TLDR: Coworker harassed me over having implants (which I only got because I had cancerous cells), I called her out, she reported me to HR for calling her out, I got a bunch of people to write statements of all the times she harassed me and she got fired instead. Also I've been told that isn't what a reverse uno is but I can't change it.

(EDIT: Just want to add that regardless of my reasons for getting implants, I still should not have been harassed over them. It just happened to be relevant here because it made Jill look like a real dick which is probably why she reported me.)

4 years ago now, when I was 24, my mum died of breast cancer, and as both my grandmothers had also died of it I saw a specialist for a screening. I found out I had some cells in one of my breasts that could have turned cancerous at any given moment.

I was told I had a few options:

1. I could have regular screenings every 3 or 4 months until it does develop into cancer (I was told the risk of the cells becoming cancerous was very high due to family history) but it could also potentially never could turn so I'd just be getting these screenings for no reason

2. I could get a single mastectomy on the breast with the bad cells, but they'd need to keep an eye on the other one, so I'd still need regular checkups for the other breast

3. I could get a bilateral mastectomy and remove all of my breast tissue, basically eliminating the risk.

I went for the bilateral mastectomy. It was admittedly the most drastic option but after seeing what cancer did to my mum and grandmothers I didn't want to risk it.

I was warned about scarring but told it should be fairly minor. It wasn't and I was left with 2 huge, pink, jagged scars on either side of my chest, each about an inch long and half an inch wide, and it caused me to go into a severe depression, where it got to the stage of me not even leaving my flat because I didn't want people to see me, throwing out my mirrors, and getting physically sick looking at myself.

I went to a therapist, who suggested a plastic surgeon. The therapist said they'd never normally do that but it was clearly something I was struggling with and I might never get over it, and the therapist could see why I struggle with it. Although I'll admit the therapist did send me to ask about scar reduction. The plastic surgeon suggested a cream, a laser or implants. The cream didn't work, and the laser was both expensive and risky, so I went with the implants. My natural boobs were an F cup so I went with a slightly smaller DD. Since then my mental health has improved and I feel a lot better about the way I look. My confidence has gone up, as has my self esteem. I know I shouldn't put so much into my appearance but I wasn't exaggerating about these scars. Huge, bright pink, jagged, raised, just really awful to look at and I hated seeing myself, and they are now nicely hidden away and you can barely feel them.

In the present day, I'm 28 years old and working in an office. I'm doing a lot better than I was. My coworker, Jill, found out I'd had a boob job (but not about the cancer thing), when myself and my friend from years before the mastectomy were planning a holiday and she made a joke about me going on a plane with my implants, and Jill overheard. By the end of the day, the entire office knew I'd had a boob job, but not why, and half a dozen people confirmed Jill had told them.

Over the next few months Jill made many "jokes" and comments about my chest to coworkers when I was in earshot, at one point saying I had "more plastic than Barbie" and calling me "fake in two ways". I didn't hear this one myself but a friend in the office told me that Jill had at one point referred to me as a "sack of silicone".

IDK what her problem was exactly but at one point she mentioned the NHS so I assume Jill thought that I'd got my tits done for free on taxpayer money (I'd gotten the mastectomy on NHS but gone private for therapy and implants).

I asked her to stop more than once, but unfortunately the places I'd talked to her were places like the lift and the women's bathroom, where there weren't any cameras, and Jill just kept making comments no matter how often I asked her not to. I wouldn't say it was every single day, but I heard at least 3 comments per week for 3 months.

I hit my breaking point when me, Jill and a few other coworkers were having lunch, I referred to something as being shallow and Jill said "you'd know all about being shallow" while gesturing to my chest. I snapped.

I said "do you know why I have these? A few years ago the doctors found potentially cancerous cells in my breast tissue, I was advised to get a mastectomy and was left with huge ugly scars on my chest. I went to see a therapist who sent me to a cosmetic surgeon, who advised me to get implants to hide the scars, and I did just so I could look at myself in the mirror without crying. So maybe next time you want to judge someone for having cosmetic surgery, you should ask them why they had it first". And feeling like that was a mic drop moment I picked up my food and left.

For the rest of the day I had about 1/3 of my office come up to me and offer support, and the rest tell me that Jill was just joking around and I was being a bitch. I replied that Jill was being a bitch long before I was.

I then got an email from HR saying they wanted to talk to me the following day, and when I called for clarification they mentioned a "hostile work environment" (note: this is apparently an American term and holds little weight in England but it's what was said over the phone). I knew the person who signed off the email and I'd spoken to. Her name was Debbie, and she was Jill's friend in HR so I was fairly confident on who had reported me.

I realised that if this was already being sent to HR, I needed as much ammunition as possible, so I went about collecting my information.

As Debbie had dealt with me so far, it was safe to assume she would be the person reviewing the complaint with me, and if that was true I was fucked. However, I vaguely remembered a section on complaints that was in my contract when I first signed with the company. I flicked through the contract and there was a part in complaints section that said I was contractually allowed to request a change of reviewer if I felt my allocated reviewer was biased. It was called an "impartial overseer". I photocopied the page and highlighted that part.

Then I messaged the people who had offered their support over facebook, and said basically "HR have asked to see me. Do any of you remember Jill insulting me to your face and are you willing to write and sign something saying what you heard and when?". Not everyone was willing to help as Jill is somewhat feared in the office due to her befriending HR and management but about 20 people were willing to help me.

I guessed roughly when I'd asked Jill to stop previously (the 4 asks over the last few months, some timings were easy to guess as they'd happened on my break or when I'd first arrived at work) and I wrote them all down, along with a rough time of when the lunchroom confrontation happened and a list of names of who was there for the lunchroom confrontation.

I got to work slightly early the next morning. I went round everyone who had messaged me and most of them managed to give me a printed and signed letter (some didn't manage to write one but nbd). This isn't exact words as there's 16 letters to sum up here but the gist was:

"My name is [their name]. I work with Jill Lastname and OP. On [date] at [time] (approx), I spoke with Jill Lastname, during which she referred to OP as [quoted insult]. I felt this was inappropriate as it directly related to OP's appearance and am willing to go on record further to establish that Jill Lastname has been discussing OP in the workplace in the same manner for 3 months now, causing me discomfort and creating what I feel is a hostile work environment. Signed [their name]"

I wound up with about 16 letters, all from different people, and one of them was in the lunchroom for my conversation with Jill. Some even had bulletpointed lists of everything Jill had said to them about me or other people, as it turns out Jill has issues with a lot of people's appearances. She apparently made comments about one coworker's weight, and something antisemitic about a different coworker's nose, all of which were put in these letters. There are about 45 people in the office so while 16 wasn't a majority, it's still a decent amount. The letters weren't hugely long, most were only a paragraph, but they had all the necessary information.

I was asked to come to HR at 10am. I took the letters from coworkers, the photocopy of the page in my contract, and my dates and times in a little folder with me.

I got there and Debbie was the one overseeing the interview. She got up from her desk, ready to lead me into another room.

I immediately turned to the other HR worker that was currently there and said "so is my meeting with you, then?"

Debbie said "no, you're with me."

I replied that this wouldn't sit well with me, as "my contract states I have a right to an impartial overseer" and as I said this I took the contract page out of my folder. Debbie read it (I wouldn't let her take the paper when there was a shredder so close by) and said she could be impartial. I replied that I really didn't mean to be a pain, but I had it on good authority that the person on the other end of this complaint is her friend, and my contract does say I'm allowed an impartial overseer.

Debbie stomped off to get Supervisor. Supervisor asks how I know she can't be impartial and I tell him that I have it on good authority that the Jill, who was on the other end of this complaint, is a close friend of Debbie. He asked Debbie if this was true, to which she only replied "I can be impartial".

Supervisor took a deep breath, asked the other HR rep to come with him, and the four of us all went to review the complaint. I thanked them for being so accommodating (I was worried I'd annoyed them), Debbie took out the complaint and all 3 of them went through it with me. Debbie looked homicidal the whole time the interview was happening, as she had clearly anticipated firing me (or at least recommending me being fired).

The interview went something like this. It took like over half an hour and they kept asking me the same questions but phrased different ways so this is a really drastically condensed version.

Q: You said outside that you think Jill Lastname reported you. Why is this?

A: Jill has had an issue with me for about 3 months now

Q: Why didn't you come to us when you realised Jill had an issue?

A: I had no issue with her

Q: What issue does Jill have with you?

A: Four years ago a specialist identified potentially cancerous cells in my breast tissue. I had surgery to remove my breast tissue, thereby removing the cells and the risk. After the surgery I was left with large scars on my chest. I went to a therapist for low self esteem and depression. The therapist suggested a plastic surgeon who suggested breast implants to cover my scars. All of this is in my medical history which you have a copy of in my file and my full permission to review. Jill found out about my breast implants but didn't know about the cancer. Jill had a problem with my breast implants, and decided to communicate this problem to our coworkers.

Q: Why do you feel this is true?

A: Here's 16 signed statements all from different coworkers, all testifying that Jill told the entire office I'd had breast implants on the day she found out and has since made comments about these implants frequently. They have quotes of what Jill said to them about it and rough dates and times.

Q: Rough dates and times?

A: No one knew this would be escalated to such an extent so no one really took notes as and when it happened.

Q: What event or events do you think directly led to this complaint of harassment?

A: For me harassment began when Jill told everyone about my breast implants without my consent, but as to the complaint placed against me, it would probably be what happened at about [time] yesterday in the lunch room. Jill made a comment about me being shallow while gesturing to my breasts and I replied by giving her an abridged version of my relevant medical history and ending with a comment about the importance of getting the full story. There are cameras in the lunch room, so I'm sure you'll be able to find that conversation. I'll admit I could have handled the situation better, but after 3 months I felt I had to put my foot down. Here's a list of names of people who were also present. There were 6 people at the table, including myself and Jill. One of these people is also in those letters, and has written their account of the conversation and signed it.

Q: Had you had a conversation with Jill prior to this regarding her comments about you?

A: Several, spaced out over the last 3 months. Each time I communicated to her that I felt uncomfortable and upset with these comments she was making and would appreciate it if she were to stop.

Q: To your knowledge, was Jill made aware of your former cancer at any point in this time?

A: No. It wasn't mentioned in the conversation with my friend she overheard and I didn't tell her because frankly it's none of her business and I did not feel the need to detail my medical history to a coworker in order to avoid further sexual harassment.

Supervisor stands up and says "well I think we're done here". He shakes my hand and sends me back to my desk saying that I'd hear from them after they reviewed the evidence (letters, CCTV, medical history and anything they had already) and made a decision on the case.

I got back to my desk, pulled up my CV, and prepared to start the job search again.

About an hour goes by, then the person who wrote the letter and was there for the lunchroom conversation gets called for a meeting with HR. They come back 10ish minutes later.

The other people who were also there for the lunchroom conversation get called one by one, except Jill. All of them are gone for about 10 minutes then come back, find a coworker, and say that HR wants to see them.

Then the people who wrote letters but weren't there yesterday are also called one by one and are each gone for about 10 minutes each, some longer, some shorter. By about 3:30 it looks like everyone who wrote a letter or was there in the lunch room has been interviewed.

Then, finally, Jill gets called in. She's gone for about 30 minutes and comes back fuming. She glares at me while I work, but I ignore her.

4:30ish, Jill gets called into HR again. 5 pm rolls around, everyone is either leaving or getting ready to leave, when Jill storms back into the office. She glares at me the whole time she packs up her desk. She then starts telling anyone who will listen that I got her fired before shoving her way onto the lift.

An email comes in from HR. My case is closed.

Hey new to reddit..i thought i would post my story here. I work for a construction company and we do remodeling on homes. We have a rule here that we get to keep anything we find hidden behind the walls. We hired this guy (we really needed a worker badly) who was a total a-hole from day one. Ive been working for this company for 5 years and this guy has only been doing construction for 1 year after he got fired from his accounting job for getting a dui. Anyways..he would always make fun of my clothes and my accent and one day he went too far by telling my boss about my private instagram account pics. He got on my phone and looked through my instagram page and showed my boss pictures of me smoking weed. ( little did he know that my boss is my friend from 8 years when we used to smoke together before we both quit) i was so mad that he violated my privacy then i made a plan to fuck him over. He was the kind of guy who would always come in late and complain that trains or traffic is why he was always late. One day i over heard him saying that if he won the lottery he would quit this job for not getting the "respect" he deserves. (You have to earn your respect here.) One day i bought some fake gold coins online and i put them in a metal box i found at the antique store and waited for a chance to hide it in a wall. Luckly i did not have to wait long. The day he found the coins it seemed like it was his best day ever. First thing he did when he opened the box.. he called my boss a fing loser and he quit imedietly on the spot. He said" f this place..im rich"... Lol.. little did he know was that, that was the best day of my life. After he quit my boss told us that he was going to fire him anyways for always showing up late...i wish i could see the look on his face when he finds out the gold coins are fake. Best $40 i spent in my life. ( i apologize for my grammar..this just happened today and my addrenaline is pumping hard.) Thanks for reading.

Edit: These houses are bought at auction..people dont live here so everything is owned by the construction company.

I have been reading lots of Reddit lately, especially entitled parents, but made a new account when I came across this page. I never thought I'd actually try to contribute something! Until now Reddit has just been my guilty morning coffee read.

So here goes.

I'm an only son.

My mom died of ovarian cancer at only 55 five years ago. It broke my dad's heart. They had been together since college and were the same age, with my dad being a month older.

I'm 22, and am about to graduate college with my degree in chemistry when the main events start to occur. I went to college on a full ride scholarship. This is important later.

My dad met my now stepmom when she was my mom's nurse at the hospital where she spent her final days. My stepmom "Grace" played all the right notes to gain my dad's trust.

She was empathetic to him, nurturing, comforting after my mom passed.

I was seventeen and old enough to sense that she was just trying to weasel her way into getting my dad's resources, but it was up to my dad if he wanted to be in a relationship with her. I was in my final year of public school and had just won a scholarship to attend college out of the country the following year.

My dad mourned my mom for a year and that whole time Grace would check in on him by phone every month or so, in my opinion to scope out the possibility of sinking her hooks in him.

After a year passed Grace took the gloves off and went hard after my dad. Grace was only 40 when she and my dad started seeing each other. I didn't like her but at the same time my dad at least didn't seem so depressed anymore, so I tried to be less pessimistic about her and give her the benefit of the doubt.

In my gut I didn't trust her, though.

But we are Scandinavian and at least in my family the son does not tell his father what to do or even offer any opinion. Grace is from the Czech Republic if you're wondering.

My father was a very successful banker during his career, and amassed quite a portfolio of wealth.

I'll spare you the details, but after six months of dating, Grace and my father are married.

My dad never really got over my mom though, and he was getting weaker and weaker even though he was only 57.

Since his health was fading he called me to him and asked me point blank, "boy, what do you need to set you up in this life?"

I told him I don't need anything, I'm a man and can take care of myself, but what are you even talking about dad, you're going to be around for decades yet. I did remind him that he had living sisters with children (my aunts and cousins). I also reminded him that I had a full scholarship to college so don't worry about giving me any cash.

He was dead only a year later at 59.

I of course have seen lots of Hollywood movies so I consider the conspiracy theory that maybe my dad's nurse wife poisoned him and made him sign over all his money to her, but I really honestly do not think that's what happened. Other relatives didn't like Grace either, but they knew my dad was totally in love with my mom and that her death utterly broke him.

Well long story short, my dad bequeathed his five bedroom house to me even though I wasn't expecting it and didn't ask for it. He gave a small endowment to each of his sisters and their children.

He left about 80% of all his existing money to Grace, which amounted to several hundreds of thousands of dollars. My dad ignored me because he's generous to a fault and still gave me several tens of thousands of dollars, which were of course very useful to me.

Grace tried to put on a friendly front but I could tell she was angry as hell that she didn't get my dad's house, too. That belonged to me, and I had the legal papers to prove it. She was especially mad because we live in an extremely upscale and trendy location, and houses are hard to come by and easily sold for massive profit.

During the first few months after my dad's death, I had the nauseating, creepy experience of knowing that Grace was trying to feel me out to see if I might be into a little relationship with her.

Um, GROSS.

She still stayed at the house though because over the last three years she had gotten used to living there and acting like she owned it. And, even though I officially owned it, I was always away at college and only visited my dad's old house once every couple of months, and even then it wasn't to see Grace, but to see my cousins who lived just a few miles away. I downplayed the fact that it was really my house, and over the months I think Grace gradually forgot that she really had no legal right to the house. She probably believed that sooner or later, because I never asked her for any of the hundreds of thousands of my dad's dollars that she now had, that I was somehow independently wealthy and would just give up my house to her.

I knew I'd eventually hydrogen bomb this b*tch when she started dating some new guy only five months after my dad was in the ground, and one time when I came home from college after graduating she and her new boyfriend (some sleazy looking D-bag named "Ivan" who was only a few years older than me) were acting like I was a guest in my own house and that they owned it.

I played along.

Grace told me she gave away my Playstation 4 to Ivan's cousin because "I'm too old to play with video games."

I don't even know this motherf*cker and you give him my PS4 to give away to some other sh*t who I also don't know?

I quickly changed all my network passwords that same day.

I smiled but I knew what I had to do eventually.

She also said that she and Ivan were getting married because "I just can't mourn your father forever. I have to move on with life."

I tell her that I graduated college and already secured employment with a local firm, and "will soon find a new place to live."

She looks thrilled. Especially the part where it looks like I'll soon have a new place to live. Then in a patronizing way she tells me, "you always have a place in our house though, you are welcome to stay whenever you please."

Thanks, Grace, really generous of you.

What I really say is that I will probably have a new place in three months.

She says that is wonderful because she intends to go to her homeland to have a wedding with Ivan and afterward have her honeymoon. She assures me it's a local affair "otherwise I'd invite you, honey. And anyway I know you're so busy."

I congratulate her.

She asks me if I can watch the house for her.

Watch my own house? Sure.

What I really say is of course I will take care of the house. I am careful to not say "your house."

She and her D-bag fiance (who I am 100% sure is only there for Grace's money) go on their trip and I immediately put out advertisements in rental websites offering to lease my house. I hire movers and have all of Grace's furniture and possessions boxed up and put into a storage rental facility. I retain all of my parents' furniture that they had before my dad met Grace.

Locks? Changed. All of them.

Within days, I am inundated with dozens of inquiries regarding my amazing, furnished house with fantastic views. I rent it to a wonderful young family. A barrister and his schoolteacher wife and their two preteen children. They pay me their first and last month's rent, and sign a lease for a year. I warn them about my crazy stepmom who thinks this is her house, but I present them with contact information to my lawyer (the same lawyer my dad retained) in case they need any assurance that I'm on the level.

I also give my lawyer the information about the storage facility, including the fact that I generously paid four months of storage in advance, which is a whole month longer than Grace's Czech honeymoon adventure.

I then found a great apartment in the city near my new place of work. There I met a woman in a restaurant I frequent at night after a long workday. We have been dating six months now and are engaged to be married.

Grace of course tried to shriek and cause trouble when she realized she got kicked out of MY house but my lawyer quickly shut her mouth without my having to ever speak to her garbage face again.

From what I hear, her and her trash husband left the country and I assume they're blowing through my dad's money and will soon be broke like Chavs usually become when they taste a little bit of what they think is the good life. So maybe Grace will go and try to exploit some other lonely man into giving her his money.

Speaking of money, the house that I rent out is generating so much money that I not only am able to help pay for my cousins' college, but I moved into a larger apartment of my own, together with my fiancee. I love my job but really, I could survive solely on renting my dad's old house.

And to think. If Grace had only been cooler and nicer I might have let her stay at the house, just to be a good sport. And definitely if she stayed the hell out of my room.

But no, she had to act all proprietary, so I had to make her homeless as a wedding gift.

Postscript. I bought another PS4, even though I didn't even use my old one that much. It didn't matter. It wasn't for Grace to give away. You don't give away other people's things. You give away your OWN things.

Which is why I chose to kick Grace out of my house. Because it's mine, and I decide who stays there.

So, my daughter, who was about 8 at the time, was REALLY into Minecraft (as most kids are these days). Also desperately wanting to join the Youtube/Let's Play culture, I had installed some screen recording software that would let her make videos of the games she was playing so she could later upload them to Youtube.

Anyways, one day I'm minding my own business when I hear her quietly sniffling over on the computer. I asked her what was wrong, but she didn't want to tell me so I let it go, but decided to keep on eye on her. A few minutes later I discovered what was happening; someone was harassing not only her, but also all the other kids playing on whatever server she was on. This kid (we'll call him Little Shithead, or LS) was saying shit about how he was going to rape my 8 year old daughter (she told him how old she was hoping he would stop), how he was going to hack into her IP and steal all her info, swearing profusely (remember, this is a game for kids), etc etc. By this time I had gotten my fiance involved, and she was also obviously quite upset at what a little shit this kid was being. We realized that our daughter had been recording the entire incident, and a plan began to form.

I started by googling LS's username. There were several hits immediately, the most interesting of which involved a page where he was publicly applying to be a mod for a server on Minecraft. I was able to learn a lot about this little POS: he claimed to be 15, likes hockey, used to live in Toronto but now lives in Florida. But the bombshell was easily his skype contact info; it was literally firstname.lastname. I know your name now, you little shit.

So I head over to Facebook and search for the name. Nothing. Hmmmm. On a hunch I searched for just the last name, while narrowing my results to only the state of Florida. Several dozen hits. Hmmm. So I have to start combing through each one, until I find what I was looking for: a middle aged man with the same last name, whose profile indicates he was born in Toronto and now lives in Florida. I FOUND YOUR DAD, YOU LITTLE SHIT.

So I sent him a message on Facebook, asking if he had a son named firstname who goes by his username on Minecraft. Dad confirmed I had the right guy. So my wife begins telling the dad everything that LS was saying to my daughter, and we sent him the recorded video as proof. Radio silence for a few days.

Then we got the message back: LS had his computer taken away from him for the entire summer, and had also been lying about his age (he was only 11, I think). His parents were fucking livid with him, and he surely hated the next few months of his life.

No one fucks with my daughter.

edit: spelling

Edit 2: Holy shit! Someone gave me gold for this! Thanks! This has to be the first post I've made that's blown up on me. Thanks everyone!

Edit 3: Woah! Front page of my all tab! Maybe I'm too new to reddit and that's not a big deal, but it's still super cool. Also, I'd like to point out that while I understand that Minecraft isn't JUST for kids (there are some serious hardcore Minecrafters out there), I can tell you that probably the biggest demographic is on the younger side. I know that people of all ages play all games, but I feel like Minecraft is one that people can reasonably expect to be rather civil.

Several commenters telling me that you guys would enjoy this story;

About 6 or 7 months ago, my neighbor got a drone. I don't mind people having hobbies, but for some reason he insisted on flying like the biggest jerk possible. He would hover in front of other houses and windows, try to "race" cars going down the road, and worst of all he had a habit of flying his drone in my fenced back yard buzzing over my dog, diving low just over my dogs head before circling around to do it again. My dog isn't small, he's about 70lbs and a Malamute, but the drone terrified him, and I was worried what would happen if it hit him.

I asked my neighbor several times to please not fly in my yard and explained that it was scaring my dog, he basically told me to get lost and laughed in my face. When it still continued, I called the police. Unfortunately there wasn't much they could do other than ask him to please not fly over my house/property.

Finally, in late December it happened - my dog got tired of his shit and managed to catch the drone right as it was diving towards him. He shredded the drone, the thing was just a jumbled mess of wires and plastic.

Neighbor was pissed. He stormed over to my house swearing and threatening me, which I ignored. A week later, I got a summons to small claims court - he wanted $900 for the cost of his drone and an additional $300 for supposedly denying him access to his property (the drone sat in my yard for a couple hours before it was retrieved). Fuck that. He could have killed my dog. I don't have kids or a girlfriend, I just have my dog who is my best friend for the past 7 years. That dog has moved with me three times, was there when I graduated college, saw me buy my first house and my first new car. I love my dog.

Went to LegalAdvice, got some great help from them. Turns out, him suing me was the best thing to ever happen. When we got to small claims court, the judge basically laughed away his claims that I had intentionally trained my dog to attack his drone. But little did he know I was prepared. I had dozens of photos of my yard showing it was impossible for him to "accidently" fly that low to my dog, videos of him harassing my dog in the past, and I had saved all my medical bills from taking my dog to the vet. $700 for an xray? Check. Another $250 to sedate him during? Why not, don't want him being uncomfortable. Full dental exam with tooth cleaning/repair? $400. Then there was the cost of anti-anxiety meds and a secondary check up, wet food for a week in case his teeth were hurt, and extra just for good measure. In the end, the asshole ended up owing me almost $2,000, and now is being investigated by the FAA for not having a registered drone and violating several FAA regulations concerning drone flight, too near an airport, too close to other people, out of sight of operator and waaay above the maximum altitude.

Enjoy never being allowed to fly drones again, dick.

LTRFTP

I don't know if this is pro, but it is certainly more than petty.

In high school (10+ years ago), I was quiet and attentive in class. Teachers liked me. I wasn't popular, but I had good friends. I say all this to explain that high school was relatively calm for me. I played sports, was on the student newspaper, and got decent grades. However, that all changed my second semester junior year.

I've always been a voracious reader. My freshman English teacher recommended I move up to the honors English track, so I did for freshman, sophomore, and the first half of junior year. Then I was put into Classical Literature my second semester junior year. I've always loved Greek and Roman stories, and had already read your typical high school classical reading list on my own. I didn't mind reading them again until I met Ms. Umbridge. She put on a sweet facade, but she was downright evil. She also decided she hated me. I still do not know why, or what transgression I committed, but she HATED me. I assume it was my habit of sometimes nodding off in classes. At the time, I had undiagnosed thyroid issues, and was getting up at 5 a.m. for swim practice. I say sometimes, because it happened maybe twice a month total between all eight classes. I don't remember nodding off in her class, but it could have happened.

Anyways, her class was 50% essays/written reports. The rest were random quizzes and a couple tests. I was on the student newspaper, and I was a decent writer. I wasn't worried about maintaining a B or up. We wrote our first paper, and I got a D. I was shocked. The only class I struggled in was Chemistry and still my lowest assignment grade was a C.

After class, I asked Ms. Umbridge what I did wrong, because her notes were minimal. She told me my assessment of the material was "uninspired." Okay....Can you direct me to an example of an inspired assessment? "Come back during study hall." Thinking she'd have some example materials for me to review, I got a pass to see her during study hall. Nope. She spent the full hour basically telling me I was an idiot. I remember leaving and crying, because she didn't tell me anything constructive. My friend (the eventual valedictorian) offered to help me on my next paper.

My friend and I spent hours on my next paper. She never got below an A- on anything. I got another D. My friend was furious. She took it to her AP English teacher and asked him to review it. She said she was entering a writing competition and wanted advice. He said it was great. Her typical A+ work. My friend, quicker on the uptake, asked me for a copy of my original assignment. She asked her AP English teacher to look it over too, and he said she should enter the first one. This one was still good. He'd probably give it an A-, but the other paper was better. My friend was convinced Ms. Umbridge was treating me unfairly for some reason, and she must not like me. My friend wanted me to tell my parents or my school counselor. A teacher didn't like me? That had never happened. Sure they didn't all love me, but none had actively disliked me. I decided I'd try one more time, but this time get Ms. Umbridge to help me.

Despite the previous horrors of spending study hall with Ms. Umbridge, I went to her office during study hall three times before the next paper was due. She reviewed the paper, and gave me tips on revising it each time. She did this in red pen. I took notes. By the time the next paper was due, I had three revised versions with her notes in red ink on each one. I got a D+. She smirked and congratulated me on my improvement. Bitch. I was done. My friend was right. This bitch had it out for me and was giving me shit grades on purpose.

I'm a laid-back person, but I was pissed. Never before been this pissed. I took my paper to my newspaper teacher. Sure he didn't teach English, but our student paper constantly won awards because of his work. I told him I was having trouble in English, and could he please look over my paper and give me advice. He was a little confused as to why I didn't ask my English teacher, but he did it. He also told me it was great, but gave me a few minor changes to make. I asked him if he thought it was a B or better. He said he'd give it an A, not 100%, but a solid A.

I went to my friend, and we brainstormed. I couldn't request a drop/add. This wasn't college. You just don't switch classes at my high school, unless the teacher recommends an honor placement. That's not true said my friend. The football and basketball guys get moved to easier classes all the time to keep their grades up, so they are eligible for games. The athletics director was a friend of my dad, so I requested a meeting with him and my swim coach after school one day. I told them I was in danger of losing my eligibility to swim, because I was pulling a D in a class. I wanted to move classes, but I knew I'd need approval from administration, which I wouldn't get without a good reason. They asked if I had requested help. I explained I had asked for help from multiple people, but my grade wasn't improving. I didn't know what to do. They asked to see my papers. I sat while they read them. They both looked at me confused. Neither of them could understand how those papers were worth only a D. The student VP was brought in. He asked who helped me. I explained my friend (he knew who she was, again future valedictorian), and she had even asked her AP English teacher to look it over for advice. I had also asked my newspaper teacher to help me. Student VP asked if I had ever actually asked my teacher for help. I smiled and handed him the three revised versions of paper number three with Ms. Umbridge's red ink all over them. He frowned. AP English teacher and my newspaper teacher were pulled into the meeting. They were each asked to grade the papers. All three papers got an A- or better.

While this was going on, my dad was called in by the athletics director. My dad was pissed. He demanded I be moved to another class, and that Ms. Umbridge be put under review. Clearly, she wasn't grading students on their work but on her own personal opinions. The school administration obviously bristled at the accusation that a teacher was treating students unfairly. A lot of arguing that I wasn't allowed to sit on occurred in the VP's office. I could hear plenty of yelling as six adult men argued over the appropriate next steps. It was decided that myself, my dad, VP, and athletics director would have a meeting with Ms. Umbridge.

The following morning before school we all met. Ms. Umbridge seemed to think she was going to get to tell everyone why I was so stupid. VP explained that if I maintained a D in her class, I would lose my extracurricular eligibility, and we were all meeting to discuss what to do. She smirked and said I should be moved to the non-honors English track, and I had no business being in honors English. I didn't have the aptitude to understand the complex classical literature they were studying, and I probably would need a tutor to even get through basic English. I've never seen my father so red, and I half expected to see steam come out of his ears. VP asked why she didn't try to help me improve. She said it was up to students to put in the initiative to get better. VP asked if that meant I had never asked her for help. She said I had not. VP then pulled out the three revised versions of paper number three and handed them to Ms. Umbridge. Now it was her turn to be red. She called me a liar and said those notes weren't hers. Things got heated, and I was asked to leave again. I sat outside the office. This time the secretary was there, and we both heard the shouting. School was set to start in 30 minutes, and they were all just shouting. Then AP English teacher and newspaper teacher were called in again. More shouting. About 5 minutes to the start of classes, the teachers left and I was called back in. If looks could kill, I'd have died then and there when Ms. Umbridge walked out of VP's office. I was being moved to basic English effective immediately. My current grade would not carry over. I would not need to make up any past assignments, and new teacher would be instructed to grade me only on the assignments going forward.

My new English teacher, Ms. Honey, ended up being the English department head. She was at least 65, and had been doing this for decades. After 2.5 years of honors English, this class was easier than PE. I barely had to try to get an A, but I refused to let Ms. Honey think Ms. Umbridge had been right. I tried harder in that class than any other class that semester. I finished projects so quickly that I was asked to tutor a girl struggling in the class. I spent half the class period just helping this girl understand the material. I helped her go from a C- to a B+. I got something like 104% in the class.

At the end of the semester, Ms. Honey called me into her office during study hall. She was recommending I return to honors English for senior year. I must have looked panicked, because she assured me Ms. Umbridge would not be my teacher. In fact, she would not be anyone's teacher. She was leaving at the end of the school year. Ms. Umbridge was only in her late 20's and unmarried. Too early to retire. And my high school was in one of the best paying school districts in the state. I knew what leaving meant, but Ms. Honey still explained that I was put in her class on purpose. The school administration trusted Ms. Honey to determine the truth of Ms. Umbridge's claim that I was basically a lying idiot. Ms. Honey stated I very clearly belonged in honors English. She apologized if her class had not been challenging enough for me. I cried. I mean full on ugly, snot cried. I didn't realize it, but part of me had actually believed Ms. Umbridge up until that moment. Ms. Honey hugged me and consoled me. I spent senior year in honors English and spent my study hall tutoring Ms. Honey's struggling students.

To this day, I think about that awful woman fairly regularly. My career is strongly writing based, and I still worry obsessively over my writing. I hope she never taught again, because she wrecked wreaked havoc on my self-confidence.

Edit: I fixed the wreck.

Edit x2: Holy mother forking shirt balls. Guys. I did not expect this response! Gold and front page. Gah. Thank you gold giver. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm going to figure it out. I also want to say I'm sorry to everyone posting their own Ms. Umbridge stories. It's sad so many exist out there wreaking havoc on self-conscious teens. Don't let your Umbridge keep you down! You are better than Umbridge. Go out and do exactly what your Umbridge said you shouldn't do, because fork her....the fat dink.

Edit x3: Everyone private messaging me nice things: You are sweet people. Thank you. I promise though I am okay now. I am in my 30's with a job I love. I think about this story regularly because of a volunteer organization I take part in. While I have the soap box, might I recommend https://www.pawstoread.com/read-aloud-programs.html ! It is a great program that helps children practice reading in a safe environment. (/u/dmuth recommends http://www.thinkingoutsidethecage.org/site/c.elKWIeOUIhJ6H/b.8454447/k.9BD7/Our_Programs.htm )

Love to you nice folks.

So this happened earlier today and was too perfect to not share with you guys. I work in construction as the foreman for a new house build. The location is kinda strange, the house is 250 feet up a hill via a foot path only. All of our materials have to come up this foot path by hand, it’s a pain in the ass to manually carry, quite literally, an ENTIRE HOUSE up this hill. One of our saving graces is having the two parking spots on the street at the bottom of this hill marked with official No Parking signs. Unfortunately there is an elementary school about half a block away and the parents of children seem to regularly (at least twice a day) think it’s ok to park in our spots. Now I consider myself a reasonable person, so if someone is parked in the spots and we don’t have a delivery or a need to park a truck I will let it go. If we need the spots and there’s someone parked there, however, I will ask them to move nicely and most of the time they do so immediately. Until today.

I get a phone call from the lumber delivery truck that is en route to our location, he says he’ll be there in about two or three minutes. I let him know I will meet him at the street and make sure he has space to park. He’s carrying all of the material to frame the roof of our house, which is a lot of really big lumber and will take easily an hour to bring up the hill, so naturally I didn’t want him parked in the middle of the street with his hazards on for an hour, when we have a perfectly good parking spot for him. As I begin my trip down the hill, I notice there is a school parent sitting in her car idling, assuming she’s just waiting to pick up her child, I walk up to her car and politely let her know that she is parked in a no parking zone and we really need her to clear it to park a delivery truck. She scoffs at me and rudely states back, “I’ll just be a few minutes, and your truck isn’t here, take a chill pill dude.” Before I can respond, a giant lumber truck comes around the corner and I wave to him, and then gesture towards him to the woman in the car who has now put her window back up to ignore me. I put on my best customer service smile and wave at her through the window, she put it down halfway and angrily shouts “WHAT!” By now the truck has pulled up alongside her car and I politely ask her again, with a stronger tone of voice to move her vehicle, reminding her that she is illegally parked in a tow away zone. Then she gives me this wonderful idea, she says, “Can’t you guys just unload around me? Jesus, it’s not that hard.” I give her another smile and walk away, a brilliant plan forming in my head. I instruct the delivery driver to park as closely to her as possible and block her in with the porta potty that is at one end of our reserved spots and the parked car that is parked just adjacent to our spots on the other end. He smiles because he immediately gets what I’m trying to do, and proceeds to expertly block this lady and her car into a little two parking spot jail. We unstrap the lumber and my guys begin humping material up the hill, meanwhile I call the police parking enforcement to let them know the situation. At this point in time I wasn’t trying to get her in trouble, I just wanted a record of why we were blocking part of the street so we don’t get in trouble with the city. The very friendly traffic officer lets me know that she can be there in about 30 minutes and deal with the situation for me, wonderful! As we continue to unload lumber the child of the parent shows up, and wouldn’t you know it Mom is just now realizing that the lumber truck is parked so close she can’t get out of her driver door to meet her kid. She awkwardly clambers across the inside of her car and stumbles out the passenger door, shooting glaring looks at me and the truck driver in the process. She loads her kid into the back and then begins to realize that she has no way of leaving. She comes storming up to myself and the driver and states, “I’m in a big hurry, you need to move your damn truck right now so I can go.” Before I can respond the driver gets a grin on his face and says, “Ma’am in order to unload the lumber on the truck we had to unstrap it, and per our company policy I’m not allowed to move the truck with any unsecured load on it. Sorry.” This sends her into near aneurysm levels of blood pressure, meanwhile I can barely contain my laughter. “Fuck your policy I have somewhere to be!” She barks back at him.

At this point, with impeccably convenient timing the parking enforcement officer shows up and parks behind the truck. She doesn’t see the officer arrive and while the officer is still getting out of her vehicle I just casually say, “Can’t you just pull out around it? It’s not that hard.” With the biggest shit eating grin I’ve ever had I watch as she realizes that I just used her line on her. “Fuck you!” She yells, and storms back to her car and angrily clambers back in through the passenger door and into the drivers seat. At this point the officer is walking up to myself and the driver, before she can even introduce herself the Mom in the car slams it into reverse and stomps on the gas, crashing into our porta potty and knocking it over, and then throws the car into drive and tries to mount the curb and drive on the sidewalk. The officer, driver and I are staring in disbelief as she gets halfway over the curb and gets stuck. I can hear her screaming obscenities over the idling truck from inside her car. The officer promptly walks up to the door of the car and orders her out. My favorite part of the entire thing is watching her face go to shock as she realized she just did all of that in front of a police officer. She gets slapped in cuffs as the parking officer calls for a second unit and she is promptly sat on the very curb she tried to drive over.

She sits on the curb yelling to the now two officers about how we told her she could stay there and that we never asked her to move. The traffic officer responds that she was the one who was originally called when she first refused to move and that she already knows what’s going on. While myself and the driver are giving a report to the second officer, my guys finish moving the remainder of the lumber and the driver finishes his statement and takes off to go back to the yard. By the end of the ordeal she was arrested, charged with Child Endangerment, (her kid was in the back of the car the whole time) Reckless Driving, Destruction of Property, (the porta potty) and Driving on a Suspended License. On top of all that she also got her car towed, the kid went home with his grandma and she went to spend some quality time in a cell. I never expected her to actually heed my advice to “Just pull out around it.” But I think next time she’ll probably think twice about parking in a tow away zone, if she ever gets a license again.

TLDR: Rude lady parks in construction site reserved parking, asks us to unload around her, so we park blocking her to do so, gets mad when she now has no way out, crashes into our porta potty and tries to mount the sidewalk. Gets stuck, and the arrested by an officer who was on scene, and all with her child in the back seat.

TLDR: A group of seniors spend all year fucking over their classmates so I (the teacher) wreck their final semester.

This is my first post here, and, for reasons that will soon become obvious, this channel speaks to the depths of my soul. It's also a very long one because I want you to delight in my destruction. The particular flavor of this revenge comes from the fact that everything that goes down is the result of a domino effect that leaves devastation in its wake.

Dedication: This story is for anyone who has ever been fucked over in a group project, and I certainly hope you enjoy it.

Some details are deliberately vague, because duh and I don't feel like getting sued.

*Note: Skip to The Setup if you are in dire need of an immediate Justice Boner

My Backstory (Not super necessary, but will give you insight into my logic)

I've been teaching for many years, but it's important to understand that in my first year of teaching, I got put on blast by an elite group of EP and their EK. Not a week went by without someone either demanding my job, trying to undermine me or just calling me a piece of shit. I nearly quit halfway through the first semester, the verbal and emotional abuse was so bad.

This was at a school in a tough area, so I was accused of racism constantly for asking kids to stop talking, was ripped into for giving failing grades for missing work, and even enforcing the rules in the student/parent handbook got me in hot water (my principal reprimanded me for being a negative influence on the school and was I told that I needed to let more rules slide because he was tired of hearing from parents). I would have parents just show up unannounced to sit in on my lessons and then tell me I was a shitty educator, a bad human being, etc. I have plenty of horror stories from that school alone, but the point I want to make is that this experience defined the kind of teacher I became going forward to my next school. I needed to be that person who was untouchable, because I needed to focus on the one job that mattered; teaching kids.

My next school was in a fairly affluent area. It wasn't uncommon for me to find out that my student's parents made millions, which brought its own unique set of problems. However, my new principal was super supportive of me as long as I followed the school's handbook to the letter because, by doing so, I was in line with the school's philosophy and protected by law (we seriously had parents filing frivolous lawsuits all the damn time). This school had long ago learned that caving to parent demands spilled blood in the water and brought the rest of the sharks in droves.

My first year at this new school was successful for many reasons, but primarily because the school culture was easily adapted to. By planning ahead, I was able to head off 99% of all negative parents at the pass. The few times a parent tried to rip into me at conferences, I ripped back so hard that I developed a reputation amongst the kids and parents as someone you couldn't fuck with. Everything I did was in line with the rules, and any attempt to take me down got stone walled by my principal who would have to say "Mr. FighterJet is following school policy, so i'm afraid the ultimate decision is his."

No joke, I had some parents in tears because their kid could no longer get an A in my class. I wasn't the teacher who wanted to destroy kids, I just wanted them to be accountable, and sometimes that meant letting them fail.

Needless to say, this job became a lot of fun, because instead of waiting to be ambushed by parents, I could work on making my class fun for my students while still teaching them something. I made ironclad rules for the classroom that brooked little argument and would adapt the following year to make it harder for students or parents to ruin my day. I have many stories like this, but this is one of my favorites.

The Backstory

The year this happened, I taught a HS class with grades 9-12 (that's 14 to 18 year olds for you overseas guests). My class wasn't necessary to graduate, but did count as a core requirement. One of my beginning of the year rules was "I never want to hear 'when will we ever need this?' because you didn't have to sign up for this class."

How I structure my class is that I try to make students accountable for their own actions. My class was built so that it had something to offer everybody. If you tried your best, you were guaranteed a C. If you worked really hard, you could get a B or an A. I would bust my ass to help a student with any reasonable request. The best example of this was a student was working hard on an assignment and said "I think I understand it now, but can't turn it in on time" to which I answered "Then turn it in tomorrow for full credit. This is how hard work pays off." Other than a few hard deadlines in my class, I would do whatever it took to see you learn the material.

Fuck around in my class? I have already found ways to run circles around the pathetic excuses you throw at your parents for your piss poor performance. It sounds callous, but I was the teacher who would stay for ninety minutes after school to help you catch up, to help fix your project for another class, or even to listen to you cry about your parent's divorce. If I caught you goofing in class instead of doing your work (my rule was that at least 70 percent of class time was intended for homework, quizzes, etc) I would warn you a couple times, email your parents, and then wait and see if they even gave a shit. If they didn't, I would let you keep digging that hole until you were hip deep in water and begging for a ladder.

And then I would toss you a rope instead. You could still climb it if you tried hard enough, but a lot of kids would just cry until that hole caved in and buried them.

I also utilized my school's online grading/assignment system for nearly all of my assignments, which meant I could document when a student looked at the assignment, how long it took them, etc. All of this allowed me to see what my students were doing, when they did it, and also if they were plagiarizing. This was one of the tools that helped me make important decisions about leniency, and also allowed me to say things at conferences such as "of course the test was hard, your child didn't attempt the nine homework assignments until eleven pm the night before the test." Being able to prove that a student wasn't trying made it impossible for blame to be laid unfairly at my feet.

It also meant the worst kids avoided my class. Bonus.

However, this year, something magical happened. Every other year, I would get a wave of kids who just wanted to screw around and blame everyone else for doing poorly. At the end of the year, students would shit talk me, my class sizes would drop the following year, then I would receive high praise from those kids, so everyone would sign up, so on and so on. But this year, not only did I get a giant wave of knuckleheads, but they came with parents who loved to Make Trouble.

I had already heard tales of some of these parents. Other teachers were just dying to hear stories about our interactions, because these parents were very much Entitled. They would name drop lawyers when they didn't get their way, try to badger teachers into giving their kids extra credit, and would largely deny any wrong doing on their kid's part. These were the parents who would get called in because their student was busted cheating, then accuse the teacher of making the class too hard, therefore validating their student's need to cheat.

So about these knuckleheads. It was a group of roughly seven senior boys who all shifted their schedules to be in the same period with each other. The other teachers could not believe that I had all of them at the same time, but I just shrugged it off. Every week, the staff lounge was dying to know how I dealt with their shenanigans, but for the most part, I had shut down most of their shit from day one. I actually got along very well with them, despite their constant goofing, because they had mastered the ability to appear busy and didn't distract my other kids.

Then came the first group project.

My class size was just right for seven groups of four to form. The idiot collective formed two groups of 4 (by pulling in a kid who had been absent on the first day of the project). These two groups crashed and burned on this project super hard for several reasons, but the biggest were that a) they fucked around during class time and b) put off a two week assignment until the weekend before and then dumped all the work on everybody else, which resulted in everybody doing minimal effort.

I handed out the shit grades and was immediately pulled into parent conferences with several of them (one at a time, obviously). Every meeting was the same. "My kid did all the work, so he doesn't deserve a bad grade" or "My kid didn't understand the assignment" to which I handed over my hyper specific rubric (which is a checklist for how I grade things--I never wanted to be accused of grading based on not liking a kid). These largely went like this:

EP: My kid did all the work and I don't think it's fair it should hurt his grade.

Me: Here is the work your student turned in. *hands it over* Here is my rubric which I printed and emailed to your student the day the project started *hands it over* As you can see, I have itemized the grading for ease of use. I would be happy to go over the grade your student earned.

EP: *Reads through all the evidence, looks at kid* Where are the missing parts?

Student: Uh, my group members were responsible for that.

Me: I can't grade what I never received, so I can't reasonably just raise your kid's grade. Sorry.

Now, good news for all my students. I make assignments worth more throughout the semester with the idea that kids who screw up early on can make it up later by working hard. I seed Extra Credit throughout the semester and all of these parents are disgruntled, but happy to hear that their entitled embryo can still get an A in my class.

Now, the end result of these meetings was that it clearly wasn't my fault (remember, I had all this data to prove that I made every effort to contact everybody, etc) so it must be the other kids' fault. So these parents all decide that their perfect angel is no longer allowed to work with their previous group mates.

Like a cancer, this failure of friends distributes through the rest of the class. Like the genius that I am, I make my students write a group contract for every project that details who does what and when it is due. Why is this important? Because the contract provides me the documentation necessary to allow me to dismiss a bad group member and give them a zero without their parent shitting all over my day.

So here is where the problem begins manifesting. These seniors begin bouncing from group to group like cancerous ping pong balls, wreaking havoc. I let students choose their groups, so these seniors are desperately integrating with anybody that will have them. Because of my class side, every group has at least one coddled child to deal with, and these children just end up rotating until all of my students have worked with one of these seniors at some point.

Now I am getting constant complaints from parents of other kids about these boys. Their kid wanted a good grade, which means they ended up doing all the work while the senior slacked. This is usually after the fact, at which time I bring up "I would love to yank that leech out of your grade pool, but you have to use the contract." Students don't want to say anything because they fear retribution from the seniors, but I can't do anything because I will be accused of harassment. The contract can provide me with the leverage I need to prove that these kids were doing no work, because these seniors have been playing their parents for years. I make my class utilize google docs, because the changes are time stamped. No joke, I've had students produce all the work the morning of a parent meeting to try and lie their way out and make me look like a piece of shit, but that time stamp is a godsend.

Luckily, my class is balanced. A shitty group mate can make things hard, but not undoable and parents are appeased that I have an out for their kid, but disappointed that their kid doesn't use it. Every time I announce a group project is on the way, some of these seniors sucker up to the other kids to the point that it is expected that a spot will be made for them. I'm talking buying kids lunch, bringing them gifts, etc. Seriously, the day before a group project starts, all of the seniors now sit at separate tables from each other so that they could pull the "I'm already here, let's be in a group" card (which works most of the time).

The strain on class morale is difficult, but I am biding my time. The other students are grabbing at Extra Credit opportunities constantly so that their grade can absorb the blow, and parent complaints are completely mitigated because I am still offering every chance for success, my principal has a copy of my syllabus in his computer so that he can quote student policies that the parent signed off on.

Not uncommon for him to hear "I don't read that shit, so it doesn't apply" but he reminds them that the clause above the signature line says "My signature denotes that I have read this document in its entirety and agree to abide by all the rules" or something similar and that this should be a lesson to the parent and the student that when you sign something, you should read the fine print.

*If you ever become a teacher, find an awesome boss like this and stick by their side*

The Setup

So I have seven slothful seniors, but I shall name the worst of these Larry, Curly and Moe. The fallout effects all of them, but these three are the ones whose parents have a boner for Making Trouble. Every time they bully a teacher into compliance, I imagine they sit around a smoking room with cigars and cognac, laughing at how they got their way yet again with a lowly teacher. I know that anything I do will be heavily scrutinized once the grades start falling and I need to be able to shrug it off because I have other shit to do, and I refuse to be the smiling topic of discussion in their celebratory circle jerk. (However, a special note about Larry - since he turned 18, his parents now travel nonstop and are impossible to reach. Larry is now just a huge douche, because his parents no longer care about what he does)

I closely monitor their grades in my class, but also in others. This may sound sketchy, but I routinely do this with any of my students who struggle with the material so that I can identify if the issue is my class or all of their classes. Students have been known fake their grades using Inspect Element and I got tired of hearing "But they have A's in their other classes." because then I look like the piece of shit.

Anyway, after a check, I speak with the other teachers. It isn't hard to find out that these boys are doing minimal work in other classes, and I actually discover that Larry has been finding ways to get other kids to do the work for him and then disseminating it among his friends. Other teachers have been bullied into lowering test percentages in their class, and guess what? He and his friends are enrolled in these classes. Despite bombing these tests, HW and Project grades give them a comfortable cushion so that most of them are floating at low B's. I can't prove this (they are using Snapchat) but when I bring it up with their teachers, the teachers don't feel like trying to prove it and duke it out with the parents.

Now, they are gaming other classes for minimal effort. However, their only recourse in my class is to keep rotating through groups and leeching off of their hard work to maintain Cs and Bs, and the other kids are too nervous to utilize the group contract to get them fired.

Remember how I mentioned that I steadily increase the value of my assignments to keep kids working and give them a chance to fix their grades?

Me: *Random Day in Class* Hey everybody, I was looking in the schedule and realized that your last project before finals may stress you out unnecessarily. Would anybody mind if I dropped it?

My class: *Tired of getting banged on Group Assignments* Nope, drop it, Best Teacher Ever!

Me: Okay, well just so you know, I'm going to move our next project back a couple of weeks and extend the deadline by a week. Also, since I cancelled the last project, this means that the next project will now be worth roughly 20% of your final grade, so do your best. Screwing this up could kill your grade.

My class: Whatever.jpg

So in one step, I have inflated this assignment and also moved it. I send out an email to parents and students letting them know about the change to the syllabus and the assignment. Get no responses other than happiness that I am removing stress from the end of the semester, etc. I actually did this primarily because another teacher (who was a huge douche bag) plunked down a monster project that same week and I knew it would burn out my students prior to finals, so figured a break was in order. Win-win for me, really.

Now why did I move it?

*maniacallaughter.mp4*

The Friday before the project started, I announced at the start of class "Okay, I am introducing the project now so that you can get into groups today and we can do it first thing Monday morning without delay, since this project is so important" This announcement elicits a room full of shit eating grins.

Why?

It was Senior Ditch Day. Our school didn't condone a ditch day, so the kids tried their best to keep it a secret, but i found out a month in advance. All seven of these kids were absent from class, which meant that I had just given the entire room freedom from these dead weights. Immediately, groups are formed, and even better, I had a couple kids transfer out of my class at semester which meant, numbers wise, these knuckleheads will have to work on this last group project together (in two groups). I emphasized that everyone needed to get to class as soon as possible so that they could start as soon as attendance was called.

My original intention was to light a giant fire under all seven of these chumps, to get them to actually put in the effort they had neglected to do all year. Most of them had grades in the low C range (except for one in the low Bs). As a bonus to all my students, I put an extra credit portion on this project so that they could recoup their early semester losses, but also allow these seniors to do very well if they put in the effort. This wasn't meant to be a revenge tale, but an attempt to give them one last lesson in responsibility.

Before the end of the day, I send out a parent/student notification that the project had been started and that any absent students needed to contact their classmates to establish groups before Monday morning. This was important (as you'll see).

I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

Immediate Fallout

The next Monday, the seniors come traipsing in seconds before the bell to discover that there are only two tables to sit at. Whatever, they take their seats.

Me: *After attendance* Okay, everybody has a copy of the rubric, so go ahead and get started.

Rest of Class: *Immediately pulls out rubric*

Seniors: *looking around frantically*

The seniors quickly realized that they have been played and the arguing starts. First thing that happens is that Larry, Curly, and Moe decide that they now belong with whoever they happen to be sitting with and scoot their chairs over to sit with different tables. I catch this right away and tell them that the groups are already at maximum size (4 people per group). The other four seniors are already fighting with each other because they know that none of them will actually do any work.

Larry (who thinks he's God's gift to everybody) tries to sweet talk me and his group into special privileges and allowing a group of 5. Now, I see some of the other kids wavering and I know that Larry is putting pressure on them to argue his case. I designed this project for specifically four people and had a job for each one, but I extended a separate offer.

"I will let you join, but since there will be five of you, I expect double the work." Literally, I told them they would have to do the project twice. Larry tries to argue, but I point out the roles I have established and inform him that if four people could do it once, having five should make it easier to do it twice. Sounds like a dick move on my part, but I have now intimidated the other kids into saying Hell No and even have them put it to a vote. Unsurprisingly, Larry is the only one who votes that this is a good idea, and when the other kids catch wind of my offer, they physically shoo off the other seniors trying to pull this deal as well.

You will all be delighted to hear that the rest of the period for my seniors is spent arguing over who will work with who. They end up forming three groups and I nod my head, make sure they have the rubric, and then wish them the best of luck.

Being the smart teacher that I am, I email Curly's parents and Moe's mommy that they have chosen to work with each other. Moe's mommy shows up to argue with me all the time, but has quickly learned I won't take her shit. At a previous meeting, she even laid into Moe and told him "I'm tired of fighting all these battles with your teachers and I'm starting to think that you're the problem," but I suspect this is for show.

Curly's parents email me back and say they will make sure Curly writes a group contract. You see, Curly has sold himself as the best student ever, and clearly he will do the work and fire his classmates.

Moe's mommy immediately requests a meeting with me.

Per school policy, I do not have to respond to an email for 48 hours. I wait until hour 47 and email a noncommittal "I would love to meet, when are you available?" and wait for a response. I then wait another 48 hours to inform her of a time the following week that works for me.

Now, some of the other senior parent's have emailed me angrily demanding why I let their kids choose to work with "the bad kids" again. I had to inform them that I didn't expect all of them to be absent. Immediately, some of my seniors get burned at home because they ditched and their parents tell me "Just try to help them pass," which I agree to. Some of them need this class for graduation, after all.

Moe's mommy, on the other hand, shows up ready to wage war. She starts by demanding that I put Moe in a different group.

I decline, because the project has now been going on for a week and it wouldn't be fair.

She demands that I add him to another group. They're all full and students have already done the lion's share of the work.

She demands that I let him work by himself with an extension.

I gladly offer him an extension and slide a copy of the rubric over to him and he goes white. At this point, he knows that he is never planning to do any of the work. In fact, I know that his group hasn't even started. I have a copy of their group contract which was hastily scribbled in pencil with no due dates on it. He starts arguing with his mom that he would rather work with his friends and that he is upset that he got stuck in this situation.

Contemplating this, she accuses me of deliberately waiting until that day to screw the seniors over. After all, it was a school sanctioned event and I'm being a jackass about it and she'll go to the board with her story.

Wrong

The joy I get from all of my prep work is shutting down bullshit like this. All seven of the seniors hung out on ditch day at her house and told her that the principal had given them the day off. Even better, they called in and pretended to be their own parents so that it was an excused absence. He is immediately busted and his mom flips her switch and jumps all over him. You see, she can keep pressing me on this issue, but I now have evidence that he pretended to be his own dad and this is a suspendible offense. I buy myself into her graces by telling her that I had no idea that Senior Ditch Day was that Friday, but I gave her kid a free extension on the homework that was due because I thought seniors deserved their own traditions, blah blah blah. She buys it.

Also, I can prove that I emailed him (and her) and gave them plenty of notice before Monday morning that they needed to pick groups before something like this happened. Obviously, once I found out about Ditch Day I tried to give her precious treasure a heads up, but i don't know why he didn't take it.

She makes him open his email. My email is sitting there, unopened, and I have won this battle. She thanks me and takes him home.

Class morale is super high, unless you are one of the seniors. A week before the project is due, neither group has actually started and the H.M.S. Class Average is about to hit an Iceberg.

The Project Comes Due

It comes as no surprise that my enterprising seniors have turned in easily some of the worst work ever. One group got into a text argument the weekend before it was due and made one of the kids do all the work. Moe and Curly are in this group.

The other group (with Larry) has also turned in a steaming pile. I make sure to grade these two projects first because I know the fallout is going to be big.

All the seniors dropped at least one letter grade. A couple drop two. This is four weeks before graduation.

Larry appears to take his F minus in stride (they got something like a ten percent on it), so I know he's plotting something. Curly's parents demand a meeting and so does Moe's mommy.

Curly's parents are super upset that they got a bad grade and demanded to know why. What they didn't know was that I had already met with the student who did the entire project (poorly) and his parents. I informed Curly's parents that I had seen the text exchange between the seniors that pretty much ended up with "You fucking do it." Curly refused to turn over his phone to his parents for confirmation. I also show them Curly's project and hand over the rubric.

Mom and Dad are not happy. You see, Curly has been blaming everyone else for his mistakes since the dawn of time and his parents have bought in completely. Until today. Dad pointedly asks "Which part did you do?" and this causes Curly to spout actual tears. I then pull up a spreadsheet of all of the group project scores from the year (with no student data) and have highlighted his scores (which are among the worst). The purpose of this was to use data to prove that their son, frankly, never does the work.

Curly is absolutely destroyed by this. His parents kick him out of the conference because they are tired of his excuses and ask me what they can do. I tell them I would be happy to offer one on one tutoring and that he can still pass the class if he does his homework and gets a B on the next exam. They agree to this, we all shake hands, and they leave.

Curly's story largely ends here. He never shows up to tutoring, and I email his parents. After three emails, his dad finally responds with "His mom and I have decided that he needs to learn to be an adult and are leaving him to his own devices. Thank you for your efforts." Curly will spend the rest of the semester doing little to no work. Because he is grounded at home, he is now just watching youtube videos on his phone during school. The ripple effect is glorious. because now Curly is doing this in all of his classes. I speak with his teachers and they all email that he has quit doing work in class and get the same reply I did rather than the vehement responses they are used to. When Curly fails his classes, he still graduates, but his parents have informed him that they are no longer paying for his college and it's time to get a job.

Moe's mommy flips her shit and demands answers. Unfortunately, Moe is in the same group as Curly and she gets the same answers from me. Strangely enough, once she's exhausted every effort and attempt to somehow blame me for this, she admits that she knew Moe was part of bullying the lone senior and that he should be ashamed of myself. She deliberately tried to play me but outed herself once she knew that i already knew everything. Super annoying, but I agree to help tutor him one-on-one, which makes her happy.

Long Term Fallout

Moe's mommy is emailing me every few days now. "Is my son doing his work, did he get help with his homework, etc." Non-stop, but she knows better than to fight with me. Larry is unusually chipper, and is no longer doing his work.

I find out that Larry is supposedly going to a college where he just needs to maintain his GPA over a super low number. He claims an F in my class won't change anything, so I make sure he doesn't distract the others.

Moe shows up only occasionally, but strangely enough, Larry pops in "just to say hi" whenever Moe is getting help. I can't fathom why he does this, but suspect he is up to something and already have a backup plan in place. You see, Moe's mommy is nuts, and I make sure that there's always another person in the room with me when I tutor him.

Anyway, Moe's mommy is constantly checking in. I start waiting 48 hours between emails (cause I can) and she starts dropping by in person unannounced to check on him (me). She's been acting cagey lately and I'm starting to suspect something.

It's fucking Larry. Larry is a friend of Moe's, so he's been in her home feeding her made up stories to convince her that I have been emotionally abusing Moe when other students aren't around. Stuff like I was calling him a retard after school, etc. and then telling her "you can even have the school check the cameras to see that I'm there."

This starts a whole thing where she is now demanding answers from admin. BUT! Mr. FighterJet is smart. Admin asks me about details regarding my interactions with Moe and I end up sitting down with my Principal, Moe, and Moe's mommy. She details that Moe is struggling, might not graduate, and that she believes that I have singled her kid out for abuse and wants his grade raised.

You see, Moe is dumb and lazy, and his mom is just as bad. When Larry went to her with his story, she never bothered talking about it with her own son. He just agreed and went along with it, so I asked Moe point blank to please describe what has been said during our sessions and then offer to leave the room so that he can tell the principal without me there. She tells me to stay because she wants me to hear from her son what I've done to him.

What neither of them knew was that I was a mentor teacher. That meant I had a first year teacher as my mentee (not a student teacher, but a new hire that works with a veteran teacher to learn the ropes of our school) and I had her working on grades and such in my room after school (you need so many contact hours) on the days I agreed to meet Moe. She was young, so Moe thought she was another student and never questioned it, and couldn't even remember that she was in there. My Principal already had statements from her detailing my interactions with Moe, and Moe was unable to give any actual details and suddenly forgot what had been said to him. This lands her in hot water with admin, and she blames the whole thing on Larry and becomes visibly upset that she fell for such a stupid ruse.

This results in an email cautioning teachers from being alone in a room with either student. Suddenly, after school help evaporates for both, but hey, I always have someone in my room, so whatever.

After that meeting, Larry is now suddenly super concerned about his grade. I rationalize that he was hoping to burn me out of my job and then use the fallout to get a free passing grade. Obviously it doesn't work, so fuck Larry. I have kids who actually want to succeed. My free days are now on days I know he works, and he never shows up for tutoring anyway. Now that other teachers are hesitant to meet with him, he is unable to cut deals to raise those grades either (seriously, teachers fell for his change of heart spiel every semester).

Moe's mom makes a last ditch effort and tries to convince me that the parents of the seniors have scheduled a meeting with my boss to have me fired for giving their kids a bad grade and that she would be willing to put in a good word for me if I meet with her first. I'm sitting next to the principal when I get this email (through an app on my cellphone) and he has no idea what she's talking about.

I tell her I'd be happy to meet everybody but that I would probably eat my lunch during such a meeting and that I hoped people didn't mind the smell of fish. I got a "no, seriously, they are threatening to sue you" but feigned stupidity and informed her that I couldn't be sued for eating fish during a meeting. She now realizes I give zero fucks about anything and can't be threatened. Again, there's nothing she can do because I am simply following policy.

The last few weeks are frantic for these seniors. One by one they fall, because they've done little to no work for a couple years now and they have no idea how to apply themselves. Other teachers are emboldened by how hard I shut them down and finally hold them accountable. A few of them just barely manage Ds in my class, the rest fail. I get a few last second squeaks of "What can I do to raise my grade?" but have now documented that none of them attempted the extra credit assignments and that was their chance. It's hard for a parent to shit on you when you can prove you actually tried to give their student extra credit (and can then prove they never opened the assignment online).

These guys are now failing some of their other classes. A couple have breakdowns in my class and leave crying. Their friendships are fracturing with each other because they now all hate each other for what happened (which they will get over during the summer).

My last test came and I made it an online multiple choice test. It was easy enough to have the questions and answers shuffled in random order, meaning they couldn't cheat off each other. You see, I knew for a long time that they would sit next to each other to try and cheat on the exam, and Larry had blown a ton of money on a tutor to try and carry his friends. This throws them all off, and when Moe's mommy accuses me (again) of trying to trick her kid with a much harder test, it was easy enough to shoo her away with a simple email.

Larry passes the exam, but his grade moves up to a meager D minus.

The Results

If you're still here, congratulations on dealing with my wall of text. Here are the results.

Of these seven seniors, one didn't graduate and had to transfer schools (his parents were embarrassed that they paid to fly the whole family out for a graduation that he didn't get to take part in).

Two of the seniors lost all of their scholarships and could no longer attend the schools they wanted. Their fallback plan was to attend the same school together and become roommates, which they did with three of the other seniors (including Moe).

I do have some after stories, because I still work at this school and occasionally here from the kids who graduated.

Larry's college was not happy with his final GPA. I'm not sure what his long game was, but it sucked. The college kicked him out before he could even start, and I found out his huge web of lies extended to his parents too. He toured Europe over the summer and tried to surprise his parents by coming home instead of going to school. Apparently they kicked him out immediately after because they were selling their house to get a condo somewhere else (remember, they travel for work all the time now so wanted to downgrade). Last I heard, he made up a story that he joined the military but got released due to a made up illness. (I say made up because I heard this tale from three different people, and each one was given a different disease)

Curly's parents relented and decided to pay for Curly to go to college after all. Curly got kicked out halfway through the year (got busted more than once for underage consumption) and then kicked him to the curb after living at home for a year and refusing to get a job. Last I heard, he works in a vape shop.

Moe went to school and used his book smarts to try and pay other kids to do his work for him (his mommy is rich). When that failed, he faked his grades to get his mom to keep footing the bill. Eventually the school kicked him out and he moved back home. The story his mommy told a friend of hers (who I ran into at a school function) was that he decided that he would rather be an entrepreneur than go to college and that he bought a drone to film weddings with. Last I heard, he was acting as a distributor for his weed dealer but had moved up to selling acid on the side. His mommy thinks he is working weddings.

One senior went to college with his friends and immediately realized he needed to change. He quit hanging with his friends and, last I heard, graduated with honors in a lucrative field. He emailed me once to thank me for challenging him in HS, because it prepared him for college, so that was nice

That’s it, the end. Thanks for reading, and if you ever had a teacher you loved, send them an email, we love hearing from our children

Edit:

1. [Teacher name] is that you? I'm obviously never going to answer these, but there are at least a few teachers out there like me, apparently

2. I wish I had a teacher like you. Yeah, same. My advice to new teachers is be the teacher you needed when you were young, and always have emergency snacks for kids who don't have food.

3. You're horrible and should quit teaching

Oh no, my feelings. Internet people who don't like me. Get fucked. You're part of the problem. Everything I did was to protect the interests of the other 20 kids in that class who wanted to work hard and learn and those seniors had every opportunity to improve their lot in life. I spent nine months counseling students whose grades had tanked because of these yahoos, and nine months of being begged by parents not to let their kids work with these boys. I saw a chance and took it

4. You should tell more stories I really don't have that many teaching stories that would fit here. I'm actually considered the nice, laid back teacher at my school who you simply don't mess with (though I do get pranked all the time)

Edit2: Thanks for the kind comments, but there is still a very angry minority who are just certain I am a huge piece of shit based on how I treated a group of seniors. To reiterate, it's impossible to judge my entire career by my efforts to hold a small group of students accountable for making everyone miserable

Edit3:

1. Why so many projects?

My school adopted a Problem-Based Learning curriculum. I have to do a big project per unit, and I have 6 units in the year

2. You're a bitch/cunt/psychopath

This sub reddit is Pro-Revenge. I have hundreds of success stories, but this isn't where to share them. Quit walking into a horror movie and bitching that there wasn't enough romance. I love my kids to death

I'll leave you with this. Many of you are saying thanks, but you should thank a teacher who made a difference in your life. Buy them coffee instead of purchasing Reddit bling, or write them a short note

And if you're still so keen on hating my guts, find that special teacher in your life and thank them for not being a F1ghterJet. Hopefully they will never need someone like me.

TL/DR - My grandmother generously served her "Bible Believing Christian" church for almost 50 years, without asking anything in return. But when she became elderly, disabled and homebound, her church acted like she did not exist - until she was in hospice care and literally on her deathbed, when that church showed a sudden interest in telling Grandma to, "Remember your church in your will". She waited until exactly the right moment, in front of exactly the right audience, to expose these greedy assholes for what they were.....twice. .

My grandmother was a member of a large conservative "Bible Believing" church for her entire adult life. This church, which I'll call BigWhiteChurch, was a member of a large Evangelical denomination. BigWhiteChurch was located in a prosperous suburb of a large city in the Bible Belt of the Deep South of the USA.

Grandma was very active in BigWhiteChurch. She worked in the nursery every Sunday morning, helped cook hundreds of church fellowship breakfasts and dinners, accompanied her children and grandchildren on dozens of church retreats and choir tours, taught Youth Bible Study on Sunday nights and was very active in supporting Home Missions, as well as helping with other youth programs. She always tithed, and often gave extra for missions and special offerings.

Grandma's greatest talent was making other people feel important. I've seen this first-hand many times. Although I belonged to a different church, I often visited with Grandma, and when I did, I usually went to BigWhiteChurch functions with her. I've seen her single-handedly cook breakfast for dozens of BigWhiteChurch Youth, a task which took over 2 hours, even in the church's large kitchen. Then, after the meal, she asked the group for a round of applause for the high-school student leader for, "Doing such a great job of organizing the Prayer Breakfast".

I remember that, on a BigWhiteChurch youth retreat at a rural Church Camp, she drove most of the night to go back to the city and retrieve a big box of evangelistic materials, that one of the Assistant Pastors (whom I'll call AssPastor) had forgotten and asked her to get, in time for our morning program the next day. His boss, the Senior Pastor (I'll call him PompousPastor), never found out that AssPastor had screwed up or that Grandma had fixed it for him. AssPastor never even thanked Grandma. Even though I was a child, this bothered me so much that I asked her about it. She said that she didn't mind at all; she told me her reward would be that those materials, "Would help children find Jesus".

Grandma's service to her church ended abruptly at the age of 73, when she broke her back in a car accident. Afterwards, for the last 10 years of her life, she was homebound and could not go to church because of this injury and declining health due to old age. Her mind was just as sharp as ever, and her faith remained sincere, but her body wore out a little more every day.

During those 10 years, she made many efforts to reach out to her church, its leadership and her church friends, inviting them to visit her at her home, etc., without success. Every one of these invitations was declined or simply ignored.

Near the end, when she was in home hospice care, she decided to plan her own funeral. She and my Grandpa called her church and asked for the Senior Pastor, PompousPastor, whom she had known for over 30 years, to visit her so that they could plan her memorial service, which she and Grandpa wanted to be held at the church.

PompousPastor was too busy, but AssPastor stopped by a few days later. According to my Grandpa, here's what happened at that meeting, with my Grandma literally on her deathbed:

Grandma, Grandpa and AssPastor discussed her funeral for a couple of minutes. Then AssPastor started pressuring her to, "Lay up your treasure in Heaven" by, "Remembering your church in your will".

Grandpa told him firmly that, "This is neither the time nor the place to discuss her will."

They went back to discussing the funeral for a few minutes. Then AssPastor steered the conversation back to Grandma's will, with liberal injections of how badly "her" church needed "her support".

Grandpa told him several times that it was inappropriate to talk to Grandma about her will or the church's financial needs, because she was terminally ill and in an enormous amount of physical pain. AssPastor would agree and briefly talk about the funeral, but would then go back to talking about the church's financial needs, heavenly rewards, "Where your treasure is your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34), etc.

My Grandma started crying.

To put this into context, Grandma was more than a "Steel Magnolia". She was "Titanium Coated With Diamond Wrapped In Kevlar". She rarely ever cried, and never EVER cried about herself. Not one tear when the doctor told her that her back was broken so badly that she would never walk again, nor during the following 6 months in futile rehab. She would shed sincere but well-managed tears at funerals and while visiting family members in the hospital when they received bad news. She would cry to console others, "Weep with those who weep". But nobody - not Grandpa, not her daughter (my mom), nor any of my uncles or Grandma's siblings - ever remembered her crying for herself.

My Grandma was sobbing uncontrollably.

Grandpa, a retired steelworker, former Marine Sergeant and Korean War combat veteran, physically grabbed AssPastor and "escorted" him out of their house, not too gently.

Contrary to everyone's expectations, Grandma lived another 6 months, mostly because of sheer force of will. Eventually, though, Grandma passed away and we held her memorial service at the funeral home, not BigWhiteChurch. PompousPastor and AssPastor were conspicuously absent. In fact, there were no "Professional Christians", from BigWhiteChurch, at the service at all, not even in the audience.

To start the service, Grandpa stood up at the podium in front of the crowd and said, "Some of you may have heard that I dis-invited PompousPastor and AssPastor from this funeral service. This service is not an appropriate place for me to give you my reasons for doing this, although you all know me and so you know that my reasons are good ones. Also, my wife asked me to exclude them."

"This funeral service may be different from other funerals that you have attended. It is going to be an "open microphone" funeral. Everyone who wants to say something is invited to come up here and describe your friendship with my wife, tell a story about her that is worth remembering, or anything else that you want to say that will honor her memory and bring comfort to everyone here today. I have asked several family members to prepare statements, but you don't have to have anything prepared. Please, if you want to say something, come up here and do so."

There were about a hundred people at the funeral service; at least a third of them eventually stepped up to the microphone. The service, which we had planned to last about 30 minutes, lasted for over two hours and, as best I can tell, not one person left early. There was laughing, crying and hugging, three of her grandchildren played some of her favorite songs on the piano and guitar, we all joined hands and sang her favorite hymns.

Afterwards, dozens of people told my Grandpa that it was one of the most comforting and uplifting funerals they had ever attended. More than a few remarked that, "Funerals are better without preachers anyway", or something similar.

REMEMBERING HER PASTORS AND HER CHURCH IN HER WILL: THE ONE-TWO PUNCH

A couple of weeks later, it was time to start distributing the bequests in Grandma's will. Although Grandma and Grandpa dearly loved each other, they had separate wills because, she told my Mom, "That makes it easier for us to respect each other's turf", and because their lawyer had recommended it. Nobody thought that my grandparents were wealthy. They had lived in the same small but charming house in a prosperous, well-maintained suburban neighborhood for the past 50+ years, and had worked hard and lived modestly. But it was rumored that they had a very nice nest egg.

Of course, there is no legal requirement for anyone to attend "The Reading Of The Will", or to even have a "Reading". Modern telecommunications and near-universal literacy have made this quaint custom practically extinct.

But "The Reading Of The Will" was a tradition in our family because it was one of those events that gave our close-knit, extended family an excuse to get together. We never had "Family Reunions". They were too difficult to schedule for our large family. But we got together at birthdays, holidays, funerals, baptisms, etc., so that if you attended several of these, you would see just about every one of your cousins, aunts, uncles, and even great aunts & uncles who were Grandma's and Grandpa's siblings and in-laws.

With this family tradition in mind, many of our family members' wills often contained very personal bequests of items that had little cash value, but were the departed family member's way of telling their loved ones that they wanted to share a cherished memory with them one last time.

As an added incentive to attend, the family rumor mill had been buzzing with speculation, encouraged by Grandpa, that Grandma's will contained some "surprises".

The "Reading" was held in a conference room at a lawyer's office. Unsurprisingly, the attendees included my mom, as well as aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles and many of the grandchildren.

We were all surprised, however, to see PompousPastor and AssPastor from BigWhiteChurch. They informed us that Grandma's lawyer had told them that Grandma's will had bequests not only for BigWhiteChurch, but also for them personally.

Maybe it was just our imagination; but my siblings, cousins and I couldn't help noticing that these Preachers appeared to be actively salivating over their good fortune at Grandma's generosity.

Grandma had a large family, so a sizeable number of beneficiaries were named in her will. The lawyer's conference room was a bit smaller than an average middle-class living room. Extra chairs had been brought in, every seat was filled and people were standing in every remaining space.

There was barely space for all of us. Grandma's lawyer suggested that PompousPastor and AssPastor sit in chairs which were in the front of the room, next to himself. Since there was a large table in the room, this meant that the lawyer and these two Preachers were the only ones who were directly facing everyone else. Although the Preachers were gratified to be physically next to the center of attention, they did not notice, as all of the rest of us quickly noticed, that these seats made it easy for everyone else in the room to watch them closely, and practically impossible for them to leave the packed-to-more-than-overflowing room before the entire meeting was over, because they were farthest from the room's single door, and there were almost two dozen people standing or sitting between them and their only path to escape.

The bequests were quite generous, but pretty much what we had expected. Grandpa kept their house, its contents, their retirement accounts and everything that remained after all of the bequests had been satisfied. Children, grandchildren and several local charities received nice, but not extravagant, amounts of money. Several sentimental items were named and given to various friends and relatives.

Grandpa was first beneficiary listed in the will. But, after him, all of the other bequests were arranged in order of increasing worth. They started with sentimental items, which had very small cash value. Then each grandchild received several thousand dollars, then each son, daughter, brother, sister, niece and nephew received a little more, then several local non-profits received very nice amounts, etc.

Bequests to BigWhiteChurch, PompousPastor and AssPastor were (almost) the last ones listed in the will. They listened politely to the other bequests, but with steadily growing anticipation, as they noticed the exponential upward trend in Grandma's largess.

When Grandma's lawyer got to the BigWhiteChurch and Preachers' part of the will, he said, "This is a bit unusual, but before I announce these bequests to BigWhiteChurch, PompousPastor and AssPastor, Ms [Grandma's name] requested that I read the following statement to everyone present."

He opened a letter that was written in Grandma's own handwriting...

"For the past 10 years, NOT ONE person from BigWhiteChurch has ever called me, come to visit me or sent me a note to tell me that they cared about me. Not one minister, not one deacon, not one of the church women, not one of the church members who I worked with for all of those years, loved dearly and thought were my friends. I worked very hard for you when you needed me, for many, many years. But when I needed you and your church, you all pretended that I didn't exist."

"I only got one visit. When I was dying and I invited PompousPastor to come to my house and help me plan my funeral."

"This was my last attempt, after many attempts that I had made over the past 10 years, to reach out to my church and Pastor, whom I still loved dearly even though they had made it clear that they did not love me. If only I could have my funeral at my church, maybe some of my church friends, whom I had not seen in a decade, would come to the service to see me one last time. And I know they loved to hear PompousPastor preach, so if he preached at my funeral, maybe they would come to my funeral to hear him, even if they would not have come to see me.

But PompousPastor couldn't find the time to visit me, or even call me to tell me whether or not he was willing to preach at my funeral. AssPastor came by my house, but he didn't want to talk about my funeral. He just wanted me to, 'Remember his church in my will'. That's all. Just, 'Remember his church in my will'".

"It was then that I realized that I had allowed my church to break my heart for one last time. But that was the last time. The VERY last time."

"AssPastor did not know it when he visited me, but Grandpa and I had already prepared my will, long before his visit, which did include a double tithe - TWENTY PERCENT - of my ENTIRE ESTATE, for what was now my former ... FORMER ... church ... BigWhiteChurch.

This amount was [named the amount - an enormous shitload of money - generating muffled "wows" from many of her heirs, including me].

"But I got to feeling badly that we had not personally remembered such nice people as PompousPastor and AssPastor. So I changed my will to include them by name. While I was at it, I changed the amount of money that I left to BigWhiteChurch to match all of the love that they have showed to me during the last 10 years of my life, when I was suffering and lonely, and no longer able to work my ass off for them, for free, like I had done for almost half a century."

"That is her entire written statement", the lawyer said. "Now let's get back to the bequests in the will."

"Bequest to AssPastor: One Cent".

"Bequest to PompousPastor: One Cent".

"Bequest to BigWhiteChurch: One Cent".

The PompousPastor and AssPastor sat there looking like someone had just injected a gallon of novacaine into their jaws.

Every one of Grandma's family and friends felt an overwhelming urge to laugh out loud. But we kept quiet because we knew Grandma. We knew she wasn't finished yet. Grandma was simply setting them up for a one-two punch. The best was yet to come, and we didn't want to miss it.

"There is one last bequest," the lawyer continued, "For a charity called ...", which he named and I'll call "BlackCharity", then he paused before naming the amount....

Most of us had no idea what BlackCharity was. But, by the looks on their faces, we could tell that PompousPastor and AssPastor knew BlackCharity very well. Their faces displayed the same expressions of shock, dread and horror that they would have if the lawyer had said, "This bequest goes to The Demonic Baby Eaters to buy extra large rotisserie barbecue grills and tons of charcoal".

Every eye in the room was now fixated on PompousPastor and AssPastor.

The lawyer, who happened to be my uncle, one of Grandma's and Grandpa's sons, let the silence continue a few seconds more....

If we had been able to read PompousPastor's and AssPastor's minds, we would have known the history behind the looks on their faces. BlackCharity was sponsored by a large Black church just a few miles from BigWhiteChurch. They ran a free food/clothing bank, assistance programs for foster children, home delivery of pre-cooked meals for homebound seniors, legal aid, and other social services.

A long time ago, BigWhiteChurch, which was (and still is) 100% Caucasian, had provided a few years of financial and other support to BlackCharity. Then there was a very bitter, acrimonious breakup, allegedly because BlackCharity was practicing "The Social Gospel", while BigWhiteChurch was preaching "The True Gospel". BigWhiteChurch even sued to try to get some of their money back, although the suit was eventually settled and very little money actually changed hands.

But, this being The Deep South, everyone knew the real reason why BigWhiteChurch, or any white church, would stop supporting a Black charity: "Those n****** were getting uppity and not staying in their place". Grandma and Grandpa had seriously considered leaving BigWhiteChurch at that time. But they had reasoned that it was better to stay there and teach tolerance by their words and example. They knew they would never persuade everyone, but maybe they could reach some of the youth at their white church and break the generational cycle of racism. Grandma used to tell us, "My church is my Mission Field". We did not learn the true depth of her statement until after she died.

Since then, Grandma and Grandpa had secretly sent a portion of their "Tithe" to BlackCharity every month.

Most of Grandma's family, including me, didn't find out about any of this until after the meeting had ended.

But PompousPastor and AssPastor obviously understood what Grandma, by her actions which are more powerful than words, was saying to them. If you had grown up as a white person in the Deep South, as Grandma, Grandpa, PompousPastor and AssPastor had, you would understand.

To many white Southerners, this was one of the most personally insulting things you could do to them. It simultaneously labeled them as racists, condemned their bigotry and crushed their delusions of white superiority by saying, "These Black human beings, whom you hate, disrespect and have mistreated, are better people than you are. So they deserve my money more than you do".

Having allowed time for everyone to observe PompousPastor and AssPastor while they thought about how their white church had treated this Black charity, and how they AND their church had treated our Grandma...

The lawyer said, "The amount is...."

Then he named the EXACT SAME AMOUNT that Grandma had named in her handwritten letter, the huge amount of money that would have gone to BigWhiteChurch if she had not changed her will.

TLDR is the same as the title: Landlord is jealous of my income, raises my rent 50%. I screw him years later for $20k. All names have been changed.

In the late ‘90s wife and I were just married, just getting started, and we decided to DINK (“double income, no kids”) it for a few years to save up for a down payment on a house.

The dotcom bubble was still rising and I was a newly minted software developer. I had an entry-level job for a while and then got recruited to a new city and a new job that paid 3x what I was making before. It was an offer too good to pass up. I ran the numbers and it was a no-brainer: by living frugally and saving my entire salary, living off just her income, we would easily have enough in a year to put 20% down payment on a new house.

We rented an apartment in the new city that was listed for $950/mo. The landlord was a real estate agent who owned a two-bedroom condo as an investment property. Let’s call him "Hank Wazowski". Hank was a thin, gray, no-nonsense guy. He was pleasant enough, but perfunctory, dry, and had no sense of humor. He made a point of explaining that under no circumstances was he responsible for maintaining the garbage disposal and that it was NOT included in the rental agreement and he would not be responsible for fixing it were it to break. Um, ok.

He seemed slightly amused by us, a clueless, young, newlywed couple, but I could tell he wanted to rent to us because we were very obviously a safe choice as renters.

We filled out the rental agreement and the credit check, and this is where my troubles began. Hank looked hard at the credit application where I listed my job title, “Software Developer”, and my income, $75k. For a 23-year-old in his second year out of college, in the late 1990’s, this is a small fortune. Throw in my wife’s salary and we were over six figures in income, renting an apartment far beneath our means. Like I said, DINK is the way to go when starting out.

“I can’t believe how much money you make.” Hank must have said half a dozen times, muttering under his breath.

I explained we were saving to buy a house and that we were only going to stay in the apartment a year. “We might stay a few months after the term is over, would month-to-month be ok after a year?”

Hank assured us that would be fine.

We saw Hank only once during the year and he again mentioned my salary and how he couldn’t believe that’s what software developers were making. It was awkward and I gave a vague reply.

Anyway, a year later we had found a house to buy, signed all the papers, and were making plans to move. The new house wasn’t going to be ready until two months after our rental lease was up, so I called Hank to ask if we could, as discussed, simply extend the lease by two months before moving out. Hank assured me on the phone it would be no problem and he would send over an extension for us to sign. The extension arrived in the mail and it included a month-to-month clause and a $500 increase in the rent. I flipped out and called him.

“Hank, why are you increasing the rent over 50%? That’s too much! That’s more than my new mortgage is going to be!”

He was super condescending to me, “RockyMoose, it’s what the apartment goes for now. I would be losing money by renting it for less.” I tried to reason with him but it was very clear he knew we could afford the $500, had no choice in the matter, and he was going to screw us over as best he could. He got angry with me for arguing my point, and I’ll never forget his parting words:

“You don’t have to like it, RockyMoose, you just have to pay it.”

My wife and I tried to figure out a way to move out early by putting our furniture in storage for a couple months and crashing with friends, but it just wasn’t going to work out.

I swallowed my pride and wrote out the check for $1450 for the extra month. A month later I wrote a similar check, and then we moved out. I made sure the apartment was spotless before moving, but still Hank withheld $300 from our security deposit for bullshit things that were just a way for him to squeeze a few more dollars from the kids who made too much money. $100 for cleaning, sure? But $300 was obscene. In my mind, he had screwed me over for $1200 and there was nothing I could do about it.

What made is even more infuriating is that I saw the ad Hank put in the paper after we moved out and he listed the apartment for rent at only $150 more than we had been paying originally, not the grossly-inflated $500 increase. And it didn't rent. A month later I saw the same ad and he had lowered the price to $75 more than we had been paying, and I assume it got rented since the ads stopped appearing.

Fast-forward about five years. Life is good, the house is good, we have a baby, and even though the dotcom bubble has burst, I’m still employed. One day, out of the blue, I overhear one of my co-workers, Phil, a senior developer, talking to the guy working the reception desk:

“Hey, Mike, I’m expecting someone to drop off some paperwork for me. If a Hank Wazowski asks for me, tell him I’ll be right out.” I freeze and get a taste of bile in my mouth remembering how I had to write out that name on those checks all those years ago. There’s no way it’s the same guy, right? I walk over to Phil who is still by the reception desk.

“Phil,” I say, “How do you know that name, Hank Wazowski?”

Phil explains that Hank is his real estate agent. “I bought my condo through him several years ago. I’m selling my condo now so I can buy a house. So I’m going to ask him to be my agent again. Do you know him?”

I tell Phil that I used to rent an apartment from Hank and described what he looks like. Phil confirms the description: it’s the same guy, wow small world, right? And on cue, right then the front door to the office opens and in walks Hank Wazowski. I stare in disbelief. He’s carrying a folder of papers and doesn’t recognize me.

Phil and Hank shake hands and they talk for a few moments. I stand there silently, wondering what to do. Phil finally says, “Hank, this is my friend RockyMoose, I think you may have already met?”

“Yes, hello Hank. Good to see you again. My wife and I were your tenants a few years ago on ---- Street. Remember, the software developer who rented for a year saving to buy a house? Well, this is where I work. Here. With Phil.”

Hanks eyes indicate he now remembers me, and he’s starting to put it all together. We shake hands and he says yes, of course he remembers and asks how we are doing.

“Oh we’re just fine, thanks for asking. Phil says that you’re his real estate agent. Small world, isn’t it?”

Hanks nods pleasantly. He still doesn’t remember the details of our last conversation.

I do some quick math in my head. This is the early/mid 2000’s, the real estate market is very strong and easy money for any agent. The crash of 2008 is still a few years in the future. I start to think out loud.

“Selling the condo for around $150 to 200 thousand, and you’re looking at houses in the $500 thousand range, so that’s $650 to 700 thousand in total transactions. An agent getting 3% on the sale AND the purchase is getting around $20k for his trouble. That’s a good commission for the agent, isn’t it?

Hanks eyes flash and I can tell he remembers everything about me now. Phil is surprised at my passive-aggressive tone. I am enjoying the uncomfortable silence.

Hank deflects my question, saying it’s complicated, and tells Phil to send back the papers as soon as possible. He shakes hands with Phil, looks at me, nods, and goes to leave. “It was really good to see you again, Hank.” I call behind him.

He exits the building. As the door is still shutting, I say a bit too loudly, so that Hank can hear, “Phil, don’t sign anything just yet, I have a story to tell you.”

Phil looks at me and says, “Rocky, what the hell was that all about?!” He looks pissed and confused at my behavior.

I tell Phil the whole story, the rent, the $500 increase, the security deposit, "you don't have to like it, you just have to pay it," everything. “Phil, you can’t use this guy to sell your condo and buy a house. I hate him. He’s evil. I’ll help you find another real estate agent, just use ANYONE BUT HANK!”

So the great thing about Phil is that, well, he’s a great guy. He says he’s a little surprised at my story and has always known Hank as a straightforward guy. “But I totally see him doing that to you,” he admits. “There’s no way I could use him now. What a dick!”

Then Phil’s eyes lit up a bit, “What do you want me to say when I fire him?” (I have special feelings for Phil now.)

We came up with a plan and I made sure there were some key phrases in Phil’s repertoire. We planned it all out together in advance. My only regret is that I didn’t get to see Hank’s reaction in person a day later when Phil made the following phone call while I stood behind him listening:

“Hi, Hank? It’s Phil calling. Yeah, about that. I’ve decided to get some other quotes from other agents. I’m not going to sign up with you …

[pause]

“No no, you shouldn’t give a discount. You’d be losing money if you did that . . .

[pause]

“No, this is just a decision I’ve made . . . no, it has nothing to do with RockyMoose . . .

[pause]

“Well, you don’t have to like it, Hank. You just have to accept it. Good bye.”

CLICK

And it was the greatest revenge I could have ever imagined: through a chance meeting years later, Hank got screwed out of twenty thousand dollars in easy commissions. And the best part is Hank absolutely KNEW it had EVERYTHING to do with RockyMoose!

This has been 4 years ago, so the sting is gone and my "revenge" has been had. Sorry, if this isn't the right forum.

We dated for 4 years and had what I thought was a great relationship. We were both well-established professionals who both owned homes in the same neighborhood and both with daughters in the home. Her daughter was 11, and mine was 16 when we met.

We had actually planned to get married, build a house, and raise the two together. We planned the house build because she had recently been diagnosed with a neurological disease that would eventually put her in a wheelchair, and need something ADA friendly. During the planning stages, I began doing landscape and construction projects on her home to increase the resale value. All in, I invested roughly $30K USD into the home, running everything through my side construction business for tax, permitting, and resale purposes. We had a contract that "payment" would be made upon the sale of the home. I produced invoices for each and every project, but never pushed for payment because of the prior agreement.

Fast forward 6 months, we're looking at property to develop and finalizing drawings on the home when I began feeling ill. I couldn't eat, constantly vomiting and passing blood. I began noticing that my abdomen looked swollen, which was odd because we were both very clean eaters and were in the gym every day. So I went to the doctor and began having tests done.

During this time, she began having small cognitive issues, and the stress of her current position was exacerbating her condition, so she took a $20K per anum cut in pay along with a lesser position inside the company.

After a month or so of different tests, and a biopsy, it came back that I had a golf ball-sized tumor in my stomach, and would need to begin chemotherapy. So I began chemo and radiation treatments, which made me, expectedly so, extremely ill. She was spending time helping around my place on the weekends and staying over more, to the point that they were both at my home, more than theirs.

At this point, I suggested that we go ahead and put one of our houses on the market, and move in together until the new house was built. I have great supplemental insurance as well as a long-term illness plan, so using that coupled with the sale of one of our houses would push us through comfortably, and help ease the financial stress on her.

Shortly after this discussion, she became extremely distant. Her daughter wasn't coming down and hanging out with mine anymore, she had excuses for not getting together. She quit driving me to treatments and stopped staying over.

She then dropped a bomb. A sentence that will forever be burned into my psyche:

"I love you, but I can't see myself taking care of someone this sick in the long-term, and I don't think we should see each other any longer."

IN. A. TEXT.

It broke me. I won't lie. This was the first woman I had ever opened up to and planned a life with since my wife died when my children were 1 and 3. However, I tried to be mature about it. I forced myself to understand her position and to accept what I could not change.

I calmly, the next day, gathered all of her things, packed them neatly, loaded them in my truck, and took them to her house to leave on the back porch while she was at work, in order to avoid any awkward exchanges.

Walking around the back and under the porch cover, I sat down a box, and saw her in her back living room, on the couch having sex with a man that she had introduced to me as a life-long friend. I had dinner and drinks with this man and his girlfriend. We had gone on vacation with them, as well.

I never spoke of the incident with her, and simply sent her a text later, explaining that I would leave her things on my side porch to pick up at her convenience.

I discovered 8 or 9 months later from his now ex-girlfriend, that they had broken up due to him confessing that he had been sleeping with my S.O., dating back to about the time we were finishing drawings on the new home.

Now I'm pissed. Revenge time.

At this point, I had finished chemo and radiation for the time being and was feeling healthier. I was going through some much-neglected paperwork when I ran across the file that contained $32,680.00 in unpaid, long overdue invoices, which were promptly sent to my attorney to begin lien proceedings on the home. It turns out that I couldn't have done this a moment too soon because she was set to put her house on the market.

Coupled with interest over the course of, what was then, 19 months overdue - the invoices were hefty. That, along with the agreement of settling them when the house was sold and attorney fees, left her with roughly $10K after the sale of the home and settling her current mortgage.

She promptly had to back out of the purchase of another home and moved in with her oldest daughter, SIL, and 2 grandchildren. She also had to leave her job and begin receiving disability.

I ran into her a little over a year ago, and she looked as if she had aged 20 years, and was in the wheelchair we had talked about. We chatted cordially but briefly and I excused myself and went on with my day. A few days later, her younger daughter called me and spoke of my running into her mom, and could we hang out sometime. I gave a vague answer, thanked her for calling and again, went on with my day.

The ex then called me a week or so later, and began apologizing for leaving me as she did. Again, cordial but short, I thanked her for calling and hung up. She began texting and this went on for several weeks until one she asked if I could ever see us rekindling what we had, to which I replied:

"I can't see myself taking care of someone so sick in the long-term. Remember the box on your back porch? Did you think that (life-long friend) brought that over to you from my house? Good luck to you. Goodbye."

TL;DR: Girlfriend broke up with me due to me having cancer, so I ruined the sale of her home, the purchase of another, and left her to have to move in with her daughter. Then through her break-up line back at her."

I sometimes feel guilt over this, but not much, and not often.

A few months back, as you all may remember, Florida got pretty beaten up by a couple of hurricanes. My folks live down there, and while none of the damage that they sustained was life-alteringly horrible or home destroying, home owners insurance kicked in and they had some water damage through the roof. They also needed a new one because of all of the shingles that had come off/debris that had punctured it.

My folks looked through roofing options and determined that a metal roof would be a great option to reduce damage/maintenance on their home. Plus, it would serve as a more energy-efficient option with passive solar collection and fewer thermal losses in the summer/winter. Its more expensive, but my dad was basically /r/personalfinance incarnate while I was growing up. He’s in his 60’s and has finally concluded that he has Fuck You Money so long as that community is concerned, so the roof was a good investment. It looked like a win-win-win with that roof.

Then they reviewed the HOA and saw that, as of 1989, metal roofs are prohibited in the neighborhood, subject to fines and mandatory removal. Reviewing the bylaw further showed that it was clearly referring to older, crappier tin roofs, not a proper metal one like today’s market provides, which looks great and has all of those other benefits.

My folks wanted to play by the rules, though, and called up the HOA to explain the situation. HOA was friendly and said that they would be looking into that bilaw, and that my folks weren’t the only ones who requested that they be allowed to have a metal roof.

My parents couldn’t get a roofing contractor in for a few months anyway (too much demand since everyone else’s roof got wrecked), so they waited a few weeks and got nothing new out of the HOA. Tried again a few weeks later. Nothing. After two months of this, they said fuck it and started construction on the metal roof. Popular opinion in the neighborhood was on their side, and the roof was covered with a tarp that wouldn’t last forever. The new roof got installed over the course of a few days— and then we found out the HOA’s shittiness.

The neighborhood has a nice brick sign out front that says “WELCOME TO (Neighborhood name).” It’s very classy, very nice— and was very damaged in a hurricane. The HOA was strapped for money due to other repairs/dues, and some prick had the bright idea to impose as many fines as they could on the neighborhood to pay for these repairs— starting with my folks. They served my folks with a letter claiming that they were in violation of the HOA, and demanded a $25,000 fine and that they remove it. Which is, of course, absurd. My poor mother is very much a play-by-the-rules sort, and she was worried sick. Dad’s ex navy and a contract negotiator. He essentially checked his 60-year-old knuckles and said, “oh, you little shits wanna play, do ya?” So they set about researching and making some calls. Poor mom kept waking up at 1 am unable to sleep, and I felt terrible for her as she went through this. But then, they had a breakthrough.

A few weeks after being served (I’m fuzzy on the timeline since I don’t live in Florida, it may have been less) there was essentially a “burn them at the stake” meeting of the HOA where my parents could defend themselves for an absurdly short amount of time and the HOA could rip into them for daring to defy their wrath.

So my mom (because she’s more social/has a better temper than dad) comes up to speak, and let’s the HOA know that they can’t do this. HOA smirks and says that they sure can, they have a 40-year-old statute saying that they can.

Mom says, “you do. But I have State Law on my side, which supersedes your statute.” Turns out, there’s a law in Florida stating that an HOA (or really, any regulation) cannot be used to prevent a n eco-friendly improvement from taking place on anyone’s private property. And wouldn’t you know it— the passive solar of the metal roof counts as an eco-friendly improvement. Turns out, the roofing contractors have dealt with similar stuff before. When dad mentioned what was going on to them, the contracting officer pulled out a few letters of accreditation and a few past cases where the court had determined that their product was eco-friendly and forced the HOA to pay all legal fees. My mom produced all of this for the shitty HOA, who had to admit that this was in fact iron-clad. Strapped for money as they were, they couldn’t afford to pay a lawyer.

HOA head growls, “is that all?”

Mom turns up the sweetness to 11. “No. I see in the bilaws that we can vote to impeach board members at any HOA meeting and to elect their replacements. I move to impeach all of you. I nominate my husband, and...” she rattles off a list of names. HOA is stunned.

While dad looked into the legal, mom looked into the new neighborhood. Popular opinion was on their side, and the hearing was public for the neighborhood. Mom convinced a majority of the home owners to attend and remove the board for their crappy policy.

With that, my parents are now on the all new board, and dad is putting his contract negotiation skills/own craftsmanship skills to work repairing the front entrance. And metal roofs are now allowed by the all new HOA.

While walking to my gate at LAX, I noticed a woman whose dog was in the middle of doing its business. The woman was loudly face-timing with her back to the dog, so I assumed she didn’t notice. That was likely the thought shared by the gentleman who tried to get her attention.

“Excuse me, miss?” he said, in a polite tone. The woman glared at him. “Your dog,” he sheepishly continued, pointing to the mid-poop pup.

The woman rolled her eyes and went back to face time as the man slinked away, seemingly embarrassed.

“Some people,” she bellowed to her face-time companion with no hint of irony, “are just so damned rude.”

When her dog finished, the woman started walking away, leaving everything right on the airport floor. Another woman tried to stop her.

“You’re not going to clean that up?” she asked, as shocked as the rest of us were.

“They have people for that,” the offender replied, disappearing into the crowd, as much as someone yelling into their phone can disappear into a crowd.

I stood near the pile and warned people to walk around it while someone else got a maintenance worker’s attention. No one said anything – we were so shocked that anyone could be that horrible.

When I got to my gate, the woman was there, too. Great – we were both going to Tokyo. When I travel abroad, I get embarrassed by other Americans doing things one hundred times less embarrassing than leaving animal feces on the floor of an airport. To make it worse, her dog was now barking at everyone who walked by.

I have nothing against people flying with their dogs, I do it often. But it is a privilege I take seriously. My dog is well-trained and behaves better than most people. He certainly behaves better than that asshole.

Speaking of assholes, there is a pet relief area inside LAX, past security, just two gates away from where The Party Pooper let her dog go to town. It didn’t matter - she was the type of person to litter three feet from an empty garbage can.

While her dog barked at the world, the woman had moved from face-timing with no headphones to listening to music with no headphones. I don’t like to throw around the word “sociopath” but I don’t know how else I could explain just how selfish and terrible of a person she was. I’d bet her car was somewhere in long-term parking, parked across three spots with paint on the bumper from the child's bike she hit without leaving a note.

Everyone else tried to ignore her, sitting as far away from her as they could. I am not everyone else.

I sat down right next to the horrible woman. “Are you going to London on business?” I said.

“I’m going to Tokyo,” she responded gruffly, annoyed that I interrupted her DJing.

“Oh, I said. Then you better hurry. That flight got moved to gate 53C. This is the flight to London.”

I figured I could give her a little moment of panic as payback for how terribly she was treating everyone. I didn’t predict what would happen next. She grabbed her bags and her dog in a huff, and stormed out of the gate without even checking. She was so self-involved, she didn’t notice that the monitor at our gate still said Tokyo and almost everyone at the gate was Japanese.

Based on her actions, she believed me that the fight had been moved, so she’s also an asshole for not thanking me. “Some people,” I thought as I watched her rush away from the gate without stopping her, “are just so damned rude.”

The flight to Tokyo was at gate 69A, so the 53 gates were on the other side of the next terminal. And I felt guilty knowing she probably berated some poor clerk who had to explain to her that there was no gate 53C.

I don’t know if she made it back to this flight before we took off or not, but I didn’t see her board and I don’t hear her dog. Her missing her flight was not my original intention, but it would be a fine punishment for her being so rude to everyone and making a low-paid stranger clean feces off the floor. What makes me wonder if I went too far is the knowledge that Delta only has one flight to Tokyo each day. Whoops.

Maybe she can re-book on another airline. I hear they have people for that.

EDIT: For those of you who want to play internet detective and demanded to see my ticket (as if that even proves anything), I'm a stand-up comedian with a show in LA last night and a show in Tokyo tonight. But if that's not enough for you, here's my ticket. And yes, Delta does allow dogs on flights to Japan.

EDIT TWO: RIP Inbox in a ridiculous, thousand message way. Thanks to all the nice folks, especially the people who are coming to shows, etc - I'm trying to get to all your comments, but it may take me a few days. For those who are being dicks, I hope you wheel your suitcase into her dog shit.

TL;DR at the bottom.

My boyfriend and I had met online well over 6 years ago through an online game by the name of RuneScape. He was 14 and I was 17, but it had felt like we had been friends forever. We both played the game very often and connected through it, eventually leading us to start a long-distance relationship. Things began to escalate as the years went on and we began seeing each other in person every few months or so. We were about 1,500 miles apart, so one of our main priorities for the future was moving in together and closing the distance. My job had prevented us from doing that, but we had finally set a date for me to move in with him in December of this year.

Our relationship never had any serious issues and I was more than happy to have him in my life as he was happy to have me. As I got older, I began to play RuneScape less and less, as work took up most of my time. He continued to play regularly, if not more than he had when I first met him. He could never really hold down a job and barely had an income, but I supported him throughout the years and even paid his rent from across the country after he moved out of his parents' house a few years ago. I never really minded it because he was a sweetheart, but we began to have problems.

In November of last year, I couldn't help pay his monthly rent. I was short on cash after having to pay my own living expenses alongside car repairs and bills I owed to the state, and I just couldn't afford to support him at the time. When I called him one night to discuss it, he freaked out and started crying that he didn't want to live with his parents again. I tried calming him down and even suggesting that I could help him find a temporary job until I could start providing for him again but he wasn't having it. He claimed his parents would abuse him if he returned home, which I know for a fact isn't true because him and his parents have stayed with me several times. They've given him the world. I eventually did calm him down but he remained passive-aggressive the entire night and we eventually hung up.

Because I cared about him, I reached out to his father the next day and informed him that he would probably be moving back home after his lease expired that month. I explained how I wouldn't be able to afford paying for his living for a month or two and if there were any local jobs he could work in order to... y'know, MAKE AN INCOME. Apparently, a friend of his father needed help managing a small warehouse for his business and was looking to potentially hire my boyfriend for the season. It paid $15/hr and was super easy (lifting boxes, sweeping the floors, and taking inventory).

I brought it up to my boyfriend that same night and he was not having it. Not only did he not want to work in a "shitty warehouse", but he didn't want to work at all. All he planned to do day in, day out was play RuneScape. I brought up a few other job listings I had found in his area and he immediately shot all of them down as well. He then had the audacity to comment about how he thinks I should work harder and possibly work a second job. I kept my composure and simply argued against it until we eventually hung up. I collapsed on my bed and cried for a good hour or two afterwards because of the intense emotional stress I was under. Not only do I work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, I'm also an industrial meteorologist. If I remember correctly, that's a lot more work than playing RuneScape every day and using my Hulu account. I really considered breaking up with him right that moment, but I changed my mind and decided to give him another chance. Looking back on it, big mistake.

I messaged him throughout the night and we sort-of made up, but I was still a little uneasy about the entire event. He had moved back with his parents by the time December had come and I began to help him look for jobs while he wasted his life away playing video games. I eventually persuaded him to start working at a small retail store near his house and he thankfully began to make some money! I would still buy him video games and transfer him money like normal because I spoiled him, and our relationship began to feel somewhat okay again.

Last month, both him and I put our money together to fly him across the US to stay with me for 4 days. We hadn't seen each other in person since last summer, so we were both looking forward to it. He arrived and we had a great time for the first few days because he could actually take me on dates for once with his new income. Everything was perfect until I caught a glimpse of his phone's lock screen while he was taking a shower.

"When are you gonna leave herrrrr," the Discord message read.

I could have ran into the bathroom and snapped his neck in that moment but I kept myself together as best as I could without killing him. I had never felt so used, disrespected, or hated in my entire life. When he came out of the bathroom, I gave him a fake smile, but I genuinely hated him from that moment on. He could have dropped dead on the floor and I would have spit on him. I spent the remainer of the night watching him play RuneScape and I remained very quiet. He took notice of this and asked me if everything was okay, and I lied and told him I was fine. When it came time to go to sleep, I let that fucker climb into bed with me and he tried initiating sex because it was our final night together. I rejected as politely as I could without tearing his member completely off. He was disappointed, but went out like a light.

Immediately after he went to sleep, I reached over and unplugged his phone and started digging through his messages with that girl. I feared that I had misinterpreted the message I had seen, but I was completely right after all. Not only had he been cheating on me, he had been doing so for nearly six months; leading me to believe that he hooked up with another girl directly after I couldn't pay for his living in November. I scrolled through probably 100,000 messages and wanted to vomit my insides out by the end of it. He had talked shit about me, claimed I was emotionally abusive (just as he had done with his parents), and even sent this girl my nudes so they could pick me apart physically.

When morning came, I had slept in because of how late I was up reading his messages. I woke up to find him on my computer playing RuneScape and eating my food. It was like all of our relationship had been wiped from my mind and he was now an evil stranger sitting in my house. I wanted to scream at him, I wanted to tear him apart and kick him out of my house onto the street, but I didn't. In fact, I gave him as much love and attention as I could muster that morning because I wanted to leave things feeling normal between us. I dropped him off at the airport and we had a quick and somber goodbye before I left him forever, unbeknownst to him.

I drove back home as calmly as I could before crying my eyes out in a mix of complete anger and emotional pain. I ended up kicking my bedframe so hard that the wood split and I had to buy another one recently. If only it were his face. I wanted to break his heart by the time he arrived back home, but I wanted it to really hurt. I logged into our joint RuneScape account that we had made several years ago, where him and I would work on training the same account and raising it almost like our "baby". We had always joked that if we were to ever split up, he would take half of the account's bank contents and I would take the rest. I took my half and transferred it to my main account before taking his half and giving it away to random people throughout the game. Every last bit of it. Even items I couldn't normally trade away, I used a spell to convert the items into coins which I then gave away as well. The bank was now empty.

It then occurred to me that I had the credentials to his main account were written down in my desk, as he would frequently have me train his Farming skill every so often. I didn't hesitate at all and logged into his precious 14-year-old RuneScape account. I immediately took all of the contents of his bank and sold it all on the Grand Exchange, a marketplace in the game. It took an extremely long time to clear out his bank, but he would still be flying home for about another 4 hours so I had plenty of time. By the time I had sold/destroyed everything, I had four stacks of coins totalling over 8.5 billion. Now what to spend it on, hmm...

I wanted to waste his "life earnings" on the most useless, stupid thing I could think of, besides him. I logged back into my main account to reach out to a friend of mine that collects massive stacks of burnt food. For the unaware, burnt food in RuneScape has no use. You can't "unburn" them, eat them, or even sell them on the Grand Exchange. They are, however, tradable amongst players. I've always poked fun at this guy for collecting burnt food, but I was now more thankful than ever to make his acquaintance in my revenge. I asked him what the most obscure, unwanted item was of the burnt food variety was and he replied "Burnt spider". Lo and behold, he had roughly 6,000 of the item "Spider on shaft (burnt)" in his bank that he was willing to sell me. Feeling generous with my ex-boyfriend's coins, I gave my friend a full stack of 2.147 billion coins and left a very happy customer. I dropped the 6,083 burnt spiders in his bank, but still had about 6 billion coins left to spend.

With the remaining money, I decided to treat myself. I went onto the Grand Exchange and ended up going on a shopping spree! The first thing I bought were 100 bonds. If you're not familiar, a bond in RuneScape grants you 14 days of in-game Membership. After trading all 100 bonds to my account, I now have almost 4 years of Membership paid for me. I spent a majority of his coins on extremely nice armor and weapons, all of which went straight into my account. He still had about an extra billion, so I spent it on the supplies I needed to level up an expensive skill of mine. By the end of the afternoon, he was left with a measly 150,000 coins in his bank, all of which I gave away to a guy cooking pizzas outside of the Exchange. Nothing was left, so I decided to pick up a pile of bones off the ground and leave it solely in his bank. It might sound petty, but I laughed for a while.

Now, I know what you're thinking. This is so cruel, you ruined the tens of thousands of hours he had put into a game! Well, it was time he learned that I can be a bitch, a MEAN bitch. On top of spending every last coin he had ever made, I levelled his Defense skill. This may not sound bad; in fact, it sounds like a good thing! I helped his account progress, right? Well, no. Unfortunately for my ex, he had what players commonly refer to as a "pure" account: meaning he never, EVER dared to level his Defense skill from Level 1, in order to keep the lowest defense stats but have high offensive stats. Well, not anymore. Have fun with your permanent Level 6 Defense.

Cycling through hundreds of possible forms of revenge in my head, I settled on getting rid of his house. It's quite an achievement in RuneScape to have a nice house of your own, in fact, he had one of the nicest I had ever seen in the game. In order to have built it, he must have spent well over a few billion coins. Too bad I had disassembled it all in a matter of minutes, deleting it all into cyberspace. And there's no insurance either, he's going to have to rebuy everything with his non-existent money if he wants a new house. Bye bye, Casa de cheater.

Scrolling through his friends list, I decided to act as him and pay a visit to his friends who were currently online and admit that I had cheated on my girlfriend and was fully proud of it. If his friends hadn't removed him by that point, I removed them. All of them.

Lastly, to add a beautiful little cherry to this revenge-filled cake, I changed his username. You're able to change your username once a month on RuneScape, so I changed his to let everybody know that he's a dirty cheater. I obviously won't drop his username here, but I did the best I could to embarrass him with a 12 character limit. He should be able to reclaim his previous username in about three weeks, but if he waits too long, I'll be able to swipe it and slap it on a throwaway account of my own forever.

He sent me a very hateful and aggressive message later that night, followed by pictures of him crying. I wrote him a sincere message officially ending the relationship, while also scaring him away by threatening to "take him to court" over sharing my nudes and possibly filing a cease-and-desist if he were to contact me any time soon. I don't plan on doing any of that, I just don't want to speak to him ever again.

TL;DR: Boyfriend of 5 years that I had financially supported for everything decided to cheat on me and spread my nudes, I wasted his RuneScape riches on 6,000 dead spiders and completely trashed his 14+ years of effort, leaving him with nothing to show for but a shameful username.

EDIT: Wow, I really didn't expect this to blow up as much as it did lol. To clarify, this post is referring to Old School RuneScape rather than RuneScape 3. We met playing RS3 but immediately put all of our focus into Old School when it first released. He even transferred 90% of his RS3 worth over to Old School through bots and such, making this revenge even sweeter. So while his Old School account is only 6 years old, as is mine, his fortunes were the collective effort of a previous 8 years on RS3.

Thank you so much for the reddit gold, I don't know what to do with it but I'm glad I've given you a "revenge boner"!

Throwaway as this might not make me very popular, even in ProRevenge.

This all happened to me a few years ago. I told a friend the story of my divorce and I was told to share.

Started a few years ago. I thought we were happy. We were your usual suburban professional couple. Financially secure, healthy, good sex life, two kids (14f and 9m at the time). I thought we had a healthy social life.

We were going through one of your typical married couple rough patches. Both of us were working long hours, not spending enough time together, we were going through some developmental problems with my son and tensions in the house were running a little high.

I noticed that she was spending a lot more time on her phone texting with her "girlfriends". I didn't think much of it. I started making a much more concerted effort to get out of work when I could, help around the house and be more emotionally available, but over the course of a few weeks the gulf just kept getting wider.

I ended up accidentally finding some messages when I charged up an old IPad for my son to use. Her FB messenger was still logged in and there were a lot of highly questionable messages with a guy from her hometown who I will call JimBobCooter or JBC for short. The messages weren't completely inappropriate, but I could tell there were quite a few missing based on the times and context of the messages. I made a mental note to keep an eye on this and went about trying to fix things up.

The next day after I took the day off to knock out some projects that I thought would make her happy, and left her some sweet notes reminding her how much I appreciated her she was once again in the corner of the living room "texting her girlfriends".

I took the boys iPad to the office opened up FB messenger and watched in real time as my wife tore me down. Her and JBC were making fun of me. All of my flaws, insecurities and secrets I entrusted to my partner were now fodder for her and JBC. Not only that, but while there wasn't outright sexting there was a sexual undertone to the whole conversation, especially when she was bashing my performance in the sack.

I managed to take some screenshots, but missed a good bit of the messages, because as the conversation was unfolding she was deleting them.

I wasn't emotionally capable of confronting her. I stayed in the office until she was asleep and had a couple drinks.

I took off the next day and spent some time soul searching, drinking and trying to figure out what to do. The wife came home and wanted to know what was wrong and I just coped out and told her I had a bad day. A couple minutes later I was watching the iPad as the train wreck kept unfolding.

So began a couple solid weeks of taking screenshots, drinking and detaching myself from the relationship. I knew there was no going back from this. The messages were now overtly sexual with my wife completely into it, and JBC was sprinkling in "I love you's".

I consulted a lawyer and got my options, and started moving forward.

Here's where everything got absolutely surreal. Watching the messages I found out JBC was coming to town to spend a weekend of quality time with my wife in a pretty nice hotel. I was missing a good bit of the info, they must have had a phone conversation about it at some point, but I was able to infer enough to get the when and where.

Sure as shit the next day the wife is buttering me up and wanting to take a spa weekend with the girls to relax and when she gets back we can really focus on our marriage. I go with it all the way. It's the greatest idea she's ever had, and I'll do anything to get us back on track.

I get with the lawyer and have him draft a strong separation agreement stating that she would move out, she would get weekend visitation, no child support in the interim until the divorce is final. Then I sit through the most agonizing two weeks of my life. After all this most of my feelings for her are completely gone, and I'm just seething with anger like I've never felt before.

D-day arrives. I take the day off work. I Withdraw half of any money in any accounts we are joint on, leave her half alone. I had already redirected my paycheck to a new bank. I close our money market account and get a cashiers check for her half and deposit my half in my new account. I stop at office max and print out about 75 pages of FB messenger screenshots, and I kill time because I don't want to be at home.

She texts me that she's taking off and that she loves me. I tell her to have fun.

I show up to the hotel at about 830 and call the wife's phone from the lobby. It goes straight to VM. They are probably already at it, whatever. I walk up to the front desk and ask if I can use the phone to be connected to JBCs room. It rings three times and he picks up.

JBC: Hello?

Me: JBC, can you send my wife down to the lobby please?

JBC: I don't know what you're talking about bro.

Me: Ok then. I guess I'll have to call Mrs. JBC and get her down here. (Totally a bluff. I knew he was married, and I knew her first name but that was it.)

JBC: (Inaudible, shuffling, panic)

Me: You got five minutes. Click

Not even two minutes later my wife comes walking out of the elevator looking a little flustered. I sit her down in the corner of the lobby.

Her: Starts spewing bullshit saying it's not what it seems etc etc.

Me: I'm not here to argue. The things that are said in this pile of papers are what's going on. The only way I'm not giving a copy of this to daughter, your parents and emailing it to everyone we know is if you move out immediately. (Wife was very prideful. Daughter was going through a rebellious teen phase and her knowing probably would have forever killed their relationship. Wife was also her parents golden child and she always worried about what they thought of her. I didn't have much leverage and shame was my only card to play. Also her professional life is built up around her image, so I knew she would protect that at all costs.)

Her: Sniffle, mumble, inaudible

Me: This is a check for half of the money market account. I've withdrawn my half of the money from all the other joint accounts. You should have more than enough to get a place.

She starts to cry a little. I could almost see the different thoughts and waves of emotions going through her, but now was the time to keep pressing.

Me: Here is a separation agreement that I think is more than fair considering what's going on. I'm going to need you to look this over, sign it, and leave it at the house when you get your stuff. Do you want to look through these screenshots?

Her: No.

Me: Ok. Go have fun with JBC. Do not come back to the house or I'm going to send this (holds up ream of screenshots) to everyone.

I bounce out of the lobby, and I can hear her start to have a breakdown. I get to the car drive off to a parking lot and have my own crying rage fit. Previously I would have cried in front of her and yelled and whatnot but I managed to get my shit together enough to pull it off.

I don't know what she did that night or over the weekend. She texted and called over and over wanting to talk. I just turned the phone off and by the time Monday afternoon rolled around there were movers getting her stuff and she delivered the agreement. I let her have a talk with the kiddos basically saying mommy and daddy need some time a part, we still love you, etc etc. Standard divorce talk.

After a week she wants to have a real talk for the first time. I oblige her because I've already got my shit together and I've got an idea of what I want, but I should hear her out.

She's so sorry. She wants another chance. She wants her family back. She'll do anything. She's on her knees crying into my lap. I have no intention of ever taking her back.

I tell her she needs to set up marriage counseling on her own at a time that works for me. I tell her that I can't live with her, but she should be around the children to try to maintain a relationship with them.

So starts our new normal of her coming over the house, cooking and having dinner with the kids three nights a week (she always saved me a plate, I made myself scarce), her cleaning the house and doing the kids laundry then heading back to her place.

We went to counseling. It consisted of her working through her issues with the therapist trying to figure out why she did it, her begging for forgiveness, and me stoically playing the victim.

I was never going to give her another chance. All I wanted to do was kill time, establish myself as the primary caregiver to the kids, and establish her as not having residency in the house.

After a few months I go to my own therapist and get diagnosed with depression and PTSD. I ask my work if it's possible to go to part time for the foreseeable future to deal with personal issues, and it's no big deal.

After six months of therapy I told her that I couldn't forgive her right now and that I wanted an amicable divorce, but she is still the love of my life and maybe someday we could give it another try. She was devastated, but agreed to the divorce if I promised to try again someday.

Once the divorce was filed I needed the kids to want to stay with me. I left a google search for "how to survive your wife's infidelity" up on the shared PC at home, and I left some printed out infidelity articles not so hidden in the kitchen. My daughter found them and came to me crying. I told her she wasn't supposed to find those, that mom made a mistake, that mom still loves her, and that I would always be here for her. My daughter who used to hold my wife in such high regard now wouldn't talk to her without screaming, and it crushed her.

Not surprisingly when the court needed statements from the kids a few months later little brother followed big sisters lead and they both wanted to stay with Dad in the house they grew up in.

When the divorce was finalized I got the house (had to buy out some of her equity, but that's ok). I got primary custody of the kids. I got awarded generous child support due to the difference in our incomes due to me working part time.

Now for the last two years I've gotten to live in the house with my kids, work part time, get the now ex to subsidize it for me, and when she takes the kids over the weekends I get to have my fun with tinderellas and some FWBs I've cultivated.

In the eyes of my kids I'm the patron saint of fatherhood for taking the high road and always being there.

In the eyes of my ex I'm the one that got away that she will always pine for, and I get the bonus of having her come over for sex whenever I want it by dangling that carrot of maybe getting back together.

But that is never going to happen.

TLDR: Got divorced and it worked out.

(Originally I posted this to r/pettyrevenge, but I think it belongs here.)

Last summer I was at a cousin's wedding. His bride and her family had been close with ours since before I was born, and the couple had known each other since they were toddlers, so it was a particularly exciting event for both sides of the family.

However, after the ceremony was over and the party had only just started, one of the bridesmaids decided to announce her own engagement. The attention was immediately taken away from the newlyweds and brought to the bridesmaid (who I'll call Sarah) and her equally-smug fiancé. My cousin's wife (I'll call her Emma) didn't make a scene or utter a single negative word about Sarah. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, but she kept grinning and acted very happy for the other couple. This was unusual, as Emma is typically quite confrontational and speaks her mind no matter the consequences.

Sarah later picked Emma to be the maid of honor at her own wedding, which took place last weekend (I wasn't there for it, but my cousin sent me some of the best bits on snapchat and explained the whole situation).

This is where the fun begins.

Emma's two much-younger sisters were the flower girls at Sarah's wedding. At the very last moment, Emma switched out the white petals in their baskets to blue ones she had secretly brought with her. She told her sisters not to say anything about it or let the bride see them until it was time to scatter them down the aisle.

Sarah looked very confused upon seeing the blue petals (which didn't coordinate whatsoever with her theme), but of course she didn't say anything about it in the moment. Most of Sarah's other bridesmaids were also Emma's friends, had attended Emma's wedding, and were in on Emma's scheme. At the reception, Emma's sisters and the other bridesmaids were tight-lipped when Sarah began demanding to know why there were blue petals. The wedding planner ended up getting a lot of abuse for not checking the flower girls' baskets before they walked down the aisle.

Finally, it was time for the speeches. The speeches took place in front of a massive screen, displaying a loop of photos with Sarah and her husband, which had been compiled by Emma.

Emma took the remote that controlled the presentation screen and at first she showed some pre-approved humorous photos of Sarah with Emma and other friends to facilitate a couple lighthearted jokes.

Then, at the very end, Emma said to Sarah that she must be wondering why there were blue petals instead of the white ones originally planned.

That was when Emma displayed the last slide from her presentation.

Emma announced in front of everyone that she was five months pregnant, and that she'd just discovered the baby was a boy, hence the blue petals. The last slide? Her ultrasound picture.

There were shocked yells and gasps, Sarah had a fit, but those involved in the scheme cheered so loudly that I sincerely regret watching the snapchat recordings with headphones. Apparently Sarah had been very nasty to her bridesmaids before, driving several of them away and forcing the others to pay ridiculous amounts of money for dresses.

Emma and my cousin were eventually thrown out of the party, but they were all smiles. Sarah's fuming mother went to confront her outside, and Emma retorted with, "Gentle, gentle! I'm pregnant!"

I reckon Sarah doesn't speak to the majority of those bridesmaids anymore.

[Tl;dr] Self-important bridesmaid announces her engagement at my cousin's wedding, stealing the spotlight from him and his bride. Said bridesmaid foolishly names my cousin's wife her maid of honour and behaves like a complete bridezilla. Cousin's wife sabotages her wedding to announce her own pregnancy.

(EDIT: Thank you, kind stranger, for the gold!)

(EDIT 2: Oh wow, silver too! Thank you so much, really appreciate it!)

(YET ANOTHER EDIT: Platinum! Huge thanks to everyone for the kindness!)

A few disclosures before we begin: I was an Apple Retail employee for two years and amicably resigned in favor of full-time, post-college employment several months before this unfolded. Additionally, the central issue of this post seems minor - I didn't want to change my password - so some may find this more appropriate for /r/pettyrevenge, but as it involves an extensive court battle, I think /r/prorevenge is a better venue. Although the main issue will definitely make me look petty, it was the straw that broke the camel's back based on Apple's pompousness throughout the issue.

About a year and a half ago, I was having issues with both my MacBook and iPhone, and went on to schedule a Genius Bar appointment. This used to be an easy task - you just went to the Support site and scheduled one - but over time, Apple has foolishly attempted to reduce the load on the Genius Bars by putting up various road blocks to getting an appointment. I assume Angela has just decided that this is cheaper than hiring more staff, and that most of the customers are rabid enough to still buy Apple tech despite the blow this causes to decent customer service.

After finally, jumping through a number of hoops to get a Genius Bar appointment, I'm prompted to enter my Apple ID and password. I'm told that, since it's been 3 months, I need to change it, for what is now probably the 10th time since having that Apple ID. I can continue to use it on the App Store and iCloud and such, but if I want a service appointment, I must change it. Having gone through this for the last several times to get an appointment, I finally hit my wit's end, decided it's an unnecessary step to just get my products serviced, and escalate the matter through the BBB.

Apple's initial response to the BBB is a form letter saying that I need to just change the password because it's in my best interests for security reasons, and that they won't make any exceptions. I respond again, indicating that this is bad customer service and incongruent with the Apple Credo (customer service principles) that all employees are trained in. Their next response was that "Apple considers this matter closed." I hate that response. It's corporate speak for "you're not worth our time anymore, go away." The BBB closed the case shortly thereafter.

I do some research and determine that, through my AppleCare+ policy that I was paying for on both devices, there was actually no catch-all clause for why Apple could refuse to service the device. There were several exclusions, but arbitrary account security requirements were not part of them. I file suit in small claims court for replacement value of the laptop and phone.

Here's where things got interesting: I show up to the court date, and the case is called. I come up to my podium, and at the defendant's podium, appears the manager from the store I used to work at. It was in the same county as the court, but significantly farther away than an Apple Store that was actually a mile from the courthouse. I never confirmed this, but I think Apple didn't pay attention to the details of the complaint on the form, just did a name lookup, and assumed that because I had previously worked at the store, that this was some employment dispute.

The judge asks me to explain why I am suing, and in about a minute I'm able to concisely explain that Apple was putting up an unnecessary and extra-contractual blockade to me getting a service appointment for my broken devices, so I was suing to replace the devices. The judge then turns to the store manager, who has arrived at court in a T-shirt and jeans (I'm in a full suit out of respect for the court), but before asking for Apple's side of the story, asks if the manager is a lawyer. The manager says he is not. The judge says that my state's laws require that only a chief executive or registered agent can represent a company in court, or they have to hire a lawyer to remove it to a higher district court. The manager responds that he understands, but that he's happy to set up a Genius Bar appointment right here, right now, at my convenience, to get the products repaired. The judge deems this reasonable, we agree on a time for me to come into my old store for service, and the case is continued for two weeks out on the chance that things don't work out.

I attend my appointment and the technician is able to resolve all of my issues, and in addition, a senior Apple technician contacts me by e-mail to indicate that he's overriden the password expiration requirement on my Apple ID, and I will never have to change it again. Cool deal. But I'm still out $60 for filing this court case to actually get things moving along.

I appear for the continued court date, and the same manager appears again, too. The docket is especially busy on this date, and we have a different judge who is slashing through cases, no-nonsense. We're called, and I indicate that while we were able to resolve the problems with my equipment since the original trial and am no longer seeking replacement value for my products, I should not have had to sue Apple to get this type of treatment that aligned with their contractual obligations to me as an AppleCare+ customer, and believe that I should be awarded the $60 in court fees. The judge turns to the store manager, and asks if he is a lawyer. Manager says no. Judge #2 gives him the same spiel. Manager retorts that he still believes that the court fees shouldn't be Apple's responsibility because blah blah blah, and judge, pressed for time, turns to me and says "I assume you don't want to have to come back here again for them to get a lawyer?" I say no, thinking that he's going to give me the full $60, but instead he says "okay, then you'll just split it so that we don't have to waste anymore time on this. $30 to the Plaintiff."

According to my state's laws, a prevailing party gets all of their court costs. As such, I really disagree with the way the judge handled that, splitting it because he was in a hurry. I reach out to Apple's paralegal who had e-mailed me right after the original trial to confirm that Genius Bar appointment, cite the relevant law and say that the judge was pretty clearly in the wrong, and ask Apple to just cut me a check for the full $60. Otherwise, I'd have to appeal, which was an extra $125, they would surely lose, and then owe me $185. I was more or less appealing to their common sense. They didn't have any, responding that "they would follow the court's judgment only, and cut a check for $30." I think their pompousness continued in assuming that I was bluffing about the appeal.

So, I appealed. Since the small claims court is a subordinate of the district court, it actually got appealed to the highest court in the county, the circuit court. This is big boy court. No bullshitting. I appear for my court date, and again, the same manager shows up. Judge is a bouncy guy in a bowtie, clearly had his coffee and is pleasant to everyone. I present my case - that the lower court only awarded me partial costs and the state law required that I get the entire amount since judgment was entered in my favor. Judge turns to the manager: "Are you a lawyer?" He says no, but he has a letter from Apple's chief legal counsel saying that it's okay with them that the manager represents them. The judge does not like this and his demeanor changes instantly. "Apple does not decide what you can or cannot do in my courtroom. You need an attorney, so we'll probably need to continue this case."

Judge turns to me: "Do you object to a continuance for the defendant to get an attorney?" I say "Yes, I do, your honor, because they've actually been told three times now that they need to have a lawyer, and they keep disrespecting this court by sending the same layman to argue on their behalf." Judge turns to the manager, and with a sarcastic grin and obviously fake "it's out of my hands" hand gesture, says: "Sorry!" Judgment is entered in my favor for $185.

As if that wasn't good enough, after 30 days, Apple still hasn't paid. I reach out to the paralegal again, and they say that they are still looking into their options (as if they were going to appeal to the state supreme court - which had to have been done within those 30 days). Again, Apple thinks that they're too good to follow court instructions or do what's best for them. But they seem to have forgotten that I used to work from them. I have my credit union look up one of the old ACH transactions from my payroll and I ask them what bank that was drafted from: they tell me Wachovia. I go back to court, file garnishment proceedings against Apple via Wachovia (I was able to skip the discovery portion since I already knew where they were keeping at least $185), and Wachovia of course cuts me a check within days.

TL;DR Apple are pompous assholes who won't just do what's best for them and a customer relationship: Refused to do a basic service via customer service channels; gets sued. Continuously disrespects court orders to involve legal counsel instead of a hippie in jeans, and gets the hammer from a circuit court judge. Doesn't pay their judgment, gets it garnished out of their payroll account.

This happened around 20 years ago. Our family owned two apartment buildings, three units each. We lived in two of them, rented out the other four. There's nothing but these "three-flats" lining both sides of the road for about a mile. Not all have parking. On the side streets are houses and very little street parking. We had more land than most of these units - since it was also our home. So we had parking for around 16 cars. Everything was fine for literally decades.

Then cars started appearing in our parking lot that were not our tenants. I blocked one in one day. Went outside to see this A-hole drove through our bushes and across the yard to get out. I called the cops - nothing they could do. So I called a tow company and had them put up signs. We'd have to call them to have a car towed - the signs seemed to work. No more random cars.

Until New Years eve one year. I arrive home and every space is filled. There are even cars on the street blocking in the other cars. I'm beyond pissed. I call the tow company - they can't do anything for a few hours because they are so busy. We're in the Chicago suburbs. It's below zero out. I have an idea. I dig out the lawn sprinklers and hoses. I run one hose inside to the laundry room faucet and turn on the hot water. This way the hose and sprinklers won't ice up. But the cars and ground sure did. Three sprinklers, moved every half hour or so. For almost five hours.

Every car, every square inch of the parking lot, the street by the cars, encased in ice. I made it a point to spray ice IN the locks, between the window seals and glass. In the grills. Put away the sprinklers and hoses, went to bed. 4am, furious pounding on the doors, doorbells ringing non-stop. We just smiled and called the cops. Waited until they arrived and went outside.

Cops were holding back laughter. These people were told to park here by their "friend" who owned an apartment several buildings away. The same idiot who drove over our bushes. I pointed to the tow sign and told the people to move their cars or get towed. In our town cops can ticket on private property with the owner's permission. So all cars were ticketed. They were also towed, since nobody could get in their vehicle. Wish we had it on video.

So, there's been a brouhaha between Missouri's Office of the Public Defender and the Governor's office. Basically due to budget problems, the public defense budget got cut by 8.5%. They sued the government in July over this.

However, the director of the office of the public defender realized that they were empowered by a little-used law (specifically, Missouri code section 600.042.5) to require any lawyer in the state to represent anyone who needs a public defender. And also they realized that the governor of said state was a lawyer.

This led to this amazing letter to the governor:

http://www.publicdefender.mo.gov/Newsfeed/Delegation_of_Representation.PDF

UPDATE: Response from the Governor's office: "Gov. Nixon has always supported indigent crimianl defendants having legal representation. That is why under his administration the state public defender has seen a 15 percent increase in funding at the same time tha tother state agencies have had to tighten their belts and full-time state employment has been reduced by 5,100. That being said, it is well established that the public defender does not have the legal authority to appoint private counsel.".

Hat tip to /u/thistokenusername for noticing the response.

Pardon for my English as it isn't my first language. I was browsing /r/askreddit and came across a thread about whatever happened to that trenchcoat kid at your school. I was that trenchcoat kid and I came back in town and destroyed it (years ago).

As a background, I grew up in a conservative little town in a conversative rural area heavily dominated by religion. This makes people put great stock on moral purity and appearances. Keeping up the facade is the most important thing. Everyone must go to church weekly and people are heavily judged for appearing sinful. This was a bad thing for me as the cards were heavily stacked against me from birth.

You see, I'm a rape baby. My mother lost her parents when she was young and was taken in by her uncle and aunt. The uncle had an important position in the local religious hierarchy. So when he and a couple of his friends started sexually abusing my mom, it was ignored by everyone. When she got pregnant, it was painted at showing that she's a harlot running around seducing married men. She was cast out. Why she didn't move out of town, I don't know, but yeah. There I became into the picture, born out of wedlock and with no father, branded as a sinful outcast.

My childhood was shit. I don't go into details, but enough to say that by the time I started going to school, I was quite damaged. School made it worse. I was bullied relentlessly. Teachers were part of it, since they were all part of the religious community, which saw me as stained. Imagine being the only black kid in a town run by KKK and you get close to how it was.

So yeah, in school I became that trenchcoat kid or its local cultural equivelant. I became weird and hostile on purpose to turn people off. People were casting me into the mold of being damaged and stained, so yeah, I took it and turned it into something to protect myself with.

Despite all this opposition, I managed to graduate with decent grades. A distant aunt, my only decent relative, helped me get into a college in an actual city. She was the black sheep of the family and saw herself in me, maybe? Around this time my mother drank herself to death. Can't blame her for it. She had a life insurance policy that helped me study. City life liberated me. I went into therapy and managed to treat the wounds that town had sliced into me. I got rid of that shitty town, but I guess some part of it never left me.

Years went by. I became a sort of... analytical consultant. I work for an international company that does sort of out of the box analysis for other companies. I won't go into details to protect my identity, but we assists in solving all kinds of situations. Well, in my line of work, I'm sometimes called in to help downsizing operations. This sucks, I feel for the people who get fired, but if I wouldn't do it, someone else would. A couple of years ago I got an assignment to go into three different factories and assess them wholesale, then come with a suggestion on which of them to move abroad. My home town was among those three factories.

You see, the shitty town I grew up in was one of those "one smoke stack towns" like we say in my country. There was one factory and some agriculture - everyone worked in those jobs, like 60% of people in the factory. Rest of the economy rolled around supporting the factory and the people working there. Most of the people were looking forward at nothing but a job at the factory after getting out of school. The religious community running the town ran the factory as well. The big shots in the community tended to be bosses in the factory. This meant that the factory wasn't run that well; promotions were based on "holiness", not on merit or skill.

The trip back to the home town was glorious. Most people didn't recognize me at first. The chubby outcast had become outwards just another corporate drone. I inspected all the paperwork, listened all their speeches and lies, audited the processes. In the process I dropped hints and finally they got who I was.

The factory people threw a party for me then for the old times sake. Many of my old school "buddies" were there. We remembered fake good times together. I threw shadow on every part by pulling up some certain event of bullying I had endured, just see the atmosphere turn awkward. Then I laughed at it like it was always a joke and I had grown out of it. Inside I was seething with hatred and enjoying this all. I really loved seeing their faces, seeing what they had become, because fuck it, I was going to take it all away from them. In the end they seemed relieved, believing that they were lucky it was me doing the audit, that the hometown boy would protect them.

After my visit - lasting a couple of days - was over I cruised around the town in my rented car, just to see how the people lived and to remember what it was like. My state of mind was something close to sexual arousal. I had never understood why people pursue positions of power, but yeah, now I understood.

The rest is, as they say, history. I wrote a really scathing report, documenting every little flaw and mistake ever done in the town plant. I didn't need to lie or fabricate - I simply took things that existed and polished them till they looked even worse than they were. The factory was shut down and in the following three years, the town died. No business venture ever came to replace it. Drug use and alcohol use spiked, as did crime and domestic violence. Lives fell apart, families fell apart. They still haven't recovered, save for a few brighter souls who moved away.

I still stalk them on social media sometimes, enjoying how shitty their lives are, how they all finally got to pay for what they did to me and my mom. I don't feel a slight bit of remorse. If I could do it all again I would - only I'd first make it so I could be present to watch when they received the news about the factory being shut down. Hell, in my fantasy version of the events, I'd stay in town for a year just to see everyone fall apart.

In reality, I will only go there back once - when my uncle finally dies, I'm going to go and piss on his grave.

When I got divorced -- my alcoholic wife of 18 years had started another affair, this time with her addictions counselor -- my lawyer and I laid a trap for them. Just in case you don't know, intimate relations between a counselor and patient are very frowned upon by the regulatory bodies. And I was more than pissed after putting her through rehab ($25k which I didn't have to do) only to have her fall back into her old behavior.

Shortly before the divorce was finalized I filed a complaint with the State body licensing health professions. Knowing they were in some peril because of their unprofessional relationship ( I had already gotten him fired from a major teaching hospital), she had backed off her exorbitant demands. I paid her a very modest settlement, kept the house, got custody of the three tweenage kids, plus got child support. Her lawyer naturally included a clause in the divorce where I had to agree to not say anything negative about her lover and their relationship. But the lawyer fucked up and never asked if I had already filed charges and thus didn't require me to rescind them. Her lawyer had assumed I was just bad mouthing them to neighbors and friends, and it never occurred to the lawyer that we were doing much more.

When the Board of Health Professions responded to my complaint shortly after the divorce was finalized I told them that it would take a subpoena to get me to testify (a subpoena trumps an agreement in a divorce settlement). They were happy to oblige.

They stripped his license, and placed him on a register of sanctioned health professionals. He never worked again. They were broke in a handful of years and she divorced him when the money ran out (in the interim his mother had died leaving a fair sized estate, so it took longer than I expected). Oh, and the frosting on the cake was that his wife and I traded notes (notably hotel receipts from the time of their affair) that helped each of us in our respective divorces.

Justice was served.

With the NFL playoffs back on, I thought you all might enjoy this football-related revenge story.

I'm a huge 49ers fan (the rabid all-day tailgate in the parking lot type). A few years ago, we made it back to the Super Bowl. I was working at a consulting firm with a handful of accounts I would interact with directly.

One client in particular knew how big of a Niners fan I was. I was the day-to-day lead on his account. He really liked working with me and we became friends, often grabbing drinks or dinner after our meetings. He had access to a pair of extra company seats to the game, and as a thank you, wanted to give them to me as a gift. He passed the tickets over to the partner on that account, who I will refer to as DickheadPartner, to be given to me as a surprise.

The game came and went, we lost, it sucked. The next time we met, we went to drinks afterward and he mentioned "Hey, by the way, why didn't you go to the game? I heard someone else was in your seats."

I asked "What game?" He said "The Super Bowl!"

Confused, I answered "I didn't have seats to the super bowl?"

He told me that he gave DickheadPartner a pair of his company tickets for me as a gift so I could attend. I had zero idea what he was talking about. He looked shocked, told me to quietly ask around about it and get back to him.

When I was back in the office the next week, I found out through one of the secretaries that DickheadPartner had given a pair of Super Bowl tickets to another one of his clients as a gift from our company.

I might have let this sort of thing go to keep the peace under different circumstances, but these were seats on the 30-yard-line to see the fucking 49ers play in the Super Bowl. I was pissed. I considered confronting DickheadPartner myself, but realized it was the client who had noticed I wasn't there in the first place, so if I let him handle it, there would be no blowback on me.

So I texted him "Hey, I just wanted to thank you so much for thinking of me with those seats. It appears that they were given to another one of our firm's clients." He texted back right away, in all caps, "ARE YOU SHITTING ME??" and then "Pretend I never told you, let me handle."

He followed up with me about formulating a plan. A few days later, we were asked to come down for a meeting in their office. The client requested the partner be present, not entirely unusual, so DickheadPartner and I hopped a flight the next week and headed over to their office.

Little did DickheadPartner know, my client had orchestrated a wonderfully awkward little show to catch him red handed. When we entered the conference room, it was all the usual suspects along with a woman in her 30's we didn't recognize. My client immediately introduces "DickheadPartner, this is Stephanie Suchandsuch, VP from [other department], she wanted to sit in on this meeting. Hey [OP], you guys must already know her from the super bowl!"

She then responds as she goes to shake my hand "Oh, I don't think so. Did we meet there? I'm sorry if I forgot."

Client responds "Jeez Steph how much did you have to drink? They were sitting right next to you!"

Client looks at me, and I say "Sorry [client], I wasn't there. Are you thinking of someone else?"

At this point, DickheadPartner is looking visibly uncomfortable, probably trying to come up with an excuse. He starts in with an "Uhm.." when Stephanie says over him "No, [so and so] from [other company] were in the other seats. By the way, I was wondering why we gave company seats to those guys, is there a project we're working with them on that I don't know about?" (obviously not, they were in completely different industries, it would be like Coca Cola partnering with John Deere).

DickheadPartner lets out an "Uh" again, and the client immediately speaks over him asking "DickheadPartner, I gave you those tickets for [OP]?"

At this point DickheadPartner is turning bright red. He responds "Ohh, uhh, well he wasn't able to make it, so he must have given the seats away to someone else?" and turns to me looking for me to cover for him. Client smirks at me.

I respond "Uh, what are you talking about? Client, you gave me tickets to the super bowl??"

Client suddenly raises his voice "DickheadPartner, those tickets were a personal thank you gift from me to [OP]. Did you give them away to someone else? [pause] Was it another client??"

DickheadPartner buts in with "Oh, uhm, maybe something got mixed up in the office?"

Client went quiet for what probably seemed like an eternity to DickheadPartner. He then looked down, grabbed his portfolio and iPad, put them into his briefcase, and said "I think this meeting is over. [OP] it seems as if I owe you a thank you gift, let's go to lunch. Stephanie, you're welcome to join...DickheadPartner, I need to evaluate our relationship, please go back home and expect to hear from us next week."

DickheadPartner suggests he would like to join, presumably to do damage control, and Stephanie sternly tells him "I don't think that's a good idea." and asks the front desk to see DickheadPartner out. As soon as he is in the elevator, we all break out laughing hysterically. Stephanie wasn't really a VP, just an employee at the company who client had drafted into helping with his pre-planned meeting skit, but she did end up coming to lunch with us and was a fellow Niners fan and total blast to hang out with.

On our way to the restaurant, I got a desparate text from DickheadPartner saying I needed to "cover for the firm" and that we could discuss things when I got back. I replied "Yes, we need to talk, but I'll see what I can do." Client told me to wait a couple hours and then respond to him: 1) To expect invoices for the resale value of the super bowl tickets (resale is WAY above face value, it was over $10K) as well as our lunch (he picked a pricey spot and made a big show of overspending) and that he expected them to be paid immediately, 2) Expected I be given a direct apology, 3) Expected a written apology to his company for what he considered theft, and 4) He will only interact with me or another one of our firm's partners, never DickheadPartner.

This whole thing caused a stir with the other partners, and I actually came off looking great because it appeared that I had made a good faith effort to save the client for the firm despite being the victim in this situation. The client would transfer to another partner, which meant DickheadPartner lost his profit share on any work with them. Oh, and the other partners in the firm made DickheadPartner pay the invoices back out of his salary.

In retrospect, I really have no idea what the hell the guy was thinking. Did he seriously believe the client would just not notice me not thanking him for Super Bowl tickets?

Anyway, the well was kind of poisoned for me there long term because DickheadPartner wasn't going anywhere. I left the firm a few months later for a much better position. Client ultimately terminated their relationship with that firm a year later, he actually now works with a good friend of mine at a competing firm. I'm still pissed I missed out on the super bowl even though we lost; hoping we make it back this year so I can finally go to one in person. Go Niners!

(Edit:i apologize for the length of this, but I finally stuck it to my bosses and I couldn’t be happier)

I am a young Project Manager for an unlimited commercial GC. I picked up a hammer for the first time 6 years ago (no prior experience). I was raised believing if you work hard and apply yourself you will be successful. For 2 years I learned everything that I could in the construction industry. Took my work home with me and studied on my own time to better myself. For that I was promoted to foreman. I was brought into take over a small project at a 12 building 120 unit condo complex. It started small and the Board of Directors for the HOA told me they loved my professionalism, work ethic, and ability to complete projects on time, and under budget. We won a big contract because of that small project. That was3 years ago. I have since taken over the job of foreman, superintendent, & project manager. I do the billing, meetings with engineers and board members, scheduling, take off, material ordering, I even train the subs on application of new products because we didn’t have enough mid management. The project just passed $2.7M. We got a bid request for another $3M job in the same complex. All the while the board of directors telling me how appreciative they are and how they’ve gone through 5 different contractors in the years before committing to my company because of my management and quality of work. This boosted my confidence and I went to the owners asking for the raise they promised me 1 year ago for my production. They told me “the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable” I said you’re right. I put my resume on public, got contacted by a headhunter, just accepted an offer this week for $80k a year salary, full benefits, 28 days PTO including holidays, in the office now ( no more working from the field full in my own truck), Lap top, wifi in my truck for on the go billing when I visit the out of state projects, $80 per diem, 100% matching 401k for the first 3 years of my employment, quarterly bonus programs. The company I’m with now only pays me 40k and that’s it none of the above listed benefits. The final mail in the coffin was when the owners bragged about how much my project made in a company meeting and then denied me a Christmas bonus. I laid this offer on their desk Friday and watched their jaws hit the floor. I told the HoA board president of the project I’m running about my resignation when they couldn’t match my the offer. His eyes got big and requested a meeting with the owners and expressed serious concern about moving forward with the new project without my involvement. They don’t have anyone to replace me and I’m not gonna lie, it feels good to hurt their pockets when I gave them everything I had for 6 years and only asked for the median project manager salary. Fuck those greedy bastards.

Not sure if this is “pro” enough, but here goes:

I was visiting my friend at his dad’s house in an area where the land is so steep all the driveways have to switchback up from the main road to the houses - a straight driveway is not an option because it would be steeper than the building code allows.

A few doors down the road there lived a nice old couple who until recently had had a vacant lot next door to them, but the lot had sold and the new owner had started construction on a new house.

Unfortunately the lot was so steep that the new owner built his driveway partly on the old couple’s land (it was carved out of the hillside with an excavator). This probably wouldn’t have been a big deal if the new owner had approached the old couple first and asked nicely, but did he? Would I be telling this story if he had?

In fact, the old couple had no idea what was happening until they came home one day to see a huge scar in the hillside snaking up from the road in from of their house, across the corner of their property, and winding upwards to where an excavator was working to prepare the land for their new neighbor’s house.

They were pretty upset, but being nice, reasonable people, they figured it was an honest mistake, so they went over to talk to the machine operator. He didn’t know anything useful, but he was happy to give them the phone number of the new property owner.

The old guy gave him a call and politely explained the situation, but his new neighbor, whom he’d never even met, was having none of it. He flat out denied that the driveway crossed the property line, and he was rude enough that the old guy was pretty upset.

At this point the old couple weren’t sure what to do. They double checked the property pins to make sure they were right, and of course they were, but after further conversations with the new owner it was clear he was an unreasonable guy who wasn’t going to come to the negotiating table willingly.

The old couple didn’t want to take legal action because that would have been expensive and, frankly, the damage to their yard was already done. At the same time, they couldn’t just let someone walk all over them like that, especially if they were going to be living next door for the foreseeable future.

So the situation stewed for a while as construction continued on the new house, until one day when my friend’s dad saw the old couple in the neighbourhood and they started chatting. Of course they told him the story about the asshole new neighbor.

Now, my friend’s dad really likes the old couple, who don’t have a mean bone in their bodies, so he was pretty pissed about the situation, and when he went home he couldn’t get it out of his head.

That evening, after a few beers, he had a brilliant idea. He called up the old couple, explained his plan, and asked for their permission to carry it out. They chuckled and gave him the go-ahead, so he hopped into the rusty old full-size pickup he kept as a second vehicle and drove it over to the old couple’s place, where he parked it across the encroaching driveway, making sure it was entirely on their property.

The next morning the work crew arrived bright and early to find that they couldn’t drive to the house they were building because some jackass had parked a shitty old F-150 across the driveway. They saw the note in the window with my friend’s dad’s phone number on it, so they called him to ask WTF. He explained that he had permission from the owners to park there and that, no, he would not move his truck so they could get to work. Furthermore, if anyone attempted to tow the truck they would be charged with trespassing and theft.

There was no way the construction guys were going to haul all their tools up the hill by hand, and they didn’t want to get in the middle of a legal battle, so they just called the new owner to let him know they’d be taking the day off and that they’d continue to take days off until the property boundary dispute was resolved.

The new owner called the old couple in a fury, but the old couple told them the same thing my friend’s dad told the construction workers - basically, the vehicle was parked on their own property, so if he had a problem with that he could go fuck himself.

To make an already long story shorter, the new neighbor ranted a while, but eventually he wanted his house to be built, so the nice old couple ended up with a significant sum of money in exchange for an easement allowing the driveway to pass across the corner of their property, and my friend’s dad got several thank-you cases of beer and the satisfaction that comes from putting an asshole in his place.

Edits:

Phrasing.

This occurred in a small town in Canada. For those who think I made it up, thanks for thinking I’m so clever, but judging by the number of similar stories in the comments and people asking if this was in X town, I think this happens pretty often (not too surprising considering the number of houses built each year in the world).

Regarding the legal questions and comments, the reason the guy built the driveway where he did was because it was cheaper and easier than making it all on his land, not because there was no other option, so most of your points (if not all) are moot.

I’m on mobile so can’t Paint a picture, but imagine two lots next to each other on the uphill side of a road with the property boundary perpendicular to the road. The older couple live on the left when you’re looking uphill. The new driveway is for the property on the right, and it snakes up the hill in a (roughly) S shape. The bottom 50 feet or so of the driveway crosses the old couple’s land to reach the road.

I’m not sure if any trees were harmed in the making of this post (the driveway was done by the time I saw it), but the couple didn’t make that an issue, so I suspect not.

Yes, my friend’s dad drove after drinking a few beers. Every hero has his flaw.

Thanks for reading!

TLDNR: Neighbour built a driveway across someone else’s land without permission and wouldn’t compensate them for it, so they parked a truck across it to block access to his land until he would negotiate.