
Cautious People Share The Things You Should Never, Ever Mess With
[rebelmouse-image 18346917 is_animated_gif=There's some stuff you just don't mess with, no matter who you are. Even the most invincible among us have our weak points... yes, even the great Steve Irwin had some things he knew better than to mess with - and he was Steve Friggin' Irwin! If even he had fears, we mere mortals should probably be afraid of way more stuff than we actually are. One redditor asked:
What should you not f*ck with?
And we were like... YES. Reddit is a forum that reaches people all around the world. The stuff we know not to mess with could be completely different from what other people know! There could potentially be tons of stuff out there just waiting to go all Wreck-It Ralph on us. So of course we read the thread. After way too many hours spent reading and researching how to moose-proof our homes, we came up with these entries to share with you. We'll see you at the bubble wrap store.
Don't Yell At Customs Agents
[rebelmouse-image 18346918 is_animated_gif=My wife has two Peruvian passports; an expired one containing all her residence visas for the UK, and her current one. We've checked and double checked and this is perfectly valid, but she gets really over-defensive about it when questioned by immigration.
"It's fine! I've travelled with these passports dozens of times! Are you new, or just an idiot?!".
A few months ago she called me in tears because she was being held by immigration at Manchester airport. I guessed immediately what had happened, she even started shouting at some official who had entered the room while we were talking and calling him an idiot. Not the best strategy.
U-Haul
[rebelmouse-image 18346920 is_animated_gif=A man loading/unloading a U-Haul van. Their mind, soul, and body are united in one singular, burning thought: "f_ck this b_llshit".
I would warn God himself not to give the man in the van a reason to go off on him.
Limes?
[rebelmouse-image 18346921 is_animated_gif=This happened to me a couple of years ago - squeezing limes at a BBQ to make limeade, went out in the garden for a couple of hours... 24 hours later my hands had gone deep red, and started swelling, 48 hours later I had huge blisters and my hands looked like I was wearing thick gloves. Went away after 72 hours but was a nasty experience all round. Look it up: phytophotodermatitis. Be aware!
Badgers
[rebelmouse-image 18344917 is_animated_gif=Me and a friend stopped to talk to an old man out walking his two dogs once (mostly to fuss his dogs) and he told us that it was three not that long ago. He used to have a Jack Russel, but one day when he was walking it, it caught an interesting scent and followed it into a badger hole, and never came back out.
Springs Can Kill You
[rebelmouse-image 18346923 is_animated_gif=Garage door springs. My garage was busted so my brother and i went to check it out. We started f*cking with it and one of the springs just exploded towards the side of my face so I never saw it. It knocked my glasses off my face and almost went completely through my wall. I got lucky. I don't know what that would've done to me had it hit me
Electricity Can Kill... Or Worse
[rebelmouse-image 18346925 is_animated_gif=I work with a dude who was working on a generator set, stuck his flashlight into his mouth to be able to use both hands. Power arced through the flashlight and now he has no lower jaw.
Brown Recluse
[rebelmouse-image 18346926 is_animated_gif=A friend of mine in college got drunk and passed out on a lawn. Woke up like an hour later and went to bed. Woke up in the morning and said her leg really hurt. Turns out she got bitten by a brown recluse on the lawn. She had to go to the ER and got an chunk of her thigh removed. Now she has a dark brown circular pit in her leg.
Knife Fights
[rebelmouse-image 18346927 is_animated_gif=Someone with a knife. Ignore everything you've ever read about self defense. You're gonna get cut. A lot.
Knife fights: you will get cut, cut deeper, harder, and faster than your opponent. Loser dies in the streets, winner dies on the way to the hospital.
Sleepy Sudoku-Playing Moms
[rebelmouse-image 18346928 is_animated_gif=Anyone who just woke up. Also my mom when she's playing Sudoku. Never bother her.
Samoan Bouncers
[rebelmouse-image 18346929 is_animated_gif=I know a Samoan bouncer, two guys started to fight, he yelled "Sit Down"
They Did. On the floor. Right there.
He is about 6 foot 6, and about that wide too.
Don't. Mess. With. Hippos.
[rebelmouse-image 18346930 is_animated_gif=When a guy who wrestlers crocodiles and generally pisses off dangerous animals for a living says the scariest moment of his career was silently boating through a river of hippos...
Water
[rebelmouse-image 18346932 is_animated_gif=Moving water.
Water is heavy -- heavier than people realize. A cubic meter of water weighs a literal ton. Consider that a tsunami might readily be thirty meters high and moving at a speed of 30-40 miles per hour, and you can see just how destructive water can be.
But that's a tsunami: a freak event. What about seemingly calm water? Well, there's possibly shit going on beneath the surface that you have no idea about. If you've ever tried fight your way out of a rip current, you'll know just how fruitless it can be to try and resist. (Sidenote: don't try and swim through a rip current. Swim parallel to the shore for a while, then try to get back to the beach. You will not get through it otherwise, and you'll just tire yourself out.) It takes astonishingly little moving water to sweep you off your feet. According to the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, a grown man could be knocked over by one foot of water moving at 6.7 miles per hour, by knee-deep water at 4 mph, and waist-deep water at 2.6 mph. That's slower than the average walking speed. If there's a lot of water and it's moving the way you don't want to go? F*ck you, buddy -- you're going where it says, not the other way around.
And then there's the Strid at Bolton Abbey, where both of these facts combine to make a deathtrap that looks like a simple brook. A fast-moving river (and all the water that involves) gives way to a very deep but very narrow chasm that seems almost tailor-made to pull people under. While numbers of fatalities are sketchy, local rumors persist that everyone who's ever fallen into the Strid has drowned. Every. Single. One.
Moving water is nothing to f*ck with.
Trains
[rebelmouse-image 18346933 is_animated_gif=One time my friend was like getting to close to a passing train, and a homeless man in a deep growly voice said "Don't f*ck with the train, man." I don't know why it stuck with me, probably the thought of what he's seen.
Uncle Sam
[rebelmouse-image 18346934 is_animated_gif=The only people to be able to shake down the Mob is the IRS. That should tell you everything you need to know about the IRS. Uncle Sam wants his f*ckin cut.
Truth
[rebelmouse-image 18346935 is_animated_gif=John Wick's dog
Keep It Real
[rebelmouse-image 18346936 is_animated_gif=I was about to head out to work and wanted to get a little bit stoned before because i hated my job. Went over to my cousin's house to smoke some synthetic legal weed with him and his buddy. They were smoking it out of a bong. They were experienced with the stuff and I guess had built up a tolerance to it. I had smoked it once before by myself and had experienced being just a little too high. I just slept it off at the time because I was at home. Anyway, I made the mistake of taking a big ol' hit out of the bong. They were both like "Jesus dude that was maybe too much there". And they were right. I was immediately waaaaaay too high. So after sitting on the couch and freaking them out by talking about how I was about to die, I bolted out of cuz's house and ran down the street trying to get away from from the situation and them. I jumped onto a stranger's motorcycle parked on the street and tried to start it. My cousin and his friend had to drag me off of it and back down the street while I was gasping for breath and the owner of the motorcycle followed us down the street threatening to beat my ass. And I didn't come down for about an hour. It got worse after they got me back in the house. I was sure that I had died and was on my way to hell because I was experiencing time loops.
It was pretty terrifying. Definitely never again.
Obligatory Princess Bride Reference
[rebelmouse-image 18346937 is_animated_gif=A Sicilian when death is on the line?
Just Take The F
[rebelmouse-image 18346939 is_animated_gif=Hydrofluoric acid. In fact just...don't get near it. At all. Ever. For any reason. It's thankfully banned from my school's chem labs and probably most public college and university chem labs, because as a general rule of thumb, EVERYONE is too much of a dumbass to deal with hydrofluoric acid. Hydrofluoric acid does not care who you are. It does not care why you're here. It does not care what you're doing. You get that shit on you, you will die. It is corrosive. It doesn't give a fuck if you need those bones in your body. It will eat through them anyway on its epic quest to fulfill its sole purpose of eating through everything it fucking touches. The bones and organic material in a human body are no different than the rocks, glass, and steel it's used to eat through. It will go through your skin, your tissues, your bones, and it WILL make its way into your bloodstream where it will have a particularly nasty reaction with the blood calcium and you die.
Nothing is worth potential contact with that real life eldritch abomination from the bowels of hell. I won't even enter a room if people are working with it in there. Like I said, it's banned from my college campus from what I was told by my geo and chem profs, and I don't think it is cleared for use anywhere on the campus at all (even the grad labs). But if I ever did end up in a lab where the criteria was "use hydrofluoric acid for anything at all" I'd skip the lab and take the f*cking F.
The Nice Ones
[rebelmouse-image 18346941 is_animated_gif=A really genuine nice person.
If you torment them enough, their reaction will be thoroughly unpleasant.
The Birds
[rebelmouse-image 18346942 is_animated_gif=Crows. They remember individual faces and have their own language so they basically tell other crows that a paricular human has pissed them off. Scientists did experiments.
H/T: Reddit
We may not like it, but getting older is pretty inevitable.
With age may come wisdom, but it also comes with lots of responsibilities.
And some days, we're just over it.
Redditor brick_layer asked:
"What tasks are you tired of doing as an adult?"
Decisions, Decisions
"Deciding what to make for dinner."
- PortiaEss
"I would eat people kibble if it tasted good. Bachelor Chow (just add beer) needs to be a real thing."
- chaos8803
Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho
"Going to work and acting like a functional person."
- ovelanimimerkki
"Yep, I hate trying to work when I'm not emotionally stable or just exhausted. And you literally can't tell anyone or they tell you to go get a coffee which just makes the week go downhill over time."
- gg_ff_42069
Manners
"Being polite to other adults who don't deserve it."
- 25_-a
"Also known as the 'I am too old for this sh*t' phase of life."
- Zintao
Cleaning
"Cleaning the fridge. 🤢 when I find something way in the back that’s been forgotten."
- joydobson
"I finally cleaned out ours today because it was trash day, and the husband isn’t home to argue with me about how that sauce from 2015 is 'still good!!' 🤨 Now I have an empty fridge with just the bare essentials. Worth it."
- Grizelda_Gunderson
Circle of Life
"Working. Paying bills. Getting up early. Doing stuff."
- guyfromcroswell
"Agreed. Such a mundane cycle indeed."
- Emotional_Ratio_3251
Is Naked So Bad?
"Laundry grrrrr."
- FewPizza7880
"I tend to put the laundry in, hear it beep, forget about it for 6 hours then remember it needs to dry."
- marvel_is_wow
Traffic
"Anticipating the morons on the roads that change lanes without signaling."
"Or merging into 70mph traffic while doing 45..."
- haveyouseenthebridge
"Or being stuck behind those people as we're merging, I get pissed. Like speed up to the flow of traffic, being behind them merging puts me in danger too."
- Nigel_IncubatorJones
Maintenance
"Buying a house is an endless list of shit that needs fixing or improving."
- muffbiscuits
"This is one of the many reasons I bought a condo. The majority of the maintenance is somebody else’s problem. I haven’t cut grass, raked leaves or shoveled snow in almost a decade."
‐ yogaballcactus
Teeth
"Brushing my teeth. It's annoying."
- scottevil110"
"I feel this deep. It’s flossing for me."
- brick_layer
"Wait until you're in your 60s and all of a sudden the perfect teeth that never even had a cavity now all of a sudden have tiny cracks and need porcelain crowns and you have constant pain and Delta Dental only covers cleanings and x-rays and a single crown is like $1500 and they're telling you that you need four and you think, well, we don't really need two cars, I could sell my old Subaru."
- Nobody_Wins_13
Alarming
"Waking up to an alarm clock."
"I've been waking up to an alarm clock almost every day since 1985, and I'm fucking tired of it."
"I want to wake up when I'm done sleeping."
"I don't want to wake up and find that I've slept through/turned off my alarm(s) yet again, and have to choose between packing a lunch and taking a shower."
- thisbuttonsucks
What part of adulthood are you tired of?
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I would love to know how people don't fear death.
I mean, it's the end. Life will be over. That kind of sucks.
Yet there are people who find tranquility in it.
Can you teach the rest of us?
Redditor deensuk wanted to hear from everyone who has a calmness about the heading to the afterlife. They asked:
"People who are not scared of death, why?"
I have a constant fear of death. I wanna perfect the ending of "Death Becomes Her" so I can live forever.
Before
"I'm not scared of death because of working in health care I was around it so much. I AM scared of what leads to death, however."
Full-Mulberry5020
Why now?
"Why should I be scared now of something that's only going to happen at the end of my life?"
User Deleted
"I did this cult thing called the landmark forum and I actually did like their “meaning of life”: the meaning of life is that there is no meaning. Life is empty and meaningless. There is no answer."
"Life is what you make of it and every persons answer is equally valid because there is no meaning to life. Life exists as, basically, an accident, we are all here by complete accident, there’s no great mystery, it’s all biology and you are 100% free to make life about whatever it is you want."
Conservative_HalfWit
Death and I are good friends...
"I was very sick as a child. Spent ages 7-20 in and out of hospital due to kidney issues. Lost a kidney at 28. Almost died during the surgery to removed the dead kidney due to blood loss. Had 5 surgeries back to back during the next 2 years. Twice they had difficulties bringing me out of anesthesia."
"Found my favorite aunt dead in her bed when I was 22. Watched my best friend die from a brain tumor at 30. Death has been a constant force in my life. Sometimes just on the edges waiting, sometimes unexpected staring me in the face. I'm not afraid because it's always been there. I now work in healthcare. Death and I are good friends."
Tiny_Teach_5466
No Worries
"Because it's coming for us all, sooner or later. So there's no point in worrying about it. I am much more concerned about day to day minutiae. The Lars von Trier film Melancholia starring Kirstin Dunst portrayed this perfectly. If there was an asteroid hurtling towards the earth, I'd probably be more preoccupied with worrying about whether I left the back light on or not."
Giallo_submarine
It's Over
"Because no one has ever made it out alive, and I was dead for an eternity before I was alive, and didn't suffer the slightest inconvenience because of it."
MarshallApplewhiteDo
I never thought about the before much. I hope the before is quick.
The Effects
"I hope that when my times comes it will be merciful. My uncle had a stroke, he is paralyzed. My grandmother is 91, but is losing all her memories of her life. Death does not scare me, what could be left of me before I die is what terrifies me."
M1ssy_M3
No Terror
"It’s like when the writer Nabokov said that he saw a picture one time, a picture of before he was born. It was a picture of his mother, his brother and sister that were older than him, but he had not been born yet. He said that when he saw that picture there was no terror in him, even though he was looking at a picture where he didn’t exist."
im_on-the_can
state of nonexistence...
"I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of dying. Death is just the state of nonexistence I experienced before I was born. I don't remember it because I didn't exist yet. Death will be the same way. I just don't want the transition to be marked by pain and sorrow at things left unfinished. I want it to be quick, painless, and with me surrounded by love."
Wazula42
I'm Gone...
"Because once I die, I won't know it. I won't miss people or regret things or feel pain or sadness about anything. I might fear being sick and slowly dying, just having to live with the knowledge that it's all going to end and this is the last time I'll ever see the people I love or taste good food or hear good music. That sounds almost unbearable. But death isn't even a thing, it's just having done something (died)."
"It's like virginity, it's a made-up state of being that just says whether or not you've experienced a specific occurrence. Once I die, I'm gone. My corpse will be the empty wrapper I used to be in, just garbage to be disposed of in whatever way makes my survivors feel better. I'll be switched off. If I don't worry about what the light feels after the bulb burns out, why would I be afraid of being dead?"
SallyHeap
At Peace
"I’m scared now because I have young kids. Once my kids are old enough to be on their own I imagine the fear will subside and I’ll have a more relaxed approach."
User Deleted
Some very interesting perspectives. May it all calm peacefully and with great mercy for us all.
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Dating and the search for love and companionship... What a nightmare.
This journey plays out nothing like in the movies.
Every Prince or Princess (or everything in BTW) seems to have a touch of the psycho.
The things people say during what should be simple dinner conversation can leave a dining partner aghast.
Like... do you hear you?
Redditor detroit_michigldan wanted to discuss all the best ways to crash and burn when trying to make a romantic connection. They asked:
"You're on a date and it's going really great. What can another person say to ruin it completely?"
I once had a guy ask me if I was willing to follow him into the woods, depending on the price of the meal.
Yeah. No steak is worth that.
Plans After...
"Thanks for the ride but I have a date with someone else, I figured you wouldn't drive me if you knew I was going on a date with someone else and I really needed a ride."
"Online dating, talked to her for a while, finally got the courage to ask her out and then she said that as we got there."
iareyours
Mirror Image
“'You look just like my wife!'”
catalinachild
"I did have a guy tell me I reminded him of his son. I don’t believe English has a word to adequately describe my feelings at that time."
UnicornMagicRainbow
"That would definitely do it."
chaotica78
Third Wheel
"'Hope you don't mind if my mother joins us.'"
ofsquire
"Actually had a girl do this on a first date because she had anxiety issues. Honestly wasn’t bad except that 90% of the time she was silent and her mom talked over her."
"I didn’t mind that much and wouldn’t have minded trying again when she was more comfortable except that she was let go at the company we worked at and she deleted her social media profiles and she never responded on her number. Ah well."
Seightx
Liar
"'Hey bro aren't you gay? I made out with you last night.'"
"Random dude I've never seen before in front of my (f) date."
JHXC16
Was he lying though?
Filter Issues
"'You looked better on Tinder.'"
waqasnaseem07
"Isn’t it basic knowledge that everybody looks slightly worse than the worst picture you can find?"
no_user_ID_found
The Past
"'My ex used to do that too.'"
xxIvyOF
"Yep. I’ve definitely had two otherwise-decent-guy date-situations sour because the ex-comparisons just would not stop flowing. No woman wants to be seen as interchangeable—I’m not here to perfectly fill that ex-sized hole in your life. Focusing on the present moment and a future we could build together is a courtesy we need to grant each other in earliest dates of dating."
LarkScarlett
Powerless
"'I'm an alpha, you cant handle my top energy.'"
Midnightgay28
"I actually left a dude in the middle of dinner, in part, for saying this. I ordered an Uber under the table while pretending to listen to him. Went to the bathroom, and never came back. That was when I was young. Now I’d just say, 'How about we enjoy this meal in silence, before we head our separate ways.'”
UnicornMagicRainbow
Mommy...
"'Mother says I should be back by 9.'"
"Saying 'mother says' just feels weird."
bunnyrut
"That gives me Norman Bates vibes."
Werewolf_lover20
"'Mother says alligators are aggressive because they have an overabundance of teeth, but lack a toothbrush.'"
sodaextraiceplease
Obvs...
"'If you were going to be murdered, what method would you prefer. Purely hypothetical. Obvs.'"
Specific_Tap7296
If it looks anything like a Dateline NBC episode... RUN!
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Despite the advancement of technology rendering people left to their own devices–literally–to entertain them, there are some leisurely activities that will never go out of style.
Or so you would think.
Do people still knit to pass the time? Are people actively collecting stamps?
It depends on who's asking.
Curious to hear about hobby trends, Redditor gizehgizeh asked:
"What are once popular hobbies that are slowly dying these days?"

Before we've become conditioned to living on our phones, these activities used to keep people occupied.
Before Texting, There Was This
"Letter writing."
– littlekingMT
Literal And Tangible Joy
"Well the internet killed pen pals for sure. I do remember I had a Japanese girl for a penpal maybe back in 2007 or so. I honestly don't remember how it started, pretty sure some website, but that was a fun experience. But now I can just straight up talk to foreign people real time, lol. But yea getting a physical letter that someone took the time to write and mail still is hard to beat feelings wise."
– skyburnsred
Model Trains
"When I was growing up, every town had a model train store in it. Now I have one in region and everything else has to be bought online."
– Hairy_Effective1172
Pretty Rocks
"Don’t see anyone playing marbles anymore, I had an awesome collection in school."
– sheeple85
"I had some marbles as a kid in the 90s. My grandma got them for me and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them. I always imagined them as a thing kids in the 40s played with."
– Ryoukugan
People Were Moving Canvases
"Paintball has been dying a slow death since 2006. Sad, really."
– hobo_recycler
Before the general population began hating clutter, collecting was once a "thing."
Precious Coins
"Coin collecting... I'm a silver/gold nut and I'm always hunting for precious metal coins. whenever I go into a shop they get all excited because 'no one under 70 collects coins anymore.'"
– ThatFishySmell99
Post It
"Stamp collecting."
– spooky_scully_mulder
"Collecting in general, really. Of course there are still prominent collectors but it's slipped more into enthusiast and niche territory than being a popular hobby that you might expect anyone to have."
– iuytrefdgh436yujhe2
What A Gem
"Rockhounding was immensely popular back in the 1950's and 1960's. Personally, I think it's a fascinating and fulfilling hobby, but when I go to a meeting at a rock and gem club, I'm usually the youngest one in the room by several decades."
– filthy_lucre
People once enjoyed making things.
Admiring The View
"Stained glass. I learned how to make it from my old man, and my junior high art class teacher also taught it. Very few artisans are still around."
– brobeanzhitler
Metal Vocation
"Black smithing."
– kenworth117
"I bought a forge to try. It’s insanely hard work, and crazy expensive. I still haven’t finished a piece."
– DSentvalue
Scrapbooking
"Yeah. I'm watching the arts and crafts stores around me completely uninstalling their racks for specialty paper. Now the only thing they have is mega packs of repeating colors/images. To boot all the inclusions like papercraft/die-cut things, washi tape, scissors, stickers, etc have gotten so expensive I would rather go buy $5 bags at value village to get an assortment of things versus buying anything new. I really, really miss yard sales for the same reasons."
– Phantasmai
I envy people who have jobs that are basically their hobbies.
Not everyone gets paid doing what they actually enjoy and have a profound level of passion for.
If they do, kudos to them.
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