Sinister Stories Of Revenge
It's said that revenge is a dish best served cold - but if you're a true revenge connoisseur, you know that revenge is a dish that's great, so long as it gets served one way or the other.
These people got downright diabolical with their revenge. Did they go overboard at times? Perhaps. But that just makes for a more engaging story.
All According To Plan
My stepmom was awful. She put my sister and me on diets because she thought we were "fat." I put up with it because my mom was away for work and we had no choice but to stay with her. But one day, when I was 12, I decided to get a little revenge.
Once a week, she used an expensive conditioning treatment on her hair. She was 56 and obsessed with preserving her youth. While spending the weekend at my mom's, I grabbed a bottle of liquid hair remover. When I returned, I poured out half of her pricey conditioner, refilled it with the remover, gave it a shake, and put it back. Then I waited.
She used the treatment at the usual time, soaking in the bath for about 30 minutes. The instructions said 15 minutes. When she got out, almost all of her fancy permed hair was falling out.
That's Just Evil
In high school, there was a guy in my grade who went out of his way to mess with me—right down to sleeping with my girlfriend. Looking for payback, I came up with something truly unhinged. I filled a bottle with my own crap and let it sit for about a month. By the time I opened it, it actually fizzed.
On a scorching summer day, I poured the contents into his car's air filter and waited. I watched him get in, start the engine, and crank the AC. Within seconds, he started gagging—and then puked all over himself and the inside of the car.
I Hate Sand...
Back in 1992, I was in second grade. Every recess, my friends and I built elaborate sandcastles. But when lunch ended, the fourth graders would storm outside—and every single day, one of them would run straight into our sandbox and kick our masterpieces to pieces. This went on for weeks.
Eventually, we got creative. Near the playground, we found some cinder blocks, stacked two of them, and covered them with sand, shaping it to look like one of our usual castles. Pretty twisted for second graders—but we were desperate.
When the fourth graders came barreling out, one of them ran right into it and ended up with a broken foot.
That's One Way To Be Outed
In college, I lived in a six-bedroom house with five other guys we jokingly called "The Gay House." One fall afternoon, I came home to find my roommate Josh in the kitchen, crying. He'd just discovered that his boyfriend Kevin, who he’d been dating for three months, was living a double life. Kevin was cute, charming, and friendly enough, but he wasn’t being honest.
Kevin, whose real name was Brad, was secretly engaged to a cheerleader and had a whole life that Josh—and frankly, all of us—had no idea about. When Josh tried to break up with him, Brad laughed, told him he was only using him for his body, and dismissed him completely. I’d seen cheaters before, but the cruelty in this one burned. Something had to be done.
Josh and I went to confront him, but he was hosting a party. That’s when inspiration struck. We hatched a plan. While one roommate photocopied incriminating pictures, another whipped up a website exposing Brad and printed “invitations” for the event. I dressed in drag for maximum impact—an old prom dress with flaking blue sequins, a ratty blonde wig, six-inch heels far too big, and makeup smeared to perfection, leaving my stubble and leg hair visible for a terrifying effect.
We stuffed Brad’s clothes, the invitations, and photos into a giant purse. I grabbed a fake $20 engagement ring and headed to the party. Entering the apartment, I stormed past everyone, screaming and crying, straight to the kitchen where Brad and his fiancée stood frozen. I sobbed, professing love for him, describing every sordid detail, while my tears smudged my makeup.
Then came the reveal: I pulled his clothes from the purse, threw them at him, handed his fiancée the photos, and ran through the room sobbing, tossing the invitations across the floor. The website my roommate had made went live, showing the worst pictures of Brad in scandalous undergarments, along with a forum for other victims to share his lies. I even dramatically held up the fake ring, pointing at his fiancée and declaring, “I see he gave you one of these too!”
The stunt worked. Word spread, the invitations hit every car in his complex, and he vanished from the gay community. Rumor has it he even transferred to a worse school far away. Justice had been served, and we all had front-row seats.
A Sensitive Topic
I grew up in a suburb where I was the only minority at school. One girl in my class constantly made rude remarks about me, claiming I wasn't as pretty because of my skin. But the moment she really crossed the line was during a game of tag—she insisted I had to be "it" because I looked “dirty.” That cut deep.
One day, I overheard her bragging about her straight A’s, and an idea clicked. For the rest of the year, I started submitting my homework right after hers, sneaking into the bathroom, and tossing her assignments in the trash. I never got caught. By the end of the year, she was left with a D, and I quietly smirked when she didn’t get a ribbon.
Keep Your Eyes On The Prize
On April Fool's Day, when I was seven and my sister five, I hatched a master plan using Legos. We’d spent hours playing—sometimes building, sometimes destroying, and sometimes throwing the tiny bricks at each other. The day before, we’d already been in trouble for it.
Mom warned us not to go too far, so I decided to stage the ultimate prank. I took a long Lego, slid it between my fingers, and pressed my hand over my eye. My sister immediately screamed that it looked real, and sure enough, she ran to get Mom. I started shrieking too. Mom came rushing over, trying to pull my hand away, but I held it a moment longer.
After exchanging a quick nod with my sister, I yanked my hand away, and we shouted, "April Fool’s Day!"—but before we could finish, Mom delivered a swift, simultaneous smack across both our cheeks.
You're As Cold As Ice
In college, I shared a dorm room with two of my closest friends from high school. I loved them like brothers, but we were absolutely brutal to each other. Chris finally crossed a line one night when he popped the bathroom lock, snapped a Polaroid of me mid-use, and then tossed the photo out the window of our 13th‑floor dorm for anyone below to find.
After that, I started preparing. Over the next few days, I figured out how to pop the lock on the shower door and quietly stockpiled several pitchers of water, chilling them until they were just shy of freezing, with ice beginning to form. I waited patiently. Revenge was coming, and I wanted it to be memorable.
Eventually, Chris went in for one of his regular "spa showers," where he'd blast the hot water and stand under it forever. Once I knew the water was scalding, I gathered a few dormmates, handed out the ice-cold pitchers, quietly opened the shower door, and let it fly.
Looking back, it probably wasn’t the safest idea in the world. But at the time, hearing him shriek and slip around the shower felt like justice perfectly served.
That Wasn't Soda
In high school, I always brought a soda to my physics class. Like clockwork, the guy sitting behind me would wait until I stood up, grab my bottle, and chug half of it before I could stop him. It happened every single day. Eventually, I decided I'd had enough.
One afternoon, I filled the empty bottle with white vinegar and tossed it into my backpack, saving it for the next class. The following day, I did exactly what I always did—got up and walked away, making sure he noticed. Right on cue, he grabbed the bottle and took a huge gulp.
Seconds later, he bolted for the sink and started vomiting. I couldn’t stop laughing, especially when he had to explain to the teacher why he suddenly got sick in the middle of class. After that, no one ever touched my soda again for the rest of the semester.
A Rotten Surprise
Back in high school, my friend David found out his girlfriend had cheated on him. As if that wasn't bad enough, she scratched up the car he’d worked hard to buy and smashed his laptop after everything came out. About a week later, she decided to throw a huge, out-of-control house party. Earlier that day, David and I were at Taco Bell with four other friends when the plotting began.
What started as a gross joke slowly turned into a real plan: we’d all hold it in and unleash absolute chaos inside her house during the party. David stayed out of the execution so he wouldn’t blow our cover, but he still contributed—literally—by sealing his offering in a plastic bag. I smuggled it in under my shirt and stashed it behind the fridge.
Brett and I handled the bathrooms, hitting the tanks of the two main-floor toilets. It was foul. Matt brought pliers, peeled back a corner of carpet in one of the bedrooms—we never figured out whose—and did his part there. Justin went above and beyond, squeezing himself into the tiny utility closet with the central air unit and depositing his contribution directly onto the air filter.
The results were immediate. The smell spread fast, and within minutes the entire party relocated to the backyard. I won’t pretend it was brilliant—but it was deeply petty, undeniably evil, and done in loyalty to a friend. And at the time, that made it feel completely justified.
A Hard-Earned Lesson
I lived in a former frat house that had been converted into a boarding house. The kitchen, bathrooms, and common rooms were shared by about 20 people. Food theft was an ongoing mystery—everyone knew someone was eating other people's stuff, but no one could prove it. One Friday after work, we baked brownies… with a chocolate laxative twist, and left a note warning whoever might partake. We popped them in the fridge and left for the weekend.
When we came back Sunday night, roughly a third of our brownies had vanished, and the toilet paper supply had mysteriously disappeared. The house erupted in laughter—everyone except the culprit. He left a passive-aggressive note grumbling about how he was tired of people taking others’ food, completely oblivious to what had just happened.
Manage Your Way Out Of This
I worked at a pizza place with a manager who was completely worthless. We didn't get along—he was awful, probably because everyone else liked me. His biggest pet peeve was leaving pizza boxes open on the cutting table before the pizza came out of the oven. Instead, he wanted us to wait until the pizza was cooked, cut, and boxed, which slowed everything down.
One hectic night, it was just me, another co-worker, and the delivery driver. Orders were flying in nonstop, and we were juggling phones while making pizzas. The lazy manager stayed in the office the entire rush.
There was a one-way mirror with a clear view of the pizza-cutting area, so to get his attention, I started pulling down and opening boxes on the cutting table—hoping he’d come out shouting so the owner would notice. It worked perfectly. He stormed out, yelling about how I wasn’t doing my job. Already frustrated, I yelled back.
The owner came from the back and brought us to his office. I explained that the manager hadn’t been helping and that I knew what I was doing. The owner turned to the manager and said if I quit, he was fired. But the best part? The owner asked when I’d be turning 18. When I asked why, he said that was when he wanted to promote me to assistant manager. The manager switched stores shortly after.
The Ball Was Where?
We had a germophobic teacher in grade school, and we didn't exactly like her. I hatched a plan. She always confiscated anything we played with in class. So, I found a bouncy ball, rubbed it in the bottom of the urinal, then wrapped it in paper and brought it to class. Sure enough, I started playing with it on my desk, and she came over and took it.
I almost laughed but held it in. Knowing she read all the notes students passed in class, I wrote a message on a scrap of paper and passed it blatantly to someone in front of her. She picked it up and read: "The ball you just took was in the urinal." She promptly left the room.
Think Of Your Colleagues
My co-worker and I were training a new guy in our office. He'd only been there two months and got approved for vacation—while we hadn’t had one in over a year. We’d been at the company for several years and felt a little bitter. He knew this when he booked his time off but went ahead anyway. He couldn’t handle the job alone and still needed us around.
Our vacation got pushed back even further because of him, so we decided on some playful revenge. We told the office he’d rented an RV to follow Nickelback on tour and even photoshopped him into pictures with the band, posting them around his cubicle.
When he returned, he laughed at first. But things escalated: during a client call, he got irritated when asked which tour he’d "followed." Then he forwarded a file he thought was routine—except we’d swapped it with the lyrics to a Nickelback song, and it ended up in the boss’s inbox.
And that’s not the end—I can’t wait for him to find all the other pictures we’ve hidden throughout his cubicle.
New Bonus Stage
In high school, there was a guy who was relentlessly cruel to one of my close friends. He went out of his way to target her, and it was constant. So I decided to do something about it.
I made a fake social media account and added him. He took the bait immediately. I acted interested in him, flirted heavily, and even hinted at wanting to sleep with him. I went all in—so much so that I bought a disposable phone just to have long, convincing conversations with him.
While this was going on, he started dating a girl who was part of the same group that had been mean to my friend. We kept talking anyway. At first, my plan was just to mess with his emotions and make him feel small—but something far better happened.
One day, while he was with his girlfriend, he called me from the bathroom. She overheard him calling me "boo" and “baby girl.” She was furious and left immediately. Turns out, she had his social media passwords. She logged into his account, read every message, and saw exactly what he'd been saying to this fake girl.
The next day at school was chaos. There was a massive, very public screaming match. Word spread fast, and after that, no girls would date him for the rest of the year.
No one ever knew it was me—but my friend was absolutely thrilled.
Bluff Called
I was in first grade, sitting through a school assembly, when I suddenly had to pee—badly. I raised my hand and asked the teacher closest to us if I could use the washroom. She told me to sit down and wait. About ten minutes later, I asked again, and this time she snapped at me to be quiet. I did as I was told, even though I was starting to panic.
By then, I was desperate. I went back up to her and said I was going to the washroom right now because I couldn't hold it anymore. She sighed and said, "Fine, if your little baby bladder can’t handle it, go." That stung. I’d always been small for my age, and kids already teased me with names like “baby” and “shrimp.”
Humiliated and on the verge of disaster, I turned toward her classroom instead of the washroom—and that’s where it happened. I soaked her carpet completely. It was summer, and the heat made everything so much worse almost immediately.
My mom worked at the school, so years later I found out that every teacher knew exactly who had done it. But my mom was furious that I’d been refused after asking three times, so I never got in trouble for it.
Practically A Printing Press
I lost my full-time schedule after another part-timer told management that I wasn't good at my job. Overnight, my hours were cut from more than 35 a week to about 15. She took over my responsibilities and was rewarded with a promotion and a raise. When I asked for a raise myself—doing the same work I’d always done—I was told it wasn’t possible because of the economy. I was furious.
One of my key responsibilities had been maintaining the training binders. Twice a year, they had to be updated, reassembled, and mass-printed for new hires. It was a notoriously difficult task—most people took a couple of weeks and still made mistakes. I could finish them accurately in three days.
When I handed in my notice, I quietly altered the original binders by mixing up and removing certain pages. My boss had previously instructed me to remove the headers and page numbers I’d added, but I hadn’t done so. That detail ended up mattering more than I expected.
At first, my intention was just to make the transition a little more difficult. But no one noticed the errors. The new person didn’t review the binders before sending them to print. Training sessions became chaotic as people tried to work from badly organized material.
In the end, she had approved the mass printing of a completely flawed 300-page manual—and the mistake cost her the job almost immediately.
Practically A Supervillain
In sixth grade, I was shy. There was a loud, semi-popular classmate who, for some reason, kept taking my mechanical pencils, popping off the erasers, and eating them while laughing maniacally. My protests did nothing—she just laughed harder. I was running out of pencils with erasers, and it drove me crazy.
Over Christmas break, I asked my mom for an eraser pen. Once I had it, I devised my revenge: I dropped it in the toilet, peed on it, retrieved it with tongs, and sealed it in a plastic bag.
When school resumed, I handed it to her as a "Christmas present." True to form, she unwrapped it, popped it into her mouth, and started laughing. I just smiled quietly and went back to my work, satisfied.
Pokemon Drama
My parents are friends with a couple whose son was a little terror. When he came over, we were expected to play nicely together. Luckily, it didn't happen often—he was horrible, and being three years younger and a boy made it worse. I remember once, when I was six, he grabbed me by the ankles and held me upside down over the garden waste pile, claiming there were spiders in my hair.
I’ve never been much for screaming and crying, but that was awful. Still, I never told on him.
One evening, he and his parents were over, and for once we were getting along, playing Pokémon Red upstairs on our GameBoys. Naturally, he started boasting about how unbeatable his team was. He claimed to have a Mew, obtained through some elaborate story involving a friend in Japan and a rare trading cheat. I managed to convince him to teach me the cheat.
We went over the rules, started the trade, and just as it was nearly complete, he switched off his GameBoy. That was my cue. I switched mine off too. When we restarted, I had his Mew—and he ended up with a Caterpie.
He looked at his screen, then at me, then… chaos. He screamed, cried, and rolled down the hall. Our parents rushed upstairs. "She did it wrong!" he wailed. “She took my Mew!” None of them understood Pokémon, so they assumed I hadn’t meant it. Everyone comforted me—especially my new Mew—and I savored that sweet taste of victory.
Getting Away With It
Back in the '90s, my brother and I had a computer science teacher who assigned us a project: create a program to teach and measure typing speed. Our program worked so well that the teacher started using it in all his classes… and claiming it as his own.
We hatched a plan. We made a new, improved version, adding features that even he couldn’t resist. We gave it to him for extra credit, no strings attached. But there was a "bonus" feature he didn’t know about: it randomly hijacked the school computers’ operating systems.
When triggered, the program made the machines load a shell and display a fake message that the system had been wiped. It intercepted all commands and only showed what we wanted him to see. He had to reformat and reinstall the OS on every computer at least once a week for the rest of the year.
The best part? It was completely random, so there was never any pattern suggesting we’d done it. And every time he finished reformatting, the first thing he always installed… our typing program. Genius.
That Can't Be Hygienic
In seventh grade, our class was right after football practice, so we'd always leave our bags at the side of the room instead of stashing them in our lockers. Sonny had a habit of using my cologne while I was distracted in class. I’d told him to stop, but he did it anyway—just to annoy me.
One day, I hatched a plan. I poured the cologne into a new bottle… and filled the old one with my pee. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he sprayed himself and realized what he’d just doused himself in. Priceless.
Unintentional Benefits
There was a kid in middle school who made my life miserable. One afternoon, I stayed after school to make up a test I'd missed. While I was there, I noticed his locker was wide open—and inside was his phone, just sitting there, practically inviting trouble.
For a moment, I thought about destroying it. But instead, I did something better. I picked it up, set a passcode, and put it right back where I found it.
The next morning, I watched from a distance as he tried to unlock his phone. Again and again. Each attempt failed. His frustration built until, finally, he snapped—throwing the phone against the wall and smashing it.
I never touched it again. He did the rest himself.
Too Much Ketchup
In middle school, there were two kids who were always in trouble and loved picking on me. One day at lunch, one of them started throwing ketchup packets. At first, I ignored it—this was their usual routine, and as long as they stopped before a teacher noticed, nothing ever happened.
But he didn't stop. He just kept going, grabbing handfuls and lobbing them at me like it was a game.
After the fifth packet hit, I snapped. I grabbed one, tore it open, and sprayed ketchup all over his face and shirt.
He jumped up like he was about to hit me, so I backed away slowly. We both instinctively looked around for the lunch attendant. When we spotted her, she was watching the whole thing—and clearly trying not to laugh.
That’s when I knew: I’d won.
Complex and Flawlessly Executed
When I was growing up, my best friend Chris would come stay over for a week or so at a time. We rarely saw each other otherwise, so these visits were the highlight of my year. I lived in a very rural area, so reaching my house was already a challenge. During one visit, we were both 11.
I learned that two other boys—our "closest" neighbors, about twenty minutes up the road, and sons of a good friend of my mom—would be joining us for lunch. With hundreds of acres of forest, a treehouse, and a few days to plan, Chris and I hatched a little evil scheme. These boys were spoiled brats, entitled beyond belief, and trouble in human form.
The older one, 13, fancied himself a “rapper” and had his dad keep his precious lyrics in a safe, convinced he'd be famous one day. He also had a habit of taking things from other kids—like my favorite tech deck—just because he thought it made him tough. His younger brother tried to emulate him, so he was only slightly less insufferable.
Our plan was simple: send them on a “scavenger hunt.” We hid clues across the property and lured them toward my treehouse near the driveway, where we’d set up a walkie-talkie. As they got out of their car, they heard our voices from the treehouse—but we weren’t there. Watching from a redwood, we told them that if they wanted us to come down, they’d have to play our game.
They bought it, plunging through thick brush and thorns in search of dozens of hidden clues. For hours, we held back laughter as they struggled, coming back to the treehouse to beg for help, then trudging back out begrudgingly.
By the time they’d found every clue, it was time to leave. We never actually had to interact with them. Covered in scratches, red-faced, and exhausted, they climbed into their pristine BMW and drove off, completely defeated. Mission accomplished.
Not A PlayStation Guy
I was fed up with my roommate hogging my Xbox 360. He'd play for hours, leave it on overnight, and then get mad at me in the morning when I shut it off because he "hadn’t saved his game." I tried reasoning with him, explaining that the first edition Xbox 360 was delicate—but he wasn’t exactly tech-savvy.
So, I hatched a little plan. I went into the settings and blocked all the ports the Xbox needed to access the internet. The next time he tried to play, the console wouldn’t connect, and none of his friends could figure it out either. Watching him fumble around, confused and frustrated, was priceless. Eventually, I told him he’d “broken it.”
The Hero They Needed
When I was a freshman in high school, my friends and I stumbled upon a big unopened bottle left behind the bleachers. It was around the time when each grade pulled pranks for homecoming week, and the seniors always won. On Friday, we had the closing assembly in the gym, and the energy was high.
Somehow, we recruited a random guy off the street who was eager to help in exchange for the bottle. So there we were, the principal standing in the center of the gym praising the seniors for their spirit, when a hairy guy wearing nothing but a cape that said '09 ran past him. The principal’s expression said it all: pure horror.
Some People Like Dandelions
My cousin's friend was always mean to me, picking on me whenever she could. One day, my mom told me a story about how she’d gotten back at a girl who had been mean to her when she was younger. Inspired, I decided it was my turn.
When the girl was being her usual rude self, I picked up a leaf and walked over, telling her to hide it somewhere on her body. Then I grabbed a dandelion with seeds, pretending to "scan" her to find the leaf. Step by step, I worked my way toward her mouth. With a smug grin, I held the dandelion to her lips and told her to open up. She did, thinking I was just being silly. That’s when I shoved the whole thing down her throat—stem, seeds, everything.
She almost threw up. My aunt, uncle, and cousin were shocked, but my mom couldn’t stop laughing—she knew exactly how mean this girl had been.
Is That A Felony?
I was 16 and had grown up with my friend, but over time he turned into Pat the Punk. He dropped out of school, started selling, and became the stereotypical degenerate. One day, his neighbor agreed to buy drinks for a party. I was pumped—I wanted to impress a girl from school.
We both chipped in $50 for the biggest bottle, which ended up on his coffee table while we played video games with his brother. When I came back from the washroom, the bottle was gone. I laughed at first and asked where it was. Both avoided eye contact and shrugged. Irritated, I pointed out that bottles don't just walk off.
I pressed them for fifteen minutes, trying to get a straight answer, but they kept their eyes glued to the TV. That’s when I understood "blood-boiling anger." I left, realizing they’d disrespected me, and decided to let things cool off.
Over the next week, I learned everything I could about making fake bills. My old printer produced three subpar twenty-dollar bills. I waited a week before asking Pat for $60 worth of weed. Distracted as always, he handed over the money without noticing anything. I left feeling like balance had been restored—and considered our friendship over.
A few weeks later, Pat’s dealer tried to use the fake bills at a convenience store. The clerk immediately noticed, called the police, and the dealer got searched. In the car, officers found small baggies of white powder and arrested him. The dealer knew exactly who had given him the fake bills. Pat, however, had no idea he’d been duped.
I never intended it to escalate this far… but a few nights later, two masked men broke into Pat’s house, beat him, and looted the place.
Senior Standards
When I was in high school, I had a friend who was a grade above me. We lived down the block from each other and had known one another for years. One day at school, I saw him in the hallway and asked him a casual question about soccer. He looked straight at me and said, "Do I know you?" before walking away.
I figured it was a joke, so later that day I went over to his house to ask what that was about. He didn't even try to soften it. “Sorry,” he said, “you’re a junior and I’m a senior. I have standards.”
That comment burned itself into my brain.
I didn’t react right away. Instead, I spent the next two months planning. I noticed that his parents were obsessive about their lawn—perfectly trimmed, manicured every few days. I also learned that his most hated chore, by far, was yard work.
One Friday night, I found a deli that made fresh bagel dough and tossed out the excess at closing. I grabbed a trash bag full of it. Around midnight, I walked over to my former friend’s house and scattered small chunks of dough across their pristine lawn.
It was the middle of summer in the South.
By morning, the sun had worked its magic. Every little lump of dough had risen like some kind of mutant mushroom and fused itself to the grass. His parents came outside to leave for work and were horrified. They immediately blamed their son and his senior friends for pulling a prank.
He spent the entire weekend scraping hardened dough off the lawn by hand.
When Your Vocabulary Is Lacking
In eighth grade, I had a classmate who was unbelievably mean to me. My mom worked at the school, so I often stayed after class with her. One day, I noticed this jerk had forgotten his vocabulary book, which was due the next day.
I glanced around the back of the room and saw the construction paper tray. On top was a sheet of orange paper—the exact same color as his book. Inspiration struck. I carefully hid his vocabulary book on top of the orange construction paper.
An hour later, he stormed into my mom's classroom, bawling. He explained that he’d get detention if he didn’t finish the assignment due tomorrow. With the best poker face I could muster, I shrugged and said I hadn’t seen it, leaving him to his misery.
He didn’t find the book until the next day—well after it was too late—and was left utterly confused.
Task Failed Successfully
I used to work for a large multinational company. One day, the entire IT department—over 150 people—was told our jobs were being outsourced to Costa Rica via HP. On top of that, we had to train our replacements. My particular IT function had taken me a year to learn, and there were only seven of us in that department. We were given two weeks to train people who barely paid attention.
Most of the time, our "replacements" just sat glued to their screens watching videos. We explained again and again that they weren't getting it—and didn’t care. Six weeks after we’d all been laid off, each of us started getting frantic calls from the company begging for help. HP had let requests pile up to six times the normal workload after our team left.
We got together over lunch to discuss the situation. I already had a new job, so I suggested they call the company back—but only if they were paid handsomely. Three of my former teammates did just that, returning as contractors for three years making over three times what they had as employees. Revenge, or maybe just justice, served with a side of genius.
A Sticky Situation
I was in college living in a fraternity, and my room was right at the bottom of the main staircase. Every night, guys would stumble in drunk, yelling and carrying on at all hours. It drove me absolutely crazy. Eventually, I decided I was done putting up with it and came up with a bit of quiet revenge.
One afternoon, I went through the house and unscrewed every shower head. I packed each one full of butterscotch candies, then carefully screwed them back into place. The candy took about five minutes to melt once the hot water started running, so everything seemed normal at first. Then, right on schedule, the shouting began—confused, angry, and echoing from bathrooms all over the house. It was impossible not to smile.
You'll Get Used To It
Between college and law school, I shared a three-bedroom house with two sorority sisters. In December, I reminded them—more than once—that I had my LSAT coming up in a few weeks. Clearly, my reminders didn't register. The night before my test, they threw a massive party, complete with loud music and plenty of drinking.
I politely asked them to keep it down so I could get some sleep, but by four in the morning, my patience had run out. As the party was winding down, I overheard some of the guys claim they didn’t need blankets while crashing on the living room floor. That was all I needed. I went down the hall, cranked the thermostat all the way down, and then took it a step further—I pulled the knob off and tossed it into the yard.
A few hours later, as I headed out to take my test, I glanced into the living room. There they were, huddled together for warmth. One guy looked at me and asked why it was freezing. I just smiled, shrugged, and walked out. Not a single pang of guilt.
Lemon-Lime Deception
While working my serving job, a little girl asked for a Sprite. I said, "Sure thing," and headed back to the kitchen. Then it hit me—we only sold Pepsi products, so Sprite wasn't an option. I grabbed a Sierra Mist instead and brought it to her without a word. She’s just a kid; she wouldn’t notice, right?
Later, I circled back to see how she was doing and asked if she wanted a refill. She said yes. I couldn’t help but chuckle quietly to myself, knowing she had no idea she hadn’t gotten what she asked for. The blissful ignorance of youth. I got a little thrill just thinking about it.
Total Grinch Behavior
My kids were acting up just before Christmas, and without thinking, I said, "If you don't behave, I’ll throw away your presents!" It worked at first—but not for long—they quickly called my bluff. After scrubbing marker off the walls one too many times, I decided to follow through. I wrapped an empty box and tucked it under the tree.
The next day, when they misbehaved again, I tossed that box in the trash. From that December on, they were on their best behavior—not just that year, but every Christmas season after.
Learning A Lesson
When I was younger, I played a prank by putting baby oil on the shower floor, thinking it would be funny if my little brother slipped. I didn't fully understand how dangerous that could be.
Thankfully, nothing happened to him—but when I got into the shower later, I slipped and hurt myself. That moment made the consequences very clear, and I learned my lesson the hard way.
A Pointed Threat
After the divorce, Dad ended up in a one-room apartment downtown. It was near the arts district, so daytime visits were nice, but nights got loud. The rent was cheap, attracting groups of local undocumented workers who sometimes showed off their strength by punching holes in the walls. Dad liked the area and the rent, but he clashed with the neighbors.
To cope with the noise, he boarded up his window with plywood and hung heavy quilts over the door. My sister and I didn't see him do it often, but I kept my pet corn snake there—and when the neighbors saw it, Dad earned a lot of respect. No one ever tried to break in.
What Dad couldn’t stand were the holes in the walls. Repairs took time from the apartment manager, so he handled them himself. He filled a board with long nails and made a whole production out of patching each new hole while his neighbors watched, announcing that he’d add a new board for every punch. After that, the holes stopped appearing.
Quitting With Style
Before officially submitting my resignation, I planted a bit of code in the program that, three weeks after my last day, would start interfering with parts of the system. After compiling and integrating it into the network, I removed the code from the source and handed everything over. I hadn't created the program myself—I just took it over. My replacement would need at least a couple of months to understand it the way I did.
In the meantime, they were stuck using a broken program with no way to trace the source of the problem.
That's How It's Done
In third grade, my English teacher refused to fix my test score. The scantron machine kept marking correct answers as wrong. I discovered that filling in between two lines at the bottom of the scantron caused every answer to be flagged wrong—a subtle trick that was hard to detect. I did it on every test and even encouraged a few classmates to try it.
When the tests came back with grades of zero, my teacher had to slog through grading all of them herself.
A Total Dime
My first college roommate was unbelievably inconsiderate. She used my things without asking, blasted the same song on repeat while I was trying to study, and let food I'd bought for us rot in the fridge. Eventually, I learned she was extremely superstitious—especially about dimes. She believed that finding them meant spirits were nearby, watching her.
So I started leaving dimes everywhere: on her desk, on the windowsill, in the elevator. Whenever she asked about them, I denied knowing anything. Before long, she was so unnerved that she requested a transfer and moved to another building.
Cold, Hard Reality
When she was five and I was three, my sister was an evil little mastermind. She once caught me earnestly praying for my stuffed animals to come to life. From that moment on, she took it upon herself to rearrange them whenever I was asleep or out of my room—freezing them mid‑activity like they'd been caught in the act.
For days, I walked in to find my stuffed animals apparently doing fun things without me. I became convinced my prayers had worked and they’d been granted life. But in my toddler logic, there was a cruel twist: now that they could think for themselves, they clearly hated me so much that they chose to stay frozen rather than spend even a minute talking or playing with me.
All the while, my sister just watched. She laughed as I cried, begged, and pleaded with my toys to be my friends—to just give me a chance.
New Towels Needed
I had a terrible roommate in college who treated my things like trash—my nice frying pan, dishes, even towels weren't safe. The last straw was my hand towel. She used it to wipe off her mountains of makeup, leaving it looking pitifully stained. I was furious.
So, I seized my chance. My boyfriend and I used that towel after, well… getting intimate. I didn’t expect it to have much effect, but the next day, I swapped it back for the "clean" one. When I checked later, the towel was covered in fresh gobs of makeup! She had no idea what she was dealing with.
Simple But Effective
In fifth grade, my friend who sat in front of me had a habit of sneaking snacks. At first, I was happy to share, but it got annoying when he stopped asking and just held out his hand.
One day, I got my revenge: instead of candy, I dumped pencil and eraser shavings into his hand. He recoiled, gagging and spitting immediately, and I couldn't stop smirking.
Quest Ruined
In high school, I was at a birthday party with my girlfriend that merged with another girl's party at a rich kid’s house. While we were hanging out, his younger brother kept coming down to bother us.
He left his Xbox controller on the ground, and an evil idea hit me. I pressed the middle button, then up twice and A, erasing anything he hadn’t saved. Seconds later, he screamed in full tantrum mode. I hid the controller and walked away—he never figured out who did it.
Apples and Apples
I once lived next door to an awful family in Sydney. They made life miserable for everyone around them—stealing, damaging property, and openly threatening neighbors. Because our street was near a train station, there was always a steady stream of commuters passing by in the evenings.
One afternoon, I was outside eating an apple when the two girls from next door were sitting on their front steps. One of them was also eating an apple. A nervous-looking woman in work clothes walked past, briefcase in hand. As she got close, one of the girls suddenly hurled her apple and nailed the woman square in the back. She screamed in shock and ran down the street.
I glanced at the half-eaten apple in my hand, didn't hesitate, and fired it back at the girl on the steps. It smacked her right on the head and burst apart. I ducked out of sight immediately, barely holding it together as they panicked, completely baffled about where the apple had come from.
Attaboy Phil
In my senior year of high school, we had a raffle where everyone wrote their name on a slip of paper. The prize wasn't anything exciting, so I got a couple of tables of my friends to all write "Phil McCracken" instead.
With roughly 20 entries under that name, the principal drew it—and then proceeded to say “Phil McCracken” over and over, completely unaware of the prank, before the vice principal could intervene.
Spitting Mad
My babysitter was normally sweet, but the moment she waved goodbye to my parents and shut the door, everything changed. It was a sweltering summer weekend in Georgia, the kind where the air sticks to your skin. I was stuck with her and her bratty daughter, Tracy, who seemed to take delight in slapping at me with her hands or spitting.
Tracy was a year older than me and knew she could always rely on her mom to take her side. After a morning of getting spat on, I had enough. I spat back, and her scream could have convinced anyone I'd scratched her face. Her mom burst out of the back bedroom, where she usually sat reading romance novels, completely unbothered by babysitting duties.
Tracy spun a story about how I had attacked her "out of nowhere," while conveniently leaving out that she had instigated it. Her mom, done listening, sent me outside. I went along obediently. The babysitter announced that since I’d “acted ugly,” the two of them would watch a movie in the back room with the AC blasting, while I roasted outside in the heat.
From the yard, I peered through the grimy window, straining to catch the movie dialogue over the blaring AC. Twenty minutes later, parched and desperate for water, I knocked lightly on the glass. They jumped. Tracy glared at me, and I pantomimed drinking and asked if I could get a drink. “I’ll bring it in a bit!” her mom yelled, shutting the curtains so I could only make out the vague shapes of them and the glowing TV.
They’d turned up the volume in case I tried to complain. I hopped down from a trash can and watched their old dog sniff around the yard before taking a watery poop. An idea hit me. I gathered large leaves, scooped up the mess, and carefully crept to the back of the AC unit. I smeared the dog poop across the grates where the air would flow inside.
It didn’t take long for them to notice. Tracy jumped up and scanned the room over the bed, then lay back down, only to repeat the search moments later. I could barely contain my laughter, but it didn’t matter—everything was drowned out by the loud TV. They paused the movie as I dashed to the broken swing set, pretending I’d been there the whole time.
The babysitter called for me briefly, and I froze, expecting to be scolded. Instead, a hand extended a cup of ice water, and I drank it with quiet satisfaction. Soon after, she allowed me back inside, but when I asked if we could watch the movie, she flatly refused. She gathered her pillows and retreated to read in the living room alone.
Dad's Mad
When I was little, we lived across from a busy public pool on a narrow street, so parking was always tight. People often blocked our driveway, but we were on good terms with the pool owner, who would announce the problem over the loudspeakers. Usually, the culprit would apologize and move their car immediately.
One afternoon after school, we came home to find a woman had parked inside our garage instead of just across the driveway. My dad was baffled. We tried the usual announcement approach, but she stomped over, fuming, and said she'd move it after finishing her exercise. My dad parked behind her and left for dinner, letting the situation simmer.
She continued this pattern two to four times a month, and my dad eventually stopped worrying about it. One morning, after she blocked us in again, he saw his chance. While she was doing laps, he quietly jimmied open her car door with a coat hanger, removed the passenger seat, and set it on the curb near the pool exit. Later, as she came out, she walked past without noticing, got in, and then froze in shock when she saw the seat missing. Panicking, she scrambled to put it back and drove off. She never returned.
Keep Them Close
I had a growing suspicion that my wife was involved with one of her coworkers. When I finally confronted them both, they laughed it off and painted me as the insecure husband. According to them, they were "just close friends," and I needed to learn how to trust. So I smiled, apologized, and decided to play along.
Instead of pushing back, I leaned in. I befriended him. We started working out together regularly, and before long, he was sitting at my dinner table. I listened carefully, asked questions, and learned everything I could about him. I considered physical retaliation more than once, but neither of them was worth destroying my own life over. If I was going to act, it would be clean and permanent.
He was a bodybuilder and openly using steroids. Intelligence wasn't his strong suit—he’d barely scraped through college and was stuck in low-paying jobs while chasing what he believed would be his real future. His dream was to get into the firefighter academy for a major city. He talked about it constantly during our workouts, how it would be a lifelong career and everything he’d ever wanted.
Because of my career in healthcare, I had longstanding connections in EMS and fire services. He knew I had medical knowledge, so when he started asking about steroids, I answered just enough to keep him curious. Eventually, I nudged him into emailing me his questions. He didn’t even bother hiding himself—he used an email address with his full name in it.
Once a private investigator confirmed the affair, I moved forward. When I was ready to leave my marriage, I contacted several fire department officers I knew who sat on the academy’s review board. I forwarded them the emails—clear admissions of steroid use from a candidate who had denied it during the interview process.
He had been lined up for acceptance. His scores were strong. None of that mattered anymore. He was rejected.
I didn’t stop there. Through my EMS contacts, I made sure his name quietly circulated in the right places. He would never be accepted into a major fire department within a 200-mile radius.
They took the life I thought I was building. So I took the future he’d been counting on.
The Takeover
I was sharing a place with a longtime friend and another woman I barely knew. Over time, the two of us became friendly and spent a lot of time together. Then I was involved in a serious car accident on the freeway and had no choice but to move back home to recover. It took a few days before I was able to return and pack up my belongings.
When I finally came back, I realized something was very wrong. A huge portion of my things were gone. Clothes, personal items—missing. I was devastated and furious. When I asked about it, the girl claimed my roommate had people over while I was gone and suggested someone else must have taken my stuff.
While she was out of the house, I stopped packing and went into her room. What I found made my stomach drop. Half of my wardrobe had been transferred into her space. My CDs. Socks. Bras. Even antique perfume bottles that had belonged to my grandmother. She hadn't just taken a few things—she’d methodically helped herself to my life.
I took back what was mine and finished packing. Then, still shaking with rage, I grabbed several trash bags and stripped her closet bare. Clothes, personal items—anything I could get my hands on. I took it all outside and burned it.
Not long after, she called me in a panic, asking where her belongings were. I calmly told her that whoever had stolen my things must have come back for more. Once she realized I knew what she’d done, her tone changed. She threatened me and said she was going to call the authorities.
I told her to do whatever she felt she needed to do. There was nothing left for anyone to find.
Hands-On Experience
I worked in a factory where my supervisor was absolutely unbearable. He was immune to consequences because his uncle owned the place, and he knew it. One of his favorite habits was wandering onto the floor during our breaks and handling our equipment. Worse, he constantly used my work gloves. The company didn't provide them—we had to buy our own—and I’d spent good money on a quality pair.
Since it was the height of summer, the thought of him sticking his sweaty hands into my gloves was disgusting. I asked him—politely at first—to stop. He brushed me off like it was nothing. After the third time, irritation turned into something darker.
I came up with a plan that, in hindsight, was completely unhinged. I took an old, worn-out pair of gloves and packed them with crushed poison ivy leaves, pounding them in with a hammer to really work it in. I sealed the gloves in a plastic bag and tucked them into my lunchbox for the next day.
Right on schedule, I returned from lunch to find he’d used them. A couple of hours later, he showed up at my station, his hands covered in angry red welts, scratching nonstop. He demanded to see my hands. I held them up and compared them to his.
Feigning confusion, I asked if he’d been using my gloves—because I’d broken out in a rash myself. I casually blamed mine on a "night out" that involved a lap dance and poor life choices.
He didn’t say another word. He just walked off and went to see a doctor. I can only hope he explained exactly how it happened.
