"Revenge sounds so mean. That's why I prefer to call it 'returning the favor." Look, everyone knows that when we run into a jerk, we're supposed to be kind and turn the other cheek. But sometimes, people go too far and they have to be taught a lesson. If you're in the mood for some oh-so-satisfying stories of sweet revenge, brilliant clapbacks, and instant karma, look no further. It's payback time.
1. Driving Himself Crazy
I was working on an acrimonious divorce where the husband and wife were fixated on this one car. After months and months of saying he would never let the wife have the car, the husband concedes in exchange for something great, like one of their summer houses. Then we found out why he had this "change of heart." It turns out he had been driving the car for three hours every day in a big loop around the city, putting thousands and thousands of miles on it, basically making it worthless.
The amount of planning and spite that went into that was amazing.
2. Hold My Calls
I was at a touristy place at the top of a big cliff. People were hanging around at the top, just enjoying the view, and this one guy was eating a sandwich while staring at his phone. After he was done, he couldn't be bothered to find a trash can. He went to throw the sandwich wrappings off the cliff, but got his hands confused and hurled his phone off the cliff instead. It was beautiful.
3. Happy Wife, Happy Life
My uncle was a prominent, busy doctor. My aunt, a stay-at-home mother of two. My uncle was very rigid and authoritative, and had to have things just so: a certain breakfast at a specific time every morning, his clothes folded or hung in a particular way, a specific drink waiting for him upon his return home, and a specific dinner at a given time every night, based on a rotating menu.
This went on for decades until he eventually passed. Regardless, one night was meatloaf night, and after years of no complaints, my uncle erupts, screaming at my aunt that her meatloaf is simply garbage, how could she not be able to cook something so simple, all of this, and literally fires his full dinner plate across the room.
My aunt, his submissive, quiet, loyal servant over their then twenty or so years of marriage, simply apologizes and cleans up, promising to improve her recipe. It was only after my uncle died—they were married for 52 years—that she finally admitted the truth. She told my mother that she’d fed him meatloaf made solely of Alpo (wet, canned dog food) for the past 30 years with nary a complaint.
4. Dad Humor
How's this for instant karma? My dad tried to fart on me and accidentally pooped himself instead.
5. Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold, Depending on the Season…
The wife cheated on her husband during his frequent travels for work. She was the one who filed for divorce, and she got to keep the house. Months elapse and the husband is still furious, rightfully so, but has no recourse. Then he has an epiphany: "I wonder if she changed the password to the Nest Thermostat?" She did not.
For the next year, he continues to mess with the thermostat. In the middle of summer when they're sleeping in HIS bed, he turns the heat on to 90 degrees at 3 AM. Middle of winter? Time to shut off the heat and hope the pipes freeze. Away on vacation? Turn the air conditioning down to 55 and let it run 24/7 for a nice surprise bill when they get home.
6. Just a Reminder
My annoying co-worker loved saying dumb stuff to get a rise out of me. One day, I made him regret it. He shouted at me from across the floor that “there's a woman on the phone, and she says she's pregnant, and she thinks the baby might be yours.” I just shouted back at him, “Tell your mom to stop calling me at work."
7. Deal or No Deal
I heard this from a DJ in my home town. He's pushing his cart of groceries out of the store and over to his car when a woman pulls into the handicapped spot in front of the store. No placard, no handicapped plates. She jumps out of the car without so much as a limp and heads into the store. He gives her some stink-eye about taking up a handicapped spot and she snarls, "Deal with it" as she sashays into the store.
The guy is now fuming. He sees a couple of officers who were leaning against their cars talking. They hadn't seen it. So he goes over and tells them the story. They smile and say they'll handle it. He puts his groceries in his car, and as he's pushing his cart back to the store to put it in the rack, he sees the officers have blocked the lady's car with theirs.
The lady comes out of the store with her purchase, sees the officers, and goes white as a sheet. He walks over to her and says, "I dealt with it."
8. I Hope She Was Thirsty!
I used to be a zookeeper. This obnoxious woman was making fun of our llama for looking ugly. The llama was a rescue who had just had corrective jaw surgery. The woman pointed and laughed at our llama. The llama spat directly into her mouth. I gave the llama a treat and told her that she was a good girl.
9. If You Could Care, That’d Be Great
This hasn't happened yet, it should commence in roughly three hours. My current job is not all that great, small company cronies and all that. But what makes it truly bad is the management and ownership attitude. We are treated like throwaway items, not people. We've had a fair amount of people let go recently, most of them for cost-cutting reasons.
When some of these terminated employees pointed out that the holiday season is a mean time for planned reductions, they literally got told "Not my problem, that's your problem." When we are forced to perform jobs without adequate equipment, funds, parts, etc. "Not my problem, make it work." "Lie to the customer if you need to, it’s your issue, not mine." Oh, their words would come back to haunt them.
I'm the last surviving member of my department. I'm doing the jobs of three people, just to keep operations running. I'm by no means vital to company survival, but there will be pain if my workshop sits idle. I'm turning in my final timesheet today, without notice. My new job starts next week. I think it's petty revenge, but that's ok. Not my problem, right?
10. Revenge Is Sweet
My wife used to keep these little Godiva chocolates that she likes in her desk at work, but started noticing some of them missing and figured it must be someone from the overnight cleaning staff taking them. Fed up with losing her not-inexpensive treats, she decided to get revenge on the choco-thief in question by replacing the good chocolate with little squares of chocolate laxatives that look just like real candies.
The next morning, she saw several of the laxatives gone, and then from that day forward, she was never missing another one of her good chocolates ever again.
11. Backed Into a Corner
I watched a lazy shopper park their grocery cart right behind another person’s car instead of putting it in the cart return. I got out of my car, moved the cart, and put it behind the lazy shopper's own car. I then ran off and watched her have to get back out of her car since she couldn't back out, and then finally put her cart away. I felt like a champion of the people.
12. Your Cheating Heart
My ex cheated on me with a married man. She now lives with him. She is a jerk, but I got the last laugh. You see, I still have the login for her DVR. I logged in, erased all her shows, then recorded only the show Cheaters. Petty, but it makes me laugh.
13. Honest Mistake on Purpose
The host sat me at a table with a couple and their toddler. The two sat on the same side of the booth, kissed, etc., so I knew they were a couple, but the woman looked much older. Like she looked terrible. I'm sure it was substance abuse of some kind, but it was noticeable. So she's super rude to me the entire time. She asked for her eggs over easy hard.
I explained to her that her eggs could either be over easy and over hard, and what both meant. She then got really patronizing, saying things like "Bless your heart" and asking for a real server. I told her that I know how eggs are cooked, and asked if she meant over medium. That's when she got verbally abusive and asked "How hard is your job? Honestly, how hard is it to just serve people eggs?"
I'd had it. I gave her order to the cook, and of course, he asked me what she meant. I told him to just make them over medium, as I felt like that was what she meant. I gave her the eggs and she sighed real heavy. She said, "I'm sorry, was my order too hard? Did you not understand me? What the hell kind of place is this that nobody can make me eggs?"
I took a deep breath, and went all in with a brutal insult. I said, "Ma'am, I apologize to you, your son, and your grandson. Let me go ahead and comp your meal." Her face twisted up and got so red I thought it was going to pop off of her face. She yelled, "THIS IS MY HUSBAND AND THAT'S MY SON!" Oh boy, it was so worth it. She began screaming for my manager.
I got my manager. He yelled at me in the office, but couldn't prove that I was purposefully disingenuous. So I didn't even get written up. It was awesome.
14. Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You
I was riding my bike to work one day and while I was crossing the street, a woman ran me over. She drove through the crosswalk, looking to turn right, and ran right into me. After I got bumped hard enough by her fender to take a spill and have some bruising all down my side, she stopped. But not to see if I was okay, oh no.
She only gave me an exasperated, "my bad" wave and continued to talk on her cell phone, ignoring me as I picked myself and my bike up. So I walked right up to her open window, grabbed her cell phone from her ear, and chucked it into a nearby parking lot as hard as I could. I swear that was the farthest I have thrown anything in my life.
She gaped at me in shock as I struggled back onto my bike and slowly rode off, fuming yet victorious.
15. Have a Nice Trip
This kid was running around a restaurant at high speed, making a loop. Around and around he went, yelling and knocking items off of people's tables. He zipped by my table one too many times…and I tripped him. He did a long sliding face-plant. Jumped back up and started crying and yelling at me. His parents grabbed him and hauled him out of there without a word. No regrets.
16. Act Your Age
I umpire little league baseball and was calling a game between a couple of pretty snooty leagues. After I called strike three on a kid, the mom yells from the stands: "Don't worry honey, he's just some fat loser with nothing better to do!" I looked back to see who said it and saw that she was a young, rich looking mom, probably about 35 years old.
I knew then that I'd make her regret her words. This woman clearly prided herself on how she looked, considering she was pretty dolled up for her kid’s little league baseball game. So between innings, I leaned back against the fence and said to her "Ma'am these are children. I'd expect a woman in her 50s to have a little more class than that."
17. Diaper up
We had a guy in our office take a dump in the bathroom every day after lunch, and it would stink up the whole office. The manager asked everyone who needed to vacate their bowels to please use the lobby bathroom since our office was small and we only had the one bathroom. He didn't listen. Fortunately, he was like clockwork, so five minutes before he went in, I took all the toilet paper.
That's right. I forced a grown man to live with a poopy butt. After that, he used the lobby washroom.
18. You're Fired
I was 19 shopping with a friend. She was (still is) a smaller person than myself. She was trying on a shirt and needed a size up so i took it back out to find a bigger size. I couldn't locate it so I ask a sales girl if she could help me find a bigger size. She takes the shirt in a gruff way. I ignore it. She comes back with a hat and hands it to me. I say, "Um what's this?"
She said, "This is the only thing in this store that will fit you", contempt dripping from her lips. I'm like, oh I see. I go to the dressing room, tell my friend we need to leave now. She gets dressed. Tries to clean her mess I tell her leave it. We walk out, I go to the register with the hat, it's busy. My friend asks what's up with the hat. I knew it was time to strike.
I say loudly, "According to that girl this is the only thing in the store that fits me." My friend, shocked, lost her mind. Because her parents owned the store. That's how I got a girl fired because I was feeling petty. Saw that girl later that week where I worked. I smiled and showed her what customer service should be.
19. A Hairy Situation
Okay, this one is pretty gross. Growing up in a house of only girls, personal space does not exist even a little bit. We used to bathe in front of each other, and even use the bathroom in front of each other. There are no boundaries, nothing was off-limits. Even so, my younger sister was NOTORIOUS for shaving "down there" in the tub.
She was also notorious for not rinsing it out when she was done. Pubes. Everywhere. One day, she was taking a bath and I asked her to rinse when she was done, because I planned on taking a bath afterward. She told me to screw off. So, I reached in my pants, snipped off a chunk of pubes, tossed them in the tub with her, and walked out.
20. Wait Your Turn
I was in a massive line at a store. I'm next in line, but the person in front of me has a bunch of stuff. A helpful clerk sees the mess and opens another aisle, saying, "I can help the next customer." Well, that's me. However, as I’m stepping over to her counter, this jerk from the very end of my line is sprinting to her counter, pushing people, with his partner in tow.
He arrives right before me. They have a mountain of items in their cart, which he starts throwing on the checkout counter immediately. I’m standing there on the other side with my one item, burning with rage. But the checkout girl got him good. She waits until he stacks all of his stuff on the counter, looks at me, looks at him, and says to him, "I'm sorry sir, you'll have to go to the end of the line."
This line is now massive. I put on my biggest grin, made eye contact with him as long as possible, and loudly told the clerk how awesome she was.
21. Something Smells Fishy About This Story
I caught my now ex-wife sleeping with a married dude. I moved her out into an apartment. Not two days later, I was on my way home, passed her new apartment, and saw his truck in her driveway. Instead of going home, I went to the grocery store, bought a couple of whole salmons from the fresh fish department, went back to the apartment building, crawled underneath the guy’s truck, and put both the fish inside.
Luckily, the door was unlocked. I knew full well that they would rot in the heat over the next few days and make his truck smell awful. His wife texted me a few days later, saying "very funny." He ended up having to buy a new truck because he couldn't get the stink out.
22. Taking Care of Business
There was this mean girl at school who constantly made fun of everyone, and she happened to have a big nose. After hearing her rant about her latest victim, and finally snapped and said back, "I know it's hard because it's so big, but could you keep your nose out of everyone’s business?" She was speechless for a second.
23. Mind Games
Back when I was a server, there was a woman with a group of friends at one of my tables who asked for a can of Coke. When I brought their drinks and gave the woman her Coke, she looked at me and said, in that typical rich-girl voice,"Excuse me, honey? I asked for Fanta, not Coke." I apologized, wrote it onto my notepad, and went back to get her a can of Fanta.
I brought the drink to her but again she turned to me and said: "I didn't ask for Fanta, I asked for Cream Soda." By this time, I was getting a bit annoyed, but I went back and got her a Cream Soda anyway. Sure enough, when I returned to her table, she did the same thing again. "I asked for Sprite. Should I call the manager?" Oh, honey. She should have stopped testing me when she had the chance.
So, for the last time, I smiled and I went back to the kitchen and packed cans of Coke, Cream Soda, Fanta, Sprite, Pepsi and Sparberry Soda, into a small plastic box and took it all to her and said: "Here you go, miss, take your pick." She looked offended and almost made a scene. She started lecturing me about how I'm incapable of getting the simplest order right and that she wants to talk to the restaurant's manager.
I told her that I can call him, and that I'll show him all the soda types I wrote on my notepad that she asked for, and we can get his opinion on the matter. She turned and took her Sprite out of the plastic box and said "Just leave it." None of them gave me any issues after that!
24. Long-Term Influence
I moved to America to be with this guy. Let's call him Dick. Dick happened to work at the same big box store as my friend J, and one day when I came to meet J from work, a coworker innocently said "Are you looking for Dick? He's staying with his girlfriend." Me: "I'M HIS GIRLFRIEND." Now, another thing you should know about Dick is that he bought his toothbrushes wholesale and lived in the grungiest apartment ever.
I cleaned every inch of that bathroom, toilet included, with each and every one of those remaining toothbrushes, documenting every step with photographs. Then I rinsed them in the toilet and put them back in the box. I packed up and left. Ten years later, when I'd calculated he was on the last brush, I sent him the pictures.
25. Karen Clear
A woman holding up the line at Starbucks asked the barista, “Could you please compare and contrast the five following roasts of coffee bean and tell me whether each would be best with pound cake, lemon squares, or pecan pie…?” The barista tried his best to describe what she wanted to know about the whole menu. When he finished, the woman said to him, "I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? I don't speak gay."
Then the cashier responded with the most beautiful thing I have ever heard: "No problem. I'm fluent in Karen."
26. Let’s Go to the Tape
I wear hearing aids, and a girl in my math class when I was in high school used to make fun of me. I hadn’t said two words to her, I gave her no reason to do it, she was just being evil. So I recorded her mocking my hearing loss on my phone and then played it for her parents. They took the new car they just bought her back to the dealership.
27. Pumpkin Spice Vengeance
I have a friend whose elaborate pumpkin display at the end of his driveway would be run over every year by the neighborhood jerk. My friend decided to put a stop to it. He withdrew a bunch of money from his savings account so he would have enough to buy the largest pumpkin he could find, along with several large bags of cement.
He filled that puppy up and made a really pretty display. The idiot took the bait. He broke the axle of his car when he hit that pumpkin. Could not drive away. The cherry on top was when my friend then had his car towed.
28. If You Could See Me Now
When I was in 8th grade, we had a history teacher who lost her left eye at a young age. She was the meanest teacher I ever had, but one day she went too far. We were in class, and I was in the back of the room. She called my name to answer a question and I didn’t know the answer. She calls me to the front of the room, intent on embarrassing me in front of the class. When I failed to answer the next question she told me to get out of her sight. I promptly stepped to my right a few steps. Her face turned the color of a ripe tomato, and I was suspended from school. Totally worth it.
29. Chatter Box
I was in an online chatroom when I was 15 years old. Some guy I’d been talking to for a while and who I had told I was 15 sent me a, shall we say, inappropriate picture out of nowhere. He asked me what I thought about it. I told him that my mom always told me that good things come in small packages. He wasn’t very impressed with me.
30. I Vote No
Just the other day, I was at a Chinese buffet and the three people in the booth next to me were questioning the waitress about voting. She had trouble understanding them and communicating that she could not vote. They then immediately began taunting. After the waitress walked off, one of the girls at the table looked up and asked me where I worked, because I looked familiar.
When I replied that I worked at the local university in the social work department, she commented that she had recently been in my office to apply to our program. So I replied, “Yes, I remember you and I'm also on the admissions committee.” The color drained from her face, and she knew she was screwed. Karma's a witch.
31. Pour It Up!
I was bartending one night when a rude man asked how I was ever going to get a job with all of my visible tattoos. I had the perfect response. I said, "Well, as you can clearly see, I am at work right now." He gave me a condescending half-smile while I poured his drink. I added, "And I own this restaurant!" Then I took a huge sip of his drink in front of him. "It's great to be the boss!"
32. I Will Look for You, I Will Find You
I came out of the mall one day to find that someone had hit my car. I asked a passerby what happened, and they told me that the guy who hit my car got out, looked at the damage, and quickly parked at the other end of the lot. So I came up with an ingenious plan for revenge. I went to where the car was parked, paint matched it to confirm that it was the one that hit mine, then I flattened all four tires, and left a note on their windshield telling them to have a nice day.
33. Mind Games
My old boss tried firing me because I was better than them at their job. I tricked them into saying it out loud, in front of the CEO. Let's just say they don't need to worry about me being better than them anymore.
34. Lecturing Them
I have a great story from a lecture I was at a few years ago. The lecture hadn't started yet, and people in the audience were chatting amongst themselves. In front of me were two Israeli girls, chatting to each other in Hebrew. I speak a little bit of Hebrew—not a lot, but enough to be able to get the gist of what they were talking about.
They were making fun of the older lady in front of them, mocking her clothing and appearance and so on. They got what was coming to them. After a few minutes of talking about her and laughing, the lady turns around and says, in Hebrew, "You shouldn't assume that no one can understand you, you know." Oh, but it gets better.
At which point the guy sitting next to them says, in Hebrew, "Yeah, you really were being very rude." At which point a third person, a woman sitting in the row behind me, leaned forward and called them idiots, all in Hebrew. By this point, I was starting to really crack up with laughter and the people seated nearby were giving me looks.
I didn't have anything clever to add, so I just wheezed out that I spoke Hebrew too in between laughs. The four of us just laughed and laughed, while the two girls tried to slide into the floor.
35. Slaying the Cyclops
When I was a senior in high school, I had an AP English teacher that would grade people "based on how much she liked them." I had long hair and stretched earlobes, and she despised me even though I was an excellent student. She claimed that I didn’t turn in assignments on time to justify my grades, so I spoke with my guidance counsellor, and she investigated for me.
It turns out that she had sorted completed assignments into piles of "good" and "bad" and would arbitrarily grade the papers based on who she felt sucked up to her the most that day. I presented a long, detailed book report on The Odyssey, and she gave me a D. I told her "Screw you, this is the end of your career" and walked out.
She didn't realize that I had sent an identical copy to the guidance counsellor. She presented it to the school board, eventually got her fired, and the best part was she was also a drivers ed instructor and lost her job doing that as well. Apparently, I wasn't the first to speak up about her, but I was the one that put the nail in the coffin. It felt great.
36. Perfect Comeback
A customer who was angry about something absolutely inconsequential said, “I’m never coming back, and I’m gonna tell all my friends!” The owner of the store replied, “Great, I doubt you have many.”
37. Let’s Get Away From It All
My boss refused to let me take a weekend off for my best friend’s wedding because a co-worker was already taking the time off for a dirty weekend away with the married guy she was having an affair with. The married guy was my boss, by the way. I was a bridesmaid and had booked the weekend off 10 months in advance.
I quit on the spot and told my boss’s wife he was cheating on her. My best friend’s wedding was lovely. My ex-boss meanwhile is going through a brutal divorce.
38. Extinguishing Language Barriers
My high school principal once insulted my mother, who is not American and doesn't speak English as her first language, when she spoke English and made a little mistake. She just politely apologized for the mix-up and said to him, "I'm sorry. Sometimes I get English mixed up with the other six languages I speak. How many do you speak?"
39. Do You Even Lift, Bro?
This jerk in the gym was once making some 14-year-old kids feel bad, telling them to put some “man weights” on the bar and stop lifting light, things like that. Every time they found a new workout, he comes and repeats the process, trying to embarrass them. I was annoyed but tired, and let it slide….the first time it happened.
Only it happened again.. The same kids came in two days later, and he was there also. He starts doing exactly what he did before. Well, that was it. I walked up right next to him, doubled what he was lifting, and repeated everything he had said to the kids in the last five minutes all while staring at him right in his stupid face.
He quickly moved on and went to another exercise. But I wasn't done yet. The kids were looking at me like I was Batman. I followed the guy to the next three exercises and did as he had done, saying the same things. Then he left. Never saw him at the gym again, but those boys sure came back and have been making steady gains for over a year now.
40. Eh B’y?
My history teacher would spend half the class making jokes directed at the students. One student in particular always took the jokes on the chin and never really made any comebacks. Eventually, the teacher called him out and jokingly lectured him about standing up for himself. He ended his rant with, "You've gotta be a man. You've gotta be like me."
The student replied with the greatest burn I have ever heard. "Well, which one? Do you want me to be a man or do you want me to be like you?"
41. Pays in More Ways Than One
I learned this one after receiving a "tip" from a server at a popular national chain. The server told me, "Our location has some discount options that we can apply at the push of the screen. Typically, we only use them when the customer presents ID or requests it, but once in a while we can use them to our advantage." He was right. They could use those codes for extreme revenge.
"If I get particularly rude customers, especially if it's a group of 40-something ladies who dress and act like they're a wannabe cast of some version of Housewives, but are actually so cheap that they are coming to a place like this, I totally hit that seniors discount button before presenting their check. While they comb over the check because they just know I must have made errors, they see that I must have assumed they are in their 60s. I don't care about reducing the price of their check. It's not like they were going to tip me much anyway."
42. Out to Lunch
My dad kept getting his lunch stolen at work. One day, he got my mother to get the spiciest hot sauce on the market and put it on his sandwich. Lo and behold, the guy who stole it was sweating profusely and smelling suspiciously like he had just pooped himself. They fired the guy and my dad got to eat his lunch again.
43. Watch and Learn
My stepdad is a driving instructor. I went to get my license pretty late in the game, when I was 22 years old. One day, he was giving me a lesson and we were going over one of the possible courses that the test takes. While we're driving down a street in the suburbs, a guy is tailgating the life out of me, and he's a really scary looking dude.
Every time I come to a stop sign, I do a full stop, obviously. When I do, he throws his hands in the air and yells. It's starting to stress me out, but my stepdad comes up with an ingenious plan. He says, "Don't worry about it, watch this." As we're going down the street, he says, "Okay, now in about 50 feet I want you to start slowing down a little bit and right when you are in front of that school zone, pull over to the right."
So I do it. Right after I pull over, the scary-looking, furious guy takes off from behind me like a speeding bullet. Aaaannd about five seconds later, a patrol car pulls out from behind a tree and waves him over for going probably double the speed limit in a school zone. We laughed. Hard. Don’t tussle with the driving instructor.
44. Seeing a Problem
A customer was angry that we couldn't take another company's gift card. He said, "Are you saying I can't read?" I said, "No, our store got sold. We can't take those anymore. The grace period ended two years ago." He went silent. His wife said, "I guess you can't read after all." I wanted to high five that lady.
45. Pennies From Heaven
I used to deliver pizza for Dominoes. It was my last shift and there was this house that was always rude. For example, I called to ask what the house looked like and they said, "I gave you the address" and hung up. They never tipped, etc. I got to their house and they gave me a check for 1 cent less than what the total was.
I said, "I am going to need the extra penny." They grumbled off and took their time, hoping I would give up, but I just sat there holding the pizza. They finally came back all angry and gave me the penny. So then I really enacted my revenge. They gave me the penny and I chucked it out into the street and left. They saw me do it. It was SATISFYING.
46. HR Nightmare
I was on a team of two, and when the lady I worked with quit, they decided not to replace her. This meant that if I needed to use my paid overtime (PTO) to take time off, which I often did because I have a young child who gets sick every now and again, it was a real problem. I would give my manager, who worked at a remote office, lots of ways to fix this issue, but she never would hear any of it.
That's when she sent me the rudest email I have ever received. She basically said me I could not use my PTO when my son got sick. I wrote back a long, detailed list of every method I suggested to fix the issue, along with the fact that I was the only person in my position for months, and that our company policy states in bold letters that using PTO because a loved one is sick is not only acceptable but encouraged.
My manager responded to my email by stating she would forward my concerns to HR and that I should probably polish up my resume. But HR was in our office that day. For the first time in six months. Great coincidence, right? So, I went in, asked if I could speak about an issue concerning my manager, and explained everything as it happened.
The HR rep had this look on her face like she was going to murder someone. She then asked me to forward the entire email chain to her, which I did. Then she called me back. Apparently, everyone told the HR rep that the entire office can't function without me and that I've been doing the work of three people for nine months.
Later that day, my manager sent me a very angry message saying I was fired because I was causing a hostile work environment. I forwarded this to the HR rep who looked at me, and in a single, sweet sentence said, "Not a chance, she's royally screwed." And that's basically how my manager went from making $80k a year to being fired on a Wednesday with no compensation, no benefits, and no way to collect unemployment.
It was an all-around productive day.
47. Work to Rule
A woman in my town is a Principal at a local elementary school. She is in her mid-70s (at least). I asked someone why she doesn't retire, and they explained that she and her spouse went through a very contentious divorce about 15 years ago and she has to give him a portion of her retirement, so she has decided to NEVER retire so he gets nothing ever! Hahahahaha.
48. Takes One to Know One
I’ve served this couple a few times and the husband is always pretty demanding and rude to me AND to his wife. I feel bad for her. At some point during the service I mentioned that I have a child—can’t remember the context. Toward the end of the meal I asked if I could take anything away—plates, etc. The jerk husband says, “yeah, HER,” gesturing to his wife.
I thought that was bad but it got even worse. He elaborates, saying “Hey maybe you could use her, she’s done a lot of babysitting.” I glanced at him and then looked her in the face and said “Clearly.” I ignored him for the rest of their time there and spoke only to the wife. She paid the bill and tipped me well.
49. Finally Getting Payback
I handle wills as part of my job. This one lady had the greatest revenge, and she did it from beyond the grave. Her will read, "To my daughter Anne, who created my beautiful granddaughter Jane, and her dear fourth husband John, who laid hands on My Jane, I leave one dollar you money-grubbing jerks. To Jane I leave all of my monetary assets, save $5,000, and my best gun which I leave to my son Bill, on the condition that he beats John bloody during the time between my funeral and my burial. Jane, bail your uncle out, please." Amazing.
50. Revenge Best Served Over A Full Course
This is the story of how I got revenge on the worst teacher in the world. I had a teacher in a private college that enjoyed calling everybody stupid and that we were only studying there because our parents showed how much they earned. There were a lot of scholarship students, myself included. I can't be quiet when I hear these kinds of things, so we argued in almost every class. She failed most of the class, but we appealed with the dean, and she let us take another test, with another teacher. Everybody passed.
In the second course the teacher repeated her actions, but this time the dean said we were being dramatic. The teacher decided that there would not be a test, only a group presentation. She settled the groups. I got stuck with two lazy guys who did nothing, so I did the entire paper and the presentation. Both of them got a 9 (A) and I got a 7 (C minus). I only needed a C to pass, so I failed and lost my scholarship.
I tried to talk to the dean, but she wouldn’t have it. So, I had to take the course again. I could do it with another teacher, but I chose her. I made sure I was the worst student she ever had. I sat in the first row, always made a fool of her, and even made her cry. She left the next year. I do not regret it and I would do it again, with an extra bit of cruelty.
51. Playing Mind Games
This older couple, around 70, would always come to this chain restaurant to eat every Sunday after church. While the wife was extremely polite, the guy was an absolute jerk. He often yelled and berated her along with the server. On one fateful day, I was graced with their presence once again. He was being his normal rude self toward me, and even worse to his wife on this particular occasion.
Finally, I had enough of his attitude. I said, “No matter what you say and what you do, I’ll have at least two minutes alone with your food. It will be right out.” The wife absolutely lost it laughing. He shot her a mean glare, and after hesitating a split second, she continued with even louder laughing. I never touched his food, and neither did he. They never came back.
52. How Do You Like Them Cookies
At the end of a long commute home after a hard week, I went to a Millie’s Cookies store just before closing time. As I walked up to the counter, some guy ran from behind me and tried to cut in front of me. The girl working there insisted I was first, thankfully. Outraged and noticing there weren’t many cookies left, I said, "Hi, I'll take absolutely everything you have." Cost me close to $60, but it was so worth it.
53. Keep Your Friends Close…
A girl on my softball team antagonized me and spread rumors about me to the team and coaches. We were competing for the same position. She was in my geometry class and tried to buddy up to me because I was good at geometry, and she wasn't. So for a while, I let her copy my homework, then one day I gave her all the wrong answers and turned in the right answers for myself.
54. Say What You Mean
I was giving an oral presentation in French class in high school and got heckled by two classmates in particular. As I finished and went to sit down, annoyed, one of them told me snidely, “Good oral, idiot.” My reply was withering. “Yeah, too bad the only good oral you can give is to (other classmate)." Even the teacher couldn't keep herself together.
55. Dance, Dance, Revolution
So to set the scene, we live in a solid brick block of 4 flats built in the 1960s. This building is going nowhere. We are in one of the downstairs flats and lead a quiet life. Occasionally, we listen to some music, maybe watch some comedy specials on TV and laugh a little loudly, sometimes my girlfriend gets a bit heated while playing video games. Other than that though, just normal domestic lowkey hum.
The neighbor above us is a professional singer who teaches students from home to supplement her income. No problem to us, we usually have headsets on and can't hear anyway. She also has had a string of fellas that she has had loud screeching intimate time with. Again, no skin off our nose, we make our share of similar noise ourselves. Finally, she is a heel stomper and a possession dropper. We can hear every single step she takes, and every single thing she drops on her floor. You would assume floorboards, right? Wrong. She has carpet laid on a concrete slab.
She is insanely noisy to live under, but we could forgive all of this. Except she sends us blatantly rude texts whenever we make the slightest bit of noise, asking us to tone it down. We are in a Cold War standoff, and no side is set to back down. When we move one day, I am buying a battery speaker and a cheap MP3 player and leaving "Sweet Caroline" (her name) on repeat at full volume. She can deal with that sweet racket until the batteries give up!
56. Driving Miss Crazy
I volunteer at my university, safe walks and all that jazz. We are required to report suspicious activity. I once witnessed a woman driving a Mercedes-Benz across a lawn to bypass the parking gate, tearing up this gorgeous lawn. I was not amused, so we reported it to the parking authority. They couldn’t have come at a better time.
They show up while the woman is still getting stuff out of her trunk, box her in, and start writing a ticket. She ended up driving away over a curb and peeling her entire bumper off in the process. Made me happy inside.
57. Do a Little, Pay a Lot
I work at a grocery store wrangling shopping carts. If I ever saw someone put a cart in front of their car instead of walking the 15 feet to put it away, I would grab my line of carts and block them in. I would proceed to take the longest time ever to gather their cart while pretending not to notice them sitting in a running vehicle.
58. Girl Power
Back in the late 60s, I had very long hair and wore the flowery stuff that was the fashion back then. Anyway, I was dating this girl whose mom absolutely hated me. After yet another snotty exchange, I asked her what her problem with me was. She said, "I think you’re effeminate!" I replied, "Compared to you, I guess I am!" She didn't make any comments about my appearance after that.
59. Special Delivery
My little brother and his girlfriend came to stay at my house for the weekend, and the girlfriend was super self-centered and obnoxious. When they left, she forgot her clothes and toiletries because she left them sprawled all over my bathroom. About a week later, she and my brother moved into an apartment together.
After he paid for the moving truck, deposit, and utilities, she cheated on him with her ex and kicked him out of the apartment. This left him broke, homeless, and heartbroken. In the days after the breakup, she kept calling and emailing him several times per day, demanding that he ask me to ship her clothes and toiletries back to her. “It’s really important, it’s my North Face.”
My brother called and pleaded with me to ship them to her so she would stop having a reason to contact him. Being the loving sister that I am, I gathered up the Really Important sweatshirt, shorts, underwear, shampoo, conditioner, soap, and razor. I folded everything nicely. I then wrote a nice note apologizing for taking so long to mail them to her, and let her know that I hope all is well. But there was just one problem with my letter...
The note was written in permanent marker, and the paper happened to be resting on the Really Important Northface when I wrote it. Unfortunately, the ink bled straight through the paper and onto the shirt. Also unfortunately, the shampoo, soap and conditioner caps were not tightly secured on their bottles, and the contents leaked out all over the clothes, further spreading the ink.
The most unfortunate result, though, was that her razor didn't have any sort of protective cap or container and left little slashes all over the front of the Really Important Northface. She received the package, and my brother never heard from her again.
60. Laser Sharp Revenge
Once at a laser tag birthday party, there was a 12-13-year-old little jerk following people around and shooting them over and over. Every time the vest and gun would come back on, he'd go to town and shoot you multiple times. He'd follow the same players everywhere. He kept doing it to one of my friends and me, and even did it to my friend’s little brother despite multiple warnings.
After the second time telling him to stop, I checked him to the ground…and ripped a huge fart right on his head. It was perfectly timed—but it got even better. He cried and told his parents I had been mean to him, but I just told him he was following us around and then tripped and fell. They bought it and apologized for their child. Awesome.
61. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Some jerk in a Humvee decided to park in a handicap spot at a Kroger. I was young at the time and out riding with my dad, who was a repo man…driving his repo truck. My dad towed the Humvee to a parking spot on the opposite side of the parking lot. We then waited until the owner came out and looked around in disbelief.
She thought someone took her car. My dad drove right up to her, rolled down the window, and said, "Are you ok, miss?" The woman said, all concerned, "My car was taken by someone.” My dad replied very coolly to her, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have parked it in a handicap spot," gave her a smile and drove off.
62. Surprise Ending
My neighbor's dog poops in our yard all of the time. It wouldn't be a big deal, except he never cleans up after her. I finally had enough, so I decided to go with a classic. I put a flaming bag of his dog's poop on his porch, rang the bell, and hid in the bushes. When he answered the door, I finally got my revenge by having an affair with his wife for the last three and a half years.
63. Let it Burn
A friend of mine is a lawyer. He had one client who sadly passed on from a fairly easily treatable cancer because he ran out of money and his relatives would not help. So in accordance with his will, which also contained the permits to do so, he gathered his entire family to his estate for a "will reading." Instead, his evil family had to watch as the entire estate burned.
64. Gimme Gimme Never Gets
I work at a small breakfast cafe in Florida and we get a lot of older people who are mostly from up north and can really have a bad attitude about not getting what they want immediately. One old lady rudely exclaimed asking what she had to do to get some coffee around here and without skipping a beat I responded that you ask politely.
All the people sitting with her at her table got a good laugh in and I felt pretty smug about putting her in her place.
65. Technical Victory
A horrible former co-worker always claimed she worked way more hours than she actually did, and when she was at work she just browsed Facebook all day. The doctor/owner was very hands-off and just let her do whatever she wanted, despite me going to him with proof, so I decided to take revenge.
She was not computer-savvy at all, so I removed Internet Explorer from her desktop and installed an identical icon that, when clicked, would instantly restart the computer. It was so satisfying when she would forget and click it, losing anything that she was working on. She would always grumble and complain about the issues with her computer.
66. Don’t Meet Your Heroes
I worked at a Toys R Us twice doing seasonal work around the big holidays, like Christmas and such. Anyway, you have to find ways to amuse yourself and keep from going totally insane with all the bratty kids and exasperated parents. So I did one pretty awful thing that I nonetheless have absolutely no remorse for.
I was scheduled to work the first shift on Black Friday, and they made me wear the Geoffrey the Giraffe costume. First rule is, don't talk. Dance, pose for photos, and keep your mouth shut. Basically, don't ruin it for the kids. But this particularly bratty kid kept punching me “down there” while I was posing with him for the photo. I was in the suit, but it still hurt. Wouldn't cut it out, so after the photo was taken, I got my revenge.
I knelt down, got my giraffe head at his eye level, and whispered, "Your parents told me not to say anything, but you were adopted." That little punk started wailing so loud, crying his eyes out. Best part was, the parents complained, but since I was in costume and they had just hired a bunch of new people, they had no idea who had done it.
67. A Little Humble Pie
Back when I was a waitress, I worked at this BBQ joint that had really narrow, awkwardly arranged tables so I always had to lean a bit over to serve the food. Anyhow, there was this table with a really obnoxious 4-year-old who kept grabbing at everything: My hands, my clothes, the tray I was serving from. He even untied my apron and my pens and cash flew everywhere. This went all through the whole meal.
Meanwhile, the parents didn't do a thing about it. In fact, the dad said it served me right for taking a job in food service. Total jerks, all of them, and I knew I wasn't getting a decent tip. So towards the end of their meal, they order dessert—peanut butter silk pie, which is ooey-gooey sticky pie heaven. I knew exactly what I had to do.
I make sure to cover it in an extra mound of whipped cream and balance it precariously on the side of my tray, counter-balanced with a couple of soda refills for the parents. Sure enough, when I got to the table, the little jerk made a grab for the tray and everything conveniently capsized all over him and his parents.
They were covered in diet coke, whipped cream, and the stickiest peanut butter pie you can imagine. I looked appropriately shocked and then said "I am SO sorry. Guess that's what happens when you have kids." Even managed to make it back to the kitchen before I cracked up, along with most of our staff. Serves them right.
68. Making It Lightly Shower
My habitually broke friend, Mike, finally got a part-time job at 23 years old. He cashed his $300 paycheck. We were all hanging out, and Mike was flaunting his money. He said, "Heck yea losers," and tossed up in the air. Our friend, John, calmly stated, "Mike, don't throw your life savings around like that.”
69. Never Too Late to Learn
A woman in her mid-50s cut in front of me and my two-year-old daughter in line at a restaurant. I was in the middle of getting my daughter a cookie and was in a hurry as I was dealing with a two-year-old. So I snapped at the woman, "How is it that you're 70 years old and you still don't know how a line works?" She was gloriously silent.
70. A Game of Telephone
I work in local theater, and we have a lot of rude, awful women from the nearby ballet schools come through our venue; they’re generally the mothers of the dancers so you know, those awful controlling dance moms you see on TV. Once, this woman rang up wanting seats to an almost sold-out ballet performance that had been on sale for four months the day before the show. It did not go well.
She did nothing but scream at me for five minutes because she left buying them too late, whined about how she shouldn't have to pay to see her kids, whined that we should get a bigger venue, then put me on hold while she rang three of her relatives to see if they wanted seats too. She was positively horrific to me, but don't worry. I got my revenge.
The seats I was about to sell her were the only ones in the theater left, and they were actually good seats. While I'm on hold, a grandma of one of the ballerinas comes to the desk and asks nicely if we have any seats left, as she'd been in hospital and couldn't buy them earlier. She said she'd understand if we were booked out.
This awful woman still has me on hold, so I put the phone down and sold this old lady the last seats for the show, then gave her an invite to our next year’s dance season so she'd know exactly when all the important dates were coming. She thanked me over and over, and she's now one of our regulars and brings her grandkids to our shows. Meanwhile, this other lady…
Two minutes after the old lady leaves, the witch on the other end finally takes me off hold and says she wants the remaining seats that we have left, I tell her "Sorry, we've just sold out while you had me on hold I'm afraid, better luck next year, anything else I can help you with?" She was choking with rage on the other end of the phone, it was fantastic.
71. Be Careful What You Wish for
Someone called in during a busy day at work requesting that I fax an invoice. Almost immediately after, they called again and again, about 10 times in 15 minutes, asking why they hadn't received it yet. I faxed them a copy on the hour every hour for the next day or two.
72. A Sharp Lesson
In grade school, I kept a bag of chips in the same pocket, every day, in my backpack. This kid I knew would punch that pocket any chance he could for five days in a row. One day, I replaced the chips with a bag of sewing pins. He never did it again. Sweet sweet justice.
73. No Vacancy
When I was nine years old, my dad and I were driving around some little town in Europe for an hour or so looking for a place to stay, but we kept getting told that everywhere was full. So we pull into the nth hotel of the evening. As dad and I are walking in, we hear the desk clerk tell another potential guest that they have one room left.
The guy, though, is kind of rude and huffy, and he says snippily, “I’ll have to check with my wife.” Suddenly, my dad yells from across the lobby "I'll take it." Dude gets this shocked look on his face, spins around, and tells the clerk "I'LL take it." Desk clerk to other guy: "I'm sorry, sir but we've just sold out."
74. Golden Opportunity
In first grade, I had to go to the bathroom really badly, but the teacher was busy and told us not to bother her. Well, I couldn't hold it in anymore and went. Everywhere. My pants were soaked and there was a giant puddle in the chair. I nonchalantly moved to another area of the room, trying my best to hid my wet shorts. Then the best thing happened.
This jerk named Sheldon in my class went and sat over in my puddle. He freaked out and the teacher thought it was him and sent him to the principal and ultimately home. Screw you Sheldon, I don’t care.
75. I Have the Receipts
I was once in a meeting with the very arrogant boss of our department and the other company executives. While I was there, there was a question about a major mistake that cost the company a product recall. Our boss laid the blame on our department from before he worked with us, saying we had modified a piece of equipment incorrectly.
One of my co-workers, a very humble man, quietly said to nobody in particular: "I have pictures in my notes." Meaning: "I am throwing the boss under the bus in front of every one of his superiors in the company." He hadn't planned this, he just happened to be incredibly meticulous in taking notes and pictures and documented absolutely everything.
He proceeded to lay out the facts—that we were not culpable—with complete disregard for retribution from our very vengeful boss. It was quite glorious to see someone so haughty and pious get brought down so beautifully by a low-level engineer and his meticulous note and picture taking. Never seen anything quite like it.
76. Butterfly Kisses
When I was in 7th grade, the startup my dad was a part of was failing miserably in no small part due to a crazy CEO. While at his house, my dad observed the CEO's toddler daughter picking up a piece of dog poop and licking it. He picked her up and told her to give her dad a kiss. Oh, don’t worry, she totally did it.
77. Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew a crazy kid in elementary school. Kid jumped across the table and tried to choke me out. I instigated it by saying he was "cuckoo for cocoa puffs" since that was the only thing that kid ever talked about and he was wearing a cocoa puffs shirt that day. Senior year of high school, turns out that kid was in my Design class.
I needed to get a C or better on the final. Over the year, I found out the kid was taking my work off my share drive and copying it. For the final, I purposely screwed up the drawing in my folder, but the kid didn't double-check it. He turned it in and failed and had to go back and be a super senior.
78. Right in the Family Jewels
My youngest daughter was getting picked on in elementary school by a boy who was two grades above her. He constantly taunted, pushed, and annoyed her. One day he pushed her from behind and she dropped her books. My sweet, shy daughter immediately turned around and full-on kicked him square in the nuts with all the force her soccer-playing leg could muster.
I was told he curled up and bawled for several minutes, while my daughter was sent to the principal’s office. She was smiling when I picked her up from school.
79. Family Feud
I was eight or nine at the time, and my mother and I had to pay a brief visit to my biological father's mother. My biological father was not a good guy. He refused to pay child support for years, but once in a while he would send money to his mom just so my mom and I had to travel for four hours to just get it.
Money was tight, so we just had to deal with it, and he knew it. It was one of his ways of trying to humiliate us. My biological grandma wasn’t any better, either. This witch had been ruining my mom's life from way before she divorced my dad. Her favorite was treating my mother like trash throughout her pregnancy.
Honestly, I wish we weren't related by blood. So, my mom and I are sitting at her table one day on one of these child support trips. This witch pulls out a couple of big bills and gives them to me, telling me how generous she is to spare some for me (?!). I looked her square in the eye and said, "I'm sorry, but I just can't take money from a stranger."
The look on her face was priceless. Mom got me ice cream on the way back.
80. Karma’s Cold Slap
I was working with this complete jerk at the sandwich shop where I work. She was 17, I was 18. I was telling a coworker about how my boyfriend had proposed to me, and she comes up behind me and says, "I bet he only proposed because the condom broke." It caused me to burst into tears—because she didn't know the dark truth.
I'd actually just recently found out that there was only a 2% chance that I could have kids, and I was still very sensitive about it. After coming out of the supply room (I went in there to cry) I asked her to come out the back door with me so I could have a word with her. I didn't want customers to hear us, because we likely would have ended up yelling.
I told her to keep her nose in her own business. She then decided to slap me. Pretty hard, too. I didn't hit her back...because we were directly in front of a camera. So, I went inside and called my boss. He had seen it on the live feed at home and had recorded it. He was already on his way. He came in and dragged her out the back again and fired her.
81. Poop ‘N Avenge
I was out walking my dog because she was cooped up a lot at the time, and I wanted to let her stretch her legs. We walked from our apartment complex to the neighborhood next door. My dog had already done her business, and I, a responsible member of society, picked it up and threw it away. While walking past a house, a woman runs out and starts yelling about getting her gun.
I thought for sure I had misunderstood her, so I said, "What?" This caused her to run back inside and brought a large man out with her. "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO MY WIFE?" he yelled. I told him calmly that she came out and yelled at me, and I was trying to figure out why she was angry. She began to scream about how my dog, even though this is the first time I'd ever walked in this neighborhood, was dumping in her yard, and she was going to shoot me if she caught it happening again.
I assured her that I had never been by her house, and I was the only one walking the dog. I pointed out that we weren't even slowing down near the house until she came out and threatened to shoot me. But reasoning with morons doesn't exactly work, so instead she kept screaming, and her giant husband seemed to be getting more agitated, so I just started walking again and avoided their house on the way back out of the neighborhood.
That said, it did inspire a hobby. If my dog dropped a lot of poop, I'd pick it up like normal, put it in a plastic sack, and drive over to their house. If the lights were out and the cars were gone, I'd take the bag and empty it on the lawn, right where they'd likely step out of their car when they returned. I never saw it happen, but I always hoped it played out like I planned.
82. Call on Me
When I was a kid, I attempted to call my aunt. For whatever reason, I accidentally dialed a 6 instead of a 3 and this man cursed me out for being a telemarketer. I was so stunned, I didn't even hang up initially. My petty revenge was giving the number to all my friends, and for about two weeks we called him every day at all hours.
83. No Parking Zone
I once parked my car on the street completely legally when visiting a friend. Some guy comes running out of the house yelling at me saying that was his parking spot. He had a large driveway that could easily park six cars, but here he is yelling at me for parking on the street I was completely and totally morally and legally entitled to park on.
I pointed to the street signs saying it was ok to park, and he yelled, "I don't care what the sign says you jerk, move your car, or you will regret it!" I ignored his threat and went to visit my friend. It was a late night when I came out around 3 am to drive home, only to discover that someone, I wonder who, had let the air out of all my tires.
Luckily for me, I own an air compressor, so I hooked it up to my car's cigarette lighter and pumped the air back into my tires. It was pretty cold out, and it wasn’t the greatest compressor in the world, so it was a miserable 20 minutes or so—but don't worry, I got my revenge. Once I was done, I returned the favor letting the air out of all the tires in the four cars in his driveway as well as his boat trailer. I also superglued his mailbox closed. That made me feel better.
84. Small Fry
When I was four and my brother was six we were on our way to my great-grandfather's funeral. My parents stop at McDonald's and out of my brother's small fry bag he pulls an 11" fry. Impossible right? He yells to my parents to witness this awesome fry but before they can turn around I snatch it and eat it. He is upset. Whatever.
Cut to 12 years later. My brother and I are at the table and our friends are in the other part of the kitchen. Out of this bag of Wavy Lays, I pull a potato chip that is literally the size of my skull. No idea how this thing didn't break in transit. I'm like, Oh my God! Guys, look at this chip! Before anyone can even turn their heads, my brother reaches across with his right hand and crushes the chip to crumbs.
I have crazy eyes bearing down on him and he simply says, "That's for the fry." 12 years later, he got his revenge.
85. Re-Jected
A “popular” girl who definitely had no interest in me once jokingly asked me out to prom in front of the whole class. I knew she was just trying to ridicule me—so I gave her a brutal taste of her own medicine. Without a moment's hesitation, I said, “No thanks Lauren, I have standards.” The whole class and the teacher lost it.
86. Eat Your Words
A while ago I decided to treat myself to some Burger King. I was having a bad day and had a headache coming on. So I was waiting in line at the BK, when suddenly this woman comes in with a monster of a child. He was out of control, screaming, punching his mother, throwing things around. The mother didn't pay any attention to him and he continued yelling, "I want a PIE."
My headache turned into a full-blown migraine. I calmly turned and asked if she could please calm her child down. Immediately she got up in my face, telling me to mind my own business. I nodded and turned around, when the child cried out again how he wants a pie. I then decided to ruin their day in the most devious way I could think of.
When I got to the front of the line I asked the person at the register how many apple pies they have left. They told me and I bought all of them. I ate one and made sure the kid saw me throw the rest in the trash.
87. What a Beautiful Sight
My boss had been making my life a total nightmare. Finally, when I asked for time off (that I was owed), he brought me into his office and threatened to fire me. I just smiled, because he didn’t realize that I’d caught him red-handed, and his days were numbered. You see, over the course of six months, through countless phone calls to different union offices and the department of labor, I gathered evidence that proved my boss changed people's time-keeping information to take overtime from them.
During those months I was treated like dirt by this guy, but I never actually did anything wrong so I couldn't be punished. At this point, I had called the northeast district business associate on him. I got to tell him that his supervisor was on his way to the office to "have a talk." I will never forget the look on my boss’s face when he realized I knew he couldn't do anything to me.
88. Sold out of Love
Wife was pilfering money from the marriage, to the tune of about $1,000 per month. It had gone on for a few years before I figured it out. (I thought she was saving the money, she was really stashing it in her dad's accounts.) Not satisfied to simply stash away her own salary, she began to buy stuff on the joint charge card, then sell it on eBay.
I paid the card. I started the divorce without telling her. During this time, I took my name off the joint card without telling her and began using my own credit card. When the bills came in for that month, I informed her that I would not pay the credit card bills anymore, that she had her own job and her own money and she could pay her own bills.
There was the expected ruckus about that, but I stuck to my guns. A week or so later, she had a screaming foot stomping tantrum about how it wasn't worth her time to work her eBay business. (Because she now had to actually buy her own inventory instead of just selling stuff I bought). Yeah, I cracked a smile.
The story ends thusly: I later traded the stolen money—and my silence about the felonies she committed while transferring the money—for shared custody, zero payments to her, and zero claims on real estate, etc. She walked away with less than she'd have gotten if she was honest. I even got the house. Our divorce was final four months ago.
89. On Deft Ears
An old lady was loading her groceries at my cash. To pass the time, I usually sing along to whatever awful song playing on the PA. The little old lady looked and said, "What did you do with the money?" I was confused and asked, “What money?" She said, "The money your parents gave you for singing lessons." Call the burn unit. Man down.
90. It Didn’t Add up
I interned in a class with this kid who always thought he was smarter than everyone else. He was pretty smart, but not by too much. Yet he always got paired with kids who weren’t as smart as him, so he would always be super smug when dealing with them. During one parent-teacher conference, we found out exactly where he got it from.
His parents thought he was the smartest kid in the school. They built him up as that and they got him thinking it, too. In this meeting, they even went off on the teacher, saying she “was bringing him down” and that she “was terrible.” The conference ended when the teacher left the room crying. But it didn't take long for sweet revenge.
About a week later, there was an event where parents came to watch their children do math games with other students. Well, the teacher paired this smug little kid with the actual smartest kid in class. The kid got destroyed in the math games. His parents were so flustered, they left before it was all done and took him out of school for the rest of the day.