We’ve all heard the saying, “You get what you give,” and sometimes, life has a way of delivering sweet payback right when it’s needed most.
These tales are swift retribution that will leave you laughing, nodding in agreement, or simply shaking your head in amazement. These are proof that, in the grand cosmic comedy, even the most pretentious individuals, like the girl who mistook a skirt for a dress, aren’t exempt from a little dose of instant karma.
I was at a touristy place at the top of a big cliff. People were hanging around at the top, just enjoying the view, and this one guy was eating a sandwich while staring at his phone. After he was done, he couldn’t be bothered to find a trash can so he went to throw the sandwich wrappings off the cliff, but he got his hands confused and hurled his phone off the cliff instead.
Spend my last few dollars on a donut instead of using it to tip the person who filled my gas. Dropped my donut as I pulled out of the gas station.
My son and I went to Wal-Mart to get a new game for his DS. We got to the cash register I noticed the woman in front of me was upset. Her card had been declined and she was purchasing formula. My son is fascinated with babies so he was talking to the woman about her little girl. He put the game down and handed her his money and said, “Your baby needs food more than I need Plants Vs. Zombies.” My heart swelled at this, so I got the game anyway. Well, as we were walking out, a lady approached us and said she saw what he did and gave him an envelope and said open it when you get home. When we got home, there was a $100 bill and a note that said “You deserve this young man!”
I was out for dinner with my then-fiancee (now wife) and her dad, my (now) father-in-law. He’s a bit of a d*ck to her, he got divorced and re-married, loves those kids more than my wife, gives her sh*t over too many things, etc. etc.
So we’re at the end of dinner, father-in-law offers to pay for the meal. OK, that’s nice. My wife asks to get her leftovers boxed and she’ll take them home. He starts with “Well, you’ll just leave them in the fridge, then they’ll just get thrown out, blah blah”. I tell him “Listen, it’s not your fridge, leave her alone”. (She and I live together at this point).
He gets all mad, “Don’t tell me how to raise my daughter!”
I reply “Then don’t speak to my fiancee that way!”
He literally throws the bill & folder thing at me and says “FINE! YOU F*CKING PAY THEN” and storms out.
OK, now everyone is pissed. I am, my fiancee is saying “Why did you have to start something??” etc. So I pay the bill and I’m just waiting for the receipt. Like we’re waiting 10 minutes here, what the heck is going on? Tensions are rising, her dad is waiting outside, just building up steam and ready to blow once we get out there. I ask the waiter, “Can I just get our bill and go?” “Oh no sir, you have to wait for the manager”.
Turns out they have a contest running where “every bill is a winner”. Normally you’ll win a free drink, or appetizer with your next meal. Well, we won the GRAND PRIZE, a trip for 4 to Florida.
Whoever pays gets the prize. WELL GUESS WHAT F*CKER? I PAID BECAUSE YOU STORMED OUT LIKE AN A**HOLE. KARMA’S A B*TCH.
Me, my brother, and our friend decided to be funny and get on an elevator ahead of our other friend so we could get to the hotel room first and lock our other friend out for sh*tz and giggles. We got trapped on the elevator for an hour and a half while our other friend that we ditched got to chill by the pool for that time. I guess we deserved it.
A lady comes in with a broken iPhone and is demanding to get a new one for free. If you don’t know, in Canada the iPhone 6s is going for about $400 upfront on a two-year contract at a minimum $80 plan. She had a good plan but wanted it for free. She called up our loyalty team in-store and spent the next two hours screaming at them. Finally, they agree to a deal, and she is getting it for zero. She looks at me and goes I do not want a case, and AppleCare is a scam. (We work on commission, so this essentially meant I was getting nothing and ruining my numbers). She kept telling me to hurry up through the setup and I was trying to get them out of the store with everything transferred over and set up. She grabs the phone and starts marching off saying I was a terrible employee. She gets three steps out of the store and drops the phone. Shattered screen, and white screen of death. She ran back in asking what I could do. I shrug and went ‘Sorry, but AppleCare sure would have helped eh?’
I watched an entitled angry man abuse and belittle his server to the point of tears. Then he hitched up his belt and looked pleased with himself as he swaggered off the restaurant deck, tripped on the stairs, and face-planted in the sand on the beach. (This was a vacation in Fla.) My wife looked mortified as I laughed right out loud at the guy. He got up, saw everyone staring and at least one person openly laughing, and quickly stepped off down the beach.
I was buying some drinks at a Circle K one day while visiting someone in Florida and these old tourists cut us in line, all the while complaining and b*tching loudly about everything, how expensive everything is, how crowded the beach is, it’s too hot, etc. they are also really rude to the cashier and take forever arguing about the price of the hot dogs they were buying or something. They leave and as we walk out we witness a seagull come and snatch the guy’s hot dog right out of his hand. His wife then shrieks and proceeds to drop hers out of surprise.
I know it isn’t that big of a deal but it was so f*cking hilarious watching that happening that I still remember it 5 years later.
Saw some lady road raging hard at slow traffic going over a dangerous mountain pass. She was trying to run people off the road trying to get around them. I’ve never seen anything like it, she could’ve killed someone. Saw her getting forcefully arrested by like 6 cops at the bottom of the mountain on the other side. Face-pinned to the hood and screaming.
My best friend’s mom has always been like a second mom to me, at least since my bestie and I were in 4th grade. This year for Easter, she invited me over for dinner with her family, so I decided to get her a quick gift, which included some dog toys for her huskies, some flowers, a thank you card and a scratch-off ticket. She has always been so kind to me, she even writes the same sweet motherly messages on my Facebook timeline as she does for her own daughters. That’s probably why I cried with utter joy when the ticket I bought her won her $1000. It wasn’t necessarily instant karma since she has been good to me for more than 16 years, but she won some money in an instant.
I work at a movie theater. One afternoon I was selling tickets at the box office when an older lady came up and asked me a question about our app (it’s a Cinemark app).
I, however, wasn’t sure about the answer and told her that. She proceeded to say, very rudely, “Isn’t it your job to know??? Are you stupid or something?”
Then, she turned around and noticed the mall cop was writing her a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot when she did not have a handicap plate or placard. She took off running screaming “Wait stop! That’s my car!”
I couldn’t keep the huge grin off my face for the rest of the day.
Not 100% “instant” karma, but pretty quickly. See, I work for a staffing agency. I’m a recruiter. Pretty small team and this was actually another recruiter on my team that this happened to.
My co-worker was working with this guy who was pretty sharp. He was a programmer. His company was doing layoffs but he was told he wouldn’t be affected. My co-worker contacted him, chatted about the situation and he said he would be interested in looking around. We just had a new client give us a position to help that fit his background. We lined up an interview pretty quickly, he interviewed and got the position! Great. It was even a little salary bump. Straight direct hire, no contract stuff. He goes in and works his first week. All is great, all smiles.
Well, that next Monday shows up and he isn’t there. The company calls us asking where he is, so my co-worker calls him. He answers the phone and my co-worker asks “Hey, is everything okay? You no call no showed today over at XYZ company.” And the guy proceeds to tell us “Yeah, I never actually quit my job. I just took a vacation for the week to see if I liked the place. It was okay but I’ll just stay here.” My co-worker responds “Man, is there anything I can do? This puts us in a tight spot, this is a brand new customer of ours, can I do anything” and the guy tells us “Quite frankly I don’t give a sh*t what kind of position it puts you in nor do I care if they are a new customer. I’m staying, don’t call me again.” And hangs up the phone.
He got laid off the next week.
The washers and dryers in my apartment building are run through Bluetooth and an app you download on your phone. I figured out that if I put my phone on airplane mode while simultaneously pressing the start button on the machine, the washer would start but I wouldn’t get charged. I was so proud, tried the same thing on the dryer and it worked. Went to get my clothes out of the dryer an hour later and everything was covered in melted Hershey’s kisses.
My dog tried to eat my sushi while I was away from the table for a second. I came back to missing wasabi and a disgusted-looking dog.
I used to be a zookeeper. This b*tch was making fun of our llama for looking ugly. The llama was a rescue who had corrective jaw surgery. The b*tch pointed and laughed at our llama. The llama spat in her mouth. I gave the llama a treat and told her that she was a good girl.
In the UK, kids wear blazers and ties to school, and a common bullying tactic that jerks used was to run up to kids and pull their ties so they get really tightly knotted.
On the bus home, the bus was really full, and I was standing in front of one such bully. He grabbed my tie JUST as the bus had to break sharply. He lost his footing, and the only thing keeping him upright was the fact that he was holding my tie.
He had grabbed the wrong bit, it wasn’t knotted, I simply untied it, and he fell on his bum. That was the last time I was knotted.
I saw someone tailgating another car on a highway. There was a huge CRT (cathode ray tube) television lying in the road. The tailgatee changed lanes at the last minute and the tailgater slammed full speed into the TV. It was hilarious.
One time I was in some nasty traffic where two different roads merged and entered a toll plaza. This is one of those one set price toll plazas, where all cars have to pay the same amount (no tickets). One car about ten cars up had gotten trapped on one of the side electronic tolling only lanes in the merge and was trying to get into the cash lane that I was in. Nobody was letting him in – finally, I got to where he was, I stopped, and waved him in.
He waves to me, and gets in the line directly in front of me. When I get up to the toll booth, the attendant says that I’m good – the guy in front of me had paid my toll.
It was only a dollar fifty, but still – he didn’t have to do that, and it was much appreciated – but all I did was let the guy in line like the dozen cars in front of me should have.
I was walking to the store with a friend when we were 13. We heard someone yelling at us and turned around to see some kid about 50 feet away. He was yelling and calling us F*****s and every other homophobic word you know at that age. As we started to walk over to confront him, he did a 180 and started running while turning. Well, he spun around and ran face-first into a tree and hit it hard enough that he fell to the ground from the impact. We couldn’t stop laughing, and hopefully, that was enough embarrassment for him to learn a lesson.
I was in high school walking back from lunch when there was an older gentleman who had crutches in front of me, he couldn’t manage to get off the road since the curb was high and he obviously had leg injuries. All the school kids were walking passed him so I did what I thought any decent person would do and went over to him and gave him a helping hand up onto the pavement so he could continue on his way. No big deal. As I walked on I got flagged down by a woman in a car who had watched the entire incident and she informed me she was the head teacher (principal) of a neighboring school and had been at a meeting at my school. She phoned up my school and explained the situation to my head teacher. As soon as I got back in for lunch, I was brought in by my head teacher and thanked for giving the school a good name (apparently our school doesn’t do much good). Got an extra hour for lunch and a certificate at the school award ceremony. Know it’s not as interesting as some of these stories, but every little helps eh?
I was playing volleyball with a group of my friends a few years back. One of the guys who is just an acquaintance of mine was known for being unreasonably angry. Throughout the whole game, he’s being a total jerk to everyone, yelling and screaming, citing the rules and saying everyone is breaking them. Eventually, we all had enough so we just unanimously kept egging him on and acting dumb on purpose to fluster him. At one point he gets so mad that he got on both his knees and started screaming; while he does this a lone pigeon swoops by and takes a poop on his face. The rest of us laughed about it for weeks
Instant Karma isn’t always a bad thing…
About 16 years ago. In my tiny Dodge Neon. I was at a red light and I have no reason why but I gave a homeless person all of the change in my ashtray. The light turned green, and I made my left turn and a few seconds later I was hit head-on by a full-size truck.
When they were loading my car on the tow truck, the driver asked “How’s the driver”, and I simply said “I’m fine” he was shocked at 1st, and then once he realized I wasn’t kidding. He said he’d been towing for 20 years and had never seen anyone survive this extreme of an accident… let alone be standing there talking to him while loading up the car.
Pretty sure I lived due to the good juju
I have a happier good karma story that happened to me a few months ago on vacation in San Francisco. Late at night after a potluck and drinks, my friend drove me to a BART metro station near her house and gave me directions to take the train back to my hotel.
I walked in, paid my fare, and went underground only to find out I’d just missed the last train. Fortunately, my friend was awesome and gave me bus directions back, but there was another person who’d missed the same train, and he was in a far worse situation than mine. He was drunk, high, carrying massive bags of groceries and alcohol, and was trying to get back to Richmond, the way I came from and super far away. He also had no way to call an Uber.
Feeling bad, I offered to call him an Uber and he could pay me back what he could. He only had $3, but so be it, I wasn’t going to turn him down. We chatted awhile until his ride came, he went off on his merry, inebriated way, and I went to catch my bus.
Except when I got on, I realized it was a MUNI bus, the other transit company, and so my BART fare wasn’t transferable – I’d have to pay again. I realized I had no dollar bills left in my wallet. I spent it all on that useless fare. Panicking, I reached into my back pocket where I kept the small change, well knowing I didn’t have enough for the $2.50 fare. And that’s when I felt the $3 that guy gave me. It was such a beautiful feeling. I think we were mutual guardian angels that night.
Also, I realized halfway through the bus ride that I was going the wrong way, but that ruins the story so I don’t usually tell that part. I did manage to get back on the other side, to be fair.
My boss got Instant Karma for mocking me!
I had a day off work and as I was making breakfast, I accidentally sliced my fingertip with a bread knife. I wrapped it up and went to Urgent Care. It didn’t need stitches but the doctor put a couple of steri-strips on it and said not to use it for a day or two and stay off a keyboard.
I went to work the next morning and told my boss that I had to stay off a keyboard for a couple of days so I had to do some other kind of customer service that didn’t involve typing. She said no problem.
As I walked out of the room I remembered I had to tell her something else and as I was walking back in, I heard her mocking my injury. Just as she finished, she accidentally slammed the door of the one-ton safe in her hand. I laughed and said Karma’s a b*tch. She said yeah, I kind of deserved that.
She didn’t break it but she couldn’t use it so she had to call another supervisor to come in for the day so she could get it checked out. When the gauze came off my finger a couple of days later and saw the strips holding it together she admitted that it did look kind of bad and she shouldn’t have made fun. I accepted and brushed the incident off.
Last week, my youngest daughter had her last day of preschool. Between my two girls, we’ve been associated with this school for almost 10 years. My wife and I wanted to do something nice for them so we offered to buy them Starbucks.
As I’m about to enter the Starbucks’ parking lot, a guy runs a stop sign, narrowly missing me. He pulls in, I pull in next to him. I hurriedly scrambled out of my car to beat him to the line.
It was fun listening to them call my name for all 15 drinks before that guy got his.
A woman was 70 cents short on her purchase, so I let it go.
When counting her change I noticed a 1960 silver dime.
I still don’t understand how it happened.
I go through periods of insomnia, and I have stayed up through countless nights over the years. One such night probably about 1.5 years ago, I went to 7-11 at like 6:30 a.m. for I don’t remember what. On the way out I see this native homeless guy I call Hobo Joe. I’ve seen him around my city (Norfolk, VA) for years. Anyway, I see him and as usual, he’s begging for change. I don’t mind helping this guy out because he doesn’t spend it on booze, he legitimately needs food. So I go back in and buy him 2 microwaves 7-11 hamburgers, and heat them up (side note: I dropped one on the floor and never told him). I give him the burgers and proceed to Tropical Smoothie which opens at 7 a.m. I park the car and open the door, look down and what do I see? A fresh $20 on the white line of the parking spot. F*cking nice. So that’s cool but then this is the really crazy part: I come back out of Tropical Smoothie and as I approach my car, what do I find? Another $20. In the exact same spot. I checked my pocket, the first one was still there. A glitch in the matrix?
In line at Wendy’s and a gentleman realised he had misplaced his wallet. He ran to and from his car very flustered and jumped on the phone with his wife to have her look for it and drive to Wendy’s. While he wasn’t paying attention I stepped in front of him and paid the 8 bucks for his food. We were both obviously on our lunch breaks and it was just a lame situation for the guy, so I felt bad, even though he drove a Lexus.
The guy insists that I don’t, I said it too late bro. Patted him on the shoulder and said pay it forward with a smile.
He approached my table and told me that was one of the nicest things he had ever witnessed, then he told me to come across the street after I got off of work to the tailor/suit shop.
I paid 8 bucks for a guy’s lunch and got a custom 800-dollar suit.
Standing at the counter of the pizza place I work at. Lady storms in and slams a pizza down on the counter.
“This isn’t the f*cking pizza I ordered, what the heck are you going to do about it?” She asked.
I look at the pizza then at my buddy Nick and turn back to her and say, “Nothing”.
She then goes on a long rant telling how we are going to be fired, and how stupid and incompetent we were, she actually told me I must be retarded, then asked why the heck we weren’t going to do anything?
I said, “Because that pizza came from the pizza shop across the street.”
I think she actually managed to shrink in size and slink out looking so pathetic and beaten I almost felt bad for laughing till tears dripped down my face as she slunk off.
I worked in a bar when I lived in Newfoundland. As I was on my way in one night, I saw a guy standing by the road with a sign that said something like “far from home, no place to sleep, and hungry”. I waved him over and gave him $5 (the only cash I had) and told him to take care of himself.
This was a Thursday night, and I always worked in the back bar which never saw any traffic. I usually took home about $5 in tips for a Thursday, or $10 on a good day. That day, three separate people won big on the slot machines and gave me $20 tips each, and I ended up taking home about $75 in tips.
I worked at a major state university as a contract HR Director. The head of student housing was this battle axe, loud, narcissistic, angry woman who bulldozed everyone and everything around her. She yelled at everyone and made demands that were unreasonable and unprofessional. One was she would bring in these huge pit bulls, to work, that she was “fostering” saying they were her service dogs. (which scared the sh*t out of everyone) She would fire anyone she didn’t like. Treated subordinates like her servants. Since it is nearly impossible to fire Directors and managers, who work for the state, she got away with it. This went on for 20 years. I didn’t know this. I was brought in to investigate all the complaints against her and her department. Turns out that if a person wasn’t gay she would fire them. (She was a straight woman) Basically, she wanted to be surrounded by gay men who worshipped her, as a diva, and did her bidding. I figured out the pattern of her firing of straight people over 20 years. In the end, I had to interview her and share my findings. She tried everything she could to lie her way out of it but it was documented and clear. (Hundreds of emails and over 30 employee interviews past and present)
She went to the Dean and held a meeting (I was invited to) ranting about how “OF COURSE” this “typical empowered straight white man” would be against her hiring of gay men and discriminate against them! She went on about how no one knew who I was and she had seen these kinds of heterosexual men in power before. I let her rant for a while until she finally stopped.
To that I quietly stood up…walked to the Dean…and showed him on my phone pictures of my (gay) wedding to my husband. He started smiling and asked to share with this battle axe. I walk over and share it with her. Her mouth hits the ground. Her tune changes quickly. The Dean tells her she can either retire immediately. Or he will fire her on the spot. She retires.
The look on her face = Priceless.
Narcissists are the worst monsters to work with.
I work in a building with 10 floors, I am on the 5th. Last Thursday, I was coming back to the lobby from lunch and in a hurry, and I had just pressed the UP button and the elevator immediately opened up. Awesome!
Before I stepped into the elevator, I noticed someone coming up the stairs about 30 feet away. I usually like to wait for stragglers, so as to boost my own elevator karma.
As this person approaches, I notice she is fairly attractive and close to my age. Bonus points right? I also notice that she’s in a hurry. She asks me, “Is CSG in this building?”
-Me: yes it is! 10th floor! -Her: Oh okay, thank you! I’m running so late for my interview!
By this point, I notice she is not only attractive, but she is pretty d*mned gorgeous.
I press “10” as she enters the elevator (using the Floor Number + Door Close button trick to jump straight to the requested floor) and she says, “Oh do you work for CSG too?”
Me: No but since you’re late we’ll get you there first then I’ll go back down to 5
Her: Aw that’s sweet, you don’t have to do that!
Sure enough, we zip past the 5th floor, and we hit the 10th. She gathers herself and catches her breath (from running to the building), & realizes she forgot her phone.
Her: Oh my gosh I was supposed to call when I got here, could I use your phone I’m so sorry!
Me: Not a problem!
She dials CSG from the elevator and clears everything up. She then goes on to say “You were a great help, thank you so much!”
I went for it, and said, “No problem! Let me know how it goes?”
She smiles a bit shyly and says “I sure will” and proceeds to tap away at my phone. She hands it back, smiles again, and walks away.
I look down at my phone: 7 digits, programmed under the contact name “Samantha Elevator”
For a guy who NEVER gets the girl, I was pretty f*cking elated. We’re going out for drinks tomorrow night.
One day I saw a man struggling to balance about 5 boxes of shoes in one arm while he was talking on the phone with the other. I decided it was worth the risk of interrupting his phone conversation to offer to keep his shoes behind the counter while he kept shopping.
I smiled and gestured that I could take them for him, to which he gave me a look of pure disdain before saying ‘I’m on the phone’ like I’d just tried to sh*t on the shoes rather than try and help. I shrugged and moved on to help someone else, who needed something from the stock room.
When I brought it back out to her, she was helping the guy I’d spoken to because he’d dropped all the boxes on the floor. Shoes were everywhere and once we fixed them he scurried away without a glance at me. The woman gave me that ‘Yeah I know what just happened’ look, and we moved on. But that was one of my favourite things I saw there.
I got mad at my dog one time for whimpering over and over again for my attention and wanting to play with a rope toy. I was trying to talk to a friend about a video we were watching but my dog just wouldn’t shut up, so I turned around, snatched the toy real quick, and aggressively swung it up towards me, which in turn made my dog let go of the rope, and it whiplashed. The thick knotted end of it came straight at my face and smacked me, hard, right in between my eyes, and f*ckin broke my f*ckin nose. Blood came out my nostrils like a faucet and I ran to the bathroom. Everything got all hot and I was instantly dizzy and lightheaded, so we went directly to the ER.
I just recently got a bill in the mail from Baylor Medical for over $500, and that’s even after insurance deducted their portion. The cartilage separated completely from the bone of my nose and the entire right side is majorly constricted. Reconstructive nose surgery was costly for me to do, or at least seemed too unnecessary, so I instead left it as is, and my nose skin now feels loose, the bone at the top is slightly shifted, and the tip is crooked very clearly to one side. I still get frustrated at my dog sometimes, but hopefully, I never again make the mistake I did that day because as they say, karma is a b*tch.
At work, it was one of my cashier’s last days before transferring to a store in Florida. She’s moving down there to live with family because she’s fallen on some hard times. We all chipped in and got her a HUGE gas card to help get her down there and people also donated gift cards to food places so she and her daughter didn’t have to worry about that either. Another Co-worker got her a really nice zip-up hoodie with our town on it and car activities for her kid. It was a surprise, so we didn’t tell her it was coming.
She called off. Said her car wouldn’t start. We REALLY needed her coverage (of course we made it work but it was exhausting – I went 7 hours no break and took a 10-minute “lunch”). Then, turns out her locker was already cleaned out including the apron she would have needed for her shift today that is always kept in there – it’s against policy to take them home. So it was premeditated.
We’re donating it all to the local shelter tomorrow.
I worked in this fancy clothing store in this posh town at the seaside. It was a busy Saturday when suddenly a very pretentious girl walked in with her boyfriend, ignoring us as we greeted her and even giving my colleague a demeaning look. She went on to browse around in the store and eventually took some clothes with her in the changing booth.
After a while, I noticed a heated conversation arising from the booth between her and her boyfriend. I saw the boyfriend running back and forth between the booth and some clothing racks, in meanwhile me and my colleague I were being chased away by her (she refused any help and didn’t leave the booth) as if we were a couple of ebola patients.
So me and my colleague continue working and helping other customers. I was working the register when suddenly the girl turns up next to me, completely pissed off, and she starts ranting about “how our store/brand really should work on the fitting of our clothes and how we were complete f*ck ups”. I was completely caught off guard and right when I wanted to ask her what the exact problem was, I saw my colleague looking at the girl while bursting out this horribly loud laugh, tears and all. What had happened was that the girl had taken with her a clothing piece she thought was a strapless dress. Well, it wasn’t a dress. It was a skirt. The girl had tried on all sizes and got completely fed up, yelling at us and her boyfriend because the FREAKIN “DRESS” WON’T FIT. So she walked out in a crowded store, making a scene, with a skirt pulled up to her tits.
I have to admit, after she left I laughed till I cried.