People Share Why They Will Never Forget A Stranger Who Probably Doesn't Even Remember Them

I worked with a sweet elderly black lady, Susan, in a major retail store. Susan was like a grandmother to me and I loved her dearly. One day a very well dressed white woman walked up to me and whispered "You need to keep an eye on her. Those people like to steal everything!" While pointing at Susan. OMG. What? I looked at her like she had 2 heads and said "Excuse me!?! She is the best employee we have, and the nicest person I've ever met. Kindly see yourself out of my store." The lady huffed, looked offended, and stormed out of the store. That was 12 years ago. F that racists B.

I found a puppy scammer on Craigslist and I still go on - years later - to flag all of their posts (multiple cities).

A woman cut in front of my mom at a bakery when I was maybe 8. My mom didn't say anything, just quietly put her hand on my shoulder. On the way home she said "some people carry so little inside they need to take from others." I still think about that woman every time someone cuts in line. I hope her bread was stale.

I was once invited to a wedding where I didn't know anyone except for the bride. When I sat down in church the woman I sat down next to rudely told me to sit somewhere else as I am not important enough to sit there (?). It was the last row with people in it so I had to sit alone in the last row while the spot next to her remained free. She also said it loud enough for everyone to turn around and look at me. Idk why but somehow it was just so humiliating and I regularly have to think about it and will never forgive her lol.

I was working at a theme park and a kid was sitting on a railing and dropped their shoe in a pond. There were signs everywhere to not sit on the railing.

The mother was making a big song and dance about it so I decided to try and retrieve the shoe. I had to climb over the railing, perch on a tiny ledge and lean right over the water with this grabby stick thing while hanging on with one arm.

I got the shoe. People waiting in line cheered.

The mother angrily grabbed the shoe, turned her back on me and didn't even say thank you.

This was 25 years ago. I still hate that woman.

That one lady in a flight from Dubai that took out my luggage out of the overhead compartment and dropped it on the floor, in order to put hers in.

It is not petty. Well, it is. Very late 1990s, my now wife and I were to spend summer in a small town on Mobile Bay, in Alabama USA. We arranged for an apartment but arrived to find its construction incomplete. The lessor knew of its state but did not tell us. She allowed us to arrive with no place to stay. It caused massive inconvenience and problems. She was dismissive. Here we are, nearly 30 years later, and I remember her, the address, and I do things every few years to cause her massive problems. I am not usually a petty or vindictive person. I think, in part, it's because she incorrectly thought that we were people who she could jerk or mistreat with impunity. It could be something as simple as every two or three years my wife or somebody mentions that time in Alabama and it gets me thinking, and then I get mad, and then I inconvenience her life from afar. She doesn't even know it's me.

My parents were on a trip to Greece and we had an older woman staying with the 4 of us kids for almost 2 weeks. She wasn’t family, but apparently my parents trusted her, lol. One evening after supper, my younger sister didn’t want dessert, she’s never liked pudding, and wanted to be excused from the table. This woman yelled at her and told her she wasn’t going anywhere until her vanilla pudding was gone. Little 6 yr old me stood by my sister and dared the woman to touch my sister or make her eat the pudding. As my older brother told my parents when they returned (mid ‘70’s, so maybe 1 call to check on us and that was it,) the look and challenge I gave the woman is something he’ll never forget. I was willing to throw down to protect my little sister over pudding. We still joke about how I almost took out our babysitter, and how our parents left us with this woman while they went to Greece. The following year when they went to France they flew our grandma in and she stayed with us without incident. My sister still doesn’t like vanilla pudding, and I still don’t like old ladies who try to push kids around.

I was staying at a hotel in Spain in a gay resort and went for breakfasts in the hotel restaurant. I put some bread in to the toasting machine (the one with the conveyor belt that takes ages) and went off to get the rest of my items as it went through. As I turned back to the toaster I saw this guy pick up my toast and go sit down. The British sense of justice and politeness and waiting your turn being violated made me furious. I made up a while back story as to how he was clearly French with that nose and attitude.


Not so strangely it turns out he lives in the same city as me and I see him out in bars and clubs sometimes. Even 9 years later I still get angry every time I see his snooty French looking face and big nose .

When I was 15, I used to surf weekly. Theres certain etiquette when it comes to being out there waiting for waves. One of the things you dont do, is cut-off another person who has the outside track to catch a wave. Its rude and can cause a person to get rolled over the wave and tumbled by it. The term is "snaking" This one guy snaked me 3x in one session. Kept calling me "kid". I was a kid, and he was a grown man. But I was still angry that he had been such a jerk. For the next 30 years, I still look for that guy and his blue striped board, every time I go to the beach. I dont go as often anymore. But I will hold onto that forever.

A drunk guy body slammed me at a festival when I was sat on the grass minding my own business. He just came up behind me and launched his entire body weight on top of me and then walked off mocking me and laughing. Could have very easily broken my neck or caused spinal injuries. Never forgiven that jerk for such a reckless and unprovoked attack.

We had just all moved to Florida and someone made fun of my four year old grandson’s New York Yankee cap he had on. This old guy ( I’m probably older than he was at the time now) started telling him he shouldn’t be wearing that hat and the many reasons he should wear another team’s hat. Dude, the kid is four. He probably couldn’t tell one Yankee player from another. He just wanted the same hat grandpa had. Still pisses me off and the kid is 21 now.

I was working at a sub shop in HS and the customer was upset about the price of his meal because I finished ringing him up and his coupon didn’t register to take off 14 cents. I was 17 and didn’t have the clearance to edit the transaction once his card had been charged, and stood therefor ten minutes while my manager finished his break as this ‘gentleman’ yelled at me from the other side of the register. My manager came in, immediately took over the situation and kicked the guy out; he was screaming at me and now escalating to profanity on his way out the door. I don’t remember the exact wording but something about being worthless and stupid and never amounting to anything because I couldn’t ring up an order right on a touchscreen. Turns out his coupon was expired.

The next day I’m at practice and a bunch of us are waiting just inside the school building for parents to arrive. I’m a captain and my coach had to leave early so I volunteered to linger at least until the middle schoolers get picked up. A 7th grader walks up to me and says “Hey, Dad, this is my captain. She’s awesome!” And I turn and lock eyes with the jerk who screamed at me the night before.

I remember just the direct eye contact as silence as neither of us spoke and stared each other down. He took his daughter by the elbow and pulled her away. It was so, so awkward, and when everyone who witnessed this exchanged asked me what it was about I said it was nothing because I didn’t want to embarrass the daughter/my young teammate.

The next day we were told she quit the team. Next I heard of her she’d left the school. Never saw her again. I think about her and her awful dad occasionally.

Went on a trip with my best friend from college, her husband (who we both knew from college), my husband, and a friend of my friend.

First time meeting the extra friend, who acted weirdly territorial like she wanted to prove that she was the best friend now and not me. (Which was absolutely true and would not have been contested by me, as my friend and I lived in different states by that point whereas they worked together and saw each other all the time.)

Playing cards against humanity the first night. My friend’s husband made a great combo that had me absolutely cracking up. Extra friend cut through the laughter to say “Why don’t you just marry him already 🙄”

Everyone went absolutely silent.

It was such a weirdly juvenile thing to say from a 30yo woman and I don’t think anyone had any idea how to react. Definitely set the tone for the rest of the trip, trying to have a good time while dealing with this weirdly resentful new person.

When I was 5, I had a babysitter for the first time (my Gram always babysat me before). The babysitter was an older lady and she was fine until she made me a pb&j and told me I couldn't dunk it in the milk. I remember thinking...ooooooohhhhh I'm telling! And I told my dad and never saw that lady again.

I was 13. My friend and I were at a hotel in Bangkok where she was staying. She’s Australian and I’m Thai.

A cleaner saw us and probably assumed I didn’t speak Thai. She mumbled to herself, “Wow, the fat one is REALLY fat.” And I knew she was talking about me. I felt terrible. Still think about that incident now that I’m in my 40s.

A dude in the movie theater lobby started shouting out spoilers for avengers endgame.

Years ago (petty, right?) I had assigned parking at my college apartment. We also had one of only ten tandem spaces out of about 30, which means my space held two cars. During spring break when the parking lot was almost entirely empty, I discovered a car parked behind me, blocking me in, when I had to leave to take a friend to the train station. We had to go around knocking on doors to find the car owner and it turned out another student’s parent owned the car - and took his sweet time walking as slowly as possible to come move his car. I’m still so irritated at how absurd it was for this idiot to choose to park behind the only other car in the parking lot when there were so many empty spaces.

I entered a 20 page report into a state competition where there were multiple events when I was in high school. When the awards ceremony happened, my report got second place which of course is still great imo because top 3 moved to nationals.

The same day though, I received the scoresheets where two judges rated the report out of 100 for a maximum of 200 points. I heard that the first place report got 196 points whereas my report got 199 points with a 5 point automatic deduction to make it 194 points.

I looked at the reason for the 5 point deduction and it was because the judge said my state name wasn’t on the cover of the report… but it 100% was right there. So I missed out first place because my judge could not simply read. Still feel strongly about it.

My mom held a grudge for decades against a woman who wouldn’t buy Girl Scout cookies from me (about 33 years ago). We moved out of that neighborhood 23 years ago, but if you ask my mom today, she would still be mad about it.