People Open Up About Their Revenge Towards A Rude Person
25. Snobby Teachers Won't Let Others Use Their Coffee Machine
“When I moved to Australia my first job was teaching for a term in a pretty rough and dysfunctional school.
(By dysfunctional I mean the principal was absolutely hopeless and some teachers had been there years, having formed tight little cliques. They were barely going through the motions of teaching, knowing they were too hopeless to get a job elsewhere but they had permanency there so the principal couldn’t get rid of them and no one would take their job even if he wanted to.)
On the 2nd day there I saw a coffee pod machine in the staffroom. Not a Nespresso machine, just one of the really cheap rip-offs. I mean really cheap: at the time they were $49.99 in the supermarket. By comparison, the cheapest Nespresso machine was $400.
I remarked about the machine to one of the other teachers, telling him how in my previous school we had them (Nespresso machines though) and I commented how easy & convenient these machines are.
He agreed and so I asked him about what pods are used. He told me the type of pods I needed to buy, which supermarket sold them, and which brand & strength he prefers and recommends.
That evening after work I go buy myself a stack of pods and over the following weeks, I treat myself to a daily coffee, courtesy of the marvelous $49.99 pod machine.
I would leave my boxes of coffee pods in a drawer under the machine and I noticed quite often someone had helped themselves to one. I don’t say anything: they only cost 40c or so. It’s not worth getting all uptight and upset over someone ‘stealing’ 40c worth of coffee from me.
6 weeks later, after having used the machine daily (usually twice daily) without anyone saying a word to me, I approach the machine for my daily caffeine fix and find a note stuck on it:
‘This machine is for the EXCLUSIVE use of FULLY paid up members of the Coffee Club ONLY’ (‘exclusive’, ‘fully’ and ‘only’ all uppercased, bolded, and underlined)
Not only am I confronted by this mystifying note but my pods are missing!
I head back to my office perplexed to find my pods sitting on my desk. My head of department (HOD) comes in and gravely informs me that my constant use of the machine has really upset 3 of the other teachers.
Apparently, the three had all chipped in to buy the machine for their own private use and had all been so very upset I had been using it without permission these past few weeks. But they hadn’t wanted to tell me because they didn’t want to make any sort of drama or fuss. The poor dears.
Here’s the weird bit.
The three ‘members of the coffee club’:
One was the PE teacher and he was an ultra-aggressive jerk who swore like a weird sailor at everyone, including the students. The idea that he felt too shy to tell me not to use the machine was bizarre, to say the least.
The other one was the dude whose desk was right next to mine in the office and, I thought at least, that we got on very well.
Often, when I was getting myself a coffee, I would offer to make one for him (using my own pods – again I mean coffee pods. Get your minds out of the gutter) and more often than not he would happily agree and thank me. Again: it was bizarre that after 6 weeks of convivial work relationship and me often getting a coffee for him, he felt compelled to write a note to me to tell me to stop doing so.
The last one is even more bizarre: he was the teacher I first talked to about the machine and who told me where to buy the pods from! Don’t get me wrong: had he right at the start told me it was a private machine and they didn’t want anyone using it, I would’ve been fine with that. But he told me where to buy the pods from and which ones I should buy.
Surely that’s an invitation to use the machine?! Can anyone explain this?
It gets worse: my HOD tells me that the coffee club triumvirate has magnanimously decided to let me join their exclusive club for a very reasonable $30.
Two points to consider here: the machine, as I wrote above, retails brand new for $50 and I was only teaching there until the end of term, less than 2 weeks away.
I also wish to point out that each of those teachers was earning $100,000/year: together they were getting $300,000/year. Yet they forbade anyone from using their precious $50 machine and expected me to pay them $30 – almost the cost of a brand new machine – just for the privilege of using it for 8 more working days. So much hate.
I apologized to HOD for my ignorance and rudeness, and respectfully declined their kind offer of joining their merry little club.
There I was, less than 2 weeks before the end of term, with a box of coffee pods I was now no longer able to use. I first thought of creating a scene by getting up to speak at the end of term meeting the following Thursday and profusely apologizing for my crass use of their beloved machine, going on at length about how I really did not realize how precious and important this machine was to them before offering them the unused pods, along with a few more boxes as a way of further apology and maybe a snide remark of knowing which ones they liked based on which ones had gone missing from the boxes I had bought.
Pretty passive-aggressive but I’m not outgoing or chutzpah enough to pull such a stunt off.
My next thought was to join their club, pay the funds, then abuse them out of the machine until it broke. But that seemed like too much hard work and I figured they might catch on to what I was doing and hide the machine.
So I was stuck as to what to do.
Then I thought of the most marvelous passive-aggressive action!
On the last day of term, during the lunch break, I went to the supermarket and bought an identical coffee machine along with several boxes of coffee pods. I came back to school and in the class time after lunch (luckily I had a free lesson), installed it in the staffroom next to the triumvirate machine with the following message above it:
‘This machine is for the EXCLUSIVE use of anyone who is NOT A MEMBER of any existing Coffee Club.’ (relevant words bolded, capitalized, and underlined).
I put all the pods into a large bowl next to my machine and put a note above the bowl which read:
‘Free for anyone who is NOT A MEMBER of any existing Coffee Club.’
I then made myself a coffee and went back to the office.
The member of the triumvirate who sat next to me looked at me quizzically briefly but didn’t say a word. One of the best cups of coffee I’ve had.”
24. I Didn't Sleep Yesterday So You Can't Sleep Now
“I live in an apartment complex in which people can lease a room in a four-room apartment and share the kitchen and living room with the other tenants, which they may or may not have met previously.
I moved in with two friends but for a long time, there was an empty room in our apartment. Until out of the blue someone opens our front door. There was our new roommate, an Australian international student who was going to attend our university for a semester. Although surprised we decided to be nice. After all, we are international students as well and we knew it can be difficult the first days.
It turns out that for him it was not difficult at all, since the first night he asked if he could have ‘some friends over.’ We complied because we were trying to be nice and because when we have some friends over we usually just chat for a while and do not bother anyone. However, this was not the case, his ‘friends,’ which he had only met that day, and himself got wasted and loud.
At some point, my roommate went out to retrieve the tv from the living room since we feared they would break it in their wastedness (the tv belonged to my friends and me). The next day everything was a mess. He tried to ‘clean’ it, but you do not clean spilled beer with only towel paper unless you like the smell of a cheap bar.
My roommate and I had to clean everything because he was too busy in the pool area. Anyhow, this must give an idea of how living with him felt like.
One day he had one of his usual ‘surprise’ parties, in which he just invited people over to trash the apartment without asking for permission or anything. I was in my room, annoyed as usual and I decided I would take revenge.
I could not sleep that day because of the noise.
The next day I woke up earlier than usual and connected my pc to the tv in the living room, which was conveniently just in front of his room. I searched for one of my favorite anime, ‘fairy tail.’ If you know the original Japanese voices, you may know where this is going. I began making breakfast with my friends which unlike me are early birds.
While making breakfast, what is more satisfying than turning the volume all the way up and listening to the sweet voice of ‘Happy,’ the high-pitched talking cat from fairy tail?
Imagine waking up hung-over, after having slept probably two hours to something like that.
Oh God, he was annoyed. He woke up and came out telling me to turn the volume down. I said: ‘why?’ but my pronunciation must have sounded like ‘what?’ for him.
He said: ‘Why is this so loud? You cannot even hear me! Turn it down! I answered: ‘why?’ again smiling a little bit. He screamed the same thing and I turned the volume down a little bit to hear better what he was saying, to which he turned away and proceeded to walk to his room probably believing it was over. I turned the volume even louder as soon as he did this.
He came back and said: ‘didn’t you hear what I said? I cannot sleep with that noise!’ I laughed and said: ‘well, I did not sleep yesterday either.’ He looked at me with a frown: ‘So because I did not let you sleep yesterday, you are not going to let ME sleep today?’ I smiled once more: ‘Oh, I did not say that. I just want to hear my tv show.’ He went back to his room frustrated.
Why didn’t he do anything? My two roommates, one of which is my man was standing there without saying a word. They both are quiet and really passive people who have probably stood up for themselves a handful of times in their lives. However, they both work out… a lot. I am, on the other hand, a little 1.50 m girl who is very less passive and much more aggressive.
I could say this is the most ‘passive’ thing I have done when someone was actively messing with me. However, I only said something because my roommates were there since that guy looked like the only thing that prevented him from smashing my face on the countertop was their presence. He was frustrated, but I was utterly satisfied.
You know, this was not my go-to #1 solution.
We talked to him since day one. As I mentioned he had a party as soon as he moved in. After my partner and I cleaned his mess, we talked directly to him and told him that we did not like what he did and he said that he would ask us next time. He never asked us. We talked to him countless times after this.
He just ignored our words even after my roommates and I talked to the manager to change apartments just to run away from him. We did not change apartments because by the time our infinite patience was over it was November and he was moving out in December, so we just counted the days.”
23. Won't Do Your Job Correctly? Get Covered In Paint
“A few weeks ago, I went to work at my dad’s painting business. He had somewhere acquired a young woman to work for him, her and her mother. I don’t mind someone who doesn’t have a clue what they are doing, but someone who won’t even TRY to listen to those who know when they give advice, who get all snooty and act like THEY are the ones who know what they are doing really aggravate me.
I suggested nicely that they stop using poles to paint because they were missing a lot of spots. All I got was attitude. So, that night, I took all the poles home with me.
The next day, she was very upset when she couldn’t find them. My dad told them that I might know where they were (he had told them that I didn’t want them to use the poles anymore because they were screwing up, which they just ignored and went ahead and used them again the day before this).
She came up and asked me in a totally disrespectful, aggressive tone where the poles were. I said ‘they were needed elsewhere,’ and walked away. (I should mention that she is stupid, bigoted, vapid, lazy, and has an infuriating high-pitched, whiny spoiled-brat little girl voice that makes me want to smack her when I hear her talking). A while later, I see something out of the corner of my eye while up on a ladder; I turn, and see her standing there; she had found a broom in the basement, and unscrewed the handle.
She was standing there, clearly saying ‘screw you, I don’t have to listen to you!’
A while later they went to start cleaning up (at about 4 o’clock, having stayed to work a whole four hours now). I just happened to be painting over the front door; as she walked under me, I just happened to be pulling a big, wet roller full of paint out of my bucket to paint above the door.
Oh, woe and misfortune, a huge drizzle of paint went all over her bare head and back and neck (I guess no one told her the reason painters traditionally wear hats; if they had, I doubt she’d have listened to them). Oh dear, such a terrible accident! I have to give her credit, she didn’t say anything at all. Couldn’t have proved it was on purpose (not that I am admitting that it WAS or anything…) in any case.
I heard her kind of loudly saying something to her mother about how ‘hopefully it’ll wash out.’ Lucky for her it was latex, not oil, or she’d have to use paint thinner to clean it out! Latex just needs water.
The next day she was back at work (if you can call what she did ‘work’); the client was asking me if next time I was in the attic if I could take a look for something up there for him (it was not easy to access at ALL).
She walked past and said, ‘well, maybe while he’s up there he can look for those missing paint poles.’ Not sure, but I guess that was supposed to be a joke, even though it wasn’t funny, and didn’t make any sense, since it was pretty obvious that I knew exactly where they were. Too bad I’m no good at instant comebacks, but when I saw her again a few minutes later standing around watching everyone else work, I said ‘Hey, you know, you ought to take up a career as a comedian’ ‘Me?’ ‘Yeah, you’re definitely not likely to have one as a painter,’ and I walked off.
Maybe not a comic genius, but it felt good. I don’t like being rude to people, but this girl drove me over the edge. I’m glad to announce she has moved on to ‘work’ for another place now. When she approached my dad and said that she’d ‘consider staying on if she got a raise,’ it was all I could do to choke my derisive laugh back into a kind of snort/grunt.
Yeah, don’t let the door hit you on the way out, ma’am!”
22. Judgmental Schoolmate Got Slapped In The Face With The Truth
“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.”
21. I Broke Down And Cried So I Can Change My Seat On The Plane
“First story: Many years ago, I attended a small all-boys private school.
This wasn’t a prep school, no, though I did go to one of those later. No, this school was for problem children. Yes, I was a problem child.
This school had a mix of shy introverts and geeks (I was in that camp) along with rebellious teens, a few bullies, and at least a couple of sociopaths, possibly psychopaths. Some days I’m still not sure how I made it out of there with a smile.
In my second year, the school had an optional trip to India during spring break. The head of school and assistant head went with a motley collection of teens. A fifth of the student body went, meaning seven students. Yes, a very small school.
We got ready and flew on Air India both ways—an airline that did not have anything close to the best safety record in the world in the mid-1980s.
I liked the country and it was a very educational trip, though maybe not quite the way the head of school would have liked. We saw shocking poverty alongside determined people forging a path toward the India of this century alongside the history of a very old country. Quite the mix.
Some year I’d like to go back. Absolutely everybody from the school either got sick or injured, but that didn’t dim my enjoyment of the trip.
For the trip home I was supposed to have an aisle seat, with T sitting between me and M. M was quite the bully, and he really liked hurting people. Unfortunately for me, T got there first and took my seat. When I asked him to let me have my seat, he looked away. M looked at me with a smile, wearing a nice new cotton shirt he’d gotten in India.
He was restless. He’d been sick more days than anybody else, trusting unboiled water despite all sorts of warnings not to.
Shortly after we were seated, M started punching my right shoulder. Hard. No warning, no explanation; he just wanted to hurt me. He did this several times.
He’d done this before on other trips. I didn’t do anything those other times other than move seats if possible, because at least I knew those wouldn’t be incredibly long trips.
This? Was slated to be 16 hours seated next to a bully who kept grinning every time he punched my arm.
When we were served our first in-flight beverage—orange juice, which I remembered from the inbound flight was some of the most mediocre orange juice I have ever had the misfortune to drink—The Plan came to me. It was a very simple plan.
I held my orange juice in my right hand and waited for a pretty stewardess to walk down the aisle.
When one did, I threw back both my hands as if in amazement at how lovely she was. Sploosh! I splashed orange juice all over M’s nice new cotton Indian shirt. The stewardess smiled at me.
Right after she left I got up from my seat, went to talk to a steward type, and begged for a seat change. I would have been much cooler if I hadn’t broken down and cried for a few seconds, but I was that scared of going back to my seat.
I still have no idea how my in-flight luggage survived, but it did.
Second story: Another event happened many years ago when I went out with a woman and lived with her for about two years. She is the only ex I call any sort of a nasty name because she was very, very mean.
She was unfair in our finances, borrowing often from me without paying it back but insisting that any time I borrowed from her I pay it back ASAP.
She was mean to her young son, a boy she’d ignore far too much of the time and spank far too often.
She was rude to me in person, and she talked trash about me behind my back, distorting events and lying to people I knew from a couple of communities. She wrecked my reputation and damaged my parents’ reputation as well, despite them using a little pull to get her a work-study job she would enjoy.
I realized I could not take living with her anymore and told her I’d be moving out in a couple of months. When moving week came, she protested that if I took the king-size bed I’d bought for our apartment together that she’d have nothing to sleep on. This was a lie. She’d recently gotten a comfy little daybed.
I was about to call her on it when inspiration struck me: she’d have to flip and turn the mattress all by herself.
During our entire time together she either helped me flip and turn it or watched as I did it all by myself. It is not easy to wrestle a king-size mattress!
So I left her the king-sized bed.
I saw her a few more times after that, trying to be friends—that didn’t work, but that’s another story. Every time I visited, she’d wheedle and ask me to help her flip and turn the mattress.
Every time, I told her No.
And every time, I smiled a little inside because she’d have to beg some other sucker to help her because she wasn’t getting my help.”
20. Clash With Neighbor Lasted For Years
“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.”
19. Working In Retail Will Definitely Test Your Patience
“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.”
18. I Am Not A Witch, I Am THE Witch
“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.”
17. Dropped All Of My Metal Equipment While She's Asleep
“For a time in the 1980s, I was forced to live in a roommate situation while the apartment I was waiting for was completed. I used a professional service and they set me up with a woman about my own age.
Naturally, there was the thought that there might be some extra-curricular activity and we were heading down that track with some degree of certainty. In the mornings while I was drinking my tea on the couch she would come in wearing a flannel nighty and the zipper would mysteriously drop inch by inch as she bent over in front of me to do something, but I was never sure what.
Her intent was clear.
But it turned that she was something of a passive-aggressive woman. Although we paid the same amount of bills and rent she assumed she was the leader and made chore lists and had refrigerator authority, meaning she could eat whatever I put in there but I had to beg her for anything she put in there including common items like milk and butter.
This soured any possibility of any kind of hooking up. She was a martinet and no amount of cleaning or chores that I did measure up to her standards, not that she was a paragon.
But the killer was one night when she went out with her friend to go clubbing. I had told her that I needed to get up early because I was driving to Canada for a revolutionary war battle re-enactment and that I needed my sleep.
But she came in at 2 AM with her high heels and pounded back and forth on the floor for over an hour listening to dance music on the stereo, clearly very wasted. I couldn’t get any sleep. And she wouldn’t take off her high heels so it was clop clop clop all night. It was miserable.
Finally, around 3 AM she went to bed. I had to get up at six.
I had already packed all my gear, my musket, my canteen, and camping equipment but when I got up at six I made certain to unpack everything, dropping all the metal items noisily on the floor then repacking them. I knew she had a raging hangover — she always did. I made lots and lots of packing noise and anyone who knows anything about a marching army knows how much noise their equipment makes on the march.
I must have ‘accidentally’ dropped my clanking metal bayonet at least three times. As I walked out the door she yelled, ‘Jerk!’ from her bedroom to which I yelled back, ‘Witch!’ and went off to fight the British. God, that was a miserable apartment.”
16. I Killed Her Grass And Left The Country
“I live in an old part of a city in Slovakia. The majority of my neighbors are old ladies whose only activity they enjoy is poking their noses into others’ affairs.
In the front of our house (block of flats with 4 floors) is a private parking space and maybe 1 m wide line of grass which separates the walls of the building from parking spots.
Even though this parking space is private, there are still many people who try to profit from its close location to the city center, so every time a car enters the plot, my neighbors are turning to spies, watching out of windows from behind curtains, waiting for new rumors.
Especially one lady is very sensitive and wants everything to be in her order. The parking spots belong to everyone who owns a flat in this house, you can park anywhere you want. Even though this lady used to park always under my windows because there is shadows, no matter that she lives on the other side of the house.
Once I was in hurry and there was no other parking place than under the windows of her flat or in a paid parking place.
I decided to park there but my car is quite long so I stayed with one wheel on the grass. I didn’t care about that since I knew that I wouldn’t be at home longer than a half-hour and when I come back in the evening the parking places will be free again.
In a moment I got out of the car and was about to lock it, this fussy lady rushed into the street yelling at me how can I park on that beautiful grass, her husband takes care of it… like I was the worst person in the world attacking this innocent grass.
Of course, everybody was watching out of their windows this dramatic scene. She sentenced me to a nasty fate and commanded me to repark my car.
I don’t understand why she always puts her car in the place under my windows.
I reparked the car. But the moment I entered my flat I turned on my computer and ordered herbicides. A month or two later I sprayed the herbicides on ‘her part’ of the grass.
The next day I left the country (staying abroad for a few months) and in the next few days, the grass went completely yellow and then brown (a friend of mine sent me a photo).
I heard that since then she’s quite quiet and doesn’t yell at people she doesn’t like…”
15. I Only Wanted To Park But It Became More Interesting
“So I’m driving into a parking lot to get my car headlight fixed. It’s one of those stores where if the staff helped you out in fixing something you’ll need to make sure you’re parked in their designated lot.
This particular lot has a mere dozen spaces (city center location for you!) It’s a Saturday and it’s busy, but there’s one space left.
This space is available, had the jerk on the right not parked his ugly little run around over both his space and the empty one. This left just enough space for me to park but have to squeeze out of my side of the car, which I was fine with because there was nowhere else I could park legally.
So I swing my car into the space and switch off my engine. By this point, my significant other in the passenger seat is looking at me like, hey, that’s cold, as the jerk driver looks at me stupidly.
Turns out his very large significant other was standing behind both cars with her hands on her hips, proclaiming she ‘wouldn’t be able to get in now!’ So the driver gets out of his car and looks over to me (not saying anything though, this being Britain and all the consensus is that the best way to get what you want is to look pointedly at someone and not say anything at all.) I just smile back at him sweetly and open my door to get out.
He just sits back in the seat, slams the door, and reverses with a squeak of tires so he can let in his significant other on the other side.
I honestly only wanted to park. But I managed to get him to leave without any hassle at the same time and that kind of outcome in this city and country is music.”
14. She Crossed The Line When She Hurt My Sister
“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.”
13. Grumpy Man Got Licked By Dog
“I used to work in a coffee shop that had one of those water bowls for dogs and also a small jar of treats on the counter which we’d occasionally give to some of the dogs whose owners brought them in regularly while getting their morning cup of coffee.
The dogs would sit there near the tables and their owners would chat for a while, etc.
We had one customer who was an older gentleman who tipped poorly and was often gruff and irritable when ordering his coffee. He hated dogs. He’d speak way too loudly to those of us behind the counter, and we’d always joke about the irony that this man who hated dogs so much had pretty strong dog breath.
One day it was raining out and he comes in and orders his coffee. He’s impatiently drumming his fingers on the counter and harshing all of our moods. His impatient movements caught the attention of one of the dogs, which started sniffing around the man’s rear end like there’s no tomorrow. The man got miffed each time it happened, and my coworker intentionally slowed down the preparation of his coffee to prolong his agony.
The man sternly said ‘down’ a few times but the dog’s attention had been piqued and his owner was in the restroom or something.
The dog was getting more amped up and wagging its tail big time. The man reached down to grab its collar to pull it away from his seat and next thing we all knew he’d slid onto the floor on his back, he must have slipped in a puddle from someone’s umbrella or something.
So this dog that was sniffing him comes up and starts licking up and down the man’s face like it’s made of tapioca. We all start laughing and my coworker points out that the man seems unable to stand up. The dog’s leash, tied to a chair, had become tangled in the man’s legs and so when he tried to stand the dog would arch his back and keep licking away.
We noticed that the dog was licking around the man’s mouth, on his lips, etc., and the man was in a sort of rage. We were a bit immature at the time and let this go on for about five minutes, during which time the dog got even more amped up and started barking loudly, making the four other dogs in the cafe start barking too.
Finally, one of the other customers, a nice older lady, helped him up. He looked so ashamed of what had happened. We got some great pics of the incident and put one of them on the register.
We did lose him as a customer after that but nobody really cared. We found out later that he was a decorated war hero and his walks to get coffee in our shop were the one thing he still enjoyed in his old age.”
12. Good Thing My Reflexes Worked Fast
“This is from when I was in the 12th standard and was returning from school. I used to cycle all the way to the railway station, leave my bicycle in the stand outside the station, and board a train.
This special day, my bicycle got punctured and my dad dropped me on his way to the office.
Now I had to walk back home from the train station, a good 30 minutes.
I was planning on taking a shortcut. I had walked hardly 10 minutes when I reached a very long lonely alley which led to an open playground. On the alley, I felt like I was being followed and turned back to see two young boys following me on a motorcycle, so I started walking fast. They too noticed my fear and started teasing passing lewd comments on the size of my skirt and how I walked.
I was hoping I’d reach the end of the alley soon before they do something and get away because actually, no one was passing by there then. So I finally reached the open playground when from the corner of my eye I saw the pillion reach out his hand towards me.
I got scared shocked and angry and a mixture of many feelings led somehow my reflexes to work fast. I don’t remember how, but they were so close that I grabbed that guy by his hand and collar and pulled him out.
This movement of him made the driver disbalance as he was planning on speeding and he too lost balance and fell.
I started kicking him as he lay on the ground and he tried to cover his face. I know he was hurt but I was furious and not thinking straight. He didn’t even resist. I don’t know what made me angry but as he tried to save himself I squatted over him and started slapping him left right repeating all the comments he passed earlier.
Now there were young boys playing football and their parents watching them play. They started shouting and running towards me and some of them towards the fallen rider. A lady got a hold of me and a man pulled up my victim and inquired about the prior happenings. I explained to them what happened and without losing a beat the boy had the galls to say, ‘this lady is lying’.
The next thing was that woman’s reflexes too worked as fast as mine. ‘Lying huh? Lying? She isn’t lying you are,’ she screamed, gave him a very tight slap, and threatened both to take them to the police. I don’t know what happened to them later but I was asked to leave. I started crying and left.”
11. Can't Think Of Any Reason Why I Would Read Her Emails
“After I had worked for the bank for about five years, I made the decision to transfer to our affiliated investment firm which had offices in the same building.
The senior broker’s reputation with her past assistants was poor at best, but I stupidly thought it would be different with me. The first 18 months were great. I earned my Series 7 license and became the broker’s right hand.
One day I discovered that in my role in scheduling her appointments, which required that I have access to her Outlook calendar, I somehow also had access to her email.
I had never asked for access and didn’t need or want it. I reported the issue to her and Technology. When it was addressed, technology found that an entire group of assistants who had been hired within a specific time frame all had been mistakenly granted access to their brokers’ email, so reporting my issue allowed them to correct it for everyone.
Somehow, though, in her mind, I had purposely snooped through her emails and she firmly believed that I routinely read them even after the issue was corrected. I think she had her email set up so that she had a reading pane in her inbox, and had set it so that every time a preview was visible, it marked the email as having been read.
Tech-savvy she was not, so she concluded that I was the one reading them. Of course, I had no reason to do that, and every reason not to.
Things deteriorated rapidly after that. When she told me that I was being investigated for reading her emails, I simply told her that I didn’t care because there was nothing to find. I immediately applied for a transfer back to the bank.
She tried to block my transfer by claiming that I had a disciplinary action in my personnel file which would have made me ineligible. The bank’s HR manager made short work of that by talking to the HR manager of the investment affiliate and confirming that there was no record of disciplinary action at all. I got my transfer.
This broker never spoke to me again unless I called her on the phone to refer a customer, even though we ended up being officed directly across from each other.
I, on the other hand, made every effort to speak to her just to watch her squirm. If we found ourselves in the same hallway, I made a conscious effort to make small talk. She would say nothing.
We met at an exit door one day when I was entering and she was leaving, so I pulled the door wide and gestured for her to go first while asking cheerfully, ‘How are you today?
It’s a hot one out there!’ She said nothing. We met one day as we both rounded the same interior corner from opposite directions. ‘Oh my gosh!’ I exclaimed. ‘Excuse me! That was close!’ She said nothing.
My all-time favorite encounter happened one morning as we both entered the building from opposite sides. She practically ran to the elevator and reached it before I did.
These elevators were old and the doors began to close the second you pressed a floor button. She entered the car, whirled around, and began repeatedly jabbing the floor button with her keys, trying to get the door to close before I got there. I had a great angle and a clear view of all of this and was working hard not to laugh at her desperate attempt to avoid me.
Unfortunately for her, I was too close and managed to stick my hand between the doors with just inches to spare, and succeeded in forcing them to open. I stepped on the elevator and said, ‘Whew! I barely made it in time!’ and looked at her with a satisfied smile on my face. She said – you guessed it – nothing.
She eventually moved to another location and my fun ended. I never felt guilty about any of this after the way she treated me.
I still don’t. In fact, I’m quite sure that I’ll never regret any of it.”
10. Paper Shredder Became My Friend
“I worked for a boss who was just a horrible, horrible person. She thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, but her personality made her hideous. She was the kind of person who always looked for an excuse to talk about how ‘tiny’ she was, especially when she was in the room with people who were noticeably larger or heavier.
She couldn’t find shoes because her feet were just too delicate and tiny, her waist was so small she had to buy children’s clothes, you get the idea. If you want a really good snapshot of her personality issues, one day she came in bragging… bragging! that she refused to walk in the mall next to her daughter because her daughter was pudgy and embarrassed her.
I hated working for this woman. Hated it. To make things worse, she was an ineffectual management type who sat on her butt in an office all day, delegated all actual work to other people she came up with the most menial titles possible for (she had a slew of ‘my secretaries’ and ‘my clerks’ who answered to her) and was a master of making her nothing day of gossip and sitting around look like productivity to the bosses.
Meanwhile, all of the actual work she was supposed to be doing was being done by me, while she sat with a coworker friend and gossiped about subordinates all day.
One day, she was showing a superior around the office and she was airily throwing out nonsense commands (‘get me the blah blah report’) to make it look like she was extra important and that everyone was rushing to do her bidding.
Almost none of these reports actually existed, and by the time she got finished with the show she usually forgot about them. But one time she actually did get pinned down and had to come up with some actual copies of reports she’d made up. Then she told me to ‘just throw something together, they don’t know’ and I got stuck devoting huge chunks of my workday, chunks of time I should have been using to get actual work done, coming up with these nonsense reports that were nothing but fluff and numbers that had no bearing on anything.
Just to make her look like she was getting something done.
After months of this, I sat at my desk and realized that all of these nonsense reports were going nowhere and accomplishing nothing. Dozens of employees, on a whim from this woman, were sending me statistics that didn’t matter for a report that went nowhere, wasting their time too. She never looked at the report, no one else needed the report for anything.
They just got filed in a drawer, day after day, month after month. I think she only wanted them around in case she got caught doing nothing again. So I decided to start shredding them.
I only shredded the oldest couple of them at first, because I was afraid of being caught out. I thought that the minute I shredded them, someone would need them.
But no one ever did. So I shredded more of them, big nonsense reports that clogged up my desk drawers and were so thick I had to pull them apart and shred them in shifts. It felt liberating. It was like being in Office Space. I started using the mantra, “If I shred it, it never happened.” And that was pretty much true. The stupid reports just went bye-bye, and no one ever asked.
I discreetly called the other departments and told them that the supervisor thanked them for their work but didn’t need the stats anymore. They were relieved to have time freed up for all of the other things they needed to do. When the boss brought someone through and asked me if I was working on the report, I told her yes. I was not.
I was doing all of the other stuff I was supposed to be doing.
She got a promotion (of course) and her successor never asked about the reports, so I shredded the last of them and gladly dumped the pile of shreds in the trash cart. And even though she never found out, it was my one big act of rebellion against a really terrible boss.”
9. He Should've Just Kept His Hands Off Me
“I was a university student and I had just returned from an archaeological dig in Jordan. This detail is important to the story, so bear with me. In Jordan, the archaeologists stayed in a small town which was near the dig site. The people there were not really friendly toward us. It wasn’t overt most of the time. They were especially upset by us women although we were careful to cover our hair, arms, and legs with respect to their culture.
However, we women put up with rude comments, glares, and once I was struck by a boy who had been sent over by a group of men.
I have to say the Jordanians are friendly and hospitable people, but I think the small village was just very conservative. So after six weeks of this, I had a bit of a short fuse dealing with harassment; especially in the States.
So now to the story. I flew back to the States then took a bus to get home. This was the very early 80’s and I often took Greyhound buses to go across the state, etc. So I was on an overnight bus ride. It was probably the middle of the night and we stopped to let some more people on. The bus wasn’t crowded, still, a man in a suit sat next to me.
That was ok. I was tired; I planned to sleep.
I covered up with a blanket and since I am petite, I was able to cross my legs on the seat and lean back comfortably. I was woken up sometime later by the lightest, briefest touch on my thigh under the blanket. I didn’t move but lay there wondering if I had imagined it.
I mean, I had tucked the blanket in around me. I couldn’t understand how the man had managed to get under the layers without me noticing; I am a very light sleeper. Plus I had lived with the fear of scorpions in my bed and I had gotten into the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and lying still as a stone in case one was under the covers with me.
Instead of reacting, I lay there and waited. And in a minute or so, yes, I could feel his hand move by the merest fraction of an inch. It was hovering just over my leg. I was stunned. How had he done it? How had he kept his hand and arm so still? How had he worked for his hand under the blanket which was over me without me knowing?
I turned to look at him and he appeared to be sleeping. And then I got mad.
I carried a knife with me; they come in handy on digs, well, to me they do. I slowly pulled it out of the bag I was using for a headrest against the window. I unsheathed it and held it under the blanket over my lap. Then slowly, very slowly I moved it, very slowly until the tip was against the man’s hand.
It was a very sharp knife. The hand moved slowly back. Then I moved it forward again and his hand became tangled in the blankets. He didn’t have a chance. During this entire encounter, I didn’t look at him and just appeared asleep.
He managed to get his hand out and he got up and left me.”
8. They Shouldn't Have Eaten My Chicken Wings
“I went back home for a funeral back in 2004.
While I was home I met up with a friend of mine from my late adolescent years. I have always had high hopes for her. She was smart and very beautiful. Growing up she was like my kid sister. Nothing more. Nothing less. Unfortunately, she started running with the wrong crowd after I left. And she got involved with illegal substances. She said how she wanted to get straight, but couldn’t because she couldn’t get away from the area.
I made her an offer. She could come and make a new start where I lived. I offered her a brand new turn-key life, where no one would know anything about her unless she told them. I did put a stipulation on things. The stipulation was if she came down and didn’t fly right, I would mess her little world up. Wash my hands of her.
And would cease to exist in my life.
She moved down. Things started off fair. I was skeptical.
Two weeks later her convicted significant other moved down. I was livid. But I just waited to see in which direction things were going to go bad. This was turning into a Jerry Springer Episode quickly.
Of course, there was theft. Lying. Breaking and entering throughout the neighborhood.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was my hot wings…
I ordered some hot wings to take with me to work. The jerk and her partner ate them. Not a problem. Here is where it gets AWESOME!
I ordered more hot wings the next day. I left them in my jeep during a hot Georgia day. Then I put them in my fridge at work.
That night I ordered some Habanero powder. And got some diet capsules.
While I’m waiting for the powder to come in, the wings are sitting there in my fridge at work. Getting ripe! The powder comes in and I proceed to take the capsules apart. Dump the good stuff out. Replace with habanero powder. Put pills back together. If you have never done that before, it’s a VERY tedious task.
It took me about a week to do the capsules.
Wings were not ready at the two-week mark. Let’s give them another week….
About three weeks into it I took everything home. And came up with another random passive-aggressive idea as the icing on the cake. After all, I was annoyed!
I put the wings in the fridge. And the pills in my bedroom.
I then went into their bathroom and urinated in their mouthwash. NOT a lot mind you! I was amazed at the bubbles and foam I created in that little bit of urine I added.
The next day I saw one wing had one bite out of it. I’m not sure if they swallowed that one bite. I don’t doubt she has any problems swallowing other substances.
Pills were missing but I never heard of any repercussions. What I DID hear every morning and night was them gargling with that mouth wash. And I just laid in bed and laughed until I cried myself to sleep.”
7. Low-Key Humiliated Him While Quizzing Him
“There was this guy I went to college with ‘A’. He had a clean-shaven bald head, looked like Mr. Clean, and was maybe 6 foot 4 and jacked. ‘A’ was a bit of an Alpha male to the point of being a bit of a bully to people to establish his dominance.
He was in my friend group and whenever we went out in a group he would always answer questions on our behalf and generally seemed confident. ‘A’ got on my nerves a few times but I am generally non-confrontational so I would never say anything. One night a group of us went out to a bar and had a pretty good time. About halfway through this gorgeous shy looking redhead walked in and walked straight up to the bar.
On her way ‘A’ waved at her and said, ‘hey ‘B!’’ but she averted her eyes and kept walking straight up to the bar as if she didn’t see him. I was pretty sure no one else noticed this and looked at his face. ‘A’ looked straight down at the table looking pretty sheepish for a few seconds before regaining his composure and getting up to dance.
I kept this in the back of my mind for a while but I started thinking he might have some low confidence. I watched him for a bit and noticed whenever we were talking about anything science or math-related he would never join in the conversation and would try to change the topic. I love talking about science and I admit I might be annoying sometimes when I am excited about something.
After a couple of weeks he started being rude to me just in small enough ways that I could laugh it off but after a while start getting to me. I am not witty at all so I could never defend myself very well or say anything back.
Fast forward to a party in the common room and he starts commenting making fun of the beer I was drinking or something else as trivial. I ignore it for a while and we move on to playing a board game.
Of course, he starts making fun of the game we are playing and I am pretty annoyed. Now I can’t remember what exactly it was but I start asking some questions about science and start a discussion about chemistry, then we move on to physics, and then we start talking about Astronomy and it was all going great and I could see ‘A’’s face.
He looked like trash and I was reveling in it. I watched him the entire time and waited for him to say anything, anytime he did I would interrupt him and change the topic. I did this a couple of times and made eye contact with him the last time I did it. I saw him completely deflate and we went to sit down.
I can still see the picture of his face when he realized what I was doing and feel bad about it because I think he was self-conscious about his intelligence.”
6. Petty Boss Got Surprised When I Talked Back
“My ex-boss thought that the people she employed she also owned. So she’d get angry and scream or whatever because she’s got other problems with nobody to listen to her. (I’ll sound misogynistic here).
She’s a 40-year-old woman who is single and is rumored to be the mistress to the head of the company who is married and has a wife in another country.
The rumor might not be true (even though I’m inclined to think it is) but stop at the 40 and single in a country like Indonesia one can conclude that she is a very insecure woman and that indeed she was.
For some reason, she likes to talk to guys and expect them to humor her but when something is different, slightly wrong, she will direct her anger on the male population of the office, and being the only male in her room, I was often subjected to her mood.
One time I was at the warehouse on a Saturday and we were waiting for more detailed information as to where to send, who to address, and how many do they need to be sent. I was the warehouse admin at the company. It was almost 12 o’clock and the delivery truck comes at 1 or 2 so we have to prepare the packages before that and since we don’t have the full info yet, she decided to talk to me about how I rarely work overtime on a Saturday when she almost always does.
I told her, I don’t think it’s necessary because I always finish my report and never need to finish it on a Saturday unless the company needs me for delivery on a Saturday, in which I’ll come. But I’d preferably not work on a Saturday for a measly Rp. 60.000, when most people are paid a minimum of 100k–150k rupiahs on other companies in Jakarta for a day of working overtime.
And that 60k is only paid in full if I work from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. I think it bothered her because once I knew that they only pay 60k for overtime, I did say I’d prefer not to work overtime unless it’s really urgent.
(60k is really not much in Jakarta. You eat for like 15k once, so 3 times a day is 45k rupiahs.
And my transport costs me 6k. And the 9K is what’s left.)
She told me, ‘If you work overtime, the company loses money. Do you understand that, Hakmer? So when the company asks you to come on a Saturday, you should come because the company pays.’
She went on lecturing me for half an hour about how the company loses money and how my life is supposed to be dedicated to the company and how the most important thing in the world is this company she’s head of the finance department of, and when she’s done she asked me,
‘Do you understand, now, Hakmer.’
‘Yes, I do, Ci,’ I said. I always say yes because I don’t like arguments with people who don’t listen. I’d rather just get it over with. She should’ve stopped at that but then she asked me,
‘What do you understand?’
‘If I work overtime to help the company, the company loses money. And that’s why I don’t work overtime.
I don’t want the company to lose money.’
I think her jaw dropped, I don’t know. All I knew was she wasn’t making any sound through the phone for a few seconds. And then she said, okay continue with what you’re doing, and didn’t talk to me for the whole day. She sent us the details of the delivery via the OB and didn’t use the phone.”
5. Fed The Conceited Employee With The Truth
“Many, many years ago I worked in special projects for the executive office of the company that employed me. This was a real privilege, and I was often involved with or exposed to a range of highly confidential initiatives, from strategic partnerships to internal restructuring plans.
One project I worked on required the help of someone in another department. She was excited to be involved, and top management had sanctioned some of her time for it. She worked hard and was a great asset, but throughout her time, her immediate supervisor was constantly giving her grief. He would sabotage her availability, pile on work outside her normal job so that she was overworked and exhausted, and denigrate her participation in the project we were working on together.
The project was completed successfully, and a couple of weeks later I was standing outside of the building as her supervisor was coming in to work for the day. He headed through the door, and a few steps behind, I headed in too. He headed up the stairs, and a few steps behind, I headed up too. He headed down the hall, and a few steps behind, I did too.
He walked into his office, and a few steps behind… I did too.
I closed the door behind me, and said, ‘Hey — got a minute?’ He said he supposed he had a minute, but only that. I said ‘Thanks! You know, you did a real favor to me when you let XXX work on that project, and so to thank you, I thought I would do a favor for you in return.’ ‘Oh really?’ he says.
‘What’s that?’ ‘Well, I thought you’d like to know that you’ve been under consideration for a new VP position…’ His eyes lit up. I went on: ‘and each time your name has come up for it, it’s been discarded, and I thought you’d like to know why.’ Startled and then looking a little sick, he sinks into his chair. ‘Err… yes.
I’d like to know.’ So I proceeded to tell him: ‘You’re apparently perceived as petty, passive-aggressive, controlling, and conceited. You’re clearly talented, but for these reasons, you’ve been passed over… good luck!’
Every word of it was true, from start to finish, and he thanked me profusely for it. One of the most satisfying moments of my career (and there have been a lot!)”
4. Everything Was Fine Until Diapers Happened
“I live in a quiet part of London, on a road of semi-detached houses. On one side is a great neighbor – almost as close a family. On the other side is a not too bad neighbor – we have no issues with them, but not really close either. They’re kind of neutral. All three families in these houses are of the same ethnic background.
What happened?
Diapers happened.
One morning early in the new year, I saw a dirty nappy on our back lawn. Eh? How did it get there? We assumed an animal had dragged it there. Not sure why it would do that. I got rid of it but had my suspicions. Since it wasn’t a brand we used, I knew it wasn’t from my house.
A few days later, another one.
This time, I noticed they had an odd way of extracting trash from the house – instead of collecting in a small bin inside the house and then taking it out to the wheelie bin, they were leaning out of the upper story window, and dropping it straight to the ground to be dealt with later. Hmmm, was this the source of the flying diaper?
I threw that one back over the wall, to their garden.
(The neutral family I mentioned earlier)
A few weeks later, again on the front lawn. Another diaper. This time, I had to put a stop to it. My dad was in the hospital, my baby daughter was keeping us awake at all hours. Enough is going on without dealing with other people’s diaper litterbug habits. I walked over and dropped this one on the porch, with a note: ‘I have enough diapers, fresh and soiled, of my own thanks’.
Ten minutes later one of their family comes back and vaguely says something about maybe it got over the wall by accident. (You’d have to have a really bad aim when you’re throwing trash out of your window and it keeps ending up next door, quite a good distance too, like 4 meters).
Well, that put a stop to it for a while. Except for a few more months later on, and another one.
I made sure it landed on the bonnet of their car when I returned it via airmail. My mum raised it with their mum, who said she had already jolly well shouted at all those with diaper-wearing kids, and warned them to stop it, embarrassing as it is. They claimed this one must be from random strangers throwing litter in from the street (really? It hadn’t been a problem for 20 years.
My street is very quiet, and rarely used as a through route). And animals? Animals open food bags. They can smell the diaper and would leave it alone. Why would they want to drag diapers around the garden?
Anyway, they’ve totally stopped now. Even the open-window-garbage-disposal system. We’re still cordial, and we even return their kid’s garden toys that stray over the fence.
I’m glad I didn’t end up having to report them, as I’d been ready to do if I see another diaper on my lawn.”
3. This Is How I Broke The Tension In The Meeting Room
“A few years ago, I was a minority partner in a small business. My other two partners were the majority shareholders. Every few weeks the three of us would hold closed-door executive meetings to discuss financial results, customer & employee issues, etc. The meetings were typically very pleasant and encouraging for many years – lots of ‘how do we address this issue?’ ‘where do we see ourselves in 5 years’, ‘what’s our next step?’ Not coincidentally, the economy was humming along during that same period of time.
There wasn’t a lot to complain about because things were going pretty well.
By 2008, the economy was tanking. Residential construction had slowed to a whimper and our customer base followed suit. The tone of our executive meetings started to turn increasingly hostile. Pats on the back and encouragement were replaced with finger-pointing, accusations, and blame. Many of the meetings devolved into a game where one partner would try to pit the other against the third.
Being the minority and least senior partner, I felt the cannons were often pointed my way.
After months of consistently depressing financials, we headed into another dreaded executive meeting. I knew that one partner was upset that one of my new sales programs hadn’t delivered results. He called the meeting and took center stage to voice his displeasure in a particularly condescending way. As the other partner and I sat around the conference table, he greeted us in silence with a forced semi-smile while writing notes on his legal pad.
His face was red and you could feel the tension in the room immediately. This was going to be a lecture, not a meeting.
Without saying a word, he stands and writes a few figures on the whiteboard. Now he’s slowly walked back and forth around the table scratching his chin and looking toward the ceiling as if his prepared monologue is actually being delivered impromptu.
I’m thinking to myself, get ready for the show. Every 30 seconds or so, he’d pause and without making eye contact say something like ‘So… we’ve spent three months working on this and this is what we have to show for it (points at a figure on the whiteboard)’, Then he’d pace a little more while nodding to himself. Picture the calm-before-the-storm when Alec Baldwin leads into his scathing sale rep beatdown in Glengarry Glen Ross.
This routine continues for 5 minutes (seemed like an hour). The other partner and I are making eye contact but don’t say anything as the crescendo builds. His voice gets louder and his face gets redder each time he stops to pose another insulting rhetorical question. ‘So this is the great new idea you guys came up with?’ more pacing, ‘You think these numbers are impressive, do you?’
Everything was carefully choreographed to maximize our discomfort and let us know he’s about to drop the boom on us. Then I start getting angry. A few years ago, we all sat in this room and worked on problems collaboratively. When we had problems, we could talk to each other directly and sincerely. There was always mutual respect even when we disagreed. Now I’m being forced to sit through this condescending monologue.
Screw this, I decide that I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. After he said his last ‘This is the best you can do, I guess???’ he takes another dramatic pause. I can tell he’s ready to take center stage at the table and rip us a new one.
At that moment I make eye contact with him. While pressing my palms together with anticipation and smiling like a goofy doe-eyed moron, I open my mouth for the first time and say ‘Don’t keep us in suspense any longer, what do you think of the program?’
The tension was broken as both partners laughed out loud. I think the meeting continued in a much more civil tone after that.”
2. She Didn't Want To Be Compared To Her Father
“I grew up with a really mean, dominating extended family. My aunts and uncles and cousins from my dad’s side of the family were all incredibly lofty and thought themselves very wonderful. My dad was the black sheep of the family who chose not to participate in most of those family vacations and get-togethers.
My parents did their best to shield us from that negative atmosphere (without causing any tension or animosity) and taught us to treat everyone with decency and respect. Unfortunately, as I entered my teens, there was one female cousin who was incredibly competitive and would get increasingly rude and mean to me as the years went on. Her parents were split up due to infidelity on her dad’s part, she’d had a rough time with it, to begin with, but my sympathy soon disappeared as I saw how she would manipulate both parents to get exactly what she wanted.
As we both approached our twenties, I struggled with her on a weekly basis. She would make snide remarks about my younger siblings, on my thighs and calves as I wasn’t a double 0 like she was, make fun of my parents and belittle any form of success I had. Anything I had, she had to have too. Whether it was a new pair of shoes or a job offer or a new friend.
While I talked about her to my parents and tried to understand her negative feelings toward me, I never said a bad word about her to anyone else and always tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was exhausting and depressing. It felt like I could never be happy or have any decent friends without her ruining it.
When I was 19 I got my first serious relationship.
Once we split up she beelined for him. Since the relationship was over, I didn’t allow it to bother me too much, but it seemed like a jerk move for her to make. She strung him along for a year before breaking his heart. Two years later I met a guy who I thought was the love of my life. I went out with him for years before his behavior started to get weird and distant.
I soon found out that he was two-timing me with her and that she had approached him 6 months into our relationship. They were talking and meeting up in secret for months and I had no clue.
I split up with him and was heartbroken. I attempted to confront her about it. Most people feel shame when confronted with things like this, but not her. She couldn’t have been more proud of herself.
She said I was too uptight, that it wasn’t her fault he was attracted to her more than me.
As the months wore on, I struggled to recover, I lost loads of weight, felt very alone, and struggled to trust the people around me.
One evening, 3 months after everything came to light, we went over to my grandparents for a family get-together. She smugly spoke to my other cousins about how happy she was with my ex and I had to leave the room twice in order to collect myself and avoid bursting into tears.
At the dinner table, I was asked by my grandpa if I was seeing anyone new. Before I could answer my cousin spoke up;
‘Oh, she’s probably going to have a hard time finding a guy better than her last one. Thanks for the hand-me-down btw…’ and she winked at me across the table. It got awkwardly quiet.
Something inside me snapped, and it just came out without me even thinking.
‘You know Eleanor, you are a lot more like your father than I first thought.’
The table went dead quiet. Her face flushed red with shock, she was mortified.
It was a low move for me to compare her to her unfaithful father. It’s a moment I look back on and struggle with at times because I knew I was better than that. That comment was beneath me, and as I felt the pleasant rush of revenge, it sickened me to know I was capable of such hurtful words.
But as I saw my words sink in, I knew they would change her forever, in both good and bad ways.
I feel sorry for her, in a genuine, gut-wrenching kind of way. I have mixed feelings about what I said to her that day and often I wonder if I could have done more without stooping to such a level.
But something I learned through that experience is that turning the other cheek sometimes doesn’t get you anywhere, sometimes letting things slide time and time again doesn’t inspire others to treat you with the same kindness and patience.
Sometimes you do need to hit back, and sometimes it needs to be a hard smack to the face.
She never talked to me again after that. I don’t think she hates me, but rather, she can’t speak to me out of shame. After years of thinking she was God’s gift to men, she was pulled off her pedestal and made to see just how selfish she had been and how lonely she was in life.
To add insult to injury, my ex ended up two-timing her with someone else… and I fell in love with a man who would never look at another woman but me. I moved on with my life, and it took her years to finally find herself.
These days she is much better, and happier. I hold no resentment towards her, but I don’t miss her presence in my life.”
1. Revenge Is Not Sweet, Understanding Is
“I live in NY but am from London and was back in Surrey briefly whilst working up in town. I arrived for the early train at the local suburban station.
As I queued for my ticket, bleary-eyed and staring down at my phone, I suddenly had ring-side seats for the boldest push-in of my 33 years on this earth. A tall, thin, slightly red-in-the-face gentleman in an ill-fitting suit assumed the position in front of me, unabashed by the now tense situation he’d created. Needless to say, this didn’t thrill me, as at that time in the morning everyone is in a bit of a hurry and generally doesn’t suffer fools who interrupt their routine.
I looked around to the dude behind me to exchange a ‘is he serious?’ look. He obliged. I turned back to our new queuing neighbor and politely said:
‘Scuse me, man, I think the queue starts back there’. Now… what he said next wouldn’t have been so shocking but for his demeanor.
‘Yeah?’ He awkwardly points to the BACK of his head ‘you see that?’ (To which I felt like saying ‘no, you’re facing me’, but didn’t want to spoil his delivery) ‘that’s the back of my head, and you’d better get used to it because I’m here now!’ Verbatim, seriously.
And let me remind you, this wasn’t Harlem or Hackney, this was Coulsdon South! As I stood, aghast, he turned around and shuffled forwards. The only option I had to take things further at that point would have been physical, and that’s not really my thing. So, half smiling at the bizarreness of the situation, half annoyed, I watched him get to the front of the queue.
At this point, as he stood at the ticket machine, I am not sure if the chaps in charge of Karma were looking down thinking ‘Nah, we can’t let that one go’, but his train (which was not my train) began to pull in.
To my intense, inner satisfaction he went to pieces. Clearly, the three Shredded Wheat (and five cans of Monster) he’d had for breakfast weren’t helping now.
I seized the opportunity and strode forward to reinstate some focus on the transaction. Asking him which station he needed to go to and even pressing one of the buttons for him.
Whilst I tried, he never looked me in the eye as he dashed off. He made the train.
Morally, it was a knockout.”
