People From Around The World Share How They Got Back At Someone Who Was Rude To Them
While we may not live in a giant utopia where people are nice to each other all the time, there is something great about living in a flawed world: revenge. There's nothing as satisfying as getting someone back for their snarky comment, bad manners, or plain rudeness. If witnessing the perfect comeuppance makes your day, get ready to delight in these stories about people who got back at someone who was rude to them.
Image by Bruno Glätsch from Pixabay
40. The hero we deserve.
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, ran up and moved the cart and put it behind her 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 proceed to put up her cart the right way. I felt like a champion of the people.
39. Don't fall flat.
Came out of the supermarket one day to find that someone hit my car. A stranger told me the person who hit my car got out, looked at the damage, and parked at the other end of the lot. I went to where the car was parked, and confirmed (paint matched) it was the car that hit mine, flattened all four tires, and left a note on their windshield telling them to have a nice day.
38. Seems like a lot of trouble, but ok.
Every year, my dad would wrap a month's worth of trash as gifts. He made them look all nice and professional. He'd drive to the bad section of town, where the major mall was in town with all the "presents" in the bed of his truck. He'd go grab a coffee at the shop across the street and wait for the hoodlums to steal the christmas "gifts".
37. Super sweet revenge.
At the end of a long commute home, after a hard week, I went to a cookie store just before closing time. As I walked up to the counter, not 5 feet from it, some guy ran from behind me and tried to cut in front of me - the girl working there insisted I was first (thank you). Outraged at what that guy tried to do, and noticing there was not much cookies left, I said "Hi, I'll take absolutely everything you have". Cost me close to $60, but it was so worth it.
Pixabay
36. Left out in the cold.
Guy got out of his car to express some road rage to me. I just got out of my truck, walked past him, pushed the lock button on his door, closed it, walked past him again (his mouth hanging open this time), got back in my truck and drove off. He seemed to be frozen with confusion.
35. Harsh punishment.
I work at a retail location that does returns strictly only with tags on the clothes. There was one customer who was exceptionally rude to our staff. She came up to the register telling me she'll probably return all the things she's buying and is just trying to impress her friends. So I took all the tags off the clothes when I was bagging everything. I bettered the world that day.
Pixabay
34. The revenged gets avenged.
I was riding my bike to work one day and when crossing a street (in the legal zone with a walk sign) a woman ran me over. She drove through the crosswalk looking to turn right and ran right into me. She stopped after I got bumped hard enough by her fender to take a spill and have some bruising all down my side. She 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. 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 road off fuming yet victorious. Then a half mile farther on my trek I got attacked by a goose. Not my best day.
Wikimedia
33. Throwing out the trash.
Trashy, Jerry Springer guest-looking young lady at Toys-R-Us on Black Friday tried to cut in the massive 90 minute line and threw a fit when she was told to go to the end of the line. She yelled at the employees and threw her products into the face of the security guards as she was told to leave. I started a slow clap, and she screamed and ran out of the store. You could practically see her tail tucked between her legs.
32. Brought her down a peg.
I volunteer at my university, safe walks and all that jazz. We are required to report suspicious and illegal activity. Witnessed a woman driving a mercedes-benz across a lawn to bypass the parking gate, tearing up this gorgeous lawn. Being an ex-landscaper, and mad at some rich moron being too cheap for parking, I am not amused, so we reported it to the parking authority. They show up while the chick is still getting crap out of her trunk, box her in, and start writing a ticket. She ended up driving away, over a curb, peeling her shiny bumper off in the process. Made me kinda happy inside.
Pixabay
31. Line-cutters are the worst.
I woman in her mid-50s cut in front of my daughter (2 years old) and I in line at Panera. I was getting her a cookie, and was in a hurry as I was dealing with a 2 year old. I said "What is wrong with you? How are 70 years old and you still don't know how a line works?" She was silent.
30. Didn't know that was a rule.
Not me but when I was working at a car dealership we had a bunch of cars get their wheels stolen one night. A police officer was in writing a report and a lady came in screaming that the cop was blocking her from getting to the service drive through. She was screaming at the top of her lungs creating a huge scene. The cop calmly walks out and moves his car, comes back in and finishes his report. Then he walks back out and drives his car to the end of the street and parks. The lady comes out and gets in her car and leaves. He pulls her over for having her wipers on without her headlights on.
29. Oh, stereotypes.
Waiting in line to vote today, I stood next to an Asian man and we engaged in a conversation about the excitement surrounding this presidential election. He struck me as a very well educated person with interesting insights about this election season. When it was his turn at the registration desk, the woman there asked him if he spoke English and if he did, would she be able to understand him. I spoke up and said that he spoke English a whole lot better than she did and wasn't anywhere near as rude as she is.
Cauldrons and Cupcakes
28. Handing out lessons left and right.
I was at a pedestrian crossing on a major road in one of the wealthiest parts of town. The little man goes green for me to cross however I see one of those 4WD vehicles that has never been off road and I can tell the driver isn’t going to stop. Sure enough he runs the red and all so he can turn into the 7-Eleven 50m beyond the crossing. He would’ve happily run me down just to get to the convenience store a few seconds earlier. He gets out of his car with his wife and several kids. I walk up to him, tell him he almost killed me, he is selfish and a few other colourful tidbits too. He is speechless throughout. I finish up by pointing to his kids and saying “Now explain to your kids why what you just did was wrong,” and head on my way.
27. Too bad, so sad.
Some douche in a humvee decided to park in a handicap spot at a Kroger's. I was young at the time and out riding with my dad, a repo man...in a repo truck.
He towed the humvee to a parking spot on the opposite side of the parking lot. We waited till the owner came out and looked around in disbelief. She thought someone stole her car.
My dad drove up to her, rolled down the window and said "are you ok, miss?" Woman said, "my car was stolen". My dad replied "well, maybe you shouldn't have parked it in a handicap spot" and drove off.
Pixabay
26. Public transit torture.
Today on the train I sat next to a woman who was angry that I sat next to her because she wanted the two seats to herself. This lady is a regular and a known seat hog. I've seen her get into arguments before with people because she wants two seats to herself. As I sat there she kept mouthing under her breath how she just wanted to sit there alone... blah blah blah. Despite the fact that I wanted to tell her that it was public transportation and she needed to get over it I kept my mouth shut. A few minutes later a large woman with a large purse comes and stands in the same car I was in. I get her attention and tell her that she could have my seat. She huffs and puffs her way to me and I help her sit down while grinning at the angry woman who was upset I'd sat beside her. I enjoyed watching her head almost explode from anger as the other large woman's rolls and purse pressed against her for the rest of the ride.
25. Lean, mean, without caffeine.
I apparently made this jerk's 65 cent coffee wrong at McDonald's, and he asked me to "MAKE IT AGAIN" and started to go off on me. I almost snapped on him, but I instead threw my hands up and told my manager to handle it. The manager talked to him and came back to me and said the guy's a jerk and comes in all the time and does this just make him another coffee.
So I walked to the drive-thru window with this guy fuming in his car next to me talking to himself about 'How long this is taking...' So, I picked up the half full pot of coffee I made no more than 4 minutes ago and dumped that out. I proceeded to brew a whole new pot of coffee. I saw this made him extremely angery so I went to the window and told him that its going to be another 5-6 minutes because that last pot was bad. He then peeled out of drive thru like a moron, without a coffee.
24. The comeback kid.
I'm walking in the city with my two dogs. They're normal sized dogs, as in, they're not fat like so many overfed city dogs. A woman walks past me across the street. Without any warning she stops and yells at me: "Your dogs look really skinny! They aren't properly fed!" with an angry look on her face.
This rude woman is obviously pre-ticked-off about something unrelated to me and just wants to take it out on someone. But I do not take crap like that from strangers. I am also mad. My dogs most likely consume more calories than me. I feed them with raw meat and bones. Have you ever seen how a big dog reacts to raw meat? It's dog heaven.
Oh, did I mention that the rude chick is also fat? Luckily, this is one of those rare moments of instant clarity. I shout back my rebuttal: "I can't say the same about you!" That feel when I walked away grinning was like heaven. There were several passers-by who witnessed the scene. I am pretty sure I wasn't the only one who got a smile out of it.
Pixabay
23. The hero we need.
This dude in the gym once was making some kids of about 14 feel crap telling them to put some man weights on the bar and to stop being girls and real lame cliche crap. Anyway every time they find a new workout he comes and repeats the process lifting bigger and trying to embarrass them. I was annoyed but tired and let it slide. Only it happened again, same kids came in 2 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 5 minutes, but to him. He quickly moved on and went to another exercise. But I wasn't done the kids were looking at me like I was Batman. I followed the guy to the next 3 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.
22. A buffet of bad behavior.
Just the other day I was at a Chinese buffet and the three people in the booth next to me were questioning the waitress (she appeared to be Asian-Hispanic) about voting for the President and who she planned to vote for. She had trouble understanding them and communicating that she could not vote. They immediately began taunting her that she shouldn't be here if she couldn't vote, that she didn't even know who the President of the United States is, and then took a picture and said they would post it on Facebook. I later found out the waitress was on a school visa and couldn't vote but was unable to convey that to them. After the waitress walked off, one of the girls at the table (the one who took the pic) looked up and asked me where I worked because I looked familiar. When I replied the local university in the social work department, she commented that she had recently been in my office to apply to our program, to which I replied Yes, I remember you and I'm also on the admissions committee [followed with a wink]. The color drained from her face and she knew she was screwed. Karma's a good lady.
21. It's all in the delivery.
I'm in a massive line at a store. I'm next in line, but the person in front of me has a cartload of stuff. A helpful clerk sees the mess and opens another isle saying, "I can help the next customer." Well, that's me. However, the checkout counter has two sides- a right and a left. It is set up for people to come to the right side, but the left can be used as well. As I am stepping over to her counter, this dude 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. I am standing there on the other side with my one item, burning with rage. Checkout girl 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're on the wrong side. You'll have to go to the end of the line." Which 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.
20. Subtle but so clever.
I used to work as a front desk agent at a boutique hotel. A guy who was obviously very full of himself came in with an online reservation that he had booked at a shockingly cheap nightly rate (around $40/night, we usually book rooms for around $160/night.) He proceeded to give me a hard time about EVERYTHING, from telling me he shouldn't have to give me his credit card info since he had prepaid his reservation (we need it for incidental purposes like if he broke the tv and just left and things like that) to telling me "Uhm yea, I'm pretty sure I can find the elevators, I'm not stupid." and just being an all around douche. About 10 minutes after checking him in, he came down and demanded that we give him a bigger room with a king bed and a view, even though he had booked a standard queen bed online. I complied, as we had extra king beds available. Ten minutes later he came down again to complain about the size of the room. He told me, "I'm only going you one more chance to make me happy," and asked for the general manager. After much arguing between him and my manager, we ended up giving him our nicest suite (two rooms, kitchenette, and a great view) AND free parking since we had "given him trouble." (we're located downtown in a big city so parking is not usually free) He got all this for $40/night! And get this, he informed us shortly after the ordeal while on his way out to dinner that he was not even going to be in the room for the majority of his stay, as he was visiting friends and would be staying at their home. What! SO I made it my personal mission to reset his room keys every time I saw him leave the hotel (which was quite frequently, 3-4 times a day/night) it was particularly funny when he came back tired from a night of drinking and had to come all the way down to the front desk to get his keys fixed. Needless to say he was very frustrated by the end of his stay. I doubt he'll be staying with us again.
19. Just not cut out for it.
I was working as a shift leader in a Dunkin' Donuts and dealt with my fair share of rude jerks. One particularly memorable day, a group of ladies came in during our busiest hour, just past noon. The line was almost out the door and we were shortstaffed so it was pretty hectic. While they were ordering, one of them asked for a job application and started filling it out on the counter. She handed it back before they were done ordering and I stashed it on a shelf under the register and started making their food. They had a huge order and we did our best to get it out quickly, but it was obvious from the looks on their faces that we just weren't quick enough for their liking.
They sat down to eat their food, and the girl who just turned in her application got back in line. I spotted here right away; she was standing with a glaring face, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, trying her best to look obviously (almost cartoonishly) ticked off. So I motioned for her to come up to the counter, since I knew she had a complaint and I wanted to get it fixed right away. I assumed that in the shuffle we had messed up her sandwich or something like that; anyone who's worked in fast food knows that these things happen when it's chaotic. I asked her what was wrong, and she pointed to her BOTTLED Mountain Dew and barked (definitely not an "indoor voice"), "THIS IS FLAT!" It was a bit accusing, as though it were my fault that the bottle of soda she just opened was flat. So I took it and told her to get another one out of the cooler, then check it to make sure it was good. After all that, she asked for a refund. I said, as politely as I could, "Ma'am, I replaced your soda, sorry if there was an inconvenience but I don't think a refund should be necessary." [something like that, I don't remember my exact words] So she stormed off, back to her table and started complaining loudly to her group about not getting a refund.
So, since I was having an awful day anyway and really could not see a person like this ever working for us, I grabbed her application from the register, walked it over to the lobby trashcan nearest to her table, crumpled it up and threw it away as she watched. The look on her face was priceless.
18. Serving up justice.
Where I work, the bar is an L-shape. I was taking a break from serving people behind the bar and was sorting out some glasses and putting them into the dishwasher which is where the small side of the L is. There were three of my co-workers to my right/behind me who were all serving on the large side of the L.
Where the glasses and dishwasher are, you can't buy drinks because it would interfere with a fire-exit. A woman and her husband came up to where I was and ordered. I told them politely that if they would like drinks, they need to go around to the bar. She got upset and started swearing at me. I nodded, took two steps to my right as they walked around the pylon to order their drinks from one of the girls.
I smiled and told the girl who was about to serve them that I'd take it, they looked confused and ordered their drinks. I said that I was cutting them off. The woman blew up and asked why. I said that if she couldn't treat the people who make her drinks with respect, she didn't deserve to get drinks to begin with, and that she had 10 seconds to leave the bar before I called security and had them escorted out.
I don't consider it my job to be pleasant to people who aren't pleasant to me. If you're downright rude, you're out and we don't want your business.
17. Out-bullied the bully.
I play poker in the casinos a lot. In one in particular there is a ridiculously loud obnoxious dude who plays quite regularly cash and tournaments. He fist pumps and yells, "Ya!" when he sucks out on people. Totally uncouth and a complete jerk to everyone in the room. To top it off he is a larger guy, tattoo's, and tries to physically intimidate people.
Now, I am not a small guy in the slightest, 6'4 230lbs. But when I am relatively clean cut, I look very UNintimidating. I am polite and friendly, know most of the dealers and half the patrons by name. What this guy doesn't know is that I know how to handle myself both in a battle of verbal wit and physical fists. This leaves me unafraid of the plausible physical consequences to standing up to him. So one day he was being his typical self but to a larger degree and I had had enough. He is verbally berating another player at the table for their "terrible call" even though the pot odds and eventual result seemed(to me at least) to be a GREAT call.
So I just burst out, "Mike buddy, I have been meaning to ask you... how"s that violent case of herpes treatin' ya?!" The table sits in silence. It takes him 5 seconds to mumble back the typical and incredibly predictable meathead response of, "Ask your mom, she gave it to me." I chuckle, and say, "Leading to my next question, how are those assault charges comin?! Cause I know she didn't give it up to your ugly mug willingly.". He explodes, swearing, saying he was going to beat me up. The houseman walks up to the edge of the table having heard the escalation in conversation, and is about to intervene on my behalf as you are clearly not aloud to threaten other players with physical violence. I raised my hand slightly and indicated that everything was fine, and he holds off, and awaits my response. I looked the jerk right in the eyes and calmly stated, "Buddy, if you can find your guts and figure out how to use them, we can figure this out in the parking lot?" ... ... ... "Whatever man.", He stuttered back. "So thats a no then?!" I asked. Still no real response. "Then maybe you should concentrate on not continuously bleeding chips, in stead of running your mouth."
I got a bunch of "Thank you's" from many of the regulars, even those that weren't there and heard about it later.
16. Coordinated revenge.
My husband and I were driving just over an hour home from my in-laws' house and for reasons I can't remember, we were in separate vehicles. To make the trip more tolerable, we had each other on speakerphone.
Although the highway was not particularly crowded, he was a bit further behind me, directly behind another car that was driving very slow. So, he put on his left blinker to go around the guy. As soon as he started to move left, the guy abruptly cut him off only to keep at a snail's pace in the passing lane. By that point, I had slowed down enough to catch sight of them right as this was happening. Jay, being much more patient than I, decided to just pass him on the right without signaling. When Jay started to move right the guy swerved right. Only, Jay hadn't given him the benefit of a blinker warning, so they were nearly side by side by the time the other guy started to move right and the guy had to swerve back into his own lane to avoid hitting Jay.
Before the other driver had time to make it more of a nonsense match of trying to get in front of one another, I was slowed down right in front of him. Again, there really weren't many other cars on the road at all, and since we were on the phone, we could coordinate. I slowed down in front of him, Jay kept pace with him on the right and he had the cement wall on his left, so he was boxed in and forced to slow down to our pace, which for me, dropped from 75 mph to about 50 mph. We decided to keep it that way, for the remaining 30 - 45 minutes of our drive home. He never signaled or honked, but he did make a ton of confused and frustrated faces. I giggled uncontrollably the whole way. Definitely worth the extended driving time.
Image by Christine Sponchia from Pixabay
15. Know the lingo.
I used to work for a major bank and while doing my stint there I came across a ton of jerkss. I was taking a deposit for a lady and her daughter and I heard them speaking a Middle Eastern language. At first I wasn't paying attention but when I realized they were speaking Farsi, I was all ears.
Reason: I speak Farsi.
They were talking about how much of a loser I was, how this job as a teller was the only thing I had in my life, that I probably didn't have a girlfriend and didn't attend school. Throughout this conversation I spoke only English to her and every time she responded to my requests she would smile and then say something nasty about me in Farsi.
At the end of the conversation, I switched up the language and said, "Just because I work at a Bank doesn't give you the right to say things about me behind my back. I'm in grad school to become a therapist and this job is for spending money. This isn't how Persian people behave and you should be ashamed. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Her daughter snap left the building and her mother was beat red, embarrassed, apologized profusely, and left. I never saw either of them again.
Photo by Ruthson Zimmerman on Unsplash
14. Theatre battle royale.
I was sitting in a movie theater, when I was asked to save two seats in the middle of my row (I was sitting on the end). The people asking were elderly and needed to go to the bathroom, so I thought it was of some kind of an importance. The whole row was filled up too, so I figured it'd be easy to save.
I sat there for a while, when a busty lady made her way up the row and stopped right next to me, at which point she looks at me and says "Can you move."
I smile with all the awkward tension of any man around giant bazongas and say "Sorry, I believe those are being saved."
Then the lady does something unbelievable, she sort of tries to jam her way past my legs in a mad attempt to get to the seat. Her boyfriend was just standing there.
I look at her, flabbergasted, and simply say "those seats are saved."
And then, and I still can't believe she did this, she snapped her fingers in my face, and said "WATCH ME WALK".
At that point, everyone in the theatre was watching, and I was having none of this. My face went from an awkward smile to a solid "try me" face. I could tell she was getting ready for another assault, so I slumped down in my chair and put my hands towards the seat in front of me (making a desperate attempt to block her) and she was forced to sort of run into my legs a few times.
I looked at her boyfriend, and he rolled his eyes and said "come on, let's go."
So off went Busty St.Claire, in all her vivacious rage, roaring and raving all the way to the front of the theater.
Best part was after the whole episode was over and the elderly couple had returned, the people behind me asked me to save their seats, because they thought "if anyone could handle it, it would be me".
Pixabay
13. So much for not texting and driving.
I was sitting in my car making some photos with my new smartphone while using different settings. I noticed that there was this woman who just stopped at a one way street with only 1 lane. So she stands there for like 10 seconds doing nothing. I thought this was very unusual...so I started to make a video. Another driver comes up behind her and honks. She then proceeds to reverse quickly and hit the car of the other guy with her big BMW. 4 Guys jumped out of the BMW and started yelling at the guy.
You have to know in Germany always the driver who hits another car from behind will be blamed if he can't prove that it wasn't his fault. So this looked like a classic insurance fraud.
The poor guy at the back was really worried because he knew he couldn't prove it. I just sit there in my car ant waited for the police. Then I go outside and the police started to get their stories. I just stood there and listen the woman complaining about how this guy hits her from behind and her brand new car is now damaged.
Two of the guys who jumped out of the BMW said they didn't know the girl and were pedestrians who saw it. That would increase her credibility.
So they made all false statements to the police and exactly that's the thing I wanted to happen. I then gave my statement and told the police, "Oh wait there is just one thing," like Colombo style, and said that I got a video of what happened. I showed it to the police and the women and the drivers just stand there with mouth open...you could not only see how she hits HIS car but also that the "Pedestrians" where with the woman in the car.
The guy, the victim, then hugs me and we became good friends. Turns out he lives near me and we spend the evening drinking and gaming.
12. He dealt with it.
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. Jumps out of the car without so much as a limp and heads into the store. He gives her the stink-eye about taking up a handicapped spot, and she snarls "Deal with it" and sashays into the store.
The guy is ticked. He sees a couple of cops 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 (Good Guy DJ) he sees the cops have blocked the lady's car with theirs, and were leaning against their car waiting for her.
As he's putting his cart in the rack the lady comes out of the store with her purchase, sees the cops, and almost cries. (The fine in CA is $250-500 for a first offense.) This part is priceless: he walks over to her and says "I dealt with it."
11. Like in a movie.
Was in a theater quite a few years back and there were two 16-year-old-or-so kids in front of me who were, in turn, behind a group of smaller kids -- say 12 or so. I was alone -- the wife hates action movies. I quickly noticed that the two older kids were messing with the younger ones -- kicking their seat backs, throwing popcorn at them, flicking spit at them, the works. The theater was crowded so the little guys couldn't move. Finally one of the doucheteens leans forward and (I think) flicked one kid's ear. When the little kid turned around to glare, flicking doucheteen says, "You got a problem with that?" His friend guffaws. When the flickmeister sits back, I haul off and give him a decent slap upside the head, knocking his noggin into his friend's. They both turn and half jump out of their seats ... and then pause when they see me. I am 6-2, 225 pounds. I stood up and said, "You got a problem with that?" They looked at each other and then turned to sit back down. "Uh-uh," I said. "You sit there, and I'm gonna make you as miserable as you've been making those guys in front of you." They shuffled on out of the theater. The younger kids all turned and said "Thank you, sir." And that was the day I became an action hero.
Pixabay
10. Never anger your mechanic.
Went to go get my exhaust fixed, no big deal, a pothole poked a hole in it.
When I went to go pick up the car a couple hours later, I am treated to a woman SCREAMING at the guy behind the counter- she's positively foaming because she has been waiting nearly 30 minutes for her car to be fixed. She even goes so far as to call the guy an "INSIGNIFICANT LAZY IMMIGRANT."
Guy looks at her- looks at me. Throws me my keys- "Here you go, your Magnum's ready- no charge."
Looks her directly in the eyes. "Looks like it's going to be more expensive than we originally thought. Would you like us to call you a cab?"
I returned shortly afterwards with pizza for the shop.
9. Ice. Cold.
I'm a manager at a grocery store, so I get awesomely rude customers on a daily basis. Every Wednesday is senior discount day. You have to be 55-60 to qualify for the discount. Needless to say, Wednesdays are tense. Lots of seniors, and lots of other people who don't want to deal with the seniors. I don't generally mind the old folks. Most of them are pretty cool and have some interesting stories and cute jokes.
This Wednesday there was one particular customer who was being a huge pain from the moment she walked in. She was tall, blonde, high heels, very made up, and dressed to the nines. She was probably late 30s to early 40s. She came storming up to customer service, "There are NO parking spots. This is ridiculous. I'm going to request to corporate that you expand your parking lot, since you don't seem to have the initiative to request that yourself." Off to a great start, lady. She comes storming back up about 45 minutes later. "I am in a HUGE hurry, and every line has someone in it. I need to check out here." We had three lines open, and each one had ONE single customer. ONE. I say "No problem, but I'll get you at a checkout. You have too many items to get here." She has a HUGE hissy fit. "I don't have time for this. Let's GO."
As I'm checking her out, it is constant complaining. "You only have one brand of makeup? That is ridiculous. I only wear MAC, but I was going to settle for Revlon, but you don't even have that. Now I have to make a whole separate trip." "Please don't put my bread on top of my eggs, the eggs could roll over and crush the bread." "Please bag my avocados separately; I need to use those for a face mask tonight. They need to be perfect, I have a photo session for work tomorrow. I'm in a magazine." She was unbelievable. Finally, at the end, I had enough.
As she's about to pay, I say, "Don't forget today is senior discount day! You get 5% off!" She just stared at me. "What?" I smiled broadly. "Every Wednesday, senior citizens get 5% off their bill. I'll go ahead and take it off. You are 55-60, right?" She is staring at me, debit card in hand, cheeks getting red. I lose my smile slowly and say "Oh, you don't qualify? Sorry about that. Maybe next year! Thanks for your honesty."
I haven't seen her in the store since.
8. No sympathy for the DMV.
I used to work for the Department of Motor Vehicles and the one I worked at had pretty limited parking, surprise! I had left for lunch, came back and was having a hard time finding a place to park. I finally found a spot so I drove up to it and put my signal on showing that I was waiting for it. People, in my experience, usually respect this and continue on. Not this time.
Just as the car was backing out, after I had waited a few minutes, a car came from the opposite side of the lot, made eye contact with me and then shot right into the parking space. I was so mad because now I would be late after looking for a new spot. As I drove past the woman that had taken the spot, I just shook my head and she responded by shrugging her shoulders, smiling, mouthing the words, "oh well" to me and then ran her finger from her eye down her cheek as if to mock me crying about it.
I continued into work, got in trouble for being late, but had actually forgotten about the incident until who's number gets called to my station, but Miss Spot-Stealer herself! The look on her face was priceless!
Keep in mind that I'm not your average DMV worker, I understand that stuff happens and waive penalties all the time and treat my customers with respect because I believe that what goes around, comes around and I know how crappy it is to wait at the DMV all day! I'm usually so nice about getting penalties taken off of people's accounts that I get in trouble for it at times.
So, I greet Spot-stealer as nice as I would anyone else, in fact it may have been nicer than I normally would be. She may have thought I didn't recognize her. Her registration is FAR past due, with hundreds due in penalties. I let her tell me her whole sob story then finally tell her that she owes in full because she was aware of her due date. She argues it a little until, out of site from my manager, I mouth the words, "oh well" and drag my finger from my eye to my cheek, mocking her tears. At that point she puts her head down and proceeds to take out her card and pay the full amount because yes, we do take debit cards!
What goes around, comes around!
7. Checking in?
I worked at a hotel several years ago and had to deal with insufferable people about a dozen times a day.
The best/most evil revenge I ever got was on a guy that stayed with us four days a week for the entire five years I worked at the hotel. The big utility company in our area was having financial issues and he was the leader of the auditing team that was sent in to straighten it out. Anyway...I would interact with the guy at least a few times every day I worked, and he was ALWAYS very rude and condescending. As an example, one of his co-workers would ask me for a local restaurant recommendation and he would chime in with "Yeah, because minimum-wage workers are known for their taste in fine dining." If someone asked me something personal, he would say something like "Ask him what life choices he made to be here plunging toilets and writing down my preferred wake-up call time. Maybe he can share his wisdom so we all avoid his fate." Stuff like that. He was just a jerk to everyone on the hotel staff, and was always very demanding.
Since I saw him every day, I noticed that he had developed a relationship with one of the younger women on his auditing team. I saw their romance blossom from flirting to full-on groping and grinding in the hotel lobby. One day he had just finished delivering one of his delightful bon mots to me, and I was fuming. Then he screamed at one of my co-workers because she had a Filipino accent and he said he only wanted his room cleaned by "white Americans." I vowed revenge.
His wife called in to speak to him later that night, like she usually did, and I said "Oh, I think he's sleeping in Ms. *****'s room tonight. One moment, please." and then I connected his wife to her room. His wife must not have told him what I had said, because he didn't try to get me fired.
They got a divorce. They didn't have kids, but according to another guy on the auditing team, his wife got the house and custody of their dog. He stopped staying with us shortly after "the phone call."
6. The worst person in the world.
A few months ago, I had driven to my parent's house pretty late in the day. After leaving, I'd noticed a dog had been hit and was lying in the middle of the road. So I parked my car and put on the emergency lights, with my headlights clearly illuminating the dog. I put on a pair of gloves (I'm an EMT, I always have a box of gloves in my car, not only because it's always a good idea to have a pair just in case, but because I often do this with animals that have been hit, out of respect) so I could move it to the side of the road, where it wouldn't be hit anymore. When I finally made it up to the dog, it had lifted it's head, and was breathing normally. Turns out, the car had only hit and broken the dog's back legs. The dog was fully responsive and didn't seem to have lost a lot of blood. Thinking this meant that the dog had a chance of living, I went to spread out a couple plastic bags in the back seat of my car. as I was doing this, I noticed a car speeding down the road. I had rushed to the side of the road, directing the car to move to the opposite side, to avoid hitting the obviously visible dog lying in the road. Instead though, the driver ran right over the dog, right in front of me. Now, as an EMT, I've seen some pretty intense things, but I'm always just there for the aftermath. I was pretty freaked out to have watched this dog be brutally run over by a speeding car. I just stood there motionless, staring at the dog's remains. However, I noticed that the car pulled into a house only a couple houses down from my parents'. Being blinded by a mixture of rage, shock, and disgust, I decided this dog needed a proper burial. It was about 1 in the morning by this point, so I went into my parents' back yard and grabbed a shovel and a wheelbarrow. I lifted the dog's body (it was still intact, the car was moving so fast it basically just squeezed out its insides) into the wheelbarrow, and wheeled to the drivers house, where I started to dig a 3 foot deep hole, and lowered the dog's body inside and proceeded to bury it. I placed a large stone on top of the hole, and left a note on the driver's door. The note said "Hey, I'm sure you feel pretty bad about killing that dog last night, so I'm sure you won't mind that I buried it in your front yard. It's what she would have wanted." It was about three in the morning when I finally finished everything, and I left home feeling nothing but defeat afterward.
5. The spaghetti slinger.
I was waiting tables in an Italian restaurant that was originally opened by a man and his wife, but after their divorce, the restaurant was bought by their daughter. She was an ok boss; not fantastic, but not terrible. Her father, who had opened the restaurant, still worked as a cook and was a mean piece of work. He called the waitresses names behind their backs and made a bunch of off-color comments while flirting with his favorite older ladies. He would scream at the younger women, bully cooks on the line, and there was a story about a "mishap" with some fryer oil and a fry cook a few years back.
He didn't give me a lot of trouble because I was usually on my game; I had the times down for how long most of the food took, and adjusted for the load of the kitchen so I was always present in the window when it was ready to go out. I always heard his snide little comments, muttered some of my own at him a few times, but I always waited for the perfect time to get him, and get him good for being such an insufferable jerk.
Finally, I got my chance. I had two plates up in the window when I walked into the kitchen. I was waiting on a third, and a side of meatballs. He accosts me as soon as I walk up there and says something along the lines of "Why don't you get this food out of my window, NOW?"
I calmly looked at him and replied, "The next time you say something like that to me, this food is not going out. This food is going on the floor."
This guy was easily six feet tall. I'm 5 feet 1". He just kind of smirks and said, "I'd like to see you try that."
I picked up one plate, of spaghetti and meat sauce (probably takes less than a minute to plate, anyway) and just flipped it over in the window.
"And I need my order of lasagna and the side of meatballs, too."
The expo guy had a look of admiration on his face and shock at what I had done. He didn't even seem ticked at having to re-plate the meal. I'm not sure, though, I was blind with rage, and marched out of the kitchen and out onto the floor. We really weren't that busy; I think they had a bus kid clean it up. I wasn't spoken to about the incident except in passing, when the daughter admitted her dad could get a little intense, and her sister (who also worked there) explained that her sister often got into it with their father, and it wasn't that big of a deal.
He was always polite to me after that, and never hassled me again.
4. Better stick to Netflix.
When I was 15/16 I worked at a local video rental place. It was privately owned - pretty sure the owner used it as a front for something shady, but that's neither here nor there. The boss was too cheap to pay more than one person per shift, so I had the slow Wed/Thurs night shifts all to myself. We were in this rich, yuppy town (Concord MA) and 90% of our business consisted of local soccer moms bringing their kids in for a movie night. Most of these women were terrible people - overlords to their spoiled flock who would throw credit cards around without thinking twice and would condescend everyone they deemed "beneath" them.
We had a very basic computer system at the time, and there was a built-in function that wouldn't allow someone to rent another movie if they had over $10 of late fees on their account. The employees had the ability to overwrite this, at their discretion, or to lower the fees if they thought it appropriate. Anyway... One day this woman comes in with a bunch of kids, if I remember correctly it was 5-6 roughly 12-13 year old boys. The kids were running around, pulling things off the shelves, making lots of noise, punching each other, annoying other customers, and me as well. The woman didn't do anything about it, basically sat there gossiping on her cellphone not caring about the scene her kids were causing. Being a very timid person by nature I didn't say anything, and just figured I'd clean up the mess when they left.
So the woman finally comes up to the counter with like 8 different movies, a few video games and a bunch of candy. She's standing there on the phone still, shoves the stuff at me across the counter and doesn't even acknowledge my presence. So I look up her account.... Boom. $120 worth of late fees and four titles rented for 6+ months and still not returned. So I tried getting her attention, saying something like "ma'am...ma'am?" while her back is turned. She gestures me off. So I stand there and do nothing. She finally hangs up a minute or so later, turns to me and says something snarky like "well what's taking so long??" So I explain, "ma'am you have a very outstanding fee on your account and I can't let you rent any more movies until this is paid and the missing movies are returned."
She flipped. Starts ranting that her daughter rents things in her name, never returns things, doesn't pay fees, and that she herself has done no wrong and the fees should be cleared and she should be able to rent etc etc. I nod but say, "this account still owes $120 and I can't allow you to rent until it's paid. Company policy ma'am, I'm sorry but I don't make the rules." She starts going off again, saying ridiculous things like "I know the owner he'll wipe out the debt in a heartbeat you'd better let me rent or I'll complain to him about how terrible his employees are" etc etc. I tell her he's out of the country (which was true) and can't be reached, and she still owes $120. She finally pulls out the card. We had this ancient machine that, for reasons unknown to me, would only read a magnetic strip correctly if you wrapped the card in a plastic grocery bag. I have no idea why but it was the only way it worked. So, as you can probably guess, I ran the card with no plastic wrap. Denied. Tried it again just for looks... Denied. I printed out a receipt, and asked if she had cash. She didn't, and she was torn up about the card. I showed her the receipt saying "Card Not Accepted" and feigned indifference. She walked across the street to the bank... came back a few minutes later with the money and practically threw it at me. I took the payment.... and said "now, about those overdue movies... I don't suppose your daughter would like to return them for you so you can rent these movies?" I got the worst death glare I think I've ever received (and my mother can practically shoot lasers from her eyes) and the woman abandoned her stack of movies and stomped out. Not sure if we ever saw her again but at the time 15 year old me was so proud of myself for staying cool under pressure with this woman.
3. You've been bounced.
I was working as a manager in a big nightclub about a year ago. I don't wear a uniform, but have a radio and run the security team. The venue has a great smoking section that looks out onto the street. One night the venue was packed so I did my usual roam making sure that there were no problems, however it was too packed to walk through the smoking section, so I walked down the street instead, but could still very easily see into the smoking section.
One guy stares me down, then calls me over, and starts swearing at me for no reason and telling me that "pieces of trash like you could never even get into a venue like this". He obviously had no idea I was the manager, however I didn't want to have security get into a fight inside with him. The guy kept telling me he would punch me out etc. and was clearly trying to look macho to impress someone. So I agreed and told him to come and meet me outside and he could even have a free swing. He puts his drink down, takes off his jacket and storms outside. Once he walked outside, I walked back inside and told security not to let him back in.
The look on his face when he realised I ran the place was priceless, and then the realization that he couldn't get back into the club was amazing. It was the easiest and most fun removal I have ever done.
Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels
2. That oughta teach her.
I saw a woman with her husband at the grocery store toss a squash into a cooler that they apparently didn't want anymore. As they walked away, I picked up the squash and followed them. They left their cart for a moment so I put the squash into their cart and walked away.
She had a dumbfounded look on her face when she noticed it back in her cart (I put it in a very noticeable place) and proceeded to put it on a nearby shelf and they walked away.
I of course took it off the shelf and followed them again, doing a drive by drop off of the squash.
At this moment my girlfriend got fed up with my antics and made me stop. I would have done it until they gave up and bought the squash, or I was caught.
I'm very easily amused.
Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels
1. No love for dance moms.
I work in local theatre, and we have a lot of rude, awful women who are part of local ballet schools come through our venue who are the mothers of the dancers. Once this woman rang up wanting seats to an almost sold out ballet performance that had been on sale for 4 months the day before the show, and did nothing but abuse me for 5 minutes because she left buying them too late, whined about how she shouldn't have to pay for her kids, whined that we should get a bigger venue (it seats just under 500) then put me on hold while she rang 3 of her relatives to see if they wanted seats too. She was positivley awful.
The seats I was about to sell her were the only ones in the theatre left, and they were good seats. While I'm on hold a grandma of one of the ballerinas comes to the desk and askes if we have any seats left, as she'd been in hospital and couldn't buy them earlier, but said she'd understand if we were booked out. I put the phone with the on-hold music down and sold this old lady the last seats for the show, and gave her an invite to our next years dance season for her granddaughter and herself, 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. 2 minutes after the old lady leaves the woman 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 next year, anything else I can help you with?" She was choking with rage on the other end of the phone, it was fantastic.
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