We’ve heard the popular phrases before. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Karma will always strike down those who deserve it. It’s a comforting thought when someone mistreats you to know that they’ll get what’s coming to them. But, sometimes these people undergo such cruel punishments that even we know they never deserved that… most of the time.
#1 The Mean Girl
Turned out the biggest mean girl at my high school was horribly mistreated by both of her parents. It was seemingly a competition of who could be the worst monster. To paint a picture, one of the mother's defense was some of the mistreatment only started after the daughter reached maturity. Before that, the punishments were physical.
#2 Nobody Deserves That
My ex-wife went behind my back with someone else. It destroyed me as a man. I’m still picking up the pieces in a lot of ways. About a year after we officially divorced, she remarried and immediately became pregnant. The baby had a condition where its skull would never fully form, and it had no chance of survival. She went to the hospital, gave birth, and her son lived about three hours and passed away in her arms. I dislike my ex-wife so much for what she did to me, but wow. Nobody deserves that.
#3 Nasty Co-Worker
My co-worker was mean, petty, rude, unhelpful, and an all-around bully. She was pretty much a 16-year-old mean girl in a 35-year-old adult’s body. I almost quit my job a couple of times because of her and another coworker just like her. Last year, she was diagnosed with a condition and it has progressed to stage four. She’s been missing more and more work and should be out on permanent disability because she’s losing her life and should be spending time with her kids, not coming to work.
#4 Coming Back Home
There’s this parent at the school I work at whose kid falsely accused a teacher of approaching them. The kid was easily proved to be a liar and even admitted her injuries were fake. Well, that didn't stop her mom from going all in with a lawsuit and making that innocent teacher's life terrible. A few months later, the girl went to the grocery store with her grandfather, came home, and discovered her mother's body. Her ex-con dad was there while she was at the store and ended her mother’s life. I never liked the girl or the mom, but wow.
#5 Sad and Disturbed
There was a guy from my high school who everyone hated (never spoke two words to me, so I have no first-hand knowledge). He was the star quarterback and destined for division one glory like his older brother. At the end of senior year, he broke his leg and all his scholarships evaporated. He ended up at a division three school or something, never made a splash.
Now, he's divorced and legitimately insane. He constantly posts gibberish on his Facebook page, like crazed musings several times a day. He then google translates them into various random languages and posts those. One time, he posted all of his high school football commendations, newspaper clippings, and division one scholarship letters, literally over 100 pictures. He is the living embodiment of "glory days," a very sad and disturbed guy.
#6 High School Cheerleader
This one girl was the typical high school cheerleader chick. She called me a loser every time she saw me and was a terrible person as far as I saw. Her parents caught her "indulging in the devil’s lettuce" and sent her to a Christian bible rehab, where she passed away due to neglect. We were told she passed away due to dehydration on a camping retreat from the rehab. I feel like there was more to it but they weren't going to tell the high school kids at her school. It was public knowledge that the parents sued the rehab center.
#7 Out Driving
My kindergarten teacher was horrible towards children. She was the kind of woman who tied kids to a chair or put duct tape on the mouth of chatty kids. She had a car accident a few years ago, while she was driving with two of her grandchildren. An impaired driver hit her. She was in a coma for a few weeks but recovered physically. The two kids, however, didn't make it. She fell into a deep depression. Last I heard, she’s still in a psych ward.
#8 Understanding the Hate
A dude I went to high school with was my arch-nemesis. He was in my sports teams and just was constantly giving me heck all the time. I couldn’t do much about it honestly. He even started physically fighting me in the middle of a game once. He’s actually the only person I’ve ever met in my life that I hated.
Well, I found out a year or so ago (12 years later) that his dad was being charged with harmful behavior towards kids and this guy was a victim too. He was never a guy you’d expect; Mr. Tough Guy and all that. There was obviously a lot more going on with that kid than 16-year-old me understood or could ever understand. I still feel like I hate him, but I at least understand it now.
#9 Eighth Grade Teacher
My eighth-grade math teacher. I didn't hate her, she was always really nice to me, but all of my classmates hated her. I remember one time a girl asked her how she felt about her younger sister getting married before her and she cried in front of all of us. She later passed away from illness and she never got married.
#10 Reasons to be Crazy
I dated a girl who had addicted, horrible parents all throughout childhood (and a few times during adulthood). Her mother always ended up with guys who would do the same stuff and convince the mom that her kid was just making stuff up for attention. That girl was crazy. She literally tried to attack me a couple of times. It was the most miserable period of my life and she was a truly horrible person. With that said, she had some good reasons to be crazy. I can't say I'd be any different if I had to live through what she grew up in.
#11 Older Sister
When I was eight, I was friends with the girl who lived across the street. Her older sister was such a bully, she would rat us out. She would make up stuff to tell my mom, she put talcum powder in the hair dryer. She was just a punk. Then she got involved with this psycho of a guy, he scared me the first time I met him.
A couple of rough years later, when she finally got the nerve to leave that guy, he broke into her apartment and attacked her. Their two-year-old daughter was right in the next room, crying and trying to get in. The sister was never right again after that and I honestly felt so bad for her. Nobody deserves that.
#12 Crazy Co-Worker
I took a transfer at work to get away from a crazy co-worker. A few months later, I was asked to come back and cover for a couple days. I was really hoping Crazy wouldn't be there, but she showed up… only for the manager to have someone take her to the hospital. She was having severe abdominal pain. I didn't want to spend the day with her but I didn't want her gone that badly.
#13 Call From a Friend
My ex was a real monster to me: going behind my back, screaming, throwing things, etc. The whole deal. Three months after I finally broke up with him, I got a call from a friend of his. He, at 20, had passed away on a bus and no one knew why. It turned out he had an undiagnosed illness that spread to his lungs, closing his airway. I wouldn't have ever spoken to him again, but he didn't deserve to lose his life.
#14 Math Teacher’s Trip
In high school, we had a math teacher who hated our class and by the end of the school year, she made a vow she would fail every single one of us. Before exams started, however, she took a trip to Eritrea where she got on a bus with some other tourists. A few days later, we got a call from our guidance counselor that she'd been attacked by robbers on some dirt road. No math exam that year.
#15 A Classroom’s Cruelty
My French teacher of mine unfortunately lost her husband because he drowned. I didn't hate the woman at all, but many other people from my class did. One time during French class, one of the students screamed, ''Man overboard!'' and everyone lay on the ground laughing. My teacher just ran out of the room, crying.
#16 Friend’s Boyfriend
My friend's boyfriend in high school was a major monster. He was kind of a redneck Regina George of sorts, had a huge following of like-minded idiots who he insulted constantly. He went behind my friend’s back when they were dating, she stupidly forgave him, then they went on a "break" and he immediately slept with her then-best friend. He was unabashedly a bad person. This year, he was diagnosed with a severe disease and passed away three months later at 21. It sucks that he died so young, but I'm not going to celebrate him because of it. The dude was the worst.
#17 A Lot Going On
This girl I knew in secondary school was horrible. She was the kind of person who pretended to be friends with outcasted kids to make fun of them. I later found out that she had several siblings who were stillborn or miscarried, had her dad walk out on her and her mom when she was 11, and her stepfather passed away when she was 15. She really wasn't a nice person, but she didn't deserve that.
#18 Back to Normal
A girl I went to elementary school with bullied me relentlessly. It quickly got to the point where my parents and teachers were on a first-name basis due to all the meetings they had about it. In grade three, her older brother lost his life in a quad bike accident. She and her older sisters were out of school for about two weeks, and her brother had a memorial tree planted for him. When she came back, we were okay with each other for a bit. I remember comforting her several times after it had happened. Then it just went back to normal.
#19 Students Versus Teachers
Everyone in my school hated all of the teachers. Obviously an exaggeration, but I didn’t feel like any of them deserved as much hate from the kids as they got, they were just doing their jobs, they all tried, most seemed to like teaching and they weren’t cruel or anything. I kind of got the feeling that kids just like to be whiny little brats sometimes.
#20 In the Mountains
I had an art teacher in middle school who was obviously just biding time until retirement and hated kids. Now, this guy wasn't half bad at art but you could tell he was kind of disappointed with where his life ended up. He went on vacation in the mountains and ended up having a heart attack and driving off a cliff. He didn't make it.
#21 Jane and Steve
My ex-wife (who we’ll call Jane) left me and moved in with a family friend, who we’ll call Steve. Both were in their mid-40s. Jane swore up and down that it was purely platonic. They wound up moving across the country and getting a one-bedroom apartment together. Now, I'm pretty trusting but that raised some red flags that this might not be platonic after all.
Jane was looking for alimony, which she would be entitled to but not if she was living with Steve as a couple. So, I tried to gather evidence that they were a couple while she stonewalled and delayed turning over the evidence. The divorce then dragged on for something like 18 months longer than it should have.
Eventually, we agreed on a compromise — I would pay her alimony, but only for another year (she'd be entitled to another 12 years if she weren't with Steve). It would also only be about 40-50% of the dollar amount she'd ordinarily be entitled to. Two weeks after we signed the settlement agreement, Steve passed away from a stroke.
#22 Prom Night
A fairly unkind but pretty and popular girl from my high school had an "accident" while getting ready for prom. She was checking the back of her hair when her large mirror fell on her. I believe it hit head-first and shattered glass all over her. The pieces injured her face, shoulders, and arms bad enough to put her in the hospital. It was horrific.
#23 A Former Co-Worker
A former co-worker of mine was an awful woman to everyone and got away with doing nothing. Everyone could see it and everyone hated her for it. She got pregnant and milked it for everything it was worth. Unfortunately, the baby passed away in utero just a few days before the due date. I’d never wish that sort of thing on anyone.
#24 Leaving Gym Class
There were these two terrible guys in my gym class. One day, they had to go retrieve a soccer ball that had fallen into the bushes. They stepped into a hornets' nest and got stung everywhere. Apparently, one got stung in the private area. They didn't deserve it, but I did like that I got to leave gym half an hour early.
#25 Getting an Explanation
A kid I knew in school bullied me all the time and was consistently in trouble. He even got me in trouble a few times too. Eventually, he finally expelled. Good riddance. I then heard intermittent stories over the next few years of him being in and out of trouble. I reconnected with him through a mutual friend 20 years later and found out he'd had a very terrible childhood and bounced around various foster homes. That explained everything. We've been friends for several years now. He's happily married and living a great life.
#26 Getting Outvoted
There was a substitute teacher in elementary school, maybe around grade four or five. She asked us if we wanted to go outside for recess. Everyone else voted yes, but I asked if I could go to the nurse instead because I was feeling really ill. She didn't believe me. (I think that she thought I was just lazy and didn't want to play outside because I was a fat kid.)
She wouldn't let me go to the nurse and she had this really nasty smirk on her face when she told me I was outvoted. We got outside and the cold wind in my face made me feel worse and worse. Finally, I decided that I have to go to the nurse. I made my way to where the teacher was standing and as soon as I opened my mouth to tell her, there was no holding back or stopping it. I hurled all over her shoes! Part of me felt vindicated because she knew that I was telling the truth, but she didn't deserve that.
#27 High School Bully
When I first began freshman year in high school, I was bullied mercilessly by a junior. I have no idea why this guy hated me, but he did. He was bigger and stronger than me and would push me around, call me names, make fun of other people if he saw them talking to me, etc. I'm old and when I was in high school if you told an adult you were being bullied they'd tell you useless stuff like, "Just ignore him and he'll go away." That never worked. It got so bad I thought about dropping out of school, thought about hurting myself, and didn't know how to deal.
One day, I got to school and saw a couple of girls he was friends with crying and saw a couple of teachers with very concerned looks on their faces. When the homeroom started, the principal got on the PA and announced that my bully had been in a car accident and passed away the night before. He certainly didn't deserve to lose his life, but man, did my life ever change after that.
I finally started making friends, I could walk through the halls not worried about getting picked on, I really started to flourish academically, I got into a good college and now have a good career and life. I think there's a pretty good chance I would have dropped out of high school, and a smaller but still real chance I would have lost my life, if this kid hadn't passed away.
#28 Cutting Ties
A girl I was really close with in middle school and the beginning of high school was treating me poorly and not being a great friend. Our friendship completely unraveled when I tried to talk to her about it and she started a physical fight. I told her I was done. She told her parents I was doing a lot of things that she had been doing as the reason I wasn’t hanging out anymore.
Later, she was terrible to other mutual friends and went behind her boyfriend’s back (ironically, my best friend at the time) out of spite. Then she got hit by a car. I was the second person called from the scene after 911 because they knew I’d have her parents’ contact info. She survived, but had issues. I tried to come back into her life on a limited basis during her recovery and eventually was able to cut ties much more amicably.
#29 Brother’s Friend
My brother had this friend Peggy who was an awful influence on him, as well as just being an obnoxious, gross person. One day, she just up and moved to the Myrtle Beach area. We're in Western NC, so it was a good way away. Sometime when she was down there, she was in a four-wheeler accident. She ended up paralyzed from the neck down. With years and years of physical therapy and dedication she’ll regain mobility one day, but nobody deserves that. Her parents never went to see her when she was in the hospital. Not once.
#30 Can on the Head
My summer camp water skiing instructor was an absolute monster. She would always talk about how bad we were to the others in the boat while we were putting our skis on in the water, and she would always drive right away, so practically no one even got up for more than a second all week. On the second to last day, she was carrying a gas can on her head to bring it down to the boat but she spilled it all in her eyes and on her face and everything. I still don't know if she's alright to this day.
#31 Selling Art
My middle school bully passed away from an aneurism less than a month into her freshman year. Her parents were apparently already going through a brutal divorce and one of them, for some reason, thought it was a good idea to try and sell their child's "art" to cover funeral costs, which were her 2003-era photo booth selfies. She was a terrible person, but she was also not even 14 yet. I’m still trying to unpack that one.
#32 On Another Continent
My aunt (mom's sister) and her husband (no relation) used to publicly make fun of my dad for being unemployed at gatherings and holiday dinners. Several years later, my dad finished his career change and became a software engineer. My uncle became unemployed for the next eight years. After finally finding work about five years ago in another continent, he moved there alone and worked there until 2014. In June 2014, we heard news from my aunt that he had passed away, alone on another continent, away from my aunt and their kids. His body was discovered in the bathroom after he was for more than three days.
#33 Regular Punishments
This kid would beat up me and my friend in elementary school all the time. We found out that he was taken away from his parents because of mistreatment and neglect. He would be chained up in the backyard and fed dog food as a regular punishment. Those were the only specifics I heard about. Nobody deserves that. That’s messed up.
#34 We’ll Never Know
There was a girl I went to middle school with who was just generally not a nice person. She was a cheerleader and I think it kind of went to her head. She would make fun of people who weren't cheerleaders for their makeup, clothes, athletic ability, etc. just because she could. One day, she went four-wheeling with a guy and they ended up wrecking into a dump truck.
From what I was told, she flew over the guy and into the truck. Her family kept her in a vegetative state for a few months until they finally took her off of life support. She was 15. She wasn't the nicest person and was pretty mean to a lot of people, but she was just a kid. She may have grown into a better person, but we will never know.
#35 Karma Went Overboard
In high school, I somehow got into a silly fight with this kid. It wasn't due to anything big, just stupid stuff. No one really got hurt and it was more or less a draw. But afterwards, he graffitied some lame thing about me. I remember thinking that karma would eventually even things out somehow. A couple of months later, his older brother attacked their parents. I don't think I ever knew what really went down and I never saw him again, but I remember thinking, “Jeez. Karma went a little overboard there.”
#36 High School Mean Girl
A girl I went to high school with was a holier-than-thou super mean girl. She had to make nasty comments about everything as though she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. She particularly disliked one of my good friends (who was super nice to everyone and ridiculously pretty) and did her best to make my friend feel like garbage. That was about the time I started having problems with her.
Sometime after we graduated, she had a tonsillectomy. Again, I was far from close to her so I heard all this second hand, but one day after the surgery, she was home alone and the incision in her throat opened up and she blocked her airway. I imagine that had to have been a horrible way to go and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.
#37 Grandma’s Teacher
My grandma is this tiny, devout, very proper woman. Supremely religious. She told me about a teacher she had in primary school. He would grab students by the shoulders and shake them until the screws rattled loose from their chairs. One day, he didn't show up at school. Grandma said they sent over the constable to check on him and he had slipped in the tub, cracked his head, and passed away. She said that everyone cried and carried on at his funeral, but that she didn't. She said she hated him and was glad he was gone.
#38 Two-Week Span
I don't despise this person but he's not the best. An old manager of mine got really sick. Sure, that sucks, but it was still early enough that they thought they were optimistic. Then his sister found out she was sick as well and it was far, far worse. Their mother lived on a different side of the country and she was flying in to spend time with her daughter. She tripped and fell down a flight of stairs at the airport and passed away. Shortly after, his sister did too. This happened maybe a two week period. He went from having his own terrible time to having to plan funerals for two immediate family members as well as plans to transport his mom back.
#39 Getting Deployed
There was this one kid who I went to elementary and high school with. He bullied me relentlessly and was just a total jerk to me all the time. He enlisted in the military and got deployed to Iraq. When he came back, he suffered from severe PTSD and depression and he then took his own life. No one deserves that.
#40 Not Something I Would Wish
My time in elementary school wasn't fun, that's for sure. My last year there, my friend backstabbed me saying I bullied him, just after I stepped up for him. Our teacher back then wasn't the nicest, but not the meanest. After my friend accused me, she punished me by leaving a page-long note in my journal. My parents knew I wouldn't do this and my best friend knew this as well and was there when I "bullied" him.
Two years later, I switched schools but one of the last things I heard there was this: she tried to climb a fence because she forgot her keys. But while doing so, she fell, her wedding ring got stuck on the top and it took off her finger. I didn't like her very much, but that's not something I would wish on her.
#41 Cursing the Manager
My assistant manager has been really upsetting me recently, so last week when I realized I had to open with her, I started dreading it. The night before our opening shift, she texted me that she had been in a car accident. Someone rear-ended them, the car was totaled, her boyfriend was trapped inside, and they were waiting on ambulances to get them out of there.
They ended up stuck in the ER for nearly 12 hours, where they were treated horribly by staff and interrogated (despite not being at fault). She's still out of work a week later, but I doubt she has any sick time left. I feel like I cursed her by wishing I didn't have to open with her. She's a pain in the butt, but she didn't deserve that.
#42 Changing Gears
When I was younger, we had a computer teacher who would teach us touch typing. I was generally quite a quiet kid until one day when the guy sitting next to me started laughing at this picture of a monkey smiling on the wall. Of course, being young kids who weren’t supposed to be giggling, it made the giggling even worse than it was before and we just couldn’t contain ourselves.
This teacher flipped her lid and I mean flipped her lid. We had this book where you got a mark next to your name if you did something bad, and after telling her she had just gone past my name, she threw it at me and told me to get out of her classroom. The next year, we didn’t have her anymore but her freak out had certainly left me with a sour taste in my mouth, teachers didn’t usually react to me that way and that was probably the first time in my entire school career that I’d been shouted at.
Then one day she stopped coming into school. At the end of that week, we discovered that she had been diagnosed with a pretty awful disease. At that point, all my hatred for her instantly melted and I felt completely horrible. She left the school shortly after so I never quite found out if she made it or not.
#43 Awful Struggle
My father and I never really got along and he caused me a lot of anxiety and depression. He was quite verbally harmful towards me. Two years ago, he passed away. The awful struggle between the relief of tension he caused in my life and the fact that my dad passed away is honestly really tough to deal with sometimes.
#44 In the Park
This guy I didn't like in high school got into contraband to be cool. He met a dealer in the park who asked if he wanted to come to his apartment. Obviously the kid was skeptical, but the dealer said he could bring a friend. Figuring they had strength in numbers, they went to the guy’s place. The dealer then slipped something in their drinks. The dealer went to jail and they both had to be tested.
#45 Float Trip
There was this high school jock type guy who was a major jerk to basically everyone in town. He was really nasty to anyone who wasn’t part of the football team. Well, while on a float trip on the local river, he stopped to tie his shoe. He leaned down and was tying his shoe when a large tree branch fell off the overhead tree and landed on him. It broke his back and he never walked again. Whatever, man.
#46 Bad Behavior
My third-grade teacher was the worst, picking favorites and least favorites (spoiler alert, I was a least favorite) out of her students. She made me cry in front of my classmates on multiple occasions. She gave assignments that no one could finish. Anyway, turns out the reason for her behavior was that she had a brain tumor. She passed away shortly after the school year ended.
#47 Custody Case
My parents sided with my ex-husband in our custody case, claiming that I must be crazy because there's no way he had been hurting me. A few years later, my ex-husband seriously injured my father and left him with a lot of severe injuries. I was hurt that they sided with him but I don't think my dad deserved that.
#48 Love Triangle
In high school, there was this girl who was close with my best friend and future boyfriend. She was his ex but was still relatively close. She told him to stay away from me because "he's so weird and annoying." I hated her because she'd never interacted with me before and was basing her judgment off of being near us for a minute. She ended up getting sick two years later and I felt bad despite my feelings about her. Luckily, she beat it.
#49 Competitive Program
A girl I went to high school with was a part of a competitive art program I was in. She ran a literary magazine and instead of using art submitted to her by the people in the program, she stole images from other students without any credit. That somehow got her into the same college art program as me. I got a call from a friend during freshman year that the girl got hit by a car on campus. She survived but it significantly changed her. She cheated her way into a competitive art program but she didn't deserve to get run over.
#50 Oh My God
During my first real office job, I was shy and felt like the other girls excluded me. The fax ran out of toner and I tried to refill it. I couldn't figure it out and put the old toner back in the machine and went back to my cube. It's important to note, the fax machine was in the cube next to mine, separate by a cube wall.
I went about my business and later heard one of the mean girls talking about the fax machine. Very quickly she said, "Oh my God. Oh my God ." A few other people came over to help her and they said, “Oh my God!” I hid in my cube the whole time. Apparently, the mean girl had on white pants, took the toner out of the fax and it exploded black powder all over her. She just kept saying, "Oh, my God! Who did this? Oh my God!" It was very amusing and they never pinned it on me.
