The university office told me everything was set. Financial aid, registration, the whole deal. This was back before you could just check all that stuff online, so I took their word for it. Everything was in fact not set.
Some tiny little issue that could have been fixed in five minutes got me dropped from every single class, and I lost the entire semester. I still think about that sometimes. When I was eleven, I did a school project on Kenya. Had to make a poster.
I got docked ten percent for poor presentation. It was in the rubric, and honestly, my poster did look pretty crappy, so I wasn’t that mad. But another kid did Kenya too, and she got a perfect score. Her map had Ethiopia labeled as Kenya.
In a geography class. I was livid then, and I’m still kind of peeved now. I lose points because my poster is a bit ugly, and she gets a perfect score with bad information on her project. Shows how much time they actually spent grading.
When I was ten, I got a Game Boy with Pokemon Yellow for my birthday. About a month later, I came home from school ready to play, and my Game Boy was gone. We found out my uncle’s wife, who was living with us at the time, had sold it for drug money. I was devastated.
We were poor, so it wasn’t like my parents could just replace it. Turns out my mom beat her butt over it, but I didn’t know that until my dad told me a couple years ago. Still salty about the Game Boy, but it’s nice to know she didn’t get off scot-free. When I was twelve, I wanted a TV in my room.
My parents said if I wanted one, I’d have to pay for it myself. So I sold sodas by the pool all summer until I had enough. I had this real sense of pride for about a day, until my little brother whined that it wasn’t fair that I had a TV and he didn’t. So my parents bought him the exact same model.
How hard is it to just tell him, your brother paid for his, you can have one when you have money too? In middle school, we had to do the presidential fitness test. I was crushing pull-ups. Mind you, I was four foot eleven and a hundred and ten pounds, but I had done the most pull-ups in the entire school so far.
Then this one girl gets on the bar and starts doing them. She gets about eighty percent of what I did, but she was kicking her legs against the wall to basically walk herself up. Nobody called her out, and she ended up with the most pull-ups in the school that year. I will never forget that.
Semi-related, I did the most sit-ups in my class by a huge margin. I doubled the next highest amount. There were two people counting for each person, me and the girl holding my feet to make sure I wasn’t cheating. We agreed on the number, and this girl had the audacity to tell everyone I was lying.
Screw you, Samantha. In first grade, I was riding my scooter on the sidewalk doing jumps over cracks like a boss. All of a sudden, a girl from my class opened her front door and waved hi. I waved back and thought it was nice.
The next day in class, she came up to me and said, I only said hi because my mom made me. I still haven’t forgotten that. When I was five, I was kind of a space cadet in kindergarten, always in my own world. One day, while pretending to be an astronaut, I bumped into this kid Todd.
He got angry and bit my hand. Not having learned that snitches get stitches, I told the yard duty lady. But I was the only white kid in kindergarten, and my Chinese wasn’t good yet. When she brought Todd over, he talked circles around me and convinced her that I bit my own hand to frame him.
She put us both in time out. Then guess what Todd did? He bit his own hand, screamed, and yelled for the yard duty lady. He told her I had bitten him.
He got off scot-free, and I had to stay inside during recess and lunch for the next two weeks. Screw Todd. If somebody bites me, I’m going to tell on them. In 2005, I was starting seventh grade.
On the first day, all the teachers handed out get-to-know-you surveys. One teacher asked what kinds of books we liked. I wrote dystopian sci-fi. I was actually marked off points because dystopian was not a word.
I got docked on a getting-to-know-you activity on the first day of class. And now dystopian science fiction is basically the most popular genre in publishing. It’s been years. I have a college degree and a full-time job, and I still hold a ton of salt about that one.
I can’t even remember the teacher’s name, but by God, I will never let it go. I’m still mad about the AR reading program we had in school. It was third grade, and I tested at a seventh grade reading level. My teacher wouldn’t let me check out a book because it was eighth grade level.
My parents, to their credit, pointed out how full of crap that policy was and bought me the book anyway. One time as a kid, my dad, his second wife, and I were driving home in the car. They stopped at Taco Bell and bought two apple pie empanadas just for themselves. Didn’t buy me one.
Didn’t ask if I wanted one. Didn’t even turn their heads to look in the back seat. Just had a little chat up front, pulled through the drive-thru, and went home like I wasn’t even there. Years ago, my friends and I split the cost of a VIP room at a club.
Then one of my friends invited his sister and her seven friends last minute because it was her birthday. None of them chipped in, they crowded the room, and they used up all the drinks that came with the package. Still salty about it today. That sister is known for ordering drinks and leaving the nearest guy with the bill.
I don’t go out with them when she’s in town anymore. I pulled into a parking lot and saw one space available. I turned into the spot, and there was a guy who had just gotten into his truck to leave, directly opposite where I pulled in. He wanted to use the empty spot to pull through and out of the lot.
Because I parked there, he had to back up and pull out instead. He laid on his horn and flipped me off as I was getting out of my car. I just walked away, but it still annoys me to think about. I hold grudges, so I’m salty about a lot of stuff.
One incident in particular. My partner and I wanted a baby. We loved my best friend and her child. She offered to be a surrogate for us.
We were so excited. Then my partner left me to be with her. That’s a grudge I’d hold for a lifetime and then some. When I was twelve, we were playing some kind of bingo game in my German class.
I realized I had written the words in the front of my workbook instead of the back like I was supposed to. So stupid, naive me started copying the game into the back exactly as I had it in the front. The teacher saw and started yelling at me for cheating in front of the whole class. She just yelled more when I tried to defend myself.
I was the type who never got in trouble, so being accused of cheating when I hadn’t done anything was rough for twelve-year-old me. That teacher was a real piece of work. The list is long but distinguished. One of the more petty ones.
In grad school, our cohort of forty took a trip abroad to study international development. We went to a Caribbean island and traveled around the countryside visiting small towns and rural areas. We stayed in a certain small town for a couple days, and part of the task was to partner up and develop a business idea for the community, then pitch it to business leaders. We spent time talking to the locals about what they wanted and needed.
Consistently, the answer was fresh fruits and vegetables. My partner and I pitched a community farm idea where crops could be grown and shares would be based on the work you put in. It wasn’t a popular idea within the circle of business students, and we didn’t even get a chance to pitch it to the community leaders. The idea that got pitched instead was a mobile medical clinic.
During the pitch, one of the locals stood up and said, why would we need this? We have universal health care. We see the doctor whenever we want. Need I say, it was nice to see the guy pitching that idea stutter and stumble trying to talk around the complete absurdity of it.
When I was twelve, my brother sold our SNES, our NES, and all of our games to his high school friend for a hundred dollars. This was around 2000. He figured we didn’t want or need them. The thing is, he didn’t ask or consult me, even though a large portion of those games were mine.
He just handed me twenty dollars and said it was my share. I’d like to rebuild the collection, but we had some fairly rare ones. Replacing an original Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, or Secret of Mana cartridge isn’t cheap. Fifth grade track and field day.
I won the high jump. Sometime later, our gym teacher was announcing the winners, and he says someone else in my class won. No, he didn’t. I said something, and he said he’d look into it.
Eventually, he just said there was nothing he could do. At the award ceremony, my friend was given the medal. He gave it to me afterward. But the real issue is now, in our thirties, my friend seems to have developed selective memory.
He claims he has no memory of the incident. I told him everything that happened, and he denies it. He now brags about winning the fifth grade high jump. He’s a liar.
Look on the bright side, he’s thirty and bringing up something he did when he was ten. My then-girlfriend and I threw a party around an event in the spring. I worked really hard on getting a nice snack spread prepared, taking all the guests’ dietary restrictions and preferences into account. I had a roll of paper towels out for people to use to wipe things up.
One of the guests notices the paper towels and asks if we have any napkins. Since I was pretty sure we did, I said, yeah, I think there might be some. She cuts me off and goes, oh, you just don’t bring those out for your guests. I realize she was probably just having a hard day, and I shouldn’t still be upset about it.
But I put a high priority on being a good host, so I still sometimes feel bad about that. For what it’s worth, I prefer a paper towel over a napkin anyway. That one girl who borrowed my favorite N64 game and moved away from the city the next day. Never saw the game again.
My elementary school teacher went mental. She told the whole class, told the teachers of the neighboring classes and their students, called my parents, got the guidance counselor involved, the principal, and my siblings. All because I said I hate you in response when a girl said she was telling the teacher because I decided to read a comic book after the teacher left the room. She went and told the teacher both that I was reading a comic and that I said I hate you.
Ever since that day, I was forced to go to guidance every Monday until fifth grade. All because I said I hate you to a female classmate. And to be honest, I didn’t hate her. I found her cute and had a crush on her.
But I sure hated her and the teacher after that. I was nine, and my sister was two. I used to have two Power Ranger action figures, one blue and one red. I played with them all the time, in the bath, in the car, in my room, anywhere.
I’d make up scenarios where they were enemies fighting or friends saving the world. The blue one had stiffer joints, so it was harder to move his arms and legs. If I went on a car journey, I’d always bring the red one. He was my favorite.
My sister was a spoiled two-year-old brat, and we never got along, although I tried to be nice to her. She just seemed to hate me. One car journey, I was on my Game Boy Advance with my Power Ranger next to me, between me and my sister. She tried to grab it.
I snatched it away, and she started crying. Instantly, my mom told me to give it to her. I argued, but she made me. Less than two minutes later, my sister held it out the car window as we were driving.
And just like that, my Power Ranger was gone forever. I was absolutely fuming, but my parents did nothing, telling me I still had my blue one at home. And my sister just laughed. Even to this day, whenever I’m with my sister or my parents, I remind them the exact spot my brat of a sister dropped my favorite Power Ranger.
In kindergarten, this little girl Robin told the counselor that while we were in the bathroom, I put my fist in her mouth, laid her down on the floor, and kissed her on the cheek. I still vividly remember sitting in the bathtub while my mom stood there in her bathrobe, crying. I didn’t do it. She never gave me any indication that she believed me.
Screw that girl, Robin. If it makes you feel any better, something messed up like that had probably happened to her, just not with you. When I was younger, I collected Pokemon cards as they were just starting to become popular. I had every original Pokemon card, most in holographic form.
I had a binder of them in great condition. We moved from an apartment to a new house, and my mom sold the cards at her garage sale without telling me, thinking I had grown out of them because I had put the binder on a bookshelf. She sold the whole binder for about ten dollars. I cringe every time I think about it.
I also brought all my Pokemon cards to daycare one day to show the other kids. I didn’t make it home with a single card. While we were all playing outside, one of the kids snuck back in and took them all. That still makes me super sad to think about, and it was almost twenty years ago.
When I was a kid, my sister took piano lessons, and I was asked if I’d rather take piano or dance. I chose dance. Well, one day we dropped my sister off at her piano lesson. While waiting in the car, my grandma just says, by the way, you’ll be taking piano instead of dance because it’s just easier than going two different places.
Also, you start next week. I cried my eyes out right there in the car, and she didn’t even try to comfort me. From what I understand, it was my aunt’s idea because it would be too hard on my grandma to drive us to two different lessons. And now my aunt’s granddaughter is taking dance lessons.
She keeps talking about how important it is for kids to take part in activities they actually enjoy and how much better they thrive when they aren’t forced to do things they hate. I kick myself every day for not taking dance lessons later on. I still wish I could dance. They both played favorites with all their kids and grandkids.
I’ll never forgive them for that one. One of my bosses fired my favorite co-worker for politely telling someone to do their job correctly. She had to constantly remind a new cake decorator to wear gloves and wash his hands when preparing cakes. That’s basic health and safety procedure in our store.
She worded it very kindly and professionally. Our manager blamed her instead, saying she was harassing him, and started belittling her in front of a store full of customers. She eventually said screw this and walked out. I was about four or five in kindergarten.
It’s one of my earliest memories. There was an obnoxious half-Russian girl named Marietta who was a liar. She had been running around yelling about My Little Pony, the old Paradise Estate cartoon, while I was trying to play with blocks. When I eventually got fed up and told her to shut up and that ponies are stupid, she lied to the teacher that I had been chasing her and smearing my boogers on her dress.
Screw you. I just wanted to play with the blocks in peace. I had just started driving at sixteen, driving my mom’s car. It had a manual transmission and roughly 120,000 miles on it.
One day the clutch went out. I called her, and she blamed me, the kid who had put less than a thousand miles on it, for the clutch going out. It was going to go out soon anyway. I just happened to be driving at the time.
I had to pay for a good chunk of the new clutch, and I’m still a little salty about it. I broke my dad’s new driver golf club the same way. He asked if I wanted to try it out, and when I swung, the club head came flying off. I did nothing wrong.
It just happened. I still had to pay fifty dollars to fix it. To make matters worse, he told all his friends I duffed the shot and that’s why it broke. This girl was mad at me for not letting her borrow money, so she kept my makeup kit that I had let her borrow.
She told me she gave it back, but she definitely didn’t. She was always using me for things, and I didn’t really care, but my mom had gotten me the kit as a gift. She’s a dirty makeup thief. My sister stealing the melon gum that I saved for last and actively denying it for a week.
Still gets my blood boiling. It was ten years ago, and it was only a piece of gum. But she knew how much I loved melon and that we wouldn’t get gum for a long time because our mom was extremely anti-candy. We might be on okay terms now, but seriously, screw you.
Several years back, my brother’s truck broke down, and he was short on money. I had two vehicles that were both paid off. As a favor to her, my mom asked me to sell him my Explorer cheap because he needed something large enough for his family, reliable, and with a working heater since it was winter. It was worth two thousand dollars, and I sold it for five hundred.
A month later, I found out he sold it for almost two thousand, bought a junker car for less than half that to get him through until his tax return, and pocketed the rest. Family relationships are impossible to satisfy, especially when parents want to play at being the benefactor with their kids’ stuff. My parents gave my brother and me scratch-off lottery tickets in our Christmas stockings. I won five hundred dollars in fifth grade, and dad kept it.
Looking back, I had no business having that much money that young, but I later learned that dad used it to get hotel rooms when he cheated on my mom after Christmas. Dad gave my college savings to my little brother. I had been putting money into it after my parents spent years saving for it too. It was around twenty thousand or more.
I gave my mom my paycheck to deposit because I was in college and only used the local credit union. I told her I was going to use some of it for my books for the next semester. She said, that’s a great idea. Two weeks later, she called and left a message screaming like a tequila-soaked harpy that I’d bounced a check.
My credit would be ruined. She was so embarrassed because she knew people there. Why was I so irresponsible? I was confused because I should have had more than enough money.
So I called her and asked if she deposited my check. She said no, because she needed money. So I asked, but why did your check bounce? Because you stole six hundred dollars from me.
Honorable mention two years later when she couldn’t find fifty dollars of her own money, so she took it out of my birthday money that came in the mail. She often opened my mail too, even though we have different first and last names. One of my teachers spent a whole lesson making us cut out a list of class rules and stick them in the books that would be used by the incoming freshman year. Being about thirteen, we got bored and were cutting these rules out with wavy edges and stuff.
She shouted at us for not cutting the pieces of paper properly and made us do it again. This was clearly some stupid work she had us do because she couldn’t be bothered to do it herself. Screw you, Miss Matthews, for wasting our time. Screw Shelby, too.
She didn’t bring any fries, even though my mom provided our whole team with bags of McDonald’s burgers sophomore year. That crap adds up. Your mom sounds like a nice woman. Went to pick up my girlfriend for ten days at a couples-only resort.
She informed me she had cheated and wasn’t going. So I flew first class by myself and spent ten days alone at a couples-only resort. Wait, that’s the plot of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I had a special knitted rainbow blanket that I adored as a toddler.
I stuck to that thing like glue and still had it when I was six. Couldn’t sleep without it. My mom said I was too old for it and cut it up. Still peeved, man.
Just cut her out of your life. One of my earliest memories. I was at a water park with my dad and older sister. My dad chose to go down the two-person tube slide with my sister multiple times while I had to sit at the bottom by myself.
I might have been five years old, but I remember being so mad that I just walked away. I had no clue where I was going, but I just rolled out. They found me a couple hours later wandering around and played it off laughing like I accidentally got lost. What I thought was an elaborate middle finger to my dad for picking favorites basically just solidified his choice because I must have been too stupid to sit and wait for them.
I still remember. You picked favorites, you dingus. In eighth grade, a teacher claimed that I didn’t turn in an assignment that I did. She played stupid while smirking at me.
I had literally been helping other students understand the assignment in class a few days earlier, which was her job. She gave me zero credit and no chance to redo it, which cost me having straight A’s for the first time. Those people don’t deserve to be teachers. There needs to be a psychology test or something to become one.
When I was in third or fourth grade, we had to do an oral report on another country. We didn’t get to choose, and I was given Bolivia. Keep in mind this was pre-internet, so I had to go to the library and search the encyclopedia. I looked up all the standard stuff, that their main economic drivers are cocoa and mining, that the miners chew on cocoa leaves to alleviate hunger pangs, that they’re the only landlocked country in South America.
Then I learned that Bolivia is unique. It’s the only country in the world with two capitals. Sucre is the capital by the people and constitution. La Paz is the seat of government and banking, left over from colonial times.
As I got to this part of the report, standing in front of the whole class, the teacher cut me off mid-sentence. Countries can’t have two capitals. Well, Bolivia does. La Paz and Sucre.
Well, countries can’t have two capitals, so just pick one. La Paz, I guess. One, we didn’t have the internet or a classroom encyclopedia to check. Two, questions or statements should be kept until after the presentation.
Finally, it’s a complicated subject with a lot of history behind it. It’s not easy to answer even today as an adult with all the information in the world at my fingertips. You can’t just pick one.