Sometimes, life just isn't fair. It's a sad reality, and hopefully you're able to balance it out with a little hard work and a bit of good luck. But periodically you'll witness something so unjust that you can't help but stamp your feet in righteous indignation and say, "That just isn't right!"
The offensive bias could be being held against you, a family member, or a friend, but if it's truly unfair it almost always feels like a personal affront. When life doles out such sour lemons, all you can do try your best to make lemonade...and hope the guilty parties get their comeuppance.
He Paid The Price For His Brother’s Carelessness
“When we were around 10 years old, my brother was very irresponsible with his things. He had his new bike stolen after leaving it on the front lawn of the house, unlocked, because he was too lazy to bring it into the garage. Fine, his fault, his loss.
Then he started borrowing my bike all the time and did the exact same thing; it got stolen within a matter of weeks. My parents refused to get me a new bike or give him any trouble over losing mine. I never got another bike until I was an adult who could afford to buy myself one. Also, since his birthday was in the summer, he got a brand new bike (brand new everything) and mine was two weeks after Christmas, you can guess that I got the used bike, used everything.”
He Got Blamed For Literally All Of His Little Brother’s Antics
“Growing up, my little brother broke most of my electronic devices and my parents blamed me and made me pay for everything that he destroyed. He broke things like my Gameboy, PSP, a TV, a few 360 and PS4 controllers, my PS4, Wii, GameCube, and a spattering of other bits and bobs. I worked for most of that stuff as I’d had odd jobs since I was 8 which allowed me to buy those things.
One specific thing he broke that I remember being really unfair was my old laptop. I went on a camping trip with friends. The laptop was working and the casing was a little cracked as it was like two years old and I’d used it at school a lot. When I came home, the laptop was dead so I put it on the charger. It wouldn’t accept any charge whatsoever. I told my parents that it wasn’t working and said I was going to try and fix it. I’m not too tech savvy, but I thought I could give it a go.
I took it to the garage where all the tools are and took it apart. My little brother thought it’d be a good idea to come down and play football in the garage. The ball hit a heavy lamp which slammed into my laptop. Then the lamp bounced off the laptop and hit me in the head, giving me a black eye and a heavy nose bleed. Blood all over the cracked/bent motherboard; my laptop was ruined.
I told my parents what’d happened and showed them the damage, yet they blamed me and told me I had to pay them back for the laptop and buy myself a new one. Also, I later found out that it was my little brother who caused the laptop to not be able to charge because he’d messed with the charging port. He didn’t get in trouble for any of it. Overall, my little brother has cost me and my parents about $2,000 in damages and he’s gotten away with every single thing he’s broken.”
It Was Diabolical Emotion Abuse To The Highest Degree
“My mom bought my brother a Sega from a garage sale years after it was a popular gaming system, but that didn’t affect the love my brother had for it. My brother and I routinely took care of ourselves after school while our parents were working. One day, my dad came home early and was irate that my brother wasn’t home. He then proceeded to make me throw his Sega in the dumpster of our complex and told me if I brought it back in, I would be hit with the belt. This was his idea of a punishment towards my brother.
In my 8-year-old brain, I obviously didn’t want to get hit and did as I was told. The look on my brother’s face when he came home and my dad told him what happened to his Sega was just heartbreaking. It still makes me sad when I think about it. Sadly, my dad is still a cruel person and my stories of his behavior are endless. However, I think I’m going to buy my brother a Sega for Christmas this year to cheer him up and make up for that bad time.”
Her Horrible Mother Completely Ruined Multiple Friendships
“Growing up, I had a friend whose family was the worst, but I went over to their house a lot for playdates. One day a Korean girl who I’d befriended and helped her with her homework (she was younger than I) followed me to my friend’s house.
When we saw her come up to the house, the mom shooed her away. She said, ‘I don’t want Chinese people in my house.’ The girl went home crying her eyes out. I felt terrible for not following and comforting her, but I was 10 years old and didn’t know what to do.
The worst part is that the mother who insulted the girl blamed ME for the incident because she was trying to save face. The Korean family told me they didn’t need me to help with her homework anymore. I’m not sure if the girl was too shy or scared to tell the truth, but I never spoke to either of the families again.”
He Was Told To “Suck It Up” Despite Severe Injury
“This happened when I was in middle school and we were out camping. I was the only Boy Scout among the 60 odd kids there, so I was given the harder tasks to keep myself entertained.
On the first night, we were carrying these heavy wooden benches around and my partner dropped his end of the bench. Due to the sudden drop, the bench slammed into my foot, almost completely crushing it. I broke three toes, my foot swelled up to nearly twice its size, and the whole thing went purple. Despite me clearly being in tremendous pain, I was told to ‘suck it up’ because I was a Scout and should be able to handle it.
I was told to shove my half broken foot into my already too small tramping boots and keep up with everyone else for the next several days. Then some kid fell down a tiny six-foot hill on the last day and they called him an ambulance. This was six years ago and I am still fuming.”
People Fail To Grasp The Extent Of Their Mother’s Insanity
“My psycho mom called the police on my brother and said he was hitting her. My brother was only refusing to give her money to support her gambling addiction and grabbed her wrist when he saw her pull out a knife to keep her from slashing at him. My brother would never hit a woman.
Neither one of us talk to her anymore. She’s blown up our phones with guilt trips and lies, saying it’s our fault her life sucks and telling us she owns us as our mother. I left for the Navy when I got kicked out of the house at 17 to get away from home. My brother had to continue dealing with her for several years because he couldn’t join the military due to medical issues.
Our grandma (her mom) passed away and our uncle is in the hospital. But we don’t talk to that side of the family now because most of them have been ignorant to the toxicity and grip that our mother has had on us, which sucks because they are really good people.
I’ve changed my number twice. I check up on my siblings and eventually my number winds up in my great grandmother’s phone book where my mom gets a hold of it. I block her number and all family numbers that I’ve stopped talking to because of her. She’s still capable of leaving voicemails and getting ahold of various people I know to contact me.
My brother urges me not to get a restraining order since that would escalate the situation. She flips out and manipulates people to do things toward us. Though I’m safe, she knows where my brother lives.”
Incredibly Traumatizing, But His Reaction Was Very Brave
“When I was about 10 years old, I was walking a few blocks to the corner store carrying an empty liter of Coke so that I could cash in the bottle and get some food (this was decades ago when glass bottles were more valuable).
There was an apartment complex right next to the store and as I was walking past I heard a child screaming for help in Afrikaans. My immediate thought was that it was a domestic violence between mom/dad type of thing and I was scared to go see what I could help with when this 5 or 6-year-old boy rushed out of the complex crying profusely and screaming for help. I wanted to run away but I couldn’t. I had to go see if I could help this kid.
So I went up to him and he grabbed my hand and started pulling me into the complex, obviously dragging me to his apartment. I followed him and as we got inside his apartment I was scared as heck. I didn’t know what to expect but I had a feeling it’d be bad.
He dragged me into the bathroom and I saw his mom leaning over the bath in a housecoat. I think she was washing clothes in the bath and must have slipped. She was laying with her upper torso in the bath so that her face was submerged, and she wasn’t moving. I tried to grab her and pull her out of the water but she was really heavy. I eventually got her head out of the water but I was young and didn’t know any first aid.
I ran down the stairs to the corner store and asked the man to use the phone to call an ambulance (there was no 911). He initially said no, but after explaining that I thought a woman had drowned he relented and I used the phone book to look up emergency number and call an ambulance.
I didn’t go back, I was too scared. I don’t know what happened to the kid or his mom. It was the most unfair event I have ever witnessed. I’m shaking just thinking about it.”
Sometimes Teachers Just Like To Play Favorites
“I’m still salty about my 8th grade computer project. My teacher showed us a WW2 style plane game: vertical scroller, enemies come down, and you shoot at them. We were meant to create our own game, in teams. It could be a similar game or not because it was just a little demo.
I simply took the game, downloaded different icons, changed it all to a space theme, and resubmitted it. My partner did nothing and spent the entire six weeks of the class project playing Quake. The teacher routinely caught and yelled at him.
When we got our grades back, they were individual grades for the same project. I got an A, and my partner got an A+. I’m still mad at that teacher and how she would be late to class every single day because she was smoking in the car park.”
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She Made Everyone Feel Sorry For Her
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“When I was a schoolkid, I hung out with a bunch of poor misfits. We all wore hand-me-down clothes and qualified for free lunch at school, stuff like that involving lots of single-parent families and government assistance. This one girl in my group complained more than anyone else about how her family was poor. She often didn’t have lunch so the other kids would all chip in and either give her money or share our own lunches.
Two of the kids we hung out with were twin brothers. Their mom was raising them plus their older brother all on her own because their dad was incarcerated. He finally got out when we were teens, and pretty much immediately ran off and refused to pay child support.
Because of the circumstances, the boys started working to support their family really young, first doing odd jobs for folks and then getting real jobs as soon as they could. The two of them felt so sorry for this girl that they decided to surprise her for Christmas one year. They saved up what they could for months and bought her a brand new gaming system she’d been complaining about wanting. Meanwhile, she gave a few of us used games and books (obviously previously played/read by her) wrapped in tin foil instead of gift wrap, and we all shrugged it off because of course, she was poor.
A couple weeks after Christmas, the girl’s parents decided to let her throw her first small party for her friends at their house. Her dad picked us all up in their brand new minivan and then drove us to their brand new house. After we arrived, we got introduced to her new puppy and then given a tour of their home which included 5-bedrooms and a pool. Also notable was the girl’s bedroom, where her new game system sat alongside two other recent systems.
I found out later that her dad was an attorney and her mom was a medical assistant. Her parents’ combined income was 3-4x what my family made in a year, much less our friends who had worked their butts off to buy her that game system. Her idea of being ‘poor’ was based on her parents not buying her everything she wanted immediately.
The reason she never had lunch money? She saved what her folks gave her to buy things for herself while mooching off kids who were on free lunch. The reason she always gave us used stuff as gifts? Because she would have her parents buy a bunch of stuff ‘for her friends’ during the holidays, then keep it for herself while giving us stuff she no longer wanted. I’ll never forget the look on my friends’ faces as they slowly realized that the person they’d worked to support out of sympathy was actually just a spoiled brat.
After that happened, we gradually started cutting her off. She flipped her lid and caused a bunch of drama with me and at that point, I dropped her. Other people continued to let her hang around, but throughout the next year, she continued to treat them wrong. By the time we finished high school, she had no friends at all. She’s now 32 and never did anything useful with her life. I look her up every couple years and it seems like her parents are still supporting her while she tries to get strangers on the internet to GoFundMe her rent, without success.”
The Dentist Is Never Going To Believe The Kid
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“My sister and I both had braces and had to wear those rubber bands that fix your jaw or whatever. I wore my bands every single night, while my sister rarely wore them.
When we had our dentist appointment, the dentist took a look at my teeth and then gave me a disappointed, ‘You haven’t been wearing your bands, have you?’ I tried to tell her I always wore them, but she obviously didn’t believe me.
Then my sister got in the chair and our dentist said, ‘Wow! You’ve been wearing your bands! Good job!’ That was maybe 10 years ago and my teeth are still worse than my sister’s.”
“It Was On That Day I Learned The True Meaning Of Disappointment”
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“When I was in grade school, we had a final group assignment to design a community center with my teacher promising a lobster dinner for the group that had the highest mark. I had a bit of a crush on my teacher and thought, ‘Hey, lobster dinner.’
My group busted our butts designing the ‘Hijinx’ after-school community center, calling a long list of businesses to determine membership fees, cost of construction (we got hung up on a lot looking for prices of building materials), community outreach programs, and a whole lot more. We even helped the special needs kid in our group write a jingle, and we got the highest mark.
When it came time for our lobster dinner, my group stayed in the classroom during recess to enjoy the fruits of our labor. My teacher brought out our ‘lobster,’ which was a loaf of bread with googly eyes and paper lobster claws stuck on the sides. It was on that day I learned the true meaning of disappointment. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to be a real lobster dinner, but still, what the heck?”
The Effects Of His Adopted Brother Are Long-Lasting and Heartbreaking
“A friend I had when I was younger, whom my parents eventually adopted, groomed and began touching me at a young age. He had a rough childhood so everybody pitied him. When I grew up and high school taught me the reality of what we did, so I obviously despised him. But I kept quiet because we needed his check for rent or else I’d move for the 15th time, and I just wanted to keep going to the same school.
I would always hear how I should try to be more like him when he did something good for once. I had no rebellious phase as a kid, while he punched walls and screamed. I spent my money sparingly and saved, while he bought illegal substances. When we kicked him out for throwing food on the side of his bed and trying to fight my parents, I told them what he did to me during those years before high school. Two months later, they let him move back in for his check.
We went right back to dealing with anger and him running wild with his imagination. Over the next couple of years, he moved out and back a few times, then seemingly he was gone for good. My mother then decided to remember what he did and now tells everybody she meets anytime she brings him up. I’m still stuck with my parents and still ignored for what happened.
He spread his mental issues like an infection and I struggle to think about anything; my mind is just blank and lacking the motivation to even do the smallest of tasks, like my body is ignoring my brain. I’ve started punching my temples just to feel something, and I found out that razor blades are addicting. I’m still silent, passive, and stuck helping to pay for a house and food with 2 freeloading roommates who my father is too soft to kick out because they’re family. They never help out and are jobless while all I can manage is to go to work and sleep.
Then all I hear every day is how I should actually help around the house because putting away dishes apparently counts more than my $700-$1,100 a month. At this point, it’s a race for me to get health insurance and see a therapist or psychologist before it’s too late.”
Ain’t That The Way It Goes?
“When I was in 6th grade a kid came up to me and started calling my family all kinds of horrible insults, but I ignored him. This ticked him off more, so he repeated those things while banging my head against a concrete wall.
I took it, gritting my teeth against the pain. Finally, I’d had enough and spun him around to press him against the wall, telling him to knock it off. He burst out crying, and of course that’s the only thing the teacher saw. I get suspended, and he got coddled. It was bullcrap.”
Sometimes Fate Acts In Cruel and Unusual Ways
“A girl who lived down the street from me growing up died in a car crash. She was really young and hadn’t even finished school. Two or three years later, her younger sister (who my sister and I used to play with together) died the exact same way. The only one left was the middle child, their brother.
I could tell it absolutely crushed their family and I just remember going to the funeral and thinking, ‘Why? Why did they have to live through this tragedy not once, but twice?’ That much heartache has to be unbelievable and it’s incredibly unfair.
The brother was always a little prick growing up but man, I wish I could pull him aside now and tell him just how sorry I am that he has to live without his sisters and that if he needs anything, not to hesitate to ask. But I really never knew him well so he’d probably think that was weird. However I did find him on social media and it seems like he’s actually doing really well as he looks very happy, is in a relationship, and has a good support system. I still think of him and his family often.”