Some secrets are better kept to ourselves and we would never reveal them to anyone, not even our closest friends. At the same time, however, hearing the secrets of others can sometimes be enjoyable.

This is especially true when the biggest secret they revealed to us involves a story of revenge. Getting even with somebody is something that is on many of our minds, and this proves it.

Some people may consider these stories of revenge to be an act of bravery and others may consider them to be an act of trickery. You will have to read them for yourself and decide which is the truth.

1. Pregnancy Is Definitely An Excuse To Sit Down

“Back story: This happened when I was pregnant while in the Navy and got sent to a limited duty station.

I essentially worked in an office full of pregnant/injured sailors with a couple of supervisors who were absolute jerks to the pregnant women (because we all got pregnant on purpose to avoid sea duty, of course).

I happened to be the most senior pregnant woman there at that time, senior enough to know my rights and to call out bs.

One of the things we were still required to do is PT (work out, for you civilians) 3 times a week, within the bounds of our physical limitations.

For pregnant women, this typically meant no sit-ups, push-ups or jumping jacks, no standing/walking for more than 15 minutes, and running at our own discretion.

Typically, we were allowed to do our own thing as long as we did some kind of work out (stretching and yoga balls counted), for the 30-45 minute duration.

We had requested to be allowed to attend the gym’s pregnancy yoga class, but were denied as it started at 10 am (‘middle’ of the workday, leaving us 30 unproductive minutes before lunch). For the most part, we women were left alone.

There were some instances of jekery, where the men in charge would decide that all of us, including the women that were 7-8 months pregnant, were able to do whatever hare-brained activity they thought up (like running in the rain).

I am typically able to shut those down pretty quick. Needless to say, I wasn’t very popular with our supervisors, but I always had documentation to back me up.

As I entered my third trimester, my anemia kicked in full gear and I started getting super lightheaded and having tunnel vision.

Regardless, I never called in late, always made it to work on time and did my yoga ball exercises during PT. One morning, I started having tunnel vision and slipped off my yoga ball. As I was sitting there trying to put my head between my legs, someone grabbed my shoulder and started yelling at me to ‘get off my behind and freaking PT,’ along with some other crap about how being pregnant was not an excuse to sit down.

Once my vision cleared, I stood up and faced my direct supervisor (LPO), who was still giving me crap. I told him that I couldn’t continue PT and would need to sit out the rest of the time, even producing my medical chit that stated I was allowed to ‘rest as needed. LPO wasn’t having it and told me I wasn’t allowed to sit down during PT and that if I wanted to sit, I should go to medical.

Cool.

I asked one of the girls to take me to medical, and he started yelling about how I needed to get myself there.

I looked him in the eye and said, ‘I am about to pass out. I am in no condition to drive.

If you will not let someone else take me to medical, I am calling the ambulance now.’ This would launch an investigation (workplace injury and whatnot) of course, and also involve paperwork for LPO to do, so he relented but told me I had to find my own ride back to work.

So I get driven to medical. I tell the ob-gyn desk that I have been having dizzy spells and my supervisor wants me to PT. Yes, despite what is said on my medical chit.

I get seen by a nurse, get some blood sucked out of me and ushered into the ob-gyn department head’s office.

Apparently he had overheard me. I tell him what happened and the past attempts to force the pregnant women to do more than they are allowed to.

Doc asks where we PT. I tell him. He raises his eyebrow. And proceeds to inform me that he is VERY familiar with the particular gym that we PT in, and that it was considered a ‘hazard zone’ for pregnant women as there are a couple of basketball courts next to the yoga balls (too close to contact sports), and also that as per the manual any command requiring their pregnant women to be involved in any kind of organized PT (making us show up at a certain location at a certain time counts as organized) are required to submit a PT plan for us through the chain of command (this involves going through 3 senior/master chiefs and 4 officers, including our captain) to be approved by the closest affiliated ob-gyn department head (him) before they were allowed to subject us to any kind of PT.

He then proceeded to print out the specific pages of the instruction manual, highlight the pertinent parts, stamp, sign and attach his business card to it and told me to take that to my LPO and have him call him if he had any questions or would like to show proof of such a PT plan for our command.

He then wrote down his private extension on the back of another business card and told me to call him if I have any more problems.

He also personally wrote me a new medical chit that says that I should be allowed to ‘rest at member’s discretion and only perform work that member feels that she can safely perform.’ They were having me do things like move heavy boxes of paperwork and test live equipment!!!

While all this was happening, my bloodwork had come back showing stupidly low iron levels, so he had me increase my iron dosage and gave me a week off of work ‘just to make sure that that solves that problem.’ I get taken back to work by medical’s duty driver.

I walk into my office and immediately get called into chief’s office to get reamed out for ‘being late and missing PT.’ Apparently LPO had failed to inform him that HE had ordered me to go to medical. LPO stood in the corner with a poop-eating grin on his face.

As chief is giving me the knife hand, I pull out my paperwork from medical and place it on his desk.

I then calmly proceeded to explain how Captain OBGYN Department Head would like to see our command PT plan for pregnant women and that he had kindly attached his business card if they had any questions for him.

LPO read the highlighted portions and went, ‘You would actually go this far?’

Me: ‘I don’t know what you mean. You told me to go to medical if I needed to sit down, so I did. This is what I was given at medical. Looks like there is Naval instruction related to this that we should be following.

Oh, by the way, here is a copy of my new physical limitations signed by Captain OBGYN Department Head and medical leave for a week. If you don’t have any more questions, I’ll see you next Wednesday.’

From that day onwards, the pregnant women in my office were allowed to PT any time during the workday that they wished to as long as they did it 3x/week.

This meant that we were all now able to attend the 10 am pregnancy yoga classes. Amazingly, work production did not go down because we are (surprise!) effective at getting our work done regardless of what time we started. Except now, LPO had to do all the heavy lifting and live electrical work until we got someone to show up who did not have such limitations because the women were all suddenly issued new medical chits signed by Captain OBGYN Department Head, specifically preventing them from doing such things; with relevant Naval instruction highlighted and stapled to their chits.”

2. Refusing To Do Homework Since I’m Going To Pass Anyways

“This was many years ago when I was in high school, but it is still one of my proudest academic coups.

Backstory: I was a gifted kid in an IB (International Baccalaureate) program. I also had undiagnosed ADHD and tested well but didn’t consistently complete homework, especially if it was busywork.

I’m in IB History class in my sophomore year. We get assigned pages upon pages of reading and notes for homework every night, and the notes are THE most tedious bullcrap. There’s a really specific format we have to use that involves splitting the page in half, writing a fact from the text on one side, a couple of sentences of “analysis” of that fact on the other, and 2-3 sentences summarizing everything you’ve written at the bottom of the page.

We also had quotas for how many pages of notes we had to do. (I don’t remember the exact ratio because I never ever hit it but it was like a 40-page reading needed 20 pages of notes.) They took FOR-EV-ER, there often weren’t actually enough “key facts” to analyze, and everyone BS’ed the heck out of them to hit their page count.

They were also the first thing on the chopping block if we had too much homework (which we always did). And we would get graded down for not hitting the quota, not following the format, or for having poor quality content. Everyone hated them with a passion, especially me.

Our teacher got sick of people BSing their notes, complaining about their notes, or just not turning them in at all, which happened more often than not.

So, she announced at the beginning of the new term that anyone who missed a notes assignment would get an incomplete instead of a zero, so it wouldn’t affect your grade, and if you did well on the final, any missing assignments would be waived. But if we didn’t do well, they would become zeros, and our grade would drop.

She intended this to just be temporary grace for the good students, so they could afford to miss an assignment here and there and not ruin their GPA. But she was not prepared for the unintended consequences I was about to inflict.

This announcement was absolute music to my ears.

You see, not only were our notes busywork, but they were POINTLESS busywork because all the material from the reading would be covered on the PowerPoint in class the next day.

So, I would always just pay attention and take notes in class, only do some of my homework, ace the final because I had still learned the material, and because homework was only 35% of the overall grade, I’d still usually scrape a B in the class, which was fine by me.

So, naturally, when I hear we don’t “have to” do notes, I accept the HECK out of that challenge. I decided right then and there that I would be doing no history homework for the entire term and basked in my newfound liberation from hours of bullcrap.

About halfway through the term, my teacher comes up to me and the convo goes something like this:

Teacher (Valley Girl voice – she was only 24 and very immature): “Um, Ginger, I noticed you haven’t turned in any notes at all yet this term. I’m like, kinda concerned about that.”

Me: “Well, you said if we did well on the final we would get our notes waived.”

Teacher: “Well, I mean yeahhhh, but if you don’t do well, you’re going to lose a huuuge chunk of your grade.”

Me: “Okay, and…?”

Teacher (bothered): “I mean, you should reeeeally turn in SOME notes so that doesn’t happen.”

Me: “It’s okay, I’m good.”

Teacher (REALLY bothered): “Are you seriously planning on, like, just not doing ANY notes all term?”

Me: “Yep. Because they’ll be waived anyway when I do well on the final.”

Teacher (getting condescending): “Oooo-kayy, well don’t blame ME when your grade goes down.”

Me: “Yeahhh…Can I get back to work now?”

I proceed to stick to my word and not do any notes assignments all term.

The final comes around, and it’s our typical format: 120 minutes to write two essays chosen from three prompts. I could have crushed any of them, but I picked the two easiest for me and got to writing. I finished the first one about Columbus’s problematic historiography and realized it only filled one piece of notebook paper front and back (single-spaced). But I had said everything I needed to fulfill the prompt. Cool, onto the next one. I don’t remember the topic, but it too was clear and concise, taking up only a sheet and a half.

I was the first one done (not unusual for me; I often hyperfocus on essay tests) and walked up to turn it in. The teacher thought I had a question. I informed her I was done. Her eyebrows shot through the roof, and she asked if I was sure. I said yes, left class, and went and enjoyed my early lunch. It’s next week, and we get our graded finals back. She stiffly marches up to my desk and slams my test papers down. The longer essay got a 98. The page-long one about Columbus got 100. She muttered something sarcastic about, “Well, I guess that little gamble paid off for you, huh?” “Yep, just like I said it would,” I said. She was FUMING as she walked away. She had been SO hoping to catch me in a big freaking “gotcha,” but as it was, I ended up getting the highest score in the class.

She had to waive EVERY SINGLE notes assignment, and I ended up with an A for the term.”

3. Mess With My Friend’s Mailbox? We’ll Mess With You

“My best friend and I are both sons of police officers. His dad was a Highway Patrolman and mine was a Deputy Sheriff and detective. They are both retired now and living comfortably.

This story happened shortly after we both graduated high school about 15 years ago.

My buddy and I grew up in a rural area and for the most part, it was very quiet and we rarely had any problems. That changed when one weekend morning my friend’s family discovered their mailbox smashed and scattered along the road in front of their hose. They chalked it up to a hit and run, gathered up the mail, bought and posted a new mailbox and went on with life. The next weekend, it happened again. Flashback a few months before my buddy’s dad retired. He decided he didn’t want to quit working so he went down to the local trade college and became certified as a welder.

After the second time their mailbox was destroyed, my buddy called me over to his house and we all went to work. Buddy and his dad did the welding and cutting, I did the grinding and his mom (who is a fantastic artist) did the painting. Throw in two bags of cement, seven feet of steel pipe, and the necessary re-bar and you can probably guess where this is going. We built an all-steel-reinforced mail bunker, and set it in with three and a half feet of concrete and road base.

Remember my friend’s mom whose a really good artist? She painted it so that it looked like it was made out of wood. The steel post looked incredibly realistic, even up close let alone at night driving a car 45 miles an hour. We posted the box had dinner and I went home. A couple of weeks went by and bingo. My friend called me around 7:00 am on a Sunday morning and told me to get over to his house ASAP. When I came around the turn to their house, there it was in full glory. A 92 Pontiac Grand Prix wrapped around a steel pole almost to the passenger compartment.

The car was abandoned but all the necessary information needed for an arrest was there. It took a couple of days to track the owner down and sure enough, he confessed. However there was also a half-empty bottle of Canadian liquor and cans all over the back seat, so he got an open container charge too. Add the cost of a tow truck and the medical bills for smashing his stupid face into a steering wheel and that criminal mischief charge added up real quick. Realizing the main bunker could get someone hurt we repainted it after fixing it to something more conspicuous.

Update: Time to add some context. Look we know what we did could be potentially dangerous to others, we’re not idiots. However, when we placed the new box and pole it was well within my friend’s property line, and off the road. Their family owns a farm and has the acreage to spare. My friend’s dad cleared off a large area with his tractor, packed the ground down and added a layer of road base. He made it large enough that the postal worker could park and be completely off the road to access the mailbox.

Also in order to get to the family’s driveway, you had to drive through a soft turn. Anybody driving so fast that they might accidentally hit the box, would roll their vehicle way before they would get near the box. Assuming people are following the posted speed limit (and not a complete moron) there would be no way to hit this box unless you went out of your way to do so.”