Among the various terrible neighbors fate sends our way, a special place is held by the folks who, on the one hand, are perfectly nice and friendly. But on the other hand, they sometimes indulge in completely unreasonable behavior, the only decent response to which is petty revenge.
Today, we'll tell you a story from the user u/PhotographTop6149, who, being sick and tired of his neighbor's neglectful parking, resorted to decisive action one day and executed a tad bit childish yet nevertheless efficient revenge on him. Well, let's just cut to the chase.
More info: Reddit
Sometimes, our neighbors are gentle and polite overall, but have some minor flaws that could cause annoying problems
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author of the post shares a driveway with a man who is quite nice but has a habit of parking his car in the author's half
Image credits: PhotographTop6149
Image credits: EyeEm / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Numerous attempts to ask the neighbor to park properly were fruitless, so the man decided to take petty revenge on him
Image credits: PhotographTop6149
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The man left his other car permanently in his half of the driveway, but left only a small gap to park there
Image credits: PhotographTop6149
The neighbor failed to park and went to the author with complaints, but they all went south anyway
The Original poster (OP) lives in Edinburgh, UK, and shares his driveway with "Duncan," a man in his 50s, who's actually quite a nice guy, although he does have one serious flaw. Yes, this man is pathologically inept at parking his car. Well, he also constantly forgets his promises not to do it again.
Yes, the shared driveway is divided into two halves by a line, and Duncan constantly parks his car a couple of inches inside the OP's half, thus causing him trouble when driving around. Our hero repeatedly asked him not to do this, and he swore he wouldn't - but literally the next evening, the situation repeated itself.
Finally, the original poster decided the situation called for some petty revenge. Our hero had another spare car, fully insured and taxed, so he decided he could leave it in the driveway for a long time - completely on his side, but right next to Duncan's half! Now it was the neighbor's turn to perform the miracle of precise parking.
The man clearly wasn't very good at this, and after a couple of dozen fruitless attempts to squeeze his BMW into the narrow gap, he went to complain to the author. He, beaming with joy and positivity, said that the car was parked entirely on his property, so there was no problem at all. Revenge, albeit a little childish, had been accomplished nonetheless!
Image credits: diana.grytsku / Freepik (not the actual photo)
"Yes, many people live to nearly old age fully convinced that if they’re generally friendly and positive, then they are obligated to forgive all sorts of 'petty' problems they cause others," says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here.
According to the expert, the only effective technique for interacting with such people without escalating the situation to open drama is to gently, but firmly, put them in their place. That way, they can assess for themselves the inconvenience their behavior causes for others.
"This kind of petty egoism, when people tend to belittle almost all the problems they cause others, can sometimes work if a similar problem arises for themselves. It's quite possible that in the situation described, everything will work out, and the neighbor will try to park more carefully in the future," Irina Matveeva assumes.
People in the comments completely agreed that our hero did the right thing and was very clever and witty, actually making the entitled dude taste his own medicine. "It's childish. And I applaud you. Bravo!" one of the responders summarized. So do you, our dear readers, also applaud the original poster and enjoy his idea of revenge?
Most commenters praised the author for his witty and efficient revenge, and some even gave him a huge shoutout
