People Narrate Their Antagonistic Revenge Stories
19. I Don't Know What This Guy Was Trying To Do
“My background is working in restaurants/hotels for 20 years, then retail management for 11 years. In both of those industries, you interact with a lot of people. Most customers are nice, fair, and not out to cause a problem.
Personally, I do my best to provide courteous and efficient customer service. Serving that many people over the years, I can’t say that I’ve seen it all, but I’ve seen a lot.
This incident sticks out in my mind as a what the heck moment.
This happened a few years ago and I remember it well. I was managing a convenience store/gas station. I was working the night shift covering for an employee who called off. The store was being sold in 2 days and I already had another job lined up.
While this was happening, I remember thinking to myself that I had nothing to lose if I angered this guy.
The only reason I can think of why this man did this is that he really came across as an arrogant jerk (I’m sure you know the type, these are not pleasant people to interact with).
The man was dressed really well, wearing a nice suit. He pumped gas into his luxury car. It was later at night so the place was slow, with no other customers at the time. As he’s walking into the store, I could tell by his swagger that this is a man who thinks his stuff doesn’t stink.
He walks up to the register, I greeted him, asked if he needed anything other than the gas and he said, ‘No’. I rang up what was on the pump which was $36 US worth of gas. The man opened his wallet, took out a $20 bill, then proceeded to take about a minute to wad the $20 bill into a little ball and put it on the counter.
He took another $20 bill from his wallet and did the same thing to the second bill, again taking about a minute to do it, and put it on the counter. As he was doing this he was looking straight at me with this menacing grin.
I took the 2 bills, unfolded them one time, ran them across the edge of the counter a few times to straighten them out, this took about another minute (I am really petty about having the put neatly in my drawer, all the bills face up and pointed the same way, usually this can be done very quickly).
When I gave him his change which was $4 (4 one-dollar bills), I took the time to wad each of the bills into little balls, the same way he did, then I handed the 4 singles to him with a genuine smile on my face and told the man to have a good evening.
The look he gave me was priceless! I’m going to assume that no one ever gave back to him what he gave to others. It’s these small wins that make life worth living!”
18. They Tried To Manipulate Me Into Buying Gifts For Their Children
“This slow burn starts a full year and a half before my plan came into effect.
Earlier in the year, my dad quite sensibly suggested that with the size of our family Christmas party, we skip a generation with gifts to ease the financial strain as the extended family grew. At the time, I was struggling with my business and athletic career and my wife (then-significant other) was working on her second master’s degree, so I suggested names from a hat, but he wanted to spoil all his grandchildren.
I said fair enough, I’ll chip in for Oma’s cruise and buy gifts for my step-siblings, but don’t expect anything grand.
Dramatis Personae for that Christmas party:
- Me – 28-year-old (at the time) heavyweight mixed martial artist and strength coach AKA small-time athlete working a day job to barely make rent in addition to training full time.
- Stepsis – 40ish, an aging mombie whose only assets are starting to sag too much for them to be assets anymore, leaving her with no other definable personality traits
- Thing 1 – My oldest Niece 12, Stepsister’s Daughter, imagine the vapidest tweenager stereotype you can and multiply it by 1000
- Thing 2 – My Oldest Nephew 9, Stepsister’s Son, living proof that you’re never too young to be a jerk
- Stepbro – 36 Formerly cool dude who gave up on life when his kids were born, years later would gain back enough willpower and gumption to physically assault his wife
- Spawn 1 – 6 Bro’s daughter – Sweet and shy girl, terrified by my mere presence, the wisest of the bunch in my humble opinion
- Spawn 2 – 7 Bro’s son – A generally nice kid who at this time was partway into evolving into a jerk after being constantly told to look up to and emulate thing 2.
Spawn 1 has brought a Nintendo DS and all the kids are struggling to see/play it together, so I foolishly offer to loan them mine to lighten the load. Spawn 1 agrees to share with Thing 1, and Spawn 2 agrees to share with Thing 2. Having stupidly deprived me of my means to escape social obligations, I go to the living room to acquire that much older cure for not wanting to deal with other people; a hard drink.
Not even having had time to pour a dram, my trained ear picks up from the kid’s room the unmistakable sound of one human being pummeling another. I politely suggest to Stepbro that he might want to go have a look, but Bro hasn’t cared about anything in about 7 years, so he waves it off and I go to investigate.
I walk in to see that Thing 2 may be a jerk, but is not untalented, and is managing to strike, shove into a wall and kick Spawn 2 all at the same time, while attempting to play my DS with his other hand, having decided his turn began the moment I left the room.
Thing 1 has simply wrested the DS from Spawn 1, who is now sitting in the corner crying.
I shout for the stepsis, informing her that if she doesn’t get in here to break things up before I count to 10, I would have a stern conversation with them.
She turns up and separates the kids and I retrieve my DS. Instead of giving Thing 2 a lesson on sharing and not hitting people, she proceeds to berate Spawn 2 (the kid who was beaten) for not simply giving up the DS to her little piece of work and making her son look bad.
Thing 1 simply lets out a tweenage sigh for the ages and tosses the other DS into the crying spawn 2.
I then excuse myself from the party, thanking whatever gods may be that I don’t have to provide gifts for any of those little brats.
6 months later, my firm belief in atheism is confirmed as Bro calls me and this conversation ensues.
Stepbro – Hey Elbowsmash, while I really appreciated the gifts last year, you should really get something for the kids this year instead, Christmas is all about the chiiiillllllllllldrrreeeeen after all.
Me – No, I turn up to chat with you and dad and Oma, I really don’t care about the kids.
Stepbro – That’s a mean thing to say about my kids, don’t you care about them?
Me – You cared about them so much that at the last party, you couldn’t be bothered to break up a fight where your son was being beaten.
Stepbro – Thing 1 is a good kid, Stepsis said he just had a bad day.
Me – He was literally beating your child. You didn’t put pics on social media for a week because of the bruises. If thing 1 were an adult and had that kind of bad day, I’d have had a stern conversation with him and convinced him peacefully to lay on the floor until the police arrived.
Bro – Well Stepsis and I were talking and we think you should buy stuff for the kids next year instead of us.
Me – Well I’m happy not to buy you anything, but I’m not getting anything for Stepsis’s little kids, especially when she encourages that behavior.
Bro – Well if you aren’t going to get something for all the kids, you shouldn’t get anything at all. It’s not right if you don’t treat them equally.
Me – Done
Now I’m sure they wish it had been this simple, but unfortunately, it wasn’t and I certainly wouldn’t have written such a long-winded story if that were the payoff.
Thanks for bearing with me so far, we’re almost at the end.
A few months later, about 2 weeks before Xmas, I get an email from my dad with links to various toys (mostly from toys r us, which still existed at the time). When I call him back to ask what that’s all about, this conversation ensues.
Me: Hey what’s up? I got your email, what’s that all about
Dad: Those are gifts for the things and spawn for Christmas.
Me: That’s cool if you’re getting them that, I’ll see them when the kids open them.
Dad: No that’s for you to get them
Me: I don’t buy for that generation remember? And I already sent you my contribution to Oma’s cruise
Dad: You need to get stuff for the kids, don’t you want them to look up to you as an uncle?
Me: Not really. Also what part of my life suggests to you that they ought to look up to me as any sort of role model?
You’d be better off telling them to grow up to be rockstars.
Dad: Not the point, Christmas is about the chiiiiiiiiilllldreeeeennnnnnn, if you don’t get them this stuff, I won’t put your name on the card for Oma.
Me: That’s an awful thing to do, considering I already paid into that.
Dad: Will you get the stuff or not?
Me: Well guess my name isn’t going on the card then, this will cost me more than a month’s rent, so you can take this list and grease it up real nice…
Dad (Interrupting): Calm your jets, this is what they want.
Me: I’ll get them a token something but I’m not taking out a loan.
Dad: Fine, just make it something they enjoy
Me: If what I get doesn’t put a giant smile on each and every one of their faces, I’ll buy you dinner at a steakhouse of your choosing
Dad: That’s the spirit, talk to you later.
So, Christmas rolls around, and my wife and I have bought not just 1, but 4 gifts for each of the little ones, and wrapped them all beautifully. My dad (correctly) assumes it’s all probably from the dollar store, but it’s nicely wrapped and he gives me a look of approval as I place it under the tree.
My wife and I schmooze for a bit and then suggest that since we brought several gifts for each of the kids, why don’t they open one each before dinner so they have something to do while they wait.
Their parents of course agree as it gives them more of a reason to ignore their kids and talk about them instead, so they send us off to hand out gifts to their kids, Stepsis is looking especially smug.
As they begin to unwrap them, I prepare the camera as my wife goes for our coats, and I stick around just long enough to immortalize on film the big menacing grin on each of the kid’s faces as they see what their gift is.
Less than 1 minute later, the first blast from the airhorn (Thing 2’s gift) can be heard in the hallway clearly by my wife and me as we make our way to the elevator. I have no idea how much of the bulk pack of silly string (Spawn 1’s gift) or the 36 rainbow pack of off-brand sharpies (Spawn 2’s gift) ended up on the walls, but I do know they repainted the place the next month.
Whether or not the pile of slap bracelets we got for Thing 1 ended up on the wrists and legs of the parents as they tried to contain the other three will be left to the imagination, but I like to think they all ended up in the height of 80’s fashion before Boxxing Day.
I may never know if they opened the rest of their presents (everyone got a copy of each of the other’s gifts, you know, for fairness, plus a bunch of gross and mildly inappropriate temporary tattoos). In the confusion, none of them noticed either me or my wife leaving.
I’m certain at some point they did notice the pretty gold envelope addressed to ‘The parents’ on the tree. Inside was a very pretty card, blank but for the following note:
‘This was a warning shot from off the top of my head, I’ve got a whole year to get creative for next time.
Merry Christmas, E.’
I never bought anyone steak dinner, however, I enjoyed several more Christmas’s with my Oma and Dad until they passed and I stopped seeing that side of the family at all. No mention of this incident or gifts for the kids was ever made again.”
17. My Grandma Was Pretty Cool
“My grandma and grandpa owned a small hot dog place in Seaside OR called the Doghouse and a small Motel right down the street from there till they ‘retired’ in 1989 (4 years before I was born).
One day, when my dad was in high school, my grandmother (who was a very strict Roman Catholic) was home at the motel alone, taking care of their numerous dogs (they also raised dogs). She heard a knock on the door and went to open it.
There was a man at the door, dressed in his Sunday best. ‘Hi, do you know about our lord and savior Jesus Christ?’ The man said as he pulled out a bunch of JW pamphlets. ‘Yes, actually I am a Catholic, I am already saved, I am sorry to waste your time but I really must be going…’ The man paused her ‘I really must talk to you about this.’ ‘Sir, this is a no-soliciting sign on my door’ and she pointed to the sign.
‘I must ask that you kindly leave.’ ‘But I!’ CUE PETTY REVENGE.
My grandma went to close the door but the man stubbornly put his foot in between to stop her from closing it. ‘Can you just listen to me?’ My grandma with a straight look on her face said ‘You have 5 seconds to remove your foot or I will break it.’ The man scoffed and still didn’t remove it, still trying to force himself into the room.
My grandma counted and when he still didn’t remove it, she slammed the extremely heavy door on his foot. ‘OW OW OW!’ A scream of pain erupted from the man as a loud crack could be heard. ‘I told you what would happen, now leave and if I see you on my property again, I will use my gun next time.’ The man quickly hobbled away.
Not only did she not hear from him, but no religion or salesman dared step foot on the property with intention of recruiting again, you just don’t mess with grandma.”
16. I Can Just Say It's A Typographical Error
“About 10 years ago, my mother was in a long drawn out family court issue with my father, basically he didn’t want to pay for child support while my younger brother was still in college.
His lawyer was a piece of work and ‘allegedly’ provided my mom with the wrong court day on one of the motions so my mom could not respond in time and a judge ruled in his favor by default. This was only a temporary win and we appealed.
By we I mean my mother and me. My mother was self-represented and I was in college for a legal admin assistant course and had access to court procedures and software to easily fill out legal affidavits and forms. My mom couldn’t afford a lawyer but wasn’t poor enough for a court-appointed lawyer, so instead, she sought advice from duty counsel and we did our best to represent our pretty simple case.
Dad needs to pay child support while the son is in college.
The longer this dragged out, the more my father had to pay in legal fees. Was this the revenge? Oh god no! We hated this lawyer for her dirt trick. She was angry at my mother because in a previous court session (where her client was caught lying to a judge) the Judge ruled in my mother’s favor.
She did not take kindly to losing to someone self-representing. So when she filed a motion on behalf of my father everyone (her, the court) got the right court date except us!
Cue petty revenge: 1- I paid for certified mail to be served at her office within the last 30 minutes on the last day any affidavit or document was due as per regulations set by the Law Society of Upper Canada.
I always smiled a little when I knew she would get it right before a long weekend. 2- Somewhere in her last name were the letters ‘cant’. Every time either my mother or I printed her name (be it a legal document or envelope) we left just the slightest gap atop the ‘a’ so that it may, at times, be mistaken for a ‘u’.
I don’t need to spell that out for you.
Immature? Yes. Petty? Yes. Did the courts eventually rule in my mom’s favor and my father owed back pay? Yes.”
15. Middle School Bully Harasses Me For 2 Years But I Got The Last Laugh
“So when I was in 5th and 6th grade, there was this fat kid who used to pick on everyone. (We will refer to him as Fat Bully.) He would insult anyone for looking at him funny and lightly punch anyone who touched him.
(My school isn’t as strict as other schools about messing around with friends, but they were extremely serious about bullying.) And the teachers never caught him doing this or they didn’t care enough to do something about him. But anyway, he loved to pick on me most of all and would make my life miserable.
If he saw me he would punch me in the arm for no reason, trip me, SPIT ON ME, fart/burp in my face, and call me different insults that I’m not sure if I can post on here. Then one day when in 7th grade I decided I had had enough of his stunts.
He started a rumor about me having kissed a boy and saying that I was gay (I’m not and I don’t have a problem with gay people) and if you have ever been in middle school you know that rumors and lies will spread like a wildfire.
Eventually, I learn about this and I went to confront him about it. He admitted to it and I don’t know why but it made me madder than it probably should have.
So after school was over that day I went home and came up with a plan.
I made a pocket for my phone to sit in and record through a small hole in the strap of my backpack.
The next day I get to school and hit record on my phone and put it in my pocket. Not even 30 seconds later, Fat Bully comes up from behind me and trips me to the floor while laughing.
He then spits on me and insulted my friend who I was walking with and talking to. Throughout the day, he harassed me and lots of the other kids. I got it all on tape.
I went home and put all the clips into a single video montage.
I emailed my principal about wanting to talk to him about getting bullied and had proof of it. The next day I go to school early and go to the principal’s office. I told him about Fat Bully and how he had been bullying me and some of the other kids.
I then showed him the video I made and he had Fat Bully’s parents come in to talk. They talked about the video and the consequences of Fat Bully’s actions. He ended up getting suspended for a few weeks I think and had to help the janitors after school for a few months.
If I could have done anything different I would have recorded him sooner.”
14. My Legal Work Has Paid Off
“A couple was renting a 2BR sublet room to me on a month-to-month lease. I mentioned in the interview that I had done legal work in a housing clinic (this is important later).
Started great. Didn’t talk to them much, just worked, came home, and loafed in my room.
Literally used the living room once. Cleaned all dishes immediately after use. I am confident that I am a model tenant — all my prior roommates say so.
This kind of confidence proves very useful when it turns out you are living with gaslighting nutbags.
They slowly started losing it about every little thing. Forgot to flush the toilet once. They threw it in my face (??) in every argument for the rest of my tenancy. Watched Walking Dead with my brother (like 6-8 PM at a reasonable volume)— they lost it about noise and advance notice for guests (despite no prior discussion of notice).
They accused me of stealing their frozen goods.
One time, I cooked an entire meal, while the girl was in the living room watching a movie with her shoulders hiked up so high they might’ve been earrings. I ignored it… until I had to take my meal and leave, and couldn’t remember whether the light had been on when I entered. I already knew I was doomed. I guessed that it had been off, so I turned it ‘back’ off.
She charged at me screaming ‘EXCUUUUSE MEEEE???!?!’ I literally hid behind my bowl of spaghetti marinara. We locked eyes in silence as she huffed and puffed like a Tapatio pooper. ‘You want the lights… on?’ ‘YES!’ (Flick.) (Leaves in silence.)
These complaints were all accompanied by swear words and personal attacks (‘I honestly expected more integrity from a lawyer working at ___,’ ‘can’t fix stupid’), and always assumed bad faith on my part.
Disputes were only ever communicated over text, even when I asked for verbal discussion as a more human medium. It was clear to me that undiagnosed mental struggles were at play (I’d guess narcissism for him, anxiety disorder for her).
I’d always try to lower the decibel, to find something I could accept responsibility for even when there wasn’t anything.
But I emphasized that I’d really appreciate more manners, and that roommate situations can really just fly off the handle and suck for everyone if people aren’t careful about how they communicate, so can you please find a more constructive way to communicate such as XYZ, etc. I know this from experience (again—housing clinic).
The last time, I explained that they clearly struggle with confrontation whereas I live and work in it, and this is going to be worse for them than me if we flip the switch they are trying to flip. Nothing doing.
Finally, one day, my bestie came over.
To be nice, we watched TV shows, but in my room. Quietly, with the laptop’s native speakers. We fell asleep by accident around 11 PM on a Friday. The next day we got dim sum. Dropped off leftovers on the counter, didn’t refrigerate it to avoid dehydrating it.
Came back to a note saying ‘THIS HAS BEEN SITTING OUT FOR THREE HOURS!!!’ Ignored it, grabbed the food, and headed out to go camping. Got a slough of texts saying that we had made RAUCOUS noise the night before and dropping swear words.
The property manager told me they’d complained to her, but that she didn’t care (‘It’s a Friday!!’). Finally, I put my foot down a little more firmly and said something like, ‘I never agreed to guest stuff, we made no noise, and I don’t take orders from you.
I have civil discussions. Let me know if you are available for one of those.’ Came back to an eviction notice on my door.
Waves of anger washed over me. These jerks were so out of control that they waltzed backward into MY literal court.
The switch flips. I start finding constant, humiliating, and unfixable complaints to raise with them. The girl had long hair. I found it in the microwave, I sent a pic to the group chat. Refrigerator sent to the group chat. Toothbrush area, group chat.
I said that this is super unsanitary and disgusting and a liability for landlords, and she needs to find a 1BR somewhere if she can’t stop living like a pig. I honestly don’t care, and she has zero control over her hair, but well, welcome to getting harassed with unreasonable things.
In fact, they point this out, and I walk all over it. They try to have someone over to look at my room. I wait until the visitor arrives to announce my right to 48 hrs notice. They stop spending any time outside their room at all.
I start spending lots of time in the common area, cooking stinky fish, and using the living room. They cut off my internet, which did throw me until I realized I still had access to my old Co-op’s Xfinity Wireless. Manager at this point let slip that they’ve been going through subtenants like burner phones for the last 5 years.
Finally, the last day of the eviction notice arrives, after several days of reminder texts from them. They come home to find a thoughtful letter explaining that our town passed a ‘just cause’ eviction requirement (4 months ago) (true, can’t write this thing), and they don’t have one, so I am going no place.
Moreover, the new law attaches treble damages and criminal liability for violations (also true). I heard the guy laugh out loud through the wall at flute pitch.
At this point, they stopped texting me at all, as the reality sunk in that they’d spent a month sending me buckets of jury tapes like complete morons.
I got a VM from a mediator, who told me 3x in one call that they above all did not want me to sue them. Deleted it. Then… I kid you not… they literally moved out of the house. Stopped living there. And throughout all this, I’ve effectively compartmentalized this whole area of my life and am happily overachieving at my job, having planned all this out at the beginning of the month.
Eventually, my fellowship ended and I left of my own volition. Got a full deposit too. I never did sue because who has time for that, but I was happy to let the specter of a suit haunt those anxious jerks for years.”
13. Leave Me Stranded In The Cold? Enjoy Your Last Days As A Teacher
“So this story happened back in 2009, when I was starting my sophomore year, 10th grade for anyone unfamiliar with the term.
It’s more my parent’s revenge and I have their permission to post it here. I’m reminded of it now because I was out with someone recently and she asked me why I only had one hand on the steering wheel while we were driving to our destination.
The answer to that is simple, I grew up on a farm and the first vehicle I learned to drive was my dad’s tractor when I was 9. Yes, farm kids learn to drive very early on in life, especially if they’re fast-growing beansprouts like me.
Like many vehicles, tractors have the pedals for clutch, brake, and gas, and the steering wheel. In addition to those, you have the implement controls for the tool(s) the tractor is pulling alongside the gear shift and engine speed. These are typically on the right-hand side and usually require you to keep one hand on them, with the other hand on the wheel.
These days, I drive an automatic transmission vehicle, but having driven tractors and large manual transmission trucks through the fields for so many years as a kid left me with the habit of resting my right arm on the center console since there’s nothing I need to do with it except maybe hold hands with someone.
This is something my dad does all the time when he and my mom are in the car together, either on their own or with me and my siblings in tow. And no, for anyone who is wondering, my phone stays in my pocket until I’ve reached my destination.
Answering a text while driving is not worth my or anyone else’s safety.
So back to the story, entering sophomore year, I was now old enough according to my state’s laws that I could take driver’s ed, something my high school offered as an extracurricular class.
I aced that class in every respect.
Until it came time to get in the car with the instructor.
The driving portion of the class had two sessions each, one in the morning before school started, and one in the afternoon after school let out, with extra sessions on Saturdays to handle all the prospective drivers in the class.
We were sorted alphabetically so our instructor, Mrs. Tyrant, had an easier time keeping track of us. She was a thin woman with a constant scowl and despised pointless questions. I got a ride with a friend the Saturday morning, it was his and my turn on the list, alongside one other student.
It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, and getting close to winter, but it hadn’t snowed yet and was, therefore, bone-cold outside. Mrs. Tyrant was waiting inside the exam car with the engine running. The other student got out of her mom’s truck once she saw us, and her mom and my friend’s dad both drove away once we were in the exam car.
I was going to be the first to drive that morning, with my friend and the other student in the backseat waiting for their turns. We went through the checklist of pre-driving safety checks and then we were on our way. I put the car in gear, rested my arm on the center console since it was an automatic and there was nothing I needed to use it for, I thought and pressed the gas.
Nothing.
‘Both hands on the wheel,’ Mrs. Tyrant sternly said with her foot on the examiner’s brake.
I apologized and put my right hand on the wheel, and it was soooooooooo weird, especially since I was accustomed to not doing that. As such my right hand slackened and dropped to the center console again before we even left the parking lot.
Cue the brake.
‘Both hands on the wheel,’ Mrs. Tyrant repeated. I tried to explain why it felt weird but she wouldn’t let me get a word in. ‘If you’re not going to keep both hands on the wheel, you can use your little phone to call for a ride home.’
‘I don’t have a phone!’ I protested. Really, at this point, I didn’t have a cellphone, and I’m ultimately grateful to my parents for refusing to buy me one. But this was another point in my teenage years where I wished they would have bought me one.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you kids all have phones,’ Mrs. Tyrant said as she put the car in park and gestured for me to get out. I complied and tried to get in the backseat while my friend got into the driver’s seat. ‘I said to call for a ride home.’ Mrs. Tyrant repeated. My friend tried to talk her out of leaving me there, only for her to threaten him with a failed test. We all know what teenagers can be like, and he chooses the driving test over his friend.
He and I still talk and play games together from time to time, but he does regret leaving me behind. So I was left there, in the school parking lot, on a Saturday morning, in the cold, my only shelter being the school’s entryway.
Thankfully I wasn’t out there for long, maybe about twenty minutes, when some dude I hadn’t met before kept honking until I noticed him. My parents later scolded me for trusting a stranger, and I don’t blame them, but at the time, I was too cold to care, and his car was warm.
Turned out he was the girl’s older brother. He had graduated six years earlier and was visiting his parents for Thanksgiving that coming week. His sister, the other student, had frantically texted her family since she did have a phone to tell them that I needed help and he came over to the school straight away to take me back to my house.
Mom was furious after I told her what had happened when I got home and called my dad who was out in the fields, who was equally furious at the news. Despite their immediate efforts, Mrs. Tyrant and the school suffered no consequences, since there weren’t any security cameras around the school at the time.
Meanwhile, I not only ended up with a nasty cold that lasted until after Thanksgiving day but also got flunked out of driver’s ed and wouldn’t be allowed to take the course again that year.
Fast forward to May, the sun was out and shining and the end of the school year had arrived. The only bad note on my report card was driver’s ed, which had done just enough damage to take me off the potential valedictorian lineup for my graduating class.
As usual for summer, my dad needed help out in the fields but instead hired a few neighbors so I could take a summer driver’s ed course that he paid for. ‘So I could be more useful around the place,’ he joked, but I knew it was because of Mrs. Tyrant failing me before I even had a chance, and that I had otherwise earned the privilege with my good grades.
Each day he or mom would take the time to deliver me to and pick me up from the course in the nearest city about half an hour away. The instructor for this course, Mr. Saint, was a big man with a bellowing laugh, and he took the time to listen to his students’ concerns.
Eventually, it came time for me to get behind the wheel again. When I told my dad on our way there he got all thoughtful for a good minute.
‘Son, I want you to briefly explain to Mr. Saint, before you even get in the car with him, that you’ve been driving tractors for several years now.
As well as how the controls for one are laid out if he isn’t familiar with them,’ he says to me.
I didn’t really get it at the time, but I agreed to do just that. And just that I did when Mr. Saint invited me to climb into the driver’s seat for my driving exam.
He was familiar with the typical layout of tractor controls so I didn’t have to explain it to him. He kept a very careful eye on me and everything I did during the driving exam. And unlike Mrs. Tyrant, he didn’t touch his brake once.
‘Just like any farming kid I’ve had in my courses, your driving is top-notch,’ Mr. Saint says to me. ‘But why did you feel the need to let me know ahead of time?’
‘My dad told me to,’ I said, pointing to my dad who was waiting in his truck.
‘Mind if I speak with him?’ Mr. Saint asked.
‘I don’t mind sir, but he’s going to want to leave soon so we can get back to work.’
‘I’ll be sure to make it quick,’ Mr. Saint said as he went over to my dad’s truck.
They talked for a couple of minutes, Mr. Saint making notes on his clipboard before Dad waved me over when they were done talking.
‘What did Mr. Saint want to talk with you about dad?’ I asked as I climbed in.
‘Oh, nothing much,’ dad replied with a grin as he began to drive away.
I tried to get him to tell me what they had talked about, but he remained adamantly silent about the matter. A few weeks later I had my learner’s permit and was quickly racking up the hours I needed for my license.
The school year started about a month later, and I was asked by a few friends if I would be redoing driver’s ed. I told them no, I had taken a summer course since my dad needed my help sooner rather than later, and I already had my learner’s permit.
That’s when I found out that Mrs. Tyrant had been fired. Fired! Just the week before! And that Mr. Saint would be teaching the course in her place until the school board decided whether they would keep the course or drop it altogether. During my lunch break that first day, rather than eat with my friends, I went to the classroom where Mr. Saint was going to be teaching that afternoon and found him sitting behind what used to be Mrs. Tyrant’s desk.
After a bit of stuttering on my part, I asked him what had happened, and he said he had been recommended by my dad as a replacement when Mrs. Tyrant’s teacher’s license was revoked, and she was subsequently fired. Also, Mr. Saint told me that my dad had stayed in contact with him after their little chat and that he had been told of Mrs. Tyrant’s treatment of me and possibly other students.
Mr. Saint then passed that info along with his records onto the county, who pulled Mrs. Tyrant into a performance review. And yep, I wasn’t the only one she had flunked over the years for what was perceived as one of many minor errors in this farmland-rich area.
That alone was enough to make sure she could never renew her license ever again. What, or rather who got it revoked, were my parents, who finally had people listening to them. About how Mrs. Tyrant had neglected her duty as a guardian to her students by leaving them stranded in front of the school until they were picked up, and I was the final straw.
The school board also invested in a security system at this time, so they had video footage for incidents like this that popped up in the future. Furthermore, my driver’s ed grade was purged from the system, along with anyone else currently in the school who had taken the class under Mrs. Tyrant, both good and bad.
This put me back in the potential valedictorian lineup for my class, much to my parent’s delight. To this day, I don’t know what happened to Mrs. Tyrant, and frankly, I don’t care. She was a horrible woman and the less that is said about her, the better.”
12. Foolish Karen On Skis Tries To Cause An Accident
“I grew up in the mountains, was four years old when I first attempted skiing. At eleven, I started snowboarding. I love both of those sports and have spent a lot of time practicing. I am not telling you this to brag, but I feel like I should clarify that I know exactly what I am doing, even though I do go fast.
It all happened on a beautiful sunny morning. It had snowed the night before, roughly 60 cm (25 inches) fresh snow. Amazing powdery snow. Naturally, I got up early with two friends to go off-piste. All three of us were on snowboards. Ski lifts were already running, so there were some people on the slopes.
We went off-piste a few times with no issues whatsoever. But of course, we had to get back on the slope system at some point to reach the station at the bottom of the lift to go back up again. This is where I encountered the Karen.
We were still in the deep snow. The slope we wanted to get on was long, flat, and rather narrow. Due to the fresh snow and also a height difference that’s alwaysthere, we had to jump down roughly 1.5 m (60 inches) to get on the piste.
No big deal, especially because the snow was so soft that even if I fell, I likely wouldn’t get hurt. My friends went first, jumped down, and crossed the piste to go off-piste again to take a faster and steeper way to the lift. I waited until both of them were already in the deep snow to make sure I wouldn’t hurt them if anything went wrong.
Then I checked if anybody else was near. And after seeing I had more than enough space, I jumped. And then I heard a scream.
I thought an accident had happened. I’m a goofy (right foot in the front), so I was able to see downhill, where no accident had happened. I knew my two male friends off-piste couldn’t have screamed so high-pitched. Therefore I did a sharp turn also slowing down a lot, allowing me to look uphill to see if someone needed help.
Instead of an accident, I saw a woman in a pink onesie yelling and skiing towards me really fast.
Do you know how some people go way faster than they can handle? She was obviously one of them. She held her sticks so that they were almost parallel to the ground.
She had her legs really far apart, which I guess helped her as her ski wiggled so hard they would’ve hit each other and made her fall if she had her legs like any normal person on skis.
I was a bit amazed at her not having fallen yet and very confused at what was even happening.
After I had gotten over the initial shock of a manic Teletubby attacking me, I figured she was going to hit me if I didn’t get out of her way fast. However I had slowed down because of the scream, and my front leg was facing a wall of snow.
The only thing I could think of was making a small jump to gain speed and get my front foot downhill to make another turn and save myself into the deep snow.
I was almost at the edge of the deep snow when I noticed she had changed her direction so that she would’ve hit me if I had still tried to go down there.
I stopped as hard as I could. She still fell for some reason even though I definitely didn’t hit her. I just covered her in a fair amount of snow, because that’s just what happens when you break hard in powdery snow. I also ended up sitting on my buttocks.
After all, I had put a lot of force in stopping, and I attempted to duck while braking because I saw her stick almost hitting me. It still hit my head, but luckily I was wearing a helmet so not much damage was done.
After that I just sat there, because ya know, I was a bit shocked. The Karen was laying a few meters down the piste and was still yelling. But I still heard my friend calling for me, asking if I was okay. I told him I was but had to handle something real quick.
One of the advantages of a snowboard is that you can get up immediately after you fall (unless you are injured obviously). With ski it’s different. Once you fall, you are tangled between skis, sticks, and limbs. For some reason, both skis of the Karen still were on her feet (a bad idea for someone who is obviously a beginner).
Thinking she just had lost control and didn’t have any bad intentions, I went to help and check on her.
As I was approaching her, she hit me with her stick. Luckily it just went against my boot so it didn’t hurt, but I definitely didn’t want to get near her after that.
I didn’t just want to leave either just in case she was injured, so I awkwardly kneeled in a safe distance waiting for her to get up.
Some of you may have noticed that her kid hasn’t made an appearance yet. That’s because the kid was much saner than his mother.
He just drove as fast as he could while still being in control. Which is great, I wish more people were like that. However, he then slowly approached me and his mother, crying because she had left him alone. The Karen, who at this point had sorted her limbs to a point of sitting normally (the way you do when you get up after a fall), yelled at him to shut up, which of course made him cry even more.
Then, the following dialog ensued, with the poor kid constantly crying in the background:
Karen: It’s all because of you! You almost killed my son!
Me: Excuse me, what are you talking about?
Karen: You are insane, you jumped down from there and you almost jumped on my son!
Me: You were all the way up there, if I hadn’t stopped because of your scream, I wouldn’t even be on the piste anymore.
Karen: No, it’s all your fault, you idiot snowboarder. (Goes on a rant on how awful and ruthless all snowboarders are)
Me: Yeah, whatever. I’ll leave you alone then.
Karen: No, you stay here, jerk.
Me: No, you’re incredibly rude and I don’t –
Karen: Shut up and give me your ski pass, you don’t deserve it, give it to my son.
I decide this is pointless and get up to go to my friends by going down the piste a few meters to gain speed and then going off in the deep snow.
However, that didn’t quite work. I was barely up when I feel something hitting my side causing me to fall, mainly from the shock I guess. Turns out she had thrown her stick at me.
Me: What?!
Karen continues to scream about me having to give her my pass.
Fortunately, I was finally at the edge of the piste, so I just crawled the last meter, turned so that my board was in the deep snow, and rode off. It was pretty steep where I went down, so I knew she couldn’t follow me.
And the best part?
I didn’t feel like returning the stick she threw at me, so I just took it with me for a few meters and left it in the middle of the mountainside.
The stick still was there several days later.”
11. Touch My Books? Have Some Gummy Bears
“Many moons ago, my friend Brenden lost his job, his significant other, Cammy, and his apartment in a span of about a month.
Brenden called everyone he could think of pleading with them to take him in. Originally I told him no however when everyone up to and including his family turned him down I relented and told him he could sleep on my couch until he found a job and place to live.
Unlike many people on Reddit ,Brenden was actually a decent apartment guest. He washed the dishes he used, kept his belongings in an orderly corner of my living room, and quickly found a job at a fast-food place so he could help out with the groceries and some of the bills.
Neither of us truly enjoyed living with one another but we made it work until Cammy decided that she loved Brenden and wanted him back and Brenden being a fool accepted.
When Brenden and Cammy had first started going out, Cammy decided she hated all of Brenden’s female friends and tried to keep us away.
When her dramatic tactics did not work on m,e Cammy decided we needed to have a brawl. To keep this short-ish Cammy got hurt, my knuckles were sore for a few days. and the words self-defense were used and accepted.
Due to our history, I told Brenden he could keep living with me but Cammy was not allowed into my apartment.
Sadly Brenden did not listen to me and the first time Cammy came over, she decided that my bookshelves needed a bit of reordering, the stack I had set aside to mend was rubbish and tossed out, and wouldn’t you know it I owned her favorite series so she needed it.
I’m not sure if any of you have a crazy book person in your life but as soon as I got home that night I noticed what had happened to my books. I calmly berated Brenden and told him he would be dumpster diving to retrieve the books that had been tossed and if Cammy did not return the series, I would be filing a police report and of course, he needed to leave.
With his head hung low Brenden complied with my demands, gathered his things, and left.
I was fuming so I called a mutual book lover and friend and told her about what had happened. She was furious as well and told me that she would have words with both Brenden and Cammy when they came over for a housewarming party she was having the next evening.
(I couldn’t attend due to work.) I giggled, laughed, and then asked if instead, I could make a housewarming treat for her though it would be better if she didn’t eat any. Confused but knowing me my friend agreed.
I rushed to the store, bought some booze, then stopped by a candy shop and bought a rather large number of sugar-free gummy bears, and when they were both combined took them over to my friend’s house to stew for the next day.
I warned my friend and cackling she said she’d make sure Cammy ate lots though she didn’t think it would be a struggle because Cammy loved booze and she loved gummy bears.
I heard through the grapevine a few weeks later that Brenden had dumped Cammy that night because when they were testing out the bed springs on Cammy’s new bed she just couldn’t hold her bowel movements.”
10. Our Mean Teacher And The Notebook Drama
“I had a teacher in middle school who was just a rude/mean lady.
She was extremely bossy it was her way or no way at all.
She made us get a composition notebook to write all assignments and notes in it for her class with a table of contents in front showing what assignments and notes are on what page.
Now don’t get me wrong I understand that some teachers want all their stuff in one folder or binder or notebook or whatever. But in her case, it was just her need to be bossy and make things complicated for the students.
Because all of our assignments and notes were in one composition notebook, we had to tear out some pages to turn them in to her to grade then she would have us staple them back into the notebook.
It was horrible and you couldn’t really study it because it was just a mess. Some people asked why we couldn’t use a folder or a binder instead of this notebook but the teacher said she liked the notebooks so we had to use them for her class.
Now I just want to say that I’m one of those people who like to have clean notes and organized stuff. If my notes are not organized and neat I have no motivation at all to study them or go over them or anything.
Basically, I would just write them down and never look at them again if they were messy.
Because we had to use the notebook and I still wanted to get good grades, I made copies of every assignment and note and put them in a separate binder for me to use/study.
It was a little tedious to make copies of everything in her class but it was the only solution I had to the problem.
My teacher eventually found out and scolded me for trying to ‘get around her rules’. I tried to explain that I needed/wanted to do this so that I would have the motivation to study.
I guess she got offended that her notebook was not motivational enough.
She made a big deal about it and called my parents and a meeting with the principal to discuss my ‘rude behavior’. She lied and said I was disruptive in class and didn’t want to follow the rules.
My parents tried to argue with her because I was a shy quiet kid. But the principal sided with the teacher, not us which I was not surprised by because my school is snooty and would ignore a lot of things. I got a write-up and had to agree to follow the teacher’s rules.
So I did…
I stopped making copies and using my binder. My good grades started falling further and further.
Another meeting with my parents and the principal was called to talk about my bad grades. I explained my reasoning and the situation with the notebook.
The teacher argued saying that I was probably a weirdo. The principal reprimanded her for using that type of language.
This time the principal actually listened to me. An investigation into the teacher and her classes began.
During the next couple of weeks, other teachers and administrators would visit the classroom on and off.
In the first few days, my teacher acted nice and was the ‘perfect teacher’ but I guess the act was too much for her and she started showing her true colors.
By the end of the investigation, it was proven that most of the students, if not all of them, were having problems in her class mostly because of her notebook.
She was forced to stop making us use the notebook and let us take notes and do assignments like any other class.
I still had problems with that teacher the whole time in middle school. Even if I wasn’t in her class anymore, she would see me in the halls and give me a mean nasty look.”
9. My Mom Is A "Career Terminator"
“We all were born and live in Poland, so some things work here differently than in other countries.
I and my brother both suffer from glaucoma, he is currently blind, but he had better eyesight than me when we were kids. Our mom is not perfect. She is in fact very imperfect. She can be selfish, petty, egoistic, annoying and she tends to forget everything wrong she did, but she will remember even the smallest slight against her, true or not, and will not forgive it.
She has some characteristics of a classic sociopath. But if anyone just touched her children, she would invite his own doom. Nothing has no fury like my mother’s anger. When it comes to wrath, Khan was a puppy when compared to our mother.
The first story happened when I was in 4th grade, at the end of May 1996.
I went to a school for the blind and visually impaired, as my left eye is broken. That year we had a new class and a new teacher, let’s call him Mr. Moron. The class was a combination of ‘How it works’, home improvement, and shop class.
It was in 1996, back then it was okay for 10-11yr old kids to use hand tools. Our teacher was young and in order to be more hip (or whatever you call that) with us, he threw at us one-liners from ‘1001 funny one-liners and insults’ booklets.
By this, he gave us permission to retaliate the same way. And we did, but because we were kids, not only were we better at this but also knew more biting responses. Because of the state of my sight, it’s very hard for me to recognize faces, and almost impossible to see if someone is happy, sad, or annoyed at me.
So one day I crossed the line and annoyed the teacher so much, he actually smacked me in the head. Hard. Side note: glaucoma increases dramatically the risk for retinal detachment, which can lead to blindness. And I already had one eye that didn’t work.
So I told it to my mom when she came to pick me up. My mom just straightened up, asked, who witnessed it (entire class of 9 students), she grabbed one of my classmates (he went pale when she did) and dragged us both to the principal’s office.
She barged in like Spanish Inquisition and asked our principal if he knew what happens in his school and if he liked to have a visit from some journalists from the local radio station. The principal asked, what it was about, and then she told me to tell the story, which I did promptly.
She then asked my friend:
‘Is it the truth, Kay (not his real name)?! Is it?!’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he mumbled, barely standing in front of God’s Wrath.
We were told to leave. Mr. Moron was asked to come in, and after a few minutes of yelling (my mother suggested that she would smack his head a few times), pleading (principal didn’t want to have media involved), and suggestions that the Board of Education for the province will be informed, the teacher left. Defeated and broken.
And he never returned. I think he became a cameraman for weddings.
The second story happened earlier, in November or December. My brother went to a normal, public school, he was in 8th grade. His English teacher (our second language) didn’t like him. His classmates didn’t either.
One day my brother couldn’t answer a grammar question. The teacher, let’s call her Ms. F, told his classmates that he needs a beating. Well, they assumed it was their homework, so as soon as classes ended, my brother was surrounded and beaten up by 6 or 7 of them, while the rest of the class watched.
I remember when he returned home that day, so defeated. My mom asked him, what happened, and when he told her, she ordered me to get dressed, she took care of my brother’s injuries, and we went back to his school 20 minutes later. My mother invited to the principal’s office both Ms. F, the class teacher (Ms. Incompetence), and the school counselor.
This time I stayed outside the office, but despite soundproof doors, I heard our mom yelling. The counselor was beaten with decibels for not doing his job, that is dealing with classmates not liking my brother for being visually impaired. The class teacher was declared an incompetent idiot for not seeing signs that the classmates wanted to beat my brother, but only needed a reason to do it.
Ms. F was informed that after her 15 years of experience she is still a mess-up and won’t teach anyone, anywhere. The Board of Education will be informed. The result was that Ms. F was dismissed disciplinarily and lost her right to teach. Ms. Incompetence had a permanent negative mark on her record.
The Board of Education was informed, and my brother was moved to my school. The principal was happy that she would never again have to face my mom…”
8. Lying Students Threatened To Get Me In Trouble
“I’m a teacher and a week ago, I gave my students a test according to the units of the book. Since I teach a beginner level of English, the tests (Google Forms, no surveillance) aren’t hard, and not many people take the class seriously.
Oh well, I have two students who we’ll call Stella and Josh for privacy reasons. Josh doesn’t like English and hardly participates in class, Stella is dedicated but doesn’t understand the subjects.
This is what happened: Stella finished the test first and sent the answers to four questions to Josh who submitted his test last in order to not raise suspicion.
When I was correcting the tests, I noticed his and her answers matched, even the mistakes. I contacted my supervisor and she told me to void both questions for both tests and tell them why.
After 10 minutes of results being delivered, Josh sends me a message telling me that he wants his score to be lowered and for me to give back Stella’s score because he had requested the answers.
I told him I couldn’t do that and he snapped, said he’d report me for being partial and that he secretly recorded all the online classes and would send a huge email with ‘proof’ to the coordination. I told him to go ahead but he figured out that he passed the subject even with a lowered score and I presume he just said ‘whatever’ and moved on.
His friend, however, couldn’t pass the class with her lowered score and kept pestering him to threaten me but he apparently started to ignore her so, she decided to send e-mails herself to solve her problem.
She didn’t know I already warned the coordination and they were more than prepared to handle her situation.
Here are the translated exchanges:
Stella: I’d like to have my test score reviewed. I did the test but now I feel prejudiced thanks to (my name)’s correction.
Coordination: What exactly happened? Why do you feel prejudiced? Please explain.
Stella: I got voided scores in four questions.
I feel very prejudiced. The teacher is biased.
Coordination: Why were the scores voided?
Stella: Please just fix the situation.
After that exchange, my boss got aware of the contents and contacted me. I explained everything (with proof!) and she burst out laughing and said ‘I know what to do’ and sent her an email.
Boss: Good morning Stella, I’m (my name)’s boss and I got ahold of your situation and I found a solution for you. Since you want your test reviewed, you are going to do another test, handwritten and under surveillance with another teacher to make sure there is no bias with the corrections.
Have a good day!
My boss requested the other teacher to make a harder test since she had time to study more and Stella has sent me a ‘screw you’ and blocked me on the messaging platform we use to communicate.”
7. Everyone Got Their Stuff Back And The Thief Lost All Of His Friends
“So this all occurred when I was 18 years old, I was a pretty immature person at that time in my life, and I’m writing this from my perspective at this age.
At this point, I would have handled the situation differently. But had I done that, it wouldn’t have ended so satisfactorily.
This is a story about a smoking object I had stolen from me. At the time, I didn’t have a lot of money and I had spent close to $300 on it.
I lived with my grandparents and they didn’t mind me smoking but did not want me to do it in the house. The house was very old and had an attached decaying barn where I stored said object in a hidden room (the house and barn were absolutely massive and there were a lot of hidden rooms and areas that you really had to look for to find.)
I frequently had my cousin, we’ll call him Corey, and a mutual friend, Ray over to hang out in the barn, smoke, do whatever. Ray has a reputation as a kleptomaniac and was 3 years younger than me. I had known him for a few years at this point, and any trust I had for him was stupid and misplaced because I knew what kind of kid he was.
One night, around midnight, I was with Corey in the barn when he had to leave and go home. We said our goodbyes and I remained in the barn until maybe 2 am before going inside. As I left the barn and was on my way to the front door, it suddenly started torrentially downpouring out of nowhere, no longer than maybe 30 seconds.
(This is important to remember.)
I get up the next morning to find my object had been stolen. Now the only 3 people who knew of the location of it were me, Corey, and Ray. Corey had an alibi as he went home with his family and was there the whole night after he left the barn.
Between that and Ray’s history, it was obvious who had done it, but that didn’t help me as he was a minor and I knew he would deny it if confronted. So I call Corey, explain, and he comes over to help me come up with a plan.
We knew a few locations where Ray used to stash his stolen items, so after thoroughly checking his safe spots, we opted to go talk to him. Now I’m trying to play it smart because I want my things back.
We entered the house, started talking as we normally would, and I casually mentioned that my stuff had gone missing, to which Ray replied ‘Aw man, that really sucks.
Well, I have something that might cheer you up!’ and proceeded to bring us to a trail where he presented 3 plants to us. We knew he hadn’t been growing these, so I asked him where he got them. ‘I stole them last night!’ he promptly replied, proud of what he had accomplished. As the discussion went on, he said he and a friend had walked 3 miles up the road to take them, walking them all the way through town right on the main road, somehow not being caught.
He also mentioned a brief rainstorm that absolutely soaked them while they were transporting these plants.
So now I know he’s out stealing that night, and I had a timeframe as to when he was out doing this, indicated by the rainstorm. But this still wasn’t enough and I still had no chance of convincing him to return it.
So Corey and I took matters into our own hands.
The next night, Corey and I went out and stole the 3 plants. I’m not as brazen a person as Ray, so it took some coordination in order to move them to where we needed them without being right on the main road a mile from the police station.
But we managed it and hid them in yet another hidden room in the barn that Ray was unaware of. My plan was to call him on stealing my stuff and use the plants as leverage, knowing he would value them far more than my stuff.
The next morning, however, opportunity struck.
I woke up and walked outside to find a cop parked at the end of the trail where the plants had been hidden. Now I knew the cop was there to watch speeders, as this was a well-known area people got caught speeding, but Ray didn’t need to know that.
I called Ray and Corey to meet at Ray’s house, telling Ray to stay away from the trail as the cops had found the plants.
At Ray’s house, we spent a good couple of hours discussing the situation, Ray still not knowing I was on to him or that I had actually taken possession of the plants.
A new guy came running into the house, we’ll call him Ed. Ed approached Ray and tells him ‘Johnny’s outside waiting in the car, he knows you took his plants and he’s ANGRY.’
Ray is visibly disturbed by this and immediately leaves, telling us he’ll be right back.
Corey tells me he knows this new guy, Johnny, I guess he was a local dealer and had quite a reputation around town. After waiting a while and looking around, unable to find the object, I decide I’m not sitting here and I leave.
On my walk home, a car pulls up next to me. Johnny’s in the driver’s seat, Ed in the passenger seat, and Ray in the back. Start talking to Johnny, and he asks if I know where his plants are. Opting to try and get more info, I tell him, no, but ask if I could catch a ride.
During the tense ride back, I mentioned my object had been stolen a few days ago too. Johnny immediately replies, without hesitation ‘yeah that was this kid,’ pointing at Ray ‘he was bragging about it to me the other day.’
Well now ,the cat’s out of the bag and it seems I’ve lost my opportunity to get more information discreetly.
After a quick argument, I get dropped off at my house, and the other three go their own way.
Now I didn’t hold my tongue about the plants because I wanted to keep them. To me, they were a hassle and I only wanted my object back.
So after waiting a few hours to ensure Ray was not with them anymore, I got Johnny’s number from Corey and gave him a call, telling him I had his plants and was going to give them to him, all I needed was to know what he knew about my stuff.
10 minutes later Johnny and Ed arrived with Corey, and I gave Johnny his plants. After loading up the plants into his car, Johnny said to me ‘Since you got my stuff back to me, let me make a call, and see what I can do for you.’ We all watched as Johnny called Ray, who was unaware that he had his plants back, scolding him out over stealing his plants once again.
‘We both know you took my plants, and we both know you took that guy’s stuff, and I’ve got nothing in my hands now because you lost them to the cops, so now I want that stuff.’
15 minutes later, Johnny arrived with my stuff, we shook hands, and never saw each other again.
Months later, while out working, I got a call from Ray. Things hadn’t been going well for him, as he had lost all his friends over this event. He told me he was sorry for stealing my stuff, and he was working and wanted to make it right by giving me the $300 I spent on it since he didn’t know I had it back.
I didn’t end up taking the money, as that phone call was satisfaction enough.”
6. Their Neighbors' Kids Won't Play With Their Children
“Last year Thanksgiving a group of us were together and a 30-something couple were talking about how much they were screwing over the owner of their soon-to-be new house. They had negotiated back and forth for a low price, had asked for several contingencies, had nickel and dimed every last thing they could out of the inspection.
At one point the new owner had even threatened to walk away from the deal. They were pretty ‘proud’ of their tactics and ‘how great’ their realtor was.
One of the over 55 people finally laughed and said, ‘you aren’t going to come out ahead like you think you are – there are consequences for your actions.
Trust me, the seller always wins.’
She then told the story of her first house. She and her husband saved and scraped for years before they were able to buy a 100 year old fixed upper. This was in the 1990s and interest rates were higher.
They bought during a seller’s market. A major employer in their town closed/relocated. The town was plunged into a recession. No jobs, people moved away and housing prices dropped. Four years later she and her husband are getting a divorce. It is now a buyer’s market.
Their house sits on the market for over a year. Finally, they get an offer. The buyer’s realtor was related to them and was a shrew. The offer was less than what they paid for the house – and they had made several costly upgrades.
The buyer tried asking for several changes and cashback at closing. After they did the inspection, they kept demanding things to be done. They started with all the lower cost things – new smoke detectors, snaking a drain, and every two to three days, it was something else they wanted to be done.
Finally, she and her husband had to tell her realtor they had no money left – they couldn’t afford what the buyer was asking for and they had no choice but to let the buyer out of the contract. The buyer backed off the repairs but then wanted a couple of pieces of furniture that were family antiques.
When that didn’t work, they wanted a lower price. She and her ex were about one step from a nervous breakdown and were convinced the buyers would walk. She told a few more stories about how the buyers and inspector were late an hour for the inspection, they brought their dogs in the house (she was very allergic), the dogs peed and pooped in an area that had new carpet, etc.
She lived in a state where buyers and sellers all meet around a table in a lawyer’s office for closing at the same time. Roughly an hour before that meeting, the sellers and realtor do a final walk-thru. The night (well, early morning, while it was still dark) before closing she dumped around 100 gallons/30 pounds of saltwater on the grass and bushes.
She turned down the temperature on the water heater. She replaced toilet paper rolls with almost empty ones.
The next morning she and a very good friend sat half a block away and waited for them to finish the inspection. Once they left, the friend went into the house.
She waited a few minutes and drove to the closing. The new owners were about ten minutes early to the signing and she was about five minutes late. She was very slow about signing the papers and a couple of times asked to have things repeated.
While she was signing things, her friend was removing a couple of boards in the attic and adding a mama mouse and her new litter to the attic. He also removed some latticework and threw a termite’s nest (?) under the front porch. Then he sprayed some sugar water around the coal chute and exterior underground room/cellar entrance.
Even she knew turning down the temperature on the water heater was petty, but she also hoped that even the one cold shower would start their day off lousy.
She moved out of the area, but a year later when she was visiting, the grass had not recovered. She noticed the attic windows had all been replaced and a couple of old huge trees were trimmed back.
Three years later, there was a new front porch – this was an old house with a wrap-around front porch, so no cheap fix. She later heard the people who bought the house lost it through bankruptcy in less than five years.
Fast forward to this year at Thanksgiving.
We were smaller in number, but the same couple was there. They were a bit deflated. While the previous owners didn’t do anything quite as bad as the woman in her 50’s, it was a pretty tight-knit neighborhood. All of the neighbors had heard blow-by-blow details of their negotiation tactics.
They were very cool to them upon meeting and even a year later they don’t feel very welcome. The neighbors will gather in the street and visit (Now with some distancing). Whenever they try to walk over and join the conversation, the group breaks up.
They don’t think it’s ‘fair’ that the neighborhood kids don’t play with their kids. One of the more blunt neighbors told the husband, ‘Your child is welcome to play with my kids in my house. But, I don’t want my kids around you.’ They are considering moving again.
They aren’t bad people, but it reminded me that buying a house may be a business transaction. But, like the woman said, ‘there are consequences for every action.’”
5. She Went Behind My Back So I Ruined Her Life
“I work for a company where I travel a lot with my stepbrother. A few months ag,o I convinced my significant other to hop on with us. We have a long chain of command but I am their direct boss. This job also does sobriety tests.
My significant other joined up with us and was able to complete 2 jobs (each job site being 3 months long) with us. I noticed something off with her halfway through the first job. She was constantly going over to my stepbrother’s hotel room to smoke with him (I don’t do that so she couldn’t smoke with me).
After the completion of the first job, I knew something was definitely going on and confronted her about it. She brushed it off as me being jealous. A few days ago she was forced to tell the truth or her best friend would tell me.
She had been two-timing me with multiple different guys at each job site, one of them being my stepbrother.
As soon as I heard this I began seeing red. I instantly started plotting my revenge. I called up my boss and told them that my ex and my stepbro lied on their sobriety test. They were retested and failed. Both of them lost their jobs.
Next, I left an anonymous tip to the police about their less-than-legal habits (lone star state carries a heavy penalty/fine for this stuff). They got busted and charged with a misdemeanor. Now for the finale. I informed her family of her actions and they completely shut her out (they liked me more).
Now they are both thousands of miles from home, with no job, no money, she can’t afford the payments on her brand new car, a criminal charge, and she has nowhere to go home to.”
4. I Made The Gold Digger Pay Her Own Bill
“I live in China, yesterday I was offered to go out with this girl whom I met on the internet who lives in Shanghai. She wanted to go out, I had nothing planned for that day, figured why not.
After I met up with her, we walked around, everything was going well.
She asked if I had lunch or breakfast, I didn’t, she said ‘I know a place nearby we can eat.’
After we got to the place, I order some shrimp and some orange juice, she got some fish, prawns, oysters, crab, and later got some clams. (which at this point cost about 3,000 RMB, which equals roughly $400)
Every 15 minutes or so she would order 4 more glasses of booze and I think later she ordered some clams on top of that. All together she ordered around 15 or so shots and the price came to 6999rmb (over $1000).
Before I go on let me just remind people this is in downtown Shanghai, 1 slice of pizza costs around 60 RMB.
I can get a 12inch pizza in my small town for that. For anyone who has lived or been to Shanghai, plenty of things here are super expensive.
After that, she mentioned wanting to go to a karaoke and dance (I’m frankly appalled that she has the nerve to ask me to do anything else after that) so we go.
I’m thinking, I’m going to get this woman.
So we arrive after I say 10 minutes and here comes her friend. She (the gold digger) orders a bottle of fine booze (around 3,000rmb) her friend orders some sparkling booze (1,100 RMB) I got some common booze.
I told her ‘I’ll be right back, I need to ask the bartender a question’ (the karaoke has a bar too).
I asked him, I didn’t order the bottles, I will not be paying for that, my drink I will. Luckily the guy was understanding of it.
Here comes the gold digger, asking what I’m doing, I said, I’m paying for my drink. She said, are you going to pay for the 2 bottles? I said: ‘No, I didn’t order those.’
At that moment, I think she knew I’d caught on to her scheme and frantically said ‘Here, I’ll pay half and you pay half.’ I see she put in 2,400 RMB to the bartender.
I stood my ground and said, “I’m not paying that. I didn’t want that.” After literally 5 minutes of telling her that. She went back to her seat, I pay 60rmb for my drink. I went to be pettier and talk with the girls. She mentioned she doesn’t have the dough to pay for the drink, I said not my problem, I didn’t want that, I’m not your sugar daddy.
Then she said ‘if you can’t pay for that, I have to get another friend to help’ in the corner of my eye I look at her friend that came in earlier, she had that awkward look on her face that she didn’t have any dough on her either.
Her last attempt to have me pay was on the promise of hooking up, (which she wasn’t going to do even if I did) I said, ‘Oh gawd Nah’ and walked out.
At that moment, I pulled out my phone and removed her from my WeChat (it’s a messaging app).
So for her attempt to have a night on the town at my expense, she had to pay a 4,000 RMB bill (about $600) that she couldn’t pay, and had to resort to getting another friend to help her out. She’s going to have a rough time smoothing that over.
Under any circumstance probably ruined their relationship after that. Or if she is lucky she is going to pay off the bar by working there for a while.”
3. Backyard Football Ended Well For Me
“My friends and I were playing backyard football (by backyard I just mean 2 hand touch at a high school field) but we only had five people so we had someone on all-time offense.
Not to toot my own horn but everyone knows I’m the best so I played all-time offense. Each team got 6 drives cause that’s how much we had time for.
So later the score was 3-2. I had scored 1 receiving touchdown and 1 passing.
Then my friend throws to my other friend right to his chest and instead of catching it, he tips it up in the air. His brother (who was guarding him) just easily picks it off. So the kid who picked it thinks he’s a hot deal and is talking nonsense to his brother.
His brother punches him in the shoulder so he starts being a baby and says he punched him in the throat (which he didn’t, we all saw) so we’re all calling him a baby.
So then out of nowhere, he singles me out and points out about the 1 time I smoked. (I’m in 8th grade by the way and there are kids who have done much worse.) He says I’ll end up doing illegal things in a corner when I’m an adult.
So I think to myself I can do 2 things: I can go over there and kick him then we stop playing football and it’s fun for no one (and I could have easily kicked him we’re the same height but I’m 135lbs he’s 90lbs) or I just play football and use that as motivation.
Like I said I was on all-time offense so I was on his team some of the time but that being said, I then scored 5 touchdowns in a row while he scored 0. Every time I scored, I said there’s 1 there’s 2, etc. so at the end of the game I had scored 5 receiving touchdowns 1 rushing, and 1 passing 7 in total out of 10 (because each team had 5 offensive drives cause we each got stopped once before the score was 3-2).
I walked away dropped the ball at his feet and said: ‘you’re right only a kid who smokes could score 7 out of 10 touchdowns in a single game wait, how many did u score?’ Then rode my bike home.”
2. He Thought He Could Leave Us With Nothing But He Was Wrong
“All this started a couple of months ago with an incident between my parents. It’s important to note I still live with them but have been working and providing for myself since graduating in the summer and am fully self-sufficient.
My father has always been an abusive person, albeit one who did support his family at the time, but due to his lack of self-control and outbreaks, the situation was more often tense than not. Especially between him and I as the power began to shift and I stopped relying on him.
So yeah, a couple of months ago, my mother gave him the silent treatment for about two weeks when he decided to get physical again, this time against me, which resulted in a bigger fight. In the process, my younger sister’s shoulder got hurt, my mother got hurt, and I called the cops.
He was arrested that day and had a restraining order filed against him for ten days. All temporary as the police over here, in Switzerland, tend to avoid stepping in more than necessary and did this for our protection while leaving us to make further decisions.
An important thing to note is that my mother has always been a stay-at-home mom, especially since my sister is still underage and she doesn’t have a formal education to make much money in this country. So for her divorce was more something like a last resort, and she attempted to try and get a family counseling/couples therapy setup, which didn’t turn out so well at which point we got her a lawyer and began the proceedings.
I also studied law myself to an extent before going into my current field, so a lot of what happened here I was well equipped for which did make things easier.
This is where the part starts. Our family has been pretty well off ever since I can remember, so my sister and I both have had somewhere in the ballpark of 150K each saved up for our schooling, first cars, etc. Half of this money was put into accounts in our name, while our parents could still access them, the dough was legally ours.
The other half was put into accounts in our grandparent’s names in the US for logistical reasons.
The day of the first court hearings I was in the progress of transferring said account fully into my name, as I was expecting something like what did end up happening to happen.
Later when the transfer succeeded, I found out almost all the money up to a fairly round number was transferred to my father’s locked pension plan. This was a surprise to me, as to my knowledge until then only my mother was supposed to have direct access to it, while my father would have had to have the bank card, which I knew was with us.
So after some checking, I found out my mother wasn’t fully aware of when she had signed forms that gave him access, but more on that later…
As I was now down on a big chunk of money, part of it was the literal income I had been saving, it was time to get my own lawyer.
In addition to this transfer, back when we were building our house, my father took a loan from my account which was understood to be a mutual agreement, and him paying me back at a given time. Knowing a little about how his lawyer operated, the number of offenses he potentially had to his name, and the fact that my mother and sister were now open to pressing charges against him if it came to it, I had a feeling that this would end up in an out of court agreement.
I set up a meeting with my lawyer and collected as much evidence as possible regarding the transactions and ownership of the account. While my father did have the legal papers to manage my account, in Switzerland that means any action is meant to be taken in my best interest. His pension plan doesn’t concern me, so any reasonable judge would rule in my favor.
Additionally, my mother’s lawyer became aware of the situation, as she legally represented my sister as well, who lost a similar amount due to the same thing. Before I even met my lawyer he and my mother’s lawyer discussed the situation and managed to create a good picture of it.
So finally, the first meeting. I discussed the situation with my lawyer. As my father assaulted me, I had the option to press charges, as well as request for damages made, and possibly sue him. But to this day it’s hard for me to say if I’d have managed to get all of it back with that method, as courts would have trouble recognizing his debt to me from the house loan and not to mention the insane costs involved with starting a legal case against someone in your own family.
Knowing my father, I also knew that he wouldn’t shy away from spending thousands of dollars to protect himself in court with better lawyers which was exactly why my lawyer figured it’d be better to come to a settlement as I certainly had more I could use against my father than vice-versa.
The only difference is that this way I might get a lot more out of it.
At this point, I’d like to note that my grandparents had officially cut myself, my mother, and my sister out because they didn’t agree with the decision for us to stay away from my father.
They insisted on the need for family therapy, whereas we had already decided there was no point and my mother was divorcing him while I decided to get a lawyer and fight for myself. My father also managed to allegate that I had hit him on the day of the incident, which was another reason for me to make sure that no one could claim I accepted that statement for the obvious lie it was.
Since my grandparents cut me out, I could say goodbye to that half of the already. No way to sue for it, nor was I legally entitled to it so the bank couldn’t do much. This is where it gets interesting, though.
My lawyer created a whole list of things we could use against my father.
Ranging from the recent incident to cases from the past that I had written up when this all started, as well as using statements from my old teachers and my therapist to create the skeleton for a case that would certainly get expensive. The whole point of this was to have a solid foundation on which we could then approach my father’s attorney, and suggest a settlement for the cash taken out of my account recently, as well as him returning the loan for the house.
He was hesitant at first, and even suggested to my mother that she and he would together pay off a small part of it over time as a ‘compromise’, but that clearly wasn’t an option for me.
After hearing this, I contacted my lawyer once again and had him double down on our very specific demands, that we wanted to agree with $50K, in exchange I would drop the charges and leave him alone.
This also meant in return he would have to let go of the claims that I hit him, essentially closing the case for both parties. There was also a deadline for me to continue with the case, leaving him 3 more days to consider it.
Luckily, the whole thing seemed to be a game of chicken, with him waiting until the night before the deadline to finally agree to our request. His lawyer contacted us, and eventually wrote an email, saying that they agreed with the requests and would be glad to sign a contract on the matter.
Making it up to my lawyer now to write up the contract and end the whole deal. A funny part about this whole exchange was my father’s statements that were part of the email to us, claiming that they had just as much of a case against me, and could press charges if they so pleased, listing a bunch of things I had allegedly done that would warrant a countersuit.
In the end, seeing that they agreed to pay me all that money, I’m quite sure those statements were just to show that they weren’t afraid more than anything else, really. Since if they truly believed the allegations they would have just proceeded with the case.
Now a couple of days later I received the transaction for all the that we agreed on, and the case is officially over for me. The irony of it all is, my grandparents, cut me out and probably encouraged my father to do what he did regarding the last bit I had left to my name.
In the end, all the money that was in the US was the money my father used to pay me back since the pension plan he paid the money into was locked, and he had no other quick financial means to reach the settlement.
So a big chunk of money went down the drain on a lawyer, and most of the saved for me ended up with me. The part that landed in the pension plan even came with its own benefits, as my parents are still married, my mother gets 50% of it in the divorce.
All of this did come at a cost. My mental health has suffered a lot from all this, and I’ve never been so burnt out. Not only that, I need more psychiatric attention than ever, and my relationship with my father’s side of the family is forever ruined. So while that last part was necessary, they were toxic, manipulative, and abusive, and picking his side after all the incidents they knew about, and also knowing that there was more they didn’t know about, the mental toll these things take on a person can affect your entire life.
This is why I once again want to stress that if anyone out there is going through anything remotely similar, please reach out to people you can trust, contact the authorities, or something like that. You don’t need to be stuck in that situation for as long as I was, which is a whole ‘nother story…”
1. They Bullied A Kid And Blamed Me
“This is a story from my time at my uni LGBT center. There are a lot of characters, but the most important ones are me, Aleph (A guy on the autism spectrum), Brittany (a really mean guy), Charlie (the incompetent director), and Ducky (another catty gay guy).
A couple of side characters are Olimar (my friend) and Louie (employee at the center).
So one day I’m sitting down at the center and Aleph points out a guy walking by. This center had a bunch of student workers (including Brittany) there because they had a weekly meeting soon.
One of them made a joke about getting him some water and it became a whole thing. For like half an hour, they were joking and making innuendos while Aleph was asking if they were making fun of him, saying he had no idea what was happening.
At this point, I had to leave anyway, and sensing that Aleph was in some sort of emotional pain I said ‘Aleph they’re offering you water because they think you’re acting thirsty.’
Big mistake. All the student workers ganged up on me and started yelling at me.
Now I was angry, so I stormed off to the library. On my way there, I ran into Charlie and explained what happened, and how I got the shaft. After a couple of days, my friend Olimar told me that the incident came up at that meeting.
All the student workers threw me under the bus, lying about what happened. So I went back there, saw that Charlie was out, and talked to Louie instead, again explaining what happened and specifically saying the student workers lied about what happened.
The student workers weren’t punished at all.
Instead, they were told at the next meeting that the events of those meetings had to be kept confidential. Since Olimar was the only person there known to be my friend, he was basically known to be the snitch and locked out of the clique.
Meanwhile, I was accidentally dropped from a bunch of mailing lists for events at the center, and my therapist mysteriously moved my appointments to the main therapy area, meaning it was harder for me to get sessions booked. I got the message and stopped going there for the rest of the year.
That was my senior year. I graduated, started grad school, and found a much healthier community. Then one night after an inadvisable number of drinks, I went on my college confessions page and wrote out my side, anonymizing all the names, submitted it, and knocked it out.
I had known that most of the people there had graduated, and Charlie had moved to a job in a different state. I thought it’d get a few comments, maybe some hateful homophobes calling to defund the center, and that’d be it.
It turns out Charlie’s replacement was competent, and actually cared for the students he was in charge of.
He spoke to Louie, the only remaining person from that day still working there. Louie gave the student worker’s side but named me and Olimar. Olimar had stopped working there but was in his senior year. The replacement managed to get to talk to Olimar, and reached out to me via e-mail.
I gave my side and got a response with an apology for my treatment there. I wasn’t allowed to know what steps would be taken next, but I did notice a few things that happened within the next month:
I have no idea what happened to Aleph, he never had social media.
Brittany was expelled from his grad school program. Everything else is the most unbelievable part of this story: He would later go on to reach out to Olimar with a few very sensual messages with some weird racist undertones. We read and laughed over them while splitting a bottle of booze, took screenshots, removed the name, and uploaded them to a meme page.
Brittany actually commented on it about how messed up ‘straight people’ were and how he’d ‘never say anything like that to his LGBTQ+ siblings’. Olimar and I both gave laugh reactions to his comment, and I got blocked by him.
Charlie accepted a new job at a much smaller college and stopped posting about how he and his husband were going through the adoption process.
He has a cute dog now though, so I guess he’s doing OK.
Olimar got a letter of recommendation from Charlie’s replacement, and put that into getting his first job out of uni.
Louie was fired that week. I knew he was using the job as a way to get into a very competitive social work program but instead moved in with his parents.
Last I heard, he just managed to start at a different social work program, and I don’t know if it was worse but I do know it’s at a smaller, less important college.
Finally, the clique itself seems to have been dissolved. None of them comment on each others’ posts, they stopped posting to Instagram every Friday about going to the same gay bar.
The final nail in the coffin was a long, rambling email written to me by Ducky, saying that I should’ve let the whole thing die down, asking if I fancied myself ‘the Indiana Jones of digging up dead truths’ (yes, a direct quote, and yes the only time any of them came close to owning up).
An entire paragraph was devoted to how lonely he was after the clique (they had their own clique name, think like the Ashleys from Recess) dissolved. I forwarded that email to the dean of students (he was in grad school), highlighting the threats of racial slurs.
I never heard back from them and in the seven years since I’ve never heard from or seen any member of that clique.”
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