There is a specific brand of “dad humor” that isn’t actually funny at all. It is just bullying wrapped in a laugh track. We all know that one relative who thinks the height of comedy is making the same derogatory joke about your career or your appearance every single time they see you. Usually we just grit our teeth and bear it for the sake of family peace. But one wind turbine technician on Reddit finally reached his breaking point with his future father-in-law, and the petty revenge he served up was absolutely delicious.
Our narrator is a 30-year-old man named Rhys who works in a highly skilled trade. He is a wind turbine technician in Wales. This isn’t a job for the faint of heart. It requires climbing certifications, electrical knowledge, and nerves of steel. It is a modern, essential, and lucrative career. But to his fiancée’s retired dad, Gareth, Rhys is nothing more than a punchline.
For eight long months Gareth has made it his personal mission to belittle Rhys’s career at every single family gathering. He refuses to call him by his name or job title. Instead he calls him “the windmill guy.” He constantly makes Don Quixote references asking if Rhys is “tilting at windmills.” It is condescending, it is repetitive, and it is intentionally ignorant. Rhys has tried to explain the difference between a medieval grain grinder and a modern power generator, but Gareth just laughs and keeps doing it.
The situation finally exploded during a large family dinner with aunts, uncles, and cousins present. Someone asked Rhys a genuine question about his work. Before Rhys could even open his mouth to answer, Gareth jumped in to hijack the conversation. He loudly announced, “Oh, Rhys here is our windmill guy! Tilting at windmills just like Don Quixote!” effectively turning Rhys into the family clown yet again.
Something inside Rhys finally snapped. If Gareth wanted to play the nickname game based on what people do for a living, Rhys decided he would play along. But he decided to play by identifying Gareth by what he doesn’t do anymore. He spent the entire rest of the dinner referring to Gareth exclusively as “the retired guy.”
He matched Gareth’s cheerful, mocking energy perfectly. He asked “How’s retirement treating you, retired guy?” He interrupted conversations to say “Oh the retired guy has opinions on everything now that he’s got all this free time!” He gave Gareth a masterclass in how annoying it is to be reduced to a single, one-dimensional label in front of an audience.
The reaction was immediate. Gareth didn’t find it funny. In fact he got quieter and quieter until he finally snapped and told Rhys “That’s enough.” And Rhys delivered the kill shot. He asked why they weren’t doing nicknames anymore, specifically noting that Gareth’s nickname was based on what he doesn’t do.
Now the fiancée is mad. She pulled Rhys aside and told him he was disrespectful because Gareth is “sensitive” about being retired since it was forced by health issues. And while that is sad, it is also a massive double standard. Gareth is allowed to be sensitive about his career ending, but he has spent the better part of a year mocking the career Rhys is actively building.
So is Rhys the ahole? Absolutely not. N-T-A. You cannot poke a bear for eight months and then cry when it finally swats back. Gareth dished it out at every single meal, but the second he got a taste of his own medicine he folded like a cheap lawn chair. Maybe now he will realize that if he wants respect for his life stage, he needs to give respect to others. The “windmill guy” just blew the “retired guy” out of the water.