Have you ever wanted to borrow something and you were sure the other person wouldn’t mind? You keep glancing at the clock, but they’re just simply not replying at the moment and time is running out… A moment of weakness to be sure.
But if you aren’t best mates with that person, it’s probably not a good idea to do something like that. Well, in today’s story, a richer dude borrowed his roommate’s clothes and the roomie retaliated by channeling the awesome powers of the rainbow.
More info: Reddit
It's never a fun feeling seeing your things used by someone else without any permission
Image credits: Mei-Ling Mirow (not the actual photo)
A entitled guy decided to borrow his uni roommate's clothes for partying because his clothes were too good to ruin
Image credits: u/DrOogieBoogie42
He only had formal and expensive clothes so his logical solution to the problem was borrowing clothes and getting alcohol, among other fluids, on them
Image credits: u/DrOogieBoogie42
For revenge, the offended guy took all his formal shirts and tie-dyed them without him knowing
Image credits: u/DrOogieBoogie42
After losing it about his ruined dress shirts, he never stole clothes again
I’m unsure what kind of university the poster was studying at, but it’s the first time I’m hearing about dress code requirements for students, even if they are learning law. I thought it was some kind of unspoken rule for students to be as rattily dressed as possible. What’s more important, being comfortable while learning or looking formal?
Even if you go on Google or YouTube and look for “MIT students”, which is the best university in the world according to QS rankings, they’re all dressed in hoodies and tees.
Maybe it’s some kind of Sims-esque university where there are certain clubs that you have to wear a uniform to or else you’ll get booted. I’ve no idea at this point, but I’ll stop with the video game references now.
So anyway, this guy with designer brand dress clothes decides that he actually looks too formal at parties, because he’s probably afraid of ruining them with various... substances.
What’s the solution to that? It is to borrow your roommate's clothes, without even asking, because obviously! Why coat expensive clothes in various fluids when you can do it to someone else’s?
Unfortunately, the original poster (OP) wasn’t the right person to cross. Especially after permanently ruining a pair of his jeans.
So what does OP do? He stuffs his suitcase with a bunch of dress shirts that probably cost over 100 bucks, according to Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren’s prices, takes them home with him, gets a load of his friends together and tie-dyes the white ones.
I mean, I’d be almost thankful for it, because tie-dyeing clothes is a fine art.
Unfortunately, tie-dye shirts at whatever school OP’s roomie was going to most likely evoked certain memories of freedom-loving and society-hating hippies from the professors. The guy’s grades fell because of it and he stopped stealing clothes for good after that.
Image credits: Chris Waits (not the actual photo)
For this article, Bored Panda reached out to one of the commenters on the article - Easttexassingle, who graciously responded to our questions. Easttexassingle’s comment was very interesting, and in a similar vein to OP’s story, he and his coworkers got back at a guy stealing others’ hygiene supplies.
As they had been working offshore in the Gulf of Mexico on a pipelay barge, supplies were difficult to come by, working in 4-week stints. It didn’t help that someone was stealing their shampoo. So they also cleverly used some dye - they put some blue dye into one coworker’s shampoo. Not long after, the shampoo was pinched, and a guy with long blonde hair who was supposedly very proud of it and hadn’t cut it in 15 years came back with scraggly blue hair.
Instead of mending his ways, the guy wanted people fired after this little “incident” but ended up quitting himself. If someone had laced the guy’s own shampoo, then they would have been fired, but as the offender had committed theft, there were no two ways about it.
There was a certain culture of community on the barge, East says. “We would work 28 days with each other and then only be home with our families for 14 days. So everyone knew everyone else’s business, so to say.”
We can guess that people would be sharing their supplies, but it’s understandable that they’d want to retaliate who would breach this communal trust and steal from their friends.
Although workplace pranks were popular in the past, they started dwindling over time, especially as, according to East, “you can’t be a [female cat] and a pipeliner” at the same time. Being tough both physically and mentally, while being to take it and perhaps even dish it out were almost unwritten requirements of the job. And I’m sure you can fill in the blank in that one place.
As long as nobody got hurt on the job, it was all good and built a certain “esprit de corps” that you don’t see in other industries. East says that he misses the old days, as today pranks can easily leave you without a job.
“These were men of iron. I’ve literally watched a guy lose half of a finger and be working again in 30 minutes. Jobs got to get done. Too many forget that now.”
So, hey, if “borrowing” stuff without permission doesn’t fly on an offshore barge full of grizzled men, then it’s unlikely that it would fly anywhere else, especially at university.
Image credits: Marco Verch Professional Photographer (not the actual photo)
Another commenter by the name of tricularia shared his own clothes-stealing horror roommate story on the original post. Apparently, his roomie was also pre-law or in law school and would also use his clothes, drink his beer, eat his food, and so much more.
When he confronted the guy about using his clothes and towels, he argued half-heartedly at first, because he was the kind of person who loves arguing. But as he had no justification for it, he agreed to cut it out.
“But he didn't actually stop taking my clothes,” tricularia adds.
As the roommate also had a lovely hobby of playing drums past midnight, tricularia was beyond fed up with him and sliced the drum skin on his kick drum, when asking nicely didn’t work. It didn’t make him a better roommate, but it at least made the drum a little quieter.
“I eventually just took all my stuff and left. Stiffed him on the rent for the last month because, the way I see it, I was paying for a space where I could eat and sleep. Somewhere that I can keep my worldly possessions and not worry about them being taken or destroyed. And I wasn't getting any of that.”
He illustrates this with a story. The roomie would bring over random guests and take various substances until the sun came up, being extremely loud.
So, while tricularia was having a BBQ party with his friends on a Friday evening, they were restrained, not too loud, but playing a bit of acoustic guitar and chatting, the works.
At 8:30 PM the guy comes out of the house and tells everyone that they have to go home, because he’s tired and wants to sleep.
All of this happened while he was “WEARING MY BOXER SHORTS,” tricularia shockingly adds. The hypocrisy blew him away and he almost freaked.
“I am ashamed to say that I almost got physical with him that night. But a close friend stopped me and told me ‘If kicking his [butt] still seems like a good idea tomorrow, you can do it then’,” which is a good lesson to learn before starting any physical altercation, clothes-stealing roommate or not.
Image credits: Steven Falconer (not the actual photo)
I’ve mentioned that tie-dyeing is a fine art. In reality, it’s a thing that’s easy to do, but hard to master. If you’ve ever seen amazing dyed shirts and taken a look at how they look before, it’s absolutely crazy, let me assure you. They’re like eldritch monstrosities, incredibly twisted and tied a million times.
There’s an interesting positive correlation between the amount of little tie-offs and twists on shirts and how good they turn out. But that happens when the person knows what they want and has a vision of what they’re going for.
Let’s shift the conversation now to something the commenters mentioned - that in their experience, richer parents are quite a lot more abusive. There is a certain sentiment that they just give a lot of money to their kids, but leave them lacking in attention and parental love.
You see this trope represented in movies, a harsh, business-savvy father and a mom ignoring the kid, drinking martinis and enjoying the wealth.
According to the official Idaho State Bar website, child abuse in affluent families is often underreported. In an environment where a child’s physical needs are all taken care of, child neglect is differently understood by society and potentially underreported.
Affluent parents can also have more privacy and defend themselves from government interference more effectively.
So if a richer child or adult is misbehaving, it could be wise to try and understand where they’re coming from instead of jumping to conclusions.
This Reddit story collected 5.6k upvotes and over 150 comments. They cheered OP on for an epic act of revenge and questioned what was going on in the roomie’s head for just taking someone else’s clothes.
Share your own thoughts below!
The commenters made jokes about how stupid the clothes-thief was and how they couldn't imagine what was going on in his head
