Dining out can be quite a memorable experience, but not always in a good way. From dealing with hot-headed staff to unwelcomed additions to their meals, these Redditors share some of the worst restaurant experiences they’ve had. Check, please!
1. Terror In My Taco
I was peacefully eating my drowned tacos with some friends at a tiny family-owned restaurant a block away from my home. After I ate almost half my meal, I lifted up my spoon and made a disturbing discovery. There was a cockroach leg in there. It was the same color as the fried taco meat.
I stopped and left at that moment and could barely hold the urge to puke. The only thing worse than finding a cockroach in your tacos is finding half a cockroach in your tacos.
2. Duped At The Olive Garden
I was proposing to my girlfriend a few years back at the Olive Garden. I gave the engagement ring to a waitress to stick on the straw of some drink we were having. BAD IDEA. The ring wasn’t overly expensive; it was about 350 bucks. Well, our drink order came in, and the waitress apparently went home sick. There was no ring to be found.
3. Skewered At The Greek
brown sun hat on top of table near calm waterPhoto by Constantin Panagopoulos on UnsplashA friend of mine and I used to go to a local Greek diner called "The Amphoras". In their heyday, they were able to open up a second location. That location was special. The first diner was kind of a dark, cavernous place with a bakery next door. It used to be one of the few places open 24/7 in the 70s when it opened, but by the 90s, it was one of many.
The wait staff was always a mix. I don't know what their hiring process was, but they were either incredibly good waiters or really, really bad. Late at night, you'd sometimes get people who were insane. They all wore "uniforms," a kind of upscale suit that was even stranger. The second location tried to be more hip with a strange "southwestern vs art deco" vibe when it opened.
It had a lot of financial issues and underwent a lot of remodels. This story takes place during one of those remodels. It was the middle of a weekday and post-lunch rush. My friend invited me to have lunch, but I already had lunch, so I just ordered a sundae. There were the constant sounds of remodeling coming from the kitchen area.
As I scooped into my sundae, I felt something very hard in my mouth. I spewed it out and saw the silver curl of a metal shaving. I looked in the sundae and saw a few more. I called the waiter over and said, "Hey, there are metal shavings in my sundae". But instead of saying, "Oh my gosh, sir! How awful," or even a sympathetic vibe, the waiter looked at me like, "Okay?"
I asked, "Well, may I have a sundae without metal shavings in it"? He replied, "You want a free sundae? Huh? That what you want? Wise guy. YOU THINK YOU CAN COME HERE AND," then the rest of it switched to a language I didn't understand, perhaps Greek. The manager heard this guy screaming at me and came over to see what was going on.
He asked what the problem was, and the waiter started shouting at HIM. The manager then shouted back. Soon, the two of them were screaming at each other in this language very heatedly. Finally, the waiter tossed his serving tray down on the floor and stomped off into the kitchen.
Then, we heard screaming and shouting in Spanish, followed by horrific crashing noises like someone was fighting or tossing around pans. The sounds of construction stopped. We heard people shouting in alarm in English, Spanish, and possibly Greek. The manager sincerely apologized and said he would be right back.
He went into the kitchen, where there was more shouting and crashing. The rest of the wait staff rushed to the kitchen, and looked into those little round windows, trying to see what was going on. Eventually, the crashing and shouting stopped.
The manager came back out and said, "Hello. Listen, I am VERY sorry about his behavior. I am going to comp both of your meals. However, I would like you to leave immediately because I am about to fire that man, and fear for your safety afterward," so we got out of there.
As we were leaving, I heard someone say in English, "Did he just lock himself in the freezer??"
4. Vanished Without A Word
I was at the Spaghetti Warehouse in the Flats in Cleveland in the early 90s. A few coworkers and I were visiting for some work at a steel mill for a week or so, and it was one of the only times we were out as a small four-person team. We were seated in some train car thing. The waitress and a coworker of mine were flirting back and forth.
They served bread from a wicker basket. The waitress took a knife to serve one while holding the basket and sliced through the basket to part of her hand where her fingers met. She left quickly, and we had no idea what happened. Then, we noticed the trail of blood in the train car. We assumed she told the restaurant team.
We sat there figuring we'd hear from her when a manager lady walked through and asked if everything was all right. We hadn't seen or heard from our waitress in about 25 minutes by that point, and the manager didn't believe it until we pointed out the blood trail. She was aghast.
It ended up being one of three times I've had my waitress leave a shift or quit while I was sitting there, and the restaurant was unaware.
5. Bungled Burritos
We went into a newly-opened Mexican place after booking the table the week before for a party of five. We entered, and the place was absolutely jammed. We got a table that was clearly too small for five beefy dudes to sit around. After a few minutes, a waiter came over and took our drink order.
Since it was so busy, we asked for six bottles of Corona and four bottles of Heineken, so we wouldn’t have to wait for extra drinks. About 10 minutes later, just as we were about to ask for an update on the drinks, they turned up. They were all at room temperature, and there was no lime in the Coronas.
Whatever, we just wanted a quick bite before heading into the city to drink. The waiter then took our food order. We asked for normal, basic Mexican menu items, no custom orders. Nearly 40 minutes later, we had finished our drinks and had gotten another round. That's when we noticed something weird.
While all the tables were full, very little food seemed to be coming out of the kitchen. We were about to pay for the drinks and leave when the food arrived. It looked undercooked, the portions were tiny for the price, and the plates simply didn't fit on the table.
We had to place our drink bottles on the floor to make space along with the little cutlery holder. As soon as my friend took a bite of his burrito, he dropped it on his plate. It was frozen in the middle. I opened mine up, and while it wasn’t frozen, it was barely lukewarm in the middle.
We called for the waiter and asked for them to be replaced immediately, as we had been there for over 90 minutes at that point. The waiter just shrugged and took the plates away. Ten more minutes passed. The table next to us just left without paying for their drinks, as they had been waiting nearly an hour for their meals.
Then, the food came back. They had just nuked the same burritos; my friend got his back with the bite mark out of it! We got up, paid for the drinks, and told the cashier that we were not paying for the food. They shrugged and said, "We are disappointed you didn't enjoy the service today, but you ate three of the five meals. You still need to pay for those".
We refused. The place lasted about four months before closing.
6. Full Of Fungi
flat lay photography of mushroomsPhoto by Andrew Ridley on UnsplashMy hubby and I were out eating. I asked if a certain dish had mushrooms because I was allergic. The waitress said it did not, so I ordered it. It came out covered in mushrooms.
I asked the waitress if it was maybe the wrong order or if she had thought I wanted it with mushrooms. I don't know how she would have gotten that impression, but I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. I asked for the dish to be remade because of my allergy.
Before walking away, she replied, "You could just, you know, pick them off". So I got up, went to the register, and asked for the manager. I explained the situation, being sure to mention the allergy and being far more apologetic than I should have been, given the situation. His suggestion was that I switch entrées with my husband.
Hubby had ordered the stuffed mushrooms, so I explained that wasn't an option and that I really would just like the dish remade. I said, "Don't get me wrong, it looks delicious, and I wish I could eat it. I just don't think you want your front entrance blocked by the ambulance that has to come to take me to the ER if I do eat it". I said it sort of jokingly because I didn't want to tick off anyone who saw my food before it got to me.
The manager huffed, briskly walked to our table, took my plate and my glass of vino for some reason, and disappeared into the kitchen. I told my hubby to eat, so he did and had another glass, as did I. The waitress only brought his drink and the check. We were charged for six drinks, his meal, and two times for my meal.
My husband contemplated arguing with the manager, but, in the end, he just did the math for his meal, two full glasses and the half glass I did drink, and left exact change. It's the only time we've never left a tip for wait staff, but it's also the only time we experienced anything like that.
7. This Place Was To Fly For
I finally went to the fancy wine bar in our historic downtown area and ordered a ridiculously overpriced glass. The server brought it out and there was a deceased fruit fly and some egg-like thing floating in it. I asked her to bring me a new glass. She tutted, but took it and reappeared with another glass, set it down, and walked away.
I went to take a drink—and couldn't believe it. It was the same glass with the same fly and the same egg thing. I waved her down and told her there was still a fly in it. Clearly annoyed, she told me that if it was her, she'd just fish it out with her fingers and drink it, because it happens all the time and it's no big deal.
I've never been back.
8. I Won’t Brie Back
About nine years ago, we went to a new brunch place in Chicago. We were the only ones there, which seemed a little weird for Chicago. The server was obviously the owner, and really pressured us to order a few menu items; it was becoming uncomfortable.
When my ham and brie omelet came out, one bite showed that the brie was still wrapped in plastic with the label still stuck on. We waited 15 minutes for the server to come back out, and I showed him the issue. Without saying a word, he took the plate to the back and proceeded to scream at the cook so loud and for so long that I started getting worried for our safety.
No one came out for another 10 minutes or so, so we just left.
9. This Dinner And A Show Was A No
grayscale photo of people sitting on chairPhoto by Brands&People on UnsplashMy dad and I went to this place in NYC that put on a little theatrical show while you dined. I was 14 at the time and my dad and I walked into this place, and it already looked sketchy. Off the bat, it looked extremely understaffed, and all the staff that were there looked like they hated their job.
There were straw wrappers on the floor and no one sat us for 15 minutes, so we just sat ourselves. We had been to this place before when I was little, so we decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, expecting the food and show to be the same fun experience it used to be.
One of the actors for the show was walking around to greet the guests and my dad, being the guy he is, was trying to playfully joke around with him. However, he seemed really caught off guard by it and didn’t play along, which was weird. But that was only the beginning.
The service took forever, and after we finally got our order in, my dad had to use the bathroom. As he was gone, the actor approached me, sat in my dad’s seat, and asked me, “Does your dad embarrass you?" I was like, “Uhhh, no”. He proceeded to say, “If I had a dad like that, I’d hide my head in shame”.
Normally, that would be funny to me, but this guy seemed like he was serious about it. I then noticed that the only guests this “actor” was talking to were children. He was fully hopping booths and scooting next to the kids. He wasn’t looking at or speaking to the adults AT ALL. I’ve never been so uncomfy in my life.
We got our food after an hour, and it was mid at best. I ordered a pasta dish and it was low-key tasteless. My dad got a patty melt, but it tasted like it had been left on the counter for way too long. The “show” itself lasted a grand total of about three minutes, and it was just the creepy actor guy talking to a mummy that descended from the ceiling.
I realize this story sounds like an actual fever dream, and as much as I wish it was, it wasn’t. It actually happened.
10. Giving It All Away
Once, for a family Christmas dinner, we went to a really nice restaurant. I ordered their club sandwich, and the rest of my family ordered their food. If I remember correctly, about 30 minutes after the rest of my family had been brought and eaten their food, the waiter came over without my food.
He told me they had given my sandwich to people in the drive-through TWICE and that it would be another 15 minutes for my food and asked if that was OK. It definitely wasn’t.
11. A Glutton For Gluten-Free
We went to a place where the service was ridiculously slow and incredibly disorganized despite the restaurant being mostly empty. We waited at least twenty minutes to get menus, and they kept sending out other servers to confirm our orders. It took well over an hour before we even got our food.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, the server was the most aggravating human I've ever dealt with at a restaurant. One of my friends I was with had celiac disease. This story took place around when the "gluten-free" fad was at its peak, so it was understandable (to a degree) that a server would be a little annoyed when someone said they couldn't have gluten.
This man was not "a little annoyed"; he seemed to take it as a personal insult. He just rolled his eyes and acted condescending whenever he spoke to my friend. The breaking point was when my friend asked if a certain meal had a gluten-free option when we were ordering. He gave some dismissive reply and said he'd go check after he placed our orders.
The server came back an hour later with our food and saved my friend's meal for last. When he got to them, he said, "There isn't a gluten-free option for this meal, so you'll just have to eat it as it is," and then placed the dish in front of them and walked away.
12. Our Service Was Discounted
sliced meat on black ceramic bowlPhoto by Yann Allegre on UnsplashI went to an American fondue restaurant chain in Centerville, Ohio, with eight friends on a Saturday evening. We had Groupons for some special group meal deal, which I assume was the reason our service was comically slow. It really felt like they were intentionally ignoring us.
We were there for about three hours because that's how long it took them to get our food to us. It also took an hour for us to get our first drink order, and they just never brought our second round. I'm usually a person who tips way too much and will still do 15% for bad service because waiters must eat too.
However, this was the only time in my life I've ever felt completely justified leaving no tip at a sit-down restaurant. It was that absurd.
13. Proof Of Purchase Please
I was picking up takeout, and it took a while for them to bring me my order. I got the order and paid with a credit card. As I was leaving and out the door, the hostess/waitress chased me outside and accused me of not paying for the food. I told her to check the merchant slip for the credit card transaction. Her response was deranged.
She told me they threw it away and demanded I dig it out of the trash. Despite it being a good restaurant, I never went back, and they subsequently closed.
14. They Nailed The Burritos
A friend cracked a tooth because a wooden nail was his burrito. They tried to make us pay for that meal but gave us vouchers for free meals to come back. We refused. We left our info with management, and the next day, my friend got a call from the corporate office. They paid for him to go to their headquarters area and paid for him to go to a dentist and get all of his teeth fixed.
However, they had some nerve trying to get us to buy dinner that had a wooden nail in it.
15. Clean Up Your Act!
people standing in front of storePhoto by Yusong He on UnsplashMy favorite Chinese restaurant was this little hole-in-the-wall place downtown. It was this small, dingy restaurant that only took cash. It didn't look too clean, but the food was fantastic. It was the kind of restaurant that didn’t give a hoot about atmosphere but really just put out bangers for food.
This place was not the cleanest restaurant, but the food was so good that I ate there in spite of that...until one horrifying day. While waiting for an order, I saw a homeless guy come in who was sick with something nasty. There were snot ropes hanging from this dude’s nose and clothes.
He was hacking up a storm and was just one of the dirtiest, sickest people I had ever seen. He was begging people for money or a meal, and he got one. Then, it hit me that the restaurant would not properly clean where this guy had been.
As my eyes darted around the restaurant to the vents that had thick layers of caked-on dust to the silverware stands that hadn't been restocked in days, I realized that cleaning just wasn't a priority. I have never been able to go back. I just can't see the restaurant now without wondering how hygienic everything is.
16. Her Salty Attitude Did Her In
We used to frequent this Italian joint owned by a cranky old man who gave everyone guff, but in an endearing way; the food was delicious. He retired, and his daughter took over. The first (and last) time we dined there after she took over was horrible.
My husband wasn’t really hungry, so he ordered soup and salad. He asked for no tomatoes and got a salad that was absolutely doused in tomatoes. He didn’t complain, just picked around them. Then he tried the soup and literally almost spewed it out; it was so salty.
We are not salt sensitive; there was something wrong with this soup. Like the lid-of-the-salt-shaker-fell-off-while-seasoning kind of wrong. She inquired specifically about the soup, and he politely told her it was too salty. She used his own spoon to taste it without asking.
She fully agreed that it was too salty and took it away but didn’t offer to replace it with anything else; she just took it. Somewhere along the line, despite agreeing that the soup was off, she decided we were jerks. At the next check-in, she looked at his salad and snidely said, “What, you don’t like tomatoes?" This, to the customer who asked for no tomatoes and didn’t complain when they got all the tomatoes.
She then went to the bar and very obviously talked trash about us to the regulars. She was pointing, laughing, and we could clearly hear the words “salt” and “tomatoes”. As we were walking out, having still tipped her, she rudely shouted, “You might want to try a different soup next time if you’re so sensitive to salt," followed by cackling from her and the bar patrons.
The place closed down a month later.
17. A Husband’s Sacrifice
My wife got a horrific case of food poisoning from a very upscale restaurant in Vermont. The restaurant didn't believe her. We were with about a dozen of my family members, and they didn't believe her either. They swore up and down this place was the best restaurant in town, and she probably ate something else earlier that caused the vomiting.
So, I volunteered to eat some of her dinner just to prove she wasn't lying, and sure enough, within the hour, I was gagging, heaving, and trying my darndest not to puke and poo at the same time. Never, ever order seafood in a landlocked state.
18. Dining Room Diaper Station
baby's white onesiePhoto by zelle duda on UnsplashThere was a woman who decided the table in the middle of the restaurant was the best and most hygienic place to change her baby's diaper as opposed to the purposely-built baby changing station. When she was challenged by another customer about this, her reaction was so horrifying—I'll never forget it.
She barehand grabbed a pile of baby poo out of the diaper, smacked the customer across the face with it, then smeared poop on the table and her chair, all while screaming and swearing her head off. Eventually, another customer walked up to her, and one punched her to the ground, then walked out.
We had the authorities, an ambulance, and CPS all pile in. The worst part was that management tried to make another employee who was not trained for this situation to clean up. He just straight up quit right then and there when we were already short-staffed.
19. Where Did All The Grown-Ups Go?
It was a small family-owned Mexican restaurant. We showed up around 1 PM–2 PM but were the only ones there. Their 13-year-old daughter greeted us and sat us, but she seemed almost confused about having customers on a Saturday at that time.
Shortly after we were seated, two little kids under the age of 10 came into the otherwise empty dining room from somewhere in the back and sat in the booth directly behind ours. They both started watching a kid’s program on the tablet they had at full volume.
We couldn't hear each other at that point with the blaring tablet behind us. You could hear it throughout the whole restaurant, so we figured the owners would pop out of the kitchen where they were hiding and say something, but nope.
Then, the 13-year-old girl came out again with water and chips but apparently thought nothing of the blaring tablet. She tried taking our order, but she seemed to be really uncomfortable or shy and kept mumbling, which we couldn't hear over the tablet. Finally, I just ordered a soft taco to go, but we still never saw any adults.
20. Winging It
I got chicken wings, and half were insanely undercooked. I told our waitress, and they comped them. But that wasn't the worst part. In the middle of chatting, something hit my face and bounced off. I glanced at my arm, and there was a cockroach the size of my palm sitting on my arm.
I am terrified of bugs, so I let out a horror movie scream. I managed to fling it off of me, screaming, and then had a good old panic attack that set off my asthma.
21. Done With Denny’s
Denny's (New London, Connecticut) | Former Pizza Hut | JJBers | Flickrwww.flickr.com
When I was still in high school, my two friends and I were getting done with a late-night lacrosse game and were pretty hungry. Unfortunately, most restaurants in our area closed at 10 PM, and it was already 9:30. We didn't want to be impolite, so we settled on Denny's because it closed at 1 AM.
We walked in, and the first thing we noticed was how empty it was; we were the only ones there. We waited for a solid five minutes before someone finally came to seat us, and she seated us at a dirty table. She asked if we would like some drinks, and we just all got a couple of glasses of water.
We asked for a couple of minutes with the menu. Ten minutes passed, and we still hadn’t gotten our water yet. Meanwhile, we were the ONLY guests in the restaurant. After another five minutes, she finally brought us our waters. She asked if we were ready to order, and we said yes and gave her our orders.
She said they would be done in about 15 minutes. Just like the water situation, 15 minutes passed, and no food. By this time, it was around 10:20 PM, and we were all very hungry and tired. Another 10 minutes passed, and nothing.
Finally, at almost 11:00 PM, our food still hadn't arrived, so we called our waitress over to our table and told her that we would be taking our business elsewhere and to cancel our order. She insisted that we needed to pay for the food we ordered even though we hadn't ever received it.
We told her we wouldn't be paying for food that is almost an hour late. We left that Denny's that night, and we haven't returned to a Denny's since.
22. What A Mess
We waited for about an hour for the first round of drinks. Meanwhile, the owner of the bar and his friends were surrounded by three out of the four hosts/bartenders. Then, when our food came out, a disaster ensued. They dropped it on me, and I got nacho stuff all over me.
When our check came an hour late, the hostess made a mean-spirited joke about how messy of an eater I was. It was the first and only time I have ever given a $0 tip and written terrible service on it. I honestly thought I was on a hidden camera show.
23. Dissed For My Love Of Disney
I went to a local breakfast place with my dad when I was 14. We were ready to order, and I wanted to order a Mickey Mouse pancake because it came with a bunch of whipped cream and fruit, which I was craving on a pancake. The server asked for my age which I told her was 14.
She then proceeded to scold me in a thick accent, saying, "You are too old! You no get Mickey Mouse pancake!" My dad tried to ask why it mattered, but she just kinda kept arguing the same thing with him. I just ended up ordering something else, but she could have just said the kid’s menu was age-restricted.
Luckily, my Dad and I goofed about it later, so it ended up being a net positive experience.
24. A Soul-Crushing Experience
a bowl filled with rice and greens on top of a tablePhoto by Kim Daniels on UnsplashWe were at a soul food restaurant in my neighborhood. I showed up before the lunch rush with my (then) toddler, who needed a high chair. We were the only people there. The older couple who ran the place ignored me for ten minutes while hissing at one another about something.
The guy took my order, did a double-take at the baby, and asked if I needed a high chair. I said yes. The dude turned to their open kitchen window and had a loud screaming match with his wife (the chef) for ten minutes. They went into their attic storage and slammed a high chair down in front of me with the chef loudly shouting, "I cook, I'm not your SERVANT," at the husband.
At that point, I asked for a soda and was looking at 25 minutes before they even took my order. Finally, I politely asked if I could place an order for fried chicken. That's when it took an even darker turn. A pan was thrown across the kitchen and bounced off the wall and they argued about whose turn it was to marinate the chicken last night.
I just put my kiddo back in the stroller and walked out while they had a full street brawl in the kitchen. They closed within a month but still paid rent on the place for two years without ever being open. It's now a small unremarkable Mexican fast-food joint.
25. Your Time’s Up!
I live in Melbourne which is known for its high level of quality customer service, but it's also why I refuse to go to Okami's anymore. They had a booking system during the pandemic, in one-hour blocks. You came at the start of the hour and had to leave at the end. We were seated at the table furthest from the counter, and there was also a loud family near us.
Almost every single time we tried to call wait staff over, they'd be caught by someone from that family. So, service was very slow, and my girlfriend and I had spent the whole meal being agitated about how little we were being attended to. It was so bad, we had to skip dessert because the hour was coming to an end and we were still eating our main meals.
We were finishing off and everyone except us had left, and one of the wait staff came and thrust his watch right in my face and tapped it. I still regret not saying anything, but both my girlfriend and I are non-confrontational people, so we just paid and left. We left a bad review on Yelp, but I still fume when I think about it.
26. The Big McRip Off
I was at McDonald's. I actually don't like the Golden Arches, but I was hungry. I went in, and no one was there, so I figured it would be quick. I gave my order, paid, and waited. I waited some more and more. Someone else came in, gave their order, and they got it fairly quickly. Meanwhile, I was still waiting. Finally, someone saw me and asked if I was ready to order.
I told them no, and that I was waiting for my order. They lost it. A manager came out, she was confused, and the order was completely gone. By that time, I had been waiting nearly half an hour, so I just said forget it and walked out. The money was never refunded to my account. They may have lost my order, but they managed to keep my money.
27. Post-Pandemic Pain
brown and gray concrete storePhoto by shawnanggg on UnsplashI went to a restaurant in a relatively small town with a group of six people. This was mid-2021, that weird interval in the pandemic where things were kinda back to normal but also not. Apparently, most of the other restaurants in town were shut down because of a Covid outbreak that week, so everyone was at this restaurant.
There were only two waitresses in the whole place, and every table was full. It took them an hour to come and get our order, and while they were doing that, some Karen came up and yelled at us for getting our orders taken before her party, as if that was our fault.
It took another hour for us to get our food and we each got served at different times. I got a personal-sized pizza that was half burnt—like black burnt—but I was so starving, I didn't care. I tipped 40% because I felt bad for the waitresses, but what a terrible experience all around.
28. Not Worth The Hype
People seemed to froth at the mouth about the Viking Lobster Company because it was BYOB. My wife and I went there for our one-year wedding anniversary. The place was located in an area that I would not like to be in at night. We had to call the restaurant to make a reservation because they didn’t take walk-ins.
Instead of confirming the time on the first call, we were called back. The building itself looked like it was one loose roof shingle from being condemned. The prices were fair for what the menu said you would be getting. We both ordered lobster feasts, which came with salad.
It was a solid 45-minute wait between our salads and entrees. This wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that there were only two other couples in the restaurant with us, one of which came in after us. The feasts themselves came in large plates.
It looked like everything (scallops, fish, lobster tail) was placed inside aluminum foil that was unwrapped atop the plate. It was a major disappointment. My guess is that the chef/cooks simply pre-made the feasts and cooked them en masse in aluminum foil packages.
As a result, the fish and scallops had a heavy metal taste. They didn't taste "spoiled," but you could tell they were cooked in the foil. The only saving grace with that place was our waitress and the BYOB aspect. The worst part was when my wife gave them an honest review on Facebook.
It was a one-star review, but it was as fair and respectable as it could be. The owner replied almost immediately and said something along the lines of, "Unfortunately, our waitresses will remember who you are the next time you come in". There was no way we planned on returning.
Looking through Viking's Facebook review history, any reviews less than three stars were met with borderline childish retorts by the owner, essentially blaming the customers for everything. I spent over $200 that night and will never return nor recommend that place.
29. Steak ‘N Wait
I went to a Steak ‘n Shake years ago. We came in and saw the stove in the kitchen was completely filled with burgers. They sat us down, took our orders, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Over an hour went by, and there was no food. Eventually, we found a waiter and asked what was going on, and they said that they were short-staffed.
Another half an hour went by. We finally had enough, so we got up and started leaving. They ran to stop us, apologized, and told us to wait just five more minutes. They gave us our meals to go and gave us half off.
30. Left In A Pickle
stainless steel fork on green labeled canPhoto by SuckerPunch Gourmet on UnsplashI was about eight years old, and my mother took me to a deli-style restaurant where we met Annie, one of her fellow high school teachers. They had large bowls of pickles on the table, and my mother and Annie were eating them. I hated pickles and still do. Annie took the last pickle from the bowl. That's when she spotted something rather unwelcome—a cigarette stub.
Annie was a bit potty-mouthed to begin with, so you can imagine what words began bellowing out of her mouth. My mother quickly hustled me out of the restaurant lest I picked up some bad words I already didn't know. The restaurant went out of business not long afterward.
31. Running To The Loo After Some Bad BBQ
When my brother and dad came over to visit me, we went to this sandwich chain called Erberts and Gerberts. All of us had heard of this place before, and because there was one in the city I was in, we decided to go there for dinner. Both my dad and I got a BBQ brisket sandwich, and my brother got something else.
The sandwiches were really disappointing. I wasn't expecting anything amazing, but still. We went our separate ways for the day, and I ended up back at my apartment. Eventually, I went to bed for the night. When I woke up, I heard a growl in my stomach. This was a normal occurrence, as I'm usually hungry when I wake up in the morning.
However, the growls intensified dramatically, and knowing that nothing good could come of it, I sprinted to my bathroom. What followed was the worst case of the runs I have ever gotten in my life, and it was making me feel sick. I spent a total of an hour in the bathroom.
I went to call my dad on his phone to tell him that we had to cancel our plans for the day, but my brother picked up instead. Apparently, my dad had also got the runs. We concluded that it must have been from the sandwich place we ate at, so we swore never to eat there again.
32. Left Out In The Cold
I was traveling with a group of 30 people on a sightseeing trip and we went to a big restaurant for dinner. The place was jammed but we managed to get a huge table. The waitress came to take our orders. Mine was simple—a glass of water, and a cutlet with fries. The drinks arrived except for mine. I asked the waitress—but her reaction was infuriating.
She just rolled her eyes and stormed off. Thirty minutes later, the food came, but not mine, and still no drink. I asked again and she snapped at me, "Can't you see we're jammed right now?? You won't starve!" Then, she stormed off again and didn't come back. I was quite puzzled. We tried to get her back, but she just ignored us.
The others were kind enough to share their food, so I got a full meal from different plates. When it was time to pay, she insisted I pay for the meal the others donated to me. We politely told her to get lost and left.
33. Met With A Chili Reception
sliced red chiliPhoto by Aliona Gumeniuk on UnsplashI have food allergies related to spicy foods, mushrooms, and nuts. We went out for a lunchtime meal at a fancy pub, and they were operating on a reduced menu, which was no problem. They had a steak sandwich that could be altered to fit my needs.
I explained my allergies to the waitress, wrote her a list of what was required to be removed, and double-checked when we paid. The first sandwich came out with all the problematic ingredients on it, so I flagged the waitress down.
I explained the issue and allergies again and wrote her ANOTHER list with my allergies and required removals for her to show the kitchen staff, and she said she’d fix it straight away. Twenty minutes later, my friends had almost finished their food, and mine hadn’t been sent out yet.
I flagged down the same waitress, asked if it would be much longer, and after disappearing for 10 minutes, she came back with my sandwich. I checked the second sandwich, and they removed the salami but not the chili jam. By this point, everyone else had finished their meals, so I flagged down the waitress again and asked for a refund.
She spent five minutes trying to argue with me into waiting for the kitchen to remake it, by which point I was furious. I stormed out of the pub and emailed them later that day, detailing what had happened. The manager told me that “they do their best to accommodate food allergies but can’t always help” and refused a refund.
I give that place the finger every time I drive past it.
34. An Uninvited Guest
Years ago, I went out to a local Indian restaurant in the neighborhood. There were about four other tables of what looked liked couples. We'd been seated at a table for about five minutes. Then a random middle-aged woman walked in—and did the unthinkable.
She plonked herself down at our table, grabbed a glass, and started drinking our vino. Then, she started rambling on about a bunch of stuff. The restaurant was about three-quarters empty apart from the other four tables. Most of them clocked what was going on, and all their conversations subsided to a murmur.
We told her we wouldn’t be sharing our food or any more drinks with her. I managed to motion the one waitress over and told her, “We don’t know her, can you get rid of her”. The waitress high-tailed it back into the kitchen without a peep. The rest of the room was completely silent now, no doubt counting their lucky stars she didn’t sit down with them.
Things began to get pretty heated and she was telling us how she still had “contacts” in the cult and how she’ll find us and get us. She was finally convinced to leave when my housemate said she could either leave by the door or he could throw her through the front window.
35. Abandoned At The Airport
I was traveling alone and had a layover at a very busy airport. I hopped into a restaurant for a snack and a drink. I sat and waited 15 minutes for a server to come by and ordered some chips and guac and a Modelo. I finished my chips and was still thirsty. I tried for over 40 minutes to get the server’s attention.
She walked by multiple times with empty hands and blew off my, "Excuse me, may I's". She very purposely and almost comically avoided eye contact with me, and at one point sat at the adjacent table with a friend to eat lunch. She knew I existed. It all seemed very odd—my drink was empty, I wanted to pay for more food and I was CLEARLY being ignored.
What did get her attention very quickly was when I said forget this and left my table, took my bag, and went and stood at the server’s station to pay and go. She IMMEDIATELY noticed I was gone and I could see the panic on her face. I coyly wave to her from the server station. We said nothing to each other.
She gave me a pink gel pen to sign my credit check and walked away. I signed but did not tip. I crumpled the slip into a ball and left it on the counter, then yeeted the pen across the floor and under an empty booth. I've been in the industry a long time, and I never thought I'd be that guy, but holy moly.
36. The Butter-Fingered Waiter
File:Tony roma's prime rib.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org
I was at Tony Roma's in Vegas. It was late, but still a couple of hours before their closing time, and it was pretty much our last resort. We were seated, got our menus, and then had to wait about ten minutes for the server to show up. We were the only guests at the time, so it's not like he was too busy.
We had already decided on everything, but the moment he got our drink order, he was gone. He didn't even hesitate when we said we were ready to order. About five minutes later, our drinks came out, and he promptly spilled some of my wife's iced tea. This time he stuck around long enough to take our order at least.
Fifteen minutes later, our order of mozzarella sticks came out, and he fumbled the plate, so one of them fell off and bounced across the table. He grabbed it and left. There was no replacement and no discount on our order. At that point, my drink had been empty for a while, but he was gone before I could say anything.
Another 20 minutes later, our food came out, and I half-jokingly told my wife to move in case he spilled something again. Famous last words. Sure enough, my wife's side of coleslaw fell off the plate and spilled right where she would have been had she not moved. Again, no replacement or discount there either. I managed to get in my request for a refill before he left.
I ordered a crispy chicken sandwich with cheese, but I found no cheese. When the waiter came back with my refill, I mentioned that, and he whisked away the plate. Another five minutes later, it came back out with a cold slice of cheese on the now cold chicken with a cold side of fries. By then, I just wanted to eat and leave.
That was the last time we saw our waiter. Over half an hour later, we were done and wanted the check so we could leave. I finally went to the host and asked her to find us our check. The manager brought it out and asked us how everything was. We gave her the full story, and she just said, "Oh, I'm sorry," and left.
I foolishly thought she might be going to bring us an adjusted check, so at least we weren't paying full price for food the waiter dropped, but no. It was so bad that I went through the trouble of sending an email to Tony Roma's corporate about it. Their response was, "We hope you visit us again soon!"
37. Meat Mixup
I was the waiter at a nice steak/seafood restaurant. A couple came in. The husband ordered prime rib "as rare as we can serve it". I brought the food. A second couple came in and were seated right next to Couple #1. The wife from Couple #2 ordered a sirloin steak. Couple #1 asked me to cook their prime rib a little more. Meanwhile, the husband had eaten half the steak and veggies.
I brought his plate back to the kitchen. A few minutes went by, and I brought Couple #2's food out. I went back into the kitchen, and Couple # 1's prime rib was ready, except it was a sirloin. The chef put the half-eaten prime rib on a new plate with new veggies and a new baked potato. Couple #2 were eating the prime rib sent back by Couple #1.
I had to explain this to both tables and my manager. We gave free steaks for both tables.
38. Crushing It On New Year’s Eve
I was at The Common Man in New Hampshire on New Year’s Eve. It is an upscale chain but has everyman food. I was walking back with two small plates of cheese, crackers, and fruit from the little table of nibbles before the meal. I had two because my boyfriend hated walking through the crowded tables, and he's a huge dude.
I tapped into a chair two tables over and said, “Oh, excuse me”, smiled, and sat down. We got a drink, appetizers, and a meal. Everything took a while because they were busy but it was fine; we were having a great time. I was ALMOST done with my meal when the craziest thing happened.
A woman leaned over me and said, "Excuse me, are you done with your plate?" I thought she worked there, so I said, “Oh yeah, thanks, I'll take a box”. She had a CRACKER in her hand and crushed it on what was left of my meal.
She said, "When you bumped my chair, this fell off your plate. You should have picked it [up]. I could have crushed it on the floor". She had this big smile on her face and continued, "Have a Happy New Year". She left and went back to her table. We just stared at each other. It was surreal.
39. A Doggone Embarrassing Dinner
white noodle soup with green leaf vegetable in white ceramic bowlPhoto by Markus Winkler on UnsplashOne of our favorite restaurants at work was this Vietnamese place that had some really good food for reasonable prices. The most popular dish amongst us was the spicy beef. Some people at the office loved to call it “spicy dog” because they thought they were being funny.
So, it wasn’t uncommon for some people to ask other people around lunchtime, “Hey, want to go eat some spicy dog?" It was a particularly popular joke amongst the management, so nobody called them out on it. One day, a few friends from work and I went there for lunch.
None of us ever used the spicy dog joke at work, but we heard it all the time. We were putting in our orders like normal when one guy said to the Vietnamese waitress, “I think I’ll just have the spicy dog today. I mean the spicy beef”.
His face slowly went beet red as the waitress glared at him and eventually said, “Uhh, sir, we don’t serve dog here”. You could’ve heard a pin drop, and I wanted to hide under the table.
40. No Way Satay
My husband and I used to go to lunch at least once per week at this Thai restaurant. It was good, quick, and they knew us by name. During our time going weekly to this restaurant, my mom got diagnosed with terminal cancer and was declining rapidly. On this particular day, my mom was quite sick in the hospital, and we just got PET results showing that she hadn’t been responding to chemo.
My husband took me for Thai food to cheer me up. Neither of us were too terribly hungry, and we were both kind of pushing our food around our plates. My husband found a well-seasoned cockroach in his dish. Neither of us ate, and he was too embarrassed to tell the lady. She tried to give us boxes, but we declined; she was clearly confused. We paid, left, and never went back.
41. A Series Of Unfortunate Events
I went to this Mexican restaurant with six buddies. So many ridiculous things happened that I struggle to remember them all. First off, the waitress came over and took two of our party’s orders and then just walked off. We had no clue why.
After a while, we managed to flag someone down to take everyone else's order too. Then, they brought three of the meals, but only one was from those first two orders. Something was also wrong with one of them. Then they tried to bring something else that nobody had ordered and seemed to have no idea what to do with it.
We pretty much gave up on flagging down waiters to fix things and just ate what was there because we were trying to get to a football game. At one point, they brought an extra margarita that nobody had ordered, and we just shrugged and drank it.
All this could almost be forgivable, except that when it came time for the check, they tried to pull the shadiest move. They insisted on charging full price for everything, including stuff we hadn't ordered, and a 20% auto-gratuity. We had enough cash to put down an amount that felt appropriate and left.
42. A Fasching Failure
brown bread in sackPhoto by Daniel Schludi on UnsplashI went to a German restaurant with my parents and another couple when I was around 13–15. It was during the German equivalent of Mardi Gras. We had a reservation, but they were swamped, and we had to wait an hour to be seated. Then, it took an hour to get drinks, another hour for appetizers, and yet another hour to get our food.
While waiting for our entrees, the waiter came back four times to inform my dad that they were sold out of what he had ordered and asked if he would like to select another option. The last time he gave them three options, just hoping he'd get to eat. By then, people were getting up and leaving all around us. It had been four hours, and we had just gotten our entrées.
Then, it took another hour to receive our bill. We were the last table still in the restaurant. Apparently, most parties had walked out on the bill.
43. Take A Bit Out Of This One
There was a trendy cafe I went to once. When I had a couple of pieces of bread while waiting for my order, I found one with a very distinct bite out of it. I pointed it out to the waiter, who gave me a foul look and refused to continue serving me. I wound up getting up and walking out after explaining it to the manager.
To this day, I don't get what the waiter’s problem was. I was civil about it even though I knew they were just dumping leftovers onto the next customers.
44. Holiday Burn
I was hitching a ride with a friend to another state on Thanksgiving. Before departing the city, we met his idiot adult daughter and a bunch of his friends at a restaurant. The waitress spilled piping hot soup on my hair, clothes, and on my hand, with a majority going on my hand.
The soup burned my hand pretty good, but not enough to need to go to a doctor. It hurt for two days. The idiot daughter, who was close to age 30 at the time, went full-on into a laughing fit while nearly the entire packed restaurant looked on. I was mad and embarrassed. My meal wasn't even comped.
45. There Was Something Up Her Sleeve
File:Buca di Beppo, Rookwood Commons, Norwood, OH - 40715093273 ...commons.wikimedia.org
I went to Buca di Beppo for a girlfriend's dinner party. The bill came, and I put three $100 bills in the sleeve. I thought that maybe I was not tipping enough and added another $20 to the sleeve, left it on the table, and went to get the car so we could leave. As I got back to the restaurant, I noticed no one from our party was out yet.
So, I drove around again, and still nothing. As I was about to drive away, I noticed someone in our party waving me down. They told me that I'd better go back inside the restaurant as there was a huge commotion when our group was leaving. Apparently, the waitress grabbed the sleeve as everyone was walking out, saw the $20 bill, and figured we were doing a dine-and-dash with 15 people.
My dad told her to check the sleeve as he had seen me put the $300 in. She replied that she had and only saw the $20. He told her to check again. Things escalated. My dad is a bit of a large, aggressive guy. The staff got their largest waiter to confront him. All this was going down 10 feet from the exit in a room full of diners.
Things got louder and more heated until, finally, the waitress looked into the sleeve and saw the money. Her response was "Oh". That's it. We wrote a letter to corporate and got all our money back, plus another $100 in gift cards.
46. Crying Over Broken Glass
I was at Teton Steakhouse in Jackson. They had a buffet salad set up. My gal found broken glass in her salad by biting down on it. We freaked and got the manager. He just took the plate and walked away like it was no big deal. He didn’t even check the salad buffet.
So, we warned other patrons before they tried to serve themselves from it. We just sat there the rest of the time because we couldn’t trust anything after that. The server charged us for the entire bill.
47. We Made A Clean Break
My favorite Chinese food place somehow got a huge piece of brass scrubber buried in my fiancé's lo-mein. She almost threw up and cried. I brought it back and I asked for a refund. They offered to remake the food, but I refused and left extremely upset. I knew that I would never be able to order food from there again.
The place was going downhill, and that was the final straw. They ended up eventually closing.
48. Management Was Out Of Order
a plate of food with meat and broccoliPhoto by Clark Douglas on UnsplashI went to a restaurant with my wife, and we both placed our order of chicken parma with the waitress. My wife’s food came out in 20 or so minutes. She finished hers, and I was still waiting. I asked the same waitress if my food was on its way. She told me I didn’t order any food. I asked her why would I come to a restaurant and not order food?
She was insistent that I didn’t order anything. There was a lot of back and forth. The manager finally came out and took her side. I voiced again why would I come to a restaurant and not order anything. After they were being persistent, I knew what I had to do. I said, “I’ll be back in five minutes”.
I walked next door to McDonald’s, ordered a Happy Meal, came back, sat at the table, and ate it in front of them.
49. Getting Physical Over Some Fish
A few years ago, I went to a restaurant with a friend. She was considering ordering a dish she never had before, but before she did, she explained to the waiter that she was severely allergic to shellfish, as in, she could go into a seizure and lose her life; she was very clear about this.
The waiter went back to the kitchen and said the chef could make it without any fish in it, so she ordered it. When it came, it had fish in it. My friend sent it straight back to the kitchen and ordered something safe that she'd had before. When the bill came, they had charged us for both her meals.
She reminded them what had happened and said she wasn't paying for the returned meal. The waiter started arguing with her, so we put the correct amount of cash on the table and stood up to leave. But that wasn't the end of it.
The waiter started shouting across the restaurant in a foreign language, and a man who we assume was the owner came running out of the kitchen, grabbed my friend by the arm, and barricaded the front door so we couldn't leave, all the while yelling at us in a different language.
We eventually managed to get the door open while he kicked my friend, and he followed us onto the street. He started yelling after us that we were thieves, while people stopped and looked at us. He again ran after us and grabbed my friend's arm. She got her phone out and started calling the authorities.
He then left her alone and went back to the restaurant, and we filed a report.
50. A Showstopper At The Mall
We used to frequent an Italian restaurant that was on a paved mall and had outdoor dining. It was the type where they'd put tables on the mall part and just put a rope around the area to designate it as restaurant space. We were facing out towards the mall, and there was a table of suits—around ten or so—enjoying their dinner at the table that backed straight onto the mall.
An old toothless overweight woman ambled over, lifted her shirt, and placed her enormous and very saggy bosom onto each shoulder of one of the suits at the table while cackling with glee. It took a moment for the guy to realize that it wasn't in fact someone's hands on his shoulders.
I don't know whether that was the best “dinner and a show” I've had or the absolute worst.
No two couples have the same feelings towards sex.
For some, it's just a nice possibility, something they know they can always enjoy, but never feel particularly eager to do.
For other couples, saying their sex life is "active" would be the understatement of the century.
Then there are those who like to be a little more adventurous, exploring things to either spice things up, or possibly broaden their horizons.
This might include asking a third to join them.
Sometimes however, while one member of the couple is eager to give this a try, the other might not feel as inclined, and might even find themselves appalled at the very idea.
Redditor F*ckaught was curious to hear how people's partners might react at the suggestion of inviting a third member to join them in the bedroom, leading them to ask:
Asked And Answered
"She said no."- AtrumAequitas
Nice Try
"I asked."
"She said 'alright, go find someone'."
"She called my bluff."
"She knows I won't go out and socialize, let alone as for a threesome."- LuluTheNightshade
A Rock And A Hard Place... (Head Out Of Gutters People!)
"We already had that conversation."
"It got shelved because I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it with a stranger, and she didn’t feel comfortable doing it with someone we knew."
"Without any possible middle ground, there was just no way it was going to happen."- Qyro
Decide One Of Us GIF by Challengers MovieGiphyJust Not Worth The Risk
"I'd find myself in a 1some real fast."- Apprehensive-Care20z
The Bed's Already Too Crowded...
"She dislikes 2 somes so not well."- AccomplishedBat8731
Depends On The Third...
"She would say, 'with another guy?' and that would end the conversation pretty fast."- AC_Lerock
gay GIFGiphyEerily Specific...
"She would ask me if my best friend Thomas can join us."- petitbatte
Ouch!
“'Oh, you wanna disappoint two women at once?'”- driago
When There's A Partner To Ask...
"My right hand would be very offended if I tried to bring my left hand into this."- Tropical_Penis123
Lonely Loser GIF by TravisGiphyA Little Too Excited?
"She'd probably open the door and let her 'just-a-friend' in seconds after I proposed the 3some."- ToastMaster_404
One And Only
"She'd cry at the fact that I'd want to touch another woman."
"Things definitely wouldn't be the same and honestly I'm happy just banging her."- Vivid_Ad1127
"Same thing I would say if she asked me, 'I love you and I can share most things, but not you'."- mmastrocinque
Dance Love GIF by TRTGiphyOnly Three?
"'We have foursomes at home'."- chubberbrother
Absolutely Not
"I am sure she would be heartbroken and cry nonstop."- Reddit
FOMO?
"She’d tell me she’d ask the fellas if I could be in the next one."- Listening_Heads
marilyn monroe hollywood GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphySome might say everything's worth a try, at least once.
Others know not to mess with something that is perfectly fine as it is.
Redditor ViolatingBadgers wanted to hear the lessons we've learned about survival and avoidance, so they asked:
"What, due to experience, do you know not to f**k with?"
Don't mess with alligators or wildlife in general.
What is with these YouTube people taunting things with big, sharp teeth?
Stay Quiet
dont tell shut up GIF by BounceGiphy"If someone at work tries to badmouth someone else and they ask you about what you think about that person, JUST KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!"
Kororo_chan
Bodies of Water
"Water. Rivers. Current. I'm a fairly good swimmer, and I wanted to swim in a river where the current seemed really tame. Boy was I wrong, just a small moving body of water dragged my poor body like a leaf in the wind."
guacamol705
"Do not go swimming in (or jumping over) the Strid. Hella undercurrents, several kolkgate (I don't know what it is in English but like water-carved potholes in rocks), slippery round boulders at the top, etc."
"The river seems narrow and innocent, but it's basically a big flat river turned sideways. There are bubbles all throughout the water so apparently you cannot float or come up as you aren't buoyant anymore. There are some cool YouTube videos about it."
7CuriousCats
You can feel it...
"Intuition. If something feels wrong stop. It doesn't matter if it's stepping out onto a snow-covered slope, pulling up to a sketchy gas station, or putting too small of a piece of wood in a table router, listen when your brain tells you 'This is a bad idea.'"
5hiphappens
"I read an article that intuition is your subconscious brain picking up on cues that you are unaware of. After I read that article I pay more attention to it."
CCrabtree
The Killer
"Heat. Your sanity is the first thing to go in heat stroke. You aren't even aware anything is wrong. You just know you're pissed, there's a weird buzzing sensation in your head/chest, and the world doesn't feel right. And then you're a zombie looking for anything to cool off with, and shortly after that, you're unconscious."
"It escalated too quickly for half a dozen rational adults to notice before exhaustion set in. Heat will kill you quicker than you think."
MikkelandDime
Stay Clean
Shocked Champions League GIF by Manchester UnitedGiphy"Not immediately washing and disinfecting an open wound."
slimpawws
"My mom knew a guy that had to have his leg chopped off because a cut got infected. It was insane. Chop. The infection kept coming. Chop some more. He survived, but he lost a leg. Spent a long time in the hospital."
FrostyIcePrincess
Do not play games with open wounds.
Infection is everywhere.
Be clean and safe.
Watch the Fall
Season 6 GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"Ladders. I worked in an ED at a major trauma center and the number of otherwise healthy people who came in paralyzed or soon-to-be-dead from falling off ladders was eye-opening."
StrebLab
Stay Alert
"Drowsy driving..."
"ETA: Back in 2015, I had an incident where I fell asleep behind the wheel."
"It was in mid-August, and I had fallen asleep on my way home from work after a 16-hour night shift because my job messed up the schedule (we couldn’t work more than 12 in a single shift). All I remember is I was driving, then I was waking up in a hospital 4 hours away from home."
"No clue where I was or what happened. I had suffered a major TBI and have been mentally different ever since. Had a pretty major concussion following the accident. It happened in the backroads of southern Idaho, and I was lucky to have come out of it with 0 broken bones. Everyone at the hospital was saying I was lucky to have survived. There were witnesses who saw the whole wreck, a couple of high schoolers on their lunch."
"I read the police report and witness statements, and according to them, my car rolled 6.5 times, ended up wheels up and I was partially ejected (laying half in and half out of the car through the window) my seatbelt buckle had broken as the car was coming to rest."
i_am_invictus
Trust Me
"My health. Getting older you rediscover all those old hurts. When I was 20 I hyperextended both elbows playing volleyball. 15 years later my elbows started aching in the winter. :( "
"Also my teeth. It falls under health, but not everyone thinks about the dentist when they think about health. If you are reading this please floss. It's a small thing that can make a huge difference later. Trust me."
kongwasframed
Friday Night
"Head injuries. I had a single friend that got into a bar room scuffle. He got knocked down and hit his head on a tiled floor. Got back up and said that's it for tonight. He lived alone and that was on a Friday night."
"When he didn't show up for work on Monday with a no-call, that raised some eyebrows. When he didn't show up on Tuesday, someone went out to his place and broke in after no answer. He was dead on the kitchen floor. The doctor guessed a brain bleed."
"I think about him every time I see a video of someone getting knocked out."
lestairwellwit
Trust Me
Girl Car GIFGiphy"Trusting people's blinkers to mean they are turning."
Ok-Avocado-5876
"Alternatively, trusting people’s lack of blinkers to mean they are going straight."
GhostRideATank
The turn signal situation is something that burns me.
HOW HARD IS IT TO USE YOUR SIGNALS!!
Drives me crazy!
Although most people agree that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”, that is not what happens in these Redditor’s astonishing tales of vengeance. From suplexes on the school bus to a brilliant Nutella sandwich subterfuge and more, you’ll be cheering for the little guy and perhaps getting some ideas for your next nasty encounter.
1. Picked The Right One
My friend and I were biking and I decided that I had to go to the bathroom. I left my bike outside of McDonald’s and told my friend to wait for me. For some reason, he decided to go in and get a McChicken while I was in the bathroom, which meant our two bikes were left unlocked for a few minutes in a shady neighborhood.
As I came out of the bathroom, I just so happened to see a guy taking my bike. I started sprinting after him but he was going too fast. I asked a middle-aged lady in a car if she could help. I was desperate as it was a brand-new bike! She instantly did a screeching 180-degree turn in the parking lot and started chasing him…
I couldn’t believe it when she screamed: “GET OFF THE BIKE YA LITTLE CROOK!! I’M CALLING THE MOTHER TRUCKING BOYS IN BLUE YOU SON OF A—”! This guy was determined, though, he just kept pedaling as fast as he could. The lady swerved onto the grass and went around behind a school. I was exhausted from running to catch up with her.
As I came around the corner, I saw her grinning and holding my bike as the guy ran off across the field. I was speechless. All I could think to do was hug her. She handed me my bike and said, “I told him I was going to call the authorities, but I didn’t”. As she got into her car, she shouted to the kid who was still running, “PULL UP YOUR PANTS YOU HOOLIGAN!”
2. Plot Twist
In my high school algebra class, my teacher started yelling at a shy kid because he didn’t understand how to factor binomials. The kid started to tear up, but the teacher didn’t stop until he was all-out bawling. It was so bad that some other kids jumped in and told her to stop. She silenced them by threatening to call their parents.
Finally, I stood up and said, “Stop, lady”. She threatened to call my mom and I said, “OK, fine”. Then I walked over to the school phone, dialed my mom’s cell number, and put the phone on speaker. The teacher didn’t want to back down, so she played along, told my mom everything, and then ended the conversation by telling my mother she should ground me for a very long time.
After hearing the teacher’s long story, my mom—in her thick Asian accent—said, “Please say to my son I am so proud of him”. Mom Win.
3. A Very Happy Birthday
yellow school bus on roadPhoto by Maximilian Simson on UnsplashIt was my 15th birthday and I was heading home on the school bus. First off, everyone hates riding the bus because you can be stuck on there with a jerk, plus there’s the utter embarrassment of just sitting on one. Anyway, this guy who was tall and about 110 kg (250 lb) made a habit of tormenting anyone that he could on the bus.
Unfortunately, I was always one of his victims. So on this specific day, he kept calling me names and smacking me on the back of the head over and over and over. I lost it, it was my birthday after all. I spun around, screamed at him to shut up, and punched him right in the face. He screamed and grabbed his face.
Blood was spewing out all over his hands, his shirt, and the floor. He started crying and screaming that I broke his nose.
The bus driver slammed on the brakes and flipped out. He said he was taking us all back to school and we would be going straight to the principal’s office. The principal met with him first and then with me.
I got into the principal’s office and explained what happened. When I was finished, I nervously said, “How much trouble am I in”? The principal looked at me for a beat and said, “None. It’s about time someone put that kid in his place”. Needless to say, I left his office with a smile. That was 100% the best birthday gift ever.
4. A Night To Remember
I got out of a club in a downtown area and needed a ride. I had no cash and I didn’t have a cell phone at the time. It wasn’t an area of town where one should go looking for anything at 3:00 am. Fortunately, there was a phone booth about half a block away. As I approached it, I realized it was being used by a very hot, scantily clad blonde.
I slowed my pace and hoped she would wrap it up before I got there. Her back was to me, so I kept my distance, not wanting to frighten her. I stood there for about a minute before I got an uneasy feeling in the back of my neck. This phone booth happened to be on a corner surrounded on three sides by planters with tall bushes coming out of them.
I took a quick look around and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy standing, slightly crouched, behind one of the planters, staring at the girl. Her back was to the guy as well and I could tell he hadn’t seen me yet. I realized pretty quickly by the look of him what he had in mind for her once she got off the phone.
I circled to the other side of the phone booth, which was about three meters (10 feet) from her, and leaned up against the opposite planter, making sure that both the shady guy and the girl could see me. When he noticed me, his eyes locked with mine. We stood there, staring each other down for almost five minutes.
The girl, who was oblivious to him and ignoring me, gabbed on the phone for another five minutes. During the second five minutes, the guy bobbed his head to the side in a get-outta-here gesture a few times and the girl started to glare at me like I was creeping her out. I’m pretty sure she was starting to wonder what my problem was.
I was scared out of my mind. I was worried that the guy had a blade or something worse. Suddenly, he came out from behind the planter and circled me and the girl—and by this time he was starting to look like he was about to cut my throat. He walked the full 180 degrees around the corner, all while staying on the sidewalk, and then disappeared past the intersection.
My heart finally started to beat normally again. I heard the girl hang up the phone. She then turned to me with an indignant look on her face. “What’s your problem”? I shrugged and told her I needed the phone, to which she replied, “Pfft, whatever freak”! As if right on cue, a cab pulled up and she got in. As she pulled away, I couldn’t stop laughing.
5. Showdown At The Service Station
When I got out of my car at the gas station, I heard some woman screaming and sobbing. I looked over and saw a man reaching into the window of a pickup truck attempting to either hit or grab her. Suddenly, another man at a different pump asked the violent guy what was going on. “Mind your own business”! the guy yelled back at him.
Looking around, I saw a third guy approaching the truck. I walked over and said, “Hey buddy, knock it off or you’re in trouble”. Silence. Now, I’m not an imposing guy, by any means, but the violent guy looked around and realized that there was now a posse circling him. The woman continued to cry and one of the guys went to the truck to check on her.
Another guy pointed at the abusive dude and gestured to him to back away from the truck. I went inside and told the cashier to call the authorities. When I got back outside, there was a solemn silence. Two guys were holding the jerk against a pump until the authorities showed and an older guy and his wife were talking with the woman, so I just left.
I’m a giant nerd, so this was probably one of the most heroic things I’ve ever done in my life. Sigh.
6. Locker Room Nightmare
shallow focus photo of two man playing taekwondoPhoto by Jonathan Borba on UnsplashI took Judo all through high school and was on the wrestling team for three years—until this incident. I had a lot of issues with many of the people on the wrestling team. There was a significant amount of student-on-student intimidation that went on. The school faculty tried to ignore it, and the wrestling coach encouraged it believing that it made us tougher.
I was 180 cm (5'11") and 78 kg (171 lbs)—big enough that I didn’t have too much trouble, but many of the smaller underclassmen were consistently getting hazed and harassed. One day, I walked into the locker room and found two teammates ganging up on another kid. One held him down and the other had his shorts around his knees and was sticking his junk in the victim’s face.
I don’t know if they were teabagging him, or if something even more serious was going on. Either way, I lost it. I came up behind the guy who was holding the kid down, put my left hand on his shoulder, and nailed him as hard as I could with my right fist as soon as he turned to look at me. The guy with his junk out tripped over his shorts in fear when he saw me hit the first guy.
I grabbed that guy’s face and smashed the back of his head into a locker with all my strength. I then took off before either of them got up. I never went to another wrestling practice after that. I don’t even know if the two guys were seriously injured, or if the kid they were attacking was OK, but my hand hurt for weeks afterward.
Nobody ever approached me about the incident and I didn’t see any of them again for the rest of the school year. My mother is still angry that I quit wrestling in high school but I’m sure she’d understand if I told her why.
7. Kids Say The Darndest Things
I am a special ed teacher for nine students, all of whom have the academic label of “autism”. My students are all in the first and second grades and can participate in the general education setting with minimal support for most of the day. This happened on the second day of school when I was still getting to know everyone.
I witnessed one of my students smelling a mural in the hallway. His sense of smell is one of his preferred ways of learning about new places, people, and activities. Just then, I saw a cluster of eighth graders rounding the corner…
One of the older boys said, “What are you doing, freak”?
I rushed over to “handle it”, but before I could speak up, a soft-spoken little wisp of a first-grade girl, all freckled and missing teeth and small even for her age, interposed herself between my student and the eighth graders. She crossed her arms and lowered her eyebrows menacingly.
In a firm voice that I’m sure everyone along the entire hallway heard, she said, “He is just being himself, OK”?
The older boy looked cowed and actually APOLOGIZED to her and then to the student he made fun of. As he and his group walked away down the hall, his friends teased him for being a jerk, but not once did I have to open my dumb teacher's mouth.
8. Rude For Noods
I was an assistant manager at a dollar store, so it was technically my job to tell off jerks, but I am generally quite shy so I was grateful that I had never really had to confront any customers (before this incident at least). One day an idiot came in who I just could not abide. He started making my sweet little 15-year-old cashier cry.
This cashier in no way deserved the verbal lashing that he was giving her. You see, we had two types of ramen—the bricks and the cups. Bricks were 4/$1 and cups were 2/$1. Captain Literacy grabbed the cups thinking that they were the 4/$1.00 price. He said absolutely nothing to contradict my cashier when she told him the total of his bill.
He paid and left, and then he returned to freak out. Instead of listening to her take the blame, tell him that she was sorry, and offer to get me to fix it, he continued to bust veins in his face screaming at her and calling her a moron. That's when I had enough. I stepped in acting cool and polite, acting as though I was on his side to get the story.
Another customer piped up and said, “The girl did nothing wrong, this guy is an idiot”. I politely and professionally shut them down. The jerk was so happy that he was being vindicated that he was just about to do a little dance right there on the spot. Then I started to repeat the story back to him, you know, just to make sure I have it straight.
All the while, I was walking him slowly toward the noodle shelves—the marked and delineated noodle shelves. The noodles I shelved myself. I turned and looked at him and said, “It looks like the only illiterate moron here is you sir. You will not be getting a refund, you will not be getting an exchange, and you definitely will not be getting an apology”.
But I didn't stop there—I really let him have it: “What you will get is my demand that you never set foot in this store ever again because you sir are a complete and total jerk and unfortunately we don’t let jerks shop here. We only like nice people. The kind that doesn’t make people cry. So get out and stay out”. He attempted to stutter out a rebuttal but the applause from the other customers drowned him out.
Later that week, I got a halfhearted lecture from a grinning district manager for using profanity and yelling in the store. But I also got to be a hero to my cashier who was one of the best employees I ever had. I will always fondly remember my first real shutdown of a really big jerk.
9. Not-So-Sweet Dreams
hallway of buildingPhoto by runnyrem on UnsplashI was staying in a hotel recently, and at about 10:00 pm I heard a bunch of kids making a ruckus in the hallway. I got up to see what the deal was, and it turned out that four kids and a baby (one of the kids who was maybe six was carrying the baby) were running down the hall wailing. I decided to go to the room that they came out of.
The door was ajar. When I pushed it open I saw a 4-year- old girl with a bloody nose and a very inebriated father rambling unintelligibly. The room was a mess. The mother showed up shortly after I got there. She looked scared and I figured that they had probably been fighting. I forced the boozer to back off (and I’m not a big dude) and took the kids and mom to my room.
I called the authorities and while we waited for them to come, I treated the kids, who seemed pretty unfazed, to some cartoons I had on my laptop. The authorities took the guy to the station, but I’m sure it wasn’t for long. During this whole time, strangely, not a single person on the entire floor came out to see what was going on.
10. Life Of The Party
This happened back in 1997 when I went to the University of California, Santa Barbara. The authorities barged into the house we were partying in to tell us to turn down the music because neighbors had complained. We turned down the music but they started checking bedroom doors. Since we lived in quite a party house, all of the roomies knew to keep their doors locked.
One officer yelled, “WHO LIVES HERE?! SOMEONE NEEDS TO OPEN THESE DOORS”! So, I walked over, drink in hand (I was over 21), and I silenced the room with my next few words: “I’m no lawyer, but we’ve turned down the music and unless you can come up with a search warrant, you’re breaking the law and I will have to ask you to leave”. That same office started to get in my face.
She started threatening to bring me to that station. I told her that I was on private property and obeying all laws and that if someone did not show me a search warrant, I would press charges because they were trespassing. The oldest cop came over and grabbed her by the arm and said firmly but quietly, “We need to go”. I felt like a hero!
11. Faceoff
Growing up, my dad would often give snide little comments and the odd implied physical threat when he wanted to belittle us or put us in our place, which was often in our house. He was a total hockey nut and put all of my brothers and me into hockey as soon as we could fit into skates. He was one of those sports fathers who was a total jerk on the side of the field or rink.
By 17, I’d had enough of sports even though I was good at most of them, so at a family dinner I announced that I was quitting hockey for good because I wanted to become a runner instead. My dad launched into a rant about quitting. He told me how I would be a loser my entire life, how he knew that this was what I was meant to do, and on and on.
After some time, I finally interrupted him and said, “Dad, you’re the deluded one. None of us will be in the NHL and none of us will play professional soccer. None of us will play professional baseball either. The only loser in this room is the one who browbeats his children into trying to fulfill dreams they don’t even want”.
He made a move to come at me, so I pushed the table out to give me some room and told him to come on down because I wasn’t 12 anymore and I was tired of putting up with his garbage. He backed down and took off to his bedroom. A few months later, my younger brother quit hockey, too, and Dad barely yelped. It was awesome.
12. Best Served Cold
person in orange jacket and black pants riding ski blades on snow covered mountain during daytimePhoto by Glade Optics on UnsplashI have an older sister who is not able-bodied. She and I and some friends were up in Vail, Colorado, because, despite her challenges my sister loves nature and life and tries to immerse herself in all of it. We were walking in the town square area outside of these posh bars and really expensive restaurants when this happened.
A group of young women brushed by us in their Uggs and pearls and Louis Vuitton. I was telling a hilarious yarn to my sister and she was laughing. She has a distinct and contagious laugh and one of the smelly Paris Hilton wannabes started mocking my sister for her friends’ amusement by calling my sister a donkey and a yipping dog.
I looked at my sister and her momentary laughter was gone. She was looking down like she used to do in high school when kids picked on her. Without thinking, and because I was seeing red, I had the most shocking impulse—I grabbed the closest, most frozen, poo-brown snow chunk I could find and whipped it DIRECTLY at the ringleader chick.
The snow blasted her in the back of the head (since they were now walking away from us) and the girl stumbled face-first while grabbing for her friends. They all fell on each other in a spectacular lump. Silence hung in the square for a moment and then a bunch of people burst out laughing and clapping. Seeing my sister’s expression after that made any potential lawsuits worth it.
13. Very Unappetizing
I was eating at a restaurant once with my mom and this redneck guy at another table was talking very loudly about immigration and libtards. There were children nearby and he was beginning to yell and use a lot of profanity. The woman he was with was also talking, but she was very hushed and I couldn’t hear anything she was saying.
I figured it wouldn’t be long before he started talking about Mexicans. Since I’m half Mexican, I told myself that if he did, I was going to speak up. Sure enough, he suddenly got loud and said, “…and DON’T THINK I WON’T TAKE EVERY ONE OF THOSE GAWL-DARN, POOP EATIN’ MESSCANS BACK TO MEXICO MYSELF”! Everyone in the place got quiet.
I shot up and walked over to his table. He was looking at the woman who glanced up at me with an “uh oh” look on her face. I said, “I’m Mexican, you gonna take me to Mexico”? He started to get up from his seat, but when he turned and saw that he was about 45 kg (100 lbs) lighter than me and the top of his head came to my chin he stopped.
The funniest part was when he was starting to get up, he said loudly “MAYBE…” and then when he saw me, he trailed off with a quiet “...I will”. I said, “No, you won’t. There are children here and you need to keep your voice down and your ignorant comments to yourself or I’ll drag YOU to Mexico”! He said something about not meaning me, but I just told him to shut up.
A couple of people clapped and I looked into the kitchen and the Mexicans working back there were all grinning and one of them gave me a thumbs up. He sat there quietly and mumbled a little, then they both got up and left.
14. The New Kid
I transferred to a new school in my freshman year. I was very shy and I just wanted to blend in. I was riding the bus home when these two older boys started picking on a chubby, awkward kid in my grade. They were several rows away from the kid and I was in between. They were throwing things at him and making fun of him because his dad perished the year before.
I was getting more and more angry. So I finally stood up and yelled, “Stop being such jerks! You don’t make fun of someone’s father's passing! What is WRONG with you”? I don’t know if my righteous anger was so intimidating or if they were just surprised to hear the new girl talk, but they just looked at me in stunned silence.
I sat back down in a huff with my face beet red. When I got off the bus, the sort-of-scary-but-probably-just-sick-of-punk-kids bus driver told me that I did a good thing. I still don’t know where that courage came from, but I am proud.
15. Now, That’s Awkward
people at the train looking at their phonesPhoto by Liam Burnett-Blue on UnsplashA few years back, I was riding a subway train home. I saw this girl sitting there minding her own business, and a group of three slightly older guys sitting a bit farther off. One of the guys started throwing some derogatory comments at her and he was getting louder and more aggressive by the minute. The other passengers on the train are watching the entire scene unfold.
No one was doing anything, either. Finally, the guy who was taunting her snickered and said, “Watch what I’m going to do next”. He then started walking over to the girl. Being physically larger than he was, I intercepted him before he reached the girl and yelled at him to stand down. He walked past me.
He sat down and slid over in an attempt to sit next to her, but I squeezed in between them. For the remainder of the ride, I sat between the girl and the guy, who was now visibly uncomfortable at having been put in his place. Before I got off at my stop, one of the older passengers made eye contact with me and smiled.
16. Mwahahaha
When I was about three, I would play with another kid my age. Unfortunately, all he ever wanted to do was wrestle but every time he would end up hurting me. Finally, after running to my mom crying for like the seventh time, she just said, “Go kick his butt then”. So, the next time we wrestled, I took him down hard and did the leg bendy thing. This time he was the one running to his mom crying.
17. Something Wicked This Way Comes
I went to a very conservative Christian high school—Baptist in case that means anything to anyone. It was so conservative that they refused to acknowledge and observe MLK Jr. Day. While MLK was a Baptist there is more than one flavor. The school I went to was in Northern California and there wasn’t a single black person in the entire congregation.
My school was full of uber-conservative white people who believed in literal Genesis creationism, thought drums and amplified guitars were demonic, thought Christian rock music was as dangerous as secular rock music, and prayed that George W. Bush would win his elections (and thought that their prayers were essential in the eventual outcome).
In my senior year, for two weeks we had our schedules completely rearranged so that we could do a study on a Shakespearean play. Some friend of the school and her husband were “experts”, so our first and second periods (Bible and English, respectively) were bunched into a single period for this in-depth Shakespeare study.
Bible was not taught for two weeks and English became essentially a two-period class. The play we studied was Macbeth. During a history class that took place during these two weeks, my history teacher (who was also my English teacher) was going on about the dangers of rock music. He had some stupid book that outlined the occultic activities of all these famous bands.
As he was ranting, I raised my hand and said, “Mr. Anderson, you’re saying that these bands are a bad influence because of their occultic activity, right”? He agreed. I said, “And you’re saying that listening to these bands opens the doors of your soul to the devil because by accepting this music and allowing it around you, you are inviting demonic influence”? “Yes”, was again his reply.
“So, why,” I asked, “are we enthusiastically canceling Bible class for two weeks to study, voluntarily, a play by Shakespeare whose entire plot is based around witchcraft and the occult? Why are we studying a play that contains carnage and hedonism? What is the difference between Shakespeare and Led Zeppelin exactly”?
As soon as I was done asking this, the look on his face was pure terror. The entire class was silent as he stammered for a response, but he couldn’t even put half a sentence together. The class erupted in laughter. I got pats on the back, handshakes, and “Good job, man” from everyone. I felt like I just slayed a dragon.
18. Hold Your Applause
a train on a bridgePhoto by Norbert Braun on UnsplashThis happened when I was about 21 years old riding the Skytrain back from the city to the burbs. An old lady was sitting alone in a seat by the door and a group of three young and hammered punk teens got on. Almost immediately, one of them made a beeline for the old lady and hovered over her as he leaned against the side of the train with his arm. She was totally frightened.
At the time, I was a long-haired rocker and probably looked as punky as the kids, so when I stood up I’m not sure the other passengers knew which side I was on. I moved in, slipped my body underneath the guy’s arm, and rose to stare him in the face (I was between the old lady and him now). Not a word was spoken. The whole train froze.
The next stop came and no one moved. When I heard the chimes signaling that the doors were about to close, I immediately flung the punk—butt first—through the closing doors and onto the platform just as the train pulled away. His two remaining buddies looked on in shocked silence. Not a word was spoken by anyone on the train until the next stop.
After that, the doors opened and the other two guys beat a hasty retreat. I slowly sauntered off the train to the smiles of all there—especially the old lady. Those smiles were all I needed.
19. Wound Of Honor
I was eating lunch with my friends, the “lame” kids, one time during high school. Our clique sat next to the bros. A mentally challenged kid walked by our two groups and someone from the bro group decided it would be funny to jump on this kid’s back and start riding him like a raging bull.
Some people were laughing but most were in shock.
For some reason, skinny little me decided to throw this massive guy off of the kid. I started yelling at him and telling him that he is a piece of trash. I then proceeded to get beaten up—broken nose and all. Out of nowhere, a group of kids started attacking the bro, which probably saved me. They thanked me for doing the right thing. To this day, my nose is still crooked.
20. Not-So-Smarty Pants
I like to go to one of the campus bars to have a drink while I read, mark students’ work, and so on. Some evenings that bar hosts a trivia contest where teams of people answer questions to win free food and drinks. Fair enough. Last winter I was there marking, and there was a team of middle-aged to elderly men sitting at the next table.
These guys had chosen “The Inklings” as their team name, after the well-known drinking/writing group comprised of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and others. Judging by their talk, they seemed to be professors in communications, information tech, and that sort of thing. I’m in English and the Inklings are one of my areas of interest.
I was pleased by their name choice, anyway, though unsure why they chose it. As the contest went forward and the empties piled up, one of them started to get aggressive. He was doing a lot of sloppy cursing and loudly accusing other teams of cheating and denouncing any question that he got wrong. It was becoming annoying—and I knew I had to shut him down immediately.
The tipping point came when he started ranting about the endless cheating perpetrated by “those witches over there”—a small group of young female students who weren’t doing anything more egregious than occasionally getting a question right. Finally, I stood up in as ostentatious a way as I could (I managed to make my chair fall over as I was doing it).
I walked two paces over to their table, slammed my hands down on it, looked him right in the eye, and said, “You’re a disgrace to your name. Any one of the Inklings—even Hugo freaking Dyson—would punch you in your mouth for what you’re doing here. Stop it”. He was shocked. The best part was when one of his companions turned to him and muttered, “You know he’s right, Tom”.
21. The Ride Of His Life
black bmw m 3 coupe on gray pavementPhoto by Devon Janse van Rensburg on UnsplashOne afternoon my friends and I were driving on a quiet road in my little Mini Cooper. Suddenly there were a bunch of jerk kids throwing stuff into the road. I swerved to avoid a stone and they started jeering at us and shouting “wankers”. I carried on driving until my friend said, “Let’s go back and scare the poop out of them”.
I slammed on the brakes and put the car in reverse. I was intending to just quickly back up next to them and throw some rubbish from my car at them. Unfortunately, because I suck at driving I reversed too fast, and when I braked again I must have moved the steering wheel involuntarily because I somehow performed an epic and pretty much exact 180-degree spin.
I made the tires screech and everything. The best part was that my move was so (unintentionally) perfectly timed that the car ended up stopping right next to them. They immediately did poop their pants and started to book it out of there—all the while ignorant of the fact that I had no intention of looking so awesome.
22. Fifth Time’s The Charm?
I hit a guy over the head with a half-full tub of butter popcorn while screaming, “YOU FREAKING SUCK”! In my defense, I did it after the FIFTH time he answered his phone during Avatar. Does this count?
23. 10/10 Clapback
I was at a Dollar Tree when this woman was harassing the cashier. The cashier kept telling the customer that she needed a receipt if she wanted a cash refund otherwise the cashier was only able to offer store credit. I mean, this poor cashier was doing everything in her power to remain polite as this woman was swearing at her.
I started to clap. The rude customer turned around and said, “What do you want, idiot”? I told her she was putting on a beautiful performance and that she needed to shut up and stop being so rude to the cashier or get out of the store. She started to say something nasty to me, but I held up my hand and said “Conversation over”.
She was mad. She released an avalanche of swear words at me and proceeded to stomp out. After she left, all of the employees and customers applauded and the cashier thanked me. I told her that no one deserves to be treated like that and then I went next door to the food store and bought cake for all of the cashiers.
24. Simple, Yet Effective
green bottle on white tablePhoto by Joan Tran on UnsplashIn English class last year, a girl spilled her water bottle. The girl next to her started to slow clap and said, “Well done”! I pushed my chair away from the table, stood up, and said, “Don’t clap. Help her”! I walked out to get some paper towels and helped clean up. Sure enough, the mean girl was silent for the next week.
25. A Very Sneaky Sando
One of the special needs kids at our school, Robbie, was very friendly and talkative. The other boys used to make fun of him and would get him to do things to embarrass himself or injure himself (it was nothing too serious, but still). One of their favorite things was to take away his lunch on Fridays. That was the day his mother let him have a Nutella sandwich.
On one particular Friday, I convinced my mom to let me have a Nutella sandwich instead of something healthier. I went to the park at recess, found some dog poop, and loaded it into the sandwich. At lunchtime, I told Robbie to hold my sandwich and sit still as we waited for the guys to come looking for him—and they did, right on schedule.
Matt, who was the second biggest in class and also the meanest, ran by and snatched Robbie’s sandwich, stuffing it in his mouth as he ran. I watched, totally mesmerized. He got about halfway through it before he knew something was very, very wrong. He started sputtering, gagging, and trying to throw up.
During the throwing-up stage, Robbie was laughing and chanting at the top of his lungs, “YOU ATE DOG POOP! YOU ATE DOG POOP! YOU DIRTY POOP EATER”! I didn’t even know that he’d figured it out! Everyone was falling on the floor laughing. Eventually, Matt recovered and immediately went for Robbie, which was something I hadn’t thought about…
Anton, Matt’s sidekick and the biggest guy in class by a wide margin, stepped in and told Matt to back off. To everyone’s shock, Matt quietly backed down and lost a LOT of his cred with the guys. His desperate attempts to get it back made the other guys realize that he was, in fact, not a god, and they started to stand up to him a lot more.
26. Above And Way Beyond The Call
I was working in the tool department at Sears and a guy came in with a defective Walmart-brand wrench wanting us to replace it with a Sears-brand like it was a normal thing to do. He was talking to a cashier who denied his ridiculous request. When he started yelling at her, I decided it was time to step into the situation.
I Googled the name on the wrench and offered to call the company, which, remember had nothing to do with Sears, and he accepted impatiently. I spoke to a representative who offered to overnight a new wrench straight to his door. When he heard this, he flipped out. I guess his gorilla tantrum put me into some mental zone of trying to protect the girl…
I stood there and calmly told him it was the best I could do, and that if he won’t accept the company’s offer, there is nothing else I can do. I completely zoned him out as he went so far as to threaten my life. My replies were just all very calm as I stood between him and the girl who at this point ran away and called a manager.
Anyway, loss prevention showed up and the guy almost started a brawl. He was finally kicked out of the store and banned. For the entire day, everyone was talking about how even though the guy wanted to kill me, I stood up to him as I did. It was pretty cool that they were so amazed and the cashier girl and I were friends until I quit.
27. Boom! Roasted
state of the art building interior with lit Christmas treePhoto by Ron Dauphin on UnsplashI was at the store with my mom and some kids were running around causing problems. It was Christmas, so my mom said, “You guys better be good or Santa won’t bring you anything”! The kids’ mother stormed over and yelled at my mother that what she did with her kids wasn’t any of our business. My mom coyly replied, “Oh, my mistake! From the way they were acting, I thought they were orphans”.
28. Desperate Times…
I was always big for my age, so when I was in elementary school, my parents told me never to fight and to always just ask a teacher or an adult for help because the larger kid is more likely to get into trouble, even if he was just defending himself. This meant I was usually the target of mean kids, partially due to my size and partially because I didn’t fight back. It made me feel horrible, but I'd eventually have my shining moment.
One day, the teacher told my parents she couldn’t stop the mean kids because nothing happened in front of her. My mom sat me down, sighed, and said, “It’s OK to defend yourself”. The next day, the mean kids came around, not knowing that things had changed. As soon as one threw a punch, I knocked two out, threw a third onto a fence, and sat on the fourth until he cried. I did not get in trouble.
29. Speaking Truth To Power
For a variety of reasons that are irrelevant to this story, I started going to a Catholic high school in the tenth grade, but I am not Catholic. So, one day we were in theology class and the priest/teacher was talking about the evils of gayness and how you shouldn’t allow your son to have their lover in your house because blah, blah, blah.
I raised my hand and asked him why he would encourage the class to treat their potential future children with contempt for any reason whatsoever. So he started asking me a bunch of questions along the lines of, “Oh, so you would want to see them kiss”? I told him that I would want to see my children happy and that following his advice would surely lead them down the opposite path.
I should mention that I didn’t exactly say it respectfully, so he sent me to the principal who then started asking me the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS. I told him I was leaving and he told me that was technically against the law without permission. I told him he should probably call the authorities because he and his administration weren’t going to be able to stop me.
I got home and my dad was outraged that I skipped school at least he was until I told him everything that had happened. He was proud of me. After all, his brother is gay.
30. Stroke Of Genius
woman wearing black shirtPhoto by Jonnelle Yankovich on UnsplashWhen I was in high school, I was the biggest person, no joke, at 198 cm (6'6") and 159 kg (350 lbs). My parents have raised me to be an open-minded person, so whenever I would see people pick on a good friend of mine who just so happened to be gay, my go-to response was to make the persecutor as physically uncomfortable as possible.
First I would start lovingly stroking them and do all other sorts of affectionate gestures. Then when they called me derogatory names, I would explain that I was indeed straight, just comfortable enough with myself that I didn’t get freaked out by my campy actions. It didn’t take long to teach these intolerant jerks a lesson.
31. Crotch Fruit Gone Wild
I was in a coffee shop and this woman was letting her five-year-old kid run amok in the store. He was knocking things over, breaking stuff, and annoying people. The last straw was when he kicked the granny in line behind me. The kid’s mom saw it and just grinned, so I realized it was time for me to do something…
“Excuse me, ma’am”, I said loud enough for all to hear. “It’s blatantly obvious that your nanny has the day off, so would you mind if I showed your kid what a firm smack feels like so that you can continue to not act like a parent”? The woman stormed out and the granny gently touched my arm and said, “I thought there was no hope for your generation, but I guess I was wrong”.
32. Cool In The Face Of Danger
I tried to strike up a conversation with some guy in line for drinks at a rough bar in a small Canadian town. But instead of talking back to me like a normal person, he punched me in the face. I was pretty loaded and said (in sincerity, I was pretty surprised and it must have been a bad punch), “Did you just punch me in the face?”
He replied with another lame punch to my face. To which I said, “You did punch me in the face! You suck”! I then turned around, went and got my drink, and had him tossed out. I’d always fantasized about being some kind of surprise brawler in such a situation, but I learned that I’m much less reactive than I could even imagine.
33. Panic On The Dance Floor
a group of people standing around motorcycles under a signPhoto by Alexander Bennington on UnsplashRecently, some friends and I were in a redneck biker bar in a medium-sized town. The place was full and I was one of two Pakistani/Indian people in the whole place—there were maybe five or six other non-white people floating around if that many. Anyway, I got separated from my group and started looking for them on the dance floor.
Some guy grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Shouldn’t you be driving a cab or something”? I walked up to him, gave him a huge hug, and said, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I found you. Your mother probably never told you, but I’m your father. That’s right. I was screwing your mom for a while”.
I then turned around and walked away. He was too stunned to respond.
34. Heckling The Heckler
This happened when I was a week from graduating from a liberal arts hippie community known as Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. A graduate from the 1970s came and read his memoir. It was ill-received by the lecture hall of students and the author was even harassed by a student who questioned his scathing portrayal of the college in his day.
This person seriously tried to make the author feel guilty about his personal experience. In her last heckle, she admitted that she hadn’t even read his book, only a portion of a review. The next time she spoke, I interrupted her and said, “You didn’t even read the book”. It was met with glorious applause, and I even got a smile from the guest.
Permalink
35. You Got Told
My four-year-old stepson and I were on the bus headed to the local pool. There was a loud group of college-aged boys, who were swearing profusely. My stepson, the brave little soul he is, decided to set them straight. “THAT’S A BAD WORD! DON’T SAY THAT OR MOM WILL WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP”! Needless to say, the group was pretty shocked to be called out by a preschooler.
After that, they kinda looked at me, but I just gave them an eyebrow and tried not to laugh.
36. A Nose For Trouble
man in green polo shirtPhoto by Rajesh Rajput on UnsplashI was constantly made fun of throughout grade school. I lived in this in a small rural college town, where I was the only Indian kid in the whole middle school. In gym class, there was this idiot farm boy who would always sit behind me and make fun of me during attendance. Normally I would tolerate it, but one day he went too far…
On the day in question, he called me the most offensive name he could—Osama Bin Laden, the man behind 9/11. I snapped. I charged at him and kicked him right in the nose, while he was sitting there. His nose shattered and I was held back before he could even react. I received a day of in-school suspension and he received a whole week, plus he was charged with a hate offense. Needless to say, he never bothered me again.
37. Tough Guy
A friend of mine is a gay man. Once at a gas station in small-town Iowa, an employee called him a derogatory name as he was leaving. My friend stopped, turned around, picked up the guy by the collar, and lisped, “Sometimes we bash back”. He then threw the guy into one of the large candy displays. Everyone, including myself, was in total shock.
38. Worst Excuse Ever
I was on the last week of my month-long Tokyo trip when I happened to be outside Shibuya station, having a smoke on those circular benches they have there. This is one of the best places in the world to people-watch as almost all of Tokyo makes it their meeting spot when going out with friends. Anyway, I was sitting there when I noticed this mid-thirties European guy.
He was playing pickup artist to any girl sitting by herself and getting rejected every time. At first, I could only chuckle to myself at how bad his game was. Suddenly this guy planted himself down next to two middle-school-aged girls who had been sitting beside me on the same circular bench. He started talking them up in a bad combo of English and Japanese.
I noticed that the girls were looking rather uncomfortable but were still attempting to be polite. By this point I was getting disgusted, so I leaned over, gave him a serious stare, and said, “You realize they’re only in middle school right”? I should note that I am Asian-American but he probably thought I was just another Japanese bystander.
I could tell he was pretty taken aback but he muttered defensively, “I just like girls”. I rolled my eyes at his lame excuse and the two girls took this opportunity to escape. I took another drag of my smoke, shook my head, and watched the creep quickly walk away from the area.
39. My, How The Tables Have Turned
two person standing on train windowPhoto by Fredrik Öhlander on UnsplashOne of my friends had to ride in a train compartment for four hours with a mother, her kid, and another woman. The kid was about five and was running around everywhere screaming, jumping on seats, and annoying everyone. At some point, he purposely blew saliva on the woman.
The disgusted woman wiped it off and asked the mother to deal with her kid. The mother said, “You know, I think that the best education is through discovery, that’s why I don’t want to put up barriers for him”. As the train entered the station, my friend stood up, spat on the mother, and said, “You know what? My mother thinks just like you”.
40. Malicious Compliance For Sure
In high school, I used to wear a shirt with George Bush’s face on it and the words “international monster”. One of my teachers was an American (I’m Canadian) AND she was a Republican. Anyway, she told me to take off my shirt, thinking she had the upper hand. But she was in for quite the surprise—I knew she meant that I should put on another shirt, but I just took off my shirt and sat there in the middle of class glaring at her.
The whole class started laughing deliriously. To make a long story short, she had me suspended for that. I decided to write a 12-page letter to the school board threatening to sue every teacher, faculty member, and all of the administration in Quebec for violating my right to free speech. They let me come back to school two days later.
41. Like A Ton Of Bricks
When I was in second grade, one of the girls in my class had a puppy love crush on me. One day during recess, one of the other boys started throwing dirt and pine needles at her. I decided to be the good guy and stand up to him. I told him to pick on someone his size. Corny, I know, but I was a big comic book fan at the time.
The guy picked up a big block of dirt and gave me a menacing look. I thought I would duck just as he threw the dirt and it would fly awesomely right over my head. It turns out the dirt was a brick covered in dirt. The jerk threw the brick and I tried to duck, but the brick hit me right in the face and knocked me back a few feet.
I stood up with blood rushing from my nose as the teacher finally rushed over and took me to the nurse. I still get nosebleeds easily because of that, and I never did get to date that girl. Although this story didn’t have a perfect ending, it helped me realize that even though life can suck for the good guys, someone needs to stand up to jerks.
42. Snappy Comeback
Free Images : person, black and white, woman, singer, artist ...pxhere.com
I was at a Cher concert with my partner and to the left of us were two other gay guys and to our right there was an older woman who was sitting apart from her friends. She was very nice and was enjoying the concert much more than we were. The two guys to our left kept getting up to get drinks and use the facilities every few minutes, which was pretty annoying.
Finally, one of them noticed that we were getting ticked off, and tried to buddy up to us. “Look at that woman down there”, he said. “I bet that’s not even her real hair”. To which my partner replied instantly, “I wish you wouldn’t talk about my Mom that way”. I’ve never seen so much backpedaling in my life. At least they started going the other way down the row.
43. Now There’s A Happy Ending
I was at a fancy business dinner party where everyone was in suits. One guy there was HUGE—tall and heavy—and completely smashed. He thought it would be a good idea to lift a good-looking woman from behind by wrapping his arms around her chest and swinging her back and forth. As he did this, the look on her face was sheer horror.
I am an average height and weighed about 68 kg (150 lbs) at the time. I walked up to him and said, “If you don’t put her down RIGHT NOW I am gonna kick your butt”. He put her down. I got laid.
44. Big Man Off Campus
I was home from college for the summer and saw two of the biggest idiots from my grade school days as I was walking into Chipotle. They saw me and one decided to call me a nasty name. That's when I had a genius moment of pure impulse. I turned and said in the most sunny tone you could imagine, “Hey guys! How’s college”? They were speechless. I won.
45. What Happens On The Plane To Vegas…
turned-on headrest monitorsPhoto by Ethan Hu on UnsplashWhen I was 21, I was on an airplane to Las Vegas. It was one of those old Southwest planes that had some rows of seats that faced backward. I grabbed one of the backward-facing seats. Sitting across from me there was a very attractive 20-ish woman in the window seat and some random 40-year-old guy in the aisle seat.
Now, I’m not averse to talking to people, so when the 40- year-old started chatting with me about whatever, I didn’t mind. Out of nowhere, he nodded toward the young woman and said in that stupid guy way, “Well.. at least you have something pretty to look at during the flight”. She was annoyed. I feigned confusion and said, “Um, yes, your daughter is lovely”.
He was so flummoxed that he didn’t say another word for the rest of the flight.
46. It’s Called Fashion, Sweetie
Once upon a time in high school, the class jerk came up to me and, in front of a group of people, said, “I thought only girls cuffed their jeans”. I quickly answered, “I thought only girls cared about what other people wear”. It was a triumphant moment when everyone laughed at him. Best of all, he never bugged me again.
47. Lost In Translation
When I was 10, I was taking my four-year-old brother to the grocer a block from our house to buy some candy. On the way back from the store, a little kid ran up and took my brother’s candy. My brother was fast enough to hang on to him and get his candy back—almost. Both kids were about the same age and build so their struggle turned into a tug-of-war.
Just then the kid’s mother stepped in and her reaction was totally unexpected—she started YANKING on my brother’s arm. I tried to tell her in broken Korean to let my brother go, but all she saw was that my brother won’t let go of her poor, now screaming son. I’m frantic because I can’t get her to understand that her kid started it all and my brother was only trying to keep his candy.
By now, she was about to yank my brother’s arm right out of the socket. That’s when I karate-chopped the lady. Hard. I hit her forearm with everything I had and it worked! She dropped my brother’s arm and then came for me. I snatched my brother and ran home with the RAGE of the Korean nation behind me. Little did I know, my dad had been looking out of the apartment window because of the commotion.
As I was breathlessly telling my dad what happened, the angry mother came running down the hall, babies in tow. She screamed at my dad and the whole time. My dad was nodding politely, smiling apologetically, and then he dropped the mic: “Get away from my kids. You lay your hands on either one of them again and I’ll call the authorities. Now go on your merry way and I’ll tend to my poor children”.
The Korean lady gave my dad a little bow, shot me and my brother a glare that said, “OH, YOU’RE IN FOR IT NOW”, and walked off, completely placated. Man, I’m glad she didn’t understand English! My dad’s been my hero ever since.
48. Guardian Angels
traffic light in redPhoto by Erwan Hesry on UnsplashMy good friend and I were waiting at a red light and across the intersection, there was a young couple in their 20s. The guy was screaming at the girl so loudly that we could hear it over the traffic, and his posture looked like he was about to hit her. As we passed them, I screamed out the window “Don’t talk to her that way”! That's all I was going to do—but then my friend took it even further.
My friend yelled, “Leave her alone, you piece of trash”! We didn’t plan to yell, it’s just that we both were extremely angry about it. As I continued up the street, he threw his bike and backpack down and started running after us, screaming that he would destroy us and her too. As soon as he started running after us, I dialed the authorities. He was eventually apprehended.
49. A Living Legend
During my junior year of high school, I was riding the bus because I couldn’t afford a car at the time. A pair of annoying sophomore guys were tormenting a freshman girl for being overweight. She just had natural curves and was by no means unattractive. Nevertheless, these two were bashing her for not conforming to a drastically distorted view of beauty.
I was glad to see that the girl, to her credit, was throwing some insults right back at them. Now, I don’t mind watching a good insult fight—that’s how I sharpened my wit back in those days. However, it was when one of the aggressors tried to grab her chest that something inside of me snapped. I jumped into action…
The guys were near the front of the bus, and I was in the second to last seat. I stormed the length of the bus and grabbed the bigger guy by the back of his head. I then slammed him against the window on the opposite side of the bus and stuck my forearm across his neck. He was flailing and trying to get away, but I just unleashed on him…
“YOU LITTLE ROTTEN SACK OF TRASH”, I roared. “YOU’D BEST FEEL PRIVILEGED THAT I DIDN’T THROW YOU OUT THE WINDOW FOR WHAT YOU JUST PULLED. IF YOU OR YOUR DESPICABLE LITTLE BUDDY LAY YOUR HANDS ON HER AGAIN, YOU WILL BECOME INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH THE TASTE OF BLOOD AND TEETH FRAGMENTS”.
Now the other guy, suddenly feeling brave, decided to try and lay into me. I’m not a big guy, but they weren’t exactly fully developed either. He definitely messed with the wrong one—the kid punched me in the back of the head and started telling me to leave his friend alone. I promptly wrapped my right arm around the kid’s head, spun around, lifted him WWE-suplex style, and slammed him onto the floor.
I then took the girl’s hand, and led her back to my seat, stepping over the still-facedown brat as I went. She rode with me for the rest of the year and the two little jerks were put in the front seat so the driver could keep an eye on them. I should also mention that after the incident, my words became law on that bus.
Bonus: It’s been about two years since the end of that particular school year, and out of the blue I got an email from the girl, saying how much she appreciated what I did, and how after that happened, she had the biggest crush on me. So now, when I get home from college, I have a girlfriend waiting for me because I did what someone should have done a long time ago.
50. And The Oscar Goes To…
I was waiting for my train to arrive when a girl about my age walked past, followed closely by an older man who was annoying her. She was trying to get rid of him by saying things like, “I’ve asked you to leave me alone” and “Please just go away”. The guy was wobbly and looked a little smashed on something.
I turned to the girl, lit my face up, and exclaimed, “There you are! Hey, who’s this”? I turned to the pest and said, “Do you know my friend”? He looked at me a little apprehensively. At this point, the girl had picked up on what I was trying to do and began to play along. She acted like I was an old friend and we started to “catch up” with each other.
After a few minutes, the pest got the message and left. I smiled at her and asked if she was OK. She replied, “Yes, thanks. My boyfriend will be here in a minute”. At this point, she moved to board the train, which had just pulled up to the platform. I have a girlfriend. I wasn’t hitting on her. She couldn’t have spared my feelings and come up with a less ridiculous lie?