People Talk About How They Got Untameable Revenge
22. Neighbor Finally Gets Revenge On Her Hateful Daughter
“Margret is this sweet late 70s woman who lives on my street. My street is sparsely populated, her house is roughly 800meters from mine, and there’s a total of 5 houses on my rural street so lots of space.
I met Margret when I first built my house.
She was the first and only person to come say hi. She brought us a lemon pie.
When my husband passed away she was the first person to check on me. She even made it to the hospital before my mom did. She’s just a really great person.
After my husband passed I would visit her a lot. After the first visit, I noticed she never really had any food in her fridge and I assumed she was not doing well financially. I would go over once or twice a week with prepared meals with the excuse I cooked too much.
It wasn’t untrue I always cook too much but I wanted to make sure she was eating because she is such a sweet woman.
Well during one of my visits I had dropped off some food and a car pulled up and her ‘daughter’ walked in.
I excused myself and went home. I didn’t want to be a third wheel.
At this point, I had known Margret since 2015. I didn’t know she had any kids.
Well, I went back over when I saw the car leave and I went to make us some tea and opened the fridge to grab some milk I dropped off with the meals… Everything was gone including my plates.
Her daughter had taken everything.
Well, we got to talking and I found out that her daughter had been handling her finances for several years, paying her bills and taking charge of all her pension payments.
So Margret worked for general electric for years and had her CPP.
She let me go through her old payments and she had no bills. Her house was paid off and she was supposed to be getting a total of $4500 a month in pension payments. There is no way that she should have been in any financial hardships.
Her power bill was only $80 a month.
I went on to find out her daughter canceled her phone, internet, TV, and car insurance. She couldn’t even drive.
Well after a bit of talking she accepted me calling a social worker friend of mine because there was some obvious elder abuse going on.
Within 24hrs we had her daughter locked out of her bank account, her pension checks direct deposited, everything and I made up my mind to keep a close eye on her house in case her daughter came back.
Not even a week later I see that car roll up to Margaret’s house so I decided to go for a walk to check in on Margret.
Right at the top of her driveway, I can see into her front window and what I saw made me take out my phone to call the police, and start recording.
Her daughter was slapping, hitting, and just beating Margret.
(Before you judge me) Why didn’t I rush in to stop it?
Well, I am what you call super tiny. I am only 4 foot 8 inches and 80lbs… To be truthful it’s not hard to toss me around like a rag doll. For my safety, it was better for me to wait for the police.
Well her daughter was arrested and Margret ended up staying with me and my family from mid-May to the end of September.
Now the whole story gets super long so I am going to do a quick rundown of what happened.
Her daughter was arrested and the RCMP got involved. Her daughter had been stealing from Margret for at least the last 5 years. Her daughter had taken over $250,000 from her bank and almost the entirety of her pension payments over $50,000 a year.
It gets better. Her daughter’s son was involved with it and after investigations he was arrested and charged.
Well, everything finished up in October. Both of them got 2+years in prison and a no-contact order.
Margret was able to recover 200k and is getting her pension payments and is much happier.
But that’s not where the real revenge is. Margret’s house is worth over 2million and those two idiots are going to get out of prison with nothing.
But Margret met with an estate lawyer and she wanted to add me into her will. I said no no no I have more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of time.
Well, she wrote her will to give everything to a charity called Covenant House, it’s a shelter for women.
Oh yeah, she did leave her daughter and grandson something in the will. They both get a whopping $0.01.
Margret sent a copy of it to her daughter and her daughter’s kid in jail attached to a Christmas card and a letter saying Merry Christmas.
I took her to the post office today to mail it.
So yeah that’s the story of Margret’s revenge. Those two idiots are sitting in jail and will come out to nothing and will get absolutely nothing from her mother’s estate.
Honestly, Margret is one of the sweetest women I have ever met.
My mom moved to a place on my street and they are like best friends.”
21. If You Need The Key, Just Ask
“Once upon a time I ran a union demolition crew at a power plant in rural West Virginia. During a particularly difficult portion of the project, my crew was assigned to work inside of the burner room; removing the concrete casing. At the same time, welders were working nearby, in that same coal-dust encrusted cavern of metal.
Well, one day, I guess this welder got bored. So, while I had my crew working in one spot, he climbed the scaffold, working about 30 feet above us. This dropped sparks directly on us constantly.
So, being the diplomatic boss I am, I climbed up the scaffold, got the guy’s attention, and asked him how long he needed to be in that spot.
He acted oblivious to his fiery droppings and our existence in general. He told me he’d be done in 30 minutes or so.
Since it would take a while, and, since union crews don’t normally just sit idly by, I moved my crew to the other side of the structure and started working again.
It wasn’t 10 minutes before that same welder started shooting sparks on us again.
I got confrontational with him, moved my crew; wash, rinse and repeat for the remainder of the day.
I decided this was going to end one way or the other.
The Skid Loader (BobCat) operator had to leave every day at 3 pm.
Since I was certified, and he was a friend of mine, I grabbed the key from him that afternoon ‘just in case we need to clear a space with it’.
That particular welder was well known throughout the local unions as a guy who ditched the end of the day to avoid cleanup.
And, like most slackers on the site; he ducked into a porta-john to wait out the last hour of each day.
Well, I watched closely as he went into the middle john of a row of 13 of them lined up neatly across the side of the building.
After a couple of minutes, I took the skid loader and pressed that john (and one on each side of it) firmly against the building. I turned off the little BobCat, took the key, and went to my car to watch the show; all the while ignoring his screams for help.
It took a while, but people eventually came to his aid. Since no one else had a key to the Skid Loader, they used the boom truck (a small, portable crane) and tried to pull the BobCat backward. Since I had locked it down tight with the anchoring gear, they soon gave up.
Their only other alternative was to pull the johns out. The first, just to the right of my victim’s, popped out quite easily. Then, they hooked to the top of his john, they pulled and pulled and the little BobCat held tight. Until suddenly, his john flew out from between the machine and building, landing hard on its side, covering him in blue liquid, urine, and turds.
Once he crawled out, I walked down the hill, looked at him and laughed, and said ‘dang, I didn’t know anybody was in there during cleanup. If you guys needed the key all you had to do was ask, you didn’t need to make a mess like this.’ I threw the key to a supervisor on the scene and laughed all the way back to my crew.
And he never showed up on a job site where I was stationed again.”
20. Crushing On My Man? At Least Be Respectful
“My friend’s younger sister blatantly had a crush on my significant other (now hubby) many years ago… not frequently but on occasion, she would come over with my friend for BBQs or go out for drinks, etc. Because she was always polite and friendly to me I never had a problem and thought it was funny given my man did nothing to encourage it and mostly ignored her.
The problem arose when she began to very obviously ignore and snub me, and get handsy with my man. For example, we bumped into her in town one day and after a massive hug, she introduced my man to each person and not only didn’t introduce me but ignored me completely.
This crossed a huge line with me so it was no more miss nice gal… firstly I began to ignore her just as thoroughly. Alternately if she was making silly comments to try to show off, I’d light-heartedly correct her or poke holes in her theories, etc subtlety highlighting what an airhead she was being, but always directed as just group discussion never directly to her as I was ignoring her… This would’ve been particularly hurtful as everyone else would laugh and she very quickly stopped trying to show off.
But the biggest kicker was at our friend’s engagement party… by which point it was fairly obvious to her I was over her nonsense. She approached our table (of whom she only knew my man and me, remembering she’d ignored me for the better part of a year) with an old friend I hadn’t seen in years, and they both said ‘hi, how are you?’ directly to me… I only responded to the old friend and had a 10-minute chat with them, blatantly ignoring her as she sat there very quiet and subdued. The whole table was completely silent and openly stared… I am known for being nice to everyone, not just polite but kind and attentive and caring.
These people couldn’t believe I’d so openly snub someone and knew I’d have a good reason for it. They were literally in shock.
The few times we’ve seen her since she will meekly say hi to me first then hubby, to which we both reply nicely then move on.”
19. Quiet Neighbor Got Into A War Of Poo
“There was a really quiet meek guy who lived near me and a neighbor would constantly let their dog poo on his front lawn. He tried all the normal things like pepper on the lawn, motion sprinklers, little signs, etc, etc.
The dog owner didn’t care and continued letting his dog poo on the man’s lawn.
Then one day, the man was pushed too far… the next part of the story came from a decorator I know.
What happened was the guy got so mad he mashed up and liquidized his OWN POO and made a watery enough substance that he put into a super soaker.
He followed the man home and then returned in the middle of the night and emptied it through the man’s letterbox. The impact: splatter hit the walls, hallway, stairs, and ceiling and even reached into the kitchen at the end of the hallway.
Apparently, the stench was HORRENDOUS.
”
18. Thank You For Warning Me, I'll Let People Know About Your Threats
“I had a neighbor at the back fence who has since moved. She and other members of her family were not good neighbors in any sense of the word, to anyone around them. However, they seemed to take a special dislike to our family.
One time, I was out walking with my dog on the street, and the neighbor drove up so close to me in her four-wheel-drive ute that I thought she would run over me.
She had another woman as a passenger. She began yelling at me very abusively and was threatening to physically harm me and our family and my dog. The abuse included a large number of swear words.
I just stood there on the grass, listening in disbelief.
When she finally stopped to draw breath, I quietly thanked her for letting me know that she was threatening me and planning attacks on me, as I felt better prepared knowing about this. I asked her if she thought it would be a wise idea for me to let the police know about her threats.
Of course, each time I said something like this calmly, she would rant on even more. The threats even extended to threats of harming my dog. In any small gap in her rant, I continued to thank her for letting me know of her threats so that I could be forewarned. I ended up calmly saying that it was helpful as I could let people know of this in case something violent did happen to me.
Police would know where to look.
Throughout this, her friend sat in the vehicle with her and did look rather incredulous about it all. She eventually drove off. She would not have expected my approach at all, and really did not know what to do.”
17. Revenge Is A Dish Best Served SOILED
“I first met Sarah at a yoga class in the summer of 2016. Never in my life did I think I would see myself going to something like that… the silly spandex, the holier-than-thou attitude, the way everyone talked to each other like they were on cloud nine.
It’s not something I ever imagined myself doing but when I hurt my back after falling from a first-floor roof at work, I decided to give it a shot on the recommendation of my back masseuse and found a hall in my city doing beginner yoga classes.
When the day to go came and I walked through the door I instantly stuck out like a sore thumb. Everyone was standing around talking dressed to the nines in their best yoga gear, while I sauntered in wearing bog-standard shorts and a t-shirt, looking like someone from a cowboy flick walking onto a sci-fi movie set.
I immediately wanted to about turn and leave of course, but the woman doing the class saw the look of pure terror in my eyes and came up to me and said hi. I told her why I was there, and that I didn’t feel very comfortable but she insisted that I should give it a try, as she thought it would help my back problems, and if not, well no harm no foul.
I felt better at that point and thought screw it, might as well try and get my money’s worth, even if I do end up looking like a diseased pretzel. It was then that I looked across the room and saw the same look of terror that I had no doubt been portraying… that was Sarah.
She had not long found out she had scoliosis, after years of being misdiagnosed, and told that it was all in her head among other things. She was there with her mother, who was with her for emotional support and to see how she got on.
After seeing her I instinctively gravitated towards her in the same way that a drowning person gravitates towards a life ring thrown at them. After the yoga instructor had a chat with her, she shouted me over and said that it was Sarah’s first time too, so maybe we should sit next to one another and give each other a bit of support.
I said that was cool with me and she also smiled and nodded so I walked over.
We hit it off right away, my emotions went from a bit of embarrassment to serious wonder as we both attempted to fit in with the rest of the class.
After the class was over, we were still talking away and I felt a genuine connection and butterflies in my stomach, and as we said goodbye we caught each other’s gaze and she smiled at me with a purity that for the first time in my life made me feel weak at the knees.
I wouldn’t have gone back in a million years had I not met her, but I decided to go the next week and when I walked in the door, I got those butterflies in my stomach again and was hoping to see her face… but she wasn’t there.
As I was sitting there I felt this feeling of pure dread and was sat thinking what am I even doing here? I felt this sadness that was hard to describe, it kinda reminded me of when I went to this holiday caravan park when I was about 12 with my gran and cousins and there was this big center with pool tables and recreational things and all that stuff.
I remember seeing this girl there every night for a week and I instantly fell in love with her, didn’t say a word to her right enough, but psyched myself up so that I was gonna try to speak to her on the last night at the disco, but when we went down she wasn’t there.
I’ll never forget that feeling of sadness as we went home, that girl had walked out of my life, and she probably didn’t even know she walked into it. I felt the same aching sadness when I didn’t see Sarah. I knew nothing about her, had no way of contacting her, and felt this surreal sadness that was hard to quantify.
About 4 months later I was working on a roof repairing a truss damaged in a storm when we decided to stop for a break, as we made our way back to the van the house owner came out and asked us if we wanted cups of coffee.
We accepted and she came out with coffee and biscuits. As soon as I had seen this woman, I just knew her face from somewhere, but couldn’t for the life of me place her. It wasn’t until that night after racking my brain that I realized it was at that yoga hall I had seen her before, and it was Sarah’s mother.
The next day I was back finishing the job and the same thing happened, we stopped for a break, went down towards the van and the woman came out asking if we wanted some coffee. After we finished up I took the cups and biscuit wrappers back and as I was passing them over to her I asked how her daughter was and was she still having back problems?
She looked surprised but smiled at me and said yes, then asked how I knew her? I replied that I’d spoken to her at a yoga class months back, she laughed and said she remembered me now. I then gave her a card with my number written on it and asked if she could maybe get her daughter to text me as I wanted to get back in touch with her.
Shoot my shot I thought, wish I hadn’t now.
I got a text message that night from Sarah asking how I was and that she had looked for me again at the yoga hall but I wasn’t there. Turned out she had gone back the week after me as she thought it was bi-weekly.
We met up soon after, really hit it off again and after 8 months she moved in with me. She was funny, smart, and sweet as well as being the most uniquely beautiful person I’d ever met. She had a whimsical beauty to her, pointed ears and defined features, she reminded me of she-elf or something, I truly thought I’d found my soul mate.
She had moved into my home and everything was going great guns. She was on disability and got personal independence payments, and was getting steroid injections for her scoliosis, which along with painkillers and exercises were keeping her pain at bay. We would alternate the cooking, while she has done the cleaning, and took care of our cat Mitzi.
I was also making good dough so we were in a comfortable position financially. When I got back from work we’d always be doing things like going out for walks or the like, just always in each other’s company. It was at this point I was seriously contemplating proposing to her.
Things changed around Halloween 2019. Our intimate life was always very active, but there were times when she occasionally wasn’t up to it, and I was fine with that. We’d work around positions that were comfortable for her due to her back problems, but I’d say in general, she had a high drive.
Well around October she started complaining a lot about her back hurting more, especially just before the times we’d usually go to bed together. Anytime we did hook up after that, it wasn’t passionate or intense, it felt like we were going through the motions.
She started complaining while we were in the middle of it, so at that point, I’d stop of course. I started feeling really frustrated, but I was positive that it was just a blip, and that we’d get through it together. Thing is, she seemed fine in other aspects of her life, she seemed happy.
The first real red flag for me came in December when she completely stopped showing me affection. She just became cold towards me, she seemed repulsed when I put my arms around her or tried to take her hand. She was the one who was so touchy-feely, hands in hair, constant reaffirming touches, kisses, and cuddles.
When we’d sit on the couch, she’d basically be on top of me. That all completely stopped… didn’t for Mitzi though, yes that’s right I ended up jealous of our cat.
At this point, we were in the new year and I suspected her of seeing another man.
She had become downright hostile towards me, I started trying to up my workload around the house but nothing was good enough. I ended up constantly being belittled and being super cautious, couldn’t do right for wrong, and was starting to become humorless protection of my witty former self.
One night I got a hold of her phone and looked through it… nothing… was clean as a whistle. Wasn’t even any messages from her friends or her mother, which I found weird. Was then that my friend told me that if we were on the same plan then I could check on the website of the carrier and see all the activity from her phone.
We were on the same plan, and I paid for her phone. That night I logged into my BT account, navigated to mobile, then her number, started to sift through, and there it was, thousands of texts and calls to this one specific number. It had started six months previously, and it had dates, times, and how long the calls were.
She’d be speaking to and texting this person for hours and hours while I was at work, deleting everything before I got home, then going cold turkey when I got back.
I googled the number and up came a local garage, one where she had got her car fixed previously.
I remembered it taking a while for it to get fixed and her complaining about it a lot, the whole thing was a long-drawn-out affair, in more ways than one apparently. At this point I was ice cold, I already had got it into my head she was having an affair, so getting it confirmed was more of a relief than anything else.
I wanted to catch her in the act, rather than have her attempt to gaslight me and squirm out of the circumstantial, so I found out everything I could about this guy. I found out where he lived, that he had a young wife and child, found out what car he drove, even walked in asking about prices so I could look this guy in the eye and get a measure of him.
His name was Carl with a K.
I knew the affair was physical for lots of reasons, but the fact that their phone calls and texts stopped dead from 1 to 2 each day said to me that was the time they were meeting up. I came up with all sorts of silly plans, to loan my friend’s car and sit at the end of the street, then wait till she drove out, then follow her to the place she was meeting this guy and jump out of the car while they were in the act like ‘surprise!’ There were too many variables in that though, and I’m no private detective.
One day I decided to drive by his garage about half one and her car was just sitting there, and the place was locked up, so mystery solved.
I was at this point at the end of my tether, and ready to just tell her that I knew everything and get out of my house when she asked if it would be ok to go away to a spa place for the weekend… Alone.
She said she was depressed with everything with her back being so much worse, that this place would be great to help with that with all the things she could do. That she could come back refreshed and like a new person. She was right about that, cos I didn’t know who was standing in front of me anymore.
Obviously, she wasn’t going there alone, if she was even going there at all. This would be a dirty weekend away with this guy. I said fine, now I had a new plan, and this would be the last thing I’d do for her.
If you’re thinking this is all too much of a kerfuffle, then you’re right obviously, but my position is I wanted revenge, and I wanted to get her back with some style. I didn’t just want to have her cry at and gaslight me for days, then leave on her terms, with me the bad guy.
I would be the bad guy but it would be my terms she’d be leaving on alright.
The Friday came and the spa was a hundred or so miles down the road so she decided to get a train. I jokingly asked her if she couldn’t find something more local, umming and oohing followed till I told her I was only kidding.
I got off work a couple of hours early and took her to the train station, despite her protests she would get a taxi, as I wanted to see her off. We drive in and as I’m looking for a place to park wouldn’t you guess whose car I spot?
That’s right Carl with a K. I think screw it, I’m gonna have some fun and make her squirm so I park up directly next to him. They’re right next to each other door to door and she immediately becomes uneasy, not knowing where to look, I’m pretending to look for something trying to draw out the moment and the atmosphere is razor-sharp at that point.
What happened next genuinely caused me to do something out with my plan.
She started to silently giggle. You know when you go to church or someone dies or you go to church cos someone dies and something funny pops into your head? And it becomes mental torture desperately trying to think of something else and stop yourself from laughing maniacally?
Well, she’s desperately trying not to laugh, I’m pretending not to notice, she’s tapping her hand on her trouser leg and from the corner of my eye, I can see him, with his head on the steering wheel. She actually lets out a laugh then quickly disguises it as a cough and starts clearing her throat.
I start doing the whole tapping of back thing and I’m just thinking to myself, I can’t wait to get you back. See we all go through life being the butt of the joke at least once, whether it be passive-aggressive work colleagues or when you get up and try and do a talk at school with a face redder than the devil himself.
But you never expect that nonsense from people who are supposed to have your back, even if you are conspiring against them at that point!
I helped her into the train station with her things, made sure she had her bearings, said goodbye and walked away.
By the time I got out Carl with a K’s car was nowhere to be seen, so I went back home, composed myself, and carried out my plan. My plan was simple but effective, I started by having a locksmith come out to change the locks.
I then proceeded to pack all of her clothes and belongings into bin bags and put them around the side of the house. On Friday night, with the noise of her laughing at me ringing in my ears, I have done something I never imagined I could do.
I took Mitzi’s litter tray, walked around the side of the house with it, opened the bin bag with Sarah’s belongings in it and threw it in, gave the bag a good shake then tied it up again. The way I saw it at the time was that it’s cause and effect in action, she caused me to effectively put cat poop in with her things.
If you’re thinking I’m a jerk then you’re probably right, I’ll never win any awards for being the nicest neighbor on the block. If I don’t like you within 5 minutes of meeting you I probably never will, and the only time I’d ever take out your trash is if you are the trash.
If you do break through those barriers though I think I am a loyal caring person, I didn’t do anything to deserve being lied to, except maybe putting cat litter in with her things but that was after the fact!
I spent the Saturday in a mire of depression, answering her texts with the only energy I could muster, which wasn’t a lot.
I complained of a severe headache from a hangover I never had and the texts dwindled. The reality of what was transpiring hit home and for the first time since before the new year, I took stock of my life, sitting in my swivel armchair with Mitzi in tow like a Bond villain.
Sunday came and I was ready to execute the final part of my plan. Firstly I drove to Carl with a K’s house and put a letter through his door, It was addressed to his wife and basically said in block capitals IMPORTANT CARL WITH A K’S WIFE’S NAME OPEN IMMEDIATELY.
Inside it was a letter outlining how her husband was having an affair with my significant other, copies of her phone calls and text log, as well as other information like that they were away together this weekend. I put it through the door, rang the doorbell, and walked away.
Got in my car and drove for a minute then parked up again, then I phoned Sarah. I genuinely can’t remember a lot of what I said to her but it was something along the lines of – me asking how everything was going, she started to gush about how much she enjoyed herself, that she feels like a new woman and that she could maybe see herself doing it 2 or 3 times a year, you know, to blow off the cobwebs… At this point I blurt out, ‘how’s Carl?’ her yapping stops dead, silence fills the air until she finally says ‘who’s Carl?’… ‘You know’ I reply, ‘Carl… with a K’.
I then proceeded to tell her that I knew everything, that I’d changed the locks and all her stuff was around the side of the house. Instead of being apologetic, she goes on a thunderous diatribe, blaming me for everything, basically stabbing me in the back while complaining that my backbone was blunting her blade.
In the end, I told her how her stuff smelled of Mitzi’s poo and hung up.
I blocked her number and didn’t see her nor hear from her until the Wednesday when I came back from work she was sitting on the doorstep, all the bags had been moved. I ignored her, walked around the back, let myself in the back door, and locked it behind me.
Haven’t spoken to her since, although she’s made her attempts, including a letter.
In regards to Karl, I don’t know what happened between him and his wife. I do know that he said it wasn’t personal to a friend of mine.
That made me angry like is that supposed to make it better? Someone saying something isn’t personal just means it isn’t personal to them, it was to me. If someone smashes through your front room in a 4 by 4 obliterating everyone you’ve ever loved is it easier to get over if they didn’t personally mean it?
Is it easier to pick up the pieces and put them back together again? No.
I heard that the health crisis hasn’t been kind to his business though but you won’t catch me shedding no tears for that, unless it’s tears of laughter, that is.”
16. Dictate When Our Grandma Gets To Leave? We'll Sue You
“On my great grandma’s (g-grandma) birthday, she fell and broke her hip. This happened about midnight, and my cousin and I were watching anime. Mom called us down and told us to call Grandma (g-grandma’s daughter) and tell her what happened. Then my parents left to meet the ambulance at the hospital. My cousin called her and I kept myself busy.
Fast forward to the morning and we found out that she broke her hip. Fast forward another week and they move my grandma to a nursing home.
Now this nursing home we chose, didn’t have a good reputation. We, however, did not know this until much later.
We were not allowed to take her out to see the doctor (important later). They have standard isolation procedures, not allowed to leave or have visitors if someone comes down with sickness for 2 weeks. But every time the 2 weeks were about to run out, someone else would come down with it, so that’s annoying.
They would clean the rooms regularly, but they would move the phone too far away from the bed for g-grandma to reach (we assume, she never answered, but would always when she was at home).
Now they also made up that my mom was POA over my g-grandma’s for healthcare (she wasn’t, but we didn’t know that) so they would only talk to mom about how she was doing.
Now due to problems with CPS being called on my aunt, my Grandma decided it was everyone’s fault, except for hers (she was part of the problem – my cousin, aunt, and uncle lived with them). She had finally gotten over that when this happened. When the nursing home told us mom was her POA, she flipped out, re-opening the divide in our family.
She refused to do anything for any of us. Eventually, we found out that was a lie about mom being POA and found out that Grandma was, though they still only talked to mom about things.
Part of why g-grandma was there was to give her physical therapy, which they did, for a while, then they suddenly stopped without telling anyone.
We found out three days later. We paid for more, they did another week or so.
They did end up moving g-grandma to the upstairs, but the problem was there was only one phone for the entire floor to use. We do suspect that she was being manipulated to keep her quiet because A, she wasn’t even answering when she had her own phone, and B, seemed out of it when she did answer it.
We did find out she wasn’t moving around because they sent us a bill for $25 cream for bed sores.
What made us go to the option of suing was when my dad checked her online medical records. He noticed she had been to her blood doctor when she wasn’t allowed to leave the home for doctor’s appointments.
She had been taken to the doctor, without asking us, or even telling us that was happening. It is illegal to do that. We are currently working on making our case against the home. We have moved g-grandma to another home that a family friend is at, and her son recommended to us.
We are allowed to visit her anytime and she is doing well. I’ll update after we go through with the lawsuit, as this is still going on.”
15. 9 Years Of Petty Revenge On My Abusive Mother
“This happened in 2004 when I was 14. My mother is not a good person. She was abusive verbally for most of my life until I was 14 when her abuse turned physical. Because of her abuse, I came up with creative ways to punish her in my own petty ways (like tampering with her food and dunking her toothbrush in the toilet every day).
This story is of one of my better petty acts of revenge towards her and the one that annoyed her the most.
I talked to my friends about the things she did to me, and although I appreciated the advice to go to the police, I knew that wouldn’t work (my mother is very convincing when she wants to be and every other time I went to the police, they never believed me).
One of my friends, who we’ll call Tom, gave me a brilliant idea that would annoy her to no end but wouldn’t get me in trouble (his dad is a mechanic so Tom knows his way around a car).
After school that day I went with him to his house.
He showed me a place underneath the car, between the top of the front wheel and the side of the engine, and told me what to do.
Bring on the pettiness.
I had to wait a few days to enact my revenge but the day finally arrived. My mother and my sister left the house to ride their horses, which gave me plenty of time to do what needed to be done.
The next day I went with my mum and sister to do grocery shopping, and I was elated to hear the product of my labor as the car started to drive down the driveway.
CLINK
CLINK
CLINK
Yes. I attached a rock to the end of the string inside the car that made a loud CLINK sound every few seconds when the car was moving.
MUM: ‘What the heck is that?’
ME: ‘No idea. Maybe you should get the mechanic to have a look at it.’
Remember how I said that Tom’s dad is a mechanic? Well, he’s the ONLY mechanic in the town we lived in, and Tom made sure to tell his dad about the things my mother did to me.
Needless to say, he was on my side.
So after we’d done our shopping we stopped at the mechanic so they could look at it and fix whatever needed fixing.
MUM: (as we arrived at the mechanic) ‘Hi there. Um, well my car is making a weird noise when I’m driving.
Can you look at it for me?’
MECHANIC: ‘Sure thing. How about you take a seat inside and I’ll give it a drive and see what the problem is.’
He got in the car and drove it around the block. When he returned, the noise had ‘miraculously’ stopped. He charged my mum for the check and we were on our way, but not before Tom’s dad subtly handed me the rock back and gave me a wink and a smile as I left.
That night, I put the rock back in place and left it to do its thing for the next day, and oh boy was this satisfying! The next day the noise was back, so mum went back to the mechanic, but THIS TIME the mechanic couldn’t find ANYTHING wrong with it and ‘couldn’t hear any noise’.
I never bothered taking the rock out after that and neither did the mechanic. He’d experienced her entitlement first hand and had heard many stories from other people around town about her. The rock wasn’t damaging the car or affecting its performance so there was nothing that needed fixing.
I moved away to live with my dad when I was 16, but before I moved, the CLINK was still there, tormenting my mother every time she drove the car. I lost count of the number of times she took it back to the mechanic and the amount she spent on getting rid of the CLINK.
Here’s where my petty revenge turned pro, out of sheer good luck.
The last time I saw my mother I was 23 (2013) and she still has the same car. I’d expected the rock to have fallen out by then but the car still has a CLINK.”
14. Damage My Door? I'll Wake You Up Every Night
“My door sometimes rattles when I open my window. So I have a piece of fabric that is always attached to stop the noise. This fabric got damaged and for a couple of days, it made a little bit of noise for an hour or so until I closed my window.
My brother decided to put a screw in my door frame which caused the door to be almost impossible to open without extreme force. He also damaged the frame and made it bow in the middle where the lock is. I spent hours fixing this frame a few years ago so I was absolutely livid.
I spoke to my parents and told them he can’t do this but he somehow convinced them that the door ‘expanded in the heat’… whilst it is very cold.
Every night I get up between 3-5 am and make sure to slowly open the door and make as much noise as possible.
The door is so much worse and no doubt wakes everyone up.”
Another User Comments:
“Make sure to always close the door just about 5 minutes after he goes to bed, right as he falls asleep. The noise will wake him up with surprise, and the adrenaline boost will keep him from sleeping again for a half-hour or more.” SeanBZA
13. Use Your Phone During Work Hours? I'll Let Everyone Know Your Business
“One balmy summer evening, on a Saturday night, my partner and I ended up in front of a movie theater at an outside ticket booth at 10 minutes to 8:00. The movie we had come to see began at 8:00. So we had plenty of time. Not!
I had reckoned without the 17-year-old girl with teased hair ‘manning’ the ticket booth.
She had actually picked that moment to be on the phone with one of her best friends. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Joey. Joey! I told ya he asked me out! Yeah. He took me to the Sizzler!’ For five minutes it went on.
Finally, she took my money and the machine spat out our movie tickets and the girl slid a few singles in change my way. I grabbed the tickets and the change and my partner and I started for the theater’s glass doors.
Suddenly a nasal voice rang out!
‘Well, Jeez! Ya don’t have to snatch!’ Disbelieving, I turned around and saw the girl in the ticket booth glaring at me. Unable to resist I took two steps back to the window. ‘Yes, I didn’t have to snatch,’ I replied.
Now I raised my voice to be heard by the several dozen people waiting in line. ‘AND YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO SPEND FIVE MINUTES ON THE PHONE TALKING ABOUT YOUR ‘HOT’ NIGHT WITH JOEY! NOW ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WILL MISS THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE!
AND ALL THANKS TO YOU!!!’
The line disintegrated and the crowd surrounded the ticket booth and began to pound on the plexiglass. The ticket girl’s jaw dropped so wide that her chewing gum fell out! My partner and I slipped through the doors and into the darkened theater.
Just as we sat down, our movie started.”
12. I Left The Company That Didn't Deserve Me
“I joined the company as Executive Regulatory Affairs reporting to head of department and was quite excited about my role there.
I started working there with high commitment and enthusiasm. I also identified some of the scopes of improvements in existing processes.
I also identified ways to get things done quickly and more efficiently.
Despite my good performance and results, I did not get a good rating and pay hike because my boss was mean and he was influenced by another mean senior colleague against me.
It did not end there, after a few days I was transferred to another department stating, I had better capabilities to work in that department.
Just to compare my former department with the new department, it was like moving from ocean to small pond in terms of responsibilities and knowledge. It was basically a support function to Regulatory affairs (my original department).
Now both of them tortured me to the extent that they would push me always for timelines and ask me to stretch my capacity just to harass me.
I was completely frustrated but did not want to hurry up my decision of leaving this company to land in a similar company.
One fine day before lunchtime around 11:00 am I got a call from my boss asking me for some documents to be completed by end of the week.
I asked him when are you actually going to use these documents because I know the submission timelines. He was furious and just told me, ‘That is none of your business. Just give me by the time I said. If you can not give me, you can not take the leaves you have requested for your sister’s marriage.’ And he just slammed his receiver back.
That was the height of my frustration and I just wanted to resign from the job immediately. But I could not afford to leave my job as I’m the sole earner in my family.
Just to make me a little comfortable, my colleague took me for lunch outside but I was in no mood to eat.
Somehow I finished the lunch with an ocean of thoughts going in my mind. Suddenly I got a call from one of the best companies in India where I had appeared for an interview a few months back. The recruiter just asked me if I am still open, I said very much and he sent me an offer letter in 10 minutes.
I just went to the office, read the offer letter, typed my resignation letter, and stormed into my boss’s office with a resignation letter. I just threw my resignation letter to him and blasted him.
He thought I was resigning without any job, I just said that is none of your business and why are you showing care now?
He also told me, ‘Don’t make a hasty decision. Just go home for 1 week and come back after your sister’s marriage. I am counting on you to say that you will change your decision and stay here.’
I said, ‘I will surely go for 1 week’s leave for my sister’s marriage and keep in mind that I am not staying here anymore because you don’t deserve people like me,’ and I stormed out of his cabin slamming the door!”
11. My Husband Avenged Me
“I responded to an ad on a job site for a differently-abled corporate manager, I’ll call him Mr. Manager, who was looking for assistance. I submitted my resume and did a phone interview. After talking briefly, he invited me to interview at his house.
The interview was all the way across town (though the company I’d report to was 10 minutes from where I lived). When I got to his home, I had to fill out a form that was at least 5 pages and then was interviewed by both him and his wife separately.
I was there for a couple of hours.
The whole thing seemed a little unorthodox, but I was applying to be his personal assistant and nothing was too off-putting. After some discussion, I came to find out that this manager just so happened to work at the same company as my significant other.
I mentioned this, and on both sides, it seemed like they had a friendly acquaintance with each other, though they both worked in separate buildings.
The manager said that they would get back to me either way in a week; after all, they had to submit the background check.
I really liked both Mr. Manager and Mrs. Manager. I was cautiously optimistic.
I sent a thank you card. No response, but I didn’t expect one. One week later, I sent a follow-up e-mail. No response. Two weeks later, no response. The least you can do is let someone know they didn’t get a position if they took the time to speak with you.
I was a little disappointed, but I moved on and found another position (like you do).
About a year later, a higher-level management position opens up in my new husband’s company. My husband was chosen to interview candidates for the position, and it just so happened that Mr. Manager was up for it.
My husband had the resumes dropped on his desk at the last minute, so both men were surprised to see each other in this context. They exchanged pleasantries:
Mr. Manager: ‘So, um, how’s your partner doing?’
Husband: (flashes his ring finger) ‘My wife is doing very well.
She’s been working with special needs high school students for the past year and has been pretty happy.’
Mr. Manager: ‘I was going to call her back…’ trails off…
My husband said he was cordial for the remainder of the interview, but his interviewee was not able to regain his composure.
The best part is that my husband’s boss decided to hire somebody within the team instead of anyone my husband interviewed, so my husband didn’t even deny Mr. Manager the job, but as far as he knows he completely bombed that interview and didn’t get the position.”
10. Hog The Parking Spaces? You Won't Get To Leave So Easily
“I ordered to pick up at my local grocery store which has designated parking for pick up orders. Someone who seemed to have a regular order decided to double park in the last 2 ‘pick up’ spots remaining.
Luckily there was an opening just opposite of these 2 spots so I parked there in the meantime. While waiting for a worker to be available.
Eventually, after a worker finished filling up another customer’s car, I notify them that ‘hey, I’m parked here close by’ as there’s nothing else available.
But since I wasn’t in a designated spot, I seemed to perhaps get a lower priority than those linked to a designated numbered spot so I had to wait much longer.
After enough time, the person who double-parked taking the last 2 designated spots came out of the store with their groceries and loaded up the car.
As they prepared to leave I decided ‘why not have a little petty revenge to make them slightly inconvenienced.’ As they started their car, I decided to take out my phone and pretend to be busy with it while standing in a position that would prevent them from backing out of the parking spot.
Not too close to the car, but not too far either. But also with my back slightly turned more toward their vehicle so it would seem that I’m just oblivious to the vehicle and perhaps would continue walking any moment after looking at my phone.
This went on for about 15 to 30 seconds. Then, I got a new lucky break. The grocery worker came to deliver my items. So I stopped the grocery worker kind in the middle of the parking lane still with our backs turned to the vehicle wanting to back out, and started to try to use my phone to verify the grocery items being delivered.
Then after another 15 to 30 seconds, the worker noticed the reverse lights as the car tried to back out very slowly. The worker started moving the cart out of the way as I pretended to be oblivious for a little while longer to extend this petty revenge as long as possible.”
Another User Comments:
“This annoys me so badly. Just like those that park in the zoned-off spaces beside handicap parking and regular spaces. Had 2 cars park in those tonight. I was parked in a normal spot. Watched one of those handicapped vans pull in, driver looks at both vehicles parked in the diagonal lines and pulls out his phone.
Pretty sure someone was getting towed. I’ll never understand why cracker jack boxes still give out licenses to people to can’t read signage… Only park here for quick shopping, park here for curbside, park here if you have small children, park here if you are handicapped; instead, it’s a hey I own this hunk of metal and will park where ever I please.” Knightind
9. Disgraced Physician Gets What's Coming To Him
“Either 10, 20, or 30 years ago, I married my high school sweetheart, Betty. I had just graduated high school, and she was staying in high school, pregnant with our first child Franky at age 18-19.
Throughout her pregnancy and our relationship, I was informed of Betty’s condition of epilepsy. She had infrequent seizures, and I have seen her have a grand mal seizure twice before the Incident; once while eating, and once on a family hike (the light flickering through the trees triggered it we think).
So later down the road, we have our second child, living on our own in a trailer park in Bloxnart. My wife has always been a little bit punk, dyeing her hair many times over and over, and now having to shave her head as a result of her extremely damaged hair.
She dyed what was left of her hair pink. She was a belly dancer, had a style of her own, and really had a ‘Don’t mess with me’ vibe she gave off to anybody but me and our two boys, Franky and Sam. These aren’t just nostalgic details: they are important to the slowly-increasing plot.
That being said, one afternoon while Betty is getting ready to drop the boys off at grandma’s to hit the mall, she had another seizure… a bad one. It’s hard to be too descriptive without choking up right now, but she knew it was coming the second before.
She hits the ground, I do my part to put her on her side and sweep the mouth (I know this is frowned upon now for some reason, but it’s what her parents trained me to do). I call an ambulance, telling them ‘help my wife is having a grand mal seizure, a bad one!’ whilst trying to instruct my frightened three-year-old to go to mommy’s bedroom, Sammy was hardcore napping at 11 months literally inches away.
The ambulance shows up and takes her, I stay back because grandma isn’t there yet for the kids (I called to make sure she’d be there soon, otherwise I’d have to drag the kids with me to the local hospital). Grandma gets there and I drive to the hospital as fast as possible.
I get there pretty quick and talk to the doctor within a few minutes. The ER Physician we’ll call Dr. Thoreau (steeped in irony), whose mercy I was at, told me that ‘We’re going to put her under to do a Cat Scan/MRI/something having nothing to do with her epilepsy’.
In my naivete, not understanding that I can tell him what I want him to do, I just said ‘okay’. I DID tell him, however, that she had a seizure, has had seizures in the past, etc. He didn’t believe that the seizure was epileptic in nature.
He asked me about medicines she’s taken, other substances, etc. I told him no she doesn’t do that, but she did have a drink a couple of nights ago. He was super convinced, based on her appearance I presume, that this was illegal substances, and that she just needed to get it out of her system.
Toxicology comes back. No illegal substances in the system. Dr. Thoreau says ‘this doesn’t test for all substances out there’. Wow, Doc. So she’s put under now, kept in that state, in the meanwhile no EEG machine (which measures brainwaves) to determine that, yeah, she’s having a seizure dummy, give her some phenobarb or whatever.
I didn’t know the importance of all this at the time, so we’re just waiting for this test and that test and for her to come out of the ‘under’-ness or whatever. This takes a day and a half.
They finally allow/acquire an EEG machine, with an EEG tech, and come to find out I was right, that all along, she was having seizures… the entire time.
Now she is brain dead. Now I’m signing DNRs and Hospice and Neurologist(s) are asking me about Buddhism and if I’ve tried it. Nice try…
So she passed away days later.
Let’s just say it was a rough year. My father-in-law tries to go to one of those law tigers with the case, but they say it needs to come from the husband.
At first, I don’t want to go through this process, despite knowing that this idiot’s arrogance caused my wife’s demise.
I eventually lawyer up, get referred to a great attorney on contingency, and begin the lawsuit process. Revenge is starting…
EEG techs, hospitals, various entities involved in Betty’s care, all separately settled out of court for unspecified amounts (well specified to ME obviously).
This is just the beginning of the revenge. Of all the entities that bowed out of the fight and handed over a check, this arrogant Doc wasn’t having it. He wanted a trial. He really wanted me to have to relive the pain I’d been going through the past couple of years just protect his/her name.
We take it to court.
Revenge by Jury… 7 to 2 in favor of the plaintiff… Dr. Thoreau fell below the standard of care.
Judgment for umpteen million dollars.
Civil suit done, enter fallout in the medical community.
Ultimate revenge is that the doctor had his license suspended for a time, and didn’t practice medicine for a long time.
Then he tried his/her hand at different types of professions. Unemployable in the medical field. To this day. Dude/chick’s broker than I ever was.”
8. Ruining The Bully's Life And Business In Secret
“When I was a junior in High School, there was (as there always is) this relatively small clique of people who were the ‘in crowd’.
They tended to be football players, though they also had members whose parents were on the school’s board of governors. One of them, I’ll call R.
R was a tall, gangly boy who loved to throw his weight around. Not actual weight, but just this general idea that he could effectively get away with murder at the school, all because his father was on the board.
R was the biggest bully you can imagine. However, I toughed it out some because I knew full well that he only had a few months left before he graduated and I was relatively free of him. R had pretty much given up on bullying me, simply because I avoided him, and there had already been a bit of a debacle where I had caused two students to be expelled. Long story that, but not pertinent to this one.
One day, as warmer days approached, sometime in March, R left early to go to whatever job his father had him doing on the family farm. Not long after he left, the Sheriff’s office descended on the school, and we all ended up having an hour-long afternoon break (normally only 15 minutes) while several deputies conversed with our headmaster, and then started asking the ‘in crowd’ some questions.
Word travels fast in a small school, especially one where the average class size was in the teens. It didn’t take long for the rumor mill to come back with the story.
While leaving for work, R had driven out of the school’s driveway. As he did so, he hauled off and threw a glass bottle at this older woman who would often walk her dog in front of the school.
R, having seen his handiwork, sped off. He only returned the next day, and when questioned by the headmaster about it, supposedly said something to the effect of ‘why does anyone care?’
R was not expelled.
R was not suspended.
R was not punished. His father made it quite clear that if the headmaster did anything, even paddled R for it, then he (R’s father) was going to have the headmaster fired.
Nothing came of it. R was even proud of what he did.
I, however, did not forget. The revenge here is ongoing, but I have made it my life’s mission to never let R forget what he did in 1994. I started first by requesting copies of the police report be sent to the college R had gotten a scholarship from.
The sheriff was and still is, a good friend of mine and though he is now retired, he keeps copies of that report handy. R lost the scholarship. I’ve sent the report to multiple places, companies he once partnered with (he now owns a hunting tour company), groups like the Rotary who he’s tried to get on board, and have made it my life’s mission to destroy him every chance I get.
I still see him, about every year, at our yearly reunions; and have listened to him go on at length about how someone keeps bringing up stuff he did as a kid. He wonders why people won’t just let it go, and how people are finding out about what he plans for his business.
I think he’s figured out that it’s probably one of his former classmates but hasn’t sorted out who exactly is behind it. Maybe, someday he’ll figure it out; but the odds of that happening are about even with him ever feeling remorse.
The simple fact of the matter is, he used his ‘power’ and ‘privileges’ to avoid jail time.
I see what I’m doing as justice, even if it ruins his life; as after all, he thought it was all well and good to ruin a random lady’s life.”
7. I Customized The Table For Them
“I used to work for a company where the employees were seated in rooms divided by plaster separation walls. One day, a rather senior manager left, and as a parting gift, bought a snooker table for his now ex-employees. Unfortunately for me, the table was placed right in front of my face, with just that plaster wall separating us.
The noise of people shooting balls was not that much of a distraction, but once in a while a ball would roll to the side close to me, and a player would try to hit it, and on the backswing would hit the wall – boom, a vicious kick at the wall bare inches in front of my face.
I tried talking to them, to no avail: they would say they’d be more careful, and they would – for a while, but then would forget all about it in the heat of a game, and I’d be jumping out of my seat again, all concentration gone.
Enough is enough I said, and one day, when everyone was gone, lowered the adjustable legs of the table on the side further away from me – just a couple of revolutions, but enough for the ball to prefer that side. From that moment on, most of the balls ended anywhere on the table except near my side of it, but not conspicuously so, so the players never suspected anything, and the kicks in the wall have all but stopped.”
6. I Taught Tailgaters A Traffic Lesson
“Back during my first semester of my Junior (11th Grade) year of High School, I’d often go back home taking a street called ‘Garth Road’. For the most part, this road is a two-lane road with a double yellow line and a speed limit of 35 MPH, but partway down the road (between the intersection I got on it and the intersection I got off of it), there was a school zone where the speed would drop to 25 MPH during specified times (with beacons to help draw attention as to when).
Normally when I’d go through there, it’d usually be just before or just after the school zone speed limit no longer applied for the day. Since I accidentally got a speeding ticket for failing to slow down for a school zone (I was tired that morning, okay?) early in the semester, I always make sure to go no faster than the speed limits in an active school zone (even to this day).
However, I’d usually have someone get right up on my bumper while going through this school zone when it was active.
So one day, I was driving home through this school zone while it was active and a tailgater came right up on my bumper as usual. Now normally, I’ll speed back up to at least the speed limit when I leave the school zone, but that day, I decided I had enough.
So once I got out of the school zone, I kept going at most 25 MPH all the way to the intersection I turned off at, which was still a mile down the road at this point with no other intersections to turn off at (other than private driveways) and no way to legally pass.
And to rub it in their face that I wasn’t just some old lady in a mini-van, as soon as I got the green arrow to turn left, I floored it and left them in my dust. Now I’m not sure if it taught them a lesson about tailgating, but it certainly made me feel pretty good about myself.”
5. He Thinks He's The Only Stressed Person At Work
“When I was 18, I was working at a 5-star hotel, cleaning rooms and changing sheets to make some extra income while studying. The job was very bad, paid 2 euro per hour, but sometimes guests would leave tips for us for the cleaning and usually one tip was half of our day salary.
We shared among the housekeeping girls and we were ok with it.
One day our manager came in and forbade us to enter the rooms after the guests checked out. He said he had to go in first to make sure that guests left nothing behind in the room.
It sounded reasonable as sometimes guests claimed they forgot some jewelry in the room, and when we did not find it we were accused of stealing it. It was very uncomfortable for us, so we agreed that the manager checking the room first was a good idea.
But from that day on we were not finding the tips anymore. Well sometimes there was 1 euro left, but that was it. Of course, the first thing in my mind was that the manager was taking our tips. I wanted to make sure so I entered one room before he got in and saw a nice tip and a box of chocolates on the table with the thank-you note for the cleaning girl.
I left it the way it was. Then the manager got in and after checking it he confirmed the room was ok for us to clean.
When I came in again, of course, the tip was gone and so was the chocolate box! I found it in the trash with all the chocolates eaten.
UNBELIEVABLE!! I understand that everyone is after riches, but this one was so shameless he even ate all the chocolates for the cleaning girl!
I got really angry, but he was my boss and I was 18yo. I did not know how to confront him directly as it would mean accusing him of stealing which was serious AND difficult to prove.
So I wrote a note: ‘You sneaky little jerk, you go around bullying us for our work all the time, and then you have the nerve TO STEAL the tips meant for us?! Shame on you!! V.’
I put the note in the envelope together with some coins, closed it, and wrote ‘thank you Veronika’ on it, so it looked like a note from the guest. (The guests knew our names as we left the notes with our names after the cleaning).
I placed the envelope in one room just before the manager came in ‘to check it.’
I was thinking: if he won’t open the envelope, no harm was done as he’ll never find out what’s inside. But if he opens the envelope which is clearly not meant for him, he gets exactly what he deserves.
But the most satisfying thing was that he couldn’t cover up once opening the envelope as MY handwriting was all over it.
I was waiting in front of the room when he got out. Well, you can guess what happened. He ran out totally furious, completely red, shaking and kicking the door.
I was standing right in front of him, looking into his eyes, he was SO angry but didn’t say a word to me! I won.
Of course, he figured out there was nothing he could do as he was caught in the act, and doing anything about it would mean he had to admit he was stealing.
I found the envelope torn apart all over the room. The next day, he invited me into his office and offered me a drink (I did not realize it was ok to drink during a shift, but apparently most of the hotel managers did.) He was apologizing explaining how stressful his work is and that he needed the tips for this and that reason.
He pleaded not to tell on him with the promise that he will stop.
He seemed so scared and helpless I was almost sorry for him. I told him to be nicer to us, that everybody working here is under stress. I think he understood.
He never escalated this issue anymore, neither did I.
Anyway, he was fired two months or so later, so I guess his habits got him somewhere else.”
4. Ban Me From Campus? I'll Cause Classes To Get Cancelled
“This happened in the early 2010s. Let’s say it’s in a very hot state (Christmas weather is in the low 80s).
I’ll give you some background information (to explain my state of being at the time, and just how messed up what happened actually was). After my wife, my high school sweetheart, and mother of two boys had passed away suddenly at age 22 at the hands of arrogant physicians (a long and totally different story that isn’t MC) during my working through college I found myself in a situation where it was advantageous for me to get my Master’s Degree in Education before entering the field of education.
I was given the board of regents scholarship that was a four-year scholarship, and I transferred from a Community College so it paid through my Master’s degree. It is known in the field of education (especially in a desert climate for some reason) that getting your Masters BEFORE working as a teacher is very risky, because if you work for a public school they HAVE to pay you for your Master’s, and most places won’t pay extra for someone with no “actual” teaching experience.
Education is like gold in the education system. At least they value themselves.
Anyway, I’ve found it very difficult to find even an INTERVIEW for a teaching position in a public school, let alone getting a job in one. I decided to sub for various districts to supplement the pay.
I was hoping to somehow get an “in” by subbing for these school districts, finding out what was so great about the hires they had (I found out nothing aside from them being a dime a dozen). This wasn’t panning out. I did land a couple of teaching jobs that were private (literally private, teaching a prominent local desert hockey player’s kid/friend one year) or charter schools.
Out of desperation, I double down on my applications for more schools that aren’t public, like Catholic Schools, Jesuit schools (I ain’t picky), any charter school I can find.
Enter Sports-is-more-important-than-education Charter School, from here on referred to as SIMITECS. I got an interview for this place that was just being built, and they had this philosophy that sports and education go hand in hand.
They fought hard to get as many “fit” and sports-related people as possible. Basically, if you didn’t play at least High School sports (Varsity) you had NO chance at this interview. I mean, it was weird. It’s like I was applying for a gym, based on the interview questions “So how many times a week do you think is a fair amount to work out?”, “What is your philosophy on aerobic to anaerobic workout ratio?”, peppered in with the standard “So what does a typical day in your classroom look like?” for good measure.
I played football in High School, and football, basketball, and baseball in college (Juco), so I thought I had a shot. I talked up my favorite athlete(s), and why I loved John Wooden so much, stuff like that. Ninety percent of the interview was sports-related. That should have been my first sign that this place wasn’t great, but the director (she didn’t like the term principal) seemed, however hippy-dippy, like a decent person.
Oh, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
So anyway, my interview was in like May and school started in very early August, and the building wasn’t even completed yet. All of the new hires (me being clearly the fattest of the bunch, save for one guy whose rotundity was only surpassed by his intellect, the “academic” of the campus, and a leader) would report to the school and pick their classroom location as they build and help them finish things up, and when they finish we could bring our supplies.
I don’t know if it was the allure of being the first person to teach in a particular building or classroom or what, but all of a sudden I was ALL in at Simitecs, and in my mind made the decision to retire from there (the first of a couple of places I thought were going to be “the one”).
Oh, I couldn’t have been more naive.
Once I decide to teach somewhere for “life” I bring in my arsenal. Back in the early 2010s, the internet wasn’t such a staple of teaching. We could teach using notebooks, whiteboards, and textbooks. Seriously old school.
That being said, my “arsenal” was the accumulation of all the books, notes, filing cabinets (6 five footers, full of materials), supplies, and basically leftover junk from my previous teaching assignments, like dibels testers, mismatched and random manipulatives, you name it. Basically, a six-foot by six-foot by twelve-foot concentrated cube of junk that wouldn’t get more than $30 bucks total at a yard sale.
At the time it was important to me for my craft, but to anyone else: basically useless.
So anyway, I’ve got the arsenal in my back closet of the room for use whenever, and I do occasionally. Over time the arsenal grows somehow by another couple of feet as I continue to teach my middle schoolers.
This teaching assignment was tough. There were about six kids in this class that individually warrant being worse than my worst student ever in any other place I’ve taught. Even worse than the kids (it’s a very close race), is one particular mother.
Oh, what a mother she was. She accused me of being racist when I called her “precious boy” out for his ridiculous in-class behavior. Not that this is a defense in any way (but I’ll say it anyway at the risk of sounding like that dude), but I’m biracial, neither of which is the race of the mom or son I presume.
Anyway, I’m trying to say I’m genuinely not hating on this kid because of his race. He’s not the only kid that has this race in the class, he’s just the only one who jumps over desks and throws things at me when my back is turned (not even turned 180, more like a quarter turn to get the whiteboard marker).
This was tough because this lady was the lunch lady, who passed out lunch at the top of the hallway with her catering company. Evidently, I made the mistake of going to admin about the kid’s behavior before I went to her. I really did call the available number given and send an email, with no response.
She absolutely hated me, yelled at me, and insulted me out loud when I walked by her, to the point I stayed in my classroom until she was off-campus. This kept me cooped up in my classroom through lunch so I couldn’t bring a lunch that needed refrigeration.
Whatever, peanut butter sandwiches it is/was.
As time went on this issue seemed to work itself out once the rest of the team realized what a pain this kid truly was. You ever see a kid that you hate so much that you want to slap that goofy smile off their face?
Okay, maybe I was harboring a bit of resentment toward him for ruining my lessons on a daily basis, but I really did give him a clean slate daily and made every effort to show him positivity in the face of what could have been a rough situation.
Anyway, we hit December, and all the teachers, admin, everybody is in a good mood, excited about the break coming up. Christmas hits and we are invited to a three-star restaurant (fancy!) by admin. We say our goodbyes, I make sure that I say bye to everyone and say goodbye back.
Enter winter break. I start planning for a trip we were taking up to Flagstaff with my family (since after the lawsuit I remarried and have three children with my current wife with two from previous for a big family of seven). As I’m entering the hotel where we’re staying, I see an email from Hippy-dippy from Simitec, this is like noontime, December 23rd.
It was sent to me and one other person (who wasn’t bcc’ed but just cc’ed so I could see). It says that I need to “find employment elsewhere because your employment with us is terminated”. It was such a lame WAY to say it… it was such a lame TIME to do it… Like Christmas eve EVE?
You’ve GOT to be kidding me…
My trip is now “canceled” in spirit because now I’ve got to look for a job. Now I’ve got to contact them and find out what happened. I called her. She said that she doesn’t owe me any more explanation.
I ask her about picking up my personal belongings (like my 4,500 pounds of personal belongings). She says that, and I kid you not she said it like this, “If I see anything worth salvaging I’ll have it shipped to you. Don’t come back on campus.”
Are you KIDDING me?
Enter the beginning of a revenge that escalates like a domino.
More details about what stuff is in my classroom at this point…
So all of these things I brought on campus, pre-copied worksheets (is there any other kind?) in the thousands for math, science, ELA, social studies, random textbooks I’ve accumulated over time, a plethora of flotsam that was just for me… waiting in my classroom, the classroom Hippy-Dippy never entered, and thusly not ever having ANY evidence as to my teaching prowess one way or another, so she had no idea just how much of my stuff was there… that’s fine… I just…… waited………and waited…….
So I tell my wife “Look, babe, (she was so mad and told me how illegal it was for her to not let me collect my personal items), 99 percent of the stuff I have there I really don’t care about, never wanted to store at the house, and is well worth it being someone else’s problem”… she saw where I was going with this, and dreamed of keeping our garage as neat as it currently is…
So I decided I would never go back. EVER. I know this is a “revenge” that really was just what my boss said to do, but I know for a fact that had she seen what my classroom looked like she would demand I remove everything.
At first, I was surprised to not hear from HD… I just kept enjoying my vacation (I landed a job pretty much instantly, two days after I get the poorly-timed email). I presumed that by boxing day or the day after I’d get an urgent call from her saying “Hey, come get your piles of trash.” This is a call that presumably never would happen.
I just stopped thinking about it. New Year’s comes and goes… here we are sitting on the Sunday before they go back to school, which now is (after actually signing contracts we discussed on break) also the Sunday before I start at my new school, and here comes the call.
Tempering Revenge phase 1…
HD: Mr. Jones? Mr. Jones?? Mr. Jones!!! (had a baddish connection)
Me, as cordial and pleasant as EVER: HEY HD, how was the holiday season? I had an amazing break, much needed, so glad I do what I do for a liv…
HD: (interrupting, how rude…) You need to GET all of this TRASH out of here right now… I don’t care if you have to PAY to rent a U-haul, we have class starting TOMORROW… what time are you going to get here??!
Me: Yeah, sorry, we tried that route, I believe you said that if you saw anything worth salvaging you’d ship it or something?
You also said I’m not allowe-
HD: No NO NO NO you’re not doing this to me, you came in on winter break and dumped a bunch of TRASH here, I WILL send you the bill to have this ship-
Me (now I’m doing the interrupting): yeah good luck with that, that’s a bill that will NOT be paid.
(I wanted to add a nice little “Oh no thank you, but good luck in all of your future endeavors”, but I never had the chance to end a conversation so sweetly. I’m pretty sure I heard a click right about the time I said “NOT”.
She was obviously calling from campus (not just because of the click that accompanies hanging up a school phone). I found out later from a colleague (three of the teachers that worked with me at SIMI left there within a year or two, and couldn’t wait to tell me how things went down) that it went down something like this:
Revenge phase 2
Through the grapevine, the teachers found out the jerk move that HD did (firing two teachers OVER winter break by EMAIL, no call nada). This polarized the remaining crew into 2 distinct categories: those who thought this was a totally awful move and lost all respect for HD, and those who didn’t like me or the other person who got canned either, or just didn’t care because the job market was bleak at the time.
There was a subcategory of people who didn’t necessarily like us but still thought it was a bad move. Who’s to say what percent was what, but I’d like to say that not ALL the remaining teachers I didn’t converse with didn’t hate me.
Revenge phase 3
The Fallout: Evidently HD was shopping around for new teachers in November. None of my colleagues I still talk to swear they had no idea it was to replace me… the other teacher, maybe…but they had given them a tour of campus, but not into my classroom.
Not until the newly hired teacher came into the class and brought HER arsenal of items (all on one dolly and that’s it) and asked about moving some of the teacher’s old supplies did they realize just how bad it was. HD came in on that Sunday (which she rarely does from what I’ve heard) and saw the monstrosity that was taking up every available nook and cranny of space in the classroom.
She was livid about all of the stuff she had to deal with. The situation caused the new hire to back out of the deal (she heard what happened and how it happened and decided she didn’t want to be part of it ).
Revenge phase 4
Two teachers left the week after (both colleagues I keep in touch with on JinxedIn), and when they didn’t get subs (they didn’t have a subsystem, they just split classes) and the other classrooms grew in student number by 30%, four more teachers left (an entire grade level and one more from the grade below).
Revenge phase 5
They canceled school for two days originally and then it turned out to be a whole week until they got new hires in classrooms. It was a hot mess, with teachers leaving either because of the awful way they fired two people over the holiday, or by making the rest of the teachers take in 10 more students apiece, or by making the rest of my grade level move my heavy and junky trash out of there (two flat out refused to handle the personal possessions of someone else, and supposedly she insinuated that something bad happened to me to one of the other teachers), knowing it was a full lie.
Phase 6? The charter school never recovered from that point and the building was bought out a couple of years ago by a charter school system that’s all over the state.
Edit: a few have asked how I could get a job (by email, “two days later”) on Christmas day.
Though that totally could happen, it wasn’t Christmas day that I was emailed and offered the new job, but two days after I READ the email, which was later (after Christmas but before New Years). I wanted to make note that this email was SENT on December 23rd.
The timing of this was a total move, especially when considering that back at this time checking email over breaks was NOT expected or reasonable. Here I am getting daily emails about my retirement, and reminiscing over these stories is truly fun.”
3. No Cursing At A Memorial
“I’m in the Corps of Cadets at my university, which is an ROTC program designed to prepare students for careers as military officers.
Our Corps goes back nearly 150 years and there are a lot of weird traditions surrounding day-to-day activity, especially as it concerns freshmen. Freshmen cadets are on the bottom of the totem pole – no rights, no privileges, no rank. Among the traditional rules for freshmen are such requirements as living in ‘holes’ rather than ‘rooms’ (just a nickname, mind you), sitting at attention during chow, and whipping out.
Whipping out is the process by which freshmen introduce themselves to upperclassmen cadets. The freshman exchanges names, hometowns, and academic majors with the upperclassman in a rigidly organized format. The caveat to this is that freshmen are not officially permitted to know their upperclassmen’s first names (and vice versa).
Using an upperclassman’s first name in any context is a big no-no in the Corps.
Near the end of the school year, freshmen are finally permitted to exchange first names with upperclassmen by whipping out to them again – this is a very important tradition as it signifies the freshmen’s transition from followers to leaders within the Corps and the associated assumption of certain privileges.
The process is known as ‘dropping handles.’
When the freshmen in my unit were finally permitted to drop handles with the unit seniors, the location chosen was a memorial on campus dedicated to several students who were killed in an accident some years ago.
After receiving a brief motivational speech from our commanding officer, we began whipping out to our seniors and dropping handles. There were about 15 freshmen and maybe 17 seniors, so it took a few minutes. I should mention that when whipping out outdoors, freshmen are supposed to ‘sound off’ as loudly as possible.
Just as most of us were finishing up, a senior from another unit came running up, and he was positively livid. Everybody went quiet as he ran back and forth asking who was in charge. Several of the seniors started getting ready for a fight as some of the other guy’s buddies started showing up, just as annoyed as he was.
Our C.O. stepped forward and confronted the other guy.
‘THIS IS A MEMORIAL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! THIS IS EXTREMELY DISRESPECTFUL! GET OUT OF HERE!’ (plus a lot of cursing) etc.
Our C.O. just stared at him and explained that our unit had been practicing the tradition of dropping handles at this location for many years.
‘I DON’T CARE! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEMORIAL IS FOR?! THIS REPRESENTS PEOPLE WHO DIED HERE! SHOW SOME RESPECT!’ (plus a lot of cursing) etc.
Our C.O. kept staring at this guy with a blank expression and just said flatly, ‘Maybe you should show a little bit of respect and stop cursing.
This is a memorial.’
The other guy stood there for a second trying to think of something to say, then muttered something, shook our C.O.’s hand, and walked off with his buddies. Our seniors were annoyed because they didn’t get to fight anybody.”
2. Here's Your Ice, Just Like You Wanted
“So I work at (insert mainstream coffee shop here). Yesterday I was at the main bar which is mainly the drive-through coffee making. There’s this grumpy old woman who ALWAYS comes through. Every day. She always gets at least 2 drinks. The issue arises with one of these drinks.
It’s always the same. It’s a hot coffee with extra cream and specifically FIVE ice cubes to cool it down. So I throw the cream in the cup first. I do put an adequate amount of cream for her. But the problem is she claims it’s too cold because the ice is on top.
So I started adding the ice in with the cream first. So it’s evenly cooled down not just the top layer.
When she came through yesterday, she was mad that there wasn’t any ice in her cup. So she berated my drive-through window person and chose to dump the coffee out herself instead of waiting for a remake.
We’re not supposed to take it back after it leaves the window. But we chose to do exactly what she said.
Petty revenge time. The window person came over and put a good 5 to 7 more cubes in and gave it back. She was livid now because it was too cold.
He said he only did what she asked. She called us incompetent and sped off. A little anti-climactic but we all had a good laugh.”
1. I Left My Ex The King-Sized Bed
“First story: Many years ago, I attended a small all-boys private school.
This wasn’t a prep school, no, though I did go to one of those later. No, this school was for problem children. Yes, I was a problem child.
This school had a mix of shy introverts and geeks (I was in that camp) along with rebellious teens, a few bullies, and at least a couple of sociopaths, possibly psychopaths.
Some days I’m still not sure how I made it out of there with a smile.
In my second year, the school had an optional trip to India during spring break. The head of school and assistant head went with a motley collection of teens.
A fifth of the student body went, meaning seven students. Yes, a very small school.
We got ready and flew on Air India both ways—an airline that did not have anything close to the best safety record in the world in the mid-1980s.
I liked the country and it was a very educational trip, though maybe not quite the way the head of school would have liked. We saw shocking poverty alongside determined people forging a path toward the India of this century alongside the history of a very old country.
Quite the mix.
Some year I’d like to go back. Absolutely everybody from the school either got sick or injured, but that didn’t dim my enjoyment of the trip.
For the trip home I was supposed to have an aisle seat, with T sitting between me and M.
M was quite the bully, and he really liked hurting people. Unfortunately for me, T got there first and took my seat. When I asked him to let me have my seat, he looked away. M looked at me with a smile, wearing a nice new cotton shirt he’d gotten in India.
He was restless. He’d been sick more days than anybody else, trusting unboiled water despite all sorts of warnings not to.
Shortly after we were seated, M started punching my right shoulder. Hard. No warning, no explanation; he just wanted to hurt me. He did this several times.
He’d done this before on other trips. I didn’t do anything those other times other than move seats if possible, because at least I knew those wouldn’t be incredibly long trips. This? Was slated to be 16 hours seated next to a bully who kept grinning every time he punched my arm.
When we were served our first in-flight beverage—orange juice, which I remembered from the inbound flight was some of the most mediocre orange juice I have ever had the misfortune to drink—The Plan came to me. It was a very simple plan.
I held my orange juice in my right hand and waited for a pretty stewardess to walk down the aisle.
When one did, I threw back both my hands as if in amazement at how lovely she was. Sploosh! I splashed orange juice all over M’s nice new cotton Indian shirt. The stewardess smiled at me.
Right after she left I got up from my seat, went to talk to a steward type, and begged for a seat change.
I would have been much cooler if I hadn’t broken down and cried for a few seconds, but I was that scared of going back to my seat.
I still have no idea how my in-flight luggage survived, but it did.
Second story: Another event happened many years ago when I went out with a woman and lived with her for about two years.
She is the only ex I call any sort of a nasty name because she was very, very mean.
She was unfair in our finances, borrowing often from me without paying it back but insisting that any time I borrowed from her I pay it back ASAP.
She was mean to her young son, a boy she’d ignore far too much of the time and spank far too often.
She was rude to me in person, and she talked trash about me behind my back, distorting events and lying to people I knew from a couple of communities.
She wrecked my reputation and damaged my parents’ reputation as well, despite them using a little pull to get her a work-study job she would enjoy.
I realized I could not take living with her anymore and told her I’d be moving out in a couple of months.
When moving week came, she protested that if I took the king-size bed I’d bought for our apartment together that she’d have nothing to sleep on. This was a lie. She’d recently gotten a comfy little daybed.
I was about to call her on it when inspiration struck me: she’d have to flip and turn the mattress all by herself.
During our entire time together she either helped me flip and turn it or watched as I did it all by myself. It is not easy to wrestle a king-size mattress!
So I left her the king-sized bed.
I saw her a few more times after that, trying to be friends—that didn’t work, but that’s another story.
Every time I visited, she’d wheedle and ask me to help her flip and turn the mattress.
Every time, I told her No.
And every time, I smiled a little inside because she’d have to beg some other sucker to help her because she wasn’t getting my help.”
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