12 True Stories That Pressed All Our Anger Buttons

We’re usually told that staying calm and focused is the best way to deal with tough situations. But, let’s be honest, some things are just so annoying or upsetting that it’s hard not to get worked up. The folks in this article faced exactly those kinds of awkward situations, and whenever they think back on them, those irritating feelings come rushing back.

• At work one day, I was writing a menu board for lunch specials. A couple came in and started chuckling behind me. The lady gave me this snide look and said, “What’s a sandwich? It’s spelled SAMWITCH, honey. Hahaha, she wrote SAND, like in the desert!”
  I just smiled and didn’t even correct her. © trixablanca / Reddit

• When I was a child, I received an invitation to a birthday party. It was handwritten and given to me by the kid whose birthday it was. When I got there, he pretended not to remember inviting me and asked to see the invitation. He denied writing it in front of many of my classmates and said I invited myself. I was so upset that I wanted to leave immediately, but my mom had already left. I had no choice but to tell his mom what happened so she could maybe drop me off.
  His mom’s reaction caught me off guard. As she recognized his handwriting, she clearly got angry at her son for being unkind. She was super sweet, gave me some Lamingtons and a soda, and told me I could go play video games by myself until my mom picked me up. That was the day I discovered that none of my classmates were my friends. © MoefsieKat / Reddit

• My ex-boyfriend’s biological dad left when he was ten. He gave up his rights, and then his stepdad eventually adopted him. His stepdad used to talk so much about the bio-dad, saying that he wasn’t a real man for giving up his kids.
  I found out after we broke up that the stepdad had an older child that he gave up the rights to, but he was still a man somehow. © idealisticb***h / Reddit

• Our school’s schedule got revamped, which meant that one of our classes that was two periods long was cut in half to accommodate all the changes. When I brought this up to the teacher I was co-teaching with, she called me an idiot and told everyone sitting at our table group that I wasn’t very good at math, and everyone laughed. A few minutes later, the principal clarified the new schedule, only for her to realize that she was wrong in the first place. It felt so good to see the look on her face when she realized she was the one mistaken, not me. © jooby-the-nooby / Reddit

• My aunt came to visit for what was supposed to be a week or two and didn’t leave for almost a year when I was a kid. She redecorated my room and even put up pictures of herself.
  Now, the running joke in my family is to randomly leave pictures of yourself around the house when we visit people. © slams-head-on-desk / Reddit

• I had a friend from high school invite me and three other friends over for what he described as a “party.” We thought that it might be a small gamer party with some nerdy board games or something, as there were only the three of us plus him and his wife.
  His wife then proceeded to start an hour and a half presentation and tried to sell female beauty products to a group of males between the ages of 19 and 22. I was astounded. © blackdragon8577 / Reddit

• My father called me, found out I got divorced (didn’t tell him because we were not close, and I knew he would side with my ex) and told me he was “incredibly disappointed in me because marriage is supposed to be forever.” He was calling me to tell me he was getting married for the FIFTH time. © r124124 / Reddit

• My mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and father-in-law all got into an argument with my wife because we wouldn’t drop everything and go visit them for Mother’s Day when we had plans. It’s a 2-hour visit to them, and they got mad because we said that 2 hours of time and gas was too much, and it interfered with what we were doing that day.
  Apparently, us not wanting to make a 2-hour trip is unreasonable, but when they don’t want to, they just can’t afford it, and we should understand.
  In the same argument, they blatantly said that if we don’t have the money to come see them, I should get off my “lazy self” and get a job.
  My wife and I both have jobs. NONE of the three of them do. © Mistah-Jay / Reddit

• I was on my honeymoon with my husband, and we let his dad stay at our house, but we told him he had to be out by the time we got back. We informed him when we were on our way home and expected him to be gone.
  When we arrived, he was gone, but had not taken his stuff out of the house. On top of that, he had trashed the place like a group of teenagers, with empty pizza boxes and trash scattered around. He came back, stayed around for a bit, and asked me if I was mad at him. Like, of course, I’m mad!! What do you expect? © Unknown user / Reddit

• During my entire childhood, my dad treated my mom badly and accused her of cheating. He would call her workplace and ask her supervisor what the organization’s policy was on employees having relationships with customers, and basically just things to make my mom feel terrible.
  None of my brothers or I ever believed she had cheated on him, as she could barely keep friends because our father tried to control every aspect of her life, let alone how she would have time to cheat on him while raising four children that he was barely around for.
  Fast-forward to me at 21, and I catch my dad cheating on my mom. A year later, I find out I have two other siblings from different mothers that all fit the time frame of my parents’ marriage.
  Luckily, he isn’t in our life much. © one30eight / Reddit

• My ex-boyfriend was angry that I was on a dating site and had gone on a few dates within a month of us breaking up. He did the exact same thing, but it was “different” because his dates went badly, and he was lonely. © tintinfin / Reddit

• A high school teacher of mine misspelled the word “college” as “collage” on an assignment, and I jokingly said, “Whoever wrote this must not have gone to ’collage.’” She made a huge scene in front of the class for fifteen or so minutes about how I don’t know anything about her, and she brought some friends of mine into it by trying to get them to say that they thought I was full of myself. They all got uncomfortable and disagreed.
  A week later, a classmate made the same mistake on her homework, and the teacher made the exact joke that I had made but failed to see the hypocrisy in it. © sambosefus / Reddit

Discovering a deeply buried family secret can stir up strong emotions like anger, sorrow, and frustration within us. The people in this article have personally experienced these intense feelings firsthand.