'So far, she hasn't noticed the smell': 25+ Memorable times people got even using petty tactics

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 11, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

Don't get upset, get even! These people did just that — and they're thrilled to share the results of their petty pay back. 

From roommates to dads to coworkers, there are a lot of people who got the petty revenge they deserved. U/Chipdumper asked, "What is your most memorable story of petty revenge?" and roughly 6,000 commenters gathered to share their funniest and most eye-opening tales. 

One person made a "Cherry Greasecake" for a food thief — they explained that they used a bunch of lard to create a gross masterpiece. They did manage to find the food thief with this method, so they could call that a success story. Another person writes that they brake-checked a driver that irritated them, resulting in the other driver getting ticketed by police. There are lots of great ideas to consider for the next time you have someone in your own life who could use a bit of extra annoyance in their life. My favorite is the dude who was stunned to see that their high score at the arcade had suddenly disappeared and…you'll have to scroll down to #19 to read what happened. 

After you check out these great stories below, read this guy's ultimate plan to take down a restaurant with one-star reviews after they ruined a double birthday party. 

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  • 01
    Font - r/AskReddit Posted by u/chipdumper What is your most memorable story of petty revenge?
    via u/chipdumper
  • 02
    Font - pierced7 Went to a restaurant for brunch. Upon receiving my bill I noticed a $3 charge for table linen. As I was leaving I folded up the tablecloth. The waiter said what are you doing? I said, I paid for it I'm taking it home. And I did.
    via u/pierced7
  • 03
    Font - I have a friend whose pumpkin\fall display at the end of his driveway would be run over by the neighborhood jerk. happened every year. my friend decided to put a stop to it. he withdrew money from his savings account so he would have enough to buy the largest punkin he could find, along with several large bags of Quikcrete. filled that puppy up and made a real pretty display. the jacka broke the axle of his shotty car when he hit that pumpkin. could not drive away. my friend had his car t
    via r/AskReddit
  • 04
    Font - SteevyT My brother in law did something to irritate my wife back when they were in high school. My wife turned off the TV, wrote "broken" on a piece of paper taped to the TV, shut off the power strip, and flipped the batteries around in the remote. Took my brother in law several days to figure it out.
    via u/SteevyT
  • 05
    Font - Thejustinset I used to manage a Starbucks when one of my baristas asked a guy his name and he just flipped the f out belittling her, called her stupid etc and didn't give a name. Anyway I take over the hand off drinks and place his drink just on the hand off with no words. (I'll add it was a busy store with a lot of people waiting. I just keep putting drinks out for about 10/15 minutes and douchebag walks up and picks up his drink that's now lukewarm and goes "is this mine?" I just respon
    via u/Thejustinset
  • 06
    Font - profJesusfish Back in the late 90s I worked at Best Buy and one Saturday a month we had to come in 3 hours before the store opened (so 7am) for a mandatory all store meeting where we watch the video from corporate, give out employee of the month awards, go over department goals, and the like. Well there was a guy in our department James who was a pretty coy worker and showed up to the meeting an hour late and the manager took him aside and fired him.
    via u/profJesusfish
  • 07
    Font - Well apparently the manager didn't watch him on his way out of the store and he went into the break room and stuck his finger in every single doughnut they brought in for our break so literally the only mild positive of getting up at 6 on Saturday was ruined. 20 years later and I still miss that doughnut.
    via u/profJesusfish
  • 08
    Font - otefl I caught my flatmate telling lies about me to some mutual friends. I made plans to move out the next month. In the meantime, she went out of town for a week, and left her car parked in its usual spot in the parking lot. I threw birdseed on it every morning and evening, so when she came home, the birds wouldn't leave her car alone.
    via u/otefl
  • 09
    Font - chiefpompadour At my previous job, we had separate refrigerators for the different shifts. Our food was constantly constantly being stolen or messed with. One day, my buddy and I decided to make a nice cherry cheesecake... out of cooking lard. We finished it off with graham cracker crust and cut a couple of slices out of it since we knew the thief wouldn't be brazen enough to take the first bite. We never found out who the thief was, but we never had to worry about anyone messing with our
    via u/chiefpompadour
  • 10
    Font - EDIT: We chose lard as a less harmful alternative to laxatives or the wrong type of pepper. That s can be extremely dangerous. I doubt whoever tried our "Cherry Greasecake" was even able to swallow a bite.
    via u/chiefpompadour
  • 11
    Font - ColorfulCubensis I used to work doing stuco in east Texas. One guy just never paid us, so we spent a day tearing down everything we worked on. Another time, while working for a small machine shop, a customer kept ding us around about paying for some work we did. Was all a walk-in job. Paid half up front and would pay the rest at pick up. Well, he needed his part NOW and would pay us the remainder in a month or so. So....... We cut his part in half and said we'll give him the other half in
    via u/ColorfulCubensis
  • 12
    Font - beautifulexistence My college roommate had a bad habit of leaving her things in piles on our bathroom floor until there was almost no space to walk to the bath or toilet. Not just clothes but change, jewelry, decks of playing cards, knitting needles, books, hairpins, scarves, earbud headphones, keys, etc. One day she left $40 scattered with the mess, so I put the money in one of her lesser-used bathroom drawers. Originally I put
    via u/beautifulexistence
  • 13
    Font - it there to protect it from our third roommate and her friends. When I came home the next day and noticed that she was clearing her mess in an effort to find it, I decided not to tell her where the money was until our bathroom floor was spotless. Afterwards, I decided it would be too awkward to tell her the truth so I left the money wadded up in her hamper as I'd found it on the floor. She was ecstatic when she found it on laundry day. After that her bathroom piles never got quite as big.
    via u/beautifulexistence
  • 14
    Font - ohheyitsshanaj My friend in high school was such a drama queen but it worked out hilariously sometimes. He was cut off by a driver who had no brake lights and it pied him off so badly that he followed until a cop was behind, merged around the guy and then brake checked him so the cop would see that he had no brake lights. The holler he let out when the cop pulled the other guy over is still one of the funniest moments of my life
    via u/ohheyitsshanaj
  • 15
    Font - [deleted] Guy in an El Camino was aggressively tailgating me in the slow lane. On the highway. Traffic was light so he could have passed easily. I'm in a SUV. I see metal debris in the road ahead of me. I know I can clear it and do. He wasn't so lucky.
    via u/deleted
  • 16
    Font - TheToenailCollector. Not me, but for my wife. When we were younger and kind of on hard times, she took a pretty shady job at a local factory. The first two weeks she was there, she had her lunch stolen at least 5 or 6 times. Even open drinks. I was pretty ped, a lot of times I would grill for her or make her lunch, and she was going hungry. One night I bought a big al Gatorade and a box of those women's laxitives, both red in color. Couldn't tell the two were mixed, but we found out who t
    via u/TheToenailCollector
  • 17
    Font - Ash1989 My friend did some work for a guy who skipped his bill and never paid him. My friend is so petty he did many things...such as; Placed fake for sale ads with too good a deal like a nice boat for 1000$ and other numerous ads with the guys number. Our city is big on garage sales. He posted ads like "moving out sale, everything must go, cheap! Will be held inside the house, just walk in or ring the door bell" then put this guys address on the ad.
    via u/Ash1989
  • 18
    Font - He also signed him up for numerous "free gym memberships" and responded to things like car dealership ads with this guys phone number. He did a lot more, that's just what I can remember. I don't know who I feel more sorry for.
    via u/Ash1989
  • 19
    Font - Nbajamkiller99 I use to go to this arcade and play a certain basketball game (as my name indicates). I was climbing the all time wins leaderboard in said game (very close behind number 1)when one day my account vanishes!
    via u/Nbajamkiller99
  • 20
    Font - None of the other accounts do, and i learn that somehow the #1 wins player (who works there) had a hand in it. I waited until he played another game and watched as he put in his code for his initials/account, then waited 30 min when he was done, logged into his account on that machine and tanked a game pretty hard. When i was done his record dropped to 210-1. Unfortunately i did not see his reaction, but i got way too much vengence satisfaction from it.
    via u/Nbajamkiller99
  • 21
    Font - S Here2Lol There's a new truck in my apartment's parking lot. Always taking up multiple spots, ALWAYS. Weird angles, close to the stairs, all over the place (no assigned parking unfortunately). Months of this. I drive a much smaller car than that, and I'm petty/passive aggressive, I've been waiting for my chance. A few days ago was my shot. I got home quite late and there were zero spots open in my lot. Big truck is double parked again, but there's juuust enough room on their driver side
    via u/Here2Lol
  • 22
    Font - carefully pull in, making sure not to touch anything, no damage, no nothing. My passenger side mirror is half and inch from their driver side door. I giggled to myself all the way back to my apartment and set an alarm and waited. The following morning I wake up before the alarm to loud door slamming and stomping around I check out my window and I see the double parking culprit walking around both vehicles, taking pictures, texting someone, taking more pictures, I'm shaking with glee. They
    via u/Here2Lol
  • 23
    Font - climb in the passenger side, clamber over the center console, and Austin Powers 20 point turn their btts out of the spot. I've never been so proud of myself and my sy, petty, passive aggressive ways. Edit: TIL that taking up multiple spots is technically not called "double parking". Thanks y'all
    via u/Here2Lol
  • 24
    Font - pancakesareyummy. In response to a (admittedly pretty good) practical joke, I hid seven battery powered alarm clocks in the perpetrators room. Set them to go off one by one roughly every 40 minutes between 2 and 6 AM. Last one was hid in the ceiling.
    via u/pancakesareyummy
  • 25
    Font - [deleted] I wear hearing aids, and a girl in my math class when I was in HS used to make fun of me. I had not said 2 words to her, I gave her no reason to do it, she was just being an evil c. I recording her mocking my hearing loss on my phone and played it for her parents. They took the new car they just bought her back to the dealership.
    via u/deleted
  • 26
    Font - weshric I've told this one before, but it makes me happy to retell it. I had a boss 7-8 years ago whom I hated. She was the fakest and most entitled person I had ever met. One day, she decided that she didn't like the smell of microwave popcorn...so she waved her magic office wand and had it banned.
    via u/weshric
  • 27
    Font - Fast forward a month or so. I was browsing Amazon and found one of those USB sticks that emits a smell when plugged in...the smell of buttered popcorn. I bought it, plugged it into the back of her computer, and she had the sweet smell of PopSecret in her office for six fing months. She complained almost every day. It's the sweetest revenge I've ever tasted.
    via u/weshric
  • 28
    Font - My brother did something to his annoy his then girlfriend. So she took the labels off all his canned food/tins in the cupboards. Are you opening a tin of beans? Or a tin of tomato sauce? Or cat food? Kinda hilarious.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 29
    Font - Bigfoothobbit Grounded yet again by my Angry Dad for breathing whilst his ballgame was on, I was stuck in my bedroom bored witless. For something to do I flicked the light switches on and off (pre-mobile era folks, we had to make our own fun...). It was then I discovered that this made a loud buzzing static interference on the TV in the lounge. Cue the next 5 years of petty revenge...
    via u/Bigfoothobbit
  • 30
    Font - Angry Dad never figured out why we had such a bad TV signal at game time, he never connected it with me being sent to my room and flicking the light switch every few minutes, reveling as he yelled futilely at the static dancing across the TV.
    via u/Bigfoothobbit
  • 31
    Font - Destrata911 Went to a restaurant for lunch during a work shift. Out of three parking spots somebody decided to park across every single one. There were no other parking spots at the time. So i decided to park within half a foot from my passenger side to his driver door. Ordered and got my food, and noticed an older (60+) man leave and walk in the direction of our parked cars. When I left
    via u/Destrata911
  • 32
    Font - and walked towards my car, sure enough he was there, tray of drinks in one hands and a bag of food in the other, just absolutely struggling to get into his vehicle. He called out about why I parked like this and my only reply was "why did you park across 3 spots, park like and a you better expect to be treated like one"
    via u/
  • 33
    Font - Brunurb1 My coworker sometimes throws out her lunch in the garbage can at my desk instead of her own, because she claims she can't stand the smell of old ketchup that's been sitting out for a couple hours. I've asked her several times to stop, but she will then just wait until I get up to go to the bathroom and do it, and hide my garbage can under my desk so she thinks I won't see it.
    via u/Brunurb1
  • 34
    Font - Every time she does it, I wait until she goes to the bathroom, take out the little plastic container that she had ketchup in, and put it way in the back of her bottom desk drawer. There's 6 in there now, the oldest is over a month old. So far, she hasn't noticed the smell. Gonna keep doing it and see how long it takes her to notice.
    via u/Brunurb1
  • 35
    Font - [deleted] I got reviewed at work by a manager I had never met before. I had done everything I was always told to do, and more, but he still marked me low. I know it's because they wanted to avoid giving me a raise, but at least say you don't want to/can't afford to. I'll at least respect your honesty. Anything else, and you can go f yourself.
    via u/deleted
  • 36
    Font - Anyway, he told me I didn't go the extra mile. I pointed out that I always do. His response? "Well, I never see you do it". I said "Well, maybe if management didn't always hang out at guest services and went around to the other floors, where I am doing my job, you'd have seen me". That got him to yell at me and mark me poorly for attitude, but idgaf. Later on, he came up to me and asked me if I could stay late. Given that I'd previously told him I didn't have anything else to do the next
    via u/deleted
  • 37
    Plant - I looked him in the eyes and said "Sorry, but I don't see that you guys need my help."
    via u/deleted
  • 38
    Font - [deleted] I had a roommate in college that would blare their tv in their room and talk loudly on speakerphone well into the night. I was young and too big a py to confront them about it. After a semester I had had enough. One time before going out I put my speakers up against our shared wall and blasted Enya's Only Time on endless repeat. I also locked my door so they couldn't come in to turn it off. I got back around 3am.
    via u/deleted
  • 39
    Font - Nicky4Pin My company has a password policy that locks your account after 3 wrong password attempts. A few times when someone irritates me I'll lock my computer, switch user, and enter their username with a wrong password 3 times so they get locked out. Now they have to deal with help desk to unlock their account.
    via u/Nicky4Pin
  • 40
    Font - pbfh33 I had a roommate who used a lot of spoons (he ate a lot of pudding, soup, ice cream, yogurt, etc) and would never wash his dishes. I was tired of washing his dishes so I let them pile up in the sink until we got to the last spoon. This one I washed and hid in my room each time I used it.
    via u/pbfh33
  • 41
    Font - Drak_is_Right Back when I lived in DC, one winter we had ~2ft of snow in a single storm. All the area near me was street parking. Decide to go to the store to pick up some new groceries and start to shovel out my car. couple minute drive to the store, so i hope to be out and back before i can lose the spot. a couple minutes after I start, a lady in one of those Infinity SUVs pulls up and idles 20 ft down the road from me as I shovel. After 15 mins of her idling and several thousand pounds
    via u/Drak_is_Right
  • 42
    Font - I decide after all that hard work, I had better eat and warm up before thinking about going to the store and head inside.
    via u/Drak_is_Right

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