There are moments in life that are deeply satisfying—but there's nothing more gratifying than watching instant karma smack the entitled, ignorant, rude, or otherwise awful people of the world in the face. It just makes it feel like the world is on your side. These Redditors came together to share their stories of karmic justice—and they're just what dreams are made of.
1. That’s Nacho Order
I was at Taco Bell and had ordered nachos bell grande—and so did the man immediately behind me in line. We waited together for our food to get done, and when they called my number, he grabbed my food. He looked at me and said, “You ordered the same thing as me, but I'm in a hurry, so you can just take mine when it's ready.”
This guy didn't care two bits what I had going on. He was in a suit and tie, and I was in my construction clothes. He took one step toward the door and slipped, spilling his drink and my nachos all over his shirt and jacket. At that exact moment, they called his number. I picked up his nachos, thanked him, and walked out the door.
2. He Wanted To Be Starting Something
I was walking to the pub after work one rainy evening when I saw a guy intentionally shove himself into a fairly nerdy-looking dude who was walking along with his girlfriend. He stopped and accused the nerdy guy of pushing him and then gave him a mouthful. What followed was pure karma. It was one of those moments that was so perfect and full of justice that it was almost too good to be true.
The big guy took a huge swing at the nerdy guy and ended up slipping because it had been raining out. He completely missed hitting the nerdy guy and ended up in a flustered mess on the floor. The nerdy guy looked bewildered, and his girlfriend was desperately trying to drag him away, but he stood his ground. The big dude seemed to become even angrier due to his embarrassing fall.
He got back up and took another swing, which the nerdy guy dodged. He slipped again and fell to his knees. The nerdy guy, who was as ruthless as he was good at not getting punched in the face, saw this as a great opportunity to get this nonsense over with. So, he smacked the guy right in the face with a sweet jab that made a “'thwack” sound.
The original guy went down once and for all, sprawled on the bridge in the rain, while the nerdy guy took his girl's hand and they went on their merry way together. Meanwhile, I went to the pub and had a pint in nerdy guy's honor. It was beautiful, just beautiful.
3. Payback Time
My sister's fiancé left her for another woman when he found out she was pregnant, but at the very least, she was able to win child support in court. Well, he got hired on full time and got a huge raise on the first of May. Two weeks later, the other woman left him and took their newborn son with her. My sister's claim for child support (plus the 18 months he was overdue) also hit at that time, so things really took a turn in his life for the worst.
4. Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer
When I was seven, I had this really terrible babysitter. She would call 9-101 and yell for assistance before hanging up really quickly, just for fun. She would also regularly forget to make us dinner. The worst thing she did, however, was bring her boyfriend over so that they could make out on the couch and watch movies. Classic teenage stuff, really.
Every time he was over, she would lock me in my room and my five-year-old autistic brother in the basement. He didn't understand how locks or light switches worked, so he cried pretty much the entire time. One day, shortly after Christmas while she was over, I took my new point and shoot the camera out for a spin, pretending I was a detective.
I would creep along walls and jump around corners, snapping away at whatever I could find. I could hear my babysitter talking to her boyfriend on the phone, so I thought I would "investigate." I crept up to the kitchen and then swung around the corner, snapping away in my camera. She got really angry and chased me around the house as I was laughing my head off.
The next week, my mom took me to get my film developed. She and I sat down in the mall food court and looked at the pictures...because what mom wouldn't want to see the pictures their son took with their Christmas present? As we flipped through, my mom snatched one of the pictures. Her face went red with fury. What was it, you ask? My mom was holding photographic proof of my babysitter going through my mom’s purse.
I've never seen my mom go off on anyone as she did on that 16-year-old witch.
5. Left With Nothing But Her Own Company
I once took a full flight home from Hawaii. I go to my assigned window seat and notice a grumpy woman is sitting in it. I politely tell her she is in my seat. She looks at her boarding pass and, sure enough, she is supposed to be sitting in the aisle seat across from me. She starts arguing that she MUST sit next to her husband and that she's not moving.
I decide it's not worth the hassle and take the seat she is supposed to be in. I don't even get a thank you or anything from her. Once we are in the air, the onboard entertainment of free movies and shows is available. And then the best thing imaginable happens. I look over and see her yelling at a flight attendant that her TV is broken and doesn't work.
The flight attendant apologizes and explains that the flight is full and there are no other seats to move her to. She had the pleasure of enjoying a five-hour flight with zero entertainment.
6. Expensive Trash
I had an ongoing issue with people illegally dumping in my dumpster behind my business. For those unaware, it's far more expensive to have a dumpster at a commercial property than you might think. Mine's shared with two other neighboring businesses and emptied three times a week, and we pay a whopping $400 a month for the service.
So when it's suddenly full of garbage that's clearly not from us it's infuriating. I could never manage to catch the people who did it so I decided I'd install a camera. I was on the roof of my building running the wiring when, what do you know, some person is dumping a carpet and yard waste in my dumpster. I opted to not confront him right away.
I just call the non-emergency line and gave them a license plate number and description. The officer came by to verify the information with me, and as we were standing inside my shop talking, I notice the same guy just backed back up to my dumpster, again. He must've missed the copper’s car in front of my building (or just didn't care).
The officer made him empty ALL the garbage he dumped back into his truck, the dude had to climb in the dumpster and got absolutely covered in yard waste. As soon as it was all piled back in his truck (including the cab, since this was his second trip) the officer handed him a $500 dumping ticket. The look on the guy's face was priceless.
7. The Cost of Karma
Back when I worked at a hardware store, this dude threw a fit because the system refused to refund one of the sixteen items he was returning. Dude proceeds to scream at the top of his lungs, shout at, threaten, and get in the face of, in order: me, the other cashier, the store manager, and about three other customers. He's told repeatedly to leave the store as he's no longer welcome there. His response was crazy.
He refused to leave and, instead, stood in the entranceway, screaming and shouting at every customer that walks in. He stood there pathetically, telling people not to shop there because the store is ripping him off. Well, maybe 10 minutes or so into this whole episode, the authorities show up. His face just falls SO fast and he gets really quiet and starts trying to meekly make excuses.
What’s even more amazing is that we TOLD HIM we were calling them and that they were on their way. He was banned from the store before we could finish processing his refund and he was out about two hundred bucks.
8. Get Your Facts Straight
I worked at a major state university as a contract HR Director. The head of student housing was this battle ax, loud, narcissistic, angry woman who bulldozed everyone and everything around her. She yelled at everyone and made demands that were unreasonable and unprofessional. She would fire anyone she didn't like and treated subordinates like her servants.
Since it is nearly impossible to fire directors and managers who work for the state, she got away with it. This went on for 20 years. I didn't know this when I was brought in to investigate all the complaints against her and her department. It turns out that if a person was straight, she would fire them. I figured out the pattern of her firing only straight people over 20 years.
In the end, I had to interview her and share my findings. She tried everything she could to lie her way out of it but it was documented and clear. She went to the Dean and held a meeting ranting about how a typical empowered straight white man would be against her hiring choices and discriminate against her valued employees!
She went on about how no one knew who I was and she had seen "this kind" of heterosexual men in power before. I let her rant for a while until she finally stopped. I knew exactly what I had to do. I quietly stood up, walked to the Dean, and showed him on my phone pictures of my wedding to my husband. He started smiling and asked to share. I walk over and share it with her.
Her mouth hits the ground. Her tune changes quickly. The Dean tells her she can either retire immediately, or he will fire her on the spot. She retires.
9. Just Rewards
Before we were married, I was out to dinner with my wife and her dad. At the end of dinner, my father-in-law offered to pay for the meal. My wife asked to get her leftovers boxed to take them home. Her father was being difficult and started in on her, saying, “Well, you'll just leave them in the fridge, then they'll just get thrown out, blah blah."
I told him, "Listen, it's not your fridge. Leave her alone.” He got mad and yelled, "Don't tell me how to raise my daughter!" I yelled back at him not to speak to her in his nasty tone. As a result, he threw the bill at me and said, "FINE! YOU PAY THEN," and stormed out. We were all mad at that point, and my wife said, “Why did you have to start something??"
I paid the bill and was waiting for the receipt, but we were waiting for quite some time. Tensions were rising. Her dad was waiting outside, building up steam. I asked the waiter, "Can I just get our bill and go?" They replied, "Oh no, sir, you have to wait for the manager.” That's when I learned the beautiful, satisfying truth.
It turned out they had a contest running where every bill was a winner or some prize or another. Usually, people would win a free drink or appetizer. However, we had just won the GRAND PRIZE that dinner—which was a trip for four to Florida. And here's the kicker: Whoever pays gets the prize. Because her dad stormed out like a child, I had won it.
10. Target Practice
When I was six years old, I was on the bus with my older brother coming home from soccer practice. We were seated at the back, right next to the big rear window. For some odd reason, I thought it would be funny to show the traffic behind us all the angles of my middle finger while staring at them with the most obnoxious facial expressions.
I would wait until the bus got to a stop and proceeded to do my thing when the bus shut its door and accelerated away. I was getting bored since most people would just ignore me and the reactions weren't as amusing as I thought they were going to be. I decided my game needed more thrill. Instead of flipping off oncoming traffic, my main target changed to pedestrians. This instantly turned into an enormous mistake.
The bus got to a stop, picked up the waiting people, and I had found my new target—a very buff man. As I heard the noise of the doors closing, I proceeded to show him both of my fingers and stuck out my tongue. This guy, however, didn't think it was all that funny. He sprinted alongside the bus, matching its speed for at least a block until the bus arrived at the next stop.
The bus was not that full, but the people in it witnessed this big chunk of rage giving chase and getting on to the bus. I cowered behind my brother, who had been oblivious to my shenanigans. I was in tears. The guy ended up being pretty cool about it and just told me not to do it again. He even gave me a piece of bubblegum afterward.
11. Big Rig Rumble
It was raining out. I was coming onto a freeway with my big rig, signaling and smoothly switching lanes while keeping an eye on a car behind me that had been crowding me. As soon as he hit the merge ramp, he gunned it in an attempt to pass me, cutting into the no-drive zone. The problem was that my cab was 60 feet ahead of him, as I had already begun to merge.
Half of my rig was occupying the lane he wanted. Once this guy realized he couldn’t pass me, he flipped out. He screeched so hard back into his lane that I felt the road tremble. He began blaring his horn and flashing his lights. I was just cruising along, totally calm. I was watching the traffic in my driver-side mirror, and when I saw a break, I knew what was coming.
This guy jerked into the left lane, floored it, and got beside my cab, honking the whole way. He swerved at me and then cut me off. He jerked into place in front of me, jammed his brakes—and then it all unraveled. He completely lost control of his vehicle. It was suddenly sideways at 45mph. I was nowhere near him, having already slowed down.
His car continued to spin until it was facing me, then it whipped back forward and headed straight into the ditch. It plowed the earth like a farm tool in front of all of us there on the freeway. I stopped. The left lane stopped. We just watched as this guy slowly got out of his car, which looked pretty damaged. Other drivers got out to help, and some were on their phones. I just geared up out of there nice and calm. It was instant karma.
12. Home Sweet Home
I live in a college town. My roomies and I planned to throw a rager on my birthday. When we finished setting up, we started playing music and drinking. It was around 11 pm and there were maybe 20 people already in attendance. The party was slowly gaining life...but then we heard knocks on the door and saw flashlights through the blinds. We immediately got chills up our spines.
I knew there were uniformed officers at the door, but I thought to myself that it was way too early for them to be busting us, so I went outside to talk to them just to make sure. As I opened the door, there were two officers standing there…and my neighbor. Everyone inside immediately left as one of the officers is wrote me a ticket. The neighbor approached me, saying that we couldn't be holding these types of parties because he has kids.
I was angry, but there was nothing I could do—the party was over, and I would have to go to court to contest the ticket. But the best part was yet to come. A couple of months later, my roommate ran into me with a worried look on his face. He said, "You have to come outside right now!" I asked him what was going on, but he didn't tell me.
I went outside and there were officers everywhere. They were in the alley hiding behind sheds and dumpsters. I went to the front of the house and there was a huge black vehicle that looked like a tank. The street was closed off and I was pretty freaked out at this point because I didn't know what was going on. I soon found out, though.
Guys in full camo armor busted into my neighbor’s house and dragged him out. Apparently, they had a search warrant because he was selling substances right from his house...where he had his kids. That's karma.
13. White Out Wipe Out
Last year, I got caught in an ice storm while driving. It was warm outside one moment and within a few minutes, everything was covered in ice. My dad was supposed to be leaving his house to drive his RV, so I called to warn him not to leave while I continued to drive five miles per hour on the rumble strips to the next exit.
There were cars wrecked all over the road. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. I was afraid to pull over and help anyone for fear of getting stuck myself...or worse, getting rear-ended by an out-of-control vehicle. I quickly ended the call with my dad because talking on the phone and driving was dangerous, to begin with, but also because there were two cars coming up behind me going about 60 mph.
Apparently, they were both oblivious to the dozens of wrecked automobiles on the side of the road. I had just finished telling my dad "I have to get off the phone, people are driving like idiots" when the two cars passed me and then slammed into each other, skittering off to the side of the road. I felt like a jerk, but I kept driving.
I did see two guys get out shaking their fists as I was driving by, so I assume they were okay.
14. All T, No Lift
I was out skiing at a mountain with a T-bar tow lift. For those who don't know what that is, it basically a big upside-down six-foot-tall upper case "t" which is pulled by a cable. You hold on and it slides you up the mountain. The T shape allows for two people to hold on to either side of the crock of the T. People fall off of this all the time when they are not used to it.
One brave young boy, maybe 12-14 on a snowboard set out to handle the T-bar. He lost his footing about 30 seconds in but held on despite being dragged. This happens often but usually for only a few seconds as most have good enough sense to let go. Not this kid. Instead, this boy was dragged up more than a thousand feet on his belly.
I was behind him as was another couple. We could not believe he was holding on. The T-bar stopped further up for someone else and he was too exhausted to stand up and fix his situation. The couple behind him had been laughing so hard that when the T-bar abruptly started up again they fell off. Bottom line? He made it to the top and they didn't.
15. A Huge Delay
On my way to work, I have to cross a four-lane road with no traffic lights. There is a crosswalk, but no one will ever stop for you until you slowly step out into the road and wait for the first car to stop, and you hope the rest will as well. I always make sure to not to walk forward into the next lane until I'm certain that drivers can see me.
One day, cars in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th lanes stopped for me to cross. I was stuck in the middle of the road trying to figure out if the Mercedes in the 3rd lane was going to stop for me. Instead, he slowly drove by and I shrugged my arms at him as he drove by and said, "Really?" He then decided to flip me off as he passed. Oh, but karma followed close behind.
He was totally unaware that the car behind him was an officer, and he was promptly pulled over and ticketed.
16. Karma Loves Physical Comedy
I was at a festival once and there was one of those dudes who was just obnoxious. You know, shouting insults, screaming, throwing things at people, just an animal. He was slightly uphill from the main intersection, only maybe thirty feet from the crowd. I was standing around waiting for a friend. The dude's campsite was completely makeshift.
He had some poorly planned tarp thing held up by a nylon rope that was strung over a pickup truck and secured by slamming a car door shut on it. Suddenly, the guy throws his drink at the crowd, crawls up on top of the car, and starts tight-roping it between the car and the truck. I was very impressed that he made it at least two steps before the rope slipped.
The guy spread his legs, and he dropped three feet straight onto the suspended rope. I have never in my life seen a guy wreck his groin so hard. He was in a fetal position, then he spun around the rope in slow motion until he was upside down. Then the rope scraped across the roof of the truck, and fell between the cab and the bed.
He had partially collapsed the tarp city and got dropped onto his head in the mud.
17. An Up Lifting Experience
I worked in a building with 10 floors. I was on the fifth. I was coming back to the lobby from lunch and in a hurry. I had just pressed the button to go up, and the elevator immediately opened. Before I stepped in, I noticed someone coming up the stairs about 30 feet away. I usually wait for stragglers to boost my elevator karma, you know.
As this person approached, I noticed she was fairly attractive and close to my age. She, too, was in a hurry and asked me if a specific company was in the building—she was running late for an interview. At this point, I realized she was not just attractive; she was gorgeous. I pressed the button for her floor. She asked me if I worked at that company as well since I hadn’t pushed the button to my floor yet.
I told her, “No, but since you're late, we'll get you there first, then I'll go back down to five.” She was very appreciative. We got to her floor, she gathered herself...and realized that she had forgotten her phone. She was supposed to call when she got there, so she asked if she could use my phone. I happily obliged. She said, "You were a great help. Thank you so much!"
I decided to go for it and replied, "No problem! Let me know how it goes." She smiled and said, "I sure will," and proceeded to tap away at my phone. She handed it back, smiled again, and walked away. She had programmed her name and number into my phone. For a guy who NEVER gets the girl, I was elated. The number worked, and we met up for a date.
18. A Minor Annoyance Had A Major Payoff
One night, we went out with my uncle and his family for dinner at a nice restaurant. There were seven of us eating, and we were all drinking red. This increasingly belligerent guy from the bar kept coming up to our table and making conversation, commenting on how awesome my six-month-old son was, etc. By the end of the night, he was getting annoying, and my uncle was discussing whether or not he should say something.
We told him, “No, don't worry about it. He is just having a good time and seems like a good guy.” So when it came time to pay our bill, the waiter just said, "Have a nice evening. Thanks for coming in." My uncle and I were confused and asked the waiter about the check. His answer stunned me. He told us that the guy who kept coming up to us had paid our tab.
The server told us that it was already done and that the guy would do this all the time. Our bill was $1,500. My uncle sought the guy out and gave him a big hug. The guy just said, "You have such a beautiful family. Pay it forward sometime." He had even tipped the waiter some crazy amount from the look the waiter gave us. So, I learned always to be nice. You never know who is a millionaire.
19. Look Where You’re Going
About a decade ago, I was driving my wife to work in some light rain on the highway with my decently-modified vehicle and this kid kept pulling alongside me on my right revving at me and trying to get me to race. I just shook my head at the situation and kept driving. I got to my exit and, once you get off the exit, it splits into three lanes.
The middle lane goes straight into a commercial complex where my wife worked. At this light, a lot of folks tended to stay in the middle lane and then also turn right (despite it being not allowed) because of the terribly long light. I got into the middle lane and that same kid goes flying up on my right side revving again and just staring at me.
Turns out, he should have been looking ahead because WHAM! He rear-ends the car stopped at the light. I dropped my girlfriend off at work and then returned to give the officers testimony. And that's when the horrible truth comes out. Turns out, the kid didn't even have a license. Ten plus years later, he still might not!
20. Kindness Is Free
One time at an always-packed beach parking lot, I happened upon an open spot, just vacated by a young family whose car had passed us seconds before on their way out of the lot. Again, it's packed, people getting stuff out of trunks, backseats, coolers everywhere, beach chairs, and the standard chaos. I'm proceeding very slowly towards the spot.
Then some guy coming from the next aisle sees the spot and books it to the end of the row. He then proceeds to turn right and then left into the spot that was on my right. Oh well, I was annoyed, but not enough to get riled up over it. I gave him a wave to let him know I appreciated his actions, and went around the corner and back up the aisle he just flew down.
As I'm waiting for another vehicle to back out of their spot maybe 30 yards further up (couldn't believe our luck), the family who was in the original spot rolls by on their way out, the driver reaches out and hands me their parking receipt with 4 hours left on it and said, "I saw that. What a bonehead. Enjoy some free parking". We were quite surprised, super grateful, and the best part?
We parked, got out, walked past the guy in his purloined spot, and saw he had forgotten to put his car in park or engage the parking brake and the front end had rolled over the parking block and torn up the bottom edge of his Mustang's front spoiler.
21. Taking The Joke A Little Too Far
One time in middle school, this guy who was relatively new at our school was making fun of a girl in our class who fell in the hallway in-between classes; coincidentally this was a girl I had a crush on. He was a little bit of a class clown and was mocking her, trying to make it look like only babies and clumsy people fall over.
Apparently, he misjudged his footing, and while attempting to jokingly ape the way she had fallen, actually fell for real, and landed squarely on his back in front of everybody. He broke his arm in the process. Passing him by in the hallway, I saw him just lying there, surrounded by adults and staring up at the ceiling, face completely expressionless.
He didn't come back to school. Pretty sure he moved after that. I would have too.
22. A Totally Car-mic Experience
When I was 16, I lived out of my car because I couldn't get an apartment since no one would rent to a 16-year-old. It was an old beater, and I had to push start it everywhere. I had just pulled into Walmart to buy some decent clothes, and there was a purse in the basket of the cart next to mine. When opened it, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Inside the wallet was a thousand dollars in cash, several credit cards, and an ID. I soo wanted to spend it, and I was going to. So, I grabbed the cash and put the purse back in the cart. Except when I was paying for my clothes, I just couldn't bring myself to pay with the money I had taken. So, I paid with mine and went back to my car. The purse was still there, so I put the money back in and looked at the address.
It was right down the road, but it took me about an hour to find. When I finally got there, I parked in the street. The lady was standing in her garage next to her nice new car, in a fancy neighborhood, on the phone, canceling her credit cards. I walked up and asked if she had lost her purse. I was pretty rough-looking, and I could tell she was a bit nervous.
So I handed it to her and told her I had to open it to find her address. She didn't say anything, and I got in my car and left. I was disappointed because it seemed she didn't appreciate it. I went on to where I worked, and where I would stay in my car. The next day before my shift, I woke up went to McDonald's to get breakfast.
I got to work. Then I noticed something strange. I saw the same lady leaving. I thought, "That wasn't her, just coincidence." When I went inside, the parts for my car were there, $100, and a note saying thanks. I was confused. I couldn’t figure out how she knew what parts I needed or even where I worked. But it was actually so simple.
A few days before, I had gone over what I needed for my car, along with the number to the parts store, and wrote it down on the back of a pay stub. When I got out by her house, this paper came out of my car. After I left, she picked it up. When she realized all her money was in her purse, she went down and picked up the parts and dropped them off for me.
It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done. I got about $300 worth of parts and $100 cash. The good feeling I had for weeks was worth way more than the money I would have made if I had kept it all.
23. This Was The Tops
I used to deliver pizzas. One day, I was taking redelivery for an order that was wrong the first time. I was going to the worst hotel in our delivery area. The redelivery was a single, one-topping medium pizza. I pulled up, and a guy said he needed some cash for a tow truck. He gave me the typical sob story. Usually, I wouldn’t give in to those things, but for some reason, this guy’s story seemed plausible.
I cut him off and asked him how much cash he needed. He told me seven dollars, so I gave it to him. He ran back to the gas station, and I didn't see him again. I went to deliver my pizza. I ran up the stairs to the hotel room, gave them their replacement pizza, apologized for the first mistake, and left. As I was walking away, the guy came out and said, "Oh wait, we forgot to give you a tip."
Any tip on redelivery is a win, so I hustled back to the room. The guy handed me a $50 bill and told me to have a good night.
24. Karma Sealed This Deal
At one point in my life, I sold furniture and was terrible at it. Since I worked solely on commission, I barely made any money. Often, I had nothing left after paying rent and bills and wouldn’t eat for days because I couldn't afford to. One day, I was trying to sell furniture and sold nothing, so I had made $0. An old couple came in and was looking at TV stands.
All the other sales reps avoided them. We all knew that they would take up a bunch of time and end up buying something for around $100.00, so the commission was going to be $2.00. There would be no add-ons because no one in their right mind would purchase a $29.99 extended warranty on a $100.00 item. But I came up with a plan.
I figured I had nothing to lose if I helped them, and perhaps my luck would turn around. They ended up buying two stands but couldn’t put them together themselves because they were old. There was a service I could have referred them to for a fee, but I was desperate and didn't want to lose the sale, especially after having spent around 45 minutes with them.
So, I told them, "I'm off at 9:00 pm. If you come to pick me up, I'll come set up the stands for you for free.” They took the offer, paid for the furniture, and left. The other sales reps laughed at me. The old couple picked me up promptly at 9:00 pm. I loaded the boxes into their trunk. As we drove to their house, I found out that he was a retired judge and she had always been a housewife.
We got into their beautiful condo, and I began assembling the furniture. I could smell food cooking and tried to ignore it, but I hadn't eaten in about three days at that point, so it was hard. I worked for almost three hours straight. I then moved the finished product into position and moved their TVs for them. It was close to midnight, and I was trying to excuse myself from their home politely.
The old lady grabbed me and took me to the kitchen. She sat me down and pulled out a plate of freshly made roast beef. That was better than any money. I was so grateful. I held back tears as I ate the delicious home-cooked meal. It was now after 12:30 am. I thanked them again for all that they had done for me. But it wasn't even over yet.
I was about to leave to find my way home by bus, but the old man stopped me and offered me a ride home. The lady packaged up the rest of the roast beef and told me to keep the Tupperware. They both came for the ride, and I couldn't stop thanking them for helping me. As the car stopped and I got out, I thanked them one more time. Then the lady handed me an envelope.
I didn't open it, just thanked them. I happily went up to my apartment, knowing that I would sleep with a full stomach that night and that I would get to eat for the next few days. I was feeling great. I opened the envelope and burst into tears. There was a thank you card with $100 inside. After that, for the rest of the time that I sold furniture, I always ran to help the people nobody else wanted to.
I changed my focus from getting a big sale every day to getting all of the small ones nobody cared about, and it got me through until I got a better-paying job.
25. The Rules Of The Road
I was driving home from dinner with my wife one night and we got off the freeway at our exit. At the bottom of the ramp is a two-lane stoplight, so you can go left or right, and just to the left is the freeway entrance. This dude behind us had been tailgating for miles, and I grumbled when he did it all the way down the exit ramp and nearly rear-ended me as we stopped for the light.
Then he decided the light was taking too long, so he pulled into the right-hand turn lane next to us and made a U-turn to go around back towards the freeway entrance, while the light was still red. My jaw dropped. Turns out, I didn’t have to wait long for sweet, sweet justice. JUST as he completed his U-turn, the car that had been behind him pulled around in a similar fashion...with red and blue lights flaring up to illuminate the intersection.
And to top it all off, the officer lit up his speaker with, "THAT WAS REALLY STUPID. PULLOVER NOW." The idiot was just pulling into the shoulder as we merrily turned left on the green light and headed for home.
26. Trashing The Joint
When my dad was in college, he lived in a dormitory that had around 15 floors. There was this dude, we'll call him Chester, who lived in the center apartment on the 14th floor, facing the north side. This meant that Chester's window was located directly above the entrance to the dormitory. Important detail: Chester was a jerk.
Chester would come home from school and wind down by throwing water balloons at the people walking into the building. They weren't even people he particularly hated or anything. Chester just did this to everyone for fun. One day, he hit my dad. That was a big mistake. My dad and his friend retaliated by bringing a garbage can up 15 flights of stairs to fill with water in the bathroom.
They then headed up to his friend's dorm, which happened to be the center room on the 15th floor, right above Chester's. When a couple of girls walked up the steps to the door, Chester leaned out of his window, about to throw the balloons. That's when my dad promptly hit him with an entire garbage can of water.
27. Emergency Repairs
Cars constantly park on either side of this particular road in town, essentially turning it into a single-track road. They were told over and over again not to do it as emergency vehicles can't fit through but seeing as there were no double yellow lines to denote it as a no-parking zone, the poor parking officer couldn't do much.
The fire department even took a stick with chalk rollers on it that was the width of a fire truck, ran it down the road, and put a notice on every car it marked, saying that if there was an emergency then their car would have blocked the road. Anyway, inevitably, there was a fire and the fire trucks needed to get through. Low and behold, they couldn't fit.
So after a BRIEF attempt at knocking on people's doors, they literally just drove straight down the road, scraping almost every single car and knocking all the side mirrors off. I'm pretty certain that emergency vehicles in the UK are not liable under insurance for cars they hit whilst on-call so they faced no repercussions for the mayhem.
I really hope all of those people paid more attention to their repair bills than they did the parking notices.
28. An Act Of Hubris
My first car wasn't the greatest vehicle, but I managed to scrape some money together to be able to afford it, and it was something I was proud of being able to have when I was young. I was out driving running errands in an affluent part of the city when I came to a red light, and these two dudes around my age in some expensive car pull up beside me.
They are kind of snickering to themselves, taking a few glances at me every now and then. Whatever, it's fine. Eventually, the driver rolls down his window and asks, "Hey, bro. Wanna put that thing to the test"? And starts revving his engine. Now me being a little annoyed, I start revving my engine because I knew they weren't expecting me to do that.
The two bros go, "Ohhhh", and start getting fired up. Green light comes, and we both slam on our accelerators, except I cap out at the speed limit. The two dummies speed off in a big display and head around the bend. But I had a plan. See, I already knew something about this particular stretch of road. There were usually officers set up with speed traps.
Lo and behold when I come around the bend, their car is pulled over to the side with a cop parked right behind them, lights flaring. They did not seem amused by my smile and wave as I passed by them.
29. Burning Bridges
I work for a staffing agency as a recruiter. My co-worker was working with this guy who was pretty sharp. He was a programmer. His company was doing layoffs but he was told he wouldn’t be affected. My co-worker contacted him, chatted about the situation and he said he would be interested in looking around for other opportunities.
We just had a new client give us a position that fit his background. We lined up an interview pretty quickly, he interviewed and got the position! Great. It was even a little salary bump. Straight direct-hire, no contract stuff. He goes in, and works his first week. All is great, all smiles. Well, that next Monday comes and he isn’t there.
The company calls us asking where he is, so my co-worker calls him. He answers the phone and my co-worker asks, “Hey, is everything okay? You were a no-call no-show today over at XYZ company”. And the guy proceeds to tell us, “Yeah, I never actually quit my job. I just took a vacation for the week to see if I liked the place. It was okay but I’ll just stay here”.
My co-worker responds, “Man, is there anything I can do? This puts us in a tight spot, this is a brand-new customer of ours, can I do anything”? And the guy tells us “Quite frankly I don’t care what kind of position it puts you in nor do I care if they are a new customer. I’m staying, don’t call me again”. And he hangs up the phone. Well, it wasn't long before he came to have many regrets.
He got laid off the very next week.
30. First Class Dummy
We were boarding a transatlantic flight, coming home from the US to the UK. There were nine seats across the jet arranged as three sets of three. Me and my siblings are sat in the first three, then my parents have two of the middle set. Another family of five takes up the last four seats in that row and one in the row behind. The other dad was very loudly and rudely complaining.
He wanted the seat my dad was sitting in for his son (who sat in the row behind). It was clear to everyone that he had prioritized getting the front row and extended legroom over having his family sit together when he checked in and was now trying to intimidate the stewardess into giving him both. My dad tried to interrupt with the intention of offering to switch seats.
He had already decided he didn't want to be sitting next to this kind of person for eight hours. The guy obviously expected him to say something else so told my dad to mind his own business before he had a chance to speak. Stewardess asks everyone to stay calm and says she will be back in a minute. When she returns, she escorts my mum and dad into empty seats in first class.
Then comes back and says to the angry guy, "Problem solved, your son can now move". The stewardess has the biggest grin on her face and the guy was so confused. He got what he wanted but still felt like he had lost somehow, he just didn't understand how.
31. We Curried A Favor With Karma
One night, my sister, my now-ex, my friend, and I decided to go for some curry. Since it was late, we called up the curry house to make sure they were ok with us coming down. The owner answered and said it would be no problem. As soon as we got there, we were greeted by the owner and were seated. However, it quickly became pretty obvious that the guy serving us didn’t want to be there.
We brushed it off. It went from bad to worse. He then started throwing our plates down and was being obnoxious, so we had a quiet word with the owner. Well, he proceeded to be even ruder, but we couldn’t do much. We left the restaurant and shrugged the whole thing off. As we were driving back home, though, I saw the server driving behind me, right on my tail.
He must have seen me get into my car and decided to follow me. He pulled up beside me when I was stopped at some traffic lights. He was swearing and showing me a rather impressive display of hand gestures. We ignored it, but I admit he was starting to aggravate me. The lights changed green, and he sped off like a lunatic, trying to run me off the road and swerving all over.
Sadly, he failed to notice the cruiser that had pulled up behind me at the lights, so on went the lights and the sirens. They pulled him over and booked him right then and there. We glided off into the distance, barely able to contain the euphoria from the instant karma. I never saw him at the curry house again. I assume he got fired!
32. Karma Shut Me Down
I used to work as tech support for a college campus. There were classrooms with motion sensors connected to the lights. So if there was no one in the room, the lights would shut down. A professor came into our office and told us the classroom didn't have working lights. I instantly knew what had happened. The light switch was on, but the motion sensor turned them off.
When she flipped the switch, she turned the lights off instead of on. I bought a soda on the way to the classroom and hit the lights. They turned on. I went to the room where she was temporarily teaching her class and told her, "The lights are on in the room." She asked me how I turned them on, to which I smugly replied, "I just flipped the switch."
Her entire class started laughing. I paid for my rudeness instantly. Feeling full of myself, I turned around and opened the soda I got from the vending machine. It burst and sprayed my face and shirt with Dr. Pepper.
33. To The Left
Ahh, instant karma is delicious. I had to use a four-lane road to commute to and from work. There was an intersection where I would always get the red light. During rush hour, I'd have to wait through a few cycles before I could get through the intersection, mainly because the left lane didn't get a green arrow to turn and it would cause a backup.
One day, I was waiting for my turn to get through this intersection. It was a nice day, so I had the window open. Two guys pulled up in the next lane. There was a lot of traffic that day, so for three light cycles, these guys starting talking major trash to me. Just really awful things. Ignoring them did not dissuade them, so I eventually talked a little trash back.
Finally, it was my turn to go through the intersection. Traffic started to unwind, and I began to take off. The guys in the next lane also took off, keeping up with me so they could scream even more crazy stuff at me. The problem was, the car in front of their lane was taking a left and their lane was not moving. I took off right as they rear-ended the brand new Jaguar in front of them.
The best part was the super loud Nelson Muntz "HAHA" I let out at them when they hit that car. It still makes me laugh every time I think about it.
34. Snow Day
I lived in Illinois for a while. One day, there was a snowstorm. I was in the left lane doing about 30 in a 55 because the roads were that bad. I had someone doing about the same speed right next to me in the right lane. Behind us, there was a woman in a small SUV bouncing from lane to lane and honking her horn.
As we came to a red light, the guy next to me turned right and the woman from behind proceeded to pull up next to me. She rolled down her window and started yelling at me. I lowered my window and heard her say, "If you don't know how to drive in the snow, get the heck off the road, some of us have places to go!" The light then turned green and she sped off as fast as she could.
She got up to speed, and as she approached the next red light, she hit her brakes and slid on the snow…right into the car in front of her. I stopped and went right up to her window and asked if she was OK. She nodded her head, and while she was dazed, I said the most epic thing I could have ever said: "If you don't know how to drive in the snow, get the heck off the road."
There is a lesson in that story: Four-wheel drive only helps you move forward, not stop or turn.
35. A Good Deed
I was in high school walking back from lunch when there was an older gentleman who had crutches in front of me, he couldn’t manage to get off the road since the curb was high and he obviously had leg injuries. All the school kids were walking past him so I did what I thought any decent person would do and went over to him and gave him a helping hand.
As I walked on, I got flagged down by a woman in a car who had watched the entire incident and she informed me she was the headteacher of a neighboring school and had been at a meeting at my school. She phoned up my school and explained the situation to my headteacher. As soon as I got back in for lunch I was brought in by my headteacher.
They thanked me for giving the school a good name and I got an extra hour for lunch and a certificate at the school award ceremony.
36. Sometimes It’s Okay To Follow The Crowd
We were driving on a very icy road, in a four-wheel-drive car, after one of the first big snowstorms of the winter. We're going a little slow, which is about as fast as we feel we can push it, given the ice sheet over everything since the snow melted to slush and re-froze overnight. We've been driving in ice our whole lives.
We know what'll work and what is risky, and today’s conditions are bad. All other traffic is basically moving at our speed or even slower. A shiny new lifted red Dodge pickup pulls up behind us, tailgating and revving his engine. Basically, everything is screaming, "Big man in his big truck doesn't need to be held up by some tiny car that can't handle the snow"!
We hit a straight section and give him an easy chance to pass us. He takes it and quickly accelerates. BIG MISTAKE. About 400 feet beyond us, the road takes a moderate curve left. He tries to turn, but it's a solid sheet of ice and the truck just goes straight into a parked car and guardrail, right in front of a dozen or so witnesses.
We coast past at our slowed pace, making the turn without issue. His front end was pretty smashed up, maybe not totaled, but I'd be amazed if he could drive it to the shop.
37. Above His Own Rules
I was in a class learning French, it was very early in the curriculum and our first test had a question that needed you to translate the word "singe" (monkey). A lot of us never learned this word at this point. I triple-checked all of our previous lesson material which even had a lesson on animal names and monkey was not among them.
Turns out, those who did know it only knew because they had watched an Eddie Izzard stand-up routine about learning French. So we brought this up and the teacher eventually gave us a point back if we missed it, but a smug student who grew up in Quebec said something to the effect of, "Even though it wasn't in the lessons, you can't just expect to be spoon-fed all of your vocabulary”.
He continued, “Knowing words outside of the lesson is part of 'global knowledge' and it's required for succeeding in this class". For the record, I agree with that philosophy—to become fluent you have to branch out and go outside the curriculum for more words. But this is the first month of class where you can't expect students to know that much outside of the lesson plan.
Fast forward to getting the grades for a later test and I catch him being a huge drama queen because he missed a point for not knowing the word "dehors" (outside) and sure enough he was arguing that he was never taught that word in class.
38. That’s The Ticket!
One day, I was about to get on a bus. The guy in front of me wasn't moving onto the bus, and I quickly realized he was frantically searching for his wallet. After a few moments had passed, I finally piped up and offered him two bus tickets. He clearly had a problem accepting charity, but he took the tickets and thanked me profusely.
He promised me that I would see the tickets again. About six months later, I was about to get off the bus at the opposite side of the city when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around, and the person who tapped me asked if I remembered him. I thought about it for a second, hoping that he wasn't some friend of my dad's that I had met and forgotten about.
Once he saw that I clearly did not remember him, he told me that I had given him bus tickets a while back, and he was repaying me. He gave me two bus tickets and promptly got off the bus. Those two tickets are still in a hidden pocket of my wallet. I'm saving them for the next time I see someone who has forgotten their wallet and needs them.
39. The Universe Took Them For A Ride
When I was about 20, I was standing at a bus stop waiting for the bus. The street I was on had a little bit of construction going on, and there were some orange barricades set up down the middle of the road. They were made of metal and had a yellow flashing light on top. As I was standing there, I saw a Porsche convertible coming down the street with three guys about my age inside.
As they got closer, I could see them looking at me and talking to each other. The car began to slow down. I knew at this point I was in trouble. I knew that they were going to do something stupid. Sure enough, as they passed, they all turned in my direction and, on cue, yelled something rude at me as they passed. Unfortunately for the driver, karma was quick.
As he turned his head to yell at me, he swerved his car to the left, hitting several of the metal pylons and tearing up the driver's side of what I could only assume was his father’s car. Correction: His father's very, very nice car. Needless to say, the idiot sped off from me in a great hurry. I spent the rest of my day in a surprisingly great mood!
40. A Good Start To The New Year
I was walking home with my friend after a pretty tame New Year's Eve party. My friend and I hit a fork in the road where our houses were in different directions, so we said our goodbyes and I carried on for the 10-minute walk home. A minute later, I turned a corner onto an empty street, and as soon as I did, two young guys wearing all black raced around the corner behind me.
They slowed down a few feet behind me and started following me, so I crossed the street and began to walk fast. I turned around 15 seconds later, and it seemed as if I had put a good bit of distance between us, so I thought I was in the clear. I kept walking for another 20 seconds and heard a weird noise. I turned around just in time to see a fist coming towards my face.
I dodged it. The first dude put his dukes up and screamed at me unintelligibly, and the other started creeping at me from the other side, trying to back me into a corner. I decided to run. I dashed off right between them, and they started chasing me down the street. One was yelling to the other, "You better catch him!" We came to a main road.
Two cars were coming in opposite directions, perfectly timed for me to run between them and leave the muggers on the other side of the street. I kept running for another three solid minutes at a panicked pace and got a block away from my home. I tried to make sure they didn't follow me to my house. There was no sign of them. As I was leaning over to catch my breath, I looked down. On the pavement sat two £20 notes folded up. It was unbelievable.
41. Jim Wasn’t So Dandy
When I was 18, a group of friends and I spent a long weekend at my buddy’s place in the Adirondacks. We split our time between his grandparents' house, which was up on a hill, where we had our meals and where we showered, and a cabin right on the lake where we did our drinking. There were eight of us in all, but Tom and Jim were the most memorable.
Tom was relatively new to our circle of friends, somewhat awkward, but generally a nice guy. Jim was the opposite. He was immature, hotheaded, self-conscious, and selfish. The only reason he was there was that he had been friends with my buddy since birth. Jim was constantly belittling Tom to assert his dominance in an otherwise non-existent hierarchy.
One Saturday, after lunch, someone suggested beer pong in the cabin. We were all in. Impatient as always, Jim went railing down the hill to the cabin ahead of us, screaming, “I GOT FIRST GAME! I GOT FIRST GAME!” The rest of us followed casually behind. When he reached the bottom of the hill, he took a bounding step onto the front bumper of Tom’s green little Ford.
We suddenly heard an extremely unsettling crunch. He had driven his foot through the car’s windshield. Then, his forward momentum propelled him to take a fourth and final step, ripping his leg back out through the windshield. He collapsed onto the roof, screaming in pain. The image of leg hair trapped in the spider web of shattered glass and the gash on Jim’s leg will forever be instant karma for me.
42. Saved By The Soup
I was once at a friend's house. His mom was dating this jerk at the time and he had major anger issues. I was infamous for cooking at the house and making a big mess...but since I was 11 and his mom was rarely home, it was a regular thing I did. In this one instance, my friend was upstairs in the bathroom while I was making soup. Just as his mom's boyfriend walked in, I picked up the soup tureen, and the handle cracked right off.
The tureen fell with a clang and a buttload of split soup flooded the kitchen. That’s when it turned completely bizarre. The boyfriend lowered his head and starts charging at me like a bull. I was terrified. This was the only time an adult had ever tried to attack me. He took about one and a half running steps towards me before I heard: "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAEEEEEEEEEK!"
Down went goes, butt-first, right into the huge puddle of soup. He slid a couple more feet until his head hit the side of some floor-level cabinets. I kind of leaped over him and jetted up to my friend's room, locking the door.
43. Timing Is Everything
I've worked at the same company for over six years. I was a good, loyal employee with a perfect track record. Over the six years, I'd only called in sick twice. I had the best results, as well as the least amount of errors on paperwork in the whole region. Well, my new boss decided that that wasn't enough.
He minimized my hours, expanded my workload, and never had anything nice to say. He seemed to think ruling with an iron fist is the way to go about his job. Even after all this, I kept my head above water, fixing his errors along the way. Then, one day, I decided I had enough and resigned from my position with immediate effect. Turns out, that was actually the best revenge.
My departure ended up throwing a wrench in his operations, and I timed it exactly so that it will ruin his vacation plans for next week. On top of that, there was no one to fill my position. As soon as I mouthed the words, "I quit," you could see the terror in his eyes. He realized how screwed he was without me and he tried to do whatever he could to keep me for at least another week.
I've never felt such a sense of instant karma as today.
44. The Wrath Of Karma
This story is as instant as instant karma can get. I go to New York City about once a year to visit family. While there, I always crave the "Grandma's Sicilian" pizza, and the best slice in the city is served near my cousin's place. Well, it's NYC, so naturally the joint is crowded as heck with a bunch of different people.
Across from the register, you can buy drinks, and payment is made via an honor system. The cashier can see you take a drink, but 90% of the time, they are occupied with a customer. I've never really stolen before, but my cousin just nonchalantly took a drink and nobody said a word!
I do love me some Peach Snapple, so I got greedy and took two of them. I paid for the food and we were on our way out. At that point, the adrenaline was pumping through my veins. Did I mention my craving for the pizza was so large that I got an entire pizza instead of just one or two slices? Yep, an entire pie for myself. I felt on top of the world—until I walked back to the train station. That's when karma hit me.
I tripped on the curb and fell, landing on the pizza and covering my clothes in the sauce. Both of the Snapple bottles shattered, and the glass lodges itself into my knuckles, palms, and legs. The brand new $60 jeans I purchased the day before at Express got ripped by the glass. Despite cleaning the wounds properly, my hand still became infected that night. Suffice to say I haven’t stolen anything since.
45. Problematic Attitude
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 guy 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, the angry guy had docked his boat and started walking up the dock towards the poor boating newbie, screaming and yelling. This dude punches the family guy and knocks him off the dock into the water. Then two burly dudes that nobody was really paying attention to walk up. They grab the angry guy as the family guy was falling in the water, then throw him onto the dock and cuff him after flashing their badges.
They were undercover watching the boat ramp. There was applause and cheering from the folks waiting to put in and take out.
46. I Got The Stamp Of Approval
When I was in college, I used to volunteer at homeless shelters and soup kitchens. After volunteering for some time, I got to know many of the guests that came in. So, one day my girlfriend and I were getting frozen yogurt downtown when a homeless woman that I had gotten to know walked in. She was timid and usually kept to herself, so I kept my distance but acknowledged her by saying hi and asking how she was.
She seemed happy to see me, and we had a small chat. At the end of it, I offered to buy her frozen yogurt. I knew she had the means to buy it, but I thought if I could save her some money, she could spend it on something else another day. She respectfully declined. I then went to pay for my girlfriend's yogurt and asked the cashier if I could pay for the homeless woman’s as well without her knowing.
Since you would pay by weight, I just told the cashier to double the weight of my girlfriend’s food since that should have been a good estimate of how much the homeless woman would get. The cashier gave me the biggest smile. I paid for both, and she asked me if I had a stamp card. I did not. The cashier then took out a stamp card and stamped it ten times right then, which gave me 16 ounces of frozen yogurt for free. She handed me the card, thanked me for what I did, and told me to have a great day.
47. Sharing Is Caring
I'm from San Diego and during the summer, you have to claim bonfire pits on the beach really early in the morning if you want one for the night. My friends and I got to the beach at 8 am and stayed there so we could get a bonfire going into the night. Just before sundown, this one couple asked if they could share the bonfire with us.
Since our group wasn't too big, we let them join us. However, that couple proceeded to bring a group of like 15 others and they literally surrounded the pit, pushing us out. We were angry, but we were so tired from being at the beach all day that we just decided to head out. Little did we know what was coming next.
That night, there was a high tide warning, and when we moved all of our stuff over the wall that divided the beach walk from the beach, a huge wave came in and washed out that whole group. The wave flipped over their table of food, took a handful of sandals back into the ocean, and destroyed all their stuff.
The best part was this one girl was trying to jump the wall to save herself but she didn’t jump high enough and ended up falling right back into the waters. Karma's a witch.
48. Pick On Somebody Your Own Size
I was working in a pub in Liverpool and had just arrived for my shift at about 10 am. I knocked on the door and waited for someone to let me in. That’s when I heard the sound of some voices shouting. I turned around to see two guys with their shirts off swaggering towards me and talking to me in a language I didn't understand.
They came right up to me and, with what little English they did know, they called me a bunch of nasty slurs. I was knocking on the door really hard at this point, but after insulting me, they left me alone and proceeded to walk off towards a busy road, laughing. I kept an eye on them as they walked out into the traffic, waving their arms at the cars to stop for them and giving the drivers the finger when they didn’t.
Suddenly, one of the cars actually did stop and four big guys got out. One of the nasty dudes ran off, but the "big man" got caught up to him and shoved him, hard, against the car a couple of times, clearly hurting his head and elbow. Then, another one of the big guys drew his fist far back, clearly about to punch the other misfit. The little jerk covered his face and screamed.
They didn't get hit, but a bunch of passerbys started laughing. They let him go and he ran away. That felt good.
49. Bowling For Dollars
I worked as a bartender at a bowling alley. For some reason, one of the other bartenders hated me. She was constantly poaching customers from me and never split our tips fairly. She even tried to get the scheduling manager to put her on the days I would be working, just to be a jerk.
One of my regulars also said she caught her pocketing tips and not putting them in our communal bucket while I was working with her. And then tournament season started. People either dreaded it or looked forward to it. It sucked because shifts were twice or three times as long as normal and there was a constant rush of people at the bar, but that also meant we'd make as much in a day as we did in a week.
Well, during the first tournament, she "claimed" a bunch of teams since they were bowling on her side. Apparently, she knew them well and was looking forward to their tournament tips. She came in, saw that I was scheduled to bartend that day, and she flipped right out. She started ranting to the manager—but she had made a fatal mistake.
The owner of the place happened to be standing right there. The owner pretty much said I was one of the better bartenders, so I was getting put on the tournaments, and if she didn't like it she could just leave. So she did...and then I got to work her normal shifts as well.
50. Words Of Wisdom
My old manager was a monster. He belittled people, made the work environment hostile, and denied anything that would make his workers happy while giving himself every comfort. He even denied me my request to take a half-day so I could go to my mother’s funeral. He said, "Would it be a big deal if you couldn't go?" It was horrible, but eventually, he got what was coming to him in the best way.
One day, he wrote up a fictitious counseling statement about one of my co-workers and the entire office revolted. The manager wasn't fired as we wanted, but he was “relieved” from his duties. A new manager came shortly after to fill in his position—he was very well regarded, a former 20-year Air Force veteran, and an overall humble guy who actually knew how to handle people. We had our first awkward team meeting, with the old manager bitterly in attendance.
As the new manager was giving his introductory speech, he saw the old manager glaring around the table, still trying to intimidate people. He stops talking, paused for a few seconds, then said, "You know, when I was in the Air Force, I learned that if you take care of your people, they'll take care of you." He then stared directly at the old manager and said, "And if you don't take care of your people, they'll take care of you."
51. A Step Down
I worked at a grocery store. I was stocking instant noodles on a big sale display. All I had was a cheap small step two-step stool, you know the one with the bar that runs across the top step. Reaching down to the stool from the shelf I was standing on was about three feet. I had a 60% chance my foot would land on the top bar and collapse the thing.
I asked a coworker if I could use his shoulder as a handle as I got down. My supervisor called me a princess for getting assistance. Well, he paid for his taunts in the worst way. Soon after he was stocking the two-liter bottles on a sales display. He tried to get down. He took the 40% success rate jump onto the step and hit the top bar. The step ladder collapsed.
He broke his arm and took down half of the display. I just clocked out and left before they told me to clean up the spilled soda all over the place.
52. Mind Your Business
My roommate is very nosy and judgmental about people's personal relationships. At the beginning of the first semester, we went to dinner with our suitemate, who is quite a few years older than us, in order to get to know her. Somehow, we got on to the topic of teenage mothers, and our suitemate admitted that she got pregnant at sixteen.
My roommate said something along the lines of, "I would get an abortion so fast. I'm guessing you didn't want to keep it either?" Oof. The consequences were gut-wrenching. Turns out, our suitemate had actually had a miscarriage. It was an awkward meal after that but it was so refreshing to see her get shut down like that. I hope she learned a lesson.
53. What Goes Around, Comes Around
A few months ago, I was on vacation in San Francisco. Late at night after a potluck and drinks, my friend drove me to a metro station near her house and gave me directions to take the train back to my hotel. I walked in, paid my fare, and went underground only to find out I'd just missed the last train by a matter of mere minutes.
Fortunately, my friend was awesome and gave me bus directions back, but there was another person who'd missed the same train, and he was in a far worse situation than mine. He was pretty out of it, carrying massive bags of groceries, and was trying to get back home. He also had no way to call an Uber. Feeling bad, I offered to call him an Uber.
I told him he could pay me back what he could. He only had $3, but so be it, I wasn't going to turn him down. We chatted awhile until his ride came, he went off on his merry, inebriated way, and I went to catch my bus. Except when I got on, I realized it was a bus from the other transit company, and so my current fare wasn't transferable.
I'd have to pay again. I realized I had no dollar bills left in my wallet. I spent it all on that useless metro fare. Panicking, I reached into my back pocket where I keep small change, well knowing I didn't have enough for the $2.50 fare. And that's when I felt the $3 that guy gave me. It was such a beautiful feeling. I think we were mutual guardian angels that night.
54. Clairvoyant
I was driving home on the highway during a horrible blizzard at night. The roads were extremely slick and dangerous, I was going about 30 miles per hour. My daughter was a newborn and it was the first time I had ever driven in the snow with her. I was nervous—and it was about to get more dangerous. Some numbskull in a huge truck was doing 65, passing everyone in the slow lane.
He was just being really risky and ignorant to the conditions and other drivers in general. He passed me, and I said to myself, "You're going to crash bro." Right at that moment, the dude fishtails, loses control, and crashes into a ditch. Don't worry, I'm not a sadist, he was completely fine. I know this because I saw him emerge from the truck and do a little angry freakout dance.
His truck wasn't fine though. That's what you get for endangering others during a blizzard!
55. It Was Blind Luck
I had to meet a friend in town. I could have walked it, but was feeling lazy, so I waited for a bus. I was sitting, listening to music when some older women walked up to me. They asked if I could look after this other woman who was blind until the bus came. I said sure and introduced myself to the woman, and we talked a little while we waited for the bus.
We ended up waiting for ages. I called my friend to cancel since I was with the lady and I couldn’t leave. An hour later, the bus finally showed up. She was meeting a friend in the shopping mall, outside of a McDonald's. So, I walked with her to McDonald's to make sure she met her friend safely. All went well, and she thanked me for being kind.
I told her it was no problem and it was nice meeting her. Afterward, I was hungry and wanted to pick something up for dinner. So, I went to the supermarket and grabbed some cheap lasagne. I went to pay at the self-checkout, and as I put my lasagne in the bag, I saw someone had left a sushi platter. I loved sushi but never got to eat it because I couldn’t afford it.
There was no one looking for it, so I picked it up and put it in my bag. I went and sat by the river and enjoyed my fabulous sushi platter.
56. I Was Finally In The Clear
It was early in the morning and I was driving home from a New Year's Eve party. It was dark out. The road was icy and extremely foggy. The streets were twisty and narrow, and the likelihood of deer crossing the road was high, so I was driving very slowly with my fog lights and hazards on. About halfway home, some person peeled out of a side street and started tailgating me.
They were flashing their high beams, honking their horn, apparently in hopes that I would speed up or pull over. Given the road conditions and poor visibility, I declined to do either. I figured that when the road widened in a couple of miles, I would pull to the side and let the person pass. Otherwise, they could take their chances and pass me on the left. I made an awful miscalculation.
For four very tense miles, instead of passing, this dirtbag tailed me, weaving back and forth, shouting out the window. The fog was swirling around, my car was slipping on black ice, and I was worried that a deer would come bounding across the road at any moment. Just as the road widened into two lanes, and before I could pull over, the driver decided they had enough.
They screeched out from around me, narrowly missing my car, while the passengers hung out the windows shouting and throwing bottles and cans at me. When the last can bounced off the hood of my car, I pulled over and wished I could destroy their car with the power of my mind. Fortunately, karma was on the job! A state trooper, who'd been lurking in the darkness, pulled out and sped off after them.
By the time I crept by them, he had all four of them face down on the ground with their hands behind their backs.
57. Only Fools Rush In
I was in the middle lane of a three-lane divided highway. The lane to my left was ending, forcing people to merge into the middle lane. Coming up on where the left lane was about to end, some woman was trying to speed up to get in front of me in her Tahoe. Mind you, there was a ton of free lane space behind me, but apparently, she had somewhere important to be.
So I checked the lane to my right and saw a car coming up. I wasn’t going to cut him off, so I let off the gas and coasted a little to see if this woman was really committed to getting in front of me. She was. She cut in front of me and gave me a quick wave as if that should excuse her. At the same time, I was watching my right-side view mirror for the car that was coming up.
Sure enough, the car in front of her wasn't going as fast as she needed, and she just cut over to the right lane as the car I was watching passed me. I hit my brakes hard because I knew what was going to happen. The car to my right passed by me as this lady cut over to its lane. She ended up taking the front end of that car against her right rear passenger door, pushing her vehicle sideways. I smiled and waved as I went by.
58. The Destroyer Of Jerks
This is one of my favorite stories to tell. I went to a small school of about 80 students, and in my class, there were only 12 people. Although our numbers were small, we still had jerks who made everyone's lives miserable. In our case, that jerk was Christopher. Christopher was one of those kids who felt like he could do whatever he wanted to anyone else.
He also thought he would be absolved of all blame if he finished his routine with, "It's just a joke." Basically, he was a grade-A jerk. There was also a mentally challenged kid in our class. Let's call him Todd. Now, Todd was a curious guy and he was fond of asking questions. It was just his own way of obtaining information. I know this might sound bad, but we were often annoyed with him.
Nevertheless, we still all looked after him and made sure nobody gave him trouble. He was one of us, and that lent him some protection. The karmic incident took place once when we were the seniors. We basically ruled the school, and naturally, this power would go to our heads.
It corrupted nobody quite as much as it did Christopher. We were playing baseball one day, practicing for an upcoming competition. We split up into two teams and made plays with each other. I was kind of mad because Todd was on my team, as he wasn't the most athletically gifted. Picture Kermit The Frog trying to run the 110-meter hurdles.
We were losing, due in no small part to the other team’s superior members. I had lost interest, and only gave lackluster hits when it was my turn. Then it was Todd's turn. I watched him bat, just to see how it would go. Christopher was pitching the ball and he wasn't even giving Todd a chance. He'd throw the ball at his feet, then burst out laughing with his team.
Babe Ruth couldn't have done a darn thing with those kinds of throws. It went on for three whole minutes. Eventually, his own team got sick of him and told him to give a decent throw so Todd could strikeout and the game could progress. When he threw it, and Todd braced himself. We're all watching by now.
As the ball drew closer, the most incredible thing happened. WHACK. Todd didn't just hit the ball with the bat, he annihilated it. The bang was heard all over the school. So what does a ball do when it's met with a force like that? I don't know for sure, but in this case, it went back towards Christopher at Mach speed.
I didn't even see the ball on its way back. It was like a bullet from a pistol. When it got to Christopher, it hit him squarely in the eye. He fell down and got knocked out cold. One of his friends helped him inside, while the rest of us cheered and laughed. We lifted Todd on our shoulders and gave him a hero’s cheer. He was no longer just Todd. He was Todd, the destroyer of jerks.
59. A Busload Of Trouble
This happened a few years ago. I used to live a street or two behind a central suburban bus stop on top of a big hill. I would take the bus every day to college, which was about an hour's bus ride away. One morning, I got on the bus and it pulled up to the intersection, waiting at a red light.
When the light turned green, it started pulling out. All of a sudden, this primped-up, snooty, middle-aged woman in a red suit (I still remember the details because it made me so mad) FLEW right through her red light in her huge silver Cadillac, going the same way that the bus was turning. The bus driver had to slam on the brakes quite suddenly and then honked at the woman.
The woman then FLIPPED THE BUS DRIVER OFF and kept speeding. The bus driver cursed and carried on. But that wasn’t the end of the story. When we later made our way to the bottom of the hill, we saw that a couple of officers had pulled over a silver Cadillac into the cross street. They were issuing her a ticket.
The bus driver saw it and said, "Oh yeah, baby!" He pulled the bus over to the sidewalk near where the intersection was and flagged down one of the officers. The bus driver asked him if she had been caught speeding, and the cop confirmed. Then, the bus driver told him, "She also just ran a red light.”
The cop said, "Well, we will add that to her ticket—would you be willing to come in as a witness in court for that?" The bus driver replied, "HONEY, I GET PAID TO GO TO COURT FOR STUFF LIKE THIS. IT'D BE MY PLEASURE." And the whole bus started clapping. It was such a good day. You always dream about nailing people like that.
60. I Fought The Law
I was working at a mental health facility for the elderly as a nurse. I worked there for over a year with a perfect work record. At some point, my co-worker found out I have PTSD and decided to tell my boss. After that, the two of them hung out a lot together, plotting to have me committed. One day, they launched their attack. During one of my shifts, my boss called me into her office to congratulate me on my one year of service. When we were in her office alone, she started grilling me about my mental health and how it played out at home. That's when things made a turn for the worst.
The next thing I knew, she forced me to go to the psych emergency ward because I have PTSD. The entire meeting was designed to trigger me enough to behave poorly. Somehow, they wanted to rationalize the next step, which was to cart me off to emergency and have them lock me away in a padded room.
They didn’t though. The hospital said I was fine; just stressed out about being forced to go to the hospital like a crazy person for no reason other than admitting I had PTSD. After the hospital let me go, my boss put me on extended medical leave without telling me and ignored all my calls for two weeks. She then wrote letters lying about me to her bosses and the HR dept.
I filed a union grievance and a complaint with a third-party whistleblower company. My boss lied about me to everyone. She said I told her I was standing in front of mirrors with knives, wanting to cut flesh. They believed her, so they shut down my complaints. I took it to the human rights tribunal.
Well, I won. It took three long years and it was the hardest thing I have ever done, but it was well worth it. My boss’s health declined considerably by the time the trial happened. She lost her job, she had to move, and there is a public record about what she did that will forever remain. The co-worker who helped my boss is also on the permanent record at the company.
She will never be comfortable at that job site again, and what she did is known to all. I got the highest amount awarded for damages. I created a precedent for other persons with PTSD with a clean work history who do a good job on the clock but have very real struggles with symptoms at home. No karma could possibly taste better than $40k and a clear reputation.
61. Dance It Out
We had a dance unit in my seventh-grade gym class. The teachers decided that it was a good idea for everyone to do Tae-Bo. My middle school ran like Mean Girls—Many people held grudges for things that had occurred in the previous year. Old elementary school football rivalries were present. The nerdy kids loathed the jocks.
The popular girls were often angry because of rumors that were going around at the time. The girls in smaller cliques secretly envied each other. The lowest members of the middle school social caste system had it out for the bullies. It was chaos just waiting to explode—and it did explode...as 200 of us were crowded into the gym.
On a massive screen, Billy Banks' Tae-Bo DVD was playing. At first, the Tae-Bo exercise was relatively civil, but there were those kids who were just being jerks; kneeing people in the back, punching shoulders, etc. Attitudes then shifted. You could feel the heat of the victims' anger and the testosterone levels skyrocketing.
Suddenly, a few of the unpopular kids realized that gym class was requiring them to hit and kick. Their tormenters were getting away with using Tae-Bo as an excuse to be jerks, and they figured they shouldn't be the only ones to play that game. Perhaps, this time, they could evade the no-tolerance policy and get away with dishing out some vengeance.
Without warning, the entire gym erupted into a flurry of fists and flying feet. Girls who had been the verbal punching bag of their cliques started pulling hair and swiping at faces. Kids who had been bullied day after day started dishing out black eyes like it was nobody's business. The sudden attacks literally spread like wildfire.
The kids at the top of the social hierarchy were taken completely by surprise as the tables had turned and some even bolted for the doors. The gym teachers tried to stop the epic battle, but there were only six of them. Eventually, school security showed up to break up the fight. No one was formally punished that day, as you couldn't exactly punish 200 kids.
Injuries ranged from bruises to broken teeth. Essentially, the middle school version of a peasant rebellion occurred, and the nobility got their butts kicked. Unfortunately, the issues were not cleared up in a single battle. Alliances only strengthened and the neutral took sides, which led up to the great Twitter conflict which has, as far as I know, remained unresolved.
62. Watching And Waiting
Many years ago, I went up to an amusement park with a friend on a beautiful summer day. As we got closer to the exit ramp leading to the park, traffic starts backing up because of the number of other people with the same idea. People started peeling off into the shoulder to get around the line of cars waiting. The fact that some people were already doing it seemed to entice others, until the line on the shoulder came up to just a few car lengths ahead of us.
We keep slowly moving forward, but the cars on the shoulder aren't. I'd assumed that it was just a situation of them not being able to merge back into traffic, but as we got to our exit, we made a hilarious discovery. There was a single cop car parked at the end, and there were a few officers walking down the line of cars writing tickets. I don't remember what we did at the park that day, but I often think about those cars and smile.
63. My Deed Scored A Major Goal
I was working at a concession stand. Early in my shift, a guy came in and asked if we sold empty cups. His wife was a kindergarten teacher, and her class was in the area for a picnic, but she had forgotten cups for the drinks. We weren't really supposed to, but I sold him 60 cups at the employee rate of 10 cents each. He thanked me, gave me $8, and ran out.
Three hours later, I was on my break when the cook ran to our break room. He told me that a Hall of Fame quarterback had walked into the concession stand. I was a huge fan of the player, so I went inside to help get his order ready. As I gave him his food, a guy next to him pointed to me and said, "Hey, that's the guy who sold us the cups!"
It turned out that the quarterback's daughter was in the class. When he paid his bill and got his change, he handed me $20 as a tip for helping out earlier.
64. In The Zone
I was driving on a two-lane road. There was a double yellow line, and I was approaching a flashing school zone. I slowed from 45 to 25 at precisely the right moment. The car behind me didn't seem to care about the speed restriction and proceeded to tailgate me, flashing her lights, honking her horn, and yelling as she passed me.
She floored it, ignoring everything about the situation, including the oncoming traffic. She zoomed in front of me and was almost out of sight when the blue lights of a cruiser turned on from a hidden spot just on the other side of the school zone. She immediately hit the brakes and pulled over. By the time I got to where they were, I had the passenger window down and was laughing loud enough that they both heard me. She glared at me, and I blew the officer a kiss as he tipped his hat to me.
65. Plenty Of Fish In The Sea
I worked on a charter fishing boat. I did everything from cut bait, clean fish, upkeep, and maintenance on the boat. However, since we worked for tips, a large amount of our day was spent getting to know the customers who paid to come out and fish. The more you connected with them, the more obligated they felt to tip generously after the trip.
One morning a man came aboard, and after the usual jargon, he revealed himself to be a local preacher hoping to catch enough fish for a fish fry his congregation planned to hold. We promptly told the other customers, most of which agreed to give him whatever fish they didn't want to keep. We had a good catch of croaker that day and sent him home with well over several hundred pounds of fish.
When it came time to collect tips, he offered the other mate and me a $20 bill. We told him to put it in the offering plate for us next Sunday. Teary-eyed, he expressed his gratitude and said that our generosity would be returned ten-fold. That afternoon a man and his son chartered the entire boat for themselves. Hours later, after an effortless and relatively fun trip, he tipped us $200 apiece.
66. Oh What A Night
Last spring, I didn't get a date for the junior prom. I wasn't thrilled, but I figured I'd go stag. I found the perfect dress and was actually really excited. Then, my group of friends said I couldn't come with them. Their reason chilled me to the bone. They told me that since I didn't have a date, it would "ruin the pictures."
And since I wasn't going to be in the pictures, they said it just be so awkward for me to get ready with them beforehand. "Wouldn't it just be so uncomfortable being the only one in the limo with no boyfriend?" they added. "And what would you do afterward?" I mean, everyone knows what happens at the parties after prom.
So I didn't go at all. But guess who's limo never showed up?
67. Fire It Up
This is from my younger years. A friend of mine had a cousin who was visiting for Victoria Day in Canada. When I went to visit him, I was told he was in the backyard. I went back there and he was with his cousin setting off firecrackers. They had a big bowl of loose firecrackers. When I asked if I can set a couple off as well, they both just started tossing lit firecrackers at me while laughing.
I figured that they were both acting like greedy jerks, so I decided to leave. Just as I'm about to, however, a spark got into the bowl. The entire bowl of firecrackers ignited, leaving only a few unexploded. This lasted for about 10 or 15 seconds. The stunned look on their faces was so satisfying. I started laughing at them.
I'm sure they planned a whole afternoon of setting them off.
68. I’m With The Band
Not my story, but my mom's. Apparently, when she was young, there was a girl at her school who was always a major witch to her. She hated my mom for whatever reason and always made fun of her. Fast forward to my mom as a college-aged woman—somehow, she managed to land a relationship with the guitarist from Bob Marley's band. One day, she was out at a bar with him getting drinks.
The dude went to the bathroom and her bully from back in the day came up to my mom, saying, "Oh my God, did you see who is here?!" At that moment, the dude came back and put his arm around my mom. "Hey babe, what's happening?" he said. She said the look on that girl's face was priceless. Don’t you just dream of a moment like that?
69. Don’t Put Your Eggs In One Basket
On a backpacking trip around Greece, I had a bad experience in a hotel and decided to take one of their beautifully-painted stone eggs from the bowl in the reception as compensation. When we were on the ferry to the next island, I started noticing a horrible smell coming from my bag. It turns out that it was not a stone egg at all, but a painted boiled egg that had broken in my bag.
The whole thing had become so rotten that it had turned a nice shade of green, and the smell was almost intolerable. I had to borrow a lot of my friend’s clothes for the rest of the trip, but at least it taught me a good lesson.
70. A Sweet Treat
In my freshman year of high school, I was walking to class. Some older kid is waltzing down the hallway with a pack of doughnuts. As we get closer, he opens the box of doughnuts as if to offer me one, I happily oblige, and reach for one, only for him to snatch the box away from me and give me the classic "got you" type of attitude.
Unfortunately for him, he pulled back a bit too quickly and sent the entire box of doughnuts into the garbage can in one quick gesture.
71. Gotta Love A Happy Ending
About 12 years ago, I was looking for a book at Barnes and Noble. I could only remember the cover and seriously nothing else (I hadn't read it). An employee helped me search for it for about 20 minutes and we finally gave up. On my way out, a person bumped into a table, causing a huge stack of books to fall off the table.
I figured that employee helped me for a really long time, I'll pick up all these books to return the favor. I look down and in the pile of books was the one we had been searching for.
72. Art Imitates Life
I was in eighth grade. I was standing on a bench when I watched some girl fall over in the yard, I started laughing and pointing and then went to lean back onto the fence that was behind the bench. Turns out it had broken off where I was standing and I fell straight through and into the mud.
73. A Coke And A Smile
I worked at a pizza joint during college. We sold some beverages out of a fountain machine and others in a can. One day, this lady in a business suit came in acting a little frantic. She wanted soda in a can but wasn't happy with our selection. She got pretty nasty when I told her we only sold Coca-Cola out of the fountain.
She left the store mad and went across the street to a little hot dog stand to see about buying her drink there. They had it in a can, but apparently at a price she did not want to pay. So, she came storming back to my pizza joint and snottily said, “The Coke across the street was too expensive, so I have to settle for your fountain soda.” She wanted six of them.
She got even angrier when I offered her a choice of 12 or 32-ounce cups and even more aggravated when I told her we didn’t have carrying trays. However, I offered to get her a box to carry them all. She was just flat-out unhappy that she had to deal with this. To make things worse, we had a faulty batch of soda cups that day. About every tenth cup had a pinhole in it.
I did not know that, as I had just started shift when this woman first came in. Wouldn't you know it, but this woman in her business suit got one of the defective cups and soda sprayed ALL OVER the front of her suit. I was sure she thought we did it on purpose. I apologized offered her a wet rag and a replacement cup. But when she finally walked out the door, my boss and I had the biggest laugh!
74. How The Wind Blows
It was a particularly windy day. I was in the parking lot at a grocery store with my dad. As we exited the building, we saw a shopping cart being pushed along by the wind at walking speed. The cart passed right in front of this woman who just watched it go by, despite it going slow enough that she could have easily caught it.
My dad turned to me and said, "Why didn't she just grab it?" We continued to watch this cart gain speed. After a few seconds, a burst of wind came through, and the cart rocketed across the parking lot directly towards this one van. We could hear it smash into this van over the howling wind and saw the huge dent in the driver's side door from over 75 feet away.
We then noticed that the woman from earlier who watched the cart go by her was walking in the same direction as the van. With each step, my dad and I could barely contain our excitement. When she got to about 15 feet away from the car, we saw her hands rise into the air. At that point, we just lost our composure and laughed until we got home.
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75. On The Brink Of Embarrassment
One day the armored transport company came into my work to drop off cash for us. One of the guards was the rudest guy we had ever met. He came in demanding, "I need your manager now," and "When are you going to take care of me?" So, the manager took the cash, finished the transaction, and the guy walked out. A few moments later, he came back in asking to use the phone. His partner had gotten out of the truck and locked the keys inside. We were all busting a gut. It was well deserved.
76. Justice Is Served
I was in daycare as a child. At the time, I had very long hair that my dad always put into a ponytail. There was a girl there who would pull on my ponytail all the time. We were playing musical chairs at the end of one day while waiting for our parents to pick us up. The girl was behind me and kept yanking my ponytail, even though I kept telling her to stop.
The teacher apparently "didn't see anything," so she did nothing about it. There were a bunch of parents waiting for us to finish our game, my mom included. The girl kept doing it and the teacher kept not seeing it, so I knew what I had to do. I turned around and punched the girl as hard as I could. She stumbled into the "cubbies" where we kept our coats.
The teacher tried to chastise me, and my mom was like "Nope. I didn't see anything.” I didn't even get in trouble.
77. Flaunt It If You Got It
A number of years ago, my then-boyfriend and I were at our local dive bar having a few beers as usual. All was good until this petite chick with a rocking body strolled in and very blatantly flaunted her stuff to every guy there, including my boyfriend. I'm a decade older than her and I was just like, whatever...as long as she doesn't actually come over and try her stupidness up close and personal.
Eventually, every guy in the bar was so distracted that the whole place started completely malfunctioning. The bartender was too busy flirting with her that he failed to keep our beers coming as usual and my opponent at the pool table was becoming a cake-walk as he was not mentally present.
That's when I started to get annoyed. Of course, I knew that anything I said would sound like I was jealous and envious, so I said nothing and seethed silently, salvaging what I could of my happy hour. Cue karma: She sashayed up to the bar again in her tall wedges and mini skirt, climbed on top of the stool, knelt on it, and leaned forward toward the bartender. She had no panties on. Sexy? Not really, because it was also her time of the month.
78. Here’s The Kicker
When I was in high school, my city had automatic sprinklers in most of its parks. They would turn on automatically at like 3 or 4 am. Being young and dumb kids, my friends and I figured out that if you kicked them hard enough, the tops would break off and the sprinklers would full-force shoot a huge stream into the air.
We thought it was hilarious and we were never caught. We kept destroying the sprinklers until one day, we were caught completely off-guard. They started replacing them with new super-strong steel ones. I kicked one and broke my big toe. While in agony, I also rolled my ankle so bad that it was bruised up for a week. Even after it healed, it has never been the same.
79. A Cycle Of Events
I watched someone bend down to pick up a wallet someone ahead of them had just dropped. The guy who picked up the wallet began to run it to its owner who was already across the street and while doing so, his own wallet fell out of his pocket and onto the crosswalk. Some dude in the bike lane rode up a little ways ahead, bent down and picked it up, and just started heading off.
My dad was about to say something when a cop car adjacent to us swerved in front of the cycler and made him give it back. The cycler bumped into the cop car and was trying to go around when he was tackled. I think they might’ve ticketed him but the light changed so we couldn’t stick around.
80. Mistakes Were Made
I met this guy at the bus stop. He asked for my major, the minute he learned I was majoring in visual arts he started berating me, saying it was a useless major and that I was going to end up homeless. I just ignored him and got on the bus. After a while, it becomes clear that there is a talent scout on the bus as a man is talking loudly on the phone about recent contracts.
The guy I met at the bus stop started pulling out a CD player and insisted that the talent scout listen to his Elton John impression. The talent scout guy was impressed and a bit incredulous. The guy had mixed up his CDs and had him listen to an actual Elton John album. I never saw someone slouch back in their seat with such shame and embarrassment.
81. Pay Attention To The Lessons Of The Past
I had a day off work and, as I was making breakfast, I accidentally sliced my fingertip with a bread cutter. I wrapped it up and went to Urgent Care. It didn't need stitches but the doctor put a couple of Steri-Strips on it and said not to use it for a day or two and stay off a keyboard. I went to work the next morning and told my boss that I had to stay off a keyboard for a couple of days.
As I walked out of the room I remembered I had to tell her something else and as I was walking back in, I heard her mocking my injury. Just as she finished, she accidentally slammed the door of the one-ton safe on her hand.
82. He Got His Kicks On Route 66
I remember taking a road trip through Ohio during a blizzard. I was used to driving in the snow, but this was so bad I could hardly make out where I was going. The roads were empty. Since my car wasn't really fantastic, I was chugging along at a slow pace in the right lane because I wasn't in that big of a hurry—and I didn't want to crash.
Suddenly, a fully-loaded truck blew past me in the left lane, kicking up a bunch of snow against my car and whiting out my windshield. I was flying blind for a few moments while my wipers got rid of the snow. When I could see again, a chill ran down my spine. The guy seemed to have slowed down and kept pace next to me.
Then, he slowed down more, revved his engine, and proceeded to do it again. He got his kicks off of harassing smaller cars, and there wasn't anything I could do. There weren’t any exits to get off, and I didn't want to speed up in such bad conditions. After blasting me three or four more times, he sped off. I spent the next half hour grumbling about this jerk on the phone to my friends.
While chatting, I spotted something. The interstate took a sharp turn, and off the road on the left, there was a truck flipped on its top, half-buried in snow. It was him.
83. My Car Ran On Kismet
I had just finished grocery shopping. I loaded the bags in my car, got in, and turned the key—nothing. For whatever reason, my car wouldn’t start. I sat there for another 20 minutes, checking the wires on my battery, making sure everything was properly in place. I had just changed the battery the month prior, so it couldn't have been that.
I called my girl to pick me up. She said it was going to be about another 20 minutes. I saw an elderly lady pushing a cart to her car. This cart had four times more bags than mine did. I knew it was going to be a struggle for her. I went over and offered her help. She accepted. I helped her load the groceries into her car and went back to give my vehicle another try. Surprisingly, it started. My first thought was, “This car must run on karma.”
84. This Good Deed Suited Me Well
I was in line at Wendy's when a gentleman realized he had misplaced his wallet. He ran to and from his car, very flustered. He jumped on the phone with his wife to have her look for it and drive to Wendy's. While he wasn't paying attention, I had stepped in front of him and paid the $8 for his food. We were both obviously on our lunch breaks, so I felt bad.
The guy insisted that I don’t buy his meal, but I told him it was too late. I patted him on the shoulder and said, “Pay it forward,” with a smile. He approached my table and told me that was one of the nicest things he had ever witnessed. He then told me to come across the street to his tailor shop after work. He gave me a custom $800 suit.
85. Karmic Cupid
When I was in university, I dated this girl for about a month, and things were not going well. She was gorgeous. However, she was also a moron. So, I was hedging my bets. One day she came to my place after a night of partying and asked to go to a movie. I said, "Sure," and away we went. While walking to the cinema, we started having another enormous argument, and I decided to end it right then and there—so I did. I instantly regretted it.
She would not accept it and kept fighting with me until she finally walked away in tears. Immediately afterward, I called my best friend and asked if he wanted to get some drinks because of the unfortunate day I had just had. When I hung up, I saw the date—it was Valentine's day. I hadn’t even realized it. I sighed and started walking to my friend’s place, feeling like a fool. Then I got hit by a bus. It wasn’t serious, but it hurt.
86. My Aim Is True
I was working at a summer camp this past summer. All the male campers were playing dodge ball while the girls were in their cabins doing their own thing. It was the campers versus the staff, and since it was nearing the end of the night, the rules were that if you got hit, you would be done with no chance of revival.
I looked across the gym and saw that one of my fellow staff was laying on the ground with his hands behind his head. So naturally, I grab a dodge ball, sneaked around behind him, keeping myself out of his field of view, and threw the ball at him. As I was laughing and running away, it bounced off of him and, without hesitation, he brought his leg up and kicked the ball as hard as he could. It hit me straight in the face with enough force to knock me off my feet.
87. Look Before You Leap
This happened a couple of days ago. This guy was in his BMW 3 series and he got stuck in a turn-only lane. He cut someone off and the car behind him honked. At that point, he stopped, put his car in park, got out, and started walking towards the car he cut off. Little did he know what he was getting into.
There was a police SUV a couple of cars behind them. As soon as the guy started walking towards the car, the officer turned on his lights. Great justice was had that day. And yes, he did look like the typical "law doesn't apply to me" jerk.
88. We Never Learn
I got rear-ended in a turn lane because a girl was texting. She was doing 45 mph and she hit me while I was stopped. I went to her court date, hoping she got a big fine or something like that. When the verdict was announced, my blood boiled. She got a $50 ticket, which was basically nothing. So yeah, I was more than a little bit upset about this. But I didn’t know what was coming…
As I was sitting at the stoplight to pull out of the court, I watched her run a red light and T-bone an officer. I don't normally laugh at other people’s misfortunes, however, I laughed my butt off at that one.
89. Busted
I worked as an internal audit intern for a local municipality. I was 20 years old and hadn't even taken an audit class yet. After a few weeks, I realized quickly that I was underqualified for the job. However, I still tried to learn and work my tail off. I noticed there were some issues with the policies and procedures in place. For example, missing money and weak controls. Anytime I brought it up, the manager would sweep it under the rug and ignore it.
Long story short, I had a huge argument with her and she let me go. Three months later, the FBI show up at my door. They asked me a few questions about my old manager. Turns out she conspired with the mayor to accept donations in exchange for certain actions. Not sure what those actions were. Either way, she got fired and got charged, along with ten other city officials.
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90. The Tables Have Turned
I had a "friend" in high school who would constantly tell me to off myself. She would spread horrible rumors about me and demonize me in the hallways. This girl was the typical cheerleader type girl who got everything she wanted, so I guess that's why she always acted like she was better than me. Fast forward a few years and I moved out to LA for an awesome job after I graduated college.
She contacted me, asking if I would talk to my boss to see if I could get her a job since it was also her dream job. It may sound petty, but it was so nice to know that for once she wasn't going to get everything she wanted. She had treated me so badly, and then years later she really thought I would help her out. I didn’t.
91. One For The Burn Book
On my way home from work, I stopped at a grocery store to get something to eat. At the time, I was wearing a really ratty and torn hoodie that I usually wore to work all the time. In front of me in line were two pretty girls. They were talking trash about the cashier and they weren't trying to hide it, either. At some point, of them turned to me, looked me up and down, and nudged her friend.
Pointing towards me, she said one of the rudest things I’ve ever heard. "Looks like someone can't afford nice things." I looked her right in the face and in my most sincere voice said, "My dad gave me this sweatshirt the winter before he passed.” The girl looked horrified and immediately began to cry. I just walked away and got into another line.
92. The Ultimate Revenge
I used to play frisbee in a parking lot on Saturday nights and people would often drive their cars through to mess with us on a regular basis. One night, a guy drove his car up to the edge of the area where we were playing and started revving his engine really aggressively. We ended the point and cleared the area to give him space. The dude then dropped the clutch and sped through the parking lot...but he missed one crucial detail.
He failed to notice the raised median in his path. He hit it while going pretty fast and totally wrecked the underside of his car. He came to a stop, then went out to check the damage—it was clearly leaking a lot of fluid. Then, the cherry on top. An officer who was just hanging out in a different part of the shopping area saw the whole thing go down, so he cruised up on the dude with his lights flashing. We went back to playing.
93. For The Birds
I was sitting at a stoplight, watching as two preppy girls from the university chased pigeons off the sidewalk. They flew up and landed a few feet further every time. As they approached the intersection, one of the girls squealed and ran right at them. As they took flight in the same direction, a bus drove by at full speed, probably 35 to 40 mph.
Two of the pigeons didn't make it in time and instantly transformed into a cloud of feathers and smaller pigeon pieces. Then I heard the blood-curling scream. "They're ON me! THEY'RE ON ME!" The girl was COVERED in pigeon guts and feathers, and she was completely losing her mind. Her friend was doubled over in laughter. I don't think she'll be tormenting pigeons ever again.
94. Karma Decked Him Good
My buddy and I were having a drink on a large wooden patio at an ocean-side bar/restaurant. A middle-aged couple was sitting next to us. Our tables were next to each other, and they were relatively close to us. As my buddy and I were just taking in the view, he caught eyes with the dude and said something innocuous like, "Good evening."
The guy retorted, "Mind your own business and keep your eyes to yourself." My buddy and I looked at each other with a "Did that just happen?” expression. My buddy looked back over at him and said something like, "Relax, buddy, sorry to bother you." At that point, we were a little put-off. We got back to our drinks and enjoyed the sunset.
Two minutes later, the guy pulled out a ring for his partner. It was a large diamond. She was excited, and he had a sufficiently smug, self-satisfied look on his face. She went to hand it back to him. Then disaster struck. When he grabbed it, he fumbled. It fell to the deck, rolled an inch or two, and then promptly disappeared, falling between two slats of the deck.
I felt bad for the woman. The guy’s face went white and then immediately red. He was barely able to maintain his composure. It looked like he wanted to strike his lady friend. The dude looked over at us, and now we were looking straight at him. We just smiled casually. He called a waiter over and started discretely explaining what had happened.
He wanted someone to pull up the deck slats. However, that was NOT going to happen. The waiter was cool as ice. Despite the guy raging at this point, the waiter flatly told him something to the effect of, "Look, man, you can come back tomorrow and talk to the manager, or pay your bill and leave now.” The guy sat down. His lady friend was visibly shaken.
While enjoying our drinks and the sunset, my friend and I remarked about how karma, while certainly inspiring, is almost magical when it's instant.
95. Stuck In Her Ways
Back in high school, I worked for the street department of my city. We were putting a concrete patch on a street and had a lane blocked off. A lady in a huge hurry and a nice expensive car blew by me as I was holding the sign that says stop on one side and slow in the other. The “stop” was facing her. I tell her to stop. She swears and goes by.
Then she drives right into the wet concrete that goes right up to the bottom of her doors. She tries to get out of her car in her high heels and we just stand there and watch her swear at all of us to help her as she ruins her expensive shoes. She gets out barefoot and storms off. We had her car towed.
96. Room Service
For a full year, my college roommate secretly slept with my boyfriend while I was at class. I routinely took more than a full course load and was in math and science classes or study groups every morning. One day, I walked in to see a horrifying sight. They were just fully in the act after I came back early from a canceled class.
I moved out. I was more angry at her than heartbroken. I also lost most of my friends through the breakup, and they stuck together for a good while. Fast forward five years later. Those two throw a crazy expensive engagement party at the guy's parents' beach house, which was attended by some still-mutual friends who told me everything.
At the party, she caught him sleeping with one of the waitresses from the catering company in a bathroom. They still got married. I feel a little bad for her despite the karma balance. She feels like she can't do better than being with a cheater.
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97. It Didn’t Add up
I interned in a class with this kid who always thought he was smarter than everyone else. He was pretty smart, but not by too much. Yet he always got paired with kids who weren’t as smart as him, so he would always be super smug when dealing with them. During one parent-teacher conference, we found out exactly where he got it from.
His parents thought he was the smartest kid in the school. They built him up as that and they got him thinking it, too. In this meeting, they even went off on the teacher, saying she “was bringing him down” and that she “was terrible.” The conference ended when the teacher left the room crying. But it didn't take long for sweet revenge.
About a week later, there was an event where parents came to watch their children do math games with other students. Well, the teacher paired this smug little kid with the actual smartest kid in class. The kid got destroyed in the math games. His parents were so flustered, they left before it was all done and took him out of school for the rest of the day.
98. The Principle Of The Thing
I worked as a database administrator for a community center one summer in university. Basically, I created a database for them to track who was donating to them and how much they were donating, as well a who was volunteering, and for how many hours. Very simple work and despite being the youngest person on staff, I got along well with my co-workers.
Well, except for my immediate boss, who was a total piece of work. The next spring, I was applying for jobs and e-mailed my old boss to ask for a letter of recommendation. Much to my surprise, she told me that she didn't write recommendation letters "out of principle." I was pretty ticked off about it because I was finding it very difficult to find a position.
Not being able to count on my most recent employer for a reference was a definite blemish on my resume. However, in spite of this, I managed to land a decent job. Lo and behold, I got to get revenge on day one of my new job. That 3day, my boss happened to email me about a problem at my old work with the database I had worked on.
She had moved some files around, rendering it impossible for her to access the database. She asked if I would come in. I had the best reply. I e-mailed her back and told her I already had a job and couldn't do it "out of principle." From the center's perspective, it effectively made my entire summer a waste of time. Hey, what can you do?
99. The Customer Is Always Right, Especially This Lady
I was out to eat, and this younger lady was acting like a total witch in the restaurant to the staff. Everyone was obviously getting really embarrassed by her behavior…until this middle-aged lady piped up and said from her table, “Oh honey, you’re not pretty enough to act like that.” I seriously could have burst out into applause.
100. So Many Bottled Up Emotions
I'm a Sommelier, also known as that jerk who tries to sell you wine in a restaurant. Several months ago, a table full of middle-aged women wanted to know what our sweetest wine by the glass was. The alpha whiner of the group had her heart set on asserting herself and putting on a show for her crew. Keep in mind, I was new to the job and wasn't really keen on the idea that "the customer is always right" just yet.
Our interaction went as follows. Me: “Our sweetest by-the-glass wine? That would be our (insert brand name here) Riesling from Mosel, Germany. Low alcohol content level, with lots of residual sugar that's balanced by a strong acidic backbone". Her: "Riesling's not sweet". Me: "Not all Riesling, correct. But this one definitely is". I had no idea what I was getting into.
Her: "No, I spent six months in Germany once and didn't have a sweet Riesling the entire time". Me: "That may be the case, but Mosel is world-renowned for their sweeter style, and the other benefits I mentioned, ma’am". Her: "You know what, I don't think you know what you're talking about because I actually lived there. Have you"?
Me: "No mam, I have not". Her: "Exactly. You know what, I see that you have a Gewurztraminer by the glass. I KNOW that's a sweet one, so I 'll just have that”. Me: "The Riesling is far sweeter, ma’am. The Gewurztraminer is barely off-dry. It's more dry than it is sweet". Her: "I know what I'm talking about, just get me the glass please".
Me: "Absolutely". At this point, I'm ready. I'm going to prove this woman wrong in the best way possible. I go up to the bartender and tell him to pour me a Riesling instead of the Gewurztraminer. I hand deliver the glass of it to the table and announce: "Your Gewurztraminer, ma’am". I walk away and watch from a distance with a Grinch-like eating grin.
She falls into my trap and takes the first sip. I return to the table. Me: "How is it?" Her: "It's delicious. Very sweet. Much sweeter than Riesling. Just like I knew it would be". Me: "Glad you like it, but I did just talk to the bartender and, as it turns out, he accidentally poured you the Riesling". She instantly turns beet red. Her: "So this isn't Gewurztraminer?"
Me: "No ma’am, my apologies. Would you like a glass of that instead of the one you currently have?" The grin on my face has at this point been upgraded to a full-blown maniac smile and a twinkling of the eye. She responds tersely, with bitterness oozing from her mouth. Her: "No, this will be fine". Me: "Lovely, enjoy the rest of your evening".
The moral of the story? I don't know everything about the drinks I sell. That much is true. In fact, I hardly know anything in the grand scheme of it all. Especially compared to some real experts out there. But when I do talk about the products I work with, you can guarantee I'll know what the heck I'm saying is correct.
101. She Got A Doggone Sweet Surprise
I used to clean a local gymnastics facility on the weekends. The owner would rent out the place for birthday parties, and one of the coaches was always present for them. One weekend, I saw a car pull up about an hour before the party was to start. I was finishing cleaning the lobby, and we had no power as our lights were being replaced.
This woman came in and headed upstairs. About ten seconds later, she came STORMING down the stairs, got in my face, and started yelling, "WHY is there no power?! I'm supposed to set up for this party. HOW am I supposed to do that WHEN I CAN'T SEE WHAT I'M DOING?!" I was a little stunned and told her that, per the owner's policy, she couldn’t be in the building until the coach arrived.
Her face went purple. She yelled, "HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN NOT DO! THE OWNER SAID I COULD BE HERE WHENEVER I WANTED. I WON'T TAKE THIS GARBAGE FROM SOME STUPID KID!" I said, "Fine, but your power won't be on for another 45 minutes. You might as well go wait in your car until the coach gets here."
She stomped off, tried to slam the door, and proceeded to try and call the owner. When the coach finally arrived, I told her what had happened and how she acted towards me. I also left a note for the owner and called her to inform her. I left the gym and went home for the night. The following day, I went in to get paid. The owner pulled me aside and told me I did everything right in that situation. Then I found out the whole story.
I found out that not only was that lady completely nasty to the coach as well, but that she didn't pay for the party, and she stayed a full hour longer than what was rented. Then, I got the best news possible. When the parents were all inside, her dog had gotten into the cake that was in her car and ate about half of it. Her reaction was deranged.
She then said, "Oh, we can still use it. We'll just cut around the parts the dog ate." 40 minutes later, she came running back into the gym, grabbed a bunch of paper towels, and returned to her car. Within the time that she brought the cake inside to the time she went back out, her dog had pooped and puked EVERYWHERE in her car—on the seats, floors, armrests, even the dashboard. This car was COVERED in poo and vomit.
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