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

In 3rd grade when we had a field day, my class was divided into two teams and we had to do various activities to win and participate in a pizza party at the end of the day. I was part of the winning team but the teacher who was handling the party didn't know our class well and some of us, myself included, were told we couldn't join the pizza party because we were on the losing team. We weren't. I'm still pissed about that.

When I was 13 I went to go see Lady Gaga at the Roseland Ballroom, very small venue with maybe 2000 people attending. She has never done a venue that small since and probably never will again.

At the time I'd just figured out I was gay, and Gaga was my lifeline to accepting myself.

After the show, I begged my parents to go to the stage door and we did. I was behind someone else waiting for her to come out and sign things and when she finally did, after she spoke to the person in front of me they moved aside so I could go meet my idol. Then some idiot darted in front of me and grabbed Gaga's wig like a psycho. Obviously her security got involved and ushered her into a car, but I never got to thank her for helping me accept myself and never got my merch signed.

I'll probably never get another chance like that and 12 years later I'm still salty about it. If I ever see that insane guy again I'd throw hands, but realistically it's instead just a very silly grudge I will hold forever against a stranger that likely doesn't remember me at all.

I was on a 5 hour train ride, and a guy kept clicking his pen open and closed the entire trip. 300 minutes of *click….click….clickclickclick……click* I was ready to burst.

There were two lines at the DMV, one was insanely long and the other short. I asked a worker which line I needed to stand in to get my learner's permit photo. She told me that I needed to be in the long one. That's ok. I don't hate her. She made a mistake. But after an hour in the long line, I approached the window and met my archenemy.

"Learner's permit? I can take your picture here but you should have been in that line."

"I was told to stand in this one."

"No one told you to stand in this line."

"Are you serious? Why would I--"

"Stand back."

And that, kids, is how I wound up with an angry Learner's Permit photo. This was fifteen years ago.

When I was about ten I was in Boy Scouts, and we were at this camp in Virginia. They were doing a thing where if you picked up a can from the trail you could turn it in at a trading post for a penny. A can of soda was 25¢, so I was collecting cans toward that goal.

It was going great, I had 20 cents already and I had my five cans. I turned them in and asked for five cents. The dude running the trading post gave me five pennies, since I didn't specifically ask for a nickel, and then pointed to the sign which said that they did not accept pennies. The pennies that he had just given me. No amount of pleading would make him budge.

I never got that can of soda, and I'm still salty. I collected 25 cans off of the trails over the course of a week and over 50 miles of hiking.

In 2009 a guy at Subway put one — ONE — olive on my sub after I said olives. Not "an olive." Olives. Plural. I think about this man at least twice a month. I don't know his name. I will never forgive him. Every time I'm at a Subway I silently audit the olive distribution. It has been 17 years.

A guy parked in my parking space once. I couldn't look him in the eye without wanting to punch him. How dare he!

This was 25 years ago.

When I was in 3rd grade, I had a desk at the back of the room with a tiny goalpost and backdrop on the corner of it. When I’d finish my tests or class work early, I’d spend my free time flicking tiny paper footballs through the uprights.

Well, our normal teacher had to take medical leave and we had a substitute for two months. She never said anything about my goalpost, never mentioned having a problem with it. I had to miss a day for a doctors appointment and she tore my uprights down and threw them away. I’m 47 now and I’m still bitter.

I lost a a trivia contest in 6th grade because my science teacher didn't believe me (or knew I was right but was mad I came up with something) when I said "cyan" for a color that started with C. Then she told me to look it up and all she had were kids dictionaries with no cyan.

When I was 19 I worked in apartment leasing and they hired a new manager who fired me for not going around door to door to do lease renewals on my day off.

I was too young to know this was probably illegal. She also told me I was obviously stupid because I asked questions about office procedures, etc. Apparently smart people don’t ask questions.

I ended up eventually going to college and, ultimately, getting a Ph.D. in molecular biology and doing research at an Ivy League lab. They didn’t mind me asking questions, lol.

Oh my gosh, let me tell you. So at my school we used to do a dance competition and the rules were that you couldn't have props or dress up. My class worked hard to get the choreography down and we were winning, like all the teachers judging were really into our dance and loved it. The last class came in... They were dressed up with props. Innocent little child me thought, surely not, they're going to get disqualified. Nope. All they did was stand there and play air guitar with their props. They won and I'm still not happy about it. This happened like 15 years ago but I'm not ready to let it go.

Mainly people who beeped at my fiancée when she would stall at the lights while learning to drive. It makes my blood boil.

What good is it beeping angrily at a learner driver with L plates on?

Buying a few pieces from a co-op art gallery along the Oregon Coast. The shop attendant (who was also one of the artists featured there) was making small talk and asked where we were staying. We told her we were staying in a gorgeous apartment above [famous local restaurant], both of which were owned by the same people who also operated [other local art gallery]

She asked us if we had checked out their gallery yet and I said no, but…

She interrupted me to say “Good, you couldn’t afford anything in there anyway.”

I had been about to explain that the gallery was closed for the duration of our stay, but that we had purchased one of their sculptures that they had featured in the apartment.

I know she was more just making a gauche observation on how expensive their work is rather than any comment on us in particular, but I thought it was such a rude thing to say, especially to someone who was actively making a purchase in her shop.

Also just kind of reeked of artist rivalry, like she was trying to drive business away from them. Not a good neighborly look.

In 5th grade, around 2001, I got my ear pierced. White boys with earrings was rare back then, at least where I grew up. My gym coach, who I already disliked, said “earrings are for gay men” and I looked “gay” for having one. 

He ended up becoming the vice principal at my middle school and was always being creepy to both boys and girls. He eventually got fired, but I don’t think he got charged for anything. This was 15 years or so before Me Too.

I had applied for a job at a department store (I think it was a JC Penny) when I was 19. I checked on the application that I was only interested in permanent, full-time work; I did not check the boxes for seasonal or part-time. Got called for an interview and I confirmed on the phone that this was for a full-time, permanent position.

Got to the interview wearing a professional dress and was confused to be ushered into a room full of teenagers in jeans. A manager entered, introduced herself as Mercedes, looked at me (overdressed compared to the rest of the room), and said, "You're all here to interview for part-time, temporary positions, so you can just relax."

I said, "I was told this was a full-time, permanent position? I didn't apply for part-time or seasonal."

Mercedes looked at me like I was an idiot and without missing a beat, said, "**NO**. If you don't want to be here, you can leave." So I left. I could not believe this woman had both wasted my time and then acted like I was the idiot for being there.

It's been 25 years and wherever Mercedes is, I would not feel bad if she was having a miserable life.

My grade school made us all do something sport related every Wednesday after school during winter whether we wanted to or not. So I was stuck in a five pin bowling alley from October to April. The owners of the lanes were generous enough to hand out small prizes in April which was the only thing I was looking forward to. The day came and they drew for prizes for girls and prizes for boys. I kept waiting for my name to be picked from the boys barrel. Instead my name was in the girl’s barrel and they looked around looking for a girl with a boy’s name. I pointed out it was me and I was clearly a boy. They could’ve just put my name into the boy barrel and picked another girl name. Heck, they could’ve just handed me a girl prize since the prizes were all the same. Instead they took one look at me and tossed my name into the trash. Everyone else got prizes except me.

I was walking down the road and two women were walking towards me. They were talking to each other and not paying attention to their surroundings. They swerved to my side of the pavement and kept walking.

When they reached me, they didn't move over so I just stood there, waiting for them to go around.

It was petty but I was so annoyed that they swerved into my path and expected me to move out of their way.

It was 10 years ago and I'm still annoyed by their rudeness when I think about it.

I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, playing with a bunch of other kids at someone's house for a playdate. Out of all the kids, there was this younger little boy, probably 1 or 2 years old, who was fascinated with any toy I picked up and played with - me, being the nice kid, once I realised they were interested in what I was holding, I placed it in front of them, which they happily took, and I'd find something else to play with.

After the third or fourth time I did this I realised he just dropped whatever he was holding and just wanted whatever I had at the time, so I kinda just kept playing with the Hot Wheels car I had and let him watch.

Then his mum came in, saw us playing, proceeded to get in my face and scold me for not sharing, snatched the car out of my hand while looking me in the eyes, and give it to her son. The son accepts it... then immediately drops it once she leaves and I pick up something else.

I have no idea where or when this happened, but decades later I can still picture that woman's blonde hair and blue eyes as she kneeled down to get in my face, and feel salty about it.

Story 1: I made a couple pans of brownies for my son't Blue & Gold Boy Scout awards ceremony. I arrived early to help in the kitchen and set the pans down in the dining area knowing I had to cut them up later (easier to transport uncut).

A few hours later a number of people were in the kitchen helping me and a woman waltz's into the kitchen with MY brownie pans and says "I have these brownies I need to cut up" and everyone in the kitchen is thanking HER for them, like she baked them! Do you think she said something like, "Oh, I didn't make them they were sitting out there"? NO! She just says "you're welcome" and takes all the credit.

I didn't know what to say without sounding like a jerk, but I'm still fuming about it lol.


Story 2: I'm camping with our Boy Scout troop and brought a bag of licorice I intended to share. I set the bag on the main picnic table and went to set up my tent etc, and a little while later a woman is walking around with MY licorice handing it out to people and they're all thanking HER!! Again, how am I going to respond w/o sounding petty?

She was the first customer i had to serve on my first day at my first job at 16, she didn’t even let me get my greeting out before she literally threw her change at me and started demanding “tea!”tea!” and didn’t even look me in the eye. I was so shocked at her audacity that i held the grudge for the past 8 years. Saw her fall on the bus last month best day of my life.