on the other dumb-a*s.’ Well, he kept flashing his lights and gesturing for me to move out of the way, so I did what any self-respecting passive aggressive driver would do.
I slowed down.
Yep, I slowed down until I was just doing a speed slightly faster than the lorries I was passing. I kept that speed up for something like 20 miles until I reached the front of the line, then I moved over and let him go. During that long 20 miles, he was constantly riding my tail and telling me to move out of the way.
As he sped off doing something like 90mph I increased my speed back up to the limit of 70mph. Around 5 miles later I see the lights of a police vehicle on the side of the road and who do I see pulled over.
That’s right, Mr. Rude BMW driver, who by this point appears to be having a heated discussion with the police officer.
As I see this a huge grin lights up across my face, and as I pass by the police car and Mr. Now-very-angry-but-rude-BMW driver, I honk my horn, and wave.
Oh so satisfying, and I still smile about it to this day.”
30. Mess With My Wife? I'll Mess With Your Marriage
“Many (many, many) years ago, my wife was working at a women’s health spa while finishing college, owned by a man who kept hitting on her (and all the women working for him), regardless of their marital status or interest. One day he informed her that there was a conference coming up the next weekend at a resort hotel in the Catskills that he wanted her to attend with him – and made it clear that her promotion to assistant manager depended upon her acquiescence.
She turned him down, lost the promotion (and had her life made miserable at work), and started looking for another job, which is another story. Meanwhile, I steamed and stewed all weekend long, knowing that a good friend of hers, from work, wound up taking her place that weekend only because she was in a position where losing her job threatened her children’s well-being.
She had few options and no savings.
On Tuesday morning, after my wife called me from work complaining about his behavior toward her at work that morning, and upset at the shape her friend was in emotionally following the ‘conference’, I decided enough was enough…
I called his home number and when his wife answered I said, ‘Yes… sorry to disturb you today, Mrs. *****. This is Mr. Justice (I actually used that name), assistant manager of the ****** ******* hotel in ****** NY.
When you and your husband were here this past weekend, you left behind some… cough, cough, items… of a rather… personal nature, if you get my drift. I was just wondering if you wanted us to box them up – discretely, of course – and send them back to you.’
On Wednesday morning, he called in saying he wouldn’t be making it in.
He didn’t finally make it back to work until Friday, and he was living, according to the accounts I got, at a Best Western motel, pending a messy divorce.”
29. Never Thought I'd Make It? I Can't Wait To See Your Face When I Prove You Wrong
“A girl I was seeing told me I’d never make it. That was all the fuel I needed.
She was a dance teacher, I loved dancing, and thought I felt the same way about her until I told her that I was going to apply for a job at Arthur Murray.
‘You’ll never be any good as a dance teacher’ was the response that changed my life.
I get the job, commit myself to train like a mad man, and give up hanging out with my friends for the job. I took the Viking approach – I landed on the job and burned the boats so I couldn’t escape. I needed to be so good that she ate those words.
A few years pass and I’m a successful teacher. I’m the top teacher in one of the top dance studios in the company. I’m on my way to work and it turns out she’s driving next to me.
She honks, waves, and we fail at our attempt at a 50 MPH conversation. So she says, ‘I’ll follow you.’
I’m thinking ‘could this be happening?’
We chat in the parking lot outside of the Arthur Murray I had told her about, and she has no idea. I’m dressed like I’m going to sell women’s shoes or insurance. It’s almost time for work to start, and at this point, I haven’t made any mention of dancing.
ME: ‘I should probably head into work.’
HER: ‘Oh cool.
I’d love to see where you work.’
ME: (thinking ‘YES!’) ‘Oh, okay… if you want.’
She follows me inside, and this is when it gets too perfect.
I’m walking ahead of her and I can hear her footsteps slowing down behind me. I continue walking, turn back, and say
‘Are you coming?’
I head straight over to the front desk.
My back is to her and I’ve got the grin of someone who has just successfully pulled off a million-dollar horse racing bet. I’m looking at them, in all of their glory.
I turn to face her, and behind me are three awards I have just recently won, but were just put up on display.
The one in the center reads, ‘TOP TEACHER.’
ME: (the dagger) ‘Yeah, so this is where I work, how about you, what are you doing these days?’
HER: (shrinking but trying to stay cool) ‘This and that, still dancing. I was thinking of taking some more Lindy hop and swing classes. Do you have anyone here that can teach that?’
Her final attempt to turn the tables was quickly halted before I could answer.
My co-worker walked by and assumed she was a walk-in customer inquiring about lessons.
MONIQUE: (sarcastic) ‘Oh, you’re talking to the wrong person, he’s only the Swing King around here.’
There’s an awkward pause. Her power is gone.
ME: ‘Well, I’ve got to get to work. It was great seeing you.’
That was the first, and only, time that we’ve crossed paths since I started my career with Arthur Murray.
It was closure on a legendary level.”
28. Judge Me On What I'm Wearing? I'll Make Sure You Learn Your Lesson
“A man I’d never met made a rude comment about something I was wearing – I was particularly conservatively dressed in a business suit at the time, to make it even more shocking.
I turned to him, and with as much sincerity and urgency as I could project I said ‘Thank you so much for pointing that out, I didn’t realize.
Since you’re so kind, would you please let me borrow your phone for a second? My battery is dead and I urgently need to call Mom, just for a second.’
He was nonplussed but I turned up the biggest pleading ingénue eyes I could manage, and he begrudgingly handed over his phone.
I quickly scrolled through his contacts to one labeled ‘Mom,’ called it, and when a lady answered I asked ‘Did you raise your son to make rude comments to women he doesn’t even know, to approach women in public with the sole reason of insulting them?
No? I think you need to speak with him.”
Handed the phone back to the dumbfounded man and skipped away happy as a lark.”
27. Be Rude To Me? You Won't Get The Job
“I held the door open for a lady walking behind me to the entrance of my building.
I wasn’t really paying attention and my hand lightly brushed against hers on the handle.
She clicked her tongue, scowled at me, and produced a tissue to wipe her hand.
I apologized and went off to my office, thinking nothing of it until my receptionist ushered her in a few minutes later for a job interview with me.
I made her squirm for 30 mins with questions about teamwork and manners and ignored her qualifications, all the while being super polite.
Then told her she won’t be employed by me.”
26. Keep Showing Up Unannounced? Time To Turn The Tables And See How You Like It
“When I moved in with my partner, everything was great.
We had each other’s perpetual company, space for ourselves, and best of all: isolation and freedom.
After a few months, we started getting surprise visits from her parents. They would wake us up by pounding on the door, or sometimes even barge in. Sometimes it was just her mother and father, other times they brought their 5-year-old daughter. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with my partner’s sister and even her parents.
But these visits were unexpected, untimely, and were happening at an increasing rate. It was obnoxious when we had plans or weren’t feeling like socializing.
That’s when I had an idea: beat them at their own game. Bright and early one morning, I’m talking 4:30 am on a weekday, my partner and I picked up our loudest, most obnoxious friend, and ventured over to her parent’s place.
I’m sure you can guess what we did, we barged in, shouting ‘wake up!’, forcing them out of bed. We proceeded to demand they make us breakfast and spent hours interrupting their morning routines. Pleased with ourselves, we left around 10 am and went on with our day.
The visits from them started happening less and less after that day. Today, they notify us if they’re coming over, which is exactly what we wanted the whole time.
Why they started doing it in the first place, I’m not sure. In the end, I feel we delivered a powerful statement ironically teaching parents manners.”
25. Mess With My Photos? I'll Make Sure You Have A Terrible View Of The Concert
“This is one of my most satisfying moments when I was studying abroad in Luxembourg.
I went to a rock concert for the European metal band ‘Epica’, and the venue was pretty small. The opening acts were great, and there was some downtime between sets while they set up the stage for Epica.
Like most concerts, it was free-standing, and since a lot of people were heading back to check out merchandise or grab a beer, I took to the chance to move up a bit in the crowd to get closer to the stage- after all, Epica was one of my favorite bands and with the venue being small, I wanted to be as close as possible to get good pictures on my phone.
I’d been slowly moving up all night without a problem, much like I would at an American concert.
When one woman didn’t like me moving in front of her. Now in Luxembourg, you come across 3 languages: French, German, and Luxembourgish. I had studied French but I don’t speak German very well or Luxembourgish at all. This woman was speaking one of the latter two languages.
All I could translate was ‘before me’ said in a very nasty tone.
So I ignored her and got out my phone for pictures when the band came out.
That’s when she started elbowing me and jabbing her knee into the back of mine, knocking me off balance. Every time I pressed my finger for a picture, she would bump into me so it blurred.
At first, I thought maybe it was an accident. It was pretty crowded, and she was standing close behind me. So I looked over my shoulder to indicate she was hitting me, hoping she would readjust and stop.
Instead, she said something in either German or Luxembourgish and just knocked me harder. She started yelling at me but 1) I didn’t speak her language and 2) we were right underneath the speakers so even if I did, I couldn’t hear her with the music playing.
For a moment, I thought about pushing her back, but I didn’t want to start a fight and risk getting kicked out of the venue (or worse since I was only there on a student visa). Instead, I noticed the guy standing next to me appeared to be by himself. So when the next song ended I tapped him on the shoulder and asked (praying he spoke English) if he wouldn’t mind trading places with me.
He more than happily obliged, and after we switched he made sure that I could see the stage alright from my new spot.
The woman went from having a slender, 5′4″ girl in front of her, to having a 6′2+, broad, stocky man with a long, voluminous, curly hair blocking her view. She couldn’t see anything around him. She gave me the dirtiest look, but with this tough, beefy metal guy between us, she couldn’t do anything.
And because of how tightly packed the crowd had become, she had no way to move to see around this guy.
In other words, she screwed up my photos, and I screwed over her entire concert viewing-experience. And I got an even better spot in the crowd to see the band.”
24. Knock Down Our Sandcastle? Say Hello To Our Jellyfish Friends
“I was around 8 years old and I was at the beach with my little brother and my parents. We could not swim because the ocean was full of jellyfish and most of them were dead, floating on the top of the sea and crashing on the beach.
My brother and I decided that we would go and build a castle instead. We spent a considerable amount of time building it and we were really having fun.
We noticed that there was this teenager going around and destroying castles from other kids. He was really enjoying destroying what other kids had built. We were staying next to our castle so that way he would not come too close and try to destroy it as well.
It worked and he left us alone for some time. But he was still looking at us to find an opportunity to destroy it. Our parents called us for lunch and we had to leave our castle alone…
After a few minutes, the teen saw that we weren’t there anymore. He came and start hitting the castle very hard with his feet and jumped on it a couple of times.
Every part of the castle was destroyed and we would have to start from scratch.
My little brother and I were very sad. We spent so much time building it. Our sadness turned to anger and we were determined to seek revenge. This was war!
After talking for some time, we finally came out with a plan. We would use large rocks and some of the dead jellyfish and put them inside our castle.
We were paying attention that the evil teen was not looking at what we were doing.
I went to the sea with my sandcastle bucket and got a few jellyfish inside. My brother was getting the rocks. We built the castle, full of rocks and dead jellyfish on each side of it.
Naturally, we went back with our parents, lying down on our towel, and started watching.
The plan worked as planned. This kid saw that we went away again and was trying to gain some momentum to hit our castle as hard as possible…. which he did.
Quickly after the first hit, he fell on the sand and started screaming and crying. One of his feet was bleeding and had also large red burning marks because of the jellyfish.
I think he never destroyed another castle after that.”
23. Bad Table Manners? I'll Make Sure Everyone Understands How Childish You're Acting
“At her dinner party, along with a delicious meal, my friend offered a variety of beverages, including a regular and light beer, a red and white wine, a popular cola, iced tea, and water.
When she asked a male guest what he would like to drink, he asked for a beer. She asked if he would prefer brand X or brand Y light. He asked, ‘don’t you have brand z?’ No. Sorry.
So he asked for cola P. She had cola C. He settled for the Y light, then loudly complained to his wife that they should have brought their own, and maybe he would go home and get some. (I will note here that as a bartender I often referred to his brand as ‘the cr*p you have to add citrus to help you gag it down.’)
Well, wifey cooed at him until he settled down and decided to join the other guests in conversation, punctuated with occasional mutterings about looking forward to a good beer. Really, he did not even try to be discreet about it.
Dinner conversation went here and there, as it tends to do. Eventually, it rolled around to children and the unexpected things they say. The opportunity was perfect so I shared this story:
‘I’ll never forget a time when he (my son Jake) was about 6 years old and my in-laws were over for dinner. We had been working on his table manners and he was doing pretty well. I held out a bowl of potatoes to my mother-in-law and asked if she would like some. She said she didn’t like them and only ate baked potatoes. It was the texture and blah blah…Jake stopped her and said, ‘Gramma, the correct answer is either no thank you or yes please.’
There was laughter followed by a moment of slightly uncomfortable silence, then a subject change.
Since then I have been at several parties that this couple also attended and have witnessed no repeat offense.”
22. Cut In Front Of Me? I'll Waste Your Time
“In Turkey, there have been x-ray machines and metal detector doors at the entrances of every shopping mall since even before 9/11.
And still, we get more than a fair share of line cutters.
On that particular afternoon, at a very non-specific hour, with no lines whatsoever, I walked toward one of these machines following the people who had just walked in briskly before me. The machine was a small model with a short conveyor belt and a non-moving part at the beginning.
Just as I was putting down my purse and stepping towards the door two steps away, some self-important young nobody dived in, plopped her small purse right in front of mine, and rushed in through the door.
With a speed that is so unlike me, which still amazes me today, I picked up her purse as she was walking through, and put it back on the non-moving part. I walked in, picked up my purse, and walked on without a glance at the disrespectful adult-shaped brat waiting for hers.
I am glad that she probably had to stand there and lost a few more very, very precious seconds of her time as she figured out what happened, walked back out, put her purse back on the conveyor, and walked in through the metal detector door again.”
21. Hog The Phone? I'll Cut You Off
“I hijacked my roommate’s internet connection.
Back when I was in college there wasn’t really any broadband. We used 56.6k dial-up connections to access the internet. Now, my roommate, Cruchkov would monopolize that d****d connection for hours on end. We only had one phone for four of us and we would pick it up any time of the day or night and hear bleeep blop beeboo beeboo.
All the time. It got to the point where we couldn’t even order a pizza. ‘Hey Dave you want pepperoni?’ ‘Sure Corey.’ ‘Okay, I’ll ca… bleeep blop beeboo beeboo.’ ‘D****T CHRUCHKOV.’ We would bang on his door but he would either not hear us or pretend not to hear us.
So I hatched a plan.
I waited until he left for work one day.
Then, armed with some **** I bought at Radio Shack back when they sold stuff that wasn’t cell phones, I walked into his room. I unscrewed his phone jack and connected a 5v relay to the line. COM/NO went to the phone, the coil went to the other two (unused) wires. Then I buried the whole thing back in the wall and made it look good as new.
I hid a 9v battery inside the kitchen phone and connected it to the ringer switch and my secret wires.
Chruchkov comes home that evening, slams the door. Thirty seconds later it’s bleeep blop beeboo beeboo. ‘Hey Dave, you want pizza?’ ‘But Chruchkov is on the…’ ‘I got this, man.’ I flip my switch, his phone turns off. But only his phone.
The sound of him kicking and cursing at his computer remains one of the most passive-aggressively satisfying moments of my life.”
20. They Didn't Think She Spoke Their Language...And It Backfired
“The mother of a friend had been raised by missionaries to China. She spoke perfect Mandarin, having grown up speaking the language, but was Caucasian and one would have no clue this was the case from looking at her.
She once patronized a laundry service run by Mandarin Chinese speakers. When she came to retrieve her items, she heard one of these business people say to another the Mandarin equivalent of something like, ‘The old bag has returned for her clothing.’
My friend’s mother did not say a word, but politely accepted her items, thanked them in English, and paid for the service. But just as she was about to walk out the door she spoke, in flawless Mandarin, ‘The old bag has indeed returned for her clothing.’
According to my friend, the word translated as ‘indeed’ was the precisely correct Mandarin word to put a rude person in their place.”
19. The Best Way To Get Back At A Bully Is To Ignore Them
“I still remember this as one of the most satisfying and educational experiences of my life.
I was maybe 11 y/o at the local pool. For some reason, one boy, bigger than me, got angry at me. (No knowledge of why.) He came up and started punching me under the water. I looked around and no one to tell, nothing I could do.
It hurt, but it didn’t really hurt that much, so I just pretended I did not even notice him.
I stayed there for a while while he punched me (under the water is tough to punch hard, so it did not hurt much). I got out of the pool and jumped back in right next to him.
He started punching me harder. I still pretended I did not even notice.
I went out and jumped in again nearby him.
He punched me even harder becoming more and more frustrated. I had realized that I had the power as long as I do not give it to him.
It was starting to hurt, but the pleasure of being in control was way too satisfying.
I repeated this a few more times, completely ignoring his existence and he became angrier and angrier and I became more and more satisfied.
At some point a lifeguard noticed and called to him to stop, giving him an excuse to stop, but with the rush I was feeling, I could have gone all day being punched. Even if it hurt, I had realized that not acknowledging him hurt him more than his punches hurt me.
One of the most vivid memories of my childhood.”
18. Try To One Up Me In The Conversation? I'll Prove You Don't Know What You're Talking About
“I have a tendency to be a smarta*s…a lot…
My aunt, her daughter (16y/o), my cousin (26y/o), and I were at said aunt’s place just chit-chatting, waiting for the rest of the family to arrive for some get-together.
Me being my usual self was sitting quietly while they were chatting. At this point, my aunt turns to me:
Aunt: ‘Why don’t you ever talk to anyone? You’re always sitting quietly.’
Me: ‘People always gossip around, talk about mundane stuff that I’m not interested in, so I never have anything to add.’
Aunt: ‘So what does interest you enough for you to talk?’
Me: ‘Science, movies, tv shows, philosophy, metaphysics (I was really getting into philosophy at the time), books…random stuff you know.’
*My cousin, is one of those people, who can top anyone’s story with his own. One of the guys around whom the sun revolves. He has to be always better than everyone else in the room*
Cousin: ‘I’ve studied and done a few online courses on metaphysics you know. Love that stuff.’
I knew he was full of ***.
Me: ‘Oh really? That’s cool. I’ve been struggling with understanding something though. What does ‘Meta’ mean in Metaphysics?’
You could hear crickets….
Cousin: ‘Well, that’s…you know it’s like a different branch of physics.’
Me: ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought it was.’
My aunt and her daughter burst out laughing in his face. He went red. Got up and left the room.
End of scene.”
17. Rude Customer Can't Tell Which Coffee Is Which? Allow Me To Shake Them Up
“As a Canadian teenager, I worked at Tim Horton’s. This is a chain of fast-food restaurants that serves mainly coffee and snacks. Many of our customers are gruff, grumpy, caffeine-addicted men. I was the typical, perky, cheerful teenaged girl cashier. I loved that job because I was REALLY good at it; efficient and fast.
Mr. Grumpy comes in one day and interrupts my friendly greeting with an abrupt, ‘Two medium, one black, one with milk.’ I pour his coffees, lid them, and promptly place them on the counter. I did this quickly, deliberately omitting the step of using a white pencil to mark the lids, which we normally do to indicate which was which.
He looked at his cups, then looked at me like I was an idiot, and sarcastically asked, ‘How am I supposed to know which is which?’
With an almost imperceptible jerk of my wrists, I moved the cups enough that a tiny drop appeared on the lid of each cup through the vent hole. One drop was definitely black, the other clearly contained milk.
‘Would you like me to write it down for you, sir?’ I asked, smiling politely.
‘Nope, that’ll be fine, thanks.’ He paid me the 2.20 and left. Still gruff, but I think I detected a tiny flicker of amusement in his eyes.”
16. Judge Me For Being A Working Mom? Have Fun Changing The Diaper
“My Father-in-Law (FIL) disagreed with my decision to work after having a child. My husband was supportive of my decision and would stand up for me.
Even with his vocal support, my FIL would continue with digs by questioning my ability to be a parent and my love for my child.
My FIL came to visit us when my daughter was 5 months old. At one point in the morning, my husband went upstairs to change her. We split childcare duties, so this wasn’t unusual. As my husband is leaving the room, my FIL asks me ‘Can you change a diaper?’ I reply, ‘Yes, I have many times.
So can (insert husband’s name).’
Throughout the day there are more put-downs on me as a working mother. For example, we are driving to lunch and my daughter starts to cry. FIL says, ‘She thinks she’s going to daycare.’
I’m normally a pretty even-keel person and don’t easily get upset. The attacks as a working parent came as soon as my FIL learned I was planning to return to work, so I had been dealing with this for months.
I was angry and hurt.
After returning from lunch I go upstairs to change my daughter when inspiration strikes. I take off the old diaper and pull her pants back up. I then rush downstairs and immediately ask my FIL if he wants to hold her. Within a minute she had peed on my FIL.
He is alarmed. I respond, ‘What? I don’t know how to change a diaper!’
This bought me about 4 months free of harassment.”
15. Give Me Trouble At The Dealership? I'll Pay You In Nickels
“I had a horrible experience trying to buy a new Honda at a local dealership. I told them what I wanted, but they kept trying to up-sell me on a different model. Then it was switching sales guys, to the hardcore close. etc. etc. I understand sales and all the BS really doesn’t bother me since it’s part of the game.
However, after reaching a price and completing the paperwork, I drove out with the car.
I was happy until Jennifer from the office called me three days later at work. They made an error and didn’t collect money on some specific fees listed in the contract. I was pretty sure I paid for everything listed. I told Jennifer I needed a couple of days to review the contract and look at the check I wrote to determine if I owed money.
She became a belligerent ****, yelling about how I have their money and need to come down right now and pay. I told her I would review the contract and pay them if I owed them money. She called at 9:00 am the next morning being a **** again demanding money. Later that evening, I reviewed the contract and they didn’t total up the doc fee correctly and I owed them $394.00.
I called Jennifer and told her that I did find the error, would pay the amount, and asked if she could please tell me when she left the office so I could pay her personally. I waited until 4:50 pm on Friday night (Jennifer works an 8-5, M-F) and paid her $394 in nickels. I had broken the seals on the bags from the bank which meant they needed to hand count all the coins.
I had brought a book, took up residence in their customer lounge, and waited for them to complete their count. I enjoyed watching Jennifer and 4 salespersons make little rows of nickels. After over 90 minutes they brought me the $0.45 in additional funds I added to see if they would accurately count it. My backup plan was if they said it was all there, I would inform them that I actually included extra money and couldn’t remember how much, so they would need to recount.”
14. Annoyed My Vegan Roommate By Making Her Smell Butter Every Week
“For almost a year I had to live with a vegan. Not just a regular vegan, but a born-again Vegan with a capital V who converted in her 30s, I’m sure as an attention-getting ploy. She made sure everyone knew she was a vegan and had watched animal cruelty videos. Anyone who still consumed any kind of meat or dairy product was a lesser human being than her.
She loved going to restaurants and berating the staff for the lack of vegan options and demanding they create dishes for her.
S0….I would get up early at least once a week and make cinnamon buns, scones, buttermilk biscuits, French toast, bacon cheddar muffins, etc. I’d fill the kitchen and the whole house with the smell of delicious buttery goodness. Then I’d clean up everything and take the baked goods with me to work or give them away to friends.
The only thing lingering was the smell of fresh-baked goodness. You know when you go to a mall and can smell the cinnamon roll store? It was like that, and she couldn’t say anything because there was no trace of evil dairy around the kitchen, just the delicious after odor that lingered for hours.”
13. Disturb My Sleep? I'll Disturb Yours
“For a time in the 1980s, I was forced to live in a roommate situation while the apartment I was waiting for was completed. I used a professional service and they set me up with a woman about my own age.
Naturally, there was the thought that there might be some extra-curricular activity and we were heading down that track with some degree of certainty. In the mornings while I was drinking my tea on the couch she would come in wearing a flannel nighty and the zipper would mysteriously drop inch by inch as she bent over in front of me to do something, but I was never sure what.
Her intent was clear.
But it turned that she was something of a passive-aggressive woman. Although we paid the same amount of bills and rent she assumed she was the leader and made chore lists and had refrigerator authority, meaning she could eat whatever I put in there but I had to beg her for anything she put in there including common items like milk and butter.
This soured any possibility of any kind of hooking up. She was a martinet and no amount of cleaning or chores that I did measured up to her standards, not that she was a paragon.
But the killer was one night when she went out with her friends to go clubbing. I had told her that I needed to get up early because I was driving to Canada for a revolutionary war battle re-enactment and that I needed my sleep.
But she came in at 2 AM with her high heels and pounded back and forth on the floor for over an hour listening to dance music on the stereo, clearly very drunk. I couldn’t get any sleep. And she wouldn’t take off her high heels so it was clop clop clop all night. It was miserable.
Finally, around 3 AM she went to bed. I had to get up at six.
I had already packed all my gear, my musket, my canteen, and camping equipment but when I got up at six I made certain to unpack everything, dropping all the metal items noisily on the floor then repacking them. I knew she had a raging hangover – she always did. I made lots and lots of packing noise and anyone who knows anything about a marching army knows how much noise their equipment makes on the march.
I must have ‘accidentally’ dropped my clanking metal bayonet at least three times. As I walked out the door she yelled, ‘******!’ from her bedroom to which I yelled back, ‘****!’ and went off to fight the British. God, that was a miserable apartment.”
12. Steal My Old Stuff? I'll Make You Jealous With My New Stuff
“A colleague of mine is a high-functioning narcissist and manipulator. She is magical at weaving sob stories and lies about her situation, in order to get what she wants, exactly how she wants it. I’ve suffered years of being forced to hand in my ideas, papers, and work materials to her by my superior, who seems to be really charmed by her.
So anyway, our friend here loves new shiny things.
She has to have the best and newest working materials in her possession. Whether she has to use them or not is another story altogether. She will create stories to get the materials from others, and sometimes steal the items when my colleagues are not around.
My superior once gave us both almost similar projects, and adequate materials to each of us, to be used for the project.
On Monday, the first day of the project, I went to retrieve a tube of chemicals among the materials provided to me. Everything was ready; I just needed the tube of chemicals to start my assay. Lo and behold, it was not there. Mysteriously disappeared. Mind you the tube was in the box when I did a final check on Friday the week before.
Naturally, I called my colleague, as she has the same item, that I would like to borrow some of the chemical from her.
She did not pick up her calls; in fact, she did her best to stay out of my way on that particular day. I finally requested my superior to ask for the material on my behalf (it was urgent), and he said that she did not have the chemical anymore.
So I ordered a new tube of the chemical and wasted two months of my life waiting for the item to arrive.
My student, who was performing the project with me, was incensed at the whole situation, as she had to complete the project as soon as possible.
One fine day, the chemical arrived at the lab. Bright, shiny, and spanking new.
Within a few hours, my colleague approached me, looking all sweaty and pale, with my old chemical tube in her hand, and mentioned the following:
‘Ranjetta, I accidentally found the old tube in the fridge as I was sorting out my things. Wouldn’t it be better if we store the new tube of chemical for safekeeping, and try to finish up the chemical in the old tube first?’
I said, ‘Thank you for your kind offer, but I think I’ll stick with the new tube.’
She left her work halfway and went back home early that day, with a pinched look on her face.”
11. Rude Customer Leaves Her Phone In My Taxi...Too Bad!
“New Year’s Eve sucks for cab drivers. Too many amateur drinkers. Too many high expectations.
I picked up three nicely dressed young women, taking them to a downtown club for some festivities. They knew cabs would be difficult to get after midnight and so asked me for my card.
About an hour or so later I got a call from the ladies, one was already too drunk and needed a ride home.
At 9:30, tsk, tsk, tsk.
I met her being held up by her friends in front of the club. What a mess! I explained that if she got sick in the cab it would be fifty bucks extra, surcharge. If she was going to get sick, tell me and I’d pull over. We were off, her and I.
Shortly after we started, she told me she was about to get sick.
I pulled over just in time for her to open the door and barf in the curb. Blaah! Blaarf! I hate New Year’s Eve.
After five minutes of this display, I asked if we should continue or maybe return to the club. No, she wanted to go home.
I got her home and the fare was $18.80. She said that’s two dollars more than the trip out.
I explained the meter continues to run while she was throwing up. Outrageous!, she said. She threw eighteen dollars at me. I reminded her it was eighteen and EIGHTY cents (plus tip). She then threw the change at me. Happy New Year, I said as I pulled away, not even waiting for her to get to her door. New Year’s Eve is the worst!!!
Karma is my buddy, for just a few minutes later I heard a cell phone ring in the back seat. Hello, I answered. She said ‘you found my phone’. I said, are you the one who just threw money at me? She said, yes she was, and could I bring her phone to her home? Yeah, right. I told her, per company policy, I would drop her phone off at the taxi station’s lost and found, she could come pick it up in the morning.
For the rest of the shift that cell phone kept ringing, all her friends calling to give her wishes. My fares throughout the night would ask, Aren’t you going to answer the phone. I then would explain what happened. We’d all laugh and laugh. New Year’s Eve can be festive, too.”
10. Force Me To Pay To Join Your Exclusive Coffee Club? I'll Just Make My Own
“When I moved to Australia my first job was teaching for a term in a pretty rough and dysfunctional school.
(By dysfunctional I mean the principal was absolutely hopeless and some teachers had been there years, having formed tight little cliques. They were barely going through the motions of teaching, knowing they were too hopeless to get a job elsewhere but they had permanency there so the principal couldn’t get rid of them and no-one would take their job even if he wanted to.)
On the 2nd day there I saw a coffee pod machine in the staffroom.
Not a Nespresso machine, just one of the really cheap rip-offs. I mean really cheap: at the time they were $49.99 in the supermarket. By comparison, the cheapest Nespresso machine was $400.
I remarked about the machine to one of the other teachers, telling him how in my previous school we had them (Nespresso machines though) and I commented how easy & convenient these machines are. He agreed and so I asked him about what pods are used. He told me the type of pods I needed to buy, which supermarket sold them, and which brand & strength he prefers and recommends.
That evening after work I go buy myself a stack of pods and over the following weeks, I treat myself to a daily coffee, courtesy of the marvelous $49.99 pod machine. I would leave my boxes of coffee pods in a drawer under the machine and I noticed quite often someone had helped themselves to one. I don’t say anything: they only cost 40c or so.
It’s not worth getting all uptight and upset over someone’s ‘stealing’ 40c worth of coffee from me.
6 weeks later, after having used the machine daily (usually twice daily) without anyone saying a word to me, I approach the machine for my daily caffeine fix and find a note stuck on it:
‘This machine is for the EXCLUSIVE use of FULLY paid up members of the Coffee Club ONLY’ (‘exclusive’, ‘fully’ and ‘only’ all uppercased, bolded, and underlined.)
Not only am I confronted by this mystifying note but my pods are missing!
I head back to my office perplexed to find my pods sitting on my desk. My head of department (HOD) comes in and gravely informs me that my constant use of the machine has really upset 3 of the other teachers. Apparently, the three had all chipped in to buy the machine for their own private use and had all been so very upset I had been using it without permission these past few weeks.
But they hadn’t wanted to tell me because they didn’t want to make any sort of drama or fuss. The poor dears.
Here’s the weird bit.
The three ‘members of the coffee club’:
#1 was the PE teacher and he was an ultra-aggressive **s***e who swore like a drunken sailor at everyone, including the students. The idea that he felt too shy to tell me not to use the machine was bizarre, to say the least.
#2 was the guy whose desk was right next to mine in the office and, I thought at least, that we got on very well. Often, when I was getting myself a coffee, I would offer to make one for him (using my own pods) and more often than not he would happily agree and thank me. Again: bizarre that after 6 weeks of convivial work relationship and me often getting a coffee for him, he felt compelled to write a note to me to tell me to stop doing so.
#3 is even more bizarre: he was the teacher I first talked to about the machine and who told me where to buy the pods from! Don’t get me wrong: had #3 right at the start told me it was a private machine and they didn’t want anyone using it, I would’ve been fine with that. But he told me where to buy the pods from and which ones I should buy.
Surely that’s an invitation to use the machine?! W*F. Can anyone explain this?
It gets worse: my HOD tells me that the coffee club triumvirate has magnanimously decided to let me join their exclusive club for a very reasonable $30.
Two points to consider here: the machine, as I wrote above, retails brand new for $50 and I was only teaching there until the end of term, less than 2 weeks away.
I also wish to point out that each of those teachers was earning $100,000 /year: together they were getting $300,000/year. Yet they forbade anyone from using their precious $50 machine and expected me to pay them $30 – almost the cost of a brand new machine – just for the privilege of using it for 8 more working days. smh.
I apologized to HOD for my ignorance and rudeness, and respectfully declined their kind offer of joining their merry little club.
There I was, less than 2 weeks before the end of term, with a box of coffee pods I was now no longer able to use. I first thought of creating a scene by getting up to speak at the end of term meeting the following Thursday and profusely apologizing for my crass use of their beloved machine, going on at length about how I really did not realize how precious and important this machine was to them before offering them the unused pods, along with a few more boxes as a way of further apology and maybe a snide remark of knowing which ones they liked based on which ones had gone missing from the boxes I had bought.
Pretty passive-aggressive but I’m not outgoing or chutzpah enough to pull such a stunt off.
My next thought was to join their club, pay the money, then abuse the **** out of the machine until it broke. But that seemed like too much hard work and I figured they might catch on to what I was doing and hide the machine.
So I was stuck as to what to do.
Then I thought of the most marvelous passive-aggressive action!
On the last day of term, during the lunch break, I went to the supermarket and bought an identical coffee machine along with several boxes of coffee pods. I came back to school and in the class time after lunch (luckily I had a free lesson), installed it in the staffroom next to the triumvirate machine with the following message above it:
‘This machine is for the EXCLUSIVE use of anyone who is NOT A MEMBER of any existing Coffee Club.’ (relevant words bolded, capitalized, and underlined).
I put all the pods into a large bowl next to my machine and put a note above the bowl which read:
‘Free for anyone who is NOT A MEMBER of any existing Coffee Club.’
I then made myself a coffee and went back to the office.
The member of the triumvirate who sat next to me looked at me quizzically briefly but didn’t say a word. One of the best cups of coffee I’ve had.”
9. Keep Stealing My Drink And I'll Have It Spray All Over You
“So, I used to drink a lot of diet soda but the machines at work only had Pepsi (disgusting!) so I kept a 12-pack of cans in my desk. Each morning, I’d go put one in the shared fridge and when I went to get it, I’d replace it with another.
Always a chilled soda in the fridge.
And then one disappeared. Hmnn.
Maybe someone just thought it was the same unclaimed soda in there all day, so they took it because it was abandoned. No big. I replaced it.
It disappeared again. The plot thickens. Maybe they thought it was theirs? I replaced it but marked a big red X across the top in whiteboard marker.
It disappeared too. This was theft! Outright, bold, shameless theft! I was angrier than I probably should be over a drink, but they were mine! And I had to drink it warm now!
So, I replaced it again. New soda in the fridge. But this time, I shook it up. I mean, like a paint can at Home Depot I shook it up. Then I had to go to a meeting.
When I walked by the fridge again, there was a very satisfying dark brown stain about three feet across on the carpet in the hallway. SCORE!”
8. Refuse To Pick Up Your Dog Poop? I'll Leave A Nasty Pile At Your Doorstep
“I had this next-door neighbor once who had a dog. He did not obey the leash laws and would allow his dog to roam freely. His dog would poop in our backyard all the time.
I asked my neighbor nicely several times to clean up after his dog.
Another neighbor asked him as well. He would tell us that he would get around to cleaning up our yard but he never did.
After saying something to our landlord, she too asked the neighbor to clean up after his dog. He never did. It got so bad that our entire backyard was full of dog poop. Our children could no longer play in our backyard.
Finally one day I had gotten fed up. I took a shovel and went around our yard scooping up the dog poop. Then I would drop the dog poop right in front of the neighbor’s front door.
I had to make several trips from our backyard to his front door. When I was done, all the poop was out of our yard and now lying in a huge pile at their front door.
My other neighbor and I watched and waited patiently from my front porch. Eventually, the neighbor’s partner came home and stepped right into the huge pile of her dog’s poop. We laughed so hard we cried!”
7. Rude Customer Gets The Cold Shoulder
“I used to work for a large office supply store, and we had a very strict policy about doing what the customer asked of us.
And it was a strict enough policy that if you had walked in and asked me to do jumping jacks, I would need a good reason to say no. We got all of the customers that Staples refused to help, and they were mostly grumpy and overly demanding.
We had one customer who would come in every few weeks and spend about $1500. It was a huge order, and I was the only cashier.
I didn’t make commission on any sales or anything like that. The only time I earned commission was if I personally convinced someone to buy a high-end laptop or printer. I did, however, earn strikes for taking too long on orders. I got a strike every time this guy came in.
He always had about 40 coupons, none of which were valid at the time of purchase.
But he knew someone pretty high up in the company, so we had orders to honor his 3-year-old coupons. I’m not sure if you know how that system works, but if a cashier is going to honor an old coupon, they have to manually change the price of that item. It usually requires a manager’s approval, and it can be really difficult to do.
So each coupon added on about 2 minutes into the time I spent helping him, which would have been fine if he wasn’t the most impatient customer I have ever dealt with.
On orders over $300, you have to have a manager enter their employee code at two different points. On average, my manager had to come enter her code 42 times for this one customer. It was the most difficult thing ever, and I always hated working on the days he came in.
One of the times he came in, I had finished with everything with the exception of taking his payment. I stopped to ask if he needed anything else, and he grabbed a soda. I rang it up and asked if he had a coupon for that as well.
My manager overheard and started laughing, but this man was not amused. He threatened to have me fired right then.
I rolled my eyes and said ‘okay. I’ll just cancel this order and let my manager start it over for you.’ He didn’t call anyone and it was never brought up again, but I quit about 4 days later.
Side note: I know it wasn’t professional. I was a teenager, making minimum wage. I was dealing with harassment from one of my managers, and this guy was incredibly rude.
I’m a pretty nice person 99% of the time, but if you are actively trying to make life more difficult for other people then I have no sympathy for you.”
6. Steal Her Seat? I'll Find A Way To Leave You Seatless
“We are in a concert hall for some concert. I arrive early and grab a prime seat. This elderly woman comes over and grabs a seat 6-7 seats from me.
The hall fills up.
The woman leaves to go to the washroom.
This dude grabs her seat.
She comes back and protests, but he would not listen. People complain, but he is not going to budge. His argument: ‘Seats can not be reserved here.’
I eye signal to the dude to come take over my prime seat. I grab my stuff and pretend to be on my way out missing the concert entirely.
The lady also thinks I am leaving and everyone will have a seat and be happy.
He quickly starts rushing to my place. The lady sits in the place he vacated.
Oops. I changed my mind. I quickly sit down and enjoy the concert.”
5. Won't Move Me Into A New Place? I'll Use Your Office As My Own
“Two years ago, my husband got a job offer from a company. He was working for a banking client at that time. The new job was for an insurance client and the job location was in a different state.
We had our lease signed till Dec 2014 in the apartment where we were living but we had to move by Sep 2014 to the new location. So, we had to pay a total of 4 months rent (around $4000 – 2 month notice period + 2-month lease breakage charges) in order to move early.
To our surprise, the manager of the apartment informed us that, if we transfer our lease to their community apartment in another state we just have to pay a $500 transfer fee.
This offer was valid under the condition that we should have booked the apartment in the new state before moving.
I was skeptical about booking an apartment online but we didn’t have any other option as we were running out of time. Also, we had no problem with the apartment where we were living at that time. As the new apartment also belongs to the same community, we decided to go ahead.
After reaching the new place, my husband and I went to see the apartment to check whether it would be ready by the day of our move-in. We were told by the staff that they will only show the model apartment. The model unit was so good. We went back to the hotel with huge relief.
We got the keys on the day of our move-in and went to check the unit.
When I opened the door, I sensed a strong smell of insecticide or pesticide. I couldn’t bear the stench. I took a few steps forward and noticed something under my feet. It was a big cockroach. I have never seen cockroaches that big in my life.
Not only was the place infested with cockroaches but also with fleas and ticks. The patio was not cleaned and had bubble gums on the wall.
It was a very old unit and all the equipment was outdated. When I booked the apartment, I was told by the staff that the unit had a washer and dryer but it didn’t.
It was nothing like the model unit. I went to the leasing office immediately and told the staff about my concerns. To that, she replied nonchalantly that the pest treatment will be done every Tuesday and the cleaning was done already so she can’t do anything about it.
Also, she was the one who confirmed washer and dryer availability by mistake.
I consoled myself saying that this problem is temporary and it will go away after the pest treatment but it didn’t. All it did was affect my olfaction and cause breathing trouble. We were told by the pest treatment personnel that multiple rounds of treatment must be done as the infestation was severe.
We knew that we cannot stay here for one year of our lease and decided to break the lease and asked our moving company to hold our things for another month.
I confronted the leasing staff saying that the unit which we were offered was in no way similar to the model unit and also told her that we are planning to move to some other apartment.
Without giving an explanation for the issues, she demanded lease breakage charges. That p*ssed me off.
The next day I took my laptop along with all the study materials to the leasing office and sat in the waiting lounge. On seeing this, the staff approached me and asked what I was doing. I told her politely that I couldn’t sit in my place with all the stench so I will use the office space to prepare for my grad exam and also offered to keep the future residents occupied. Of course, that worked.
She was taken aback by my reply and went running to the manager’s office. She came back after 15 minutes and asked me to meet the manager. They told us that we could move to another apartment within the same community without lease breakage and transfer charges. We moved from there after 2 weeks to a very nice apartment.
Well, sometimes silence is not the best reaction.
You have to do what you have to do in order to make something work.”
4. Keep Being Rude To The Flight Attendants? I'll Make You Pay For Snacks You Don't Want
“I once had a rude passenger traveling with her baby on board. As a matter of fact, this encounter was recent.
When one of the crew went to her to brief her (the airlines I work for make it mandatory for crews to brief parents traveling with an infant below 2 years old) on how to use an infant seatbelt and what to do in an emergency, with a flick of the wrist she dismissed her.
‘No need to brief me. I know the drill,’ without so much as looking at the stewardess.
When it was time to take off, she didn’t strap her son in using the infant seatbelt we provided. When we insist, she dismissed us again saying her baby is allergic to metal (the only piece of metal on the seatbelt was only the buckle and it would be right on her son’s belly covered with clothing).
All the while my brain keeps going ‘this woman is a piece of work.’
When we roll out our cart for meal service, she snapped her fingers at crewmembers demanding she be served first. Now, this is understandable since we always serve kids, elders, and mothers with infants first. But you don’t have to do it by snapping your fingers at us. You could have just stop our cart and ask nicely.
When we roll out our food sales cart, she stopped us to buy some snacks but refuses to take off her headphones while talking to us. Her sitting at the window seat means she’s farther away from me and her words were not as clear as the passenger sitting on the aisle seat talking to me. I look at her dumbfounded that after a few times of asking her what would she like to buy, she keeps muttering under her breath all the while not really bothering to make eye contact with me or take off her headphones.
So I pass all kinds of snacks that we had, one by one until she gets frustrated. She keeps saying ‘no not this one! I want xyzcbhsjdkwhateveritis!’
I passed another packet of snacks knowing full well that wasn’t what she wanted. ‘No I want xcbsggeyetheotherone!’
I took out a packet of peanuts that she most definitely didn’t want. “no! That one, I need xctshdchstheonenexttoit!”
This went on for a few minutes, while the passengers sitting nearby watch in amusement. Not even once I mutter anything rude to her, just pretending I can’t fully comprehend whatever she’s saying.
If only she had taken off her headphones and talk to me like I’m a normal person instead of like her slave, I probably won’t play dumb. In the end, she got so frustrated she just said ‘yeah ok give me whatever you have then!’ handing me an rm100 note to pay for something that cost her only rm7.
I asked if she has smaller notes and again I was dismissed like my fellow crewmembers. So I went around the cabin asking everyone if they have smaller change for me to return her the balance. I went from row 5 to row 30. Everyone just keeps shaking their head saying nope sorry don’t have small change.
Again, she got frustrated waiting for her change, she pressed the call button and handed me the exact payment of rm7 in small notes and demanded to get her rm100 note back.
And oh, towards the end of the flight, during descent, her kid started acting up and cried as loud af. She struggled to get him to calm down while the rest of the passengers looked at her in disgust.”
3. I Made My Miserable Coworker's Job More Miserable
“My junior year of college, I landed a job as a gift shop cashier at a Major Philadelphia hotel. My co-worker that trained me was a woman who had worked there for nearly 8 years. She was a miserable person.
On my first day, as she trained me, she held up register tape and said,
‘Whatever you do make sure the register never runs out of paper. We need to guests sign for purchases. Also, we only have 2 pens. Do not let guests walk out with them!’
I gulped as I didn’t like her tone of voice and threatening stance. I was intimidated. But I nodded my response and offered a smile. I wouldn’t let her see me sweat.
We were a crew of six and I always got stuck on shift with her. Everyone felt bad for me as her attitude was well known throughout the hotel. I could tell working with her would be trying to say the least.
During my first few weeks, I made mistakes and would need her to help me. Each time, she’d huff and make me out to be an idiot in front of the guests.
Sometimes it was warranted but most of the time, she just wanted to be a jerk towards me. I was also a full-time college student so balancing my course work and being part-time at the gift shop was a challenge.
Then, of course, it happened. The register tape ran out. There was a huge influx of guests and a line trailing out of the gift shop spilling into the lobby.
I was manning the desk by myself while she was in our storage room feasting on gourmet candies she pilfered from the display shelf.
You’d think that a major hotel would make sure their employees had everything to do the job right, but no. We were instructed to run to the check-in desk in the lobby & beg a manager to open a stock room for us to get supplies.
With a line spilling out the door, sometimes that would be impossible.
My co-worker was a shift manager but had no stock room privileges. As she lifted yet another overpriced candy to her lips from her stolen stash, it dawned on me. We can’t get what we need because of her! Management didn’t want to fire her because she had been there for a long time & while her attitude was horrible she was competent.
We were understaffed, so they thought, we’ll just take her closet keys. Also because I was a new employee, I would not be granted key holding privileges for at least a while.
After some tap dancing, I managed to score some more register receipt tape. It was a hotel where a lot of conventions were held. Traveling employees needed to supply receipts for accounting purposes in case anyone is wondering.
While I was on new employee probation, I also evaluated my job. After a few months, I did decide to leave this job as I landed a much better one on my campus. I grew to be trusted and well-liked, much to this woman’s chagrin.
I managed to get enough clout to have separate shifts from her and on my last day there, I saw she would be working the following day.
A grinch-like smile formed on my face as I thought of a parting gift. I took every roll of register tape and hid each pen.
I laughed in the gift shop as I closed the door for the night. She would look at the schedule and know I did it. My cackle echoed as I imagined her scurrying about begging the concierge to open the supply closet door.
Oh well.
A few years later, I strolled by. For kicks, I decided to peek into the gift shop.
She was still there. In the same position. Still very miserable. I wonder what happened to that new position she had her eye on.
Then I remembered. Must have been that tip to management about our items being consumed but not sold.
Oh well.”
2. My Dad's Mistress Kept Calling So I Gave Her A Good Reason To Stop
“The phone rang again, I picked it up again and said my name, no sound, then beep-beep-beep. That did it. I got so fed up with it that it was time for a plan. My own little, 10-years old’s, revenge plan.
My father was having an affair, that much was clear. For months already, our family was disturbed and dysfunctional. The relationship between my parents was totally messed up and as their youngest son, I felt heartbroken and angry.
Twice a day, for weeks, the phone would ring and there would be no sound if I picked it up. It annoyed me big time. It never happened to my father though. So I concluded it must be her, the unknown woman.
I decided to start some retaliation. Every now and then I heard him calling her in his home office (on a landline). One day I overheard him through the office door, and I waited out the call.
He went to have lunch in the kitchen afterward, and I sneaked into his office.
I pressed the redial button.
With my heart pounding in my throat I waited… And then she picked up and said her name. Gotcha! I stayed silent, wrote her name on a paper, and hung up. As a little Sherlock Holmes, I started looking her up in the phone book.
I had some clues as to what town she might live in, so after some research, I found her name and number.
Since that moment, the fight was on. A few times a day I would call her and say nothing at all until she would hang up. It felt great. My little sneaky, well thought out, revenge plan was working just as planned. It must have driven her crazy.
It took them weeks to find out. Then my father came to me, sighed, collected some courage, and asked me bluntly if I was the one that was ghost calling his ‘friend’. I denied. But from that day on, I stopped. My point was made.”
1. I "Accidentally" Spilled Pudding All Over The Class Jerk
“Oh, this moment is one of my best memories.
Remember that jerk in middle school? Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. The one who slacks off in class and makes fun of you for getting a B+ when his best grade is a C-.
He’s also the one who insults others and responds to witty comebacks with, ‘I know you are but what am I?’, even when the circumstances don’t make sense. Oh, I’ve got it! The one who thinks it’s cool to sag his pants to his knees.
I think you all know who I’m talking about.
I was lucky enough to have this kid in my Spanish class.
Every day, he’d walk—no, swagger in a minute after the late bell rang. On this particular day, I was in a horrid mood. I had forgotten about a math test, forgot my binder at home, and on top of that, had to lug around a giant jar of vanilla pudding with me all day.
When I say giant, I mean giant. It was huge, like the ones you find at Costco. It was for a club meeting that was after school, so I was stuck with that monstrosity for 7 hours.
When I walked into class, the token jerk went, ‘Check it out! That jar is almost as big as her stomach!’ and laughed. I replied sweetly, ‘Oh sorry (insert jerk here), but you have to have a double-digit IQ before you can talk to me.’
His eyes narrowed and I knew what was coming. His signature comeback was about to slip out. But then he surprised me by retorting with, ‘Sorry, I don’t talk to girls with mustaches.’
Instead of engaging the idiot, I sat down and pretended to pay attention, all while devising a plan for revenge. Throughout the class, I unscrewed the cap of the pudding jar, little by little.
Then, as we were leaving, I ‘tripped’ and spilled the entire jar of pudding right at him.
It got everywhere. His clothes, his hair, even his backpack. The teacher couldn’t accuse me of anything because it was an ‘accident.’ (Secretly, I like to think that she hated him too.)
And the club director started yelling at me for dropping the jar, all I could think of was his clothes and bag, covered in pudding. It was awesome.”
