People Tell Their Understated Revenge Stories
34. Steal From My Room? Let Me Get Some Hot Sauce
“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 of… 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 are 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-peanuty 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.”
33. Try To Fool Us? We'll Turn The Tables
“My wife and I have a real estate business in Poland. We encounter all sorts of strange situations and some time ago we concluded that it is a ruthless business with some really sharp practice going on. Five years ago we used to operate in Bydgoszcz (Pronounced BIG DOSH). It is close to another place called Kwidzyn (Pronounced QUIDS IN).
So you can see we should have been expecting some experience of sharks.
I took a call from a Spanish client and he wanted to buy an apartment for renovation and to keep it around five years and rent it out and maybe sell it at a profit later on.
No problem, we found an apartment in Bydgoszcz city center in a run-down block ripe for renovation, the only problem was that the entire block was owned by another real estate agent and it seemed strange he would be selling an apartment and at a knockdown price, probably about half the market value providing we could complete quickly.
We did our due diligence and the only thing we could find out was the seller was in severe financial trouble and was desperate.
Anyway, the client flew over, had a look, and agreed to buy and put down a deposit of 10%.
I had a power of attorney so could complete the deal two weeks later when the payment was wired to me by the client.
Now in Poland the normal thing is you pay the 10% deposit, agree on a completion deadline and if you do not complete you lose the deposit, and if the seller pulls out you get paid double.
At one time Poland was a cash economy so you would go to the Notary on the appointed day with a big wad of cash, sign the papers, pay up and the property was yours.
However at this time and now, due to security considerations, most purchases were done by bank transfer up to 7 days after the paperwork had been completed.
The seller insisted that we were to complete the last possible day so if anything went wrong he kept the deposit but as I had the payment from the client in the bank this I thought would not be a problem.
He had other ideas, at 7 pm the day before we had a phone call, ‘I hear you are in financial trouble, so listen tomorrow I must insist you pay in full as I think you will just take the papers for the title and not pay me.’ He had a plan that we would lose the deposit.
Now that was his right, so we would have to find hundreds of thousands of zloty bills the next day which was going to be a big problem as the banks do not hold that sort of amount anymore in bills and you need to order it 3 days in advance if you do need the funds.
The next day at 8 am we called the bank, no chance unless we were prepared to take the money in low denomination bills and could wait until 3 pm. Now the Notaries here work until 3:30 pm so put the meeting to buy back until 3:30 pm and hoped it would all be OK.
OK, bank at 3 pm with a few plastic carrier bags and we had the funds but it was very bulky and all banded up.
3:15 pm at the Notary and we were there first so I hid the bills behind a sofa in the Notary’s office and sat down at the conference table to wait for the seller to arrive. The Notary was unaware that we were going to pay in full as we had not told her, and her secretary had shown us into her office which had been empty when I hid the stash.
3:25 pm, the seller arrives, grinning from ear to ear, there is no stash in evidence so the smug jerk is convinced we will not be able to complete the purchase and he is going to walk off with the deposit.
Now the procedure is the Notary reads through the sale deed, makes a few amendments, we all sign and that is it. You pay it to the seller’s account within 7 days and you are finished.
The Notary came into her office and sat down at the head of the conference table to get started.
Well the seller could not contain himself at the thought of some free funds so kept interrupting the Notary to try and tell her he wants cash and he is sure we do not have it, she is obviously in a hurry to get finished and get off home so tells him to shut up.
Now when it gets to the bit in the agreement about terms of payment, he announces ‘it must be in full now or the deal is off’. OK so the deed is amended and the final version is put before us to sign, which we all do.
His hand came out ‘OK let’s see the bills’.
I got up and walked over to the sofa, retrieved the bags from behind it and tipped all of the bundles of notes onto the table, and carefully folded the plastic bags, and put them in my pocket.
I counted off the bills for the Notarial deed and Court fees, passed them to the Notary, and pushed the rest in the direction of the seller. ‘OK, there you go.’
The guy nearly blew a fuse, his face went bright red and he spluttered out, ‘this cannot be right I need to count it’.
Now to count several hundred thousand zlotych in 50, 20, and 10 denominations was going to take a while, so we just sat there watching this buffoon do just that.
He counted it once then insisted on counting it all again. Anyway, it was all present and correct so all he had to do was gather it all up and take it with him… It was now 5:30 pm
He was wearing a regular lounge suit, I had the plastic bags so he asked the Notary if he could please have some envelopes or bags. Now she was not best pleased with this guy so she refused to say her secretary had gone home and everything was locked up so no and could he please go now as she was off home and was late already.
He had walked down the main street of Bydgoszcz from his office a kilometer away and had not bothered to bring his cellphone with him, so he asked if he could use the phone to call someone to come and help him. At this, the Notary threw a complete wobbly and told him he had 2 minutes to get out of her office.
So he started stuffing the bundles into pockets and realizing this was not working tried to make an improvised sling out of his suit jacket and tightening his belt, stuffed even more into his shirt front, he waddled off looking like a misshapen Michelin man.
Only he was not smiling for some reason. The really annoying thing was that he had been doing this stunt for months and had been earning a lot doing it and technically it was legal.
At least this time he was foiled but expect he was not the only one doing it and at least we made him look a complete idiot.”
32. Treat Me Like A Dog? I'll Act Like One
“If you’ve ever worked in retail, you’ll know that customers can sometimes be unbelievably rude and treat staff like they’re sub-human.
Well, this person was no exception.
A customer who was standing on the other side of the store whistled at my colleague to get his attention. He then proceeded to snap his fingers repeatedly and shout ‘Uh, hello?!’ derisively while he continued to whistle at him.
It’s also worth mentioning that my colleague was working for a ‘store within a store’ and had absolutely no way of being able to sell or really assist with the product that the customer was standing next to.
Without missing a beat, my co-worker got down on all fours (he’s over six feet tall & heavily tattooed) and proceeded to crawl all the way across the store on his hands and knees until he got to the customer. When the customer asked what on earth he was doing, he simply said:
‘Well, if you’re going to treat me like a dog then I might as well act like one.’
Point well made, the customer was quite embarrassed.”
31. It Took Him 5 Hours To Get His Battery Changed
“I once lived in a mobile home park where the landlord sent his henchman, a man I’ll describe as ten pounds of mouth in a five-pound bag, to harass the residents on a disturbingly regular basis. This individual was always very careful to avoid the type of people who might decide to shut that mouth for him and instead constantly harassed the upstanding, productive citizens regarding everything from the color of their mailboxes to the height of their lawns.
One day when I was working at Sears he brought his van in for a new battery, and when he saw me all the color drained out of his face. He said that he didn’t know I worked there, and I replied that it was sure a good thing that he’d always been so nice to me. I let his van sit in the shop for almost 5 hours before I got around to changing the battery and when he left I shouted to him ‘See you at home’ with a great big smile.
Petty? You bet. Enjoyable? Absolutely.”
30. It Would Have Been Okay If The Car Was Not Your Wife's
“As a Police officer, I stopped a man who was curb crawling around a red light district in London. I could have arrested him but we were short of officers that night and arresting him would mean next to no one on the streets to deal with more important matters.
I explained to him what I had seen him doing and that I was going to give him a verbal warning for his behavior and he should leave the area.
He was a jerk saying the usual things like why wasn’t I out stopping criminals, etc. After telling him that I might just have done that by taking his details he began ranting and raving. He was so close to being arrested and would certainly have been if it wasn’t for the lack of officers.
The interesting thing was the car was registered in his wife’s name.
When I asked if his wife knew that he was in her car looking for call girls (which he did not deny) he became very quiet and promised to leave the area.
Before he left I said that he would receive official confirmation of the warning through the post at his home address. He pleaded not to send it to his home address saying that he would have to intercept the letter as his wife opened all the mail and asked when it would arrive.
I told him sometime in the next two weeks.
The thing was I was only giving him a verbal warning and we do not send such warnings through the post. I just imagined him for the next several weeks getting up early to check the mail for a letter that was never to be sent.
Ok, I may have been wrong but honestly, I put up so much abuse you wouldn’t believe when I was just warning him and being quite pleasant.
He was also lying to his wife in a low-class red-light district.”
29. Here, Let Me Wipe Your Hand
“I’m of Eastern descent and I have light-brown skin.
Thankfully I’ve hardly ever been on the receiving end of racist remarks but if there are any minor instances I’m more bemused than offended.
I was raised and educated in London, England and the head office for my first job was in the city center.
I’ve been told I speak English beautifully and some say I even sound a little posh. This is important so do bear with me, yah?!
One day I was rushing to get to one of our training seminars when suddenly the heavens opened. It was raining so hard I got absolutely drenched. As luck would have it I was wearing a new black mascara and it wasn’t waterproof.
As I arrived at my destination I stopped at the revolving doors and used a tissue to wipe away the worst of the smudges.
Suddenly a very large well-dressed Caucasian man pushed past me and his hand accidentally touched mine but he whipped it away like I was contagious or something. He immediately took out his handkerchief and started wiping his hand and boomed, ‘YOU people should learn to keep out of our way!’
I turned to him and spoke just loud enough for on-lookers to hear,
‘Oh good heavens you’ve missed a bit! Here, allow me.’ I briefly wiped at his hand using my tissue (mascara smudges hidden in folds) then shook it open and held it up for everyone to see,
‘Eww, you can’t be too careful, can you?!’
I sauntered past him trying not to trip over his jaw.”
28. Thank God He Didn't Let Me Climb The Corporate Ladder
“I had this jerk of a boss who treated me like trash every time I turned around. This boss was constantly passive-aggressive with me, throwing me under the bus in front of 20–30 people at a time in huge meetings.
This boss always gave me verbal assignments that were vague, refusing to put them in writing. This gave the boss the ability to always call me out in front of higher-ups whenever said boss felt like it.
Said boss made me work 110 hours per week. 7 am to 3 am. For no apparent reason. Boss also said I’d get fired if I ever made a single spelling mistake. Boss also kept me in meetings for at least 8 hours every day discussing comma placement, margin width, and other mind-numbing things.
Then one day I walked into the boss’s office with my three-year-old son and threw a napkin on the boss that read ‘I, James Compton Quit.’
I walked out and never looked back. I immediately turned around and created a drone inspection company. I then proceeded to land high-paying drone inspection contracts with an ex-company. Then I created a couple more companies. It was the best worst experience I’ve ever had in my life. As crazy as it sounds, I’m thankful for that trashy boss. Without ever having that idiot as my boss, I’d still be spinning around in the corporate rat race.
So I thank God for not answering me because at the time my prayer was to climb the ‘corporate ladder.'”
27. This Is How I Got A Free Burger
“Back in the summer of 1991, I was passing through SEATAC airport in Seattle, WA about to catch a flight after having completed a couple of months of some military training at Ft. Lewis. I was in my civvies, but sporting one of those weird high-and-tight military haircuts and was really tanned in the face and seriously underweight after having spent several weeks straight in the field training nonstop.
I was also seriously famished as my last meal had been some MRE crackers earlier that morning, which was why I found myself standing in line at the airport cafeteria ordering a deluxe cheeseburger & fries and waiting for it to come on down the line.
Immediately after I ordered mine, the guy right behind me — some self-important looking yuppy in a suit — ordered the same thing and quietly stood behind me as he waited for his burger to come down the line.
As soon as my burger came down the line, though, Mr. Yuppy grabbed it before I could, and quickly walked off with it to pay for it at the cashier stand. I could’ve said something about it, but decided to ‘turn the other cheek’ — so to speak — instead, but my feeling was that he was being a jerk b/c he knew full well that that burger, which had been intended for me, would’ve been mine had he allowed the burger to come to a complete stop.
Not more than one minute later, though, (his) burger came down the line, and since he was long gone, I just resigned myself to take his.
As I made my way to the cashier’s stand just an arm’s length away, the cashier, who was an elderly lady in her late 50s wearing granny glasses, looked at me over her bejeweled frames, smiled, and said, ‘It’s on the house sweetie.
Enjoy!'”
26. Working In Customer Service Can Sometimes Be A Nightmare
“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.
Story 1: 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 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 finger 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, then stood up straight and strolled away.
Story 2: When I worked at a national bookstore chain I was often asked to handle solicitors as I had a flair for dealing with difficult people. One day we had a lady come in with a sign that said, ‘Deaf Please Help, Bracelets $10.’ The ‘bracelets’ in question were bits of colored string. This lady proceeded to aggressively hassle our customers which sent my boss into a tizzy.
He comes to me and asks me to get rid of her. So I take a bit of receipt paper and write on it then sneak up behind the ‘deaf’ lady. I call out, ‘Hey lady, do you want a $20?’ She immediately whirls around and I hand her the slip of paper which reads, ‘Cops coming, 6 mins’. She looks at the paper then at me wild-eyed. I look at my watch and say, ‘Actually it’s more like three minutes now, it took a bit…’ Before I can finish she makes a mad dash for the door.
Everyone stares after her, and I call out, ‘Have a nice day!’ For some reason that received chuckles and some applause.
Story 3: 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 Babes (I’m not sure of the exact name, but think black leather, chrome, and revealing ladies) 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 troublemaker. 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 inappropriate stuff 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.
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 no 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 Babes 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.
Story 4: Another time, I was 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: ‘You say 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 any 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 went and looked 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 funds 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 funds for the doctor. Please don’t say what 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.”
25. I'm Kind Enough To Clean His Toilet
“It was Christmas time and I had traveled to stay with my significant other/newly engaged fiancé for the holidays. The first day I was there it was total bliss. The next day he began to act a little weird and half-heartedly broke the news to me that I wouldn’t be able to join him and his family on Christmas day because of some family issues unrelated to me.
Hmmm…
So, I spent Christmas day, all alone, watching a marathon of the Duck Dynasty. He returns late in the evening and isn’t really talkative about his day. He proceeds to break into a bottle of tequila he had gotten as a gift. At that point, I was pretty much done… with everything. I went to bed while he stayed on the couch with his drink and phone.
What he didn’t realize, I guess, is that I could see him from where I lay. He fervently texted for literally hours, giggling and smiling. When he finally came to bed I pretended to be asleep. He actually thought he was going to get a little ‘play’. After a while, he was snoring away and it was eating at me just what he was doing on that phone.
SO I LOOKED. Yes, I did. Turns out he was texting an old friend from high school. It started innocently enough but didn’t take long to turn into inappropriate texting…. dirty pictures and all. They ended their conversation by making plans to meet up the next morning.
The alarm goes off at 7 am… I am groggy and ask what was going on. We had plans to go on a day trip.
He tells me that he got a call after I went to bed and he had to go into work that morning… R.I.G.H.T.
He gets ready. I pretend I am asleep. He leaves without as much as a goodbye, I guess because he is still expecting me to be there when he returns. Once the car pulls away, I quickly get up and pack.
I write a note on a napkin because he has no paper. Basically told him to go screw himself and to check the dictionary for the definition of commitment. Then… this is the bad part… I felt sick to my stomach from all the anxiety of what was happening. I decided it would be best to visit the bathroom before I left on my long drive home.
Diarrhea. Great.
As I am sitting there the weight of the last 24 hours just comes over me like a sea of red. I can feel my face get hot and tears welling up in my eyes. I was so angry, hurt, disgusted, the list goes on. I look over at the sun coming through the window and casting a glow on the sink. Toothbrush. Really?
Should I? I have never been a bad girl in my life. I follow all the rules. I am the poster child for ‘make everyone feel better’. Before I flushed, I decided I would do one last good deed for him. So, I cleaned his toilet… with his toothbrush. Tapped it off, flushed the mode, but it neatly back in its spot, washed my hands, and got on with my life.
Am I sorry? No. Do I regret it? It wasn’t the most mature thing I have ever done, but I sure felt better driving home.”
24. Don't Give Me My License? I Won't Return The Bikes
“My wife and I were vacationing in Paris, France a few years ago. This was our penultimate day before we left for Rome and we decided to visit the Gardens of Versailles.
We had a few issues getting there as you need to change metro lines to get there from where we were staying (we had rented an apartment close to the Louvre) and frankly, I made a mistake interpreting the instructions to get there.
Anyway, we arrived past noon. That bummed us out, but we decided to make the most of the day anyway. After visiting the palace, we decided to rent some bikes in order to cover more ground as the gardens are huge (at least they are to my Puerto Rican sensibilities).
During the renting process, I was asked for an ID document for them to hold until I returned the bikes, so I gave them a copy of my driver’s license.
We were allowed to choose our bikes and both of them included locks. I’m not much of a bike rider, nor am I familiar with the locks they included so I didn’t pay attention to make sure that everything was fine.
So anyway, we storm off and have a wonderful time visiting the Gardens, taking photos, and just taking in the beautiful sights. We got to the entrance to a separate, smaller garden, and we needed to park the bikes to get in. That’s when I noticed that I didn’t have the key to the lock that I got on mine. No biggie, I thought to myself.
I just waited outside since I couldn’t secure the bike as my wife went into the small section.
After we were done and went to return the bikes, the lady at the counter asked me about the key to the lock. I told her that I didn’t find a key to the lock; I think I may have been given a lock without a key.
She didn’t like my saying that and immediately got on my case on how she personally makes sure that every lock has a key and that she never fails her job and asks a fellow employee to vouch for her thoroughness. I apologized and asked her about the fee to replace the lock since there was no key to it. She got incensed and told me how there was no fee and that she would keep my documents (my driver’s license) for having lost the key.
I politely asked her if there was a way I could pay a fee since I found it unreasonable for them to deny returning my license. She started being rude again, yelling at me in French.
Ok, I thought to myself. The ID is a guarantee for me to return the bikes and it wasn’t being returned to me and she wouldn’t even negotiate a fee to get it back, so I was under no obligation to return the bikes.
I calmly walked away from the counter and into the lot with the bikes. The employee at the lot was confused but didn’t say anything and I looked for the bikes that we had returned and grabbed them, and started to leave with them. At this point, I heard a shout as I left the lot with the bikes and this older man asks me why I had returned to take the bikes that I had returned. I explained myself to him and how I felt no obligation to return the bikes as the lady wouldn’t return my driver’s license.
He promptly worked out a fee for me; it was about 5 Euros if memory serves me right. I paid the fee and walked away with my driver’s license. I wonder why the lady didn’t try to work out a fee with me, but I have to thank her for the fun of watching their faces as I walked out of the lot with the bikes in tow.”
23. I'm Not Asking Why You Want My Password
“I once had a geek for a roommate. He spent countless hours hacking into anything he could over the Internet. He works in the IT field also. Sometimes he had the brilliant idea of using my computer while he was compiling or running a particularly resource-consuming program. At times, when I really needed to use my computer for some work, he would be using it and would refuse to yield.
He is a very good friend and I had to devise a plan to just make a statement, not to actually cut him off from my computer.
One day I was taking a short trip to another town and I saw the perfect opportunity. I set up a bios password for access to my machine. When I was actually boarding the plane I was supposed to take, he called me on my cell phone.
He was desperate and complained to me I have this bios password on. I told him he has his own computer, didn’t need mine. He said he had some work to deliver and it was all in my HD, so please, would I give him my password? I said, ‘why do you want it?’ He explained it all to me again and I simply replied ‘why do you want it?’
The story repeats itself. Every time he explains I ask the same question and I only give in when the plane is about to close the doors.
Then I tell him: ‘The password is ‘ydouwannit’.
He got his work delivered on time and never used my computer again. But we are still good friends and he is the godfather of my first kid. We still have a good laugh about this story.”
22. You Should Have Kept Your Tax Fraud A Secret
“In 2005 I was working as in-house counsel for a company who was setting up business in Brazil. I had a lot of experience in Brazil and spoke Portuguese and was thus involved in the project.
The company also had an employee in Brazil. We’ll call him Fulano.
So, during a trip to Brazil, I met with him over lunch and we had a long discussion about the company’s plans in Brazil, the growth potential, and the like. It was a very pleasant lunch at one of Rio’s best churrascarias. However, during the course of the lunch, he told me that he had never declared any income that the company had paid to him in his tax returns.
A week later I was back in Johannesburg and called in by the company’s president and VP. I was quite keen to discuss the plans I had for them for Brazil. After a rundown of the meeting I had with Fulano, the president turned to the VP and said:
‘Show him the email’.
She then showed me an email in which Fulano told them that it is obvious I wanted his job, that I had told him to ignore his boss (the VP)’s instructions, and several other lies.
It was however clear that I would not get a very fair chance to explain that this was just blatant lies on the part of a very insecure person. In one of the replies that the VP had sent to Fulano she wrote to him:
‘Emile is the legal advisor, not the marketing manager, WHAT PART OF THAT DOES HE NOT GET?’
And that was before they had even asked to hear my side, making it obvious that they were believing Fulano.
I confronted Fulano but he slammed the phone down in my ear.
It was unfortunately clear that my days at the company were over. After some tense negotiations, I left with three months’ salary and returned to private legal practice.
However, I still had to deal with Fulano. So, armed with his Brazilian tax number and bank account details (I drafted his contract with the company so I had this information), I traveled to Brazil and promptly passed all the information to the Brazilian tax authorities.
The Brazilian tax authorities don’t give feedback on tip-offs they receive, however, a few weeks later I saw a message posted by his girl on a social media page in which she wrote to him:
‘My darling, just when we think things cannot get any worse, this happens. Just know, I stand by you always’.
And then I knew, the tax authorities had gone to claim their dues.
Why on earth he would choose to make an enemy of someone to whom he had confessed that he was tax fraud, I don’t know, except maybe as a testament to his own stupidity.
And a few weeks later still, he was sacked by the very VP he claimed to be very close to.
It still feels good thinking about it more than a decade later.”
21. Now You Need To Put Your Expensive Blouse Into The Laundry
“I was once at a party in another person’s house. This particular party was arranged by a neighbor and I was simply standing by the drinks (voluntarily, cause I hate interacting with people at parties).
While the adults would enjoy themselves at the dining area, the younger ones would just loaf around in the smaller eating area.
Now one of the guests had a very beautiful daughter.
She was a bit flirty and liked to just flaunt her looks everywhere. The older boys certainly didn’t mind her around, the younger ones just played together. Like I said before, I was just camping by the drinks station, daydreaming and not really minding that girl’s presence.
That was when it took a different turn.
Strangely enough, the previously mentioned girl was very passive-aggressive to any girl close to her age being at the party.
She would steal their spots, gently push them away. She was even a bit rude to some of them.
Then my sister was simply enjoying a conversation with one of my friends. My sister dropped her phone, the passing girl did a visible bump that caused my sister to fall over. That little ‘accident’ caused my sister’s phone to break, and some of my sister’s drink to spill on her.
I don’t know why she did it, that was especially mean of her, to MY sister. I could clearly see a smirk of satisfaction on that shameless girl’s face. I was angry, especially when someone does that to my sister. Like I’m going to let that slide.
‘This girl has crossed the g*******d line.’
And that was when I concocted my plan for revenge.
Knowing my sister’s kindness, she won’t even mention it to our parents. I had to take matters into my own hands, so I listened in on anything I could use against her. I heard her boast about her imported blouse from some famous brand in Europe and how she never stained it once. And I had thought of a way to get back at her.
I prepared a bottle of soda, carefully opened it, and placed a little Mentos inside. I popped on my hoodie and I just waited by for a perfect opportunity.
That opportunity arose when she went to the drinks. She smiled her cutest smile while making cute gestures, I could tell that she was trying to charm me, she asked.
‘Can you please give me a bottle of soda?’ she said in her sweetest voice.
I played along with it and gave her the special bottle of cola I prepared. I made sure that I kept my face hidden via my handkerchief. I walked out of the room since the exit was conveniently nearby the drinks station and walked home (since it was rather near).
What my sister told me next was pure gold.
She said that the bottle of cola burst onto the girl’s expensive blouse, causing her to scream and cause a fit, demanding to know who gave her that drink.
Since there were no witnesses, she couldn’t pin it on me, but she had this nagging feeling it was me. She relentlessly asked everyone if I was at the party, but since I rarely interact at parties, it was like I was never there.
Up to this day, I’m still very private about it, lest I pay thousands of pesos for that blouse I ruined. It was worth it, every action.”
20. Let Me Help You Lubricate Your Instrument
“When I was in middle school I was in the school’s band. The brass section to be specific. One of the other brass section members was an obnoxious jerk who was always scornful of others and made a lot of put-downs towards those who weren’t as good as he was. (And unfortunately, although he was a jerk, he was a VERY talented player, so the put-downs and insults were frequent).
Anyways, two of my buddies and I realized that all the brass sections used these little bottles of oil for either their valves (trumpet, cornet, tuba) or slides (trombones). The oil was a rich golden yellow color and quite thin, almost the consistency of water.
Well, one day, after one too many insults and put-downs, I and my two friends came up with an idea.
we… er… replaced the oil in this kid’s instrument case with another, more ‘natural’ liquid, also a golden yellow in color. Which he used to lubricate his valves. And they continued to stick. So he used more. And they stuck more. And he used more. And then his instrument began to stink. Badly.
After the band director sent the instrument in for repairs, he just happened to meet up with our little trio when we were hanging out after school one day.
He inquired as to whether or not we ‘did something’ to one of the bottles of oil in another student’s instrument case. With angelic expressions, we, of course, had no idea what he was talking about. With a bit of a suppressed smirk, the band teacher said that if he ever had that happen again, he would have to do a more thorough investigation into who had done such vandalism… (and then he added)… even if the victim really, really deserved it.
As an adult, I feel like that kid probably had some traits of being a sociopath, but not enough to go hurting and maiming others like in the movies. More likely he had the traits at a level that were good for business, for he became a leading businessman and is now just a step or two down from being the CEO of a large company.
Hence the slightly circumspect answer. I don’t know if he’ll recognize himself, but I don’t want anyone else to recognize him, as I don’t want this story to interfere with his large company from possibly donating to my much smaller non-profit organization.”
19. Guess I'll Just Embrace The Nickname
“I was taking an English class. It consisted of about sixteen people, which was remarkable. Now, some of these people were struggling with English.
I was really quite good at English, and I often helped these people who struggled. I just wanted everyone to do well. Now, there was a girl in my class. Her name was Harper. Harper thought that she was the most wonderful thing since peanut butter. I wish she had been. In truth, she was quite possibly one of the meanest girls I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.
She was also shallow in her thoughts and held the idea that the young men in our class would think she was more attractive if she acted like a ditz. She often ridiculed other girls who weren’t as athletic, pretty, or ‘demure’ as she. She took pleasure in making fun of the Chinese Exchange student’s English. That was the kind of girl she was.
We had clashed over social issues before, and it had apparently left her with a bitter taste in her mouth, whereas I had thought nothing of it.
Some of the other students requested that we make a group message in case we needed to recover files, communicate, and whatnot. Our professor consented, so we did. None of us put our names, for some odd reason.
Only our numbers showed up on the screen, and for the life of me, I’d never memorized them. Either way, I never looked at the chat. I had never needed to. One day, we were all doing some studying. Our professor had given us the rest of the day free – there was an impending exam that we needed to study for, and we were her smallest class.
Now, I happened to make the mistake of looking at the chat during this time. Here’s what I was greeted with:
‘Someone check the server.’
‘Hey, is the server down for our website?’
‘I don’t know. Ask Maria. She’s smart.’
‘She’s also a massive witch.’
I felt sick. It was a small jab. It was an insult that should’ve met nothing.
I could’ve laughed it off. However… it stung. For some reason, it really hurt. I supposed it was because I always valued being nice to people. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything to deserve being called names. As I stared at it, I tried to think of anyone who could possibly want to call me a witch. Was I? Well, I was outspoken.
I disagreed with things I thought were morally wrong and was vocal about it. I didn’t let people say nasty things about other people. I don’t know why it angered me. Then, it hit me. Harper. I don’t know how I jumped to this conclusion, but it seemed to be the most logical.
I turned around in my seat, facing her. I plastered a smile on my face, laughed, and said…
‘Oh, Harper. I’m not a witch. I am THE witch.’
I turned around and didn’t look back. I wish I could say that I was doing it to be cool, but in truth, I was kinda terrified of myself. I could hear her sputtering to answer, but there was nothing. According to my class, her face had gone bright red and then had gone pale.
She apologized later. Man, I’m so glad I was right.”
18. My Artwork Made A Difference In A Woman's Life
“The year is 2009, the setting small-town British Columbia, Canada. After 10 years of ‘chop wood, carry water’ out in the woods, it’s time to leave. The young’uns are finally mature enough to be latch-key kids, I luck out and find not only work but also the ideal rental right in town, and we three move in.
It’s a bit of an adjustment, especially since the street is a busy one and the nearest house is well within spitting distance. Definitely not what we’re used to. But the resident in said house, an energetic widowed senior, comes over and gives us a big welcome, lets the kids know she’s a safe haven if they’re ever in need, gives us a few tips about the neighborhood, and we settle in.
So that’s us, single mum, an almost-teen and just-barely-teen, and Glenda the good neighbor…
For almost 9 months. I do see that we have a different aesthetic; Glenda wants the city to cut down the giant maple outside our place, I bring fall leaves inside so we can have even more of them. But, hey, live and let live, right? She’s so nice! In the spring, she compliments me on my clean-up of the place and how pleasant my kids are.
And as summer takes hold, everything’s peachy …
Until one day my youngest and a friend are playing quietly in the back yard, as maybe only country kids do at that stage of childhood. In the course of their game, one of them puts a handful of grass on the metal roof of Glenda’s shed, which, like her garage and metal fence, sits on the property line.
A handful of grass, that’s all it took to release the rage of Glenda. Our neighbor no longer loves us, due to this horrific breach of her stronghold, and a strange sort of one-sided feud is thus begun …
And carries on for almost two years. She scowls, she talks loudly on the phone about the ‘stupid’ woman next door, she throws cat poop on our front walk, she paints our side of her garage, and steps deliberately on all the tulips in the process.
We learn that even the city workers and local subcontractors are exceedingly careful not to tangle with Glenda over property matters; we never even think of retaliating, it’s not my style and I loathe conflict. Although out of concern for the letter-carrier, I do point out to Glenda that the poo-flinging has to stop and that, no, it is not our cat’s scat in her garden, he’s elderly and stays indoors.
At that, she has the grace to look momentarily a teeny bit ashamed, but for the next two winters …
She brazenly shovels her back patio snow into our yard, over the metal fence, creating a huge heap that lasts into May and melts directly into my basement, where our keepsakes are stored. I catch her at this sometime late in the second winter and plead with her, ‘Glenda, whyyyyy?’ She brandishes her snow shovel and counters with ‘Well, where else am I going to put it?’ I don’t personally see why it has to go anywhere – it’s snow, for heaven’s sake, just lying on bricks that no one walks on in winter – but I can’t think of a reply, so I go inside and brood…
Until about 10:30 p.m, whereupon I’m overtaken by the Spirit of Passive-Aggressiveness (and a fit of the giggles) and I…
Go outside and carve the snowy mountain into a GIANT PAIR OF B******S, facing into her patio, of course. Where the first thing Glenda sees outside the next morning will be a still-life sculpture called Kiss. My. Butt.
Oh, the shame I felt the next day!
But it was too late, what with work and kids and all that jazz, it wasn’t until the afternoon that I could turn that big icy butt back into a humble snow pile, half hoping she’d seen it, half hoping she hadn’t. To be on the safe side I avoided her, until…
One spring morning, I saw a very pretty basket hanging on the gate that guarded the passageway between our homes.
The note inside said ‘Perhaps you can use this.’ and it was signed by Glenda. Well, I know an olive branch when I see one, so the feud ended happily, as this story is about to do as well. We had a good few months of friendship before the kids and I moved away, and we’ve kept in touch with emails.
I never found out whether Glenda saw my, Ummm, artwork – is that what turned things around for her?
Did it tickle her funnybone? Did it outclass her cat-scat-tossing and earn me her respect? I like to think so. And it was satisfying.”
17. Am I Watching The Band Or Listening To You?
“I was watching a band play in a relatively small club in Providence, Rhode Island. The band played retro lounge music, so many of their songs were slow, relatively quiet mood pieces. This was not a loud rock show.
As I was listening, I noticed the considerable din in the audience. People wouldn’t shut up and just listen to the music.
Of particular annoyance were the two guys behind me yammering away like they were standing waiting for a bus. So, I took action. I turned around and started watching them instead of the stage.
After a minute or two, they noticed me, and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Are we being too loud?’
I replied, ‘I’m not sure. I thought I was here to see the band, but apparently, I’m here to listen to you guys.’
They promptly walked away.”
16. I Hope You Like Pudding
“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. 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.”
15. Ditch Me? Here's A Dozen Red Roses
“Personally I prefer to be blunt and direct and am more embarrassed than satisfied by an occasional slip into being passive-aggressive. Though there was this girl in high school that my heart ached for. And when I finally worked up the courage to ask her out, she said yes to a Saturday night out with me. Alas, she called Saturday morning with the bad news that she was sick.
D**n!! The next morning I got a call from a friend (no texts in 1964) who said he thought the girl was sick. Well, he saw her out with another guy. I thought long and hard for 30 seconds and went to a florist and sent her a dozen red roses (about $8-$10 back then) with a card that expressed the hope she was feeling better.
All I wanted for her was to feel bad. I got the bonus of her parents finding out and her getting grounded for two weeks and having to come to me and apologize. Sweet. Sometimes nice cuts like a sharp knife.”
14. We Think The Rude Reception Guy Should Quit
“My friend and I had spent a whole day driving a few hundred miles to get to Perth in Australia. The car we’d been driving had been smoking and spluttering and it was a miracle we actually made it into Perth without the car packing up altogether. It was, needless to say, an incredibly stressful journey. We’d called ahead to the backpackers in Perth to make sure they had a room for us which they confirmed they had.
That evening we rolled into the backpackers with the car about to die completely.
We got to the reception and told the guy we’d phoned ahead to book a room. Lots of huffing and puffing from the guy and ‘don’t have a room, you’ll have to try another backpackers.’ Calmly we told him we’d called ahead. He seemed angry and frustrated with us for asking for the room.
After much grumbling, he handed us the keys to a room that had clearly been available all along.
We then politely asked, ‘You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a garage nearby we could take our car to in the morning would you?’
To which he snapped back – ‘Do I look like yellow pages?’
To which my friend replied, ‘Sorry for asking, can I ask, have you ever considered a career outside of the service industry?!?'”
13. I Let An Ungrateful Driver Overtake
“So one fine day I was driving a two-lane highway near the place where I live and as I was slowly passing a long two-trailer truck, the car behind already from a considerable distance started flashing his headlights.
‘Here I come, get out of my way you snail, I want to keep speeding…!’ It didn’t help him it was a Mercedes…
My first reaction when this happens to me is to slow down, at least to the extent that the tailgater needs to break at least once not to hit me, only then to slowly give way. This time, the situation of being in the process of passing the truck left more options open to really passive-aggressively annoy the pits out of the guy.
I had almost finished passing the truck when my tailgater arrived at my car so I decided to slow down to a speed only a few km/h less than the truck I was passing. As a result, I now started slowly backing towards the end of the truck, causing the guy behind me to flash his lights even more frantically and to become increasingly agitated and showing so with wild gestures behind the wheel.
I seriously wondered why he was doing so because I was obviously doing my utmost best to comply with his demand to make way for him to pass both me and the truck.
Arriving at the end of the truck, I did what I usually do and slowly gave way for the now red-headed Mercedes driver going completely ballistic. As he passed me, I gave him my friendliest smile and gestured with my hand he had now all the space available to him to continue his journey.
He didn’t consider me worthy of even a short look, let alone a nod of appreciation for all the work I did for him.
Ungrateful jerk…”
12. I Just Stayed Away From The Petty Co-Worker
“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 the guests to 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 distress.
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.”
11. I Might Have Destroyed A Jerk's Relationship
“I worked for a food supply corporation as a ‘Delivery and Service Truck Driver’, and I worked with a very rude and objectionable narcissistic guy that felt he was smarter than everybody around him and that he was entitled to be the alpha in any work situation. We drove tractor-trailer semi-trucks and worked in 2-man teams. One driver would drive while the other would sleep to keep the delivery route moving without the need, if it were only one driver, to stop for 8 hours to sleep when he’d maxed out his legally available hours for driving/working.
The different routes would vary between about 20 to 36 hours each to complete.
As all of the drivers worked a rotating schedule through all of the routes as well as rotating with all of the drivers there was NO WAY to avoid working with this JERK and be forced to endure his company for those 20 to 36 hours at a time. He was dismissive, arrogant, abusive, condescending and a big bunch of other adjectives too rude for polite company.
(I’m not known for my politeness, but restraint is often the better part of valor.)
This guy’s mouth ran non-stop and he would ‘stream-of-consciousness trash-talk’ anybody and everybody… friends, enemies, family, partners, his, mine, me to my face… anybody could/would be his target and there was no end to it.
The company we worked for treated all of the employees and each a guest to admission tickets to a rather prestigious sports event, playoffs for the World Series of US baseball, at a huge arena.
When the event was over (our team won) I found myself and my partner along with one of my friends from work, and an all-around nice guy, walking out of the arena alongside ‘the Jerk’ that was accompanied by his then-partner. As we made our way outside ‘the Jerk’s’ significant other introduced herself to me and my partner and to my other friend as her man had not bothered to make introductions.
At this point I turned to him and asked him, as a setup to suggest he had previously been talking about her at work, ‘Steve, is this the same girl you’ve been going out with for a couple of months?’ To which he replied she was. I then firmly stated in a tone and demeanor that the subject had been previously talked about, ‘Steve, SHE’s not FAT!’
My partner and my friend looked at me with a bit of shock at my comment, and the aftermath of the ensuing heated argument between the Jerk and his girl surpassed any and all of my expectations. As I had guessed, Steve had no idea if he had or had not spoken on that subject at work because his trash-talking never stops. And with the ferocity of the ‘discussion’ between the two of them, it came out that just a few days before he had told her how much better he thought she would look if she lost 10 pounds (4.5 kilos).
They were going at it hammer and tongs! I was inwardly laughing so bad!
I do feel a bit guilty for putting his girl in the middle of all that as she seemed to be a nice person, albeit poor taste in men. But then Steve is such a horse’s butt I can only hope that she could start to see that perhaps she could do better with men and move on to a guy that will treat her better.”
10. Finally, I Learned To Voice Out My Opinion
“It was sometime in winter of 2010 at New Delhi railway station waiting area. It was too cold out on the platform so I decided to spend a couple of hours in the general waiting area.
I was supposed to be waiting for around 4 hours and I was just sitting there watching something on my cellphone and parallelly observing other people who were waiting there. The crowd consists of people of every age, income, religious group. People were traveling with families, friends, some kids selling tea, students, business travelers like me, cops almost sleeping in corners, etc., etc.
I noticed a middle-aged male behaving really mean with everyone around.
He was some shopkeeper who used to run some stalls at railway and was behaving as if he owned the area.
Within a span of one hour, I had noticed him occupying an entire bench by himself when few people were standing or even lying on the floor, not paying for a cup of tea to the kid who was selling tea, hurling bad words to a group of students who were perhaps too loud and threatening few others who asked him to sit instead of lying on a 4 people bench by himself.
I kept ignoring him like many others even though I was not at peace from inside. I was probably a little worried to get in any kind of trouble as you never know what kind of ‘connections’ that guy has. Even cops can’t help in some cases.
Anyways, there is a limit to everything. I lost it when I saw him denying a seat to a pregnant lady.
Her husband was probably too nice for him and might not want to get in trouble either. He just requested him to get up and that goon simply told him to get lost.
I noticed that no one else said a word. I decided at that moment that I can’t take it anymore.
I got up and gave him a piece of my mind in the local language – ‘Jerk!!
I have been watching you for a while, it’s enough. What is your problem?’
He really got mad but I probably looked gutsier than I really was. He started arguing and threatening me telling me that I should mind my own business and I am messing with the wrong guy.
One elderly guy, who was sleeping till that time got up and started warning me and also preaching that I should not misbehave with elders.
I told him that he should go back to sleep and the guy whom I abused is not behaving like an elder that I should pay any respect to.
Meanwhile, I got some support from a few people who shut both of them down. Lady got the seat to sit and everyone got back to whatever they were doing.
This guy kept staring at me and threatened that he will teach me a lesson once the shops are open.
I had already shown more guts than I ever had. Seriously speaking, I took a big risk and could have been in a lot of trouble just by being a good samaritan.
Anyways, I was not stupid to hang out there for long. After a few minutes, I gathered my luggage and got out of there, and spent the rest of the time on the platform where my train was supposed to come.
I still think I took a big risk that day but it was worth it to step up and raise my voice for someone else.”
9. This Is How I'll Greet You A "Happy Father's Day"
“I was in the navy a long time ago, and one of my jobs on the ship was to go to the ship’s Post office, collect the mail for the Engineering Department, and pass it out in each of the 2 fire rooms, the 2 engine rooms, and to the A-gang (auxiliary department). I had been on the ship for about a year, by this point.
When I was new to the ship, I made friends with a guy named ‘Jack’. He was cool, funny, and liked to go out almost every weekend. We hung around various bars in the Norfolk area, and he was always trying to pick up the girls (okay, we both were).
Now please don’t think I’m some kind of discriminatory pig here, but I noticed that Jack – who was a relatively attractive guy – didn’t have very high… standards when it came to who he was going to hit on.
It seemed to me that he was more interested in quantity than quality.
Anyway, most nights we went back to the ship, but some nights we didn’t go straight back.
About six months after I was assigned to this ship, we had something called a dependents cruise. This had to do with going up the Chesapeake Bay to change out missiles and other ordinances at the Naval Weapons Station.
This was a slow cruise, that usually took all day, and there was usually nothing else assigned to do. The Navy allowed people to bring their wives and children on the ship for the duration of the cruise, usually about 8 hours.
This was when I met Jack’s wife and daughter.
Jack’s wife was very pretty, very nice, and very attentive to him. She would get up from the table in the mess decks multiple times to get him a refill on coffee or soda and to get their 4-year-old daughter some more water or milk.
His daughter was adorable. I remember thinking something like, ‘Why is this guy out all the time, chasing girls when he is married to her and has this adorable daughter!?’ Needless to say, our friendship took a turn for the worse, at this point.
It was probably three months later when I was delivering mail to the #2 Engine Room, that I passed out what looked like three birthday cards to Jack.
All the married guys were getting cards as it was in the vicinity of Father’s Day. I stood there and opened a letter I had received from one of my sisters, (did I mention that I also worked with Jack?) and saw Jack’s face go white as a sheet. It seemed that only one of the cards was from his wife, the other two were from two different women, wishing him a happy Father’s Day!
The next year he got four cards.
By the time Father’s Day rolled around the next year, I was out of the Navy, so I only sent him two! I wonder if he ever figured it out! He certainly never seemed to stop chasing women.”
8. This Is Proof That Feedback Matters
“I once had to take my father, who has since passed away, to the emergency section of a hospital. There were quite a number of people waiting for attention. After two hours, nothing happened, no one was summoned ‘NEXT’. Nothing.
Two doctors on duty were joking at the front counter most of that time, seemingly unconcerned about the people waiting. An elderly Indian couple came in, the man’s arm around his wife, clearly concerned about her.
She looked really ill and stressed. The husband asked the doctors to please check her as they thought she may have had a heart attack or an impending one. The response was, ‘where do you live?’ and ‘Why did you not go to a hospital in your own area?’ They made every effort to make it difficult and unwelcome. The whole scenario was: why are you bothering us?
I can’t with all honesty say whether they eventually did give her attention or not, because at that point I felt such repulsion and disgust by their lack of interest. The stress this elderly couple had endured to come all the way to the hospital and still be treated in that manner made it impossible for me to keep quiet and I confronted the doctors.
It’s really not my style, but it was one of those moments in life where you simply cannot shut up! They acted like little gods and I told them that. It progressed to a point where I was told to take my father and leave. I refused and said they were employed to treat patients, whereupon the one, having become aware that he had stepped out of the line of duty, said ‘OK, we’ll treat him, but you must go.’
I phoned my sister and asked her to come and take over from me. When she arrived, I left, but not before I asked her to make sure he got medical attention and not to be put off by them.
The Monday, after that weekend, I phoned the Matron and told her about it. She said they had received complaints before but she needed it in writing.
I’ll never know what actually transpired after that, but I do know that nine years after the event, there has been a massive improvement. I’d like to think my small contribution helped in some way.”
7. She'd Rather I Stay An Atheist
“I am an atheist, born and raised Catholic. A few years ago, a colleague of mine, evangelical Christian and American, actively tried to ‘Show me the light’ and ‘Bring me back to Jesus’. She believed the world started 5000 years ago, with the Bible, and was relentless in her pursuit to ‘save my soul’.
She would try to talk to me, send me books, links to websites, etc. I just ignored it all, saying ‘No thank you,’ until one day, she cornered me in the office and went on another rant, and that’s when I snapped.
I told her that if I ever decided that there is a god after all, then I would go back to being a Roman Catholic, because I was taught at school, by nuns, that only Roman Catholics can enter heaven and be with God, and the best others can hope for is purgatory.
And as for her, well, since she was trying so shamefully to destroy my soul’s only chance at heaven by bringing me to another faith, well, she was definitely going to burn in the underworld!
She never bothered me again. Maybe she’d rather I stay an atheist than become Catholic. I always wondered.”
6. He Can See Himself In Wikipedia As "The Millennial Einstein"
“So in high school, I had this massive enemy. He’s self-righteous, hypocritical, (well, obviously he looks so bad because I’m the one who’s typing this) but honestly, the reason why I HATED him so much was that he became best friends with my significant other. And then he convinced him to break up with me. He’s lost (like all of us were) but always thinks that he is nonculpable of anything for he is the most mature person in the room.
Long story short, another insufferable thing he did was how he always bragged of his interest in physics and how he always acts like Einstein incarnate. The fact that they had the same birthdays (14 of March) didn’t help.
So after one long day in school, I was so fed up and edited the Wikipedia entry of 14 March. Under ‘Birth’ I listed him: ‘X, 14 March 1995, The Millenial Einstein.’ And then screen-captured it.
It lasted 5 minutes on that page but it felt d**n good.
And I also always referred to him as ‘Einstein’ for the rest of HS because he annoyed me so much. Dang, I was nasty.
In hindsight, I should have just told him that he couldn’t be more further removed from Einstein than he is. All his big talk won’t help him gain the sheer genius of forming such an elegant theory.
From what I see from his social media, he hasn’t changed much. I don’t hate him now, and pride myself for turning my hate into mild amusement.”
5. I'm Not A Photographer, I'm A Model
“I was in my final year of uni. My focus was on the dissertation and things after that. And I was talking to a first-year student. She was doing the same course as my friend (we’ll call my friend Sasha.
They do Media and Journalism). And this girl (We shall call her… Jasmine) was asking Sasha for help (as Sasha was two years above she had a little two dots more knowledge).
In uni, we have these little areas that you study in as groups with a huge whiteboard, computer, all that stuff. And Sasha asked me to set up her camera. So I was.
And I asked Jasmine to just stand in a spot so I can get the lighting etc right. Tried it a few times, I couldn’t quite get it.
Jasmine was getting annoyed, as you would, and asked to see the pictures. She saw them and was like ‘they are fine’ – Sasha is a perfectionist. Sasha ONLY allows me to set up her cam due to her perfection-needing-… self.
Jasmine then goes ‘what do you know about cameras anyway. You do psychology…’
Me: Oh, my part-time job helps me with this.
Sasha (over the computer screen): Oh yeah Jasmine, she gets paid to take pictures.
Jasmine: You’re a photographer?
Me: (realizing how she came to that) Oh! No! I wish! (laughs) I’m a model.
Jasmine looks at me with confusion. Mind you, I don’t dress like or act like I would be a model.
Because I feel I only need to be perfect on my wedding day and at my photoshoots. All other days it’s all over the place. So I can understand why she would look at me like that. I reckon I have quite an average face.
Jasmine: Are you being serious?
Sasha and me: Yeah
Jasmine: But how can you be one? You’re ugly… it must be an easy job.
Me: I applied to an agency. Secondly, the job isn’t THAT easy.
Jasmine: How can you be getting paid? I try and I never get paid and you’re ugly and you’re getting paid.
Me:… Well, I’m getting paid for being ugly, then.
What might have rubbed salt in the wound is that later that day a well-known model came to visit me to talk about a fashion show and Jasmine absolutely GUSHED over her.
Follows her on social media. All that jazz. And the well-known Model then turned to Jasmine and calmly said ‘thanks for the attention but the real model is here (points at me) she’s the only model, out of the 12, that is getting paid.’ (Jasmine’s face drops)
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes it looks beat up purely because it’s well-loved and well-read.”
4. I Have No Energy To Argue, Just Give Me My Boarding Pass
“In 1997 I had been living in Switzerland for several months when I needed to take a plane trip. In those two months, I had been subjected to some of the worst customer services I had ever seen. I just didn’t get Swiss people at all and I was getting frustrated. (spoiler alert: I get along fine with most Swiss now, but there is technique involved).
Anyway, I had reserved the ticket online, specifying that I would pay for it in cash. When I got to the SwissAir (remember them?) counter, I handed over my credit card. The clerk told me no, I had to pay in cash. I tried to argue but to no avail. That’s when I snapped (and/or became truly Swiss, you decide).
‘So I need to go down that corridor, down two floors, walk 300 meters to the train station, take 1200 francs out of the Credit Suisse ATM, bring it back here, and stand in line again?’
‘Yes’.
‘Okay,’ I said. And just stood there. No expression on my face. Just stood there. With people piling up behind me. Stood there.
Her face squinched up. She started typing. Thirty seconds later I had my boarding pass. I floated onto the plane.
Here’s the thing about Switzerland. If a Swiss person takes responsibility for something, it’s going to happen. Period.
As a consequence, some people work very hard to avoid taking responsibility in the first place. Arguing, getting mad, yelling strengthen this avoidance. As does any show of weakness or pleading. Silence gives that sense of responsibility time to work.”
3. I Made The Mean Teacher Sit In Chalk
“There was this one teacher who absolutely loathed me, for reasons I still don’t know. She lunged at every chance she got to chastise me. I’ll call her Mrs. P for ease of reference.
One afternoon, just before the end of school, we were waiting for the ‘packed lunch cart’ to arrive from the dining hall which would carry all our packed lunches.
Only after we’d picked them up, would we be allowed to go home.
It was Mrs. P’s class’s turn to bring the lunch cart that day, and she’d forgotten to send them off. After she did, 10 minutes had gone and they still weren’t back. Everyone else was in the corridor, complaining loudly.
A friend asked me (for the billionth time) to check if it had arrived yet since I sat closest to the door.
I walked out of the classroom into the corridor to check, and it wasn’t there, so I called back, ‘No, it’s still not here.’
‘WHAT did you just say?’ Boomed a voice behind me. I turned around. It didn’t come from my friend, nor my teacher. It was Mrs. P.
The corridor was bustling with people. But now they all turned to stare at me.
I froze. What had I done wrong?
She yelled at me for the next 5 minutes, telling me how ungrateful I was for ‘whining and complaining’, and disrespecting her class. I burst into tears. This was all in the middle of a corridor, and she yelled at me like I’d committed some sort of serious crime. It was humiliating, to say the least. But it wasn’t enough for her.
She ordered me to apologize to her entire class, and when I was too terrified to move, she half-dragged, half-pushed me down the corridor, into her classroom, where she had gathered the entire class. She shoved me to the front and told the class of the horrible things I had just done.
The rest was a blur. I was an absolute mess, crying so hard I could barely breathe.
I remember her jabbing me in the back a few times because I couldn’t talk as I was practically choking.
My parents were horrified when I told them this, still terrified from the shock. They complained to the school, but no action was taken. Despite her false/exaggerated accusation, the massive humiliation, and not to mention her being very ‘hands-on’.
So I waited, very patiently for the next few weeks, for it to rain heavily enough so that we had playtime indoors.
I found the crafts drawer, and sure enough, there was the pack of playground chalk.
I sat in the corner of the classroom and began my work. Using scissors, I ground up a small portion of chalk into a fine powder. I used orange chalk, to be exact, as they weren’t actually orange, but more of a beige-y color – the same color as the teacher’s chairs.
And during the next (outdoor) playtime, I hid in the toilets until everyone had gone, and the teachers had gone to the staff room.
I scurried down the corridor and tiptoed into Mrs. P’s classroom. Thank goodness she wasn’t in there. I crept up to her chair and carefully scattered the chalk powder onto her chair, making sure there was enough to – ahem – leave its mark (all the teachers wore dark-colored trousers), but not too much so that it would puff up into a dust (or chalk) cloud when she sat down.
As soon as I was done, I practically tiptoe-sprinted out of there, with a huge feeling of satisfaction and relief.
Now, there is no wonderful ending to this. I never knew what happened next, as l didn’t see her for the next few days.
But I was satisfied. Even if it was an unusual way of revenge, and even if it didn’t work – it felt like payback.”
2. I Drove Slowly For The Horrible Woman
“I hadn’t met with a female friend in a while, with being busy with University.
All else was put in the back seat. Anyway, we were both invited to the same wedding shower a couple of hours away.
That female friend, (I’ll call her Lynn), said why don’t we ride together and pool for a shower present, we could get it at Macy’s on our way to the shower? She asked if I could drive, saying she drove so much for work and could use a break.
I agreed and drove. She said she would pay half the tolls and contribute to gas. She had me pick her up at her house.
We went to Macy’s. We picked out a vacuum cleaner. I gave her half the amount. Then when she went to pay, she pulled out a BUNCH of coupons which brought the price down to half… and did not reimburse me!!
So I paid for that ‘shared gift’. Then she tells me that she has to look at (expensive) watches for her husband (ensuring that I am fully aware of the ‘expensive’ part – her way of bragging). His birthday is coming up. She takes seriously 30–45 minutes at the watch counter, while I mull about. I did not expect that.
Then we travel to the shower.
She springs on me during the trip that she needs to be dropped off at a different place (not her home) and that she has a second event she is attending that day. Total surprise to me.
We attend the shower. It is fun. They are suggesting going out to dinner after. I can’t because my ‘friend’ has to go (and had not told me ahead of time – if I had known, I would not have driven with her!!!!).
We were having a fun time at the shower. I did not want to leave. She kept approaching me and tapping her watch. I dragged my feet a little, but really just a little. I was having fun. She starts getting more emphatic. So we go.
Her ‘little extra stop’ is 45 minutes out of the way at a shopping mall in some whole other town.
I only find this out when in the car, she tells me her destination and I put it into GPS.
Here is my satisfying passive-aggressive payback:
I intentionally drove SUPER SUPER slow, as in under the speed limit on the highway, and made some wrong turns.
THEN she asked if I wanted to share a ride to the upcoming wedding.
Um, NO WAY. Excuse me?
What is she smoking? Not a chance on earth.
Upon getting home, I unfriended her on social media and finally blocked her. She sent me a LinkedIn invite, which I ignored. She had been a new friend and we were still getting to know one another. After this though, it was clear that she was no friend at all, and just dumping her was the best course.
Horrible, horrible, horrible woman. She did all this sooo easily like it was totally normal behavior and I was the weirdo. What a freaking creep.
And she paid NOTHING for gas and tolls. Lest I think she ‘forgot’, she told me she’d have to pay me back by inviting me to her beach house so I could ‘wiggle my toes in the sand’. She loves to brag about that stupid beach house in a dry quiet town.”
1. I Guess I Really Am A Softie
“I was in class when this happened and we were talking with our teacher about our university plans and what we are planning to do in the future. She asked me what I am planning to do after high school.
‘Study political sciences. I am really passionate about it and I can see myself in it.’
It was a rather weird answer given the fact that I am in med. school and for all I know, I was planning to continue medicine but my mind has changed. She smiled and said that they can’t wait to see me in politics when I heard someone laughing. It was the girl I really don’t like – she is arrogant and her hobby is to make fun of people most of the time.
‘You in politics?! Hahaha! God forbid! You are a softie! That is a really funny scenario to imagine. Lara you are going to make a fool of yourself but then again, I live to see people making themselves look like fools so I won’t complain. You are a really good person to make fun of.’
‘The last time I checked, I didn’t ask what you think about my goals and it surely isn’t yours to say what am I, putting your nose where it doesn’t belong.’
‘Oh shut up. You are nothing more than a softie and a person that is a complete fool. Everyone will laugh at you and I just can’t wait for that moment. You are a complete loser, Lara, and you have always been. I feel sorry for you. Your life is very hard.’
The thing is that she said these things before, multiple times but I never did anything.
I was silent and I thought that she would stop but she didn’t after all. Enough is enough, after 3 years of listening to the same comments.
At this point, I decided to keep my mouth shut but I was literally boiling from the inside. I didn’t like her and I still don’t. If I can’t stand something, it is when someone makes fun of me.
I was bullied for 6 years before that and I just couldn’t stand someone doing something like that to me again. I was thinking about what to do after that and while I was alone in the classroom, I saw her Sprite and her makeup on the table. There was a bug near the window (she hates bugs) so I took it and put it in her makeup and opened the Sprite enough and just waited for her to come back.
The class started and miss ‘make fun of everyone’ did what she always does – put makeup on and drink in class. As soon as she opened her set, she screamed like someone is going to kill her, and while she was flailing with her arms, she knocked the Sprite right on her lap and made a mess. The teacher was angry as a bull and as soon as she was close to her table, she took her cellphone, told her that she will call her parents, and sent her to the principal. While she was walking behind me to the door I just mumbled ‘oh I guess that I really am a softie.'”
