People Confess Their Most Absurd Revenge Stories
28. Steal My Songs? Thanks For One Of My Best Performances
“This was many years ago when I was trying to break into the jazz scene as a singer in a new city I had moved to. I had shared some recordings of mine with a super talented musician and bandleader who lived there, and based on that, he invited me to come out to one of their shows and sit in on a few songs.
It was a great opportunity for me to perform in front of an audience of jazz-lovers and also to make music and connect with several really wonderful players. His guidelines were simple: just pick three jazz standards that I thought I would shine on, and he and his band would back me on whatever I chose.
I spent the week considering which songs would demonstrate my skill and also carry the most emotional impact, and I practiced them every day. That Friday night I took extra time to try to look good, but I was still pretty nervous and self-conscious when I got to the crowded club.
I literally knew nobody in this town. In a stroke of luck, someone left a little 2-seat table just as the band began, and I snagged it. During the break after the first set, the band leader came over to chat with me.
He was a really nice guy and generous with his talents. He didn’t need to let me sit in with his band. As a matter of fact, many people wouldn’t have done it. I was really grateful to have met him and felt hopeful about the contacts I would make through him, but more importantly, I thought we might end up being friends.
He told me that after the break they would play a few songs and then he would invite me up. He then went off to mingle with all the other people who wanted to talk to him.
As soon as he got up, a woman slid into the seat that he had just vacated.
She was tall and pretty and she said that she heard that the bandleader had invited me to sit in, that she was also a singer and she wanted to welcome me to town.
‘We chick singers have to stick together!’ she said with a beautiful smile.
Could this night get any better? Here I was making another friend already. ‘What songs are you going to sing?’
We chatted a bit and I told her what I had chosen and why. She was really charming. As the band took the stage, she excused herself to go back to the group of friends she was there with.
She flashed that beautiful smile and told me with a wink that she was sure we’d see each other again real soon.
The band finished the first song of the second set, and then the band leader called up the other woman that I had just met.
It was odd that she hadn’t mentioned she was going to sing, too. But I was glad I’d get a chance to hear her. I then sat there utterly shocked and dumbfounded as she proceeded to sing ALL THREE OF THE SONGS THAT I HAD PREPARED.
I looked over and saw her friends looking back and forth between her and me, laughing. I was so stunned. Mainly because NEVER, in a thousand years, would it occur to me to do something so crappy to another person, let alone a fellow musician.
She literally came over to me and acted friendly to find out what songs I was singing so she could pull that stunt. Welcome to your new town. I was so hurt and humiliated. She was, at this point, singing the third song directly TO ME to the great amusement of her friends.
The band leader knew that something was up, but he had no idea what, as I hadn’t told him what songs I would do. My brain was racing, trying to come up with a way to deal with the situation. And then it hit me.
She was pretty good, but she wasn’t THAT good. She was a little formulaic, a bit unoriginal. She was depending on her looks and presence, tricks she had learned in her voice lessons. She was technique-heavy and soul-lacking. In other words, she was baffling them with bull crap.
And I knew what I had to do.
Her last song ended and she left the stage to generous applause from the audience, and cheers from her table of friends. The band leader called me up. I handed him my lead sheets and whispered to him, ‘She stole my songs.
Please trust me on this… let me do the same songs.’ Fortunately, he got it instantly and nodded with a little smile. And I sang the living heck out of those songs. I put every ounce of my training, but also my emotions, my angst, my fears, my longing, my loneliness, my joy.
I wasn’t even aware of the room, but for a moment between songs, when I glanced out to see her sitting there with her mouth hanging open and her friends, now sitting still and silent.
The room exploded when I finished, and I got a standing ovation.
Someone actually shouted out ‘THAT’S how you do it!’
I honestly felt kind of bad for her, but I think she learned something that night. The band leader came up to me later and told me that he had wanted to teach her a lesson in humility for a long time, and thanked me for letting him be a part of it.
I ended up living in that town for 5 years and became good friends with the bandleader and many other musicians in town. I never got close with that other singer, but she never tried to pull something like that with me again, and I think, she never tried it with anyone else, either. I still think it was one of my best performances, ever.”
27. My Coworker Liked To Call Out Our Wrongs, So I Called Out His Hypocrisy
“So there’s a guy in my office who everybody hates. He follows rules to the letter and takes joy from being incredibly petty. He rubs everybody the wrong way. His kids are adults now, but he still books off the kids’ holidays before anyone else gets a chance, so people who actually have children can’t take it.
He complains when some people book a few days off before AND after Christmas as you are meant to do one or the other, but then he will do it himself. Lately, he has really been rubbing me the wrong way.
If something of yours is 5mm over the line and onto ‘his desk’ he will push it back onto your desk or knock it over. The apprentice had a bottle of water like this the other day and Jobsworth threw it in the bin.
We are hot-desking and also are supposed to clear all items from desks at the end of the day and not reserve them.
This rule is aimed at those who come in twice a week on a rota (like him) but I come in every day.
As I come in every day, I see no harm in being at the same one permanently. My boss sees no issue with this, but the jobsworth took it higher and has kicked off in management meetings, etc. So my boss apologized to me and said I have to clear the desk at the end of every day, and he will send out a mass email saying so.
The jobsworth has also complained about people wearing jeans as this isn’t professional, so this was included in the mass email (although it said that jeans were smart/casual and fine to wear as long as there were no rips or anything.)
This is where the petty revenge comes in…
The jobsworth likes to wear shorts. He also wears flat peak/fitted hats and a leopard-print face mask.
I clicked ‘reply all’ to the email and responded with something along the lines of ‘Regarding workplace attire, I assume that flat peaks, leopard masks, and shorts are also inappropriate? It doesn’t look very professional to clients and I assume this was the reason (company name) provided us with our own branded masks?’
The boss has agreed with me and said only our branded masks or the blue surgical masks can be worn, no shorts and no unsuitable hats.
Jobsworth has then called the boss in a rage and has demanded I apologize for this ‘personal attack’ on him and is apparently kicking off and trying to take it to the union.
It is a very small win but I’m loving how angry it’s made him.”
26. Call Me Manly? I'll Reveal Your Darkest Secret
“A little background on the two main characters of this story:
I, 31F (24/25 at the time), have been into heavy weight lifting for the last 7 or 8 years. Due to my dad’s awesome genetics, I am able to build muscle very easily for a woman.
Hanky Panky (HP for short) is a creepy old school friend of my parents who became a born-again Christian AFTER getting caught by his wife while hooking up with his mother-in-law. Yes, you read that correctly.
There were only a few people who were aware of the story, my parents included, which is how I found out.
None of HP’s other Christian friends knew about this. The other Christian friends were also mutual friends of my parents, who were friends with me on social media as well. This becomes relevant later on.
Around the time I started lifting, I built muscle fast, and I was proud of that.
So naturally, I’d often post before/after pictures. For the first few months, HP would always comment on my pictures telling me to slow down because at some point I’ll start to look manly. I always ignored those comments because they’re ridiculous.
Fast forward to about a year into me lifting, I post another before/after picture, and here comes HP telling me now I look manly. Unfortunately for HP, he caught me on a bad day. So now I’m angry and decided to engage in some back and forth commentary.
I ask if me being a woman who lifts weight makes me manly, what does that make him, a ‘man’ who doesn’t lift at all? HP decided to ignore that comment and hit me with ‘the bible says for women to look like women and men to look like men.’
Oh, the lightbulb that went off after reading that.
I was no longer angry but absolutely filled with pettiness now. I mean, how couldn’t I be after knowing all about his dirty little skeleton in the closet?
So without further thought, I replied back with ‘Hmmm, I’m pretty sure there’s something in the Bible that states not to sleep with your mother-in-law but that didn’t stop you, now did it?”
After I hit send on the comment I sat back and watched the aftermath and it was glorious.
All of these mutual Christian friends were commenting asking what happened and they couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing. I even got a few private messages asking what happened and how they were disappointed he’d do such a thing.
With his little reputation ruined, he decided to call my parents and tell them what I said.
Halfway through his story my mom just cuts him off and says ‘Why were you even looking at our daughter’s pictures? You’re being a creep again,’ and then hung up on him. Mom is a true savage and I know I made her proud that day!
But the best part about this story is that his own wife (yes, they stayed married) liked my comment calling him out.
He avoided me like the plague after that!”
25. Don't Like A Well Played Piano? How About A Poorly Played Trumpet?
“So, for a little context. My significant other and I are renting the first floor of a house. It is a beautiful home. Private basement with laundry. Reasonable rent. Huge backyard (shared with upstairs neighbors).
To top it off we have the most amazing landlords.
Super kind couple, they do all the yard maintenance. Pay for snow removal. Any time we’ve had an issue they are immediately on it. Was worried about moisture turning to mold. Boom, dehumidifier in a day. Dryer broke on a Sunday.
Brand new one on a Tuesday.
We moved in and all was great. We had a mom and her adult son upstairs. They were fantastic. Unfortunately, they had to leave shortly after for health reasons and to be closer to family.
Enter new upstairs neighbors.
It was supposed to be a single mom and her toddler. As they moved in it was a mom, toddler, 16-year-old, and a dog. Then her partner showed up. Won’t get into all of what followed but they really like their illegal substances.
Constant fighting. Tons of foot traffic. Garbage started piling up in our wonderful shared backyard. Dog poop everywhere.
He would get kicked out once a day. Hour-long or longer screaming matches followed by stomping at all hours. To the point that we and our sweet-as-pie next-door neighbor were losing our minds.
Cops have been called more than a dozen times in a few months. Our landlords are not getting paid. They are definitely damaging the apartment and won’t let them in. They are currently waiting on a hearing for eviction but between flu season and being winter, it is a real slow go to get a date.
There is a bunch more. Just far too much for me to type.
Now my partner is an amazing musician. Singing, guitar, or piano always fills our home and it is wonderful.
Now last week our next-door neighbor ran into the upstairs neighbor outside and told her she needs to figure this out.
The noise needs to end. We are all losing our minds. She then had the audacity to try to blame the clearly stomping and screaming on us and my partner’s piano playing (she doesn’t play late at night as we actually work).
Well, cue my petty revenge. We were at our local music store yesterday for some gear for my partner and another friend. Lo and behold there was a great deal on a used trumpet. So I think to myself, I used to play baritone in grade school.
Why not pick up this bad boy and learn a new skill?
You think our piano is loud, can’t wait to start to learn how to play this trumpet. Thinking I will start to practice every time they’re fighting. So I will be practicing quite a bit!”
24. My Science Teacher Made My Schooling Miserable, So I Informed The Principal
“Being a Prefect, it was part of my job to keep students quiet when the teacher was absent. Most of my teachers were helpful and appreciative of me. One day, the science teacher was absent and the suckers decide that they can do anything in the class.
When I told them to keep quiet and sit on their benches, I was told to shut up. Naturally, I told them if they do not stop the nuisance, I will tell the teacher about their behavior. Just at this point our History teacher came to class and scolded me for the noise coming out of the class.
Every student told her about the suckers. The suckers were sent for detention. This thing happened more than once and the suckers started complaining to Madam V about me.
Madam V was late for class and those suckers were making noise again.
This time when I approached them an altercation broke out. Just at this moment, Madam V decided to enter class. I was berated by her for not being able to keep the class disciplined, she did not listen to a word from me or the other students in class.
She told the class that I am no longer the prefect and made one of the suckers the prefect. She also told the class for the next test she would give me a zero.
Although I had only a little part in it, I enjoyed it nevertheless.
Suckers were not interested in being a good prefect, as they only knew to bully. Many parents started approaching the school about the suckers bullying everyone. When other teachers came to know about this they complained to the principal and put in good words on my behalf.
I was called into the Principal’s office and told to give my side of the story. I narrated the whole incident including the threat of getting a zero on the next test. The principal assured me not to worry and study well for the test.
Now, for the Practical test, our group submitted a project on recycling used paper (recycling was very appreciated then, and given brownie points). Madam V was not impressed and she demanded a demonstration. We gave her one, which involved a slurry of wet used paper.
Unbeknownst to her I packed the slurry after the demonstration and handed the project to her.
Now all our projects were kept in the staff room locker (to be opened only after grading theory papers). For the theory test, I was prepared very well, keeping a focus on science.
Just within a week, the staff room locker started giving a putrid smell (from slurry). My theory tests went very well. Meanwhile, staff room was vacated and Madam V was told to vacate her stuff from the staff room. As the results came I performed very well except for science in which I failed.
My parents demanded a look at the test paper. It was apparent that Madam V was not inclined to give me marks for even right answers and gave her own explanations for not giving marks. Now when the Principal was informed about the matter the answer sheet got reevaluated by a different teacher and I aced.
I was chosen as prefect again after the results. Madam V had to sit outside the staff room and a different teacher for science was assigned to our class. Very soon she left the job.”
23. Karen Wanted To Be Condescending With Me, But I Ended Up With A Free Master's Degree
“When I was a younger man I was considering a career change and decided on going back to school. I was deciding between a broadly based Master’s Degree or a Bachelor’s Degree in a specified field I was very interested in.
I decided on the Bachelor’s Degree so I contacted an enrollment counselor. After a transcript analysis, I had a good chunk of prerequisites left to complete if I was going to attain the aforementioned Bachelor’s Degree (even though I already have a Bachelor’s).
In fact, due to the pre-requisites the Master’s would take only 1 year while the Bachelor’s would take 2… foolishness, I know. Welcome to the university system.
Around this time, I noticed that many of the classes in the Master’s coursework are just the upper-level version of the prerequisites I was missing in the Bachelor’s Degree.
To illustrate, one of the pre-requisites was something like ‘M101 – Intro to Marketing’ and the Master’s coursework was ‘M-201 Advanced Marketing’. In fact, almost every class in the Master’s Coursework had a corresponding pre-requisite at the Bachelor’s level.
Since I have no interest in Marketing 101, an idea occurred to me…
What if I could simply get the Master’s Degree and have all those upper courses count down towards my Bachelor’s level pre-requisites and kill two birds with one stone? I immediately sent an email to my enrollment counselor, then got on the phone and spoke to a university representative.
Over the phone, they told me no, none of the courses would transfer down. Fine, not the answer I want, but at least an answer.
Just after hanging up, my enrollment counselor sends me an email stating that all the courses in the Master’s would transfer down and would almost completely wipe out the pre-requisites of the Bachelor’s Degree.
So, 2 degrees in 2 years roughly speaking. Elated but confused, I set up a call. On the call, I told the counselor my experience with the prior representative and explain to her that I was concerned about receiving conflicting information.
My exact words on the call were, ‘I think my fear is that I will get through the Master’s and have someone tell me that the first person was right all along and that none of the courses will transfer down.’ She assures me that will not be the case and sufficiently convinces me, so I enroll in the Master’s Degree.
Fast forward to after I complete the Master’s Degree.
Sure enough, my continuing education enrollment counselor tells me that none of the courses will transfer, and I am back at square one. I calmly tell him there must be a mistake and send him the emails from my previous enrollment counselor, to which he responds that he is sorry but there is nothing he can do.
To say I was furious is an understatement at this point, but I kept my cool. I told him that I was frustrated and that I would be happy to take 1/2 off of a semester of college in compensation for the mistake.
After all, I am getting a Master’s Degree which isn’t nothing. He says he will take it up the chain.
I receive a call from him a few hours later and he stated he was very happy to offer me $150 off of my next semester’s tuition.
I politely told him that was a percent of a percent of the total tuition and frankly that offer was offensive. He gets me on the phone with his boss, Karen (not her real name). Karen seems completely un-phased that I have a paper trail from a university representative stating something that is completely false that caused me to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars.
Fine, whatever. In addition to this, she decides to be condescending to me. Big mistake Karen. At this point, I am angry, really angry, but holding it together. Well Karen, this means war. Karen tells me very condescendingly that $150 is the best they can do, then asks me ever so politely if I would like to enroll in the Bachelor’s program.
No Karen, I would not.
I calmly told Karen that I was giving them the opportunity to do the right thing and that I really didn’t want to be the bad guy. I told her that all I wanted was 1/2 off of one semester which seemed completely reasonable considering they had just wasted significant amounts of my time and money.
No dice, Karen is adamant that there is nothing else to be done. Again, I calmly tell her that I don’t want to be the bad guy, but I will. No dice. Sigh. I choose this moment to tell Karen that I sit on the board at a small community college, that I have all this in writing, that I will be filing a complaint, and that I will be going to both the state and their accrediting body to launch an investigation.
She falters slightly but sticks to her guns.
Sigh, ok Karen. I do all the aforementioned, and, shockingly, receive a call from George, the VP (or Director, not sure) of their Compliance Department within 24 hours. George spent the entire conversation apologizing profusely and concluded by stating that he would be giving me all my funds back for the Master’s Degree.
And that, my friends, is the story of how I received a free Master’s Degree.”
22. My Coworker Stole Postage, So I Told The Owner
“At an office job once I was in charge of addressing work snail mail, stamping them, having the owner verify what was going out, and mailing it. I had the key to the postage machine, which was locked to keep employees from putting stamps on their personal mail.
Before I started, employees had been stealing postage. I was required to keep the key on my person at all times.
A co-worker, I’ll call him Ken, had worked there a long time and wasn’t happy about the newly locked postage machine.
He’d been using it for his mail for years and was angry he could no longer stamp his mail for free. He tried to trick me to get the key, and he’d bring me some valid mail and ask for the key to add a stamp to it.
I’d say thanks, take the mail and tell him I’d just stamp it later in the day. He’d scowl because he had wanted to stamp it and his personal stuff at the same time. I wasn’t stupid. My boss would ask for the key sometimes and I’d happily hand it over.
He saw this and made a plan. He’d ask her for the key while she had it, knowing she trusted everyone and would just hand it over. He did this for months. I heard he was calling me names behind my back like a 10-year-old.
Annoyed that he was getting away with stealing postage, I waited. One day I saw her give him the key and watched as he stamped several envelopes. I quickly slipped past him and snatched up the pile before he could grab it.
I told him I just needed to have the owner approve everything before we mailed it out. I rushed away, heading to the owner’s office. Ken tried to stop me, saying he needed to look it over before the owner saw it.
I didn’t stop, walking down the hallway like a woman on a mission.
I yelled behind me, ‘Ok, sure, right after he approves it all!’
He literally chased me to the owner’s door, turning around quickly and running away once I passed the threshold.
I handed the mail to the owner and said, ‘Ken helped with the postage today. These need to be approved to go out.’
He flipped through them, made a face, and then made two piles. The work pile had one envelope, the other pile had 5 envelopes and I could see they had Ken’s return address on them.
He said, ‘Ken did these today?’
I told him yes and that he had taken the key from my boss to do it. He handed me the one work envelope and said I could mail it. He left Ken’s bills there on his desk.
He looked at me and said, ‘It may not seem like a lot, but postage adds up.’ I nodded, took the one envelope, and left. As I passed by Ken’s desk, I said, ‘Oh, hey, the owner has your mail,’ giggling internally.
He said nothing.
The owner took Ken’s mail and propped it up behind his desk next to a framed photo of his family. We had monthly meetings where Ken and I were in attendance—his bills sat there for us all to see, all stamped and ready but never mailed out.
(I assume Ken had to call to pay his bills that month.) My boss told me the owner never talked to Ken about it and Ken never again tried to use the company postage machine. His mail sat there for over a year before the owner finally threw it away.”
21. My Mortgage Provider Annoyed Me, So Now They're Paying Thousands
“I will preface this by saying that the inciting incident was 100% my fault. I had 2 separate reminders set over a few days to move into the account our mortgage payment is pulled from, but I ignored the 1st alert and my phone was off for the 2nd.
As a result, the mortgage payment bounced.
I realized the next morning (yesterday) before it even showed up online, immediately moved it over, and started damage control. I called my bank first to make sure the payment wasn’t going to be attempted again.
The CSR who answered was very understanding of the fact that stuff happens and credited back the $45 NSF fee. 10/10 customer service.
Next, I called the mortgage provider. Keep in mind at this point it’s been not even a full business day since the missed payment, and they don’t know yet that the payment bounced.
I got transferred to the collections department where I explained the situation, asked what the fee would be for my mistake and how to make the payment. $105 returned payment fee—not ideal but I get it, I made a mistake and need to pay as per the contract we signed.
I gave the agent the go-ahead to process another auto-withdrawal from the same bank account. They paused and began a scripted interrogation, probably the same script they use for people who are chronically behind on payments or just barely avoiding foreclosure.
After a few minutes, I started getting frustrated and said that I don’t appreciate being treated like a delinquent when I have acknowledged it was my fault and was proactive in calling them. Finally got them to back off, agent agreed to process the payment, and I hung up and immediately started looking for ways to reduce our payments.
We’re paying $55/month for life and disability mortgage insurance that we don’t need. That’s been canceled, now they won’t be able to collect $15,000 in premiums from us.
If we switch our payments to accelerated biweekly instead of monthly, we’ll save $12,000 in interest AND the payments will always be coming out of my account on payday.
It definitely won’t bounce again! We’ll also keep paying the extra $55 but it’ll go towards our principal now instead of insurance premiums, so that’s even less interest for them.
In total, we’re saving more than $27,000 over the next 22 years. Too bad they couldn’t be nice and understanding of the fact that we’re all human and make mistakes.”
20. My Client Refused To Pay For My Service, So I Replaced Her Ads With Petty Text Posts
“So I was hired to make an advertisement for this cosmetic start-up. I normally don’t accept local clients because I have a lot of crappy experience with them, but this client sounds like she’s willing to pay for my service, so I accepted her.
I actually didn’t charge that much. I only charge her $60 per week (and on average, I charge a foreign client $300 per week).
The first two weeks were good. She provided me with every material I needed to make an effective advertisement despite her limited budget.
However, we began having arguments by the second week. She’s suddenly demanding our ads should have at least 1,000 clicks per day, which is absurd because her budget only allows her to have around 1,200 reaches per day. I told her that for it to be possible, she should increase her budget.
Suddenly, she called me a fraud, despite my ads having at least 300 clicks per day. And now, she refused to give me her payment. For the last two weeks, she’s ignoring my call. This weekend, I think my number is blocked.
Stupid her because she didn’t remove me from her page, so I decided to be petty. Her ads are still running, so I decided to change them. I changed the pictures to a text post that says ‘Don’t buy from this.
The owner refused to give me my salary—an irate VA she called a fraud for not meeting her absurd expectation’. I also included screenshots of our conversation to back it up.
I’m done with her. That $120 she owes me is hers to keep.
As for me, I’m not accepting local clients anymore. I’m just done with them.
Anyway, here’s an update.
So yesterday, around 4 pm, I checked the ads, and apparently, they reverted back to the original ones. Then, a few moments later, my account now says ‘Account Error’, which means the payment method is canceled.
I felt frustrated because I’m still not yet done being petty, so I posted my story (anonymous) on a group called ‘Social Media Marketing Philippines’ as my way of venting out and subtly warning potential VAs that she’ll hire. Naturally, people in that group are with me.
This morning, I finally got a response from her. She’s angry. Apparently, she saw my post, and she threatened to sue me for defamation.
NOTE: I didn’t specify which startup it was. I only mentioned it’s a cosmetic company, and therefore, she had nothing to hold her case! However, I have receipts that she hasn’t paid me, and I told her that even though we have no written contract, our chat (which I kept) can be used against her.
On top of that, I mentioned that my uncle is a regional judge (not a lie) and I came from a clan of politicians (again, not a lie). Simply put, I have so much power to hold against her.
At first, she didn’t believe it, so I googled my grandpa’s name which led to a Wikipedia page.
She went silent after.
After probably an hour, I sent her a message, telling her it doesn’t have to end this way. All she needed to do is to pay the wage she owed me because otherwise, I can use my family’s influence to make sure her business will go bankrupt.
She immediately sent my salary. I thanked her and then blocked her.”
19. Steal My Food? I'll Make You Eat The Hottest Chips I Can Find
“This happened a few Christmases ago, and to tell this story, I should start by explaining my brother. He’s on the spectrum but is very high functioning, meaning that apart from some behavioral issues as a kid, he functions perfectly fine as an adult (his struggle to read social cues and his selective lack of care are the only issues he has nowadays.
And I know he has a choice over what he does because he doesn’t do this to anyone else but me).
Our entire childhood he always wanted what I had and if he couldn’t get it he’d make sure I wouldn’t want it even if I had it (like licking a candy bar so I wouldn’t want it.
Normal sibling wars). Now that we’re older (30s) the sibling rivalry has cemented into what it is now—an outright war when it comes to family gatherings (his entitled attitude seems to be revved up when there are more people for him to show off to or annoy me in front of).
I should mention that my bother HATES anything spicy.
If I have the only open bag of chips (his kryptonite but this applies to any sort of food in my possession), he has to have it, regardless of the availability of more chips in other locations.
It’s always been his mission to steal food from me.
Until one Christmas when I had enough. Remember when I said he hates spicy food? I bought the hottest chips I could find and included them in the presents, intending for them to go to my cousin who loves spicy food but knowing that my brother will steal them if it’s in my possession.
Bring on the pettiness.
It was after lunch and we were opening presents when I noticed my brother eyeing up what I had which is when I got out the bag of chips I’d hidden beside the couch. I sat them on the table with the front down, pretending to look for my cousin, and right on cue, in walks my brother.
Brother: ‘What do you got there?’ He’s looking at the chips and the rest of the goodies adorning the table in front of me. ‘Those chips look good.’
Me: ‘They’re not yours. Hands off.’ (I knew that saying this would make him more motivated to want to steal it).
And like I knew he would, he grabbed the bag and walked away. I watched as he went to the other side of the room and began to eat the chips. Here’s something else you should know about my brother—he doesn’t do things half-heartedly.
It’s all or nothing, which translates to his eating habits as well, which made this revenge all the more glorious to witness. Without even looking at the bag, he opened it and began shoveling handfuls at a time into his mouth.
This, of course, only lasted a few seconds before he stood up and bolted to the kitchen, with me giving a knowing wave as he went past me. He spent the next few hours in the kitchen drinking water, not knowing that that was making it worse.
Brother: (after he’d recovered) ‘Why’d you make me eat that?’
Me: ‘Make you? That was Ben’s Christmas present, you idiot. Why don’t you try ASKING next time?’
Silence.
I want to say that he learned his lesson because he sort of did. He’ll still steal food and take advantage of getting free food but he’s a lot warier of what it is and where it comes from (he doesn’t trust me with food now and if I don’t want him to eat what I have I just have to willingly hand it to him with a smile on my face and he won’t touch it).
The moral of the story? Don’t steal food or it might backfire in your mouth.”
18. Trying To Scam Me? I'll End Up Making You Pay Me Instead
“Recently I’ve been more and more into fitness and buying used gym equipment on an online market. My next big purchase was going to be a top-of-the-line rowing machine but my wife might have not approved the price of it! I finally found a deal on a great machine at the low cost of 750$ instead of 1500$! Maybe my excitement at this deal made me miss a few early red flags but this was too good to miss.
I start messaging this person and luckily for me the rowing machine was still available. We start planning for a pick-up the next morning. This is where the first red flag appears which I brushed off out of excitement. The person requested a deposit of 250$ since the last person never showed up.
And that she would ‘never scam someone out of their hard-earned income.’ But there was no way in heck I was giving a deposit for a pick up the next day and also a sell online! So I offered to do an interact transfer to her but I’d only give the password once I arrive in order to accelerate the transaction and the person agreed.
Fast forward a few hours and she sends me a message that she hasn’t received the transfer yet… Odd usually takes maybe 15 minutes. I check my banking app and all looks good so I just tell her to be patient.
About 20 minutes later I get an email from ‘Interac’ saying that my transfer failed and to retry with this link. Scammer bells ringing in my head! As I’m looking at this fishy email at the very same time the person replies, ‘Sometimes interact fails and you need to try again through an email.’ I mean how to make it more obvious, you sent the email!
On an iPhone, you can long-press a link to get a preview of it without actually clicking the link.
So I did it with the email and it redirected to a fake interact website made with Wix (Wix is like a free-to-use build-your-own website tool). So now I’m in full-on detective mode! And I find way more red flags:
- Social media profile made in 2022.
- Address leads to an empty lot on a road.
- In the pictures, the manhole covers aren’t from my country.
- The person wouldn’t understand everyday expressions we use in Quebec.
Now, this is where my petty revenge starts.
Because of this scammer, I have lost 3.50$ because I had to cancel my Interac e-transfer. I had one goal and it was to find out where they lived and waste their time!
So I start creating my own fake e-transfers and using Grabify I create every link in the email to be a link that sends me their location and just redirects them to the interact main page.
I even looked at old emails I had received from other e-transfers and use them as templates for my new fake ones.
After many back and forth interactions the person finally clicked on a link and I got their IP and location: Benin, Africa.
I then asked them how the weather was in Benin and they stopped answering so I went to bed.
I woke up around 2 AM to the sound of my crying baby and as I was putting her back to sleep I look at my phone to find multiple messages.
‘Oh, you know Benin! Have you ever been to Benin? Have you ever worked with people of Benin?’
So I start answering back that I had only ever been to Morocco, and never had the chance to work with people from Benin.
She then asked me if I would be interested to work with them for a 25% cut of all transactions, otherwise known as a mule where I would receive the funds. Take my cut and send them the rest.
I told them I would be interested (with the goal of wasting their time) but since they already tried to scam me, I don’t think I can trust them, so I would only consider it if they sent me 50$ as a sign of good faith!
She said that it was not possible and that I should trust them.
I replied saying that I thought they were a serious business or maybe she just didn’t have the decision-making power to make it work with me. I guess this got her because she sent me her boss’s email in order to deal with him!
Once I got in touch with him he said he would only do it if he sends 50$ and I send 25$ back as a trial for the transferring system and that he trusts me.
I replied, ‘I would never scam someone out of their hard-earned income!”
So then he sent me a $50 e-transfer. I was so hesitant with this last link because it seemed actually legitimate. I figured if I click on it and it redirects to my banking app it was actually real. And turns out… they actually sent me $50!
Then I blocked them from every place they contacted me and paid my wife and me an awesome supper!”
17. My Lawyer Was Being Difficult, So I Stripped An Apartment Bare When Moving Out
“I rented a 2 bedroom flat that was the middle flat on the ground floor of a building with 9 flats. Here we use generating sets when there are electrical blackouts and they—the lawyer of the house and the landlord—thought it right to put their 2 generators at the back of our flat.
So you see, the lawyer was an acquaintance who allowed me to pay the rent in 2 halves, I got to move in pending when I paid the balance.
With no ease to my suffering on the horizon, I held back on the balance as a bargaining chip at first, hoping the lawyer would budge.
Nope. He became difficult and stopped picking up calls or responding when we met one on one.
So I started looking for another place after 6 months. I guess he thought I would submit and pay up because he started asking for the balance and I stood my ground.
Threats of legal action followed and after a while, I discovered that there were tenants’ rights (thank you, google) and when I sent him what I got, he replied with a recalculation of my rent and an eviction date.
The thing was, when I moved in, the house was bare.
As in there were no light fittings, there were no sockets, no handle on the front door and the flat was unpainted. Heck, part of the rent was used to complete the wiring. We (I lived with my family) also experienced acts of vandalism (someone tried to cut my generator cables while it was on) and we also got robbed (this was because one of the fences was really low and easy to jump over.
And it was just us robbed that time).
So, I get a new flat months before the due date and am taking my time. I removed everything I put in the house. Every socket, the door handle, the fittings, everything. Couldn’t remove the beautiful paint but it got stained while moving so there’s that.
Also, here we have to put iron bars on the windows for ‘security’ and I cut every single one off and reused them at my new place.
All this was done when he and the landlord were away. The one time he caught wind of what I was doing, he tried to ask the handyman to buy the items off me for me to keep them in the house.
The handyman told him to call me, and he never did.
I laugh at myself every time I remember this because I never thought I could.
For a year plus after, I hear other flats got robbed back to back and tenants move in and out without completing their tenancy. Good riddance.”
16. Our Roommate Was An Idiot, So We Messed With His Stuff
“When I was 17, my best friend ‘Ray’ and I decided to move out on our own. We found the coolest apartment closer to downtown and we were really excited. Obviously, we started talking about it quite a bit, and our common friend ‘Sparky’ asks us if he can move in as well.
We had plenty of room at the new place, and we were so young we simply thought ‘the more the merrier’! Not to mention we’d save dividing everything by three instead of two. It turned out to be a huge mistake we would learn to regret.
Everything turned into a problem with this idiot. We tried splitting the food bills and he’d eat everything. He was mean to the cat. He’d wake us up all the time blaring his music and going through the stuff in our rooms.
We’d try to talk to him, but he’d never listen. He just didn’t care. One night we came back to a shattered bathroom window, and Sparky put on a comical show about how ‘we were broken into’, complete with a practiced reaction of worry that was so fake, Ray and I were in disbelief.
Not only was nothing stolen, we later found footprints that matched his sneaker treads on the window sill (he’d broken in because he lost his keys, lied about it and now the window was basically open to anyone who walked around back).
Ray and I were getting increasingly irritated by Sparky’s antics until things came to a head.
One morning after Sparky had left for work and I was downstairs watching TV, I heard Ray start to howl in anger. He came downstairs in his pajamas, wild with rage.
Sparky had taken Ray’s last smoke, his morning smoke with coffee. He was out for blood. In his fury, he looked around for something, anything, that he could do to get back at Sparky. His eyes rested on the kitty litter box.
With a slow serenity of action, Ray proceeded to shovel up the freshest, foulest cat turds (there were many to choose from) he could find, and plop them right on Sparky’s pillow. I was laughing so hard, that I was too paralyzed to stop him.
And so there we sat watching TV with the cat poo settling into his bed linens.
After an hour or two, Ray started to cool down and actually kind of regretted what he’d done. He started thinking about how mad Sparky would be, and how we still had to live together, and he reluctantly realized maybe he should clean up his act of retribution.
I, being so much pettier, decided that we still had to do something to get back at him… so I proposed a compromise: we secretly sabotage his stuff so he doesn’t get mad at us. Interested, Ray asked me what I had in mind.
So I smiled… and opened up Sparky’s wardrobe. I then cherry-picked a selection of his most cherished, expensive designer clothes, and started finely cutting the stitches. I did random seams and alternated the spots I cut to make the destruction as subtle as possible.
His Armani shirt, the sleeves; his Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, the hem and every second button. We then proceeded to empty out his expensive toiletries into the sink, leaving just enough so that they’d last a couple more days. We were so good at hiding our tracks, that we kind of forgot about what we’d done.
There was no resulting fight, no obvious reaction, and Sparky was completely oblivious… or so it seemed.
One day, our phone went dead. This was before cellphones, so not having a phone was a pretty big deal. Sparky had grandly offered to take care of paying the phone bill, and Ray and I had both been paying our share of the bill, so we were perplexed at the loss of service.
After a bit of prodding, Sparky finally admitted he’d spent all that we’d paid him on booze. I went ballistic. I was expecting some important calls and was livid; another Sparky mess-up. An argument ensued, and I tore into him. I started listing how terrible a roommate Sparky was, all the things he’d done, and how letting him move in was the worst mistake of my life.
To my surprise, instead of showing any sign of remorse for what he’d done, he got angry at me. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘I’ve had to put up with so much crap here, you guys are insane jerks!’ I couldn’t believe his nerve, I honestly wanted to punch him.
Shaking with anger, I asked him what the heck had he ‘put up with’.
And that’s when he said one of the most gloriously accidentally funny replies I’ve ever heard in my life. ‘You guys are messing with me, I know it! Where the heck did my hair mousse go, eh? What about my expensive cologne… why’s it all gone? I try to go out, all my clothes are ripping apart… I know you guys had to have done that.
And what’s with the sand? I wake up every morning with sand in my mouth… what is that? It’s all gritty in my teeth…’
I don’t know what my face looked like, going in five seconds from wanting to kill this idiot to having to hold in my laughter so hard I almost peed my pants on the spot, but I can tell you the instant satisfaction of thinking about him waking up morning after morning with that kitty litter turd sand in his mouth to start his day almost short-circuited my brain.”
15. Want To Be A Bully? Good Luck Getting The Business Out Of The Red
“I’m General Manager of a largish family-owned company. I’ve been there for ages and loved my job until recently. The CEO until six months ago was the founder of the business and paterfamilias of the extended family.
He passed away suddenly and his granddaughter ‘Karen’ has taken over.
It started well as she is clever, hard-working, and experienced. There was a lot of goodwill as everyone was very loyal to the old man and wanted to help his granddaughter. But she is also a bully, always intoxicated, and a vocal misandrist (our workforce is predominantly male).
At a business drinks function, Karen got intoxicated, loudly denounced our most loyal and biggest (60% of revenue) customer ‘Bob’ as ‘Pale, stale and male’, and then loudly racially ridiculed my wife when she tried to retrieve the situation. This wasn’t by any stretch her first meltdown at customers, employees, or their wives.
I met Bob the next week, apologized profusely, and asked if he’d ever thought of opening his own plant. He had. He and Mrs. Bob had dinner at our place and we all made plans.
In the coming weeks, my leadership colleagues, our machine operators, and I have quietly signed up to work at the new plant.
We’ve had after-hours meetings (which we code-named fight club), to plan the new business. All very exciting.
Here’s the revenge bit: We are all on week-to-week employment contracts. Friday last week, we all resigned by email 5 minutes before clock-out time.
Karen was sitting at her desk with email after email rolling in with resignation in the subject line.
You could see the blood draining from her face. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Then I remembered what she said to my wife.
Tomorrow is our last day. We’ve recruited almost all the remaining employees to the new business. I have a non-compete clause in my contract, so it’s a forced 3 month holiday for me.
On Monday the lights won’t come on, and the motors won’t turn at our old plant. It will just be Karen and a pile of raw material with no one to process it.
Her business has sufficient equity to recover. But it will be six months by the time she recruits a new team, recommissions the plant, and gets the order book full again. It will take her 18 – 24 months to get the business out of the red.”
14. My Coworker Called Someone A Slur, So I Got Him Fired
“In college, I worked at a restaurant with a guy we’ll call Joe (not his real name). His fiancée also worked there. She was annoying but not nearly as bad as Joe. Joe was a tool bag but one day he made fun of a new host that had just been hired by calling him a slur when we were in the back of the kitchen rolling silverware (not near any customers.) This wasn’t the first time he’s said something like this, but it just set me over the edge that particular day.
Customers would often leave their itemized receipts at the table when they’d leave. I noticed that there was one in Joe’s section left by one of his customers, so I grabbed it and took it home with me. I used the receipt number to file a complaint on the corporate website and said that I was a customer and I overheard my server Joe call another employee a bad slur and I was really offended and made up a story about having a gay son and how I’d never visit there again.
My best hope was that he’d get in trouble and get his schedule changed (he had one of the best server schedules). This was in 2010 by the way.
I forgot all about it and a few days later I came in, and his fiancée was crying hysterically and said, ‘Well obviously I have to quit now too!’
I asked what was going on and found out that the company has a zero-tolerance policy for that and he got fired immediately, and his fiancée quit.
Joe was angry and never denied it, but said he swore he said that in the back of the house and not in front of guests, and swore he was kidding around.
I couldn’t believe I actually got him fired, so it turned out even better than I had hoped and I still have no regrets.
He was my friend on social media before this and we’re still friends to this day on there, but never speak to each other and he still doesn’t know it was me.”
13. I Knew I Was Being Taken Advantage Of, So I Swapped Out Their Tires
“I sold a car today.
It wasn’t in great condition—mostly issues with the chassis, as well as a ding to one of the windscreen columns. Brake pads were starting to fail and suspension was shaky. Still, electrics and engine worked perfectly, and body was structurally sound despite a ding or two.
Before hearing the news about the undercarriage, we’d purchased a new windscreen and four new tires. It needed about $1600 in repairs and would end up being worth $2600.
I rang around a few chop shops and got a few quotes, looking for $800—I figured $200 for their overhead and profit was fair for not having to deal with it myself.
The closest I got was $700. Fair enough. It’s not what I want, but I can live with it. I booked a time for the car to be picked up, moved it to the side of the road, and cleaned it out.
The day of the pick up I received a call confirming the truck arrival time, all the usual stuff, and then the question of price came up.
‘Oh, the guy who quoted you that isn’t good with cars, he didn’t know what you meant when you mentioned the bushes.’
‘Oh, you didn’t say it has 120,000km on the clock, the engine’s probably going to last another fifty thousand at most.’
‘Oh, another guy brought the same model to us and was happy to receive $450.
Will you take $500?’
‘No I won’t,’ I responded. ‘And I won’t take $550 or $600 either.’ We ended the call there, and I was ready to put the car back in the garage, save the money, and do it myself. He called back ten minutes later.
‘Sure, I can do $650.’
At this point, he sent the truck and I had about an hour. I knew he was trying to make an extra buck, and I knew I was being taken advantage of. But I also knew that we had two other cars, and all three took the same size of tire.
In the hour I had before the truck arrived I removed three of the new tires we’d just put onto the car and swapped them out for the space savers. The truck arrived, quickly inspected the car, handed over $650 cash, and left. Now I have $50 less than I expected, and spare tires worth $210.
He can’t complain, he never asked about the tires.”
12. Pass Me Repeatedly Then Slow Down? Enjoy Eating My Dust
‘So years ago I used to run a lot. I was never great at it, being a Clydesdale (edit: running term for larger runner by height, frame, build, and/or fat), but it was something I enjoyed. It kept me fit and relaxed.
I was never competitive about it, just like running distances and doing my best.
One 5k I did a few miles in a young girl and her dad caught up to me and passed me. I could care less just continued plodding along at a steady pace and zoning out to my podcast.
Then, about 10 yards or so after passing me, the kid cut back in front of me and slowed down to a slow walk, forcing me to pass her. Rude, but whatever she’s a kid. Surely the dad will correct her and she will learn, right?
Nope.
The entire last mile or so she did the same thing. Leapfrogged me and slowed down just in front or just stopped. To my increasing annoyance, she must’ve done so a half dozen times. I’ve no issue with being used as a pace or being passed but stay to the outside if you’re going to do that.
Don’t force someone doing a steady pace to repeatedly pass you just after passing them. Especially when they’re 4 times your age.
Dad would encourage her to run when she slowed but never corrected her on the cut-ups. By the time we rounded the last corner and the finish line was in sight, she’d passed me again on what I assumed was a final kick, but she once again slowed to a walk.
I had sped up a bit prior to her passing but was content to let her finish first because I was running my run, not competing. As a result of the increased speed and the close cut, I nearly ran into her.
I went from being annoyed to ticked off, and wanting to end whatever this was and keep us both from being hurt, so I decided to empty my considerable stamina tank for the last 100 yards or so. At the time I was training for half, so the 5k was a nice steady maintenance run for me.
I had a lot of gas left and shot past her wide on the curve to the finish.
I could hear her exclaim in annoyance and start to take off after me but it was way too late. I left her probably 50 yards back.
It only occurred to me later she was probably competing against me and wanted to beat me.
I finished, got my medal, and left. Never looked at her so no idea about what happened after.
I like to think maybe she learned a lesson that day and maybe became a better runner out of it. She had the talent to catch up to me at all, she was just raw and her father didn’t correct her on etiquette. I hope it was that vs crushing her interest in the sport.’
11. When It Comes To Her Camp, Grandma Always Gets The Last Laugh
“Here is a story about my friend’s grandma, her fun sense of humor, and some petty revenge.
My friend’s grandma and grandpa had a small cottage on one of the many lakes in Northwestern Ontario. As a teenager, they brought my friend and me out there as 2-3 teenagers with strong backs to make yard work and chores around the camp easy.
They kept us fed and we did the heavy lifting. Grandma also didn’t want grandpa doing the heavy lifting so he supervised (reluctantly). She also had a deal with the neighbor to keep the sauna running from morning until night. Lots of great times out there.
We were loud and got shuffled to the guest cabin up the hill. Guest cabin had a doorknob that needed a key to turn the knob. No key, no entry. We lost the keys a few times and grandma had to replace them.
To get us to stop losing them, she attached the key to a 1′ long 2×4 and painted it blaze orange. She handed that ‘key chain’ with a smile on her face. Never lost the guest cabin key after that.
She used to feed sugar-free gummy bears to people she didn’t like or wanted to leave.
My friend and I got into them once and it was not a pleasant experience. We learned the container they were in and stayed away from them.
After her husband passed away, one of the kids ‘took over’ the camp. Originally the grandparents would let the kids and grandkids book one at a time.
There was a calendar that would be filled out with the time slot you wanted and you could only get a week at a time. There were weekends at the start and end of the camp season (May long weekend and end of September) for opening and closing the camp for the season.
My friend was the one that had helped grandpa open up the camp and it was deemed ‘his job’.
He heads out in May, the year after grandpa passed away, and the camp is opened up by one of the other family members BUT there is damage to the plywood covers for the windows, and one of the windows is broken.
The bare minimum is done to open up. My friend confronts the family member and they tell him to buzz off (he is the youngest of his mom’s kids).
He heads to grandma’s to tell her what is going on and she was unaware of the family member being there.
She calls the camp and chews them out. There are promises of damaged stuff getting fixed but it never gets fixed (there was plastic film over the broken window). That summer involves a lot of fighting with that family member and the camp.
Grandma has enough and calls up a realtor and puts the camp up for sale. Tells the problem family member that they are not allowed at the camp since it is for sale. She gets the damage fixed (along with a few small fixes that needed to be done).
She did offer it up to my friend for a steal because he was the only one out of all the ‘kids’ who came out and helped with the camp but he wasn’t able to afford it at the time (new son, taking over his childhood home, adult stuff).
When the camp sold, she made sure to give him a small gift for his help with the camp.”
10. My Fiancé's Cousin Refused To Attend Our Wedding, So I Made Donations In Their Honor
“Picture it: Brooklyn, 2010. My then-fiancé (now 53m) and I (now 49m) are planning a small wedding ceremony and invited, among other people, our extended families—we knew none of them were going to be able to attend, but we didn’t want them to feel excluded.
As the wedding date drew nigh, along with the RSVPs from our friends, we received, as expected, regrets from our extended families. All of these were lovely, overflowing with warmth and good wishes.
Until the note arrived from Fiancé’s cousin R.
It read something like this:
‘Dear Fiancé and OP, Thank you for the invitation to your wedding.
Since we’re Catholic and follow the Church’s teaching, we can’t accept, but we send you all our love and hope that the day is a wonderful one. Love, Cousin and Cousin’s Husband.’
At first, when I read this I was just nonplussed.
I mean, it was 2010—who sends an RSVP like that in 2010?
But as the day wore on, I started to get angry. First of all, the correct way to decline an invitation is, ‘Cousin and Cousin’s Husband regret that they will be unable to accept the very kind invitation of OP and Fiancé on Wedding Day and Date.’ Note that doing so involves no mention of why Cousin and Cousin’s husband are declining or what they might or might not believe about the wedding and its validity.
Second of all, I happened to know both that no version of Catholic doctrine forbids the faithful from attending and that no version of Catholic doctrine requires them to plead homophobia as an excuse not to attend.
I showed the note to Fiancé when he got home.
‘Look, OP,’ he said, ‘Cousin is the one who talks about everybody in the family behind their backs.’
‘Maybe she didn’t understand what she was saying.’
‘She understood exactly what she was saying. Remember, she trash-talked you to everybody in the family the day after she met you.’
‘She did what?’
‘Whoops.
I thought I told you that.’
‘But she was so nice to me when I met her.’
‘That’s Cousin for you. I’m sure she was intoxicated when she wrote this, anyway. Just let it go.’
But I couldn’t let it go.
I grew angrier and angrier, and when we went to bed I lay awake, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Finally, I had an idea, got up, did some Googling, and found exactly what I needed. This allowed me to write (on handmade Nepalese paper, no less) and send the next day the following letter:
‘Dear Cousin and Cousin’s Husband, Thank you so much for your kind note.
Of course, we understand why you can’t attend. We felt our wedding wouldn’t be a true celebration, however, without having you involved in some way, so we’ve made donations in your honor to Freedom to Marry (an organization working at the time for the right of same-gender couples to marry) and to SNAP, the Survivors’ Network of those physically harmed by priests.
We hope you’re well and we look forward to seeing you sometime soon. Love, OP and Fiancé.’
We never received a reply, but the fact that we seem to have been removed from her Christmas-card list tells me everything I need to know.
Let this be a lesson, by the by, that etiquette is neither ‘stupid rules about which fork to use’ nor ‘just about making people feel comfortable,’ both of which descriptions I have seen offered as definitions. Dinnerware and social lubrication do indeed find themselves under the umbrella of etiquette, but they are joined there by techniques for smiling sweetly at your enemies as you cut their hearts out.”
9. This Dad Didn't Want To Spend Time With His Kids, So I Muddied Them Up Head To Toe
“So I was working on a holiday camp where families can come and take part in various activities together such as rock climbing, swimming, kayaking, etc.
Normally parents and kids do the same activities together as a bonding experience but sometimes parents want alone time, leaving me with the kids, which is cool—totally get they would like some time to themselves.
But one camp there was one father who had zero interest in spending time with his two kids (about 10) or wife. He spent the entire time fishing and in general wasn’t a particularly nice guy.
One evening I was by the lake with his kids and his daughter squatted down to poke some mud as kids do.
From the other side of the lake, I heard the father yell, ‘Don’t play with the mud.’
Some time passes, I take the kids kayaking, the dad fishes, and then goes back to camp.
I still had some time to kill so asked the kids if they wanted to go in the mud pit which is exactly what it sounds like.
They gave a very enthusiastic ‘YESSSS!’
Believe me when I tell you I have never seen pure joy before or after seeing those kids in the pit, they had such a fantastic time!
It then came time to go back to camp so drove the kids back in the Buggie.
The kids had to get ready for dinner so I drove them to their accommodation and dropped them off with their father whose jaw dropped to the floor upon seeing his two kids’ head to toe covered in thick mud.
Kids had a great time, selfish father had to deal with the aftermath, win-win.”
8. Don't Steal From Me And Then Expect Me To Still Give You A Ride
“Years ago I attended a fan convention in a large city. Due to limited hotel space and budget constraints, many fans agreed to group up in hotel rooms to split costs ahead of time. My room ended up having four other guys in it, including two brothers who had flown in from out of state.
Since I didn’t book the room, I was relegated to a small section near the front door, where I would inflate my air mattress each night. My backpack and other belongings were placed on or near an end table in a corner.
After the first day of walking the convention floor, I had some loose change in my pockets that I stacked on my wallet back in the room. The next morning as we were preparing to hit the con floor again, the coins had mysteriously vanished.
I said nothing, but I had my suspicions.
Lo and behold, the exact same thing happened the morning of the third day. This time, I asked the older of the two brothers mentioned above if they had seen a stack of quarters that I had left on top of my own wallet.
He deliberately avoided eye contact and told me he’d been ‘leaving change all over the room.’ Being the coward I was at the time, I left it at that.
Throughout the weekend, the younger of the two brothers had been suggesting we visit a nearby local comic shop on the third night because he thought it would be ‘cool to see.’ Eventually, I agreed and we drove out to it.
What he didn’t tell me was, there was a tournament for a tabletop card game that was popular at the time being held that night. As he sat down to play a game, he looked at me and said, ‘You can leave if you want.’
I ended up meandering around the immediate area while I waited for him to finish the tournament.
Now, throughout the weekend, I had been noticing that the brothers didn’t seem to be managing their funds very well. They seemed to be hard-pressed to cover simple travel expenses like food. I overheard them talking about how they’d still need to get a cab (this was pre-Uber) back to the airport.
At some point during the first half of the weekend, I vaguely remembered agreeing to give them a lift to the airport on the final day, since it was in the same direction as my hometown anyway.
But that was before the lying and thieving.
I woke up at 5 am on the last day, quietly packed, and left before anyone else woke up.
To this day I have no idea how they got back to the airport. I suspect it involved an uncomfortable call to their parents and begging for help.”
7. No Leash While You're Jogging? How About You Go For A Run
“I had a horse boarded in a community with lots of trails throughout the neighborhood green spaces. There were miles of trails to use, some people had houses that backed up to them and could just walk out their back gate and be on one.
They were shared trails. Bicyclists, hikers, and horseback riders. Trail rules applied and not being fenced in areas, dogs were required to be leashed.
One lovely day I had gone out for a trail ride. Just my horse and me. As I was coming up to where some houses were I noticed a lady come out her back gate with an unleashed dog.
I don’t really care, I’m not one to say something. If your dog behaves off-leash, I don’t see the big deal. I was ahead of them since they had to follow another path to get to the trail I was on.
They picked up a jog and passed by me.
The trail went down a decently sloped hill, but at the bottom was a fairly straight and flat area for about a half-mile. This is where I like to let my horse jog.
I quickly caught up to the jogger and her dog. It was a two-track trail, kind of like if a vehicle was driven on it so plenty of room to pass. I called out and made my way around them. Which is when the well-behaved off-leash dog became less well behaved and starts chasing me on my horse.
Lucky for me, my horse likes dogs, isn’t scared of them, and couldn’t care less we’d made a new friend. I hear the jogger calling to the dog but it’s obvious from her repeated calls the dog isn’t listening. When I said earlier I don’t care if your off-leash dog behaves, it’s true.
But the opposite is also true and it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine (pardon the pun) when something of this nature happens and if rules had been followed it wouldn’t have.
Could I have stopped, let her catch her dog, and made a remark about leash rules she surely knows about? Sure.
But I wasn’t in the mood. I was annoyed but at the same time enjoying my ride and then the petty kicked in. I’m just jogging along at this point but we have other gears. It’s been a while since we loped this section and it’s a beautiful day.
Cue to the canter and away we go! I didn’t stop until the trail I wanted to take turned up the hogback again.
I’m sure she caught up to her dog eventually, it wasn’t with me when I slowed down. Maybe next time she’ll think to have her dog on her leash, although I doubt it.
Notes: The trail was sandwiched between two very steep hogbacks. There’s nowhere the dog would go except after me or back to its owner. They’re not the type of hills you just run up. The trail I took was a gradual climb to the top and was actually headed back in the direction I’d come from, just going up.
If the dog had still been with me, I wasn’t going to lead it to the other side, I would’ve waited for the owner.
Also, at the time, it was revenge toward the owner. I was never mad at the dog for being a dog, to me it was a failure of the owner.
The dog and my horse were both fine. In hindsight, the owner could have been and probably was upset with their dog. The only regret I have was that at the moment my being annoyed with the owner didn’t leave me thinking about how they might treat their dog after such an event. I’m sure it was frustrating for them, but I can’t say whether they took any of the situation as a reflection of the rules being there for a reason or to better train their dog.”
6. You Don't Know What Happened? You Were Supposed To Do That Work
“I am an electrician and worked non-union for my first 12 years. I joined a union, got hired onto a good job which I am still at, and am good at my job. Being new to the union, I had not yet worked my way up, had not yet built a reputation, and was on a job with a Foreman ‘old man’ in his last year before retirement.
First day I met this man, he seemed real cool, easy to get along with, and all seemed well. However, I did something to tick him off a few hours in, and from then on he disliked me. What I did didn’t matter, but I wasn’t wrong, he just didn’t want to hear it.
To punish me, he tried to belittle me by wasting company time and money, and then kick me off his crew the first chance he got. No problem, I’m on a different crew on the same project. This Foreman adores me, and I quickly become his lead guy.
I stayed away from old man but made a point to show every mistake he made when he called me out (yes, I am very arrogant). Halfway through the job, I got put on his crew temporarily to help out, and I stopped to ‘as-built’ the work that was done.
(As-builting is just drawing how the work was completed to it can be referenced later. It also helps identify mistakes). Old man came up to me, and the conversation, pretty much word for word, went like this:
Old man: ‘What do you think you are doing?’
Me: ‘Drawing the as-builts.’
Old man: ‘No, No, No, No.
You don’t do the as-builts, I (high emphasis on the ‘I’) do the as-builts.’
I said okay and went back to work, and 3 months later power comes on. In this one particular area, I was there when they checked the lights, and lo and behold, old man is angry because the lights didn’t come on and he’s trying to figure it out.
I figured it out pretty quickly and showed old man where the problem was. He asked ‘How did this happen?’ and me being the arrogant guy I am responded, ‘I don’t know old man, didn’t you do the as-builts?’
I don’t remember his response, but I do know that out of 40 electricians, I was the one who closed out the job.
Old man had an issue with younger guys and favored older guys, regardless of skill and ability. He treated me like crap, so I made him look stupid quite frequently. All he had to do was treat me with respect like I did everyone else and I would have done the same.”
5. My Ex Was Unfaithful, So I Signed His Email Up For Marketing Campaigns
“I went out with a guy for several years, and admittedly I knew he had a history of infidelity, but like everyone in that position, I somehow convinced myself that us being friends before would stop him from being so awful to me.
Naturally, I was incorrect.
He began to mistreat me, blame me for every negative in his life, he suffered from addiction, refused to speak to a therapist, just lashed out at me no matter how I tried to help.
Finally, I became physically ill and he began to pull away when I really needed support because I was ‘too much’ for him.
At this point I should give relevant information: he was in a band. He refused to work or do anything productive in case it got in the way of his band. He’d worked part-time off and on, but it was pulling teeth to get him to hold on to these jobs to even pay his rent, and he ended up mooching off of family and friends.
I wouldn’t pay his bills and he resented me deeply for it by this stage.
So, one night the band had a party. Usually, I’d be there, but I wasn’t feeling well and went to sleep early. I woke up to a half dozen messages from girls who knew me letting me know my ex (partner at the time) was being unfaithful.
He told me it wasn’t true when confronted, but eventually, it came out he’d been continually unfaithful with at least 2-3 women.
We broke up, he ended up starting a relationship with one of them and the whole thing was really creepy.
But I was gutted less so over the relationship, but more because it forced a lot of our friends to pick sides, and unfortunately, as I wasn’t in the band, it left me mostly on the losing side.
Once I stopped feeling bad for myself, I decided the best thing to do to cheer myself up was to be as petty as possible.
Firstly, I went to get my stuff from his place. As he never worked much, most of what he had was bought by me. I took all of his laundry baskets, sheets, any clean socks I could find (some dirty, I didn’t discriminate too much), any stray screws, guitar picks, lightbulbs, etc., threw it all in the laundry baskets.
Then I dropped said laundry baskets in a nearby dumpster. Knowing I’d caused him that inconvenience made me feel a teensy bit better.
Then I began a different maneuver. From that point on, anytime I thought of him and became upset or annoyed, or he or his new partner posted about me (which was surprisingly often), I’d use his band email or phone number and input them into those marketing campaigns in exchange for in-game currency for whatever game I was playing.
Posting about me on social media? Ok. I’ll just spend 20 minutes putting your phone number in to every marketing campaign I can find. Hearing stories about him talking badly about me at parties? Bet that email address won’t be very useful from now on.
It was small, but knowing how much mild irritation I could cause for him AND his band without having to engage was greatly cathartic.
It’s also more or less become my standard form of petty revenge for anyone who irritates me now. Hope you like 30+ insurance agents calling.”
4. This Tenant Refused To Move, So I Made The Property Beautiful
“I purchased a house from a family member and the person who was renting the house refused to leave. I asked my family member if I could work directly with the tenant to give him more time. I tried speaking with the tenant and explained that there was no hard deadline and that if he would let me have some work done on the house he could stay for up to three months.
He balked at this and explained that we couldn’t make him move at all. I checked with the local authorities and they explained that it wasn’t true and that it was a rumor circulating among tenants. They said that we would just need to file the normal eviction papers and that the process could take up to sixty days.
I explained this to the guy and he basically told me to screw off. Well, then he decided to stop paying rent. That’s when the owner took over and started the eviction process. Hiring a lawyer and everything. The guy called me and asked why there was a note from the lawyer on his door, so I explained that since he had stopped paying rent that the seller was now angry and I could no longer help him.
Well, the lawyer wrote the letter in such a way that it basically stated, ‘Now that you haven’t paid rent, you have 5 days to get out.’
Long story short that totally screwed the guy and he had to get out in five days.
I have now moved in and am making a lot of improvements to the house. New electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. But my prized achievement is the ‘spite’ garden. My wife and I chose to dedicate a crazy amount of time to improving the exterior of the property.
Tons of flowers and gardens, everything painted and beautiful. It’s great because some of his family has to drive by frequently. We have been told by every neighbor what a piece of crap the guy was and how happy they are that there is no more trash. I like the idea of him having to see what little effort it took to show pride in a residence.
I am very petty.”
3. You Want To Act Like A Child? Two Can Play At That Game
“This is a very small petty revenge story. However, it is basically the only form of revenge I can get on this person.
So a little bit of background… This person that I work with has disliked me from the very first day we met.
I’m not sure what I did to offend her, but apparently, something did. She has always been rude and ridiculous. It’s gotten to the point a few times that we’ve had to have ‘come to Jesus’ moments at work because she lets everything simmer until she explodes and it’s somehow everyone else’s fault.
Plays the victim, gets away with basically everything BUT it’s somehow always us against her.
She straight up yelled at me in front of our supervisor and I’m not sure what the reprimand was (if any) but clearly, it (or the accumulation of events) has pushed her to tell me to ‘keep her name out of my mouth and don’t ever speak to her.’
Yeah…
okay. That really works when we work for the same person but whatever.
Anyway. Onto the pettiness.
The type of work we do is the kind that requires documentation to include which of the techs was helping with the particular case. Our doc keeps a schedule of cases and we usually write down whoever was the tech next to the case so that when they do their notes they can put it in.
Tech A, Tech B, etc. Occasionally one of us will write whoever was on a different case if it isn’t written because sometimes we get busy and we forget to write it down. Sometimes the doc forgets. When this particular person decides to be kind enough to write down anyone else’s name, we are just a letter.
Because it’s really hard to add the other 5 or 6 letters that complete our name but it’s not hard to write her own name with the same amount of letters. When I write down anyone else’s name I’ll just put the person’s full name, including hers.
Apparently, this violates the ‘keeping her name out of my (mouth) hand’ because she will scratch it out and re-write it. Like…. How old are we? You always spout off about being a grown woman and then you act like a petty 10-year-old.
OK.
My small revenge?
When I see that myself or the other tech are labeled as a single letter, I’ll fill in the rest of the name and either write the first letter of her name in a big capital letter or I’ll continue to write her name in on whatever case she’s on, knowing that she’s just going to scratch it out.
Don’t care. Will continue to do so. I can’t see her complaining to the supervisor because that just makes you look like a child and is it really that serious? I’m following how the techs before me have done it, so I am not violating any unknown rule about writing your own name and no one else’s. It’s just a ridiculous situation but I can’t get in trouble for doing what we’ve always done, so I will continue to get my little revenge.”
2. You Want To Bully Me? Don't Worry, I'll Stand Up For Myself
“I was renting a room in a house with three other girls who were close friends. Upon moving in, I was welcomed and befriended in a fake sort of way, but it was very clear that I was an outsider. My room was huge but strange.
My room had an entrance to the outside via a large door (one you might see as a fancy house front door) as well as an interior door that led to the rest of the house. My only windows were those windows that were on the sides of the door.
They were the kind that couldn’t open. I would’ve been worried if there wasn’t central air, but there was and it was cool in the house when I went to check out the room. The whole house was weird. It had these really nice finishes, but the house was chopped up in a weird way.
There was a full-sized bar with 6 barstools in the kitchen, but no living room. There was a small area where all the bedroom doors faced, but it was too weird and small to be a living room, so everyone left random stuff there.
The day I moved in, my room seemed really hot, like there was no air circulation. The thermostat was in girl A’s room and she had no problem leaving her door open so that we could turn the air in when we wanted.
Even with the air conditioner on, it would get very hot/stuffy in my room, but be freezing in their rooms. I asked them to close their vents so more air could be pushed into my room and they wouldn’t be freezing, but they were all really really stupid and didn’t understand the concept.
So, I ran the air conditioner ALL THE TIME because my room was so hot. That was the only thing I could do because my outside door had no screen and we had a big coyote problem. The windows couldn’t open either, so I couldn’t have an air conditioner.
I bought a thermometer for my room and, at times, it would be almost 90 degrees in my room, even with 3 fans. Another issue was that the electricity was unstable so most times, I could only use one plug for everything in my room so I couldn’t even use all my fans.
Well, the owner got the electric bill and it was very high. To me, this indicated that there was a problem with the air conditioner. To everyone else, I was a princess and was taking advantage of the owner. Everyone was angry at me.
They started to harass me day and night. Girl A was the worst because the owner was her uncle, but girls B and C were jerks too. Things started being stolen and, one day I came home and they had taken all of my food out of the refrigerator and put it outside my door, locking me out of the refrigerator and causing my food to spoil.
I called the police and they told me she had only relocated, not stolen the food so it wasn’t a crime. They were also angry because I put a trash can in the bathroom which everyone used and refused to ever take it out, so I let it overflow.
They then dumped the trash can, with sanitary napkins from 4 girls, in front of my door. I swept it in front of their doors and it went back and forth like that.
I was so angry, that I started my petty revenge at that moment.
First, day by day, I would take a shower and empty their bottles of bath products a bit.
Second, one girl had a habit of rinsing out her knickers and leaving them in wads in the shower or hanging them on the shower door.
DISGUSTING! I started flushing them down the toilet whenever I saw them.
I put locks on all of my cabinets but they broke them off. I proceeded to put all of my belongings in my room, which meant it was a process to get ready, hauling everything into the bathroom, including a large fan.
There was only one bathroom for the four of us and I’d get ready for work about the time they’d get ready for partying so they would be very very angry for taking so much time. I reminded them if they didn’t steal everything I had outside my room, they wouldn’t have to wait so long.
Well, by now, I had a kitchen set up in my room and although I could only use one plug most of the time, I made do.
At one point, the girls took all the lightbulbs out of the back porch lights and outdoor lights.
This was to upset me because my door was at the back porch and to get back there, I had to go up unstable stairs, with no railing, in the dark with possible coyotes or other wildlife back there in total darkness.
I left a lantern out by the stairs and they stole that.
Let me explain that I called the police a few times, but I had no proof that they stole my stuff so the police did nothing.
You may also be asking why I didn’t just move out… That brings us to another part of the story.
Throughout all of this, I was texting the property manager (they were all family—tenant A, owners, manager) and she was being rude and antagonistic with me and completely sided with the girls.
It was then, that I started to really mess with them.
These girls were so stupid that they knew I was wasting their shampoos, etc., but they continued to keep them in the bathroom, so I got more aggressive with that. After all, if all of my stuff had to be in my room because otherwise they would steal it, then I was trying to force them to put all of their stuff in their rooms as well.
I went from pouring small amounts out daily to pouring out entire bottles at one time. Let me remind you that they ruined all of my groceries the day after I went weekly shopping and stole numerous things from me as well as the fact that they had been harassing me daily.
One morning, when they had finally removed all of their personal items from the bathroom, I walked in and saw a few bottles of stuff. They were brand new and the significant other of tenant A accidentally left them in there, so I took everything, put it in a bag, and threw it in the bushes.
So, I mentioned that the house was cut up weird and the electricity was unstable. The reason for this was that the slumlord owner took a 2-story house and took out the stairs, making it 2, 1-story houses. The reason everything was so screwed up was that they had family and friends without licenses doing the construction and he did not get any permits, so everything including the plumbing and electricity was messed up.
The house was infested with centipedes which indicates plumbing issues and the girls were dirty pigs, and there was a major cockroach problem because they’d leave crusty/greasy dishes in the sink for days on end. There were so many things wrong with the house.
There was even a hole in the shower which gave you a view of the bushes outside!
So, I filed a report with the city and the health department. Health department issued them a notice demanding they take care of the bugs.
The city came out and the results were amazing. He had illegally converted this home into a duplex and had a family with 3 children living in a garage with no insulation and makeshift bedrooms and a kitchen. He was ordered to convert the house back.
In addition, he was in violation of a host of other things, including unstable staircases with no handrails, a, very large, illegal patio cover, wired for speakers and TVs, a refrigerator, leaks in the roof, etc.
He was given a notice by the city with all of the issues he had to cure on it.
He would be fined daily, for any amount of time over the deadline. That garage had to be converted back and that family moved out of the garage.
So, the girls were forced to move out so the family could have their rooms.
It was a big disaster for them.
I had previously interacted with their children and they loved me. We would have conversations and I would give them stickers and art supplies because I felt sorry for them having such bad parents that they would have them living in some cold dangerous garage with makeshift rooms.
Now, the parents told their children that I was evil and that I wanted to hurt them, so the kids were now scared of me. (I know this because no one knew I spoke Spanish, so they would do it around me all the time.)
Now, I was being harassed by the father of the children, on a daily basis.
One time, I was in the bathroom and his wife needed to use it. I told them that she could use it when I was finished and she just busted in the door. I managed to non-violently push her back out stating that all my stuff was in here and she would have to wait until I was done and moved all of my stuff out.
Hubby came out and insisted she wouldn’t steal anything, but so much of my stuff had been stolen, including court documents sent in the mail, that I wouldn’t budge. He got ahold of the extension cord for my fan and we ended up playing tug of war.
My partner stepped in and we overpowered that jerk and won that struggle.
At that point, I hadn’t paid rent in about 3 months and the owner started eviction proceedings. The judge threw the first case out because of the utter stupidity of the landlord and the manager.
The judge ordered them to seek legal counsel and get educated about tenants’ rights and landlord responsibilities. It was laughable. The second case came a few months later. I didn’t have an attorney but my case was so good, I thought I didn’t need one.
There was a technicality that made it so that they didn’t have to pay moving expenses, (the standard being $10,000), but he was ordered to give me back my deposit and he agreed to forgive my past rent if I agreed to move out.
In my last 30 days, I stopped the petty revenge because those children didn’t deserve to live in a house of chaos.
Instead, to get me through, I reminisced about all the revenge I took on those girls and the fact they were forced to move, even though I was the one being evicted.
These were some of the most ignorant and disgusting people I had ever met and it was so fun seeing their Pikachu faces when I would retaliate and they had no proof, so the cops couldn’t do anything. I estimate that I cost them and the slumlord owner about 10 times the amount that was stolen from me.”
1. Yes, We Can Discuss Films—Just Not That One
“This happened a couple of months ago and it has a happy ending.
I’ve got a friend who is a film nerd. Loves watching films, always tries to catch films in the cinema instead of at home, knowledgeable about filmmaking, actors, the whole lot.
In short, a great person to talk about films with.
I too watch films but not as much as him. That said, we both have a fondness for the more indie films that tend to slip under the radar of most people.
One of our favorite activities is discussing a film we’ve both watched. Occasionally, we’ll even agree to watch a film on the same day so that we can get online and discuss it later (we aren’t in the same city).
Now, the thing about my friend is that he is extremely spoiler averse to an absurd degree.
When it comes to films he hasn’t watched, he won’t even let me bring them up in conversation at times. Even minor things like saying that Bond is retired at the beginning of No Time To Die aren’t allowed.
On the other hand, I don’t mind spoilers.
I have always felt that good movies don’t rely only on narrative, but also on execution. Knowing that Frodo fails to throw away the ring is different from actually watching it on the big screen. My friend knows this, and oftentimes when he catches himself giving away spoilers, I’ll remind him that I don’t care.
But then, once he went too far. We were discussing a movie we were both excited about that he had watched and I hadn’t. I again told him I didn’t mind spoilers and asked him some specific plot questions. He refused to answer.
I pushed him a bit. His response was something like, “Why can’t I not answer?” Needless to say, this really bugged me. I dropped it and told him we’d discuss it after I’d watched it.
I went out and watched it the very next day.
Then I told him I had watched it. He got all excited and said he couldn’t wait to discuss it with me. Nope, not happening bud! I shut him down and told him we wouldn’t discuss that movie. When he asked why I told him that he annoyed me by refusing to tell me anything earlier.
I was just returning the favor.
It took a while, but he eventually caught on and now he never tries to enforce his no spoilers rule on me anymore. It’s been some months and we have discussed many films afterward, but we still haven’t gotten around to that movie, and I will ensure we never will.”
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