People Explain How They Sought Revenge On A Tormentor
24. My Bully Is Now Making Me A Millionaire
“I went through some tough times at a low point in high school, mostly due to my weight.
It never really bothered me, but there was this one guy that just could not miss an opportunity to try and break me down. Let’s call him Daniel because that is his name.
There was constant verbal bullying. He never made anything off it, just left it. It was more irritating than anything else. Secretly, he absolutely blasted my self-confidence, and it took a lot to recover.
A few years later, he comes for an interview at my company – I own a few car dealerships.
My HR manager does the interview, says that the guy has all the right answers, seems like a good candidate, and that we should highly consider him.
I do my homework and see that he is getting divorced, his previous employer has gone under, and his father has been diagnosed with end-stage cancer. Things are not looking good for him. Daniel did have an excellent track record and was truly a great salesman – he had numerous awards and excellent customer skills.
I tell my HR manager to get him back for a follow-up interview. Daniel comes in, smiling and ready, thinking this is it. My HR manager excuses himself, and I walk in and introduce myself.
Daniel takes a minute before he recognizes me, and all the b***d drains from his face.
He tries to apologize. I conduct the interview, noticing that he is stressing out and very self-aware.
When the interview is over, Daniel was visibly disappointed.
Before he left, I did what any business owner will do and offered him a job starting that same day. Daniel gladly accepted. I agreed to better terms and to adding his father as his beneficiary on his medical insurance to help with his bills. I employed Daniel, and he is an excellent employee. My revenge was Daniel making me very close to a million last year, and only earning about 140k for himself. So thank you, Daniel, you magnificent, efficient, excellent employee.”
Another User Comments:
“This is brilliant! You didn’t kick him when he was down when you could have, and now in a way he’s making up for all the things he did.” WhatCatDraggedIn
23. You're Gonna Hate Crows After This
“This happened long enough ago, and the bully (let’s call him Tom) and his family have moved away, so I feel safe telling this story.
My nephew (let’s call him Ethan) went to elementary (primary) school about two blocks away from me.
Since both of his parents (my sister and my brother-in-law) worked, we had an arrangement that Ethan would come stay with me after he got out of school until his parents could come to pick him up and take him home.
Since I worked from home, I was able to help Ethan with homework, make snacks, and play with him.
It was a pretty cozy arrangement. Ethan and I are pretty close, and we had lots of fun playing catch in the yard (he’s now pitching baseball), getting my butt kicked in video games, and even just relaxing with a good movie.
Overall, life was pretty good. Except for one problem.
That problem was named Tom, another kid who across the street from me and was in the same grade as Ethan.
Beginning in maybe 4th grade, Tom decided that Ethan would make a good target and would bully him on the walk to my house. It wasn’t unusual for Ethan to show up with tears in his eyes because of the various nonsense Tom pulled. Ethan never would fully tell us (out of fear/wanting to protect us) what was going on.
This became such a problem that Ethan’s parents and I complained to the principal and even tried asking our local police department what we should do.
Unfortunately, their advice/response was all the same: ignore him – we can’t do anything because there’s no proof/not happening on school grounds, try making friends with him, kids will be kids, etc.
Since the attacks were happening during the walk to my house, I started showing up at Ethan’s school to walk him to the nearby baseball field to practice pitching and batting.
This worked for a couple of weeks, and Tom was never a problem (probably because he saw the baseball bat I was carrying, and I’d look at him with, “I will not be afraid to use this on you if you pick on Ethan around me” glaring in my eyes).
Unfortunately… this just led to the bullying happening at school, and it was even worse this time around because “Ethan needed his auntie to help him.”
Once again, the school did nothing because they’re about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. We even went to Tom’s parents, begging them to knock some sense into their son. I won’t go too much into that confrontation because we’ll be here forever.
But let’s just say that home environment was probably a good reason for why Tom was picking on Ethan.
During this time, Ethan was miserable.
He was too afraid to go outside and play because Tom would be there to harass him and he admitted to me later that while he loved me and was happy that I’d walk him home, he wanted to be a big boy and take care of his own problems.
To say that Ethan’s parents and I were at our wit’s ends is an understatement.
We wanted to help him more than anything, but with both Ethan being withdrawn and being out of resources, it was safe to say our hands were tied.
That was until one evening in the middle of Ethan’s summer vacation (between 4th and 5th grade). I was watching the news when I came upon a special on corvids (ravens and crows). A research team did an experiment on wild crows/ravens to test their memory, and it turned out that these birds not only had a sharp memory but would attack anyone who did another crow harm.
The best part? They never forget.
Even after several weeks/months, they remembered the good/bad people.
I knew we had a local murder (a flock of crows) nearby and decided to put this little tidbit of knowledge to the test.
With only two months to go until school started again (and Tom/his family away on vacation and summer camps), I didn’t waste time. I bought a huge bag of birdseed, and at the times Ethan would walk home, I would walk the path and drop little handfuls of birdseed in full view of the crows, always remembering to take a different route to get to the school so that way the crows wouldn’t get confused.
It took maybe a week or so before I’d notice more crows arriving, and they eventually started leaving shiny things (bottle caps, buttons, discarded gum wrappers, etc.) for me to find.
Once, I was sure I had the crows knowing I was the “good” guy. I brought Ethan into this. We’d walk the path and feed the crows.
Soon enough, the crows would start coming out, and we’d be friendly with them, giving them names, and listening to them “gossip” while sharing news of our own.
We must’ve looked really weird to the neighbors, but Ethan really enjoyed it and even looked up things about corvids on his own.
He learned the shiny stuff the crows were leaving was a form of “currency/thank you presents.” Thinking this could be helpful, he started collecting other shiny things for the crows and would leave those in addition to the birdseed.
With two weeks to go until school started up again, I began phasing myself out of the afternoon feeding times, so eventually, it was Ethan who was feeding the crows/leaving gifts on the walk home.
The day before school started, I gave Ethan a bag of birdseed in addition to his shiny things and winked at him.
Sure enough, at the same time Ethan would come home, I heard the crows cawing and what I thought was a little girl screaming.
I stepped outside and saw Tom running towards his house, the crows divebombing him and pecking at him. Further down the path, Ethan was laughing so hard at the sight of his bully running and screaming like a little girl that he fell to the ground.
Tom peeled into his house and locked the door as I walked over to Ethan and helped him up. Of course, I had to get the juicy details, so I asked what happened.
Ethan was walking home, spreading the birdseed, and leaving the shiny things as usual.
About halfway home, Tom pounced, making some nasty cracks I won’t repeat here before punching Ethan.
And that’s when a crow divebombed Tom. When he tried hitting it away, more and more showed up until the whole murder (who were watching) were ganging up on Tom.
I was smiling sweet tears of revenge at our little feathered friends, especially when I saw the whole murder crowded around Tom’s house like it was a set from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Needless to say, Tom and his family did not have a pleasant experience for the remainder of the school year.
There was at least one crow in front of his house watching and waiting for him to come out, so he could peck/chase him around.
And every afternoon, the murder was protecting Ethan on his walk home.
Of course, Tom’s parents tried to protect their kid by swinging baseball bats and other things to keep the crows away, but we quickly learned that crows “talk” to each other, and soon, the whole murder was on them too.
They tried to take legal action against Ethan, his parents, and me for “training the crows to attack Tom,” but that got thrown out the window really quick because they had no proof of us training the birds as they had been gone all of summer break, and none of the neighbors wanted to help them (apparently, the murder of crows weren’t the only ones Tom’s family angered).
So for the rest of the year, Tom had to be driven to and from school, so he and his family wouldn’t get attacked. When summer started, they moved away, probably to be rid of the murder of crows.
Ethan has moved on to middle school, but we still visit the murder and leave shiny things for them.
Just in case.”
22. I Finally Snapped And Laid Him Out
“I moved to Jackson Michigan several weeks after starting 6th grade. It was a rough move, to say the least!
Our teacher, Mrs. Broyles, was the toughest teacher I ever had, including college! Apparently, they had some sort of requirement for maintaining an organized binder, and I’d missed all the instructions. I never did get it right.
But I met my best friend Grace there. I don’t have any idea why we hit it off so well, but she was my maid of honor when I got hitched many years later.
My man adored her as well.
Grace was very petite as she had juvenile diabetes. Her parents were well off, and she was an only child. I remember she brought in an aquarium full of beautiful fish for the entire class to enjoy.
This horrid little boy, Billy Tingay, was the class bully. I remember one day he’d thrown a bar of soap into the fish tank. I pulled it out in time, and the fish survived. He was a persistent little brat.
The next time, he stayed late in order to toss the soap as we left for the weekend. The fish were all dead on Monday morning. I was furious, and Grace was heartbroken.
He was just a jerk and a bully.
One day, he followed me out of the classroom at the end of the day. It had been a long week, Mrs. Broyles was always tough as nails, and my home life was in shambles.
My mom was drinking again, and I was just tired of everything. So, the idiot boy starts yammering at me and teasing me about this yellow book bag my Aunt Carol had sent me for Christmas.
I was an avid reader. I had my nose in a book to distract me from all the things that were unpleasant in my life. The book bag was embroidered with my name and filled with textbooks and novels.
Since we were in 6th grade, we had to walk the length of the entire school to where our buses waited by the kindergarten entrance. All the way, that little jerk followed me and taunted me. Eventually, I just snapped!
I totally lost it! I grabbed both handles of the sturdy book bag, and then in a 180-degree arc with all the strength I could muster, I hit him with the bag in his chest area as hard as I could!
His legs went out from under him, and he went flying. I just kept walking while all the kids looked out their windows watching.
We were both hauled into the principal’s office, and I was told that the next time, I should ask for an adult. Then they shoved me out the door, and it was Billy the Bully who got into trouble. You see, he was known to bully and be a troublemaker.
And the best thing about the whole deal is that I was never bothered by bullies again.
I can’t tell you how good it felt to lay that jerk out, and I’ve never forgotten it.”
21. Destroying An Entire Town To Get Back At Bullies
“As a background, I grew up in a little town in a conservative, rural area heavily dominated by religion. This makes people put great stock on moral purity and appearances. Keeping up the facade is the most important thing. Everyone must go to church weekly and people are heavily judged for appearing sinful.
This was a bad thing for me as the cards were heavily stacked against me from birth.
You see, my mother lost her parents when she was young and was taken in by her uncle and aunt. The uncle had an important position in the local religious hierarchy. So when he and a couple of his friends started abusing my mom, it was ignored by everyone. When she got pregnant, it was painted at showing that she was running around seducing married men so no one believed her when she said it was her uncle’s baby.
She was cast out. Why she didn’t move out of town, I don’t know, but yeah. There I became into the picture, born out of wedlock and with no father, branded as a sinful outcast.
My childhood was bad. I won’t go into details, but enough to say that by the time I started going to school, I was quite damaged. School made it worse. I was bullied relentlessly. Teachers were part of it since they were all part of the religious community, which saw me as stained.
So yeah, in school I became that trenchcoat kid or its local cultural equivalent. I became weird and hostile on purpose to turn people off. People were casting me into the mold of being damaged and stained, so yeah, I took it and turned it into something to protect myself with.
Despite all this opposition, I managed to graduate with decent grades. A distant aunt, my only decent relative, helped me get into a college in an actual city.
She was the black sheep of the family and saw herself in me, maybe? Around this time, my mother drank herself to death. Can’t blame her for it. She had a life insurance policy that helped me study. City life liberated me. I went into therapy and managed to treat the wounds that town had sliced into me. I got rid of that stupid town, but I guess some part of it never left me.
Years went by. I became a sort of… analytical consultant. I work for an international company that does sort of out-of-the-box analysis for other companies. I won’t go into details to protect my identity, but we assist in solving all kinds of situations. Well, in my line of work, I’m sometimes called in to help downsizing operations. This sucks, I feel for the people who get fired, but if I wouldn’t do it, someone else would.
A couple of years ago I got an assignment to go into three different factories and assess their wholesale, then come with a suggestion on which of them to move abroad. My hometown was among those three factories.
You see, the town I grew up in was one of those ‘one smokestack towns’ like we say in my country. There was one factory and some agriculture – everyone worked in those jobs, like 60% of people in the factory.
The rest of the economy rolled around supporting the factory and the people working there. Most of the people were looking forward to nothing but a job at the factory after getting out of school. The religious community running the town ran the factory as well. The big shots in the community tended to be bosses in the factory. This meant that the factory wasn’t run that well; promotions were based on ‘holiness,’ not on merit or skill.
The trip back to my hometown was glorious. Most people didn’t recognize me at first. The chubby outcast had become outwards just another corporate drone. I inspected all the paperwork, listened to all their speeches and lies, audited the processes. In the process, I dropped hints, and finally, they got who I was.
The factory people threw a party for me then for the old time’s sake. Many of my old school ‘buddies’ were there.
We remembered fake good times together. I threw a shadow on every part by pulling up some certain event of bullying I had endured, just to see the atmosphere turn awkward. Then I laughed at it like it was always a joke and I had grown out of it. Inside I was seething with hatred and enjoying this all. I really loved seeing their faces, seeing what they had become because forget it, I was going to take it all away from them.
In the end, they seemed relieved, believing that they were lucky it was me doing the audit, that the hometown boy would protect them.
After my visit – lasting a couple of days – was over I cruised around the town in my rented car, just to see how the people lived and to remember what it was like. I had never understood why people pursue positions of power, but yeah, now I understood.
The rest is, as they say, history.
I wrote a really scathing report, documenting every little flaw and mistake ever done in the town plant. I didn’t need to lie or fabricate – I simply took things that existed and polished them till they looked even worse than they were. The factory was shut down and in the following three years, the town died. No business venture ever came to replace it. Illegal substance use spiked, as did crime and violence. Lives fell apart; families fell apart.
They still haven’t recovered, save for a few brighter souls who moved away.
I still stalk them on social media sometimes, enjoying how horrible their lives are, how they all finally got to pay for what they did to me and my mom. I don’t feel a slight bit of remorse. If I could do it all again I would – only I’d first make it so I could be present to watch when they received the news about the factory being shut down.
In my fantasy version of the events, I’d stay in town for a year just to see everyone fall apart.
In reality, I will only go back there once – when my uncle finally dies; I’m going to go and pee on his grave.”
20. Just Because He's Skinny Doesn't Mean He Won't Strike Back
“I was working as a security guard outside a 24-hour McDonald’s in Australia around 2 am.
I was about 21 and a small-framed woman working alone, and it was a bit of a rough area, so I had to be careful.
A group of 5 or 6 teenage boys turned up and were standing around in the car park trying to pick fights with any guy who looked at them sideways. Mostly men were ignoring them, but they were getting bolder, and I was beginning to think I was going to have to call the police before things escalated.
Just at that moment, a small, thin guy exited the building. Everything about him said scared. He held the food bag in front of him like a shield. He was looking at his feet and walking fast trying to avoid any conflict with the boys.
Predictably, one of the loudest lads zeroed in on him as an easy target to hassle and impress his friends.
He runs over with the usual, “What are you looking at?
Are you looking for trouble?” nonsense and the small man just sped up. I started to walk over to rescue him, thinking he was about to be beaten up by the group if they were allowed to proceed.
The guy ignored all provocation until the boy laid a hand on him. I have never seen anyone move so fast. The man dropped the bag, grabbed the kid by the hair, and pulled him backward off his feet in a move he had clearly used before.
He proceeded to punch the boy in the face 4 or 5 times ’til the kid was out on his feet.
There was a moment of shocked silence, then the guy gently put the kid down and picked up his meal.
He suddenly saw me standing there in a uniform completely frozen in shock. The guy had yanked the kid’s head back so hard that there were clumps of his hair on the ground.
As soon as he saw me, the guy was like a lost kid.
He said nearly in tears, “He started it. I just wanted to go home and have my dinner.” I just nodded and said, “OK, off you go” because I sure wasn’t going to stop him, and he drove away.
The kid suddenly came round. He was a bit dazed, and I asked him if he needed an ambulance or the cops.
He said no, so I told him and his mates to go away.
I have never seen a beat-down like that. From scared little guy to full psycho and back again in less than a minute. The guy must have been on parole or something because he wanted no piece of that fight before or after.
As for the kids, they learned an important lesson about picking fights with people you don’t know. Sometimes the little guy is not the easy bet. Sometimes people avoid fighting for your protection rather than theirs.
As my grandfather used to say, “Beware the wrath of the quiet man.”
Updated Response: When the incident occurred, I was only 21 and very unsure of how to respond. Unfortunately, the law in Australia is very clear.
Security guards have no right to remove people from anywhere, and calling the police is often the worst response. While many people have criticized my actions, that’s OK. The story illustrates as much as anything the lack of support guards have.
For those who could have done better, this reminds me of another of my grandfather’s sayings, “Everyone knows how to tame the mad bull, except the man who owns him.””
19. Do Me Wrong At Work? I'll Ruin Your Business From The Bottom Up
“Nearly 20 years ago, I was a brewer at a brewpub.
The owner was a complete lunatic and an utter jerk. Before I was hired, he had already purchased the brewery equipment, used, from a closed microbrewery. Problem is, it was literally 4 times larger than it needed to be for the size of the place, and to top it off, he was selling Big 3 drinks too.
And it was a Pugsley system. (Brewers will know.)
But I made it work. I even got the stupid Ringwald yeast to behave. But I only need to brew about 3 or 4 times a month (I have worked at places we brewed that much a week), so I wasn’t needed anywhere near 40 hours/week. And I was salaried. So, he decided I needed to work night manager at least two nights a week to fill out my hours.
That was fine; it was an easy gig.
After our first year, he advertised a huge anniversary event with specials including food and drinks including commercial specials. And didn’t even mention that we made our own, much less put anything on special. Idiot.
Not too long after, I got my first vacation in over a year. And he was mad at me for insisting. But life was stressful, not least of which because my mom was in hospice, stage 4 cancer.
But her condition was such that she said my woman and I should go; she’ll be fine. So, we went camping for a week. The day before our trip was to end, we got word she had died. Two days earlier.
My family didn’t know how to reach us, only she did.
We rushed home (6-hour drive), and on the way, I called my boss and told him what had happened and that I probably would not be in on Monday as planned. (This was Saturday.) I found out later from a bartender that he then complained at the chef that I was probably going to want more time off.
I did in fact take Monday off, but I went in on Tuesday to do my night manager shift.
Now, my mom’s wishes were to be cremated with no embalming, so by the time I got home, she was already cremated. So, the memorial service was planned for two weeks later, right before Labor Day weekend.
There was to be a memorial service Thursday and the internment for the family Friday. So, I planned and made sure that the servers were full, and I wouldn’t need to brew for at least a week.
That Wednesday, the boss comes and tells me that he wants me to work the night shift on Thursday and Friday (normally I did Tuesday and Wednesday nights) to make up for the time off I’d taken to help my dad out. (He wasn’t handling it well.) He wanted me to come in after my mom’s funeral. I flatly refused, at which point he said fine, but I’d have to work a double shift Saturday then.
I nearly lost it. I walked away, and after I cooled off, I went back and told him I was no longer going to do the manager shifts and that I wanted to switch to hourly for brewery work only.
He was angry but stuck. He needed me in the brewery.
Things started calming down, but after a few weeks, I noticed my paychecks were for less than I anticipated. I hadn’t been tracking my clock in/clock out very closely because prior to this, I only clocked in and out, so I was logged in to do manager functions, but I happened to have a couple of slips in my wallet, and because I still had manager access, I discovered he had been altering my hours, eventually cheating me out of around 20 hours in just 6 weeks.
And that’s when I hatched my plan. I was done with this jerk. Remember that Ringwood yeast? Well, in a brewery, you harvest yeast from a fermenting batch to use to brew a later one.
And since we were slow, it often had to be stored for a while before it got used. But you had to use it within 30 days (21 is better) or it goes sour and starts dying. Normally I would take other steps to ensure it stayed clean and healthy but not on the last batch I harvested. It just went into the cold room.
And stayed there. I stopped going in very often, just logging tank levels to make sure nothing ran out and made him suspicious. I would even go in to make sure he wasn’t in that day and later message him that I’d brewed. (I hadn’t.) And waited.
On day 45, after I got the check for the last hours I worked.
I overnighted my keys in with a resignation letter. He called me the next day, screaming.
I told him I knew what he’d done, and I wouldn’t be back. I don’t know what he looked like when he went into the brewery cellar and discovered he had empty fermenters, nearly empty serving tanks, dead yeast, and almost no grain. Pity really.
After that, he tried to hire my former assistant, who was working at another brewpub by then because the jerk had forced me to fire him to save money.
He laughed at him. He then apparently got the underage son of one of the brewers at a nearby brewpub which he had originally been part of to brew for him but had to fire him because the kid kept getting caught intoxicated down in the cellar.
So, he tried doing it, and I had heard they stopped brewing entirely eventually. About a year after I left, he folded. Staff showed up one morning to padlocked doors.
Drove through there a few years back. Not only was the business gone, but the building was torn down. I felt like stopping to sow the ground with salt, but I was in a hurry.”
Another User Comments:
“An example of wage theft. It’s probably one of the most common crimes in the world and very common in the States. He deserved it. Absolute criminal.” pandizlle
18. One Word: Dodgeball
“The two months I spent in 6th grade were anything but pleasant. Scary new school, new kids I didn’t know because it was a city school instead of county, new teachers, and more importantly, a brand new principal who was serving his first year in that position.
The school was set up with floors, the 6th graders on the top floor, 7th on the middle, 8th on the main floor along with the cafeteria, gymnasium, band, and choir rooms.
Kids were expected to be able to travel to and from classrooms and floors as needed on their own for the first time.
Now gym was never a favorite class. I had asthma, and strenuous activity didn’t help that condition any. I sat out with permission from certain things, and the gym teacher aka ‘Coach’ Mr. Max was a wonderful man who understood completely and even waved off a doctor’s note for it.
After a week or so, we played ‘free for all dodgeball’ for the first time. Unlike normal dodgeball, there was no line you couldn’t cross, so it was absolute anarchy of children running and screaming and throwing rubber balls at each other. That was when I formally met my new and shiny bully, Ron, who was at least three times my size and twice my height.
He was a BIG kid. He looked me over, grinned, and full-on punched me square in the side of the head instead of hitting me with the ball.
Then it escalated. He was also a 6th grader, and we shared some classes, gym, and band. In band, I’d get smacked in the back of the head with a trombone slide, punched or shoved in the gym or a hallway, and then finally one fateful day, he picked me up off the floor and TOSSED me down the stairs from the third floor.
I was okay thankfully, but my mother went beyond ballistic when I finally fessed up to the bullying, and a new friend confirmed it.
She brought me into school the next day and requested a meeting with the principal.
The meeting went just as bad, and since a teacher hadn’t seen the exchange, and -I- hadn’t seen myself getting picked up from behind he couldn’t do anything about it and it was likely a case of “He just has a crush on you.” Mom promptly went home, registered me for homeschooling through a private school, and told me I had a month until I was going to be leaving permanently.
And to “Give that little jerk trouble, baby.” So I did just that.
My moldy science experiment? The bag was opened, wiggled into his locker at the gym, and squeezed to empty it out onto his clothes. An anthill collected and poured into his backpack during class, I batted my eyelashes and begged him to let me do his history report for him if he’d stop hitting me…
I purposely made it absolute garbage to get him a bad grade.
Then came the coup de grace. I went to Coach Max and asked if we could play free for all dodgeball one last time since I was leaving and ‘loved it so much,’ and he agreed, which meant less work for him after all, and so the game commenced. I knew Ron would hunt me down to hit me somehow again, only this time the tables had turned.
I dove for the first ball I found, scanned the carnage for him, ran up to him with a vindictive grin, pulled my leg back, and as hard as my tiny body could, slammed my foot right into him.
He thumped to the ground with a horrific scream of agony, kids nearby stopped playing and ran for Coach Max, but that was not the end; I ripped my leg back and kicked him again in the face.
Coach saw the last kick, and naturally, called me off, helped the degenerate up, and off to the nurse’s office.
Once there he, through tears and yelling, explained what I had done… the nurse grabbed the principal who grabbed me, sat me down, and demanded to know why I had assaulted a student.
“Sir, you said last month that him throwing me downstairs was a crush on me, right? I was returning the favor.”
He didn’t like that answer, apparently, and called my mother to come and get me and that I was suspended. My mother did, and since I only had three days left before the transfer, I never got to go back, and she never punished me for my two-ish weeks of being a bully.””
I had a manager who was an ******* and one time I was working stock. I had go on the register b.c the cashier left b.c her husband was sick. The guy tired refuse letting me to the bathroom.
I legit said either I **** in a garbage can and scan out customers. Or I use the restroom for 5-8 min.
17. Don't Mess With Her Friend, Or Mother Nature Will Unexpectedly Pay A Visit
“My bullies were a group of four girls who were the stereotypical ‘popular girls’ in middle school. I was more of a tomboy/introvert. I was primarily focused on school and soccer.
One day, in art class, my bullies had pushed me to the edge.
They made my best friend cry. She was pretty overweight, and they severely embarrassed her in front of the whole class. This made me furious. As a 7th grader, I was surprisingly vindictive, and I took crud from nobody. I could handle my own bullying but not the bullying of my few friends. Luckily, today’s art class project involved paint.
My group was called first to grab the paint we needed. With tears streaming down my friend’s face, I looked her dead in the face and said, ‘Don’t worry.
I got this.’ She was terribly confused. I grabbed red and brown paint. I mixed the two colors at my table while the rest of the students were waiting for their groups to be called up to get paint for their projects. When the bullies got up to grab their supplies, I put a dab of the red and brown paint mixture on the center of each of their chairs. Unbeknownst to them, when they sat down, they smeared their butts into what appeared to be a nasty menstrual mess.
Every single one of those girls looked like Mother Nature had paid them a visit unexpectedly.
The boys threw feminine products at them in the hallway. They had no idea what was going on until the principal called them into the office and told them to either change into their gym clothes or go home. They all changed into their gym shorts, which were deemed too short for class by the principal, and they were all sent home to dwell in their embarrassment.
The best part? The art teacher watched me do it. And when I noticed her eyes on me, I froze. She noticed my fear and just nodded her head once as a signal for me to proceed. EVERYONE hated these girls. I was just serving up justice my way.
The principal eventually found out it was me because someone who saw me doing it snitched (probably for the chance at popularity). I proudly admitted to the offense with a smile on my face.
I was not reprimanded. I didn’t even receive detention. The principal loved me because I was a good student, and I was super friendly to anyone who approached me, despite my social anxiety. When I said I did it, he was like, ‘Oh. Hmm… Well, uh… Stop… Stop messing with your classmates. And tell your mom I said hello!’ And then he simply sent me on my way back to class.”
16. A Punch And A Stomp To Ward Off A Stalker-Bully
“As a short Asian girl, I have been bullied a lot.
People think I’m weak or a pushover. Well, I may not be the greatest fighter, but I am by no means a pushover. I have gotten revenge on plenty of bullies, but the one I remember the most was in middle school.
There was this guy, Todd, who thought he was hot stuff. He was on the basketball team and was fairly attractive. He even wore a leather jacket because he thought he was all that.
In reality, he wasn’t so much hot stuff, more so cold runny diarrhea.
Anyway, he used to constantly harass me, shove me, insult me, he even spat on me sometimes. I just ignored it because I just didn’t care. But all my friends thought he had a crush on me because ‘if a guy bullies you or is rude to you, he must like you’ and all that stupid stuff.
Eventually, it started getting creepy.
I noticed him in my peripheral vision as I was walking home obviously trying, and failing, to hide and stalk me. He started touching me more and more. I just kept ignoring him and dodging him. All the while my ‘friends’ keep saying that they’re so sure that he has a crush on me. Day after day, I kept making comments to my mom and dad. Kept getting the same response from my mom, ‘You’re a girl: just sit still, look pretty, and ignore it’ and things like that.
My dad just said to ‘deal with it.’
One day during lunch, he just straight up touched me inappropriately. All sorts of ‘Oooooo’s’ and giggles from the cafeteria. The teachers were outside dealing with a kid who just puked, so no one was there to help. I went from shocked to angry as I realize he’s still touching me. I could feel him poking against my back. So I ripped his hands off me, got up, and punched him square in the nose.
Then, I stomped on his private area. Hard. Yeah, he was in a lot of pain.
I got called into the principal’s office, who called my dad. Without even listening to the principal, he asked me what happened. I explained that I was touched, and I dealt with the problem by punching him in the face and stomping on him. Dad had the proudest grin and patted my shoulder while fighting the principal because this principal wanted to expel me.
I ended up not getting punished, and I got ice cream!
Moral of the story: Don’t sit still and take it if you’re getting bullied. Fight back. Even if you can’t win, fight anyway. Bullies like easy targets.”
15. Not As Weak As You Think
“As a seventh-grader, I got picked on fairly often.
It wasn’t my practice to fight back, so bullies were encouraged because it was fun, and there was no apparent downside.
I wasn’t aggressive, and I fancied myself a sensitive soul, so it never really occurred to me to fight back. I just really wished that the bullies would grow tired of the game. No such luck that year.
As I entered adolescence and began to participate in wrestling, the bullying stopped midway through the 8th grade.
I had sprouted biceps, and, though, I never had to declare my newfound grappling skills, I must have carried myself differently.
One of my tormentors from the 7th grade was in my first-period PE class in the 10th grade. At 12, we had been essentially the same size, but I had grown quite a bit more than he had in the intervening years. He used to kick me in the stomach during class changes every chance he got, then walk away laughing about it.
I had never forgotten about it, but, as I said, he was no longer messing with me, so I had mostly made peace with it.
On this particular day of sophomore year, the boys were waiting for the bell to ring in the locker room following our gym class. The middle school bully, whom I’ll call Jason because that was the little jerk’s name, was making the rounds giving kids chest twisters. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?
It involves pinching another’s n****e between your thumb and pointer finger and twisting. It is rather uncomfortable.
I expected Jason to skip over me since he had seemingly declared detente when my testosterone finally kicked in.
Nope.
Unfortunately, he also hadn’t done much growing in terms of emotional maturity.
He walked up to me for our first meaningful interaction in three years and, without preamble, gave me a particularly earnest yank on my areola.
I was no longer the defenseless, sensitive kid who just hoped that my torturers would see the light.
I reacted immediately by shoving him. It wasn’t a little shove, either. I lowered my level, put both hands on his chest, and kept driving until he fell over backward into the wall. He jumped right up and telegraphed his run such that it was just instinct for me to sidestep and throw him by me. He slammed into the opposite wall this time.
Unaccustomed to fights that didn’t take place with rules on the mat, I walked away, expecting it to be over.
After all, he had just crashed into two opposing walls: surely he didn’t want to get hurt?
Nope.
He came running at me again and jumped on my back. He was ripping at my ear and trying to choke me at the same time, howling and crying through the whole ordeal. This time, multiple of our classmates pulled him off of me.
Knowing that he had an audience, he gave a classic, if cliched, speech about how he was going to kill me. He told me to “watch my back” when the bell rang. Several people congratulated me as the day went on. It seems that I had not been his only victim over the years.
The following day, we had health rather than PE, and I was in the classroom early, as was my practice.
The teacher was nowhere to be found.
Jason came into the room and appeared just as emotionally elevated as he had been the day before. His face was red, and his breathing was labored.
I remained quietly at my desk. He stalked toward me, declaring what a cowardly little so and so I was. Even when he stood over me at my desk, I figured I would just sit there. Surely he wouldn’t be foolish enough to physically assault me again?
Nope.
He slugged me. Right in the jaw. I can’t say that I recall any pain. I knew what I had to do, though.
When I stood up from my desk, he was already backing away.
I must have had some look on my face. I grabbed his head and arm in a classic wrestling headlock and executed what must have been a perfect hip toss. (Another classmate told me that he thought Jason’s feet were going to scrape the ceiling on the way over.)
Jason’s head, neck, and back all landed on the floor at about the same time with me on top of him. The wind was knocked out of him, he was choking on his tears, and he was clearly terrified at this point. I looked him right in the eye and asked if he would leave me alone after this. He nodded his head as he could not yet speak, and I released him and returned to my seat.
Do you think that Jason so much as looked at my direction for the remainder of high school?
Nope.”
14. Traumatizing A Bully With Gnomes
It’s not a bad idea to get revenge on someone using their biggest weakness!
“Back when I was in middle school, there was this boy that lived across the street from me. Our parents were really good friends, so this led to us babysitting him and vice versa a lot.
Whenever he would be at my house, he would be a little jerk and break something, then run to tell my parents that I broke it, and naturally, my parents believed him.
He did a lot more things to get me in trouble, but this is what he did most frequently.
One day when they were babysitting me, I got the idea of taking some of these little lawn gnomes that I found at a flea market and putting them in his closet, under his bed, in the shower, etc… wherever I knew he would frequently go.
Then the next time I saw him, he would tell me how he kept finding them everywhere, and when he would give them to his parents, they would just say he was doing it for attention.
Each time he found one, I would find a new hiding spot for it.
Then one night when I was sleeping over because my parents were going to be out really late and wanted me to go sleep earlier, I had a plan since I had already been torturing him for about six months with the gnomes I gathered from my adventures at the local flea market.
Once he fell asleep, I quietly entered his room and put all the gnomes I had around him.
There were dozens of them in his bed, all lined around him and by his face. The next morning, I am woken by the loudest and most blood-curdling scream I ever heard. I run in there to see what happened as a result of the gnomes, and he is sitting in the fetal position wrapped in his blankets repeating, “No more gnomes. No more gnomes.” When his parents got in there, they finally believed all he said about the gnomes, while I sat there trying to hold back my laughter.
Fast forward to when we were in high school. Since I stopped hiding the gnomes a few years back, I was wondering if he was still frightened by them, so I grabbed a few of them and headed into school.
During our first class of the day, I excused myself and opened up his locker (very easy to break into; all you had to do was jiggle it a little bit), and on the shelf that was at eye level, I placed the gnomes in a line on the shelf.
Then after the first block, I am walking to my next class, and I see him bolting from his locker to the nearest bathroom, and he was sobbing for the next half hour until a teacher could convince him to come out and talk about it. He didn’t come to school for the rest of the week.
Looking back on it, I may have gone a little too far, but he tortured me for years before and after I started with the gnomes.”
13. Burned With Super Hot Cooking Oil
“Oh man, this poor kid I used to work with at Wendy’s.
Kevin. He was a juvenile delinquent and he was a few years older than me, a little bit bigger than me had nasty tattoos on his neck and supposedly was out of jail on work release. He tried to be a tough guy and bully me whenever we worked together.
Stuff like generally talking smack unprovoked, getting REALLY close up in my face, and that stance where you puff out your chest and pull your arms back like you’re gonna swing. The most irritating was when he would walk right up in my face then flinch like he was gonna throw a punch at me, then just laugh and say some rude nonsense.
I got along with just about everyone at work, and he did somewhat, but we just did not fit together.
One day, the exchanges between us were so apparent and obviously stressed, everyone working was talking about me fighting him. I dispelled these rumors as I wanted to keep my job – but my destiny on this day said otherwise.
First, was the backdoor incident. The store had a large back door with a peephole in it, and it could only be opened from the inside. There was a buzzer outside that employees would push if they wanted to go back in.
Well, Kevin was locked outside and his patience, while awaiting his re-entry, had run out. Instead of tapping the buzzer, this guy was mashing it and holding it down while everyone inside went nuts. We were all busy and I was running to the back to grab some heavy boxes. Holding these boxes I was gonna open the back door while I walked past. I tried to push on the door but it wouldn’t open.
I leaned into it but couldn’t push much more cause of the boxes I was holding. I was in a hurry so I yelled, ‘GET BACK IM GONNA KICK THE DOOR!’ he did not hear me over the loud constant buzzing.
I gave that door a swift THIS IS SPARTA kick and it opened about 3 inches then bounced closed again. Huh? I kicked it again and it opened, revealing a bashed-up and somewhat upset Kevin.
He had been trying to look in the peephole when I kicked the door. He was livid… Immediately I started apologizing and backing away from him, but he came at me like a rabid monkey. Quickly, we were surrounded by employees and separated.
I was told to go upfront and manage fries and do not come into the back part of the store until Kevin left for the hospital.
Then the final event, less than 10 minutes later.
I was working on the fries which entails grabbing a metal basket out of boiling hot oil and dumping the fresh fries into an adjacent tray. I was doing this and everyone around me was talking about what happened between me and Kevin. On his way, leaving our store for the hospital, he decided to come right up to me again and try to instigate a fight while I was dumping some fresh fries.
Kevin pulled his signature move of flinching at me like he was gonna throw a punch.
I retaliated by returning my own flinch with the basket I was holding. I didn’t actually hit him with an incredibly hot fry basket… But I forgot about the boiling hot oil still clinging to the basket. When I flinched at him and shook the basket, tiny flaming hot drops of grease splattered his face and neck.
I had just hit him in the face with a door, then threw boiling hot oil on his face by accident.
Instant fight. He was on the ground.
He was an absolute mess. He left for the hospital, I got sent home. That was it. No charges. No questions from my manager(s) after. No more being scheduled with Kevin. Not even any paperwork about 2 vicious assaults and fights on the same day. I felt really bad but simultaneously kinda justified. Both incidents were honest accidents that could have easily been avoided if he weren’t such a jerk.
I still felt like the outcome was worse than reasonable.”
Another User Comments:
“I’ve met many people like this. The unfortunate part is that they tend to have a mindset of “why is the whole world against me?”
They usually don’t change their life until they change their attitude and realize that their actions and attitude results in a lot of their misery.
OP, don’t feel guilty. Nothing you did was completely intentional. The same thing could have happened to just about anyone.” whereismyoldaccount
12. Not So Big And Bad Now, Huh, Pipsqueak?
“I was very poor growing up. Add that to the fact that the street we lived on was the border between school districts so that meant we got to go to the “better”, wealthier school. Lucky us, not!
We stuck out like bananas in a field of watermelons.
It wasn’t unusual that the parents in the neighborhood would give away clothing that they didn’t need anymore. For future reference to parents, this only works well for the kids when they are very young before kids really notice things. Once they hit around age 7, first or second grade, the bullying starts in earnest!
Oftentimes, the hand-me-downs would be clothing often out of style: long pants when high waters were in style, or worse, high water pants when long pants were in style.
This was my problem, especially as I grew, and the pants just got shorter. My mother never “got it” and just thought they were “oh-so-cute!”
It’s so much easier for kids today as almost anything is accepted unless one runs with a snooty crowd.
It was bad enough that we had to deal with the bully girls pointing out how a particular piece of clothing looked “so cute” on me after also pointing out it used to be theirs, but the worse one was this one boy who made my life miserable for years.
He delighted in shouting my name out loud in a crowded hallway calling me high waters, a name that stayed with me up through high school!
I had other types of bullies throughout my young life, got into a few fights, got a small reputation as being someone who didn’t back down. Mostly, I learned how to manipulate a crowd to save my butt and as such never actually had a physical fight in school.
But this one boy I could do little about as his attacks were hit and runs, a quick shout in a crowded hallway, me becoming embarrassed and him moving along with the crowd, never staying long after his shout-out and gloating smile. Oh, how I hated that boy!
Then I graduated high school and moved on to college. One that was in several towns away. I didn’t live on campus; instead, I got rides or took several busses to get there, but I liked it there.
Then one day during the second semester, I was leaving a class with a few classmates. We were walking down the hall talking amongst ourselves when I heard loud and clear, “Hey, high waters!” I froze. No, it couldn’t be happening, not now, not here. It was so unfair! He came up to me. I was facing the other direction, and slowly, I turned around.
Now I didn’t plan this, but karma fell into my lap that day!
As I turned around, I realized this boy who had bullied me for so many years was short, really short.
After the initial shock of seeing him again wore off, I just blurted out, “Wow, you’re really short!” I was a bit taller than 5’5″, but he was a lot shorter than I was. Then I laughed and laughed. I had been so wound up when he had yelled high waters that when I noticed how short he was, the tension just left my body.
Oh, he did not like what I said or my laughing, and he scowled and walked away very quickly and never, ever bothered me again. I didn’t set out to get revenge, but it happened anyway, and yes, it was sweet!”
11. Sit Here, Teacher
Whoopsies.
“I got revenge on my English teacher with the GREATEST of pleasure on April Fools Day!
And this is the first time EVER that I spoke (actually, printed) my confession about it. Now that the ‘Statute of Limitations’ safely has passed, I cannot be prosecuted for this intentional premeditated crime against The Establishment or receive the worst of possible consequences known to my generation: the dreaded BLACK mark on my permanent record.
Was 1970 or 71, at A. D. Eisenhower High School, and Miss Campitelli (she was my age now, over-the-hill ‘old’), an English teacher, that used to get great joy from ridiculing just me almost every single class with at least ONE remark, but most often it was several.
Wild long curly hair, bony legs (dress code changed to allow cut-offs), clumsy, skinny, holes in faded jeans, very high IQ & only uses it for stupid jokes to disrupt my class, weird hippie shoes, no socks, something on all my pants or shirts, honkin’ nose, Dumbo ears, four eyes, metal-mouth, shoulders belly butt elbows knees ankles toes, it was ENDLESS!
And all I could do was sit and take it or do something rash out of anger to her, face to face, or behind her back, get caught and get suspended, or kicked out of school entirely.
SO, it was time to use that high IQ to think out for a long time, the “perfect crime.”
First a bit of background for your mind’s eye. Miss Campitelli was a ‘spinster’ that lived alone and walked a considerable distance to and from work/school each day, and so, stayed in shape.
Her daily outfits were sharp and many BUT all were from the early forties, where we guessed, her life had stopped moving forward.
I think, me, also being Italian and potentially very smart but obviously, a lazy idiot, was a particularly pointy thorn, jabbing in her side non-stop. As I was in the idiot reading class, almost near the 1st-grade reading level with Mr. Wilson while at the same time in the advanced science classes and college-level advanced math classes like trig, etc.
Now Mr. Wilson was in charge of the teachers’ requisitions of materials and supplies, and if a competent trusted male ‘idiot’ can be found in one of his ‘special’ classes, that person gets the job of tending that large locked supply room with all the special privileges of the title, “The Supply Boy.” The most valued one, no school bullies could get through that locked windowless door, my continuous private refuge outside the classroom.
A couple of others were to freely walk around the school halls during class hours without question as I probably am doing a ‘Supply Run’ and a key to that sanctuary, which I quickly found out was the MASTER KEY for every door in the entire school building, including the front doors to get in.
Several days before “D Day,” I made my “concoction,” so it would have plenty of time to release the air bubbles, thereby rendering it to an almost clear state, which should cause it to be nearly invisible when applied and also made one “milk run” to assure no hitch during, and the escaping from, the execution of this hopefully “PERFECT CRIME.”
“H Hour” arrived!
On the morning of April 1st with the Master key, I got to the school an hour before the front doors were unlocked for students to enter.
Went directly to Miss C’s morning homeroom, entered the locked room. The whole time moving ever so SLYLY like John Belushi in the movie “Animal House.” And by now, I am soaking wet from sweating and shaking like a leaf. With weak knees, I wobbled over to her highly polished desk chair and pulled it out.
Took out the “concoction” (a blended mixture of molasses, honey, and maple syrup) and poured all of it on the seat of the chair.
Then used my fingers to spread it evenly edge to edge on the seat, so it was very thick and puddled extra deep in the center of that wood chair. And it matched perfectly as the same gloss of the polished seat. I returned the chair to its standard position and made a zig-zag bee-line, slyly down the long hallway and still unseen, and made it safely to hide behind the security of the solid oak door of the supply room.
To regain my composure and wait for the first bell to ring – so I could come out and blend in on the way to my first-period class, which was ENGLISH!
Strangely, there is no English teacher, but after five minutes a substitute shows up.
It is not till my 8th-period class that I waited all day to talk with a person from Miss C’s morning Homeroom to get the dirty low-down.
It has to be in casual conversation to get this info as I do not want to draw attention to this, by asking weird questions, should a school-wide inquest be later held.
So I asked after talking for a few minutes, “Did anything happen differently this morning in homeroom when Miss C entered?” and the reply was, ‘Yeah, she came in and sat down, immediately got up, and left.” Then I asked, “Anything else before first period?” “Yeah, the janitor brought in a cart with a chair on it, swapped it with the one at the desk, and left.”
A few days later, I found out it wasn’t until 5th-period class that Miss C had made it back to work/school.
For that much time to pass, more than likely, she walked the entire way to change her clothes, smelling SUPER sweet, and all the way home with each step going squish, squish, squish, squish, squish, squish, squish, squish, squish…
Every time she picked on me after that day, I just smiled, remembering that sweet aroma & picturing, in one of those very tight mid-calf two-piece outfits, the squish, squish, squish, squish, squish…”
10. I Hacked Into A Computer To Get My Bully Expelled
A little tech knowledge can certainly get you places.
“Back in high school, there was this one kid, let’s call him Jake. He was the captain of the football team, and I was the stereotypical computer nerd. For three years, this kid had made my life a living nightmare. He was somehow in all of my classes, along with several of his mean friends.
It usually ranged from stuff like name-calling and stealing my stuff, but one day, it went too far.
I usually brought my laptop to school for my AP programming class, and usually only took it out there. One day during lunch, my backpack was slightly open, and my laptop could be seen. Jake saw this and stole it from my backpack. After much pleading for it back, he eventually took it over to the stairwell and held it over the edge.
He dropped it. All of my work was on that laptop.
A 35-page report that took me 3 days? Gone. My latest programming? Gone. That was it.
For the record, my school at the time was in the middle of becoming technologically up to date. They had several networked computer labs, and networked printers in every room (don’t ask me why). That was all I needed.
Our school IT guy was kind of an idiot and didn’t know how to set up security.
I managed to boot into safe mode as an Administrator (for which the password was blank) and used the command prompt to change the bully’s password.
I logged into his account and printed 1000 black sheets from every printer I could find on the network. When they looked at the logs to see who started the print order, they saw his name and expelled him.
The last I saw of him was him flipping burgers at some dump of a restaurant, and I don’t think he’s moved on from that.
I’ve told nobody about this and still haven’t.”
9. You'll Be Changing My Oil One Day
“This is 100% true, and I still feel like a jerk to this day. Might not be revenge exactly, but felt like it.
In middle school, I had a bully/tormentor who we’ll call Chuck. Chuck was about 2 years older than everyone because he’d been held back twice. Chuck was a monster. Huge kid (especially since he was an 8th grader in 6th grade), and regularly tortured half the class. He picked on me most often out of the group, but everyone despised him.
One day, after he grabbed me by the backpack and threw me against the lockers, I came home upset. My dad said, ‘don’t worry about him. Guys like that will be changing your car’s oil one day.’
Fast forward a month or so, and we’re in art class.
The teacher leaves the room, and Chuck starts laying into me and threatening to beat me up. I’d had enough so replied with something like, ‘Fine, Chuck.
I don’t care. Beat me up. No one here will laugh at me because you’re bigger than all of us. You can beat up anyone in the room. Who cares. Do it. No one will give a *****.’
At this point, the class started getting my back and laughing. Yelling insults at him. I still remember him looking panicked and saying, ‘shut up, I’m sick of you talking. You’re stupid!’ Since I had the support of the mob, I leaned into it and started telling him he was stupid, his parents hated him, he’d been held back twice because he was so stupid, etc.
Chuck was visibly shaking and about to start crying at this point. He had no power and the whole class was suddenly against him. So I went for the kill – ‘I don’t care. You can beat us up, Chuck. You’ll be changing my oil one day.’
After repeating my dad’s line, I realized I messed up. Chuck was about to beat the life out of me… thankfully the teacher walked back into the room a few seconds later, saw the commotion about to start, and sent him to the other side of the room.
Fast forward about 7-8 years. I was in my sophomore year of college and came home for the weekend.
Took my car to the Jiffy Lube for an oil change. Everything was normal, but then Chuck walks into the lobby holding my car’s air filter. ‘Sir, this is pretty caked with dirt, do you want a new one?’
I don’t think Chuck recognized me, but I realized he was literally the tech changing my oil.
Seeing him as beaten down as he was, working in a hot oil change shop in early summer made me feel horrible inside.”
8. You Won't Be In My Video
“This guy in my circle of friends had a history of being kind of a jerk towards me. Actually, he was a bit of a jerk towards everyone, but even more so towards me, I felt. Also, everyone else was friends with him from back in high school or something, so they seemed more forgiving of his antics.
‘That’s just the say he is,’ I’d constantly hear.
He’d only ever speak to me to tear me down, or to undermine me/make fun of me. I don’t think I ever heard him say anything to me that wasn’t a snarky remark or a put-down.
Anyway, the whole crew went on a house-boating trip a few summers ago, and right off the bat, this dude was power-tripping over the logistics of our excursion, acting like he was in a position of leadership or something.
At one point, in the trip group chat, he told me and another dude who was also a frequent target of his (apropos of literally nothing) that if we didn’t read up on the trip PDF and forgot to bring something, he’d not only 1) not provide us with a replacement and 2) throw us off the boat. Seriously, this is the type of jerk this guy was.
Now my ex couldn’t go on this trip, and I was getting a ride with my brother and his girl.
When the trip was over they wanted to go sightseeing in the region, but I had work to do, so I needed a ride back home. I approached one of my friends and asked if I could ride into town with them, and again Mr. Jerk jumps out from literally behind the car to shut me down on the ride because of…reasons.
(I would later find out it wasn’t even his car, which made me extremely furious.)
Now I’m a bit of a video editor. I usually do little trip vlogs when I go on trips, and I was planning to do one for this trip as well. Now this guy’s antics annoyed me SO MUCH, that I set out to completely remove him from the trip video, quasi-1984 style.
If he was in a scene, I’d cut it in ways to remove him from the shot. If he was on the peripherals of a shot I wanted to use, I’d zoom in to crop him out of the frame.
But I wanted to make it even MORE obvious that I had intentionally edited him out of the video.
So I spent 2 or 3 nights learning how to create that ‘freeze-frame, character’s name pops out from behind them’ effect.
I’m not an animator, so while the process of making this on After Effects is probably super simple, reproducing this effect on Sony Vegas is probably the least effective way to achieve this result.
Still, I researched furiously and stayed up several nights until I nailed the effect.
So now, thanks to that effect, it became abundantly clear it wasn’t an oversight to have him not show up in my vlog — it was by design.
Now I was already pretty happy with the result. I became even happier when I found out he was apparently super upset about having been cut from my little dumb trip movie. Turns out he had already been sending the video along, before watching it, assuming it was a cool recap of the trip.
People started asking him how come he’s not in the video at all.
To this day I wonder what he told people.”
7. Oops, I Set Your Mom And Ex Up Together
“So I had this bully for most of my school career, from elementary to high school graduation, though it really took around jr high. This jerk, let’s call him Humphrey cause it sounds funny, was one of the worst kids in school.
He would pick on people, steal from lockers, and go around messing with guys. His partner was almost as big a jerk as Humphrey, so he would always laugh it up when he saw the bullying going down.
But the thing that made me forever HATE Humphrey was the time he stole my clothes when I was changing after the gym, tossed them up onto the school roof, then shoved me into the girl’s locker room in my underwear.
Though this didn’t turn out so bad, since most of the girls were fully clothed and they could hear Humphrey laughing his butt off.
So, after graduation, I moved out of state and thought I’d never had to deal with Humphrey again. But, the house I was renting with some friends ended up burning down after 4 years, so I had to move back in with my parents for a while. I eventually got a job as a driver for a food delivery app, which I absolutely love cause I like driving around by myself and listening to the radio.
One of my regular customers ended up being Humphrey’s mother, and I would see her maybe 3 or 4 times a week. this meant that I got to know her pretty well, to the point I would occasionally help her with stuff around the house if my shift was almost over. (I know where you think this is going, but you’re wrong.) And this is what finally lead me to The Revenge:
One day, I was delivering to Humphrey’s mom’s house and the jerk himself answered the door.
And he hadn’t changed at all except he was losing his hair a bit.
His mom, not noticing he was being a jerk, invited me in for a bit. Since my shift was almost over, and I didn’t want to stay anywhere near Humphrey, I was going to say no. But, she got out that she needed help setting up something on her computer, and apparently her son was useless with them.
It turned out, what she wanted help with was setting up an account to meet a potential partner online.
Her partner had been dead for 10 years and she wanted to start looking for some fun. Not a relationship, just an ongoing fling. I helped her set it up, talking a bit louder than normal about all the things she could add to attract men, which made Humphrey cringe.
But the best part was, as I was helping her, I found something that made the little devil on my shoulder start laughing his tiny, red butt off.
The school bully’s old partner was on the site looking for men AND women to have discrete meetings with.
When the mother went to the bathroom, I sent him a request, including naughty photos and the promise of a sure thing.
Well, a few weeks later, as I’m delivering her usual order, I notice that there’s a strange car in the driveway. And who should I see walking around unclothed when she cracked the door to grab her food?
The Ex, in all his glory. I was tempted to ask if I could come and join in, since I’m bi, but my shift had just started.
Later, I heard from her that Humphrey had come over unexpectedly later that day, claiming that she had sent him a text saying she needed help with her car.
The Ex was still there, and they had been… entangled on the living room couch when Humphrey came in, so he got an eyeful.
She said she had never sent any text, and they ended up screaming at each other before he stormed out vowing to never come there again.
I wonder who could have sent him the text? Oh yeah, it was me.
From what I’ve heard, Humphrey got arrested that same night for getting totally wasted and breaking into his Ex’s old house, which he hasn’t lived in for years.
Just a cherry on top as far as I’m concerned.”
6. Abuse Me At Work? Lose Most Of Your Staff
“For almost 20 years, I was in the service industry. It helped in a lot of ways but probably ended up sucking me into that lifestyle for too long. A large portion of my serving/bartending career was at a chain restaurant (think a House of Steak that isn’t In Front).
I had been with this establishment for around 5 years while going through college and starting a master’s.
I was working at my fourth location due to various moves for school.
By this point, I was a server/bartender/trainer, and I had been approached multiple times about MIT (manager in training), but I politely declined. All of this to say, I felt like I had a pretty good standing and history with the company.
Well, one day, a guy, let’s call him Chad, who I personally disliked, started going through MIT.
Our mutual dislike started before my first day at work even, but to be concise, he was indirectly involved in a small confrontation between his friend, me, and the girl his friend was “talking to.” It’s actually a pretty funny story in itself.
Chad had a massive superiority (or is it inferiority??) complex probably rooted in his height.
Not trying to be a jerk or insensitive, but it’s my best guess. And although we maintained civility at work, I’m pretty sure we were both aware that we didn’t like each other.
For several weeks, probably at least two months, bartenders weren’t making money. For context, the bar area had around 9 booths arranged around the “U” shaped bar in the center.
But bartenders weren’t allowed to take those tables; only guests seated at the bar.
After several weeks of walking with $40-$50 (including our bar tip out from servers) on a weekend shift, we all began pleading with management to help us. I know I and others asked for them to let us have at least a couple of tables in the bar lounge; we’re talking 10 feet from the bar.
Given that bartending was something you almost always had to work up to (start at server, do well you have a shot of moving up), we all felt like we had demonstrated the ability to handle the tables and not allow drink times or bar guests to suffer, especially as the actual bar was pretty dead most weekends, seeing as we were making so little.
So we were all offended to some degree, feeling like it was a double slap in the face of, “We don’t care about you not making money,” and “We don’t trust you to handle lounge tables.” Morale was low.
One day, after we’ve voiced our concerns to no avail when the bar was of course slow, Chad basically orders me to do something like count inventory or some other busy work.
At the time, I was batching drinks and doing bar upkeep, partially because when we got it done there was a decent chance one of us would be cut.
Being cut meant 1) person cut isn’t wasting time for little pay, 2) person staying makes more money.
So I kind of clipped back something like, “I’m not doing that; I’m busy doing things at the bar. If you want it done, you should do it.” At this point, I’m angry because, from my perspective, we’ve been pleading with them to help us.
They told us to get lost. Now you’re wasting our time even more with stuff that isn’t really our job responsibility.
All while you literally stroll around the restaurant doing… nothing.
Chad, trying to flex his new MIT position, says, “If you’re gonna have that attitude, you can clock out and go home.” He clearly wasn’t expecting me to simply go, “Ok” and immediately clock out. I turned to the other bartender told them I was being sent home and I’m sorry.
Now what Chad and the rest of management didn’t know was that by pure chance, I had run into a former bartender that left months ago when things had started to go south.
She was at her new serving job and told me she was making great money. So the very next day, I applied and used her as a referral. I got the job and immediately put in my two weeks at the house of steak.
My proprietor sat me down at my next shift and basically attempted to make amends and ask if I was leaving because of Chad.
I said no; I was leaving because we weren’t making money, and y’all refused to help us, which is true.
The Chad stuff was annoying, but I’ve never been a person unable to work with those I don’t personally like.
Well, when the rest of the bartending staff heard about me leaving, they were curious about my new job. I told them the truth. I was making great money, and they’re hiring.
Within two weeks, six of my former bartending crew left and got hired at the new job.
Within another couple of weeks, a few more joined. The house of steak lost about 70% of their bartending crew and a few servers in the space of a month.
They were definitely not pleased, mostly at my new manager as, “that’s just something you don’t do” but not at me. And wouldn’t you know it, a month later, bartenders are allowed to take lounge tables.”
5. Don't Bully The Person Who Has Access To Your Confidential Files
If anything, you should probably be friends with these people… You know, just in case.
“I used to work in tourism, and when I was a trainee in a high-end travel agency, my boss hated me.
He hated me because I couldn’t make the IT guy work faster (not the work I applied for, by the way). Plus, I was in charge of keeping the website up to date. I couldn’t do it without the IT guy and didn’t have a computer to work on.
Too many trainees, not enough space. I guess he was saving money by having more trainees than employees.
So my boss lent me a laptop to work on in the office.
His partner was no better. She would let her dog poop under my desk and everywhere else in the office and make me clean it up every day.
At first, I tried to do my best and work with the lazy IT guy who was still a student who worked from home (cheaper than having a professional at the office, I suppose).
He never did what I asked for, and I would then get buried by the boss for things not being done.
Rinse and repeat every day.
I tried to explain to my boss that I had no power as a trainee. I couldn’t make the IT guy do anything. I was pretty much useless. So in response, he would just put me down some more. Yelling at me, calling me lazy, etc.
Being unable to do the work and having no other mission, I would spend most of my days working on my school report (the 30-page report I needed to present to my teacher at the end of the training) and browsing the internet.
One day, I was particularly bored and started looking aimlessly through the laptop.
I found picture folders and other documents. That’s when I found out I was using my boss’s personal laptop. Oh, happy day.
2 months in a 3 month training period, I couldn’t take the abuse anymore. I would cry every day at that point. I called my teacher and told her everything. I begged to end the training early. Of course, after hearing about what I had been through, she gave me permission to end the training.
The next day, I told my boss I would stay until the end of the month and leave. I remember that my exact words (translated to English) were, “Boss, let’s be frank. You don’t like me, so here’s what we’re going to do: I will finish the month and then leave. Is that okay with you?” He seemed happy enough to get rid of me, so he agreed.
Why finish the month, you would ask?
Because, 1: I had a week left, and 2: I needed 2 full months to pass the training, and there was no way I would leave and have gone through all that for nothing.
Here’s when the revenge starts. I spent my last days snooping through the laptop and created a throwaway email address. I waited until the last moment to use the email to send a copy of my boss’s and his partner’s pay sheet and expenses, along with several nearly unclothed pictures I had of both of them to every employee and trainee.
I’m talking jacuzzi pictures, poses in tightie whities, etc. Then I left and never heard from them again. I did get some messages from a couple of employees and trainees who thanked me for making their day.”
4. "My Shoes!"
“When I was about six or seven, there was this five-year-old who lived down and across the street from my house. I’d sometimes see him at our local playground and for whatever reason, he liked to ‘pick on’ me. Now, when I say that, I don’t mean to say he bullied me or that I saw him as a bully. He was a kindergartener and I was probably twice his size.
He didn’t hurt my feelings-he just annoyed the life out of me. For months, which seems like years in the eyes of a first-grader.
The thing that I hated the most was that he’d call me ‘baby JD’ (my family nickname growing up was JD, and it’s how all my friends knew me, and therefore him as well). And he wouldn’t just toss it at the end of any old sentence as a normal person would.
He would repeat it, over and over. Chanting, singing, taunting me endlessly until I was too frustrated to stick around, and went home. He always seemed to ruin the fun.
But one day, I grew a spine. I was on the swings, all on my own, hoping for one of my friends to come outside and play. All of a sudden, I saw a figure turn the corner around my house, riding a training-wheeled bicycle-it was him.
The already-grey Washington sky seemed to turn greyer,
He rolled up to the swing set and we exchanged pleasantries. But hardly a minute had passed before it began: ‘Baby JD! Baby JD! Baby JD!’
I lost my patience. I swung hard and leaped off of the swing, landing hard on the mulch feet from where he stood. He backed up to put some space between us, but I stomped a foot in his direction.
Now, I wasn’t actually going to hurt the kid. I just wanted to scare him a little before I took the familiar trek home. And in fact, I didn’t hurt him, not enough to warrant tears anyway. But what I did do was interrupt his balance. He toppled to the ground hands and feet flailing.
My instinct took over. My eyes trained on his feet, which I noticed were suddenly bare.
There, sitting atop the mulch, was a pair of sandals.
I’d literally startled him out of his shoes. So I did what any sensible kid would do and picked them up before walking in the opposite direction.
Immediately, he was back on his feet, screaming b****y murder about his shoes. He ran after me, but I held the flip-flops out of his reach. He didn’t dare throw a punch, because he and I both knew that wasn’t a fight he was likely to win.
Eventually, I grew tired of toying with him, and his unending screaming was starting to annoy me as much as ‘baby JD’ did. I noticed we were standing under one of those big roofs-on-columns, the kind with concrete floors and no walls. I backed slowly out from under the roof and he inched toward me, keeping his distance. I held the shoes out as if to offer them to him, and he lunged.
But he was too slow.
The clouds, it seemed, had parted. Sunlight engulfed the playground.
I gave all my strength. The sandals were in the air. We were both still as they spun through the daylight as if propelled by an invisible dancer. An eon passed, and soon they too hung in the air motionless.
And then they began to fall. My aim would need to be absolutely precise, the winds exactly in my favor, the angle of descent perfect and exact.
Seven feet from the ground, a dull ‘thud’ echoed through the air. Two small sandals had landed flat on the angle of the roof. The judges held up their 10s, the crowd went wild, the sun smiled down on my triumph.
And then the silence of the park was broken by a blood-curdling shriek.
‘M Y S H O E S!’
I imagine I must’ve left a me-shaped cloud of dust in my wake.
But I’d never been prouder.
I can’t even remember the kid’s name, but his sobbing still brings me warm joy on bad days.”
3. Get Blamed For An Accidental Fire
“In 6th grade, I had a bully named Mike. He was a big dude who, in hindsight, was clearly having some issues at home. I was an 80-lb girl who could barely look people in the face.
Mike really liked to walk up behind me at lunchtime and punch me in the head with no warning.
This was in the early 1990s when fighting on playgrounds was considered normal and even healthy, so no teachers would intervene.
I started dreading lunchtime at school and also started stealing my dad’s smokes. I discovered that if I hid in the girls’ locker room at lunchtime, no one would come in, and I could smoke in peace (or at least puff out my anxiety and develop an addiction). My habit was to run the butt under the tap to make sure it was out, then throw it in the trash can.
This is important.
One day, I tossed a butt in the trash and then went to Social Studies, where Mike sat next to me and called me all manner of foul names for an hour until Science class. About 10 minutes into class, the fire alarm went off. We all went outside and the fire department came. When the all-clear sounded, we learned that it wasn’t a drill – the trash can in the girls’ locker room was on fire!
Cue me losing my mind, convinced I was going to be arrested and sent to juvie and doomed to a life of crime.
A solid week passed before my anxiety leveled off, and I realized that no one had connected me to the fire. Around that time, I also noticed that Mike had disappeared.
Other bullies stepped in to take his place, and life moved on.
Fast forward to 10 years later. I was walking down the main street in my town and heard someone calling my name.
It was a man in a dingy sleeveless shirt, sitting on a park bench, drinking (at 10 am on a Tuesday). He waved at me, then realized I didn’t recognize him.
He called, ‘Hey, it’s me, Mike, from middle school!’
I just about lost it. But I figured we had both grown, and maybe we could have a conversation like adults, so I sat down next to him, and he shared his drink with me while telling me his life story.
Mike had been in and out of juvenile and adult prisons. He had ‘three or four, I forget’ kids with various women, whom he could not support and did not see. Mike hadn’t held a steady job in his life and made ends meet by a combination of dealing, dishwashing, and other shady or low-paying work.
Mike attributed his life’s decline to ‘a fire in the girls’ locker room in middle school. ‘I kept telling them I didn’t light that fire, but no one believed me, and they sent me to juvie.
That’s where it all went downhill, man.'”
Another User Comments:
“I would have loved to have told him that it was me that lit it and just walked away.” Dragongala
2. I'll Kill You With Confidence
That’s the best way!
“My best-case happened to me.
In college, I was at a fraternity house and having a drink on the front porch when two guys tried to pick a fight with me.
I don’t remember who they were or what I might have done to offend them. I was a bit tipsy and minding my own business as I recall.
I was not a member of this fraternity.
Unlike my brother, I was also not athletic — I had no talent at sports. I wear glasses and have astigmatism: if someone threw me a baseball or football it was more likely that it would hit me than that I would catch it!
These fellows approached me and struck up a conversation that made it apparent to me that they were looking to start an argument and, ultimately, a physical altercation.
When I realized that they wanted to provoke me, I started laughing and asked them with incredulity, “You want to fight ME?” I was genuinely surprised and candid — it struck me as a ridiculous proposition.
My relaxed and amused reaction confused them, and they were put off guard. They looked at me with some expectation of an explanation. I told them, “You REALLY don’t want to fight me here. I have friends.”
Ultimately, they walked away.
One of the fraternity brothers was a guy who grew up with me at the orphanage. His nickname is “Bull.” He was my older brother’s best friend and played on a few sports teams with my brother.
Bull was a great high school football player on a championship team. He played for Georgia until his knees were injured, then transferred to my college. He has always been a weight lifter — even to the present day.
In high school, he bench-lifted many times his weight and more than anyone at The Citadel (South Carolina’s State Military College).
I had no doubt that, had these fellows been successful in starting a fight, Bull would have intervened and beat them.
He is a great guy and, at that point in his life, he was a wild man and never too shy for an adventure. So, they might have caused me some pain, but they would have experienced a bad time for having done it.
These fellows were fortunate that they eventually moved on.
By the way, another fellow who grew up with us at the orphanage also attended another party at the same fraternity. He was athletic and strong but not the kind of fellow to pick a fight or get into a fight. Somehow, he did get into a fight and, though he was handling the matter capably, Bull intervened to help and beat the antagonist. That frat was not a particularly contentious place.
It was just a coincidence.
When you grew up at the orphanage, the other orphans were like brothers. You look out for one another.
Two of our orphans, a few years older than I am, joined the Marine Corps after high school. They enlisted together and were assigned to the same unit. They looked nothing alike but were as close as brothers.
Last summer (2018), I had a drink with one of these Marines, “PC,” and he told me a story.
The other orphan Marine was made a squad leader or something like that. As a leader, he was strict with his fellow Marines. PC was in his unit and heard another Marine complaining about his leadership. That Marine was saying something to the effect that, when the leader was not expecting it, he would jump him and make him sorry to be so strict.
Well, PC leaned in and whispered something to the effect that, if anything like that happened to the leader, PC would come for him and he might not survive the encounter.
That put a stop to that nonsense.
I later practiced law with a graduate of The Citadel, and he told me that any person who worked out in The Citadel gym wrote on the wall the weight they bench-pressed if it was higher than the last high weight written on the wall. He told me he remembered Bull’s name and weight and that it stood for a long time. Bull had written it when at The Citadel for a high school All-Star football game.
And yes, it was witnessed, because with high weights the lifter must have a spotter for safety.”
1. Say Bye-Bye To Your Long Hair
“When we were 7 or 8, I was staying the night at my friend G’s house. Her family was really nice and she had lots of pets and toys. I was over there a lot. G was pretty spoiled, in my opinion, and she was an only child so her parents doted on her. This made G act like a brat sometimes, behavior that would not have flown at my house.
I remember one night, at bedtime, G gave her parents a hard time about going to bed. I was rolling my eyes because she was being such a brat, even before bedtime, she had been irritating me and her parents.
For some reason, we were chewing gum at bedtime. Her parents told her to spit it out, but she said she would when she got in bed. They allowed this for some reason. I instinctively stopped chewing my gum but didn’t swallow it. I began to hatch a plan.
I was a vindictive little kid. I had an older brother who acted like he was getting paid to psychologically torture me. So, once G and I were settled in our beds, side by side in her little kid room, I looked at the back of her head and her long brown hair, and I very sneakily put my chewed up gum behind her head on her pillow.
“Hey G?” I called out.
G goes, “Huh?” And rolls over to face me. Just smashing the back of her head into the gum all hard.
“Never mind,” I told her. And she rolled her head back over.
It had gone exactly according to plan. I felt better about what a witch she had been that night and slept just fine.
The next morning, I woke up to G’s mom screaming at G for her carelessness, and I walked out and saw them in the kitchen.
G was sitting in a chair crying and her mother was cutting her long brown hair.
“I told you to spit your gum out before bed, G!” Her mother yelled as G sobbed and defended herself.
G had spit out her gum.
I had watched her. So then I felt bad. I wasn’t like my brother, I didn’t enjoy her pain.
I was too good at revenge for my own good. Her hair had been SOOOOO LONG.
Like maybe she’d been growing it all her life.
On the other hand, G didn’t have any siblings and she needed to learn how to not be annoying. So I remain conflicted to this day. But yeah, definitely didn’t think that one through and felt really bad that all her hair got cut off.”
