I am a brain tumor survivor, hence why I lost most of my hearing. I also have a genetic condition which leads to worsening vision across the lifespan and I am now entering the advanced stages at 30 years old. It's not easy for me to navigate society. I bump into things, I need to be super close to read stuff, and I need people to speak up.

I walked into Chipotle 2 months ago since my stomach was feeling really good. I go in and see some notes on their menu, written on a sheet of paper. I ask the guy behind the counter what it said and he sighs, tills his head to the side, and says, "you can't read or something?" I said I was visually impaired, as calmly and as short as I could. He tells me that they are out of steak and chicken. I didn't understand him at first so I asked if he could say it again as I have hearing problems, (he spoke softer than most people I felt), and he borderline yells at me. There was nobody else in the shop but me. We go down the line, I pick my stuff and get to the end. He says something to me and I couldn't quite understand him. I asked him patiently to repeat and he looks at his coworker shaking his head, while his coworker looked at him all confused. He starts borderline yelling at me again saying, "Dude, go get some new ears, I said you have to swipe your card, the chip doesn't work."

I got upset and smiles asking, "okay, how much is it." He says, "$17.87" or something like that. I then tell him, "okay great, take this $17.87 worth of food and go fuck yourself with it." I walked away out the door and he starts yelling at me to come back and pay for it. I respond by saying, "I can't hear you dude."

Before I lost so much of my vision and hearing, I myself worked in food service. In college and a little after, I delivered sushi, served food at the campus buffet, and waited tables at IHOP. There was absolutely ZERO need to be an asshole that night. ZERO. He didn't have to speak up that much more, I am not legally deaf. And what I was asking was really not a big deal considering what else other people do. I was as nice as I could be and I really tried my best.

In the end, though it likely did not matter that food got tossed out (or maybe he enjoyed it or someone else did), I left the frustration energy of that moment with him and not me.

As a person of disability, ignorance and discrimination is to me, the literal worst part about being disabled. Society would rather decide where you can and cannot exist amongst those around you, instead of integrate with you and allow you to share with others your own contributions.

12 years ago when I was 17, I came home from a week away babysitting for my sister. It was school holidays so my brother had been home all week and left to spend a week at our dads. All i wanted to was come home and Skype my friends.

This was a time before unlimited internet, and somehow he had used our full 80GB allotment before going away. And it didn’t renew for another 4 days.

You better believe when I got home, to no internet and no data, I was pissed.

I took revenge in the pettiest way I could think of. All my magazine posters i had saved up during my early teen years finally came in handy. I spent the next day covering his walls in One Direction, Justin Bieber and Twilight posters. I changed up his bedding and decorated his room how I saw fit. It took me over 6 hours to do the posters alone.

He got home the following weekend and immediately tried to get me in trouble with our mum but she just laughed.

The best part though, he couldn’t be bothered taking it down so his room stayed like that for weeks, until one night the giant 1D poster fell down on him in his sleep.

That morning, feeling defeated by my pettiness, he changed him room back.

I have not felt that sort of satisfaction since.

Pics https://imgur.com/a/utEzGtP

One of the ladies in my extended friend group was moving. She's not someone I particularly like or would choose to hang out with alone but for the sake of the dynamics of the group I try my best to be polite and friendly when we gather as a group. However another one of the ladies that I'm good friends with gets along well with her and they spend a fair amount of time together. That's fine. I don't care not my business.

Anyways, when said lady was moving out of town, our mutual friend was at her house helping supervise moving a furniture and all that kind of stuff. She realized that some bookshelves were being left behind and asked about them. The lady who was moving offered them to our mutual friend who accepted and said her mom needs some bookshelves and could use them.

Apparently out of the blue, bookshelf lady went off at her and said I'm giving these to you just for your mom. You better not give them to Pasgetti. If I find out that you gave them to her I'm going to be pissed. Oookay? I didn't know these bookshelves existed. I never asked for them. I haven't said anything to anyone about needing or wanting bookshelves. This was random out of the blue and our mutual friend was really confused.

About 10 days later I was hanging out with mutual friend when her elderly mom called and asked if she could go pick up her prescription for her or something. So we made a CVS run and stop by her house to drop them off. This is the first time I met her mother who's in her '70s, maybe even '80s. I saw a bookshelves sitting out on her patio and being the snarky little B that I am, went over and touched them everywhere and said "Oh look I'm touching the bookshelves I'm touching the bookshelves!" Might have even threatened to lick them but they were dirty. Mom looks at me and goes "oh.. do you want them dear? I don't really need them!" I demurred. I didn't want to take shelves that she could have used but when she told me that if I didn't take them she was going to throw them away (they're not in great shape, but they're usable) I turned to my friend and said "well at least you're not offering them to me" and accepted.

I've been meaning to reorganize my studio and these bookshelves are going to work perfectly for that. So that's where they are sitting now. And you bet when I'm done I will be posting a picture of the space with all the pretty shelves and all the stuff lined up nicely on my social media where I know bookshelf lady will see, and thank all my friends who helped me get my craft studio up and running.

I find it hilarious that I live so rent-free in this lady's head that she wouldn't give away something she's throwing away unless the person she gave it to promise not to give it to me. And the first thing the person who ended up with the bookshelves said the first time they met me was to offer them to me.

I had a boss who tried really hard to be one of the guys to our faces and then tried to get several of us fired by petty complaints. One rule in the business was that no pictures were allowed in work spaces. He targeted me due to my age and went after my Astronomical calendar by an 'anonymous' complaint to HR. We watched him taking pictures of our work areas, so it wasn't really anonymous. HR sent me a copy of the calendar and said "even though no individuals are depicted....." So, I put up a calendar of quotes from famous people on their birthdays. We saw him snapping pics like a tourist and sure enough HR contacted me to tell me that since no one was depicted and the writing was small, it was OK. That evening I walked into his office and snapped pictures of his office with the 12 different images of his wife and kids and dropped the printed copies at HR with his name tag in the picture. You would think we had removed a kidney without anesthesia! He boxed them up and literally cried at the injustice of it all! Best revenge of all was seeing him get fired for some of the same antics. I lasted until full retirement and get to laugh about it.

This is short but sweet. A coworker (Franz) used to microwave food that would cause the entire break room to stink. Lots of seafood, but also dishes with cabbage. He responded to all complaints that it was a shared microwave. He was right, but responded to the complaints in a very aggressive manner.

We all had to share an office, but he acted like an asshole to the two office mates he had had, so he was given his own office. My current office mate was his last one, and she still had a key to his office. We conspired. At supper one night she broiled scallops and pulled one out before cooking it. She brought it to work very early the next day. It looked like a white hockey puck, about an inch in diameter. She met me there, unlocked Franz' office door, and I kept watch while she slipped the raw scallop into his desk, underneath one of the drawers, but hidden.

A week later his office reeked. Two weeks later he found the scallop but had no idea what it was, because of decomposition. Even though he installed some serious wall outlook deodorizers, his office always had a funky smell.

When I was 14, I foolishly asked my parents to enroll me in gymnastics. Predictably, I was terrible (tall, gawky, starting waaaay too late). The other gymnasts — girls who had been training together since they were toddlers — were absolutely awful to me. I finally admitted defeat to my parents after a few months, and they withdrew me.

On the last night of the last class I ever took, I headed it into the locker room alone. No one ever locked their lockers. I knew this, and I also knew which lockers were used by the mean girls.

I withdrew their shoes from their lockers, one pair at a time. I filled each shoe to the brim with water and then carefully returned each pair of shoes to the correct lockers. I left the gym, and was driven home by my mom.

Of course I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the reactions of the mean gymnasts, but to this day, I think it’s one of the meanest, best tricks I ever pulled — and I don’t regret it even a tiny bit!

So about 20 of us went to a local restaurant, and we all put in our orders with the server. It was a Sunday night, and she was the only server, but we were the only customers, too.

She brought all the drinks and didn't come back until the food was ready and brought everyone's but mine. No problem...for a few minutes. Then everyone started to notice and began commenting about how sad it was, and, "don't worry I'm sure she'll be back in a minute with yours," as they chomped down on their sub sandwiches and mini-pizzas.

Humiliating as hell. I tried to play it off, sitting there with my arms crossed and sipping on a soda with melted ice as everyone else chowed down. Everyone kept cutting me pitiful glances.

Twenty minutes went by, then 30. No sign of her. Then finally, literally as everyone was done with their one drink and all the food, she comes back and starts handing out tickets. Most of us held up empty glasses saying "hey can we get a little bit more to drink please?"

My wife at the time mentioned to her, "are you going to bring his meal?" The waitress looked confused and started picking through the tickets. She said, "what did you have?" I said "a meatball sub." She goes "yeah here you go," and laid a ticket down in front of me... but I had no empty plate in front of me, just an empty glass from the one soda she served.

I couldn't believe it. I said, "I never got any food." And she said accusingly, "what do you mean you didn't get any food?" I said gently, "do you see a plate in front of me?" She rolled her eyes and stomped off. Now everyone was getting up and putting on their coats to go up front and pay and leave. We actually had a nice time, we are (and are still) all good friends.

Still humiliating. And dammit I was hungry!

We all meandered up front to the register and she comes out from the back with a meatball sub plate and held it out to me. Not even in a go box, mind you, on a plate. I looked down at it and said, "okay now head on back and toss it in the trash." The manager at the register was like, "what's going on?" And I said, "oh nothing, I'm just feeling like Taco Bell now."

That got a good laugh out of everyone but the manager.

He said, "well somebody's got to pay for that!" I said, "well looks like that meal is on the house tonight."

We've been back many times since then, but I've never seen that waitress again. Sorry, their meatball subs are awesome.

I got singled out at work

So I was trying to be festive at work near Halloween, and was wearing little accessories. First day I had cat ears and everyone thought it was cute. The next day I put on little devil horns.

I was told to take them off as I offended someone in my department (was not told who), and it was written as a dress code violation

The thing is no one really complies fully to dress code. So I went up to the next level and complained that if I get a dress code violation that they need to look at everyone as no one fully complies.

I still don't know who complained about me, but I know they are gonna get a lot of hell from everyone else.

Waiting months for the release of a block of land, I was contacted by Carol the morning it went live and I immediately rushed down to place the deposit in person and began planning the house for the site, visiting display homes and having custom plans drafted by our chosen builder during multiple appointments. 

Weeks later I was contacted by Ruth, the lawyer for the land developer, saying that they were canceling the contract - she went on to say that the block was designated for a multi dwelling build and should have been released to a developer. 

I argued that with a signed contract, and a deposit receipt, I was free to do what I wanted with the block. Ruth insisted that Carol didn’t have the authority to sell the block at the price we were given and that if we wanted to retain it we would have to pay an extra 30K and build two units.

Unable to contact Carol by phone, I went to the land sales office and found out that Carol, who had sold almost every block in the development, had been banned from speaking with us.

Refusing to pay the extra and unable to afford a legal battle, Ruth agreed to meet all costs we had incurred with the design of the house and I gave her fake invoices for her to “refund”.

Pissed off and wanting some form of revenge, I signed Ruth’s email address up to every porn site that I could. Somewhere in the dozens of emails she had used her personal account and I signed that up too.

Being easy for a workplace to filter porn I took it one step further and for months I added both addresses to shopping and marketing mailing lists.

I saw Carol months later and spoke with her at length. She hated Ruth and was pissed about  what happened. She loved that it was me who caused Ruth’s email to blow up because it caused her so much grief and trying to get off the mailing list roundabout wasn’t so easy in 2010!

My next door neighbour is a huge Karen but unfortunately she's in her 60s-70s so out of respect for my elders I'm reluctant to stick up for myself. People go through alot at that age and she seems senile. She dumps debris into my garden, has an issue with me parking my car in MY designated space because it "blocks her veiw", and constantly knocks on my door complaining about noise that dosnt come from me. She dumps atleast 4 cigarettes a day in my flower pot, and as you can imagine she wreaks of cigarettes yet claims my garden and house smells weird.

My step grandmother came to stay recently, who's 82 and she's the sweetest little woman. Or atleast I thought. My neighbour was tossing all her hedge shavings into my garden and when my grandmother saw it she asked me instantly if I was going to let her get away with that. I said obviously, she's an elder. I'm not going to argue with an old widow. My grandmother stood up, gave me a scolder then proceeded to march out the door and say something that started with "excuse me SIR".

I went after her. Arthritis my ass that little woman is fast as fuck. Originally my neighbour tried to claim that it was my hedge trimmings and I dumped it over her garden and she was dumping it back. My grandmother immediately shut her down by telling her those hedge trimmings are clearly from a Red tip photinia hedges and my hedges are all Boxwood. She told her "not to tattle tail" like my neighbour was a 5 year old and all I could do in the back ground was sassy snap my fingers to drive the point home. Because peroid. My grandmother drove it home by threatening to call the council and complain if she didn't pick up her hedge trimmings and she could "pick up her jowls while shes down there".

Three bits of background info you need to know for this story:

• I live near a main trucking bypass for my city, where trucks can get off the highway and zip over to the industrial district. It's a convenient shortcut across town, and I use it almost every day. Sure, there are street races there sometimes, and more trains than your usual road. But, it's still super useful for getting around.
• I had just got a new car when this happened
• I work from home

So, one day I dipped out to grab a bite to eat and was on my way back home when a semi-truck cuts me off. I'm talking less than a foot of space. Normally I'm about a 'live and let live' as they come. However, I wasn't having it that day.

Like any red blooded American, i had my cell phone on me. So, I started recording & put it in my dash, and made sure i had the license plate read out loud several times. I also got the name of the company from the side of the truck.

But, gentle readers, I wasn't content with that. Not one bit. I documented every driving infraction I could reasonably justify while I followed this guy to his warehouse. He changed lanes without signaling, went above the speed limit, sped around a school bus that had stopped at the train tracks, and didn't slow down for the school zone. Plus, cut off two more people and turned into the wrong lane after making a left.

See, I knew that there was a pretty good chance that he was headed for the industrial district that the byway ends at. 10 minutes later I knew the work address, a secondary number on the truck, and some kinda serial number on the truck's container.

Finally, I turned around at the gates, armed with a whole bundle of knowledge.

I went home, and enjoyed my lunch while doing some light googling. Little, fun things like the company name on the building, their company code of ethics, their board member's names, and (most critically) their president of safety and compliance.

See, this wasn't just any old trailer. It wasn't just a giant machine capable of crushing a car. No, dear reader. It was a tanker truck, with a safety placard on it. Two fours and a three didn't mean much to me..... until the previous summer, where on a long road trip my fire fighter brother was telling me about how bonkers some of the chemicals are the get transported on our highways. In short, whatever dearest truck driver was hauling was wicked scary stuff.

I digress. After finding this safety & compliance dude, I connected with him on LinkedIn. And, once connected with my new friend President McSafetypants on LinkedIn, I wrote up everything that I'd seen. He reached out in less than an hour, and was downright impatient to have a phone call about it. After letting him know all the details, and sending him a copy of the video, I left things well enough alone.

A couple weeks later I ended up running into President McSafetypants at a pub near my house. After buying him a couple of beers and bugging him for an hour, he told me that they not only fired the guy, but were reporting stuff to the DMV to try and get his CDL and hazardous material license revoked.

To the zoning committee who put a school next to an industrial trucking bypass: fuck you.

To the trucker who put people's lives in danger for no goddamn reason: Fuuuuuuuuuuck YOOOOOOOOU.

To President McSafetypants: Hey, actually, pretty good work there, bub. Keep it up.

Many, many years ago, (back in the 80s) one of the guys I hung around with was a lot older. And he carried one of the early cordless drills in his car. And a socket set.

When he saw someone parked like an asshole - especially people in "sports cars" who took up more than one space - he would pop their hubcaps and remove some or all of the lugnuts off one or more tires. Then replace the hubcaps.

Seeing a big pickup suddenly lose both front tires before bottoming out on a turn or seeing a sports car try to speed out of the lot only to find a tire pop off was always worth a teenage chuckle.

Luckily, back then there weren't as many security cameras. I wouldn;t recommend this today. (Plus, its probably a felony).

Edit: For those who don;t know, Cordless Drills were around in the late 70s. They just weren't common.

I drive Uber in a busy college town. I used to GM a sports bar here. The owner is a major asshole. His parking lot acts as a short cut to avoid 3 lights and connects two very busy streets. He used to get soooo pissed when locals would cut thru his parking lot, to the point he’d stand outside red faced and watch for them during peak traffic hours. He was really fucking unhinged.

Cut to me quitting there because he’s an ass, now I drive Uber and Uber eats full time. I used that short cut to cut a lot of time off on my rides and delivers especially when traffic is backed up. Well now the in app GPS recommends that short cut and won’t even acknowledge the intersection your bypassing and it will want you to turn around to go back to said shortcut if you miss it. I’ve talked to some other drivers and now all of their apps show said short cut and even Apple Maps is starting to show it as a route. I take great joy in successfully rerouting a towns traffic flow thru this guy’s restaurant parking lot.

Fuck you Scott ✌️

Editing to update:

• I used my personal gmail account; he reached out to my work email.
• I then logged in to LinkedIn and found he had started “following” me.
• I’ve deleted the review
• I also sent him an email explaining why I left the review with an admission that it was petty and done out of frustration
• I don’t consider researching my name and finding my workplace and then emailing me there a normal response to a 1 star review. he could have asked 10 friends to give him a 5 star review and it would have negated mine.
• I do consider conduct on the road as representation of how the business operates professionally. If I wore my employer company logo to a bar fight, I’d get fired for this even though the product of my work is excellent.
• lessons learnt: drive like a dick and expect another asshole to review your company negatively; and, annoy a dude and they might hunt you down online.

A few months ago, I was driving home in very heavy traffic after a long weekend here in Australia. It seems like myself, and the rest of the population had all been on holiday and were trying to get home.

Along the way, I experienced some crazy drivers doing stupid things. One particular vehicle was tailgating, cutting people off when changing lanes, and swerving between lanes constantly trying to get ahead. Multiple times I witnessed others, including myself, have to slam on breaks to avoid accidents because of his dangerous driving.

It riled me up, and made me even more stressed and angry on the drive than I was already feeling thanks to the speed dropping to a crawl with all the traffic ect.

The car was plastered with business details - including name, phone, website. When I got home, I searched it on Google and left a 1 star review. I admit, it was petty, but I moved on and forgot about the whole thing.

Yesterday, I received an email to my work address from this business owner asking about why I left a 1 star review. I’ve not responded because I’m annoyed and weirded out that they’ve figure out where I work and my real name.

I’m thinking about giving them a call and explaining the situation - “I have nothing to say about the goods you manufacture, but your conduct when representing the business needs improving”. Alternatively, say nothing and let them continue to sit on it - the oldest revenge in the book is letting a persons own paranoia eat at them.

My boyfriend and I live in an apartment complex that’s a bit of a revolving door for new tenants. Yesterday, as we were coming back from a run, we noticed someone new unloading boxes a few doors down. She was a compact, middle-aged woman with short, dark hair and a no-nonsense look on her face. My boyfriend, ever the friendly type, tried to offer a casual, “Hey, welcome!” But she cut him off, mid-sentence, with a curt “I didn’t ask for your help, did I?”

Okay, message received. Friendly neighbors, we are not going to be. We exchanged a shrug and went on our way.

Fast-forward to today, we’re coming back from grocery shopping, and as we round the corner to our building, we spot her in front of the entrance, crouched down, furiously jabbing a bobby pin into the lock. It looked like something out of a bad movie, like she’d watched a YouTube tutorial and decided she could break into Fort Knox. My boyfriend and I exchanged a look, wondering if we were about to witness our new neighbor’s latest awkward interaction with the world.

And then, right on cue, a police patrol car pulled up, and an officer got out, asking her what exactly she was doing. The woman stood up quickly, wiping her hands on her jeans, and started stammering something about “forgetting her keys” and “living here.” Then, suddenly, she pointed in our direction and loudly insisted, “They know me! Tell him I live here!”

My boyfriend just shook his head, wearing the most innocent expression. “Sorry, ma’am, but we don’t know you,” he said, giving the officer a little shrug.

The officer’s eyebrow arched as he took in the scene, obviously doubting her story. He asked us again if we knew her, and we both shook our heads, saying, “Nope, never seen her before.” She looked like she was about to explode. In the end, the officer decided it was best to “escort” her to the station to sort things out.

As she was getting in the patrol car, she gave us a death glare, probably plotting her revenge. My boyfriend just waved cheerfully and whispered, “Have a nice day!”

One semester, I was running late for an exam and realized I’d forgotten a crucial scantron sheet. Thankfully, there was a little campus library store just down the hall from my classroom. I dashed in, grabbed a scantron, and went up to the counter, hoping for a quick checkout. That’s when I met her: the library store attendant, a woman in her mid-50s with a deeply furrowed brow and a habit of pursing her lips like she’d been smelling sour milk all day.

I pulled out my card, only for her to point to a worn, hand-written sign taped to the counter that read, “$10 minimum card purchase.” I glanced at the scantron in my hand—20 cents. I could understand a minimum charge, but $10? That’s about 50 scantrons!

I checked my wallet for change, but I was completely out. Spotting a jar with spare coins labeled, “Give a Penny, Take a Penny,” I reached over to grab a couple of dimes. Instantly, her hand darted out and covered the jar. “It’s give a penny, not take a penny,” she said with a prim smile.

Now, I could’ve argued, but something told me she’d enjoy it. Instead, I took a deep breath, returned my one lonely scantron, and told her I needed to “grab a few more things.” I spent the next fifteen minutes hunting through the tightest aisles, picking out random items—pens, notebooks, overpriced bookmarks, you name it—until I had a basket loaded with around $50 worth of random stationery.

With a final glance at the “minimum purchase” sign, I walked back to the counter, finally meeting her smug little smile with a polite one of my own. She started ringing up every item, her fingers moving slowly as though she was savoring her little victory. But when she finished, I looked at her, sighed, and said, “You know, on second thought, I’ll just get the scantron. I’d like to return everything else, please.”

The look on her face was priceless. I stayed completely calm while she fumed, giving me icy glares as she clumsily processed each return. She even tried to intimidate me by calling over the building supervisor, who took one look at the situation and shrugged, explaining to her that, technically, it was my right to return the items.

I left the library store with just the 20-cent scantron. I was a few minutes late to my final, but that was worth it, almost as much as that priceless look on her face.

I shop at 7 am on Sunday for groceries, I have for years. Very few people in the grocery store. When covid hit, my local grocery store decided to close all the cashier lines first thing in the morning and force it's customers to use self-checkout. I was miffed, but I conformed and found to my delight that I could bag my own groceries in an organized manor, it cut down on my grocery bill, as I started to buy less items and it was faster because I didn't have to sort through the groceries, to pack them as the cashier would overload my packing area. Win, win, win. Then covid came to an end, and they opened up one cashier in the morning. I continued to go to self-checkout. In an out by 7:30ish.

About a year after, 2022ish, signs went up, 25 items or less. I still went to self-checkout. I had about 35 items. (My usual amount) I was directed to the single cashier that had a line up and no one was in self-checkout. I looked at the cashier that was monitoring the self-checkout and said, "Really? I there's no one here and I don't have an f'ton of groceries." She apologized and said it was store policy. I asked them to put on another cashier. There wasn't anyone due on shift for an hour and I would have to use the cashier.

I went to the line. I was there til after 8. 30 minutes longer than normal, I was really peeved.

The following week I shopped, was directed to the cashier, I once again asked for another cashier to be put on. I was denied. Fine by me. When I got up to the cashier there were 5 people behind me with loaded carts. I turned to the people behind me and said, "I apologize for what I am about to do and I suggest you do the same. They need more cashiers in the morning." I turned to the cashier and apologized to her. "I apologize but I have instructions for you. Please do not overload the belt, when I nod to you, you may continue scanning. If I ask you to stop, please do and wait until I ask you to resume." I was sooooo slowwwww.

I was actually expecting blowback, but the cashier did as I asked, smiling all the way. The customers behind were patient as all get go. Took 10 minutes to pack about 35 items. There were now 15 people waiting. The word had passed down the line. Smirking everywhere.

The guy in the line behind me asked the cashier for the same instructions.

By the time I reached the front doors I saw the manager hustling out.

The following week, I went to shop. 3 cashiers on and a sign that said 35 items or less at the self checkout.

I was 30 something and a 40 something was in front of me in the supermarket 10 items or less line. She had like 15-20 items and I pointed out she was in the wrong line. She brushed me off and said “it’s just a lil longer wait.” Her two children start bringing items up and going back out for more. I’m pissed off and so are those behind me. By the time the family is finished hunting and gathering enough to fill a cart she looks at me and says, it wasn’t so bad was it? Even the cashier was annoyed. I pay for my 5 items and see them loading their multiple bags in the trunk. I wait as they get in their car and park directly behind them. About 30 seconds go by and I hear her horn toot. I wave at them. A very long minute ticks past. She gets out and walks to me and says, we need to leave, can you move?” I said no I can’t, sorry. She starts getting irritated and I cut her off by saying, “it’s just a little longer wait.” She then realizes I was behind her in line. I said yanno, I guess my car isn’t done sitting in park. You’re just gonna have to wait for me to be finished. She went back to her car and I felt so satisfied I sat for 7 minutes. She came out again, twice, and I rolled up the window on her and just played on my phone. It was annoying yet awesome to watch the seconds slowly creep. I felt quite vindicated when her tone got angry. After a good 8 minutes total I let her leave with a smile on my face.

About 6 of us in the Smoko room normally. Every day Trev brings, (among other things), a boiled egg in with his eats. Mason who works with Trev always holds his hand out for the egg and Trev tosses it to him. One day this happens and Trev tosses Mason the Egg and Mason cracks the shell on his head preparatory to peeling it as he always does but this time the egg IS NOT COOKED. It runs all over his hair and he gets a very silly look on his face. Meanwhile everyone else in the smoko room nearly falls off their chairs laughing. Mason never asked Trev for another egg.

This happened in the 90s…

For some reason, my dad thought it was acceptable to record porn on the VCR in the den at 3pm in the afternoon! I’m 16. I get home from school and the VCR is on. I turn on the TV and there’s porn on the TV. I was pissed, so I rewound the cassette tape to the beginning, turned to one of those religious channels and recorded pieces of the same sermon every 5 minutes throughout the tape.

That weekend, my dad was in the backyard, with a screwdriver I guess, trying to repair the VCR.

I worked for a guy for a month or two until I figured out that his entire business was a scam, and immediately resigned. It was literally my first fulltime job. Nasty, being sucked into a fraudulent operation. "Everybody does it!" he exclaimed as I told him I was outta there.

Fast forward over the years, I keep running into this guy, one time he approached the boss of my company (a legit outfit this time) with this too-good-to-be-true proposal to make money. I let the boss know the full story, and it turned out this new idea was another scam. Again and again over several years, this clown keeps popping up, each time with a new twist on some scheme.

Eventually his deeds caught up with him, and he was caught committing arson (complicated story, he burned down a neighbor's building so he could buy the land cheap). He then threatened the judge, which bought him more time in the slammer.

I drive by his patch of land every day - it's prominently located on an important commercial street, and features his broken down trailer and a few junk cars. Eyesore in an otherwise nice commercial area. In our town, they give you a $50 ticket if your weeds are over 12" tall. It's odd how many weed complaints were called in on this particular property. Too bad the owner was otherwise engaged and could not get out on parole long enough the mow his lot.

I was at CVS today with the 3yo I care for (I’m a nanny). She’d earned a prize for using the potty and we’d gone to CVS for her to pick a small toy. She did, and we joined the check out line. There’s three people ahead of us and only one cashier, so we’re waiting a while. Eventually this lady comes up behind us carrying a bunch of bags of candy. She loudly says “there’s only one line?!?” and starts huffing and tapping her foot so everyone knows she’s annoyed.

We finally get to the front of the line. We are buying one small toy and nothing else. I hand the 3yo her toy to put on the counter, and she drops it. I bend down to pick it up, and impatient lady steps around me and plunks her bags down on the counter. Cashier starts to say something, woman says we’re not ready yet and she’s in a hurry so the cashier can check her out before us. Normally I’d say something, but I don’t want to get in an argument in front of the 3yo. So we wait for impatient lady to check out, then quickly pay for our one item.

Out in the parking lot, I see impatient lady with her trunk open. Her car is parked next to my car. I backed in, so our drivers side doors are next to each other. As impatient lady is slamming her trunk, I step around her and open the passenger and driver’s side doors on my car, effectively blocking her from reaching her drivers side doors. Then I slowly helped the 3yo into her car seat, slowly buckled her in, and started to close the door. Meanwhile, impatient lady is huffing behind me. Right before I closed 3yo’s door I said oh wait, let me take the packaging off your toy. So I reopened the door and did that. Then I realized 3yo might be hungry, so I rooted around in my bag until I found a snack for her. Then I let 3yo open it herself, which took her twice as long as it would have taken me. Only when I was sure 3yo was as happy and comfortable as possible did I close her door, turn to impatient lady, smile, and thank her for waiting. Then I slowly climbed in my seat and plugged my phone in before finally closing my door so she could get to her car.

Car-ma’s a bitch.

This was a few years back but still a goody! I wasn’t on speaking terms with one of my brothers and for good reason- he tried to start a fist fight with my now husband and his wife threatened to shoot me. At the time, we were engaged and I made it clear to both my brother and the rest of the family he wasn’t invited to the wedding. However, my mother took it upon herself to reach out and say she talked with him and he and his wife promised to behave. I reminded her he was absolutely not invited, she had no right to do that, and she needed to call him back and make that known. Her response? “But he’s your brother!” and to “think of the family!”

To make matters worse, we were receiving a lot of pressure to pay for an open bar (and we don’t even drink ourselves) as well as pay for a bigger venue even though we wanted a small and more intimate wedding. Where was this pressure coming from? Why none other than my alcoholic mother who wanted to invite a bunch of relatives I’ve never met and take advantage of an open bar. Now here comes the fun part:

I was at my wits end with all this family drama. So one Monday evening a couple months before the wedding, the following conversation took place:

“What are you doing tomorrow?” - me

“Hanging out with you, why?” - now husband

“Want to get married?” - me

“Are you serious? Hell yeah!” - now husband

And we did! We eloped with just us and a couple of friends that offered to officiate the wedding that Tuesday evening. We saved thousands upon thousands of dollars, didn’t have to deal with all the drama, and had our small and intimate wedding that we wanted. Honestly, I wish we had done this to begin with.

However, my mother lost her shit. Posted all over FB seeking pity about not being at her daughter’s wedding and how could I do that to her, etc. etc. Funny how she didn’t mention any of the above details in her post and made it all about her wants and “woe is me”. Even more funny is we would have had the wedding if she would have respected our decisions. So no, you don’t get to invite unwanted guests, make demands, or get to go to our wedding.

So this was a few years ago in high school. My best friend (We’ll call him Jason) and I hung out in different groups and really only hung out together on weekends, although we had a lot of experiences together which brought us close, usually involving fights. Jason always had my back even when he needed to leave an important situation and vise versa.

Anyway this new guy (We’ll call him Wiley) made friends with one of my friends in my group and occasionally started hanging out with us. He had some verbal fights with Jason that I wasnt around for but only once, and Wiley would say some really disrespectful stuff to my group behind Jasons back, including lies to try to spread rumors. I usually just ignored it and didn’t talk with him much and would tell Jason the things he was saying.

Well one day Wiley myself and the group were all hanging out and everybody except for Wiley left so it was just the two of us. He started going on his normal rant about Jason, talking about how he wanted to fight him and do this and that to him. So I asked him if he really did want to do it because I could try to find him and set it up. He said yes he did and he would. So I immediately called Jason and told him the situation and where we were. The look in Wiley’s eyes when he realized I had Jason’s number was priceless. It wasn’t even 5 minutes before Jason showed up with every one of his 10 friends who just wanted to watch and stood pretty far back. Wiley immediately folded and started saying he never said anything and never wanted to fight. The fight didn’t happen but it’s one of my favorite memories from high school.

Many years ago, I spent 12 months working on a project to replace every PC that was old and knackered in a large hospital. Which was pretty much every PC. On our first day there we were told, "If you ever have a bit of dead time. Break down some of the cardboard packaging from the new equipment and take it to recycling."

About 3 months in, I began to realise that I was the only one on the team who ever used their dead time to break down the packaging. The others all disappeared somewhere in the hospital to hide and drink coffee. My team mates were fairly typical IT folk, and many of them enjoyed classic Japanese film and animation amongst their interests.

One lovely summer's day, we ended up finishing our install list for the day about an hour early. So, I decided it was petty revenge time. I gave my line manager a heads up about my plan, and she cackled and said, "Go for it." (She had already told them to buck up at least once. ETA I didn't grass them up. She noticed.)

Behind the IT offices was a small courtyard which only the IT office had windows looking on to. (It used to be a laundry drying yard back in the day). I took out all the empty cardboard boxes and spent 15 minutes arranging them to look like a small city. Skyscrapers, streets, even a churchy type building. Lastly, I took a smaller box, drew a toothy lizard face on it with a Sharpie, and put it on my head.

Then I began to break down those boxes by jumping on them, smashing them, and bashing them. All the whilst shouting, "RAAAAAARW! I AM GODZILLA! RAAAAAAAAWAAAAAAAA!"

My missing team mates came out into the courtyard and said, "Ooh that looks like fun. Can we have a go?"

I raised my makeshift mask and replied, "No. This is MY box city. Unfortunately these are all the boxes there are right now. Maybe you'll get to the next batch first? RAAAAAARW!"

SMASH! 🦖

This happened a few years ago, and it still makes me giggle sometimes.

So, I have a main email that is lastname.firstname at gmail. One day I started getting email that clearly wasn't mine, but also wasn't spam. Think receipts from major stores, etc. Not thinking much of it, I wrote it off as a mistake that would fix itself. It didn't. Within a few months it was several emails a day, which is kind of annoying, but mostly I was concerned that someone was missing a bunch of seemingly important emails, and also it felt really weird and voyeuristic to know so much personal stuff about someone. I know he is a forklift operator who left his job in NC to relocate to Oklahoma, loves junk food and guns, and is partial to porn involving older Black women. It was all a bit unsettling. Finally I got an order confirmation from Insomnia Cookies with his cell phone on it, so I shoot him a text.

"Hey man! I think our emails are getting mixed up, I keep getting things that are clearly intended for you"

"Oh, shit! My email is lastname.firstname at gmail but spelled without the H! Thanks for letting me know"

Great. Crisis averted.

But they kept coming. Newsletters, personal emails, job offers, etc. I forwarded all of them to him diligently since I now knew his email. After a few months of being his personal email secretary, I reached out again.

"Hey! So I'm still getting a lot of emails that are for you. I think maybe you're typing in your email incorrectly..."

He loses his shit. Starts all-caps typing at me about "why would I do that" and "I'm not an idiot" and "It's not my fault if people don't know how to spell my name"

I'm not sure how often this guy just hollers his email to people instead of typing it into something, but apparently that's a thing?

So I stopped forwarding his emails. Since they were in my inbox, I figured they must be mine. I unsubbed from everything I got, marked all his personal emails as spam, and cancelled appointments (it's too far for me to drive to Oklahoma to pick up an augur. I don't even need an augur!). I also signed him up for around 100 newsletters like "winecork fanclub" and the like, as well as every lame musician and fringe political movement I could think of. I entered his email in every public sign up I could for MONTHS.

Eventually the emails stopped. Hope he finally got that augur.

This post centers around ERP (Erotic Roleplay) that a very young girl got involved in. Everything's alright now, but if this is a sensitive topic for you, proceed with caution or skip this post.

So four and a half-ish years ago (mid-2020) I was a preteen who was homeschooled and friendless, and I had found the land of online relationships and roleplay. And this year was the year I met a guy five whole years older than me who lived in Ohio! I thought, "hey, this guy seems cool. Let's be friends!" so we became friends.

Long story short, the next few years (2020-2022) were extremely rough because this dweeb demanded I give him all my attention. I screwed up my sleep schedule without a single, "I appreciate you for your commitment," my familial relations were down the drain, I sacrificed pivotal years of my growth to this guy's ego, and most importantly, he wired my brain into being a submissive pet/doll for his wet dreams in ERP. And I was too emotionally broken at the time/naive to realize what was really happening.

Then at the end of 2022 I realized, "hey wait this is extremely predatory and I've been used as a toy." So I went about chewing him out with full caps on, asking how he thinks manipulating a preteen-13y/o is at all excusable by "I'm colorblind and ADHD". And although I'm not fully happy with how I went about cutting him out, I noticed how poorly his favorite OC (the primary OC he used for ERP) had been written and designed.

So I grabbed it and morphed it - backstory, design, personality, all but the basic premise changed - until it became two characters I'm extremely proud of. I'm thinking about writing a book (possibly more than one?) for these characters. Maybe I'll post an update in a few years if I do end up publishing a book, haha.

I used to feel bad over my theft and revamp of the character, but as time's gone on, that pit of guilt has been filled. Because it really is the least he could give me.

This happened during my last school year at brick and mortar.

So, I (16M) have had my fair share of bullies. At public school, there were plenty of people I was plenty okay with staying away from. However, there was this one student, let's call him Josh. Josh was a typical bully, but for some reason he always got under my skin. I have ADHD and autism, so I'd much rather be left alone. Whenever Josh was in the same room as me, he would say my name is a stupid gremlin voice, and I don't know why it pissed me off. Any time I would respond, he'd just say "oh, nothing."

After I was absolutely done with bullying (especially after the false rumor of me and my older sister), I decided one day I responded like this.

Josh was talking with his group, and said my name again. One of his friends said "you should stop, he's totally gonna beat you up dude." I turned my head and said, "Awwww, it's okay. Josh is just a little tsundere and doesn't know how to talk to his crush." Josh was confused and rather shocked at my remark, and throughout the rest of the school year, a bunch of people started saying HIS name is the stupid voice, and started egging him on to ask me out on a date. I changed schools at the end of the year, but that was a satisfying way to leave it.

Edit: The rumor in question was the very illegal i word

TLDR: Construction company does not listen to all warnings of old expert and fires him, then discovers that he was right all this way.

This story starts approximately 5 years ago in a construction company I was working in. Main guy of this story is an old topography surveyor (TS) let's call him Ken (60yo at the moment), it is possible you have seen them with a strange camera looking like equipment on a big tripod, they are making most of the surface measurements and giving so called points and areas where to start building.

Backstory.

At first steps of any construction these TSs start special measuring of area of construction to make executive survey, where they are defining area of construction site and giving initial points and areas where to start digging process for foundations.

And our hero Ken was main TS guy from the beginning of construction, he was one of the most experienced and well-respected specialists in construction. Everybody was seeking some advice from him and his opinion was always on point and as we call "best practice". His experience had a huge impact on every workflow he was engaged in, and works were done in time and with minimal financial and man-hour spent. I joined construction and met him first when foundations were ready. As a beginner I was seeking guidance in some works I have never faced, and Ken was always willing to help. His knowledge was immense, and he was always describing every bit of information with huge package of details, examples, geometrical formulas and theories. I can surely say that his information and the way he delivered it was one of main reasons I started to love construction overall. His signature tool to use all his knowledge and to be more efficient was a notebook he was always keeping with him. This notebook was a total treasure for everyone who loves geometry and construction with schemes, plots, formulas, drawings and calculations. He told me that he always starts a new notebook in a beginning of any construction and fills it with every task he was involved in. Starting from massive supporting pillars up to a single brick that must be placed in certain place for some reason and why it was placed. And knowing that all significant work can not be done without his involvement you can imagine this notebook was a main source of information during backtracking everything that was done in case there was an issue of flaw.

Strike 1.

During construction of one of technical underground tunnels that connected two buildings he was first to indicate that there could be a problem in future if there will be any heavy works performed on a ground level. He indicated that if there will be anything other than grass and trees this tunnel can cause problems and can be unstable and dangerous to use even if it is a technical tunnel where only pipes and electrical cables, but there is still a room for technician for maintenance and repairs. Everybody heard what he has said and as it is mostly talks about future and now present, they said that it is going to be ok and there are not any plans to build any kind of objects on a ground level above this tunnel. He noted that in his notebook and continued his work.

Strike 2.

Due to the poor time management and rush of all works especially when you have long channel dug up to build this tunnel that cuts half of construction site, concrete works were on a high pace without proper time for concrete to fully solidify. He indicated that again that stability will be poor if you make it on a high pace, but project management thought it is better to listen to young concrete experts rather than Ken. For this time notebook filled up with real wall thickness, real density of steel bars and real concrete drying process.

Strike 3.

End of project and everybody are waiting for massive reductions especially on fields that not needed anymore, first of all concrete workers that knew about all concrete structures. Then management decided to cut their expenses firing all workers with high salaries. And in this list, there was our Ken that was surprised because he stated that there will be a real need of executive survey of finished building and digital drawings with real values after finishing the project before acceptance. He was informed that “as build” drawing won’t be necessary because they can easily use project drawings for this matter for economy. He held his chin up took his belongings and especially that notebook of his with all information. I stayed in this company for a year then it was time for me to go also. But I kept in touch with my first mentor.

Build-up.

2 years after city decides to build a road between those two buildings for better access to parking lots. Project was given to other construction company that is known only for building roads and guess who was at the moment their main TS guy, of course it was Ken. On the paper road was easy build but Ken knew about that tunnel and state in which it was build. Ken as a proper worker told to management that there is a tunnel that can be crushed if road will be build on top of it. Before you build a road, you need to flatten the surface of landscape, then properly compact ground and then fill it up with several layers of various materials in order to make this road stable to stress and nature and all this is performed by heavy machinery. Ken’s new company decides to ask for documentation about this tunnel and they reach to warranty department of Ken’s former company, because the building itself as well as this tunnel was under 5 years warranty as per contact. Answer comes in time with attached drawings of this tunnel and expertise that it can withstand all heavy stress caused by road building machinery. What can possibly go wrong if you have all papers that shows that everything is fine, and it is good to go. Management decides to be easy on a section of a road where tunnel crosses road, they work with maximum care and safety. By Ken’s own words “This tunnel is standing literally on good faith”. Then one rainy night everything that can go wrong went wrong. Of course, tunnel’s structure couldn’t withstand proper knocking on a ceiling but heavy compactor for a long time and rain that immensely weighted soil on top of that tunnel. Tunnel was crushed and his own concrete walls destroyed all pipes and electrical cables of connected buildings.

Revenge.

As per warranty former construction company of Ken was responsible for all damages, but it tried to do everything to transfer all guilt to road construction company. Stating that tunnel must withstand standard road building equipment and that Ken’s company must have used more heavier equipment and machinery and etc.

This was the time when it comes to Ken and his magic notebook with all real values, drawings and data that was crucial to whole case. Nothing could destroy this pillar of pure facts and numbers with indication of all aspects of what was done in this tunnel and all commentaries written about how it was created. Investigation of independent experts that were working on collapsed tunnel solidified all statements taken from this notebook and confirmed all mistakes that was done by builder of tunnel.

Construction company is still operating but on a really low projects and it is a matter of time when it will close its doors.

Ken is now happily retired and enjoying his most beloved hobby of chess, road company gave him a good raise after that incident, and he stayed up until the end of project with huge farewell bonus.

A couple months ago I was coming home after work around 3 pm, taking the subway from downtown to Upper West side. It was starting to get crowded, enough so nearly all the seats were taken.

An older teenager sitting alone had his full backpack on the seat next to him. A muscular man in his 20's got on with his pregnant gf and stood over the kid for a moment. Kid ignored him/stared at his phone.

The man tapped the kid on the shoulder and said "My girlfriend needs to sit down." The kid looked up at him and smiled, saying nothing. A different guy stood and the pregnant gf sat in his seat across the aisle.

I expected the man to do something, but he just stood there. The train was moving. Until the next stop, the man just loomed over the kid somewhat menacingly. He waved his hand in front of the kid's face but the kid ignored him.

The train pulled in to the next station. Some people got on. Some got off. The doors began to close.

The man quickly grabbed the kid's backpack and tossed it through the closing doors. It landed on the platform and the doors closed. The kid freaked out and jumped up, saying "Hey!" The man smiled at him, ready for a fight. Nearby people laughed. One guy announced "Hey, we about to see a kid get his ass beat."

The kid looked around for sympathy and didn't find any. He suddenly began walking to a different car in the train.

The muscular man didn't sit down. He offered the seat to two middle-aged women.