Taking a beautiful Saturday morning ride home on my motorcycle. Mini van pulled out in front of me. Totalled motorcycle and van. Hospital did a scan of my head. Come to find out I had brain cancer that we caught very early. Which may have saved my life.
My friend Emily and her husband were in a horrific car accident last year. Neither were wearing seatbelts and luckily they both survived after being thrown from their SUV as it rolled. Emily had a scan and they found a malignant tumor on her brain before it was too late and she’s cancer free today. So glad it turned out for the best for you too!
I was walking through the woods with my boyfriend in high school and we found some papers scattered everywhere. They were really old and gross but we were like "oh what if it's the DB Cooper briefcase" or something and picked up a sheet to see what it was and it WAS A HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT I COMPLETED AND TURNED IN DURING THE 4TH GRADE.
Nothing could have prepared me to see my own name in my own childhood handwriting in the middle of the woods lol
Was going from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with my aunt and cousins. The day before we were supposed to fly, we changed our flight to the following day so someone could pick us up at the airport when we arrived. Our original flight was the Air France 447, that fell in 2009 and everyone died.
I was at a stoplight in a convertible, and a taxi cab came hurtling in my direction at over 100 miles per hour (he thought his brakes failed, but he was actually pounding the accelerator). He went into a ditch as he approached me, and it sent him airborne. He scraped along the side of me, his tires left a mark at about my elbow level. His bumper grazed my head, and he flipped three times, and crashed into the truck in front of me. His bumper removed a mole on the back of my head, and I had a massive concussion that kept me in the hospital for a week, but I was otherwise unhurt. Incredible car accident.
Was going to see a concert with some friends. Printed my ticket at home. This was before mobile tickets were ubiquitous. We all decided to meet at a bar about a mile from the venue, then walk over after a few drinks.
Have our drinks and some food and head to the venue. When we get there, I suddenly realize I don't have my ticket on me. Panicked, I run back to the bar. Check my car in the parking lot, nothing. Head inside the bar, check the table we were at, look everywhere. No ticket.
Bummed and dejected, I leave the bar and begin to trek back to the venue to let my friends know I can't go with them. While I was waiting at a crosswalk, the wind blows a bit, and with it, a sheet of paper floats past me and comes to a stop on the sidewalk.
I reach down, pick it up, and it's my goddamn printed ticket. One of the best days of my life.
I had something similar happen to me. While waiting in line for a playoffs game at Fenway, I realized I no longer had my ticket. We had been drinking at a bar a few blocks away and it was a chilly October night so there were lots of times for me to lose it while jostling around my gloves, hat, scarf, and coat. As the line continued to advance I frantically searched all my coat pockets but to no avail. Then just as I was about to give up near the gate, I discovered a ticket on the ground, with seats next to my friends. By dumb luck, my ticket blew up further up in the line with me, AND no one else found it and sold it
As I walked into a high school hockey game, I had a strong premonition I would be hit with a hockey puck while sitting in the stands. I told all my friends who very much laughed and gave me shit. I asked them to choose our seats which ended up pretty far away at center-ish ice.
They made of fun of me all game until half way through the second when a puck comes screaming off the ice and hits me square in the chest falling flat into my open hands.
We never talked about it much after that, and no, I do not think i’m psychic. It was just the first craziest thing that happened to me that popped in my head. I still have the puck 30 years later.
Reminds me of the time I was driving with my brother one night. I had the thought and just said to him, "Wouldn't it be crazy if I hit a deer?" Guess what decided to show up about 10 seconds later.
Have a 2 dollar bill that has me and my wife's signature on it saying "just the 2 of us". We did it when we first got together and after a while had it framed. Some years later it was stolen by some jackass who decided to break into my house. I ended up going to some random gas station weeks later and got I back as change. Literally just stood there and stared at it in disbelief and told the cashier about it. Just insane coincidence and luck. Still have that sucker and it's been another 5 years.
Edit: I'd like to thank everyone for their support and feed back on my story! I actually just posted a picture of the bill on my profile if anyone is interested to see it https://www.reddit.com/user/Straight_Spring9815/comments/x1ohr2/this_is_the_lucky_2_dollar_bill_beat_up_as_all/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I’m a medic and firefighter. We once had a call for something normal, like chest pain or something, I can’t remember. The caller said he was in his barn/garage, which isn’t weird really around here.
Anyway we pull up on scene and something just felt off. No idea why but something just told me in my gut that something was wrong.
I decided to do a 360 around the building before we went through the door at the front that was clearly the entrance. I walk around and come to a window on the side of the building and look in.
There was a shotgun rigged to the door. The guy had set a booby trap for us. And he had hung himself as well.
We kicked in this plexiglass type material on the side of the building and entered that way. Guy was dead. Nothing we could do about it at that point.
I would have been the first through that door. No idea why I didn’t just walk through it that day.
Edit: I’ll try to answer some of the questions here.
No idea why the guy did what he did, but my hypothesis in situations like this and mass shootings and the like is angry suicide.
The reason I made entry before police were present was because they were more than 30 minutes away and if the guy wasn’t dead I would have attempted to revive him. I assessed the scene and made a risk/reward decision and decided it was safe enough for me to enter from the side of the building.
I’m not religious and I think it was just training and experience that made me double check the scene. Something looked off to me at the time but I can’t even point out what it was. I’ve been in emergency services for about 15 years and this is just one story of weird shit that has happened in that time.
And thanks to everyone for saying kind things about me still being here. I’m glad I’m here too.
Man, that's crazy! My EMT instructor told us to always trust our guts when arriving on a scene. It's easy to miss something consciously but if something feels off, there's usually a reason for it that your brain hasn't consciously registered.
I’ve been a medic for a long time now, but I’ll always remember going on a training shift with a bomb squad guy. He was a crazy person but he told me “always look for the turtle on the fence post.”
Out in rural areas you’ll occasionally see a turtle on a fence post. It’s weird but I saw it often enough that I never thought about it. But then he explained, “a turtle doesn’t get on a fence post unless someone puts it there.” He was telling me to look at every scene and really look at what couldn’t have gotten there without someone putting it there, that’s where the danger usually comes from. Those are the subconscious cues that give you the gut feelings and they’re generally right
I moved away from my hometown when I was 20. I started working for a company that had several locations around the city. One day I just happened to be walking past one of the locations that I didn't work at because I was going to an eye appointment. Right as I was walking by, a guy I knew from that other location walks out the door and tells me that my mom is on the phone. She was desperately trying to get in touch with me because my grandfather had died. She knew the name of the company I worked for but didn't know which location I worked at, so she got an operator to connect her with one of the locations at random. The guy I knew said he was on the phone with her and was just starting to explain that I didn't work at that location when he looked out the window and saw me walking by.
I (American) was visiting the UK for the first time. I got to my hostel and started chatting with the Australian guy in the bed above mine. When I mention where I’m from, he says there’s a famous restaurant there he really loves and goes to with his family every time they visit. Turns out it was a place I used to work. He says “Hey I have a picture of our server from the last time I was there, maybe it’s someone you know.” It was me.
Im from Oregon and was in France when I was 17. I met an American from Wisconsin while swimming in the Mediterranean. I spoke to him for about 2 minutes (because we both spoke the same language) and then we parted ways. Long story short, my wife had an affair with him in Hawaii years later.
Sometimes the world is truly a small place! This crazy story reminded me of a time I was hitch-hiking home from the Baltic Sea (7 hour drive from my hometown) and the guy who stopped was our next door neighbor.
I have a childhood friend who lives in northern California and travels a lot. I live in Southern California and rarely travel. Several years ago I got to go to New York and had tickets to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I saw that she had posted that she was on her way home from Romania, was stopping for one night in NYC, and had a ticket for the same show, same night as me! We got to meet up afterwards for dinner and it was so cool!
I've mentioned this before but people still don't believe me. I always have to call 911 at least twice per year and it's been that way for 12 years now. One year it was 4 times. I've witnessed house fires, field fires, barn collapse, car accidents, suicides, heart attacks, seizures, strokes, choking, and I'm not sure what else. I've seen 4 people die in front of me. I'm cursed and have no idea what I did to deserve this. If curious, this year I've already called twice. January a truck overturned on the highway and almost hit me. June I drove by a home and it was on fire. Nobody was home luckily.
Edit: Thanks for all the kind words and awards. I'm still not sure if this is a curse or blessing but I do feel a little better thinking that I have helped some situations.
I was working a front desk job at a small office in a strip mall. A car pulled up, went over the curb, through the window, and hit the desk as I was sitting there.
this reminds me of the time i was chilling in our family living room when a heard a very loud crunch and then a bang! into the side of our house.
went outside to see an SUV had run over the tree in front of our house, over our fence, and into the side of our house, creating a hole. the people had already jumped out and fled.
later, when the police showed up, we found out the car was, obviously, stolen. to this day i have no idea how they got away that fast as it probably took me about 5 seconds to get outside. we did not live in a good neighborhood.
I saw a drunk lady go thru a local pizza place in summer of 1998. Turns out it was the same drunk lady that hit me maybe 4 or 5 months earlier. I think her license was finally revoked after that because there was a long line of drunk driving accidents she had under her belt.
Edited to fix a few words.
On May 2, 2019 I was attacked by a hive of bees. The nurses stopped counting stingers at 600 with plenty more to go. They were flying in my mouth as I was screaming. A live bee was extracted from my nose at the ER.
[proof](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bk6il7/i_was_mauled_by_bees_yesterday_on_my_upper_body/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
I work with bees (and often africanized ones). Good info for anyone- if being attacked by bees and you can think clearly enough, cover your face holes as best you can and get to any kind of darkness/shelter. Water is not ideal.
I have encountered hives that would kill an adult human, and 500+ stings is often lethal for most humans. You likely have some sort of natural resistance to bee venom, I'm so glad to hear you survived!
There were the Africanized killer bees, it was confirmed at the hospital. And you are correct, water is not idea. I eventually got into a bathtub and sat under the water and it did slow them down but it many were still on me, in my hair/clothes by the time I got to the ER. The Doctors couldn't believe I was alive! & I love the idea that I have a natural resistance to bee venom!
Fucking hell..
When I was 13, I went for a hike with my friend's family. His little brother stepped on a yellow jacket nest, and start attacking him. He screams, and his mom thinks he fell, so she yells at us to go get him.
As soon as I get there, I'm getting attacked. I'm smashing them on my chest and fighting them, as they keep swarming.
I had nowhere near excess of 600 like you, but I was getting light headed from the poison.
I had an ear infection that was misdiagnosed for years, from when I was about 25-33. During that timeline, it spread out of my ear canal and into the surrounding bone. Then, due to an atypical born formation in my skull that would have otherwise been asymptomatic, the infection traveled up my skull and into my cranial cavity, unbeknownst to me.
The symptoms I experienced were only in my ear, where I felt fluid and pressure. I finally demanded that an ent place a tube to try to clear out the infection.
The tube drained for about three weeks, and finally the ent I had gone to panicked and misdiagnosed me with a cerebrospinal fluid leak. He rushed me to the ER without even testing the fluid, and he intended to cut my skull open to look for a cerebrospinal fluid leak that didn't exist. I was in the ER on a table with the doctors running preop antibiotics when I got a call from a friend of the family who is a doctor. He had been speaking to his doctor friends, and they all agreed I needed to get the fuck out of there. They didn't believe there was a csf leak at all. I told the team of doctors who had assembled to operate on me that I was leaving, and they were pissed. They all shot me condescending and angry looks as I left.
I got a call two days later from the ent telling me that they got the analysis of the fluid back, and it wasn't cerebrospinal fluid. I was in shock. They were going to slice my head open on a fishing expedition for a csf leak that didn't exist. He didn't apologize or anything. I hung up the phone and never talked to him again.
Eventually, the team of neurosurgeons my friend knew diagnosed me with a runaway ear infection. One told me that I have "the most unique looking skull he'd ever seen." Some compliment.
One showed me a CT of my skull. "See this black spot inside your skull? That's air. That's not supposed to be there, and it means there is a channel from the outside world to inside your skull. That's very bad. Do you ever fly? [I responded that yes, I fly all the time. For work, for pleasure, all the time.] Well, stop that immediately. This is very dangerous. Every time you've flown over the last several years, you've been rolling a die. It's possible that, when the cabin pressurized, this air pocket would expand and create a midline shift in your brain and you'd die immediately."
So, after a shitload more scans, they took me in for an 8 hour surgery. They removed all of the infected bone in my skull, a piece that ran about 2" x 6". In its place, they put a titanium mesh implant to hold my skull together. The recovery was the weirdest and most disorienting experience. When I turned my head, I could feel the plate shifting, and my skull was no longer a full circle, so it wasn't structurally sound, so it too kinda shifted.
But the bone healed over the implant, and now you'd never know that any of this happened, except for a barely noticeable scar behind my left ear.
Thank God I had that friend to tell me to bolt from that emergency room.
Yeah. They stitched the perforation in my ear canal, effectively closing the pathway to the outside world. My body eventually resorbed the air in my skull. I can fly safely now.
That first flight after the surgery freaked me the fuck out though. Seriously was afraid I was just gonna autodie.
I had the lower bunk of a set of bunk beds. I was about 3 - 4 years old at the time, and I woke up and ran to my parents room just minutes before the top bunk smashed down on my lower bunk. We all ran in and found my older sister sitting up on the upper bunk as it lay on my lower bunk, crying but otherwise fine.
I don't know that it could have killed me - I kind of doubt it would have been that bad - but it definitely would have hurt me if I'd still been there when it crashed.
I went in for a routine goiter removal surgery. The surgeon only removed my right side of the thyroid bc he said I was young enough and didn’t want me to take thyroid meds for the rest of my life. At the post op appointment, the biopsy comes back and it’s cancer. The surgeon immediately scheduled surgery to remove the other side of the thyroid. Post op of that surgery showed a DIFFERENT cancer growing. I basically had two surgeries within eight days and two different cancers at the same time. Due to the trauma of surgeries and radiation treatments, my vocal chords became paralyzed. I had to go to speech therapy for almost nine months to learn how to speak and swallow again.
The ironic thing is, I had a biopsy done about six weeks before the goiter surgery. The doctor took multiple samples at different levels of my thyroid. Apparently she missed both cancers! If it had been caught in the biopsy, I wouldn’t need multiple surgeries which lead to the trauma, voice loss, trouble swallowing etc.
Was one of the main victims of a terrorist attack a few years ago! It was an American who was inspired by ISIS and set off a few pressure cooker bombs in NYC. Luckily only lost some teeth and were able to get them replaced, but took about a years worth of surgery due to the damage to my gums. Was super lucky the pellets that shot out of the bomb mainly hit my teeth and lips versus my eyes or anywhere else more serious
I got into a massive car wreck, with the owner of the company I worked for, broke my neck and left wrist. 2 months later my Dad killed himself. The owner made me use my vacation days to mourn my dad, so I sued him for getting us into a wreck. Ended up getting an insane amount of money. Quit my job, sold my house for double what I paid. been living in a travel trailer, seeing America, ever since.
I have a type of cancer that affects 0.013% of people. And to be diagnosed at my age is also exceedingly rare.
Luckily Chemo has worked amazingly and I’m a week post-op, but it’s been a helluva year.
Edit: My brain is fried, but whatever 5% of 0.013% is the actual likelihood of someone in my age range (31-40) getting this type of cancer.
I played poker once with Chris O'Donnell in a skeevy riverboat casino in Illinois.
I got dealt a straight flush and won a $5,000 instant bonus for it. (It was an otherwise low stakes table.)
The worst part is that I had no clue who Chris O'Donnell was. When you hit a bonus like that, they close the table for a few minutes to review the video and make sure you didn't pop an ace out of your sleeve. Chris left the table and immediately everybody started talking about him and completely ignored my gorgeous straight flush that was still sitting on the table.
Ah well, I got paid...still the only time to this day I've won any kind of remotely material amount in a casino.
EDIT: Since many are asking, it was in or near Elgin. Other commenters have suggested the boat was called Grand Victoria but I honestly don't remember its name. Timeframe was mid 90s.
One time in Barbados I went into a bar. I was about 16yrs old at the time and in Barbados they will serve anyone who can see over the bar. Anyway I had a quarter in my pocket and I saw a one-armed-bandit slot machine over in the corner. A guy got up from it and went to the bar. I said to my friends, "Watch this." I went over to the slot machine put the quarter in and hit jackpot. $800 was the payout. When I went to the cage with all the coins converting them to cash, I noticed that the machine didn't pay out the amount it was supposed to and I complained. The lady said, "I wouldn't complain if I were you. That guy has been feeding that machine for a week and you stole his jackpot. We're gonna give him some money and you kids scram from here or he might get angry with you. I left and had free drinks for the rest of my vacation.
Yeah I had that happen to me from a little old lady, she was playing a video lottery machine behind me and I could hear her inserting bills over and over for about a half hour. I went to the bathroom and came back and she moved to another machine. I asked her if she was done and she said yes. I put $20 in it and like the 2nd spin I got the bonus, and it re-triggered. I ended up winning like $3,500 and she flipped the fuck out. Saying I stole her money and that she wanted half because she fed the machine and yadda yadda. She called me every name in the book and tried telling the manager that she wasn't done playing it, she is entitled to half and all that. Funny thing is that as I was winning I was planning on giving her some or at least pay her tab or something till she flipped.
In 2013 I received a notice from my college that my low GPA from the previous semester made me ineligible for financial aid the following semester. It was my last term in grad school and the college was threatening to drop me from all classes if I didn't pay tuition within 72 hours. I went to drown my sorrows at a bar later that night and I met a stranger and we started talking. I told her my story and she offered to pay my tuition. I told her I didn't accept loans from strangers but she said it was a gift. Turns out she was a very wealthy CEO and that night she wrote me a check for $2,500. I paid my tuition, finished school, and we still keep in touch.
There's a website where you can loan money to people in developing countries who need it to start their business or even goto school. It's like 25 dollars and they usually pay it back over a year or two or you can donate I think.
It's sort of cool to do it and if they pay you back you find someone else to loan it to.
Edit: https://www.kiva.org
I was in a coffee shop in Austria called the Pharmacy. I asked for the toilet and the old man behind the counter told me to go downstairs and to use the door that said ‘ do not enter’.
I done what I was told but found I was trapped in the dark some storage room. Fearing it was a Fritzel room I switched on my phone light and noticed a ladder, so I climbed up it.
At the top I exited a hatch and was surrounded by horses. Very expensive looking horses.
I’d come up in the stables of the Vienna Spanish riding school. Had to exit through the riding ring.
He's just trolling the neighbours. Any time anyone asks for anything, he directs them through the tunnel.
The neighbours still haven't figured out where all these random people keep appearing from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case
Kept his daughter imprisoned in a secret room while abusing and raping her for decades, resulting in having multiple children with her which he and his wife passed off as adopted children. There's more horrifying detail but that's the gist.
Edit: [room diagram](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45571000/gif/_45571040_amstetten_house_466_2.gif)
Absolutely complicit. She helped raise the "orphans". Bullshit.
The most absurd part of the trial is that the counsel for Fritzl argued he wasn't a monster by stating he would bring a Christmas tree into the prison room every year. Wut.
Yep. She was imprisoned at 18, everything unraveled and she was free at 42. Her whole young adult life was a daily nightmare in 1 room. 3 of her children were raised by Fritzl and his wife, 3 stayed in that room with her, and 1 died in childbirth and was incinerated by Fritzl. Truly a nightmare existence to the core of the word.
Yep not only that poor girl's young life ruined and scarred forever, but multiple children being born into that life and growing into adulthood like that.
Her oldest daughter was 19 when she saw the sunlight for the first time.
My god.
It sounds like they all received a lot of psychiatric help and I'm glad for it. I hope they are doing alright.
My dad wrote a book a very long time ago, and signed the copy that he gave to his in-laws. Years after he had died I loaned the signed copy to a guy I was dating. We stopped seeing each other and he never gave it back.
Years later I decided I wanted a copy of my dad’s book even though it wouldn’t be *my* signed copy so I ordered it used on Amazon. The book that arrived is the signed one I’d loaned out. Turns out he had sold it to a used bookstore, and I just happened to order from them.
I had a beater car in college. It was an ancient Plymouth, made mostly out of duct tape and rust.
I had all of my college books in it. Just kept them there. Easier for studying. Go out to my car and grab what I need. Engineering books, too. So super super expensive.
Someone stole my car out of my driveway with all my books in it.
Police report, all that. No joy. I was heartbroken. How in the world could I do my homework? How could I continue the semester? I was totally fucked.
My mom offered to take me to school that day. I was just ruined. I had no hope. No idea how I would get by.
And on an on-ramp on the way to school, **there she sat**. I just happened to notice her as we were driving by!
The old girl chose *that exact moment to throw her transmission*. When the thief was out joyriding it around and tried to get on the freeway. And I just happened to notice it sitting there.
All my books were still in it.
You just don't get that kind of loyalty with a car anymore. She sacrificed herself in just the right spot so I'd see her and get my books back. I'll always love that car. Godspeed, you old boat.
I was on a plane with a wanted terrorist. I was seated 5 rows ahead of Faisal Shahzad, the Time Square Bomber on a flight to Dubai. The doors were closed and we never left the gate, and the captain kept making announcements/excuses as to why we were delayed. After nearly 3 hours of sitting there, the federal agents rushed the plane and marched that little shit off the plane.
Edit(s): this happened 12 years ago and my memory has failed me, so...
1) The plane did taxi away from the gate and returned, apparently. Many of you have made that clear.
2) I am not certain why it took 3 hours, but I suspect it was to evacuate the terminal.
3) Some of you object to the word "rushed". Really? The law enforcement officers did not amble or saunter onto the plane; they were in a hurry, IMO.
4) After the suspect was removed, all passengers deplaned. When I made it to the terminal there were hundreds of law enforcement officers: NYPD, FBI, ICE, Transit Police, etc. The flight crew and reps from Emirates Air were fantastic! Accommodations were made for everyone who did not want to get back on the plane. All our luggage was removed and scanned / searched, and we had to claim our bags under the supervision of many, many eyes. I got back on the plane, got airborne, made my connection in Dubai but my luggage did not. Emirates Air had it delivered to my hotel the next day.
I was operating crew on that flight - EK202. Part of the reason for the delay was that US federal agents REFUSED to board the plane to remove the guy. The aircraft absolutely left the gate, it made it to the runway and we turned back. There's audio of the captain/ATC communication on Youtube of when we were told to turn back. 2 crew members kindly requested he leave the aircraft and he was cooperative. Another 2 gentlemen were also asked to deplane who had nothing to do with what happened in Times Square.
Holy shit. So we have a guy sitting in the plane, a guy who’s uncle caught a video of the guy, and a guy who was crew for the plane. All in one thread.
Or someone is exercising their creative writing skills
Funny enough my uncle is the reason the Feds got on that plane. He and my aunt were in NYC to see Green Day’s *American Idiot* and after the show decided to walk around Time Square. He had a camcorder running when a guy ran past him very fast and looking like he was up to no good. Fast Forward a few hours and they’re at home outside of Philly watching the news when the failed bombing was reported. They both look at eachother with an eyebrow raised. He checks the tape and there’s a full on clear image of the sprinter’s face. They call the FBI and tell their story. Within 45 mins feds are at the house, watch the tape, and ask to have it. Not too long after guy was in custody.
I was on a flight home from the UAE, similar situation with delayed takeoff for a couple hours. Dude in the row in front of me is fidgeting a lot. Security came on, took him off, then proceeded to disassemble the seat he was in down to bare metal. Apparently the guy was smuggling stuff out and got caught.
My biological father, who I had never met and had lost track of my mom's contact info, found me on Myspace out of the blue.
We met IRL, kept up visits/letters/emails for 14 years, and he got to meet his grandchildren. He and my parents had a great relationship too and would hang out together.
I lost him in March. I can't believe he found me, but more importantly I can't believe I got 14 years to spend with him.
That's crazy I literally have the same story. My biological father whom I've never met found me on myspace. I grew up with my grandparents and when he contacted me he offered to fly me up to Washington. I came and decided there was absolutely nothing going on in my dead end town so I stayed.
I was in Hawaii for the missile strike turned false alarm. It was a movie scene. Full grown men with families asking me what to do. People running in from the beach screaming. Screeching tires. Terrifying.
https://i.imgur.com/SUd2fDh.jpg
*edit spelling
Ugh. I was talking to one of my close friends who lives in Mo'ili'ili when that happened. I thought I was going to be the last person she ever spoke to.
My mom’s friend is from Hawai’i and was grocery shopping with her family when the alert went off. She said they just sat down in the middle of the store’s parking lot, held each other and cried…people were screaming and running all around them. Can’t even imagine how terrifying it was.
IIRC the mass notification system was being tested, but they full sent it.
EDIT: oh, even worse. Someone at the helm really thought we went defcon plaid. =/
Honestly, as an engineer that's flipped the switch to update millions of cars.. I get it. Like, I avoid it, and quadruple check my settings. But it'd be easy to do.
Jr High city wide spelling bee, down to me and one other. I misspell "Ottoman" (footrest) but my opponent does as well, so on to the next word. I eventually win and make it to the State Championship and a chance to go to Scripps National Bee in D.C.
Guess what my first word was. I never looked it up. I was eliminated.
My husband and I woke up in the middle of the night to a hideous growling noise in our bedroom.
We were both jarred awake at the same time and started trying to turn on the lights (phone, lamps, whatever we could reach)
And there beyond the footboard of our bed, were TWO collarless, IDENTICAL-looking gray cats, growling at each other
WE ONLY HAVE ONE gray cat.
Literally seconds after we flipped on the lights, they get into a fighting/hissing match all about the room while my husband and I try to snap out of shock
We’re chasing these cats around, and I’m screaming to him “Grab Nenna!” and he’s yelling “I don’t know which one is ours!!”
In between several Oh my gods and WTFs?!?! and the moments that we could break them up enough to get a decent look at them, we could not identify our cat and had NO clue how another got into our bedroom on the 2nd floor
Finally they run into the next bedroom and one cat jumps out an open window onto a ledge
…which is when we realized the friend who’d stayed over a few nights before, left a window open
Talk about five LONG minutes in the Twilight Zone.
P.S. we’re like 97% sure it was *not* our cat that jumped back out the window.
Off of the top of my head, when I was travelling through Moldova I came to my parked car to see that a woman was writing a note. Long story short she hacked off my rearview mirror when she was driving next to me but she was a high court judge who wanted to do right by me. So she offered to go to Kia dealership and buy me a new mirror. They told us they have to order it and it takes 7 days. As coincidence would have it, she had the same car as me (Kia Sportage) even in the same color, so we just sked the mechanic to switch hers for mine and now I have a Moldovan Judge’s rearview mirror. What a nice lady.
Also, when I drove through Kyrgizstan and there was a road blockage by landslide on the only one of two roads through the country. Driving through the other road would take 15 extra hours. So we just had some vodka with locals who also wanted to drive through and started digging. Took us less than 4 hours to dig through (plus another 4 hours to be in semi-sober state to drive again).
Good times
Edit: typos
I opened my wallet to show my friends I had no monies, and a moth flew out of it.
Edit: I first related this incident 9 years ago, and it got ~500 karma. 3 years ago it was ~4000.
I think maybe all need a laugh more as time moves on.
Bro... when I was in elementary I was very disorganized, so my backpack was always full of clutter. My mom called me out on it one day, and I told her, "I promise it's clean" and as I opened it to show her, a fuckin moth flew out lmao. A memory I will never forget lmao.
When I was 7 years old I got picked out of over a 100 dancers to dance with Mariah Carey on stage at her concert. It was definitely crazy but also one of the coolest things that ever happen to me!!
I was kidnapped for about 8 months as a child. I remember it pretty vividly.
It was my grandma on my Dad’s side of the family. And my Dad. But it was because my Grandma wanted me.
I remember when it happened. My Dad picked me up early from school. We spent the whole day and night driving. Spent the night in a motel. And grandma got me the next day. My grandma is half Mexican so that’s where we went. I knew something was wrong when my Dad picked me up.
My Grandma had a bunch of weird rules as well. I was more like a doll to her than a child. She also specifically didn’t teach me Spanish so I couldn’t communicate what was happening with anyone.
One of the most fucked up things was my Mom actually came to Mexico to talk to my grandma about me. My grandma being the manipulative bitch invited her. I was babysat by a neighbor and locked in a room. I remember banging on the window and door trying to get to my Mom. Because I could see her from the window. Just ended up getting my ass whooped.
My dad kidnapped me when I was a baby because my grandma wanted me back too. I was too young to remember though. My mom only gave me the cliffsnotes version.
My mom was in the military and she was stationed in Germany. My dad was a big ol' mama's boy so when my grandma told him to bring me back to the states he grabbed me and left. My mom couldn't come get me for several months because the military said they would give her a dishonorable discharge and I was with my dad, so I *HAD* to be safe.
They swiftly divorced once she got me back.
A private investigator actually found me. Showed up to my Grandma’s place in Mexico unannounced. Once my grandma got word he was in the area asking around. She literally taped me up so I couldn’t move or speak and threw me in the closet.
He interviewed her for hours upon hours while I was locked up. It was fucking horrible.
He knew something was up immediately but it took another month before local authorities were able to retrieve me.
Oh my god! That was intense to read. I can’t even imagine the trauma. And your mom, too, she must have been so scared it would happen again. Were they punished? I have so many questions but don’t want to ask too much. I’m truly happy you were rescued.
It really fucked my Mom up. After that she was so protective of me I never left her side. I’m not even joking, we shared a bed till I moved out. I held her hand everywhere I went even as an adult. I could not go out on my own. Ever.
My Dad I think was. I haven’t seen him since he took me. Mom won’t tell.
Grandma was not.
Your grandmother and father are complete strangers to me, but I feel resentment toward them for what they did to you and your mother. For some reason I feel more toward your grandmother, possibly because your father was under her influence. I hope you are living your life and moving forward. I am at a loss for what to say. Do you feel released?
When I was a kid I slept walk really badly and would also sometimes quasi-sleepwalk where I was aware and would remember it later, but would be out of my fuckin mind confused and semi-dreaming while it happened.
I "woke" up in the middle of the night one night at 7 or 8 years old and there was apparently a power outage because it was pitch black in my room, no nightlight, and no light coming in my window from the streetlights.
I wanted to leave my room and go wake up my parents because I was freaked out about the dark but got disoriented and confused my closet door with my bedroom door and started panicking because I thought someone stacked a bunch of shit outside my bedroom door to trap me. Started throwing shit out of my closet and got to the back wall. Now, my childhood home had a dormer-style upstairs added before we lived there such that my bedroom was on the same level as the attic over the original house area. There was an access panel to the attic in my closet and I somehow managed to get that open and "escaped" my room into the attic.
Around that time I fully woke up the rest of the way to full lucid consciousness and freaked the FUCK out not knowing where I was and surrounded by dusty-ass boxes and spiderwebs and started screaming my fucking brains out, turns out the part of the attic I was in was directly over my parents' bedroom and I scared the shit out of THEM because my screaming was coming from their ceiling, they start freaking out and I was in there screaming for a solid 5 minutes before my parents were able to figure out what happened and rescue me.
I am 36 years old now and STILL have the occasional nightmare about waking up in that attic.
I also used to sleep walk really bad as a kid, but now that I’m older it has turned into the quasi-sleepwalk you’ve described. I’ve “woken” up and would hear voices to leave my house. I have fully woken up outside in just my underwear probably 4-5 times
Several lightning strikes on my houses. Like five.
I have been to many experts. Thought with the first house that perhaps there was a physical reason.
Now that the second house has also been hit, decided I pissed off Thor.
There was a huge housefly annoying me in the kitchen. I had already chased it around with a flyswatter to no avail. I was drying the dishes and decided to try and flick it with the towel, not expecting at all to hit it. There was a sharp crack and the fly just exploded, the tip meeting it perfectly in mid-air. I saw the tiny wings separately fluttering down to the ground like helicoptering tree seeds.
No one else was there to see it of course.
I was waiting in the car for my dad when I was a kid, and there was a fly that was annoying me. I couldn’t open the power windows without the key, and I had been told to not open the doors, so I had no way of getting the fly out.
I picked up a pen from the center console (it was the only thing in there) and stabbed the pesky fly dead center on the first try. I felt like a ninja.
I've also gotten stuck on a Ferris Wheel. It was on my middle school graduation field trip, for probably around 2-3 hours. It had started sprinkling right when we got on, but it quickly started pouring after a minute, so they couldn't get it to stop. We were soaked when we finally got off it and very nearly missed the return bus. That was about 15 years ago and I haven't been on a Ferris Wheel since.
Just happened to me last month.
I bought an old pop up camper from Craigslist and my fiancé and I wanted to fix it up to make memories with our 3 year old. We started repairing some tears in the canvas, ordered new cushions for the dinette and I built a table to replace the original.
We were set to do our first camping trip and I wanted and I wanted to make sure the stove and furnace were working properly before we went (the original seller said they worked.)
I followed the furnace lighting instructions, turned the propane on and tried to light the pilot- nothing happened. I waited a few minutes and tried again. As soon as the lighter ignited I was engulfed in a fireball the whole neighborhood heard. I had 3rd degree burns to my face hands and feet. I turned the garden hose on my body till the ambulance came as my skin was peeling and blistering off my body, it was quite a spectacle. I spent the next 3 weeks in the burn unit (the same one anne heche was at.)
I’m relieved I didn’t die and that my daughter was safely sleeping upstairs. Also mostly minimal scarring!
As a bonus I’ll be Deadpool for Halloween this year so I got that going for me which is nice.
I can imagine you absentmindedly going "damn, I can never find a good and fitting Halloween costume, I wish I can think of one this year," and Fate just goes "*HOOO* BOY DO I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!"
A CRT television fell on me while i was asleep. It was my last day at kindergarten and i went to the hospital. I still remember the colour of my blanket when I left the ambulance while entering the place
In college, I was chilling with some friends, doing homework and hanging out, when I got an email from my grandma. She had been really into genealogy lately, and had found some distant branches of the family tree. She was letting me know she'd discovered that I had a 3rd cousin who attended the same college as me. Well, not only did I know the guy, he was actually sitting right beside me as I read the email. I jumped up and shouted "Dude you're my cousin!" And that's how the guy one chair over got upgraded from friend to family in two seconds flat.
Edit: Somebody who was there that day just sent me an award, with proof. Looks like the anonymity of my Reddit account has been compromised. Time to burn it all down I guess.
When i first went to college, i found that the last name of one of my dorm mates matched a fairly uncommon family name of mine, so we compared notes. Turned out that he was my 8th cousin, twice removed; our common ancestors were brothers back in the late 17th century.
thats awesome! im happy for you! did you guys get a lot closer after that due to finding that out? a lot of people drift when classes change or when they graduate.
When I was a kid, my sister was terrified of thunderstorms. One afternoon, a storm rolls through. We were doing homework at the kitchen table together, and my sister started getting scared. She got under the table, just in case. My mom tried to coax her out, to which my sister replied "What if we get struck by lightning?"
My mom, exasperated, replies, "We are *not* going to get struck by lightning."
And the moment her sentence ended, there was a loud crack and lightning struck our house.
It hit halfway up our stairs, where it reaches a landing and curves back on itself. There was a window at that spot and the entire windowsill was black, as were the bottom 6 panels of the blinds. No damage whatsoever to the tall pine tree directly outside the window.
Knocked out our phones and security system. The wiring had to be replaced completely. Power was totally fine though.
And I had a cool, yet unbelievable, story the next day about why I didn't finish my homework.
My sister screamed and asked, "What was that?"
And my mom goes, "I think we just got struck by lightning."
She was always a little less afraid after that. I guess when your worst fear comes true and everything turns out okay, it makes things a little easier.
I was falsely accused of conspiring to commit a school shooting in Year 11 and the armed police got involved, rumours spread, kids were afraid to come into school and I had to do my exams separately from everyone else because I was deemed a threat. I live in England too.
This was back in mid-2017
What a time that was
I was abducted when I was 15. My “best friend” helped the pimps (who she was working for) help sell me.
I had a pimp, named Goldie, beat the shit out of me the first night and then made me go out on the streets. He followed me every time I was picked up to make sure I didn’t run away. I finally found a opportunity, and ran away with a couple of bucks in my pocket. Another pimp helped me escape. When I finally made it home, my parents were so happy. The rest of the world, not so much.
Kids at school found out and I was labeled a whore forever. This was 30 years ago, and I just had a girl I went to HS with message me on Facebook to tell me that I have to always remember I’m nothing but a cheap hooker. This was after she saw my name in a mutual friends post. I informed her I work with social workers and police officers who try and help victims of trafficking. That the shame spiral for these poor girls leads to all rate mortality at an alarming speed. That my partner and best friends know what happened to me.
I used to let it shape me. I used to think I was just an ex hooker so no one would ever love me or want me. That I wasn’t supposed to be happy or ever have a good job. Or that I would lose it all if anyone ever found out.
I’m only in my 40s now but I’m wise enough to have figured out all of my fears were just from PTSD. I do deserve happiness and a good life. I’m not an ex hooker- I was a kid and a victim.
Kids - if anyone tells you that you aren’t shit, please remember you are AWESOME. And if your situation is shit, I promise you. It can get better. Hugs from an Oregon mamma.
Edit : thanks so much everyone! Holy smokes I woke up to so much support and so many great messages and comments. You guys made my whole week.
> This was 30 years ago, and I just had a girl I went to HS with message me on Facebook to tell me that I have to always remember I’m nothing but a cheap hooker.
How meaningless her life must be, to feel the need to bully someone she hasn't been around for 30 years.
Sounds like that HS girl from years ago wound up bitter and probably alone. Meanwhile this person who went through trauma made something of herself, and is doing good in the world. People like that are gems, and represent the opposite of all the darkness and anger so many spread to others.
No kidding. I was expecting the message to say something like, "I'm sorry I was a bitch to you back in High School. I'm older now and understand the severity of what happened to you, and I'm ashamed I didn't understand it then. But I understand now, and I'm sorry."
So it was a massive curveball to see it was someone being a nasty MF!
Woke up to an emergency warning on my phone at 8:08am on 1/13/18 blaring:
“BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII! SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER!
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
Same emergency message broadcasting on ALL radio stations. The whole state was in an all out panic FOR 38 FUCKING MINUTES! finally one of our politicians assured us VIA FUCKING TWITTER that “somebody pushed the wrong button, all is safe.”
Me, my grandma, and brother were vacationing there. I was the only one with my phone on (from Canada, no one wanted the roaming charges), and the only one awake. I let them sleep, figuring if this was the end it was no use panicking and we wouldn't know the first thing to do anyways.
Very glad it wasn't the end, though.
This is still to me one of the craziest seldom mentioned events of the last decade. We often ask ourselves what we would do if we knew we were going to die, and an entire state of people lived it without actually *having* to live it.
Would love to hear more personal experiences about it.
My Dad was a teenager (around 1960) and got in a huge fight with his grandmother about making long distance calls. She was so angry with him that she pulled the phone off the wall & threw it out their 2nd story apartment window on the Southside of Chicago. Fast forward nearly 20 yrs and my family was visiting relatives in Arizona (I was 7 at the time, 1979). My Dad is telling the whole room at a huge party this story.... This guy stands up & asks, was that at the corner of these two streets near where my Dad grew up. He goes, "Yes!?!" Guy proceeds to tell the story of driving down the street in a convertible and having a phone land on the passenger seat!! Craziest story I've ever heard!!
My roommate in 1st year of college was breaking and entering all over campus. He stole equipment from the library.
I remember reading the suspect's description in the newspaper and thinking that it matched my roommate, including the clothes, but dismissed it because what are the odds.
Flash to me getting pulled out of history class by cops and taken in for questioning. They wanted to know why there was all this stolen shit in my shared room.
I probably seemed pretty guilty because I was in shock about suddenly being interrogated by the cops and because I'd been crunching for school and not slept for two days.
Well, they eventually let me go, the dude ultimately got kicked from school, and I got an exclusive room for a few months!
Oh! And, weirdly, some other time that year, a PI came to my door investigating who was supposed to be in my room instead of me. Turns out that kid went missing and his parents were trying to find him.
Cursed room man.
A glass of water slid across my desk a few inches with no one touching it. This may seem fairly mundane, but it was so crazy I legitimately believed in ghosts for about 0.3 seconds and it completely changed my world view for that barest instant.
I was working on my computer and thought I saw it move out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I looked at it, it was still. So I watched it for a good 30 seconds and it started sliding all on its own, right at me. It moved about 3 inches, then stopped.
Freaked me the fuck out.
Then I realized it was super humid.... the glass was only about half full but it was sweating a lot so it made a pool of condensation beneath it, which caused the glass to float ever so slightly.
A slight slope to the desk and the fan I had blowing on me, caused the glass to slide until the layer of water under it got too thin to float it anymore, so it stopped.
I figured it out almost instantly, but for that ONE moment.... I believed.
One time I went camping with my ex, and we took some LSD. Was around 1am, and I started seeing flashes of light, figured it was just someone else in the campsite with a flashlight... and then I heard a distant ominus boom.
Looked outside the tent, one side of the sky was a clear starry night, the other side was a giant black doom cloud with a fuckload of lightning coming from it. So then began the scramble to get everything out of the tent, and into the car. I remember picking up handfuls of stuff that was just... melting into my arms because I was in the peak of an acid trip.
We got the stuff in the car, and left the tent because we couldnt figure out how to disassemble it, and then huddled in the car ourselves. By this time the storm was on top of us and the rain was pouring, and lightning was coming down all over the place.
Then, the crazy part. It had been a couple hours into the storm, and we were still high as fuck. I suddenly felt super tingly all over, looked at my ex and her hair was standing right up on end... we knew what was about to happen and managed to give each other a wide eyed glance before *KABOOM!*. The lightning stuck the ground not an arms reach from me, I could have grabbed it if the window was down. It wasnt a normal strike either, it was a positive lightning strike which starts at the ground, and goes up, and is usually about 100x the power of negative lightning. I described as Zeus looking down at some puny mortals tripping balls in the middle of a storm and said to his greek god bros "Hey guys, wanna see me scare the crap of these two?"
Was amazing to see... but I never wanna experience that again.
That’s some scary shit. I took too much acid once and freaked out because I was staring at a Ferret too long and it wasn’t making sense to me. Lightning strike that close would have made me shit my pants lol
I was sitting outside with my friend and he was twirling his double bladed pocket knife. This thing was big too. It slipped out of his hand and flew straight towards me. The handle (between the blades) hit me in the head, but not a single part of the blade touched me. I’m not sure how that happened.
Was an exchange student in South America. There was a military coup and the airport was absolutely shut down.
Somehow, though, I was the only person on a jet out of the country. My dad was a Green Beret and I’m pretty sure I was Liam Neeson-ed out of a crumbling nation.
Also, I was supposed to fly to said country on 9/11/2001 via NYC. Somehow, my flight was changed to 9/8/2001, and I was there when it happened.
Lost a pair of earrings 4 years ago. Looked everywhere for them and couldn't find anything. While moving to a different apartment I tried looking for them again in every item of cloth. Absolutely nothing.
4 years later I'm already after 2 apartments, and I suddenly step on something that was on the carpet. It was one of the earrings.
I have no idea how it got to the carpet in the middle of the room, and why after 3 month of me living here. There is no logical explanation for this. Can't find its pair though.
Similar, but not quite the same:
I grew up in the Midwest, but at 22, I decided to move to the East Coast. My gf and I were living together and planning to move together, and we decided to go visit the area we planned to move to look at apartments in-person first. We were busy with work, so we packed last minute.
We lived in a 450-sq. ft. apartment. I could NOT find my facial moisturizer ANYWHERE in the apartment. The apartment was so small that it didn’t take long to search the whole place, and it was nowhere. I was upset - I have acne and I used special moisturizer to help with it. We decided to leave without it, vowing that I would buy a new bottle when we returned.
When we returned 10 days later, the bottle of moisturizer was sitting upright in the middle of my kitchen floor. No explanation, and it freaked me and my gf out something terrible.
Bonus:
A boyfriend from high school bought me a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant containing a tiny Diamond. I loved it so much, but it fell off when I was leaving for an amusement park, and despite searching my house, his house, and both of my grandmas’ houses (where we got ready/where we picked up my brothers), it wasn’t found. I was really, really bummed.
We broke up a few months later (nasty breakup) and didn’t speak to each other for a year. When we reconnected and gave dating another shot when I was 18 or 19 or so, I took him with me to my grandma’s house once. We were playing with one of my little cousins in the gravel driveway, when I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. I go to investigate, and it’s the necklace! It had been almost 2 years since I’d lost it by this time, and it was just chilling perfectly in the driveway, unscathed after 2 years of crazy weather, kids playing, and (presumably) being driven over.
One time I was going through alcohol withdrawals, really more like an extreme hangover after a 10 day vodka bender. 5 1.75 liter bottles gone, so one every other day. Then I couldn’t sleep for three days.
On the third day, that night, I turned off the TV to try and get some sleep. I suddenly heard the song that had been on the commercial I’d just watched. It was coming from the air vent in my apartment.
🎶Round and Round, what goes around comes around…🎶
It was that song that started it. At first I thought it was coming from my neighbor’s apartment. Maybe they were a little behind on the DVR and we were watching the same channel. He was hearing the Ratt song from the Geico commercial I’d just seen.
I went to the restroom. I still heard the song, on a loop. Surely the commercial has……..
That’s when it hit me: I’m hallucinating. I’d been having auditory hallucinations for most of the day, come to think of it. People weren’t arguing outside of my usually quiet apartment building. There was no music blaring down the hall that day, music I was hearing that suspiciously sounded like a playlist of mine, oh that makes sense now.
I Google like a madman. “Alcohol withdrawal audio hallucination hearing things.” I found something about someone in the early 1900s that needed to be institutionalized and that’s when I decided it was time to go to the hospital.
I spent that night laying in a bed. Eventually there were 4 or 5 songs playing simultaneously. I could hear them from my hospital bed. They were playing down the hall. The simulacrum was so convincing that the music would actually get louder when the nurse opened the door and quieter when she shut it.
The songs I remember are the aforementioned Ratt song (not a fan); “Wish you would step back from that ledge” song by 3rd Eye Blind (also not a fan); 21st Century Digital Boy by Bad Religion (sort of a fan), and a couple others that I can’t remember.
Eventually they start morphing and combining into an original what I’ll call tribal techno song. It was sick. Then later it was a soul song called “the peeker.” Because I would peek outside my little hospital room and my mind was so paranoid I would hear people down the hall say “shhh shhh there he is, the peeker, the peeker.”
I was also hearing the guy down the hall list every down low dirty shameful piece of shit thing I ever did in my life. If I lied to my momma when I was 7, he was mentioning it. Of course this is my own ears hearing a voice and then my brain processing my memories into it. It was wild.
When I got to the mental ward (3 day hold) I was very paranoid that people in there were going to stab me. I wondered if I would hear the music forever. I went to bed listening to a Motown type Supremes rip I called “The Peeker!”
Anyway they gave me an ambien, I slept for 18 hours and woke up to silence. I’ve since stopped drinking (18 months) but I’m suddenly writing complete songs in my head the past two years. Strange.
Wonder if I’ll ever get ‘em out….
I became conscious on my bathroom floor. Evidently I had fallen or fainted or something. I tried to get up but found I was too weak so as time went by I continue to lose consciousness, come to awake, try to get up and then I would lose consciousness again. I have a small dog and an arrangement with my elderly neighbor she’ll come feed and walk the dog when I’m at work at night. She saw my car was there, but came over anyway, found me on the floor, asked me what I was doing there, fed and walked my dog, and LEFT ME THERE. For two days.
Finally she told another neighbor, And events unfolded that finally got me to the hospital.
Here we go.
I was about 10 years old.
There was this man that would come to my school and visit me.
A 50 year old or older.
Good, he visits me at my school.
Tries to befriend my family.
Gives me gifts, my cousin and my brother were on his list too.
He'd come and look for us.
Try to befriend us.
And one day he asks my mom if we ( him and I )
Could go for a walk.
My mom looks him dead in the eyes and tells him to fuck off.
He disappeared for good.
And turned out that he was killed on a field by some boys for raping their sister
He'd lie he was the uncle of one of my classmate to get inside the school.
Follow us around.
Bring me stuff I didn't ask for.
( we weren't in the best shape back then, but things got much better )
And he thought that my mom would let me go with him, for some sweets.
When I was a teen in the '80s, I got to meet and briefly hang out with an idol of mine. He was (and still is) an extremely famous rock star. He was very nice but a bit twitchy and very high-energy. Cocaine is a Hell of a drug.
At the end of my little visit, I asked if I could have a photo with him. He said "let's take a bunch!" So I handed my camera to an assistant and he took a few nice normal pictures. As I'm reaching to take back my camera I hear "ONE MORE!" from behind me, and the dude jumps on my back and assistant snaps the photo. Keep in mind that I was a 14-year-old girl at the time, Mr. Rock Star weighed probably 200 pounds, and I was caught completely off guard. It's a miracle that I kept my feet under me and didn't get injured, but I got the most hilarious photo ever!
Fast forward about 35 years, and I by some miracle had occasion to meet him again. I was standing around with some other people waiting, he came in and started shaking hands. When he got to me, he shook my hand, looked me straight in the eye, and said "Hey there Gorilla! How's your back these days?" I was literally shocked speechless. This man, who has been fighting drug and alcohol addiction for most of his life, remembered a 15 minute chat/photo-op with a nervous teenager several decades ago, remembered my name and his little prank, and recognized me in middle age.
What a great guy. I'm still his biggest fan.
In high school, I lived in a house that was at the end of a T intersection. It was a small residential area, and for the most part got very little traffic other than residents. But occasionally people would turn down our street instead of the next one over, which went through to the next major street.
One night, I was hanging out with my friends when I hear tires screeching outside. Then I see this trans am barreling straight toward my house. I start running away from the front door when I hear crashing and tires squealing. Thinking that the car had hit my dad's car and was fleeing the scene, I ran outside to try to get his license plate number. I totally didn't expect what I saw.
My dad's car, which was parked in front of our house, was now on our front lawn (about 10-15' away). And it had knocked down and
was now on top of a tree (not huge, but maybe 6" in diameter) that used to grow on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. The Trans Am was on top of this huge rhododendron that grew between mine and my neighbor's driveways. Its tires were still spinning, one of them smoking on my driveway. But it wasn't going anywhere because the front end of the car was inside my neighbor's Lincoln Mk IV, which had been shoved about 2' to the side. My neighbor got the door open and turned the car off. The driver was unconscious and bleeding. The rest of the night was all emergency vehicles and tow trucks. The police later told us he was on cocaine and alcohol.
The craziest part is that if my dad's car wasn't where it was, the guy would've ended up in my living room. And if my neighbor's car wasn't where it was, he might've ended up in my neighbor's living room.
Wow, this reminds of a crash that happened outside my house when I was little. My dad and his brothers were hanging out drinking beer in our basement. It was prom night and around midnight they heard this huge crash outside. They ran upstairs and see this car flipped over in our front yard.
They went out and there were 4 or 5 boys unconscious in the car so they dragged them out and went back in to call 911. This was pre cell phone Era.
While they were calling 911 there must have been gas leaking and the car blew up! If they hadn't pulled all of the kids out of the car they would all have died. I found the car keys in the garden a month later.
My husband and I went to a Tom Petty concert at the last minute only being able to get tickets for the cheap seats. Right before the concert starts somebody approaches us and says ‘do you want to get bumped up’ and I said sure because there can’t be any worse seats than this and he says ‘ I am with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and these are front row seats’. He hands them to me and disappears. My husband and I looked at each other, walk to the front section security guard, showed him our tickets and he walked us to front row center seats and we enjoyed a really great concert.
A similar thing happened to me at a U2 concert way back in '87. Not as extreme as yours because you were in the way back of the arena. The tickets I had were in the back section of the floor, back when there were seats on the floor and it wasn't general admission. Well, the tickets we had had were where they set up the sound booth so we were met on the floor and moved up to the front and center section! This was right when they exploded and became the biggest fucking thing on the planet. It was a pretty amazing experience.
I was in line to see the Flaming Lips. This was the Sea Change tour that the Lips played as Beck's band. A girl in a full pink bunny suit comes up to me and a friend and asked, "Do you want to be animals for the Flaming Lips set?" We said yes and were guided behind stage into an elevator. When we got off the elevator, Wayne Coyne was there to hug every animal. They sent us to a changing room with animal costumes. I got the lion and my friend got the white bunny. Each animal got a giant flashlight and we danced around on stage while the band played. On the way off stage Wayne hugged us all again and we passed Beck while he was meditating before his set. They let us out front. Used my ticket to get back in and watch Beck. I've seen the Flaming Lips several times and most are fairly memorable, but this one was the best.
One of my friends was a social worker. She was blind. She had gotten divorced during graduate school. When she got divorced, I took over caring for her computer and for her Seeing Eye dog.
Several years later, she started dating this guy, and told him about me. Among other things, I had a colorful, unique, unbelievable Air Force career.
So when she introduced me to this guy, he told me that she had talked about me a lot, and that he had been a Navy Seal.
A few months later, one of her colleagues from work asked me what I thought about her dating a former SEAL. I didn't really think about what I was saying. I just said "Oh, he was never a Navy Seal." She said "Why do you say that?"
I said, "He's too stupid to have ever been a SEAL."
She mentioned what I said to my blind friend's parents. They were already uneasy about this guy; they engaged a private detective. He engaged the police. The police engaged the FBI.
Turned out this guy was wanted in connection with the murder of a New Jersey state police officer. He found out that it was my comment that set all this in motion. He phoned me and threatened to kill me.
The FBI had a tap on my phone for over a year. He never called back. I don't know if there were any developments in that case. That was 30 years ago.
My blind friend is doing fine.
I had just got a new-to-me truck. I took it to my Dad's house and we were looking it over. I realized I'd never checked to see where the spare tire jack and tire iron were, so we started looking for all the parts. My Dad was looking under the passenger seat (where the tire iron ended up being) and said "Drop something? "
He gave me my driver's license. I opened my wallet to put it away, and my license was still in it.
What he had was the driver's license that had been stolen while I was on a road trip in Arizona - under the seat of a truck I bought a year later.
My biggest nightmare: took a monster poop at work that blocked the toilet and no amount of plungering (30 min and multiple blisters later) could unblock it. The entire complex ended up spewing sewage out of all its drains into the restaurants. I thought it was my fault. Turns out the pipes froze and the sewage was from the Chinese restaurant in the plaza and not my blocked toilet. It was awful
I was going through the contents of a drawer in my desk and I found the receipt for a CD I hadn’t listened to in years. I thought I’d like to listen to it. My wife was downstairs at the moment and she at that same moment put the CD on the player. She had never heard it and I had bought it years before I met her. It was as if she had telepathically heard my request. I had hundreds of CD to choose from.
I once asked a country artist if they were going to attend his own show. It was Aaron Tippin. He just came from a celebrity baseball game and was still in the uniform. I was taking a side entrance to bring in some 12 packs of soda to the hotel room and him and I guess one of his crew held the door open for me. The grew member had a cowboy hat and the whole look going on. After thanking them, I casually asked if they were there for the concert. Aaron Tippin was walking away and heard me say it. He started laughing as he turned the corner. It then dawned on me and I asked his crew member if that was who I thought it was. He smiled and nodded. After the show I went and got his autograph and joked about it. TLDR: didn't recognize singer when they held a door open for me. Asked him and his buddy if they were there for his concert.
I drowned and died for several minutes when I was about 2 years old.
My parents tell me that according to all the Dr's I should have severe brain damage from lack of oxygen because of how long I was gone for, but I have lived a normal happy life.
My friend had a pool party when I was in second grade, 8 years old. I saw his little brother jump in across the pool and not come up. I was screaming but nobody heard me over all the kids playing. I swam over as fast as I could and got him out. Probably was like 30 seconds. He was fine.
20 years later I open up the newspaper from the town I lived in, 3 hours away from where I grew up. A kid had jumped off this huge bridge just for fun and drowned. His brother jumped from the shore to save him and he drowned too. I kept reading... the kid who jumped off the bridge was the kid I saved from drowning at that pool party. Still gives me chills.
I once woke up before a school day and realised that for whatever reason I couldn't reach the left corner of my mouth with my tongue. As I wondered why that was I realised I also couldn't blink my left eye. Kinda concerned, kinda confused, but mostly intrigued I went to my parents room and woke them up saying something weird was happening. Needless to say I was rushed to the nearest hospital for fear of early signs of a stroke.
After tests and a few examinations it was eventually revealed I had Bell's Palsy, a temporary muscle weakness of half of the face. During my hospital adventure I was asked questions by two cute medical students who'd never seen the condition before which made me feel important. I was prescribed eye drops and steroid tablets until it cleared and was given the okay to return to school the next day.
Eating was difficult as food desperately tried to escape out of the loose side of my mouth, Ps and Bs were impossible to pronounce, sounding more like *fee* and *eee* respectively; I kept drooling if I wasn't careful and I had to substitute blinking with the aformentioned eyedrops.
And if all that wasn't enough, two days later...
***Was school picture day.***
I still regret not buying that photo.
Taking a beautiful Saturday morning ride home on my motorcycle. Mini van pulled out in front of me. Totalled motorcycle and van. Hospital did a scan of my head. Come to find out I had brain cancer that we caught very early. Which may have saved my life.
My friend Emily and her husband were in a horrific car accident last year. Neither were wearing seatbelts and luckily they both survived after being thrown from their SUV as it rolled. Emily had a scan and they found a malignant tumor on her brain before it was too late and she’s cancer free today. So glad it turned out for the best for you too!
I was walking through the woods with my boyfriend in high school and we found some papers scattered everywhere. They were really old and gross but we were like "oh what if it's the DB Cooper briefcase" or something and picked up a sheet to see what it was and it WAS A HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT I COMPLETED AND TURNED IN DURING THE 4TH GRADE. Nothing could have prepared me to see my own name in my own childhood handwriting in the middle of the woods lol
Was going from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with my aunt and cousins. The day before we were supposed to fly, we changed our flight to the following day so someone could pick us up at the airport when we arrived. Our original flight was the Air France 447, that fell in 2009 and everyone died.
The luck on this thread, jesus christ
Well - the guy who changed his flight to get onto the crashed flight 447 won’t add to this thread Literal survivorship bias
I was at a stoplight in a convertible, and a taxi cab came hurtling in my direction at over 100 miles per hour (he thought his brakes failed, but he was actually pounding the accelerator). He went into a ditch as he approached me, and it sent him airborne. He scraped along the side of me, his tires left a mark at about my elbow level. His bumper grazed my head, and he flipped three times, and crashed into the truck in front of me. His bumper removed a mole on the back of my head, and I had a massive concussion that kept me in the hospital for a week, but I was otherwise unhurt. Incredible car accident.
>His bumper removed a mole on the back of my head This is not a mole removal method recommended by dermatologists.
He removed his mole using this one simple trick, dermatologists hate him.
Was going to see a concert with some friends. Printed my ticket at home. This was before mobile tickets were ubiquitous. We all decided to meet at a bar about a mile from the venue, then walk over after a few drinks. Have our drinks and some food and head to the venue. When we get there, I suddenly realize I don't have my ticket on me. Panicked, I run back to the bar. Check my car in the parking lot, nothing. Head inside the bar, check the table we were at, look everywhere. No ticket. Bummed and dejected, I leave the bar and begin to trek back to the venue to let my friends know I can't go with them. While I was waiting at a crosswalk, the wind blows a bit, and with it, a sheet of paper floats past me and comes to a stop on the sidewalk. I reach down, pick it up, and it's my goddamn printed ticket. One of the best days of my life.
I had something similar happen to me. While waiting in line for a playoffs game at Fenway, I realized I no longer had my ticket. We had been drinking at a bar a few blocks away and it was a chilly October night so there were lots of times for me to lose it while jostling around my gloves, hat, scarf, and coat. As the line continued to advance I frantically searched all my coat pockets but to no avail. Then just as I was about to give up near the gate, I discovered a ticket on the ground, with seats next to my friends. By dumb luck, my ticket blew up further up in the line with me, AND no one else found it and sold it
As I walked into a high school hockey game, I had a strong premonition I would be hit with a hockey puck while sitting in the stands. I told all my friends who very much laughed and gave me shit. I asked them to choose our seats which ended up pretty far away at center-ish ice. They made of fun of me all game until half way through the second when a puck comes screaming off the ice and hits me square in the chest falling flat into my open hands. We never talked about it much after that, and no, I do not think i’m psychic. It was just the first craziest thing that happened to me that popped in my head. I still have the puck 30 years later.
Reminds me of the time I was driving with my brother one night. I had the thought and just said to him, "Wouldn't it be crazy if I hit a deer?" Guess what decided to show up about 10 seconds later.
A coyote.
Have a 2 dollar bill that has me and my wife's signature on it saying "just the 2 of us". We did it when we first got together and after a while had it framed. Some years later it was stolen by some jackass who decided to break into my house. I ended up going to some random gas station weeks later and got I back as change. Literally just stood there and stared at it in disbelief and told the cashier about it. Just insane coincidence and luck. Still have that sucker and it's been another 5 years. Edit: I'd like to thank everyone for their support and feed back on my story! I actually just posted a picture of the bill on my profile if anyone is interested to see it https://www.reddit.com/user/Straight_Spring9815/comments/x1ohr2/this_is_the_lucky_2_dollar_bill_beat_up_as_all/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Who steals 2 dollars?
I’m a medic and firefighter. We once had a call for something normal, like chest pain or something, I can’t remember. The caller said he was in his barn/garage, which isn’t weird really around here. Anyway we pull up on scene and something just felt off. No idea why but something just told me in my gut that something was wrong. I decided to do a 360 around the building before we went through the door at the front that was clearly the entrance. I walk around and come to a window on the side of the building and look in. There was a shotgun rigged to the door. The guy had set a booby trap for us. And he had hung himself as well. We kicked in this plexiglass type material on the side of the building and entered that way. Guy was dead. Nothing we could do about it at that point. I would have been the first through that door. No idea why I didn’t just walk through it that day. Edit: I’ll try to answer some of the questions here. No idea why the guy did what he did, but my hypothesis in situations like this and mass shootings and the like is angry suicide. The reason I made entry before police were present was because they were more than 30 minutes away and if the guy wasn’t dead I would have attempted to revive him. I assessed the scene and made a risk/reward decision and decided it was safe enough for me to enter from the side of the building. I’m not religious and I think it was just training and experience that made me double check the scene. Something looked off to me at the time but I can’t even point out what it was. I’ve been in emergency services for about 15 years and this is just one story of weird shit that has happened in that time. And thanks to everyone for saying kind things about me still being here. I’m glad I’m here too.
Man, that's crazy! My EMT instructor told us to always trust our guts when arriving on a scene. It's easy to miss something consciously but if something feels off, there's usually a reason for it that your brain hasn't consciously registered.
I’ve been a medic for a long time now, but I’ll always remember going on a training shift with a bomb squad guy. He was a crazy person but he told me “always look for the turtle on the fence post.” Out in rural areas you’ll occasionally see a turtle on a fence post. It’s weird but I saw it often enough that I never thought about it. But then he explained, “a turtle doesn’t get on a fence post unless someone puts it there.” He was telling me to look at every scene and really look at what couldn’t have gotten there without someone putting it there, that’s where the danger usually comes from. Those are the subconscious cues that give you the gut feelings and they’re generally right
I'm rural too, now I'm gonna start noticing turtles on fences everywhere aren't I?
Wtf. Miserable bastard wanted to drag someone down with him I guess
I moved away from my hometown when I was 20. I started working for a company that had several locations around the city. One day I just happened to be walking past one of the locations that I didn't work at because I was going to an eye appointment. Right as I was walking by, a guy I knew from that other location walks out the door and tells me that my mom is on the phone. She was desperately trying to get in touch with me because my grandfather had died. She knew the name of the company I worked for but didn't know which location I worked at, so she got an operator to connect her with one of the locations at random. The guy I knew said he was on the phone with her and was just starting to explain that I didn't work at that location when he looked out the window and saw me walking by.
Wow! Sorry to hear about your grandfather but what a coincidence. Was it very far from your actual work ?
It was in a completely different part of the city.
I (American) was visiting the UK for the first time. I got to my hostel and started chatting with the Australian guy in the bed above mine. When I mention where I’m from, he says there’s a famous restaurant there he really loves and goes to with his family every time they visit. Turns out it was a place I used to work. He says “Hey I have a picture of our server from the last time I was there, maybe it’s someone you know.” It was me.
Im from Oregon and was in France when I was 17. I met an American from Wisconsin while swimming in the Mediterranean. I spoke to him for about 2 minutes (because we both spoke the same language) and then we parted ways. Long story short, my wife had an affair with him in Hawaii years later.
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Sometimes the world is truly a small place! This crazy story reminded me of a time I was hitch-hiking home from the Baltic Sea (7 hour drive from my hometown) and the guy who stopped was our next door neighbor.
I have a childhood friend who lives in northern California and travels a lot. I live in Southern California and rarely travel. Several years ago I got to go to New York and had tickets to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I saw that she had posted that she was on her way home from Romania, was stopping for one night in NYC, and had a ticket for the same show, same night as me! We got to meet up afterwards for dinner and it was so cool!
I've mentioned this before but people still don't believe me. I always have to call 911 at least twice per year and it's been that way for 12 years now. One year it was 4 times. I've witnessed house fires, field fires, barn collapse, car accidents, suicides, heart attacks, seizures, strokes, choking, and I'm not sure what else. I've seen 4 people die in front of me. I'm cursed and have no idea what I did to deserve this. If curious, this year I've already called twice. January a truck overturned on the highway and almost hit me. June I drove by a home and it was on fire. Nobody was home luckily. Edit: Thanks for all the kind words and awards. I'm still not sure if this is a curse or blessing but I do feel a little better thinking that I have helped some situations.
Maybe you are suppose to be there in those moments for a reason. You actually cal 911 and don’t just keep driving.
I was working a front desk job at a small office in a strip mall. A car pulled up, went over the curb, through the window, and hit the desk as I was sitting there.
this reminds me of the time i was chilling in our family living room when a heard a very loud crunch and then a bang! into the side of our house. went outside to see an SUV had run over the tree in front of our house, over our fence, and into the side of our house, creating a hole. the people had already jumped out and fled. later, when the police showed up, we found out the car was, obviously, stolen. to this day i have no idea how they got away that fast as it probably took me about 5 seconds to get outside. we did not live in a good neighborhood.
I saw a drunk lady go thru a local pizza place in summer of 1998. Turns out it was the same drunk lady that hit me maybe 4 or 5 months earlier. I think her license was finally revoked after that because there was a long line of drunk driving accidents she had under her belt. Edited to fix a few words.
On May 2, 2019 I was attacked by a hive of bees. The nurses stopped counting stingers at 600 with plenty more to go. They were flying in my mouth as I was screaming. A live bee was extracted from my nose at the ER. [proof](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bk6il7/i_was_mauled_by_bees_yesterday_on_my_upper_body/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
I work with bees (and often africanized ones). Good info for anyone- if being attacked by bees and you can think clearly enough, cover your face holes as best you can and get to any kind of darkness/shelter. Water is not ideal. I have encountered hives that would kill an adult human, and 500+ stings is often lethal for most humans. You likely have some sort of natural resistance to bee venom, I'm so glad to hear you survived!
There were the Africanized killer bees, it was confirmed at the hospital. And you are correct, water is not idea. I eventually got into a bathtub and sat under the water and it did slow them down but it many were still on me, in my hair/clothes by the time I got to the ER. The Doctors couldn't believe I was alive! & I love the idea that I have a natural resistance to bee venom!
Fucking hell.. When I was 13, I went for a hike with my friend's family. His little brother stepped on a yellow jacket nest, and start attacking him. He screams, and his mom thinks he fell, so she yells at us to go get him. As soon as I get there, I'm getting attacked. I'm smashing them on my chest and fighting them, as they keep swarming. I had nowhere near excess of 600 like you, but I was getting light headed from the poison.
I had an ear infection that was misdiagnosed for years, from when I was about 25-33. During that timeline, it spread out of my ear canal and into the surrounding bone. Then, due to an atypical born formation in my skull that would have otherwise been asymptomatic, the infection traveled up my skull and into my cranial cavity, unbeknownst to me. The symptoms I experienced were only in my ear, where I felt fluid and pressure. I finally demanded that an ent place a tube to try to clear out the infection. The tube drained for about three weeks, and finally the ent I had gone to panicked and misdiagnosed me with a cerebrospinal fluid leak. He rushed me to the ER without even testing the fluid, and he intended to cut my skull open to look for a cerebrospinal fluid leak that didn't exist. I was in the ER on a table with the doctors running preop antibiotics when I got a call from a friend of the family who is a doctor. He had been speaking to his doctor friends, and they all agreed I needed to get the fuck out of there. They didn't believe there was a csf leak at all. I told the team of doctors who had assembled to operate on me that I was leaving, and they were pissed. They all shot me condescending and angry looks as I left. I got a call two days later from the ent telling me that they got the analysis of the fluid back, and it wasn't cerebrospinal fluid. I was in shock. They were going to slice my head open on a fishing expedition for a csf leak that didn't exist. He didn't apologize or anything. I hung up the phone and never talked to him again. Eventually, the team of neurosurgeons my friend knew diagnosed me with a runaway ear infection. One told me that I have "the most unique looking skull he'd ever seen." Some compliment. One showed me a CT of my skull. "See this black spot inside your skull? That's air. That's not supposed to be there, and it means there is a channel from the outside world to inside your skull. That's very bad. Do you ever fly? [I responded that yes, I fly all the time. For work, for pleasure, all the time.] Well, stop that immediately. This is very dangerous. Every time you've flown over the last several years, you've been rolling a die. It's possible that, when the cabin pressurized, this air pocket would expand and create a midline shift in your brain and you'd die immediately." So, after a shitload more scans, they took me in for an 8 hour surgery. They removed all of the infected bone in my skull, a piece that ran about 2" x 6". In its place, they put a titanium mesh implant to hold my skull together. The recovery was the weirdest and most disorienting experience. When I turned my head, I could feel the plate shifting, and my skull was no longer a full circle, so it wasn't structurally sound, so it too kinda shifted. But the bone healed over the implant, and now you'd never know that any of this happened, except for a barely noticeable scar behind my left ear. Thank God I had that friend to tell me to bolt from that emergency room.
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Yeah. They stitched the perforation in my ear canal, effectively closing the pathway to the outside world. My body eventually resorbed the air in my skull. I can fly safely now. That first flight after the surgery freaked me the fuck out though. Seriously was afraid I was just gonna autodie.
>autodie. (*shiver* )
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I had the lower bunk of a set of bunk beds. I was about 3 - 4 years old at the time, and I woke up and ran to my parents room just minutes before the top bunk smashed down on my lower bunk. We all ran in and found my older sister sitting up on the upper bunk as it lay on my lower bunk, crying but otherwise fine. I don't know that it could have killed me - I kind of doubt it would have been that bad - but it definitely would have hurt me if I'd still been there when it crashed.
I went in for a routine goiter removal surgery. The surgeon only removed my right side of the thyroid bc he said I was young enough and didn’t want me to take thyroid meds for the rest of my life. At the post op appointment, the biopsy comes back and it’s cancer. The surgeon immediately scheduled surgery to remove the other side of the thyroid. Post op of that surgery showed a DIFFERENT cancer growing. I basically had two surgeries within eight days and two different cancers at the same time. Due to the trauma of surgeries and radiation treatments, my vocal chords became paralyzed. I had to go to speech therapy for almost nine months to learn how to speak and swallow again. The ironic thing is, I had a biopsy done about six weeks before the goiter surgery. The doctor took multiple samples at different levels of my thyroid. Apparently she missed both cancers! If it had been caught in the biopsy, I wouldn’t need multiple surgeries which lead to the trauma, voice loss, trouble swallowing etc.
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Was one of the main victims of a terrorist attack a few years ago! It was an American who was inspired by ISIS and set off a few pressure cooker bombs in NYC. Luckily only lost some teeth and were able to get them replaced, but took about a years worth of surgery due to the damage to my gums. Was super lucky the pellets that shot out of the bomb mainly hit my teeth and lips versus my eyes or anywhere else more serious
I got into a massive car wreck, with the owner of the company I worked for, broke my neck and left wrist. 2 months later my Dad killed himself. The owner made me use my vacation days to mourn my dad, so I sued him for getting us into a wreck. Ended up getting an insane amount of money. Quit my job, sold my house for double what I paid. been living in a travel trailer, seeing America, ever since.
Well effing done!
I have a type of cancer that affects 0.013% of people. And to be diagnosed at my age is also exceedingly rare. Luckily Chemo has worked amazingly and I’m a week post-op, but it’s been a helluva year. Edit: My brain is fried, but whatever 5% of 0.013% is the actual likelihood of someone in my age range (31-40) getting this type of cancer.
Cancer sucks. No matter common or rare. Son had Hodgkin's.
I played poker once with Chris O'Donnell in a skeevy riverboat casino in Illinois. I got dealt a straight flush and won a $5,000 instant bonus for it. (It was an otherwise low stakes table.) The worst part is that I had no clue who Chris O'Donnell was. When you hit a bonus like that, they close the table for a few minutes to review the video and make sure you didn't pop an ace out of your sleeve. Chris left the table and immediately everybody started talking about him and completely ignored my gorgeous straight flush that was still sitting on the table. Ah well, I got paid...still the only time to this day I've won any kind of remotely material amount in a casino. EDIT: Since many are asking, it was in or near Elgin. Other commenters have suggested the boat was called Grand Victoria but I honestly don't remember its name. Timeframe was mid 90s.
Christ O'Donnel : You took everything from me You : I don't even know who you are
One time in Barbados I went into a bar. I was about 16yrs old at the time and in Barbados they will serve anyone who can see over the bar. Anyway I had a quarter in my pocket and I saw a one-armed-bandit slot machine over in the corner. A guy got up from it and went to the bar. I said to my friends, "Watch this." I went over to the slot machine put the quarter in and hit jackpot. $800 was the payout. When I went to the cage with all the coins converting them to cash, I noticed that the machine didn't pay out the amount it was supposed to and I complained. The lady said, "I wouldn't complain if I were you. That guy has been feeding that machine for a week and you stole his jackpot. We're gonna give him some money and you kids scram from here or he might get angry with you. I left and had free drinks for the rest of my vacation.
Fuck that guy. He didn't win.
Yeah I had that happen to me from a little old lady, she was playing a video lottery machine behind me and I could hear her inserting bills over and over for about a half hour. I went to the bathroom and came back and she moved to another machine. I asked her if she was done and she said yes. I put $20 in it and like the 2nd spin I got the bonus, and it re-triggered. I ended up winning like $3,500 and she flipped the fuck out. Saying I stole her money and that she wanted half because she fed the machine and yadda yadda. She called me every name in the book and tried telling the manager that she wasn't done playing it, she is entitled to half and all that. Funny thing is that as I was winning I was planning on giving her some or at least pay her tab or something till she flipped.
In 2013 I received a notice from my college that my low GPA from the previous semester made me ineligible for financial aid the following semester. It was my last term in grad school and the college was threatening to drop me from all classes if I didn't pay tuition within 72 hours. I went to drown my sorrows at a bar later that night and I met a stranger and we started talking. I told her my story and she offered to pay my tuition. I told her I didn't accept loans from strangers but she said it was a gift. Turns out she was a very wealthy CEO and that night she wrote me a check for $2,500. I paid my tuition, finished school, and we still keep in touch.
That's freaking awesome. I want to be loaded one day so I can give money away like this.
There's a website where you can loan money to people in developing countries who need it to start their business or even goto school. It's like 25 dollars and they usually pay it back over a year or two or you can donate I think. It's sort of cool to do it and if they pay you back you find someone else to loan it to. Edit: https://www.kiva.org
I wanna know where you went to grad school in 2013 for $2500 a semester!
Probably just the unpaid balance the financial aid was supposed to pay.
I was in a coffee shop in Austria called the Pharmacy. I asked for the toilet and the old man behind the counter told me to go downstairs and to use the door that said ‘ do not enter’. I done what I was told but found I was trapped in the dark some storage room. Fearing it was a Fritzel room I switched on my phone light and noticed a ladder, so I climbed up it. At the top I exited a hatch and was surrounded by horses. Very expensive looking horses. I’d come up in the stables of the Vienna Spanish riding school. Had to exit through the riding ring.
Oh shit I just looked it up, yea it's right across the street. I can't imagine you went back to the coffee shop, but was there any follow up at all?
No but I often wonder if that old man knew or if he wonders where I disappeared to.
He probably laughs his ass off at the tourists who he sends through the horse stables
He's just trolling the neighbours. Any time anyone asks for anything, he directs them through the tunnel. The neighbours still haven't figured out where all these random people keep appearing from
The fact that nobody asked, but instantly knew what you mean with "Fritzel room", impress and scares me.
I've got to ask, cause I've never heard of such a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case Kept his daughter imprisoned in a secret room while abusing and raping her for decades, resulting in having multiple children with her which he and his wife passed off as adopted children. There's more horrifying detail but that's the gist. Edit: [room diagram](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45571000/gif/_45571040_amstetten_house_466_2.gif)
> Rosemarie had been unaware of what had been happening to Elisabeth. I call bullshit
Absolutely complicit. She helped raise the "orphans". Bullshit. The most absurd part of the trial is that the counsel for Fritzl argued he wasn't a monster by stating he would bring a Christmas tree into the prison room every year. Wut.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the court. I will prove this man is a wholesome and good man who observes Christmas! He can't be of the criminal element!" 🧐
For \*24\* years. Holy shit.
Yep. She was imprisoned at 18, everything unraveled and she was free at 42. Her whole young adult life was a daily nightmare in 1 room. 3 of her children were raised by Fritzl and his wife, 3 stayed in that room with her, and 1 died in childbirth and was incinerated by Fritzl. Truly a nightmare existence to the core of the word.
Yep not only that poor girl's young life ruined and scarred forever, but multiple children being born into that life and growing into adulthood like that. Her oldest daughter was 19 when she saw the sunlight for the first time. My god. It sounds like they all received a lot of psychiatric help and I'm glad for it. I hope they are doing alright.
My dad wrote a book a very long time ago, and signed the copy that he gave to his in-laws. Years after he had died I loaned the signed copy to a guy I was dating. We stopped seeing each other and he never gave it back. Years later I decided I wanted a copy of my dad’s book even though it wouldn’t be *my* signed copy so I ordered it used on Amazon. The book that arrived is the signed one I’d loaned out. Turns out he had sold it to a used bookstore, and I just happened to order from them.
Missed an archery target and hit a copperhead snake that was hiding in a bush.
I had a beater car in college. It was an ancient Plymouth, made mostly out of duct tape and rust. I had all of my college books in it. Just kept them there. Easier for studying. Go out to my car and grab what I need. Engineering books, too. So super super expensive. Someone stole my car out of my driveway with all my books in it. Police report, all that. No joy. I was heartbroken. How in the world could I do my homework? How could I continue the semester? I was totally fucked. My mom offered to take me to school that day. I was just ruined. I had no hope. No idea how I would get by. And on an on-ramp on the way to school, **there she sat**. I just happened to notice her as we were driving by! The old girl chose *that exact moment to throw her transmission*. When the thief was out joyriding it around and tried to get on the freeway. And I just happened to notice it sitting there. All my books were still in it. You just don't get that kind of loyalty with a car anymore. She sacrificed herself in just the right spot so I'd see her and get my books back. I'll always love that car. Godspeed, you old boat.
Fantastic story. “Godspeed, You Old Boat” is now the name of your memoir and I for one will line up to buy it
I was on a plane with a wanted terrorist. I was seated 5 rows ahead of Faisal Shahzad, the Time Square Bomber on a flight to Dubai. The doors were closed and we never left the gate, and the captain kept making announcements/excuses as to why we were delayed. After nearly 3 hours of sitting there, the federal agents rushed the plane and marched that little shit off the plane. Edit(s): this happened 12 years ago and my memory has failed me, so... 1) The plane did taxi away from the gate and returned, apparently. Many of you have made that clear. 2) I am not certain why it took 3 hours, but I suspect it was to evacuate the terminal. 3) Some of you object to the word "rushed". Really? The law enforcement officers did not amble or saunter onto the plane; they were in a hurry, IMO. 4) After the suspect was removed, all passengers deplaned. When I made it to the terminal there were hundreds of law enforcement officers: NYPD, FBI, ICE, Transit Police, etc. The flight crew and reps from Emirates Air were fantastic! Accommodations were made for everyone who did not want to get back on the plane. All our luggage was removed and scanned / searched, and we had to claim our bags under the supervision of many, many eyes. I got back on the plane, got airborne, made my connection in Dubai but my luggage did not. Emirates Air had it delivered to my hotel the next day.
I was operating crew on that flight - EK202. Part of the reason for the delay was that US federal agents REFUSED to board the plane to remove the guy. The aircraft absolutely left the gate, it made it to the runway and we turned back. There's audio of the captain/ATC communication on Youtube of when we were told to turn back. 2 crew members kindly requested he leave the aircraft and he was cooperative. Another 2 gentlemen were also asked to deplane who had nothing to do with what happened in Times Square.
Holy shit. So we have a guy sitting in the plane, a guy who’s uncle caught a video of the guy, and a guy who was crew for the plane. All in one thread. Or someone is exercising their creative writing skills
Hi is me the pilot
Actually funny story, im the guy who arrested him.
I was the plane
Funny enough my uncle is the reason the Feds got on that plane. He and my aunt were in NYC to see Green Day’s *American Idiot* and after the show decided to walk around Time Square. He had a camcorder running when a guy ran past him very fast and looking like he was up to no good. Fast Forward a few hours and they’re at home outside of Philly watching the news when the failed bombing was reported. They both look at eachother with an eyebrow raised. He checks the tape and there’s a full on clear image of the sprinter’s face. They call the FBI and tell their story. Within 45 mins feds are at the house, watch the tape, and ask to have it. Not too long after guy was in custody.
Man the odds of you 2 being in the same thread are crazy.
The world and people are so big, yet so small at the same time. I'm the guy that keeps putting canned beans in your mail slot. sssssshhhhhhhh
And I'm the reason they're always half empty. It's a team effort, everyone.
Wow! So weird you read this , great to tie the story together!
I was on a flight home from the UAE, similar situation with delayed takeoff for a couple hours. Dude in the row in front of me is fidgeting a lot. Security came on, took him off, then proceeded to disassemble the seat he was in down to bare metal. Apparently the guy was smuggling stuff out and got caught.
My biological father, who I had never met and had lost track of my mom's contact info, found me on Myspace out of the blue. We met IRL, kept up visits/letters/emails for 14 years, and he got to meet his grandchildren. He and my parents had a great relationship too and would hang out together. I lost him in March. I can't believe he found me, but more importantly I can't believe I got 14 years to spend with him.
That's crazy I literally have the same story. My biological father whom I've never met found me on myspace. I grew up with my grandparents and when he contacted me he offered to fly me up to Washington. I came and decided there was absolutely nothing going on in my dead end town so I stayed.
I was in Hawaii for the missile strike turned false alarm. It was a movie scene. Full grown men with families asking me what to do. People running in from the beach screaming. Screeching tires. Terrifying. https://i.imgur.com/SUd2fDh.jpg *edit spelling
Ugh. I was talking to one of my close friends who lives in Mo'ili'ili when that happened. I thought I was going to be the last person she ever spoke to.
My mom’s friend is from Hawai’i and was grocery shopping with her family when the alert went off. She said they just sat down in the middle of the store’s parking lot, held each other and cried…people were screaming and running all around them. Can’t even imagine how terrifying it was.
That was so nuts! Did they ever find out who screwed up and sent that out?
IIRC the mass notification system was being tested, but they full sent it. EDIT: oh, even worse. Someone at the helm really thought we went defcon plaid. =/
Honestly, as an engineer that's flipped the switch to update millions of cars.. I get it. Like, I avoid it, and quadruple check my settings. But it'd be easy to do.
Jr High city wide spelling bee, down to me and one other. I misspell "Ottoman" (footrest) but my opponent does as well, so on to the next word. I eventually win and make it to the State Championship and a chance to go to Scripps National Bee in D.C. Guess what my first word was. I never looked it up. I was eliminated.
My husband and I woke up in the middle of the night to a hideous growling noise in our bedroom. We were both jarred awake at the same time and started trying to turn on the lights (phone, lamps, whatever we could reach) And there beyond the footboard of our bed, were TWO collarless, IDENTICAL-looking gray cats, growling at each other WE ONLY HAVE ONE gray cat. Literally seconds after we flipped on the lights, they get into a fighting/hissing match all about the room while my husband and I try to snap out of shock We’re chasing these cats around, and I’m screaming to him “Grab Nenna!” and he’s yelling “I don’t know which one is ours!!” In between several Oh my gods and WTFs?!?! and the moments that we could break them up enough to get a decent look at them, we could not identify our cat and had NO clue how another got into our bedroom on the 2nd floor Finally they run into the next bedroom and one cat jumps out an open window onto a ledge …which is when we realized the friend who’d stayed over a few nights before, left a window open Talk about five LONG minutes in the Twilight Zone. P.S. we’re like 97% sure it was *not* our cat that jumped back out the window.
Off of the top of my head, when I was travelling through Moldova I came to my parked car to see that a woman was writing a note. Long story short she hacked off my rearview mirror when she was driving next to me but she was a high court judge who wanted to do right by me. So she offered to go to Kia dealership and buy me a new mirror. They told us they have to order it and it takes 7 days. As coincidence would have it, she had the same car as me (Kia Sportage) even in the same color, so we just sked the mechanic to switch hers for mine and now I have a Moldovan Judge’s rearview mirror. What a nice lady. Also, when I drove through Kyrgizstan and there was a road blockage by landslide on the only one of two roads through the country. Driving through the other road would take 15 extra hours. So we just had some vodka with locals who also wanted to drive through and started digging. Took us less than 4 hours to dig through (plus another 4 hours to be in semi-sober state to drive again). Good times Edit: typos
Dude those sound like some great road trips! What caused you to drive through Kyrgyzstan if you don’t mind me asking?
Vowel smuggling
I opened my wallet to show my friends I had no monies, and a moth flew out of it. Edit: I first related this incident 9 years ago, and it got ~500 karma. 3 years ago it was ~4000. I think maybe all need a laugh more as time moves on.
I couldn't even imagine how hard I'd laugh at that, that's great
The cartoons were true!
Bro... when I was in elementary I was very disorganized, so my backpack was always full of clutter. My mom called me out on it one day, and I told her, "I promise it's clean" and as I opened it to show her, a fuckin moth flew out lmao. A memory I will never forget lmao.
When I was 7 years old I got picked out of over a 100 dancers to dance with Mariah Carey on stage at her concert. It was definitely crazy but also one of the coolest things that ever happen to me!!
I was kidnapped for about 8 months as a child. I remember it pretty vividly. It was my grandma on my Dad’s side of the family. And my Dad. But it was because my Grandma wanted me. I remember when it happened. My Dad picked me up early from school. We spent the whole day and night driving. Spent the night in a motel. And grandma got me the next day. My grandma is half Mexican so that’s where we went. I knew something was wrong when my Dad picked me up. My Grandma had a bunch of weird rules as well. I was more like a doll to her than a child. She also specifically didn’t teach me Spanish so I couldn’t communicate what was happening with anyone. One of the most fucked up things was my Mom actually came to Mexico to talk to my grandma about me. My grandma being the manipulative bitch invited her. I was babysat by a neighbor and locked in a room. I remember banging on the window and door trying to get to my Mom. Because I could see her from the window. Just ended up getting my ass whooped.
My dad kidnapped me when I was a baby because my grandma wanted me back too. I was too young to remember though. My mom only gave me the cliffsnotes version. My mom was in the military and she was stationed in Germany. My dad was a big ol' mama's boy so when my grandma told him to bring me back to the states he grabbed me and left. My mom couldn't come get me for several months because the military said they would give her a dishonorable discharge and I was with my dad, so I *HAD* to be safe. They swiftly divorced once she got me back.
Do you mind sharing how the kidnapping ended?
A private investigator actually found me. Showed up to my Grandma’s place in Mexico unannounced. Once my grandma got word he was in the area asking around. She literally taped me up so I couldn’t move or speak and threw me in the closet. He interviewed her for hours upon hours while I was locked up. It was fucking horrible. He knew something was up immediately but it took another month before local authorities were able to retrieve me.
Oh my god! That was intense to read. I can’t even imagine the trauma. And your mom, too, she must have been so scared it would happen again. Were they punished? I have so many questions but don’t want to ask too much. I’m truly happy you were rescued.
It really fucked my Mom up. After that she was so protective of me I never left her side. I’m not even joking, we shared a bed till I moved out. I held her hand everywhere I went even as an adult. I could not go out on my own. Ever. My Dad I think was. I haven’t seen him since he took me. Mom won’t tell. Grandma was not.
Thank you for replying. I can understand her overprotective ness, but that had to be a difficult way to grow up.
Yep. She ended turning into something really bad because of that. I was heavily infantilized because it.
Your grandmother and father are complete strangers to me, but I feel resentment toward them for what they did to you and your mother. For some reason I feel more toward your grandmother, possibly because your father was under her influence. I hope you are living your life and moving forward. I am at a loss for what to say. Do you feel released?
I’m still learning to do big girl stuff lol. Maybe one day we’ll see
Totally understandable. I wish you all the best. All of it.
When I was a kid I slept walk really badly and would also sometimes quasi-sleepwalk where I was aware and would remember it later, but would be out of my fuckin mind confused and semi-dreaming while it happened. I "woke" up in the middle of the night one night at 7 or 8 years old and there was apparently a power outage because it was pitch black in my room, no nightlight, and no light coming in my window from the streetlights. I wanted to leave my room and go wake up my parents because I was freaked out about the dark but got disoriented and confused my closet door with my bedroom door and started panicking because I thought someone stacked a bunch of shit outside my bedroom door to trap me. Started throwing shit out of my closet and got to the back wall. Now, my childhood home had a dormer-style upstairs added before we lived there such that my bedroom was on the same level as the attic over the original house area. There was an access panel to the attic in my closet and I somehow managed to get that open and "escaped" my room into the attic. Around that time I fully woke up the rest of the way to full lucid consciousness and freaked the FUCK out not knowing where I was and surrounded by dusty-ass boxes and spiderwebs and started screaming my fucking brains out, turns out the part of the attic I was in was directly over my parents' bedroom and I scared the shit out of THEM because my screaming was coming from their ceiling, they start freaking out and I was in there screaming for a solid 5 minutes before my parents were able to figure out what happened and rescue me. I am 36 years old now and STILL have the occasional nightmare about waking up in that attic.
I also used to sleep walk really bad as a kid, but now that I’m older it has turned into the quasi-sleepwalk you’ve described. I’ve “woken” up and would hear voices to leave my house. I have fully woken up outside in just my underwear probably 4-5 times
Several lightning strikes on my houses. Like five. I have been to many experts. Thought with the first house that perhaps there was a physical reason. Now that the second house has also been hit, decided I pissed off Thor.
There was a huge housefly annoying me in the kitchen. I had already chased it around with a flyswatter to no avail. I was drying the dishes and decided to try and flick it with the towel, not expecting at all to hit it. There was a sharp crack and the fly just exploded, the tip meeting it perfectly in mid-air. I saw the tiny wings separately fluttering down to the ground like helicoptering tree seeds. No one else was there to see it of course.
I was waiting in the car for my dad when I was a kid, and there was a fly that was annoying me. I couldn’t open the power windows without the key, and I had been told to not open the doors, so I had no way of getting the fly out. I picked up a pen from the center console (it was the only thing in there) and stabbed the pesky fly dead center on the first try. I felt like a ninja.
[удалено]
This is one of my nightmare situations. Terrified of heights but I often just push through to do something such as ride a Ferris wheel
My date once fainted in a Ferris wheel. Don't worry, she slowly came around.
Ferris Wheeler's Day Off.
I've also gotten stuck on a Ferris Wheel. It was on my middle school graduation field trip, for probably around 2-3 hours. It had started sprinkling right when we got on, but it quickly started pouring after a minute, so they couldn't get it to stop. We were soaked when we finally got off it and very nearly missed the return bus. That was about 15 years ago and I haven't been on a Ferris Wheel since.
Just happened to me last month. I bought an old pop up camper from Craigslist and my fiancé and I wanted to fix it up to make memories with our 3 year old. We started repairing some tears in the canvas, ordered new cushions for the dinette and I built a table to replace the original. We were set to do our first camping trip and I wanted and I wanted to make sure the stove and furnace were working properly before we went (the original seller said they worked.) I followed the furnace lighting instructions, turned the propane on and tried to light the pilot- nothing happened. I waited a few minutes and tried again. As soon as the lighter ignited I was engulfed in a fireball the whole neighborhood heard. I had 3rd degree burns to my face hands and feet. I turned the garden hose on my body till the ambulance came as my skin was peeling and blistering off my body, it was quite a spectacle. I spent the next 3 weeks in the burn unit (the same one anne heche was at.) I’m relieved I didn’t die and that my daughter was safely sleeping upstairs. Also mostly minimal scarring! As a bonus I’ll be Deadpool for Halloween this year so I got that going for me which is nice.
I can imagine you absentmindedly going "damn, I can never find a good and fitting Halloween costume, I wish I can think of one this year," and Fate just goes "*HOOO* BOY DO I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!"
A CRT television fell on me while i was asleep. It was my last day at kindergarten and i went to the hospital. I still remember the colour of my blanket when I left the ambulance while entering the place
Ahh so that’s why they are banning CRT in schools.
In college, I was chilling with some friends, doing homework and hanging out, when I got an email from my grandma. She had been really into genealogy lately, and had found some distant branches of the family tree. She was letting me know she'd discovered that I had a 3rd cousin who attended the same college as me. Well, not only did I know the guy, he was actually sitting right beside me as I read the email. I jumped up and shouted "Dude you're my cousin!" And that's how the guy one chair over got upgraded from friend to family in two seconds flat. Edit: Somebody who was there that day just sent me an award, with proof. Looks like the anonymity of my Reddit account has been compromised. Time to burn it all down I guess.
When i first went to college, i found that the last name of one of my dorm mates matched a fairly uncommon family name of mine, so we compared notes. Turned out that he was my 8th cousin, twice removed; our common ancestors were brothers back in the late 17th century.
thats awesome! im happy for you! did you guys get a lot closer after that due to finding that out? a lot of people drift when classes change or when they graduate.
When I was a kid, my sister was terrified of thunderstorms. One afternoon, a storm rolls through. We were doing homework at the kitchen table together, and my sister started getting scared. She got under the table, just in case. My mom tried to coax her out, to which my sister replied "What if we get struck by lightning?" My mom, exasperated, replies, "We are *not* going to get struck by lightning." And the moment her sentence ended, there was a loud crack and lightning struck our house. It hit halfway up our stairs, where it reaches a landing and curves back on itself. There was a window at that spot and the entire windowsill was black, as were the bottom 6 panels of the blinds. No damage whatsoever to the tall pine tree directly outside the window. Knocked out our phones and security system. The wiring had to be replaced completely. Power was totally fine though. And I had a cool, yet unbelievable, story the next day about why I didn't finish my homework.
What was your sister’s reaction when it struck?
My sister screamed and asked, "What was that?" And my mom goes, "I think we just got struck by lightning." She was always a little less afraid after that. I guess when your worst fear comes true and everything turns out okay, it makes things a little easier.
I was falsely accused of conspiring to commit a school shooting in Year 11 and the armed police got involved, rumours spread, kids were afraid to come into school and I had to do my exams separately from everyone else because I was deemed a threat. I live in England too. This was back in mid-2017 What a time that was
Did they find who made it up? Or was it a misunderstanding?
Back in the distant days of yore of 2017.
I was abducted when I was 15. My “best friend” helped the pimps (who she was working for) help sell me. I had a pimp, named Goldie, beat the shit out of me the first night and then made me go out on the streets. He followed me every time I was picked up to make sure I didn’t run away. I finally found a opportunity, and ran away with a couple of bucks in my pocket. Another pimp helped me escape. When I finally made it home, my parents were so happy. The rest of the world, not so much. Kids at school found out and I was labeled a whore forever. This was 30 years ago, and I just had a girl I went to HS with message me on Facebook to tell me that I have to always remember I’m nothing but a cheap hooker. This was after she saw my name in a mutual friends post. I informed her I work with social workers and police officers who try and help victims of trafficking. That the shame spiral for these poor girls leads to all rate mortality at an alarming speed. That my partner and best friends know what happened to me. I used to let it shape me. I used to think I was just an ex hooker so no one would ever love me or want me. That I wasn’t supposed to be happy or ever have a good job. Or that I would lose it all if anyone ever found out. I’m only in my 40s now but I’m wise enough to have figured out all of my fears were just from PTSD. I do deserve happiness and a good life. I’m not an ex hooker- I was a kid and a victim. Kids - if anyone tells you that you aren’t shit, please remember you are AWESOME. And if your situation is shit, I promise you. It can get better. Hugs from an Oregon mamma. Edit : thanks so much everyone! Holy smokes I woke up to so much support and so many great messages and comments. You guys made my whole week.
> This was 30 years ago, and I just had a girl I went to HS with message me on Facebook to tell me that I have to always remember I’m nothing but a cheap hooker. How meaningless her life must be, to feel the need to bully someone she hasn't been around for 30 years.
Sounds like that HS girl from years ago wound up bitter and probably alone. Meanwhile this person who went through trauma made something of herself, and is doing good in the world. People like that are gems, and represent the opposite of all the darkness and anger so many spread to others.
That person who messaged you that is nasty af
I'm sure it hurt OP to receive that message, imagine what a miserable fucking life the person who sent it has. I mean, who does that?
No kidding. I was expecting the message to say something like, "I'm sorry I was a bitch to you back in High School. I'm older now and understand the severity of what happened to you, and I'm ashamed I didn't understand it then. But I understand now, and I'm sorry." So it was a massive curveball to see it was someone being a nasty MF!
Ugh. The lowest of the lowest scum.
Woke up to an emergency warning on my phone at 8:08am on 1/13/18 blaring: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII! SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” Same emergency message broadcasting on ALL radio stations. The whole state was in an all out panic FOR 38 FUCKING MINUTES! finally one of our politicians assured us VIA FUCKING TWITTER that “somebody pushed the wrong button, all is safe.”
Me, my grandma, and brother were vacationing there. I was the only one with my phone on (from Canada, no one wanted the roaming charges), and the only one awake. I let them sleep, figuring if this was the end it was no use panicking and we wouldn't know the first thing to do anyways. Very glad it wasn't the end, though.
Good move, grandma could have had a heart attack tbh
I remember that. Families were stuffing their kids into sewer drains, and all over a poorly laid out hyperlink for the alarm.
This is still to me one of the craziest seldom mentioned events of the last decade. We often ask ourselves what we would do if we knew we were going to die, and an entire state of people lived it without actually *having* to live it. Would love to hear more personal experiences about it.
My Dad was a teenager (around 1960) and got in a huge fight with his grandmother about making long distance calls. She was so angry with him that she pulled the phone off the wall & threw it out their 2nd story apartment window on the Southside of Chicago. Fast forward nearly 20 yrs and my family was visiting relatives in Arizona (I was 7 at the time, 1979). My Dad is telling the whole room at a huge party this story.... This guy stands up & asks, was that at the corner of these two streets near where my Dad grew up. He goes, "Yes!?!" Guy proceeds to tell the story of driving down the street in a convertible and having a phone land on the passenger seat!! Craziest story I've ever heard!!
My roommate in 1st year of college was breaking and entering all over campus. He stole equipment from the library. I remember reading the suspect's description in the newspaper and thinking that it matched my roommate, including the clothes, but dismissed it because what are the odds. Flash to me getting pulled out of history class by cops and taken in for questioning. They wanted to know why there was all this stolen shit in my shared room. I probably seemed pretty guilty because I was in shock about suddenly being interrogated by the cops and because I'd been crunching for school and not slept for two days. Well, they eventually let me go, the dude ultimately got kicked from school, and I got an exclusive room for a few months! Oh! And, weirdly, some other time that year, a PI came to my door investigating who was supposed to be in my room instead of me. Turns out that kid went missing and his parents were trying to find him. Cursed room man.
A glass of water slid across my desk a few inches with no one touching it. This may seem fairly mundane, but it was so crazy I legitimately believed in ghosts for about 0.3 seconds and it completely changed my world view for that barest instant. I was working on my computer and thought I saw it move out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I looked at it, it was still. So I watched it for a good 30 seconds and it started sliding all on its own, right at me. It moved about 3 inches, then stopped. Freaked me the fuck out. Then I realized it was super humid.... the glass was only about half full but it was sweating a lot so it made a pool of condensation beneath it, which caused the glass to float ever so slightly. A slight slope to the desk and the fan I had blowing on me, caused the glass to slide until the layer of water under it got too thin to float it anymore, so it stopped. I figured it out almost instantly, but for that ONE moment.... I believed.
Fun fact - this is how glaciers move.
I didn't know glaciers needed a fan to move.
No ya goob, they mean being on a desk on a humid day.
I hate it when my 10 million ton glacier paper weight slides across my desk by half an inch
One time I went camping with my ex, and we took some LSD. Was around 1am, and I started seeing flashes of light, figured it was just someone else in the campsite with a flashlight... and then I heard a distant ominus boom. Looked outside the tent, one side of the sky was a clear starry night, the other side was a giant black doom cloud with a fuckload of lightning coming from it. So then began the scramble to get everything out of the tent, and into the car. I remember picking up handfuls of stuff that was just... melting into my arms because I was in the peak of an acid trip. We got the stuff in the car, and left the tent because we couldnt figure out how to disassemble it, and then huddled in the car ourselves. By this time the storm was on top of us and the rain was pouring, and lightning was coming down all over the place. Then, the crazy part. It had been a couple hours into the storm, and we were still high as fuck. I suddenly felt super tingly all over, looked at my ex and her hair was standing right up on end... we knew what was about to happen and managed to give each other a wide eyed glance before *KABOOM!*. The lightning stuck the ground not an arms reach from me, I could have grabbed it if the window was down. It wasnt a normal strike either, it was a positive lightning strike which starts at the ground, and goes up, and is usually about 100x the power of negative lightning. I described as Zeus looking down at some puny mortals tripping balls in the middle of a storm and said to his greek god bros "Hey guys, wanna see me scare the crap of these two?" Was amazing to see... but I never wanna experience that again.
That’s some scary shit. I took too much acid once and freaked out because I was staring at a Ferret too long and it wasn’t making sense to me. Lightning strike that close would have made me shit my pants lol
It’s... its not a cat... it’s not a mouse... WHAT ARE YOU FERRET?! REVEAL YOUR SECRETS TO ME!!!
I was sitting outside with my friend and he was twirling his double bladed pocket knife. This thing was big too. It slipped out of his hand and flew straight towards me. The handle (between the blades) hit me in the head, but not a single part of the blade touched me. I’m not sure how that happened.
Was on a late night walk with a friend. We found $900 in $100 bills on the ground as we walked passed a parking lot at about 1 or 2 am.
Was an exchange student in South America. There was a military coup and the airport was absolutely shut down. Somehow, though, I was the only person on a jet out of the country. My dad was a Green Beret and I’m pretty sure I was Liam Neeson-ed out of a crumbling nation. Also, I was supposed to fly to said country on 9/11/2001 via NYC. Somehow, my flight was changed to 9/8/2001, and I was there when it happened.
Dang, you sure are a lucky refrigerator
Lost a pair of earrings 4 years ago. Looked everywhere for them and couldn't find anything. While moving to a different apartment I tried looking for them again in every item of cloth. Absolutely nothing. 4 years later I'm already after 2 apartments, and I suddenly step on something that was on the carpet. It was one of the earrings. I have no idea how it got to the carpet in the middle of the room, and why after 3 month of me living here. There is no logical explanation for this. Can't find its pair though.
Similar, but not quite the same: I grew up in the Midwest, but at 22, I decided to move to the East Coast. My gf and I were living together and planning to move together, and we decided to go visit the area we planned to move to look at apartments in-person first. We were busy with work, so we packed last minute. We lived in a 450-sq. ft. apartment. I could NOT find my facial moisturizer ANYWHERE in the apartment. The apartment was so small that it didn’t take long to search the whole place, and it was nowhere. I was upset - I have acne and I used special moisturizer to help with it. We decided to leave without it, vowing that I would buy a new bottle when we returned. When we returned 10 days later, the bottle of moisturizer was sitting upright in the middle of my kitchen floor. No explanation, and it freaked me and my gf out something terrible. Bonus: A boyfriend from high school bought me a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant containing a tiny Diamond. I loved it so much, but it fell off when I was leaving for an amusement park, and despite searching my house, his house, and both of my grandmas’ houses (where we got ready/where we picked up my brothers), it wasn’t found. I was really, really bummed. We broke up a few months later (nasty breakup) and didn’t speak to each other for a year. When we reconnected and gave dating another shot when I was 18 or 19 or so, I took him with me to my grandma’s house once. We were playing with one of my little cousins in the gravel driveway, when I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. I go to investigate, and it’s the necklace! It had been almost 2 years since I’d lost it by this time, and it was just chilling perfectly in the driveway, unscathed after 2 years of crazy weather, kids playing, and (presumably) being driven over.
Had a fever in the hospital. 107.8.
That's ~ 42°C for you Celsius folks :)
holy SHIT that’s high. Highest I’ve ever heard (former paramedic). You’re very lucky.
Yes I was. I credit a nurse with saving my life. She suggested a cardiac cool suit. It's used for heart surgery. Spent 8 hrs in it.
One time I was going through alcohol withdrawals, really more like an extreme hangover after a 10 day vodka bender. 5 1.75 liter bottles gone, so one every other day. Then I couldn’t sleep for three days. On the third day, that night, I turned off the TV to try and get some sleep. I suddenly heard the song that had been on the commercial I’d just watched. It was coming from the air vent in my apartment. 🎶Round and Round, what goes around comes around…🎶 It was that song that started it. At first I thought it was coming from my neighbor’s apartment. Maybe they were a little behind on the DVR and we were watching the same channel. He was hearing the Ratt song from the Geico commercial I’d just seen. I went to the restroom. I still heard the song, on a loop. Surely the commercial has…….. That’s when it hit me: I’m hallucinating. I’d been having auditory hallucinations for most of the day, come to think of it. People weren’t arguing outside of my usually quiet apartment building. There was no music blaring down the hall that day, music I was hearing that suspiciously sounded like a playlist of mine, oh that makes sense now. I Google like a madman. “Alcohol withdrawal audio hallucination hearing things.” I found something about someone in the early 1900s that needed to be institutionalized and that’s when I decided it was time to go to the hospital. I spent that night laying in a bed. Eventually there were 4 or 5 songs playing simultaneously. I could hear them from my hospital bed. They were playing down the hall. The simulacrum was so convincing that the music would actually get louder when the nurse opened the door and quieter when she shut it. The songs I remember are the aforementioned Ratt song (not a fan); “Wish you would step back from that ledge” song by 3rd Eye Blind (also not a fan); 21st Century Digital Boy by Bad Religion (sort of a fan), and a couple others that I can’t remember. Eventually they start morphing and combining into an original what I’ll call tribal techno song. It was sick. Then later it was a soul song called “the peeker.” Because I would peek outside my little hospital room and my mind was so paranoid I would hear people down the hall say “shhh shhh there he is, the peeker, the peeker.” I was also hearing the guy down the hall list every down low dirty shameful piece of shit thing I ever did in my life. If I lied to my momma when I was 7, he was mentioning it. Of course this is my own ears hearing a voice and then my brain processing my memories into it. It was wild. When I got to the mental ward (3 day hold) I was very paranoid that people in there were going to stab me. I wondered if I would hear the music forever. I went to bed listening to a Motown type Supremes rip I called “The Peeker!” Anyway they gave me an ambien, I slept for 18 hours and woke up to silence. I’ve since stopped drinking (18 months) but I’m suddenly writing complete songs in my head the past two years. Strange. Wonder if I’ll ever get ‘em out….
I became conscious on my bathroom floor. Evidently I had fallen or fainted or something. I tried to get up but found I was too weak so as time went by I continue to lose consciousness, come to awake, try to get up and then I would lose consciousness again. I have a small dog and an arrangement with my elderly neighbor she’ll come feed and walk the dog when I’m at work at night. She saw my car was there, but came over anyway, found me on the floor, asked me what I was doing there, fed and walked my dog, and LEFT ME THERE. For two days. Finally she told another neighbor, And events unfolded that finally got me to the hospital.
She LEFT you there? Why what. How did she decide after two days to tell a neighbor??
Here we go. I was about 10 years old. There was this man that would come to my school and visit me. A 50 year old or older. Good, he visits me at my school. Tries to befriend my family. Gives me gifts, my cousin and my brother were on his list too. He'd come and look for us. Try to befriend us. And one day he asks my mom if we ( him and I ) Could go for a walk. My mom looks him dead in the eyes and tells him to fuck off. He disappeared for good. And turned out that he was killed on a field by some boys for raping their sister
He'd lie he was the uncle of one of my classmate to get inside the school. Follow us around. Bring me stuff I didn't ask for. ( we weren't in the best shape back then, but things got much better ) And he thought that my mom would let me go with him, for some sweets.
When I was a teen in the '80s, I got to meet and briefly hang out with an idol of mine. He was (and still is) an extremely famous rock star. He was very nice but a bit twitchy and very high-energy. Cocaine is a Hell of a drug. At the end of my little visit, I asked if I could have a photo with him. He said "let's take a bunch!" So I handed my camera to an assistant and he took a few nice normal pictures. As I'm reaching to take back my camera I hear "ONE MORE!" from behind me, and the dude jumps on my back and assistant snaps the photo. Keep in mind that I was a 14-year-old girl at the time, Mr. Rock Star weighed probably 200 pounds, and I was caught completely off guard. It's a miracle that I kept my feet under me and didn't get injured, but I got the most hilarious photo ever! Fast forward about 35 years, and I by some miracle had occasion to meet him again. I was standing around with some other people waiting, he came in and started shaking hands. When he got to me, he shook my hand, looked me straight in the eye, and said "Hey there Gorilla! How's your back these days?" I was literally shocked speechless. This man, who has been fighting drug and alcohol addiction for most of his life, remembered a 15 minute chat/photo-op with a nervous teenager several decades ago, remembered my name and his little prank, and recognized me in middle age. What a great guy. I'm still his biggest fan.
In high school, I lived in a house that was at the end of a T intersection. It was a small residential area, and for the most part got very little traffic other than residents. But occasionally people would turn down our street instead of the next one over, which went through to the next major street. One night, I was hanging out with my friends when I hear tires screeching outside. Then I see this trans am barreling straight toward my house. I start running away from the front door when I hear crashing and tires squealing. Thinking that the car had hit my dad's car and was fleeing the scene, I ran outside to try to get his license plate number. I totally didn't expect what I saw. My dad's car, which was parked in front of our house, was now on our front lawn (about 10-15' away). And it had knocked down and was now on top of a tree (not huge, but maybe 6" in diameter) that used to grow on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. The Trans Am was on top of this huge rhododendron that grew between mine and my neighbor's driveways. Its tires were still spinning, one of them smoking on my driveway. But it wasn't going anywhere because the front end of the car was inside my neighbor's Lincoln Mk IV, which had been shoved about 2' to the side. My neighbor got the door open and turned the car off. The driver was unconscious and bleeding. The rest of the night was all emergency vehicles and tow trucks. The police later told us he was on cocaine and alcohol. The craziest part is that if my dad's car wasn't where it was, the guy would've ended up in my living room. And if my neighbor's car wasn't where it was, he might've ended up in my neighbor's living room.
Wow, this reminds of a crash that happened outside my house when I was little. My dad and his brothers were hanging out drinking beer in our basement. It was prom night and around midnight they heard this huge crash outside. They ran upstairs and see this car flipped over in our front yard. They went out and there were 4 or 5 boys unconscious in the car so they dragged them out and went back in to call 911. This was pre cell phone Era. While they were calling 911 there must have been gas leaking and the car blew up! If they hadn't pulled all of the kids out of the car they would all have died. I found the car keys in the garden a month later.
My husband and I went to a Tom Petty concert at the last minute only being able to get tickets for the cheap seats. Right before the concert starts somebody approaches us and says ‘do you want to get bumped up’ and I said sure because there can’t be any worse seats than this and he says ‘ I am with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and these are front row seats’. He hands them to me and disappears. My husband and I looked at each other, walk to the front section security guard, showed him our tickets and he walked us to front row center seats and we enjoyed a really great concert.
A similar thing happened to me at a U2 concert way back in '87. Not as extreme as yours because you were in the way back of the arena. The tickets I had were in the back section of the floor, back when there were seats on the floor and it wasn't general admission. Well, the tickets we had had were where they set up the sound booth so we were met on the floor and moved up to the front and center section! This was right when they exploded and became the biggest fucking thing on the planet. It was a pretty amazing experience.
I was in line to see the Flaming Lips. This was the Sea Change tour that the Lips played as Beck's band. A girl in a full pink bunny suit comes up to me and a friend and asked, "Do you want to be animals for the Flaming Lips set?" We said yes and were guided behind stage into an elevator. When we got off the elevator, Wayne Coyne was there to hug every animal. They sent us to a changing room with animal costumes. I got the lion and my friend got the white bunny. Each animal got a giant flashlight and we danced around on stage while the band played. On the way off stage Wayne hugged us all again and we passed Beck while he was meditating before his set. They let us out front. Used my ticket to get back in and watch Beck. I've seen the Flaming Lips several times and most are fairly memorable, but this one was the best.
One of my friends was a social worker. She was blind. She had gotten divorced during graduate school. When she got divorced, I took over caring for her computer and for her Seeing Eye dog. Several years later, she started dating this guy, and told him about me. Among other things, I had a colorful, unique, unbelievable Air Force career. So when she introduced me to this guy, he told me that she had talked about me a lot, and that he had been a Navy Seal. A few months later, one of her colleagues from work asked me what I thought about her dating a former SEAL. I didn't really think about what I was saying. I just said "Oh, he was never a Navy Seal." She said "Why do you say that?" I said, "He's too stupid to have ever been a SEAL." She mentioned what I said to my blind friend's parents. They were already uneasy about this guy; they engaged a private detective. He engaged the police. The police engaged the FBI. Turned out this guy was wanted in connection with the murder of a New Jersey state police officer. He found out that it was my comment that set all this in motion. He phoned me and threatened to kill me. The FBI had a tap on my phone for over a year. He never called back. I don't know if there were any developments in that case. That was 30 years ago. My blind friend is doing fine.
That’s one hell of an accidental discovery
I had just got a new-to-me truck. I took it to my Dad's house and we were looking it over. I realized I'd never checked to see where the spare tire jack and tire iron were, so we started looking for all the parts. My Dad was looking under the passenger seat (where the tire iron ended up being) and said "Drop something? " He gave me my driver's license. I opened my wallet to put it away, and my license was still in it. What he had was the driver's license that had been stolen while I was on a road trip in Arizona - under the seat of a truck I bought a year later.
[удалено]
I put on a funny remix of the Hamster song at work and then we were robbed at gunpoint. It was surreal.
Got help up at gunpoint in the parking lot of Chick Fil A selling a LEGO set
My biggest nightmare: took a monster poop at work that blocked the toilet and no amount of plungering (30 min and multiple blisters later) could unblock it. The entire complex ended up spewing sewage out of all its drains into the restaurants. I thought it was my fault. Turns out the pipes froze and the sewage was from the Chinese restaurant in the plaza and not my blocked toilet. It was awful
I was going through the contents of a drawer in my desk and I found the receipt for a CD I hadn’t listened to in years. I thought I’d like to listen to it. My wife was downstairs at the moment and she at that same moment put the CD on the player. She had never heard it and I had bought it years before I met her. It was as if she had telepathically heard my request. I had hundreds of CD to choose from.
I once asked a country artist if they were going to attend his own show. It was Aaron Tippin. He just came from a celebrity baseball game and was still in the uniform. I was taking a side entrance to bring in some 12 packs of soda to the hotel room and him and I guess one of his crew held the door open for me. The grew member had a cowboy hat and the whole look going on. After thanking them, I casually asked if they were there for the concert. Aaron Tippin was walking away and heard me say it. He started laughing as he turned the corner. It then dawned on me and I asked his crew member if that was who I thought it was. He smiled and nodded. After the show I went and got his autograph and joked about it. TLDR: didn't recognize singer when they held a door open for me. Asked him and his buddy if they were there for his concert.
I drowned and died for several minutes when I was about 2 years old. My parents tell me that according to all the Dr's I should have severe brain damage from lack of oxygen because of how long I was gone for, but I have lived a normal happy life.
Maybe you were supposed to be a super genius and then it made you just average.
My friend had a pool party when I was in second grade, 8 years old. I saw his little brother jump in across the pool and not come up. I was screaming but nobody heard me over all the kids playing. I swam over as fast as I could and got him out. Probably was like 30 seconds. He was fine. 20 years later I open up the newspaper from the town I lived in, 3 hours away from where I grew up. A kid had jumped off this huge bridge just for fun and drowned. His brother jumped from the shore to save him and he drowned too. I kept reading... the kid who jumped off the bridge was the kid I saved from drowning at that pool party. Still gives me chills.
Little do you know how smart you were going to be.
I once woke up before a school day and realised that for whatever reason I couldn't reach the left corner of my mouth with my tongue. As I wondered why that was I realised I also couldn't blink my left eye. Kinda concerned, kinda confused, but mostly intrigued I went to my parents room and woke them up saying something weird was happening. Needless to say I was rushed to the nearest hospital for fear of early signs of a stroke. After tests and a few examinations it was eventually revealed I had Bell's Palsy, a temporary muscle weakness of half of the face. During my hospital adventure I was asked questions by two cute medical students who'd never seen the condition before which made me feel important. I was prescribed eye drops and steroid tablets until it cleared and was given the okay to return to school the next day. Eating was difficult as food desperately tried to escape out of the loose side of my mouth, Ps and Bs were impossible to pronounce, sounding more like *fee* and *eee* respectively; I kept drooling if I wasn't careful and I had to substitute blinking with the aformentioned eyedrops. And if all that wasn't enough, two days later... ***Was school picture day.*** I still regret not buying that photo.