An entitled drunken passenger steals my exit row seat on an airplane that I was riding on, claiming that this seat was his and that nobody was ever gonna move him. Things got so bad that the police ended up being called just to escort this crazy man off the plane, and I've honestly never met anybody this entitled in my life. Here's what happened. So I was flying from Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville about 20 years ago. It was a small regional airline, basically a puddle jumper plane.
there were single seats down one side and double seats down the other. This was also back before airlines charge you for the audacity of desiring to breathe while in their tin cans. And since I was booking pretty far ahead of time, I was able to select a seat on the left side where the single seats were on the airplane. Now being 6'4 and having flown numerous times, I know that the exit row is the primo spot unless you're paying for first class or business class.
And I also know that arriving early, and asking politely at check-in, more often than not, gets you that sweet extra legroom as long as it's available. So I show up a couple of hours early. I go to the check-in counter, I ask the nice lady if there's any chance I could get an exit row, and sure enough, being polite one again, and doubly so.
because I not only got the exit row, but I also got to stay on the same side of the plane, which means no one would be bumping elbows with me, which is definitely a jackpot. Now, I make my way down to the gate, and soon enough, it's time to board our flight. There's the pre-boarding passengers first, then the rest of us cattle. I make my way down to my prize, only to find that someone is sitting in it. Now, I'm annoyed, but not overly so. I mean, it could just be an honest mistake, right? So, I go up to him and I say, sir, I'm sorry, but I think you might be in my seat.
I then show the guy in my boarding pass. Well, he looks at me and says, screw you. And as he said that, I realize, oh wow, yeah, he's definitely drunk. And I could tell that by the way he was slurring his words. So not only was he belligerent, but drunk and belligerent. Well, I know the rules.
And if you're drunk enough to slur your speech, then that means no exit row for you. I catch the attention of a flight attendant, and I talk to her quietly about the situation, and my concern about Mr. Jerk over here in the exit row. Never mind the fact that it's my seat in the exit row. She approaches the gentleman, but barely gets a word out before this guy screams at her to get lost.
And at this point, I'm laughing to myself because I know exactly what's coming next. Sure enough, she heads off to the front of the plane, and Mr. Jerk is smiling smugly, thinking that he's won this battle. Meanwhile, I'm grinning like the Cheshire cat because I know exactly what's gonna happen next.
Sure enough, here comes the captain with the flight attendant in row. Now, this gentleman is big. He's got at least two inches on me height-wise, and I suspect if he ever gets bored with being a pilot, he could play defensive back. Clearly, the kind of person who gets out pent up energy by picking up and putting down very heavy things repeatedly. The captain goes up and says, sir, what's the issue? Now, Mr. Jerk has figured out that the man standing in front of him is obviously some kind of authority figure.
But he doesn't quite seem to be able to pin down what kind of authority figure. So, in a slightly less drunk corner of his mind, he knows the phrase is uniform and he knows big. So, instead of a repeat of what the flight attendant and myself got, the captain gets some drunken warbling about it being his seat, and that I was mean or something like that, because I wanted to take it away from him.
and that the lady over there, as he points to the flight attendant, was mean as well. The captain, meanwhile, takes one look at the flight attendant, and then back at Mr. Jerk. He says to him, Sir, have you been drinking? And this guy just says, Oh yeah, I've had two beers. Now, as an aside, I really want to see those mystical two beers sometime. Because I imagine that this guy drank two kegs of beers, but I digress.
The captain tries to be polite, sir, could I please see your boarding pass? The captain knows that this flight is full, so it's doubtful that he can get this guy into any kind of decent seat, like a bulkhead seat or even just try to bribe him. But he really just wants to know where this guy is actually supposed to be. The captain says, sir, your seat is back there, and this is as he points to an empty seat in the very back of the plane.
with his seat being just forward of the galley and the bathroom. So obviously not a primo seat. He says to the captain, no it's not, this is my seat. So with a sigh, the captain turns to me and says, sir can I please see your boarding pass? He goes back to Mr. Jerk and says, sir this seat belongs to the gentleman standing right here. Please get your belongings and move to your signed seat.
Now, at this point, the slightly less drunk part of his brain lost hold of its grip on his mouth, and the two beers that are clearly sitting in this guy's stomach started to bellow out. He screams at the captain and says, no, this is my seat, screw you. Now, I'll be honest, the captain was not expecting this.
and then I see a vein throbbing on the captain's forehead that easily could have doubled as a garden hose. He pointed at me and said, sir, please come with me. He spun on his heels and walked towards the front of the plane. At this point, he just wants to separate Mr. Jerk from those that he deems as mean. Once we are finally out of his earshot, he looks at the flight attendant and asks her to call the airport police to escort the gentleman off the aircraft. I glance back and Mr. Jerk is smiling smugly again, thinking that somehow he's won.
Well, that smile lasted about seven more minutes, all the way up until the local police arrive to inform Mr. Jerk that he can either walk off the plane under his own power, or he can be cuffed and assisted off the plane. Now, I will credit the cops. They had much more patience than I had. This guy then went on for about five minutes in a drunken rage, screaming about how everyone was being so mean to him. And at that point, eventually they lost their patience, too.
The silver bracelets came out and off they went, with our drunk friend now protesting loudly that the cops were being mean as well. And I've honestly never seen anybody act that insane in my life. Yeah, I think I would be super annoyed if somebody stole my seat, but also was so blazingly drunk and obnoxious about it in the process. That would be really annoying to deal with and I can't imagine having that kind of patience to not try and like tell them off and be like, hey, you need to move.
So honestly, good for the original poster for handling this with style and with class, because that entitled jerk absolutely had it coming. If you like Am I the Jerk, you're probably going to love Am I the Genius. Check it out, link down below in the description. Also, go to amiethejerk.com slash submit if you would like to submit your own stories.
A group of entitled carants make wild assumptions about our wine-selling business, claiming that we're just breaking down all the boxes instead of selling them, despite none of that actually being true. Here's what happened. A while back, I worked at a wine store. Everything in the store was at least 80 points for those of you who understand what that means. So we understandably get some things in rather nice packaging.
The cigars are the fanciest packaging in my opinion, but honestly, to someone who sells the stuff, it's just a box. Now, boxes inspire ideas, but not all of them are good. Just imagine what kinds of people would show up to some place, with a pretense of having lots of boxes. Those people are the kind of people that show up to wine stores, except used wine boxes have replay value for people buying wine. So, there's a built-in demand that really prevents waste.
only completely useless cardboard gets crushed, and only dirty boxes get thrown out, so it's not a goldmine of boxes. So, one day the phone rings, and it's an old lady with a sweet demeanor. She asked us if we had any wooden wine crates available. I put her on hold and I asked my co-worker if we had any, and she told me that we get them here once in a while, but when one is available, it goes quickly, usually to the first person who asked for it. We have to actually sell enough wine that comes in a wooden crate before the crate can be up for grabs.
So, the lady thanks me and says goodbye. At that point, I go about my day. It's not that unusual of a question, but it's the first time that I had actually gotten an answer. Previous time, I just said that I didn't know, but now I do, so that's really good. So then the phone rings again, and it's another old lady. She tells me that she heard we have a wooden crate wine boxes, and that they will be available after a sale is done, and she wanted to be sure that she was the first person to ask for one.
almost acting as if there was some kind of like waiting list, or even some kind of like big sale event that they were just being used for. So I explained that no, there is no word on when a single crate would be available, it is completely random. So all the bottles that are stored in this crate, they need to be sold first.
and I explained this particular set of facts a few times. I answered that lady's questions and she actually seemed to get the whole thing. With the matter being settled, it was definitely explained that there were no crates available because of some sale. Well, after about an hour of unremarkable wine store business, the phone rings again. I swear, it somehow rang harder than normal, even though phones don't actually ring anymore. This one was a frantic old lady. She heard that a sale had ended and we had removed all the wine crates.
so they were unavailable to customers. She said to me, people want those traits, but I just repeated all the information I told the last two callers. I then tried to figure out what all the fuss was about. We talked enough and then I resolved all the concerns. While on the phone with this same caller, I explained more detail about how one of these boxes would even become available, and I really thought that I was off the hook at this point.
But then the boss lady Karen calls. This lady sounds like the type of person who grabs her pearls and screams, oh my stars. I mean, she definitely needs an organist to follow her around. The best that I could gather was that she heard that we were redoing our warehouse and that we aren't holding wooden crates for anyone. Supposedly, we were crushing the crates to make sure they all fit in the dumpster.
Then we went on to ramble about how beautiful those wooden crates are, and how people reuse them, and she begged me to ask the wine clerk for six of them. Well, at that point, I put her on hold and I laughed my head off, and I decided to ask a random clerk if it could be done. The guy looked scared for his job.
So I disregarded his reluctant yes, because he told me that the manager would be mad, and the crates certainly full of delicate, expensive products wouldn't even stack well. I even looked at the room where the wooden crate wines are stored, and they're not even from the same places in the world. They're built from completely different woods. They only stack with the same brand. Well, the lady calmed down once she learned that no, we didn't have a machine that crushes wooden crates. I have a background in sales, but I regret not trying to actually sell all the wine in question.
Fast forward and three days later, a college girl called me, and when she began asking me questions about wine crates, as if she was trying to make sense of something, it turns out that she saw a wine crate bookcase on Instagram and wanted to build one herself. Fortunately, she apologized and I was just glad that I found it funny, and that her grandmother's actual sewing circle is the reason that all this drama popped off in the first place, because trust me, these conversations were incredibly exhausting.
Wow, I can only imagine getting the same phone call like that over and over again for what? Several days? Or even all at the same time on the same day? I know whenever I worked customer service and people would just assume things about the job and just make up stories in their head, it really made my job not only harder, but also very frustrating.
So I think the original poster handled this really well, and they kept their cool despite the fact that these people were just making stuff up. Because I know if I was in their shoes, I would definitely have been very frustrated from the beginning. My boyfriend is literally into every conspiracy theory that you could possibly think of.
as he is constantly studying all the hidden things about the world despite never having any evidence to back up any of his claims. And now, after a recent conversation, my boyfriend has called me a government puppet and that I need to open my mind to other points of views. And at this point, I'm wondering if I'm making a mistake by dating this guy or if this is something that I can overlook and still have a good life with him. Because right now, I seriously don't know what to do. Here's what happened.
I'm a 29-year-old female and my boyfriend is 45 years old. And we had a few things to iron out in our relationship of six months. We get on really well, but my God, every conspiracy going on, he is absolutely into it. I don't mind with a few of them because who am I to judge? I don't honestly have all the answers. I kind of like it in a way sometimes because I find it funny and interesting that he thinks about these things. But it is currently everything.
Weather control, rigged elections, pyramids, COVID, Stonehenge, aliens in Mesopotamia, the Earth being flat, and the list goes on and on. One of his friends had a go at me once for not doing my own research around the Great Reset, which I kind of just laughed off because I think it's ridiculous.
And if there really was a great reset, I'm unlikely to live through it so I don't really care. My boyfriend went to Egypt just before we started dating and literally argued with the tour guides about the origins of the pyramids, believing that he was indoctrinated. See, when it comes to ancient structures, he claims that they don't want us to know about them.
and that they hide all of this from us. According to him, archaeologists are just brainwashed, and when things are found that don't fit the version of history we have or the time period, they discredit it and say that it's not real. Like how apparently a bit of metal that was found somewhere, which showed proof of advanced machinery way back in the day. When I googled this, the article I found had the plausible answer that actually it fell off a bit of machinery in present time that was digging up the ancient site.
There's so much of, oh, they control this and they control that. And I'm like, who is they? Does this non-binary person exist in the world? Like, who is it that you're talking about? It doesn't tend to bother us day to day, but tonight, we've had quite a big argument about conspiracies.
He actually thinks that I'm a government puppet and that it will stunt my growth by never thinking outside the box. For context, I'm a medical professional that very much deals with what's happening now and what I can do right in that second to help my patients. And he is in a manual field where that sort of stuff just doesn't come into play. The COVID topic for me is off limits because I work throughout the pandemic and he respects that. So is this a deal breaker? This is the biggest red flag and it feels so ridiculous and comical, but I worry if this is a sign of things to come.
What should I do? In my opinion, this is a massive red flag and a giant deal breaker for me. If my significant other went up to me and said, oh, you're just a government puppet, you need to open your mind and then try to spout off all this garbage that you literally just mentioned from arguing about the pyramids to weather control, I would literally dump that person right away. There's no way in the world I would ever want to be with someone like that.
And it's just amazing to me that you're willing to put up with that for so long. Like, hey, good for you. If you really like them, I guess go for it. But if I was in your shoes, there is no way on Earth I would ever want to date someone like that. Because they literally sound unhinged. And that is definitely not the kind of person that I want in my life. Am I the jerk for shaving my head without telling my family? Because right now, my parents and my brothers are furious with me. And at this point, I seriously don't know what to do. Here's what happened.
I'm a 19-year-old female and I just finished my freshman year of college. My grandmother who's 82 years old is unfortunately in the later stages of cancer and is not expected to live much longer. We were very close when I was a child, much of which was because I'm her only granddaughter, which is something that she had always wished to have. One of the ways we bonded was through my hair. I had it very long, all the way down my back.
and she loved how it looked like hers did when she was a kid. I was repeatedly told my entire life, especially by my grandmother, to never cut it as it was beautiful. Now I came out as a lesbian at 16 years old and started to take on more of a masculine appearance and in turn my self confidence became a lot stronger.
but it also definitely alienated me from my family. They're not homophobic by any means, but they're definitely uncomfortable with the idea of me being gay, especially because I'm the only girl. Through those last few years of high school, despite wearing masculine clothes and getting an undercut in my hair, I still kept my super long hair. My parents didn't love this new look, but never tried to stop me either.
Well, going to college far away from where I grew up has allowed me to embrace the look I'm going for a little bit more, and the obvious step for me was to cut my hair. It was something that I wanted to do for years, and so in April, right after I returned to campus from spring break, I had a friend of mine shave all of my hair off, knowing that I wouldn't have to face the consequences with my family for another month or so when I came back home from college. And you know what? I love my shaved head.
I feel so much more like myself without all the hair weighing me down, and I even donated all of my hair. I was extremely nervous for my family to see me without my hair. I was too nervous to tell my parents. So it came as a shock to them when my dad picked me up at the airport and saw me. His immediate concern was that this trip home could very well be the last time I see my grandmother, and it would absolutely break her heart to see me without my hair. When I got home, my mom was absolutely livid.
She said that it was incredibly selfish for me to do this, especially when I knew I was going to see my grandmother who absolutely loved my hair, and that it was unfair to have her last image of her only granddaughter being in her words an ugly tomboy hairdo. At this point, I feel absolutely awful, because while I did this for me and I feel great about the haircut, it breaks my heart to think about my grandmother and what I did to her by doing this.
And this is because the first thing she always used to do when she saw me was tussle my hair and compliment it. My parents are still very mad at me, and so are my brothers, because my grandmother is our matriarch, and we are all trying to do everything we can to make her happy and comfortable at the end of her life.
They are all saying that I should have at least waited for her to pass away before I cut my own hair. So am I the jerk for not considering this when I chose to shave my head? Because right now, I seriously don't know what to do. No, I don't think you're the jerk at all. And anyone who's making a big deal out of this, in my opinion, is completely out of line. This is your body. This is your hair, and you could do whatever you want with it.
If you want to cut it, let it grow out or die it, that is all literally up to you. No one stakes any kind of claim over how you look or over the kind of way you want to live your life. So honestly, if I was in your shoes, I would tell them to get lost. If your grandmother really only loved you because of your hair and only wanted you around because you had long beautiful hair like she had when she was a kid, and this really is that big of a deal breaker, then in my opinion, she never actually loved you. If she did love you, she'll love you regardless of how you look.
And that should be the same with any other genuine family member who actually cares about you. And sure, I can understand that they're shocked that you shaved your head and just didn't say anything. But I know for a fact that if one of my sisters did that, I would still love them for the person that they are. Well, I can't believe you didn't think about anyone else before you did something with your body.
Like that's just insane and there's literally no reason to act like that. So no, you are definitely not the jerk, and I think your family is acting insane for treating you in the way that they are. My former job treats me like garbage after I quit to try and find something else, causing me to burst into tears out of pure humiliation. Here's what happened.
Okay, so let me start off by saying that this was my first job. I was a food runner and a busser, but I wasn't a server. I got hired at a local place where the owner had a reputation for being a massive jerk, but I really wanted to see the good. Over the summer, the other two bussers constantly called off.
leaving me at work alone even on major holidays. And as a result, I got so stressed out from working alone, closing the store, and sometimes even opening by myself. By the end of the summer, I quit and gave my two weeks notice, and my boss asked me to meet with her to understand why I was leaving. And in this meeting, she promised to cross train me if I return in the spring.
Well, Spring came along and I recommended a friend for the job. I had been asking since April to be scheduled for the first week of May, and they said yes. My friend got hired and ended up with more hours than me, even though I had been there longer. Well, I complained and they called me into another meeting. My manager told me that to get more hours you have to prove yourself to us.
They brought up my attempt to quit last year and dodged my questions about getting the same hours as last summer, not counting the times that I worked alone. It was then that I realized I should have stuck with my decision to quit last year. So, that night, I texted them after my shift and I just quit. And not even two weeks later, I got a similar job at a distillery. Yesterday, during my break, I visited my old job to say hi to my old coworkers.
My former boss cornered me, likely because she knew I struggle with standing up to authority. She noticed where I was working and asked what I was doing. I told her I was still food running and busing, and she said to me, so you quit to do the same thing there after we planned on moving you to a new position. But I explained why I quit again just like I had to my manager before. She then told me that I should have thought twice about my decision and that I need to work on my communication and decision making skills.
Now, normally I put on a poker face, but it actually caught me off guard. I am not the type to leave without saying goodbye, but I felt so humiliated. And when I left, I burst into tears on my way back to my job. It sounds pathetic, but I felt hopeless and humiliated. At that moment, I wish that I had never worked there.
I wouldn't wish my experience on my worst enemy, and I'm praying that this new place treats me better, and that I don't get treated like that ever again. Yeah, if I was in your shoes, I would have told that lady off right then and there. Because here's the thing, and I really mean this, no one should ever have to take that kind of treatment ever.
I don't care who it is. Putting up with that kind of passive aggressive garbage, in my opinion, is only going to cause you mental stress that you do not need. So hopefully in the future, you have a chance to defend yourself and stand up for your good name. Because that lady was completely out of line, and you definitely did not deserve that in the slightest. When you subscribe, make sure to hit the bell to turn on notifications. To finish listening to all the stories, check out the playlist at the top of the description.
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