Couple at grocery store discuss to buy last prime rib but a woman allegedly jumps in with ‘I was here first.’ They serve her karma right under her nose

Few social environments are as cutthroat as a grocery store counter in the days before a holiday, when prime rib can turn otherwise reasonable adults into scheming opportunists. That’s the premise of today’s strangely amusing Reddit story.

A shopper recently took to the social media platform to describe a standoff with another customer over the last chop of meat. The tale was shared on r/pettyrevenge, a community devoted to small-scale scores against life’s minor villains, whether they be a line-cutter or a parking-space poacher.

She called this particular outing a “spoils” shopping spree, where they just take a night to spoil themselves with good food and the kind of premium cut that doesn’t usually make it to the weekly list. 

According to the post, the couple had missed the usual Fourth of July sale because money was tight. So naturally, they pounced when the store ran a second sale with prime rib marked down a whopping $6 per pound.

They were just looking at the seafood because the employee was busy with another customer at the counter, who was almost finished. They saw only one roast was left at the counter, and it wasn’t much to look at. Still, the price was right, and she told her husband it was theirs. 

The other customer being served overheard the conversation and pointed at the very roast the couple had their eye on, and asked to have it wrapped up too.

“Seriously?” the OP protested, and the woman reportedly doubled down with a curt “I was here first!” — then offered a sarcastic grimace and strolled off with the roast, grinning. 

Cue what the poster describes as some heroic internal restraint in not making a scene there and then. “Mentally, both birds are flying and I’m uttering hieroglyphics,” she joked.

Karma was keeping watch on that particular encounter

Here’s where the meat gods decided to intervene. The employee, per the post, quietly informed her that he had one more prime rib in the back. It turned out to be a beautifully trimmed roast — unlike the first one, which she described as untrimmed with almost no cap — and a pound heavier. 

The clerk then allegedly knocked an additional dollar per pound off the price because it was the larger cut.

But karma wasn’t finished by a long shot, because the couple ended up in the checkout line directly ahead of the woman who’d swiped their original roast. Her husband reportedly unloaded the entire cart, saved the roast for last, and set it down right in front of the other shopper. “They did just so happen to have one really nice one in the back! Enjoy yours!”

The cashier, who probably didn’t know what was going on, rubbed it in: “Oh, I know where I’m coming for dinner!” And even said: “Nice! They gave you a discount! Lucky you!” The husband returned the grin then, but the woman didn’t grin back.

As with any anonymous first-person post, none of this can be independently verified, but the comments section was here for it nevertheless.

“I love when employees are nice,” wrote one user.

There were an awful lot of meat-related puns and dad jokes, too. “I’m glad you managed to make ends meat,” one comment read. “You really roasted that rib-heist lady.”

“Well done—or is it medium rare?”

Few things unite the internet quite like watching a small act of unnecessary rudeness collect its bill in real time.