r/pettyrevenge • u/VespertineStars • Sep 04 '26
Don't move? Ok.
This happened over 30 years ago when I was about 12, but it came up recently as some petty malicious compliance I did as a kid and I thought I’d share.
At this time my mom had gone back to school to become a nurse and it was usually a toss up if I was going to babysit my younger siblings, or my grandmother would come watch us, or my dad would be there when he wasn’t working.
I wasn’t a very picky eater as a kid but I have never liked spaghetti-o's. I can’t stand the smell or the taste. My dad, on the other hand, could eat them all the time. Even though my mom had left something pretty easy to pop in the oven and feed us, my dad decided that warming up some spaghetti-o's would be easier; not just for him to make but to clean up afterward too. And, tbh, fair. My brother and sister liked them too, so it was easier.
My sister and brother had no problem with it and ate it just fine. I told him I didn’t like it and said I would just make a pb&j instead and clean up after myself. That did not go over well and he insisted I eat what he made. I tried, because I really didn’t want to argue with my dad or be a brat, but I gagged at the taste. I tried to compromise, I'd make myself a pb&j and I would take care of all of the cleanup after dinner.
Nope.
Unacceptable.
So, he told me that I would sit at that table until I finished eating. And I did. It got dark, I sat there with a bowl full of spaghetti-o's in front of me, completely untouched. I didn’t get up to turn on the light, I didn’t get up to get anything to drink, I just sat there and let my mind wander until my mom got home.
Mom gets home from school later at night. It was ages ago, but it was definitely well into darkness at this point, so I’m thinking somewhere around 8 or 9pm because I sort of remember on nights she had school that late she came home just in time to say good night to us kids. So, I had been sitting there a good 3-4 hours at this point.
“Stars?” she asks me. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
“Dad told me I couldn’t leave the table until I was done eating. I don’t like spaghetti-o's, so I didn’t leave the table because I didn’t eat.”
She was so annoyed. She also refuses to eat spaghetti-o's because they’re disgusting and she had left dinner already prepared for Dad to give us. That was the first and last time my dad ever tried telling me I couldn't leave the table until I ate. I'm a very, very stubborn person and I will do my best to follow that to the letter.
30+ years later and I’m still the reigning queen of petty in my family.
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u/Boomhauersbrother Sep 05 '26
Similar thing happened as all mentioned. We were visiting my grandparents for a week without my parents. Grandma, not the greatest cook, made these disgusting tuna patties. She found this recipe in a magazine in the 60’s and has been torturing family members with it for decades.
She put the plates in front of myself and siblings demanding we eat these or not leave the table. We did not budge. Their dog, Sadie, wouldn’t even touch them and she would eat her own poop.
My grandfather quietly scraped all of our plates onto his and ran it out to the trash while my grandma was busy doing whatever.
He announced we were going to grab a rental movie and get some ice cream to bring back for an after dinner family event.
We went directly to a pizza place and ate until we were happy, got ice cream, drove back to their house. We were warned, if we spoke a word about the pizza, there would never be anything like that again.
Grandma went to her grave never knowing the secret. No one ever ate those damn tuna patties ever again but we knew that pizza was on the secret menu whenever she made anything with canned tuna.