This story reminded me of my own petty revenge years ago. I lived on the fourth floor of a tall apartment building in the middle of other similar apartment buildings. The lowest floor had shops, so there was a public parking lot just under our windows.

One evening after dark, when all the shops were closed and those people who were not yet in beds were moving toward them, a car pulled into the empty parking lot. Driver and passengers opened the doors and came out to stand around the car and talk, loudly enough to be able to hear each other over their car’s radio.

I found a small, soft, thoroughly rotten apple in my kitchen. (That can happen when you have relatives who share their harvest generously; you don’t catch the bad apples fast enough.) Going out onto our balcony quietly, I threw my fermented apple juice barely held together by a peel toward the car and pulled swiftly back into the apartment.

There were over a hundred windows facing the parking lot, and a third of them were still lit, so I don’t think that the noisemakers had a chance to know which apartment protested their unannounced late-evening concert. 

I had no idea if I had hit the noisy car or not — the distance was rather big — but before I could search for another soft apple, the car closed its doors and drove away. I found no trace of the apple in the parking lot when I checked it in the daylight.

My boyfriend was heating up some leftover pasta sauce. He put on some water to boil pasta, but then he couldn’t find the pasta.

Me: “I cooked all the pasta we had yesterday, but there is some left over in the freezer.”

He put that in the microwave.

Boyfriend: “Oh. Now I have a pot of water already halfway to boiling.”

Me: “Could you make some tea with it?”

Boyfriend: “Sure!”

After a while, he held up an unopened box of tea bags.

Boyfriend: “Do you want this flavour?”

I didn’t see what flavour it was, only that it wasn’t something we usually have.”

Me: “Sure.”

Later, we were having our leftover pasta for lunch with the tea.

Me: “This tea tastes a bit like very weak bouillon.”

Boyfriend: “It does!”

After drinking it some more, I came to the realisation that I actually really disliked this tea.

Me: “What flavour is this, anyway?”

Boyfriend: “OH! I just realised! I had already salted the water for the pasta before I used it for the tea!”

We had a good laugh about that.

A local family-run donut shop always has an experimental new flavor as an option. They offer it at a discount and ask customers for on-the-spot feedback, and it always runs out fast.

Customer: “What’s the special today?”

Owner: “We’ve got a mocha donut, and we’ve got black sesame. We’re down to our last batch for the sesame, though.”

Customer: “Interesting. I didn’t know you did savory donuts.”

Owner: “Savory? Nah, they’re both pretty sweet. Actually, people have been saying I put too much sugar in the mocha.”

Customer: “No, the sesame — is it like a bagel?”

Owner: “Nah, it’s black sesame; it gets used in desserts all the time.”

Customer: “But… sesame is a savory spice!”

Owner: “Not if you use it right! Here, try this.”

He hands her a slice of sesame donut.

Customer: “Oh, my God, that’s delicious! But… it’s a savory spice.”

Owner: *Shrugging* “Not if you use it in dessert, it isn’t!”

Customer: “Gimme one of each. And I have got to try that idea myself.”

A week later, the same customer is back

Customer: “So, remember that you told me about using savory spices in desserts?”

Owner: “Now hold on here. I told you about using sesame in desserts.”

Customer: “Oh… Yeah, that makes sense. Well, anyway, no one liked my cilantro cake.”

My dad worked in pest control. He only had partial custody of me. One day, when I was around ten and he had a custody day with me, he brought me with him to a restaurant.

It was already fairly late at night. We ate together, he got me a sweet treat from the dessert menu, and then… we waited. The rest of the guests gradually cleared out.

Me: “Hey, Dad, aren’t we keeping these poor servers here late?”

Dad: “No. It’s fine.”

They started vacuuming around us and shutting off lights. Dad got me another round of soda and helped me with my homework, but I was too stressed out by the fact that we weren’t leaving. I didn’t understand.

Finally, the servers left, and the manager approached my dad and handed him the keys.

Dad: *To the manager* “Remember not to come in tomorrow. It won’t be safe until the day after.”

It was a work site. Dad had been contracted to spray it for rats and roaches. According to Dad, they had a severe problem and were paying him for advanced mitigation. He had me help him get his gear out of the truck and put it in the correct locations. 

He gave me a hundred dollar bill for helping him, but he never did understand why I was upset that we’d eaten at a place that had such a bad problem.

My son’s eleventh birthday is coming, and he just wants to have his grandparents over, nothing special. A few weeks before his birthday, my wife and son go to a nearby place to order a cake. We’ve had great success with their cakes in the past and everyone has really enjoyed them, so it was a done deal: use them for this birthday cake.

The day of the birthday, my wife stops at the store and picks up the cake. Things look good. Everything is spelled correctly, and the decoration on the cake looks very nice. Now we’re all set.

It’s about 8:00 pm, and the birthday is coming to an end, so we do cake. I set up the candles and light them, we all sing “Happy Birthday”, and so on. My wife starts cutting pieces of cake and plating them, and she pauses after placing the first piece of cake down.

Wife: “The filling doesn’t look right; it should be chocolate. That doesn’t look chocolate.”

I lean over and look at it. At first, it looks like the filling had some frosting bleed into it from the edges. So, she continues to cut a couple more pieces and plate them.

Wife: “It certainly doesn’t look like chocolate filling. We ordered chocolate filling… What is it?”

Me: “You know, you could just taste it to find out.”

I take a fork, scoop out a little of the filling, and try it.

Me: “I don’t know what it is, but it certainly isn’t just chocolate. It almost tastes like they mixed lemon with it…” *Makes a slight gagging sound* “This is awful. Who the h*** would want a lemon and chocolate mix for a filling in a cake? Lemon and chocolate don’t go together!”

I have a nasty lemon/chocolate flavor just stuck in my mouth for an hour. I can’t get rid of it. So gross. I love lemon-flavored stuff — candy, bars, bread, lemon poppy seed muffins, and the list goes on. I’ll even peel a lemon and eat it. But this, this was awful.

A few other people at the table try it and no one likes it. We’ve got about a quarter of the cake that we all throw out, and the other three-quarters I’m going to return to the store tomorrow morning when they open.

Morning comes, and my wife doesn’t want to accompany me to the store. She just kind of shrugs her shoulders and says it’s no big deal. What? Yes, it is! The cake cost $35. With current gas prices, that’s almost a full tank of gas for one of our cars. I’m not letting $35 go to waste.

I head to the store and speak with the two ladies behind the counter. They’re offended when I say the cake tastes like crap, and they call over the manager.

Me: “I don’t know what you guys did, but the filling for the cake my wife picked up yesterday is awful. Downright awful. It was some nasty lemon and chocolate filling, gross. They ordered chocolate filling.”

Manager: “Here’s the order form. As you can see, the filling section was circled as wanting lemon.”

Me: “My wife and son both asked for a chocolate filling and never once said the word ‘lemon’. The lady who filled out the form even wrote chocolate in the filling area, so I don’t know why they also circled lemon.”

Manager: “There’s nothing I can do about it; it was made correctly.”

Me: “I’ve got the cake with me; you can eat some and let me know how you feel about it. My son was upset the cake tasted like crap, and I don’t blame him.”

Manager: “Like I said, this is the form that was filled out.”

Me: “The customer doesn’t even fill out the form. The employees do as we talk to them.”

The manager just stares at me like I’m stupid.

Me: “So, you’re telling me that no one ever makes a mistake? Who the h*** would want a lemon/chocolate filling? It tastes awful. I love lemon food, candy, bars, and bread, and I’ll even peel lemons and eat them, but this was just disgusting.”

The manager looked over the order form again and noticed that chocolate whipped topping was marked to be in the cake and should have been in the cake, but there was none. After a bit more back and forth, he finally agreed that mistakes can happen and he’d be willing to refund at least half the cost of the cake back to us, but he said that was the best he could do.

In the end, I told him they could keep the other three-quarters of the cake we didn’t touch because it tasted awful, and he refunded me $20 out of the $35 we’d spent on it. I don’t know if they ever tried the cake or not, but I hope they did just so they could be punished for the screw-up.

In the end, it wasn’t a complete loss, but it wasn’t a complete win, either.