Denial Ain't Just a River

"In kindergarten we had show-and-tell, and every week we would bring something in that corresponded to a letter. For the 'n' show-and-tell day I brought in a crocodile toy and showed the class a Nile crocodile (an actual species of crocodile) and told the class facts about that species."

"My teacher was convinced it wasn't a real species, got mad at me and told me to sit down before I could tell the class all about what I brought."

"I cried and peed my pants.... I'm still mad about this."

Learn Your Homophones

"When I was in fifth grade I was part of a county-wide spelling bee. I made it to the finals, it was between me and another girl. They actually rented out a stage in a hotel for this."

"The final word: 'Bizarre'. The sentence they used, and I still remember this word-for-word because it's burned into my brain forever, was 'Bizarre. Many of Stephen King's stories are very bizarre. Bizarre'."

"So of course I put B-I-Z-A-R-R-E (this was a written spelling bee). When myself and my opponent put our pencils down the announcer said the word was spelled B-A-Z-A-A-R and that I lost and my opponent had won a hundred dollars."

"I protested, claiming that a bazaar was a marketplace, a marketplace! Couldn't they just look it up there's a dictionary right there and and and—"

"I was gently escorted off the stage for 'causing a scene'."

"Still angry."

But It's Rational

"In second grade my teacher's aide told us that negative numbers didn't exist when the final subtraction question was supposed to be a 'trick,' but I came up with the right answer instead. I insisted that they did because I had gone a bit ahead in math with my dad, but she insisted I was mistaken."

"Drives me crazy to this day."

Playing by the Rules

"This trivia quiz I was a part of at a nearby social club, eight-year-old me was the kid on my team and our team was tied with another one for the top prize. The quizmaster said, 'Now you folks need to sit down quietly. Just raise your hands if you know the answer to this tie-breaker question; don't just shout it out'."

"He asked the question. I knew the answer. I raised my hand. Someone on the other team shouted out the answer instead. They got the points and won. No one even stopped to look at me."

"Screw you, idiotic quizmaster."

3 x 8 is the Same Answer

"In fourth grade during math class my teacher asked 'What is 4x6?' Like any normal person, I said '24'."

"My teacher insisted it was 18. I was confused, so pulled out my calculator, and it's 24. so I brought it up."

"She said my calculator was wrong and proceeded to lecture the entire class about how I was wrong and calculators are never 100% correct. I remember looking around, with my entire class confused and as uncomfortable as I was."

"I can only assume she realized she was wrong, but her ego prevented her from admitting her mistake, but it drove me crazy."

Problem Child

"I have a mom friend. Our kids don't play together anymore because I am convinced her son is a budding psycho."

"He would come over to play with our kids, and purposely break toys, he took all our kids lego figures and pulled the heads, bottoms, hats off and threw them around our basement. We are pretty sure he took a bunch home, as we can't find about ten of them."

"We went to a water park with each other, and their son vanished. We were all yelling and running everywhere looking for him, we were in the middle of making the place go into lock down when he popped out from hiding. He was hiding the whole time watching his parents freak out."

"The breaking point for me was this; We used to walk our kids to the library together. I pushed my youngest in a stroller, as the hills in our neighborhood are too much for her little legs. One day her son asks if he can push my kid. I tell him sure, but be careful."

"He takes off with the stroller, running full speed up a hill, we are yelling for him to stop, and he's laughing, not slowing at all. He reaches the top of the hill, stops running, and shoves my stroller with toddler inside it down the hilly road. Thank god the stroller veered left and hit the curb and didn't speed down the hill through the busy intersection."

"I was done after that. The other mom thinks I'm super uptight and that her kid is an angel. Ugh."

Basic Anatomy

"In elementary school I drew a picture of a dolphin with his hole spitting water out of it. My teacher was completely sure that they didn't have any hole and shamed me in front of the class."

"I saw a lot of national geographic documentaries and knew that it was a mammal and needed to breathe. To this day I'm angry about it."

You've Gotta Have Heart

"My fifth grade teacher told us that nothing can be alive without a heart. I asked, what about a tree or plant? She literally made every student except me go out of the room so she could call me a smart a** and give me detention."

"F' you Mrs. G."

Tilting at Windmills

"At knowledge bowl when I was in high school, the answer we gave was Don Quixote de la Mancha. They said the right answer was Don Quixote or The Man of la Mancha."

"Our answer was the Spanish title of the book, the answer key's title was the English title. It's a book originally written in Spanish."

Karma, Karma, Karma,Karma, Karma...

"In elementary we played 'guess the animal' which was basically charades. I chose to be a chameleon. Afterwords the teacher pulled me away and told me 'next time choose a real animal'."

"I'm still salty."

Family Tradition

"One of the last things my dad said before he died, was complaining about a garbage truck that almost hit him back in the late 30's. That inspired me for proper grudge holding."

"Dad was born in London when his parents were on holiday. They never forgave him for it, and blamed him being left handed on being born in London."

Not All About the Benjamins

"When I resigned from my last job my Director was desperate to keep me. I told him it wasn't all about money and that I didn't agree with a few decisions made by the other Director. I was very clear about this before I resigned but he thought I was just bluffing."

"A couple days later he promised he'd make sure they gave raises to underpaid key staff (because I was sick of struggling to find staff to replace the ones they refused to pay enough to retain, especially when the new ones cost more money) and I also negotiated a $7k increase in my salary."

"Fast-forward almost two weeks and it's payday. I went and spoke to him to make sure my increase went through (because I hadn't seen the confirmation from the Accounts Manager yet) and he said 'how much did we say again?' and I replied '$7k'. He said 'oooh I won't be able to do $7k...I can probably do $3k'. I just stood up without saying a word and went back to my office to start packing up."

"Still f'ing mad about it."

Petty

"My school's 5th grade had a kickball tournament every year between the four 5th grade classes that was a 'big deal'. I'd say my class was objectively the heavy favorite, but our teacher was brand new and going against a teacher's team who was quite 'animated' and had been around for a long time."

"During one inning when we were kicking, we had two outs and two on base, so I yelled 'there's two outs so run on anything!' The other team's teacher went off on me, screaming that I can't yell at my teammates and I need to learn how to be a better sport, so she threw me out of the game!"

"I went to the dug out, probably on the verge of tears (a combination of being really competitive—I was always the biggest kid in my class and probably the most athletic as well—combined with the fact that I never got in trouble)."

"Over the next couple innings, one by one the other team's teacher kicked out our team's most athletic players, boys and girls, for reasons I no longer remember (I don't think anyone knew the reasons at the time)."

"I don't remember who all was kicked out exactly, but I know for sure our 3 most athletic guys and 2 most athletic girls were tossed, and nobody who wasn't athletic was thrown out, nobody from her team had to sit out, and we obviously lost."

"After the game when we were back in class, our teacher called each of us who were kicked out to her one by one. She apologized to us profusely and said she didn't know why we were thrown out and insisted we weren't in any trouble and didn't do anything wrong. There were multiple kids standing at her desk bursting into tears."

"I still get hot with anger whenever I talk about it. I just can't comprehend being so petty about a f'ing 5th grade kickball game as an adult that you would yell at 10-11 year-olds and throw them out of a game just so you could win."

Candy Land Chaos

"I lost every game of Candy Land for 12 years because my mom would have Queen Frostine up her sleeve and put it on top of the deck for my little brother if he was losing."

"I am still mad about it to this day. I totally blame this as the reason he is such a poor loser."

If It's Not Scottish...

"I entered a competition where you had to be the first to type the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne."

"I did it first with seconds to spare and was disqualified for not using the 'correct' lyrics. They apparently wanted the Americanised lyrics."

"I'm Scottish. The song is Scottish."

"I will never not be angry when I think about it."

"That's kind of how the Queen got criticised a couple of years ago for not doing the Auld Lang Syne hand hold properly. Except she was doing it the Scottish way, in Scotland, to a Scottish song."

Walk of Rage

"I used to work for a pretty evil tech company in tech support. I was miserable only because I couldn't seem to get promoted. I got an offer at a place only 10 minutes from my house. Same pay, free parking, and happiness."

"I put my two weeks' notice in at my current job, and they were suddenly falling all over themselves to give me the promotion I had so wanted (specializing in web tracking software, which I was really good at). I agreed to stay on if they would promote me to that position."

"I was young and naive, of course. They tricked me. I declined the other job offer, and then they denied me the promotion after I'd jumped through a bunch of hoops to qualify for it."

"I rage-walked out of work that day. I rage-walked 9.85 miles. I was furious."

High School Hangups

"My brother is 50. He recently interviewed someone and they somehow figured out that they'd played in a state soccer tournament against each other in high school."

"His interviewee was the kid that shoved him into the goalpost and broke his nose. He was not hired."

Share & Share Alike

"One of my babysitters put me in time out for not giving my favorite toy to a girl I didn't know."

"I told her she could have any other toy in my room but the babysitter put me in time out for not sharing."

"The girl left with my toy. I'll never forget that."

Kickball

"During fifth grade kickball I was wrongfully called out because this kid was blocking the base. We work for the same company now, different departments."

"I can't help but give him the side eye when I see him in the hallway. I'm 40."

Less than Majestic

"We used to play Candyland all the time at the babysitter's. One time I drew the Snow Queen and the babysitter said 'it's too early for that card', and made me put it back in the deck and draw again."

"Her daughter drew the Snow Queen a few turns later and the babysitter lit up like 'oOOooO Snow Queen!!!' and moved her piece. I was 4, but will never forget."

So what are you still salty about?