15 Times Petty Revenge Was So Perfect It Deserved a Trophy

When we feel wronged, sometimes we wish to dish out some payback, but morals, pride or the fear of consequences can hold us back. Well, the people in this article, did not choose the high road at all. Rather, they chose to embody pettiness and, in all honesty, it was extremely satisfying.

1. Wi-Fi sabotage

Sharing a holiday home with some friends and their 10-year-old son started to be a pain. Not helping around the house and crying if he didn’t get his way. His parents decided to just let him sit and watch YouTube on his iPad instead of disciplining him.

So I logged into the internet router and would use admin privileges to suspend his device from accessing the internet. As soon as he got up to ask his dad for help I would reactivate the device so it seemed as if nothing was wrong. I did this every day for two weeks. © mustard_fox / Reddit

2. Spam payback

I saw an ad for a work-from-home job. It didn’t sound scammy, in fact, it seemed pretty legit, so I asked for more information through their website’s “enter your email” form.

Big mistake. It turned out to be total garbage, and soon they were spamming me several times a day. For some reason, blocking the address didn’t work.

One day, out of frustration, I replied to one of the emails: Stop spamming me. To my surprise, the guy actually responded. Apparently, he monitors that inbox. He told me to unsubscribe, which, of course, did nothing.

After another week of relentless spam, I had an idea. I took the email address he had replied from and added it to his own mailing list... then signed it up for every spam source I could find.

A few days later, the spam from him stopped. © devoidz / Reddit

3. Pedestrian justice

Crossing at a busy downtown intersection, a very impatient driver waiting to make a turn honked at a lady pushing a stroller (she had the right of way).

I slowed down, but the guy next to me straight up stopped in front of the car, then bent down to re-tie his shoelaces. © sorakoi / Reddit

4. “You should smile more.”

I (21F) work part-time at a retail clothing store while finishing college. One shift, my manager Craig (40s, smells like Axe and insecurity) told me, “You should smile more—it makes customers feel welcome.” I said, “You mean be friendlier?” He said, “No, literally just keep smiling, even when no one’s talking to you.”

Okay, Craig. You want smiles? You got them.

For the rest of my shift, and every one after, I smiled wide, all teeth, at everything: folding jeans, sweeping, telling a Karen we didn’t have her size. Customers asked if I was okay, if I was in a cult; one kid cried. Soon my coworkers joined in. By week’s end, we looked like a haunted mannequin display.

Craig finally said to “tone it down.” I beamed and said, “Oh, I thought you wanted us to smile more?” He never mentioned it again. © messyjessie0 / Reddit

5. “PS4 for sale.”

I started in a new job 2 years ago and disliked a guy that kept joking about me, so I got his phone number and announced his PS4 for sale for like 50$.

Same day, during lunch he was already nuts because of the calls.

OFC, he found a way to remove it, but it was nice to watch. © def_not_myself / Reddit

6. Parking plan.

Tonight I went to grab takeout from a nice restaurant known for its dessert. The lot was packed, but I spotted two open spots, only to find someone in a Buick parked dead center between them.

I eventually found parking, but with time to kill, I schemed. Inside, I asked the hostess for a piece of paper, explained my plan, and got a laugh and a “good luck.”

In my car, I wrote: “I see you can’t park. I hope this helps! [phone number] It’s a driving school =)”

Couldn’t stick around to see the reaction, but I like to think he had a moment of panic thinking it was a ticket... and that he’ll remember it every time he parks like an entitled prick. © summerdayzz29 / Reddit

7. “Shopping revenge.”

My wife and son went to a supermarket for a few items, no cart, just what they could carry. The main tills were packed, so they queued for self-checkout. Only a couple of people were ahead, but by the time it was their turn, about ten people were behind them.

She got briefly distracted, maybe four seconds, when a young couple shoved past. When she called them out, the guy smirked, “You weren’t fast enough.”

Instead of arguing, she calmly scanned one of her items on his checkout and moved to the next open one. By the time she finished, he was still waiting for a clerk to cancel it.

As she left, he shouted, “You’re crazy!” She smiled and said, “Well, you weren’t fast enough.” © ObiusMarkusReddit / Reddit

8. Checkout karma

Back in the early 90s, when supermarket cashiers had to type every price in by hand. I was at a Vons in San Diego, walking toward the only open check stand with a single bottle of soda in my hand.

Suddenly this lady with a cart stacked to the top flew out of one of the aisles like a freight train and cut me off. “I’m in a hurry,” she said, then looked away like she was annoyed that I’d been born.

I looked at the cashier. He rolled his eyes and got to work. Five minutes later she’s walking out the door and it’s my turn.

“You’re good,” says the cashier. “I put your soda on her tag.” That felt good. © Irishz*****man / Reddit

9. “Leave our stuff where you found it.”

In college, I lived with three guys. As the only one raised by a clean freak, I ended up doing almost all the cleaning. I moved shoes to the closet, laptops out of walkways, and bathroom clutter out of the way. They hated it, claiming I was “hiding” their stuff.

One roommate’s girlfriend basically moved in, flooding our tiny shower with 27 bottles. When I asked her to store them in his room, the guys’ verdict was: “Leave our stuff where you found it.”

Fine. Cleaning the shower? I sprayed around and over her products, melting her pricey shampoo bar and making everything slippery. Tripped over a laptop cord? Left it unplugged.

Best of all: I rolled up the living room rug to vacuum... with their shoes still on it. They didn’t find them until I unrolled it later.

They called me out for it. But after that? Bathroom clear, shoes in the closet, laptops tucked away. Miracles do happen. © Ok_Presentation6442 / Reddit

10. “Revenge on the choco-thief.”

My wife used to keep these little Godiva chocolates that she likes in her desk at work, but started noticing some of them missing and figured it must be someone from the overnight cleaning staff taking them.

Fed up with losing her not-inexpensive treats, she decided to get revenge on the choco-thief in question by replacing the good chocolate with little squares of chocolate laxatives that look just like real candies.

The next morning she saw several of the laxatives gone, and then from that day forward, she was never missing another one of her good chocolates ever again. © VictorBlimpmuscle / Reddit

11. “He came for my mom.”

My friend’s cousin was prank calling me and called my mom bad words.

So I hacked his World of Warcraft account, which I figured out had thousands of hours on it, gave all the gold away and deleted the characters and accounts. © cody123nerf9 / Reddit

12. Bad communicator

My boyfriend had no set hours at his job, but he just wouldn’t tell me (F25ish, at the time) if he was going to be home at 5 or 9 despite my asking for a heads-up just so I wouldn’t worry. Months go by, nothing changes. This is pre-everyone-had-a-cell. He had a carphone.

I set up a card game with my friends, told my mom my plan because she is a hysterical worrier and if he called her, I didn’t want her to freak out. Didn’t leave a note.

I went to my friend’s place to play cards and traipsed in to our apartment around 4am. He had gone to bed but couldn’t sleep. He asked where I was.

Me: Playing cards with friends. Him: Why didn’t you call me? Me: Was I supposed to? I didn’t think it was necessary. You never call me.

The problem stopped. © Pantokraterix / Reddit

13. Fed-up coworker

My coworker and I had to travel to visit the different branches. But she couldn’t find a sitter so she brought her toddler with.

The child is always crying and throwing tantrums. When I confronted her about it, she said she didn’t know what to do.

So I disconnected the internet every time we left. His mom used it to keep him quiet instead of teaching him self-discipline. And every time he complained, I pointed to his next chore.

14. “Petty Postcard.”

My mother was not one to frequently complain, but when the service she received or witnessed was truly bad she would inform a manager.

Whenever she decided the threshold for complaint was met, she would write a concise description of the situation with her complaint on a postcard and send it off. This way, everyone who encountered the card could read about the problem, including the staff in charge of getting the mail.

I once had a demeaning boss who was the sister of the owner of a very gossipy dental practice. She was bossy and degrading, but also deeply insecure.

Some time after leaving the practice following a really degrading interaction, I wrote an anonymous postcard to her that just said: “You’re right, no one here really respects you.” And I still smile thinking about how quickly that snippet made its way through the office. © krd3nt / Reddit

15. “Got even in my own way.”

Once I was in a relationship with a guy who lived with his mother and I ended up living with them for about 6 months. This was my first experience living with someone outside my family.

I had a set of really nice roasting pans that were my favorite, and I used them that year to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I had to work that night, so his mother told me she would get things cleaned up. I had no reason to doubt her, because the kitchen was always reasonably clean.

Got back the next morning, things are put away in their usual spots, food’s safely stored in the fridge, the whole nine yards.

Christmas rolls around, I take my pans off the top of the fridge, and out of their sealed bags to find a moldy, congealed mess of nasty turkey leftovers still in my now destroyed pan. I moved out over the next couple days, but before I left, I duct taped a potato to the back of the least-used drawer in the kitchen. © jearu573 / Reddit

The smallest paybacks can feel the most satisfying. Check out more people who chose the petty low road.