It's understandable that complete strangers aren't always going to be kindest and welcoming people, but these people were just straight up rude! These Redditors share the rudest thing a stranger ever did to them. Content has been edited for clarity.
Wheeling Meanie
“20 years ago when I was in the first grade, there was a child in a wheelchair in my class. This kid was MEAN! He would purposely run over the other kids’ feet, throw things, curse at us, and destroy our projects (ok so he probably had some emotional issues but he was still a bully).
Since I was a good student, the teacher sat him next to me and asked me to help him when I could. I really did try, but he was always rude. One day while I was in the bathroom, he took out scissors and cut up my favorite troll folder. MY FAVORITE!
When I got back and saw it I flipped. I pushed all his books off his desk and told him to pick them up himself. He started shaking his fist at me and saying, ‘Why I otta, I otta…’ and I shouted, ‘What are you gonna do? RUN after me?’ The teacher saw this and I was sentenced to 2 weeks of ‘sensitivity’ training. Nothing happened to him. I’m still livid.”
Gone With The Wind
“Back in the day I was riding in the Spadina streetcar in Toronto. It was packed with little old Chinese ladies, mothers with kids, etc. Then University students start getting on. Two young morons get on and stand right at the front.
When a mother in front of them gets up to leave the streetcar, they ignore all the elderly people nearby and take the seats. Then these two guys start insulting all the ‘chinks’ and ‘gooks,’ talking about people as if they couldn’t hear or understand them.
A very large black man moves to the front of the bus and looms over them. You can see them thinking a certain n-word, but this guy was BIG, and you could see they thought better of using it, but were making unsubtle comments about fat people, etc.
Big guy leans forward and they flinch, but he’s just grabbing the stop indicator. They know they flinched, so they start talking more trash. Big black guy turns his back to them and let loose a fart with the vibrating butt cheeks for 7 seconds or so, and then got off the streetcar. Their faces were hilarious, and quite a few people were laughing at them.”
She Freaked Out…At A Baby
“My wife, 1 year old daughter, and I were on a very short flight from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles (about 45 min). Of course my daughter cried for a few minutes when the plane took off, but we quickly calmed her down. For the rest of the flight my daughter was well-behaved, laughing, and even playing with another passenger in the seat behind us.
About 30 minutes into the flight, my daughter laughed really loud, almost screaming, and of course my wife and I both told her to, ‘Shh,’ and, ‘Not so loud,’ but what else are we going to do, really? A lady 5-6 rows stands up and yells at us, ‘Can’t you shut that kid up? We’re all tired of hearing it!’
I’m a pretty laid back, non-confrontational guy, so I just looked at her, completely stunned. My wife is the polar opposite. Our daughter landed on my lap as my wife spun around in her chair. ‘She’s 2 years old ,what do you want me to do, tape her mouth shut? We’re all tired of looking at your fat butt in that solar system skirt, but we’re keeping it to ourselves!’
She earned a clap and laugh from the other passengers and we were told numerous times, ‘Ignore her, your daughter’s beautiful.’
Icing on the cake was that the solar system lady had to ride the shuttle between terminals with us, and we sat right next to her and tickled our daughter the whole way.”
Soccer Mommy Menace
Ollyy/Shutterstock
“When I was 16 I worked two jobs – as a lifeguard at a pool in the mornings and at Subway in the evenings. One night it was about half an hour before we closed. An hour beforehand, you get out all the bread that’s needed for the morning shift, slice/prep any veggies that need it, and stock the fridge.
I’m in the back (but you could see over the counter that I was working at from the front), just slicing away. Some soccer mom comes in, orders 3 6-inch subs all the same, and my 2 coworkers start to go at it. She sees me and has a huge fit about how she apparently isn’t as important as tomatoes and how I was probably ‘too dumb to see and help her.’ It was strange since she was getting helped by my two coworkers, but whatever.
The next morning at the pool, good old soccer mom comes in, goes to the locker room without paying, gets dressed, doesn’t shower, and jumps in the pool. I watch all this, mouth agape, as she swims about 3 laps, hops out, goes into the locker room, comes back out with 3 cans of Slim Fast, gets back in the pool, and chugs all 3.
I stroll over and ask her to leave the pool, as we don’t allow food or drink. She glares at me, saying how she paid to get in, so she’ll exercise all she wants. I say, ‘#1 you didn’t pay, #2 you better pay or I’m calling the cops, and #3 you realize if 1 can is a meal, you just drank an entire day’s worth of meals while ‘exercising.’ Oh, and if you order 3 6-inch sandwiches, it’s just the same as eating a footlong with a 6-inch alongside. You should really diet better.’
Her face was priceless.”
Terminal Trouble
“It was last year at one of the smaller London airports. The queue to the security check-in was very long, doubling back on itself 10 times or more, in total it was about a 30-minute wait.
Everybody was waiting patiently, except these three German guys. They passed under the ropes and forced themselves into the queue about 5 people from the checkpoint, just before me. When I politely admonished them, I was told off. That was enough.
They went through the metal detector and one of them was being patted down by a security officer while two others were waiting. I quietly called one of the officers at my side of the gate and told him that I know a little German, and heard those three guys talking about hiding something well to get it through the security.
20 seconds later they were taken away for questioning and, I hope, for a little bit of good old butt probing, but I don’t know what happened next. I was simultaneously a little bit ashamed of my actions and very content with the outcome.”
She Looked Like A Fool
“A couple of years ago I was working as a barista at a bookstore cafe. One weekend I tore up my foot playing with my goddaughter, so I ended up on crutches. Running a busy espresso bar is actually pretty physical work for a food service job, so my coworkers and I decided that I would sit on a bar chair behind the counter and run the cash register.
So I’m sitting on my chair and a woman comes up to order her drink. I take her order and tell her that my coworker will have her drink up in a minute. She gave me the nastiest look and said, ‘Why can’t you just make it now?’
I opened my mouth to explain, but she cut me off. ‘I don’t want to hear any excuses for your laziness, I just want my drink.’ Keep in mind that while I had grown tired of explaining my injury to every single customer the day before, my crutches were still clearly visible behind the counter.
I’m an experienced enough retailer to know how to handle these situations in the most personally satisfying way. I put on my best contrite servant face and said, ‘Yes, of course ma’am, I’m very sorry. I’ll make it for you right away,’ grabbed my crutches, and struggled laboriously to my feet. ‘It’ll just take a second, why don’t you sit down and wait? I’ll call your name when it’s ready.’ The look on her face was absolutely priceless.
Turns out that it’s really hard to make a blended coffee drink and hold your crutches in place, so I actually did have to put weight on my foot. It really hurt, so my wincing as I handed her the drink was genuine. She looked thoroughly embarrassed–probably because she noticed the three or four regulars giving her the evil eye–and she didn’t even apologize before booking it out of the store, never to be seen again.”
Immature Imbeciles
“One time I went to a climbing area with some friends in my brand new car. On the way in, the police stopped us and asked us if we were attending the ‘Prom Party.’ Not being locals and it being maybe 10 or 11 am, we were a bit confused.
We parked and were also surprised to see some guys, too old to be going to prom, already partying. We ignored them and went climbing.
At the end of the day, maybe 5 pm, we headed back to the car. As we passed the guys they start yelling at us, telling us to ‘go back to where we came from’ and stuff much more crude.
We got to the car and could smell urine. The dirtbags had peed up and down my car on all of the door handles. The rage I had was nearly uncontrollable. What was I supposed to do? There were more of them then us and they were wasted. I’m still pretty angry when I think about this.”
Pudgy Pesterer
“I used to be a server at Macaroni Grill in a city where it was probably the nicest restaurant, so the customers we had acted like they were in a five star restaurant, demanding the same level of service.
Usually, this wasn’t an issue; I was a good server and was never really overwhelmed, plus we had a good staff that helped each other out, so even if things got tough I could just ask.
This one time a party of 30 came in and sat in our fanciest room. The leader of the group, a small middle-aged man, balding, overweight and outspoken, came up to me and introduced himself. I thought, ‘How nice, someone with manners,’ and continued serving them.
The issue came up when the entire group of 30 needed their salads sent out and their drinks refilled. I had my partner on the table start refilling their drinks while I took out the salads five at a time on a tray. Knowing the middle-aged man was the reason for the meal, I served him and his wife their plates first, and he kindly asked me for some roll-up silverware as he didn’t have one. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring it when I have all the salads out.’
At that moment, one of the few kids in the group knocked their drink all over the table, my partner went to clean it up, and I refilled the remaining drinks and went back to the salad serving. When I was done, maybe three minutes later, I walked over to the macro station and grab a roll-up, only to turn around and be face-to-face with the middle-aged man.
He sticks his fat finger into my chest and jabs me with each word, ‘I asked for silverware, how am I supposed to eat my salad without a fork, you idiot?’ Being a tall guy, I kind of peer down at him and just hand him the roll-up in my hand, not saying anything. I follow him back to the table and ask if everyone is okay. Everything is going well, so I proceed to enter their orders into the system.
This is a laborious process for such a large group with their own additions and subtractions to each plate, and right as I’m finishing my manager comes up to me and tells me I’m off the table. Naturally, I’m shocked, seeing as everything was fine. My manager tells me the middle-aged man complained that I was rude and wasn’t moving quick enough.
Now that would’ve been fine if it were true, but I had managed to get drinks and salads out to a group of 30 less than 15 minutes after their arrival, which is good time by any measure.
Unfortunately, my section was with the large table, so I had to serve the tables around this group. The first time I went back I heard him loudly exclaim to my partner that had taken over the table, ‘What happened to the other guy?! Did he retire? Hahaha.’
My partner didn’t say anything, but I turned around and smiled at him. ‘No sir, I didn’t retire, you asked that I stop serving your table.’ He was silent, and his wife and several other people looked at him with quizzical faces. His wife asked, ‘Why did you do that?’ to which he had no answer. As the group was leaving, this man’s wife had him walk up to me, hand me $20, and apologize. It was a pretty nice ending to an otherwise awful situation.”
Rich And Rude, A Classic Combo
“About ten years ago, I got to visit Europe with some friends and a professor. One of the friends grew up pretty wealthy, and he got pretty much anything he asked for. At the time, Oakleys were all the rage, and extremely expensive ($200-300 a pop).
This guy managed to lose him, and had his parents sent him money for new ones…not once, but twice. So after this guy has dropped $600+ on sunglasses within a week, he had the audacity to tell us he didn’t have enough money for his meal after he’d already eaten it. He’d also ordered a ton of really expensive food.
So everyone else was forced to fork over our own money to pay for his meal. When we got back to the hotel he thanked us for the ‘gift’ and denied that he owed us any money, since it was a friendly favor. Clearly.”
She Still Got The Sweater…
“I was a retail employee for a fancy department store for a couple of years. I will never forget one particular night. I was cleaning up the sales floor when I saw a cute little sweater on the floor.
I picked it up and quickly realized it was a used sweater that someone had either dropped or forgotten. I was walking up to the registers to place it inside the lost and found bin when this lady snatched it from my hands and asked how much it cost.
I tried to explain that it was a lost item and that it belonged to someone and they might come back to get it. She didn’t speak English very well, but she started screaming at me that I was racist because I did not want to sell her the sweater.
She then brought her husband over and he started yelling at me. I was just a teenage girl by the way, and they demanded to see a manager and asked for me to be fired. The manager ended up selling them the sweater because she didn’t want any more problems.”
Who Do They Think They Are?
“Back in August of 2001, my family and I were boarding a Southwest flight and were about 1/3 of the way down from the front. We’re in the tube, and we hear commotion behind us. A pair of women are pushing past everyone, and no one’s stopping them.
My brother-in-law and I look at each other and think the same thing: eff them. So together with our wives, we make a wall, blocking their access to cut any more.
The pair arrives behind us and starts yelling various obscenities at us. ‘You can wait in line like everyone else,’ I said. I was in an orange shirt and I shave my head. She looks at me and says ‘You! You probably just escaped from prison!’ I guess that passes for smack. The two of them banter back and forth in their native tongues before cursing at us some more.
They’re still going at it as we get into the cabin and make our way to our seats. As they pass by, she looks at my wife and shouts, ‘And your wife! She doesn’t even have a chest! Hardly a woman!’ (my wife just laughs). There was some more back and forth, but eventually, they found seats further back.
About 2 minutes later, a flight attendant stops at our chairs to ask what was going on. We tell her, and the people behind us nod their heads. A few moments later, the two women shuffled back past us as they were lead off the plane. We got free drinks on the flight, so I guess everything went better than expected.”
Cruel Kids
“In second grade we read a book about slavery. I am a Hispanic male, and we learned about the slaves having darker skin. That same day at lunch everyone made me the ‘schools slave,’ and did a lot of mean things.
They would throw stuff on the ground to make me pick up, make me give them stuff, and wouldn’t let me join their games. I went along with it because I thought I did something wrong and needed to be punished. I kept going with it for a few weeks until my mom found out and told the school. Children can be cruel.”
Ridiculous Roommate
“Some guy I took in as a roommate a few months ago ended up stealing checks of mine and cashing them.
He also left with bills due and a bunch of stuff still in his room like bottles full of pee, but the stealing checks out of my personal stuff was the worst. Knowing he was going through my stuff is so creepy.”
Bamboozling Bozos
“When I was younger I carried a backpack around at basketball games. It was filled with bottles of Bud Light, which I would sell to patrons on behalf of the venue. I hated this job more than anything.
It was extremely humiliating. Imagine carrying 3 cases on your back and having to lug it up and down flights of stairs for wasted guys who are only buying it off you for a laugh.
On this particular day, a guy yells from about 10-15 rows up ‘Oi, brew boy, come here!’ He then turns to his mates, high fives them, and they all laugh uncontrollably. So I arrive, and they all try to keep straight faces because it was the funniest thing that had happened to these dip sticks today.
The guy asks, ‘Can I have four?’ I say, ‘Sure, that will be forty bucks’. His brain ticks over and then he says, ‘But they are only $5 at the bar. Shouldn’t that be $20?’ I say, ‘The bar is down the stairs and out the door, and I’m here now so if you want your drinks it will be $40.’
He thinks about it and then gives me the $40. I give him his beverages, then I put twenty in the cash bag and twenty in my pocket. The look on his face was priceless…he had no words. His friends all lost it laughing. It’s fair to say that I used that trick more than once after that incident.”
Thoughtless Theater Antics
“The last time I told a couple in a theater to please be quiet, the girl flipped me off and the guy tried staring me down. When it continued, I got up and left to get a manager (I paid $12 to see this movie and gosh darnit I will see it).
I barely made it out the door when I hear a ‘Hey!’ turned around, and the guy got in my face, shoved me, and told me how I shouldn’t be making trouble for him and his girl.
An usher saw it happen and told the guy to leave or she’d call the cops. The guy goes to get in her face when his girlfriend comes out and throws a fit about how I am ruining the movie for her and doing nothing but causing her and her boyfriend troubles. ‘We just wanted a good date night!’, ‘How dare you!’, etc.
The usher left to get the manager, who told the couple they had to leave and that he was calling the cops (he pulled out his cell phone and everything). In the end, they left and I got a refund plus a free movie pass for my troubles.”
Mountainside Maniac
“I was skiing at Killington a few weekends ago, and my friend and I were waiting in line to get on the chairlift. We were almost next to get on when I hear some lady behind me declare, ‘We’re next.’
I figure she can’t be talking to us, because she was clearly behind us. Then she holds her ski pole up in front of my face and yells, ‘I SAID we’re next.’ The only comeback I had at the time was to smugly say, ‘I don’t speak English,’ which was perfect because she then started screaming and having a mini hissy fit, screaming ‘YES YOU DO!!!!!’ to which I replied, ‘You don’t know me!’
I can’t believe that lady wouldn’t wait an extra 15 seconds to get on her lift.”