I once went to a museum with my sister and her friend, who I hadn’t met before. We got to the Greek art bit and her friend started telling me how she was super into Greek mythology. I thought that was cool because, unbeknownst to her, I was doing a Master’s in it at the time and also keeping a blog of myth retellings.

My blog was pretty popular, and it was a relief to have something in common with this stranger. She then got weirdly haughty and told me she probably knew more myths than I did. Being polite, I didn’t want to directly challenge her on it, so I just asked her to tell me her favorite so that we could have a conversation about it.

She proceeded to tell me the myth of Daedalus and the Minotaur. I asked her how she’d heard of that one because it’s fairly obscure. Her response made my eyes widen. She told me she’d read it on a viral blog post on a blog about mythology. Turns out that it was my blog. – Reddit

While I was in high school, I was the reigning city fencing champion in both the youth and adult tournaments. My high school decided to do a school-wide fencing unit for Phys. Ed. and the coach they brought in to teach all of the students was my actual coach. During my classes, my coach naturally brought me up to help demonstrate the various moves.

However, for some reason one of my classmates didn’t understand that I wasn’t chosen at random. He started talking about how I looked like I didn’t know what I was doing, and how he could probably completely cream me in a duel. Now, he actually was pretty good for a guy who’d never fenced before, and at the first opportunity, he decided to have a go at me. It was about to go down.

I picked him apart, not giving up a single touch, and used the opportunity to practice my parry and ripostes. I admit I took a bit of sadistic pleasure in thoroughly beating him. Afterward, my coach made a point of congratulating the other guy for doing so well against the city champ, which changed his attitude considerably. – Reddit

I’m a very unassuming-looking guy. 5’8″, 150 pounds, and not a tattoo to be found. But back in the day, I was pretty athletic and I could hang in games with fringe D1 or semi-pro guys. I can’t emphasize how much I didn’t look like it at all. Anyway, in college, while hanging out in someone’s room, it came up that I played basketball a bit.

Out of nowhere, some dude I didn’t know started running his mouth about how he could destroy me. He just wouldn’t stop talking. I gave him every out until it basically became personally offensive. The other guys were a bit tired of this guy hanging around and they knew I could play, so we all trooped over to the gym, late in the winter, so we could settle things.

Here’s a spoiler alert: I ended up winning 11-0. I’m not sure if we played after that, but I remember it was 11-0 because I made sure to not let the guy score. And I’m a pretty mellow guy—I would have laid off and let him score a couple when it was clear that I was better, but this guy was a real jerk, so I just clamped down on him start to finish. I blocked a ton of his shots.

He stopped hanging around nearly as much after that, so I was kind of a hero to the rest of the guys. I totally drove that snake out of our nation. – Reddit

While I’d never claim I was an expert, I used to be pretty good at pool. My aunt and uncle had a pool table in their basement and my parents, for a variety of reasons, would go over regularly and spend all day there. There was nothing else for me and my brother to do, so we just played pool all day for years. Eventually, we got bored and saw that they had a book on trick shots, so we started doing that for fun.

I never really mastered the tricks, but they made for really good practice in understanding how to get the ball to do what you wanted. So anyway, for my buddy’s 20th birthday, he wanted to go to a pool hall and he invited a ton of people. Then he told me it was going to be a tournament, with drinks for individual games and a 50/50 type of deal for the winner.

He would get half regardless because it was his birthday, and he insisted I attend. We got there, started the first game, and they broke, That would end up being the only shot they got. At the end of it, I just looked at him and said, “I told you not to invite me…” I found out afterward that a bunch of them had never even played pool before and I felt pretty bad, so I took the money and bought everyone drinks with it. – Reddit

I was 19 shopping with a friend. She was (still is) a smaller person than myself. She was trying on a shirt and needed a size up so i took it back out to find a bigger size. I couldn’t locate it so I ask a sales girl if she could help me find a bigger size. She takes the shirt in a gruff way. I ignore it. She comes back with a hat and hands it to me. I say, “Um what’s this?”

She said, “This is the only thing in this store that will fit you”, contempt dripping from her lips. I’m like, oh I see. I go to the dressing room, tell my friend we need to leave now. She gets dressed. Tries to clean her mess I tell her leave it. We walk out, I go to the register with the hat, it’s busy. My friend asks what’s up with the hat. I say loudly, ”

According to that girl this is the only thing in the store that fits me.” My friend, shocked, lost her mind. Because her parents owned the store. That’s how I got a girl fired because I was feeling petty. Saw that girl later that week where I worked. I smiled and showed her what customer service should be. – Reddit

When I worked at McDonald’s, I found out we didn’t get paid for closing. We got paid until the store closed, so if it took us an extra hour or two to close, that was unpaid. I wish I knew what I know now, because that is an open and shut case, but at the time, I was young and dumb. My first paycheck, I noticed I had a ton of missing hours.

So, when I asked my boss about it, she told me we only get paid until the store closed. So that night, I walked out when the store closed. They tried to guilt me into staying, because “the other team members need me.” Screw that. I don’t work for free, sorry. Especially when I’m already making minimum wage. – Reddit

I was 18 years old and working at a movie theater concession stand on an extra busy day. My coworkers made themselves busy doing things that didn’t need to be done (like checking toilet paper or organizing candy) instead of helping me with a long line of customers that wrapped itself around the entire stand. One lady got extremely nasty with me because I didn’t butter the middle of her popcorn the way she had wanted me to. She was literally screaming at me for it.

I looked around and saw one of my coworkers just watching me and laughing as they pretended to clean the ticket booth window. That was the final straw. I logged out of the computer system, closed the cash register, walked out of the concession stand, slammed the door behind me, told the customer she was a jerk who didn’t need more butter, told my coworker to go screw himself, and walked right out of the theater—leaving the long and very confused line of customers completely unattended.

I never went back despite the fact that they were apparently willing to forgive me because this “wasn’t my usual behavior.” – Reddit

A neighbor on my block in Brooklyn challenged me to a pizza bake-off. I recently catered pizza for my daughter’s school and word got around the neighborhood my pizza was pretty darn good. My first thought was, “This guy is a Brooklyn native; my pizza will be terrible compared to his!” But there was something about him bragging that made challenging him irresistible.

He talked about how pizza was in his blood, and how his dad ran the pizza place around the corner years ago. I remained silent and let my skills answer for themselves. I got a buddy to let us use one of Baker’s Pride ovens at his restaurant. We even had total strangers try our pizzas. Every last person chose my pizza over his.

I never mentioned to him that I’d worked in pizza places almost every day for the last thirty years. I never mentioned that when I’m not working at a pizza place, I’m making pizzas at home at least once every two days. I never mentioned that at nine years old, I knew that I wanted to be a pizza man. Here I am at 45, getting ready to start my own pizza business. – Reddit

My brother and his best friend were in Baltimore for a baseball weekend in 2009. They were hanging out at a bar across from Camden Yards and there was a Silver Strike bowling video game at the venue. In our local bar back in Boston, we had one as well. I’m decent at the game but my brother and his buddy were really amazing at this game. They were bowling 300 games and whatnot.

So these two random dudes were playing the game while drinking. We asked them if we could play once they were done, and they asked us if we wanted to play against them instead. We said sure and the rest was history. My brother and his buddy absolutely destroyed them. Like, it wasn’t even close. The dudes said it was a fluke and they wanted a rematch, but this time for a round of drinks. Again, annihilation city.

Even after that, they kept wanting to play, hoping to eventually win a game. After thirteen whole rounds, they finally gave up. They were great guys. We saw them the next day at the same bar and they walked up to us with drinks in hand, asking for yet another rematch. To this day we still hang out with them whenever we go to Baltimore. And to this day, they have never won. – Reddit

I dated a guy in college who was incredibly book smart. He was working on his master’s with the intention to pursue a Ph.D. I was doing the good old five-year plan for college and I was quite content with my level of brainpower compared to his. What he underestimated was my fondness for word games, especially Scrabble. I like to think I’m quite good.

Well, in the three years we dated, we only played Scrabble once, and I beat the Scrabble tiles out of him. But the icing on the cake was the epic way in which I had secured my victory—I got a 50+ word score for playing just one letter. He literally wiped all the letters off the board and had a small hissy fit, claiming that I cheated. I got out my trusty Scrabble dictionary and proved his loss. – Reddit

Stated dating a girl a few months back and her ex was being just a huge jerk to her, threatening to fight me if he saw me, trying to start rumors, etc…Went out for drinks with the girlfriend and, of course, he shows up. Starts to get in my face at the bar and gets kicked out. Rushes the door guy to get back in and is carried out and banned from that bar for life.

Then I had another genius thought…what if I could do this at the bar next door..? (It’s a smallish town. There are really only two bars worth going to for nightlife, and they’re right next door to each other). So, we go next door. He’s waiting outside for me but there’s the usual “don’t do it bro!” friends around him so I make it next door without having to fight. Of course, he comes in, starts his act and actually tries to fight me this time.

He gets pulled off by a few people and is also kicked out of that bar for at least a while. Fight with your brain, not your fists. – Reddit

My sister got T-boned by a car, causing a concussion, when I was younger. Long story short, we were in court with the judge, who asked the driver if he had ever sped before. “No, your honor, I never speed” was his reply. The judge asked him a couple more times if he was sure, if he never sped. Ever? The driver was adamant that he never sped and never had before.

A few minutes later, my sister’s lawyer gave the judge some paperwork. She read it, and said to the driver, “It seems that you have some past driving violations. Can you tell me what they are for?” He looked down, “………… speeding.” The driver had to pay medical bills for my sister. – Reddit

I was working as a general manager at a struggling restaurant—struggling despite excellent business, because the owners would do stupid things like take trips to Italy on the company dime to source the “perfect” panini press. They also wouldn’t staff properly; I was the only waiter ever there, open to close, six days a week, on top of handling phone orders, inventory, and other managerial duties. I was wildly overworked, but I sucked it up because the base pay was good, plus tips.

However, to fund their lavish “business” trips, costs had to be cut at the store. They decided to do this by bumping me down to minimum wage for tipped employees—effectively cutting my salary to 1/10 of its previous level. They were also too chicken to tell me until I got my new teeny paycheck and questioned the mistake. “Oh yeah haha, forgot to mention that blah blah cost-cutting blah valued team member please work with us through this difficult time.”

I had worked for two weeks at this new lower rate without my knowledge. Pretty sure that’s illegal, but hey, a lot of illegal things go on in the restaurant industry. That’s not when I rage quit, though….a couple of hours later, I’m fuming and have decided that I can’t work for the lower rate, so now I’m just waiting for the perfect chance to give my notice.

They called in a delivery guy who was fired a few weeks before, and they talk about hiring him to start doing our Facebook posts and handing out flyers around town. Whatever. Then I hear them offer him close to my old salary as “Promotions Manager”! What??? I was basically running the place for $2.13/hr and you’re offering this dude almost $20/hr to walk up and down the street saying “Eat at (Name)”?

And yet, it gets worse. They bring up our negative Yelp reviews and this guy suggests asking friends to post positive ones. The boss starts laughing and says “Better not ask our waitress to post one, it’ll be all boohoo don’t eat there, I can’t pay my rent this month because they cut my pay without telling wahhhh!” I don’t think I was supposed to hear that, but I was five feet away, so of course I did.

I RAGED! I quit on the spot, told them to screw their job, and wished them good luck keeping the place open without me. They quickly realized I was right, as neither of them knew how to do more than pick up the takings once a week. They begged me not to quit. They were so desperate that they sat there for half an hour and allowed me to bluntly tell them exactly what kind of huge idiots I thought they were in excruciating detail.

I went on and on as my rage burned, and they just quietly listened, nodding and apologizing. Once I had cursed myself back into calmness, I walked out, 30 minutes before the dinner rush began, leaving them with an unstaffed floor and no clue how to even open the cash register. God, they were morons. I loved that they actually listened to me telling them exactly how stupid they were. No repercussions on my side, as the restaurant industry isn’t known for checking references.

The place closed down about 18 months later, and I was surprised it even made it that long. – Reddit

I’m a lawyer. Opposing counsel decided that I had coached my witness, gave him lines to repeat, and that he was lying. Short version is that he asked the witness if he spoke to me before he testified. Witness said he had. Attorney looked like he thought he had me. Attorney asked the witness what I told him, what instructions I gave him.

Witness looked him dead in the eye and said, “First thing he told me was to tell the truth no matter what. He said the lawyer is never the one who goes to jail, that he isn’t going to jail for me, and if I lie, I’m on my own.” Attorney looked like someone took the air out of him. Everyone in the courtroom simultaneously looked at me.

Only time I’ve smirked or laughed in court. I wanted to put my feet up on the table like I was Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, hands behind my head, and say, “I’m done with this guy.” – Reddit

I was visiting Kyoto a couple of years ago. My wife and I walked into a tiny bar that had five people in suits laughing and talking in Japanese. We instantly knew that this was not a tourist bar and felt pretty out of place. The bartender spoke the most English, so I asked him what his favorite Shochu was. Things got a little more comfortable as we drank and eventually, the whole bar tried to talk to us.

Someone mentioned Mario Kart and I said, “Yeah, yeah,” so the bartender pointed to an old Super Famicom in the corner, and apparently, I had accepted the challenge. I smiled to myself and my wife thought it was funny because I used to have some skill at the game. I had no idea what to expect, but when the bartender selected Battle Mode…I was floored.

I hadn’t played in a few years, and he buried me in less than a minute. The whole bar was laughing and I was a little stunned. But then got to the second and third rounds. I destroy him. Three balloons to zero. Everyone cheered except for the bartender. Two shots were put in front of me, and I threw one down. Round 3. We were down to one balloon each and I swear it was the longest battle round of all time.

I was sweating. Shell, dodge, shell, dodge. I had him in my sights and I fired. It missed. The shell bounced off the wall and I self-KO’d. The crowd went wild. So that’s the story of how a self-proclaimed Mario Kart expert embarrassed himself and his country in a small bar in Kyoto. We drank a lot and made a lot of great friends that night that we’ll never see again. – Reddit

For reference, this is clay pigeon shooting, known as ‘trap’ in the south. Well, I’m from a rural area and not exactly super “southern,” so when I’d go to other trap fields to practice in different conditions, there’s always a person or two who place bets with me. This is definitely an old money sport with some of the bets going upwards of 5,000 dollars.

I had an old BT-100 that I got in a trade for a lead shot and some cash on the side. While the shot was not cheap, it was still much lower than other people’s shots and some folks would take that and assume I was a newbie. But they’d end up learning their lesson pretty quickly—the team I was on went to the Nationals almost every year from 2011 to 2018.

It was always funny because some would be good sports, but others would throw an absolute fit. One time, I saw one guy damage a 10,000 Perazzi because someone else had beat him. There was a guy from the county next to us who could blow us out of the water, and he always shot with an 870 pump…from Walmart. – Reddit

In college, my buddies and I always got the new fighting game whenever it came out, and we would put in a few hundred hours or so on it, just goofing around with the various modes before dropping it. During that time, we’d have fight nights a couple of times a week where we’d all get together at someone’s place and duke it out.

It’s not like I never won, but I was always just middle of the pack. After two years of this, no one would ever consider me to be some sort of fighting game wizard…until one fateful day when my luck changed for the better. For the first time ever, the group decided to pick up a 3D fighter instead of a 2D one: Soul Calibur 3 I think. Unknown to anyone in our playgroup, I had previously been obsessed with Soul Calibur 3, playing for 10 hours a day.

I had done this every day, for three to four years, playing against five other people who were doing the same and were just as good as me. It honestly wasn’t even that fun. After the first half-hour, they were playing with 200% health while I was playing with 50%, picking random character select, and I still hadn’t passed the controller once. After that, it was agreed that we would all play only 2D fighters from then on. – Reddit

I just graduated from teacher’s college and I’ve been working as a casual relief in the meantime. I play lacrosse is generally a small sport and even smaller here in Australia. I tried out for the last World Cup team and made it to the final cut. I was working with another teacher who was also stationed at the school. Before the period he spoke to me and said, “Hey mate, we are doing lacrosse today.”

He continued, “It’s a bit of an odd sport that’s hard to teach, so just wait over there and then you can just help with supervision,” and walked off. Being a CRT from an agency, I wasn’t sure how I should speak to him. I tried to tell him that I used to play competitively but he didn’t give me a second, so I just listened and did my thing.

After a few minutes, I had enough. I just grabbed a stick and ball and started to work my way around the class, giving them pointers and hints. The way he was teaching was completely incorrect and I didn’t want to say anything, so when the kids broke off into groups, I kind of just taught them the correct way. He pulled me over at a drinks break and asked how I knew so much about lacrosse.

I told him about my playing history and his jaw dropped. He asked why I didn’t speak up and say anything and I said I tried to tell him. Anyway, I ended up running the rest of the class and even ended up teaching him and the correct way to teach the game. – Reddit

I was hanging out with a girl who I was seeing at the time, and they had a ping pong table near the bar. Two guys were playing, and they were making a big show about how good they thought they were. They were showing off with grunting, rolled sleeves, the works. When I handed them back a wayward shot, I made a comment about how it looked fun to play.

They said that I could get the next game after one guy who was waiting, but their “rule” was any challenger they added in the queue to play would have to buy drinks for everyone else if that challenger lost. Little did they know what they were getting themselves into. I played competitive ping pong in a league back in med school and had placed highly in some New York City championships.

I still play every so often in my current city and I have won a few tournaments here as well. I ended up destroying the two guys. I didn’t have to pay for a drink or give up my spot until my date was ready to go. No one even made it out of the single digits. – Reddit

During an insanely busy weekend before Christmas, a Karen was complaining to every associate about how messy our store was. The manager had relieved the girl at the fitting room and was helping to hang up the clothes. Karen pulled her stunt and was trying to make a point that we were messy and a horrible place to shop.

The manager’s response was legendary. She told her, “Ma’am, we’re messy at the moment because we’re a popular store. And the biggest reason is because of women like you who can’t be bothered to pick up after themselves. It’s not the associates making the mess. Your type has us outnumbered.” That’s when I witnessed someone deflate. – Reddit

I was a competitive swimmer for 14 years, including four years of NCAA, but I’m on the shorter side, so people don’t assume I was any good. I was at a friend’s house on a lake one summer, and a macho guy challenged me to race to a buoy in the middle of the lake, to prove… something, I guess. The lake is deceptively large, about a half-mile across, so I warned him that if he wasn’t a strong swimmer, it could be dangerous.

He was running out of gas after about two minutes, so I offered to let him off the hook. He still insisted he would finish. After I went to the buoy and started swimming back, I looked over at him and just sighed. I found him floundering, so I lifeguard swam him back to the house. His ego took a deserved hit that day. Don’t get overconfident around water, even if you think you’re a strong swimmer. – Reddit

In primary school, I’d say grade three or four, we had a head-to-head times tables tournament. The teacher would ask a random multiplication question to a pair of students at a time, and the winner progressed. I wasn’t exactly an expert at times tables, but I was an expert at 6 x 8. For whatever reason, 6 x 8 just wouldn’t stick in my head when I was younger, so I had to spend additional time to bring the answer to the forefront of my mind.

I was decently prepared for any other multiplication problem, so while waiting my turn I was constantly repeating in my mind: “six times eight equals 48, six times eight equals 48, six times eight equals 48” over and over again. That strategy would end up working in my favor. Lo and behold, when it was finally my turn to be quizzed, the teacher casually selected 6 x 8.

Not an iota of time had elapsed from the teacher finishing her sentence when I yelled “48!” The astonishment spread as I became a human-computer in the eyes of my peers. Even the teacher was taken back. I went on to win the tournament, having already won in the minds of my would-be opponents. It was more than victory; it was complete annihilation. – Reddit

While in undergrad, I brought a new college buddy over to an old high school friend’s house to hang out. There were a couple of other friends there, just hanging around, drinking, and playing pool. My new buddy was a pretty low-key guy; a wallflower, if you will. When he first meets people, he can be pretty quiet and he tends to seem a little out of place.

But after he gets to know people, he opens up and is a blast to be around. My old buddies, for some reason, decided to hustle my new buddy in pool. I mean, super textbook shark moves. “Let’s play a friendly game, and if you think you’re any good at it, we can play for money,” etc. Well, I knew something that they all didn’t, and it would come to shock them—my new buddy played on the circuits for a while, winning pool tournaments across Texas.

He lived and breathed pool, and, of course, he saw these guys coming from a mile away. I just watched it all go down. I figured, if they are going to treat someone that I bring over in a snobby way, they deserve what they get. He roped ’em in as only he could. He missed some super easy shots to keep the game interesting and then pulled out the “lucky” win…

Soon after, they played for money. I can’t even remember how much per ball, but he played two or three games, slowly playing better or “lucking out” just enough to keep them engaged while still taking their money. Then, the last game happened, and I’d never seen someone come alive more quickly. He sank shot after shot after shot.

These were shots I couldn’t make if I practiced for a year straight. The entire time, he kept taunting them and updating how much money they owed them. I don’t think my old friend had a chance to take a shot at all. Afterward, they were all furious: “How could you bring this guy over here and let him hustle us like that??”

“How could you try to hustle a new friend of mine just minutes after I bring him over and introduce him to you?” I snarled back. “You earned this one, man.” It ended happily, though. They all became good friends and they are still in contact with each other two decades later. – Reddit

There was a story about an old geotechnical engineer who used to work for the company that I work for. Several senior staff had to attend a meeting with the client, and some government regulatory staff were being awkward and not approving the design. The geotech guy was pretty much quiet the whole meeting. Throughout the discussion, the government guy kept referencing this one research document and rejecting any other suggestions.

Near the end of the meeting, the geotech guy asked the government guy if he had the research paper with him. He said yes and placed it on the table. The geotech guy then pointed to the author of the paper while simultaneously sliding over a business card. That’s when he executed his “gotcha” moment. Turned out, it was the geotech guy’s own paper that the government guy had been referencing to defend his argument. The government guy went bright red and apparently approved the design the same day. – Reddit

A local mall had a portable climbing wall. “Make it to the top and win $100,” a sign read. The route was actually pretty challenging. As I walked by, the guy asked me if I’d like to try. He told me, “Nobody has made it to the top, so do you think you can do it, buddy?” At that time, I hadn’t disclosed my big secret—I was a top 12-ranked climber in my age group and I kind of laughed to myself.

After taking my $100, I then proceeded to call the rest of my climbing team, and one by one they went to the mall and claimed their $100. After the fourth person, they got suspicious and took the sign down. We later told him we were all nationally ranked competitive climbers, and he got a good laugh. The company that owned the rentals was the one who lost the money—he just worked the booth and wasn’t the one who lost the prize money. – Reddit

There is this old SNES game called Tetris Attack that I played religiously when I was growing up. I got pretty good at it. I’m actually still half-decent, but I only play every few months when I visit my family. Anyhow, I was kinda-sorta seeing this guy and I have NO idea how the topic came up, but he challenged me a game of Tetris Attack.

He was NOT ready for what was coming to him. I had sincere doubts that he had ever played before despite his posturing, and it turned out…I was right. I trounced him and he actually said, “How are you so good at this stupid game?” Practice, my dude. Years of practice. – Reddit

My wife and I were taking an evening cruise for adults in Portsmouth Bay. The ship drove around the shipyard, where my submarine and several others were stationed. My wife and I were having a quiet drink when a really loud know-it-all started spouting misinformation about each submarine. He was calling them all the wrong classes, the wrong names, etc.

He literally pointed to my submarine and said, “…and that is a 637 class.” My wife finally spoke up and said, “Actually, it’s a 688.” The guy got all gruff and scoffed: “Well how would you know?” My wife smiled and hugged my arm. She dropped the bombshell in the sweetest way ever: “That’s my husband’s submarine, it is the Minneapolis St Paul, SNN-708.” His face turned beat red while his date laughed. – Reddit

I was waiting to put in at a boat ramp in Florida one day. It was a single ramp, the guy trying to take his boat out of the water was having a tough time backing his trailer down. His wife (I assume) and two kids were waiting on the dock. Some jerk waiting to get out of the water starts screaming at him and heckling him. The first guy finally gets his trailer down the ramp, meanwhile, raging jerk had docked his boat and started up the dock towards the poor boating newbie family guy screaming and yelling.

Then the raging jerk finally just loses it. He punches family guy and knocks him off the dock into the water. Two burly dudes who nobody was really paying attention to walk up, literally grab raging jerk as family guy was falling in the water, throw him on the dock and handcuff him, then flashed their FL DNR badges. They were undercover watching the boat ramp. There was applause and cheering from the folks waiting to put in and take out.

Family guy just wants to get out there and go home, so he declines to press charges. The DNR guys apparently thought “aw heck no,” proceed to tear the guy’s boat and car apart and ended charging him with a BUI and every single nitpicky thing they could find wrong his boat. It was a good day. – Reddit

I used to deliver pizza for Dominos. It was my last shift and there was this house that was always rude. For example, I called to asked what the house looked like and they said “I gave you the address” and hung up on me. They also never tipped. Well, I got to their house and they gave me a check for one cent less than what the total was.

I said, “I am going to need the extra penny.” They grumbled off and took their time, hoping I would give up, but I just sat there holding the pizza. They finally came back all ticked off and gave me the penny. No tip. This time I came up with an ingenious plan. When they gave me the penny, I chucked it out into the street and left. They saw me do it. It was SATISFYING. – Reddit

In high school bio, we had to get in groups and create a Bill Nye style informative video. My group was done recording and I just had to do the editing with all the transitions, effects, titles, etc. And anyone who has ever done any type of movie or trailer knows that post-production is twice the time and effort as shooting.

There I am just finished and submitted onto YouTube and this guy who’s been calling me names all year comes up to me and asks, “Hey man can you do my video editing because I don’t how to do it?” I told him no and then he proceeded to offer me $5 for a week’s worth of headaches and work. I just walked off with saying anything. A satisfying silence ensued. – Reddit

I knew a crazy kid in elementary school. Kid jumped across the table and tried to choke me out. I instigated it by saying he was “cuckoo for cocoa puffs” since that was the only thing that kid ever talked about and he was wearing a cocoa puffs shirt that day. Senior year of high school, turns out that kid was in my Design class.

I needed to get a C or better on the final. Over the year, I found out the kid was taking my work off my share drive and copying it. For the final, I purposely screwed up the drawing in my folder, but the kid didn’t double-check it. He turned it in and failed and had to go back and be a super senior. – Reddit

I am a government auditor. One of the programs I oversee is a sort of boarding school for teens with delinquency history and it’s very athletics heavy. I’ve put on like 30 pounds of body fat since getting this mostly sedentary job and drifting into bad nutrition habits. Basically, I’m meaty underneath with above-average strength.

Prior to this job, I had a side gig as a personal trainer and posing coach. At the program one day, I needed to interview a student who didn’t want to leave his weightlifting class. He told me he’d talk to me if I could deadlift the bar he was working with, like 90 kg. He would soon regret making that wager with me. The staff was visibly annoyed that this guy was giving me a hard time, but I was wearing stretchy pants, so I gave it a quick set-up and pull.

The interview followed and now it’s an ongoing joke at the program that when I ask for interviews, they ask if I need chalk or anything for the mandatory deadlift. – Reddit

My college has a dedicated gaming room in its central building. There are TVs for people to plug in whatever they want. I went in one day and saw someone playing Guitar Hero. He was playing on Expert, so he was decently good, but he was not perfect. I sat down, chatted him up, and eventually, he challenged me. It was a Pro-Face-Off on Through the Fire and Flames.

I’m not perfect at Through The Fire And Flames, but I figured what the heck, it’ll be fun. Well, our fearless protagonist got a little too big for his boots on that one—he couldn’t even hit the intro. The higher your combo in Guitar Hero, the more your score is multiplied, all the way up to 4x. If you don’t hit the intro and can’t keep your 4x through the fast strumming at the beginning, you’re immediately behind somewhere in the echelon of 30k to 60k points.

The solos didn’t fare him much better. He blamed his gear. – Reddit

I have studied memorization techniques and mnemonics. I decided to have a bit of fun with my teacher. He wanted us to write down a list of 20 items. He was the type of guy to quickly call you out for not paying attention in class. I sat there memorizing the list in my head knowing full well he would see me not writing anything down.

He chewed me out for not taking notes, as predicted. He took the bait. I said, “I have it all in my head.” I knew he would call me out and have me recite the list. The next day, he turned to me in the middle of his lecture and had the biggest smug smile. “So, what were those items from yesterday?” I immediately proceeded to list them in order without hesitation. Then listed them backward. His smile grew bigger and bigger, and the rest of the class was cracking up! – Reddit

Astronomer here! If we were to just meet on the street, you probably wouldn’t guess I was a scientist since I am a woman who enjoys dresses when the weather is nice. This was doubly true when I was a few years younger in my 20s and single. At the end of college, I was doing a summer internship in Mountain View, California where if you went out there’d be a lot of Google boys.

They would literally sometimes wear “Google” shirts so you’d know. I remember getting stuck chatting with one, and when he asked my major, he sneered at me saying, “D you really know the subject?” He asked me if I knew what the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle was, and I explained it in great detail. When I later explained his 20 other questions, he said “it’s probably not so hard because they go easy on women because they don’t want to scare them off.”

Oh, but it gets better—he then he proceeded to tell me at length about a lecture he attended in Mountain View that he’d been lucky enough to visit, as a Google employee, by Jill Tarter who runs the SETI Institute. He even went as far as to tell me about the Allen Telescope Array they were building in northern California because I “might not know about it.”

I gave him a minute for his spiel, then proceeded to drop the mic—I actually was working for Jill that summer at the SETI Institute, on interference mitigation for the Allen Telescope Array. And did he want to hear what she was really like, or see some pictures from the ATA site? I’d also just met Frank Drake, and he was really nice! Oh man, was that guy not happy! But at least he stopped talking to me like right after. – Reddit

I’m a female mechanical engineer and I often get people working at Lowe’s, car shops, and dealerships talk down to me or say that I don’t understand basic concepts. For instance, a guy at Lowe’s swore up and down that bolt threading and pipe threading was the same thing. Another guy swore there were no diamond-tipped hole saws and tried to sell me a Dremel for the same job. I then found one in the tile section.

I’ve had mechanics swear up and down that my air filter in my car needed to be changed when I had just changed it weeks before, and my filter is circular and not square like the one they brought out to me. The best is the car salesmen though—they don’t seem to really care about my opinion, especially if my husband is there.

I’m usually the car buying decision-maker, but my husband also knows a ton about cars, and so they try to sell to him. It’s always hilarious. I usually just let them talk and clarify later with my husband because I’m not out to embarrass anybody. – Reddit

I know a big, popular high school mean kid who thought it would be funny to punch this male teacher in the back of the head when he was walking by in front of him. He picked the WRONG teacher. The teacher instinctively reacted and punched the guy back. The student went down hard. He got suspended and nothing else happened to him or the teacher. But this isn’t the end of the story.

About eight years later, the student came back to the high school and asked to speak with that teacher. He actually THANKED the teacher for what happened that day. The guy said to the teacher that his punch completely changed the course of his life. He had been running with a rough crowd and thought he was big and bad.

He had thought nothing of beating people up. But after the incident and getting punched by the teacher, he realized that he underestimated how quickly things can change when you go up against the wrong guy. He completely changed how he approached the world, got out of trouble, got a good job, and was about to get married. And he credits that incident with changing the course of his life: punching the wrong person. – Reddit

I worked customer service for a big tech company. A pair of nightmares called Christmas week demanding we fly a pair of tablets to their home by private helicopter for Christmas morning. Their tone was abrasive, dismissive, and entitled. After much work on my end to calm them down, they demanded to speak to management.

I patched them over to senior advisors. The head advisor idiot-slapped them with logic and policy, “We see you placed your order after our Christmas cut-off date. No special deliveries can be made as all our couriers are working overtime to deliver to customers who had the foresight to order early.” Thus, they were banished. – Reddit

At my work, we had this HR lady who was extremely power-hungry. She was walking around with the president of the company who flew in from Japan, acting like she owned the place. She hurried him through the warehouse spitting out, “Oh, these are just the warehouse guys. We don’t have to stop and talk to them.” Well, what he did next made her fume.

He stopped, came over, and asked me about my last vacation. Then he asked about how my new house was, and so on. You could just see her stewing behind him as we talked for about 45 minutes. In the past, I’d actually had multiple meetings with him, and we knew each other really well. She had no clue. I don’t think he liked her and I suspect that he dragged it out on purpose. I was just thrilled to see her just standing there bored and angry. – Reddit