As a Canadian teenager, I worked at Tim Horton’s. This is a chain of fast-food restaurants that serves mainly coffee and snacks. Many of our customers are gruff, grumpy, caffeine-addicted men. I was the typical, perky, cheerful teenaged girl cashier. I loved that job, because I was REALLY good at it; efficient and fast.
Mr. Grumpy comes in one day and interrupts my friendly greeting with an abrupt, “Two medium, one black, one with milk.” I pour his coffees, lid them, and promptly place them on the counter. I did this quickly, deliberately omitting the step of using a white pencil to mark the lids, which we normally do to indicate which was which.
He looked at his cups, then looked at me like I was an idiot, and sarcastically asked, “How am I supposed to know which is which?”
With an almost imperceptible jerk of my wrists, I moved the cups enough that a tiny drop appeared on the lid of each cup through the vent hole. One drop was definitely black, the other clearly contained milk.
“Would you like me to write it down for you, sir?” I asked, smiling politely.
“Nope, that’ll be fine, thanks.” He paid me the 2.20 and left. Still gruff, but I think I detected a tiny flicker of amusement in his eyes.
When I moved in with my girlfriend, everything was great. We had each other's perpetual company, space for ourselves, and best of all: isolation and freedom.
After a few months, we started getting surprise visits from her parents. They would wake us up by pounding on the door, or sometimes even barge in. Sometimes it was just her mother and father, other times they brought their 5 year old daughter. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with my girlfriend’s sister and even her parents. But these visits were unexpected, untimely, and were happening at an increasing rate. It was obnoxious when we had plans or weren't feeling like socializing.
That's when I had an idea: beat them at their own game. Bright and early one morning, I'm talking 4:30am on a weekday, my girlfriend and I picked up our loudest, most obnoxious friend, and ventured over to her parent’s place. I'm sure you can guess what we did, we barged in, shouting “wake up!”, forcing them out of bed. We proceeded to demand they make us breakfast, and spent hours interrupting their morning routines. Pleased with ourselves, we left around 10am and went on with our day.
The visits from them started happening less and less after that day. Today, they notify us if they're coming over, which is exactly what we wanted the whole time. Why they started doing it in the first place, I'm not sure. In the end, I feel we delivered a powerful statement ironically teaching parents manners.
I'd like to preface this answer by stating: I respect all everyone's religion and culture, and do not mean to cause offense.
This answer foesnt describe an event that was exactly completely passive-aggressive, more along the lines of nonchalant. Semantics.
I was a Boy Scout up until the age of 17. Every year we had a summer camp where Boy Scout troops from around the area got together and earned merit badges, hung out, and generally had a good time. These camps lasted about a week.
One year, when I was about 14, we stayed at a camp that had just been renovated and reopened. Everyone was happy to be there, especially the new younger scouts who had just joined. These boys were only 11 and 12 years old. The whole Scout experience was completely new to them. Many were excited to be there, but a few were apprehensive and homesick.
John (name changed) was one of the more nervous Scouts. He was short and very shy. I decided, being the much older and more mature Scout that I was, to take him under my wing and help him enjoy himself. 14 year old me thought very highly of myself and looked forward to taking this endeavor.
Our Troop had just gotten brand new hats. And they weren't just any other hats. Every other boy at camp wore a baseball cap with the Boy Scouts of America logo on them. They looked like this:
Our Troop had decided to be unique and purchase the other type of uniform hat with a brim. They looked like this:
We all thought we were hot stuff, wearing these hats. We were unique in a sea of tan shirts and olive green shorts.
A kid in another troop didn't think the hats were that great. In fact, he thought they were downright stupid. This boy was wearing a hat, albeit a very unique hat. No one else was wearing this hat. This boy wore a Sikh topknot. Like this:
Again, I have nothing against Sikhs, or any religious headwear in general. I was 14, young and immature. I probably wouldn't say something like this now. But at 14, I was no Social Justice Warrior.
All the Scout Troops were assembled for the evening meeting around a camp fire. Another troop was sitting behind us, which the Sikh boy was a part of. I was sitting next to John, who looked uncomfortable being around so many people.
Out of the blue, the boy behind us tapped John on the shoulder and said, “Why’re you wearing that stupid hat?”
I turned to the boy, who was about 13, looked right at his topknot, and said, “He's not the only one wearing a stupid hat” and turned back around. John's face, which had fallen when the boy had commented on his hat, lit up up and he began laughing. The Sikh boy looked stunned and then mumbled something about him having to wear it. The boy never bothered John for the rest of the week, and averted his eyes whenever we crossed paths.
Again, I did not and still do not mean to say the topknot itself was stupid, I was just trying to take the kids down a notch because he had felt the need to make fun of our unique hats, when he himself was wearing an even more unique piece of headgear
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