(I’m going to the grocery store close to where I work to get some lunch. As I enter, I see a guy in his twenties about to walk out, without paying, with a whole load of beer in his arms. The cashier is coming right after him and grabs him. I decide to help out, because I’m a large guy, and I don’t really think about it; it just happens. The shoplifter is putting up quite some resistance, right until the following exchange happens.)

Cashier: “Look, I’m not really fit enough to continue for much longer.”

Shoplifter: “Yeah, me, neither.”

(And the situation was resolved like that. The shoplifter stopped his resistance and waited until the police arrived. I’m glad they could come to a mutual understanding in the end.)

(I work in a nationwide chain of music stores, in the rental department. I am one of two rentals employees in the entire store. We do rentals for our own gear, but we also serve as a will-call warehouse for another company’s rental orders. Only my department coworker and I fully know our company’s rental procedures — not even the managers know them — and I am the only person who knows the proper procedures for the other company’s rental orders.)

Customer: *on the phone* “Hi, I’d like to renew my rental.”

Me: *thinking this is one of our company’s rentals* “I’m sorry, we’re unable to renew rentals over the phone. You’ll need to come in—”

Customer: “What?! Three people told me I could renew a rental over the phone! Look up my account!”

(I look up her account, and notice that it is… completely incorrect. Not only is the pricing wrong on several different levels, but whoever created the account somehow managed to put her musical instrument, which belongs to the other company, on one of our rental accounts. I’m not even mad, I’m impressed. This should not even be possible.)

Me: “All right, miss, there seems to be a problem with your account, and even if I could renew it over the phone normally, I would need you to come in for this specific instance so we could fix the account.”

Customer: “F*** you! I talked to three people who told me I could do it over the phone!”

Me: “Miss, I am the only person who even has access to these types of acco—”

Customer: “OH, MY GOD, SHUT THE F*** UP, AND RENEW MY ACCOUNT BEFORE I GET YOU FIRED!”

Me: “I apologize, miss, I am currently the only person running both my department and [another department] and, given that I have two departments’ worth of customers to help and absolutely no desire to keep speaking to you, I am going to hang up on you now. Maybe not berating the one person who could help you would get you farther in life.”

(Without waiting for her response, I hang up on her. I hear the phone ring about five seconds later, and I know what’s coming, so I tell my manager to grab it and turn to help other customers while mentally preparing myself to sleep in the bed I’ve made. But nothing ever comes of it. The next day, I ask him what happened with the woman.)

Manager: “Oh, her? Yeah, I don’t believe for a second you actually said any of the things she claimed you said, but part of me really, sincerely hopes you did.”

(My husband and I have been planning a long road trip for over a year. Unfortunately, just days before we leave, I injure my leg badly enough that I need crutches. We decide to go on the trip anyway, even though we’ll have to skip some activities we were really looking forward to. We’re a few days into the trip at the end of a long day. Since the attraction we just visited is very popular, it has an enormous parking lot. I would have trouble making it to the car on my crutches. My husband goes to get the car while I wait near the drop-off/pick-up area. There’s a ring of benches around a statue, and I sit on one. Several minutes later, a man with a camera approaches me.)

Man: “Hey, could you move? I want to take a picture of the statue.”

(This is a bit unexpected, as the statue is nothing special; I’ve seen similar ones at gas stations in the area. However, not wanting to be rude, I slide to the other end of the bench.)

Man: *huffing in annoyance* “I said move!”

(I’m starting to get annoyed at his rudeness, but I hobble over to the next bench.)

Man: “Are you deaf? I said move!”

(At this point, there’s nowhere else for me to move and still sit, and I’m not blocking a picture of the statue at all. I’d be in a picture of the whole area, but so would a lot of other people who the man isn’t asking to move. I realize that the only difference between me and the other people is that they don’t have any visible injuries or disabilities. Seeing now that the man is just being rude and discriminatory, I elect to ignore him. He yells at me until I see a familiar car and get up to leave.)

Man: “FINALLY!” *huffing in annoyance again* “Oh, for f***’s sake!”

(I turn back around before getting in the car and see that a family is now sitting on the bench I originally occupied. They have a little girl in a wheelchair. Knowing that he can’t get away with harassing a disabled child in public, the man gives up and walks away, muttering about rude people.)

(We are disembarking from a fairly large cruise liner, having just been on a ten-day cruise to New Zealand. I am a fairly young teen girl travelling with my two-years-younger sister, my mother, and my wheelchair-bound grandmother. Of course, we have a large suitcase each which we need to pick up after disembarking. Being the strongest, I am in charge of pushing my grandmother, especially since my mom has arthritis and shouldn’t be helping with heavy pushing. When getting the suitcases, there are a few helpful staff assisting with gesturing and helping the crowd disperse. My sister and I are in charge of getting the luggage. I park my grandmother in her wheelchair in a corner with my mother to watch while my sister and I take two suitcases each. A Caucasian staff member approaches my mother and my grandmother. My grandmother does not speak English and we are not Caucasian.)

Staff: “Hi. Could you please move out of the way to allow my disembarking passengers through?”

Mother: “Oh, yes, of course.”

(The staff member proceeds to stand right in front of the wheelchair, blocking its accessibility with her back facing the wheelchair. My sister and I are able to see everything from a distance but are unable to help due to the many suitcases separating us. My mother tries her best to move the wheelchair away towards us with the limited amount of space between the staff’s back and the suitcases without injuring anyone but ends up brushing the leg rest against the staff’s leg.)

Staff: “EXCUSE ME! DID YOU JUST RAM YOUR WHEELCHAIR INTO MY LEG?!”

Mother: “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to brush against your leg. If you would allow me some room to move, I will be out of your hair as soon as possible.”

Staff: “HELLO! YOU CAN’T JUST RAM YOUR WHEELCHAIR AGAINST ME! THAT IS EXTREMELY RUDE! NOW YOU’VE INJURED MY LEG AND I WILL NEED TO SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION!”

(My mother is a general practitioner.)

Mother: “Oh, I see. If you believe you need medical attention, I am a doctor. I can see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Staff: *turns away and walks away* “I WILL GET SECURITY IN HERE FOR THIS ASSAULT!”

Mother: *keeps silent because there’s no point arguing*

Staff: *walks towards superior staff and probably complains*

Superior Staff: *nods but does nothing*

(My sister and I manage to drag our suitcases to join my mother. My sister is fuming. I am, too, just silently.)

Staff: *turns to other Caucasian passengers and points to us* “CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT THEY JUST DECIDED TO RAM THE WHEELCHAIR INTO ME FROM THE BACK, UNPROVOKED?!”

Passenger #1: “How rude!” *sympathetic noises*

Staff: “I know. Now I think my legs are injured because of what they did!”

Passenger #2: “How could they?” *more sympathetic noises*

Staff & Passengers: *shoot us a dirty glare*

(Honestly, I have no idea what made her target us — maybe it was because we were not Caucasian in a largely Caucasian area? — but that was highly uncalled for, especially gossiping about it to other random passengers. Whenever I think of this, I fume internally because I thought that racism was less prevalent, especially when there are actual laws against it. But I guess you will always meet these kinds of people. The best way to deal with it is to be the bigger person and ignore it.)

I am in a relationship where we live far apart, but my boyfriend is trying to find work to transition to live with me full time. There is a regular customer at my place of work who mentions that he has a fabrication studio. My boyfriend is a welder and carpenter, so I ask if he might need any extra hands.

I introduce them, and my boyfriend works there for about a week, putting in long days. In that time, the studio owner tells him that he likes coming to the store where I work to ogle the girls, belittles my boyfriend every chance he gets, and in the end tells him the quality of his work isn’t up to his standards and never compensates him for his time. My boyfriend takes pictures of his work progress and sends it to some of his old coworkers, and they all agree they are solid pieces.

We realize that what I mistook for friendliness was actually him hitting on me, and that he was trying to use the situation to pull some alpha moves.

So, one day I’m at work, up on a stepladder stocking a drink cooler while it’s slow. There’s no one around, so I let out a fart, and it’s absolutely heinous. A real spicy one. A moment later, who should come around the corner but the guy. He acts as if he is picking out a drink, but stands directly behind me almost face level with my a**. I smirk as he starts to make casual conversation and asks how my boyfriend is doing in a snide way. Then, he coughs a few times, gags, and quickly leaves.

Later, I call my boyfriend and tell him how I avenged his honor, which cheers him up a lot. 

Word of mouth spreads from my boyfriend’s work crew about how that guy does business, and now he has a negative reputation in the local industry. I also tell my other coworkers who were swooning over him what a jerk he is, and they are all cold to him from then on.

It may be a small and juvenile victory, but it’s not every day you get to fart in your nemesis’ face!