Ruin My Week
It’s way too easy nowadays to express our opinions and vent about disagreements openly and freely on the internet. Arguments are completely natural and these days we can troll and express our disdain for stuff without any of the physical threats.
With our general discomfort with face-to-face conflict, passive-aggressiveness is THRIVING but pettiness is the true king. It’s not even shocking anymore when seemingly mature people throw shade and act on their petty urges. In fact, it’s pretty entertaining.
But, like most odd human behavior, we had to learn this somehow, somewhere from someone, right?
Redditor u/x3Nekox3 asked the people of Reddit: “What was the pettiest thing an adult did to you when you were younger?”
And the results reveal exactly where we got our pettiness from—our jerk teachers, our mean parents, our angry aunties, and the other adults we grew up around.
Here are 19 stories from people who remember the time they learned that adults can be petty.
1. Taking eggs from a baby.
“I was at an Easter Egg hunt when I was around 6. It was in a big park area with lots of rocks. I saw a little chocolate egg foil glisten and ran over to pick it up. As I reached my hand out to pick it up a man trod on my hand to stop me getting it, then he called his kid over to “find” it.” –HedgeHoggington
2. Who actually cares about penmanship anyway?
“When I was in 5th grade, my Social Studies teacher seemed to take a lot of pleasure in constantly reminding me of how awful my hand writing was. We used to have to bring out notebooks up for her to check our homework. I dreaded this so damn much. She would hold up my notebook so the whole class could laugh at my handwriting. I’m grown now, that was a long time ago, but I still hate to have hand write anything that other people will see.” –KringlebertFistybuns
3. I’m better than a 16-year old.
“At 16 years old, I had a job at a gas station after school. Did all the grunt work (sweeping cigarettes in the parking lot, emptying trash bins, etc.).
I’m taking the trash out one day and a grown ass man in his 40s comes up to me and says something along the lines of “I make more money in a week than you do in a whole year” and all I could think at the time was “Well yeah, I sure hope you do I’m in high school”.
Such a petty thing to say to a kid just trying to make a little bit of money after school.” –therealjoshua
4. 🙄
“I got in trouble in 6th grade for reading during home room. Home room was like a random 30 min period to work on homework but I always did my homework the night before so I would just quietly read. For some reason my home room teacher hated it. One day she just yelled at me for always reading in her class and told me to do my homework. I told her all of my homework was done. She told me to prove it so I showed her all of my completed homework. Then she confiscated my book and sent me to the principal’s office for being disrespectful. I’m still salty about it.” –omglookawhale
5. You have to earn those beads.
“I was about 12 and at a Madrid Gras parade and an adult stepped on my hand to prevent me from picking up some PLASTIC beads on the ground.” –kimjongev
6. Abbigail to the principal’s office, please.
“For background purposes; my full legal first name is Abby. Just Abby. All 4 letters, nothing more.
My 6th grade social studies teacher one time kept calling out the name Abigail one day. That’s not my name, so I don’t respond and looking for this new mystery person. She gets up and comes to my desk and asks me:
“Why aren’t you answering me?”
Me: “you called out Abigail, not Abby”
“Abby is short for Abigail, go to the principle’s office for being disrespectful”
I went to the principle’s office.” –Abbiferizzle
7. Traitor.
“I did a chore that my father had asked me to do. My mom got home and commented on how nicely the chore was done. My father took credit for it in front of me – so I fired back saying that I was the one who had done it… he then yelled at me and called me a traitor.” –MadeItForTheArt
8. Lunch Lady needs a hobby or something.
“In elementary school I use to talk to the lunch lady everyday and then the one day I didn’t say hi. She came to my lunch table and told me I was fake, phony, and a few other things and stopped speaking to me. I still don’t understand what her problem was.” –Impressive_Story_148
9. What a cool guy.
“When I was probably around 8 or so I was at a baseball game with my family. Naturally I was hoping I’d be able to get a ball and one of the players saw me in the stands looked directly at me and threw a ball to me. Then some guy probably college aged proceeded to reach over my shoulder and snatch the ball before it got to me. I turn around and he and all his friends are laughing and celebrating. Almost 20 years later I’m still a bit salty about it.” –Druid16
10. Has she even heard of the ADA?
“I broke two fingers on my dominant hand in 9th grade and had a splint on them so I couldn’t write. I had a test at school and the teacher made me write with my left hand then marked my answers wrong because she couldn’t read them.” –j0hnniefist
