I’m primarily indigenous (Apache). When I first hooked up with my (now ex) wife, we went to the Midwest to introduce me to her family. I had the following exchange with her ignorant, racist great aunt:

Great Aunt: “Where are you from?”

Me: “California.”

Great Aunt: “No, where are you from?”

Me: “Santa Monica.”

Great Aunt: “What I mean is, where are your parents from?”

Me: “Colorado. Want to try for the grandparents?”

Clearly, my great-aunt-in-law wanted me to say Guatemala or something. My ex was upset with me and thought I was unnecessarily smart-a**ed with her ignorant, racist great aunt.

CORRECTION: The mention of ‘great-aunt’ at the end of the story has been changed to ‘great-aunt-in-law’.

I work at a hotel. My shift started not long ago and during shift change, I heard my coworker getting a call. Though I could only hear her side, I could tell someone was either inquiring about a guest being here or trying to be connected to a room without knowing the room number.

About a half an hour later, once I had taken over, the phone rang again.

Caller: “Hi, can I be connected to James’s room?”

Me: “Can I get James’s last name and room number?”

Caller: “James is the last name; his first name is John.”

Me: “Okay, can I get his room number?”

Caller: “I don’t have his room number.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to connect you to a guest without that.”

Caller: “Please, his mother is very sick, and I can’t get ahold of him.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that would be against our privacy policy.”

Caller: “Please! His mother is very sick. I can describe him and his car! Just tell me what I need.”

Me: “I need first and last name and the person’s room number.”

Caller: “But I don’t have the room number.”

Me: “In that case, I won’t be able to help you, sorry.”

Caller: “Can you just call him and tell him to come to the desk?”

Me: “Without the room number, ma’am, I’m not going to look to see if that person is even staying here.”

After that, she gave up. A few minutes later, a man came to the desk.

Guest: “Did anyone call for me?”

Me: “What’s your name?”

Guest: “John James.”

Me: “Yes.”

Guest: “Did you tell her I was here?”

Me: “I did not.”

Guest: “Okay, good. That’s my ex-girlfriend, and she can’t stand that I’m with someone else now.”

Sick mom, indeed, lady.

This is a text exchange with my ex-boyfriend. I had recently left the apartment to get some small chores done while he hung out and gamed with his friends.

Boyfriend: “Seriously, [My Name], WTF?!”

Me: “Context? You’re going to have to narrow it down.”

Boyfriend: “Why did you leave one of your tampons on the counter in the bathroom? I have friends over, and they could have come in to see this.”

Me: “I didn’t.”

Boyfriend: “I’m looking right at it right now!”

Me: “[Boyfriend], I don’t use tampons. I use sanitary pads.”

Boyfriend: “I didn’t ask what you used. I asked why you left a tampon on the counter!”

Me: “Again, I didn’t.”

Boyfriend: “EXPLAIN WHY YOU ARE LYING TO ME WHEN I’M LOOKING RIGHT AT IT!”

He then sent me a photo. I took the time to sigh deep enough to nearly throw out my back and double-facepalm.

Me: “That’s called a toilet paper holder, [Boyfriend]. You hang toilet paper rolls on the round, plastic, spinny thing. One of your idiot friends used up the last of the toilet paper and didn’t replace it when they left the bathroom.”

There was a long silence.

Boyfriend: “Well, you still need to not leave your s*** on the counter.”

So, no apology for freaking out, no admitting he was wrong, just doubling down on blaming me for his ignorance. Is it any wonder why he’s now my EX-boyfriend?

My last name is the same as a quasi-famous racing family (by marriage, and no, we’re not related, much as my ex would insist we are). I was on the phone with my health insurance company, and the representative was trying to capture my last name correctly.

Rep: “Okay, so that’s ‘D, O, …'”

Normally, I would spell it out phonetically (“B” as in “Boy”, “O” as in “Oscar”), but for some reason, I was feeling silly.

Me: “No, not ‘D, O’, it’s ‘B, O’, as in, ‘stinky’.”

Rep had to take a minute to compose herself when she finished laughing and apologized for doing so. I told her in her line of work, she deserved a laugh.

Come to think of it, my ex wasn’t big on hygiene…

Around the end of 2017, my boss’s wife went through a midlife crisis and decided to have an affair and move out of their house. Divorce proceedings were initiated shortly after.

In the following March, there was an incident between the two of them that necessitated court intervention, and that resulted in some requirements they needed to meet. One of those requirements was [Ex-Wife] being required to walk around the house and make a list of all the items that were hers.

Cue pettiness on her part. [Boss]’s lawyer stated, “In my twenty years of law practice, I have never seen a list this petty.” Among the items were:

• Half of the dish towels.
• Half of the paper plate holders.
• Half of the pots.
• The curtains in the lounge.

You get the idea. She made sure she got half of everything.

HOWEVER, [Boss] did not allow [Ex-Wife] to come into the house herself to pack, as she had spent the previous five months stealing out of the house at every opportunity, and he didn’t trust her to pack only her belongings.

So, he made me do it. I’m my boss’s personal assistant, and it’s my job to read his emails. We were a small company, and there was nothing else really for me to be doing, so I dutifully started collating “her” belongings.

This is where even more pettiness comes in.

• [Ex-Wife] requested one saucepan. I shook both, and one had a loose handle. She got that one.
• She asked for the curtains in the lounge. She didn’t ask for the curtain hooks, so I took all of those out.
• Half of the dish towels? She got all the grotty, mismatched ones, not the nice red set.
• Half of the containers in the storage room? She never specified that she wanted the contents, so she got empty containers.

I did this for the entire list, making sure I was as petty as possible when packing up the house.

The result:

Part #1: Once [Ex-Wife] took all of her stuff, she sent a very long letter via her lawyer stating that what she had received was not what was listed in her belongings. We painstakingly went through the entire list, explaining that she had received exactly what was written on her list, and we couldn’t possibly be at fault, since she “wasn’t specific enough”.

Part 2: Their divorce was finalized at the end of 2019. Occasionally, we will still get the stray email saying we need to return items to her that weren’t provided back in 2018.

It makes my petty heart burn bright, knowing that she tried to be a b*** about taking things, and I turned it back on her and ruined it by being extra petty.

I want to add a few things. I did not behave like this in a vacuum. I did not screw over a kindly woman that I didn’t know. No, I’m not dating or married to my boss. Not every woman in a divorce is the good party, and women can be evil, narcissistic people, just like men. Divorce brings out the worst in people.