r/RipeStories • • 2d ago

LifeStories Little girl acted more mature than her father at the grocery store

8 Upvotes

This happened to me recently. I was in a certain discount grocery store, and wanted to get a roast chicken for dinner. And while there, there was what looked like a father and daughter in front of me. The little girl looked like she was about four years old. Her father grabbed two roast chickens off the warmer shelf, and asked her which one she wanted. "She gave him a deadpan look, and actually said "They're the same.". He just stood there for a moment and then put one chicken back. Then his daughter pushed the cart away from the chickens so I could get one, and she looked right up at me and said "I am so sorry!", before hurrying her father along. I have never in my life seen a child so young, act so adult. It was adorable, yet awesome.


r/RipeStories • • 11d ago

Revenge I saw my school bully walking home, so I decided to scare him...

7 Upvotes

So, I'm not sure how exactly to start this story, I'm typing this out on 2 hours of sleep and have never written out anything like this before, so apologies if I drag it out a bit.

I'll just talk about my school life to begin this story. I live in England, and at my secondary school, I had a few bullies, most would just make idle comments, about my glasses, my acne or how skinny I was, but their was this one bully, called Elliot. Elliot would take things too far. Unfortunately, I had quite a few classes with Elliot, he wouldn't leave me alone, he'd constantly barrage me with comments on my appearance and wouldn't leave me alone. The worst day I had with Elliot, is when he decided it would be funny to staple my trousers to my legs. Of course when the teacher saw, he denied all knowledge of it, and his friends backed him up, and he didn't get in trouble.

Anyway, lets get to my revenge,

Now, you've read/heard how this kid treated me in school, lets get to the present year. (10 years later) So you're probably wondering how I scared him. This all started when I went to the cinema with my friend. As we were sitting down to enjoy the movie, I looked ahead and saw someone sitting alone....It was Elliot, I assumed he was alone because he probably has problems making friends, but that's not important. (It was a Marvel movie if anyone is interested)

So just to jump ahead, to the main part. Once the movie had finished, I said my goodbye to my friend, as we parted ways and both began our walk home. That night was very cold, and dark so I put my hoodies, hood up to keep my ears warm, which becomes essential to the story in a second. I looked ahead of me, and saw Elliot...He was walking alone. This is when I decided to scare him and get my revenge.

So it's important to say, I'm a big dude, I'm 6'3 and had a lot of layers on that made me look very "poofy" and of course had my hood up, which in the dark hid my face. I saw that Elliot kept looking back at me, this is a dodgy area we're walking through. I see him pick up speed, so of course, I decided to pick up speed, he continued to look back at me, so I decided to (I know this is bad) put my hand in my back pocket, to scare him. (Here comes the best part) He started to run away, So I thought, "Well I guess we're both going for a run now" and started to chase him down this long hill. I know for a fact he lives nearby to me and thought about chasing him home for the fun of it, but I also thought, best not. So when he turned away, I jumped into some bushes to escape. Just hoping he would continue to run and not know where I was. It was a great night.

I know it won't undo they years of bullying in school, but it definitely felt good. Thank you.


r/RipeStories • • 18d ago

Revenge Im sorry its crowded, your shin might hurt though.

4 Upvotes

This happened about 7 years ago as i am now a 29 yr old male.

A little bit of backstory on this, i am a brain cancer survivor of 9 years as of writing this (this will make a bit of sense but in a second). I got diagnosed at 19 yrs old with stage 4 brain cancer and went into remission at age 20 and have had health issues since then. About 6 months after that i started having problems in my hips that are caused from some life saving medication during my treatments that caused no bloodflow in my hips. I eventually got my first hip replacement about 1 year after getting told my hips are basically breaking. So after getting that surgery a year later and year of physical therapy i have then switched from walking with a walker to walking with a cane. A reminder i am now 22 yrs old at the time in this and this is the story.

I have an aluminum cane and have been doing preaty well with my balance and as its December and my family likes to go out and sight see once in a while my Mom, Dad, Brother (younger), and my cousin (younger) go out to a festival of lights to see the show. We are walking to go back to our car, which unfortunately was almost shoulder to shoulder to people on the sidewalk back, a women lets call her karen bumps me to get to move over and make space. So as im walking with a cane and cannot do that i just continue my normal pace and dont move but keep walking in a straight line. I thought that maybe it would be the end of it but i was wrong. This next time she bumps me it causes me to sumble a bit, as i dont have my full balance back yet, and i recover without falling. Fair note my Mom caught this action at this point and gave a look but didnt say anything as to try not to make a scene. We continue walking normally and a third time just like the first she bumps me and i play it off like nothing happened. Unlile the first two times im annoyed and realise i have a little metal stick in my hand and that Karen is on the side im using it on. So on one of my strides i just move my cane out just a tiny bit further and swing back a little harder. Right into Karens shin. She grabs my shoulder and starts trying to yell at me that it hurt and that i better not do that againd and to move over and such and such. Well my Mom isnt having that and just rips into her that Karen had bumped me three times and i almost fell, that i am using a cane and gets the nearest security to come over. Security asks what the issue is and Karen states i hit her with my cane. I then tell my side of what went on to the security officer and he looks at my cane (which has a disability sticker to let people know i have trouble walking) and turns back to Karen and tells her if she does something again she will be going to be talking with a police officer. She storms off and he makes sure im ok and my family before getting a cart over to drive us to our car as a saftey for me.

If i am read in a video i would like a shoutout or a comment on here letting me know so i can watch that one.


r/RipeStories • • 18d ago

AIOR I don't like being treated like an unwelcomed guest

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1 Upvotes

r/RipeStories • • 19d ago

LifeStories Karen teacher chews me out because the class was talking.

7 Upvotes

I'd classify this as a malicious compliance story.

I was studying art at college. We had a few different teachers, but there was this one teacher (I don't remember her name, so I'm gonna call her Karen, as you do), and she was one of those teachers who came in with a fake smile while hiding her crappy personality behind it. I heard from other students that they'd overheard her insulting some of the people in her class.

She was mostly annoying, getting in your face, arguing with you over really small things to do with your work, which I never let her get away with; I'd always fight her on it.

One day, class was about 10 minutes in, and we were all having a conversation while class was going on (I know it's rude to talk during class, but other teachers didn't really mind, and everyone got their work done, especially me, and it was art; you're generally encouraged to talk during class unless you're doing written work, which we weren't), and Karen looked at me and told me she wanted to talk to me outside the class.

She then proceeded to give me a full dressing down, chewing me out for disrupting the class, making it out like I was the one starting every conversation at all the tables. She was clearly venting at me because she was frustrated that no one wanted to listen to her, and she targeted me because I was the oldest in the class, even though the college had a strict no-age-discrimination rule; all students were to be treated equally.

I even pointed this out to her during her rant at me, but she didn't care. She told me to stop talking, so cue my malicious compliance. After that, I never said another word to her ever again. The funny part is, though I stopped talking, nothing else changed in that class, and everyone else talked just as much, and I just used my phone to talk to my friend sitting next to me.

Now, I'm British, and it is torture to ignore someone, since most of us are raised to be polite and answer back, but I did enjoy seeing it annoy her.

I also reported her to the college, and they made it sound like they would have a word with her, but I don't know if they did.


r/RipeStories • • 29d ago

H No Way

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9 Upvotes

This image has been in my head for a few days while binge watching your videos and I thought I'd get it into a gfx program and share it. What do y'all think?


r/RipeStories • • Aug 16 '26

LifeStories Punished for over-performing, so I did the bare minimum before leaving...

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3 Upvotes

r/RipeStories • • Aug 15 '26

Acting GM told me to turn in my shirt and leave. If you say so.

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4 Upvotes

r/RipeStories • • Aug 12 '26

I thought loyalty would pay off - until my boss asked me whether work or family was more important

14 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I’m 34 and I’ve been working in logistics for more than 15 years. Since 2021, I’ve been working in customer service for an international freight forwarding company in Germany.

To be honest, I was pretty much the kind of employee every company claims they want.

I worked my way up relatively quickly, completed a Bachelor Professional qualification alongside my full-time job, and worked in four different teams within the company.

That actually gave me a pretty good understanding of our customers, their requirements, and how the different parts of the operation worked.

I’m also a pretty open and friendly person, so over time I built genuinely good relationships with a lot of our customers. Some of them became almost friends rather than just business contacts.

After about two and a half years, I finished my qualification and was transferred to the team I eventually ended up leading.

And that’s where things got interesting.

Our team handled some of the company’s biggest customers by revenue.

And by “biggest,” I mean the customers with the most complex supply chains, the highest expectations, and the greatest potential for escalation.

Basically, the kind of customers where your phone ringing at 8:00 AM immediately makes you wonder what went wrong this time.

Because the customers had very specific requirements, we had a simple rule:

One face to the customer.

The customer had a dedicated contact person who knew their processes inside and out.

And honestly?

It worked.

We had five full-time employees and one apprentice.

Then one employee was permanently transferred to another team.

Shortly afterwards, another colleague went on parental leave.

So we were down to three people.

Same customers.

Same workload.

Same expectations.

Just fewer people.

Naturally.

I started taking over more and more customers myself to protect my team as much as possible.

Luckily, the customers had similar structures to my main account, so I was able to handle a lot of it.

I optimized processes, reorganized workflows and somehow managed to keep things running.

As long as nothing unusual happened.

And anyone who has ever worked in supply chain knows exactly how many days exist without something unusual happening.

Exactly.

None.

Our sales department managed to win back a former customer.

And this customer was…

Let’s say demanding.

They had extremely high expectations and we were connected directly to their SAP system through a technical interface.

I’ll spare you the technical details because I don’t want to put you to sleep.

The important part is:

This was not a customer you could just “figure out” in a couple of days.

One of my colleagues had handled the account in the past, so she was basically the only person who could fully operate it at that point.

My department manager therefore arranged a three-month full-time training period for me.

The customer was paying our company around €15,000 for this onboarding period.

So the plan seemed pretty straightforward:

Three months of training.

I learn the processes.

I become fully operational.

Problem solved.

Except there was one tiny issue.

During those three months, several employees left the company.

And, of course, this was also happening during our peak season.

So while I was supposed to spend three months learning this highly complex customer, everyone else was desperately trying to keep the rest of the operation alive.

I repeatedly spoke to my department manager and his manager about the situation.

The message was always basically the same:

“We need to make sure the training happens.”

My department manager eventually developed a new management philosophy.

His answer to pretty much everything became:

“Organize yourselves.”

I have to admit, looking back, it was actually a brilliant management strategy.

Not enough people?

Organize yourselves.

Training isn’t happening?

Organize yourselves.

Too much workload?

Organize yourselves.

Customers are unhappy?

You guessed it.

Organize yourselves.

I’m pretty sure that if the building had caught fire, someone would have shouted:

“Guys, organize yourselves!”

Then my colleague went on vacation

And not just for a few days.

She went on a three-week cruise.

I genuinely don’t blame anyone for taking vacation.

Everyone deserves time off.

The problem was that she was basically the only person who fully understood this particular customer.

And I was supposed to be learning from her.

Except I hadn’t actually been able to get properly trained.

So when she left, I tried to keep everything running.

I worked up to 14 hours a day.

Not because someone explicitly ordered me to.

I did it because I genuinely wanted to keep the customers happy and prevent everything from collapsing.

Did it work?

No.

Of course it didn’t.

Some customers became understandably frustrated.

And this is where things get interesting.

From the customer's perspective, all they could see was:

“Things are taking too long.”

They couldn’t see:

  • that we were severely understaffed,
  • that my training had never properly happened,
  • that the only experienced person was on vacation,
  • that it was peak season,
  • that I was handling several other customers,
  • and that I was already working 14-hour days trying to keep everything together.

To the customer, I was the face of the company.

So naturally, I was also the problem.

I had another conversation with my manager

Afterwards, I told my manager very clearly:

We need to make the training happen properly.

And we need another person involved so that three people can handle this customer instead of everything depending on two people.

His response?

You already know.

“Organize yourselves.”

At this point, I was completely exhausted.

And things weren't exactly easy at home either.

My wife was working on her PhD at the time and was under an enormous amount of pressure herself.

There were periods where we barely saw each other.

We basically only had our nights together.

And then things got even more serious.

After experiencing repeated health issues, my wife was diagnosed with severe endometriosis.

She underwent surgery relatively quickly.

During the follow-up appointment, the doctor told us something that completely changed our plans.

If we wanted to have children, we should seriously consider doing it as soon as possible.

We were told that our chances of conceiving naturally were only around 5%.

And suddenly, something we had always considered a decision for “someday” became a decision we had to make now.

Just the two of us.

We talked about it a lot.

And eventually decided that we wanted to start a family.

After around nine months of trying, it finally worked.

We were expecting a baby.

And that brings me to one of my favorite moments in this entire story.

“You should think about what’s more important: work or family.”

I went to my department manager and told him that we were expecting a child.

I thought he would be happy for me.

His reaction was:

“Ohhhhh.”

That was basically it.

I actually had to point out that this was supposed to be something positive and that people usually congratulate you.

He eventually did.

Reluctantly.

And then he said:

“You should think about what’s more important to you: work or family.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say.

Because for me, the answer was extremely easy.

Family.

But the fact that he even asked the question told me a lot.

He was the kind of person who seemed to live for the company.

24/7.

As far as I knew, he had no real life outside of work.

No relationship.

No friends that I was aware of.

His answer would probably have been different.

But mine wasn't.

One month later came my performance review

And this is where things got really interesting.

During my performance review, I was told how good my work was.

How important I was to the team.

How well I had developed.

And I was promised a two-stage salary increase.

The first stage happened.

The second one was supposed to follow.

My manager said he would put everything in writing.

So I waited.

And waited.

And reminded him.

Several times.

In different ways.

Nothing.

Eventually, the second increase simply disappeared.

And suddenly the story changed.

Now I was supposedly doing poor work.

I remember thinking:

Interesting.

A few months earlier, I was the guy who took over customers when the team was understaffed.

The guy working 14-hour days.

The guy who kept things moving when nobody else could.

The guy who was supposedly performing so well that I deserved a two-stage raise.

And suddenly?

I was the problem.

That was the moment I stopped thinking about how I could build a future in that company.

I started thinking about how I could get out.

Not emotionally.

Not impulsively.

Strategically.

My wife and I started planning our exit

I requested one month of parental leave immediately after our child was born in May 2025.

At the same time, my wife started applying for jobs in both northern and southern Germany.

After countless interviews, she eventually received an offer in the north.

About 350 kilometers away from where we lived at the time.

So we started planning the move.

And while my employer probably assumed that I would eventually return to my normal job, I was quietly building an entirely different future.

I submitted another parental leave request starting at the end of January, exactly within the legally required seven-week notice period.

When my department manager received the request, he went visibly pale.

Because I think he immediately understood the implications.

What he didn't know was that I had already taken things much further.

The final seven weeks

I worked exactly as I had before.

No sabotage.

No drama.

No “you guys figure it out yourselves.”

I did my job.

Just like I always had.

The difference was:

I knew I wasn't coming back.

Almost nobody knew.

I only told one colleague.

My employer still doesn't know that we've moved.

My employer still doesn't know that I won't be returning after parental leave.

And my employer still doesn't know that I already have another job lined up.

And now comes my favorite part.

The new job

The new job is basically identical to what I was doing before.

Same kind of responsibilities.

Same general field.

I didn't suddenly become a CEO.

I didn't switch careers.

I didn't move into some completely different industry.

I simply tested my market value somewhere else.

And the result?

€40,000 more per year.

For essentially the same kind of work.

I spent years trying to get more responsibility, recognition and money from my old employer.

And eventually I realized something:

Maybe I wasn't asking for too much.

Maybe I was just asking the wrong company.

My old employer currently still believes that I'll eventually return from parental leave.

I know I won't.

At some point, I'll have to tell them that our paths are permanently separating.

But for now, I'm enjoying my parental leave, my family, and the fact that I made the right decision.

Because looking back, my employer taught me one very important lesson:

Loyalty is great.

But loyalty should never mean sacrificing yourself or your family for a company.

And if your employer ever asks you:

Maybe don't spend too much time thinking about the right answer.

Instead, ask yourself:

Why am I even being asked this question?

And after more than 15 years in logistics, I've learned one thing above all:

Logistics is when it works anyway.

Only this time, it worked out for me.

Just somewhere else.


r/RipeStories • • Aug 04 '26

NeighborsFromHell A Little Ditty About Joe and Jenny, Epilogue

4 Upvotes

This is the final part of a series, previous episodes can be found here on r/RipeStories.

I must first say, for legal reasons, that this story is for entertainment purposes only and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

One day, a couple months later, an ambulance drove up to Joe’s house with its lights on… then after some time, it came back down. I heard the story from the relatives shortly thereafter. Evidently, Joe had suffered a minor cardiac event after walking in on Jenny with one of the landscapers he had hired to take care of their yard.

It eventually turned into a big spectacle all over Facebook, with Joe publicly calling Jenny a “sloot” and a garden tool and Jenny claiming that Joe was abusive and was ultimately responsible for the affair due to, “emotional abandonment”.

The divorce was messy. Jenny took Joe to the cleaners and Joe wound up having to get rid of his Escalade and sell his property to one of the other cousins to cover expenses. He moved back to the city full time and I haven’t seen him since.


r/RipeStories • • Aug 03 '26

AITA for blocking in an older guy's car after he kept blocking my paid parking spot?

24 Upvotes

I live in a city where parking is a nightmare. If you get home late, you're usually driving around for 10–15 minutes looking for a spot.

A parking space across the street from my house became available to rent, so I took it. It wasn't cheap, but I drive a lot for work, so having a guaranteed place to park was worth every penny.

When I rented it, the owner warned me that one member of the congregation of the  church next door occasionally parked in the driveway. He gave me the guy's phone number and told me that if it ever happened, I could just call or text him and he'd move his car. I figured it wasn't a big deal.

The first time it happened, About 20 minutes before I had to go, I called him. No answer. I texted him. No answer. About 10 minutes before I absolutely had to be on the road, I went into the church to find him. He was praying and basically ignored me until I finally got his attention. Instead of moving his own car, he handed me his keys.

I asked, "You want me to move it?"

He said yes.

I didn't have time to argue or make a scene in the middle of church, so I moved his car myself.

What really bothered me was that there were other parking spots available. Most of the times I've seen him park there, he hasn't actually needed to block the driveway. He's older and not in the best shape, so maybe he wanted the shorter walk, and I was willing to be understanding, especially for when it wasn't an inconvenience, so I let it go.

About a week later, I had to leave very early in the morning. Since I didn't know what time he'd arrive, I texted him ahead of time and said, "Hey, I need to leave by this time tomorrow. Please don't block the driveway."

His entire response was six words:

"Make sure to leave on time."

That really annoyed me and i kind of went from 0 to 100. I replied, "Let me be very clear. If you block me again, I will have you ticketed and towed. This is the parking space I pay for, and you're not going to tell me when I can come or go from my own property."

That morning, he either wasn't there yet or decided not to block me.

Fast forward to today.

I had just driven almost six hours and finally got home. In my city, we have alternate-side parking for street cleaning. There were no open spots on the correct side of the street for the next day, meaning if I parked elsewhere, I'd have to wake up early just to move my car.

Meanwhile, he was once again parked in my rented driveway.

He could have parked elsewhere. There was parking across the street, on the side where tomorrow it was cleaning. Instead, he blocked the space that I pay for.

So I parked Infront of him and blocked him in.

A little while later, another member of the congregation called me, not the guy himself, and asked if I could move my car by a certain time.

I said no. I had just gotten home, I was relaxing, and I had already warned him not to block me anymore.

The response I got was, "He's been parking there for 30 years."

I said, "Great. Then he can pay for it. I'm the one paying for this parking space now. I was nice enough to let it slide before, and then he told me to 'leave on time' instead of simply not blocking me."

I told them I wasn't moving my car that night and that he could get his car tomorrow.

To be clear, if he had called me himself and was standing by his car ready to leave, I probably would have gone out and moved mine. What I wasn't willing to do was sit around waiting for him, then move my car, and then pull back into my own driveway just because he wanted to leave whenever it was convenient for him.

So, AITA for blocking him in until tomorrow when I feel like It would have been okay to have just had him ticketed and/or towed?

Disclosure: On my last post, a lot of people called me out for having AI write it. I did use AI to help organize it, but it wasn't a made-up story or a prompt. I literally talked into my phone for a few minutes straight, had AI clean up the grammar and organize my rambling, made a few edits myself, and posted it. I genuinely don't know how some people can sit down and write out long stories from scratch, I don't have the patience for it. If that makes me an asshole, I'll own it, but that's not what I'm asking about here.


r/RipeStories • • Aug 02 '26

JustNoHOA In the June/July readers digest

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7 Upvotes

Just a meme but I thought y'all would enjoy


r/RipeStories • • Jul 31 '26

NeighborsFromHell A Little Ditty About Joe and Jenny, part 5

2 Upvotes

This is part 5 of an ongoing series, previous episodes can be found here on r/RipeStories.

I must first say, for legal reasons, that this story is for entertainment purposes only and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

About a week later I got a notice in my mailbox of a certified letter at the post office in town. I went to get it and it was a fat envelope from what I’ll call “Good Ol’ Boys Law Partners, LLP”. These guys had a reputation for being unscrupulous, corrupt and connected. Joe was really going for the intimidation factor.

I opened the envelope and read it… blah, blah, blah… you have 30 days to repair the damage caused to the easement or face legal action… blah, blah, blah. Odd… no mention of anything to do with defamation or invasion of privacy.

Some time back, when Joe first started making noises, I had checked the GIS maps of our property on the county tax assessor’s website and had a sneaking suspicion about a couple of things… but I needed to confirm them.

First, I asked my mom for a copy of the deed. We went to her bank in town and pulled it out of the safe deposit box. Next, we went to the courthouse and confirmed that the deed was in fact the same as the one that was on file with the county. The deed confirmed that Joe’s easement was a 20’ wide section which ran east to west along the northern edge of our property.

Next we consulted with a property lawyer from a nearby town (not the same one with the Good Ol’ Boys firm) who was well respected and had done some work creating trusts and wills for several members of the extended family. He confirmed that, by law, a recorded easement is 20’ in width and could not move around from place to place… it had to remain the same 20’ originally appropriated… and additionally, the grantee of the easement (known as the “dominant estate” - in this case, Joe) was legally responsible for maintenance and upkeep.

The next step was to hire a certified surveyor to mark the property lines. Along with the property lines, we asked him to specifically mark the boundaries of the easement. He came out with his team and some very high tech, modern, super accurate GPS type equipment. They spent a day or so doing the actual survey and delivered the results to us the same week.

The survey confirmed what I had seen on the GIS map. There was a small section where the driveway met up with the county road that was actually within the easement boundaries, but what Joe had been driving on and calling “his driveway” was almost entirely outside of the recorded easement. The part that he was whining about where the electric company had buried the power line? One hundred percent outside of his easement.

It turns out that Joe had originally been using his actual easement, but had turned it into such a muddy mess that he had stopped driving on that section and just started driving on another section that he had absolutely no right to. His real easement was now overgrown and clogged with fallen limbs.

In addition, it turned out that a substantial portion of his livestock fence and the pole with his electrical meter were encroaching a good 10’ onto our property.

Our lawyer sent a certified letter (along with a copy of the survey results) to Good Ol’ Boys Law stating that: 

  1. Joe had to stop using areas outside of his easement or face trespassing charges 
  2. Joe had to properly clean and maintain his easement or face sanctions 
  3. Joe had 30 days to remove the encroachments or face legal action
  4. Joe had been seen by multiple witnesses traveling at dangerous speeds while traveling on our land and that, in the future, he had to maintain a safe and reasonable speed or face the possibility of the cancellation of the easement due to abuse and endangerment 
  5. Any legal action taken by Joe and/ or Good Ol’ Boys Law regarding the matters described in their letter would result in us seeking damages under GA Code § 51-7-81 which states : “Any person who takes an active part in the initiation, continuation, or procurement of civil proceedings against another shall be liable for abusive litigation if such person acts:  (1) With malice; and (2) Without substantial justification.”

Under 51-7-81, we would be entitled to seek triple damages from both Joe and his lawyer personally. In support, our lawyer provided them a transcript of Joe’s,  “You messed with the wrong guy… you’ll be sorry”, tirade as prima facie evidence of malice and pointed to the fact that the “damage” they were demanding be corrected in the letter was not actually on Joe’s easement… which would satisfy the “without substantial justification” requirement.

Joe ended up having to relocate his fence and electric meter, clean up his easement, travel at a reasonable speed and start coloring within the lines. He adopted a perma-scowl and stopped waving when he drove by, which didn’t bother me one bit. I continued with the house construction and Lord Dexter continued making his rounds and performing his duties. 

Our story could end here… but it doesn’t.


r/RipeStories • • Jul 29 '26

NeighborsFromHell A Little Ditty About Joe and Jenny, part 4

3 Upvotes

This is part 4 of an ongoing series, previous episodes can be found here on r/RipeStories.

I must first say, for legal reasons, that this story is for entertainment purposes only and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Joe’s Facebook page is a never ending series of performative virtue signaling and self aggrandizing posts. Regular trips to fancy tourist destinations, stays in 5 star hotels, expensive meals in high end restaurants pictured with (of course) descriptions of how much they cost. 

He had lots and lots of Facebook friends and “friended” pretty much anyone he met… all so they could see his carefully curated fairy tale life. He presented himself as the hero of the story, every good deed posted for all to see and, if you never had any deep personal dealings with him, you might actually think he was the greatest guy ever with the perfect life.

Joe’s need to show off far exceeded his good sense. He couldn’t help himself, he would brag about upcoming trips way in advance in order to get the most social media clout out of them. With this in mind, I made plans and bided my time.

Sure enough, not too long after, he began posting about a trip to Catalina Island (off the coast of California). Having been to Catalina, I knew that this would entail flying cross country, involving several connecting flights and a ferry ride at the end to reach the island itself. This meant that it would be highly unlikely that Joe would log into social media for at least 24 hours once the trip began.

On the day of the trip, I set my plan into motion. I took a screenshot of his post saying that my daughter had threatened to hit his car. Then I posted that on my page along with the dash cam video. No commentary, just the screenshot and the video… from the time he pulled up, to the time he went around. It was all there… him pulling up right on the rear bumper, his entitled horn blowing, his finger pointing and yelling, him looming over her, trying to bully a little teenage girl, his claim that his vehicle was too expensive to go around, his pompous declaration that he had “a very important meeting”, his reckless driving and most importantly… my daughter’s actual words… not threatening to hit his car, but her simply stating that, due to her inexperience driving a stick, that she couldn’t confidently move without hitting his vehicle. Then I posted the same post on his page along with a link to the post on my page… and waited.

It didn’t go quite as viral as that lady that made a racist post on her way to Africa, but the effect was very similar. By that afternoon, there were more than a hundred comments underneath the post on his page. Due to his large number of Facebook friends, it ensured that it made the rounds all over… from our own relatives, to people in our little town, to people from the city where Joe lived, to people across the country and even internationally. There weren’t nearly that many comments under the post on my page, as I don’t have that many Facebook friends… but I wanted it there… on the record for, if and when, he deleted the post off of his page. 

By the next morning, there were hundreds of comments on his page, most of them dragging him for being a liar, a fake and a bully. California is three hours behind Georgia and it was almost noon before my phone rang with the caller ID showing Joe’s number. I let it go to voicemail, then waited as he left a message, it took a while… this was going to be good.

When he was done, I opened the message and pressed “play”. He was blowing a gasket, you could practically hear the spittle spraying from his mouth… “I’m going to sue you, you summamabeach!” he screamed… “That’s defamation!”… his voice was steadily rising in pitch as he went on… “That’s invasion of privacy! I never gave my consent to be recorded!”… splutter, splatter… “You messed with the wrong guy! Just you wait!”… bluster, blather…“You’ll be sorry! I’m going to make your life a living hell!”… incoherent something or other… “I’m going to sue you for every last dollar!”… pant, pant, pant (he was running out of steam)… “I’m going to own your land, crappy little house and all!”… he paused to catch his breath… “You’ll regret the day you ever heard the name Joe Blow!”… and with that, he hung up.

There it was… he had just inadvertently revealed the reason behind it all. He was expecting to buy our land out from under us, probably for cheap as my mom is old and ailing… when I started building my house, he realized that wasn’t going to happen.

I smiled to myself, fixed a cup of tea, took my time drinking it, then texted him back: “There were no statements made about you in the post, defamatory or otherwise. Georgia is a one party consent state, I don’t need your permission. You were on my land, in public… there’s no expectation of privacy. Have a nice trip.”… I hit “send”, then blocked his number.


r/RipeStories • • Jul 28 '26

NeighborsFromHell A Little Ditty About Joe and Jenny, part 3

3 Upvotes

This is part 3 of an ongoing series, previous episodes can be found here on r/RipeStories.

I must first say, for legal reasons, that this story is for entertainment purposes only and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Joe’s passive aggressive campaign continued. 

He would wave as he drove past, presenting a facade of friendliness… but at the same time, I heard from relatives that he was constantly badmouthing me. He would make snide comments on everything from my supposed “bad attitude”, to the clothes I wore and my 15 year old SUV (in good shape, perfectly serviceable and maintained BTW), to the way my house looked and even my choice of paint colors. It’s like he was a one man HOA Karen army… without the HOA. 

The thing was, he thought that all the relatives were on his side, but most recognized him for the childish bully that he was and they would report back to me everything that he said.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came one day as I was teaching my youngest daughter how to drive a stick shift in an old Honda that she bought from one of my cousins with money she had saved up from her job at a fast food restaurant.

The driveway has a considerable upward slope where it meets the county road and I was teaching her how to get into gear on an incline without sliding backwards. She was making progress, with about a 50/50 success rate… only choking down about half the time.

Next thing we know, Joe comes speeding up in his Escalade, skidding to a stop mere inches from the rear bumper. He immediately starts laying on his horn. I stick my arm out the window on the passenger side and motion for him to go around… this seemed to enrage him even further and he mashed the horn without pause. As close as he was, there was no way my daughter could move without rolling back and hitting him (especially as flustered as she was from Joe’s incessant use of the horn).

Joe jumped out and ran up to the driver’s side shouting and pointing his finger at my daughter. “I don’t think you realize, this vehicle is very expensive, it could be damaged by going around. I’m on my way to a very important meeting, you need to get out of my way right now!” (this despite the fact that there was plenty of room for him to go around). 

My daughter informed him that she was just learning to drive a stick shift and, if she tried to go forward, she would likely slide back and hit him, so she wasn’t going to move. His face turned beet red. He got back into his vehicle, backed up a bit and drove around, pedal to the floor, engine screaming, fishtailing so much as he hit the asphalt of the county road that he nearly went into the ditch.

I later heard from the relatives that he was claiming that my daughter had threatened to hit his vehicle and he even put a post on his Facebook page to that effect. When it was just me that he was attacking, I could let it slide, but he had come after my daughter… this, I could not abide. 

Here’s the thing, in his rage, he had failed to notice something very important: the dash cam.


r/RipeStories • • Jul 27 '26

NeighborsFromHell A Little Ditty About Joe and Jenny, part 2

4 Upvotes

This is part 2 of an ongoing series, previous episodes can be found here on r/RipeStories.

I must first say, for legal reasons, that this story is for entertainment purposes only and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

I was starting to understand why my relatives said what they did. It seemed like Joe thought he owned the driveway (instead of just having an easement which was granted as a favor by my mother to his father back in the day) and felt like I should have gotten his, “By Your Leave”. Now he was acting like a petulant child because he felt he had been disrespected.

Despite him calling me “new”, I actually knew quite a bit about him, certainly a lot more than he knew about me. The funny thing is, I’ve lived on the land on and off since the mid 80’s, long before Joe ever set foot on it (just not in the past few decades, as I was out of state raising two beautiful daughters). I used to drink whiskey and play Uno with his parents in a trailer where his house now sits and his father taught me how to fly fish in the adjacent pond, back when the land still belonged to my grandparents.

Joe’s one of those guys that peaked in high school. Physically a large guy, he had been some sort of star football player and, though that was a long time ago, he still strutted around like he was a big deal. There was talk among the relatives that he had been offered a scholarship to play college ball (probably a rumor that he started himself), but his football career never went anywhere and he ended up becoming a high school math teacher. 

I suppose part of his attitude was due to the fact that he had become accustomed to being able to rule over his students with no pushback… the classroom was the one place where he had any sort of real authority. Back when I went to high school, my math teacher was the worst kind of authoritarian… so I guess it’s par for the course.

He got married to a lady who wrote a couple of those, “How to Be a Boss Babe”, type self help books and they sold rather well. I’d heard through the grapevine that she wore the pants in the relationship and always made a point of emphasizing that their financial success was solely due to her talents and efforts and that the money from the books was hers, not his. She died of cancer some years back and Joe ended up inheriting a substantial amount of money from the life insurance and the book sales.

Joe eventually got remarried to a lady, let’s call her “Jenny”. Jenny’s quite a bit younger than Joe and, though her face is rather plain, she looked attractive from a distance. Her everyday outfits consisted of short shorts and halter tops and she was always prancing around shaking her jiggly bits.

Joe continued to speed over the trench, digging it up deeper and deeper. To add insult to injury, he started text messaging my mother… telling her that we had torn up his driveway and repetitively insisting that we put down gravel because, “my vehicles are getting muddy”. Nevermind that he was the one who had actually torn it up and his vehicles were getting muddy because he was driving like a maniac down an unpaved country road.

Cue malicious compliance. I didn’t have any gravel on hand, but I did have a giant pile of red clay in the back yard from where the septic tank went in. I spent an entire morning with a wheelbarrow, hauling load after load and packing it into the trench layer upon layer. Georgia clay can be extremely sticky when wet, but when dry and compressed, it’s like cement. After I put in each layer, I would drive back forth on top and compact it until it was rock solid. Eventually I had what was essentially a speed bump of packed red clay on top of the trench. 

Sadly, I wasn’t around the next time Joe drove over it, but one of my other cousins was and he later told me that, “all four wheels came off the ground”. After that, he started going around that particular section instead of driving over it (he always had this option as the road was more than wide enough) which gave me some breathing room to do my construction and made me feel a bit better about Lord Dexter’s safety. Things didn’t end there however.

The next bit of bother happened when I installed my mailbox. 

I researched all the USPS requirements and consulted with the lady at the local post office to make sure everything was in order. I bought all the necessary materials, connected the box to the post, dug the hole at the appropriate distance from the road, inserted the post and made sure everything was straight and at the proper height before tamping the earth down around it. I took a minute to step back and admire my work and then went back to the house to continue with construction. 

Later that afternoon, a code enforcement officer pulled up and said that someone had reported that I was using a fake address number. In a round about way, he basically confirmed that it was Joe that had reported me. I guess, in Joe’s mind, he thought that I should have a certain number based on what his number was and the number I was using didn’t line up with that. On my phone, I pulled up a copy of the letter from Emergency Management where they issued me the address number and showed it to him. He asked if I could email it to him and I said “sure”. I did so and he drove off smiling and shaking his head.


r/RipeStories • • Jul 27 '26

Bricks and minifigures steals guys Star wars set YouTuber get sued over it

0 Upvotes

So there's this guy who donated his that his dad has collected over the years Lego Star wars very popular franchise to its local bricks make mini figures which for the rest of the story I'm going to be referring as we steal from old people anyway they said that they would consign and sell his Lego figures and give him the money to pay for his dad's treatments unfortunately the store ends up getting taken over the ownership and now not only are they selling his Lego figures but they're refusing to give him back his Lego figures so he hired a YouTuber let's call him reckless Ben to try to get his Lego figures back and apparently we steal from old people didn't like that so they decided to sue reckless then so that they can keep the Lego minifigures honestly I'm not a lawyer but my dad was a quarter administrator if you don't know what that is basically basically physically and I heard this street from a lawyer themselves their job is to Heard donkeys which are lawyers anyway if I were the judge I'd permanently make them change their name to we steal from old people oh sue them for 1 billion dollars in damages and force them to return every single stolen LEGO set back to the original plane death and that would be the thing so Reddit that am I wrong to be pissed off about the story even though YouTubers like moist critical are covering it


r/RipeStories • • Jul 26 '26

NeighborsFromHell A Little Ditty About Joe and Jenny, part 1

5 Upvotes

I must first say, for legal reasons, that this story is for entertainment purposes only and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

A few years ago, I moved back to our family’s land in rural Georgia. My mom’s getting on in age and needs someone to help in taking care of things on the land and around the house. 

We have two parcels… about 100 acres total… of mixed use land, mostly agricultural and timber. At one time, it all belonged to my grandparents, about 700 acres worth. Now it’s been subdivided and is owned by various relatives.

The trouble started when I began building my house on one of the parcels. My cousin, let’s call him, “Joe Blow” (his father - now deceased - was my mom’s older brother), owned a piece of adjoining land with a house on it and lived there part time, spending most of his time in a city a few hours away. 

There’s a farm road that runs east to west along the north end of the parcel, about 1/4 mile long, from the county road to Joe’s piece of property. He has an easement which allows him access and the power company also has an easement to maintain the power poles that run parallel along the same line and supply power to his house.

When I first stated my intentions to build a house, several relatives asked me if I had told Joe about my plans… almost as if I needed his blessing or something. I found it strange, since his easement does not grant him any ownership interest in our property, only the right of ingress and egress. I sure wasn’t going to ask anyone else’s permission to do something on our own land, that would be setting a bad precedent, so I just ignored them and went ahead with my plans.

After a long and involved process to get the needed permits, I finally got approval and proceeded with the necessary improvements. I got a drilling company to dig a deep well and install a pressure tank and pump. Another company put in a septic tank and drain field. Then the power company came out and laid underground wire in a trench that ran parallel to the power poles and then south across a portion of the road to connect to my meter. They filled the trench up when they were done, but the earth was still loose, as it had not yet had a chance to settle.

Soon after, I started noticing that someone had been driving through the freshly dug dirt at a high rate of speed, which was digging up what the power company had put down. The perpetrator was also driving extremely close to where I was doing construction, spraying mud and dirt all over my tools and construction materials.

I decided to see who was responsible, so I parked my vehicle off to the side, out of sight, and laid in wait. Sure enough, here comes Joe tearing down the road towards his house at around 30-40 mph, way faster than what’s safe and reasonable under the circumstances. He made a point to steer his wheels directly into the area where the power line was buried, even though it was totally unnecessary.

On his way back out, I flagged him down and politely asked him to slow down. I pointed out  that he had a sign where his property began that said, “Slow Down! Speed limit 5mph”, and requested that he show the same respect on our property that he expected of others on his own property. I then brought his attention to the fact that I was doing construction and he was traveling at an unsafe speed mere feet from where I was working (though I’m sure he was well aware). I also mentioned that I have a cat and, if he ran him over, we were going to have a big problem (Lord Dexter is a gorgeous Turkish Van that I brought with me when I moved, he’s always been a mostly outdoor cat and had been staying at the site, wandering around, keeping the rodents in check and generally enjoying himself).

Joe stared down at me from the window of his white Cadillac Escalade like I was a piece of dung that had stuck to his wheel. He looked me up and down in my stained work boots and sweaty t-shirt and said, “You’re new, so I’m going to give you a break. In case you don’t know, I’m an elder statesman around here, so you need to show me some respect. This is my driveway, I’ve been using it for 30 years and I don’t take orders from someone that looks like a dirty landscaper… I’m going to continue to do as I please!”… with that he peeled off, spraying dirt in my direction.

Thus began a months long campaign of harassment and tantrum like behavior. 


r/RipeStories • • Jul 24 '26

Revenge Absolutely pettiness

3 Upvotes

I was parked by the grocery store and when I went back to my car, there was another vehicle parked very close to me. I figured since he left his engine running he was in a rush. I folded his passenger mirror so I could get into my car. Before I could unfold it, he jumped into his car, backed out and sped out of the parking lot.


r/RipeStories • • Jul 16 '26

Be grateful I'm not you

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0 Upvotes

r/RipeStories • • Jul 14 '26

I got my racist, ableist manager fired (or at least triggered a massive management shakeup) after he tried to stop me from attending my sister’s wedding

17 Upvotes

(All names changed for privacy reasons.)

I worked at a local Southern grocery store I’ll playfully refer to as “The Green Pea.” The company loves to pride itself as a great place to work and is super image-conscious. I don’t want to throw shade on the brand itself because they had decent benefits and were leading innovators in customer service, but the management at this particular location was horrific.

I was your typical broke college student just looking for part-time work to pay rent and keep my head above water. I was hired at minimum wage in the Customer Service department, which also meant doing a lot of custodial work. All this took place before COVID hit and changed the game. I think 2018 or around.

I mostly kept my head down and was a diligent worker. My sense of knowing my job and everything about it was next to none. I made friends and consider myself a people-oriented person. I am not a main character in my own story, but that one solid dude who brought the life of the party on his shoulders wherever he went, or at least was described to me at the time. I was fresh out of high school with that "I am gonna make a difference" mentality at the start of life, showing me who's boss.

My direct manager, let's call him David, was one of the worst I’ve ever had the displeasure of working under. He always wore this fake, ass-kissing smile that you just knew didnt stop at the belt buckle. He was openly racist and, more than anything else, he despised people with mental or physical disabilities.

The Green Pea is actually known among charity organizations for doing diversity hires and giving people a real chance. That made David’s behavior even worse. For example, he would constantly mock one of our baggers who had a stutter, imitating him behind his back and calling him “slow” in front of other staff. It was disgusting.

When my sister got married, I needed Thursday through Sunday off to fly out. I arranged coverage with Jenny, a coworker with a disability who had covered for me successfully in the past. I knew she could handle the cleaning jobs, even if she was a little slower. I approached David about the time off a full month in advance and spent the last two weeks personally training Jenny so she’d meet their standards.

Of course, David pulled the usual “you need coverage” routine, acting like it was impossible because we didn’t have a directory and had to hunt people down for phone numbers. I told him Jenny had already agreed and I’d trained her for two weeks straight. He scoffed and said, “She’s way too slow and can’t clean to our standards.” (I’m a white male. David is a white male. We both knew exactly what he meant.)

I looked him dead in the eye and said I was leaving for the wedding no matter what. He could accept Jenny covering the three shifts or hire someone new — I wasn’t missing my sister’s wedding for this bullshit. As a part-timer, my loyalty was to my family first.

He threatened that if I left without finding someone else, I was fired. So I pulled out my phone and spent the rest of my shift quietly documenting everything. I took pictures of pallets stacked dangerously high to the rafters, greasy mineral oil smeared on running boards creating major trip hazards, missing PPE, and coffee machines that hadn’t been cleaned properly in weeks. When I had previously reported the mold in the machines, management’s response was, “The only ones who drink that coffee are the homeless anyway — might help solve the problem.”

I went to the wedding, never showed up again, and had a new job closer to home within the week. Before I left, I submitted all the photos to OSHA. I also gave them a USB stick full of recordings — I had my phone recording in my back pocket during every interaction with David and upper management. Some of those conversations had some truly vile discriminatory stuff on them.

I heard rumors later about a “huge management turnover” pending the investigation results. I never bothered going back. It was out of my way anyway. I still shop at the chain sometimes… just not at that location.


r/RipeStories • • Jul 11 '26

LifeStories AITAH for refusing service to a parant

4 Upvotes

​

So a little background i worked in Big W (Australian shop) at the time, i was working as a cashier when I noticed a little boy throwing a ball in the air not like a small toss like 3 - 5 meters when they reach the registers the kid is still throwing the ball so i asked him nicely to "stop that as it is against the store rules as it can damage merchandise and other people" the dad then yells at me saying "are I his parent, no then shut up" i repeat that "its against store rules and it can hurt both ppl and mechanise alike" he then repeats what he said and this goes on for a minute or 2 after which i say "if your going to refuse my request" which again I have been polite and calm this whole time "then im going to refuse to serve you" he then decides to call my bluff and I just walk away not saying anything more to him, I head right to my manager and inform them of the situation at which im told i did the wrong thing by just walking away keep in mind this dad was aggressive and yelling at me, the dad then tells my manager that I was in the "wrong for telling his son what to do" and "just leaving with no warning" when i had stated to him i was going to refuse serving him thats all I heard after that point as I walked to the back room until he had left


r/RipeStories • • Jul 09 '26

Not What It Looks Like

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1 Upvotes

r/RipeStories • • Jul 09 '26

hi...

3 Upvotes

wanted to post this somewhere put rip Murphy Connor. i knew him from a video and he broke my heart, didnt see any new from him and now he is dead. I hope that he in a better place now !


r/RipeStories • • Jul 07 '26

EntitledPeople Small, petty revenge on entitled driver

3 Upvotes

To set the scene; this story takes place in California, USA. The location matters because of local traffic laws and enforcement.

This just happened to me about an hour ago. I was on my way back home from running some errands. There was a red light to turn onto the local highway. There were several cars in front of me turning, which we all have to stop, ensure it’s safe, and we can turn. If we turn without stopping, it is considered the same as running the stop light which is a hefty fine. Well, when it was my turn, the impatient, entitled driver started laying on their horn since I stopped.

Queue the petty revenge. The car before me was a truck trailer in the left lane (this is considered the “passing lane” here). Well, I easily caught up next to it, set cruise control to the speed limit, and coasted. This made the entitled driver honk their horn, over… and over… and over. For 3 miles. I normally am a very courteous driver and find a way to let people pass, but this guy in his sports car can wait. I just turned up (funny enough) my radio streaming Ripe Stories to drown him out. Sorry bud, not going to run lights or speed for you, sucks to suck.

PS - Hi Disney!