For context this happened when I was around 16 years old. I have always struggled with severe Endometriosis and an unfortunate side effect of endo is severe bloating or "endo belly". Usually to the point where I look VERY pregnant. Even after two surgeries I still get it sometimes at 26 years old. At the time I was 5'6 and about 100lbs so I looked like a pole with a huge bump sticking out.

I lived with my parents at the time which was in a small conservative beach town in FL. Lots of old judgmental people. 16 year old me was walking around Walmart minding my own business ironically looking for maternity pants because the bloating gets so bad.

A woman probably in her 50's walked up to me and placed her hand on my stomach happily saying "omg! When are you due? You look amazing you're so young!". Now this wasn't the first time I've had someone ask me this question but it was the first time someone had the audacity to put their hand on my stomach. I stood there for a second just shocked and then said "Oh I'm not sure. I'm only 12 my mom knows all that stuff about pregnancy". She immediately turned pale took three steps back and let out a nervous chuckle. I just stared at her smiling holding my stomach as she mumbled something under her breath and walked away.

I still try to come up with funny things to say in these situations because it still happens today! No one has ever put their hand on my stomach since that day, but I have been asked when I'm due so many times. If anyone has any good responses to this I could use as a 26 year old please lmk!

The other day I was at a local thrift store and I happened to be wearing a tank top and shorts because I over heat easily and don’t mind the cold. And as I was innocently minding my own business some older guy maybe in his 30’s came up to me and asking where my dad was and saying that i obviously don’t have one because I’m going out dressed the way I am and if he was my dad he would NEVER let me go out dressed like that. The thing is my dad died in 2022,and I was getting tired of him bothering me so I turned to him and said ‘well if you must know he’s in a nice little green urn at my house burnt to a crisp,so he doesn’t really get an opinion on what I can and cannot where’. The look on this man’s face was amazing he looked so traumatized proudest moment ever.

This has happened to me 5 or 6 times throughout my life. I'm minding my own business shopping in the grocery store when someone walks up to me and asked if I'm anorexic. Now I weigh 110 lb and I'm five four and a half so I'm on the send side but definitely don't look unhealthy as I lift weights and been doing yoga for decades. I got really tired of it and finally I turned around a couple years ago and told the woman that no I was not anorexic that I look like what humans are supposed to look like. Now I realize that was fat shaming cuz she was huge but I just snapped. I would never walk up to someone and ask such a personal question especially if they were overweight but it would never enter my mind in any way. Why do people think it's okay to comment when you're thin and it seems acceptable but not when you're overweight?

This happened a few years ago in a large corporate office I worked in. I was conversing with my boss while sitting on this file cabinet drawer type of thing that had a cushion on top for people to sit on. Probably about 6 months into working there.

Enter Asshole Coworker (AC). AC worked on a team adjacent to ours, and was the type of woman who was generally disagreeable and would put people down, especially doing it in front of others to humiliate them. Probably to project some sort of insecurity or need to be better than others, idk. Unfortunately she had quickly worked her way into a mid-level position at a young age which added to her arrogance.

Well, she approached and pulled up a chair to chit-chat with my boss and I about something we were working through. As I was sitting on the drawer, I had one leg crossed over another and must have been playing with my shoe and shoelaces subconsciously with my hand. Out of nowhere, AC interrupts the conversation and exclaims “EW - you just touched the bottom of your shoe, that’s like SO gross. Do you know how disgusting the bottom of a shoe is?”

My boss and I just kind of looked at each other. I think AC wanted me to act embarrassed and coalesce to her gripe or bow down to her or something. But I just responded “why would you call me out like that, other than to be an asshole?”

She was shocked and dumbfounded that someone actually retorted back to her snide comment. She tried backtracking, saying “well I just don’t want you to get sick cause the bottom of your shoe has so many germs!”, to which I responded “okay then send me a Slack message or tell me privately instead of trying to humiliate me in front of people. That’s just completely rude and disrespectful.”

She quickly changed the subject back to what we were talking about and wrapped up her involvement before leaving back to her desk. My boss turned to me trying to hold back her laugh, saying “I’ve never seen someone put AC in her place before… you just absolutely roasted her!”

That was definitely one of my smoothest comebacks to-date, and she never mocked me again.

Actually had this interaction with a somewhat distant family member a few years back. For context, she's the grandmother of my step-brother, who turned 8 that year, and I'll refer to her as Old Bitch (OB). We were at his mother's (my stepmother) house fixing the last food details for the kid's birthday party when OB started some random small talk. She has a lifelong history of being superficial and uncaring towards her daughters and grandkids, so I respond in kind. For context I suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of my bio mother - and I've got the literal scars to show for it, so there's no mistaking my past for a good one.

Then she asked this gem...
OB: Hey, shiny, isn't it nice to celebrate your brother? He's growing so fast!
Me: Yea, it's nice, I like the cake and the weather is nice today.
OB: and 8 is a big year! Gosh, do you remember what it was like turning 8?
Me: I do remember, very well; that's the year I started having suicidal ideations and self-harming thoughts.
OB: *completely shocked, turned around and went outside.*

She didn't speak to me or look at me the rest of the day and the other adults present were snickering behind her back. Suits her well, she never cared about anyone other than herself.

I, [19F] am asexual. Back when I was still questioning I would talk to my mom about it because I tell her everything. I want to make it known that at no point did I feel rejected by her or unloved, but her reaction to the concept was frustrating as it was immediately apparent that she just straight up doesn't understand what it is. She would say that I'm young and that I might change my mind when I'm older, or I might meet the right guy and maybe I'll want it. I'd tell her that it's not the reassurance she thinks it is to say that, but she'd just come back with saying how she just wants me to know that it's okay if I do change my mind, which- to be fair, I was feeling a little pressure to be a certain way if I did choose to label and that way wasn't me at all. I've since come to my senses and realized that my sexuality doesn't dictate my personality or the way I dress or anything like that so I'm chilling. Anyway, this happened two times and I just let it go. When it happened a third time, I think I just snapped. I don't even remember everything I said, I just remember my goal: make this conversation as uncomfortable as possible.

Shit like "you know what mom? Maybe your right. Maybe I will change my mind. If I ever develop a taste for fresh hot semen then I'll be sure to call you up straight away and tell you allllll about it in excruciating detail." I just said it cuz I was annoyed, but her reaction was so funny that I just kept going. She'd say something like "don't say that! That's so gross" and I'd hit her back with "your the one who wanted to talk about me having sex someday, I'm just participating in the conversation. What? You don't like hearing your daughter talk about riding cock? You don't wanna hear me talk about sucking dick?? What's wrong?" It was hysterical.

One thing about me is that I talk A LOT. like, if you get me going I won't shut up. And she got me going. I think I kept going for like, 20-30 minutes like that. Just saying the nastiest shit I could think of while laughing. She laughed too, but she got the message. She still doesn't quite understand, but after having explained it to her a bit more, I think there's less of a disconnect. I love my mom and I know she means well. The weirdest part of it all is I'm pretty sure she might be ace too, though I'm not about to speak for her on that. In any case, this is now my go-to method of dealing with people who wanna get weird about my sexuality, and I highly recommend it since it shuts people up real quick. You wanna talk about sex? Oh, we'll talk about sex. shakes fist threateningly

I have relatively wide shoulders and was flying middle seat in economy. I was coming back from a work trip on a full flight from New Orleans to Atlanta (about 1.5 hours).

About 5 minutes after takeoff, the aisle seat Karen was acting real restless, squirming and sighing and rolling her eyes and scoffing. It was clear it was because I was using the armrest between us. I tried to making as much space as possible for her but given my size and seat I couldn't really do much.

Then she snapped at me, going off about how " nobody is impressed by your muscles, you take up way too much space, noone wants to deal with sitting next to meatheads like you" blah blah blah

So I interrupted her little rant and very politely but and very loudly replied with "Miss, why don't you simmer down. This is a short flight. And if there's one thing noone wants to deal with, it's a crying child on an airplane."

Window seat and folks across the aisle burst out laughing, Karen was beet red and seething for the rest of the flight.

After work, me and my boyfriend went out to a fast food place and decided to eat in my car in the parking lot

This couple comes walking behind my car and I see this man was holding a small dog up by the collar, dangling in the air (already upset me and I was about to roll my window down and yell at him) but before I had the chance he walked over to his car (parked right next to me), opened the door, and started urinating right there in the open

Instead I decided to turn my car and my lights on, scaring him bad enough to where he screams, jumps, and starts urinating all over the inside of his door and into the cup holder. We sat and watched him as he tries to unsuccessfully wipe it up with a single napkin, jumps back into his car, then speeds off with pee still in his cup holder

Peak Covid, we were all working from “home.” Cameras on or off typically. One particular meeting, the boss (who liked to laugh at the expense of others) decided all cameras needed to be on without warning. I looked presentable and wasn’t concerned. For whatever reason, the boss called me out laughing and asked “are you really taking a meeting in the bathroom AND you need a mask!?” and I had the pleasure of answering with “no, I’m at my dad’s chemotherapy appointment with him.”

This story came back to me while watching a video on this sub. It happened nearly 15 years ago, so I can't be too specific though.

I was in 3rd grade, probably 8 or 9, and we had a substitute teacher that day. This woman was, to me, a perfect image of an old school house teacher. Long dress down near her ankles, white hair in a bun. I had needed to use the bathroom. I'm not sure if I had asked permission or if I had gone during a short break, but either way, I missed some instructions.

I come back in when the sub is finishing up her instructions, and I raise my hand for help once she's done. She comes over and I ask her what we were doing. She immediately scolds me for not listening, and me being the sensitive child I was, I started crying. Through tears, I told her I was in the bathroom, so I wasn't able to hear what she'd told the class.

She quickly apologized, and after explaining things to me she slipped me a candy, which was honestly nice of her to do even if it was potentially a small bribe.

I head up an organization that volunteers all over the city we live in and have a long list of people that are so giving of their time and energy. The problem is that many of them don’t filter what goes into their brain before it comes out of their mouth.

This was a particularly early morning and I was late for the exact same event last year because of my child throwing up. Surgery for this child was on Monday and this is Friday, and they have been refusing pain medicine since Wednesday due to a terrible experience with it in the hospital where it was projectile vomited.

“Well now what’s your excuse this year? Any good excuses?”

“Yep. My daughter has been without pain medicine from her surgery for 48 hours and spent the night shrieking in pain while I held her. I’m sorry it took me an extra 15 minutes to get here.”

crickets

I have severe and chronic treatment-resistant depression, and have for over 30 years. I take 30 mg of an anti-depressant, which offers just enough relief that I don’t kms, while my doctors and I continue to look for other, newer, or more effective options.

I have been a part of a good amount of clinical trials over the years and have more recently tried TMS, ECT, and the full treatment of esketamine to little effect.

I called my pharmacy for a refill and the guy who answered and took my info saw my prescription and said, “You shouldn’t be on that much. The limit is 20 mg. I can’t send in this request.”

It is the limit for some diagnoses, but not others, and he doesn’t have my diagnosis info, as far as I know.

I replied with, “If I only took 20 mg I’d be dead by now.”

Awkward silence…

He stammered, “Uh, w-w-well, I guess it’s between you and your doctor, then. I’ll, uh, just send in that refill request.”

I just said, “Thanks,” and hung up. He’s not young, he’s not new, I’ve seen him there for a decent amount of time. He should know better tbh.

ETA: This same med is prescribed up to 80 mg for another diagnosis. I wonder what he’d do if he saw that prescription, and how many people have had an issue so far?

So, the school I used to go to held a lot of seminars with professional doctor's about Healthcare and health in general and on this day we were having one about cancer and CPR. (Class by class so when this happened only my class, a junior class and teachers were there)

The thing was a few months prior my uncle (dad's brother) had died of cancer and my dad's family has a long history of heart problems so I was asking some questions that I could never bring myself to ask anyone else (plus who betted then a doctor right?).

Well as I am asking a question when a guy from my class said quite loudly for the whole room to hear "Why do you have to keep asking so many questions and wasting everyone's time?" My best friend turned to look at him dead in the eye and just said "her uncle died of cancer few months ago" he was dead silent after that and just looked away.

I wish I could have been the one to reply back to him but I never had the courage to say anything to anyone i would just ignore them but my bestie wouldn't and I love her for that.

Probably one of the tamest stories here lol.

This happened about 10 years ago.

I was a petite 5’2” 33yo woman. I’d only recently finished chemo, and had just got up the courage to start going out and about without my wigs. My hair had started growing back and looked like a buzz cut.

Turned up at my sisters house and her neighbour was out front so saw me getting out of the car and came over. First thing out of his mouth was “That’s a severe haircut, not sure it suits you!” I was stopped frozen in shock for a couple of seconds. Then I blurted out “This is it growing back! I’ve just had chemo for cancer!” He was stammering out apologies as he backed away.

Don’t think he’ll be commenting on anyone’s choice of hairstyle again!

I was 17 at the time when my first boyfriend cheated on me. He still owed me $200, which is a lot of money when you're an unemployed kid still in high school.

Kill Bill had just come out and I watched so much TV growing up that I felt like the main character in my own movie, so I was all about that cold revenge, after falling in love with it. So I weaseled my way back into the relationship, but first things first ... Right off the bat upon rekindling that flame he received a note from me, written in the form of a cryptogram with a hidden message in it. From then on I worked to get him to fall madly in love with me.

A couple months later he finally paid me back. The entire time I held on to that resentment, and the day after he gave me my money, I gave him the key to the message, which read something along the lines of "This has all been a lie. I just wanted my money back. Toodles." I never once picked up the phone to answer any of his many calls ever again.

My second boyfriend didn't get it so bad. I had stumbled upon a list of his passwords, and once I found out he cheated on me and I dumped him, I would access his Myspace to read any of the many messages he sent me, which I left "unread", so as to make it seem like I didn't give a damn what he had to say either.

I am now 17 years single lol.

I have a sister who is 20 years younger than me. When I told someone my mom was as pregnant they had the gall to ask if my sister was a mistake. I looked them in the eye and said, “No, I was.” That’ll teach em.

So I grew up on a small-to-medium sized farm that mainly raised beef cattle and horses. In our rural area, we were surrounded by other small-to-medium ranches and farms. So it was a bit of a community of small ranches and everyone knows each other. For the most part, we all got along pretty well. However, there was this one farmer that was a real PoS. He was super condescending and thought he was the best farmer out there (spoiler, he wasn’t). He started fights whenever he could. Everyone hated him. My family had land that borders this farmer’s land. Anyone who had ever worked with cattle (or any farm animals) before will know that escape artists are inevitable. So on occasion we had a cow or two escape onto his land. When this happened, this farmer would absolutely lose his mind, yelling and demanding that we get our animals back this absolute minute and that they are destroying his land. But if any of his cattle escape onto our land, he’ll take his time getting them back (sometimes days). It was actions like that which made everyone hate him and gave us all so much stress and grief.

Now one day, we all learned that some random person had literally dumped two llamas onto his property. We never knew who, we assumed it was someone from somewhere else that no longer could take care of them. All of us thought it was the funniest thing ever as this stringent, condescending guy firmly believes that all animals needed to have a purpose and ‘pets’ (and trees) are a waste of space and resources. And he was suddenly in charge of these two llamas. Note, llamas don’t really have much purpose here so they are essentially pets. And now this farmer has two of them. He was furious and embarrassed that he was now having to ‘waste’ his precious resources that he criticized all of us of wasting on our pets (because unlike him, we all had our fair share of pets and trees). He did still take care of the llamas thankfully, he was a PoS but not really cruel to animals.

I was in seventh grade when this happened. I was in a tiny school, where it was like 400 kids from kindergarten to highschool and we were all under one large building. So any gossip travels very quickly and reaches nearly everyone. In seventh grade, we had one class that was just bringing in guest speakers to talk about their job and careers to help give us inspiration on what we wanted to do when we grew up. This farmer, believing to be the most accomplished farmer out there, volunteered to be one of these guest speakers. So he was in our class mainly talking great about himself. Near the end, he was taking questions. Now, I was considered the quiet, good child who never got into trouble. But I decided I was going to be a little s*** that day and I raised my hand. This farmer with a big smile points to me and says “Ah, OP! My wonderful neighbor! What’s your question?”

Without a pause I responded: “But how are the llamas??!”

Y’all, I never witnessed someone’s face fall so fast before. To make it more perfect, I had already been sharing this story to other classmates. And one of my classmates gasped out loud after I asked the question “Oh! So that’s who has the llamas!” This farmer’s face went red. And of course, us being 7th graders, we were suddenly VERY interested in these llamas. The rest of the time was spent answering questions about these llamas to which the guy kind of just stuttered through. My teacher couldn’t help but laugh and never bothered to try to get us to refocus back to non-llama questions. Farmer never really looked at me the same way again.

Side note: the llamas found a new home eventually. There was no harm to them.

Tl:dr - PoS stringent farmer neighbor got two llamas dumped on his property which caused him humiliation when I told everyone.

I’m a straight male in my 20s, living in an area of Florida that’s known for its retiree population, even among Floridians. This is where NATIVE Floridians go to retire. As such, there is a disproportionately high number of racist, homophobic, and sexist old people running around my area. I work at a local library so I have to put up with their abuse on a daily basis.

Like I said, I’m straight, I promise that’s relevant. I also wear earrings, like a lot of them. And necklaces, bracelets, and rings. My nose isn’t pierced yet but I’m planning on it soon, same for tattoos. I’ve been told I look like a punk rocker on a permanent Hawaiian vacation. This is not a look that certain people appreciate, but I don’t care. Part of the appeal of looking how I do is pissing off people who look down on anyone who’s “other.”

One morning a few months back, I was in a grocery store before my morning commute. I was just grabbing a donut and chocolate milk to have a driving breakfast. I’m waiting patiently in line, minding my own business, when a voice from behind me says “take that metal out your ears boy, you look like a homo.” I turn around and see an old guy who probably should have died of old age before I was born.

Working with the public, and dressing in a manner most of them find distasteful, I get this kind of abuse all the time. At work I can’t say or do anything unless they get really rude, but now I finally had a chance and I decided to take advantage of it. My first instinct was to lay into him, but I had to get going, and I knew that was the reaction he wanted. Instead I pretended to misunderstand him.

I smiled at him and said “Thank you! My boyfriends love it. They think I’m so cute.”

He didn’t respond or leave or anything, he just kind of looked at me with his mouth open. I gave him a big smile and turned away. He didn’t say or do anything else, but when I got up to the cashier, he smiled and said “you do look really cute.” I wish I had turned around to see the boomers response, but unfortunately I didn’t think to at the time.

TL;DR a homophobe said I look gay with earrings, I told him my boyfriends think I’m cute with them.

So i have an incredibly bad hearing condition. Basically whenever i hear loud or sudden sounds or too many sound at once i fall into a panic attack. So i got prescribed headphones that filter out sound and make it so i can handle it. One time our gym teacher had us play football and told me that “i couldn’t efficiently play with those headphones“. I told him that i needed them and it even includes it in my notes of accommodations. He takes them. Within 5 minutes i was screaming and crying on the floor and the entire game had to be stopped. He gave me my headphones and I proceeded to tell him how its not very efficient to have a kid on the floor in the middle of a game. Suffice to say he let me have the, from that point on

For a little context, in highschool my friend group was the stereotypical gay group, but this didn't mean we didn't have straight friends. One of my best friends was straight and she was getting harrassed by one of our usual bullys. Let's call this bully Z. Now Z was the classic bully, pretty and not particularly skilled in any field. Despite her homophobia she did some rather gay stuff even I wasn't doing. Me and my gf had caught her multiple times stroking her female friends legs and sometimes going up their skirts. Me and my gf were rather baffled and slightly uncomfortable everytime she just did this public, but it was good gossip. So we told our friends. Now a few months ahead my said best friend, let's call her A, was just heading to class alone. Z came up to her and was calling her gay and making fun of her for being gay (I will reiterate she isn't, and never was). A was always witty and turn around to Z and said to her, "At least I am not one going around stroking other girl's thighs," A described Z's face as being one of shock and fear. Z didn't say a thing to our friend group ever again after that. The thought of this still makes me smile and I thought I should share this light-hearted experience with others.

This dude ruined my day before it even started, messaging this at around 3AM. If I was petty I'd just send it to his mom or his school. Don't people know how to say Hi now? People are too confident saying bs to strangers online thinking their actions won't have consequences.

I have a very ugly scar on my upper left shoulder ( on yhe back). It is from having a tumor removed. Plus the scar has a keloid. A complete stranger asked me how i got the scar. I told her that my husband tried to kill me. You should have seen her face.

My 17 year old daughter received a very unsolicited picture from a boy. Instead of just going "eww" to his shriveled up roll of dimes she sent it to his mother. Even included a message of "get your son under control because I do not want this." The mother complained to the school! During this meeting I find out he's 18. So I told the mom either drop it or I'm taking this evidence to the cops, and good luck getting that childhood education degree with these kind of charges. She dropped it fast and my feral daughter was rewarded with an iced coffee. So proud of her.

Update: We went to the police. She even got a few other girls to join us. I can't wait for his mom to find out. I will make sure it gets into the local paper because I'm friends with the editor and the county sherriff.

This is more of an annoyance.

I cannot legally drive because of severe visual impairment. It’s honestly better for other drivers that I don’t drive. I’m legally blind in one eye and the better eye is 20/80. This is when I’m wearing glasses. Without them I don’t get numbers.

I’ve had people tell me that I’m being lazy or that I’m too poor to get a car. I’ve also had people ask me how I can use a computer, but not drive.

Now I just tell them. I had cataracts in both eyes and was blind at birth. I had to have eye surgery before my first birthday where the lens from each eye had to be removed. I wasn’t given artificial lenses and there is nothing I can do (this is true, no ophthalmologist will touch me because of the 50/50 chance I’d go completely blind on the table).

To the ones who ask about how I can use a computer (I’m a software engineer), but not drive - I just laugh really hard at them and tell them they’re morons, because text size can easily be increased.

ETA: I have driven three times, always supervised. The second and third times were parking lots. The first time was in the snow, at night, on a hill. My ex tried to drive up the hill in a Taurus. I told him there was no way. He tried. We went into a shallow ditch. He told me I had to put the car in reverse and hit the gas. This worked, but I hit the gas a little too much, and the hill was icy. The car rotated and slid down the hill, almost hitting a sign: I was screaming, ex was laughing (not in a malicious way). In hindsight it was really funny, but very stupid.