Have you ever gotten revenge on someone, many years after the incident? What happened?

Not quite revenge, but still...

Many years ago, in a century/millenium past, I met a person in college — let’s call him Johnny, ok? — and we ended up joining a study group. One day, the group decided to expand, also revising bibliography to publish our findings as theoretical articles (which is something students can do before entering experimental research), and so it happened that we ended sharing one of the topics. And, man, did I work hard, putting all my free time into reading and writing for weeks! But to make a long story short, he basically did nothing, stole the material I had shared with him, presented to the group as his while I was sick at home, and said I had tried to do what he had just done: take ownership of his hard work. In consequence, I was basically invited to leave the group. I tried to defend myself and a friend attempted to convince others that it couldn’t be right and that didn’t sound like me, but most of the other participants, including a cousin of his who was also in the group, basically claimed I was an expert double-faced manipulator that had fooled them, too. Well, although we weren’t the best or closest of friends, I really thought we were friends — but we learn and grow, right? We barely spoke after that and life went on.

A little over a decade later, I got a phone call from that one good friend I had in the group saying they would be having a reunion of sorts, along with some other friends just because, and he convinced me to go, saying it would be fun and it was all water under the bridge; I confess I ended up going more for his company and the free booze, though. Once there, chatting with a few people, updating and getting updated on what some of them were doing, I bumped into dear Johnny’s cousin. She told me the group had later found out that it was all BS and kicked him out, but never really invited me back because they knew I wouldn’t give them the time of day — which was true, I was REALLY PISSED for a while and wanted nothing to do with them — and I had been fortunate enough to find a great mentor and was busy working under him.

But here’s the thing: earlier that same year, Johnny Darling had tried to become a professor in the same university. Although his grades in the exam were pretty good, he was trying for the same department where my old mentor was kind of in the “top of the food chain” and, knowing what he had done to me before, decided to contact some of the co-authors in his publications. He found out Johnny hadn’t changed much and became kind of notorious among his co-workers for not doing things (or apparently actually screwing them up), misrepresenting his role in research and sometimes actually trying to pass the work of others as his — yep, not all of us learn and grow. Last I heard, he’d invested in another area and was working at that after becoming kind of “persona non grata” in some circles.

As I said, it wasn’t really revenge, but I did feel vindicated. And as we say down here: fez a fama, deita na cama (our equivalent to “you reap what you sow”).