They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and I guess that's true for major stuff. Like if someone assassinates your lord, leaving you and 46 of your homies as ronin samurai and then dude takes your girl, too then OBVIOUSLY you devote yourself entirely to plotting and exacting your revenge. Don't even get me started on the merciless vengeance that you can expect if you mess with John Wick's dog. If Hollywood has taught us anything, it's not to anger Keanu Reeves. He's just out here trying to live his life in peace, so he may seem like an easy target, but he WILL end you without even breaking a sweat. There's no sweat in revenge this cold.
But what about the minor annoyances life has to offer? Do they really deserve cold revenge? What about petty lukewarm revenge? Can it be just as delicious? Short answer: YUP. One Twitter user asked:
What is your most memorable story of petty revenge?
Honestly, these don't need a major introduction. It's a parade of pettiness that made several people cackle wickedly. James, whoever you are and wherever your doughnut fingers may be right now, we hope you're happy with yourself, sir. Yours was perhaps the deepest betrayal.
Concrete Pumpkin
Giphy
I have a friend whose pumpkin\fall display at the end of his driveway would be run over by the neighborhood jerk. It happened every year. Friend decided to put a stop to it.
He withdrew money from his savings account so he would have enough to buy the largest pumpkin he could find, along with several large bags of Quikcrete. filled that puppy up and made a real pretty display.
The jackass broke the axle of his sh*tty car when he hit that pumpkin and could not drive away. My friend had his car towed away, too.
Lunchwars
My coworker throws out her lunch in the garbage can at my desk instead of her own, because she claims she can't stand the smell of old ketchup that's been sitting out for a couple hours. I've asked her several times to stop, but she will then just wait until I get up to go to the bathroom and do it, and hide my garbage can under my desk so she thinks I won't see it. There's no reason for it. The cafeteria offers lids for the ketchup cups, so she could just put the lid on it and throw it away - but she refuses to get lids and insists on leaving her food garbage to stink up my area.
Now, when she does it, I wait until she goes to the bathroom, take out the little plastic container that she had ketchup in, and put it way in the back of her bottom desk drawer. There's 6 in there now, the oldest is over a month old. So far, she hasn't noticed the smell. Gonna keep doing it and see how long it takes her to notice.
- Brunurb1
Ring The Alarm
Giphy
In response to an (admittedly pretty good) practical joke, I hid seven battery powered alarm clocks in the perpetrators room. Set them to go off one by one roughly every 40 minutes between 2 and 6 AM. Last one was hid in the ceiling.
Pay The IT Guy
Someone owed me $50 and refused to pay, so being in IT I reduced their Mailbox size so they could only hold around 10 e-mails, removed them from distro groups so they missed important group e-mails, and every day for like 3 months I went to their account and checked the little box "Must change password at next login"(We used an elaborate pw scheme).
The Austin Powers 20-Point Turn
There's a new truck in my apartment's parking lot. Whoever owns it always parks it taking up multiple spots, ALWAYS. Weird angles, close to the stairs, all over the place (no assigned parking unfortunately). Months of this.
I drive a much smaller car than that, and I'm petty/passive aggressive, I've been waiting for my chance. A few days ago was my shot.
I got home quite late and there were zero spots open in my lot. Big truck is parked across 2 spaces again, but there's juuust enough room on their driver side for me to sneak in there with my little clown car. I carefully pull in, making sure not to touch anything, no damage, no nothing. My passenger side mirror is half and inch from their driver side door. I giggled to myself all the way back to my apartment and set an alarm and waited. The following morning I wake up before the alarm to loud door slamming and stomping around. I check out my window and I see the double parking culprit walking around both vehicles, taking pictures, texting someone, taking more pictures, I'm shaking with glee. They then swallow their pride, let out a visual sigh, and climb in the passenger side, clamber over the center console, and Austin Powers 20 point turn their butts out of the spot.
I've never been so proud of myself and my sh!tty, petty, passive aggressive ways.
- Here2Lol
No Labels
Giphy
My brother did something to his annoy his then-girlfriend. So she took the labels off all his canned food/tins in the cupboards. Are you opening a tin of beans? Or a tin of tomato sauce? Or cat food?
Kinda hilarious.
Don't Mess With My Dogs
I found out my then boyfriend was cheating on me. And he threw my dog across the room when we were discussing what he had done. I moved out immediately. More for hurting my dog than anything. So as I was moving out I took his entire porn collection and microwaved them one by one. It only takes 3 second each. Took me about an hour to go thru them all. I put them back in the case, then back where they belonged. Not sure if the microwave was still usable, did not really care. He was also a manager at a restaurant and would bring home tons of food. They had really nice coolers that the food came in so I called the GM and explained I had moved out and that I wanted to return the boxes. He lost his job. Then I was getting collection calls for him, so I gave them the new girls work and personal number so they could find him. He's her problem now.
Don't mess with my dogs.
James Has Doughnut Fingers
Back in the late 90s I worked at Best Buy and one Saturday a month we had to come in 3 hours before the store opened (so 7am) for a mandatory all store meeting where we watch the video from corporate, give out employee of the month awards, go over department goals, and the like.
Well, there was a guy in our department James who was a pretty crappy worker and showed up to the meeting an hour late and the manager took him aside and fired him. Apparently the manager didn't watch him on his way out of the store and he went into the break room and stuck his finger in every single doughnut they brought in for our break. So literally the only mild positive of getting up at 6 on Saturday was ruined.
20 years later and I still miss that doughnut.
Brake Check
Giphy
My friend in high school was such a drama queen but it worked out hilariously sometimes. He was cut off by a driver who had no brake lights and it pissed him off so badly that he followed until a cop was behind, merged around the guy and then brake checked him so the cop would see that he had no brake lights. The holler he let out when the cop pulled the other guy over is still one of the funniest moments of my life.
"Broken"
When my wife and brother in law were younger, she got the best petty revenge on him for something they don't even remember. My brother in law did something to irritate my wife back when they were in high school.
My wife turned off the TV, wrote "broken" on a piece of paper taped to the TV, shut off the power strip, and flipped the batteries around in the remote. Took my brother in law several days to figure it out.
- SteevyT
Table For One
Went to a restaurant for brunch. Upon receiving my bill I noticed a $3 charge for table linen. As I was leaving I folded up the tablecloth. The waiter said what are you doing? I said, I paid for it I'm taking it home. And I did.
They couldn't very well argue, could they? Even if they called the police, you have a receipt.
Tuppence A Bag
Giphy
I caught my flatmate telling lies about me to some mutual friends. I made plans to move out the next month. In the meantime, she went out of town for a week, and left her car parked in its usual spot in the parking lot. I threw birdseed on it every morning and evening, so when she came home, the birds wouldn't leave her car alone.
It would be amazing if the birds started considering the car their home and protecting it by dive bombing her. Having birds do your bidding is some real super villain type sh!t.
"I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne, Let my armies be the rocks, and the trees, and the birds in the sky."
Nesting
My college roommate had a bad habit of leaving her things in piles on our bathroom floor until there was almost no space to walk to the bath or toilet. Not just clothes but change, jewelry, decks of playing cards, knitting needles, books, hairpins, scarves, earbud headphones, keys, etc. One day she left $40 scattered with the mess, so I put the money in one of her lesser-used bathroom drawers. Originally I put it there to protect it from our third roommate and her friends. When I came home the next day and noticed that she was clearing her mess in an effort to find it, I decided not to tell her where the money was until our bathroom floor was spotless.
Afterwards, I decided it would be too awkward to tell her the truth so I left the money wadded up in her hamper as I'd found it on the floor. She was ecstatic when she found it on laundry day. After that her bathroom piles never got quite as big.
My mom tried to so this with me as a kid. "I've hidden 3 crisp 20s in your room. If you clean up and find them, they're yours. "
Well put them somewhere I can reach woman! First time, one was BEHIND my full bookcase, the 2nd was on a shelf I could not reach but had collectables on it that were bought for me, and 3rd was under my bed... Post. Like my bed was picked up and a small bill was slipped under the leg. I was like 8.
The 2nd time mom tried it, I just tore apart my room. Found 2 out of 3 and made my room 10x worse.
There was no third time.
Where's My Money?
My friend did some work for a guy who skipped his bill and never paid him. My friend is so petty he did many things...such as;
Placed fake for sale ads with too good a deal like a nice boat for 1000$ and other numerous ads with the guys number.
Our city is big on garage sales. He posted ads like "moving out sale, everything must go, cheap! Will be held inside the house, just walk in or ring the door bell" then put this guys address on the ad.
He also signed him up for numerous "free gym memberships" and responded to things like car dealership ads with this guys phone number.
He did a lot more, that's just what I can remember. I don't know who I feel more sorry for.
Caught Red Handed -- Er, Mouthed
Giphy
My friend's Sprite kept getting stolen even though she wrote her name all over the can. Finally after the 5th time it happened she got a habanero, cut it open and rubbed it all over the top of the can and left it in the fridge. We found out who the thief was when that afternoon we hear the office drama queen shriek in her cubicle and run to the water cooler. She never stole anything again.
Had someone steal a sandwich out of my lunchbox but leave me a dollar in its place. Thanks, but I am not a vending machine!
The COO of a company I used to work for was asked to resign because it was discovered he regularly entered the storage closet of the on-site (run by a vendor) cafe and helped himself to whatever he felt like.
Edit: Oh! And when confronted, he tried to lie about it. Dude. There are cameras. You're the COO, you know there are cameras.
Salty
I've told this one before, but it makes me happy to retell it.
I had a boss 7-8 years ago whom I hated. She was the fakest and most entitled person I had ever met. One day, she decided that she didn't like the smell of microwave popcorn...so she waved her magic office wand and had it banned.
Fast forward a month or so. I was browsing Amazon and found one of those USB sticks that emits a smell when plugged in...the smell of buttered popcorn. I bought it, plugged it into the back of her computer, and she had the sweet smell of PopSecret in her office for six fucking months. She complained almost every day. It's the sweetest revenge I've ever tasted.
Game On
Grounded yet again by my Angry Dad for breathing whilst his ballgame was on, I was stuck in my bedroom bored witless. For something to do I flicked the light switches on and off (pre-mobile era folks, we had to make our own fun...). It was then I discovered that this made a loud buzzing static interference on the TV in the lounge. Cue the next 5 years of petty revenge...
Angry Dad never figured out why we had such a bad TV signal at game time, he never connected it with me being sent to my room and flicking the light switch every few minutes, reveling as he yelled futilely at the static dancing across the TV.
Want Fries With That?
Giphy
When I was in law school I went to a bar with a bunch of law school students and decided I wanted a cig - I went outside and a whole bunch of girls are smoking. I don't like to bum cigarettes, but I had a free small fry coupon from McDonald's. I offered it to the girl if she would give me a cigarette, she said okay. I handed it to her, and then she wouldn't give me a cigarette. She said "You shouldn't be so trusting."
Flash forward a few months, and I'm the head GA for the IT for a division in our university, which includes administration. I went up to replace a computer and saw the same girl - she was waiting in line for a job interview. I went up to the person who was conducting the interviews (I was their IT person too) and told them the story.
She didn't get the job.
Tides Turned
In the dorms at my first base, I got a new suitemate (shared bathroom, separate rooms) that worked a different shift and liked to play loud music all night.
I am an --shole, but I always make an effort to be reasonable first. A week after this started, I am coming back to my room and see him unlocking his door and introduce myself as his suitemate. We chat for a bit, and I eventually say that I am cool with music during the night, but would you mind lowering the volume a bit? He just rolls his eyes and walks in his room.
That night was louder than ever, all night.
I am not one to run to authority figures, nah, I get even. And I escalate quickly. And I was not exactly in the greatest of moods right then. My leave had just been approved so I could go visit my dying grandmother, I had the next week off and I was leaving the state.
I took my computer speaker, turned it up about midway, placed it against our shared wall, and set Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper on repeat the entire time I was gone. It ended up being two weeks because I had to attend the funeral.
I came back after and the dorm manager (who I was cool with) told me I was reported for noise violations, but they determined it was not excessively loud. But the speaker being against the wall to his room made the sound pass right through.
Never had an issue with the dude's loud music during the night again.
@LeeMerrittesq/X
@bob_moss/X
@jelanijones/Bluesky
@Aurkayne/X
@sadcommunistdog; @froglok/Bluesky