My boyfriend and I had just finished our shopping and were smoking cigarettes while resting against the car. This brought to mind a long-forgotten story.
He was essentially smoking outside a store while resting against his car when an unknown woman approached him and says, "I don't believe the owner would enjoy you leaning on their car." She attempted to challenge his claim that he was the owner of the car, notwithstanding his claims to the contrary. Even saying, "Get off my car; it's mine," She merely remained silent as she left when he took out the keys and opened the car.
We were a family of five traveling from Miami to Bolivia with three children under the age of 12. As we are settling in for the flight, the arrogant woman and her husband approach my row. My brother and sister are seated in the same row as me. "Excuse us, you're in our seats," they say. By this point, we are all three familiar with child travel, so we each take out our own boarding passes to demonstrate to her that we have been given these seats as well. The passes are demanded, and we are accused of being wrong. We do not hand them over. Seeing strangers talking to his children, my dad asks: "Excuse me, why are you talking to my kids?". “They’re in our seats, look.” My dad then says: “That’s their assigned seat; they know how to read a boarding pass.” We've caught the flight attendant's attention at this point. She affirms that there had been a double reservation for those seats. The pair is furious and demands their designated seats.
In order to "see what I can do for you," the flight attendant departs. The woman has been making a big deal out of attempting to put her luggage in the overhead bins in front of ours the entire time, whining loudly. When the attendant came back, she thanked the customer for her patience. "Although it was double booked, it appears that we have enough first-class seats for your group. Would you kindly follow me, please?" They exhale in relief that AT LAST, SOMEONE will use common sense. The joke, however, was on them. The floor staff member extends her hand. "Not you, sir. We'll make sure you three are taken care of if you three (looking at my siblings and me) will kindly join us in first class". As we kindly picked up our things and made our way to the coziest laps of luxury our young selves had the good pleasure of lucking out on, the woman's face took on a lemon-sucking expression that will never be forgotten. The food gave me a headache, but the reclining seats, cozy blankets, and sleep masks really made up for all that discomfort.
Due to my severe migraine problem, cluster headaches, and general fragility, my father and I once stood in front of the queue for pre-boarding on our flight from Atlanta to the Cleveland Clinic. "Excuse me!" a hefty woman in her 30s in a wheelchair remarked. " You don't need to check in ahead of time! Let the elderly go. You can stand, at least!" I replied that while I could stand, I couldn't stand for very long, and I needed to sit down immediately. She persisted in berating us even while I was in excruciating pain and was unable to see due to a migraine aura.
The woman practically yelled at me to "stop faking it" and to step aside as I passed out. He said, "As if we could move out of your way and still make our trip," my beloved Papa later revealed to me. At this time, the woman was screaming and needed to be carried away to be calmed down; she was given the option of doing so with TSA or at the gate. I was given a wheelchair, assisted into the aircraft, and given the most comfortable open seat by the amazing gate employees. It was a good flight, but I can't recall what class it was in.
I'm allergic to alcohol-based products in general, including alcohol-based wipes and hand sanitizer. To avoid that I react to some soaps, I bring my own. Even drinking the substance causes my lips to swell. When Covid hit, I didn't really have a problem because my previous employer was my cousin; however, that was before my cousin was promoted and moved to a different office. We got assigned a new boss who then sent a mass email outlining our updated safety protocols, and one of those protocols requires everyone to use hand sanitizer and antiseptic wipes. I wrote HR an email with medical records explaining my allergies. I don't need to use the antiseptic wipes and hand sanitizer, they said, adding that they had placed the letter in my file. They later forwarded my new boss the exact email, though. His response enraged me. According to him, all personnel must adhere to the new safety protocols without exception. He wrote me another email when I responded that if I used those goods, I would need medical attention and that failing to follow the new safety standards would result in termination.
I forwarded copies of the emails to our union representative and the HR department, who responded by saying they would speak with him and essentially telling me to ignore him unless he tried to terminate me. As a result, when I arrive to work, my new supervisor is physically standing at my desk, holding a bottle of hand sanitizer, and requesting me to extend my hands. "No thanks, I'd rather not go to the hospital today," was my response. What he did next was so bizarre that it will never be forgotten. In a fit of rage, he physically grabbed my hand and doused it in hand sanitizer before rubbing it in. "See, it wasn't so awful," he continued. He stopped me when I wanted to enter the restroom to wash it off. Fortunately, I had an EpiPen on my desk since I had a terrible reaction. Until I was placed in the ambulance, my employer kept saying, "I thought he was lying," but I couldn't hear him. A member of the HR department visited me in the hospital and told me he had been fired, possibly to prevent me from filing a lawsuit. The HR representative also stated that they had contacted the authorities on my behalf and that I would shortly be receiving a visit from them.
Okay, so this incident occurred a few years ago, but I still clearly recall it, and, to be very honest, I still don't understand what my sister was thinking. A little background: When we were young, my sister and I had to share EVERYTHING. Not to mention that I was made to act as their "second mother" for both her and our younger brother, but that is a story for another time. I enjoyed sharing things with my sister for a while. Candy, food, and toys - typical kid things. We are apart by four years, I'm the oldest, and as you can obviously assume, once I hit puberty, I wanted my own things and to be by myself. Nope. She insisted that I go along with her everywhere. She would start pounding on the door after only five minutes in the restroom. Unfortunately, my brothers and I were placed in foster care when we were about 15 years old. Because of how difficult it was for both of us to be apart from our brother, I initially didn't mind that my sister wanted to spend all of her time with me.
I wanted to have my own room and stuff that are, well, my shortly after turning 16 years old. She would argue with me about not sharing MY things, and of course, usual sibling arguments and yelling took place almost daily. Over the years, we kind of moved past our sibling disputes, but she kind of adopted a "the world owes me" attitude that drove me crazy. I tried to manage my annoyance, but because I'm human, occasionally, I kind of snapped. My sister and I weren't really talking much for a few years after my daughter was born because of her conceited attitude regarding the fact that I spent most of my time and money on my child. She came over for the weekend during one of the times we were friendly, and things went smoothly. Up until that point, when she told me during a chat that she was going to take my daughter away for a week because it was "her turn," she wanted to spend time with her. "Not going to happen," I remarked. " She is MY daughter, not a toy or animal that we both own." She refused to go after I told her to and claimed that "she had parental rights" and that "social services will force me to allow her to take my baby whenever she wants." I chuckled and ordered her to go immediately. I'm not sure if she actually believed that having my daughter was her birthright.
Spring arrived earlier than usual since the groundhog had no shadow, so I made the decision to work on the garden strip that separates my property from Karen's. Between her house and the garden is a fence. I also remove some of MY daylilies from MY property while doing this. I finish, go home, and carry on with my day until I hear a scream coming from the side of my house. Karen, who has just arrived home from work, asks me why I got rid of her lilies as I run over because I'm afraid someone got hurt. I claim that I was making room for tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots and that those lilies were MY lilies. She then dials 9-1-1 to report my destruction of HER property. When the police arrive, they essentially instruct her to go inside and stop talking because it is quite obvious whose flowers they are. There was more to it, though. She drank too much the following day. This exacerbated her rage over the loss of my lilies. She went to my neighbor's home on the other side with wood and a firestarter.
Then she set fire to their trash cans. Their porch then caught fire after this spread to it, and soon their entire home was on fire. Living in a cul-de-sac and being a light sleeper, I was awakened by the orange haze that was passing by my windows. I dialed 9-1-1 and provided all the information, including a witness report. I left the house while 9-1-1 was still on the phone, and what occurred next absolutely shocked me. While they are within hearing distance, the neighbor fully confesses. Her mistakes become evident after some time as the fire department arrives. She lit a house on fire, but it was the wrong house. There were no injuries, and she's facing arson charges. It's a family of three: a mother, a father, and two high schoolers. My mind is still reeling from the experience.
About five minutes before takeoff, as I was en route from Thailand to Vietnam, a sizable group of tourists boarded the plane. They continue to scream and shout, hitting everyone with their luggage before realizing there is simply not enough room in the overhead bins. One such person actually started removing other people's luggage and got into an argument with other passengers as a result. The stewardess then made the decision to store her belongings in a storage area for staff members or whatever. They refused to sit down during takeoff, were obnoxious, and showed no consideration for other passengers, which made the journey awful.
The same woman who took passengers' baggage started yelling at the stewardess while eating her cup of noodles. She began yelling in Cantonese after being told to be ready for landing. She starts throwing the almost-boiling cup noodles all over the hostess after approximately a minute. It was complete chaos. The police were waiting for her when we landed, and they brought her in right away.
I was a young boy traveling to Utah to begin my teen tour. The pilot said that an engine had failed and that we would need to make an emergency landing in Chicago around halfway through the flight. We naturally were a little worried. However, one unhappy passenger intervened on her own.
She charged the flight attendant and started screaming. She stated that she was a nanny and that she had to travel to Utah to take care of the kids she looked after. I'm not sure what she was hoping for—that the pilot would endanger everyone's life after learning that a babysitter was on board to get us all through or that the flight attendant would be so affected by this story that she would jump out onto the wing and fix the engine in the middle of the flight. She was instructed to sit down because, sadly, there was no emergency jet pack available for this passenger to use to quickly exit the plane and reach Utah.
One of my sisters worked as a flight attendant. She was full of stories, but I remember one about an entitled jerk on an overseas flight who demanded everything until he fell asleep. After he awoke on the plane, he asked for the paper for that day. Luckily, she found one for him.
It was yesterday's paper, he complained, and he wanted the one from today. My sister then told him: "Sir, we have been flying for 16 hours, and we have not stopped to pick up the paper". The passenger kept complaining and wouldn't accept that he wouldn't get today's newspaper even though it was the airline's policy.
I have a mother-in-law who is very entitled. When she visits, she throws herself on the couch and expects us to wait on her like servants. It is as if the couch was her throne. In the days leading up to her visit, I told my wife I had one rule for her: no news. I can't stand watching the news. They are only things designed to make you angry or terrified. I told my mother-in-law about this several times. She is adamant, though, that she has to know what is happening in order to survive. We put my daughter to bed, and as soon as we do, I hear the news. That's when I made the decision to exact justice on her. Google Home manages the TV in my home.
Being connected to the system, my phone functions as a home unit. I command it to mute the television. She restarts the TV. She turns it back on after I turn it off. I then disabled news channels in the FIOS app. She then proceeded to turn on CNN through Youtube, which I did not know was possible. It was time to get my revenge, so I had to stop the playback by using the app. Now, my wife is attempting a soft laugh. She waits a short while, asks Google to start it once more, and I stop the playback right away so that her screen would once more become frozen. I yell down to her that it must be the storm we are experiencing, and the cable is down since she is yelling about how the TV is frozen. It made me feel so good inside.
I had a very long commute to work and some days when I was working late, I would take an Uber home, rather than go through the pain of changing several trains. It was expensive but comfortable. To keep a track of how much I was spending on Uber I had a separate bank account and I would use only that account to pay Uber. In those days, my manager and I were still on good terms. She got to know during one conversation that I made only online payments to Uber and rarely carried cash on me. So she decided to take advantage of this and one day pretended that she had lost her phone and needed to book a cab for her father and so could I book it for her. I obliged. But there was something that she didn’t know.
I hadn’t told her that I had opted for payment in cash, rather than online payment while confirming the booking. And it turned out to be a good thing that I made that switch. She kept the cab for six hours and proceeded to roam all over the city. Next day she asked me why I had not informed her that the payment was in cash. I pulled out my phone and showed her the map of the route she had traveled and the time the cab stayed with her. No. You are really not as smart as you think.
I work in the marketing department of a small-ish cosmetics company. I’m not what you would call “higher up” in the company, but I’m not entry-level either. Earlier today, I went into the office’s common area/kitchen to make a cup of tea (earl grey, if you care). A woman talking on a phone came into the room as I was waiting on the kettle to boil. I recognize her as one of our new hires from sales. I doubt she’s been here long enough to get her first check. She was talking loudly, but I ignored her; it’s a somewhat loud office, so it isn’t a big deal for someone to make a little noise. A minute or so later, she says into the phone, “hold on, I need some privacy,” and then turns to me and says, “Excuse me, sorry, I’m on a private call, I need you to leave”. I’m confused at first, then what she says registers. I get this surprised smile on my face, the kind that says “you joking, mate”? I tell her no. She gives me the look. Her mouth is open, eyes wide. How dare I use the common area for what it’s for.
She doesn’t even say anything. I point to the kettle. I tell her I’m making tea. She tells me that it is an important medical call. I tell her the kitchen isn’t a private room, and that she can go to an empty conference room or to her car if the matter is that sensitive. She says she doesn’t like the chairs in the conference room and that it’s too cold to walk out to her car. I shrug. She eventually gets that I’m not leaving until I’ve had my tea, and she stomps off to a conference room. I hate being a narc, but, for heaven’s sake, just let me make my tea in peace. So, I decided to walk down to sales and chat with her supervisor (whom I know fairly well). About the time I finish relaying the experience, the woman in question walks in, sees me, and stops. I point her out to the supervisor, pat him on the back, and walk back to my office. Good luck, newbie!
My brother is getting married in July. I have a service dog for my various disabilities and since the day I found out about the wedding, my brother’s fiancé has been unwilling to accommodate my need for my service dog. She has made various excuses like “What if the dog gets hair on my dress”?, “We don’t want dogs eating food off the table”, “What if he jumps up and messes up my dress? It’s expensive and I don’t have the money to replace it”. I’ve made it clear that I can’t be at the wedding without my service dog.
Both my mom and I have also made it clear that he would never do any of the things she’s mentioned. Now it’s the venue. “Well, we don’t know if the venue will accommodate you”. I mentioned that they had to legally and my brother was like “Still…” It seems like they are trying to find any reason to deny me. We are re-evaluating the topic in July and if it doesn’t go well I might just show up with my service dog anyway.
My wife and I spent four years trying to get pregnant before the wrong side of 35. We are currently 33 respectively now and are blessed with a wonderful infant son. My wife has a younger half-sister. The woman is entitled and awful, and also her mother’s golden child. We’ve refused to let her or my mother-in-law in the house since they both blatantly tried to make off with my wife’s jewelry box a couple of years ago. The box contained a lot of valuable jewelry inherited from my wife’s grandmother. Said jewelry is now in a safety deposit box as per my suggestion. My wife and I had nearly given up trying to conceive when it suddenly happened. And we were ecstatic. After we found out we were having a boy, we started looking into names. I ended up suggesting the name of my Scottish grandfather, and my wife loved it. So that’s the name we settled on. But we made the mistake of posting about it on social media. Well no surprise to the stereotype in this mess, my sister-in-law was pregnant too. And was months further along than my wife and also having a boy. She decided to claim my grandfather’s name for her own son. And not just the first name, but the middle name too. We called her furious over what she was doing, and she smugly told us there’s nothing we can do about it. Which she was sorta right. There was nothing we could do about it legally. We realized that drama was exactly what my sister-in-law wanted. And she thought that by taking the name for herself, we’d not be able to use it. I laughed and told her that while what she did was dirty and underhanded, we would keep our chosen name. And she could just deal with it whether she decides to go through with copying us or not. Well my sister-in-law’s baby-daddy called me and said I was an unreasonable jerk for still wanting to use the name after sister-in-law claimed it. I said she claimed nothing. Since we couldn’t own the name, then neither could they. Before he ended the call he threatened me by saying I’d be sorry if we didn’t change the name. Then he hung up before I could respond. Months later, sister-in-law has a healthy baby boy and names him my grandfather’s name. We did not show up for the birth. Both because of the pandemic, and because we simply didn’t care to be there. The sister-in-law called us wanting congratulations. But we told her we simply didn’t care. And that if she was still insisting we change our baby’s name, then she’d be in for some big disappointment because we were not. Sister-in-law demanded I put my wife on the phone. But it was already on speaker and my wife spoke up and said she agrees with me entirely. We weren’t changing the name. Sister-in-law hung up on us, but soon started sending emails with text walls of names. Even suggesting similar ones.
I responded back that the name was from my grandfather, and that’s why we were not changing it. She shut up and we didn’t hear from her again till after our own son was born. Two months later we were blessed with our son. He came out perfect, and we named him just as we’d intended. Well, no surprise my sister-in-law called us a few days after the birth to scream in our ears that we copied her son’s name. I pointed out she was the real copycat since she had no familial ties to the name and we did. And anyone who looks at our family trees could see that. Then my wife spoke and said after the attempted theft of her grandmother’s jewelry, she no longer considered her her sister. And would have nothing to do with her nephew either. For months we were bombarded with messages and emails from my wife’s side of the family. Half were on our side after finding out the whole story, the other half were not. But it didn’t end there. Sister-in-law baby-daddy true to his word showed up at my door to “Make me sorry”. I’m not sure what his plan was. But I pretty much towered over him. I’m 6’1” tall and well-built from regular exercise and three trips to the gym a week. He on the other hand was very skinny and about 5’6” tall with a babyface that was badly hidden by a slim beard.I told him my house has cameras, and to get off my property and never come back. He just yelled at me and drove off in his beat-up old car. Sister-in-law and mother-in-law called us from a different number to yell at me for making sister-in-law’s baby-daddy feel emasculated. I didn’t even threaten the man. Just told him to leave and not come back. And if he didn’t want to feel emasculated, then he shouldn’t have come knocking. Then they tried to bring up the issue of the baby name again and demanded we change our son’s name as, “He’s so young. So there’s still plenty of time to do it!” We held our ground and told them that they were bonkers to still think they were in the right after they copied our choice of name just to try and get one over on us.I said sister-in-law didn’t even name her son out of love, but out of spite just to try and stick it to my wife for no good reason. Then my wife called them both out on the way she was treated growing up, how entitled sister-in-law and mother-in-law have always been, and how she was glad to leave them far behind. And she wants nothing from them, and they won’t have anything from us. That left sister-in-law sobbing and mother-in-law called me a terrible person before hanging up the phone. We were no contact again for a little while till sister-in-law called us again sometime later to bitterly tell us we’d won. She and her baby daddy got in a huge fight and he left. He was apparently very sore that sister-in-law didn’t let him even give their son a middle name from his family. He said he was sick of the drama and wanted his son named after him and not some guy he wasn’t even related to. Sister-in-law finally caved and they got the boy’s birth certificate reissued with a completely new name. Which cost sister-in-law around $500, or so she claims. I still can’t believe that she still tried to twist it around after that. Sister-in-law then demanded we at least compensate her for the name change, plus another $100 for the emotional damage as now she’s going to have to get used to calling her son by a different name. We laughed and said this would have never happened if she hadn’t stolen our baby name to begin with, and we didn’t owe her anything. Since then we’ve been no contact with sister-in-law and mother-in-law. But my father-in-law who’s a very nice man and divorced from mother-in-law for obvious reasons would come by often and loves his grandson. From what he and other relatives told us the situation between sister-in-law and her baby daddy was pretty tumultuous. But we don’t care. Not our monkeys, not our circus.
I was there when this 16-year-old motorcycle driver was hit by a truck. The paramedics had to treat him on the spot so that he’d have a chance of survival. This didn’t sit right with a 50-year-old driver who claimed that she had “an important appointment,” and the resulting traffic jam was getting in the way of that. The officers on the scene told her to calm down and get back to her car. Well, she didn’t like that and started to harass them non-stop.
Screaming, cursing, getting out of her car to nag at them because she was running late. After all, it was “just a single motorcycle driver; how long can this take?” Sadly, the boy didn’t make it—but the story doesn’t end there. The horrible woman is now facing charges for blocking the corridor for emergency vehicles and resisting officers. I hope the poor guy at least gets entertainment out of haunting her for the rest of her miserable existence.
My baby brother was born terminally ill. The long hospital stays and expensive meds kicked in around six months old. To cope with the huge medical bills, mom worked some odd jobs over the years, including making custom wedding and bridesmaids gowns. My mom had a few golden rules. Number 1: She did all of your measurements. I heard the lecture of “vanity fibbing only results in a poorly fitting dress” more times than I can count. Number 2: All final fittings must be completed at least three weeks before the wedding. That way if Dewey had an emergency hospital stay, she’d have time to arrange for someone to sit with him while she went home to finish a job. He was nonverbal and needed a constant companion. This particular bride wanted all of her bridesmaids in pastel organza dresses (organza is a gauzy fabric). The base dresses were white, covered with these colors. Unfortunately, the bride had more bridesmaids than pastel shades the fabric came in… meaning one lucky bridesmaid wore tan. The bride refused to start a fight by assigning colors so it was first come, first serve. When you came for measurements, you got to pick from the remaining colors. One bridesmaid lived three hours away and flat out refused to come to town to be measured. She insisted that telling us she was a size 8 was good enough. Bridal sizes are very different and didn’t cleanly convert, so that meant nothing. Mom finally reached the compromise that a local seamstress could measure her and send in the measurements. One month before this wedding, Dewey was admitted into the ICU to be placed on a ventilator. Mom now had to find coverage enough to get eight dresses finished off in the next two or so weeks. She pulled it off thanks to amazing friends, but it was tight. Dad was busy working overtime to pay the bills and dealing with us other two kids. Well, this horrible bridesmaid still REFUSED to have a final fitting more than two days before the wedding. She “didn’t want to waste a trip just because [my mom] was a horrible seamstress who didn’t understand proper sizing”.
I was cleaning up seed pearls during that lovely conversation! My mom begged a friend to sit with Dewey for an entire day so she could do the fitting and adjustments all at once. Well, the horrible bridesmaid was two hours late. When she arrived, she saw the hideous tan dress and began literally screaming about how it wasn’t fair and my mom must have picked that color. She demanded another bridesmaid return their dress and both dresses get swapped colors. It would have been 20+ hours of work, so mom laughed and told her that was a big no. The bride arrived and told her friend that color was the only option left and she was sorry, but it was that or drop out of the wedding and pay for the dress anyways. The bridesmaid finally agreed to put it on…yeah, she’d lied about her size. When the zipper didn’t go all the way up, Mom whipped out the measuring tape only to discover this woman had shaved 1-2 inches off every measurement except height! Her defense was that she wasn’t going to let a jealous seamstress lie about her so she “fixed” the numbers before passing them on. By this point, my mom was all but breathing fire. Her son’s life hung in the balance and this lunatic was making her life awful. My mom demanded double for the dress because she was going to have to add strips to the base white dress to make it big enough then make a whole new overdress from organza. It was doubling the time and adding substantially to fabric costs. The bridesmaid fought over it and my mom finally told her “Fine, pay me the agreed-upon amount and take your dress as is”! Now, the bride herself was trying to talk the bridesmaid into just paying up. She finally agreed to it and my mom told the bride to get the bridesmaid out of her house. They could come back in five hours to get the dress. Thankfully the redone dress was a perfect fit. The bridesmaid paid the remaining balance and left after that. But she still ruined something that day. After my brother passed, my mom refused to ever make another wedding dress. She’s only made one in the 21 years since, as a favor to the friend who spent that ill-fated day with Dewey in the ICU while Mom fought with the awful bridesmaid.
You know how babies sometimes cry on planes? Well, there was a full-grown woman who started crying three hours into the flight…really, really, loudly. But that wasn’t the worst part.
She then started screaming at people for not comforting her, and eventually attacked the guy who was sitting beside her. The plane had to turn around and land to kick her off, still crying.
About a year ago, A woman with a service dog came on a plane I was traveling on. She sat in the front row of seats on a Southwest flight. After preboarding, a man, his wife, and their baby came on the plane. The man demanded that the woman with the service dog move elsewhere because he wanted the front seats for his family. When she told him she would not move, his response was utterly disturbing. He began grabbing her bags and throwing them in the aisle. The attendants came and told him that he could not move a passenger’s seat. He then grabbed the service dog by the harness and began yanking it out into the aisle.
The woman was crying at this time, begging for someone to help. The man was told that if he continued, he and his family would have to deboard the plane. The man finally stopped but put his carry-on in the bin above where the woman was sitting even though he sat further back. The entire flight, there were complaints that his wife was holding their baby on the tray table, pulling the passengers’ hair in front of them, changing diapers in the seat, and disgustingly storing them in the seat pocket in front of them. When the plane landed, the man and his wife pushed through the aisles, yelling that they needed their carry-on, and, in the process, shoved a woman with a full leg brace and a cane back into her seat. They were removed from the plane, though it was too late. The damage had already been done. This was by far the worst set of passengers I have ever encountered on a plane.
I was in the window seat ahead of the fire row, so the lady and her grandson behind me didn’t have a window view. Crazy grandma starts asking me to put my seat up so her grandkid can see out the window. The thing is, I never even reclined my seat because I’m not very tall. I explained this to her multiple times, but she just kept getting more worked up, so I turned around and ignored her.
The girl next to me gave me a face of understanding, and we hadn’t even talked the whole flight. The crazy lady was still ranting to no one that my seat wasn’t up so I closed the window so nobody could see. She stopped her crazy ranting after that.
I was just on a flight from Dallas to Cancun and this woman kept making awful remarks behind us. She was irritated that so many people on the plane were speaking Spanish. She was annoyed at the two older ladies behind her speaking Spanish, so she turns around and said the most shocking thing: “This is why we all want to build a wall.” Jaws dropped.
The ladies just looked at her with this blank stare that I’ll never forget and were literally quiet the rest of the flight. I felt so bad. Looking back, did the woman not realize she was on a flight to Mexico…?
Once, I got stranded at Newark for 22 hours after our flight had an unfixable fault and was canceled late at night. We got put up in a hotel, but by the time the new flight rolled around, everyone was quite tired and agitated. As we are waiting to board the new flight, the flight attendant announces they would be boarding people with additional needs and families with young children first, followed by first class, then premium economy. It was all pretty standard stuff. Obviously, it can take a bit longer for people in wheelchairs to board, so it makes sense for them to go on first. However, this business dude races to the front of the crowd and starts yelling at the attendant, saying it was already DISGUSTING that he had lost a day due to their INCOMPETENCE and now he had to WAIT.
The worst part is, he’s looking at others in the crowd to back him up, like it’s perfectly reasonable to scream at this woman who, like us, had also been stranded and had very little sleep, and was doing her best to do her job in this demanding situation. But she was awesome. Without missing a beat, she smiled, nodded, and said, “Ok sir”. Then, she made a big point of leaning into her mic and telling the waiting line of people in wheelchairs and mothers with babies that this gentleman needed to board before them, and they could wait. Literally, every single person at the gate is looking at this guy with disgust as he tries to backtrack and say he doesn’t mind waiting for the first group, but the attendant says, “No, no, you made yourself quite clear—let’s get you boarded, the others will have to wait.” He is humiliated as he sheepishly walks by.
So, when I was around six years old I lived with my family in a nice house in a small city in Poland, it was a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts and pretty much all the neighbors knew each other. There were no sidewalks around the part of the street I lived at. Only one crappy sidewalk that started on the other side in front of my neighbor’s house. It’s important to remember that the sidewalk was very old and in bad shape. Still to this day, people are asking the city to fix it. This story is about that neighbor, Karen. She was an older lady, everyone suspected that she really didn’t have anything better to do than gather gossip and disturb everyone trying to rule the street. Everyone was commenting that if you wanted to get the whole area to know something you had to tell her it as a secret. Whenever someone came to visit us they usually parked their car in front of our property. But on bigger meet-ups, like barbeques or parties, people would park in front of our closest neighbors’ houses too.That never was a problem, no gates were obstructed, and no one was disturbed. Well, almost. Karen hated when someone parked in front of her house, she would always run out yelling about “How we dared to park filthy cars on her precious sidewalk”. My mother is not someone that lets anyone yell at her. She had many discussions with Karen about the laws and rules that stated that she doesn’t own anything outside her fence. Which means that the sidewalk is public and anyone can park on it as long as they leave enough space for a wheelchair to pass. That wasn’t enough. Every time someone would come to us and park their car there, the yelling would start. Until one time when my mother’s friend, Tomek, came for a coffee during winter. He’s a local policeman and his specialty is road law. So my mother tells him about Karen and her behavior regarding the sidewalk. Tomek laughs since that thing was in such a bad shape that it can barely be even called sidewalk. When he was leaving, he assured my mom that he would step by next day for a coffee on his lunch break. Next day comes by and I was playing with my brother in the snow. We see a black car pulling over in front of Karen’s house and, as the driver gets out, Karen storms out of her house yelling “You can’t park here.
This is MY sidewalk. Get your filthy car off my prop—“. Well, there he was, Tomek, with his full uniform, hat and all, turning around towards Karen as comically as he could and asking “Excuse me? You tell me that I can’t park my car here”? She says yes, and he tells her that the sidewalk is open to the public. She claims it’s her sidewalk, and he asks if she is then the one responsible for taking care of it. She says yes—but he has the perfect reply. “Oh, that’s so nice that I found you. Since it’s YOUR sidewalk, you are responsible for clearing the snow from it to not create danger for the people walking on it. Since it was not plowed I need to write you a fine for endangering public safety”. He then pulls out his notebook. She says that no other sidewalks are plowed, and claims that she’s too old to shovel. He tells her that she should hire someone in that case—but that she wouldn’t be responsible if the sidewalk was not, in fact, hers. Finally, she relented and said it wasn’t hers. Tomek says: “But a moment ago you were yelling at me that it was. So what is it? Is it yours or not? Because I don’t know if I should fine you now”. She says it’s not hers. He replies: “All right, seems like we cleared that up. Now, if you ever harass anyone like you did with me, it could result in a fine. So I recommend you watch out on what you claim to be yours”. And then he proceeded to cross the street and enjoy a coffee in our house. Karen never disturbed anyone for parking in front of her house again, she would only stare at people trying to burn holes in their skulls with her sight.
So, this happened two or three days ago. I had gone to the grocery store, since I was running out of sausages, eggs, and milk. Over there, I ran into my friend. I greeted him by saying “Namaste.” We’re Indian. Enter entitled vegan, stage left. “Are you guys vegan?” Perplexed, we both shook our heads. “Then you can’t say ‘Namaste’. That’s a vegan term.” My friend and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Not only was she trying to tell Indians to stop speaking their own language, she was pronouncing it completely wrong.
Between gasps of breath, my friend managed to say, “It’s pronounced ‘Namaste”. At that, the entitled stranger turned bright red. “How would you know?” she demanded. I interjected. “We’re quite literally Indian. ‘Namaste’ is a word from Hindi. You’re the one who is wrong.” Of course, logic did not work on her. As she opened her mouth to retort, my friend picked up my chicken sausages and shook them at her. She leapt back and then thankfully walked away in disgust.
Me, my husband, and our toddler had seats behind the bulkhead. We’re all settled, and this woman comes up and asks my husband if we really need these seats. I didn’t catch the interaction, but there was a bit of attitude from her according to him. He replied that yes, yes we do.
Especially since we paid extra per seat to specifically sit there for our 12-hour flight overseas. With a toddler.
This literally just happened. I work for a security company that has a branch that transports patients from regular hospitals to mental health hospitals. I can’t say more due to both company policy and HIPPA Laws. Anyway, our local office is in one of the main hospitals here. I started getting hungry and we didn’t have any transports at the moment so I decided to go down to the cafeteria and get some food. When I got down the I was surprised to see my second eldest Nephew (who we’ll call R) looking over everything with a defeated look on his face. I walked up and said, “R what are you doing here?” He turned and said that my parents were there for an appointment. “Ok, so why you down here looking so upset?” I asked. “I got hungry but I don’t have enough money to get anything” he replied.
“No worries, get whatever you want” I told him. I texted my mom to let her know he was with me eating vs lost in the hospital while we were in line. Soon, as I had paid for our food a random woman taps me on the shoulder, looks me in the eye, and says, “Aren’t you going to pay for mine too”? “I never planned to,” I responded. “Why not, you paid for that chubby kid who has been hanging around for half an hour, why not pay for a cute girl’s too”. “Well, first of all, the ‘chubby kid,’ as you put it, just so happens to be one of my nephews who is here with my mom and stepdad somewhere, Second of all, why would you just assume I would buy you anything?” She told me that I was rude, that she was going to report me to the hospital director and get me fired. I told her that I didn’t work for the hospital. “Then why do you have a hospital ID badge,” I told her, “The person you are talking about is two people behind you and just saw the whole thing, so have fun with that.” Then I walled off and joined my nephew at the table. Not sure what was said after I walked off, but I saw the woman leave the cafeteria with nothing, and the director came out of the pick-up area laughing his behind off.
When my mother and her dog moved next door to our entitled neighbor, they fell in l love with my mother’s dog, Max. For about two years, the neighbor would come to get Max for visits. She would watch Max if my mother went out of town, or just so they could play with him. She then moved across town and would still call to ask for Max visits. My mother started letting the dog go less and less but would say yes now and again because of the neighbor’s pleading. Just before one of the arranged visits, Max got into a fight with another dog. Max seemed to be ok. When the neighbor came, my mother said she was worried about letting him go because of the dog fight. The neighbor promises that she will look after Max and make sure he is ok. The next day she called my mother and told her that she took Max to the vet because he had a wound on his neck.
She also told my mother that she was keeping Max because my mother neglected the dog. My mother was devastated. My mother then called the authorities. They couldn’t help because she had agreed to allow the dog to go with the neighbor. My mother had to file a civil complaint. It took two months to go to court. The neighbor told the judge that she and my mother had always shared custody of the dog and that she was the most fit dog parent so she should have the dog. The judge explained that Max was my mother’s possession and that the neighbor was to return him immediately. He also said the neighbor was responsible for the vet bill and no, my mother did not have to give her visitation.
We were flying through really bad turbulence, the seat belt sign was obviously on, and everyone, even us in the crew, was seated and hanging on for dear life. Some guy gets up out of his business class seat and attempts to make his way towards the toilet, bouncing off of other passengers, and accidentally elbows one lady in the face, breaking her nose. Amidst the screams from the lady from my jump seat beside the toilet, I tell him to sit down immediately. His response was, “No, it’s fine, I’m a Platinum Frequent Flyer, it’s fine.” Dumbfounded by that level of stupidity and entitlement, I try and help the lady with the broken, bloody nose, ignoring the assist bell from the bathroom.
He later emerges, enraged that we hadn’t responded to the toilet bell to help him. Yep, you guessed it, he’d urinated all over himself because of the turbulence. Not the best time to use the bathroom, as it turns out.
So I am now back at work one day a week as of this week, but since October, I have been on maternity leave. For the first few weeks, we wanted total privacy as this pregnancy was pretty hard on me. Most people respected it—but my husband’s sister did not. Now when I’m at home, especially two weeks post-birth, I like to breastfeed without a shirt on. I use a frozen nipple cover over the breast, not being used or tandem feeding. Very rarely, when it is near feeding time, will I wear a top or bra. My husband is very happy with this arrangement, and my daughters don’t mind it as long as I cover up if they have friends over, which is understandable since I don’t want to do it in front of a bunch of 10 and 7-year-olds. So two weeks after I gave birth, I had my newborn son on one side of me and my toddler son on the other tandem feeding. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, feeding, and sitting with my feet up watching a horror movie on the couch. Then I heard the front door unlock.
Now my husband gets home around 12 some days, so I assumed it was him, completely forgetting that my sister-in-law has a spare key in case of emergencies. I focus on my feeding then I hear her scream from the living room door. I turn my head to look at her, and she’s covering her husband’s eyes with one hand and taking off her shawl with another to drape around me. She comments on the “state” of the house. Remember I had a 2-week-old baby and a toddler in the house on my own. And how I am causing trauma to my kids and hurt her husband’s feelings by exposing him to my bare chest. I told her if she didn’t like it, then leave. She threw some more insults and left. To this day, she still wants me to apologize for breastfeeding shirtless in my own home that she walked into unannounced.
My son and I were on a cross-country flight back to Manchester, and our connecting flight had mechanical issues. It was the last flight out that day, so we had to wait until the following morning to get home. The flight attendants told us to go to the gate agent, and they would help us find a hotel. We arrive at the stand, and two middle-aged men are just screaming at the gate agent. They are red-faced and stomping while yelling about some important meeting the following morning. The gate agent calmly got them new tickets and vouchers for a hotel near the airport. They then started complaining about the quality of the hotel and demanded a better one.
The agent kept trying to talk to them and kept getting interrupted. Finally, the men left and continued to yell down the terminal as they left. When I got to the gate agent, my son and I were polite, and she helped us out with the hotel and rebooking our flight. In addition, she gave us $400 each in flight vouchers. Right as we walked away, she gave us the flight vouchers for the two men as well. Apparently, the whole time they kept interrupting her, she was trying to give them free flights, and they were too angry to notice, so we got them.
I once watched a very well-dressed businessman have an epic toddler-level tantrum at a check-in counter when he was advised his flight was delayed due to fog. He literally screamed, jumped up and down, and demanded that the airline “better do something about it or ELSE”! The guy working behind the counter just smirked and suggested that the business guy was welcome to go outside and try and flap the fog away with his arms.
The entire queue burst out laughing.