We Asked A Bunch Of People To Share Their Petty Grudges & You Are All Savage
Let’s not lie, we’ve all held onto petty grudges before even if we know deep down that it’s not worth our time and effort.
Maybe the grudge was against your Year 6 teacher who could never pronounce your name properly, and every time she tried droplets of spit would land on your desk. Maybe it was your first ever crush who never replied to your handwritten letter in Year 8. Maybe it was in uni and it was with the person in your tutorial who you dubbed as your arch-nemesis, even if they didn’t know it. Maybe it’s right now in your HIIT class and your sole aim is to just beat the person next to you.
So yes, while you may practice self-love, being kind to others, and going to therapy to unpack your emotions, it’s still adult nature to sometimes find yourself toying with a petty grudge, no matter how fleeting the grudge is.
Whether the person hurt you, whether they’re just not your cup of tea, or whether they’ve just wronged you one too many times, we’ve asked a bunch of Punkee readers to share their pettiest grudges with us and how they have dealt with them.
People share their pettiest grudge and revenge hacks* with us:
*Please note we’re not necessarily condoning taking serious revenge on people and that we also didn’t include a lot of people saying they put people’s toothbrushes in the toilet… stop doing that!!
“My Year 7 English teacher moved me from sitting next to the guy I liked so I found out her ex’s name from kids at her previous school, and for the creative writing assignment I wrote a love story with her and her ex’s names as the main characters so she’d experience the pain of reading about their lost love.”
“A guy once told me I had small boobs when I was like 16 and he was 10. He asked me out 20 years later and I have never felt such pleasure in rejecting his invitation.”
“There are a handful of people at work who I have various severe frustrations with, so when we’re in large Teams meetings with like, most of the organisation, I just kick them out of the meeting. Teams only says, ‘someone removed you from the meeting’ I doubt they’d have any reason to think it’s me. I make sure to do it sporadically”
“I am so petty, I unpack only half of the dishwasher to make sure my boyfriend does the other half.”
“I squashed bread when I worked at Woolies because customers were being rude.”
“I suspected one of my housemates of using my razor, so when I moved out I left the cartridge.”
“I had a fight with my husband and hid all of the toilet paper so he had to talk to me first and ask for help.”
“A long time ago, I overheard a playwright talking about how much he hated one of my plays, so in retaliation, I got a freelancer gig at a publication and gave HIS play a one-star review.”
“I had this immense crush on a guy when we were 18, in 2008. He asked me once to send him $1 of credit as he was running out and we were texting. I sent it to him, keen to continue our chat – then never heard back from him. He was clearly texting OTHER girls. We continued this hot and cold relationship for another year before things fizzled out for good. Fast-forward to 2021, and he now often tries to match with me on dating apps or slide into my Instagram DMs to meet up, and I take great pleasure in leaving him on read. Don’t think that I forgot that you owe me $1, bitch.”
“I had to organise a team lunch and my nemesis was vego, so I got all meat sandwiches.”
“A girl in college was mean to me and I got GREAT satisfaction denying her LinkedIn request last year.”
“Was pissed at my now ex because he chucked a tantrum and didn’t want to come to my cousin’s christening… so I purposely didn’t put fuel in my car so he’d have to pause his precious Xbox game to come and save me in the middle of nowhere. No regrets.”
“I found some a stock pic of some cute baby pugs and put them on Gumtree for free with a guy’s phone number. I can’t remember what he had done [to me] but he got so many calls he had to change his number.”
“Not making the bed and leaving it for my ex to make when he went to bed tired because he pissed me off. I could hear him huffing about it while he made it.”
“A charming fellow cut in front of me to take the last parking spot at work once. When I pointed out his error he said ‘fuck off, fat bitch’. His car was rather recognizable and luckily for me, he was a window-cracker. Sick months later I took a detour to the dog park, picked up what I needed and shunted it through the gap onto his fine leather upholstery.”
“My ex was an absolute dick through our break up. Two months out I used a fake name and his contact details to go through heaps of those compare quotes/services sites for stuff he didn’t have – eg electricity in Queensland, gas in Sydney, boat insurance, funeral planning. Sure hope he enjoyed those calls.”
“My dad didn’t speak to his best friend for eight years over a game of Scrabble… he was the queen of petty.”
“After a break up with my Really Bad Boyfriend, I hit Oxford Street with a couple of my gay friends, got pissed and proceeded to gain entry to every male toilet of each bar we went to. Once inside a cubicle, I proceeded to write, ‘For a good time, call Bill on 041*******’ on the back of every door with a Sharpie. It was the very least that creep deserved… but it was petty AF.”
“In Year 12 I sold my Florence and the Machine ticket for the show that night to a girl in my class who said she’d pay me the next day, and then she DIDN’T GO TO THE SHOW and said she shouldn’t have to pay me because she didn’t go!”
