Greedy family members. Customers with a chip on their shoulder. No-boundary neighbors. Unfortunately, entitled people lurk among us every day. Most of the time, they’re easy to ignore—but some arrogant jerks are so bad that they’re impossible to forget. These Redditors came together to share the stories of the worst entitled people they’ve ever encountered—and they’re utterly infuriating.
1. Check Out This Piece Of Work
This happened a couple of times over many years when I was a cashier. Every time, I would scan her 1,000 items and hit total, then she decides to start digging in her purse to find her checkbook. After a few minutes, she finds it, and then starts to slowly fill it out. Of course, a line has built and people looked like their life was slowly draining out of them. I felt it too.
I ran the check through the register (it scanned it or whatever) then put it in the bottom of the cash drawer. I hand her the receipt then she held her hand back out. I am not entirely sure why, because I wanted her to go, not give me a high five. She just went ahem at me and said "Where is my check"? I looked at her confused, "In the drawer, where I just put it after the transaction"".
I want my check back," she yelled. "Ma'am we have to keep the check in to deposit in the bank, in case there are any transaction errors". She was shaking her head no the entire time, "No, I have to get it back, otherwise somebody could take my identity". I tried to assure her that from the register we put it in the safe at night, then in the morning, and the armed guard takes it to the bank for deposit.
She would not accept it and said that if she could not get it back then she would return her purchase and get it back to buy things elsewhere. This must have been a power play for her, but she messed up. You see I was on my last week at that job. I asked for her receipt, which I got, pulled up her transaction, and hit void previous transaction.
I grabbed her check, the receipt, and the void receipt, then handed it to her, "There, I have voided the transaction and returned your check. Good luck at the next store". I then started removing her items from the bags and making a stack beside me on the floor. She looked dumbfounded, jaw dropped. "NO, I purchased those, those are mine".
I kindly, with the most customer service voice I could muster replied, "You told me that if you could not have your check back, you would buy things elsewhere, and I had already told you we were not able to give it back, so I voided your purchase and now you have your check back. " I looked at the next person in line, "I can help the next person".
That beautiful customer stepped forward, right next to the lady, and started a conversation about some cereal she bought. By that time the manager had come over, and the lady began yelling at him. He ended up ringing her items back up in the aisle next to mine and she paid by check but was again unable to keep the check. I could hear it all well, in fact, half the aisle was watching their show of an interaction.
The BEST part was when she was demanding her check back (again) he asked if she wanted him to void it out so she could go elsewhere. She nearly exploded, ripped the receipt out of his hand, threw the bags in her cart, and breaking things by the sound, and stormed out yelling. The cherry on top was that on her way out she turned back to yell more at us and ran into the door frame with her cart.
Laughter erupted from a few kids nearby. What a great day.
2. Karens Gonna Karen
My wife needed a few things from the grocery store and on this particular day I happened to be available and I offered to go for her. She works hard and does a lot, so I definitely felt it was necessary to do something for her so she could just relax for the day. I took my stepson with me so she could rest up and just take it easy. I thought it would give me time to spend with him for some bonding—but instead, we both got an afternoon we’ll never forget.
We completed all of the errands, which went smoothly, and then headed to the grocery store to finish up our day. My son, being a typical four-year-old, was full of energy running ahead of me laughing and speaking to everyone he comes across, which I generally don’t mind as long as he doesn’t hit anyone and stays within eye view. As I’m making my way down an aisle looking for canned corn, my son jogs to the end of it when an older lady is entering at the other end.
My son, being the sweet social butterfly he is, approached and exclaims an excited "Hi! Me four and me Ryan"! Bless his little heart. The lady looked down and says "Well hello there. You shouldn’t be running around unattended, let’s go find your parents". I didn’t think anything of her statement because I assumed she just hadn’t seen me.
"Ryan! Come back here bud, please"! He excitedly runs back toward me and starts turning in circles because you know, he’s four lol. I’m still searching the shelves as the lady walks past me and stops behind me. Again I think nothing of it because it’s a grocery store and you have to share the aisles. I turn my basket around and start to walk toward the front cash registers when this lady literally blocks my path.
I say excuse me and try to walk around her and she moves her cart in front of me again. I honestly thought she was just getting confused and said excuse me once again and tried one more time to go around and she just blocks my path. The following conversation ensues. Me: "Um, sorry about that, we’ll get out of your way". Lady: "Oh, I don’t think so! You’re not going anywhere with that child"!
Me: "You mean my son"? Lady: "That’s not your child! He’s white! And you’re Mexican. You probably didn’t even know his name until he said it to me"! Me: "Sure, whatever lady, can you just move? My wife is at home and anxiously awaiting for us". Then, she upped the ante. She said: "Stop your lies. You’re not taking him anywhere, you pervert"!
This whole time my son is standing close to me holding my leg because he was honestly getting scared. I was getting angry because I hadn’t had much sleep and I have a short fuse anyway. Me: "As you can see he’s standing close to me because he trusts me and you’re scaring him so how about you buzz off"? Lady: "No! He’s scared because of you! He just doesn’t know how to express it yet".
She looks at my son. Lady: "Come on now sweetie, I’m here to rescue you. Come with me". Thankfully my son was able to communicate to her he wasn’t going anywhere with her. But she was having NONE of it. I still get mad when I think of what she did next. She literally grabbed my son and began to run. It caught me off guard because I honestly could not fathom what was actually happening.
My son starts screaming loudly because he was so scared and this lady is just like "Don’t worry sweetie he won’t hurt you I promise"! Suddenly I snap back into reality and I begin to chase after this crazy witch. While running through the store, I yell for people to stop her and that she’s kidnapping my son and thankfully a worker stops her before she makes the exit.
Lady: "Why are you stopping me? This Mexican here is trying to take my grandson"! My son literally is bawling his eyes out and extending his arms out calling for me. This lady was relentless and would not let go until my son even after he slapped her face multiple times. I laughed a little, not gonna lie. At this point, a manager shows up and asks what’s going on.
The lady spoke before me, saying: "This (pointing at me) pervert is kidnapping my grandson and I was just trying to escape"! I said: "That’s my son you freaking psycho. Now let him go". The manager didn’t know what to believe. I don’t blame him, he was caught in a weird situation. So I pulled out my phone and showed him pictures of me and my son that dated a year or so back as proof. Her response was infuriating.
This lady still would not give up and accused me of faking them. Like how would you do that exactly? I’ll never know, but whatever. Sadly, there were two other ladies there taking the psycho’s side and said I was attempting to take my own son because there was no way we were family because of our different skin tones. One even called the authorities, which I was actually happy about because I knew they’d be able to review the security cameras.
Even still, I called my wife to see if she could come to the store to get this situation cleared up quicker. As soon I told her what was going on, she zoomed to the store. She got there about the same time as the officers. The crazy ladies were giving their statement to the officers when my wife walked in. As soon as she walked in, my son goes "Mama help"! My wife is a true mama bear and she immediately flew into a rage when she saw this lady holding my son.
She yelled: "Let him go NOW"! The lady said, "Sorry sweetie, I was just trying to protect him from this pervert over here". Another one piped up, "Yeah we saw him kidnapping him but this lady saved him"! The cop looks at the lady and is confused. He asks: "I thought this was your grandson"? My wife said: "I have no idea who that lady is".
She takes out her phone and shows the officer a picture of my mother-in-law. Finally, the lady fesses up. "Okay, I’m sorry he’s not my grandson but I was only trying to protect him from this dirty pervert over here"! The other lady said, "Yeah I witnessed the whole thing, he snatched that child and tried to run away with him but this lady stopped it"!
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was another one. She said: "Yes I saw it too. He needs to be taken away. And you (pointing to my wife) should be thankful that this lady was here to save your son because you obviously just let him loose wherever"! My wife says: "Who are you talking about again"? All three crazy ladies pointed at me. My wife replies: "Oh you mean my husband"?!
The ladies were shocked. They said "Husband?!"?! My wife said, "Yeah who do you think called me and got me here so fast"?! I presented my ID to the officer and the manager and my wife did the same. We also each showed pictures of us on our phones to prove we were really a family. The cop nodded in approval and handed us our phones back and jotted down a few notes.
The three ladies for some reason still kept trying to say this was all fake and my wife was in on the kidnapping and said we needed to be detained. My wife lost it at this point and let off some colorful words I won’t repeat here but she definitely got her point across. Then the nail in the coffin came for the psycho trio. The office turned to the manager and asks: "Sir, do the cameras work here"? The manager says yes, and the officer asks to review them.
The three ladies' faces went pale. Like ghostly pale. The officer reviewed the outside camera as I pulled into the parking lot and saw me take my son out of my car and then as I went up and down the aisles and most importantly the instance the woman snatched up my son and began to run. Upon his return, he asks "Would you like to press charges"? The lady pipes up: "Yes I would"!
The officer’s reaction was brutal. He looked at her and said: "Why would I be asking you that question? Shut your mouth and sit down". He turns to me and repeats the question. I said absolutely. Lady one was charged with attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, providing a false report, and child endangerment. The other two were also charged with providing a false report as well.
To make matters worse for the first lady, my son bruises easily and she left some terrible spots on him from where she was grasping him—but he’s fine! This added a charge of child abuse to her rap sheet. The officer will be following up with me in a few weeks.
3. Should’ve Laid Off The Bottle(s)
One day last week when I came home from work, I noticed my shed door was open and the padlock that I used to keep it shut was broken. And I had a LOT of bags full of soda cans in there. Me and my friends tend to drink a lot of soda, so I've built up a lot of cans over the course of about a year. And I was going to cash them in at the bottle drop soon, because I like big payouts. It's ten cents a can where I live after all.
But there was more than just my bags of cans missing from the shed too. They took my gardening shears, a steel rake, two shovels, a full two gallon gas can, a cheap power drill I got for like $5 used, an electric hedge trimmer, and a small electric chainsaw that was also used, and a machete. They didn't touch the lawn mower, weed whacker, extension cords, or the old radio I had in there.
No idea why they took what they did, but I guess they figured they could resell them or something. I checked my camera footage to see if I caught anything—and I made a disturbing discovery. There was my three nephews (ages 16, 15, and 14) breaking into my shed with one of their dad's large claw hammers. I recognized the hammer because it's bright yellow and black, and their dad has a bunch of them.
It only took them a few hits to smash that cheap lock. After they first broke into my shed, they took what they could by hand. And then they came back with some shopping. It took them a few trips to get all of the cans. And they didn't bother to even try and close the door when they were done. My sister and brother-in-law first denied their kids took anything from me.
So I went to their house and showed them the security footage from my cameras. I never told them I'd had cameras installed—and there’s a sad reason why. This wasn’t the first time my nephews robbed me. It started with food & snacks. And then moved on to DVDs and video games. Then pretty much anything they thought they could smuggle out after that.
Any time I made them return stuff they'd stolen from me, I was treated like the bad guy and then got the fakest apologies I've ever heard. And they never got in much trouble from their parents either. The final straw happened last year when my nephews broke into my house and took three six-packs of my favorite blood orange ale from my fridge.
But that’s not the worst part. They used my hidden spare key to get in, and also took a huge dump in one of my bathrooms and not only didn't flush, but also peed all over the floor. And I'm pretty sure it was intentional. The drinks they took were hidden in one of their bedrooms when I confronted my sister and brother-in-law about my nephews stealing it.
I was basically given an equivalent excuse to "Boys will be boys" when I wanted them punished. So I had the cameras put in and told no one. Which was a smart move. When my sister and brother-in-law saw the camera footage of my nephews stealing from me, they seemed furious. But they were actually madder that their boys skipped school to rob me.
They'd spent all day making repeated trips to the Bottle Drop and cashing the cans by machine. The bottle drop also pays by machine. So they just kept bringing the cans in till they cashed them all. And then they bought video games and junk food with the money. Said money actually amounted to nearly $200. With that and the destroyed padlock, I told my sister and brother-in-law that they now owed me $200.
My sister and brother-in-law went from being angry at their kids to making excuses for them, and then being angry at me for wanting that money back when I know they have three kids and a mortgage. I said it was either that or I go to the authorities and press charges. They told me to get out, and I said they have two days to decide how to pay me back before I go to the authorities.
I got back everything else my nephews took, machete and gas can included. Though they'd already used the gas for something. But over the next couple of days, my sister and brother-in-law were blowing up my phone with a ton of messages. Both verbal and text. At first they were calling me heartless because it was right after the holidays and they have three kids and a mortgage.
Then they started gaslighting me—and even threatening me. And all of this would go in a repeating cycle. My nephews chimed in from another cell phone and were sending me lots of messages of their own. Which were more fake apologies and gaslighting. My eldest nephew even sent me a picture of himself holding a soda can and giving me the middle finger.
So I guess they weren't taking my threats of going to the authorities seriously because "FAAAAMILY"!. When I last spoke with my sister and brother-in-law, they refused to negotiate any sort of method of repayment for what my nephews did. Even when I suggested they just sell the video games that were purchased with the money from the cans.
Then they had the audacity to say I'd actually tempted my nephews by having the cans in my shed to begin with. Oh yes. I'm the devil snake that tempted my nephews with a shed full of cans that just screamed "MONEY MONEY MONEY"! So that was it. I went to the station that morning and filed the report. Gave them a copy of the video footage of my nephews stealing from my shed.
I gave them the broken lock they smashed. Showed them all of the texts, which were screen-capped and also given as evidence. Heck, I even gave them a copy of the photo my eldest nephew sent me of him flipping me off. I did tell officers that I found it worrisome that my nephews had taken the machete. But they classified it as a tool. Especially since they took a lot of other actual tools. So fair enough on that, I suppose.
But my nephews were indeed caught and detained on Saturday. Officers came to their house and my sister and brother-in-law were forced to let them in because they had a warrant. Apparently, all three of my nephews went from being cocky little jerks to crying like babies when they were being put in cuffs. I know this because a neighbor I'm acquainted with that's sort of friends with my sister was there to see it.
It didn’t end there, though. Shortly after the arrest my sister and brother-in-law were blowing up my phone again. They weren't able to get their kids out till Monday morning. And now the boys are being charged with larceny, willful destruction of property/vandalism, and harassment. The authorities took this whole case pretty seriously as there have been complaints about my nephews for some time—but nothing was proven until now.
The past few months, bags of cans have actually been going missing all over the area. Don't know if it was my nephews or not. But they're likely suspects. And with word spreading of their arrest, let's hope other neighbors with security cameras come forward with more footage. My sister and brother-in-law showed up at my house too. I refused to open the door and told them that this all happened because they are enablers who refuse to hold their kids accountable for their actions.
That made them just scream and pound on my door more till I threatened to call 9-1-1 on them too. And since I've done it already, they know I mean it now. So they left without any more trouble. But they went back to blowing up my phone. I didn't block my sister or her husband. Instead I decided to just save all of the messages they send me because I've made the decision to take them to small claims court over this.
I don't really need or want the money, and have already replaced the destroyed padlock with a much better one. However, the kids aren't the only ones who need to be taught a lesson. In the end, I hope I put them in enough of a hole that they learn not to screw with me ever again. I also have the full support of my family on this. My parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.
They're all supporting me in this because my nephews have stolen from them too. And after banning my nephews from my house, some of them did the same.
4. All This Over A Parking Space
I am a paramedic in a place that has some HOAs and apartment complexes. We hate responding to the apartment complexes because there is nothing but assigned parking and no-fire zones. Basically, if we can't find a space to fit in we have to block the road. My agency also uses first responder vehicles and ambulances. The first responder, as implied, usually arrives first so we do our best to leave room for the ambulance to fit in.
We get a call at the apartment complex. I am the first responder. As I pull up to the address by some miracle, there is a spot only two apartments away. Great, I can leave the road clear for the ambulance. As soon as I park, out comes this guy screaming I can't park there. I do the "are you serious" look and just say it’s a medical emergency.
He says he doesn't care, I can't park there. Keep in mind my vehicle has enough lights to make a Christmas tree jealous. I just grab my stuff, lock the vehicle, and keep going. He is screaming he is going to call the authorities, I tell him they are already on the way. They respond to medical emergencies. An officer gets there while I am in with the patient and tells him basically to pound salt.
The officer enters the apartment—and then this guy really goes full-blown hissy fit. He enters the apartment and comes into the room where I am treating the patient. He starts ranting and raving about how I have to move my vehicle. I look at the officer and say "get him outta here". The officer then seals his fate. He asks the patient if she wants this person removed from the apartment and did she ever give consent for him to enter.
The patient's response: "Get him OUT, he's trespassing". Boom, the all-clear. The cop gives him one last chance and tells him to leave or he will be detained. He doubles down, yelling: "I AM ON THE HOA BOARD, I CAN GO WHERE I PLEASE". At this point, backup is called. The officer at least manhandles the guy out of the room. The ambulance arrives with PD backup and they get him out of the apartment so we can safely remove the patient.
Not entirely sure what happened next, as I was in the back of the ambulance, but when I got out one of the officers approached and said, "Sorry but we need another bus. We had to taze him". Policy for PD is if they taze someone, they have to be transported to the hospital by ambulance to the hospital, as the taser spikes have to be surgically removed due to the barbs on them.
They wait for the second ambulance and take him. I go back in service. I found out a few weeks later that he was charged with trespassing, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, interference with government administration (AKA interfering with the scene of an emergency). All over a parking space that I would have been in for all of 20 minutes if he hadn't created problems.
I can only assume he took a plea deal, as I was never called to testify.
5. When You Assume…You Know The Rest
Being someone that used to fly a lot, I constantly was upgraded to business class, first-class, or simply just upgraded seats using miles. Since the flight in question was a connection for me, I arrived and boarded later than most of the plane. As soon as I walked into the plane, I saw someone was sitting in my seat, since I had been upgraded.
Now, if you fly enough, someone sitting in your seat is not an uncommon occurrence. But this time, it was an encounter I’ll never forget. I said: "Excuse me, I believe you are in my seat". The man in my seat does not even bother looking up at me, waves his hand dismissively at me, and says: "Let’s just switch seats so I can sit beside my wife". I say, "Sure! What is your seat"?
He snickers and says a number. Now, I do not remember exactly what seat number he said, but it was the last row of the airplane. Aisle seat. Right by the bathroom. Yes, I have had to fly in those seats in the past. Remember, my assigned seat was in the first class/business class section. Now, I have switched seats with people innumerable times in my life without a second thought, even first-class seats—the look of someone getting to unexpectedly ride first class is priceless.
But the way this guy was behaving and what he was expecting—this was not one of those times. Me: "No. I am just going to sit in my assigned seat". Now he finally looked at me. He says: "Well I want to sit by my wife so I am not moving". I reply: "Well, if you want to sit by your wife, I am sure whoever is sitting way back there would be more than happy to switch seats way up here so you can sit back there with your wife".
He didn’t like that at all, for what could he really say at that point without sounding like a jerk? He just stared at me. Now annoyed, I say: "Move". He says: "I am not moving". DING. Darn right, I pushed the call button. The flight attendant approaches: "Yes sir, how may I help"? I hand her my ticket and say that he is sitting in my seat.
She asks for his ticket, checks both tickets, sees his seat number, and gave him a look like, "Seriously"? She says: "Sir, you need to sit in your assigned seat". He replies: "I want to sit beside my wife". Well, I wasn’t missing a beat. I parroted my original statement about me being sure whoever was sitting back there beside him would be more than happy to switch seats and sit up here.
Boy oh boy, that obviously made him angry. The flight attendant looks at his wife and says "Ma’am, would you like to switch seats so you can sit by your husband"? His wife: "No". The flight attendant continues in that all-too-familiar flight attendant voice that lets you know you have no choice: "Well sir, you have to sit in your assigned seat so please gather your things".
What a sad and pathetic sight it was seeing this grown man act like a baby, gather his things and then sulk towards the back of the plane. Yes. His wife sat beside me that flight and didn’t join her husband in the back of the plane. No. We didn’t talk to or look at each other even once, which was perfectly fine with me. Imagine dismissively expecting someone to give up their first-class/business class seat to sit in the very last row of the airplane by the bathroom.
6. Mi Casa Es Not Karen’s Casa
I just got notice yesterday that my entitled aunt Karen has just passed on. I got a call from her husband asking me to attend the funeral next weekend, and I declined. As did my older brother Mark. Karen was my mother's older sister and she constantly interfered in my mother and her children's lives. She never liked my father and always tried to tell my mother that she made a mistake by marrying him.
She didn't like the name my parents picked out for my older brother. My great-grandmother passed the day before I was born, and when Karen found out they were going to name me after her, she freaked out. She claimed she wanted to name her potential future kid that, so my mother couldn't use it. Then she tried to talk her out of it by saying it's too old-fashioned and kids would make fun of me.
She criticized both my brother's and my choice of friends and even complained when I started playing softball, because "proper ladies" didn't play sports and if her daughter ever tried playing a sport, she would have her removed from the team. Spoiler—she never had children. The day after my 16th birthday, my parents drove on a business trip down to California.
My dad said that when they got back, he would drive me to the DMV to get my license. He never did, because on the drive to California, they hit a patch of ice, spun out, crashed, and didn’t make it. I was a wreck for some time after that, I didn't even want to attend my high school graduation later because my parents wouldn't be there. Their will split everything evenly between my brother and I.
At the funeral, my parents’ production manager Tim was talking to my brother and my brother told him that in a couple weeks, he would step in and take over. He was counting on Tim to run things smoothly until then and help him in taking it over and learning the ropes. I had no interest in the business, other than it was a guaranteed summer job when I was growing up.
I stayed out of it and just collected profit checks until I sold my half to Mark, and he continues to run the business to this day. Mark told Tim that he should assure the employees there that their jobs were safe and that no major changes would be made. Then one day, aunt Karen showed up and began putting her stuff in my parents' office.
When Tim confronted her about this, she said his services were no longer needed and he was fired. Tim called Mark up and Mark went down with the family attorney, some law enforcement officers, and the necessary paperwork, and had her removed. She claimed the place was now hers because it was her sister's, so she was now the owner.
As long as I have known her, she has never had a steady job, and has had three husbands. She milked each one for as much as she could get until she divorced him. The next day, I was leaving for school—I walked, it was fairly close, about 10 minutes—and saw her car and a moving van parked outside. She said she was moving into "her" house…but that’s not the worst part.
She then said in a sickly sweet voice, that for a "reasonable" rent, she would continue to allow me to stay there until I graduated high school. I went in and called my brother, and he again showed up with the family attorney, officers, and all the paperwork, and had her removed from the property. I was at school, so I didn't get to see what happened.
That night, Mark gave me a business card (for a policeman, who I assume helped deal with all this) and told me that if I ever saw aunt Karen on or near the property to call that number and report her immediately, don't even try to confront her or give her a warning, just call. I do know that the movers charged her to move her stuff into the van, drive across town, get turned away, and drive back across town and move her stuff back into her apartment, which she hadn't given notice yet.
I got scared to the point that I didn't like letting our dog into the backyard when I was at school, I used to put her out in the yard to let her play in the fenced backyard while I was in school. For a while, I just put her in the locked and closed garage, and then cleaned up her messes when I got home in the afternoon.
Eventually, Karen moved to Colorado, where I assume she met and married the man who called me and said that she had passed on and he couldn't find anyone from her family to attend the funeral. I chose not to tell him about her and politely said, "Sorry for your loss, but I can't make it". From discussions with Mark, he basically told him the same thing.
Outside of myself, Mark, and Mark's infant daughter, I don't think she has any living relatives. I still own the house (Mark gave me his half as part of the deal where I sold him my half of the business), but still sleep in my bedroom. I still miss my parents and think about them every day, and even though I am 20, own a large home, have a lot of money in the bank, I would trade it all to have my parents back.
7. Shifting The Focus
I work at a large chain grocery store in a well-to-do area. While many of our customers may look like typical Karens, most are actually really nice and amazing people. That being said, I was racking carts and I hear this lady on the phone behind me muttering: "I don’t know why they come to this country, they can barely even speak the language. I’m behind one right now who's probably a terrorist"!
I look in the window’s reflection and I can see that she's walking behind a young woman in a hijab who has a small child. The young woman just put her son in a cart and I can see that she looks like she's about to cry. So I decide, forget it…I'll take the hit for her. I spin around to Karen and shout: "Oi! I take bloody exception to that! Just because I’m Irish does NOT mean I am or ever was in the IRA"!
I look at both Karen and the young woman. Both were speechless and all Karen does is point at the young woman. So I continue, this time speaking to the young woman: "You saw that, didn’t you?! This lady just called me a bloody terrorist! I might speak Gaelige and wear a Catholic cross! I might even be from Ireland! And darn it I’m bloody proud! But I AM NOT A TERRORIST"!
At this point my manager walks over to see what all the fuss is about. I say: "This lady just called me a terrorist"! I turned to the young woman and asked: "You heard her call me that too, right"? My manager looks at the young woman and instantly catches on. He tells Karen that that kind of conduct is not okay in our store, no matter who it's directed at or why, and that she needs to leave.
Karen, still completely speechless, just turns around and walks out. I turn to the young woman and tell her: "I do apologize about the yelling ma'am, but I’m proud of who I am! If you need anything while you're shopping, just let me or one of my coworkers know". The woman thanks me and pushes her cart away while sporting the biggest grin.
My manager then makes the comment "Entertainment tonight: $0. Teaching Karen a lesson about discrimination: $0. Seeing that young woman walking away sporting a grin like the Cheshire cat: priceless".
8. Giving Them A Taste Of The Local Hospitality
A few years ago I had a side hustle on my days off. My job had a rotational schedule where I worked two weeks then got two weeks off. I made plenty of money at my job, but it didn't hurt to make a little extra cash. I was in essence a tour guide. But for the region I lived in. I didn't have any planned tours but usually just took people to see neat places that they would not know about or think to go to.
I was adamant about getting paid up front. And customers signed an agreement saying that made guarantees to protect my truck from messes or damage. Never had any issues fortunately, and people always enjoyed the places I showed them. Except for one family. They seemed friendly enough when I was having them sign a contract and collecting my fee. I should mention my fee was $15/hour + $75 ($35 if it was a half day).
This covered a tank of fuel, plus paid for my time shuttling you around. I also kept a cooler with free water and some limited snacks. You were paying for my knowledge of the region, plus knowledge about the area’s history and such. Plenty of times I had customers tell me, "I've never seen so much cool stuff in one day". You could maybe find something cheaper, but I didn't care.
Once money changed hands with this family, the attitude changed. They began treating me like I was a second class citizen. But I had their money, so I didn't care. I drove them around to some of the most beautiful scenery you can find. It’s rare people are left speechless by these places and never have I seen someone not be impressed. Until now. Every place I showed them they just seemed disappointed.
One of the places was a ski town popular with a lot of celebrities (not Aspen), and they were just like "Eh, it's ok". I can't deny I was a little offended by their indifference but whatever. They were never outright rude during the day, but were surprised when I didn't buy lunch for them. As I said, you’re paying for my time, food is on you.
But when I got back to town and dropped them off at their hotel, it got interesting. The wife says, "You can just park in the back and leave the keys at the desk. Tell them they are for the Smith family". Me: "I'm sorry, what"? Wife: "This truck, just park it in the back. We might use it later". Me: "This is my truck. I'm not leaving it here, that’s not part of the deal"
Wife: "Oh please, there is no way you can own a vehicle like this. It obviously belongs to your company". Me: "I do this job by myself, on my days off from my regular job. I assure you, this is my truck. I can show you my name on the title". Wife: "Young man (I had just turned 30) If you don't do as your told I will be forced to call your boss". Me: "You mean me? I am my boss".
Wife: "Okay smarty-pants, get your boss on the phone, right now"! I thought about just driving off, but then had a better idea. I called my supervisor at my real job. We'll call him Dan. Dan has been in the oilfield for 14 years and could have quite the potty mouth. Good supervisor, he knew what I did on my days off and even sent people my way a few times.
He answered and I just said, "One of my clients is demanding to speak with my boss, so here she is" and handed her my phone. The wife, sounding smug, said "I tried to tell your driver to leave the truck here so we could use it but he lied and said he owns it". I could hear him yelling "ARE YOU (BLEEPING) STUPID"? I didn't discern anything else but I know he gave her a good thrashing.
She just walked to the window, handed me my phone, and said, "He wants to talk to you" then walked away. Boss: "That fix your problem"? Me: "Yea, thanks Dan". Boss: "Anytime brother".
9. A Restraining Order In The Making
I'm currently eight months pregnant with my first child. I work as a secretary on the inpatient ward of a hospital, second shift. I started working here when I was 19 to support myself through college. So, my coworkers are like family. When I was four months pregnant, I told my coworkers, who were happy for me. All except Patty. She didn't say anything.
After a while, she started being friendly with me asking about the baby, my health, and my plans for the future. I told her that my boyfriend and I were getting married and moving in together to be a family. Patty didn't like this for some reason, and started asking me about my opinions on adoption. I said NO, I'd never give my child up for adoption
For a few weeks, Patty gave me the silent treatment. Then one night, after visiting hours, a couple in their 40s showed up. told them that visiting hours were over and that they could see their family member tomorrow. What the woman told me made my blood run cold. She said, "Oh, we're here to see YOU! We're so excited to meet you and want to thank you for choosing us to give your baby to"!
I was dumbfounded and shocked—until the woman tried to touch my six months pregnant belly. I screamed so loud all of the nurses came running. The couple tried to explain to security, nurses, and me, that their sister-in-law told them that I was a young unwed mother desperately trying to give up my baby for adoption and choose them.
She said that their sister-in-law promised them my baby, since they have been suffering from infertility for years. I told them that I had no intentions of giving up my baby and to never come near me again. I also told them that I don't even know their sister-in-law, but they kept insisting that I did. The next night Patty comes charging up to my desk, screaming at me.
She’s yelling and asking how could I treat her brother and sister-in-law like garbage, after she helped me with my "mistake". I called security and Patty, her brother and sister-in-law are banned from coming near me or contacting me at work.
10. Eat Your Words
I moved cities six months ago, and my new job site has a 12-hour shift system (8 am to 8 pm or 8 pm to 8 am). And since I have a very high metabolism and am a total foodie, I have been packing a lot of food from home. (breakfast, two snacks, lunch or two dinners, and baked goods for tea time). I usually eat with my team of four people, and they get their meals from the on-site cafeteria.
I share my meals with them, because I love feeding people and I pack extra. But then I got a call from another co-worker, one whose husband is part of my team. She works in our opposing shift. This lady was aggressive from the get-go, demanding that I stop bringing my elaborate meals and that I should just get what the cafeteria is serving like everyone else.
I was firm and said that I was not going to change my habits and that she doesn't have a right to demand that. Then she went on a rant about how her husband has been comparing her to me (cooking, presentability, cheer is what she mentioned) and complaining for the last six months. I admit I felt bad for her. So I said that those kinds of issues should be discussed with her husband, not with me.
But I said again, that I will continue bringing food from home. Then she called me the b-word and hung up on me.
11. What’s Mine Isn’t Yours
My younger sister went through a pretty rough time as a young adult, drinking and doing other stuff and generally being wild, she ended up getting pregnant and giving birth at age 18 when I was just a few weeks away from turning 21. She did not want the child after giving birth, she refused to even pick up the child and would leave her sitting in dirty nappies.
Despite never wanting children myself either, I stepped in and adopted my newborn niece as my daughter. My then-boyfriend who I'd been with for three years gave me a disturbing ultimatum. He said it was him or her, as he didn't want children either. I picked her and he left me, which resulted in me suddenly being a single mother.
The first few years were rough as a single parent, barely making ends meet, but I managed and my sister had nothing to do with us. I never once hid the truth from my daughter that she was adopted, but always assured her I loved her so much and was her Mummy. When my daughter was six, my sister was finally clean and wanted to have access to her.
I allowed it but stressed she would just be an aunt to her and she accepted this, though it's clear she struggled with the concept and sometimes acted more like a mother which I always squashed quickly. Now, my daughter is eight and I've been offered a job in a different country, the pay is almost double my current salary and the company is helping us find a home.
They’re even putting my daughter in an international school and after-school care, so of course I’m going to take it. This resulted in my family having a meltdown about how I can't do this and how it's cruel to take my daughter away from her family and how it's not fair to my sister. My sister has told me she won't allow me to move away with her and that she'll fight in court to get my daughter back.
I've talked to lawyers and it seems she doesn't have a leg to stand on, as my daughter is legally my daughter, but the rest of my family is telling me I'm being extremely cruel and if I cared about my sister I'd turn this job down. I left home at 16 and finished my education. My sister meanwhile is the golden child who gets away with everything, she even now lives with our parents and doesn't work.
My daughter, while sad to be leaving her school and friends, is excited for the move. I've been teaching her about the country every night before bed and we've gone to some authentic restaurants to try food from there. I've also promised her we'll fly back at least once a year to visit and she can facetime/call her friends.
I feel like my family is angling for me to eventually just hand my daughter back over as if I was just a temporary filler for my sister—which will obviously never happen.
12. Ex Vs. HOA: Who’s Worse?
I'll start this off by saying my ex is vindictive as heck. We've been fully divorced since about right before the pandemic started. We sold the house we shared and I didn't have to pay her alimony because she cheated and we're in an at-fault state. It was messy since D-Day. All of the stereotypes. First the sobbing and then trickle truths saying "I love you"! "It was just one time"! "Ok it was two years".
Then the gaslighting, followed by "I'm going to take you for everything"! before packing her stuff and walking out. I feel like I never really knew the woman my ex was in all the time we were together. We were married for five years and together for seven. And in two of those five married years, she had affairs with three other men. The final one being a foreign businessman of some sort from what I could find out.
Yes, I got tested and was thankfully negative. Yes, she got pregnant by the final dude, and no I didn't sign the birth certificate because I found out about all the affairs before the baby was born thanks to a call from the first dude. My ex tried to go full scorched earth on me. But since we live in and were married in an at-fault state, she lost.
We didn't pay equally into our house, and the equity was divided 70/30. So I got a pretty good cash payout when I sold our marital home to put as a down payment on a different house closer to my job. It's a bit of a downgrade. But suits a single guy in his thirties like me just fine. My ex did show up to my house once. But I refused to let her in.
She yelled at me that I'd financially ruined her in the divorce. I said that she was fully willing to do that to me first. Then, the woman had the audacity to say it should have been my life that got messed up, and not hers. I laughed so hard and said it was karma. She yelled that she'd sue me for what was rightfully hers. I said if she was gonna sue me, then to go ahead and sue me.
It'd end up the same way in court, because she has nothing but a false sad story. She was the cheater, not me. I'm no angel, but I didn't do anything to her. And she was the one who ruined our marriage. Then she took it up a notch. She then said she'd tell everyone she could that I hurt her. I said I'd sue her for defamation if she did, and I was recording our interaction and had those words saved to my phone.
She went wide-eyed and her jaw dropped. The look people are calling the surprised Pikachu face. Then I asked why she was there, if not to just try and make trouble. Because she had a new man in her life that knocked her up. She just huffed at me and said he isn't around much, and she's stuck in a tiny apartment living off his child support till he comes back.
It was immature of me I know, but I did the bit of playing the world's smallest violin. She raged at me and then got in her car to leave. Haven't seen her since. But as soon as I got her out of my life, I had to deal with an even more annoying problem. There is an HOA in my neighborhood. But I was not legally obligated to join it because the last owner of my house was not a member. I made sure of that through a real estate lawyer as well.
The HOA had no grounds to force me to join and they were not happy about it. The HOA president would show up with forms every week for the first month demanding I sign them. Then she threatened to take me to court. To which I had to get a C&D sent to her from my lawyer to make her stop that. So she started harassing me by looking for any infractions she possibly could to report to the city.
An inspector came out several times and found nothing wrong. In fact, I offered one of them a burger while grilling, and they graciously accepted. Did I mention the HOA hates barbecues and parties that aren't approved in advance? Well, they do. And I like to grill when the weather is good. And my neighbors actually love me for it because I invite them over.
I had the authorities called on me several times for noise complaints because I was playing music on a Saturday afternoon while having my friends over. The HOA president I caught trespassing once when she was trying to peer into my windows. I called the authorities, but she denied ever doing it. So I got cameras. She hasn't trespassed since.
But I still got repeated passive-aggressive letters saying my cameras were not an approved addition to my house. Some months ago I started getting letters for fines in the mail. And when I contacted the HOA, their representative claimed they had it on record that I'd joined, and needed to pay all fees effective immediately. I told them that was not possible.
Then they emailed a scanned copy of the forms, and they had a signature on them. But it was not mine. That’s when I made a chilling realization. It was very similar in some ways, and I recognized right away as being my ex's handwriting. She knew what my signature looked like. But it was a loose imitation at best. I got in touch with a lawyer right away over the forged signature.
But the HOA still demanded to go to court. And it took seven months before that happened. Meanwhile they were stacking unpaid fines against me weekly, and were threatening to put a lien on my house. We went to court and the HOA president looked very smug. But my lawyer pointed out how the signature wasn't the same as mine, and was very inconsistent in the various forms.
I'd never allowed the HOA president in my house, and I'd never requested the forms. The idiot HOA president actually slammed her palm on the table and said it was still binding. But when pressed where the fraudulent signature came from, she admitted my ex-wife called the HOA and they sent her the forms, then got them back in the mail signed.
Then she actually claimed she'd thought I'd signed them. The judge looked at her and asked if she was serious. She confirmed she was. The judge then asked how a woman I was no longer married to, that had never even lived with me in my current residence was supposed to have any bearing on whether or not I joined her HOA. She went quiet and I could see the "Oh no" look on her face as the hamster wheels were turning.
She seemed to finally mentally put the pieces together. My lawyer then counterclaimed that what the HOA did was blatant fraud, and actions must be taken. And they were. I countersued the HOA for the emotional distress of the harassment I'd gotten since moving in. Which I had lots of proof of. That won me about ten grand after lawyer fees, which I decided to put towards my mortgage.
The HOA president was removed from her throne. I like to think she was kicking and screaming. She was also slapped with a hefty fine. I've seen her outside a few times, and she always looks at me like I am the devil. The HOA itself had to pay all of my fees too. I wanted to go after my ex for forging my signature. Unfortunately, not long after she forged my signature on those forms, she apparently left the country to be with her third affair partner.
She's somewhere in Europe from what I can see of the final posts on her FB before she disappeared. So I can't do anything against her unless she ever returns to the US. So that was a wash. I'm not getting letters from the HOA anymore, though. And the new president has promised to keep things completely cordial from now on.
I still don't feel like I got much of a win in this though. Other than the 10k payout, it all felt like a huge waste of time.
13. Turning The Tables
This is my friend’s tale about how she turned the tables on a home invader. At the time this happened, my friend was rising her child by herself in a suburb of in Texas. The area they lived in wasn't particularly safe, with wild beasties of both human and animal kinds so my friend armed herself with a small pistol and took some safety classes to protect her small family.
The years go by, her child is now five and there was a series of break-ins in the neighborhood. My friend hired a security company to install security cameras around her home. One day while reviewing footage, friend noticed a strange man lurking around the house. He seemed to wander around a bit and then wandered away, so friend shrugged and carried on with her day.
Nothing to worry about right? Turns out—she was wrong. A few days later, my friend was working in her home office and saw the same guy walking down her driveway, opening the gate, and entering her backyard. My friend realized the kitchen door was open, and her child was playing in the living room. My friend grabbed her pistol from her purse and ran to the kitchen and got there as the guy calmly walked through her backdoor!
The guy sauntered in, looked and looked around the room—to see my friend standing there with her pistol pointed at him. Guy froze. She yelled: "Who are you and why are you in MY house!? The guy gulped, grabbed his phone and DIALED 9-1-1! He said: "Help! I'm standing in this kitchen and some crazy lady has a pistol pointed at me"!
My friend was stunned but didn't put her pistol down while calmly telling her child to go play in their room then stood there, not moving while staring down the guy, who refused to leave! The guy said: "You are gonna get it when the authorities show up lady"! She told him to get out of her house. The guy actually stayed standing there until the officers came into the kitchen!
The guy saw the officers and started screaming, "Cuff her, she's crazy! Look, she has a pistol on me"! My friend put it down and started shaking. "This is MY house! YOU broke in"! The officers then stopped and stared, looked at the guy, and asked: "You broke in"? The guy said: "Well her door was open, and then she pulled a pistol on me! That’s not how it works! Cuff her for having a pistol"!
My friend said: "I have a license and this is Texas you idiot"! The officers detained the guy—who was STILL howling about my friend. She gave the officers a copy of the video of him sniffing around earlier in the week.
14. Someone Never Learned "Sisters Before Misters"
My sister, who is in her mid-30s, is probably the worst case of entitled I’ve ever seen. She’s always the victim, can do no wrong, and the world owes her for her imaginary suffering. This time, however, she’s reached a new level. She’s recently confessed to our mom and I that she’s started dating someone behind her husband’s back.
To be honest, her husband is also a ginormous dirtbag, but just leave the guy, okay. I don’t think anyone deserves to be cheated on, and even though he totally sucks, an affair doesn’t constitute some kind of just punishment. It’s messy, gross, and not worth it, save everyone the extra heartache. Now, we lost our grandma at the end of August.
It hasn’t even been a month since she passed, and since she was terminally ill, we did have time to discuss some things and make arrangements for others. She lived in an apartment that’s attached to our mom's house, and we had talked about me moving into it after grandma passed. Everyone thought it was a good idea because my grandma had things like no-slip railings, kitchen tools/gadgets for arthritic hands, etc.
I am also disabled and could benefit from the same equipment. Well, I come to find out my idiotic sister thinks it’d be a cool idea to have her marital affair move into our mom’s property instead, so she can use our mom as some kind of cover for her affair. I am absolutely repulsed and livid. We were all just starting to let my sister come around again, because after grandma passed, she seemed like it had really affected her.
We really believed that she was really turning over a new leaf, but it’s all because she wants her boyfriend to move in. I don’t think anyone is going to go with the idea. I just can’t believe that she even thought it would be a viable option and something that she could even suggest to us, why does she just assume that we’ll help her cheat on her husband? I want no part of it, I will not be an accomplice.
Also, her justification for suggesting he move in is because "Sister (me) doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush to get up there", like yeah? Well, here’s the reason why. I found our grandma, deceased, LESS THAN A MONTH AGO, in that house. Sorry I haven’t been in a hurry to erase grandma from her home. Sorry I haven’t been sorting through all of her belongings and getting them ready to be rehomed or donated.
I wish I could keep every trace of her, and the fact that I have to get rid of anything at all hurts. I’m sorry I haven’t done it yet, but maybe try having a little empathy. Because of this, I’ve decided that I’m kicking my sister out of my life again. Each time I think she’s capable of changing, she shows that she’s still the same horrible, selfish person, and I’m done falling for the charade.
Have fun with the inevitable divorce proceedings. Good luck explaining all this to your kids too.
15. The Art Of The Deal
We have been looking for a car for our youngest. Looking through online ads, we came across an ad for a luxury car that only asked for about 1/3 of what this car blue books for. The says the car just suddenly stopped starting. My husband is a mechanic so we decided to look at it, just to see. Immediately, he sees a couple potential problems as to why it doesn't start.
The car has new tires, the body is nearly perfect, and the interior needs a few easy fixes. Still well worth way more than owner is asking, even with paying for repairs to get it running. Of course, we bought it. My youngest is ecstatic about getting a luxury car for graduation. My husband gets the car running—it was an even easier fix than he originally thought. That’s when we met the crazy lady.
It’s time for plates and registration. Off to the DMV we go. We come out with the temporary tags and as my husband is putting them on the car, this lady walks up. She says: "Excuse me"? But I was on the phone, so I ignore her. Again, she says, more rudely this time, "Excuse me"? I reply: "I'm sorry, do you need something"? She says: "Yes! That car".
I say: "My car? What about it"? She asks: "Where did you get it"? Me: "We bought it a few weeks ago". She says: "That's my car". My husband says: "No, it isn't. Now get away from us".
She says: "Yes, that is the car I was going to buy from [previous owner] and you stole it from me". I say: "Lady, I paid [previous owner] what they were asking and nothing was said about you. Leave. Us. Alone".
She claims she had an agreement to buy the car from the previous owner. She says "You came in and MADE her sell it to you. I want it back and I want it now. I had to buy that piece of garbage over there instead. Now, you take the piece of garbage and give me my car". I told her whatever, and to get out of my way before I run her over.
She says: "I'm not going anywhere. I've already reported to the authorities that I have found my stolen car and they are on the way". My husband asks: "Are you nuts lady? You can't just report a car stolen because you missed the chance to buy it". But there was something this insane lady didn’t know. We were actually waiting on the previous owner to show up to get her plate and registration because there was a mix-up with the title (DMV’s fault).
We had to wait to get that fixed before we could title, register, and plate it, so we were still using the correct plates. The previous owner can then turn in her plate and get a refund for the months not used. Two cruisers pulled up about five minutes later. The previous owner pulled in right behind them. As the two officers are getting out and asking who called, the previous owner walked up to me and my husband, asking what is going on.
She hadn't noticed the crazy lady yet. The crazy lady immediately started yelling how she had paid for this car and we forced the previous owner to give us the title instead. She wanted us taken away and her given the title and possession of the car right now. One of the officers walked over to us. I grinned because it is one my friend’s sons. He grew up with and was friends with my oldest son.
He said: "Hey. Want to tell me what is going on"? I replied: "I don't really know. We bought this car a few weeks ago from her [pointing to previous owner] and while we were waiting for her to show up to get her plate, this woman started screaming at us about stealing the car. Something about they [pointing between previous owner and crazy lady] had an agreement about the car but she [previous owner] sold it to us instead and now she [crazy lady] is demanding we take whatever car she ended up buying and we give her this one".
The previous owner says: "Oh my god. This is exactly why I didn't sell her the car in the first place. She is my neighbor and she is INSANE! She asked me about it when I decided to sell it and I told her she could buy it, but she wanted me to get it running again but still sell it to her for the low price. I told her I didn't want to deal with it and that is why it was low".
"If I got it running again, I might just keep it, but I would definitely raise the selling price to at least double. She has called me a few times asking if I had it running yet and I have told her no but she kept telling me to call her when I did". The officer then (going with procedures) checked all of our IDs, checked the bill of sale, previous registration, and ran the VIN. Everything checked out.
The officer said: "I think we're done here". Then he turned to the crazy lady and said: "Ma'am, what you have attempted here is against the law. Actually, you made a false report which is against the law and I could cuff you, but I'm not. I'm sure you're just upset and made a bad judgment call so we will let it slide". Her reaction was unbelievable.
She screamed: "No! It wasn't a false report! That is MY car"! He said: "Ma'am, stop. Just stop. I could also charge you with attempted car theft but we're all just going to walk away now". She said: "No! I'm not just walking away. This isn’t happening. [Pointing at previous owner] You owe me [amount twice what we paid for the car] And I will get my car back".
Officer #2 said: "Ma'am step over by the cruiser. We need to have a talk". I gave the plate to the previous owner and Officer #1 told us to have a nice day. My husband and I went ahead and left while previous owner went into the DMV. The crazy was still ranting at Officer #2 about allowing us to take the car. Well, there was a happy ending. The previous owner texted me later that the crazy lady was in the back of the officer’s car when she left…still yelling.
16. Know Your Worth
This makes me hurt a little, because up to this point my sister was the only one I could mildly get along with within my family, but I guess she is my mother's daughter so the entitlement shouldn't have been a surprise. My sister and brother-in-law are both essential, a law enforcement officer and doctor. So, they've needed someone to watch their kids now that school is canceled and a lot of daycare services aren't around.
Even then the youngest one had been kicked out of two of them and finding a new one is difficult due to that. So I've been watching these kids 4-6 times a week depending on their schedule, anywhere between 7-12 hours a day. I was told to wait until they got paid, then told to wait for the stimulus check to come in and they'd pay me for it.
At that point (and I do have the text) it was going to be $85 a week, regardless of that 4-6 times a week. Well, they got the stimulus check-in. My sister gives me $55 and tells me that this was for the babysitting. I told her this wasn't what we agreed on. I was told that I should be grateful because she has been feeding me. No, she hasn't.
I bought my own food and tended to have to buy the food that these kids were eating for lunch. I was told it was just like "hanging out having fun" playing video games with my nephews. No, it was not. She knows her kids better to know they're monsters. They are both destructive. It's a hassle since I have to chase one of them around all the time to prevent them from climbing shelves, or from getting out the front door because these kids were never taught to mind.
I refused to bring my gaming laptop for the older one to play anymore. I told him specifically if he wanted to play on it, he could only touch the wireless mouse and keyboard and play it at the desk, but not to touch the laptop. So what does he do after getting bored with one game he begged me to let him play? Pick up the laptop and run with it and drop it.
I screamed at him—not my best moment—and he had the attitude of a teenage valley girl of "Whatever. Accidents happen, that's why they're accidents. If it breaks, you can just buy a new one," to which I told him HE would be the one to replace the $1,600 computer. But since that day, he's been whining about me not bringing it over for him to play with.
I have to deal with these kids assaulting me all the time and not being able to do a thing about it. These kids are MONSTERS and the only reason I agreed to do this was because she was my sister and she needed the help, but I was supposed to be compensated for my time away from MY own work. I work commission-based jobs at home, but I can't work on it around them as there's no pause for me to do it less the younger one would probably run away and get hit by a truck.
I know it'll probably be terrible of me if I just don't show up for the next few days until they start paying me what they at the very least owed me, but on the other hand, I really just don't want to be around those kids.
17. Not With A Bang, But A Whimper
So, my boyfriend and I moved into an apartment in August. It’s older so the floors are super creaky. According to our lease, we’re obligated to cover 90% of any room with carpet (except bathroom and kitchen) to help with noise. It turned out our apartment was previously managed as a dorm by the local college, so the floors already have a layer of super thin cheap carpet.
We also laid down more rugs to help with noise cancellation. Our downstairs neighbor moves in about a month later, and within a month of that, starts banging on her ceiling when we get too rowdy. The first couple of times, it happened super late in the living room—our apartments have the same floor plan. We were moving around after midnight the first time.
Later she came to talk to us and asked us to keep it down at night. Sure, fair enough. The next time, was when we walked in from the airport at 10 pm. She came up, banged on the door, and talked over my explanation. I told her I was sorry and asked when she was hearing the noise, assuming it was just the cat running around at night.
No, she tells me that she knows it’s not the cat, she knows it’s us, and she doesn’t live alone. Okay, weird but whatever. We started going to bed earlier as we settled into the apartment and our jobs, but the banging only continued. For months, she would hit her ceiling/our floor whenever we walked around. Bed at 10? BANG. Wake up at 5:30 for work? BANG. Sitting on the couch but decide you want snacks? BANG.
Around Christmas, she comes up to our door again. My boyfriend answered and this time, I recorded. I’m so glad I did. This woman came up and looked my boyfriend in the eye and said "You have to stop following me". Uhhh? What? She says: "I know it’s not the cat or the dog or your girlfriend, because I know your footsteps. I don’t know how you figured it out, but you’ve figured out how to listen to where I am and you’re following me around my apartment and I’m sick of it".
My boyfriend calmly responded that she sounds crazy and that we don’t care about her. She again reminded us that she doesn’t live alone. Her boyfriend is a small Latino man in his 60s who is very polite and has never said a word to us. Cool, she’s insane, whatever. The banging continued with us stomping every time we heard it. She didn’t like that, but it made it more fun.
We’d already explained the situation to the landlord and the super and they were on our side. Our town was the first in the US to be locked down under quarantine, so for the first few days, the banging gradually increased until one day this woman lost her mind. I’ll admit that we’re early risers on the weekends. On this particular Sunday, we ended up waking up super early, but not doing much for the first few hours.
We drank some coffee and sat on the couch until almost 11. At that point, we decided to get up and clean the apartment. That’s when she lost her mind. She had to be running from one end of her apartment to the other. She’s banging her ceiling so hard that we’re convinced she’s damaging it. At one point, I hear what sounds like muffled yelling after she followed me into the bedroom.
We had plans that day, so we ignored her, finished cleaning, and started to leave. She must’ve been waiting for us to leave, because for the first time ever, she walked out of her apartment right as we go to her landing. I was holding the dog while waiting for my boyfriend to come down as she starts to descend the stairs.
Of course, she decides to turn around and say something. She says: "Tell your boyfriend to cut it out". I say: "Cut what out? Walking? You’re hitting the ceiling because of me and the dog moving, not him". She continues to spew some other dumb stuff as my boyfriend gets down to me. She proceeded to stay exactly three steps ahead of him, slowing us all the way down the stairs.
She tried to block us going out the door at the bottom, but backed off when he just didn’t stop moving. She’s continuing to yell at him all the way to the parking lot. Of myself and my boyfriend, he’s typically the hot head while I’m the calm one. Amazingly, he kept his calm the whole time, calling her only a crazy lady and ignoring her as he walked past her and her car to the dumpster.
As I passed her car, she decided to continue talking at me, and I was just furious that I couldn’t engage. She said: "I’m serious, it’s done". I replied: "Okay, what do you want us to do, crawl? I already told you we have a 60 lb. dog, and we’re all just walking around". She was talking over me, saying: "And you need to remember that I don’t live alone".
I was like…okay…neither do I? You see my boyfriend right there, so what’s your point. By the way, that’s the third or fourth time you’ve said that and that could be taken as a threat. She says: "You think it’s a threat? Fine, it is". I said, "Cool, I’m calling 9-1-1". She goes: "Okay me too". So, we both call the authorities, and they pull up.
They talk to her first and then come talk to us. I don’t know what she told them, but when they came to talk to us, I told them everything she’d said and done for the past six months. The officer explained that it was a civil matter that would have to be dealt with by the landlord, but ensured us that they explained to her that it is perfectly acceptable to WALK AROUND YOUR APARTMENT AT 11 AM ON A SUNDAY.
They also told her not to knock on our door ever again and that she’s not allowed to bang on our floor over footsteps at any point. For a couple of nights, she got back at us by banging at 1:30 am to wake us up. We had already reached out to our landlord again and this time, he told us he’d see what her problem is. That’s still not the last of his troubles with her though.
We ended up talking to the people that live below her and telling them about the banging. It turns out, they’ve heard it this whole time and had no idea what it was. Now that they know, they’ve also reported her to the landlord. The banging has stopped, we don’t expect her lease to be renewed, and we may end up in a better apartment in the next couple months.
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18. The Wicked Stepmother Comes To Life
So, for some background, I only had one parent in my life, as my father was abusive. My mother gained full custody and my father had extremely supervised visits—like a social worker had to watch me with him. He never made an appointment to see me. My mother told me what happened, when she thought I was ready. I was about 15/16.
When I turned 20, a lady who wasn't more than three years older than me contacts me. I mistake her for a person I’d seen in school. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Shortly after, I found out she was engaged to my father, and had a son with him. Big age difference. She was 23, my father 57. Then, I got into contact with my father.
I never met him, as he lived in New Hampshire while I live in Iowa. We never got close. A month later, my father passed suddenly. Shortly after, his fiancée—I’ll call her stepmom, even though she isn't really—lost custody of my half-brother. The authorities put him up for adoption due to her substance problems. That’s when I got a heartbreaking message.
They asked if I would adopt him, as he was my half-brother. I had to decline because I didn't have the space or money at the time. Around this time, I met my now-husband. Fast forward a few years. I am now 25, my husband 26. I have just given birth to our daughter three weeks ago. Right now, there are four people at the house.
Me, my husband, the baby, and my 56-year-old mother. My mom is high risk, and she wants to be around to help with my daughter. When my daughter was two weeks old, I posted some photos of me, my husband, my mother, and our daughter together. It took us some time with the photos but we figured it out. I posted them on Facebook.
About an hour later, I get a comment from my "stepmom" to check my messages. I check and here’s what they said: "Hey, I’m gonna be coming over tomorrow to see my granddaughter. I’m so excited to meet her. I'll stay in the guest room". I should note she still lives in New Hampshire, and I still live in Iowa. I wrote back: "Sorry, we can't. My baby and my mother are high risk and I’m still learning a routine with my daughter. My mother is also using the guest bedroom".
I didn't get a response after this. Next morning, there’s a knock at the door. I thought it could be a package I ordered, so I go answer it. When I opened it, I was furious. It’s my "stepmom" saying: "Hey! I'm here to see my granddaughter"! My stepmom tries to open the door, but I push back".I told you couldn't come. There isn’t room for you and there are high-risk people here. Please leave".
She says: "But I have a right to see my grandbaby. Your father would want me to meet her. I’m her family. " She tries to give me puppy eyes. I say: "I’m not really wanting to deal with this right now. Leave," and I shut the door. All seems well—until yesterday. She came over again and this time since I was busy with the baby, my husband handled her and threatened her with calling the authorities.
She leaves after throwing a fit. Last night, when my baby is asleep, I got a text from her. "Why didn't you let me see my granddaughter, I’m her grandma! I came all this way to see her and you deny me seeing her. I just wanted to hold her! Your father would have wanted me to see her"! I had to respond to this. I said: "You’re not my child's grandma. Only my mother and my husband’s mother are grandmas".
I continue: "You weren’t married to my father, only engaged. I don't trust you with her either, as I have no clue if you're still using or recovering. I don't trust you either as you lost custody of my half-brother. I don't care what my father would want, as he was barely in my life, three months max if you include when I was born. Right now, I have multiple people in my home who are high risk. I told you you couldn’t come over, but you did anyway".
I shut off my phone after this to get the little sleep I can get. Sometime this morning after I rocked and fed my daughter. I got a text from my "stepmom," asking for money for the hotel she stayed at. I hit decline and she sends it again, saying I owe her, since she couldn't stay at my place. I declined again and blocked her.
19. The Best Revenge Is Walking Away
This was when I was 18—I'm 34 now—so 2004-2005. Think pre-iPhone, but cell phones like the Nokia 3310 exist, which I had because my parents wanted to make sure I always could be contacted. I worked at a chain restaurant for six months, let's call it C. It was a completely new store. When we opened, we were the only building for eight blocks except for the sister restaurant next door that was part of the same investment group.
It was a decent upper-middle-class white neighborhood, so we'd get lots of people in the door. I was originally hired as To Go, but I was trained up in almost everything in the restaurant, and I frequently filled shifts, and I got the most hours for it. But it was the worst job I ever had, and still is. After getting shifted around to different homes, from To Go to QA to Host (sometimes Server), I eventually ended up in bus…AKA, cleaning tables.
They promised they would move me off of bus once we had bussers, but, as we'll find out later, that day never came. The main reason this happened is that we ran out of bussers. They tried hiring bussers at a rapid rate, but it didn't work. The average survival rate for a busser was dismal. It was just two weeks, including training time.
Eventually, our reputation of chewing out bussers made its rounds. No one would even show up for interviews for the job. See, at C, a pecking order had been established. At the top, you had the managers, then it was the servers, then it was the bar servers, restaurant servers, etc. Guess what was at the bottom? That's right, bussers.
Any time I spoke up about how people needed to pre-bus their tables, the reaction was brutal. People scoffed and said I should just do my job. I explained how I could clear an entire restaurant by myself if everyone pre-bussed their tables (30 seconds per table vs 8 minutes per table). Deaf ears. So, I have to explain why there's a huge time differential between a pre-bussed table and a total-bus table.
If the servers took every plate off the table, even if the table was grody, I could wipe it into my bucket, clean up a few things, wipe off the seat, reset the center of the table, and move on to the next table. I'd be in and out in 30 seconds and onto the next table. However, if I had to total bus a table, I'd have to take all of the plates and organize everything on the tab.
Well, two months into my "We're going to move you off of bussing once we find bussers," it’s a busy Saturday night. I'm talking one hour wait already, at 6:30 pm. Half the tables are currently dirty, and I'm working my behind off, but each table takes about five minutes because no one is pre-bussing tables. I'm told the priority is the restaurant, so I had to tell the bar waiters that they probably wouldn't be bussed at all because it would be so busy.
They were not having that. The on-shift AM (Assistant Manager) told me I should do my job, but I should still prioritize the restaurant, not the bar. Whatever. I'm constantly telling servers to pre-bus their tables, only to be ignored. It was a particularly bad night, so I asked if the dishwashers could help me out when I brought back my tabs instead of organizing everything myself.
They were nice, so they agreed, and it was a decent system, it cut out 2-3 minutes per table. It was still pretty awful, with lots of people wanting food. It still didn't help that I had to go back to the kitchen every time there was a full bus table. Enter Karen, Queen of the Bar Servers. Remember that pecking order I mentioned? Yeah, she was the queen of the server order.
She was one of the ones that constantly berated me for my job performance, despite the fact that I did more than almost anyone else in the restaurant. She made my last two months a living nightmare, constantly telling me I didn't do a good job, that she had to wait for me too long, etc. I constantly told the AMs and Manager about the disrespect I received, and they said "I should just man up".
She never got a single write-up. One particularly busy Saturday night, Karen was a server in the bar side, which meant, she wasn't the priority. I told her that I couldn't bus her tables unless she pre-bussed them, and only if there weren't restaurant tables I needed to bus. She was constantly telling me I needed to bus HER tables and I was lazy, despite the fact that I had lifted over 300 tabs that night, she wasn't the priority.
She didn't pre-bus any of her tables, and she was always at the back dock taking a smoke break. That night, a nice couple saw me working on the table behind them, and politely asked if they could talk to their server so they could take their order. She had left them alone for 15 minutes while she was out there on the back dock flirting with one of the prep cooks.
She scoffed when I interrupted her flirting. Oh, I'm sorry, Karen, I'm sorry I interrupted your sixth flirting break today so you can do the thing you were hired to do. About 6:30 pm that night, the restaurant got flooded with people. One hour waits, and I had to push myself to the limit. I was flipping tables, despite absolutely zero of the servers pre-bussing.
However, since the restaurant was the priority, I couldn't get to her tables at all. Finally, we got a dip. I could finally get to her three tables, and none of them were pre-bussed. So, I have to do the full bussing for her tables, despite the fact that they have been vacant for almost 45 minutes! After the first table, she follows me back to the second table and tells me I need to hurry and I'm garbage at my job.
She tells me I'm making her lose money. I tell her to leave me alone and don't reprimand me in the front of the house. It was embarrassing, with bar patrons looking over their shoulder. I could see they honestly felt sorry for me. I was at the lowest point in my life at that point in time. I honestly felt like I was the worst human being in the world. Once she left, I stopped bussing for a second and sat down at the table for a breath.
I looked at the dirty half-full tab, and I got up. The table wasn't finished, and I left my dirty tab on the seat. I went to the To Go area in the back. It wasn't active, and this was before widespread internet. We got maybe 15 orders per night, so the managers had relegated To Go duties to the QA that serviced the rest of the restaurant. It was easily accessible for them, but it was also vacant at that point in time, since phone-in to-go orders were a relatively new and novel concept.
I knew just what to do. I put down my headset, turned it off, pulled out a To Go pad, and wrote a full note noting how this restaurant is going to go down the toilet unless the managers grow a pair and reprimand the staff for treating bussers like garbage. I then left, without telling anyone. I was called on my cell phone about 5 minutes into my drive home.
The assistant manager told me "You still have a shift". My response was, "No, I don't. I quit". Their response: "You still have a shift". Again, my response was, "No, I don't need to be disrespected like I have. I quit". She had the gall to repeat herself, "You still have a shift". I hung up, and turned off my phone. It turned out that I left just in time for the dinner rush.
Saturdays we closed at midnight, so, for those last four hours it was the worst night ever. I was told that the AM prevented anyone from going home until 2 am because the restaurant was basically a trash basket by the end. Wait times at 10 pm were capped because they were WELL over two hours. Hosts told me later on that she had to turn away 40 families that night.
Some people just left while waiting for a table. Orders were getting misplaced. This information made it up to corporate, and they had to call in a fixer team to figure out what happened. They wanted to call me, but I wasn't going to talk to them. There was some restructuring in the business, the manager got "shifted to another position in the company," and the AM that called on staff was let go.
Karen got wrote up, relegated to the bad shifts, and eventually left. I didn't return for two months—this time, not as an employee, but as a customer. I was told all this by one of the remaining AMs, the one that actually treated me like a human being, and he gave me all of my tip-shares, which was nice. But there was a twist ending to it all.
The day after I left C, my best friend found an ad from a huge video game company that was looking for QAs. We applied that day and the following week, I got interviewed and hired on the spot. It was the beginning of my programming career. I advanced through that job, got over to automation programming, then got hired at other companies.
Now, I'm a senior programmer for a sheriff's office, with 14 years of programming experience.
20. Persistence Doesn’t Always Pay Off
My cousins go to a VERY ELITE PRIVATE all-boys school grade 6-12 in the New England region of the United States. So it's not uncommon to encounter an entitled parent and kid here or there. Now, let me state that my cousins are not entitled. They apply for financial aid and have campus jobs to afford the $60k a year tuition.
My older cousin is the student body president of the school. Because of this, he gets a room that is 1200 square feet, has a fully functional kitchen, and bathroom. The room also had a large living space, balcony, and office. The other rooms just have two beds, two closets, one desk, and a small window. They’re around 150 square feet.
Because my little cousin is related to the president, he was allowed to live in the room versus the standard dorms. My cousin's roommate was also the student body treasurer, so the dean allowed him to live in the room too, because he was my cousin's friend. With three guys living together, there was a surplus of video games and junk food, just guys being guys.
With the new semester starting, student body officers have to help with orientation, helping the parents get the first-year students settled in. This turned into a total disaster. Because little cousin was already settled in, he was just playing games on the PS4 with the door open. Queue entitled mom and kid. Mom: (Nice at first) "Excuse me"? My cousin: "Yes"?
Entitled mom: "I am looking for my son's dorm and I can't find it. Can you help me"? My cousin: "Hey, I'm new here myself so I don't know much. My brother is responsible for helping first years, so let me call him". Entitled mother and her son wait for about 25 minutes for my older cousin to arrive. This whole time, my little cousin was playing games with the new kid on the PS4, eating junk food, and showing them around the room.
That’s when my older cousin arrives. He says: "Hey, you must be the mom trying to find her son's dorm"? The entitled mom, now rude, says: "Yes I've been waiting for someone to help me"! My older cousin first disregards her tone, as orientation day is hard. My older cousin goes on his phone with the info that the mom gives, and directs her.
Apparently, entitled kid only lives down the hallway to the left. Entitled mom leaves with the kid and his luggage. The entitled kid says in that gosh-awful voice as he's leaving, "I wanna play more games".! Entitled mom says: "You can later". Older Cousin has this "JEEZ" look on his face, closes the door, and plays on the PS4 with my little cousin. 10 minutes later, they are interrupted by a terrifying noise.
There are loud bangs on the door. My older cousin sees who it is. It's the entitled mom and her brat. They have returned with his luggage. She screams "I need your help NOW"! as the brat runs to the PS4. My cousin asks: "Uh, what seems to be the problem"? She starts whining: "My son's room is small! It's not like this one! Who do we talk to about this"?!
My cousin says: "Um, I'm sorry If you're unsatisfied with your living situation you'll have to talk to a counselor about his situation, and nobody has a room like this one because I'm the president". The entitled kid starts rummaging through games and yells: "DO YOU HAVE FORTNITE"!? My cousin asks him to put the games down.
The entitled mom snaps. She yells: "Don't talk to my son that way! Besides, my son needs more living space DO SOMETHING"! The whole time, the entitled kid is still rummaging. That’s when my little cousin then pushes him to the side and locks the game cabinet. He starts screaming. At that moment, their roommate was also returning to the room with his lunch.
The kid screams: "I WANNA PLAY GAMES"! My little cousin replies: "This is our room and you can't use my things if I don't want you to". The kid just keeps screaming, and roommate asks: "What's going on"? That’s when the entitled mother interrupts, yelling: "These boys won't help me find a room like this one for my son"! The roommate replies: "Oh, that's impossible, this is the only room that is like this one. Besides, this room is only for the president".
That really sets the entitled mom off. She asks, condescendingly, "Then how come YOU'RE HERE"? The roommate explains the whole situation. The entitled mom then says to my older cousin and his roommate: "You should let my son live here". Entitled kid overhears his mom. He now thinks that he lives in the room. He goes to the fridge and tries to get a soda.
My little cousin blocks him and says: "You are not our guest, nor do you live here, don't touch our food". The kid immediately screams: "This is my room too! AND YOU HAVE TO SHARE"! My older cousin asks her to get her kid out, because he is a nuisance and bothering my brother. She says no. My older cousin and his roommate are not having it.
They ask her politely, yet firmly to leave. Her reaction was infuriating. The entitled mother walks in and proceeds to UNPACK her son's luggage. Entitled Kid is also having a fit because my little cousin isn't letting him have any food. He yells at his mom about it, and she says she’ll help him after she unpacks his things. My older cousin and his roommate firmly tell her "Your son is NOT living here".
The woman replies: "Yes he is. My son is an angel. You should be glad to be friends with him"! My cousin replies: "I am not interested in living or being friends with your son, leave now"! The entitled mom ignores my older cousin and continues to unpack with her entitled kid still screaming" I want donuts"! He then screams at my little cousin: "I wanna play your games"!
My little cousin says "no". The kid then starts screaming high-pitched. The three of them have had enough of this charade and they proceed to drag them out and throw his luggage in the hallway and lock the door. Entitled mom and son continue to bang and howl. Entitled mom "PROMISES" that she'll get her son back in. So she leaves.
At this time, friends were coming over and someone accidentally let the entitled kid in the room. Confused, the new people ask who he is. He claims he lives there, and then starts demanding to use the PS4. My older cousin sees him and kicks him out again. With him shouting "I WANT TO STAY"! his mom then returns with a security guard.
The mom says: "These boys kicked my son of out of HIS ROOM! DO SOMETHING"! The guard replies: "Lady, I know for a fact that your son doesn't live here". She says: "He needs to stay here this room is much better than the other ones"! The security guard then asks if the mom is bothering them, and everybody says yes. He says "I'll take care of the mom"—but that’s not the best part.
He asks my cousins to take care of the kid. The entitled kid is dragged out again. The mom was escorted off the campus grounds. My older cousin and his roommate forcibly moved the entitled kid into his room for him. My little cousin ended up becoming friends with the entitled kid's roommate as the months passed. The entitled kid has been so bratty and annoying that his roommate has had sleepovers with my cousins almost every night.
Because of this, the entitled kid packs an overnight bag and almost always follows his roommate and demands to be let in. My cousins and the two roommates have to turn the volume on the TV louder to tune out his pleas and crying. One day, they woke to him sleeping in front of their door at 6 am. He stayed there for 10 HOURS.
21. He Was Diabetic, She Was Diabolical
I am a 16-year-old guy. I’m pretty normal. I play video games, hang out with friends, have a good job, all that. But the only abnormal thing about me is that I have type 1 diabetes. I have been diagnosed for about a bit more than a year and a half. I’ve kept good control over it and the doctors are always impressed when I have a check-up.
Bragging aside, I am a junior in a pretty small high school in the middle of Kansas. One of the things I do is I take insulin 10 to 15 minutes before I eat so it has time to get into effect. With the school lunch there are two options: a chicken salad and a cheeseburger. I decided to go with the cheeseburger. I take my insulin and go up the line.
There are two separate tables each with two white to go boxes with the food in them. I grab a box from the left table and before I take two steps my friend points out to me that that’s the salad. I set the box back down and go to grab the other box but the lunch lady shouts at me. "Hey, don’t you dare"! I look at her and she looks at me like I just slapped a puppy in the face.
I ask what’s wrong and she said that I had already grabbed the salad so I have to take the salad. (Note. I didn’t even open the box). I explained to her that I’m a diabetic and already took insulin. She shakes her head and says in a sickly sweet tone, "I’m sorry, that’s not my problem. Take the salad and go sit down now"!
I tried once more to tell her the situation but she just pointed at the salad table and tells me to take the salad or I don’t get anything. I’m a little angry at this point so I take the salad and go off to my table with my friends and tell them the situation. They removed the vending machines in the cafeteria over the summer so there was no way for me to get the correct amount of carbs without stealing another kid’s cheeseburger.
One of my friends tells me I should go get the principal quickly before the insulin fully sets in. I go to the office and tell him and the counselor the situation a little panicked because it had been well over 10 minutes since I took insulin. I’m very tight with the principal so he walked me back up to the cafeteria and talked to the lunch lady.
He tells her "LL, give him the cheeseburger. He really needs it". She responds to him by saying. "But he already took a salad. He can deal with it". Principal just sighs, grabs the cheeseburger box, shoves it into my hands, and tells me to go sit down. I listen to him and walk back to the table. I sit relatively close to the lunch line so I and my friends can barely hear the principal talk to her. "How you acted was truly out of line. I thought you understood to treat his and (other diabetic kids) situation with care and understanding".
He went on for another minute and ended up just telling her off and heading back to his office and I ate in peace. I’m glad that she got told off and maybe she’ll know better next time.
22. One-Sided Sibling Rivalry
When I was a teenager I was originally saving to buy a scooter to have fun riding around town on. But on my 15th birthday my dad gave me an engine kit for my bicycle and convinced me to get a Learner's Permit and keep saving to buy a car instead. Even after moving in with my dad, I continued doing odd jobs and earning money any way I could.
My dad asked his brother (my uncle) to teach me to drive because he worked as a driving instructor for a while in the 90s. I slowly got pretty good at it. Right after my 16th birthday rolled around we went to the DMV to schedule a driving test. I passed on my first try thanks to all the practice I got beforehand. Not long after getting my license, my dad decided it was time I worked part-time for him at his business after school.
I was happy because it would make me double the money I was already saving from odd jobs. Before I knew it I'd doubled my savings. While I had chosen to live with my father and my sister didn't, dad still had a room prepared for my sister when she came to visit. For the first few months or so Sis didn't bother to come visit. But eventually, dad convinced her to come over one day a week on Saturday.
Dad always picked her up so I wouldn't have to see my mom. Thankfully, she didn't really wanna see me either. My sister by this point stopped asking me for money or trying to break into my room since I was living in my dad's house and not mom's. But she loved to game on the game systems we had at dad's house. Sis would pretty much spend all Saturday night playing games in the den and drinking Coke.
That's probably the main reason why she even wanted to come visit since she didn't have an XBOX 360 or flatscreen TV at mom's house. Eventually, after just over 6 months of working at my dad's business, he approached me with an offer to find a car I liked. He said if I found a good reliable used one that was the right price, he'd help me buy it and would put it on his insurance. I was ecstatic—but I didn’t know it would turn into a total nightmare.
I started looking at local ads and found a silver 98 Toyota Camry with under 50,000 miles on it for sale. It was in great shape, save for the fact that the rear bumper had been dented and a few windows were broken along with a badly cracked windshield because it was vandalized by some thug. The seller offered it to me at $3,500 with the damage.
But my dad talked him down to $3,000 because of the money it'd cost to get it fixed. I bought the car and it went right to a local auto body mechanic my dad was friends with. When we went to pick up the car it looked almost brand new because he'd replaced the broken windows, pulled any dents, and touched up and shined the paint with a buffer. I was overjoyed and thanked him and my father profusely.
I bought the car. But my dad paid for all the repairs. He never told me how much though. But that car was my main ride for the next ten years if you can believe it. And I eventually sold it to a cousin on my dad's side for his first car. But that's not what you're here to read. When my sister first saw the car in Dad's driveway, she asked whose it was. Sis: "Hey? Who's car is this? Is someone else visiting? Me: "Nope. That's my car". Sis: "No way"!
Me: "Yes way! I just bought it and dad helped me get it fixed. It runs like new". Then my sister just got really quiet and went back in the house to play more video games. She didn't really speak to me for the rest of the time she was visiting that week. I started driving the car to and from high school, and I got a fair amount of attention for it.
My sister however had complained to our mother after going back home about my new car. Somehow she couldn't process the fact that I'd gotten a car and she didn't, even though she is three years younger than me and was only 13 at the time. She started making a stink to our mom about how she wanted a car too. And mom called me on my cell phone to yell at me for starting this problem.
I told her there was no problem. I bought a car with money I earned. And now I'm driving it. And if Sis wants a car too, then she can either work hard and save up like I did, or hope she gets one as a gift. Mom just got mad at me and said it really wasn't fair. I pointed out there really wasn't a fairness issue at all as Sis wasn't even old enough to get a learner's permit yet, let alone a car.
Mom just said I wasn't being supportive of my sister's feelings. And that when she is old enough to drive I should at least lend her the car when she needs it or give her driving lessons. I bluntly said that wasn't happening as I bought it with my own money, and it'd be put in my name when I turned 18. Plus she couldn't dictate what I do with the car because I didn't live with her anymore.
Mom just angrily huffed, called me a jerk and hung up on me. I thought that was the end of it, but it wasn't. My sister started visiting less after that. She got mad at me one day just for washing my car outside. In a fit of anger, she picked up some dirt off the ground and chucked it at the side of my car. But I just sprayed the spot with the hose and it looked like it was never there.
So my sister just stomped back in the house and didn't talk to me again. After that, she only came over for one more week again. When she came to visit she always had a big backpack with her because she'd bring clothes and other stuff in it. She didn't keep many things at dad's house. But the next morning when she left she was wearing the same clothes. Which was unusual because she never did that back then.
She said she'd just die if she wore the same outfit two days in a row. I later found out the reason for this. When I next went into the den, the PS2, GameCube, and original XBOX were destroyed. And the flatscreen TV had part of its screen smashed. The XBOX 360 was also missing. I then realized she'd hidden it in her backpack and taken it.
The other game systems she smashed and left what remained of them sitting on the TV stand. I checked the various games for the systems and Sis had removed a bunch of the discs from their cases and stolen them as well. And she took all of the memory cards too. When I told dad he was pretty mad. He called my mom and she actually said that since I got the car, letting Sis keep the XBOX 360 and the games was the least he could do.
Then she smugly said that Sis didn't want to come visit anymore. Dad angrily told her she better stop sounding so happy about it or he was gonna make her pay for all the damages. Mom just snorted and finally allowed him to talk to my sister. My dad was pretty heartbroken Sis had done all that. He'd been trying so hard to get her to appreciate him more.
But Sis admitted over the phone that she hated him for divorcing mom. And her taking the XBOX 360 and destroying the TV and other game systems was, as our mother called it, "compensation for her pain". Dad could have called his lawyer to sue for more custody rights. But he believed that if she didn't want to be there, he wouldn't force her.
From then on, over the next decade, I barely saw either my sister or mother. Dad didn't bother to try and get the XBOX 360 back. He said that it and the other stuff Sis broke were just things that could be replaced, and bought new ones. But I could tell he was really hurt by what mom and Sis had done. He actually left my sister's room pretty much untouched for the next few years. But she never came back to use it.
From the way my sister is now though, you'd never guess she was the same person. She's extremely ashamed of her actions back then and wishes she could take it all back and apologize to dad. But can't since he passed on some time ago. We visited his grave recently and she cried over it. It’s really sad.
23. Nursing A Grudge
This goes back 28 years, when I became a mother for the first time. I delivered a healthy baby boy and promptly 24 hours later, the hospital released us, and off I went in complete happiness with my new bundle of joy. My mother came home with my husband and me to help us for the first week. Within a few days, something horrible began to happen.
It became apparent my son’s skin was turning a horrid shade of yellow. My mom assured me it was most likely jaundice and that he would probably need extra sunlight. We took him to the pediatrician, who felt that it was dire enough that he would be better off in the hospital under some blue lights. His instructions were extremely specific.
He said, "Mom, I want you to go right to the hospital. You will be sleeping at the hospital for the next several nights. I am calling ahead so they have everything set up for you. Since you are breastfeeding, I want you to feed him as much as he will take, every two hours, and pump afterward, so there is a supply on hand. The rest of the time, sleep as much as possible. Get him settled in, feed him, then go pack a bag and come back".
He then hugged me because he had been my doctor since I was 13 and he just delivered my first baby, and was my baby's doctor too, and our entire family adored this man and trusted him completely. The hospital was literally across the street. I was ready to cry. I felt like maybe I had done something wrong, or my baby would not be in this predicament.
I was breastfeeding but it was a struggle, and so I just felt like a failure. I also do not do well with confrontation. Combine that with the hormones raging through my body, and well, I was a mess. I arrive at the hospital and they usher us upstairs. I had just been discharged a few days before, and a few nurses recognized me. I approached the counter, where I encountered Nurse Ratchet for the first time.
She started by looking up from her paperwork as if I am bothering her. "May I help you"? Me: "Yes, Doctor asked me to come check in, he said he called ahead and". I explained the whole story, including the explicit instructions for breastfeeding. She looked at me over her glasses and sighed a little. "I've been doing this a long time, and what your baby needs, are the blue lights, and FORMULA. You don't have good enough milk or he wouldn't be in this situation. So let's get him checked in, and then you can go home. We will call you when he is ready to be picked up".
What followed was total silence. The urge to cry was rising up inside of me like a surging volcano about to erupt, and my eyes filled with tears. I was not one to buck an authority figure back then. Somehow I found my voice, and I said, "MY DOCTOR SAID I am to stay HERE, and breastfeed my son every two hours. He is NOT to have formula. We want to breastfeed him and only breastfeed him".
My mom and my husband were looking at me and they could not believe I had spoken up. My mom told me later she was about to go off on that nurse but I spoke up. Nurse Ratchet seemed quite offended that I dare speak to her in that manner. She replied, rather rudely, "Fine! You can feed him back here"! and I followed her to the nursery.
It was divided in two sections, and one section was closed, and full of extra newborn cribs, folding chairs, and equipment not in use. It was cold and dark. She pulled out a folding chair, looked at me, and said, "You have exactly 20 minutes"! and she stormed out. Well, that did it. Now I was being TIMED, when I was barely learning how to feed my baby.
My baby was sick, and I had to feed him in a cold, dark room, on a folding chair, when I had been using a pillow and a comfortable chair. I was despondent and began to cry. All I could do was hold my baby and cry and cry and cry. I didn't even feed him. He was sleeping soundly, while I bawled my eyes out, telling him over and over, "Mommy is sooo sorry baby. So, so sorry"!
I waited there until far after my time was up, because I thought Nurse Ratchet was coming back for me to check my baby and I into a room. A bit later, a nurse comes in and I startled the heck out of her. Nice nurse said, "Oh honey, what are you DOING in here"? So I explained the entire story, again, and I am sobbing at this point. She came over and hugged me and said, "Honey, honey, I do not know what that nurse was thinking but this is not at all how we do things! Come with me and let's get you all set up".
I followed her, and for the first time, felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The baby was beginning to get hungry, so I hung my head in shame and told her I had not been able to feed the baby in the 20 minutes I was allowed, was there please someplace I could sit and do that now? Nice nurse was the most precious human being on the planet next to my newborn son right at that moment.
She took me to a room reserved for parents of babies who must stay in the hospital. I had a private room. She brought me sheets and pillows for the fold-out couch. She brought me their professional pump machine and set me up with a professional pumping kit. I was able to feed my son, get him under the blue lights, and then head home for a quick pack of clothing, and be able to return in time for his next feeding.
In case I ran late, I left two bottles of pumped milk for him. We returned a little more than an hour later. I walked in, looked for my baby, and panicked. He was not under the blue lights. I did a little more searching and found Nurse Ratchet, with my son in her arms, and she was feeding him a bottle of, you guessed it…FORMULA!
The mama bear in me reared her protective head and I just about lost it. I knocked on the glass furiously until she looked up. That woman had the nerve to roll her eyes at me. She came out and asked what I needed. Me: "I explained to you that we are strictly breastfeeding our baby. We do not want him to have formula. I will take him now for his feeding".
Nurse: "What you don't seem to understand is formula is better. He needs to rid his body of bilirubin and the formula will bind to it better than breastmilk. If you breastfeed, he is just going to be here longer. Is that what you want? For your baby to be in the hospital longer, hmmm"? Me: "MY DOCTOR SAID I AM TO BREASTFEED ONLY. I WILL TAKE MY BABY NOW".
Nurse: "Finnneeeeee! Suit yourself"! She plopped him into my arms, and off I went to my private room, to breastfeed my son, and then pump. That was my life for three nights and four days. The nurses would wake me at night, every two hours, and I would feed, then pump, then sleep. Day 4, he was a bright pink healthy baby and we got to take him home. My husband called our doctor and told him what that Nurse Ratchet had done.
On the second day, he came to check on us, and later I had the pleasure of witnessing my doctor give Nurse Ratchet a good mouthful of what he thought of her. He was furious and she really got chewed out good. She was told to no longer have anything to do with our family. Two years and 3 days after my son was born, I gave birth to my daughter in that same hospital.
Upon arrival in Labor and Delivery, Nurse Ratchet was once again on duty. The nurse who checked us in was wonderful. I pointed to Nurse Ratchet and I said, "You see that woman over there? (I didn’t even call her a nurse) We do not want THAT WOMAN ANYWHERE NEAR our new baby that is on the way. She was a nightmare two years ago and I will not be stressed out or bullied by her again. We also do NOT want our new baby fed formula for any reason, unless it is unavoidable. We plan to breastfeed. "
I love that I had finally found my voice! The nurse checking us in smiled at me, a great big smile, and said, "I absolutely understand and you will not have to worry about her at all" We never laid eyes on her again. Unfortunately, I have never forgotten her, or the damper she put on what was otherwise the most wonderful, yet scary time of my life.
She could have been nice. She could have been kind. She could have been understanding. She also could have followed doctor's orders but apparently, her vast experience as a nurse made her more knowledgeable, and more entitled, about what was best for my baby.
24. Not All Leeches Live In The Water
My wife's Aunt Louise is a great lady. She and her husband lived in the SF Bay area, and bought their home in the late 1970s. After her husband passed a few years ago, she sold her home for over $1 million and moved back to live closer to her family where she grew up (farming areas in southern CA). She's in her late 60s. Aunt Louise had three children, who are now all in their 40s.
The two oldest are nice, normal people. Her youngest, Kay, is a real piece of work. She meets all the criteria for a psychological diagnosis of narcissism. This is just one of literally dozens of stories I could tell. Kay's husband Pedro was a good provider. About 10 years ago, things began going well, and he began making pretty good money.
To Kay, however, higher-income meant more spending, and soon she was buying a new car every two years. They went on cruises. She had all the latest and greatest gadgets. As the old MTV tag line used to go, "Too much is never enough". To augment her lifestyle, she would routinely run to her mom (Aunt Louise) with a sad story or another.
We don't know the true figure, but I've heard rumors that Aunt Louise has given her more than $20,000 over the past few years. Kay and Pedro managed to keep their heads above water, but when COVID hit and the state of California ordered economic shutdown, money became tight. Then in October, the company went out of business. He found another job, but was essentially starting his career over.
Naturally, they'd begun fighting about money, and two weeks ago it comes to ahead. After hearing the blasphemous word "no" one time too many, Kay announces she's getting a divorce. Being in California, she naturally expected the courts were going to give her one last payday from this poor guy—her car, their house, his 401K, and generous alimony.
However, in her greed, she forgot that Pedro had kept draining his 401K to pay off credit cards. And all those papers about the house she was signing every couple of years was to refinance their house to pay off more credit cards, so there's almost no equity. And with having to start his career over, alimony wasn't going to be that great.
So Kay does what she always does, goes running to her mother. Aunt Louise is naturally sympathetic and urges Kay to try and reconcile, but failing that, she might be able to help her out. Literally two hours later, Kay texts Aunt Louise with a photo of a pricey condo, and asks for $100K to cover her down payment and costs to furnish it.
Aunt Louise naturally pushes back, telling Kay that "helping out" didn't mean $100K. She had meant letting Kay live with her while she got back on her feet, writing a check for security deposit and first months' rent, and maybe helping with some car payments. At this point, Kay totally flips out. Here are the things my wife said were direct quotes".
I can't believe my own mother would be so selfish"! "What difference does $100K make, you're not going to spend it all anyway" (meaning before Aunt Louise dies!) "Just sell some stocks or something" Aunt Louise fortunately does have someone who manages her money, but she stays on a strict allowance. After Aunt Louise held out, Kay has begun polluting Facebook with passive-aggressive messages about finding out peoples' true colors.
My wife is actually HOPING she calls to ask for help, specifically so she can let her have it with both barrels.
25. Even A Blind Person Could See That This Lady Sucks
It’s actually sad how often this sort of thing happens. I mean, being a blind girl, instances of ignorant people are daily. But entitled parents represent a certain level of infamy for me. Since my parents are more at-risk from COVID, I’ve been going shopping alone more and more often during the pandemic. Yesterday was one of these cases.
Grocery shopping is a more involved process for a blind person, I have to ask a staff member to assist me. I also have my guide dog, Gumbo, inside with me. The dog can increase the instances of bad experiences. Now, during my shopping, I always get a wide array of reactions to my dog. But this one was the worst I've ever seen.
I heard loud footsteps, followed by the loud screech of "That doggy is so cute! Can I pet him!"? It was obviously a small child by the voice, so I prepared myself before responding that no, my dog cannot be touched due to him being a guide dog. Surprisingly, the child didn’t act entitled. But seemed surprised and excited about a dog having a job. She (I believe it was a she) asked me a few questions, and then left.
I thought nothing of it and continued with my shopping. After I finished, I decided to stop by the food court on the way out for some lunch. So I went and made my way across the supermarket. I ordered my food, sat down, and waited. But by some cosmic gracing of bad luck that is the exact moment that this child and their parent decided to walk close by.
I heard the child tell the mother about what I told her. About how my dog is working as a guide dog, that I’m blind, and use him to get around, etc. The mother isn’t really saying anything but I can sort of tell by her tone and the few words she does say that she is seeing some issue with what her daughter was told. I decided to listen in and after the daughter finished her babbling, the mother came up to me.
Now as I said, people coming up to me is super common. I thought nothing much of it. However, the first words out of her mouth were: "Why did you tell my daughter you’re blind"? Her tone was very harsh, very accusatory. I immediately knew what was coming but, as usual, I put on a smile. Me: "Because I am blind. Your daughter asked me about my dog, so I explained what guide dogs are and why we use them"
Her: "You’re not blind" Me: "Excuse me"? The straight words caught me off guard. Her: "You’re not blind. My cousin is blind, so I know what a blind person is like. You shouldn’t lie about that. I think you should let my daughter pet the dog, she likes dogs. It’s pretty awful to refuse a child something like that" My hackles rose slightly.
Me: "Well, ma’am. Not all blind people are the same. Just because you know a single blind person, doesn’t mean you know how all blind people are. And as I already explained, your daughter can’t pet my dog due to him being a seeing-eye dog". Her: "Why are you lying? Your eyes are completely fine. You’re using a phone! Don’t say you’re blind if you’re gonna show you’re not at the same time! Why would you lie about this"?
Me: "Excuse me, but I am not lying. My eyes looking ‘fine’ have nothing to do with anything. Not every blind person’s eyes look the same. Look, you’re stressing me out. I’d rather you just left me alone". Her: "My daughter wants to pet your dog! She’s been well behaved all through today and it’s more than reasonable to let her pet the dog!’ Me: "I said no. I don’t know why you can’t just accept my answer".
Her: "You said no using that BS excuse! You’re honestly starting to make me angry, I don’t know who you think you are, but I happen to work for [I can’t actually remember where she said], and if you don’t stop it, I’ll get security to throw you and your fake guide dog out of here"! Now I’m sure you get the picture. This went on for a good 5 minutes of her getting progressively more and more angry at the fact I wouldn’t let her daughter pet my dog.
The daughter was actually silent through the whole thing. I don’t really think she even cared that much. The mother, however, was a raging psycho. Eventually, she screamed out: "That’s it! I’m going to get security! If you’re smart you’ll be gone by the time I get back or you’ll regret it"! I snorted at her small fit and heard her huff and storm off.
By that time my food had arrived so I started eating. I didn’t really believe she’d go to get security, but with entitled parents, you cannot be sure. About, I dunno, five minutes or so went by of me eating. I was enjoying my fries, browsing the internet in bliss. But of course, she returned. I heard her stupid stomping from like 15 feet away.
She was raging on to a security guard. Her: "Look! That’s her! You see? She’s sitting there with a dog! She says it’s a guide dog but she’s not blind! You have to kick her out, dogs aren’t allowed"! I sighed and removed an earbud to prepare for the incoming ordeal. A deep male voice sounded from a few feet in front of me. He sounded rather defeated.
He said: "Uh, Miss, is this a service dog"? Me: "Yes, it is. He is a seeing-eye dog. I am allowed to take him in here. I have a copy of the appropriate law if you need it"? Guard: "No that’s fine. I know service dogs are allowed. This woman is saying you aren’t disabled though, is that true"? Me: "No. She’s just angry that I didn’t let her daughter touch my dog. I honestly don’t know why she cares"
Her: "Because you’re a liar! I told you, I have a blind cousin! Don’t try to tell me I don’t understand blind people because I do"! Me: (I directed my attention to the security guard) "I’ve tried to explain to her that one blind person doesn’t represent all blind people, but she doesn’t seem to get it. Could you please ask her to leave me alone? I just wanna eat in peace"
Guard: "So you are blind"? Me: "Yes, I am" Guard: "Can you prove it in any way"? Me: "Uh, no, how could I do that? And why"? Guard: "Well, it’s just that she is saying one thing, you’re saying another thing. I don’t exactly know who to believe. But yeah I see how proving you’re blind doesn’t really work". (He spoke to the woman) "Why is it exactly that you think she’s lying"?
Her: "Are you serious? Are you thick? Look at her eyes! They’re not white or cloudy like blind people’s are. She’s literally looking at a freaking phone"! SG1: (He spoke to me) "Uh, what’s your response"? Me: (I sighed) "Maybe her cousin has those eye symptoms, but not every blind person does. Those symptoms are caused by diseases like cataracts, which I don’t have. As for the phone, devices have been accessible to the blind for years. I find it surprising she has a cousin who is blind and doesn’t know that".
Her: "No I saw you look at the phone! You were LOOKING at it"! Me: "I have basic light perception. I can detect light. I direct my eyes to it out of habit because that’s where my hands are occupied. Look it’s not my job to educate you on what you don’t know". (I spoke to the guard) "Please, please just ask her to leave me alone. I don’t care if she doesn’t believe me, you don’t need to stand here and mediate a back and forth as if we’re going to agree. I’d just like her to stop talking to me and leave me in peace. I’m feeling extremely harassed".
Guard: "Yeah I get that. It’s just that, I can’t know for sure if you’re blind, so she might have a valid point". Me: "What? That applies to every blind person. How can anyone prove that? If she has no reasons for me lying then shouldn’t you just give me the benefit of the doubt"? Guard: "I don’t know, she said her cousin is blind, she probably knows something about it" Me: (I paused for a second) "Wow. I’m not even going to bother. Look, if you’re not going to get her away from me then I’m just going to leave. Thanks for failing to protect a disabled patron".
I stood up to leave, my dog getting up to guide me. I took a few steps and suddenly felt someone grab hold of my harness handle tightly and pull me to a stop. Her: "Wait! I said I wanted you to let my daughter pet the dog. THEN you can leave". Me: "NO! GET OFF MY HARNESS! GET OFF"! Now understand, grabbing my harness is akin to someone taking away your eyes. She was impeding my means of navigating. So I panicked.
This has only happened to me once before and I panicked then too. I attempted to pull my harness handle back, all the while screaming. "GET OFF! LET GO! HELP"! And her screaming in my ear about...actually I wasn’t exactly listening as I was too busy screaming. But I assume it had something to do with her daughter. The security guard was fumbling around fairly uselessly. Eventually, another security guard hurried over.
I heard him bark out. Guard 2: "What’s going on"?! Me: "SHE’S TAKING MY GUIDE DOG! HELP ME! SHE WON’T LET GO"! Her: "No! She’s supposed to let my daughter pet her dog! He said so"! (I assume she pointed to the guard) The guard didn’t respond, but the way the conversation went, it seemed like he non-verbally indicated that he hadn’t said that.
Guard 2: "Miss, let go of the lady’s dog, right now. Or I’ll need you to leave". Her: "No! She’s not blind! The dog isn’t real! Don’t just jump in and assume you know what’s going on"! Me: (I had calmed slightly, so I could speak in a more coherent manner) "Please just get her off of me. I want to leave. I don’t feel safe. Let me leave"! Guard 2: "Hey you’re alright miss, everything’s gonna be fine"
I then felt the woman’s hand being forcibly removed from the handle. As soon as I was free, I immediately commanded Gumbo to lead me to the exit. We walked quickly. I heard the woman screeching loudly behind me. The man shouting: "Calm down! Just stop screaming"! I was still somewhat panicked, but I was able to calm myself down as I hurried toward the exit.
It was so chaotic I very nearly forgot my shopping where I left it at customer services, because I didn’t want to have it around me in the food court where it could be snatched. I left, called a taxi, and came home. It has really stuck with me for the last couple days. But the worst part is that these types of interactions are an almost daily occurrence.
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26. When Family Is The Real Weight
My two brothers have always been naturally skinny and maintained an active lifestyle throughout most of their life. I, on the other hand, was born on the pudgier side and never really had an interest in sports other than swimming but didn't get (nor want at the time) to work on that hobby. By the time I was in the army, I was quite heavy at 246 pounds.
While I was never teased about my weight, my family and especially my mother enjoyed poking fun at it: my eating habits, mom rolling her eyes whenever someone commented I've lost weight, and so on. Since she was (and still is) quite the blob herself, I just ignored her or commented as such. But, being stationed in a far-away base where combat units were also serving, most of the guys in my base were quite fit.
I wasn't assigned a combative role due to a medical condition. No, it didn't have to do anything with weight, but a very minor birth defect that I was rid of by the time I was 12. The army said they "didn't want to take any chances to put me in harm’s way". So, instead of putting me in a combat role, they decided to have me on the oh-so-safe field of heavy-duty machinery.
Anyway, again most of the men serving in my unit were very fit and very muscular and while I was never jealous of them nor teased for being fat, one day I just took a good look in the mirror and was like "Hmm. I can do better". And so I decided to start and change things; I'd watch very carefully what I ate, drank mostly water, joined the boys on their evening jogs, convince my sergeant friend to get me access to their gym and have him train me in Krav-Maga a few times a week if he was able to.
I kept on to what I was doing and was very strict at keeping at it until I reached my target weight. Soon enough I had to pay a visit to the quartermaster's and get a smaller-sized uniform. After a year and a half of regular exercise, weight lifting, and a healthy diet, I lost a lot of weight (a few pounds shy of the target) and built quite a lot of muscle mass.
In all honesty, it was my sergeant friend who convinced me to visit their gym and encouraged me to lose weight. Man, am I glad I listened. While I was very proud of the progress I've made, my family, who have teased me about my big fat behind for most of my life, weren't as happy as I was. Instead, they said nothing. The teasing has stopped but there wasn't much beyond that.
Other than a semi-compliment like "Did you take this shirt from one of your brothers"? whenever I wore something that actually fit me or "Why are you still wearing this huge thing"? if I kept clothing from the time I was bigger. I still got comments during meals if I took an extra scoop but whatever, I didn't care, I didn't lose weight to get compliments.
Moving on, by the time I turned 22, I was back into civilian life as well as working myself through university with a part-time job. Also, during that time I have saved enough to afford a membership at a gym close to campus. While I was being the healthiest and most physically fit I've ever been my entire life, my older brother wasn't faring as well.
He had stopped jogging and was getting chubbier every day. He's still not obese by any chance but he's not nearly as fit as he used to be (and he's only in his late 30s). It only got worse at family gatherings, especially weddings where a lot of distant relatives and those we don't get to meet often would also be present. Also, I'm a massive introvert so fully packed events are not my thing.
I'd often avoid those and barely even met with my extended family during my service. So you can imagine some of my relatives shock seeing me over a hundred lbs. lighter, some didn't even recognize me. I guess my brother got some comments from people because he'd no longer look smug whenever he looked at me. About eight months into my membership there, my mom sat me down (I was still living at home) and the conversation went as follows:
Me: "What's up? Is everything ok"? My mom: "Everything is fine honey but I just wanted to talk to you about something". I already had a bad feeling. These conversations always seemed to be about me doing something wrong. My mom: "Well, you know your father and I are very proud of how far you've come, you're looking very handsome". Me: "Thanks mom".
My mom: "But, me and dad are little worried. With all the expenses we have along with your tuition and not your gym membership, we're getting a little tight. Can you cancel your membership please? We can no longer afford it". Me: "Uh, mom you guys don't pay for my gym membership. I do". BM: "And who gave you that money"?
Me: "It's money I've saved from birthdays, allowance (from way back when) and work. Also, I'm on a scholarship so you do know you guys aren't paying for school either right"? My mom: (getting frustrated) "Well, you can't go to your gym anymore". Me: "And why is that"? My mom: "Because we (she and dad) think your older brother should use it instead. He really wants to go to that gym but he can't afford it. It really depresses him, don't you think it's mean of you to keep going there while he cannot"?
Me: "Mom, be real, he makes twice the money I make so he can afford a gym membership on his own. That said, the gym isn't located anywhere near his apartment". My mom: "That doesn't matter. We decided that you can't go anymore, it's not fair towards your brother. You're going to cancel your membership and that's final".
Me: "No". My mom: "Well, I will be giving them a call to cancel it for you (impossible unless she can imitate my voice and had my credit card). Stop being selfish and be more fair towards your brother. Why can't you just do this one thing for your brother? It's bad enough he stopped he quit jogging, you're not helping with what you're doing! Come on! Be more considerate! Also, think about your father".
Me: "Dad has a problem with me working out too"? My mom: "You know how can barely move with his bad back"! Me: "Mom, dad can move just fine. Just yesterday I helped him clear out the garage". He had his own gym membership which he had to quit only recently due to covid. My mom: "You're not being fair"! Me: (holding onto my last nerve) "Mom, I'm not going to stop working out because some 30+ man baby hates seeing me getting healthier while he tries tucking in his gut. If my looser jeans affect my brother so much, he can get up and do something about it. Funny, how you've never said anything to either of (my brothers) to tone it down while I was fat".
My mom: "How dare you say that about your brother"? At that point, I just got up and went on my business while she sulked and gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. However, during meal times she'd try to get me to eat (a lot more) more or cook very fatty things, buy only sugar-packed drinks, bring up fast food places whenever we went eating out, and then get mad at me whenever I said that McDonald’s is not a restaurant.
Whatever she tried to do didn't work, and I soon began buying my type of soft drinks myself or just drink more water if I drank anything that wasn't either sugar-free or diet. Now, even though my dad supported my older brother, he didn't say much and I have no idea why she even brought him up. I lived with them for four more years until I've saved enough to move out in 2015. After that, I cut all contact with the three of them.
27. A Wild Karen Appears
This happened this morning between 9 and 10 am. I went to the supermarket to grab a few things for lunch and dinner. It's early and slow so the store only had the self-checkout and one register open. As got to the register I see a young woman, early twenties, with a sleeping baby in her arms and a basket with formula, diapers, over-the-counter baby items, for diaper rash, and several prescriptions that were paid for at the pharmacy.
The girl gets to the register before me and then I saw the rampaging Karen come out of the aisle right in front of me. I knew there'd be trouble from the oversized sunglasses, Karen Haircut, yoga pants three sizes smaller than they should have been, that I'll bet had never seen the inside of a gym or yoga studio. She has maybe a dozen items in her cart.
At the time, the clerk, the 20-something, and I are wearing the required masks, but of course; Karen can't be bothered. The store has markings on the floor for social distancing, but of course, that doesn't apply to the wild Karen. The young mother is holding the sleeping baby and trying to fish her wallet out of her small purse, while also holding the diaper bag and usual baby accessories.
The cashier hadn't even finished ringing the girl up when the wild Karen start in a loud voice complaining about "unprepared shoppers" not even having their money ready. Karen's cart is almost touching the 20-something's leg. Naturally, Karen's complaint at full volume had the unfortunate effect of waking the sleeping infant who registered his displeasure by letting anyone within hearing know.
The mother was attempting to calm the infant and still get her wallet out of her purse. The fact that Karen had to wait and now had to listen to the infant she woke up, caused another nasty rant. I'm in line behind Karen at this point—and then she gets on my last nerve. She's been breathing the cashier for not being fast enough and then God only knows what lack of brain cells caused her to do this, but snaps at the young mother that "she should make that brat be quiet".
She then decided to attack the girl snapping that if she didn't dress like a "tramp" she wouldn't have gotten "knocked up". Since it was obvious that her jeans were too tight as was her top. For Christ's sake, she had a baby a couple of months before. The young mother was beet-red, the cashier was in shock, the infant not liking the noise was letting it be known that he wasn't happy.
Karen had gotten on my last nerve and being old, sick, and in a bad mood and with a worse temper, I let loose. I slipped up past Karen and tossed my card to the cashier, and told her the young lady's bill is on me. That got Karen to start again only for me to loudly say, "Shut up, I'm as tired of your mouth as the little man is"!
That stunned Karen only sputtered while the young mother thanked me and gave the infant her full attention. Karen is fuming and starts heaving her items onto the belt, but apparently, her mouth recovered before her brain. As soon as the cashier finished ringing her up and asked for payment, Karen turned toward me and sneered, "Well aren't you going to pay for mine as well"?
I was done with her and responded, "No, I don't like people who wake up sleeping infants with their big mouths". She huffed and stormed out, I was hoping for an "I demand to speak to the Manager", but you can't have everything. I headed to my car and was pulling out of the parking lot when the saw the young mother sitting at the bus stop holding the infant.
Buses out where I live run every hour, so I decided to offer her a ride. Turns out she lived only a couple of miles away, under five minutes by car but a couple of hours on foot carrying a baby and supplies. She took the risk that I was a creep since I snapped at Karen's rant. I learned that she and her husband we new to the area, and that they had moved for his job.
I asked her about the little man and learned that as her husband got paid they bought more of the stuff the baby needed, but right now they were making do with what they had. I wrote an address down and told her that if her husband was off Saturday, she should have him bring them to the address for a yard sale with tons of baby stuff my niece was getting rid of.
She told me that she'd do that and thanked me again for everything. I dropped them off and made it home, and gave my niece a call describing the girl and infant and telling her to give the couple anything they liked and I cover whatever they couldn't afford. I like babies and have no tolerance for Karens. How dare anyone be in front of her or not dress according to your standards? You’re nuts!
28. So Angry My Head Is Swimming
When I was 30 I bought my very first house. It's a beautiful four bedroom, two bath with a fenced-in backyard and an inground pool. I love my home. I work crazy hours at a factory 12 hours a day 5 to 7 days a week. I saved up everything I could for just over seven years so I could have my forever home. The entire neighborhood is extremely friendly, and everyone looks out for one another. After about a year, I got to know just about everyone within a couple blocks from my place.
It was around this time when my neighbor came over and chatted with me for a good hour or so when she had asked if it would be possible for her kids to come over and use the pool once in a while. And to be honest, I was completely fine with this. I was just happy that she had asked and was so polite about it. I told them they're free to use it when I'm at work because of my 12-hour days.
Though every two weeks, I switch from days to nights. I told her that it’s okay as long as they don’t use it on days that I have to do nights because I'll be sleeping during the day. And as long as she asks and cleans up after they're done then I have no problem with it. This worked out very well for about a month, month-and-a-half.
Then, a couple of the other families had started asking if their kids could use it. I was a little hesitant letting too many in my backyard at once. So we ended up all getting together to discuss. There were a total of nine families with 12 children. We didn't have a public pool near us, so I had told them I really don't mind if anyone uses the pool, but I had a few rules that had to be followed.
If they weren't followed for any reason, I would put a stop to them using the pool. My rules are as follows. They could not come inside the house. All kids had to be supervised by an adult. No one could come in alone. They had to inform me either the night before or earlier in the morning of when they wanted to use the pool so I knew who was coming and I knew who was going to be there to supervise.
They could not bring anyone else over. They had to clean up after themselves. Every family agreed to these rules, and they all thought that they were completely fair. For the first month things were going very smoothly. After that, it started getting too cold, and I told everyone that I will be closing the pool at the end of the week. To my surprise, when the end of the week arrived, many of the families had come over and had actually helped me take care of the backyard.
We prepared the pool for winter, and we did a bit of cleaning in the backyard. Afterward, we ended up having a really nice barbecue. It is now 17 years later. I’ve continued to allow them to bring over their kids to use the pool. Every year, these families come over and help me open up the pool and put it away for the winter and we have a big barbecue. It's been wonderful. But, there have been a couple problems along the way.
One of the big ones that sticks out happened after six years of living here. I was getting ready to leave for vacation. Wasn't anything big or fancy. I was just going away for four days to spend time with my family. So I informed everyone that for the next four days the pool will be closed because I will be leaving. So the day I’m supposed to leave, I'm at the airport, but my plane was delayed.
We all know that feeling. It was starting to get late, and after waiting there most of the day, I’m told the flight won’t be leaving until tomorrow. Naturally, I was rather irritated after sitting there all day waiting, so I went back to my house. I was quite tired. I just wanted to go lay down and go to sleep to be ready for the next day. I got into my door and I'm getting ready to go up the stairs, when I heard this weird noise and splashing.
Mind you, this is after 11 at night. I go to my back door, open it up, and turn on the porch light only to find a couple in my pool doing it...and you will never believe what they did. They actually got angry with me because I was disturbing them! I. flipped. I demanded to know what the heck they were doing and how did they get in through the locked gate?
This is a couple that I had never met. I had no idea who these people were. The woman had the audacity to say, "What are you doing here? You were supposed to be gone for four days"! I was dumbfounded...I didn't know who they were but they knew I wasn't going to be here for four days? I turned around and I walked into my house. I didn't even bother arguing with them.
I picked up the phone and I called the authorities. I told him there was a couple I don't know that broke into my backyard and are in my pool doing it, and that they somehow knew I was going to be gone for the next four days. Within 15 minutes, two cruisers showed up at my house. They went out to the back to find that the couple were still at it.
I mean can you believe it?! Most people would have gotten embarrassed being caught in someone else's pool, and would have taken off, but no!! not these two, they actually went back to doing it after getting angry with me ‘cause I came back early. The couple get angry and both start saying "Seriously? you called 9-1-1 on us"? Like I had disturbed them and it was their inconvenience.
The officers took them aside and got them dressed. It turns out that they are friends with one of the families that I allowed to come over to use the pool. And they had heard that I would be gone for the next four days. They figured since I was fine with letting other people use my pool, that I wouldn’t mind if they did. They had hopped over my locked fence—but that’s not the most disturbing part.
They had the nerve to tell the officers that I should be detained for being a perv watching them. Needless to say, I pressed charges and the two of them spent the rest of the night in custody. I also went about making sure they could no longer come on my property. That was one of two of the biggest problems I had. The second one happened this summer. 17 years later.
I had told everyone that the pool would be closed because my family was coming to spend the week with me. Everyone was completely understanding. Both of my immediate neighbors knew that I was going to be leaving on Sunday to go pick up my family, and that was the day that the pool was officially closed. I went to the airport and I picked up my family. I was so happy to see them.
We get all their luggage, and we're driving home. As I'm pulling into my street I notice cop cars and I’m thinking oh no, what happened? I hope everyone's all right. As I'm pulling up to my house I see all three cars are at my house. Now I'm starting to panic, thinking oh my God, what's happened? I pull in and I hear screaming from a couple different people and an officer comes up to me.
I asked them: "What's going on?? This is my home, what happened"? The officer asked me for my name and said well we got a call from your neighbor saying someone had broken in. He tells us that the ambulance is on their way. My parents, my siblings, and their two kids are all worried, and asking a bunch of questions, when we see this woman come out of my backyard in a bikini with blood dripping down her arm.
She has four kids and one of them has blood on their foot. She looks at me and says "You!!! this is your house, this is all your fault". I'm completely dumbstruck. So many questions went through my mind. Who is this woman?? Who are these children? What were they doing in my backyard? How did they get hurt?? Two officers take her to the side with her kids and one cop comes to speak with me.
He told me this woman had jumped over the fence with her kids, so that they could go swimming in my pool. Apparently, she had heard that anyone could use my pool at any given time. Turns out she had just moved into the neighborhood a couple months ago and she is about two blocks away from me. After swimming for about 15-20 minutes, her youngest needed to use the bathroom.
So she tried to get into my back door but it was locked. Apparently, her kid needed to go and couldn't wait till they got home, so she decided to break the window on my door to unlock it, cutting her arm in the process. When she got in, she went looking for a cloth for her bloody arm. Her son then started running through my house and bumped into a glass vase, knocking it over and shattering it.
He stepped on the broken glass and that's how he cut his foot. My neighbors had heard the commotion and went into the backyard to see this woman breaking into my house, so they called the authorities. This woman was screaming at the top of her lungs saying she's going to sue me because she hurt herself in my house, and why would I keep my door locked when I'm fine with people using the pool?
She screams how dare I have glass that would hurt any kid in my house? I went inside and I saw the damage. Sure enough, there was glass shattered all over my living room floor. There was blood and water all over my house since they had run all over trying to find the bathroom. There was blood all over my kitchen and on all of my counters from her frantically opening up every drawer to try and find a cloth to take care of her arm and her son's foot.
Two officers had come in and I was just sitting there. I didn't know what to do. I could not believe that this had happened. They asked a bunch of questions and after talking with them they realized that I did not know this woman. She didn’t have permission to come into my locked backyard or to break into my locked house. Of course, I pressed charges, and I had demanded that she pay for all the damages.
It took a while and we had to go to small claims court. She fought it with everything she could. She would run around telling anyone and everyone how horrible I was and how dangerous it was at my house. However, no one in the neighborhood would listen to her. Everyone knows my five rules, and that as long as those are followed, there are no problems.
In the end, it took about two months and she had to pay for all the damages she had caused. She wound up moving within three months because no one wanted to talk to her after this. The group of people who I allowed to come over, which is pretty much everyone within a couple of blocks of me, were all worried that I would close the pool from now on because of this incident.
I told them I'm not going to punish them because of what one woman had done. I did, however, tell everyone that I was going to put up cameras for my own safety so that I don't have to worry when I leave the house, and everybody was fine with this. The cameras go up in three days and I will not be leaving my home until they’re installed.
Needless to say, the first two days were ruined for my family gathering, but the rest of the visit was wonderful. My family helped clean the mess this inconsiderate woman had left.
29. The Lights Are On, But No One’s Home
I bought my first flat when I was in my twenties. I rented out a room to a guy from Poland. I was seeing someone for a while, let's call her Gia. Gia lived with two other girls one of whom I’ll call Karen. Gia and I broke up and that whole friend group ditched me. My career went pretty well, and I bought a house in the suburbs. I decided to let my roommate stay in the flat on the same rent, with the proviso that he not sublet.
I get the mortgage covered and a tenant who is better at maintaining the place than I am, he gets a two-bed flat for half price. A few years on, my old roommate and his girlfriend are moving home to Poland. His girlfriend has already gone back, but when I'm over sorting some stuff with him, I see a huge pile of moving boxes etc., in the spare room
I ask: "Oh, is that your girlfriend’s stuff? Are you going to be able to fit all that in the car"? "Uh, no, that's Karen's stuff. She asked if she could leave it here while we were still here". As it turns out, Karen was still friends with his girlfriend. She found out they were leaving, and that their rent was a pretty good deal.
She told the girlfriend that she had squared it all with me, and that she was going to take it all over. What followed was panic and confusion. I have not spoken to this person in years. She thinks that she is going to move into my flat, and doesn't even ask? How the heck does she even intend to pay rent, given she has made zero attempts to contact me. And why would I not go for market rate??
I'm honestly baffled, and somewhat morbidly fascinated to find out how she thinks this is going to work. I don't really want to get into some kind of ridiculous squatters' rights squabble with them, so I contacted my solicitor (think a non-trial lawyer). She recommends I get the locks changed, install a security camera, and to send the inevitable roof hitting her way when Karen turns up and tries to get in.
I actually think she's quite excited by the drama. I explain all this to the roommate. He agrees to move out two weeks early, and even helps me fit the doorbell camera. He really was the best. Today at lunchtime, Karen turned up and tried to get in the flat, and she was not alone. My ex Gia was with her, and they had a key.
I feel stupid for not remembering that Gia probably had one from when we were together. I didn't think she'd keep it after she ditched me, but probably should have changed locks back then. Oops. Sorry tenants, my ex had a key to your flat the whole time. Camera didn't get the preamble but they came up to the door and tried a key".
It's not working". Some fumbling. "He's changed the lock". Some more descriptive language, presumably about me and my parentage that I can't wait to have a solicitor read back to them. They continue to take turns trying the key. I connect at this point but don't say anything. They try the doorbell but it doesn't make any noise because I'm connected.
I think it's lit up but I guess they don't realize that means I'm watching. I thought Ring cameras had a siren to give them a fright, but I couldn't find it. They bang on the door and window a bit before walking off. I stayed listening through the camera but didn't hear anything. Still eerily quiet on phone. Video sent to solicitor anyway. Then, I get two calls from unknown numbers.
After a whole bunch of phone calls from random numbers, I finally got one from Gia’s father. He was always a gentleman who I got on with, so I sent him a polite message saying if this was about the flat, please direct this to my solicitor and gave him the details. He said OK. I did some snooping on social media (I deleted my Facebook years ago). It seems that Gia and Karen's other housemate is getting married soon.
They were all living rent-free in the bride's nan's old house, so I'm guessing impending nuptials are the reason Gia and Karen are looking for somewhere new and cheap to live. Not really my problem though. Then, it took a turn from the entitled to just plain dumb. Karen, Gia and Gia’s dad met with solicitor, where they unveiled their secret weapon.
They had a copy of my lease with the Polish roommate. I was right, in that their rent-free ride was over, and they had no money saved. Gia had been used to me as a cash machine for years, I guess, so thought I would just roll over? So these brainiacs’ plan was that they would take over the existing lease agreement from the roommate and his girlfriend without my involvement.
They had a key, they had my payment details from the tenancy agreement. Luckily, the account’s sole purpose was for rent, so I can change that number easily. They thought they could just write their names on the form as well and it would be legally binding. Never mind the fact that there is no subletting, the agreement was with someone else, and the agreement was terminated by the old roommate.
The solicitor says they only tried to argue their point for a minute before giving up. Meeting at her office gave her real homefield psychological advantage I think. That and, you know, every freaking law in the land. She was laughing on the phone about it. Honestly, these people are nearly 40. How they have no idea how a lease works is beyond me.
Long stupid story short, Gia’s dad has agreed to pay a moving company to collect the boxes and bring them to his house. I need to be there for that, but I will slam the door at the first sign of anyone other than a mover. I'm out about 350 quid in solicitors fees. I can accept that. I mean I'd preferred not to have that happen, but who knows what would have happened if they got in or got their day in court.
At least I'll always have a video of my ex failing to pull a fast one on me, and the record of her being called to my solicitor’s office like they've been called to the office by the head teacher.
30. If A Tree Falls In The Suburbs…
I have been living away from home ever since graduating from college. My parents both retired recently and last summer they decided to use some of the money they'd saved up to finally build their dream retirement home in New Orleans, where they've been living for the past ten years. I come from a very tight-knit family so I still talk to my parents every week, and they were so excited when they said they'd already picked out the location where they wanted the house built.
It was an empty lot in a nice neighborhood where a house had been demolished not long before due to age, and the previous owner, who was pretty wealthy and owned numerous properties around the city, decided that the lot was worth more without the house on it. Anyway, my parents snapped it up as soon as it came on the market, but not long after construction began, they realized that they were building their dream house right next door to the lair of a wild Karen.
The trouble started when my parents had to cut down a large oak tree that sat in the front of the lot. It was a real beauty, too, one of those big southern live oaks, and although they didn't want to, they knew they had to remove it because it was in the way. No one likes to cut down a big beautiful tree, and believe me, if there was a way to avoid doing it without impeding the construction, my parents would have taken it.
So they called a tree removal service, and the tree was soon gone. Well, a few days after the tree had been cut down, my dad was on the property talking to some of the construction guys and making sure everything was going smoothly. He was going back to his car when he saw a woman in her late 50s walk out of the house next door and head to her mailbox.
My dad—let's call him John—is a pretty chill and laid-back guy who likes to be on good terms with everyone, so he walked over and introduced himself. "Hi," he said, holding out his hand. "My name's John and my wife and I are going to be your neighbors once our house is finished. I just wanted to come over and say hi and introduce myself. It's nice to meet you. What's your name"?
Karen glanced at the extended hand, then looked up at my dad and glared at him. "My name is none of your business," she snapped. "I'm not going to shake your hand because of Covid, and even if there was no Covid, I still wouldn't shake your hand because you people ruined my life when you cut down my tree! I still can't believe how selfish you are. You should both be ashamed of yourselves"!
My dad was taken aback by this and pointed out that Karen already had a nice big oak tree in her backyard, but Karen ignored him and stalked back inside her house. She never explained why she thought she was the owner of the tree that had been cut down, not once, and whenever my parents asked about it, she refused to answer.
I guess it’s just one of those things we’ll never know, like what really happened to the lost Roanoke colony or the fate of D.B. Cooper. My parents met some of their other neighbors later that day, including a nice elderly couple who lived in the other house next door to Karen's, and when my dad told them what happened, the neighbors said Karen was like that to everyone and no one in the neighborhood liked her.
They also said that Karen had been nasty to them for a long time and they were in the process of selling their house because they couldn't stand living next door to her anymore. Karen soon began living up to her reputation. For months, whenever my parents would visit the house to see how the construction was coming along, she'd find something to complain or confront them about.
One time she said the construction workers were being too loud and threatened to call the authorities, even though it was the middle of the day. Another time she said that the construction company was using undocumented immigrants as cheap labor and threatened to call ICE and have the whole project shut down. My dad mentioned this to the owner of the company, and the owner sent Karen a formal letter threatening a lawsuit if she tried.
I don't know if there were any actual grounds for a lawsuit, but the threat must have worked because ICE never showed up. Oh, and then there was the time she tried to have my parents' car towed for parking when they parked by the curb of their still-unfinished house. The first my parents knew about this was when the tow truck showed up, but the driver took one look at where my parents' car was parked and told Karen he'd send her a bill for wasting his time if she called him again.
I could go on. Karen did everything she could think of try and interfere. She was absolutely relentless in her crusade to avenge a tree she never even owned. Happily, the house was completed despite her best efforts and my parents finally moved in not long after the holidays. My mom told me later that she caught Karen watching them bitterly from her window as they were taking some of their boxes inside. She was concerned that Karen might keep going and try something else, but I guess Karen was too busy wallowing in self-pity over her failure or something because things were actually quiet for a while.
But a few weeks ago, things changed. New Orleans has had some really bad weather lately due to the winter storms that are battering much of the southern US right now, and one night, one of those storms was so powerful that it knocked over the tree in Karen's backyard. It missed falling onto her house, but it didn't miss falling onto her shiny new Jaguar and crushing it like a can.
According to my folks, Karen didn't discover what happened until the following morning. When she came outside and saw the pile of scrap metal that used to be her car, she threw back her head and let out a primal scream like something out of The Exorcist. She had to pay a tree removal service to get rid of the tree, and then she had to pay for a tow truck to get rid of the car too, and then she had to get a rental car too.
Karen put her property up for sale and moved out not long afterward. Everyone in the neighborhood was glad to see her go, and my parents enjoyed watching her drive off into the sunset from the front porch of their amazing new house.
31. Comically Entitled
This happened back in the 90s when I had my second comic store. One afternoon I was in my store going thru inventory when a woman walked in. This was unusual back then because, well it was. I saw that she did have the precursor to what would become the "Karen Cut," was wearing large rimmed glasses and a skirt that was the style back then.
I figured she might be looking for a gift for her son, so I asked her if I could help. She asked me if I bought boxes of comics. I told her usually not, unless there was something I could use but I would take a look. So we go to her car and bring in a couple of long boxes. (These hold about 300 unbagged/boarded books or 250 boarded) and I went thru them.
They were all bagged and seemed to be in good shape. They were the popular books at that time. X-Men, Hulk, Ghost Rider. I thought I could sell them and offered her $100 for the lot and she accepted. She left and I put the boxes on a table to price them and sort them out. About 20 minutes later a kid (about 12) walks in and looks at the books on the wall and notices the boxes.
He asked if they were for sale and I said yes, but they weren't priced out yet so if there was something he wanted I'd give him the price then and he started looking thru them. After a few seconds, he had a strange look on his face and I asked him if something was wrong. I'll never forget what he said: "These are my books". I said, "What"? and he repeated it.
I asked him if he could verify it and he said that he had a code written on every board and he could recite them. I then pulled out five books at random and he nailed every code. I asked him to describe his mother and he described the woman that sold me the books. I told him not to worry, he'll get them back. I asked for his phone number and I called it, placed it on speaker, and waited.
After a few rings, she answered and I responded. "Mrs. Karen, your son is here and informed me that the books you sold me did not belong to you. Will you please come down and give me back the $100 and he can have his books back as I do not buy stolen merchandise". Her response: "MY SON IS IN YOUR STORE"? She screams at him to get out of there now and never to set foot in there again.
She shrieks that if he ever comes in she will have me locked up. The kid was in tears. All he muttered was, "You took my books". She continues her rant. "I DON'T WANT THAT STUFF IN MY HOUSE. GET OUT NOW"! And then she slams the phone down. I let the kid sit down while I processed what just happened. While this was going on another kid and his mother saw him and said hello, and saw he was crying.
They knew him and the new kid’s mother asked what happened and the kid told her. She was, to say the least, disgusted and said she'll take him home and have a few words with his mother. Before he left I asked him what he wanted to do. He said do whatever it takes. I asked, "What if I need to call the authorities"? He said that would be okay. I said I'm going to try one more thing before that.
About 7:30 that night I called the number (this was before caller ID) and got the father and explained what happened that afternoon. Only thing he said was, "She did what"?? I repeated and again he said the same. Then Karen realized who he was talking to and started screaming. The father just said for her to shut up. Then he thanked me and said he would handle it and asked what time I closed.
About 15 minutes later I see the kid and his father with Karen being dragged along and she is shrieking so loud dogs three counties away had bleeding ears. He drags her in and tells her to give me back the $100. She yells that she doesn't want that stuff in her house and she won't do it. She's going to have me detained for selling this stuff to children and how could they let me open in this town.
She hated Superman and baseball cards. She breaks away from the father and attempts to kick out my showcase and it was only because he managed to grab her collar and yank her back that they weren't smashed. She then tried to shove my computer off the counter but I managed to stop her. The father gave me back what I paid plus a little extra for all the trouble and apologized.
Karen said she'll just set them on fire. Father said no. He is bringing them to his business and would keep them safe from her. He also said he would come with the kid in the future. Later, I found out about the aftermath. Karen basically destroyed the relationship and never apologized. After the kid graduated he joined the army, married, and had a kid.
He doesn't see her often but allows contact when the father is there. All over comic books.
32. Mall Misfortune
My mom is Filipino, but raised in California and doesn’t have an accent or anything, while my dad is a white dude. I look like my dad (pale) and I don’t look Asian at all. This happened when I was an infant, but my mom told me the story because my husband and I are going to have kids soon. It was the most deranged thing I've ever heard.
My family was at the mall, with me in the stroller. Obviously, in comes the Karen. My dad went to the restroom real quick and my mom decided to sit down and wait for him. Karen: "Oh how cute, how old is she"?. Mom: "She’s five months old". The Karen looked at my mom, confused. Karen: "Oh, are you the nanny"? Mom: "nope I’m the…" Karen: "You must be the babysitter".
Mom is in shock. Mom: "No I’m the mom. I gave birth to her". Karen: "But she doesn’t look like you at all". Mom: "Well no, but she does look like her father". Karen: "Nonsense! The child doesn’t look like you and I don’t see a father around! You probably took this poor child". Mom is total shock and scared, then this insane woman tried to take me out of the stroller. Mom: "What the heck are you doing, that’s my baby"!
Karen: "I’m going to find this child’s real parents". My dad comes back out and sees what’s going on and ran to my mom’s side. Dad: "What are you doing, let go of my daughter’s stroller"!. Karen looked at him and then at me, realizing I look like my dad. Karen: "Oh, she does look like her father. Okay, never mind". She walked away. Yes, my parents reported her for attempted kidnapping, but we never found out what happened to her.
33. The Wannabe Firer Becomes The Fired
I work in a hospital that specializes in elective surgeries and my boss is the best in his field. One day, I got a call I’ll never forget. I answer and this entitled jerk yells: "I need an appointment so I can schedule surgery and I was told by the doctor through email to call to be scheduled next week". Me, confused: "I'm sorry, I am not too certain what you are referring to. The doctor is not going to be in the office next week and their next availability for consultations are not until May".
The jerk: "What are you talking about?? They told me in the email to call to schedule it and I am a sitting judge so I need an appointment NEXT WEEK". I say: "Okay ma'am. Give me one moment while I look into this". I put her on hold and walk into my supervisor’s office and ask if my boss had sent word about a last minute patient being added on that I was just unaware of.
They say no, but to ask if the patient can forward the email so we can confirm, as boss was in the OR. This is a common practice in the office I work in as there are instances where boss talks to a patient but forgets to inform the staff. If we are overbooked for a day, my supervisor has to open a specific time frame in order to schedule any last minute patients.
Me: "I'm sorry, ma'am but are you able to forward the email to me? It does not seem there is any record of you coming to our office for an earlier appointment. I just need to confirm before I schedule". For some reason, this statement activates some secret emotional switch in the back of this woman's brain and she immediately becomes more hostile.
Her: "No I will not. I am a sitting judge and you asking me this is extremely rude and unprofessional. I spoke to the doctor through email. Are you actually doubting me right now"? I just said…yeah. They continued: "I can’t believe this. I need to have surgery on X date and you will give it to me". By this point, I was 1000% over this woman.
I said: "Okay, ma'am. I will ask my boss to send me the email when he is out of the OR. So I unfortunately have to get back to you on your appointment date". Her: "Thank you. And just as a word of advice, watch your tone the next time you speak to me". Then she hangs up. A few hours later, my boss comes back into the OR and tells me they have received an email from the judge stating that I was rude and unprofessional to her.
She claimed that I was refusing services to her because I wanted to invade her privacy and she said no. Luckily, I was way ahead of her. The whole time I was on the phone with this patient, my supervisor was in my office listening to the entire call on speaker phone, otherwise no one would have been able to confirm that I was not being unreasonable and rude to this patient.
My boss goes on to explain that they never promised an earlier appointment to her in the first place, but to check with the office to be put on the waitlist for an earlier date. Now knowing that the judge is nothing but a miserable liar that throws tantrums when no one believes her, I asked my boss if it was really worth it keeping her as a patient to which they said no.
While I was happy with this decision because I don't have to deal with her anymore, I felt bad for any other physician that had to deal with this lady in the future. What I didn't know at this point was that my supervisor called patient advocacy—essentially an HR that handles awful patients—and they agreed that her behavior warranted her not to be accepted as a patient BY ANY PHYSICIAN WITHIN THE HOSPITAL.
So now my boss, supervisor, and I have to call her tomorrow to inform the hospital's decision to discharge her. Honestly, karma is not something you should mess with.
34. The Shining, Hospital Edition
When I was 20, I got my tonsils removed. The initial surgery went well but a few hours later, when I woke up from my post anaesthesia nap, I opened my mouth and blood started pouring out. Turns out I had immediate post-op bleeding. I was admitted to the ER and was scheduled to have corrective surgery the next day. But then, tragedy struck.
The doctor for the second surgery got into a freaking car crash on the way to the hospital. My surgery was postponed for three days and I was moved out of the ER and into a regular hospital bed. I was in pain, starving, and every time I opened my mouth blood would pour out. The person in the bed next to me had a host of entitled visitors (I think they were family) who were constantly talking at max volume.
I decided to try and politely ask for them to keep the volume down a little, and boy that was a mistake. Me: "Hey guys, would you mind keeping the volume down a little? I’m trying to sleep but it feels like you’re talking very loudly and the curtain doesn’t block out the sound that well so I can hear everything". The patient says: "Ignore her. I haven’t seen any doctors or specialists come and check on her since she’s been here, only nurses. Obviously, she’s not that sick, she’s just being overdramatic and is annoyed I actually have visitors".
Me: "Actually the reason is…" One of their visitors then noticed my self-harm scars: "Okay, I think I get it. They didn’t have any space at the funny farm for you so they stuck you with actual sick people"? They all start laughing at this obviously hilarious observation. At this point, I knew I needed to gargle some more hydrogen peroxide before the bloodgates in my mouth release and cause a tsunami of blood.
I said: "You’re absolutely right! My bad I was just…wait…sorry…I just…" At this point, mid-sentence, I simply opened my mouth and blood came pouring out of my mouth and onto my hospital gown, right in front of them. They freaked out. It was horror movie level. I was in a lot of pain and I was internally screaming, but my pettiness got the best of me and I gave them a blood-covered toothy smile.
I then went back to my bed to call a nurse for painkillers and gargle some more hydrogen peroxide.
35. Karen Finally Gets The Manager
This is a tale from one of my jobs in customer service. I work for a moving company that also offers storage services. I specifically work in the claims and disputes department, far enough up the food chain that if you are talking to me, you are most likely going to have a bad day by the time we are through. Roughly 90% of the customers I deal with have their cases sent to me because they are terrorizing the people that work on my team.
So July of 2020, in the middle of our busiest summer ever, this case comes across my desk. So I call this Karen about her pricing dispute that got forwarded to me two and half weeks prior, I see on her account that she has been calling our regular customer service line daily demanding to speak to the CEO or CFO of the company. Why they think they will actually get them is still a mystery to me.
I also see from the agent's notes that she is claiming there is a difference in the price from what the document we sent to her was and what was being billed, odd but not impossible errors happen, but when the agent couldn't resolve her issue immediately the exact way she wanted, out came the swear words and demands to speak to their manager’s manager.
Wonderful. As if my day wasn't hard enough already. She picks up her phone. Karen: "Hello"? Me: "Hi this is (me) with X Moving company calling you on a monitored and recorded line about (insert reference number here) for your billing". Karen: "It is about time you called me, you guys are so incompetent, literally all you do is take people’s money, my god I was about to file a complaint with the BBB".
Me: "My apologies, unfortunately due to current events there has been an unprecedented number of people moving which has caused delays in every department, which is why I am calling you today, I see that you have spoken to (insert other agents name here) and you weren't able to reach a resolution so this was escalated to me. I'm reaching out so we can try to get a resolution on this matter as soon as possible".
Karen: "Oh good finally someone with sense in your company, so you're calling to credit me back for everything I've spent with your company"? Me stopping, hoping I hear her wrong: "Excuse me"? Karen: "That's what my dispute was for, everything I have spent with your company for the last three years, I was originally going to do it with my bank but my banker explained that a claim that large would mean having to close out then reopen my entire account and it would be so much easier of I handled it through your company since you were the one billing me".
I am floored by this. This woman stored with us for almost three years before having all of her stuff shipped almost four thousand miles away from her starting area. We are talking billing in the range of about 15 thousand dollars. We are definitely not one of the cheap services in this field, and people usually pay the extra because of the reputation we have.
Me: "Ummm, no, I am calling you about the specifics of your dispute, I see you didn't give them to the customer service agent when you spoke to them or the other claims agent, what part of this isn’t correct, because from what we can see all of your billing matches up with the order documents we have been sending to your online account as you requested".
You know when people talk about someone going from 0 to 60 at the drop of a pin? Yeah, she got on her high horse and did 0 to 120 in half that time. I legitimately had to take my headset off, holding it at arm’s length and I could still hear her screaming every obscenity in the book at me. After several minutes of this, she seemed to run out of breath (or hot air) and I was able to finally get a word in edge-wise.
Me: "Ma'am it's my job to find the discrepancy in the billing and the documents provided to you, and IF there is a discrepancy in your favor, then credit you back for it, now which parts of this are you showing a different amount charged vs what shows on your bill"? This starts her in on another rant, all be it a much shorter one where she throws a mess of numbers at me.
This is rather confusing to me, as I am not seeing any of the numbers she is giving me on her account. Then it suddenly hits me: Me: "Is the difference you are seeing on the long distance move this dollar amount"? Karen: "That's what I've been saying, god you people need to learn how to listen". Me: "And is the difference you are seeing on these charges this"? Karen: "Yes".
Me: "Oh I see what the problem is, the document you have been referring to must be a quote, because the difference in all of your billing is the taxes. You see quotes don't include the taxes, if you look at the top of the quote it says that in bold".
Karen: "So credit me back the taxes, you never said how much they were or that you were taking them". Me: "I apologize but I can’t do that, when you booked your order, the official document with all taxes, fees, and discounts was presented to you at that time, you have been charged the correct amount". Karen: "Then get me someone who can because I want my money back, you guys are nothing but a bunch of (insert slur) and thieves".
Me: "Ma'am there is no need for the kind of language you have been using on this call, now I regret to inform you of this but nobody in this company can issue you a refund for this matter as it is not a company policy or charge but rather charges that originate at the state and federal levels. I hate paying taxes as much as the next person does, but if you have an issue with those charges, that is something I recommend you reach out to your state senator and discuss it with them".
Karen: "That is unacceptable and unprofessional, I demand to speak to your manager". Me: "Yeah, that's not going to happen, see I am the highest-level person in this company that talks to customers period full stop. There are exactly four people in this company that are above me, none of them talk to customers ever and I have final say on any account or dispute in the company that gets escalated. Basically, I am the manager you have been asking for, and I am telling you no, we will not be issuing a refund on your account".
Karen: "This is unacceptable. I am going to write bad reviews for your company everywhere and report you to the BBB"! Me: "Go ahead, but so you know, any dispute filed to the BBB or social media case opened about this will come across my desk in about two weeks as I am the one closing this dispute and we both know exactly how far that will get you, in addition since all of our calls are recorded, any bad-mouthing you do on social media can and will be removed as there is proof we have been more than accommodating with you in your frivolous demands".
Karen: "Fine, I'm just going to dispute everything with my bank, they will stand with me, they have been my bank for years". Me: "Best of luck with that and have a nice day". Karen hangs up and I get busy notating everything about our exchange on her account as well as her dispute, close her dispute as denied, then send emails to our accounting department and social media departments flagging her name and account, listing the details of what happened.
Now this wouldn't be as satisfying without the follow-up I got later. After my lovely conversation with this Karen in July, in early September I got an email from our accounting department with a note saying she had tried disputing it with her bank and when they had reached out to us about the matter we provided them with all of the documentation for her billing, including the quote she had based everything off of that had the disclaimer about taxes in bold on top.
Needless to say, she didn't win that, so all of her accounts had to be closed then reopened for no reason. But wait, it gets better. Later that month, I get an email from my social media team, she had tried filing a complaint with the BBB which was dismissed when we sent them a transcript of her call with me. Then she tried bashing the company on social media.
This was also very short-lived as the social media team responded to her saying something along the lines that taxes weren't something to make numerous slurs about an individual for. They had sent me a screenshot of the responses other people were making on her post that were just tearing her a new one before she eventually deleted it.
I haven't heard anything else about this Karen but with her antics across multiple departments, she did get blacklisted by our company so I am happy in the thought that I will never have to deal with this particular woman ever again.
36. El Brusco Despertar
I was traveling with my kiddo from the states to my home country, which takes around eight hours with connections, so I booked first-class seats for both of us. However, in this airline, ours was the last group to be called to board. When we boarded it turned out a Karen around 40-ish and her kid were in our seats, I politely told her so, but she ignored me.
As we were the last to board, I had to call the flight attendant and let her know that, because we were soon to take off. She came and Karen just repeated in Spanish "lo siento no entiendo", over and over again (i.e. "I'm sorry I don't understand" in English) and the flight attendant felt frustrated as she explained the situation to her in Spanish.
It was obvious Spanish wasn't her first language and yet Karen pretended she didn't understand. But here comes the funny part, I am a Spanish speaker, so I grinned and told her in Spanish that she was in our seats and had to move to their seats. She then got red-faced and told me how she is a single mother and how I should respect my elders (all in Spanish of course).
She told me how I should go with my brother (actually my son) to the regular seats because she deserved to have the first-class ones. I told her she was not my elder, I'm 27 and she was 40-ish, and I don't care about her being a single mother, she could pay for them as I did being a single parent as well. Anyway, Karen had the pleasure to have me as her translator telling her to go back to their seats or they would be escorted out of the plane.
In the end, she went back to their seats and told me in English how my kind have ruined the states. I just laughed at them and told her to enjoy their seats.
37. The Karen Is Coming From Inside The House
This story is about my mother. Yes, she is a mega Karen and unfortunately, I've had to put up with her most of my life. This happened when I was a teenager, around 15. We went out for dinner at a small local restaurant that did all-you-can-eat buffets. I should mention that my mother has long, thick and curly hair and she never ties it up. This is important for later.
We got our dinner and sat down to eat and all was going well. I was surprised at how well my mum was doing. By this point, she usually should have found something to complain about. And then it happened. She looked down at her plate and said: "Look at this, there’s a hair in my food"! Me: "Mum, that's YOUR hair". My mom: "AH, NO. That's not MY hair"!
The way she was talking was obviously dramatized for effect and she was beginning to get louder and draw attention from the other diners. She continued to cause a scene and get more irritating, drawing more attention to herself and inadvertently, me. I wanted to sink into my chair from embarrassment. Not long after she started her fake tantrum, the waitress came over to see what the problem was.
She said: "How's it all going here? What seems to be the problem"? My mom said: "There is a hair in my food"! The waitress replied: "Um.... ok"? My mom, getting furious at the lack of care from the waitress, says: "Well then what are you going to do about it? We deserve to have our meals for free. This is horrible customer service". The waitress, with a smirk across her face, says: "I'm sorry you're not satisfied with our food. Would you like to speak to the chef"?
Mom, looking smug that she thought she won, replies: "Yes. I would"! I was confused at this point, not understanding why the waitress didn't seem to care. It soon became clear why. A few minutes later a man came out from the back of the store and walked right up to our table and my mum's face went ghost white and her jaw dropped.
The chef was bald! Not balding, but so bald that you could see your reflection on his shiny scalp. He said: "Hi there, how are things this evening? What seems to be the problem"? My mom replied: "Well...there's a hair in my food". The chef, smiling, said: "I'm sorry to hear that ma'am, but unless I've miraculously grown a full head of hair on my walk over to your table, you can see I am very much bald. And as I am the only chef working tonight, that is clearly not my hair. Is that all for now? I need to get back to work".
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked back to the kitchen, but not before I mouthed "sorry" to him as he left. I knew better than to say anything to my mum after this but I had a smile on my face for the rest of the night.
38. Picking The Wrong Side
Two nights ago, I was brutally assaulted in my own house by a friend I had been letting stay with me. I had to run to a neighbor's house at 3 AM to call the authorities. When they came to arrest her, she was in my living room making videos and told the officers she hopes I perish in a fire. Initially, I planned to approach the prosecutor on Monday morning and ask that charges be dropped in lieu of court-ordered mental health treatment.
This woman is very mentally ill and has violently lashed out at others in the past. I speak from experience when I say incarceration helps no one. I had been speaking with a friend of hers regarding this, who was very heavily leaning on me to do just that. His reasoning was that she did not need this on her record because it would ruin her life.
However, a friend sent me a screenshot of a post she had made while I was running to my neighbor's. It was seriously disturbing. She was claiming I was attacking her. She listed a link to Google maps of my address. I am a single mother. My children live here. They were not home at the time of the attack. I wouldn't have run for help and left them here.
I informed her friend that I would not only continue with charges stemming from the attack, but I would be taking the screenshot of that post to the authorities and requesting additional charges be levied against her, if possible. He then Googled my address, took a screenshot and said, "Anyone can Google your address. She doesn't deserve to have a that on her record for the rest of her life".
I feel like anyone that physically assaults you, tries to stab you, then lists the address where your children sleep does, indeed, deserve it. Who does this guy think he is?
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39. A One-Sided Deal
My family owns a few cabins up in Michigan that we rent out throughout the year. We have one that is our main one, it's on a lake perched on a hill so you can see it from far away. My siblings and I all have kids now and are all in our 30s so someone is usually up there from April through November with maybe a few empty weekends here and there.
Our neighbors on the bottom of the hill suck, they are a couple from out west who ripped down the two old cottages on the land they bought and built a ugly modern looking home that would fit in a large city rather on a lake. The bad thing about building such a large home is the lack of yard space and they love to cry to us about how their kids have no backyard, and if we could sell some of our yard to them it would be great.
Well, we love our yard, it's big enough that we had two weddings there, can have a full family reunion with 100+ people and still have room to play cornhole or other yard games without being in the way. So every time this family has asked to purchase a part of it we say no. We do have an old chicken wire fence between the properties and we have grass, whereas they have just forest floor around their home so it's really easy to see where the two properties stop.
So just last weekend my dad got a call from one of our other neighbors that they saw the bad neighbor up on the hill walking around our cabin with a few other people she did not recognize, so my dad did what every homeowner would do and called the local authorities. He is drinking buddies with a few of them during the warmer months so they were out to go check the place out really quick.
It turns out when they got there the bad neighbor was walking around with her friends trying to set up a kid's outdoor winter park in the snow. The officers asked if she had permission and she lied to their faces saying she was in the process of closing on the land and that she is ripping the cabin down to turn it into a small snow park for the area.
Well, the officers told her that she was trespassing, that they were called here by the owner who they were friends with. I guess bad neighbor got really quiet and started to try and walk away but was ticketed along with her friends for trespassing. I guess they also laid into the ladies that if a kid got hurt while they were out here unlawfully they would be liable for anything.
Then he said he is recommending my family put up a restraining order if she is caught up there again. This isn't the first time she has been on our property without permission, we have caught her out on our dock and she has picked a few of our veggies from the summer garden, both of which are on the other side of the hill from her. We are going up there once it gets warm enough to install more cameras as right now we only have ones above the doors and garages.
40. Karma Comes For The Evil Twin
Me and my twin brother Sebastian have never ever been close; in fact, he made life terrible growing up. My parents didn't help by playing favorites, getting him better stuff on our birthday, only going to see films he liked at the cinema, and giving him extra money for housework despite us doing the same amount of work.
He would always put me down, belittle me, persecute me with his friends at school, break my stuff and his, then blame me. He was just a pain in general. Growing up the only people I knew to rely on was my older sister Jane, my cousin Kai and best friend Isaac who all knew what an awful person my brother was. Anyway cut to when I was 17 and I had my first girlfriend, someone I loved very much.
We didn't have go all the way cause she wanted to wait til her 18th birthday to lose her virginity. Or so I thought. It turns out that she was having an affair with my brother behind my back for half the time we were together and only got caught when it was revealed she was pregnant. I was crushed, she knew how much I hated my brother and she saw some of the awful things he did to me but she still went and did that.
Cheating is bad enough but to do it with him of all people. I punched him in the face and broke his nose and made him lose a tooth, but according to my parents I'm the one in the wrong and now we have to help this girl who is carrying my brother’s child and have to help support them. My brother then said he had no intention of being a father and told my girlfriend to get an abortion.
She then ran out of town and I never saw her again. I don't know if she had the baby. All I know was that she was gone and my folks were still praising my brother as the golden child. I was still the black sheep and failure as usual. Another year goes by, and me and my brother still despise each other, but I started dating again. It was a long while but I found someone. In fact, I found a boy I liked.
I’m bi and this new guy Daniel I had met at college caught my eye, he was deaf and I studied sign language out of boredom so we got talking and things just seemed to click. We date, fall in love, and I bring him to my friend Isaacs’s party to introduce him to friends and all feels great. At this point, the only one who knew I was bi was Isaac, but one day walking into a cinema holding my boyfriend’s hand I bump into my evil twin.
He points, laughs, and says some awful remarks. I tell him to shut up and I go see a movie with my arm around my boyfriend. I dropped my boyfriend off at his place, then went home. I wasn't prepared for how bad it was. I saw both my parents on the sofa, my mother crying about how on earth could she have given birth to someone so disgusting.
My father gets up to yell at me, spouting disturbing remarks and slurs. At this point I see my brother up the staircase with a smug grin on his face, he then comes down and says he's uncomfortable with sharing a room with me and my folks kick me out there and then. With what little clothes and money I had, I went to Isaacs’s house and his family took me in.
That’s where I stayed for six months actually experiencing familial love and affection. I consider Isaacs’s mother and stepdad my own parents now. Eventually, me, Daniel, and Isaac all get a two-bedroom flat together and all is good for the time being. So cut to December last year, me and my boyfriend (now husband) Daniel are married.
I have a brilliant job in design, have my own house by the sea and life has never been better. However, I got a call from my sister that threw everything into chaos. My brother was in the hospital. I hadn't thought about him that much over the nine-year period since I was kicked out, but being reminded of his existence brought up a lot of painful memories for me.
I was told by my sister that Sebastian wanted to see me and that it was urgent, so I went to the hospital he was in and met my sister outside the front entrance, I ask her what this is all about but she doesn't tell me and that I need to ask my twin. So I arrive at where my brother is at, and I'm shocked to find my parents at his side. Even more shocking, my folks actually look happy to see me!
It's as if what they did to me hadn't happened and Sebastian also looked really pleased to see me. It's safe to say something was off. Eventually, I ask what's going on and why was I even here, to which my brother tells the family to leave us two alone. He looks so weak as before he used to intimidate me so much. He told me that he was dying from kidney failure. He said it had been for the past few years, but now he didn't have long left. I knew immediately where this was going.
He then said he always regretted that we never got along at which point I told him "no" he looked confused and asked what I was on about so I simply told him I wasn't going to donate my kidney to save him. He looked as if I had just slobbered in his food. He then went on about how bad the situation was and that he really was sorry for all the things we did to each other growing up.
Like excuse me? We did to each other? I told him that I just wanted a brother who cared and loved me, who wouldn't try and break me every day for 18 years. He then called in our mum and dad and told them that I wasn't going to give up my kidney, they then started to spout off that I owed them for my existence and that I have a duty to look after family.
I asked them where that duty was when they kicked me out of the house or where that duty was every time my brother gave me a black eye, or their duty was to look after their grandchild when Sebastian decided he didn't want to be a father. I said for all the things he's done, from outing me, to having an affair with my girlfriend, to abandoning his child, that this was the universe’s (and my) way of finally giving back what he dished out. Finally saying it felt so good.
I then turned around and walked out of the room. I never saw Sebastian again. Not sure why they’d want a bi man’s kidney anyway. I walked past my sister who gave me a look that said "I understand". After leaving the hospital I felt as if a great weight had been taken off my shoulders, I went home and never looked back, pleased with my decision.
Now last week I get a call from my sister calling to inform me that Sebastian had passed. She asked if I was okay and I said I was, that I didn't really feel anything in all honesty. She said she understood to a degree as Sebastian hadn't been all that kind to her over the years either. I had my husband and Isaac there to support me.
The next day I was getting calls and texts from family members I hadn't spoken to in years. They all told me that I'm going to burn for being a bad son, being a bad brother, for being bi, and that me and my husband don't deserve children. My hubby and I have been looking into adoption and surrogacy. This makes me second-guess my choice of not giving my brother my kidney. Even after he’s gone, he’s making things harder for me.
I did wonder if I was a bad person and if I made the wrong decision but I knew that if I was in that position I would have been left for dead. Screw him. His renal failure was from living an unhealthy lifestyle—he drinks and had a substance issue. It's unlikely I'll ever see my parents again and I'll make sure my children will never meet them.
My revenge to them will be being a better parent than they ever were.
41. None Of Her Business
My mom was in and out of the hospital when I was around 10-13 years old because of bipolar disorder. By the time this all went down, when I was 15, my mom was doing better. She lived at home, and she was even working. So, In my final year of secondary school, one of my teachers began pulling me out of class in the middle of lessons and at first, she just wanted to chat about my grades, which were average. Then these "chats" took a dark turn.
She started asking more and more intrusive questions about my mom and her illness and began to compare my mother's illness to her mother, who apparently had suffered from the same thing and began telling me sad stories about her childhood. She also began asking me uncomfortable questions about my home life. I didn't say much, just sat there feeling very confused about it all.
This happened over the course of three months and eventually, I got really sick of her pulling me out of the classroom in the middle of lessons and I snapped. I told her to stop pulling me out of classes and to leave me alone. I turn to leave and go back to class. She grabs me by the arm and tells me that if I continue to withhold information, she would have to call the CPS.
I told her to call them, they wouldn't find anything and she'd be wasting their time. A few days later, I get called out of the classroom, not by her but by my principal, who takes me to her office where a CPS worker, my mom and my dad is waiting, I realized I already knew the woman. She had been at our house sometimes while mom was ill.
The CPS worker, my parents, and I talked and she came to the conclusion that everything was fine but I broke down in tears because the whole situation had been really stressful. My parents were furious. They demanded to know why this teacher thought it was okay to harass me about something that was none of her business. We never got a proper answer and the teacher refused to say anything. She stared daggers at me though.
The CPS lady was angry about having her time taken by this stupid situation and demanded some type of action from the principal. The teacher was not allowed to be in a room alone with me anymore and under no circumstance to take me out of the classroom alone. Eventually, she was moved to another class and later let go for harassment and assault of another student.
42. The Meat Of The Matter
So I am in my second year of university, and I currently am rooming with three other people. Dan, Max, and Olivia. We all share a living area, kitchen and of course a fridge, we each have a shelf space for our stuff and kinda share the rest of the fridge. Now in our group, I’m the only one that doesn’t have any dietary requirements, Dan is gluten intolerant, Olivia is vegan (by choice) and Max is mostly vegetarian because of a mixture of allergies and medical conditions. That’s where the problems began.
Me and Max are also in the same major and are close. When we all first moved in Max noticed that some of his food kept getting moved to a different shelf, Olivia’s shelf. Max has really bad social anxiety and doesn’t do well with conflict so he asked me to ask Olivia about it. When I did she said she thought we had gotten the food for her because she’s vegan.
I explained that Max is vegetarian. I just said he’s vegetarian because I didn’t think it was my place to tell people about his medical conditions. She apologized and moved his food back and seemed happy to have someone else that "understood". For the next few weeks, everything was fine, she did get a bit pushy every now and then with Max, saying that meat is the hard part and how easy it would be to stop eating milk and eggs etc.
Yesterday we all decided to order take out, we ordered Chinese. There is a beef-based dish that not only can Max eat, but it’s also his favorite, so we got a portion for the group as well as one just for Max. we sat down and started eating and when Olivia saw Max eating the dish she went to get some, Max quickly stopped her and told her it had beef in it.
She sat there and blinked a few times before asking why he was eating it then. Max sheepishly replied that he can eat this dish. She started yelling that he can’t make exceptions to veganism and vegetarianism when he feels like it. Max explains that he’s vegetarian because of medical reasons. Olivia told him that he shouldn't call himself a vegetarian then, quickly filled her plate and went to her room.
Today Olivia refused to talk to anyone and would leave the room if Max came in. Max was clearly upset, I asked Dan to take him out somewhere while I talked to Olivia, because I couldn’t promise she wouldn’t yell again. They left and I knocked on Olivia’s door and asked to talk, she let me in and I told her that the way she’s been treating Max is not okay.
She said she felt lied to, she thought she had someone who cared about the same things that she did. I told her that it’s okay to feel that way but that’s not Max’s fault and what she’s doing is wrong, she yelled at me saying it was in fact Max’s fault for misappropriating the label vegetarian and started comparing it to being hate-crimed.
I shut that down right away. She’s literally the only one in the group that doesn’t belong to a minority so this did tick me off. I left to join Dan and Max, who had gone to the arcade. When we (me, Max and Dan) got back, we made a disturbing discovery. The place was a mess. Max’s stuff had been thrown into the living area, this also included some of his gaming equipment and medical stuff which had been damaged.
Any meat product had been opened and thrown in the trash, empty milk cartons in the sink, which had been full so I think she emptied them. Her shelf in the fridge was empty and anything that was vegan friendly, so most of Max’s food but also some of Dan’s food, was also gone. There were two rooms on one side and two rooms on the other and she and Max’s rooms were next to each other.
We called our RA and she was really nice and calm (probably because Max was crying at this point), she said she would talk to Olivia, and would probably have her moved because this wasn’t appropriate. We literally did our food shop a few days ago so we don’t really have enough money to replace anything.
43. Nightmare In First Class
So we're heading out for a family vacation, flying first class for the first time. Our group has seven of the eight seats adjacent to the cockpit, with one rando seated amongst us. And boy did we find a Karen. Right from the get-go, Karen made her presence known. We board with my father-in-law, who is in a wheelchair, to find that for some reason this lady boards the plane along with the "passengers that need additional time to board".
Yet, she seems to be moving around just fine. Seems her motivation to do so was to pack not only her overhead compartment with her multitude of carry-on items, but some of the adjacent one. Then the flight gets delayed for being short crew, and Karen immediately starts demanding a drink before we even leave the ground. As soon as the stewardess tells her no and walks off, she starts complaining to us about how terrible first class is with this airline.
And I'm already thinking, "Can you shut the heck up already"? Then comes the inevitable "We can just leave without the crew member, right"? Apparently, she wasn't paying attention because the missing crew was the freaking pilot. We were released back out to the terminal for a bit to stretch since the delay was so long, and we return to our seats to find my daughter's seat occupied by Karen's friend, who was flying economy.
After standing around and clearing our throats several times to try to get their attention, it is obvious they have no awareness of anyone outside their bubble. Finally, after myself, my daughter, and my mother-in-law all ask them to clear out they finally acknowledge that they're in someone else's seat. After all this, we eventually get up in the air—but that doesn’t solve the problem.
Cue Karen slamming back glasses of vino. After the third glass, she's obviously already inebriated because she then dumped the entire fourth glass on my teenage daughter, and didn’t even acknowledge that she’d done it. No sorry, no "here's a napkin", she just immediately started demanding another drink from the flight attendant.
It’s worth mentioning, as my daughter told me later, that Karen immediately pocketed all the wet wipes, napkins, peanuts, and every freebie within reach. All the while she's keeping her mask down while she is drinking, but the second I take mine off to drink some water this woman grabs my arm and starts demanding that I put my mask back on.
Are you serious? Gonna complain about a mask but totally okay touching strangers? Ok Karen. At this point, I finally tell the stewardess about everything, and they stop serving her, but she still spends the rest of the trip complaining about how awful this airline is, trying to talk to my daughter the entire time who is legitimately worried this moron is going to puke on her. Poor kid.
44. Now That’s A Long Distance Call
Almost 10 years ago, I saw someone lose their smartphone in real-time. I was driving behind her and saw it fly off the top of her car on a busy one-lane highway. It was a little dangerous, but I pulled over, waited for a break in traffic, and darted out to grab the phone. It was miraculously unharmed. Her background pic showed a 20-ish redhead and a boyfriend.
I kept driving around doing my errands until her phone rang, about 30-40 minutes later. I told her where the phone had flown off the roof, how I retrieved it, and mentioned she must have put it up there while getting gas or something. Her response? "Ok. Could you bring it here to me? I work at the pizza place". I reply: "Uh, that's nowhere near me. I'm half an hour away. You can pick it up here. I'll meet you at the Dunkin Donuts".
Her, annoyed: "I can't drive all the way there, I don't know your town. Let's meet halfway at this restaurant". I say: "That's not even remotely halfway. That restaurant is still in your town. Want to just pick it up later"? She screams: "I don’t have time for this" and puts her boyfriend on the phone. He says, "Dude, what's your problem. Give her back her phone, already".
This went on for a few minutes, her boyfriend getting "tougher and tougher". I have zero tolerance for bad behavior, so I hung up on them and shut off the phone. I was going to visit my grandfather the next day, so I kept the phone on me until then. When I got to granddad's town, two hours away, I turned the phone on, called the girl’s father, and told him everything.
He was very apologetic, and I'm guessing it wasn't his first rodeo. I told him due to her rudeness (and boyfriend’s thinly veiled threats), the phone could now be picked up from local law enforcement in my grandad’s hometown. Dad's response? "Looks like she'll have a three-hour drive both ways this weekend. Sorry again".
45. You Had One Job
I own a restaurant. Recently, we've had a HUGE uptick in delivery orders, and so I've been hiring delivery drivers for the past month. Saturday was the first day for one of these new hires, we'll call her Jen. 22, blonde, in town for college, seemingly nice girl. 6 pm rolls around, she shows up for her shift. She's there maybe 10 minutes when the first delivery order comes in.
Steak and two veg, plus a salad and a chicken wrap. Food is done, gets boxed up and put on the counter to be taken for delivery. Jen just stands there looking at it, so the other driver—we'll call him Ron—picks it up and heads out. While Ron is out, we get another order. 4 deluxe double bacon cheeseburgers, 2 family-size fries, and 4 2XL milkshakes.
Food hits the delivery counter, and again, Jen is just sort of standing there looking at it. At this point, the general manager asks her what she's waiting for. She says: "I can't deliver that, it's got meat in it! I'll pick up the next vegan meal that comes in". Mind you, a solid 80% of our menu is meat. We've got some salads, some sides, and we do serve Impossible burgers (as well as Impossible meatloaf).
Still, most of the time, those get ordered along with other items that do contain meat. So the manager calls me, and I come up front. He explains all that I just relayed. I confirm with Jen that she refuses to touch any orders with meat in them, and then I send her home. She won't be on the schedule again. Ron and I handle the deliveries for the rest of the night.
Sorry lady, you can't expect to be paid to just stand by the bar for five hours a day.
46. Fences Don’t Always Make Good Neighbors
While retrieving my mail shortly after moving into my new home, there was a flyer attached to the mailbox post. I read the flyer with interest, finding out that it was from the neighbor who purchased the model home at the entrance of our subdivision. The flyer was addressed to all members of the Homeowners Association.
It essentially informed us that the HOA was using our HOA dues to sue him for not removing a fence from his front yard. The builder erected the chestnut rail fence around the front yard of the model home when it was built and the purchaser never thought anything about it. A contingent of HOA officers notified him that he had 24 hours to remove the fence or face a lawsuit.
Having already faced the wrath of the HOA myself, I stopped at his home to talk with him. After ascertaining the preceding information, I informed him that anything existing on the closing date of the real estate transfer, was grandfathered in and therefore, the fence was fair. I then proceeded to show this to him in the covenants.
At the time, I was an editor with the local newspaper and asked if he minded my writing an article about this incident in the newspaper. He readily agreed and I went off to discuss it with the managing editor. Between us, we decided to run a series of articles about HOAs and the "little tyrants who run them", highlighting this incident.
The series ran seven weeks on the editorial page, during which time, the court case was held and the homeowner won with the HOA having to pay his lawyer’s fees. He told me that had they asked, he would have removed the fence with no problem, but he was a retired colonel in the US Army and was not used to being ordered to do things. Thirty-six years later, the fence is still there.
47. One At A Time, Please
My stepbrother and his girlfriend of three years were getting married. His girlfriend just happens to be my best friend, so I was extremely excited for them. I was chosen to be the maid of honor and my biological brother was the best man. We were all that close—except for one other person in the wedding party. That would be my stepbrother’s best friend. He's the worst guy I've ever met.
I never really liked him because he was a total creep and always tried to hit on me when my stepbrother wasn't there. My stepbrother is quite protective, so I never told him—if I had, he would have been absolutely furious. Also, I can stand up for myself. Anyway, once this friend FINALLY got a girlfriend he stopped annoying me. Well…temporarily.
During the planning of the wedding, nothing crazy happened apart from the normal wedding stress. We invited almost everyone we knew. It was going to be great—or so we thought. The big day arrives and everyone is ecstatic. The ceremony was beautiful and everything went wonderfully. Then the reception came. It got off to a good start—then it took a turn.
The groom and bride plus the bridesmaids and groomsmen were all seated at a table at the front of the venue, while the guests were sitting in front of us, so they were facing our table. Everyone was giving speeches and enjoying the food. Then, out of nowhere, my stepbrother’s best friend stands up, takes the mic, and says he has something important to say.
We're all confused, as he had finished his speech, but let him talk. I wish we hadn't. He asks his girlfriend to come up to the table. I already knew where this was going. He starts a speech about how much he loves her and how they were meant for each other. She's smiling but I think she didn't want this to happen NOW, of all the times.
He then kneels down and pull a ring out of his pocket and asks her to marry him. She say yes. They start running around showing people the ring all the while the bride—my best friend—looked like she was going to cry. My stepbrother and brother were whispering to each other. I couldn't hear what they were saying. Finally, my mom gets up to remind everyone that this was her son's wedding and that we should stop talking about someone else's engagement.
Everyone was quiet. Suddenly, we hear this banshee scream. The girlfriend started screaming and crying saying MY MOM HAD RUINED HER SPECIAL DAY. Then my stepbrother’s "best friend" began screaming at us too, claiming that he did nothing wrong. They got kicked out in the end. My brother lost his best friend that day—but he didn't really care. That idiot lost all his friends.
48. The Metric System Doesn’t Care About Your Entitlement
So this was a few years ago when me and my wife (both Mancunian) were doing a mini world tour as part of our honeymoon. We were in Iceland and had been really disappointed to find out that the blue lagoon is manmade and is basically just a large outdoor swimming pool of water runoff from the geothermal plant. So after some light googling we found a place about an hour and a half drive from Reykjavik called the Secret Lagoon.
The place is amazing and exactly what I expected from a natural hot spring, basically a large pond pouring with steam, a river running next to it also pouring with steam, and then a load of smaller bubbling pools of water and mini geysers that would blast water into the air every 10 minutes or so. The place is on somebody’s land and they’ve built changing rooms and a shower area and charge about £12 to get in.
Between the pond and the river there is a roped-off area of small, deep pools that has a sign saying "Warning, water is over 90 degrees. Do not enter at your own risk," which is probably a bad translation of no entry, we accept no liability. Anyway me and my wife were leaning against the side of the pond closest to this and notice a guy wander up, read the sign then step over the rope.
As he’s walking up to one of the small pools the lifeguard is running over and shouting, "Stop stop, you can’t go in there," then American accent replies: "Whatever buddy, I can do whatever I want". By this time the lifeguard has reached him and tries to explain to him that the water is "between 90 and 110 degrees" and that he walked right past a do not enter sign, to which the American responds: "No, it says enter at my own risk, so I am, and it’s not very risky, it’s hotter than 90 degrees in Nevada every day".
This utterly perplexes the lifeguard, who has absolutely no idea what the heck the American is talking about. So I shout over "Oi mate, it’s Celsius not Fahrenheit". Now the American looks confused and says, "I don’t know what that is, I’m going in". For reference, 90-110c is 194-230f. Then follows about five more minutes of arguing between the American and the lifeguard before the American obviously thinks forget this.
He takes the two steps further to the pool and goes to put his foot in. Fortunately for him but unfortunately for Darwinism, he only manages to dip a toe before screaming in pain and hopping back to the changing room in a huff. Lifeguard sighs and goes back to his chair. What an idiot.
49. The Audacity Of Having Your Own Life
This happened years ago, just thought about it. I was living in Colorado, had just had a baby a few months ago, am married, and have an autistic five-year-old. My husband works in the oil field, regularly gone between a week and three weeks, with no notice—though the money was good. My brother is one of those guys who believe women should always wear skirts/dresses, and have no opinion.
His wife is cool with this. I, despite being raised with him, am not. I have a brain. At the point of this phone call, I hadn't heard from besides a "congrats" text for months. He asks if I’m busy and I say no, what up? What he asked was so ridiculous, I nearly burst out laughing. He replies: "Can you come to Florida, take care of the kids and wife for a few months. We are moving and wife is pregnant. She can't lift and the kids are wearing her out".
I said: "You are joking, right? I have a baby, a five-year-old, and my hubby works in the oil field". He says: "Have friends help. I need you here". I said no. What followed was a shocked silence—probably because he’s never had a female defy him. He said: "Then what good are you"? and hung up. I didn’t hear from him again for roughly six months.
50. Get The Message, Stephanie
This story actually begins two years ago. I work at a university doing somewhat specialized technical and project support type stuff for a large department. I've got this co-worker we'll call Stephanie. Stephanie is one of those people that demands everything now because she's Very Important. A couple of years ago I ran afoul of Stephanie because I was out of the office on leave—that had been approved by my supervisor and the department, mind you.
I was out for two weeks taking care of my mom after she had surgery due to cancer—which I was very open about because I didn't want to deal with people asking how I enjoyed my vacation. There's no way Stephanie didn't know why I was out. She went to my office and was told I wasn't in, and she was upset because I needed to help her now. So she called my personal cellphone. We have a list of people's personal cellphones in case of emergencies like, y'know, a campus shooter, not "I need something done".
And she called again. And again. And again. Finally, I picked up and she ripped me a new one because I needed to answer her Very Important Question. I told her I was out on leave to care for my mom and her response was something to the effect of "It's not my problem your mom's sick. I need this taken care of now and you're holding things up. I'm going to report you for never being at work".
Never mind the fact that other people could have helped her. Or the fact that this was the first time I used any leave in ages. And she did, in fact, report me to the Dean to whom I sent my approved leave forms and my call log showing she'd called me I believe ten times in a row. Stephanie got a tiny punishment for that incident.
Fast forward to now. I'm leaving for my dream job...hurray! I sent an email out to the department mailing lists saying "Hey, I'm going, it's been a pleasure". The thing is they're not sure they're going to fill my role in an effort to save money, which people are pretty upset about because I support a lot of things. However, because most of my coworkers are logical and awesome people that anger is directed at the college and not at me.
Stephanie is not logical. So, I get a Facebook Messenger message from Stephanie, who I'm not FB friends with. I accepted the message out of morbid curiosity mostly. And the entitlement continues folks. I'm selfish for leaving my job because of all the department has done for me. So apparently I owe it to them to stay or something—haha what?
I especially like that her spelling degrades as the messages go on. I'm sure she was just on mobile or something but I'd like to imagine she worked herself into such a rage that she couldn't type. I won't miss Stephanie.
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