Apologies in advance for the length of the story

Apologies in advance for the length of the story.

In India, where I come from, every year there is a festival of ‘Ganesha’ celebrated by the Hindus (one of our many personifications of God). Many of us bring a clay idol of the Lord in our home for five days. We visit families to see their idols/pay respects and give a food offering to the Lord. There's also a lot of food offered to the guests. On one eventful day of the festival, a relative of mine came to our house to pay respects to the deity. Now before I divulge in any further details of the story, let me just begin by stating this- this particular relative is a complete asshole in general- condescending towards everyone, has cheated on his wife and has a separate family with another woman, doesn't give his wife any money (she is a housewife) and manipulates her to the extreme and literally treats her like a servant (she's an old lady. Additionally she has many health issues).

We see very less of him, but when we do my family is cordial towards him because of certain reasons (that's a whole other story). So on that particular day of the festival, he came to our house saying, “my wife wanted to come and pay respects to the Lord but she's sick so I’m here on behalf of her (WE ALL KNOW HE WAS THERE FOR THE FREE FOOD).

Anyway, my mom lets him in and the old relative does some small talk for 5 minutes, after which he is served some food. Following this, my mom gives him a cotton bedsheet (covering for our mattress) as a gift ( it is normal to give simple gifts such as hankerchiefs, bedsheets, reusable grocery bags, etc). It wasn't a very expensive bedsheet but it wasn't cheap either. In fact it was really good for his financial standard. When he received it, he says to my mother - did you just wash your own bedsheet and give it to me as a gift? It seems so used.

Understandably, my mother gets upset because of such a comment but remains cordial. I was watching this whole episode since I was sitting right in front of the relative the whole time and of course, I’m furious. I have always been very protective of my family, and at the time I was 15 and feeling VERY BRAVE (And also had a huge temper). I was furious that he insulted my mother when she had gifted him a rather nice present, but I didn't know how to make him feel bad about the situation. I was almost ready to just curse him (even though I knew my mother would reprimand me later for cursing in general and being disrespectful towards an adult, but he had messed with my mom, so I wanted to really hurt him.)

I decided to yell a really bad Indian word at him right when he would leave, and even practiced it in my head a few times. However, I didn't have to resort to cursing. Since he had come to pay respects to the Lord, he had brought something as an offering. After his remarks about the bedsheet, he stated that he would pray to Ganesha and then leave. I was watching his every move, and just as he was about to place the apple he had brought as a food offering,

I said, “Stop grandfather!”.

He looks at me, rather confused.

And then I say it.

“Are you sure you didn't pick the apple from the gutter (open sewage system in India)? It is not good to keep dirty fruit in front of the Lord.”

He’s furious. He tells my mom how big a menace I am and I have no respect towards elders. My mom tells me to go inside.

Five minutes on, I am updated that he didn't keep the apple in front of the Lord and left soon after (After asking for some more food to be packed).

He's never stepped in my house ever since (it has been 7 years since the incident) AND my whole family thanks me for it, haha!

I see several Quorans have addressed the irritation that is ‘tailgaters’. If someone speeds up behind me and drives too close (or worse, flashes their lights at me to communicate that their need for speed is more important than the safety of my two-year-old daughter) I exact my revenge in a typically British passive aggressive way.

I turn on my windshield wipers, using the setting that makes the water squirters blast out. This way the too-close rude driver gets a windscreen full of fine water spray and is forced to perform the arduous task of moving their hand a few inches to switch on their wipers to clear their windshield.

I WIN!!!

[Image credit [1]]

I was an administrator at at major university. I was on a hiring committee for a particular staff position once and it was actually an easy hire. The candidate we selected was outstanding far and away from the other candidates. Our glow as a management team was short lived however. She didn't seem to understand chain of command for decisions and had to be reminded numerous times what her scope of duties entailed. I frequently found her in my department talking with my assistant about cross departmental projects she wanted to try out. As soon as she saw me she would quickly leave and when asked what she was working on she would say “oh I'm jus making a social call” On several occasions my assistant would complain that h kept telling her to talk to me. She would even go so far as to ask him questions during departmental staff meetings.

One time she was leaning through one of my teller Windows talking to my assistant and when she saw me and quickly started to leave. I grabbed one of my business cards and sprinted (in heels) out of my department and into the main hallway. I caught up with her and said “let me introduce myself, my name is Ava and I'm the manager of this department and I was on your hiring committee.”