As kids, we're taught not to judge a book by its cover. In other words, you shouldn't go by first impressions alone, because you never know who a person is beneath the surface. Unfortunately, as humans, it's in our nature to be quick to judge, and sometimes, that can get us in a whole lot of trouble. Here are some of the best "you don't know who you're messing with" stories:
1. The Spreadsheet Expert
I’m kind of the Google Sheets expert at work, and I make lots of new tools for different departments to use. Enter the “new guy” who needed to collect, aggregate, and display a bunch of data. My boss was like, “Send a calendar invite so you can tell her exactly what you want and she can set it up for you.” The new guy was having none of that and insisted he was going to do it all by himself.
Well, a week later, he created this really bad sheet that didn’t have half the information we needed, and we had to have the numbers for the State by the next day. So, my boss asked me to fix it and the new guy was like, “Yeah okay, that’s not really possible. This is as good as it’s going to get!” Boy, was he in for the surprise of his life.
Two hours later, I sent them both a fully functional and automated sheet that did everything we needed it to, and we’d be able to use it indefinitely, which meant that the next time we needed the data for the state report, it would already be done. The new guy ended up saying something like, “I would have added that in if I’d had more time.”
2. Safe and Secure
The downfall of one of the popular kids at my school came when he was doing substances in the school bathroom and got caught by a female security guard on his way out. Instead of just accepting his punishment, he decided to put her in a chokehold. He then was shown how huge a mistake he made when that security guard turned out to be a trained gymnast. She easily saved herself and got him thrown in jail.
3. A Mythical Blogger
I once went to a museum with my sister and her friend, who I hadn't met before. We got to the Greek art bit and her friend started telling me how she was super into Greek mythology. I thought that was cool because, unbeknownst to her, I was doing a Master's in it at the time and also keeping a blog of myth retellings.
My blog was pretty popular, and it was a relief to have something in common with this stranger. She then got weirdly haughty and told me she probably knew more myths than I did. Being polite, I didn't want to directly challenge her on it, so I just asked her to tell me her favorite so that we could have a conversation about it.
She proceeded to tell me the myth of Daedalus and the Minotaur. I asked her how she'd heard of that one because it's fairly obscure. Her response made my eyes widen. She told me she'd read it on a viral blog post on a blog about mythology. Turns out that it was my blog.
4. Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew my ex-wife was cheating but didn’t tell her that I knew. Took her out for a dinner date and I casually asked questions about who she had been spending time with while I was at sea, she barely worked so she had to spend her time doing something. She failed to mention the guy that had been staying at my house for nearly two months, the guy she had to call the cops on just to get to leave because I was coming home in two days...soooo I slid her a copy of the police report that was filed for the incident and watched as she crumbled over the fact she had been caught, and I didn’t have to say a word.
5. It’s Payback Time
My roommate in college had only child syndrome and taped a piece of paper over her clock because she didn’t want to “share it with me.” Never mind that she couldn’t see the clock herself, but she would rather no one see the clock than share the clock with my eyes. So, from then on, I would steal one sock from a set once a week.
It was slow enough that she didn’t realize it was me sabotaging her socks, but fast enough for her to be really annoyed and wondering that the heck was happening to all of her matching socks.
6. Perfect Fencer
While I was in high school, I was the reigning city fencing champion in both the youth and adult tournaments. My high school decided to do a school-wide fencing unit for Phys. Ed. and the coach they brought in to teach all of the students was my actual coach. During my classes, my coach naturally brought me up to help demonstrate the various moves.
However, for some reason one of my classmates didn't understand that I wasn't chosen at random. He started talking about how I looked like I didn't know what I was doing, and how he could probably completely cream me in a duel. Now, he actually was pretty good for a guy who'd never fenced before, and at the first opportunity, he decided to have a go at me. It was about to go down.
I picked him apart, not giving up a single touch, and used the opportunity to practice my parry and ripostes. I admit I took a bit of sadistic pleasure in thoroughly beating him. Afterward, my coach made a point of congratulating the other guy for doing so well against the city champ, which changed his attitude considerably.
7. Deadly Valor
I was jumped in a Kroger parking lot late at night while I was on my way to my car. I only had one bag. But there was one thing they couldn't have expected. I had JUST gotten out of basic training for the infantry. All that ground fighting techniques training was fresh still and I ended up breaking him with a straight arm bar. I ran like a wiener, leaving him there screaming.
Then I drove to a gas station and called the cops.
8. Unexpected Baller
I'm a very unassuming-looking guy. 5'8", 150 pounds, and not a tattoo to be found. But back in the day, I was pretty athletic and I could hang in games with fringe D1 or semi-pro guys. I can't emphasize how much I didn't look like it at all. Anyway, in college, while hanging out in someone's room, it came up that I played basketball a bit.
Out of nowhere, some dude I didn't know started running his mouth about how he could destroy me. He just wouldn't stop talking. I gave him every out until it basically became personally offensive. The other guys were a bit tired of this guy hanging around and they knew I could play, so we all trooped over to the gym, late in the winter, so we could settle things.
Here's a spoiler alert: I ended up winning 11-0. I'm not sure if we played after that, but I remember it was 11-0 because I made sure to not let the guy score. And I'm a pretty mellow guy—I would have laid off and let him score a couple when it was clear that I was better, but this guy was a real jerk, so I just clamped down on him start to finish. I blocked a ton of his shots.
He stopped hanging around nearly as much after that, so I was kind of a hero to the rest of the guys. I totally drove that snake out of our nation.
9. Mommy’s Silent but Deadly
Seventh-grade science class. The bully said something about a quiet kid's mother. The quiet kid’s mom was dead. The quiet kid also apparently studied boxing. Who knew? "What did you say about my mom?" WHAM. “What did you say about my mom?” WHAM. Bully was so shocked he did nothing and took the two straight punches to his face.
I don't think the kid got in trouble, as it happened before the teacher came in.
10. A Tricky Pool Player
While I'd never claim I was an expert, I used to be pretty good at pool. My aunt and uncle had a pool table in their basement and my parents, for a variety of reasons, would go over regularly and spend all day there. There was nothing else for me and my brother to do, so we just played pool all day for years. Eventually, we got bored and saw that they had a book on trick shots, so we started doing that for fun.
I never really mastered the tricks, but they made for really good practice in understanding how to get the ball to do what you wanted. So anyway, for my buddy’s 20th birthday, he wanted to go to a pool hall and he invited a ton of people. Then he told me it was going to be a tournament, with drinks for individual games and a 50/50 type of deal for the winner.
He would get half regardless because it was his birthday, and he insisted I attend. We got there, started the first game, and they broke, That would end up being the only shot they got. At the end of it, I just looked at him and said, "I told you not to invite me..." I found out afterward that a bunch of them had never even played pool before and I felt pretty bad, so I took the money and bought everyone drinks with it.
11. Blast off
Neil Armstrong's nephew or grandson or whatever was attending Space Camp the same week I was. There were many rumors of him being a little brat. It was confirmed true that almost every day he was at risk of getting kicked out. The last day of camp Neil actually spoke to a huge crowd of space nerds, and something magical happened.
Minutes before the speech, that little brat got kicked out, publicly, in front of mostly everyone at the camp. Neil must have been so embarrassed.
12. I’m The Real Pianist!
I guy I went on a date with tried to serenade me with his mediocre piano skills. He was incredibly patronizing to me and tried to explain to me what the notes were, even though I had told him that I was also a pianist. So, after his endless explanations, I asked him to move over on the bench so I could play. The best part? He had no that I’m a two-time Carnegie Hall pianist. He never called me back afterward. Worth it!
13. Lipstruck
A drunk guy harassed me on the subway one night on my way home. About two minutes after his last "freaking stuck up cow" to me, he fell asleep. I made sure he regretted his mistake. I took out my lipstick and drew all over his face. Then I got off and watched him snooze away as the subway pulled out. Idiot. I hope he woke up with lipstick all over his pillowcase and a ticked off wife.
14. A National Competitor
I asked an 11-year-old if he wanted to play pool with me at the small rec room where I was staying in Alaska. That turned out to be a huge mistake on my part—he ended up being a pool genius, having competed in pool tournaments nationally. I won the first one because he scratched on the 8-ball, even though I had only pocketed two. Then he cleaned up the next two games without giving me a chance to get more than one ball in. I was maybe 19 then.
15. Them’s Fighting Words
Right after suffering a miscarriage, my sister-in-law decided to tell me that I don’t know what being part of a family is like, since it was just me and my husband. She insisted that kids are what make a family and mocked me about it. I had to be dragged away by my husband because I was literally seconds away from getting violent on her.
I was so mad that I was ready and willing to go to prison over that idiot!
16. Pizza Bake-Off!
A neighbor on my block in Brooklyn challenged me to a pizza bake-off. I recently catered pizza for my daughter’s school and word got around the neighborhood my pizza was pretty darn good. My first thought was, "This guy is a Brooklyn native; my pizza will be terrible compared to his!" But there was something about him bragging that made challenging him irresistible.
He talked about how pizza was in his blood, and how his dad ran the pizza place around the corner years ago. I remained silent and let my skills answer for themselves. I got a buddy to let us use one of Baker's Pride ovens at his restaurant. We even had total strangers try our pizzas. Every last person chose my pizza over his.
I never mentioned to him that I'd worked in pizza places almost every day for the last thirty years. I never mentioned that when I'm not working at a pizza place, I'm making pizzas at home at least once every two days. I never mentioned that at nine years old, I knew that I wanted to be a pizza man. Here I am at 45, getting ready to start my own pizza business.
17. Mousing Around
I once had a colleague I hated because he was very condescending and really arrogant. So I put an extra Bluetooth receiver in his computer for a computer mouse, and kept the mouse in my drawer. I would just open my drawer and it would mess his stuff right up. Kept it going for like two months. He was about to destroy the world when I thought, "I better stop."
18. Silver Strikers
My brother and his best friend were in Baltimore for a baseball weekend in 2009. They were hanging out at a bar across from Camden Yards and there was a Silver Strike bowling video game at the venue. In our local bar back in Boston, we had one as well. I’m decent at the gam,e but my brother and his buddy were really amazing at this game. They were bowling 300 games and whatnot.
So these two random dudes were playing the game while drinking. We asked them if we could play once they were done, and they asked us if we wanted to play against them instead. We said sure and the rest was history. My brother and his buddy absolutely destroyed them. Like, it wasn’t even close. The dudes said it was a fluke and they wanted a rematch, but this time for a round of drinks. Again, annihilation city.
Even after that, they kept wanting to play, hoping to eventually win a game. After thirteen whole rounds, they finally gave up. They were great guys. We saw them the next day at the same bar and they walked up to us with drinks in hand, asking for yet another rematch. To this day we still hang out with them whenever we go to Baltimore. And to this day, they have never won.
Wikimedia Commons, Daniel Benavides
19. Good Riddance
An abusive ex told me that he would leave me if I didn’t lose ten pounds in the two weeks before his friend’s wedding. He was blown away when I said “okay” and walked away.
20. With Just One Letter
I dated a guy in college who was incredibly book smart. He was working on his master’s with the intention to pursue a Ph.D. I was doing the good old five-year plan for college and I was quite content with my level of brainpower compared to his. What he underestimated was my fondness for word games, especially Scrabble. I like to think I'm quite good.
Well, in the three years we dated, we only played Scrabble once, and I beat the Scrabble tiles out of him. But the icing on the cake was the epic way in which I had secured my victory—I got a 50+ word score for playing just one letter. He literally wiped all the letters off the board and had a small hissy fit, claiming that I cheated. I got out my trusty Scrabble dictionary and proved his loss.
21. Social Media Strikes Again
My friend was suing a private security company for assault. He explained that one of the security guards also threatened him with a gun. The security company's lawyer responds that my friend must be lying, as the guards do not carry guns because they are not allowed. My friend finds the Facebook profile of one of the security guards who threatened him.
His profile picture is him mean-mugging with a glock in his hand. My friend emails this to opposing counsel with a note that says “FYI.” The security company agrees to pay an out of court settlement to my friend.
22. A Challenging Forecast
People say all kinds of random things about how weather and climate function. Little do they know that I’m a meteorologist in disguise, working as a data scientist but with an actual master's and Ph.D. in meteorology. When I politely correct people, they are usually super interested to know more. But occasionally, I get something like, “Oh yeah?! And how do you know?”
I always respond with the same jaw-dropping answer: "Well, I have published several papers on the matter, and would love to discuss it all night," I’d say to them. So far, they’ve all backed down after that.
23. Crossing the Line
I had a lady cuss me out when I worked as a customer service manager for a big retail store. She then went on to tell me how my mom didn’t raise me right and should have done better. My mom passed on a few weeks previously, so I then told her, thanks ma’am but she did a great job and recently passed. I then immediately told her to leave or I'd call the authorities and she would be trespassing.
24. The Best Shot
For reference, this is clay pigeon shooting, known as ‘trap’ in the south. Well, I'm from a rural area and not exactly super "southern," so when I'd go to other trap fields to practice in different conditions, there's always a person or two who place bets with me. This is definitely an old money sport with some of the bets going upwards of 5,000 dollars.
I had an old BT-100 that I got in a trade for a lead shot and some cash on the side. While the shot was not cheap, it was still much lower than other people’s shots and some folks would take that and assume I was a newbie. But they'd end up learning their lesson pretty quickly—the team I was on went to the Nationals almost every year from 2011 to 2018.
It was always funny because some would be good sports, but others would throw an absolute fit. One time, I saw one guy damage a 10,000 Perazzi because someone else had beat him. There was a guy from the county next to us who could blow us out of the water, and he always shot with an 870 pump...from Walmart.
25. It’s “Haw-Haw!”
Worked after school care for school-age kids. There was this one kid who was pretty obnoxious and got under everyone’s skin. One day, I see him walk into the room just needling another kid. He ends his provoking with a Nelson from The Simpsons “ha ha!”, spins around, and face plants on the ground. The kid he was provoking gave him a “ha ha!” back and walked off.
Obnoxious kid gets up, dusts himself off, and humbly slinks away and is pretty quiet for the rest of the day.
26. Fight Night
In college, my buddies and I always got the new fighting game whenever it came out, and we would put in a few hundred hours or so on it, just goofing around with the various modes before dropping it. During that time, we'd have fight nights a couple of times a week where we'd all get together at someone's place and duke it out.
It's not like I never won, but I was always just middle of the pack. After two years of this, no one would ever consider me to be some sort of fighting game wizard...until one fateful day when my luck changed for the better. For the first time ever, the group decided to pick up a 3D fighter instead of a 2D one: Soul Calibur 3 I think. Unknown to anyone in our playgroup, I had previously been obsessed with Soul Calibur 3, playing for 10 hours a day.
I had done this every day, for three to four years, playing against five other people who were doing the same and were just as good as me. It honestly wasn't even that fun. After the first half-hour, they were playing with 200% health while I was playing with 50%, picking random character select, and I still hadn't passed the controller once. After that, it was agreed that we would all play only 2D fighters from then on.
27. A Serious Effort at Discipline
My nephew (by marriage) is a jerk. I had to drive him once and he kept messing around with the windows, so I locked them. Then he started incessantly pushing my door lock buttons. So I stopped holding back my gas and stopped opening the windows. And let me tell ya, this was during a phase in my life where my farts smelled like I might be suffering from some sort of colonic necrosis.
He gagged and sputtered and threatened to throw up. It didn’t matter. I just kept farting. In fact, at a certain point I thought I might crap my pants. I didn’t care. I was willing to do it just to make that little bugger suffer a bit.
Take that, Evan.
28. The Chess Master
I'm a Chess master. I think when people hear that, they think, "Oh, he's really good at chess." But what it actually means is that I've played in international tournaments and beaten other masters, earning my right to that official title. Anyway, I get challenged a lot by friends who think they're pretty good at chess.
What they don't realize is that their version of 'pretty good' does not compare to my version of 'pretty good,' and they all end up destroyed by my pieces in less than ten moves every time.
29. 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 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.
30. Breaking The Language Barrier
My brother works for a scientific instrument company as a technical expert in gas chromatography. He and his colleagues went to a trade show once to show off their new instruments. A couple of German scientists come up and asked them a bunch of questions, breaking the conversation intermittently to speak to each other in German. But here's the plot twist: my brother is fluent in German.
He let them talk amongst themselves until one of the Germans said, in German: “I bet this instrument is just as terrible as the last one.” To which, my brother replies, in German, how it was, in fact, not terrible because they’d done a tremendous number of improvements. The two Germans, now stunned that they’d been caught, politely thanked my brother, apologized, and walked away.
31. No, I’m Closed for Business
When I worked at McDonald's, I found out we didn't get paid for closing. We got paid until the store closed, so if it took us an extra hour or two to close, that was unpaid. I wish I knew what I know now, because that is an open and shut case, but at the time, I was young and dumb. My first paycheck, I noticed I had a ton of missing hours.
So, when I asked my boss about it, she told me we only get paid until the store closed. So that night, I walked out when the store closed. They tried to guilt me into staying, because "the other team members need me.” Screw that. I don't work for free, sorry. Especially when I'm already making minimum wage.
32. A Professional Lesson
I just graduated from teacher's college and I’ve been working as a casual relief in the meantime. I play lacrosse is generally a small sport and even smaller here in Australia. I tried out for the last World Cup team and made it to the final cut. I was working with another teacher who was also stationed at the school. Before the period he spoke to me and said, “Hey mate, we are doing lacrosse today.”
He continued, “It’s a bit of an odd sport that's hard to teach, so just wait over there and then you can just help with supervision,” and walked off. Being a CRT from an agency, I wasn’t sure how I should speak to him. I tried to tell him that I used to play competitively but he didn’t give me a second, so I just listened and did my thing.
After a few minutes, I had enough. I just grabbed a stick and ball and started to work my way around the class, giving them pointers and hints. The way he was teaching was completely incorrect and I didn’t want to say anything, so when the kids broke off into groups, I kind of just taught them the correct way. He pulled me over at a drinks break and asked how I knew so much about lacrosse.
I told him about my playing history and his jaw dropped. He asked why I didn’t speak up and say anything and I said I tried to tell him. Anyway, I ended up running the rest of the class and even ended up teaching him and the correct way to teach the game.
Wikimedia Commons, Henning Schlottmann
33. He Met His Match
One kid at my school became popular only because he liked to start fights with everyone. So, most people wanted to be "friends" with him just to avoid becoming a victim. One day, he tried that routine on the wrong kid. He got beat up badly in front of everyone, to the point where he started crying. Honestly, I think it was a win for him in the long run because it gave him a pretty good wake up call.
34. Surprise Ping Pong
I was hanging out with a girl who I was seeing at the time, and they had a ping pong table near the bar. Two guys were playing, and they were making a big show about how good they thought they were. They were showing off with grunting, rolled sleeves, the works. When I handed them back a wayward shot, I made a comment about how it looked fun to play.
They said that I could get the next game after one guy who was waiting, but their “rule” was any challenger they added in the queue to play would have to buy drinks for everyone else if that challenger lost. Little did they know what they were getting themselves into. I played competitive ping pong in a league back in med school and had placed highly in some New York City championships.
I still play every so often in my current city and I have won a few tournaments here as well. I ended up destroying the two guys. I didn’t have to pay for a drink or give up my spot until my date was ready to go. No one even made it out of the single digits.
35. Hitting the Bricks
I saw a guy kick a dog...then ran full speed into a brick wall as the dog chased him.
36. Beware The Water
I was a competitive swimmer for 14 years, including four years of NCAA, but I'm on the shorter side, so people don't assume I was any good. I was at a friend’s house on a lake one summer, and a macho guy challenged me to race to a buoy in the middle of the lake, to prove... something, I guess. The lake is deceptively large, about a half-mile across, so I warned him that if he wasn't a strong swimmer, it could be dangerous.
He was running out of gas after about two minutes, so I offered to let him off the hook. He still insisted he would finish. After I went to the buoy and started swimming back, I looked over at him and just sighed. I found him floundering, so I lifeguard swam him back to the house. His ego took a deserved hit that day. Don't get overconfident around water, even if you think you're a strong swimmer.
37. Totaled
Saw a college guy with a ridiculously expensive car, I can't remember the model, rear-end this woman who drove an absolute beater. Her car was definitely totaled and his wasn't looking that hot either. He got out and started screaming at this woman. She was in tears. He kept telling her that she was going to pay for this.
When the cops came, I saw each of them give their statements. After that, me and like 10 people came forward and gave our witness statements. It sounded like each and every one of us put the complete fault on him, which was the truth. When the cops went back to him, I saw his face just sink. He probably told them it was her fault and just found out that two handfuls of people just confirmed that he was a liar.
I've never seen that many witnesses stick around for a simple traffic accident. I think the other people felt the same way I did: that kid was a jerk and should be punished for what he did.
38. Forty-Eight!
In primary school, I'd say grade three or four, we had a head-to-head times tables tournament. The teacher would ask a random multiplication question to a pair of students at a time, and the winner progressed. I wasn't exactly an expert at times tables, but I was an expert at 6 x 8. For whatever reason, 6 x 8 just wouldn't stick in my head when I was younger, so I had to spend additional time to bring the answer to the forefront of my mind.
I was decently prepared for any other multiplication problem, so while waiting my turn I was constantly repeating in my mind: "six times eight equals 48, six times eight equals 48, six times eight equals 48" over and over again. That strategy would end up working in my favor. Lo and behold, when it was finally my turn to be quizzed, the teacher casually selected 6 x 8.
Not an iota of time had elapsed from the teacher finishing her sentence when I yelled "48!" The astonishment spread as I became a human-computer in the eyes of my peers. Even the teacher was taken back. I went on to win the tournament, having already won in the minds of my would-be opponents. It was more than victory; it was complete annihilation.
39. Roasted
I once had my hands full while working in a restaurant kitchen, so I asked my boss to grab me a container as I cut into a huge roast beef for a customer with blood dripping everywhere. For some inexplicable reason, my boss felt the need to literally roll out on his chair from the office to say, “You have two arms and legs, get it yourself!”
When I said, “Excuse me?” he replied with, “Oh, you didn’t you hear me the first time?” I replied “Yes, I did,” before taking off my apron, walking away from the bloody mess, clocking out right in front of him, and walking out the door.
40. Kart Battles!
I was visiting Kyoto a couple of years ago. My wife and I walked into a tiny bar that had five people in suits laughing and talking in Japanese. We instantly knew that this was not a tourist bar and felt pretty out of place. The bartender spoke the most English, so I asked him what his favorite Shochu was. Things got a little more comfortable as we drank and eventually, the whole bar tried to talk to us.
Someone mentioned Mario Kart and I said, “Yeah, yeah,” so the bartender pointed to an old Super Famicom in the corner, and apparently, I had accepted the challenge. I smiled to myself and my wife thought it was funny because I used to have some skill at the game. I had no idea what to expect, but when the bartender selected Battle Mode...I was floored.
I hadn’t played in a few years, and he buried me in less than a minute. The whole bar was laughing and I was a little stunned. But then got to the second and third rounds. I destroy him. Three balloons to zero. Everyone cheered except for the bartender. Two shots were put in front of me, and I threw one down. Round 3. We were down to one balloon each and I swear it was the longest battle round of all time.
I was sweating. Shell, dodge, shell, dodge. I had him in my sights and I fired. It missed. The shell bounced off the wall and I self-KO'd. The crowd went wild. So that’s the story of how a self-proclaimed Mario Kart expert embarrassed himself and his country in a small bar in Kyoto. We drank a lot and made a lot of great friends that night that we’ll never see again.
41. Park Your Bad Manners Somewhere Else
I work at a movie theater. One afternoon, I was selling tickets at the box office when an older lady came up and asked me a question about our app (it’s a Cinemark app). I, however, wasn’t sure about the answer and told her that. She proceeded to say, very rudely, “Isn’t is your job to know??? Are you stupid or something?” I was absolutely furious...but all I had to do was wait.
As soon as she was done, she turned around and noticed the mall cop was writing her a ticket for parking in a handicap spot when she did not have a handicap plate or placard. She took off running screaming, “Wait stop! That’s my car!” I couldn’t keep the huge grin off my face for the rest of the day.
42. Hustling On The Table
While in undergrad, I brought a new college buddy over to an old high school friend's house to hang out. There were a couple of other friends there, just hanging around, drinking, and playing pool. My new buddy was a pretty low-key guy; a wallflower, if you will. When he first meets people, he can be pretty quiet and he tends to seem a little out of place.
But after he gets to know people, he opens up and is a blast to be around. My old buddies, for some reason, decided to hustle my new buddy in pool. I mean, super textbook shark moves. "Let's play a friendly game, and if you think you're any good at it, we can play for money," etc. Well, I knew something that they all didn't, and it would come to shock them—my new buddy played on the circuits for a while, winning pool tournaments across Texas.
He lived and breathed pool, and, of course, he saw these guys coming from a mile away. I just watched it all go down. I figured, if they are going to treat someone that I bring over in a snobby way, they deserve what they get. He roped 'em in as only he could. He missed some super easy shots to keep the game interesting and then pulled out the "lucky" win...
Soon after, they played for money. I can't even remember how much per ball, but he played two or three games, slowly playing better or "lucking out" just enough to keep them engaged while still taking their money. Then, the last game happened, and I'd never seen someone come alive more quickly. He sank shot after shot after shot.
These were shots I couldn't make if I practiced for a year straight. The entire time, he kept taunting them and updating how much money they owed them. I don't think my old friend had a chance to take a shot at all. Afterward, they were all furious: "How could you bring this guy over here and let him hustle us like that??"
"How could you try to hustle a new friend of mine just minutes after I bring him over and introduce him to you?" I snarled back. "You earned this one, man." It ended happily, though. They all became good friends and they are still in contact with each other two decades later.
43. Striking First
My stepdad once spit in my mom’s face, so I shoved him. He said that he was going to come back and kill us, then ran out the door. So, I followed him, picked him up from behind, carried him off the porch, and slammed him headfirst onto the cement. I then proceeded to beat the daylights out of him. When the neighbors came out, they called the cops.
I got hauled to jail and received my first felony charge.
44. Whose Paper Is This Again?
There was a story about an old geotechnical engineer who used to work for the company that I work for. Several senior staff had to attend a meeting with the client, and some government regulatory staff were being awkward and not approving the design. The geotech guy was pretty much quiet the whole meeting. Throughout the discussion, the government guy kept referencing this one research document and rejecting any other suggestions.
Near the end of the meeting, the geotech guy asked the government guy if he had the research paper with him. He said yes and placed it on the table. The geotech guy then pointed to the author of the paper while simultaneously sliding over a business card. That's when he executed his "gotcha" moment. Turned out, it was the geotech guy’s own paper that the government guy had been referencing to defend his argument. The government guy went bright red and apparently approved the design the same day.
45. Giving Him an Ultimatum
I was sitting in my room one day when I suddenly heard my sister screaming at her boyfriend down the hall. I walked over to discover that he had laid his hands on her while they were having a fight. I immediately went to the kitchen, grabbed the chef's knife, turned to him, and gave him an ultimatum. I told him that he could either leave or he could die.
He left.
46. Climbing For Money
A local mall had a portable climbing wall. "Make it to the top and win $100," a sign read. The route was actually pretty challenging. As I walked by, the guy asked me if I’d like to try. He told me, “Nobody has made it to the top, so do you think you can do it, buddy?” At that time, I hadn't disclosed my big secret—I was a top 12-ranked climber in my age group and I kind of laughed to myself.
After taking my $100, I then proceeded to call the rest of my climbing team, and one by one they went to the mall and claimed their $100. After the fourth person, they got suspicious and took the sign down. We later told him we were all nationally ranked competitive climbers, and he got a good laugh. The company that owned the rentals was the one who lost the money—he just worked the booth and wasn’t the one who lost the prize money.
Shutterstock
47. A Pretty Embarrassing Mix-Up
I was representing a woman with a severe neck injury. Opposing counsel presented a test result that showed her cervical exam was normal. I felt almost bad when I pointed out he had the wrong cervical area in mind…
48. Tetris, Attacked!
There is this old SNES game called Tetris Attack that I played religiously when I was growing up. I got pretty good at it. I'm actually still half-decent, but I only play every few months when I visit my family. Anyhow, I was kinda-sorta seeing this guy and I have NO idea how the topic came up, but he challenged me a game of Tetris Attack.
He was NOT ready for what was coming to him. I had sincere doubts that he had ever played before despite his posturing, and it turned out...I was right. I trounced him and he actually said, "How are you so good at this stupid game?" Practice, my dude. Years of practice.
49. Working Overtime
My boss once asked me why I wasn't doing any work. This was after working a 70-hour workweek where I took just one lunch break all week long. I was so mad and worked at a job where we always carried knives on our person. I had to throw mine across the room to stop myself from stabbing the guy with it. After that, I just picked up my bag and walked out.
This was also before my actual start time, after I had already been working almost half an hour extra and still wasn't supposed to be starting for another half hour…
50. Submarine Cruise
My wife and I were taking an evening cruise for adults in Portsmouth Bay. The ship drove around the shipyard, where my submarine and several others were stationed. My wife and I were having a quiet drink when a really loud know-it-all started spouting misinformation about each submarine. He was calling them all the wrong classes, the wrong names, etc.
He literally pointed to my submarine and said, "...and that is a 637 class." My wife finally spoke up and said, "Actually, it's a 688." The guy got all gruff and scoffed: "Well how would you know?" My wife smiled and hugged my arm. She dropped the bombshell in the sweetest way ever: "That's my husband’s submarine, it is the Minneapolis St Paul, SNN-708." His faceturned beat red while his date laughed.
51. How About No?
I was in a wedding party and there was a brief lull in between scheduled parts and we were all just milling around waiting. The maid of honor, known for being obnoxiously bossy, starts barking out orders to every single person. As soon as she’s finished, the wedding planner who was standing behind her chimes in with '"Nobody do any of that" and then told us to sit tight. It was great.
Public Domain Pictures
52. Unmentionable Mascara
A Japanese client that studied in France asked me for a translation job but wanted to change all my sentences to prove she was better than me at my own mother tongue. She ended up writing something grammatically correct but it sounded so much like innuendo that if you Googled the terms, you would only find unmentionable videos and writing. I had to tell my boss what she was forcing me to write (because it was for a mascara brand that was supposed to be sold in France) so he could stop her and after that, she stopped trying to best me.
53. Another Point of View
My stepmom was a jerk in high school. She always loved to tell us about how she was the popular kid back then. Then, when we went to her high school reunion, she started talking to a girl she used to make fun of as if they were good friends. The girl's response was perfect. She just said, "You made my life a nightmare in high school. Why on Earth would I want to talk to you?"
My stepmom never bragged about her high school popularity again after that…
54. Lifting Weights
I am a government auditor. One of the programs I oversee is a sort of boarding school for teens with delinquency history and it’s very athletics heavy. I’ve put on like 30 pounds of body fat since getting this mostly sedentary job and drifting into bad nutrition habits. Basically, I’m meaty underneath with above-average strength.
Prior to this job, I had a side gig as a personal trainer and posing coach. At the program one day, I needed to interview a student who didn’t want to leave his weightlifting class. He told me he’d talk to me if I could deadlift the bar he was working with, like 90 kg. He would soon regret making that wager with me. The staff was visibly annoyed that this guy was giving me a hard time, but I was wearing stretchy pants, so I gave it a quick set-up and pull.
The interview followed and now it’s an ongoing joke at the program that when I ask for interviews, they ask if I need chalk or anything for the mandatory deadlift.
55. 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 admitted to 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.
56. Through Fire And Flames
My college has a dedicated gaming room in its central building. There are TVs for people to plug in whatever they want. I went in one day and saw someone playing Guitar Hero. He was playing on Expert, so he was decently good, but he was not perfect. I sat down, chatted him up, and eventually, he challenged me. It was a Pro-Face-Off on Through the Fire and Flames.
I'm not perfect at Through The Fire And Flames, but I figured what the heck, it'll be fun. Well, our fearless protagonist got a little too big for his boots on that one—he couldn't even hit the intro. The higher your combo in Guitar Hero, the more your score is multiplied, all the way up to 4x. If you don't hit the intro and can't keep your 4x through the fast strumming at the beginning, you're immediately behind somewhere in the echelon of 30k to 60k points.
The solos didn't fare him much better. He blamed his gear.
57. Busted
When the pastor got to the part “or forever hold your peace,” the bride said, “Yes, I’d like to say something.” Then she turned around to her guests and said, “I’d like to thank my maid of honor for sleeping with my fiancé last night.” With that, she threw her bouquet down and stormed off. The story even made it onto local radio at the time.
58. Never Again
I had a mate who would play Call of Duty with me a and I'd usually beat him in a 1-v-1 match, but he would occasionally win a game or at least get close before we switched to a different game, Motorstorm Apocalypse. I was a legitimate top 10 player on that game with multiple #1s, while e had just started playing through the offline mode. He was winning the races though, so he thought he was good.
I warned him, but he insisted on a 1-v-1 to show off his skills. Two minutes later, he started sweating like crazy. I'd go on to lap him on a three-lap race, and he ended up quitting the race before he was finished due to embarrassment. He never played that game again.
59. Fly by Night
My wife stayed up late binge watching Narcos the other night and woke me up by being really loud when she came to bed. I couldn't get back to sleep and I was super irritated about it. I mean, just be quiet when you come to bed. You don't have to "THIS IS SPARTA!!" kick the door open, turn on both lamps and the overhead, and then come to bed.
Anyway, I'm a commercial helicopter pilot, and I had a 6 AM flight that morning. So I decided to take a short detour and flew a few laps right over our bedroom to wake her up. When I landed, I had a text from her calling me a huge jerk. Vindication feels pretty sweet y'all. Though I’d like to say, sorry neighbors.
60. Forwards And Backwards
I have studied memorization techniques and mnemonics. I decided to have a bit of fun with my teacher. He wanted us to write down a list of 20 items. He was the type of guy to quickly call you out for not paying attention in class. I sat there memorizing the list in my head knowing full well he would see me not writing anything down.
He chewed me out for not taking notes, as predicted. He took the bait. I said, "I have it all in my head." I knew he would call me out and have me recite the list. The next day, he turned to me in the middle of his lecture and had the biggest smug smile. "So, what were those items from yesterday?" I immediately proceeded to list them in order without hesitation. Then listed them backward. His smile grew bigger and bigger, and the rest of the class was cracking up!
61. 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.
I bought all those apple pies. I ate just one and made sure the kid saw me throw the rest in the trash.
62. The Google Boys
Astronomer here! If we were to just meet on the street, you probably wouldn't guess I was a scientist since I am a woman who enjoys dresses when the weather is nice. This was doubly true when I was a few years younger in my 20s and single. At the end of college, I was doing a summer internship in Mountain View, California where if you went out there'd be a lot of Google boys.
They would literally sometimes wear "Google" shirts so you'd know. I remember getting stuck chatting with one, and when he asked my major, he sneered at me saying, "D you really know the subject?" He asked me if I knew what the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle was, and I explained it in great detail. When I later explained his 20 other questions, he said "it's probably not so hard because they go easy on women because they don't want to scare them off."
Oh, but it gets better—he then he proceeded to tell me at length about a lecture he attended in Mountain View that he'd been lucky enough to visit, as a Google employee, by Jill Tarter who runs the SETI Institute. He even went as far as to tell me about the Allen Telescope Array they were building in northern California because I "might not know about it."
I gave him a minute for his spiel, then proceeded to drop the mic—I actually was working for Jill that summer at the SETI Institute, on interference mitigation for the Allen Telescope Array. And did he want to hear what she was really like, or see some pictures from the ATA site? I'd also just met Frank Drake, and he was really nice! Oh man, was that guy not happy! But at least he stopped talking to me like right after.
63. Someone Wants a Knuckle Sandwich
I was riding the bus home from school one day. Bunch of jerks messing around in the back, throwing food and other junk. A quiet, overweight kid sat in front of them, minding his own business when one of the jerks thought it would be funny to shove an old sandwich in his face and call him fat boy. The quiet kid stood up and knocked him out in a single hit.
Then he grabbed his bag and walked up to the front of the bus and got off at his stop as if nothing happened.
64. Yes, I Do Know, Really
I’m a female mechanical engineer and I often get people working at Lowe’s, car shops, and dealerships talk down to me or say that I don’t understand basic concepts. For instance, a guy at Lowe’s swore up and down that bolt threading and pipe threading was the same thing. Another guy swore there were no diamond-tipped hole saws and tried to sell me a Dremel for the same job. I then found one in the tile section.
I’ve had mechanics swear up and down that my air filter in my car needed to be changed when I had just changed it weeks before, and my filter is circular and not square like the one they brought out to me. The best is the car salesmen though—they don’t seem to really care about my opinion, especially if my husband is there.
I’m usually the car buying decision-maker, but my husband also knows a ton about cars, and so they try to sell to him. It’s always hilarious. I usually just let them talk and clarify later with my husband because I’m not out to embarrass anybody.
65. 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 the man to live with a dirty butt.
66. The Kart Racer
Everyone thinks they are amazing at Mario Kart. They used to be good as a kid and think they still are. I played two to four hours every day in undergrad a couple of years ago. I raced in local and school tournaments and won most of the time. I was within seconds on several course records. I have every course memorized and know exactly when to break on every turn.
I don’t play much anymore, but anytime somebody sees my Mario Kart painting, they tell me how amazing they are. I’m happy to absolutely destroy them.
67. Don’t Stop Believing
My dad is out of state on business driving through some no-name town when he goes through an intersection. Suddenly, a cop pulls him over and tickets him—stating that he ran a stop sign. My dad insisted that there was not any stop sign, but the cop did not listen. Pissed, he went back to the intersection and saw that there was indeed a stop sign hidden behind a tree and twisted in the wrong direction!
Even more pissed, he went into a convenience store and bought a disposable camera. The clerk laughed because he saw what happened and knew what was up. Luckily, my dad had to be back there in a few weeks for work. The cop assumed that someone with out of state plates would just pay the ticket, and was shocked when my dad turned up in court, calmly presented his evidence to the judge, and strolled out in five minutes scot-free.
68. The Punching Challenge
When I was in the army, we had a gut-punch challenge. I chose not to participate since I have very heavy hands, but there was one guy who kept egging me on. I just kept saying no, until he started talking too much trash and I couldn't take it anymore. So, I let him go first. He reared back and I just absorbed the hit. Honestly wasn’t a bad punch.
But then it was my turn. I sized him up a couple of times with practice line-up swings. He mocked me while I did this. I gave him one more warning, and he laughed it off. So, I pulled back and blasted him. Square on the belly button. He doubled over and his face went pale white. Lips blue. Air out of his system. He spent a couple of minutes struggling to catch air.
69. 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.
35. Caught In The Crossfire
There was this game called Crossfire. It’s an FPS game that’s still around I think. Back in high school, this one kid wanted to play me one on one because he heard I was good at it. He talked a big game and had a pretty good rank from his public games, so he seemed like a formidable opponent. I accepted his challenge.
What he didn’t know was just how good I was at the game. He probably thought I just got good from playing it a lot, but in reality, I was on the #1 team in Canada at the time. I was playing against top teams all over the world at that time and would regularly play pick-up games with top players daily. Needless to say, he got absolutely wrecked.
70. The Assassin
I tried to poison my mom's boyfriend. I was probably around 11 years old. I had one of those science kits from the Scholastic book fair. I took the citric acid and dumped the whole container into his drink. He sipped it and just said, "this tastes like trash" and dumped it out.
71. Oh, You Don’t Speak English?
I live in Northern Vermont, so we have a ton of tourism from French-speaking Canadians coming down from various parts of Quebec. I am a bilingual American and I hold two degrees in French, the master’s being in Quebecois language and literature. While bartending one day, a customer from Quebec tried to pay her bill in Canadian money, which is about .73 cents to the American dollar.
The Canadian bills didn't even add up to the bill total if the two currencies were on par. So, I politely explained all of this in English, but she replied in French, saying that she doesn't speak English. That was my cue to hit her with the surprise of her life. To the delight of my entire bar crowd, I then politely but forcibly explain all of this in perfect Quebecois French. Her face at that moment is almost worth the pain I feel every month paying back my student loans.
72. The Ties That Bind Us
I created a binder for a hotel that my company owns and filled it with forms and templates. I highlighted and wrote clear explanations of everything on each page. About a month later, I go over to the property to assist with some things, and the GM brings out the binder and says, "yeah, I just put this together as a tool for us here."
I immediately tell him, "No, you didn't. I made that and gave it to you." His face went white as he tried to recover by saying, "Well, I added a few things." He didn't. I definitely loved the faces of my colleagues when I went back to the office and told them all about it!
73. Don’t Look Like A Gamer, Do I?
When I was a freshman in undergrad, our floor had one of those big icebreaker meet-ups. One of my fun facts was that I really loved video games, which at the time was an understatement. I was bordering on obsessed. I was a girl, pretty athletic, and decent looking, so most of the guys kind of thought that was funny...and they probably thought I was just saying it to be quirky.
I didn’t bring my consoles to school because I was worried that my grades would be in serious trouble if I did. One of the guys on my floor invited me over to his dorm to play Xbox with him. When I get there, he asked me if Halo 3 was cool. I thought we’d maybe just go through the campaign together, but I noticed he was setting it up for a one-on-one. Big mistake on his part.
He says something along the lines of: “If I win, will you go on a date with me?” I ended up kicking his butt several matches in a row, with him really trying to win. Finally, I just told him we could hang out and play co-op together.
74. Spinning Out of Control
I hit my girlfriend in the forehead with a spinning fidget spinner. She chased me, I jumped on my bed, and my ceiling fan smacked the living snot out of me. She was on the floor laughing for a solid five minutes. I am a firm believer in karma now...or maybe just idiocy on my part.
75. The Kids Section
I was working at a bookstore after school. since I was too shy to talk to coworkers, and no one wanted to get stuck in the kids’ section where I was often placed, I would spend a lot of my downtime reading. It was great as kids’ books are quick and easy, and you can catch up on ten new books in an hour.
On slower days, I could finish some of the kids’ chapter books in one go. Some series I would read from start to finish in a week. I quickly learned a LOT about the books in the children's department. Over time, I made friends with a lot of the local teachers and would try to get recommendations from them.
It was really helpful with summer reading and holiday chaos. I knew just about every book in that department, and a solid amount of the teen section, which was still sort of a 'new' reading section. However, as I was still in high school and it was very apparent that I was just a teenager helping them, some people wouldn't want to ask me for help.
They must’ve thought I was too young. Perhaps they thought a particular series was for little kids, so they needed to ask a parent instead. Whatever the reason, apparently I looked too young to be able to offer the help they wanted. Of course, every situation always ended in the same way—my co-workers would bring them right back to me. I loved proving them wrong and there were a lot of times where someone would assume I wouldn't know what was up
They’d be super vague and frustrated, and then amazed when I would just hand what they asked for within the next 30 seconds, or describe the cover in detail, with some plot points and my favorite part of the story. Some would even come back and ask for my help with their lesson plans.
76. Vengeance With a Bow on Top
Crossing at a busy downtown intersection, a very impatient driver waiting to make a turn honked at a lady pushing a stroller. Despite his jerk move, she actually had the right of way. I slowed down as I was walking, but the guy next to me straight-up went ahead, stopped in front of the car, then bent down to re-tie his shoelaces.
77. A Really Long Game
A friend of mine is really good at hockey. He played in the OHL here in Canada and was invited to a few NHL training camps, but he never made the cut. Anyway, he ultimately quit pursuing professional hockey after college since it didn’t seem like he’d ever make it. One time I invited him to a drop-in league game where anybody could play.
Maybe two minutes into the game, this one guy on the opposing team (who was kind of good but definitely never played at the level of my friend) scored a goal and immediately came over to our bench to taunt us. “How you boys like that? It’s gonna be a long game for you.” That lit a fire inside my friend. We ended up winning 21-3, my friend scoring 18 goals and never saying a single word back to the other team.
78. With Great Age Comes Great Flexing
My greatest moment was watching my 72-year-old father beat the heck out of a guy who tried to steal my mom’s purse.
79. Pitch Perfect
I have a perfect pitch. It's not a thing I can turn off; notes simply are a pitch clear as day, much like how red is clearly distinct from green. Anyhow, it was music class in junior high. My teacher explained that Mozart had perfect pitch and he walked over to the piano, played a note, and said: "And just by hearing it, he'd be able to tell you what now that was... now can any of YOU do that?"
At the time, I honestly had no idea this was rare. I raised my hand, and the teacher, with a smug look, pointed at me and he was absolutely gobsmacked when I answered. I hit the note right on the money, octave and all. He figured it was pure luck, so he did it again and asked me to face the other way. I answered correctly again. He also tried it with chords, sequences, and two hands worth of notes.
Still right every time. That day, I learned that perfect pitch is actually kind of rare.
80. Revenge Burns Carbs
In seventh grade, my friend was self-conscious about his weight. One day at lunch, I was watching him and another friend chasing each other. The one friend said, "You can't catch me fatty!" And the next thing I knew, there was a loud SMACK and the kid was on the grass with a bloody nose.
81. Alpha Running
I know a guy who tries to be a major alpha at any interaction with another male. One time, he challenged me to a distance race, saying they could run longer than I could. I knew he wasn't a runner at all, but he did not know I ran ultramarathons and had recently set the course record in a 50-mile race. Well, I said sure, and we set out the next morning at 6 am around a track with three of our mutual friends watching.
I just trailed behind him by like 20 feet at a casual pace. That way, he'd always be expending energy trying to put distance in between us. Surprisingly, he kept that up for like four miles, which is a lot for a non-runner. I eventually ran up to him and stuck with him for another mile talking about my running accomplishments.
Eventually, our friends wanted to leave, so I told him, "If you want, we can run in together." He agreed. But then, during the very last lap, he hit me with a curveball. He said, "Sorry but I'm gonna win" and tried to speed up to pass me. I was like, "Okay," and I dropped my pace. I still came in like 150 meters ahead of him.
He was full of excuses and challenged me to a sprint a few days later. I also completely wrecked him at that. Just give it up dude, you don't have to be "alpha" all the time.
82. Soda Surprise
Back in the early 90s, supermarket cashiers had to type every price in by hand. I was at a Vons in San Diego, walking toward the only open check stand with a single bottle of soda in my hand. Suddenly this hoity-toity lady with a cart stacked to the top flew out of one of the aisles like a freight train and cut me off.
"I'm in a hurry," she said, then looked away like she was annoyed that I'd been born. I looked at the cashier. He rolled his eyes and got to work. Five minutes later, she's walking out the door and it's my turn. “You're good," says the cashier. "I put your soda on her tag." Darn, that felt really good. Never forgot it.
83. Five Minute Mile
When I was a junior in high school, I was in a PE class of pretty much all freshmen. We were required to take two years of PE and I decided to do it my last two years instead of the first two like everyone else. There was one kid in the class—your typical freshman football player who thought he was gonna be the lead quarterback or something.
Anyway, in the first week or so, I didn't really say anything or talk to anyone because I didn't know any of the freshmen and I was a pretty quiet guy anyway. Soon after, our coach told us we were going to do the mile, and, of course, Mr. Quarterback started talking it up, thinking he was going to win. People like that really annoy me.
What he didn't know is that I had been keeping a secret the entire time—I've been running track and cross country for the last 2.5 years and had a mile PR at that time of about 5 minutes. To make it even better, I was kind of a bigger guy, 5'11", 180lbs; not fat, but you definitely wouldn't guess I could run a 5-minute mile or really anywhere close. Anyway, back to the mile—we lined up and of course, this kid went out like a bullet, so I just trailed a few paces behind him for the first lap and made my move in lap two, just barely overtaking him.
I could've just totally pulled away and won by a long shot, but I decided that I would just stay a few paces right in front of him the whole time to just drag him along. I won just a couple of seconds in front of him with a 6:15 time. He was totally exhausted right afterward while I had barely broken a sweat. He shut his mouth a bit more after that.
84. Not in My House
I'm a small-time landlord. When I was just getting into things, I made some bad mistakes. The neighbor of one of my properties is a very friendly guy and when I was doing renovations would constantly pop over to chat. It turns out his son and his girlfriend are looking for a place to live. Great! Saves me the trouble of having to hunt down a renter, I thought. I run a background check and there are some red flags but nothing they can't plausibly explain. I let them rent my property. Big. Mistake.
They never paid their rent on time and towards the end didn't pay up at all. They trashed the house. They ground cigarette butts into the carpet and etched the word "Booty" on the side of the tub. I ended up evicting them and getting a judgment against them. I figured I'd never collect and never hear from them.
Fast forward two years. The house is empty. I just had a tenant leave and I was about to start doing turnover. My phone goes off one day. It's my former tenant. His girlfriend left him, he's back living at home and he really wants a place to stay. "Not on your life." God, that felt so good.
85. The Real Competition
Seven teenage boys tried to get my boyfriend at the time to play Daytona, the arcade machine game, with them, as it was an eight-person setup. He offered me his place, which they accepted, thinking a woman in her mid-20s wouldn't be much competition. They had no idea who they were messing with— I worked at an amusement arcade at the time and played Daytona maybe 20 to 30 times a week.
I thrashed them, even playing in automatic mode. I may even have thrown in a "Did you just get beat by a GIRL?" as I strode off. I can still do it too. No-one has ever beaten me in a public playoff, though as a now middle-aged woman, I rarely get asked to take part.
86. An Unexpected Journey
When I was a kid, my younger brother and I would go for extra Mandarin lessons after school. Then we'd take the bus back. He would never press the bell for the bus to stop because he knew I'd freak out and press the bell rather than miss the stop. So, one day when he was sitting on the bus, but a row in front of me, I made sure to get off the stop before ours.
I laughed my butt off when I saw the bus miss not just our stop but disappear into the distance. Petty? Sure.
87. On Top Of The Scrabble Board
I got really good at Scrabble after playing for years. Now, lots of people think they are good at Scrabble, but there are those who are ‘pretty good at a casual game’ and those who have the tw0- and three-letter words memorized, think about rack management, open vs. closed board, etc. Unless you regularly play against other competition-level players with timers and the Scrabble Dictionary, you are probably not the second kind of good.
So, I was meeting my significant other's mother and she thought of herself as a great Scrabble player. Not good, great. I tried my best not to play against her, saying I don't play casually, but she got a little aggressive with her insistence and I relented. We drew tiles and I drew high. The first word I played on the open board made her jaw drop.
It scored me 111 points. She and my significant other never got closer than the end of that first round. I was calm, polite, and good-spirited throughout as I demonstrated the difference between casual and competitive play (a few hundred points). There was no big blow-up, but I don't think either ever fully forgave me.
88. I Walk the Line
I was 18 years old and working at a movie theater concession stand on an extra busy day. My coworkers made themselves busy doing things that didn’t need to be done (like checking toilet paper or organizing candy) instead of helping me with a long line of customers that wrapped itself around the entire stand. One lady got extremely nasty with me because I didn’t butter the middle of her popcorn the way she had wanted me to. She was literally screaming at me for it.
I looked around and saw one of my coworkers just watching me and laughing as they pretended to clean the ticket booth window. That was the final straw. I logged out of the computer system, closed the cash register, walked out of the concession stand, slammed the door behind me, told the customer she was a jerk who didn’t need more butter, told my coworker to go screw himself, and walked right out of the theater—leaving the long and very confused line of customers completely unattended.
I never went back despite the fact that they were apparently willing to forgive me because this “wasn’t my usual behavior.”
89. Do You Play?
I was hanging out with this girl I liked. We were just reading in a classroom that had a piano in it. At one point, I went over to the piano and she said, "Oh, do you play?" Now, I grew up with a piano, and I've learned like three songs from YouTube, but I only know them in a "what to hit in what order" kind of way. However, it is enough to impress most people.
So, I say "Of course," thinking that I would charm the heck out of her. With the most "get ready for your pants to hit the floor" attitude, I sat down and played that song from Amelie. After I was finished, she said "That's pretty good. Can I try?" When she started playing, I knew I'd screwed up. Apparently, she'd been playing piano her whole life.
She even studied classical music at university at some point. So yeah, she was not impressed.
90. What If That Was a Lie?
At my first jury trial, I'm cross-examining the alleged victim, and in answering my question she says, "Oh yeah, I lie all the time!" Needless to say, I won that trial.
91. Dressing Contest
I was a firefighter in college with a bunch of other college kids. We spent nearly every shift challenging each other to these types of competitions, debating how to shave off time, and I usually was the top finisher. After college, I went on to some small-town, part-time departments. As the new guy, I didn’t want to be a know-it-all, so I never really talked about my experience unless I was asked.
One day, the full-time professional firefighters dropped into one of our training sessions and challenged the new hires to a race to put on all our gear. The standard for this is 90 seconds from wearing street clothes to all clothing with mask, helmet, gloves, and the air tank. I did it around 40 seconds in my prime.
The laughter started to settle down as I tucked my pant legs into my socks and carefully arranged all my gear on the floor...but things got really quiet during my last sequence. I both-foot jumped into my boots while putting the flame hood on mid-air and one handing the mask while putting on the air pack. We didn’t time it, but I was dressed and “on-air” before some full-timers had their coats zippered up.
It then became a regular thing for the full-timers to come up with some new competition to challenge me on and there were rumors they would practice on their shifts. But years of practice meant I’d never been defeated...
92. No Holds Barred
Stated dating a girl a few months back and her ex was being just a huge jerk to her, threatening to fight me if he saw me, trying to start rumors, etc...Went out for drinks with the girlfriend and, of course, he shows up. Starts to get in my face at the bar and gets kicked out. Rushes the door guy to get back in and is carried out and banned from that bar for life.
Then I had another genius thought...what if I could do this at the bar next door..? (It's a smallish town. There are really only two bars worth going to for nightlife, and they're right next door to each other). So, we go next door. He's waiting outside for me but there's the usual "don't do it bro!" friends around him so I make it next door without having to fight. Of course, he comes in, starts his act and actually tries to fight me this time.
He gets pulled off by a few people and is also kicked out of that bar for at least a while. Fight with your brain, not your fists.
93. A Real Distance Runner
I was a competitive distance runner for a while in my early 20s. Not a top professional or anything, but I’m talking 5k in the 14:15 to 14:30 range and 10k at around 30:00 even. Not fast enough to go to the Olympics, but fast enough for local sponsorship and pretty much a guaranteed win at any local road race, usually by a pretty big margin.
I was running a 5k or 10k nearly every weekend for the prize money, which for the record, was never a lot—only $100-$200 or so in value. But it was enough to pay for running gear, travel to races, and other things. Every week, I would search online for whatever race had the most prize money that weekend and I would drive up to race it.
I was going places where people didn’t recognize me. Every so often, the local town hotshot with a big ego who was used to winning their small church's 5ks would “challenge” me or talk hot stuff before the race. It never worked out for them. Normally, I would show up, not really talk to anyone, humbly run my race, and go home.
I wasn’t there to prove anything to anyone; I just wanted the $200 gift card or whatever they were offering. But when this happened, I had fun with it. I’d let them talk, which would always include them bragging about their personal record or recent race times. “Yeah, I won this race last year...I ran a 17:45 and won by a minute”...things like that.
I’d respond with, “Wow that’s impressive!” I mean, an 18:00 for 5k is a good time, but if you know 5k times, you'd know 14:30 for 5k is a different world. For reference, around this time, I ran the marathon in under two hours and 30 minutes. I averaged 17:45 per 5k in my marathon. So, it was not really going to be a “competition,” but I wanted them to think it would be. If they asked me about myself, I’d just brush it off and just say, “Oh, I’m just out here to have fun and support the local charity” or something like that.
When the race came, the real fun began. They'd take off like a bat, trying to prove a point. They’d try to put distance on me, but I’d just stay on their shoulder, letting them dictate their pace. This was almost always a pace they couldn’t actually sustain the whole race. Remember, at this point, they’d told me what they ran, so in my head, I knew what pace they should be able to sustain. I’d let them lead for the first mile, just running right behind them and never letting up.
Then, I’d slowly come parallel with them and take over. I’d constantly read their pace and run just fast enough to let them think they still had a chance, so they wouldn’t let up. They’d push themselves harder as a result, and you could see it on their face—the grit, the struggle to hold on, and their ego preventing them from slowing down to a realistic pace. They'd got lost in the moment and wouldn't realize what was happening.
That's when I'd slowly start creeping up my pace ever so slightly, but progressively until they started to hit their limit. At about two miles in, it'd be game over for them. They'd reach their lactate threshold, the point in which their muscles are producing more lactic acid than their body can remove and reconvert into energy. This is the physiological breaking point that forces a runner to slow down significantly.
When a runner hits this point, their body literally no longer has the strength to continue at that pace. That’s when I’d kick it into overdrive. I'd leave them in the dust, quite literally taking off nearly twice as fast as they'd slowed down to. By the time they’d reach the finish line, I’d been done for five minutes or more, despite them having been with me for two-thirds of the race. I stay and watch them stumble across the line, slowly, huffing and puffing, defeated.
94. Not a Good Place to Lie About Your Priors
My sister got T-boned by a car, causing a concussion, when I was younger. Long story short, we were in court with the judge, who asked the driver if he had ever sped before. “No, your honor, I never speed” was his reply. The judge asked him a couple more times if he was sure, if he never sped. Ever? The driver was adamant that he never sped and never had before.
A few minutes later, my sister's lawyer gave the judge some paperwork. She read it, and said to the driver, “It seems that you have some past driving violations. Can you tell me what they are for?” He looked down, "............ speeding." The driver had to pay medical bills for my sister.
95. I Didn’t Get The Email!
The property management company for my homeowner's association insisted that I had received emails that I never received. So, I asked them to prove that I had received them. I'm a software engineer and at the time I had just finished an enterprise email delivery system; like an in-house, constant contact. I knew the rules of the CAN-SPAM Act by heart. I KNEW exactly how their system worked.
So, this property manager said, "I know how email works. You wouldn't understand." At that very moment, I couldn't help it—I had to put the guy in his place. I started to explain very methodically how email delivery works and how they'd track various actions. I spent about five minutes detailing my credentials and why I was absolutely certain they had never sent me the emails they alleged I received. When I was finished, the HOA board just agreed to waive the fines.
96. Too Little, Too Late
I was working as a general manager at a struggling restaurant—struggling despite excellent business, because the owners would do stupid things like take trips to Italy on the company dime to source the "perfect" panini press. They also wouldn't staff properly; I was the only waiter ever there, open to close, six days a week, on top of handling phone orders, inventory, and other managerial duties. I was wildly overworked, but I sucked it up because the base pay was good, plus tips.
However, to fund their lavish "business" trips, costs had to be cut at the store. They decided to do this by bumping me down to minimum wage for tipped employees—effectively cutting my salary to 1/10 of its previous level. They were also too chicken to tell me until I got my new teeny paycheck and questioned the mistake. "Oh yeah haha, forgot to mention that blah blah cost-cutting blah valued team member please work with us through this difficult time."
I had worked for two weeks at this new lower rate without my knowledge. Pretty sure that's illegal, but hey, a lot of illegal things go on in the restaurant industry. That's not when I rage quit, though....a couple of hours later, I'm fuming and have decided that I can't work for the lower rate, so now I’m just waiting for the perfect chance to give my notice.
They called in a delivery guy who was fired a few weeks before, and they talk about hiring him to start doing our Facebook posts and handing out flyers around town. Whatever. Then I hear them offer him close to my old salary as "Promotions Manager"! What??? I was basically running the place for $2.13/hr and you're offering this dude almost $20/hr to walk up and down the street saying "Eat at (Name)"?
And yet, it gets worse. They bring up our negative Yelp reviews and this guy suggests asking friends to post positive ones. The boss starts laughing and says "Better not ask our waitress to post one, it'll be all boohoo don't eat there, I can't pay my rent this month because they cut my pay without telling wahhhh!" I don’t think I was supposed to hear that, but I was five feet away, so of course I did.
I RAGED! I quit on the spot, told them to screw their job, and wished them good luck keeping the place open without me. They quickly realized I was right, as neither of them knew how to do more than pick up the takings once a week. They begged me not to quit. They were so desperate that they sat there for half an hour and allowed me to bluntly tell them exactly what kind of huge idiots I thought they were in excruciating detail.
I went on and on as my rage burned, and they just quietly listened, nodding and apologizing. Once I had cursed myself back into calmness, I walked out, 30 minutes before the dinner rush began, leaving them with an unstaffed floor and no clue how to even open the cash register. God, they were morons. I loved that they actually listened to me telling them exactly how stupid they were. No repercussions on my side, as the restaurant industry isn't known for checking references.
The place closed down about 18 months later, and I was surprised it even made it that long.
97. The Fake Expert
I worked with a guy who was supposed to be an expert in what we do. He would blast through jobs and hound our supervisor for more work. He would get through tasks a lot faster than I could and I didn't understand how...until I had to support him one day and found out he was faking everything. He didn't really do good work—anything he submitted was never up to our standards. When I confronted him about it, he got annoyed at me and insisted I had no idea what I was doing.
He thought he had the upper hand...until my supervisor swooped in. When he checked his product, he was reprimanded for doing a poor job. Then, I had to work with him to get him up to speed. After six months, he was still failing, and I was working on his projects as much as I was working on my own. I checked on some of his work, gave him a list of problems I saw, and he completely lost it and didn’t listen to me.
So I left him on his own. I told my bosses that I'd no longer be carrying him. They were getting ready to fire him, but he beat them to it and quit. He found another job where he could be a project supervisor for more money and better benefits. He failed there, too. We sent his new company a basket of muffins and a thank you note. I ended up getting the company car, a $5 an hour raise, and a bunch of other benefits.
98. Never a Bright Idea to Assume
I'm a lawyer. Opposing counsel decided that I had coached my witness, gave him lines to repeat, and that he was lying. Short version is that he asked the witness if he spoke to me before he testified. Witness said he had. Attorney looked like he thought he had me. Attorney asked the witness what I told him, what instructions I gave him.
Witness looked him dead in the eye and said, “First thing he told me was to tell the truth no matter what. He said the lawyer is never the one who goes to jail, that he isn’t going to jail for me, and if I lie, I’m on my own.” Attorney looked like someone took the air out of him. Everyone in the courtroom simultaneously looked at me.
Only time I’ve smirked or laughed in court. I wanted to put my feet up on the table like I was Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, hands behind my head, and say, “I’m done with this guy.”
99. Impromptu Band Member
A buddy of mine was at a concert in bad seats and he started complaining about it via Twitter. All of a sudden, the band started reading some tweets and called my friend up to sit on stage for a couple of songs. They sat him at the piano and during the next song, they jokingly said, "Okay, piano solo!" The crowd laughed, but my buddy's next move shut them up real quick—he just started jamming out, as he plays the piano in his own band. Talk about dream moment getting to play with your favorite band.
100. 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 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.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Reddit,
.jpg){kind=link}
