The popular proverb says to “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,” Oscar Wilde wrote “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much”; the list of similar expressions could go on and on. And it’s likely safe to say that most of them bear some truth in them, considering that they’re prevalent to this day.

Another similar phrase, attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, suggests to “Never interrupt an enemy while they are making a mistake”, and redditors proved that one to be true. User ‘Spinksy48’ asked the ‘Ask Reddit’ community members what was their “never-interrupt-an-enemy” moment, and they had plenty of stories to share. Scroll down to find them on the list below and see why some expressions are able to stand the test of time.

#1

During my very long and exhausting divorce, my ex husband kept insisting he was ready to settle, we would schedule a conference with my lawyer and I, and then pushed papers around the table for 2 hours. He would just argue over petty details rather than actually discuss anything. This happened a few times. I was incredibly frustrated because I genuinely walked into this wanting to compromise so it would be over quickly. But that was never an option. Note that I hired a lawyer and he did not - he was convinced he could do it on his own better. So after a few rounds of this, I got the impression that he was trying to waste my money until I could no longer retain my lawyer and then he thought he would have the upper hand. I made less than half of what he did at the time and my lawyer's retainer fee wiped out my entire savings so it was a very real concern. My suspicions were confirmed when one day as we were walking out of my lawyer's office, he told me this, word for word while chuckling.

I passed this on to my lawyer who actually cackled and told me "let him." It was then that I learned that we were 6 months out from being married 10 years and at that point, I would be entitled to a sizable part of his pension upon retirement.

She let him play his games for 6 more months without saying a word and then finally took our case before a judge 5 days after our 10 year anniversary. Not only did I get part of his pension, but she also got the judge to order him to pay almost all of my lawyers fees. The beauty of it was that it 100% his fault for playing games.

Image credits: littleirishpixie

#2

I was doing a mortgage for a French guy in Miami Beach that had a French realtor. Even though both were completely fluent in English, she frequently did asides in French having no idea I spoke the language. When they settled on a property and we were riding the elevator down from the condo she told him that look, these guys are scumbags, and they're going to screw you over and I have a much better person that you can work with (even though the way foreign investment works is identical throughout the state). Towards the end of the ride, I say to the guy in fluent French that we would be happy to compare our proposal with whatever her people could come up with and it's his choice but certainly we would like to work with him on this and any future investments. He starts laughing his a*s off, and she was completely mortified. He went with us and fired her as his agent. On the spot.

Image credits: austexgringo

#3

In high school Spanish, this stereotypical dumb jock who sat in front of me would turn around and take my paper from me to copy my answers. He knew he could get away with it because I was an awkward pushover.

One day, I took two copies of a verb worksheet and purposefully put down wrong answers because this guy was like clockwork. He took the wrong answer copy like a complete sucker and the next day when the teacher was passing back papers, his work sheet said 60% and mine was 100% (foreign language was my jam in HS).

He turns around extremely pissed off and calls me an effing "R" word, saying "you got these wrong!!!". I showed him my worksheet with a perfect score and said, "i'm flattered that you trust me so much".

Eat s**t, Patrick. I still savor picturing the disgust on your face 20 years later.

Image credits: nancynapalm

#4

I was accused by a neighbour of reversing out my drive and hitting his car. He gave me the date and time I had allegedly done it, and pointed to a (small) scrape on my car that supposedly matched perfectly the location of the dent on his.

This was 7 weeks after the alleged event, by the way.

I said it wasn't me but told him to contact his insurance and we'd see what they said. Few weeks later I get a letter from my insurance asking what had happened, to which I responded with the date I had bought my car (and updated my insurance) - two weeks after the supposed bump.

He never spoke to me again but I used to give him a cheery wave every time I saw him glowering at his window.

Image credits: Gazcobain

#5

I let the lady who changed lanes into me run her mouth about how I rear ended her before pulling the cop aside to show him my DashCam footage.

Image credits: ThrowingChicken

#6

My half-sister moved in with my ex-husband the day I moved out. They swore they weren’t sleeping together (I didn’t ask, they told me without prompting). So I saw no reason to tell my ex that my sister had herpes. After all, they said they weren’t sleeping together. Guess who was on Valtrex two months after the divorce ?.

Image credits: BronxBelle

#7

Not my story, but several years ago my older brother was fighting for custody of his son with his ex-wife.

As the first custody hearing date approached, they were exchanging [un]pleasantries over text and my brother ended up saying something along the lines of, "I'm not continuing this conversation. I will see you on the 15th."

The ex-wife told him, "The hearing is on the 25th dumb*ss."

So of course instead of correcting her, my brother just allowed her to keep thinking it was the wrong date, and she missed the first hearing entirely.

It became the first of many mistakes she made in the court system that eventually led to my brother and the woman who is now his second wife winning full custody of his son.

Image credits: Damn_Furries

#8

Guy stole a presentation from me, this is 25 years ago. We hated each other. When he started presenting I realized I had made a huge error, didn’t say anything. Let him get through it. Asked him about the error, he couldn’t answer. This was in front of ceo. Got fired, not for just that, he was an overall douche. This was before everyone was on PCs, had one printer in one room.

Image credits: Bmilvis

#9

Last year I listened to my (now ex) manager make discriminatory comments about my disabilities, and said nothing while she reiterated her ableist points, just continued taking notes. I also didn’t make a point to correct her when she sent her report full of more discrimination and straight up insults and accusations. She ended that report with a poorly veiled threat. A couple months ago, after 25 years in that job she handed in her notice to escape the sh*tstorm I had summoned to her front doorstep. I used all of her own words against her to drag her to hell and back. She bloody deserved it too, the s**t she put me through destroyed my mental health. Her position got dissolved and our entire department started to be majorly restructured, and I’m still here.

Image credits: ElectricYV

#10

I used to live in an apartment that had a very old lease (college students basically passed this place’s lease down like inheritance until it came to us) and, legally, the landlord could only increase the rent yearly by a small fraction of the current lease’s rent. The exceptions to this were if the apartment was being renovated (in which case it would be her responsibility to accommodate us while renovating) or if it had been vacant for a year between leases.

She knew our lease’s rent was extremely low, and so wanted to get rid of us and jack up the rent on a new tenant. She sent us a letter about 2 weeks before our lease would be renewed saying she was renovating and we’d have to leave.

Well, it happened my roommate was not just a college student, but a law student. And he happened to know she had to give us a lot more notice than that. So we plainly told her we weren’t leaving and she’d be welcome to take us to court.

Which, she did. She told the judge she wanted to renovate, and the judge asked her for the new floor plan and a cost estimate of the proposed renovation. She had none of those things. When the judge asked why, she said she’d only decided to renovate a week prior. When the judge asked why she’d taken this decision after the legal deadline (6 months notice are required to end a lease) she said she was only renovating so she could start a new lease on the property. The judge literally facepalmed at her response, dismissed the case, and renewed our lease with *no* rent increase for the year, since she hadn’t presented us a new one with enough delay to contest it.

We were just sitting there with our mouths open, bewildered that she could have been dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud straight to the judge.

Image credits: imyourzer0

#11

An old boss who was awful to me after I took an extra few days of bereavement. She was just not smart so I emailed her a recap of a meeting we’d had about said days off. She responded not only confirming what she’d said but throwing in a bit of racism.

I escalated. I’d been at the company in a different location for 8 yrs with an outstanding track record so I had some credibility.

2-3 weeks later my team was called into a last minute meeting where her early retirement was announced and my colleague saw her crying in the parking lot later that day (her last day!).

I really don’t hate anyone generally but that made me so happy and looking back I still hate her lol.

Image credits: Objective-Amount1379

#12

My husband and I were driving down highway 2 into Boston. Traffic was congested but going pretty steady, and both lanes going at about the same pace, maybe 40mph. Like I can't emphasize enough how no one was winning in either lane. We were in the left lane following a cop car and leaving a respectable space between. A contractor van was behind us riding our a*s, as if that would help their cause. So we change lanes when the opportunity presented itself.

That impatient idiot floored it right up to the cop's a*s and started riding him. A few seconds of that and the cop pulled into the left breakdown/construction lane, slowed down and pulled back in line behind the van lights and sirens blaring.

Husband and I were awestruck.

Image credits: cambrianwhore

#13

As I was being fired from a job, the district manager requested we record the conversation. He thought I was gonna be very upset, so I obliged. Then when he started to tell me why I was being fired he started with, “You are gonna be graduating college soon, and we want to make sure we get ahead of you leaving us.”

I very calmly asked he send me the recording right after he said that. Then later that day I called a lawyer. I now have no student loan debt.

Edit:: To give context, I was able to win litigation due to breach of contract. I don’t feel like the internet is the right place to go into further detail.

Image credits: JRTHEAMAZING

#14

Oh I have SO many! But my favorite happened a few years ago.

I used to drive a Dodge Ram truck (the irony of this still gets me) and was in the Walmart parking lot one day. I had stopped to let a car in front of me go, and some broad drove right into the back of my truck.

There just so happened to be an officer across the street so he quickly comes over and makes sure we're all good, then asks what happened. The lady tells him I backed into her! She told him I was backing out of a parking spot (I wasn't) and backed into her.

The cop looked at her and was like "ma'am, I saw the whole thing and personally witnessed you drive into her".

I never even had to say a word. She got slapped with a few tickets though, including distracted driving.

Image credits: getyourglow

#15

I remember an account manager for a big software vendor, that always gave us a hard time. He would constantly nag about things he promised or terms in the contract. One day it was time for contract negotiations and our head legal attended, that also happened to be the wife of the company's owner.

When we sat down and she gave him some coffee he bluntly told her how nice it was, that she as a waitress was also attending. It didn’t take long for them to find us a new account manager.

Image credits: Renjoh

#16

Years ago I worked extremely hard on preparing a presentation for a tech conference. It would be my first speaking gig. I was nervous af. I practiced. I refined. I got advice. I practiced some more. My manager was generally a nasty woman but she was supportive of this. Though she never once saw or heard my presentation.

We travel to Vegas. It turns out there was a far greater demand than they expected, so they moved us to the main stage room. There were expecting about 500 plus walk-ins. I was 10x nervous af.

Well, immediately prior to the start, she noticed a very well known media person and their photographer sitting in the front row. She got all excited and insisted that she was going to co-deliver it. She even went so far as to put her name on title slide.

So... I of course was fuming. We go on stage, she does a decent intro and then I start in. She keeps interrupting so I just let her run with it. It reminded me of a morning show. A bunch of people, with overwhelmingly fake smiles talking over each other. This was a deeply technically topic with a live demo. She fumbled each slide worse than the next. And then she got to the "Live Demo" slide and... froze. I had the wherewithal to let her die. It was gloriously brutal.

We had a, let's say, confrontation after. I left within 2-3 mos. She got fired shortly after.

Oh, and the media people she was prancing for left immediately before the start. I think they were just sitting there from the prior session. Perfect.

Image credits: kooknboo

#17

It was during one of the many times my brother was annoying the s**t out of me. He would often bother me until I was literally crying and begging him to stop by walking into my room and screaming, slamming my door or just putting his trash in my room to pick up.

It would go from just getting annoyed and telling him to get out because I was busy or trying to relax to getting worn out by his nonsense to literally having a breakdown because it just won't f*****g end and my mom wouldn't do s**t about it.

Well, one day I was in the middle of another mental breakdown where I was literally just crying curled up in a ball trying to calm down after he threw something at me, and I guess he didn't hear it but my dad was coming up the stairs as he was about to go back to my room and continue with his daily tormenting.

I heard my dad coming up the stairs and just stayed quiet and tried to calm down as my brother started to scream again, laughing his annoying a*s off after a few moments when I just covered my ears.
After he finished screaming, my dad pulled him out of my room and grounded him right then and there, gave him a stern talking to, then made him go downstairs and do a bunch of chores while he calmed me down.

That was one of the first time he was caught and stopped since my dad was always at work and my mom didn't give a f**k and my dad took it VERY seriously to the point where every time he caught him doing that again he would ground him for weeks at a time, and the stuff he got grounded from was pretty damn creative.

#18

Our friend group had one guy I had personally cut off because he was a terrible drunk.

Another friend of mine was having a cookout and decided to invite the guy I had cut off despite me saying he was going to do some stupid s**t.

Fast forward into two hours into the cookout, the friend I had cut off from my life got drunk and decided it'd be funny to sucker punch a guy with aspergers...everyone was telling him how big of a piece of s**t thing that was to do...but he laughed and shrugged and played it off as no big deal...as the aspergers guy was holding back tears. I didn't have to do a f*****g thing, he showed everyone who he was. everyone stopped f*****g with him after that. Good riddance.

Image credits: JakeSkywalkerr

#19

I have my own custody battle.

When I split with my ex-wife, one of the main reasons she gave for me not being able to spend time with my daughter was because she was convinced I was going to take her to my parents house, and my mum liked to smoke (only cigarettes, but still…) in the house.

We arrived in court, and I met her and her lawyer in the reception area. The three of us struck up a conversation, mostly about the case, and in the course of that conversation, the fact that my mum had passed away a month earlier happened to come up. The look on her lawyers face - it was clear this was the first time she’d heard about my mum passing, my ex-wife (who was very aware of it) hadn’t mentioned it to her, and this was obviously quite a vital part in their whole argument! Within 30 minutes, her lawyer had drafted an agreement about how we’d share custody of my daughter - I signed it, and we got the judge to effectively rubber-stamp it for us.

#20

I was prosecuting in the local magistrates court in the UK. The defendant had paid for some fancy smancy lawyer from London to come up to defend. The chair of the magistrates, who were all lay people, was a frail-looking senior lady and he tried to snowball her. He came perilously close to calling her "dear" while talking down to her.

What we locals knew was that she was a terrifying harridan with a mind like a steel trap and a tongue like a razor and she ate him alive. She tore apart his arguements, lambasted him for bringing complex legal arguements to court without prior warning the clerk and picked apart his understanding of the rules of evidence. Never saw him again.

#21

My ex co-worker was pos and he was using "I have a baby so I needs certain shifts more ". But that didn't matter if he randomly decided to get wasted on alcohol and white powder. He would call me in the middle of the night to cover his morning shift etc etc. And I would cover his shift, and yet, when I needed him to cover my shift (which I would ask him days even weeks in advance) he would pull I have a baby card.

Christmas season comes and I ask him if I can take 31st of December morning shift so I can spend new years evening with my boyfriend, go somewhere, celebrate etc. He got almost mad because I asked. His words were "no, no, I have a baby, it's his first new years eve, I have to spend it with him and wife." Fine, whatever. And then night of 30th comes, I was awake at 2 am, gaming or watching Netflix. I felt my phone vibrate and look who it is, my co-worker who is wasted somewhere and needs his morning shift covered... I put my phone on do not disturb and in my drawer. I didn't answer.

Next morning I had 50 missed calls from him, few from other coworker and 10ish from my boss. He didn't show up for work. He got fired that day. Work environment became so much healthier.

#22

Not an enemy but in retrospect should have been.

I work as a teacher and we had an ex-manager guy who decided to get into teaching late. He had lots of pretty horrible habits (eating other people's lunches, perving on the female teachers, squeezing people's shoulders painfully hard as a 'matey' gesture) but the habit that this story is about, is how he tried to use weaponised incompetence to get people to do his tasks for him. None of it was really important. He just seemed to enjoy talking people into doing things for him.

So he comes up to me one day with a USB data stick in his hand. Apparently it has a copy of a previous year's exam that it was his responsibility to update and edit. He'd taken the file home and his daughter had done the update (really dude? Roping family into doing your paid government job for you?).

He wanted me to copy the file from the USB back into the server, replacing the original file he'd copied. It was literally click and drag between the USB and the file server. I flat out refused and said it was part of his responsibility and I was too busy with my own tasks.

He proceeds to loudly and publicly proclaim to the entire staffroom that I didn't understand how difficult it was for people of his generation to learn computer technology and that I really needed to help him out. That he was currently doing a computer course but this (dragging a file between two folders) was too difficult for him to sort out.

I let him go on for about a good 5 minutes about how horrible I was for not helping the poor helpless old man out, until I just as loudly asked him "How the hell did you get the original file from the server onto the USB in the first place?"

You could have heard a pin drop in that staffroom. He walked off and copied his own goddamned file.

#23

My village has a lot of shops in the centre with a number of flats above the shops.

A new developer arrived, bought up all the properties and raised the rent ridiculously high on a 10 year contract for force all the small businesses and renters out. His idea was to redevelop the face of the village into a modern metro type area.

The problem was he’s forced out every business, but no one signed up for his new leases. More than half the village shops are empty and it’s an eyesore. All the businesses have gone to the big shopping centres.

So no investors want any part of it. He’s now ran out of money and can’t build his metro douchey revamp anymore and is having to sell to recoup his lost rental earnings.

Image credits: Naughtyspider

#24

We had a catered lunch at work. There was a sushi platter along with all the usual condiments. My stupid manager (whom I despised very much) slathered her maki roll with wasabi. She looked at me and said: "I didn't know sushi was served with guacamole". She then shoved two pieces in her mouth simultaneously. Exactly 3 seconds later, she began to sweat profusely and spat out a sludge of half-chewed maki rolls and wasabi. After recoveing from the shock, she yelled "What kind of guacamole was that ?", not realizing it was not guacamole at all.

Image credits: osiris1213

#25

Roommate's ex abandons their vehicle in front of my house.

I tell them to please move it or I will have it towed.

Vehicle suddenly has two flat tires.

Ex files police report claiming my roommate and I had slashed their tires.

Waited until ex made their statement to the police about how we had slashed their tires and that is why they couldn't move his vehicle and filed a claim against us in small claims court.

Provided police and the court copies of my and our neighbors door cam footage showing the ex arriving in the middle of the night to slash their own tires.

cherry on top: Ex shows up in court wearing the same shirt as in the videos.

EDIT: Wow this blew up.

Roommate and ex had only been dating a few months. Ex turned out to be a grifter and was dating several people at the same time and using each of them for food, shelter, money, etc. I got involved when my roommate was out of town and the soon-to-be-ex just sauntered in (apparently they had learned the code to the garage door), made themselves a sandwich, showered, slept, etc. I thought my roommate had come home early but when I texted them they were still out of state. The ex left to go out and I changed the garage code.

The vehicle wouldn't start so they just left it there thinking it would be okay. Roommate and a few of the other people the ex was dating find out about each other and they all dump them at once. I ask the ex to please move their car or I will have it towed. I give them two weeks.

Later on I learned that the ex was having a mental breakdown and they made some very poor decisions at that point. They broke into some of the other people's houses when they weren't home to do laundry, eat, sleep, and did some other things that got them in trouble with the law but are irrelevant to this story.

The ex had no proof that anyone had slashed their tires. The cops just came to the door of me and our neighbors to see if there was any footage - there was and they closed the case, I guess, they never talked to me again about it.

The court case was small claims court. The plaintiff has to pay a fee, file a form, have a summons issued to the defendant and then you both show up in court with your evidence. The ex had no evidence other than a long list of real and perceived grievances with my roommate but no actual proof so the judge dismissed the case. I never got to show the video evidence to the judge but I did share it with the clerk on their lunch break and they were the one who pointed out that the ex was wearing the same shirt.

Image credits: joosier

#26

Late night drive home. Some dude riding my a$$. I drive the speed limit, sorry. I stop at the stoplight. I see a cop car at the intersection, coming from the right. Dude doesn’t see cop car, swerved around me on the left, into the oncoming traffic lane, then goes left while it’s still a red light. Cop car flashes his sirens and he is pulled over immediately. Good times.

#27

When a coworker who I hated got fired a few weeks after I decided to stop fixing his mistakes even if it impacted a client.

Image credits: Hrekires

#28

Local electoral district association meeting - was expected to be a largely pro-forma re-nomination of the previous candidate (my boss), when a former candidate decides to throw his hat in the ring.

Starts giving this long diatribe about how much support he has locally (he lost his prior race by 3x the margin we lost by), and starts rambling. You know when someone starts talking faster instead of making a point? It was that.

Boss texts me to say “you can feel free to interrupt and move for a vote.” I reply “one sec, I have a feeling he’s gonna say something stupid.”

Right as he lets slip a racial slur against my boss… (For context: boss was Indian, prev. candidate was Chinese. Both second-generation. District didn’t lean heavily in either direction.)

Needless to say, once he realized what had happened, he made the smart choice and withdrew.

#29

I was a lead developer in a small company producing IOT devices.

My manager hired his friend from his previous company. A guy who was super arrogant and knew everything better. Theoretically, my opinion on the development of the project should be decisive, but neither my manager nor his buddy cared about it.

I tried to talk to the manager about the problems with the new colleague, but he brushed me off.

The new guy - being so brilliant - was given one important component of the system to do. Of course, he made it clear that he didn't need any help from me.

Weeks and months passed. In the meetings, his component was always in the last phase of testing. But I had access to the git repository, and I saw how messy it was. No one asked me for my opinion, so I didn't say anything. I waited.

The deadline has come, the release of the product. And of course nothing works. Higher management became interested in the case, and my manager could only avoid being fired in one way - he fired his buddy.

A few weeks later, I left the company. That was over a year ago, and as far as I know, the product still hasn't hit the market.

Image credits: BelmTheOwl

#30

So when my ex moved out, they loaded all her stuff in the front of a trailer to move to California. The truck was too long to tow another trailer with her new penis's Ford Mustang, so they loaded it on the back of the trailer and strapped it down. I looked at that in the back of the trailer and thought to myself, "they aren't that dumb, are they?" But that's on them.
I heard later that as they were driving through Arizona, a guy in oncoming traffic pulled out and around so they had to slam on the brakes. The Mustang plowed through all her belongings and blew out the front of the trailer, wedging up against the tractor.
Spent most of what they had saved up for a down payment on a house on the ordeal since they were too cheap to get extra insurance.

Image credits: K1rkl4nd