Getting a late charge for a bill can be really annoying.

Some people want to get revenge in these situations, but it doesn’t always work out the way they expect.

In today’s story, one man is annoyed that he got a late payment fee for his property tax bill.

He wanted to get revenge by paying the bill in an annoying way, but he was the one who got annoyed when he took the payment to city hall.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Want revenge by paying in pennies? Here, let me count those for you.

Ages ago, I worked a front-line job at city hall, registering cars and dogs and collecting money for parking tickets, property taxes and the like.

So, a basic entry-level municipal finance grunt, bottom of the food chain, nowhere close to being the one making the ordinances or rules, etc. Grunt.

This was before the days of taking credit cards and debit cards for such payments, before smartphones, before the online banking world really began.

Ages ago.

Paper paper paper.

Here’s the rundown on how people paid their property taxes.

The city’s ordinance on tax interest stated that interest would accrue daily against any past-due tax bill at a rate of blah blah %per annum.

Property taxes were due quarterly.

Many people would come in to pay cash on the tax due date.

Many, many more would remit their payment by checks through the mail.

They kept detailed records.

We kept extremely thorough paper records of all payments received through the mail, retaining their remittance stub, the envelope bearing the postmark.

(which was the date we would use to calculate any interest if it arrived past the due date. If the postmark was before or on the due date, no interest was charged.)

These were batched daily by each clerk, filed by date in our vault so anyone who needed to could find any receipt/remittance fairly quickly.

We needed to, often, as did the city auditor.

Here’s what happened when people paid a few days late.

Anyway, business as usual and the few days following the tax due we would always get a few stragglers through the mail, and the daily interest would have started adding up.

Not by a lot – for most homeowners this would amount to just a few cents a day.

We would send them a receipt in the mail with a note that they have a small balance now due to accrued interest, but we would hold it at the amount for 10 days.

Most people would just send another check, some would ignore it, and others would come in to pay in person.

One person who paid late wanted to pay in pennies.

Finally, the stars aligned and I got one, a real peach of a gentleman who was extremely disgruntled that he got a bill in the mail for this “gosh darn interest garbage,” which he slapped down on the counter inches from my face.

He then slammed a repurposed melatonin bottle full of pennies down on top of the paper and said, “I hope whoever sent me this bill has to count these pennies!” at top volume for all of city hall to hear.

I could tell already that it was mine, I saw my initials on the receipt when he slapped it down.

Cue malicious compliance.

OP acted very cheerful about it.

I smiled as big as I could, said I would find out who had processed it and took his receipt to the vault.

I didn’t even give him enough time to react, I just got up and went to the vault while cheerfully saying “it’ll just be a minute!” before disappearing from his sight.

I found the paperwork, including his two days late postmarked envelope.

She made sure it took a long time.

Then I sat down at my desk, took the melatonin bottle, looked him in the eye and said “You’re in luck today, sir! I’m the one who sent this balance due to you so I will be able to count these pennies for you!”

And I did.

I counted all thirty-nine of those pennies, and I counted them one by one, very very thoroughly.

It took him about 20 minutes to pay his annoying $0.39 from the minute that bottle hit the counter to the end of it.

She kept pouring on the sweetness.

I was extremely pleasant and cordial and smiling at him the entire time.

It was just fun at that point so I kept pouring it on, just so sweet.

His face was practically purple by the end, and as he slunk out the door (without the smug satisfaction he was expecting when he slammed that melatonin bottle on my counter), I said “Have a great rest of your day! Weather’s beautiful!”

And it was.

At least it was only 39 cents.

It could’ve been much more annoying if it had been a few dollars or more.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

I hope she did this too!

Another person would always count the change too.

This would’ve been funny!

This idea would make it take much longer to count the pennies!

He was getting revenge on the wrong person.

Kindness for the win.

Everyone came out on top.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.