From a very young age, we are taught by our parents to always show kindness to the people we come across, even people we don't personally know. Well, as we get older, we begin to realize that not everybody deserves our respect. Here are some of the most annoying humans to exist:
1. Sins Of The Father
My deadbeat former stepdad was always verbally cruel to my mother and me. This one time when I was 12, he and I were having an argument in the car. So I decided to turn off the radio. He freaked out. He started swerving the car, which was my mom’s by the way, and saying that he was going to destroy us all. I said, “Good. At least I won’t have to deal with you anymore”. Since he didn’t get the reaction he wanted, he just started driving normally and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the drive.
2. Someone Needs Her Coffee
I used to work at a call center that handled Nespresso coffee. On one Monday, I had a woman call me because she wanted to place an order for more coffee pods. Unfortunately, she had to wait 45 minutes on hold before she got me on the phone. When I apologized for the long wait and explained that we take calls as they come in a queue, she unleashed her fury.
“HOW DARE YOU ARGUE WITH ME? I AM AN ESSENTIAL HOSPITAL WORKER. YOU HAVE TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE”! I apologized again, and she said, “LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER”! I put her on hold and while I was explaining the situation to my manager she hung up. If only she knew that she could’ve easily ordered online.
3. Giving 64% Effort
A girl in my English class said that she would score a 100 on our End of Course test. She made everyone feel bad about themselves and thought that she was the best in the class.
Then we found out her grade...She scored 64.
4. That’s Doctor Karen To You
A few years ago, I remember seeing an old lady at the gas station get visibly upset over the cost of a Coke, which I thought was kind of weird. The guy at the cash was just doing his job and it’s not like the cashier has any control over the price of something. I felt bad for the guy since he was trying to explain it calmly.
Unfortunately, the old lady wasn’t having any of it. I distinctly remember her telling the cashier that her son is a doctor and therefore she has the right to be upset at the cost of her soda. It was definitely a very strange night.
5. A Dose Of Her Own Medicine
I moved to the Pacific Northwest last year and while I was finding the best spot to live, I stayed at my mom’s house. I had a German Shepherd and was eager to get him out of the house and explore the local dog parks. I found a dog park not too far from the house and I was excited to check it out and get some of his energy out.
After running around the dog park for a while, my dog started to squat. I don’t normally carry poo bags on me because dog parks usually have them for free, so when I went over to grab a bag, a lady started yelling at me from across the park. “Pick up your dog’s mess or I will report you”! I was confused because the poop wasn’t even done coming out of his butt.
I was also clearly walking toward the bags. The lady just stood there with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot, and giving me a dirty look. So, out of sheer spite, I decided that I wasn’t going to pick it up right at the moment—I’d just let her whine and then pick it up later. My boyfriend at the time said he didn’t want to cause a scene, so he went to grab a bag.
But the lady had some nerve. She said, “That’s what I thought! I knew you weren’t going to pick it up” while continuing to stand with her hands on her hips watching him walk all the way across the field, get a bag, and then walk all the way back to the poo. I was so annoyed that I told my boyfriend that I was going to throw the bulging bag at her. He begged me not to.
I decided to confront the lady instead. To embarrass her, I yelled as loudly as I possibly could, “I was going to pick it up you stupid shrew! Mind your own business next time”! She ended up walking away and it was the most frustrating Karen interaction I have ever had, but it was also so satisfying to yell back at her.
6. The Promotion
I got promoted (at a McDonald's...wow...) over some other girl. I didn't even know I was being considered until a day or two before the managers voted. I was told to come in the next day in my new uniform and the other girl came in, saw my uniform, and quit on the spot. Her claim was outrageous—she accused me of taking "her" promotion.
I found out from an assistant manager that they were openly considering her and tried to push her toward things she would need to know or do and she would never take the initiative to learn more or do more. I actively tried to learn more (mainly to get out of service and into the kitchen…hate the public) and was well-liked by most of the crew/management and someone randomly tossed my name in the conversation.
7. Isn’t It Ironic?
When I worked as a bank teller, senior citizens would throw awful temper tantrums whenever I asked to see their IDs. One time, this 80-year-old woman started swearing up a storm and making all of the other customers noticeably uncomfortable. She was saying stuff about how she’s “been banking here for 30 years” and it’s a complete insult that I would have the audacity to ask for her ID”.
She caused such a scene that several customers at the teller line stopped their transactions and left the branch. Why did she come in you ask? Well, first off to withdraw money from her account, and then talk to the manager about how she gave all of her personal information (e.g., name, address, social security number, and the works) to a scammer over the phone.
8. The Nightmare Next Door
A few years ago, I was living with my friends as a tenant in a row house in Maharashtra, India. We were five girls who were all working IT jobs with different shift timings. Our living situation had been smooth sailing for years until we moved into this particular society. Our neighbor was the biggest desi “Karen” we have ever encountered.
This woman would scream at us regularly for stupid random things, but the scariest was when she and her husband started banging on our door at 3:00 in the morning saying that our nighttime bathroom usage disturbed her sleep. She lives in a totally separate house but according to her, when we went to the bathroom the noise of the door would disrupt her sleep!
Never mind that my roommates couldn’t hear anything from different rooms, this Karen could hear us from a separate house! Her next move had us floored. She ordered us to stop going to the bathroom at night. Yes, you read that right. I would also like to point out that those of us who returned home after our evening shift were super careful to be silent so as to not wake up the girls with morning shifts.
According to Desi Karen, it was our parents' fault for not teaching us how to close bathroom doors properly. She even tracked down our landlady and complained to her multiple times. Thankfully our landlady checked in with the other neighbors to make sure we were not actually creating any problems. After that, she told Karen to stop bothering her with childish complaints.
9. Don’t Stop Her Now
There was this annoying woman in my department at work back in the early 80s. She was one of those who had already seen it/done it better during any topic of conversation. It bugged me because it seemed to me that the bulk of her claims were products of her imagination, but many of our co-workers thought that "Lynn" was so cool, she knew so many famous people and visited all these exotic places!
Well, she crossed the line with me in 1980 when I was fortunate enough to get front-row tickets to a Queen concert in Detroit via a scalper. I paid $45 each, but it was so, so worth it–that was back in the day when the front-row folks were squished against the stage so that we rested our forearms on it. Both Freddie and Brian shook my hand during the show. Of course, since I was willing to spend that kind of cash to see them, it only makes sense that I was a huge fan and knew a LOT about the band and its history.
Come Monday morning I go to work and talk enthusiastically about seeing Queen so closely and Lynn interjects off-handedly, "Oh, I remember partying with them back in the day when they played small clubs. I remember seeing them at [some small downtown Detroit bar] and playing cards with them backstage later".
I looked her in the eye and replied, "The first time Queen ever played in Detroit was at the Ford Auditorium in February 1975. They've never played club dates in Detroit”.
She just gave me a frozen smile, patted my arm, and walked away. After that, she never interacted with me unless absolutely necessary.
10. Teach Your Children Well
Once while I was working as a mascot, I saw a grown lady roll down her kid’s window and tell him to “flip off the loser working the streets”. He did what she said and then they both drove off laughing. It really blew my mind. In fact, I’ve been keeping a tally of people who flip me off and about 75% of them are adults over 40 with a ratio of 50/50 male to female.
11. Harangued In Whole Foods
I was at Whole Foods talking to an elderly lady in Spanish because she didn’t know how the English word for ginger. Along came Karen in a motorized scooter (even though I had noticed her walking just fine in the parking lot). She gave us a dirty look and said, “This is America. Why don’t you speak English”? My response was too slick. “OK Karen, you’ve got legs. Why don’t you walk”?
12. We Call That A Flounce
I beat out a guy for a promotion. He was super loud about everything and always talked about basically how awesome/smart he is.
After I became his boss, he stopped taking lunch with the other guys and sulked around the shop until he transferred to another shift in a very dramatic way. It was like when people post they are quitting Facebook but in real life.
I found out later that he got his karma BIG time. He got fired for being a giant jerk to his coworkers. I try not to be petty but I admit I got a chuckle out of it.
13. Definitely Not Bussin
I jumped on a Greyhound bus yesterday because it was the cheapest option and I am cheap. A blind man boarded the bus with his guide dog and sat in the front seat so as not to bother anyone else. When the driver saw him, he completely freaked out and refused to leave until the blind man moved, but that just confused him.
After many conversations among the passengers, a law enforcement intervention, and even some taunting from the always classy Greyhound passengers, the driver totally lost it. He swore loudly and told everyone that he runs this town. He then tore around the block but had to re-park because he was too worked up to drive. He then stormed off the bus.
14. Kar-Inception
A couple of weeks ago I was with a woman who told me about her encounter with a Karen. I guess I looked at her oddly because she said, “You know, a Karen”. I shrugged and she went on to tell me about a maddening encounter she had with a rude and self-absorbed woman. When she’d finished the long and tedious rant, I told her that it is a bad idea to stereotype women in that way. I braced myself for her reaction.
She jerked her head back and looked at me like I was an outdated monkey wrench. I mentally braced myself and told her, “I have a Karen. She’s my daughter and she doesn’t fit the description at all”. It hurt me to think that my daughter might have to suffer from this cruel stereotype—not my beautiful daughter. Not my Karen.
Freepik, 8photo
15. No Magic Left
My ex-girlfriend was a hostess at a swanky restaurant in Seattle. She was looking down at her book when some people approached the dais and a guy said, “I need a table for 8”.
She said without looking up. “It’s probably going to be at least a 90-minute wait”.
The voice said, “But I’m David Copperfield”.
My ex said, “Then maybe you can make a table appear”. She finished what she was doing. Then when she looked up, her face went white. It was actually David Copperfield.
No table appeared.
16. Don’t You Have Anything Better To Do?
A few years ago I worked with a miserable old hag who I had to cover for whenever she took time off. One day she came over to my desk to either nag or ask questions that she should have known the answers to, and she suddenly stopped mid-sentence and very defensively snapped, “Why is my name written on your calendar”?
At first, I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, but then I looked at the calendar and realized that I had written down her vacation days to remind myself to plan for the extra work. I explained this and she responded with, “Oh” in a kind of mad-sounding tone, but she never brought it up again so I forgot about it.
Several months later, our boss and I were at the old hag’s desk fixing her computer when I heard our boss say, “What is this”? I immediately froze in fear. I looked up to see that the old hag has been writing on her calendar when every single person in the office was late, sick, on vacation—anything and everything. Keeping attendance was not her job.
I should also mention that people’s absences didn’t affect her job in any way, and it wasn’t any of her business.
When our boss asked her why she had been doing that she said it was because I wrote her name on my calendar. I guess that really bothered her (even though her absence was essentially my responsibility) and this was her way of retaliating.
17. Keepin’ It Classy
We attended an outdoor event at a vineyard during the pandemic. There were lots of signs posted requesting that visitors wear masks in public areas (e.g., getting food and drinks and using the restrooms). Everyone was social distancing on the lawn. This incident happened while we were waiting in a long line for the port-a-potty.
There was an unmasked couple waiting in line, in front of another masked couple—pay attention, the positioning will be important. The masked woman requested that the couple in front of her wear masks, and that’s when the Karen erupted out of her shell. She started yelling that she didn’t have one and she DID NOT need to wear one.
During Karen’s rant, the line was getting longer and longer. I thought it was funny when the woman behind me said, “Notice how the guys are keeping out of it”. Well, that wasn’t quite the case. After the unmasked couple finished with their business in the “port-a-potty,” the masked woman walked in. Seconds later the door flung open…
She screamed at the unmasked couple, ”You peed all over the walls and floor! You’re disgusting”! The unmasked pair just ran away laughing. The masked woman then proceeded to try to clean the entire drenched toilet area up herself. When she came out she announced that she did the best she could.
18. Gymnasts Are Strong
In high school, a martial arts group performed for us during an assembly in the gym. The lead guy with a microphone was arrogant and full of himself. He was demonstrating how you could lock your arms behind your neck in a hold that can't be separated. Here's an important tip for avoiding embarrassment: never say never.
He asked for someone from the audience to try and break his arms apart. Down from the bleachers came our top male gymnast. The student got behind the "expert" and in a matter of seconds, the student not only broke the hold but dislocated the pro's shoulder in the process.
Best assembly ever.
19. Spite Club
When I was a kid, my friends and I were at the park one time when it started to rain. As we were running back to my dad’s new van, my dad was super concerned that we were going to get it dirty. He and my mom got into an argument as we were all running back. My dad then dove into a giant puddle of mud, jumped into the passenger seat of the van, and began wiping the mud everywhere.
20. Plot Twist
My neighbor would get quite upset when I would park in front of her house. There are about 10 houses on our block and you don’t see more than half a dozen cars parked on the street at a given time—even though the street could probably accommodate about 50 cars. Anyway, I didn’t particularly park there on purpose, I just didn’t want to do a U-turn and didn’t think much of it.
One day Karen came up to me and aggressively asked why I kept parking there instead of in front of my house. Mind you, she doesn’t even have a car. Her attitude was pretty hostile and I didn’t take it too well. We went back and forth for a while. I pretty much told her that it’s public parking and she can park in front of my house if she wants (with a grin on my face). That set her off.
I guess she wasn’t expecting that because she flew into a rage and started accusing me of some conspiracy to rip her off along with some other BS. Truth be told, if she had asked nicely, for whatever reason, I probably would have complied. She went inside her house and must have called the authorities because as I was cleaning my car they arrived 10 minutes later.
The officer informed me that there was suspicious activity going on in front of her house but he was pretty cool about it all and after a few minutes of chatting, he laughed it off and went on his merry way. Strangely, about two years later, Karen came over on Christmas and brought me a small present and apologized. After that, I stopped parking both my cars in front of her house.
21. Is That A Good Use Of Your Time, Tim?
One of my coworkers, Tim, was featured in a large publication's article on the overscheduled American child. It followed him and his family about their day as they rushed their children from music lessons to sports teams to a whole bunch of other activities. The parents wouldn't even let the kids fool around in the car–they were told, "Is that a good use of your time"?
The parents were proud. They said it would instill a necessary work ethic for their kids to get ahead in the USA.
That same week, we were on a team conference call, voice only. That's when we heard it—snoring sounds started interrupting the meeting. It finally got so bad that the manager did a roll call".
Tim"? No answer. Snoring continues. "Tim? Tim? TIMMMMM"!
Everyone starts laughing as Tim startles awake. He never lived it down.
22. Not-So-Happy Holidays
About eight years ago on my birthday (December 23), my mom hardly spoke to me. She answered me in single-word sentences on Christmas Eve and phoned my dad up on Christmas Day to say she didn’t want to see me (they are separated). I was a wreck all through those three days wondering what I had done. When my dad and I went to pick her up from work on the 26th, she was right as rain. That's when things spiraled for the worst.
After 15 minutes of rambling on, she casually mentioned that the reason she completely ignored her already anxiety-ridden 15-year-old daughter at Christmas was that I didn’t get her a Christmas card that said “Mom” on it in big enough letters. She completely ignored the big bag of presents I’d spent a lot of time getting.
23. An Unprovoked Attack
My Karen moment was actually with my aunt. She isn’t white, but she definitely has the Karen attitude. So, I went to her house in the suburbs, of course, to deliver some groceries and a couple of yoga mats. Everything was normal until my aunt looked out the window. She immediately ran outside and started ranting at a couple of teens.
All they were doing was resting on their bikes in front of her house. “Get off my property—RIGHT NOW!” The teens just stood there in shocked silence. My aunt tried again. “I said GET OFF MY PROPERTY!” The teens were taken aback, understandably. One said, “We’re on the road, not your property”, which was true.
I tried to lighten things up by telling the teens to move on unless they wanted to experience my aunt’s full rage, and they laughed and took off. I told my aunt they weren’t doing anything wrong, but she just told me to shut up. She didn’t want to be educated and I didn’t want to cause a fuss. Quite funny, but after that I looked at my aunt differently.
24. Dr. No Name, I Presume
When I was a kid, a new guy showed up at church. He was inordinately proud of the fact that he had a Ph.D. in communications and insisted everyone call him "Doctor" (and he was old enough that it's not like he just got his doctorate). He basically treated everyone else like uneducated rubes because he was a Doctor. This did not turn out well for him.
Well, the neurosurgeon, the anesthesiologist, the radiologist (chief of radiology at the biggest regional hospital!), the three dentists, the two orthodontists, and a handful of other people that I have no idea what they did all started calling each other "Doctor" as well.
Weirdly, Mr. Communications stopped insisting everyone call him Doctor.
25. Doing God’s Work
I was in line at Starbucks and a woman ahead of me ordered an iced venti something or other without whipped cream. The barista gave her the drink with a domed lid for whipped cream and apologized for being out of flat lids. This customer lost her mind. She started screaming about how her drink was going to spill and how she wants a flat lid.
She went on and on: I NEED a flat lid! I can’t believe the customer service! I want a refund! I want a free drink! I want a refund AND a free drink! Give me the manager. This is unacceptable! This is…This is…I was hungover and in such desperate need of coffee that I snapped, “Oh my God, it’s just a lid what is wrong with you? Please shut up”.
She did shut up, but only after calling me rude.
26. The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Pizza
My brother and I were at Domino’s waiting to pick up our sweet, delicious pizza. The staff was very busy and we had been patiently waiting at the counter, standing in the designated social distancing spot, for around five minutes. The social distancing spot was a taped line a few feet away from the counter. I think you know where I’m going with this.
Karen walked in and stepped in front of us. Assuming she had made a mistake I said, “Excuse me, we were actually waiting". She looked at me and said, “Yeah, but mine’s ready though” as if that were somehow justification for pushing in. The worst part was that the staff served her right away, even though we’d been trying to get their attention while our food was getting cold.
27. Good Advice
Me. I got into an argument with some guy and tried to talk tough. I thought it would be two guys talking tough and it would be over.
But he wasn’t bluffing. He wanted to fight. I backed down and apologized.
I learned a humbling lesson that day. This is not high school. Don’t write checks you can’t cash.
28. Chasing Amy
This happened to me about a year ago. I went to a local tabletop game store, mostly because I had a few friends who went there. In the store, there was this kind of awkward guy, not your standard neckbeard, but was a bit cringy at times. Anyway, after I had gone there a few times, he came up to me after the store closed and asked to speak with me privately.
I agreed but remained close to where my friends were so they could see me. He then proceeded to ask me out. I could tell he mustered up the courage for it, but I turned him down by informing him that I’m a lesbian, and saying that I hope he understands. While he seemed a bit defeated, he kind of seemed to nod and then left.
A few weeks went by and everything seemed normal. I started to go to the game store weekly to play with friends and sometimes we would play games with the awkward guy too because he actually seemed like a nice person—he was just a bit quiet. One day I hopped up to go buy something, and as I got up, he jumped up and offered to buy it for me if I agreed to go to dinner with him.
Once again, I declined. He nodded and said, “Well, what about just a hug”? At that point, the guy at the counter, who was also a friend of mine, took me by complete surprise: “Buddy back off. She’s not interested. Leave her alone or we’ll have big issues”. Upon hearing that, he backed off and slinked away looking a little annoyed and saddened by that.
At this point, I’m kind of keeping him at arm’s length in any interaction. While I’m not uncomfortable being there, I made it clear that I don’t want to communicate. However, yet again, weeks after the hugging incident, we were hanging out, and one of the other regulars, who was also a girl, complimented my outfit. It was no big deal.
However, an awkward guy came in who said, “Yeah you’re super hot”. Everyone kind of stopped what they were doing. The clerk who had stopped him before looked at him and said, “Come outside with me, we’re having a talk”.
For the next few minutes, we heard them shouting back and forth. The clerk was telling him that he had been warned.
I heard the awkward guy screaming back about how “it was no different than the other person calling me pretty”. Then the clerk said, “She told you she’s not interested. She’s a lesbian, so she’ll never be interested”. His final words were, “That doesn’t matter if she gave me a chance she’d change, I know it”. After that, we heard the clerk tell him that he was banned from the store.
After some more back and forth, the awkward guy eventually left. We later found out that he tried to flame the store on Facebook and he wrote some terrible reviews, which were quickly dismissed. Finally, after that whole nightmare was over, he apparently tried to get unbanned and even called the owner’s home phone but was rejected and told his ban stayed.
29. Awarded For Following Instructions
US Army, basic training, 1988.
We had a certified nut in our platoon that was so hyped on weaponry and shooting he was certain he was going to out-aim us all and get the BRM award. (Basic Rifle Marksmanship, one of several awards given out at the end of basic training). He was always trying to correct the trainers and teachers in our classes. Always hyping up how much of a sniper he was going to be, how many weapons he has, etc.
He had to qualify twice and barely made the cutoff the second time. But it gets better.
I, having never fired a weapon before, followed the class and range training: Got the award.
Him: Didn't say a word the rest of basic training.
30. Hard To Love This Neighbour
A couple of years after we moved into our house, I decided to clean up a wooded slope behind the house, which generations of owners had used as a dump. I ended up hauling a huge trove of gross junk up from the slope and decided to put it in a pile in my front yard while I waited for the dumpster to haul it away.
The neighborhood “Karen” took it upon himself to complain to the township about said junk pile. Although the township never told me who complained, I had no doubt, as he was well known for that sort of thing. I was, fortunately, able to pacify the township by explaining the situation, and the junk was gone within a couple of weeks after I got the dumpster. But there was more to this Karen.
This neighborhood Karen was infamous for his meddling. His wife, who was a sweet and beautiful lady, put up with it, but I don’t know how. However, as patient as she was, I guess even she had her limits. Eventually, I noticed him with another woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to his former wife. I heard she was an internet bride from the Eastern Bloc.
31. Very Cheesed Off
I managed a former teaching colleague who used to cry after all of her performance management and professional development meetings. She would literally leave the school site in tears because I asked her to talk about why her grade average was a C+ when her same class had a B+ the previous semester. She also flipped out when I detected plagiarism in a student assignment and overrode her A grade with a fail.
This behavior continued to escalate until I was no longer able to actually manage her in person. It was so stressful. I stopped meeting with her and when she complained about it to a senior staffer, I started the meetings again. The first one ended in tears and her leaving the school site. She then worked up to having complete breakdowns in class.
I’m talking about abandoning her classes full of students, curling up into the fetal position and screaming, reporting me to the department for harassing her, telling my manager that no one likes her, and the kicker: She took a cheese spreader to the office, accused our deputy of planting it in her locker to threaten her, and lobbed it at our HR lady and a support worker.
Yet, she. Didn’t. Lose. Her. Job. After that debacle, I flat-out refused to work with her in any capacity unless the site organized a restorative. They did not. I left the site that year and indirectly told this woman to go and screw herself (while making direct eye contact with her) in my farewell speech.
She’s a woman in her mid-forties. At the time, I was in my late 20s and I did not consider myself a ball-breaker of a manager. I haven’t worked with her for a good 18 months, but she still won’t let students mention my name in her presence. And this, ladies and gentlemen is my argument for why we shouldn’t arm teachers.
32. That’ll Teach Ya
It was my first summer back from college and a friend invited a college bud to come stay. I grew up in a medium-sized town, meaning there was stuff to do, just not a lot of it. So, we typically spent our time outside of town on people’s family land and ranches, having bonfires, riding horses or ATVs, or swimming in one of the rivers. Real semi-country-living kinda stuff.
So, this college friend comes to visit and we decide to show him that side of life there as a way to just hang out, talk, and get to know him. On the first day, we decided to go horseback riding. Our college bud was excited and said he missed being able to ride and talked about all of his experience riding horses, which was great. But the red flags came fast.
Now, on my friend’s land where we were riding, we had to arrange for the stable master to set up and saddle the horses for us (liability reasons), and college bud starts making remarks about how the stable master was securing the saddles, that he should do it differently for one reason or another, he’s critiquing how some people with us are holding their reins, etc. This all isn’t so bad in and of itself, mostly just annoying and rude.
We finally get everyone saddled and settled and are on our way toward the trails. After about an hour, the college bud started to get bored at our slow pace and begged to go faster. Well, there were reasons we were going the pace we were. Not everyone with us was super experienced with horses and the terrain. The trails are long and winding and stretched for literally hundreds of acres. It’s really easy to get lost back there and not every trail is well-traveled.
My friend explained this to him but he was having none of it. He “knows what he’s doing”. Within a second he had made up his mind and with a comically robust “GIDDYUP”! he was off like a shot. And I thought, for about all of two seconds, he thinks he’s got this.
But he didn’t...and it was obvious. His feet left the stirrups, legs splayed on either side of the horse like some derpy starfish as he rode into the woods. After making sure none of the other horses were going to bolt, my friend looked at me, sighed, and said, “Go get him and bring him back”.
I’m a fair rider, not a great rider, but I managed to catch up to him. It would have been absolutely hilarious had it not been so dangerous. He had no control over the horse at a cantering pace and was only still in the saddle thanks to a hope and a prayer, bouncing up and down, legs still splayed, the reins a distant memory in his hands.
Unable to grab the reins without potentially hurting one of us or both, I talked the horse down and used my horse as basically a pace guide until we were in a trot and could get a handle on the situation.
As I was trying to take the reins so he can situate himself, he starts in on me: “I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP, I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I WAS JUST HAVING SOME FU–”
Completely absorbed in telling me off for ruining his “good time”, this idiot didn’t realize his face was heading straight for a low-lying branch. It wasn’t a big branch but it was enough to knock him back and flatten him out over the back end of the horse.
I didn’t say a word as I led him back to the group. I didn’t have to. The universe had done its job and the visual alone was enough for him to hang his head. Him with a busted lip and me holding the reins of his horse for the rest of the day.
33. Keeping Vegas Safe
My best friend and his new wife Kathy went to Las Vegas to celebrate their wedding. I met them at the Imperial Palace. Kathy needed to go to the ladies' room but there was a lineup. As the line moved, Kathy would wave at my friend and me when the door opened. One of the ladies in line with Kathy had us stunned. She said, “Maybe we should call security on those strange-looking guys…’’
Kathy laughed and said, “One of those guys is my husband and the other is his best friend”.
34. A Very Bitter Pill
Today I watched a grown woman ridicule a coworker at our pharmacy for telling her that she could have a seat and we’d call her up to the counter when her prescription was ready. Her treatment of my coworker was deplorable. She mocked my coworker very loudly and then proceeded to tell all of the other customers how slow we are. From start to finish, her prescription took a total of 12 minutes.
Our average time from being handed the prescription, typing it, sending it to the pharmacist to be checked for accuracy, then sending it back to be counted (twice for narcotics), then sending it to the pharmacist to be checked again, and then giving it to the customer is 15 minutes. People are insane. Remember to always be nice to your pharmacy staff.
35. Girls Hit Hard Too
The youth group I was part of from grade 9-12 had some absolutely killer female athletes, to the point of you shouldn't be surprised if a girl completely destroys you in an athletic competition. However, the first weekend of the new people to the group is jokingly called the Grade 9 humbling game because of what typically happens.
Most of the Grade 9 guys come in having dominated most church group sports for the last 4 years. They aren't necessarily surprised when a high school senior guy is making big plays, but they don't expect the girls to be the harder hitters playing tackle football. This entire incident changed their minds completely.
One group saw me, a 6'5, 265 lbs guy get wiped out and do a flip because of the hit by a girl, and all I did was take the train number of the person who solo tackled me. I got back to the huddle and they tried to bug me about being tackled by a girl and I just responded, "Yeah she did that to me, imagine what she could do to you".
They then thought I was just trying to play down what she did. Two plays later, the girls showed they weren't to be taken as lightly as the grade 9 boys did. I'll never forget the guy on the ground wheezing for a couple minutes because the one girl caught him clean in the ribs.
36. One Crummy Customer
One time when I was around 15 I was working in a supermarket bakery. We had these plain buns specifically called “kids’ buns” that kids could eat while shopping in the supermarket with their parents. One day when I was working my shift, we were out of these kids' buns, and there was an entire line of parents waiting to get them for their children.
I handed the very last bun to the next person in line, and then we started handing out pastries instead of the buns. Then we ran out of those too (it was expected and not actually a problem), BUT this one woman insisted that I give her daughter a pastry just like I did with the other kids. But, as you know, we literally did not have anything left to give out.
This news sent the mom into full Karen mode. She threw the biggest, most embarrassing tantrum in front of not only the rest of the customers but also her daughter who then started mirroring her mom’s anger. The mom was screaming at me at the very top of her lungs. Then, I kid you not, she somehow found my boss and brought her over to the bakery.
This greedy lady, who by now was fired up and as red as a tomato, told the story to my boss—all because of a pastry I did not have. My boss forced the woman and her child out of the store and then came to talk to me about the very stressful incident. I was a little shaken but also entertained at how groundbreaking it was for the woman to not get her way.
People really need to remember that we’re all human and we all (OK, most of us) deserve to be spoken to respectfully. I can’t believe how many rude and entitled people I’ve had to deal with during my time in customer service, but it sure has given me some thick skin. More importance should be put on the importance of teaching children patience and kindness.
37. My Hair, My Choice
I cut a woman’s hair into a really hot pixie cut while her boyfriend threw a temper tantrum in the waiting room. He was pouting so hard that he wouldn’t even talk to her after the haircut. It made me want to punch him in the face and then tell her that she could do waaaaay better.
38. Tanks For Nothing
A few years ago my dad argued with a guy delivering some tanks. The guy yelled at him and cussed my dad out, getting inches from his face.
What he did not know was that my dad ran the store and this guy’s father called my dad apologizing and thanking him for his patience. Then the son came back later and apologized to my dad in person with his head hanging.
39. Nitpickers R Us
So, I have a latex allergy, which meant that I wore fabric masks during COVID. One time there was this Karen who went off on me because she didn’t think that fabric masks were safe enough. When I told her about my allergies, she blew her top—she proceeded to call me a Karen for not wearing a “real” mask. Like c’mon, at least I was wearing a mask. And I do wash the mask after I’ve used it.
40. Big Baby
I work at an electronics retailer. Right around the time the PlayStation VR came out, it was a hot ticket item—very hard to keep in stock. I was working a shift when a guy called the store to see if we had the PSVR headset in stock. We told him we had one in stock, however, we cannot hold it for him. You can already guess where this is probably going…
He showed up an hour later when I was working in the gaming department. He asked if we had the VR and I told him that, unfortunately, the last one was sold about an hour ago. This guy lost it. He proceeded to scream in my face, “Are you f-ing kidding me”? He then went into a full-blown tantrum—jumping up and down and stomping his feet.
Before I even had time to respond, he surprised us with his next move—ran to the front of the store, and demanded to speak with a manager. If I were to guess his age, I think he might have been around 35 years old. I was completely stunned by how angry and upset he became. His rage reminded me more of how a three-year-old would act if he didn’t get what he wanted.
Freepik, pressahotkey
41. Not The Reaction She Expected
A girl in our choir was absent from musical auditions the day before. She was OUTRAGED I got the part she wanted. She was yelling and stomping around the theater demanding an audition. She sang the audition song in front of everyone (instead of one-on-one like the day before). She thought this was a great idea—but she was sooo wrong.
When she was finished, she asked the group at large if she should have the part and the whole group of peers (like 32 kids) said no. She left the theater and didn’t show up for a couple of days.
42. A Lick And A Promise
I work at a casino, so with the pandemic, we had to institute quite a few rules to protect the employees and the guests. Everyone had to wear masks unless they were actively eating or drinking, and there were limited spaces available at all games. Social distancing was practiced whenever possible and cards were changed more often.
We worked hard to provide a safe environment under challenging conditions. Most of the guests were. cooperative, and even the few who were not would generally go along after we explained the rules or let them know that failure to heed the rules meant they would have to leave. So, the Karen in question was a middle-aged man who showed up at the craps table—and he was truly something else.
He pulled out a roll of currency, pulled his mask down, and started licking his fingers as he counted the bills. Eek! I explained that because of the pandemic he could not be doing this and that he would have to disinfect his hands. He did not understand the issue we all had with his actions and became very upset with me.
He said, “How am I supposed to count my money without licking my hands”? I told him that he could just hand the money to the dealer and they would count it for him, which they would have to do anyway. He finally just walked over to another table nearby. I could see the dealer and other players shake their heads in disbelief. It’s amazing how inconsiderate and clueless some people are.
43. Gotcha!
One of my housemates had gone home to his parent’s house for the weekend, and while he was away we needed to change the wifi password. We were, of course, going to tell him when he got back. The problem was that he got back at 1:00 am on Monday morning and got mad that no one responded to the group chat about why the wifi wasn’t working (because we were all asleep).
In his frustration, he stomped downstairs and unplugged all of the wires from the router. He took them to his room and in the morning when everyone had woken up, he refused to give them back until we fixed his wifi. I told him that we had to change the password and he proceed to hold the wires for ransom.
I was forced to point out to him that he hadn’t actually paid his part of the internet bill that month, so he had no right to deprive the rest of us. I then said that if he didn’t give us back the cables, I’d just go to the store and get some more, which would still leave him without internet. Surprisingly, this plan worked.
44. Mr. Ed Gets Mean
A girl that I boarded with years ago. The barn was a co-op, so all the boarders pitched in on chores. The barn owner was really nice and laid back, and would let us ride her horses, really nice well-trained show horses. You kinda had to know how to ride them though because they were trained to very specific cues.
The barn owner would teach anyone that wanted to learn; she was older and had mobility issues so she saw it as a win/win because her horses got exercise and we got to ride fancy expensive horses most of us would never be able to afford. One long-time boarder worked one of the nicest horses in the barn regularly and the horse was a bit difficult to ride so you really had to bring your A-game but if you knew how to ask him to work he was amazing. But he was a complete jerk if you didn't know how to ride him.
This new boarder fancied herself a top-notch horse trainer. Most of what she spouted was just garbage she was regurgitating from blogs and online forums. The long-time boarder was finishing up working the really fancy horse and had been having a little trouble keeping him on the correct lead that day. The new boarder insisted she could "fix" him. They exchanged a few words, then the barn owner stepped in and said to let her try.
She got on the horse and made a clumsy attempt at getting him to move forward. He took a few steps and stopped. She started thumping on his sides, he took a few steps backward and pinned his ears. We saw her raise the crop and we all knew what was coming...
The horse launched her over the arena fence with one massive buck. I looked over at the owner and she was standing there with a little smirk on her face.
The girl picked herself up off the ground and slinked back into the barn. Never offered to "fix" anyone else's horse after that.
45. Pet Store Problem
My sweet little fur ball of love, Bunny, was gravely ill and on his last legs. In an effort to make him comfortable, I drove to the pet store to look for anything that he would eat. When I returned to my car, I noticed the SUV that had been parked next to me had pulled out and then returned. The young Karen—she even had the iconic hair—got out and accused me of hitting her car with my door.
I told her that I did not recall doing so, which only angered her more. This was the last thing I needed to hear when my little guy was so sick. So I let her have it—I told her that she could report it to her insurance company and her rates would go up or she could simply accept my apology for something I’m not even sure I did. I then got in my car and drove away, leaving her with her hurt ego.
46. Panty Raid?
When I was seven, my family went on vacation to southwest Florida with my grandparents. We rented a house with a pool and there was this glass door that led to the pool from the living room. So, if you were sitting on the couch, you could see what was going on by the pool but you couldn’t hear it. At one point, my parents were outside being all lovey-dovey and laughing…
Unfortunately, when my grandma saw them, she was legitimately convinced that they were making fun of her. So, of course, she went outside and pitched the biggest fit of ’06. My parents took me and my brother out to the beach to get away from them and let everyone cool down. When we got back around three hours later, we were shocked.
My grandparents had packed up and headed back to Knoxville—a 10-hour drive that they had made the day before. The childish part was that they had taken all of my five-year-old brother’s underwear with them. They later said it was an accident, but how does someone accidentally walk into a kid’s room, dig through the drawers, and take every pair of his underwear?
47. Children Will Humble You
My son had been born the day before, and my wife was in bed recovering. I was all cocky because I was able to put him to sleep and did a perfect swaddle. I was able to calm him down in seconds and I was just getting more arrogant by the minute.
I volunteered to change his poopy diaper because I’d been a father for an entire day and clearly an expert at this point. Worst idea ever. Apparently, my beautiful newborn wasn’t finished pooping and not only peed all over my face and chest but he pooped all over my hands.
After that happened I was a little more humble.
Freepik, pch.vector
48. Taking The High Road In Style
My wife and I were at a pretty upscale grocery store, and when you’re Black in America, unfortunately, you know when you’re being watched. As we shopped, these two older women of fairer complexion were watching us like hawks as we made our way around the store. Now it just so happens that my wife had met me at the store.
My wife has a Buick Encore that was about 30 days old—it still had the paper tags on it. I liked hers so much that I went and bought myself one. So, the cars are essentially almost identical and they were parked right next to each other in the parking lot. These women were standing there, clearly watching us.
Me being me, I decided to have some fun. So I remotely started my wife’s, and then I remotely started mine. We calmly walked to our cars, put our stuff in, and pulled out.
Since they were still standing there after all this time, I decided to be polite and wave to them. Sometimes the most rewarding thing you can say when you’ve been profiled is nothing at all.
49. Sounds Petty
I like to call this “The Great Speaker Saga of 2014”. At the age of 23, I was working in a chemical plant that processed aluminum. It was a loud factory where there were loud pumps and fan belts. My tiny workstation was in front of the only stereo and because of all of the noise, the stereo was hard to hear—even at full blast.
One dude, age 50, was always blasting the rock station which cycled through the same 20 songs, including Nickelback. I worked within arm’s reach of the thing, so I would turn it down because it hurt my ears. He got mad at our manager because I kept doing that, and he even stopped talking to me for a week.
Finally, I decided to move around the corner where I couldn’t hear the radio, so I bought a tiny speaker with an aux cable. He then bought two speakers for his music. My aux cable eventually stopped working, so my little sister let me borrow her Bluetooth speaker for a week. My nemesis retaliated…
He got a bigger Bluetooth, but it wasn’t too loud. I finally got my own Bluetooth, which was loud and filled the space. He then bought computer speakers with a subwoofer. They weren’t very loud. The funny part is that he didn’t drive, so he had to carry these speakers back and forth on the bus every day. I stored mine in my locker because, well, we all had one.
He eventually stopped bringing his speakers in. I guess bigger isn’t always better.
50. The Last Samurai
Not me, but a friend of a friend of mine is a certified instructor for some form of Japanese swordsmanship. This person is also short. And a woman.
The number of hyperinflated weebs she's seen walk into her dojo is unreal, and she took great pleasure in popping those egos with lightning speed when they got out their mall katanas and whined that Sensei put a little girl up to test them. The most satisfying part?
Not one of them would last more than a month after the initial encounter.
51. He’s The One They Call Dr. Feel-Bad
My “Karen” was a doctor who replied to a question I posted online. I was not asking for specific medical advice. I was not asking for a diagnosis or anything specific to my medical history. My question had to do with a cardiac MRI I had taken that day. I did not know that the scan was going to take an hour and a half or that the arthritis in my shoulders was going to cause me so much pain.
The pain was so intense that I was unable to stay still and I ended up having to abort the test after an hour and 15 minutes. My Quora question was: “I had to cut my cardiac MRI 15 minutes short today because I developed severe pain in my shoulder, neck, and low back. It was supposed to take 1.5 hours. The tech said he had enough for a basic image. Will the test be accurate enough?”
One of the respondents insulted me for wasting his time and said that I was whining about nothing. He said that I shouldn’t have even bothered asking if I couldn’t finish the test. He said a few other choice things in the most condescending tone possible. My reply was pretty tart. I said he didn’t need to reply to me if he was so bothered by a simple question.
I then went on to ask him why was he even on this website if he wasn’t willing to be polite. The whole experience really hurt me and gave me a bad taste in my mouth since it was the first question I had ever asked. I blocked him and I don’t remember his name anymore (or I would copy and paste his rude answer). Good riddance!
52. We Be Clubbin’
I was golfing at the driving range of a friend’s country club in an area where the average income is mid-six to seven figures—a really nice place. The golfer next to me was a 50-something Italian man who was not having a good time. He was yelling into the phone at his cable guy who would not go into the home unaccompanied and there was no one else there.
This guy kept getting angrier and angrier. The cable guy finally said he was willing to wait for the golfer to come home so he could do the work, but it was company policy to not go into homes without an adult or homeowner there.
This set the golfer off BAD. He started screaming and he even threatened the cable guy.
The golfer used wonderful threats ranging from getting him fired to “I’m Italian, you know what that means, you better do the work, I’m Italian”. When this round of insults and threats didn’t work, he called the cable company. He tried the same threats again. When that didn’t work he threw his cell phone into the parking lot.
That wasn’t it, though, he then started smashing his golf clubs on the concrete and screaming that the cable company made him do this. His friend ended up taking him away before security got there.
53. Dude, Where’s My Car?
My family has an old story that always gets retold. This was in the early 1980s. One of my grandfather's cousins was the kind of guy who'd always one-up in conversations: "Oh, I know a better place for dinner". "I know the best everything". "I know a guy here and there, I can get us in". He recently got a brand new Cadillac car and loved to say how it was top of the line.
One fine Sunday, the whole clan went into the city for dinner. The cousin arrived in a flourish, got out of the Caddy, handed the man at the entrance the keys, and $10, and told him to take care of his car. After dinner, he got outside and told the maitre'd to bring his car around. This is when things got bad for him".
What car, sir"?
"The car I had valeted"".
We don't have a valet"".
Then who did I give my car to"?
"..".
Yep. He was pretty quiet the ride back.
54. Sweet Revenge
Earlier this week, my friend V and I made plans to go kayaking. When she arrived at my building, I buzzed her in and told her to sign in and take a seat in the lobby and I would be down momentarily. Within seconds, she was approached by a Karen who told her she was loitering and asked her to leave.
V stated that she would be leaving shortly to which Karen replied, “You need to leave now!” V continued reading a magazine. “Listen”, Karen said, “I’m the manager and I am ordering you to leave, so get moving or I’ll call the authorities”. V continued reading her magazine. When I arrived, Karen was on the phone with law enforcement. But there's a twist to all this.
V told me what was happening and as I began to speak, she suggested that we sit tight and watch this all unfold. Not only did Karen have to admit to the authorities that she wasn’t the manager of the building, but that she wasn’t even a resident. Oh, and did I mention that V is a sergeant with our local law enforcement agency?
55. How Dare You?
I’ve been friends with my buddy J and his current wife C since elementary school. A few years back, just after J and C began seriously dating, they decided to move in together and determined that C would move into J’s place. This meant that C would be breaking the lease on the apartment she was renting with her spoiled, crazy roommate we’ll call Beulah.
I should note that at the time this occurred, we were all in our late 20s. C had given Beulah a heads-up about the move and everyone was well-informed about the timetables. J, C, and I showed up at C’s apartment and started loading up the box truck. Beulah was moping around and pouting. It only got worse when C had some news for Beulah.
C informed Beulah that since the internet and cable were in C’s name, she would be calling the company to cancel it and Beulah would need to set up service in her name. Beulah flipped the crazy switch. I witnessed a fully grown woman fly into a weeping rage. She wailed, shrieked, and begged C not to cancel the service.
Then Beulah began to insist that C was obligated to not only keep the service on but also to keep paying for it despite the fact that she wouldn’t be living there. Beulah claimed that her life was falling apart and she’d never be able to find work or support herself without the internet and cable. All I can say is that it was hilariously awkward.
56. Art Is Subjective Anyway
So, I went to a performing arts high school. Senior year we had to do a performance for a show based on our major. I wrote, directed, and starred in a scene as I was a theater major. My teacher, Mr. Smith, over the years, had grown to dislike me (originally for what I feel were petty reasons, but I admittedly didn't help once I realized he didn't like me).
My scene was pretty unique in the show because I wrote a script the first week...and didn't change it beyond one or two lines. Other students had major changes, and multiple people completely changed their concepts halfway through. So you'd THINK he'd be grateful that I didn't need much help and handled most of it myself.
Nope. One day, with no real warning, he just lost it. He told me nothing about my scene made sense (duh, it was supposed to be absurdist) and I had to make a ton of changes for it to be any good. It was such a bizarre, random, and bitter rant the entire class was stunned into silence.
Afterward, people asked me what was going on, assuming there had been issues before, but no. He just lost it. I don't like to assume the worst, but all I can figure is that he didn't like it because I did it on my own. Other students were relying heavily on him to make their scenes work, but I never once asked for his help (which he seemed to want originally). It seems he really wanted the ego boost of everyone coming to him for help.
So, from his long rant, he made one good point and I made one minor change...But only one. He was very cold to me after that. But the performance came and...my scene was a hit.
EVERYONE was raving about it, some calling it the best in the show. After the first performance, I was standing in the lobby, still dressed like a 50s housewife, and a bunch of people were complimenting me. I was beaming and then suddenly noticed Mr. Smith watching me. I looked over at him and he just had this really grumpy, defeated expression. He then immediately looked away.
It was a fantastic moment after all the trouble I'd had with him. He noticeably didn't say anything to me, good or bad, after that. Despite doing the same for everyone else.
57. Small World
This happened when my fiancée and I went grocery shopping. She is disabled and needs to use a cane. When we are in stores she often uses their electric scooters. We also have a disabled parking pass that hangs from the car’s rearview mirror. After pulling into one of the disabled parking spots, I got out and went around to help my fiancée out of the car.
I heard someone yell, “Hey, you” and when I turned around, I saw that it was a Karen. “Why are you parking in a disabled parking space? You’re not disabled”! I politely replied, “No, I am not, but my fiancee is". By this time Lisa was out of the car and getting her cane out of the back seat. “She’s not disabled. She’s just faking it!”
I raised my eyebrows in shock, but Karen kept going. “She’s using that cane to fool people just so you can get a better parking space. I’m going to call the authorities”. And she did. Lisa and I decided to wait for them to arrive, so Lisa got back in the car. When they arrived, it turned out that the officer had been in a Massachusetts National Guard unit that I had trained before I retired from the Army.
“Hi, Sarge! I haven’t seen you since your retirement ceremony. What’s this about wrongful parking in a disabled parking space”? Karen started off with her his-woman-is-faking routine. The officer looked at the disabled placard hanging from the rearview mirror and asked if he could borrow it for a moment. He took it over to Karen.
He didn’t hide his annoyance when he said, “Ma’am, this is the fifth time this month you have called us with a bogus complaint. This couple has the right to park there as you can see from this placard. We warned you the last time you did something like this. You’re coming with me to the station where we are going to charge you for making multiple false complaints.
Her jaw dropped. He then said, “Get in the squad car— now”! As she got in she was screaming, “I’ll have your badge for this” and “Don’t you know who my husband is”? The officer gave me the placard back and then drove away with her still yelling from the back seat while we went inside and finally did our shopping.
58. Off The Hook
I was working in a call center that used a worse-than-average voice-guided system that our customers had to navigate before they could talk to a person. One customer in particular found it so unacceptable that he yelled at me for a good minute before we got to the purpose of his call. This was not too uncommon, most people got over it pretty quickly and I didn’t fault them for it.
However, this guy was so invested in his rage that whenever I asked for an account number or details regarding the transaction he would purposely rattle off the numbers extremely fast, trying to be hard to understand. I can only assume that if I asked him to repeat himself it would further validate his fury at our company’s ineptitude. But here's what was frustrating.
He spoke perfect English, he wasn’t driving through a tunnel while his phone’s GPS was giving directions, and his kids weren’t screaming in the background, all of which meant it wasn’t hard to understand him in the least. I handled the call as routinely as any other and asked what else I could do for him.
59. Even Grandma?
I knew this girl who was a part of my friend group back in high school. She started being really harsh to one of the girls in our group and wouldn’t own up to it or apologize in any way so we all cut ties with her. Shortly afterward she moved away. Let me tell you, I have never seen such sudden and strong entitlement come from a person.
This girl then reached out to the girl she’d been so mean to almost a year later and told her she was coming back and she was going to “ruin her life”. She said she was going to rejoin the youth group at our church and spread horrible rumors about her so that nobody would like her anymore and she’d be able to take all of her friends back. Also said she was going to play the victim card and tell everyone that she was the one being harassed.
We shared those messages with our minister and she was promptly banned from that group and never got to show her face there again. She also started posting things about all of us on TikTok, which we reported and ended up getting her temporarily banned from the platform. She wasn’t able to get a job in this town because everywhere she applied there was someone there who knew what she did and told their boss not to hire her. And now her grandma is evicting her and sending her back home.
60. Vaped Crusader
I was at a restaurant, and when I finished my meal I went outside to vape while I waited for the check. As I was vaping, I saw a family pull in and park in the lot. I noticed that the mother was puffing away on a coffin nail in the car—with the windows up and two kids in there. As they all walked up to the door, Karen gave me a dirty look.
I gave her the same look and watched as she steered her brood away from me. She chimed in with a sarcastic, “Great idea to vape by the door, so everyone has to breathe those chemicals”. Really? I responded with “Look, lady, I’m not the one puffing away in a car with children in it. At least I have the courtesy to be outside feeding my habits". And I didn't stop there.
I then asked, “What kind of mother are you to subject your children to that poison? And you have the nerve to say that nonsense to me?” I then turned to her husband. “Are you just gonna let this woman poison your kids and act like this? What kind of man are you”? I then proceeded to enjoy the following moments of stunned silence.
61. Cheers, Mate!
I work in a casual dining restaurant. Space is a bit tight there, so the majority of our drinks are stored in a spot tucked to the side of the register, which happens to be next to one of the dining tables. Now, I live in Australia. So booze laws can be a bit tight. For example, at my place, we can only serve booze with a meal order.
Anyway, this small group came in. They were all in their 40s and a little bit boozed up, but nothing majorly concerning. They sat next to the drink storage and when one of the fellas tried to order a drink on its own, I explained to him that we can only serve with food. He got grumpy and declined to order anything at all.
About five mins later, I noticed that he had two brews on his table. None of us served him any, so we realized that he very audaciously nicked himself a couple. One of my coworkers went over to the table with the payment machine and got him to pay, which he did begrudgingly. We were fair to him in the sense that didn’t just grab the authorities that regularly patrol the area.
Anyway, after that group left, we noticed that this guy had swiped two more bottles that we missed because he hid them under the table. One of them had fallen over too, which made the cleanup extra fun. So, basically, a grown man didn’t want to order some chips with his drink so he decided to pinch four room-temp drinks.
62. Happy She’s An Ex-Friend
An ex-friend of mine always thought of herself as better than me, mainly when we were in university and she had better grades. She was always a bit condescending and told me I was wrong, explaining things slowly and assuming that she knew better than me.
I let it go because I did not really care—but then things got interesting.
Then one day she was speaking about her salary and how she just got a promotion. We were all happy for her but then she started going around the table and asked how much the others were making.
Everybody was making more than her. When my turn came, I saw a bit of hope that at least I should be paid less than her. But that was not the case, by far. I saw her deflate so fast, she became gray and sad. It made me sad for her because she made herself so unhappy and I could not really help her because the reason she was unhappy was that I was not under her.
63. Communication Breakdown
Since she was 17, Maggie has been working full-time hours at the retail store we work at. While doing this she was also finishing high school and pursuing a career in physical therapy. Maggie is the most respectful person I know. She’s now almost 22. She has no bias, treats everyone equally, and was taught to respect her elders.
She has a naiveté about her, but she is on her game and wise beyond her years. Maggie is liked by everyone. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, and I’ve never heard a bad word about her, even as the idle workplace gossip makes the rounds. Yet on this day, I could tell that Maggie was visibly upset and on the verge of crying, which was all the more troubling as she doesn’t cave easily.
Maggie told me that a customer called her a “dirty little pig”. Maggie is a minority and the rude customer was the same minority. Maggie will bend over backward to please any customer, but she doesn’t have any say in the price of goods and that was the cause of the slur. This didn’t sit well with me. I went off on this customer as she was waiting in line to pay.
I knew I was on camera, but I also knew my employers would back me up. I berated her for a full minute. I told her she was banned from the store (even though I have no authority over that. I loudly told her that she was not welcome back and that we don’t tolerate abusive language from the staff or anyone else. She looked at me with an unnerving expression of boredom on her face as I unleashed my rant.
By this point, I’ve told Maggie to call the office and get the owners involved. It was also at this time, that through my rage, I noticed a teenage boy standing beside the rude customer with his head hung down. My bravado was quickly dissipating as I was looking at this kid. He could be my kid. He didn't ask for this and yet here I am, adding to his shame.
The owners talked to the son because the mother claimed to not know English. Apparently, this was a pattern for his mother. I can’t imagine how much shame he must feel. I feel good that I stood up for my co-worker, but I feel bad because I had to involve this poor kid even though he was just the interpreter.
64. Days Of Whine And Cat Pee
My roommate had to clean cat pee out of her carpet, so I bought her a cleaner to do it with. She sprayed it on the carpet, said she was done, and went to have a nap. I mentioned that I didn’t hear her run the vacuum. She got confused so I showed her the directions on the bottle of the cleaner, stating that you must vacuum the spot.
She literally whined, “But I haaaate vacuuming! I’ll do it after my nap”. That's when I had enough. I told her to stop it. If the cleaner was left in the carpet too long, it would bleach it. She then stomped her feet around and whined at a high pitch about how much she did not want to vacuum and how she wouldn’t have cleaned the cat pee if she knew she had to vacuum.
She is 26.
65. This Wife Is Savage
My BIL is always preening and bragging about how he's the best. At everything.
At a family dinner with people he hadn't met before, someone asked him if his last name was Italian. He said yes.
Another person said, "Ah, I've heard about those hot Italian lovers". Then came an almost automatic reaction.
Before he could get a word out, his wife looked at him and very clearly said, "Yeah, I've HEARD about them too".
Freepik, freepik
66. No Good Deed…
A Karen tried to get me fired for saving her life. Allow me to explain: Karen and her daughter were standing on a sidewalk near a store entrance waiting for traffic to slow so they could cross the street. Karen stupidly decided that she had to cross NOW and boldly proceeded to walk in front of my work van while looking at her phone.
Her daughter grabbed her shoulder and I gave a quick beep of the horn to let her know that she was entering traffic. Karen wasn’t having it. I was forced to stop the van with her standing in front of me. She yelled her usual Karen thing about how I was driving too fast and not watching where I was going—despite the fact I was able to safely stop the van to avoid hitting her.
I was polite and glad that there were plenty of witnesses who would back me up if she wanted to make something of it. So I drove off and parked further down the road in the strip mall. I was inside one of the stores for about 20 minutes and when I returned to my van, I found Karen writing down all of my info so that she could call my work and complain.
By now my witnesses were gone and, yes, Karen called my work. I wish I had her number because I would LOVE to let her know that her complaint was ignored because my supervisor pegged her accurately as a Karen. We also have GPS on all of our work vehicles so it was easy enough for my boss to see that I wasn’t “flying down the street”.
67. Nasty Is As Nasty Does
I knew someone who was super nice in the weeks before we moved in together with six other people for two months as part of an internship abroad. As soon as we arrived at the apartment, however, she instantly demanded to handle the finances after weeks of bragging about how she never has to take care of her money because of her parents.
We, of course, denied her request, which triggered her first pout attack and slowed down our first day a LOT. Also, she not only chose her room first but she even tried to force us to take the rooms SHE had assigned to us in the first minute of seeing the apartment. She said things like, “X and Y fit together way better than X and Z. I KNOW these things”.
She flat-out REFUSED to do any housework whatsoever. Dishes? Screw that. Clean our SHARED room? Hah. Oh, surely you won’t mind me putting my three tons of powdery makeup and utensils on your bed every day—all while constantly Facetiming with her idiot boyfriend (that guy was a whole new level of dumb). She said she liked that about him because it made him easier to control.
She also demanded that after the internship, if there was any money left in our cash stash, it should go to her because, in the first week, she put out pizza money for everyone who had no cash that night, even though it had been paid back in full the next morning. When we did not agree, she took the coffee machine we all bought together for maybe 10 bucks. Nobody gave a hoot.
68. Ouch, Bob
I was awarded a contract to train every supervisor in a New England state about the intersection between the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Workers Compensation Law. (Also known as the "Bermuda Triangle" of employment law).
I was very pleased with myself.
My friend Bob, who was also a client, was duly impressed with the size of the contract. He then asked about the length of my presentation.
Six hours.
He wondered, if was it possible for me to get him a DVD of my presentation.
I was so thrilled he’d asked. A good friend and a good client. Then he dropped the mic.
Bob added, “…because sometimes at night, I have a little trouble falling asleep”.
69. You Need To Calm Down
I encountered a male Karen during my time at the bank. The interaction started with him wanting to make a withdrawal from his account. Fine. He placed his bank card and ID on the counter while I provided him with a slip to fill out for the transaction. As he was doing this, I took the ID and card to pull up his account profile.
I finished with his ID and bank card before he completed filling out the slip, so I placed them back on the counter so he could easily pick them up when he was done. It has happened in the past when these items were left behind. I completed the transaction and wished him well when I see him still standing there looking upset.
Puzzled, I asked if there was anything else he needed. He told me that I needed to pick up his cards and place them in his hand. He said that it was rude of me to not do so. I explained to him that he was still filling out the slip, so I put them on the counter so he could put them away when he was done. That wasn’t good enough for him—and he insisted I do what he asked.
I became irritated and told him that he didn’t put the cards in my hand, so he was being hypocritical. I guess that hit a sore spot because he became irate and asked for a manager to complain about my rudeness and disrespect. I gladly called the manager for him and left him to explain what happened. I never saw him again and I hope I never do.
70. That’s Grandma Narcissist To You
One Thanksgiving when I was about four years old, my older brother, cousins, and I decided that we would put on a talent show for the adults. Our audience consisted of my parents, my cousins’ parents, and my paternal grandparents. Well, the kids were performing and the parents and grandpa were eating it up, but Grandma just sat there with arms folded and a sour look on her face.
Out of the blue, she suddenly doubled over and started wailing about how she “didn’t feel good”. Grandpa, uncle, and aunt stopped everything to tend to her. Dad also reluctantly went over to check on her, but my mom just sat there staring at her like, “Really? You’re doing this NOW”? Apparently feigning sickness was her go-to every time she felt she wasn’t getting enough attention.
She pulled this type of stunt on a fairly regular basis. Examples: Family outing you don’t care for? Cry about not feeling well and guilt them into canceling. One of your adult children has good news? Cry about not feeling well to ruin the other person’s moment. Someone suggests that your remark was rude and uncalled for? Cry about not feeling well to regain everyone’s sympathy.
I remember this type of thing happening a few times during my early childhood yet grandpa and uncle catered to her every whim. My dad went along with it out of obligation, but Mom always knew that the whole thing was BS. Of all the times Grandma did this, though, Mom always told me that she found the talent show incident to be the most heinous.
Because, although mom could understand her mother-in-law trying to manipulate and one-up other adults, the idea that an elderly woman couldn’t stand to share the spotlight with a group of children performing their hearts out, including me, who was just a toddler at the time, was completely insane.
71. Kids Say The Darndest Things
A neighbor and I rescued a young lady who was being threatened by her ex-boyfriend. I visited the emergency room afterward for a minor injury.
My daughter, about 13, watched the entire event from our front porch.
When I got home I asked her to help me with a few Band-Aids etc. for some scratches from broken glass. I realize now she was the wrong one to ask.
She replied, “Oh I get it, Captain America can save the whole world, but when he gets an owwie he needs his daughter's help”.
She is a sweet girl and meant it as a joke but it definitely took me down a notch.
72. Someone Is Not Amused
This is a fun one. I was sitting on the city bus, going into town when a tired-looking young woman with twins in a double stroller got on the bus. A few stops later, another woman got on the bus and just started screaming at the young mom. “These seats are for disabled people! I’m disabled! You need to move so I can sit down!”
The harried young mother tried to tell her that she can’t move anywhere else because of the stroller. This horrible person wouldn’t hear it, though. The bus driver turned around in his seat and said to Karen, “There are plenty of disabled seats on that side over there. These spots are also designated for strollers as well".
Apparently, this Karen was NOT a fan of logic. “She needs to take her stroller and MOVE! This is ridiculous”. Finally, she sat down so that the bus could leave. When we finally got into town, the Karen started screaming at the bus driver. “YOU MISSED MY STOP!” FYI, she didn’t even ring the bell. “I’M GOING TO TELL YOUR MANAGER HOW YOU’VE BEEN TREATING ME!“
The bus driver smiled and said, “Go ahead”. The Karen replied, “I’M THE QUEEN! I NEED TO BE TREATED BETTER!” Then she corrected herself, much to my amusement, “Well, I’m related to the queen, and you’ll definitely be hearing from your manager". She then got off the bus and headed toward the bus headquarters. We still see her every now and then and my husband and I always call her “the queen".
73. Shuttle Diplomacy
I work at the front desk of a hotel by a busy airport. Naturally, we offer a complimentary shuttle service to and from the airport to entice people to stay with us. One dude was checking out on Christmas Eve and needed the shuttle to the airport. Earlier that morning, I had already explained to him that the shuttles were in demand and might a bit longer to arrive.
So, I explained to him once again that it might take up to 15 minutes for the shuttle to get here. The dude goes to stand outside and wait. Not even a full five minutes later, he came back in and asked where the shuttle was and if I could call it again. I tried to reiterate that it takes up to 15 minutes, but he cut me off.
“Would you just call? You would want me to do the same if you were in my shoes”, he said. “Just call, please”. So I called and sure enough, the shuttle driver said it will take 10 minutes and to tell the guest this. I did and he walked back outside. THEN he started pacing. Going from the outside and then back in through the lobby—back and forth.
He was livid! I could literally see the steam coming off him. He yelled at me to call AGAIN! And then he went outside. I tried to plead with the shuttle people, “Hey, this guy is absolutely bonkers mad. If you could please, please, please get a shuttle here as soon as possible”. He was now SCREAMING about how unacceptable it was to make him wait so long.
Eventually, it got to the point where I told him to get an Uber and we would reimburse him. He screamed, “HOW ARE YOU GONNA REIMBURSE ME”? The Uber couldn’t have been more than $10, but I handed him $20. He was sitting on his phone, scheduling the Uber when THE SHUTTLE PULLED UP. At the 15-minute mark, of course. The guy ran out—without giving back the $20, of course.
74. Kick Those Dreams To The Curb
In my early thirties, I took tae-bo from one of the kids in the Billy Banks videos from the 90s, Daniel, who was then 22. My jumps improved dramatically with some good instruction and hard work. I thought I was super-star good...how delusional of me.
Then Daniel came beside me and his jump was completely over my head when I was at the top of my jump-kick.
I gave up any championship dreams.
75. How Dare You?!
I was on my way into a store when I noticed a young mother with two small children approaching the door. She was holding each child by the hand. I held the door open for her. Bad move. She proceeded to berate me for trying to help her out. She let loose a stream of swear words. “You don’t need to hold the door! Do I look like an invalid? I can take care of myself!”
I simply replied, “ I was only trying to help out, but whatever. By the way, nice language to use in front of the children”. Then I just continued on my merry way. I’ll never forget that. It caught me totally off guard and might make me think twice about helping someone out in the future.
76. Food Fight
When I worked for Papa John’s, there was this guy who ordered delivery to a factory. When I put in his credit card info, it was declined. I told him this and he started screaming, “THERE IS NO F-ING WAY IT GOT DECLINED I WAS IN THE MARINES AND I MAKE MORE MONEY THAN SOME LOSER AT A PIZZA PLACE. RUN IT AGAIN”! Instead of doing that, I just hung up.
He immediately called back and said, “DON’T YOU EVER F-ING HANG UP ON ME AGAIN OR YOU WILL REGRET IT”. So. I did the only thing anyone would do in that situation and hung up on him again. He called back, so I went to my manager and told him that this dude was nuts and I wasn’t going to take his order so someone else needed to do it.
77. Doesn’t Know (Or Care) Who He Is
As just a decent young boxer, I was honored to be employed for a month as a sparring partner for Michael Spinks, the (at that time) world champion.
Following my victory by second-round knockout, I went back to the dressing room to quickly wish Michael good luck, while trying to hurry back into the arena and get a good spot to view his bout.
As I was leaving the dressing room, Jesse Jackson complimented me by saying, “Just keep doing it for the Lord, preacher, and the Lord will keep doing it for you!” (my name was “The Pugilistic Preacher”).
Anyway, since Spinks started walking towards the ring, I hurriedly looked for a place to sit.
Crouching down low (so NOT in anyone's way) in around the 5th or 6th row, I suppose I somehow offended a guy who had paid for one of those expensive ringside seats.
In an instant, this cranky, old man spouted a mouthful of curses at me, telling me to sit my butt somewhere else! At that moment, I felt like losing my salvation and knocking the attitude out of him! I felt like, "Hey, you jerk, didn't you just see me flatten that guy? Do you want me to do the SAME TO YOU"?
More than likely, that old goat was just cheering me 10 minutes before, yet now, didn't recognize me in my “Michael Spinks, Heavyweight Champion” sweatsuit.
Moving to a different position on the floor, I took time to slowly digest my "humble pie" as my former employer took five rounds to disassemble Gerry Cooney.
78. Maybe It Was A Rhetorical Question?
Poor Karen got very upset once when my partner parked his car a bit too close to hers, or so she thought. I was sitting in the car while he was in a shop, and big old Karen came waddling over to the car. Red-faced with anger, she bent down and bellowed in through the driver’s window, “Do you think you could park any closer?”
I guess that Karen couldn’t figure out that I wasn’t the driver (even though I was sitting in the passenger’s seat), and she received the sharp end of my tongue. I wish I could say we had a verbal sparring match after that, but the best she could do was call me a "butt wipe” before she furiously wobbled away.
Freepik, nakaridore
79. Come Hungry, Leave Angry
I married my wife when she was 36 weeks pregnant. We took her parents out to dinner so that we could talk about our future together. Her 35-year-old sister called her and demanded to know why she wasn’t invited to the dinner and how dare we not invite her. My wife explained that we wanted to have a private discussion with her parents about our marriage.
I mean, it was at iHOP for God’s sake. My new sister-in-law yelled so hard at her that my stressed-out wife became ill, and we spent the rest of our wedding night in the emergency room. Despite the shotgun wedding, we have been married for 10 years. During these 10 years, my sister-in-law has been unemployed by choice and gained 36 kilograms (80 pounds).
80. Maybe She Should Refer Herself For More Studying
Back in first-year university, we had to write a paper to test how well we’d learned to reference sources for an academic paper. We were scored on referencing, not the content of the paper.
The professor showed the anonymous results to the class and told everyone if they scored below 80%, they needed to get better and referencing because this kind of thing was NOT optional in an academic environment. He also praised the top score in the class (98%).
After class, this stuck-up girl in my class was complaining about her score of 60, saying it should pass, and she should have done better because “she’s a native speaker, so how can I fail”. But that's not even the worst part. She said she was glad she beat all the Asian international students.
I’m an Asian international student.
I was the 98%.
Her face when I told her and showed her my quiz is the best memory I have from uni.
81. That Escalated Quickly
I just had the pleasure of witnessing a Karen episode at the grocery store the other day. This Karen was losing her mind for the dumbest reason—because the cashier had asked her not to stand too close to me. Also, she was not wearing a mask and I was. The cashier was just doing what she was told to do by her boss. The Karen made such a loud stink about the entire thing, but at least her antics kept me entertained.
82. His Friends Call Him “Arnie”
This happened at the college library with my girlfriend at the time. She said, “I’m thirsty. Can you go to the gas station and get me an Arnie Palmer tea”? I told her I would except I have to go to work. She said, “C’mon you should be able to get me an Arnie Palmer and get back here and leave in time”. I told her, “Nope, I can’t. I have to leave right now to get there in time”.
She wouldn’t let it go. “Just get me a tea and rush back quickly”. I pleaded with her saying that I really need to go to work now. She pouted and said, “I want an Arnie Palmer”! I took a deep breath and said, “Julie, you’re being a brat. You can get your own Arnie Palmer”. Her eyes went wide. She screamed, “YOU’RE THE ONE BEING A BRAT”!
I guess I should have been careful with the word, “brat”. I don’t regret it, though. It was too accurate a description for that moment and it was very important for her to know the truth about how she was behaving. At the time I thought, if she rolls back her brattiness by at least 1% because of this, it would all be worth it.
83. She’ll Bench-Press You Too
When I was in middle school, I was very short and generally just looked like a stereotypical 14-year-old girl. One day in gym class we went to the weight room, so I was doing weighted squats (don't remember the exact weight, but probably between 60 pounds and 80 pounds), and this kid started getting all cocky and teasing me for "trying too hard" and basically challenged me to a bench pressing competition.
What he didn't know was that I spent 2 hours in the weight room every morning.
I kicked his butt, it was very satisfying.
84. Conversation Ender
One day, I was quietly doing my work in class, when the school mean girl decided to pick a fight with me. This was a bad idea. She had been annoying me for a while, so this was a long time coming. At one point she and her friends even threw pencils at me. Anyway, after some verbal combat, this is the conversation that followed…
“You are so much more annoying than me!” Mean Girl said—and it would deeply satisfy me if you imagine her voice to be as annoying as possible. I replied, “Well, at least I’m a decent human being". She began to turn scarlet red. As she was retreating, she yelled, “Well, at least my chest is bigger than yours!”
I decided that this comment was pretty much admitting defeat and just gave her a look and went back to my life.
85. Give An Inch…
This happened when I was a waiter at a Vietnamese restaurant. Closing time was 9:00 pm but a car pulled into the parking lot at 8:58. The guys sat in their car for a couple of minutes and then came in at 9:01. It had been a long day because I was the only waiter who worked there, so I had to work doubles, seven days a week.
So I told the guys, “Sorry, we’re closed” and they huffed and puffed at me from the parking lot as I finished cleaning everything up. While I was washing dishes, another car pulled into the parking lot and one of the owners let the people in and sat them at a table, so then the first group of guys came back in and gave me a look like “What the heck”?
I obliged and sat them down and got them some drinks. One of them wanted an “egg roll vermicelli bowl”, which was not on the menu. I told him that we don’t serve that and he whined in a really really high-pitched voice, “But I get that ALL THE TIIIIIIME”! I took his order, dropped it in the kitchen, and told the owners I was leaving and that I wasn’t putting up with this clown.
86. Probably Good She’s An Ex
My good friend was just leaving the parking lot of my apartment building when his ex showed up with her new boyfriend.
He proceeded to try to show off in his car...and it ended poorly for him. He immediately smashed it into a pole.
It was hilarious.
87. These Are The Karens In Your Neighborhood
When I was growing up, Old Mrs. Berg lived in a house next to the best skateboard street in the neighborhood. She was an absolute nightmare. She was a nosy old bag who would actually hose us down as we skated by. Also, if her neighbors didn’t bring in their trash cans soon enough, she would leave nasty notes on their doors. She would also call animal control if she saw your dog off the leash.
88. Well Done With A Side Of Rage
During college, I worked at a hotel that was beside a steakhouse. The parking lot was technically separated, but just by a curb but the steakhouse and hotel patrons pretty much parked in whichever spot was most convenient. Well, one day a larger woman who had been staying at our hotel came up to me and DEMANDED that I make the steakhouse patrons move their vehicles.
She was upset because she had to walk an extra 600 m (200 feet). I told her that I wasn’t going to go over to the steakhouse and tell everyone to move their cars because it just wasn’t practical. She didn't like that answer one bit. She then yelled, “WELL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY BALLS, I’LL DO IT MYSELF” and stormed off (but didn’t go over to the steakhouse).
Now keep in mind that this was an extended-stay hotel, so she was staying with us for a couple more months. Whenever I saw her, she tried acting like nothing had happened but she never apologized. Imagine acting like a child over such a small issue.
89. Learned His Lesson
I had a friend in high school who had a bit of an elitist attitude. We were at his place and we were playing board games with our friend group. The conversation wound up on chess and he started talking about how he would have an advantage because chess is a game for the higher classes, him living a middle-class life while I was firmly in the poor section.
As somebody who enjoyed the game, naturally, I had to challenge him to a game—and I'm so glad I did.
It wasn't even a close match and he lost pretty solidly. The look on his face as my lower-class self thumped him in a game meant for his people is rooted firmly in my mind.
The bright side is that he has grown since and has become one of my closest friends. He has yet to play chess against me again though.
90. Beware Of Owner
I was working a job as a door-to-door salesperson and this one time, a Karen caught me completely off guard. She literally chased me across her front yard while screaming and throwing rocks at my work van.
91. Game Over
At a Boxing Day family gathering, several couples were playing Monopoly in pairs. My cousin and her husband were super competitive about it but the rest of us were pretty tipsy and not taking it very seriously. We were having a blast until the unexpected happened—her husband saw me slip my brother some money from the bank on the low-low…
He FREAKED. He flipped the board upside down, screamed, knocked over a drink, and stormed out. Me and my brother laughed our heads off.
92. True Family Love
When I was around 12, I got into a car crash with my mom, sister, and cousin (Jake). Jake was always into roughhousing and was a typical 12-year old-boy who thought that he was the best at everything. We didn't get along when I was younger because I would fight with him while my little sister would usually take his side. Our parents used to say we were like 'oil and water'.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, and my little sister was in the back with Jake. The car in front of us had almost completely wrecked the passenger side of the car, and the doors would not open to let us out. Mom was screaming and the kids in the back were freaking out, but I stayed calm. I knew I had to be the hero. So I laid myself sideways with my head almost in my mom’s lap and kicked the door open (because I had read somewhere that leg strength was stronger than upper body strength). Don't get me wrong, I was terrified, but I was thinking more for myself than my family (as bad as that sounds).
We got onto the side of the road and waited for EMS to come. Luckily no one was hurt, but my sister was sobbing her eyes out while I comforted her. I looked over at Jake, who was standing by himself with his arms wrapped around him and all I remember was opening one arm to him and watching him break down as he walked over and let me hug him. I've never seen him cry like that, and he was totally scared and just wanted to be held.
I held both of them until the ambulance came and I had to be taken to get my ribs checked for bruising. We still make fun of each other and tease to this day, but this is one thing I'll never make fun of him for because he trusted me enough to hold him and calm him down. He's a jerk to me, but I love him.
93. Netflix And Go Berserk
When I was seven years old, I was sitting in the park and watching Netflix on my iPad. The park was right in front of my house and my parents were watching me from inside.
Then along comes a Karen. She told me that I wasn’t allowed to loiter and then asked whose iPad I was using. “It’s mine, miss,” I answered and started to get up to go home.
My parents warned me about prejudiced people but I was still confused about how a child sitting on the grass in a public park would be considered loitering, but I didn’t ask her. “Come back here! You swiped that from someone. didn’t you?" She said, grabbing my arm. Her hand was cold and clammy. “Miss, please let me go,” I said. But she would just not let up.
Even at that young age I already knew that arguing with older white people never ended well. “Give me the iPad,” she said, trying to grab it. I clutched it to my chest and just then my dad came running out of the house and to my rescue. “Ma’am, your hands are on my child. If you don’t let go I will call the authorities”.
She huffed and finally let me go. “You probably shoplifted the iPad for her anyway,” she mumbled as she walked away.
Freepik, freepik
94. Pobody’s Nerfect
I learned from my grandfather that immediately admitting fault when you have done something wrong, especially in a professional setting, and promising it won’t happen again, earns you more respect than refusing to own up and blaming someone else. He said it shows good character, and people will respect your honesty, and you by extension. But this left me utterly confused...
I’ve never understood why people dig in their heels when proven wrong or challenged in any way. Is their pride that fragile? I guess they don’t realize that such immature behavior says so much more about how terrible they are than a fake veneer of perfection ever would.
95. Reaping Your Father’s Sins
A dude in high school had lots of money growing up. He liked to splash it around and bragged about fancy clothes and cars and throwing parties where he would supply the drinks for everyone. I wasn't so much of a friend but we just ran in different circles.
A few years later, a BIG discovery was made—they were so rich because his dad, who was a wealth manager, embezzled money for years from his clients. This was a sort of small community so his clients were all friends and family. It was all over the press that his dad went to jail.
This hit him hard. I ran into him a few years later and he had changed his name, his personality was different, and he even walked with a different posture. I couldn't imagine how much this would have rocked his world. It definitely took his ego down a few notches. I sort of felt bad for him as he was just a product of his environment. He didn't know that it was at the cost of practically everyone around him.
96. The Bad Old Days
I was working in the gift wrapping department of a major department store chain. It was Christmas, so everything was very hectic. This incident happened on my last day of contingent work and then I would be heading back to college after Christmas break. I knew I was in trouble when I saw a woman approaching me with a huge stuffed animal.
This lady then proceeded to ask if we could wrap the stuffed animal, which was almost as big as me. I told her that we have no gift boxes that large, but we could a) put together two corrugated cardboard boxes or b) tie a big attractive bow around the stuffed animal’s neck. Unfortunately, those suggestions weren’t good enough for this customer—and she absolutely lost it.
She suddenly jumped over our counter and started rummaging going through all of our gift boxes to see if we were lying. She was so intent on rampaging that she totally ignored me. I called security—and ended up getting in trouble for it—but what was I supposed to do when someone goes wild? This was back in the days when the customer was always right—even when they weren’t.
97. Ouch!
When my 27-year-old now-ex-roommate was caught in a lie, he dramatically toppled over, face first, onto the floor and pounded his fists and forehead repeatedly into the ground while also kicking his legs. He then looked up at me with pure hatred and started shrieking like a banshee and scratching his face with his fingernails slowly and with enough pressure to make himself bleed.
The claw marks remained visible on his face for weeks, and he ended up quitting his job. It was absurd and scary to see an adult, dressed in formal business attire, flail about uncontrollably. It was a temper tantrum like no other. I haven’t even seen a child behave that way. I hope he’s getting proper psychiatric help now…wherever he is.
98. Don’t Mess With Little Gray-Haired Women
I live in the DC area. The number of times I have seen men patronize a little gray-haired woman and then learn she is a power player...it's glorious.
My favorite was a backyard barbecue with some friends who sail. You've got everyone from the guy who scrapes barnacles off the bottom of the boats to old Navy dudes to the people who own racing yachts. And you CANNOT tell by looking. These yacht racers dress like they went shopping at the Salvation Army in 1989.
So there we were, watching the kids spray each other with the hose and waiting for burgers, and my friend's new brother-in-law was a lawyer. He wanted everyone to know he was a lawyer. He was swaggering around like, "Well, as an ATTORNEY..".
He was SUPER patronizing to a nice, older lady and a teen girl, then headed over for yet another drink. He was pulling his "I'm A LaWYeR , routine on a guy, and the guy said, "Oh, hey, I have a great person for you to meet"!
He dragged the jerk back over to the older lady and the teen girl and introduced the jerk to the two. That's when the jerk realized he just made a HUGE mistake. He bragged about being a lawyer to the dean of a major law school and Justice Scalia's granddaughter.
I thought the jerk was going to puke.
99. Special Agent Karen On The Case
This happened when my wife, son, and I went to H-E-B (the famous Texas-based Supermarket chain). When we got there, I took my son out of the back and put his carrying car seat on the truck bed. My wife was experiencing symptoms of seasonal allergies, so she was dabbing her nose and eyes with a tissue. When she has allergies, it can kind of sound like she’s crying.
I was making funny faces at my son and trying to get him to laugh. A random Karen appeared out of nowhere, walked over to my wife, and asked if she knew that a man was bothering her baby. And that's not all. She then went on to say, “Is he making you cry? Do you need me to call someone, honey?” I chose not to say anything out of sheer amusement.
I could tell my wife was pretty shocked for a second and then she said, “Lady, this is my husband and that little boy’s daddy”. The Karen was befuddled and didn’t really know how to extricate herself from the immensely awkward situation of her own making. She mumbled some kind of apology to my wife and fled the scene. Ahhh Karens, what would we do without them?
100. I’m Picturing Judge Judy
The day I got my restraining order against my then-spouse. Everyone says that abusers rarely show up to court, and he had no reason to show up at our hearing.
He did and he was belligerent and volatile.
The judge let him ramble and make an absolute fool out of himself for about ten minutes before she asked him when he had had his last beverage since she could smell him from the bench. He started in on her and she...just ripped him apart.
For the first time in his life, he was forced to silently listen to a woman call him out, and tell him he is an abuser, a user, an addict, and a terrible person in general. In front of his teenage kids, he brought along.
She counted down each previous RO and eviction from all his previous women, and (correctly) said he is the kind of man who chooses vulnerable women to live off of and she sees this as his "job" and that he wasn't going to be getting a "paycheck" from me anymore.
It's been years and he still hates me with a passion for that experience.
101. People Of Walmart: Karen Edition
I was shopping in the Walmart grocery section and there was a woman with two young children who had her cart blocking the shelves I needed to get to. She was shopping by walking up and down the aisle and bringing things to her cart. I was politely standing next to her cart, waiting for her to move it, but I guess she didn’t notice me or care.
One of the times when she came back to her cart, I even said, “I just need something behind your cart”. She ignored me, though, and turned her back and started walking to the other end of the aisle again. After about five minutes of waiting for her to finish, I finally pushed her cart about a foot over so I could reach my item. Bad idea.
She turned toward me and screamed, “You touched my cart”! I should mention that this was before COVID-19. She proceeded to run back toward me yelling at the top of her lungs that I had no right to touch her cart. I told her I just moved it to get an item and told her to calm down. Ironically, she screamed, “No, you calm down! You’re causing a big scene”. Always fun times at Walmart.
102. Clean Like A Mother
When I did an internship, I was placed in intern housing where we had monthly apartment inspections to make sure everything was clean. I had roommates and we were able to split up our chores with no problem. At least until it came to this one roommate who flat-out refused to do anything. All we were asking her to do was vacuum—and she had a full-blown meltdown.
She started screaming, stomping her feet, and throwing stuff. She said that she doesn’t “do” cleaning and when she was living at home she would pay her mom to clean her room for her. She ended up just storming out of the apartment. When she returned, she said, “I hope you guys are happy with what you have forced me to do”.
We didn’t know what she even meant by that. It turns out that she actually called her mom and somehow convinced her to fly in from out of state to come take care of her chores for her.
103. Face It, You’re Rude
A friend of mine is a face painter for children’s events and festivals. She is only paid for the set amount of time that she’s booked for, which makes sense. However, the outrage from parents whose kids wait until the last minute to stand in line is amazing. These parents literally just want her to stay and paint for free.
She’s come up with an attempt to curtail this behavior by getting her boyfriend to stand at the end of the line with a balloon that says “Closed: Line Stops Here”. It wasn’t perfect though…many of these desperate and rude parents would just cut the line with their kids. Finally, the organizers had to start handing out tickets to mark the end of the line.
104. Don’t Make A Sink
An office I used to work in invoked a “scent-free” policy that was primarily targeted at a select few women who would regularly douse themselves in intense amounts of perfume. Walking by their cubicles was like a full-blown attack on your sense of smell. One of them was so upset by the new policy that she retaliated with a stinky plan of action…
She had the gall to bring her perfume collection to work and would walk around and sneakily spray perfume into empty offices and cubicles when she thought no one was watching. Around the lunchroom, some of us started referring to this person as the Chanel Bandit. She denied it, of course. I guess she had forgotten about all of the security cameras that were installed after we had a break-in.
105. Touché
I was with my friend and our respective partners, discussing wedding plans. Since we were good mates, it went without saying that we would be each other’s best man. At least until my friend’s other half took us by surprise: “Can you even be the best man? Isn’t the best man supposed to be single”? To which I replied, “I don’t know. Isn’t the bride supposed to be a virgin”?
106. The Best Offense Is A Good Defense
I had a raging Karen in the first lane of the drive-thru yelling at me. I just listened and listened, and when she was done I let her sit there a second. Then I said, “Ma'am, you can choke". Not expecting that answer, she just drove off in shock. It could have gone totally different, but I'm glad it didn't.
107. If The Shoe Doesn’t Fit…
I work in a shoe shop. One of the services we supply is to check how well school shoes fit on our younger customers. Once a staff member has signed to say they are a good fit, the customer is able to bring them back if there are any problems. This one time, a mother came back in with her son a week after being fitted with a pair, loudly mouthing off that the shoes were too tight and causing blisters.
Even though she was being a psycho about it, we offered to get her a new pair. Once back in the kids department, she spotted the girl who fitted the original shoes and went crazy at her, demanding that the girl should be there while a better pair was fitted so she wouldn't make the same mistake again. Despite the mom saying some pretty degrading stuff about her, the girl agreed to sit in on the re-fit in an attempt to help out.
She remembered the customer, even to the point of remembering the child’s name, and was visibly upset about doing a bad job. Returning to the till, the fitter offered to put the exchange through as a final gesture of goodwill. She then froze, realization dawning on her. "These aren't your sons shoes" she said to the customer. They have a name tag inside saying Tommy, and your son’s name is Billy.
Turns out the kid had swapped his shoes with another boy in his class. Laughed that witch out of the shop.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, Reddit, 6, ,
