Humans are emotional beings. As a result, grudges can be hard for us to get over. Most of the time, we try to move on with our lives when someone has wronged us—but sometimes we just can’t. Some actions are so egregious, annoying, or just plain outrageous that we can never bring ourselves to forgive and forget, even many years later. Here are 50 stories about incidents that people are still enraged about.
1. Not a Good Way to Present Themselves
My older sister got a brand new car as a present for her 16th birthday. For my 16th birthday the following year, all I got was a $20 bill. How in the world did my parents think that this was justified? It didn’t exactly help my self-esteem. Needless to say, I have not forgotten about it and I am still mad about it even all these years later.
2. The Beat Goes On
I once found a bongo drum next to the trash can at my old apartment building, and it was a perfect time capsule of the 1990s. It had creepy stickers, a smiley face holographic sticker, a leaf sticker, and an alien sticker. I’m telling you, if someone had made this as a prop for a movie about the 90s, I would have told them that it’s too on the nose.
I brought the bongo back to my apartment and couldn’t wait to play around with it later. When I came home from work the next day, the very first thing my girlfriend’s friend said was, “You’re welcome” and I was like, “What?” Apparently, she had peeled off all of the vintage stickers as a “favor.” Now, all I had was just some boring trash bongo. I’m still mad about this. Don’t touch my stuff!
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3. Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater
The thing that I am still mad about is that my sixth-grade teacher refused to believe me when I told her I had no idea that the random dude sitting behind me in class had been copying my answers on the test. Why on earth should I be held responsible and blamed for some other guy’s wrongdoing? I don’t think I’ll ever get over this one.
4. This is a Special One
Back in my elementary school days, there was a pencil machine in the front lobby of my school where you could buy a pencil for 25 cents. There were also "special" pencils hidden throughout the machine. The special ones had these fancy stars on them and we always hoped to luck out and get one of them. If you got one of these special pencils, you could take it into the office and get a prize.
One day, I decided to get myself a pencil. I put in my quarter and out popped two pencils. And one of them was a special pencil! I went into the office and told the lady at the desk that the machine had given me two pencils and that one of them was special. She proceeded to say that the machine shouldn't do that, took the special pencil away, and didn't give me a prize.
That was almost 20 years ago and I'm still not over it.
5. Look for the Silver Lining
The thing that I’m still angry about is coming in second place in a school trivia competition 21 years ago. I had the correct answers on two questions that would have sent us to the national championships, but I was vetoed by the other three idiots on my team. Thanks to their arrogance, we did not get to move on in the tournament.
6. This One Gets a Big Fat Zero
Ugh. So, my dad and mom got divorced before I had even turned a year old. He would randomly come around once every few years to pretend to be a dad for a week or two and then disappear again. This detail is important to the story. Anyway, I have always sucked at and hated math. We got a homework assignment one time during one of his visits.
I think I was in first grade at the time. We were working on zero times whatever number in multiplication. I was super excited, because I finally understood a topic in math and knew that I would get all the questions right. The whole worksheet was just questions asking what zero times another number was. All of the answers were obviously zero.
My father made me show him the worksheet when I was finished. He then made me change every single answer because, "Wow, you're stupid! Did you even pay attention at all in class???" I explained this to the teacher when I turned it in, yet I still got a zero on the assignment. And my dad was gone by the time I could come home to complain about it. Thanks a lot!
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7. It’s a Numbers Game
On a fourth-grade math test, we had to make a shape that had only four sides, one set of parallel lines, and only one right angle. There were probably more requirements, but I can't remember them. I remember almost crying at my desk and spending more than 20 minutes on that one question, while constantly telling my teacher that it wasn't possible.
But according to her, it was possible and she berated me for my outburst. The next day, we went over the answer key as a group. Turns out the correct answer had two right angles in it…
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8. Putting Your Best Foot Forward
One time back in college, I was at a house party and we had to take off our shoes in order to be allowed inside. When it was time to leave, I immediately realized that my very distinctive shoes were gone. Apparently, some girl walked home in my leather knee-high boots and never noticed that they weren’t hers. I’ve never gotten over it.
9. Fair Weather Friend
The thing that I am still bothered by every time I think about it is the time that one of my best friends told me that they only hang out with me when all of their other options run dry. Like, ouch! Thanks for the brutal honesty I guess, but that really hurt me to hear. I guess they aren’t as good a friend as I had always thought they were…
10. Story of My Life
When I was about eight or nine years old, we had a big project in school which ended with us all having to write a story. I literally spent hours working on this thing. It was going to be the best book ever. It was only a matter of time before it was snapped up by some publisher and then it would be the talk of the Scholastic Book Fair, no doubt in my mind whatsoever.
It absolutely had to be handed in by the time school finished for the Christmas break. This was so that my teacher could mark it from home over the break. To make sure I had it ready in time, I stayed up working on it until about ten o'clock at night every single evening for about a week before the deadline. That was pretty much the closest thing you can get to an all-nighter when you're only nine.
I was convinced that this book was to be my magnum opus. I was exhilarated when I finally completed it and handed it in before the break. My hopes were so high—but that only made what my teacher did even more heartbreaking. I got back to school in January to find that A) she had lost it, B) she was accusing me of not handing it in, and C) because mine was the only one she couldn't find, she decided to call me out in front of the entire class about it.
I ended up locking myself in the toilet because I was crying so much. Worse still, it later transpired that when it “turned up after all,” she marked it as though it was handed in late. The witch still only gave me a mediocre grade, even though I had obviously done nothing wrong. I don’t know what her problem was, but I still haven’t forgotten it. Screw you, Mrs. Harding!
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11. Picture Perfect
I’m still mad about the time I had to get some photos printed for a university project, so I went to a printer shop and they charged me £2 extra for a DVD with my photos on it even though I specifically told them that I didn't want the DVD. Because of this, I didn't even get the DVD, but they still charged me for it anyways. They also threw away my receipt before I had a chance to look at it.
They knew exactly what they were doing. But there was basically no way I could stop it. So, with my new photos, I went to class to hand in my project, only to be told that we were doing a peer review of them instead of what we had originally planned. No one in my group did the project and couldn't care less about it. So I lost all that time and effort, and couldn’t even use the photos for anything. I’m still so, so salty…
12. Calendar Girl
My old boss pulled out the 2020 calendar in late 2019 and asked everyone what days off they needed so that we could plan ahead and around everyone’s needs. Everyone was spitting out dates off the top of their heads. I didn’t have any plans yet, so I didn’t request anything until she specifically asked me if I needed or wanted any dates off.
I shrugged my shoulders and asked for one specific day off around my birthday because why not. She then started mocking me in front of everyone. “It’s just a 23rd birthday, why would you need that off? But ooookkkk ....” she said, while obviously rolling her eyes. She then started treating me like an idiot for the rest of the day.
13. A Private Birthday Lunch
A student in my child’s class at school told their teacher that their mother was going to be taking them out of school for the day of their birthday and that, therefore, they would be absent from class on that day. The teacher admonished the child and told them that if they weren’t present the following day then there would be some serious consequences.
The child was rightly upset over this, but in the end, decided to give in and go to school as a result of her threats and intimidation. They hadn’t taken down their homework properly and so they mistakenly did three different pages of work. It was the wrong work. The teacher locked the child in the classroom over lunch, on their birthday. I’m still mad about this on that kid’s behalf.
14. Missing in Action
20 years ago, I had three friends show up at my house. When they left, I immediately noticed that my wallet with $80 in it was missing all of a sudden. I know they took it. One of the guys felt bad that it had “gone missing,” so he gave me $20 as a gesture of goodwill. Three years after that, we are in the Burger King drive-thru and I see him whip out my old wallet when it’s time to pay.
I’m still salty about it to this day. His Facebook friend request has just been sitting there unanswered for like two years.
15. Reading Between the Lines
At my eighth-grade graduation ceremony, there was a reading award given out to the student who had read the most books in a year outside of school. I was beaten by just one book, because the girl had also written down the books that we read in class. That was very clearly against the rules. I pointed this out, but she still received the award. Kim Lee, you can go screw yourself for cheating!
16. The Wheels on the Bus
When I was 10 years old, I was the goody-two-shoes nerd of my grade. We had assigned seating on the school bus and I was seated in the back of the bus next to the class troublemaker, thanks to his own arrangements. One day, he took apart someone's science fair project that was being kept back there, and threw a piece of it out the window.
When someone tattled on him, he blamed the whole thing on me. Since the teacher couldn't prove what had happened one way or the other, he decided to just punish both of us for it. 15 kids came to my defense, but he still didn’t seem to care. I hate schools and their "fairness" in discipline. All I got was one study hall. But kids today are getting bullied relentlessly because they know that standing up for themselves means getting suspended.
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17. Trays of Sunshine
I was probably about five years old and I was visiting my mom at the hospital after she had just given birth to my brother. She was given food on a tray which she didn’t want to eat, so she gave it to me instead. I put the tray down on the table and, as I was eating, a nurse shows up, takes the tray away from me, and throws my food into the garbage can.
That may have been my first true instance of anger in my entire life. I’m 27 years old now and I’m still feeling enraged as I sit down to write this.
18. Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
The thing that I’m still mad about is that my managers at work wouldn't let me have a weekend off for what would have essentially been my honeymoon, because "It's Small Business Saturday and we need you to be here." I gave them over a month's notice that I would be needing that time off, and the Small Business Saturday event lasted all of an hour. Thank God that I don't work there anymore!
19. Age Is Just a Number
Many years ago, a guy that I worked with told me that he could guess the age of any girl he saw out in public. We happened to be standing in a public line at the time, so I pointed out the girl closest to us. The girl looked like a teenager to me. I asked him what he thought her age was. He then called me a creep for asking him to guess the age of a girl. Dude, what the heck?
20. Sounds Like a Piece of Cake
The thing that I’m still mad about is my younger brother eating the remainder of my birthday cake behind my back a couple of years ago. After the celebrations, I put what was left of it into the freezer to have some other time as a nice treat. Birthday cake was a novelty for me, so I was very excited about having some. But the little jerk demolished every last bite of it. I was absolutely crushed.
This wasn't just a little slice or sliver of cake that had been leftover from the day before. At least an entire half of the cake had still remained in the box uneaten until my bro got his grubby mitts on it. I was absolutely fuming at him when I found out about this. Couldn’t he have at least left me a slice? I am still not over it to this day...
21. Are Instructions a Joke to You?
I once came in second place in a baking competition. I made a lovely main course, then langues de chat biscuits with lemon posset for dessert. I made this dessert because the judges prior to this day told us "Don't make a cake for dessert." Guess what won first place? A freakin’ cake. I still have never gotten over this. This contest was rigged!
22. This Has Universal Appeal
On a fifth-grade science test, the question was, "Are there any stars in the solar system?" I answered, "Yes." The teacher marked it wrong. I went up to speak to him afterward and said, "What about the Sun?" He said the question meant that all the other stars are not in our solar system, and so he kept my answer marked as wrong.
Although I have been relentlessly harboring this anger for more than 50 years now, that teacher was actually all-around one of the best teachers that I ever had. Sadly, he just passed a week or so ago. My fellow alumni and I are definitely going to miss him and we all appreciate what he did for us as youngsters. But darn it, that answer still should have been marked as right!
23. A Hair-Raising Tale
When I was 21 years old, I was deeply self-conscious about my early baldness and so I always wore a hat everywhere I went. A friend of mine thought I was worried over nothing, so he set me up on a blind date with a wonderful woman. Everything went well at first, but when the hat came off, she shrieked and sprinted to the bathroom. And that was that. I still haven’t gotten over it.
24. The Candy Mom Can
The thing that I still haven’t gotten over to this day is the time when my mother ate a little candy out of my jacket pocket that I had saved to eat after school the next day. This happened more than 20 years ago, and it still bothers me every time I remember it. I mean come on, Mom! Did you really have to do that?
25. Enter Sandman
It was kindergarten. I was playing with a kid in the sandbox. It was a fairly drizzly day. We were making a sandcastle and there was a puddle just a few feet away from us. One kid wanted to dig a moat around the castle, and I said sure. So he just kinda jams his hand into the dirt and starts pulling. I immediately realize that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He digs too much, making way too huge of a channel which he immediately realizes is going to just destroy our castle. So I shout out, "Quick! Build a dam to stop the water!" He instantly freezes in his tracks. He stares at me with wide eyes and mouth agape before running off. I think this is strange, but ok whatever. I saved the castle and breathed a sigh of relief. I never expected what was coming next...
I go back to digging and move on with my life. A few minutes later, a teacher suddenly comes running up to me. She grabs me and says to go into time out, to which I obviously protest and say no. I informed her that I didn't do anything. She then immediately informs me that she knows I said a bad word and that I shouldn’t try to lie to her, to which I was again confused. I denied her allegations.
After a few back and forths of her trying to pull me away by the arm and me rather violently resisting, it occurs to her to actually ask what happened. I explain the story to her. I still remember her face kinda dropping, realizing that the other little brat thought I had said the D-word instead of "dam" and then immediately ratted on me.
The teacher tried to say that maybe I should try and use a different word next time. I again vehemently protested against this suggestion, because that is the correct word for such a situation and that's just how it works. I argued that this whole situation was his fault for not knowing the word until she finally gave in and explained to the other kid that I did not swear, and that no one likes tattletales.
I am in my 30s now and I live on the other side of the country. Nevertheless, I still remember this as the very instance in which I gazed upon my fellow man and wept, for he is stupid. Do I even need to mention that I have never gotten over this one or let go of my grudge against that bratty kid and his condescending teacher?
26. This Just Doesn’t Add Up
The question in second-grade math class was the following: "Joe read two-fifths of his book and Sue read one-quarter of her book. Who read more pages in total?" I put down the following answer: "It depends on how big their books are." That is absolutely the correct answer and shouldn't have been marked as wrong. And you know that I’m right, don't you Mrs. Kay? Don't you?!
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27. Sitting on a Story
Despite fully qualifying, I missed out on recognition at my school's big academic assembly for arguably the most important academic results one gets in their schooling career in my state in Australia. Why did I miss out? Because the teacher I had sent my results to didn't bother to pass on the news to the event’s organizers. It's been years, yet this still fills me with such exasperation.
28. She Can’t Hold a Candle
Some friends from work once planned a get together at a local chain restaurant for my birthday. One of my coworkers found out about it and decided that it should also be to celebrate her birthday, because it’s apparently the day before mine. This already annoyed me, but whatever. I wasn’t gonna make a big deal out of something like that.
The night of the dinner, a friend bought us both slices of cheesecake and then we were presented with candles. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to us. At the end of the song, this girl blew out her candle and then mine. And she laughed about it. It was MY candle. You were barely invited. Screw you! I’ve never forgotten about this incident…
29. Not Good Behavior to Promote
I worked at a local McDonald's back in high school. I trained maybe half a dozen other people who started there after I did and yet I was never promoted to crew trainer for that sweet $0.15 an hour raise. I wouldn't really be salty about it if they hadn't promoted two other people that I had trained to crew trainer, and one of them again to manager…
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30. Picking Someone Else Over You
I’m 25 years old. My parents once gave my mom’s coworker, who is my age, a down payment for her first home a couple of years ago, simply because my mom had taken a liking to her. The same year, I needed emergency dental surgery, which was five thousand dollars. I was and still am on a single income living paycheck to paycheck, and I have not asked her for money at all. Not even once.
I have kept a steady job since I was 15 years old. I moved out on my own at the age of 19. They didn’t help me out at any point. I had nowhere to turn and ended up getting poor financial advice to put the cost of the surgery on a credit card. This took me more than four years to pay off. I’m still salty about my mother’s antics and lack of support for me during my time of need.
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31. Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer
On the first day of eighth grade, my best friend and entire friend group informed me that they would no longer be my friends. To this day, 20 years later, I still don't understand how or why things ended up that way. I can only guess it was because I was the shy nerd of the group and they were trying to fit in with the cool crowd. Regardless, it was a miserable experience that left me with quite a few trust issues that I still haven’t gotten over.
32. Money Makes the World Go Round
A friend slept over at my 12th birthday party and swiped $200 from my room. This was money that my parents didn't know I had. As a result, I couldn't get the guy in trouble without getting myself into even more trouble. So I had to just keep my mouth shut and let him get away with what he did. I still hate that guy’s guts to this day…
33. With a Little Help from My Dad
I’m still mad about the time when my son was in Cub Scouts and it was our first time going to the Pinewood Derby. My son had worked hard on his car and, for a kid who was only seven years old, the result was pretty decent. We show up and it immediately becomes clear that not a single kid had actually built their own car. It was pretty much a “dad competition.”
My son came in last place in the contest and I was very sad for him, because his friends literally admitted that their dads all built their cars for them. So, for the next four years, my son picked the design and color scheme, and I built them for him while at work. We went on a four-year win streak in the local, district, and regional derbies. The look of anguish on those fathers’ faces made it all worth it.
34. Keep On Trucking
I had a roommate in college borrow my truck when I flew home for a month from more than 1,500 miles away. He agreed to the terms of “don’t cross state lines, you only drive it to work and back, and if I find out you did otherwise it’s going to be a big deal.” I wasn’t even gone for a week yet when I got a call from our group of friends. I was not happy with what they had to tell me.
Apparently, this guy had taken the truck down to Connecticut, drove under the influence, road raged at someone on the highway, and love tapped the back end of another car. The kicker was that he backed into his buddy’s dad’s brand new Lexus and caused $3,000 worth of damage to it. Needless to say, I flew back the next day. I was fuming and not about to let any of this go.
When confronted about it, the guy basically said, “I don’t have the money, it’s your problem.” So I then had my mother, the insurance company, and the Lexus guy’s dad all climbing down my throat to get me to fix the problem. The dad with the Lexus called me to say he was going to file a report if I didn’t pay. My mother was screaming at me about the insurance company dropping me.
I went to school for the day, got back, and found that he had vanished. He had cleaned out a bunch of stuff from the apartment, too. He took off with a bunch of my things for good measure. The one thing that still makes my blood boil is the fact that one of my good friends that lived with us will still vehemently back up that dirtbag anytime this is brought up.
I understand that he didn’t get screwed over like the rest of us, but just denying the severity of what the guy did and saying that I need to let bygones be bygones is something I cannot do. Nor should I have to do so. This guy was a crook who took advantage of me and got me into deep water, just because I tried to do him a favor. I will never forgive him or get over it.
35. Deflating His Ego
When I was in high school, I was occasionally allowed to drive my family's third car. It had a slow leak in one of the tires, so we were all supposed to check the pressure and put air in it if we needed to. One time, I picked up a friend to go to a movie and when we came out, one tire was completely flat. It wasn't the one with the leak, so I put the spare on and drove home.
I got absolutely chewed out by my parents about it. They told me how irresponsible I was to not check it, that I'd have to pay for the repair, that I should have called roadside assistance, etc. We took it to get fixed, they repeated the whole lecture as we were dropping it off, and the tech who did it called my mom and told her he'd found a nail in the tire and that there was no way I could have seen it coming.
She refused to apologize and I still had to pay for it. I’m still salty about the whole thing to this day.
36. How Deep Is the Ocean?
In middle school, I had a test with some true or false questions on it. One said something about the Atlantic Ocean and the West Coast. I am in the United States. There was some other stuff as well that was true about the Atlantic in the question, but since the Atlantic is the East coast, I marked it as false. The teacher counted my answer as wrong.
When I protested, the teacher said something along the lines of “obviously I meant East Coast.” Umm, what??? The question was only worth one point and made no difference to my overall grade in the end, but my 13-year-old usually quiet, teacher’s pet self was ready to start a freakin’ riot. Looking back, I honestly wish she had…
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37. The Joke’s on You
It was the third grade. I said a joke. My joke made the “popular” kid laugh really hard, but he was the only one who heard it. This made me feel great. Then, he repeated the joke louder and literally the entire class and the teacher laughed. He got all the credit for coming up with this incredible joke. Third grade me was so mad at him. Adult me is still mad at him, too.
38. There’s Something Gross About Her Teaching Methods
I live in a European country where English is not our primary language. Back in my fourth grade English class, I used the word "gross" in a random sentence that we had to write for an assignment. The teacher argued that it wasn't a real word. I said that it was and that I had seen it a few times in video games and movies. She was unimpressed and said that those were not reliable sources.
I said to her that I was going to find it in the dictionary, but she instead grabbed me by the arm, took me out of the classroom, and locked the door. To this day, I am still fuming about this. I know I was right and there was no reason whatsoever for her to have acted this way. And then, years later, she had the nerve to be all chummy with me when I bumped into her at the supermarket. How gross!
39. Brother, You Can Drive My Car
When I was a freshman in college, my mom gave my car away to my jailbird brother. Every time he got out of serving a sentence, she’d scrape a bunch of stuff and money together for his “fresh start” without ever running any of it by me. He just showed up to my school one day, changed the battery for me, and then drove away in my car. He didn’t tell me his intentions beforehand.
So it wasn’t until he had already driven off that I caught on to what was taking place. As he drove off, I called my mom and she just said, “I’ll help you with finding a new one.” I knew it was going to end badly—but it was so much worse than I'd imagined. He moved out of state with that car, wrecked it within just a few weeks, and has since gone back into the hands of the law multiple times. Neither of them have given me a sincere apology to this day for the incident.
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40. They Could Use Some Motherly Instinct
Three months ago, I went on maternity leave and took some time off from my job. I found out that the woman who was hired to cover for me while I was away was being paid three dollars more than I'm currently paid. She was going to be kept on as a full-time accounting assistant after I returned, but she couldn't keep up with my daily tasks and completely screwed up several databases in my absence.
As a result of her stupidity and incompetence, I had to spend many, many hours correcting her mistakes when I returned to work the following month. When I asked my bosses for a raise shortly after, they offered me fifty cents after telling me all about how crucial I am to the structure and success of the company. Needless to say, I am now looking for a new job.
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41. Take Me Out to the Video Game
My family had a Playstation when I was a little kid and we had quite the collection of games for it. Some of the games are worth a lot of money nowadays. Well, at some point, the machine broke and my mom decided to just give away all the games without consulting any of us. "There is no point in keeping the games if you can't even play them!"
The joke was on her, though, because I bought a used PS1 about two years ago. Now I just have to rebuy all the games we used to have, one at a time…
42. You Are the Vandal!
Back when I was in high school, someone once vandalized the school building over the weekend. They announced that there would be a reward for anyone who ratted anyone else out as being responsible for the incident. The next day, out of nowhere, I get called into the office and find out that I’m being suspended for vandalism.
I didn’t do it and had no idea who did. I also had no idea who falsely reported me for this, or why they would have wanted to. Four days later, I’m finally allowed to come back to school because they found the person who actually did it. All I got from the school was a half-hearted apology. I am still angry about it to this day.
43. Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
My parents objected to my sister marrying the guy who is now her husband. They treated her very badly because of it. They also showed up in a visibly sour mood to her wedding. They never to this day apologized for their bad behavior. My sister and her husband have been happily married for eight years now. It still bothers me very much to remember the way they treated her back then.
Parents, if your adult daughter wants to do something that you disagree with, then by all means let her know you think it's a mistake. But when she makes a decision, your job is to support her in that decision. Not to repeatedly harp on her about it and make her hate you for the rest of her life. That doesn’t do anyone any good.
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44. An Unholy Alliance
This all happened in my last year of high school. This boy and girl used to pick on me so incredibly hard to the point where I would cry myself to sleep or consider not going to school the next day. It got to a point where the girl threatened me and said she was gonna wait outside of school to "beat me up." But that's not even the bad part: In spite of all this, absolutely everyone, including my teachers, absolutely adored the pair.
They told me I was just being childish any time I complained about them, and that "the girl has a bad past, they both do" as if that was an excuse for their behavior. They also praised her for having an attitude and mistaking her rudeness for being "real" and brave. I went through messed up things too, most of which made my school counselors cry. But I didn't take it out on other kids just because they were quiet and didn't talk that much! I can never forgive those teachers for being so irresponsible.
45. Darned If You Do, Darned If You Don’t
When I was in high school, I entered a book quiz and one of the books I chose was Demon Thief by Darren Shan. During the quiz, I was asked about the main characteristic of the demonata summoned by the punk during the concert. I said it had three heads. This was marked as wrong. Apparently, the answer was that it had a dyed mohawk.
Except for the fact that this was not true. It was the punk that summoned it who had the mohawk, not the darned demonata! I lost a point because the question-setter could either not read, not write, or just couldn't remember the book correctly. Either way, I should not have had to be penalized for this person’s lack of reading comprehension skills…
46. Eliminating the Competition
When I was like 10 years old, there was a competition going on in our school and there was a TV crew on site. Basically, all I cared about was winning the race and winning the prize. I did not care about the TV crew, I just wanted to run and win. See, I was a pretty good athlete, so I was pretty excited to be competing in this competition.
When the TV crew came to our classroom, they called out for a bunch of girls to come up and compete on camera. I got up too, excited to participate in another race. But they went like, "No, not you. We only want really fair girls." I was too young to understand why I wasn't selected, but the guys in my class clearly did. They tried to cheer me up by cracking jokes until I started laughing.
I wasn't crying, I was just confused. When I finally understood the implications of what they had said, I was angry. You know what, though? Screw them! I would have won if I had participated. The gym teacher knew it and that's why her daughter competed, who's complexion was exactly like mine. So to heck with the TV crew and the gym teacher!
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47. Ring Around the Rosie
My great grandmother gifted me her wedding ring to propose to my now wife. Back when I was a little kid, she gave it to my mom to give to me one day. I had waited and dreamed about that perfect proposal for my entire life. I had not yet proposed to my girlfriend when my mom just abruptly handed her the rings and explained what they were and what I was planning on doing with them. I was devastated.
I hadn’t even proposed yet! She completely ruined my lifelong plan, the surprise, the build up, etc. I’m still very sad to this day that this moment was ruined for us like that.
48. Breaking the Glass
I'm 35 years old now. When I was about 14 or 15, my mom stormed into my room one evening and accused me of having smashed a glass and tried to cover up the evidence. It was one of these retro Coke glasses. I swore I didn't break any glass. I added that if I did, why would I hide such a small accident? But my mom didn't believe me.
She was so mad and accused me of lying to her. She wouldn't even say why I was her prime suspect. Somehow, she had made up her mind that it just had to be me. Anyway, I got into trouble for the incident, even without any evidence. I was so angry—but when we finally found out the truth, I wanted to scream. Sometime later, it turned out that no glass had actually been smashed. My mom had mistakenly thought that the glasses she bought came in fours.
But when our neighbor bought the exact same set, we very quickly realized that there were actually only three glasses in it to begin with. My mom finally acknowledged the fact that she had been wrong, but she never apologized to me for how she screamed at me or how she accused me out of the blue of lying to her. She just never mentioned it again. I'm still mad about it to this day.
49. It’s the Least Wonderful Time of the Year
My mom decided that she didn't want to receive any Christmas presents one year and made sure to tell me and my two brothers. I suggested to her instead that we donate what we would have spent to charity in her name. She said she was fine with that if that's what we wanted to do. So that's what I did. I sent her a nice little card and the info for the charities that I had donated to.
That way, I figured she would enjoy being able to see that her decision had helped some good organizations out. Nope. Turns out Mom was not happy. "Why didn't you just send me a gift card if you weren't gonna buy me anything! You ruined Christmas for me!" Now, I love my mom, but she was being absolutely ridiculous here.
By that point, we’d only had a total of one really nasty fight in our entire lives, and that was several years before this incident. She was fine when I was growing up. She was fine for most of my adulthood except for one really difficult incident that I had to scramble to deal with from the other side of the country.
I'm very much accustomed to always buying my mom decent and thoughtful presents for every major occasion. So, when she accused me of ruining Christmas for her, I was totally distraught. I sent her a screenshot of the conversation we had and circled the place where she said she'd be fine with my decision to donate in her name. Her infuriating response made me want to scream: "I don't remember that. I deleted those texts."
I lost my cool, told her it was her own fault for raising me to do as I'm told, and told her that next time she should just not say anything if she's gonna change her mind and not tell us about it. And then we didn't speak for three entire months. This was two and a half years ago and I still have not gotten over it. It was one of the worst incidents of my life.
50. The Birds and the Bees
I am still angry about the fact that I spelled the word "mayonnaise" correctly in my fourth-grade class spelling bee, but the teacher claimed I didn't and dismissed me from the contest. I had won the contest in the third grade, and proceeded to win it in the fifth and sixth grades as well. The unfair disqualification in fourth grade ruined what would have been a four-year winning streak.
Sources: Reddit,
