Little things from the past that still piss you off

[Jinxdoesit]

I split from my EXH a couple of years ago. There wasn't too much animosity and we divided our things without too much hassle when selling the house except for one item. There was a stunning Laura Ashley dining table that I had bought at a really good price in a sale, we debated over who should get it as we both really wanted it. Eventually I backed down and let him take it. I didn't think too much about it at the time, I was moving back in with my parents temporarily and didn't know where I'd end up or if I'd even have space for it so I thought fine, he could have it.

Now I'm buying a new place that it would look perfect in. I know his place isn't big enough for it and that he has stuff in storage so I assumed it was in there. I called and asked if he happened to still have it and if so and he wasn't going to be using it could I have it. Turns out, when we left our old house he gave it to the new buyers for free because they liked it!! This was just after we'd been arguing over it and he knew how much I wanted it, yet he then just turned around and gave it to someone else that he didn't even know!

I found this out a couple of months ago and now every time I'm looking at tables for my new place it pisses me right off! My EXH had this thing about being a 'nice guy' and wanted everyone to see him that way, but was worse with people he didn't really know so I know this will have just been a way of being 'such a nice guy' to the buyers of our old house rather than a spiteful act against me but it still sticks in my craw!

What small things has someone done to you that still pisses you off ages later?

Then the horror on her face made me realise I'd been covering that shift for sod all and her sister had been paid.

At the very least you need to send her a glitter bomb now.

I entered a tennis competition as a child, where they randomly allocated everyone the rank 1-30 to start, then you played with the number next to you, and moved up or down depending on if you won or lost that round.

I got allocated a high number (about 28) and won every bloody round I played, then they stopped the whole game at about 10 rounds so I never got higher than a very average ranking

I know I could have gone on to win it, or at least place in top 5. Still bitter

I've just remembered one. When I was 5 my teacher refused to let me go to the toilet and I pissed myself.

I remember going into John Menzies (now defunct Scottish newsagents chain) aged about 7 and my mum telling my sister and I to sit on the floor by the comics and quietly read them whilst she looked for something. Being obedient children, we duly sat quietly reading until a grumpy sales assistant came stomping over and told us to go away because “this isn’t a library you know”. And then we were told off by my mum for not sitting and reading the comics!

You can’t win sometimes.

When I was pregnant over 30 years ago all I wanted was a maclaren dreamer push chair with the newborn wedge for my baby , my mil offered to get the pram for us and I was so made up .
Baby was delivered and so I thought the pram would be too but my mil had forgotten what she'd said and she'd bought my sil's 2nd hand pram off her that she'd bought in the the first place to give to me .
I was absolutely gutted but told by my now ex to not be so ungrateful .
It still rankles after all these years so much that when my daughter was expecting I made sure she got exactly the pram she wanted .

@Wishingwell75

Oogly Moogly your post broke my heart. Probably because I can totally relate, the thing is that I have heard similar stories of cruelty and shaming by teachers from friends and loved ones - and we're all around the same age. How the hell did they get away with it. Why were some teachers in the 80's, 70's and earlier so particularly unpleasant and seemingly not fond of children or just not bothered about favouritism? Sorry OP, I know this is not what your thread is about.

Yeah I grew up in the 1980’s I remember when I was about 6 and I hadn’t brought my pe kit again . So my punishment was to do it in my knickers , I remember the shame and embarrassment of waking down from my class to the hall in just my knickers in tears . All the other kids laughing , honestly wtf why would a teacher do that? I think I mentioned it years later to my mum and she said I never said anything at the time . I always made sure my dc had their pe kit , it still angers me to this day that a adult could be so cruel to a small child . I mean why didn’t she just tell my mum that I needed pe kit , how is it a 6 year olds responsibility?.

My friends mum was a smoker : we were at the shops with her aged about 11 or 12 and mum asked her to hold her cigarette for her while she nipped into a shop. My friend immediately gave it to me to hold saying ' I hate this , people just stare at you ' whilst I stood around feeling embarrassed holding this horrible cigarette at arms length indeed getting dirty looks from people and wiling her mum to hurry up out the shop !! I was such a pushover as a kid.
Always hated cigarettes!

20 years ago i was acussed of colouring my hair, my DD was very cross as i never had and her best friends mum was adamant about my DD lying. My DD was asked what did you do this weekend, yep she said she had an argument with a friend over it, and how my hair was brown. Last month I coloured my hair. As my DD dried my hair, with a smile she said " Now my mum colours her hair!"

Another teacher in the 80s one.
When I was about 10 I’d finally had enough of the poisonous little boy who made my life hell. I snapped and really really shouted at him to leave me alone, in front of a teacher.
The result? A ticking off for being nasty to a little boy who probably behaved that way because he liked me. And after that the teacher called me ‘the scruffy little girl who shouts’
I was scruffy. But I wore what I had, I had no choice or say in it.
My DM didn’t believe in appearances. Or clothing me appropriately. And she was crap at hair.
It still hurts.

At my primary school they had a tuck shop in the playground. I was told off for pushing by a teacher when I wasn't and it was people behind me. I was made to stand in a corner didn't even have money to spend at the the table.

@Evenstar that's awful.!!! I assume your colleague was jealous as that is so spiteful!

Did no one else know?!

I'm a twin and we were in the same class throughout primary school.

I'll never forget my twin sister being invited to the popular girls party but I wasn't. I just think that is so cruel!

@the80sweregreat

Possibly but he had a rather nasty smirk on his face the whole time so I think he knew what he was doing! Thank you for trying to balance it out for me though :)

Mellow, he was clearly just being horrible then!
Why adults do this to children I don't know!!

For my 10th birthday I'd been given a mini HiFi, which was my biggest present. My 6 year old brother started crying because he wanted to open some presents. I'd been saving it till last and my Mum asked if he could open it with me. I said no and as a result he was then allowed to open it instead of me. I can kind of see my Mum's point, as I wasn't being very generous, but... I'm still a bit miffed

@Insert1x20p

Then the horror on her face made me realise I'd been covering that shift for sod all and her sister had been paid.

At the very least you need to send her a glitter bomb now.

Thank you for that suggestion! We are still friends actually, so I could do that at Christmas maybe. Actually, I have to say that karma got her many many times since then, so I really have no axe to grind any more.

@Mammyloveswine she was the only one who knew as she was keyworker to the child whose parent gave me the tickets and they asked her to give them to me. I hope she just forgot but it still makes me feel like crying, I was absolutely inconsolable the evening I found out. I emptied my drawer into a carrier bag and took it home to sort out as it was the end of term and found the tickets.

I couldn’t even speak to tell my husband what was wrong at first, the worst was having to tell the parent what had happened as it was so kind of them. They were session musicians which was how they got the tickets, but they had arranged for us to go backstage so it must have been embarrassing that we didn’t turn up.

When I was 7 in the '70's, the teacher used to make us all sit on the floor while she displayed the clock. She'd put the hands to a time and if you knew you put your hand up. I never knew the time, but as everyone else was putting their hand up, I did too. She picked me this time. I was like a deer in the headlights, couldn't speak. So, she told me to stand up, asked me what time is was, I still didn't know, she kept asking. Then she asked the other kids to tell me - it was 1/4 to 8. Then asked the whole class to repeat back what time it was so I'd always know the time. I still do.

Bitch.

I went to School overseas, and when I was about 12, a film director came to our School, looking for people to audition for his new movie. He picked me out of everyone, I was unusually tall and slim, and had an unusual look. The teacher looked horrified, and said - "You don't want her, all skinny and plain, you want her" and pointed to her favourite. The film director smiled politely, and he would stick with me. She was also horrible to a couple of boys with learning and concentration difficulties. I needed a pencil one day, and she made me ask everyone in the class, and they all refused, except one boy who I think felt sorry for me. Everyone thought she was so lovely. Another time, she shamed me for not bringing in something to show the class from home, from a certain era (it was a strange request, I thought), I couldn't bring in anything, as we had to leave most things behind, we were escaping a domestic violence situation. She embarrassed me in front of everyone. I ended up taking in my Mum's best tablecloth, and someone got paint all over it, and it was ruined. We had so little at the time. The teacher always had a nasty smirk on her face. Finally she made a dig and got every one to laugh at me, saying people from my country didn't wash very much, and did not have proper hygiene standards. I complained about her behaviour to the headmaster. He listened to me quietly, and had a word. She was lot better after that. I know this is long, but I had to get that out.

When I was growing up, my sister and I used to have to share bath water (we had a rather elderly immersion heater with no thermostat, so it couldn’t warm up enough water for us both to have clean water). As the eldest, I always went second, so I always got the cooler, somewhat grubby water, and once I was old enough, I also had to empty and clean the bath, and hang up the bath mat and towels, whilst my little sister got clean, hot bath water, and no chores afterwards.

I didn’t mind this too much, when her bed time was earlier than mine - the pay off for the dirty water and doing the tidying was staying up whilst she was in bed - but once I was 12 and she was 11, mum decided we should have the same bed time.

I decided this wasn’t fair, and asked mum if my sister and I could take it in turns to go first, so we’d both get a turn of having the hot, clean water and no tidying (we only had baths twice a week), but my mum refused point blank! She even took me to the bathroom and dibbled her hand in the water, telling me it wasn’t too dirty, and it was still warm enough.

She and dad used to share bath water too, and she always went first, so I suspect she didn’t want to set a precedent that it was unfair for one person to get the hot, clean water, and the other one to be stuck with the grubby water and the tidying. But dsis was definitely itelynher favourite, and I’m sure that was a part of it too.

When I was 18, my ‘special’ present (they said 18 was the Big birthday) was a clock radio costing £21. For her 18th, my sister got a new oboe, costing £250 - and I was not supposed to care about the discrepancy.

There is a good reason why I am happy to live at the other end of the country to my mum, and why I don’t feel much guilt over not making the effort to visit more often.

I moved into a rented flat in 2006. It had no window coverings at all, but did have some of those wires for hanging net drapes on the lower half of the sash windows - so I bought some colourful fabric and knocked up some basic little panel curtains for privacy.

I moved out about a year or so later, and left the curtains up reasoning the next tenant would probably also appreciate the privacy. But after my checkout, the landlord deducted £100 from my deposit (the days before protection schemes and arbitration) for their apparent trouble in taking the curtains down - a task which would have taken them all of a minute.

Except they didn’t even take them down. They left them up. Not only that, but those curtains stayed in the window for years - I walked past the flat every so often until 2010, all the time with those curtains still in place. And I can, even today, go onto Google Streetview, and look at all the various drivebys of that flat right up until fucking 2018, and see that those curtains were there all along!

I get all indignant whenever I think about this.

Basically everything my parents ever bought me.

A whole series of times when asking me what I wanted as a present for my birthday or Christmas, and them not getting what I asked for, but buying me something that they thought was either better or more suitable instead.

I asked them to write to BBC radio requests to play a record I liked on the radio on my birthday. It was the weekend and I listened all day and was so disappointed not to have my name read out, only for them to present me with the actual single in the evening and to tell me that they hadn't written in because I'd only hear it once, and this way I could play it again and again. Not what I asked for.

I asked them for a Chopper bike (1970's kid here) and they got me a similar alternative made by some other manufacturer because apparently it was better quality. But not what I asked for.

I asked for a radio cassette player so I could record the Top 40 on a Sunday from the radio directly onto tapes. They bought me a tape recorder with a microphone. So you had to balance the mike in front of a radio to record anything and pray that your dad didn't sneeze or the local ice cream van come round while you were recording. Good quality and well made. But it didn't do what I wanted one for.

I asked for a Tressy doll and they bought me a Sindy doll. Different outfits were available for Sindy but not Tressy and were of course better 'quality'. But I wanted a Tressy because of her hair and Sindy's didn't do that getting longer and shorter thing. I kept on and on asking for a Tressy after they'd got me Sindy, and instead of getting her, they bought me Sindy furniture. Still not what I asked for.

I was going camping with the Guides and needed a sleeping bag. Loads of nice coloured and patterned ones, and what did they get? A shit brown one with a orange zip so it wouldn't show the dirt if it got muddy. I was the only girl on that trip with a brown sleeping bag. Really, really not what I wanted.

Years passed and I was in my 20's and out shopping with DM. I admired some really lovely children's clothes in a shop we were walking past and said it was such a shame there weren't nice clothes in the shops when I was a kid. Oh but apparently there were lots of lovely clothes says DM. Well her taste must have been awful because I don't ever remember her choosing clothes I liked. They were always practical colours and with growing room in so they never actually fitted. And always (as she put it) 'quality'. So they lasted for bloody ever.

I wanted horse riding lessons. So they bought me a piano and paid for piano lessons.

It was all a long time ago, but I am still really pissed off.

About 15 years ago I worked on the tills at Asda whilst on holidays from university.
I was putting a woman's items through and out of no where she said 'Don't you wish you'd studied now?' complete with patronising head tilt.

I was so flummoxed and caught off guard I just smiled weakly and said nothing.

She didn't know obviously that I was actually at university and only worked there in the summer but even if I hadn't been what an awful thing to say! There was some amazing people there who had been there for years and loved their jobs. I really wish I'd said something along the lines of 'Actually, I'm at university, but even if I wasn't that is a very judgemental and rude thing to say, do you want any bags?'

I wanted horse riding lessons. So they bought me a piano and paid for piano lessons

🎻 🎻 🎻

I wish these had been the problems I'd had growing up.

I was in our school quiz team (the only girl) and we had done really well and had beaten all the other local schools. Unbeknown to me, we had qualified for the regional final, but I didn't go to school the day we were told because it was my grandad's funeral. My classmate who lived round the corner from me was given a note to put through my door saying that the competition was that evening in the town hall. She couldn't be bothered 'forgot'. Our team won and qualified for the televised nationals. Because my stand-in had been on the team that qualified, they cut me out of the team.

I never really forgave her for that.