Parents sometimes keep secrets from each other, but it's the ones that are kept between parent and child that often arise from the best mischief.
Many fathers have uttered the phrase "Don't tell mom" either just before, or just after, an especially epic moment.
Reddit user u/lexicalwizardry asked:
"Fathers of reddit, what's your best "don't tell mom" story?"
The responses ranged from hilarious to adorable to utterly cringeworthy.
40.
Was making popcorn over the stove for the first time. While removing the cardboard top I unsecured the foil that is supposed to keep the kernels inside. It was a war zone, popcorn flying everywhere my daughter was using a pillow as a shield and I was behind the counter.
At the end of it there was butter and popcorn everywhere. My wife is a neat freak and would lose her mind if she found out the mess we had made. Even my 4 year old at the time was in a panic trying to pick up.
39.
I'm a dad, but this story is about my dad.
It was the summer before my last year at college. A friend of mine got a job across country and he decided to take the opportunity to see as much of America as possible before he had to start work. He asked me to come along. It was going to be a month long road trip. We'd contacted a few friends and relatives along the way where we could crash, the company was paying for gas and 5 nights hotel, and we brought along a tent for the days we didn't have a place to stay. I'd saved up a little money at my summer job.
The night before we left, my dad was sitting in his recliner reading the paper as always. I sat there on the couch watching TV.
Now, my dad was a very conservative man. Old school. The kind of "kids should be seen and not heard" parent. Not big on emotional displays. Frugal to a fault.
So after everyone else had turned in for the night, it was just me and him. He motioned me over, and pulled out an envelope he had hidden. Looked at me over his reading glasses and said "don't tell your mother about this" as he handed me the envelope.
It was filled with money. Not a lot by today's standards but a lot in 1986 and without a doubt more money than I'd ever seen my dad carry. I sat down and said "I don't know what to say."
He responded "Have fun," and went back to his newspaper.
He died six months later. That moment was the last real one on one interaction I had with my father. A little while after he'd died, my mom was going through his dresser drawer when she found his stash. Apparently my dad had been squirreling away cash for years. Walking around money for when he went on one of his many fishing trips. He dipped into it so that I'd have some walking around money on my trip.
38.
GiphyWhen I was ten years old my dad came to my school before noon and told the principal that I had a doctor's appointment. I had no idea he was coming at all, and seeing him in my class was a bit of a shock. He then told my teacher I have to go to the doctor's, and I was believing that I was actually going to the doctor's.
We ended up going to a baseball game for the whole afternoon. My mom was out of town for a couple of days and my dad told me to never tell her that he got me to play hooky from school.
37.
I've got a very clear memory of being in the supermarket with my dad who was holding a stubby of VB beer and I must have only been about 4 years old. I asked him for a sip of his drink and he sort of shrugged and handed me the bottle. I took a sip and was like "Blehhhghhhhghhh" and he cracked up laughing at my disgust and took the bottle back. Then he turned semi serious and said "Don't tell your mum."
36.
My wife doesn't have reddit so I'll go.
It's probably about 3 years ago. I have 2 kids they would have been 5 and 7. I lose 1 of them at a popular amusement park. Not for a second, but for over 2 hours. I'm freaking out for over two hours. Asked for help from park security. There must have been hundreds of people looking for her for hours.
Turns out she was riding a kiddie ride over and over and the ride operator just let her because she thought we were nearby. I was planning on leaving the country because I couldn't find my kid. Yeah, so don't tell mom.
I guess the ride operator got in trouble too.
Freaks me out just thinking about that day.
35.
8 years old is an appropriate age to introduce a kid to The Princess Bride. She loved the movie. Right near the end Inigo Montoya says "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die YOU SON OF A B**CH."
"Daddy, he said a swear word!"
"Don't tell your mom."
Fist bump
-User Account Deleted
34.
Pops died a few years ago, so I'll write this for him:
My wife gave up everything for the kids, and for me. She never had new clothes, or the new sewing machine or exercise equipment that she wanted. So in 1998 when we finally started making good money, we bought her dream car, a bright red BMW Z3 convertible. Not my first choice, but she loved it. It was a sporty little car, the nicest we'd ever owned.
That's also around the time that we started having some trouble with our older boy. He started smoking pot and drinking. He was failing all but his favorite classes in school, and he had what the doctor called a "suicidal gesture". He didn't make a real attempt, but he had a plan and he told us about it. Luckily, he agreed pretty readily to therapy.
On one particular doctor's visit, he asked me to drive him in the Z3. Of course, I did. It was boring waiting for his session to be over (pre smart phones), but it was a beautiful day. We rode home with the top down, and I saw my son genuinely smiling. It was rare and beautiful. But then, on the interstate, some asshole about my age indicated that he wanted to race. He was seatbelted, there were no cars in front of us. I opened it up to over 100mph. The guy kept up.
Son laughed. I told him, "Sometimes in life, you just have to show your @ss." And then I stomped the pedal. The asshole in the Mercedes backed off, but I let the speedometer climb. 120, 130, 140...
His/ head was thrown back laughing, and he looked so happy that I had a hard time watching the road. I let the little car coast, and we drifted back down to safe speeds. He was laughing and beaming at me, and I was laughing pretty hard, too. I asked him not to tell his mom. He agreed, and he did at least wait several years, when he was grown and out of the house. I still caught a slap on the arm for it.
33.
My dad once forgot to pick my brother and I up from (elementary) school for 3 hours. It was a short day and he rarely picked us up to begin with. Once the school finally reached him, he came tearing into the parking lot and begged my brother and I to not tell our mom.
32.
Took my daughter for some tire-spinning good times on one of the many dirt roads in our area.
Doing donuts in an Isuzu Rodeo w a 7 year old girl yelling AGAIN! My wife would have flipped her s**t. We were buckled in, and on a dirt road with no traffic. It was fine.
31.
I brought my sons, 5 and 10, to Circus Circus in Las Vegas for a weekend. I lost the younger one for a full 5 minutes at one point. Scariest 5 minutes of my life, and mom never heard about it.
I absolutely sincerely promise you she's lost one or both of those kids, too, and that you never heard about it. Both my parents lost me tons of times when I was tiny- neither knew any better. Except the one time my dad lost track of me and I wound up on the news grooving to an Elvis impersonator. B-roll of a happy ginger toddler dancing carelessly.
It works out!!
30.
As a child of separated parents, I had this said a few times to me by my dad but the best was when he had a big house party with his bike mates and a stripper. I was about 10. My aunty was rounding up all the kids to go inside but I didn't want too. I asked dad if I could watch the lady. He was probably drunk and said "don't tell your mother, she will kill me" so I watch the stripper and thought she was the most amazing lady in the world.
Later that night Dad's mate, Rat, got in to a fight and had a cut above his eye. Dad gets his first aid kit to stitch him up and tell me to run off but I ask if I can watch. Dad just says if your Mum finds out, I am dead. I never told her until Dad was dead and I was about 29. She laughed but we both know she would have killed him.
29.
When my dad remarried it was to a devout Mormon woman with a large Mormon family. Every time she left the house we had a "don't tell Mom" moment. When I dressed up as Jesus for Halloween he laughed and laughed only to end it with "don't say anything about this"
28.
My dad used to own and ride motorcycles. I must've been about 5 at the time of this story and he was tinkering with his bike. He wanted to test it on the field behind our house and I begged him for a ride. He said yes and I hopped on (90's. No leathers or helmets!) and we were off.
At some point, he made a sharp turn and I lost my hold. Next thing, I'm sitting in the dirt and blinking confusedly as he pulls up beside me, panicked as all hell and proceeds to check me over before he said "We're not telling your mum about this, okay?" I didn't even have a scratch and I never told her.
27.
Im not a father I'm a son but somehow me and my dad manage to break 2 windows
My dad replaced the windows in 2 damn hours
26.
Father of two girls. I always felt it was Mom's job to warn them about dangerous stuff. It was my job to give them permission to take a chance every now and then, expand their parameters of risk.
There was this fun waterfall in our town, stream of water coming out of a cliffside. You could climb up onto a ledge that would let you stand behind the waterfall. Wasn't much of a climb, but the girls were about 4 and 6 at the time.
They asked if they could climb up. I said "Sure." After they started climbing, I wasn't sure at all. The climb up was a little steeper for small people.
But they were game, and up they went. Every once in a while one or the other would look back at me and ask where they should go next. I think the correct answer was "Come back down."
But you know, in for a penny, in for a pound. I just shouted good advice, "Go left. Make sure you have a good grip and your feet are secure before you make another move up. Don't look down."
Aaaand they made it up. I joined them on the ledge. They were so proud and happy, and they had earned that trip behind the waterfall. Couldn't wait to tell Mom!
Yeah, no. Mom had seen that waterfall many times. I said, "Let's just keep this climb our little secret. Don't want to worry your Mom." I didn't think it would be useful to also mention the risk that Mom might kick my @ss. She didn't carry two babies nine months so I could break them.
Well, that invitation to conspiracy just made the trip up even more worthwhile for the girls. Not sure if they ever told Mom. I do remember a phone call from her some 17 years later when our oldest girl was in the Peace Corps in a mud hut in Mali, and the younger girl was in the Israeli military.
"Both of my babies are thousands of miles away!" she said. "What the hell did you say to them?"
I told them they were right to let their fear make them careful, but not to let it make them quit. I told them that if you're not afraid at first, you can't be brave. Brave girls. Can't have too many of them, right?
25.
Not the father, but my dad and I were working on breaking down an old shed and one of the things we had to do was cut a couple planks so they could fit in the bed of his truck. We would lay the plank out on the table and he would cut through it with a chainsaw while the other side was held down by a clamp. At some point I had to hold down the plank (I think the clamp broke) while he cut the plank.
I guess the weight wasn't well distributed because when the chain hit the wood, it veered left and almost gutted me. There was about an inch of air between my torso and the chainsaw.
So yeah, almost got murdered by my own dad. We agreed to never speak of it again.
24.
My youngest daughter, maybe 4 at the time, came out of the bathroom one day shaking her hands in the air and said, "Nobody f**king listens to me!" Which she obviously heard from me. I said, "Shh, your mom might hear" and so of course she repeated it. Not a proud moment but it was funny.
23.
Not a father. Daughter to a father—who washed an entire car engine in the family dishwasher.
22.
Not my son, but I lived with a girlfriend at the time and her seven year old son. One day I told my girlfriend that I would take my bicycle to pick him up from school. She told me that under no circumstances was I to give him a ride on the bike. Sure. When I got to the school he of course asked for a ride.
Seeing that it was a beautiful day, a small town, and almost no traffic on the streets we would take I said sure -- but don't tell your Mom. So we are peddling along with his butt on the bar in front of me when suddenly I find myself catapulted six feet in the air almost straight up. Time slowed and I remember wondering WTF just happened?
The ground was soon approaching and I put my arms out in front of me to prevent my skull being crushed and rolled. Immediately I panicked and realized that the kid must be seriously hurt. I turn around to find him sitting on top of a seriously bent bicycle laughing with a big smile.
Turns out he had stuck his foot in the spokes of the front wheel, as evidenced by a shoe jammed in the bent front wheel. That shoe jammed the wheel, bent the front forks all the way back to the frame, and catapulted us head over heels. He miraculously did not have a scratch on him.
I, on the other hand, cracked a bone in one or possibly both of my elbows and was soon in extreme pain from contracting muscles. My girlfriend was not pleased.
21.
Obligatory not a father, but when I was around six my dad got Austin Powers- international man of mystery on VHS. I gave him my best puppy eye look and he let me watch it with him. When the scene with the ill-tempered sea bass came, he tried to hold his hands before my eyes, but it was too late. I saw a man loose his head and was shocked with tears filling my eyes. He then sat me down and told me: do NOT tell mom! (mom was really strict with movies).
About an hour later I greeted mom at the door by yelling: GUESS WHAT DAD AND I WATCHED TOGETHER!!!
20.
As the kid, on a vacation home from college while my mom was away visiting my sister, I came home to visit my dad (who's a teacher and couldn't travel with her). My mom had told us there were chili leftovers in the fridge, and we usually toast Saltine crackers lightly in the oven to eat with chili. Well, we only found out how long we'd toasted them when the toaster caught fire. Actual fire.
We brought it out to the porch, he bought a new toaster, and we never spoke of it again. Until my mom came home and noticed the new toaster immediately, at which time it was spoken of.
19.
My parents adopted a pit bull puppy. He had a habit of eating the couch, which made my mother very upset. So I walked into the room, and he had completely destroyed a pillow. My dad frantically stuffed the fuzz back in the pillow and my mom is not wiser.
Luckily my mom grew to like the little guy, and now he destroys the couch on a routine basis and gets away with it.
The evidence: https://i.imgur.com/jcvhRpE.jpg
18.
"Don't tell mum I fell asleep". Whenever mum went out at night dad would fall asleep before eight. My brother and I would entertain ourselves, stay up a few hours then put ourselves to bed when we got tired. Dad would wake up right before mum would get home and go to bed, making it look like we all went to sleep on time.
Turns out he was passed out drunk. Every single time.
17.
Dad here. I have a gaming room/office for PC gaming and all the Nintendo consoles. My children know that it's my sanctuary with Nintendo games that I played as a child. I do let my kids game but it's the moment that they seem sad or are having a rough day... or even in trouble with mom. I toss them a controller or even just sit and talk while they game. At times they get the "don't tell mom" while we game and share a moment while sipping root beers. They never do tell!
Otherwise, breaking random crap in the house while throwing balls at each other or wrestling always gets the "don't tell mom" going too.
16.
My dad took me to a baseball game once about 2 months ago. Thought we were gonna get the cheap $17 seats.
He purchased $68 tickets for him and I. Great seats, near home plate between home and third.
"Don't tell mom" he told me as he payed for them.
15.
We were running cows around in outback Australia to a buyer of ours. Father of mine making a random "chuck in all the stuff in the cupboard" sorta stew. In this pressure cooker way back like the old style. I think he had a few double scotches and fell asleep and he sorta woke up in a rush realising he'd forgotten our dinner. And boom. He opened the pressure cooker to an explosion of stock and meat. Literally hit the roof. It's a miracle no one got hit and burnt actually. Anyway we proceeded to scrape it off the bench/walls into a bowl and mop up the juices with bread while he mopped the floor. "Don't tell your mother"
14.
I'm not a father but I have one regarding my dad. My mom has this white coffee table that she loves and she's always yelling at my dad for putting his feet on it and stuff. One night, my parents, my girlfriend and I were playing a board game on it. My dad dropped a pencil and got a mark on it but my mom wasn't paying attention. His face when it happened was the best. He just had this great "Oh sh*t!" face and my girlfriend and I could barely contain our laughter.
He tried so hard to get the mark off and kept sneaking scared glances at her to make sure she wasn't paying attention. For the rest of the night, he kept looking at the mark and then at my mom but somehow she didn't see it. My girlfriend and I even kept making subtle jokes about it and she didn't realize.
She noticed weeks later, and definitely gave him a lot of hell for it.
13.
When I dropped one of my step-mom's wine glasses, but it didn't break, and while yelling at me my dad knocked over three more, shattering them all.
12.
I was setting up some art with my father on my wall when we accidentally put a big hole in the drywall. We covered it with the art and he said “don’t tell your mother” and I said “sure thing”.
She stills doesn’t know to this day.
11.
Dad caught me stealing cookies from the pantry at midnight... He did this as he was sneaking into the kitchen to steal cookies too.
10.
Dad rear ended someone on our way to go skiing and told me “not to tell mom” but I did anyway. In my defense I was 3.
9.
Ooh, so many from my dad. Once when mom was away he decided he didn't feel like getting up to take us to school, so he kept us home for a whole week and fed us lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
7.
When my mom is at work and me and my father is home we throw an awesome 2 man party and thrash the whole house, but when my mom get's home everything is clean
6.
I'll tell my dads story, since he's not on reddit.
I live in Milwaukee and my grandparents used to own a cabin in the northern part of the state, they also had some three-wheeled ATVs on their property. One weekend over the summer the whole family was up there, my dad took my brother and I on a ride, Dad in the middle me on the back, my baby brother on the front in his lap. Now this was the early 90s so let's give him a break on saftey. We were wearing ill fitting helmets after all. He takes us on a ride to some sand dunes down the road, and we take a ride slowly up and down these dunes.
I say "Daddy! Faster!" My father obliged and up we go, and down we go, and the the world turns. My dad flipped the three-wheeler on its side. My brother went left, by dad went left, and I went right....under the three-wheeler. It rolled over me on the sand. Probably the only reason I avoided injury was sand and malleable 6 year old bones. Needless to say after he was satisfied that nothing was broken, he says "you can NEVER tell your mother." I'm 34 now and I never have.
5.
One night I was enjoying a small bit of ice cream after my four year old daughter went to bed. She came downstairs and 'caught' me. So I offered her a small bite, but since she was supposed to be in bed, I said "don't tell mom." She assured me she wouldn't. My wife wouldn't have cared anyway but it was a fun little game to play.
After she went up to bed and I was down on the couch, she snuck in to the master bedroom where mom was resting. She told mom that I had let her have some ice cream, and she was afraid of "sugar bugs" so could she please brush her teeth again. My wife just laughed at me the next day. Little bugger ratted me out to brush her teeth, something she doesn't like doing anyway.
4.
Once, very young me had a little floaty accident in the bathtub. Dad deftly shoveled up the bath turd with one of my mom's long pink hair picks. He washed it up, told me not to tell her, of course, and to this day I mentally snicker when I see people wearing bright colored hair picks. But my secret will stay safe from mom forever.
3.
My wife or I will write notes and put them in our 9 year old son's lunch box most days. One day my wife's note was found by a boy named Max in my son's class and read aloud to his table. Needless to say my son came home quite embarrassed. Since I'm currently unemployed I went to have lunch with my son at school the next day. Towards the end of lunch, he points the boy out to me.
We have always preached turning the other cheek, telling the teacher, etc, but something about this kid's face made all those teachings fly out of window. I told my son "now listen, I'm going to tell you something you can say to him but you cannot tell your mother". My son replies that he'll keep our secret so I give him a pretty mild burn and tell him to use it discretely. Fast forward to that evening and my wife is signing the daily conduct sheet upon which is written:
"Your son came into the classroom after lunch and yelled to the entire class that Max's mother doesn't send him notes because she doesn't love him". He didn't rat me out to the teacher but I fell on the sword for him at home.
2.
When I was a kid, my dad would mow the lawn and then sneak up to the local dive bar and have a beer before my mom noticed he was done. I grew up in a town of roughly 1,200 people and the bar was two blocks away so it was totally feasible. My dad used to bring me with him, bribe my silence with a $1 bag of redskin peanuts and a can of Mountain Dew. My mom always knew because I'd slip up about the peanuts a day or two later.
Fast forward to being 24. I'd just moved to a new state after grad school with my then-boyfriend's job, I was underemployed at the time and my only company was my new kitten. I didn't tell my parents but I think my dad always knew I was miserable. One day I got a package from home that was 1 lb of redskin peanuts. He tracked down the vendor from the bar and bought them in a bulk bag. Still warms my heart when I think about it three years later.
1.
At 16 my parents helped me get a car; the keys to freedom were: Per Dad: no tickets, pay my own gas and maintenance and Per Mom: home by curfew After a few close calls/negotiating a few extra minutes with upset Mom, Dad recommends I call him if I'm cutting it close. Really...? From then on, I'd call Dad, he'd tell Mom that he would wait up, aka fall asleep in the lazyboy. This was a 2 birds one stone deal. He got parenting cred from Mom (go on to bed, honey) and a good night's nap in the lazyboy until I drifted home.
Miss you Dad.
One must really hate their job in order for them to get fired.
Depending on the actual job, it's not that difficult to follow established rules and work protocols. Deviating from them just to get terminated can take more effort.
That is, of course, the employees are completely inept or severely disgruntled and have no problem going on a self-sabotaging mission to be let go.
Why can't they just quit, you ask? Well, that'll be less dramatic.
Strangers online shared what they've witnessed at the workplace when Redditor ImaginaryBank9587 asked:
"How did that one coworker get fired?"
These former employees would do anything for a meal deal.
Egg Thief
"We had an employee cafeteria at a Fortune 500 company. You'd get your food at a counter and bring it, in one of those white foam clamshell containers, to the register where you'd just tell the cashier what you got. This one fellow regularly ordered 3-egg scrambles and told the cashier he had just one egg. He got caught once and told never to do it again. He did it again, and lost a $100k+ job for stealing eggs."
– Yossarian147
Costly Stand-Off
"Similar thing happened at my work, Fortune 500 company, VP of some department, company cafeteria but it was a salad. Would order a salad in line, the kind that they charge by weight and would loiter around until the cashier line got busy and then slip out the exit."
"Cafe worker noticed, told her boss …her boss told corporate security, they start watching for him and due to the guy’s position they watch for a few weeks. 2-3x’s a week he does this for close to a month. Finally they decide ok now it’s ironclad and we can fire him so they walk him out."
"Turns out he thought charging for salad was a ripoff and decided he wasn’t playing the game with the cafe. Well over 300k a year and lost it over a 5.00 salad."
– Due-Pineapple6831
The camera sees all.
Clumsy Ninja
"He was stealing Klondie Bars from the company freezer."
"One of the managers brought in a hidden camera to catch the thief. We all knew the camera was there so he crawled over to the freezer all ninja style to stay under the camera's field of vision."
"It would have worked, except, when he stood back up he tried to do it all fancy, and fell backward back into the camera's view."
– pirateteaparty
He May Have Fooled The GPS Tracker
"Dude would drive to the site, park his work van, then have his GF pick him up and take off for 8 hours, come back and pick up the van, thereby cleverly fooling the GPS tracker in the vehicle..."
"But not the camera pointing directly at the spot where he parked, got picked up, and dropped off. Cost the company a substantial contract. And himself a job."
– Dylsnick
Keep an eye on your baby wherever you go.
Free Baby
"She picked up a customer's baby without permission and walked off with her, the customer was beside herself thinking she'd been kidnapped. Co-worker didn't think she had done anything wrong because she's also a mother...."
– miss_demean0r
Up For Grabs
"My girlfriend had a coworker who did something similar, customer came in with a baby and she just grabbed the baby out of mum's arms and starts rocking it as this was a normal thing in her culture and her fellow co-workers freaked out about it but the mum was actually totally fine with it for some reason. She did not get fired though, they actually gave her a full time contract soon after which was a rare thing where she worked."
– Bubblez4
The Cart Pusher
"We had a cart pusher at target who did the same thing. He def have some mental disabilities, but I wasn’t privy to that info. I just know there were very few tasks he could do and he wasn’t very verbal."
"He was instructed to return carts, so he picked the child up from the child seat in the cart and held it out for the mom to grab after she finished loading the trunk. Mom was mortified, came in to raise hell at guest services. He wasn’t fired, but he also wasn’t allowed to push carts anymore."
– thisisntmyOGaccount
Alcohol and work don't mix.
Workplace Blackout
"Showed up drunk on the job, passed out on a chair in the lobby, then pissed his pants."
– SheZowRaisedByWolves
Sad Story
"At a prior company, we had a programmer who was brilliant. He actually built their computer systems from scratch and was able to update and maintain them. Only problem was, he was a total alcoholic. He was married and his wife did a damn good job getting him to work each day and keeping him reasonably coherent during business hours, probably because he was earning over $300K/year and it was worth her effort."
"Well, I guess she finally had enough of conducting his life and divorced him. He went OFF THE RAILS, like the company sent cops to his house for a wellness check. He was fine, just really drunk. The company paid for him to go to go rehab about three times, they were that invested in him. Each time, he'd stay sober for a bit, but then would be back to his old tricks in a couple of months."
"Eventually, the company hit its breaking point. I think the final straw was when he was in the parking lot, drunk, passed out in his car."
"He was fired and ended up passing from a massive heart attack about six months later, no doubt due to his addiction."
"Very sad story all around as he actually was great guy and an incredible programmer."
– Bleuet73
When I was a young performer in shows at a certain theme park, me and my coworkers got away with a lot of harmless but unprofessional behavior backstage that involved roughhousing and stupid antics out of view of visiting guests.
But when it came to showtime, we were always professional and helped create magical memories for our audiences.
The only time someone was fired was when a coworker tried to sneak a prop–in this case, a wig of a very popular princess–out of the park. Whenever we would "clock out" the security gate, they would always check our belongings for this very reason.
I guess my friend forgot about that part.
The next day, he didn't show up to work and none of us had a clue as to why. The company is so secretive when it comes to stuff like this.
We all eventually found out, and none of this played out dramatically. But one thing was made very clear.
You don't steal a mermaid's wig from this company and think you can get away with it.
For many people, escaping to the woods, either in a tent or a cabin, is just what they need to escape from their current realities and reset their mind.
Allowing themselves to be one with nature, and cut off from technology.
Not everyone finds the woods a peaceful place, however.
Indeed, being cut off from the rest of the world, all the while surrounded by wildlife, it's easy to see why some people find the woods scary, and not at all relaxing.
Particularly if their time in the woods included an experience which made them never want to return, ever again.
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit: What is the most terrifying experience you’ve encountered in the woods?"
In The Company Of Wolves
"Walking in the pitch black out to a deer stand."
"So dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face."
"Heard some circling around me of something large, it was trotting along."
"No big deal, figured it was a deer."
"Then it stopped and let out the most bone chilling howl I have ever heard."
"So loud it was like it was inside of me."
"A few wolves howled back in the distance and it ran off."
"Needed new underwear."- jubstep45
Who's That Cackling?
"I was backwoods camping in Canada with my ex."
"Deep forest, we'd been out there a day or two and hadn't seen anyone."
"That evening we were in the tent playing cards and heard something in the bushes, making a giant racket."
"It was getting steadily closer."
"It got to the area we were in and stopped."
"We debated what to do but finally opened the tent, both completely freaked out, and found... chickens."
"Three chickens, en route home to an organic farm we didn't know was nearby."- Worldly_Salamander_
GiphyIs That Water I Hear?
"An after dark flash flood that roared through camp."
"Twelve of us...five of them were sleeping in the canyon bottom."
"It's amazing nobody died."
"That was 32 years ago and I still sleep lightly and always pack clean underpants."- BrunoGerace
Stranger By The Lake
"When I was about fifteen yrs old me and some of my friends decided to go camping at a nearby lake."
"It was a 3-4 hr hike, and the nearest house was Maybe 3 hr away."
"We brought some homemade wine and drank the whole night and ate poorly grilled hot dogs."
"Life was good."
"We all shared the tent so it was crowded as f*ck in the tent but we all fell asleep around 2 am."
"At 4 I wake up because i can feel someone running their hand down my forearm."
"Not that unlikely that someone brushes up against me since there wasn't any space to move around in the crowded tent."
"But this is the arm that is facing the tent."
"So someone touched me from the outside of the tent."
"I sit up and gets instantly horrified to see that all my friends are sound asleep in the tent with me."
"I put on my deepest voice and shout 'whoever the f*ck you are you need to leave'."
"And a manly low voice answers me 'you should pack up your stuff and leave', not threatening or aggressive."
"Just calmly and in a dead kinda way."
"By now all my friends are awake and are just looking at me."
"No words just pure horror in their eyes."
"I say: 'Okay, we will go, but you need to leave'."
"Hurry up"
"When we get out of the tent this man, who is f*cking huge btw has taken the little row boat that was laying at the bank and gotten into it and is just sitting in the middel of the lake and watching us pack up our stuff and trying to get the f*ck away asap."
"We had to walk around the lake at our way back and he was just sitting there watching us."
"We never went back."
"This was 17 years ago in a rural Scandinavian country."
"We have a 'free to roam law' so we where not trespassing."
"We knew our way around the small town we grew up, everybody knows everybody."
"There have been no people missing and or found dead."
"Never."
"There hasn't been a murder in generations."
"We told our parents who at first tried to calm us down and they said that we where probably overreacting."
"But the way he caressed my arm before he told us to go was not normal."
"When we told them everything and What he said to us we where told to never go back."
"After covid we all met up and the subject came up and we tried to do some digging."
"There are no houses or cabins anywhere near."
"The lake is way too small to fish in."
"When he was sitting dead center in his little boat there was Maybe 60 feet to land on all sides."
"No one has ever seen this man before or after."- Withthisaccountican
Water Band GIF by TennisGiphyLose Lose Situation
"As a Boy Scout, we found a bunch of scorpions in our Adirondack."
"We ran outside screaming our heads off, and then lightening struck a tree like 20 yards away."
"We turned on our heels and ran straight back to the scorpions."- captainkatalis
A Bit Too Much Holiday Spirit
"Many years ago, when I was about 14, I was hiking deep in the woods behind my house with some friends."
"We were miles away from home- further than any of us had ever gone before."
"And we came up to the edge of a clearing and a little further down the tree line, we saw a lump of clothes underneath an old deer stand."
"We got a little closer and we could make out legs and arms and boots."
"They were wet from rain and had been there for a while."
"Obviously, our first thought was that it was a hunter who had an accident and fallen out of his stand and was dead."
"We were freaked out and it took us a little bit to get up the nerve to get a better look."
"It wasn't until we were practically on top of it that we realized that it was a dummy."
"We had wandered all the way up to the edge of a big Christmas Tree farm's property and the dummy was part of their decorations from a haunted hayride thing they did."
"They must have forgotten about it when closing up for the year."
"We had a good laugh but we were all scared sh*tless for a few minutes."- Ocksu2
season 1 premiere GIF by Jersey Shore Family VacationGiphyThe Bear Necessities
"I work in the bush and sometimes spend months out there."
"Most terrifying was seeing a bear start to circle me right as the helicopter pilot radioed me to say he couldn't get to my location because of the weather."
"Luckily I had a shotgun with me, and eventually the pilot got down to me, but yeah, sitting there in the sleet while watching that grizzly slowly and sneakily try to cut around my position in the fading light was absolutely terrifying."
"The whole time I was trying to come up with possible ways to keep from being outflanked and to keep visual contact with it in case I had to shoot it."
"This was in the late fall, so the bear probably hadn't put on enough fat for the year and was looking to supplement it."
"Spooky stuff!"- Psychological_Put395
Not A Terribly Uncommon Discovery In The Woods...
"I was backpacking with my dog and about 12 miles from the road and trailhead."
"So pretty far from people though popular enough that other hikers might be around."
"Though we saw no-one all day."
"About 2 a.m. my dog started this really low deep growl and wakes me up."
"Turn on my headlamp and see his teeth showing and he's right on top of me."
"I hear heavy footsteps (black bear / moose?) near the tent."
"I leash my dog so he doesn't tear thru the tent and the footsteps move further away, but keep circling my tent."
"All of my food and toiletries are hung in a tree in a bear bag - nothing in the tent to draw a bear's attention."
"I clap my hands - something is still slowly circling - not something a moose would do, and a bear might if he wanted food - but I've got nothing and a really big dog with me."
"I decide to step out of the tent with the leash in one hand and bear spray in the other - yelling 'hey bear'."
"The footsteps stop - dog's nose is in the air telling me to look right - but nothing in my headlamp that I can see."
"Didn't hear anything run off, but it's quiet."
"I give it 5 minutes or so, get back in the tent, and it starts up again - slowly circling maybe 50 feet from me."
"Maybe an hour later, I hear the footsteps wander off into the woods."
"At dawn, I take the dog, and the bear spray, and start looking for tracks."
"I find a clear path in the leaves that had been trampled, but no tracks."
"The dogs nose is on the ground, and I follow his lead - and he follows the loop around our campsite."
"We finally see a few human footprint - not shoe tracks - a regular size (not bigfoot) bare human foot."
"Plus - yup a human turd and toilet paper."
"Some a**hole was wandering around the middle of nowhere, near the tent and circling my tent for an hour or more, and left a dump for me to find."
"Hiking and backpacking is incredibly safe. I've been doing this for decades, and this is the only weird experience I've ever had."
"The hiking community is incredibly friendly."
"The trails have become more crowded since covid, and your definitely seeing more people on trails, and less trail courtesy (litter - leaving dog poop bags, pooping too close to the trail and not burying you poop)."
"Also - I was very far away from civilization. "
"Bad guys don't hike 12 miles to do harm, and I'm pretty sure they don't carry toilet paper."
"I've hiked thousand of miles without a single dangerous human interaction."
"What I think happened?"
"Much as I'd love to say it was a young sasquatch, a skin walker or a wendigo - I'm guessing it was a disoriented backpacker that left their tent to crap, and got confused."
"I was hiking a somewhat popular long loop trail, and I believe someone was probably hiking the opposite way, and stopped somewhere off trail ahead of me."
"I was backwoods camping - not at a campground."
"Regulations are that you need to be 200 feet off the trail and into the woods to set up a camp."
"So they could have been a quarter mile ahead on the trail and I wouldn't have known unless they were noisy (or smelly enough for my dog to let me know)."
"The most likely explanation is that they were heavily under the influence, got up to crap, and got lost on their way back to their tent, and found my site."
"They approach my tent and realized they were wrong, and tried to find their way back to their camp."
"Then they heard my dog, and me yelling to scare off a bear, and either thought we were a risk to them, or too lit to answer back."
"The circle around my camp was several hundred feet - and my tent wouldn't be visible for most of the loop - I was camping between several spruce trees."
"I didn't get back to sleep!"
"I couldn't get back to sleep."
"It was late Sept and sunrise was around 6 a.m."
"When we found the poop pile, I relaxed - I really didn't think there would be anyone nearby as we were in a very tough area to get to - requiring going over 2 mountain summits from my direction, and 6 other mountains in the other direction."
"The total hike was about 40 miles IIRC."
"We were going to be out for 3 nights, and 4 days."
"After I realized it was a human, my first assumption was that there was a lost hiker."
"I texted a friend that does Search and Rescue in the area t see if there were any reports of lost or overdue hikers."
"If there had been, I would have had my dog try to follow that trail to see if I could have found their campsite."
"As no one was missing, we broke camp and went on our way."
"He was the best dog ever."
"I lost him about 5 years ago."
"I knew that dog would die for me."
"Several years after this incident, I got diagnosed with cancer. **(**ETA - I've been in remission for several years and things look good)."
"This dog was so in tune with me that he knew how sh*tty I was going to feel before I did."
"He would walk with me to the bathroom, and sit right next to me as a puked my guts up."
"He'd walk me back to bed and let me rest my hand on his back if I needed a little help walking."
"Everyone has a heart dog - he was mine."
"I swear he knew I had cancer before I did."
"He used to sniff me right where my tumor was located."
"I still get teary eye'd thinking of him."
"Rest in peace big guy."- BionicGimpster
What Is It Reaction GIF by Nebraska Humane SocietyGiphyIt's What They Didn't See Or Hear...
"Absolute silence. No wind, no animals, nothing. One second there were all the sounds of nature, then nothing. Lasted for a few seconds that felt like an eternity." Reddit
There's a reason that so many fairy tales and scary stories are set deep in the woods.
For while staying alert and using your best judgment will no doubt keep you safe, the possibilities of what could happen to you are endless, and terrifying.
The older you get, the more you realize that having a worldview can be a disappointing aspect of life.
It's all the knowledge we acquire.
Sure, the more you know, the smarter you get.
But the more you know, the less you can pretend.
History can be difficult to learn.
Everything opinion and thought can change in an instant.
Sometimes that is a great thing.
Sometimes... not so much.
Redditor FlickTheSwitch167 wanted to hear about the times the truth of the world, just ruined it all, so they asked:
"What Historical fact have you learnt that ruined everything you ever thought you knew about this life?"
I feel like all of history is a lie. The more I learn, the less I'm shocked.
Aflame...
awesome rock on GIFGiphy"More of a fun one, but lighters predate strike matches by a couple of centuries. They originated from repurposed flintlock pistols that ignited tinder shoved in the barrel that was set aflame by the trigger mechanism."
Kataphractoi
Ice Ice Baby...
"Ancient Antarctica was actually a rainforest, a lush and verdant paradise, filled with flora and fauna. Despite the interesting fact that there was a whole continent of animals who lived on this planet that we’ll never know about - as their remains are locked beneath miles of ice."
"It blew my mind that Antarctica only fully froze over about 35 million years ago, despite breaking from its supercontinent ~ 180 million years ago."
"That means Antarctica supported independent life for ~ 145 million years, which ruined any sense I have for time and perspective. We really are specks on this planet."
oohaaahz
GONE
"There was a Spanish explorer that first visited the Inca empire and saw lots of prosperous cities and a great civilization, and told his peers about it when he returned home. But when other folks went to visit the said cities they found nothing but jungle and thought the explorer lied about his story."
"The fact that blew my mind is that nowadays we discovered that his story was true and the people he encountered died from diseases brought into the new world. And the cities and civilization they build were consumed by jungle in the span of a few years."
Manu82134
Modern Day
"Can't remember the exact quote but it went something like, If the entirety of human (Homo) history was condensed into a 500-page book, modern anatomical humans wouldn't show up until page 450, and homosapiens wouldn't build empires until page 490, the atomic bomb and the foundation of Rome would be on the final page and only a paragraph apart."
"And yet in all of this, the vast amount of technological advancements from the discovery of the atom to the modern day would fit in the last few sentences, of the last paragraph of the last page. And people wonder why we are reckless, we're still effectively great apes but with shiny toys."
JitterySuperCoffee
Tastes and Colors
All Stars Reaction GIF by LifetimeGiphy"Ruined in an interesting, not bad way: ancient Greek and Roman polychrome. The Parthenon temple looked a bit like Disneyland."
ipakookapi
"Same goes for European churches. Statues were painted in flashy colors. The ones outside got washed blanc but there are still some inside that still have their color. By today's standard, it would be considered tacky and bad taste."
chinchenping
One does want a hint of color. Right?
Part of that World
Happy The Little Mermaid GIF by Disney PrincessGiphy"Prehistoric, but still: Given that humans tend to concentrate along coastlines, and that sea levels have risen a bunch in the last 200 000 years, it is likely that our conception of human prehistory is fantastically distorted due to most of it being lost under the sea."
HaggeHagglin
Pennies and Pennies
"Victorian era London was a terrible place to be alive as a member of the working class. If I recall correctly. You could pay a penny to sit indoors on a bench but no sleeping! Two Pennies and you could swing your arms over a rope and sleep standing up or if you made hella money that day you could pay 4 Pennies and sleep in a coffin. The water is undrinkable and children expected working hours were 12 to 18 a day starting at 4 yrs old. By those standards, a lot of us would look like royalty to them."
UnicornBrainsRPointy
Horrendous Horrors
"Learning about the depth and breadth of slavery in human history was a real eye-opener. We have really detailed documents from more modern history to show WHY that idea is so heinous, but it's always been a significant part of cultures all around the world serving as anything from a social construct to the very currency of war and with autonomy ranging from that of livestock to that of a low caste."
"Evidence of slavery predates written records and is even included in the code of Hammurabi where it was already an established institution and we still haven't stamped it out today, April 10th, 2023, where slavery affects an estimated 46 million people (that's more than the total population of California, and approximately the population of Spain). It's crazy how awful humans have always been to one another and that we still can't seem to hold each other accountable for basic human rights, despite indelible proof."
FridayInc
Far Far Away
"When I learned that NASA had discovered over 100 billion GALAXIES and saw the image to put into perspective that our entire solar system is only about the size of a coin compared to our galaxy which in relation would be the size of the United States. We are so incredibly small within the universe."
cheeseburghers
A Strange Loop
Over It Ugh GIFGiphy"If you look at the history of mankind, you quickly see that nobody ever learned from our history."
Plastik-Mann
"History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man."
Kvesh
If history has taught us anything, it's that we're doomed.
But let's keep learning.
Whether we're huge television watchers or not, most of us have at least one television show that we've really enjoyed.
And all too often, the show ends long before we're ready for that final episode, and we dream of a reunion episode or encore season.
Redditor Putrid_Cry19 asked:
"Which canceled TV show deserved another season?"
Anne with an E
"Anne with an E."
- Unusual-Neck9547
"Three seasons, and just when Gilbert and Anne realize their feelings, it gets canceled. Excuse me, what?!"
- thesnoodlee
"Especially when you have so much source material to work with. Heck, the old adaptation went along with an older Anne and followed her life."
- No_Eyed_Dear
The Black Donnellys
"The Black Donnellys."
- Lookslikeseen
"Did they even get a complete first season? That show was canceled 15 years ago, and I’m still mad about it!! The cast was amazing and all of them fit perfectly in their roles. The story was intriguing. I can’t figure out why it ended so abruptly."
- mandyama
"I always scroll far enough down on these posts until I find 'The Black Donnellys.' F**king great show and I was glad they at least put the final episodes online. They were pulled from TV mid-season and I remember just being really bummed it wasn't on."
- GrimwoldMcTheesbyIV
Lodge 49
"'Lodge 49:' it was the dose of weirdness, reality-bending metaphysics, philosophy, blue-collar camaraderie, and kindness I needed weekly. Great cast, great cameos."
"I guess AMC needed the empty slot so they could have more 'Walking Dead' spinoffs or shows where people talk about the previous show they just aired."
- AdamInvader
The Last Kingdom
"'The Last Kingdom.' They had to rush through so much in Season 5 that it overwhelms you, although it still manages to give a great send-off to the series. F**king Netflix canceling great shows but keeps renewing 'Big Mouth,' lol (laughing out loud)."
"Highly recommend 'The Last Kingdom' if anyone hasn't watched it."
- OneThicBoii
Sense8
"'Sense8.' The writers convinced Netflix to do a special series ending episode but it didn't do the show justice. You could tell it was a rushed ending. One more season and it could have been much better paced."
"If I remember correctly, the reason it was canceled was that it was extremely expensive to make."
- Interjessing-Salary
Stargate Universe
"Stargate Universe."
- Ulkrum
"I was hoping I'd see someone else say 'SGU.' I really did enjoy it, different from SG1 and SGA, but I was enjoying it. Really want to know what happened to Eli after everyone else went to sleep for a bit. Like come on, it's like Schrodinger's cat! I need to know."
- Mad-Ma84
"They literally left this show with the ability to pick it up again."
"S4 episode 1: Eli wakes everyone up from their Cyro sleep. Due to whatever mechanical failure or attack, these pods didn’t work and these characters have been killed off, some of them aged."
"Stargate opens up and new characters board the Destiny."
- Jon_F**kin_Snow
"And someone brings Eli a clean shirt. But just one."
- MrVeazey
The Tick
"The Tick."
- dreadrabbit1
"I agree. And it doesn't matter which version you're talking about, the answer is yes, that version deserved another season."
- Funandgeeky
The Punisher
"The Punisher, with Jon Bernthal."
- xXxLordViperScorpion
"Absolutely hands down! He was crazy good in it."
- MessagefromA
Carnivale
"'Carnivale.' I loved the world that was built in that show."
- m0rris0n_hotel
"This is one that gets me. Thanks for nothing, Management."
- the_murders_of_crowe
"This was the show I came looking for. I think the show creator had three more seasons lined up."
- coolmike69420
The Mick
"The Mick."
- Full-Ask3638
"I said the same!! I love that show."
- No-Teacher9713
"I came here to say this. That show was hilarious. As a Sunny fan, it was great to see Kaitlin Olson take even more of a lead role, and really helped me appreciate what she brought to the show. I was so bummed it got canceled."
- Childish_Calrissian
1899
"1899."
- TheGreyPotato
"I remember when everyone thought it wouldn't get canceled just because 'Dark' was allowed to be fully completed."
"'1899' had so much potential, especially after the ending scene of the Season One finale. Such a shame."
- HahaLookyHere
Santa Clarita Diet
"I'm still salty about 'Santa Clarita Diet' being canceled. I need to see what's next for Joel!"
- lemonjelly88
"Netflix: You should watch Santa Clarita Diet. You really should. You really, really should. Here are 15 gajillion recommendations!"
"Me: Okay, fine! ...Hey, this is really good. When's the next season coming out?"
"Netflix: Oh, we canceled that."
- GarbledReverie
"I love how well Timothy Olyphant portrays a man who's on the edge of a complete breakdown whilst Drew Barrymore is living her best life. Such a great show."
- unluckypig
"One of my all-time favorite shows. I will never forgive Netflix for robbing us of seeing what happens to zombie Joel."
"Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore's chemistry was so on point. This show made me realize what kind of a relationship I want with my spouse, lol (laughing out loud). They were the best 'relationship goals' I've ever seen on TV!"
- thathunzygirl
"This is my answer for every single AskReddit post that asks about canceled TV shows. I will never freaking forgive Netflix for canceling 'Santa Clarita.'"
- spooteeespoothead
My Name Is Earl
"'My Name is Earl.'"
- ftran998
"Greg Garcia did an AMA where he shared how he envisioned the ending:"
"'I had always had an ending to 'Earl,' and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list, so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list.'"
"'The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item, he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own, and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list, and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else...'"
"'Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with lists and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point, he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.'"
- edlee98765
"Oh wow, that's such a good wrap-up for the show that even just reading it feels like some solid closure. Wish it had gotten made, but it's the perfect capstone for the series."
- l3rn
The Last Man on Earth
"'The Last Man on Earth.'"
- Historical_Ad2890
"I f**king loved this show. I get that the style of humor and awkwardness wasn’t for everyone, but godd**n, this show made me laugh more than most shows do."
- The_Number_None
"I need closure closure closure."
- Klutzy-Addition5003
The Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency
"Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency."
"A lot of people didn't like the 2nd season, which is completely fair. It's hard to live up to the expectations of such a solid first season."
"The reason I personally would like a 3rd season is that the cliffhanger is so. d**n. tasty. Also, I want more Rowdy 3 (6?), Alan Tudyk, and Tyler Labine."
"I recognize that it deviates completely from the source material, and I understand why a lot of people are upset by that. There are a lot of examples where I hated the adaptation (looking at you, 'World War Z'), but I personally believe this is a perfect example of how you take inspiration and run with it."
"A dark, gritty version where Dirk was the fat slob the books described him as might also be fantastic, and I'd probably watch the shit out of it."
"However, I think this adaptation captures the whimsical nonsense of Douglas Adam's writing perfectly, and I'm ok with it. It's just a shame that the show was attached to such a scumbag. Otherwise, we might have seen that third season that gave us all the answers they teased."
- GrownThenBrewed
"That show is still my absolute favorite."
"With absolute bangers like:"
"'The Rowdy Three!'"
"'But there are four of them!'"
"'I'm WILDLY aware.'"
"They captured Douglas Adams's whimsical nonsense so perfectly in that show."
"I feel like the second series went completely off the rails, but I still loved it."
- Conductor_Cat
"This was so gloriously, bizarrely brilliant. It was completely different from the (excellent) books, but it took on some of the core ideas and added a bunch of its own, then ran with them in multiple directions all at once."
"It was a joy to watch and made me feel an almost childlike wonder. It surprised and delighted me; a modern-day fairy-tale for grown-ups. Gutted me when it was canceled."
- wretched_cretin
Teen Titans
"This may seem a bit childish, but Teen Titans. The original one from 2003."
- Sadblackcat666
"It’s a bummer because every character got one season where they were the focus of the ongoing plot. Season One was Robin, Season Two was Terra, Season Three was Cyborg, Season Four was Raven, and Season Five was Beast Boy."
"It was set up perfectly to have a sixth season focused on Starfire and we never got it."
- JRBehr
"I rewatched the whole series fairly recently. It really was such a unique show for the time. I remember seeing reruns on Boomerang after the series had finished airing on CN. It's unfortunate that they no longer air anything from the original series or movie."
"Season Five absolutely ended in a way that demanded something more, and the movie did not scratch that itch."
- ChrisTheKnight03
This is a great reminder of how entertainment can bring people together, first as a fandom and later for the nostalgia.
And there are quality selections here that absolutely should have gotten more time, and deserve a watch from those who haven't seen these shows before.