
I love presents. I try to hide my enthusiasm, and I do my best to appease the greater public by saying "it's the thought that counts." But that is a WHOLE lie. I don't just love gifts, I love great gifts. And if you go rogue from my lists, please keep a receipt. It's just plain rude to divert from what the recipient has requested.
This thought process has emerged from experience. I have received some trash presents over the years and now I'm too old to pretend you just went crazy while shopping. Like... "do you even know me?!"
Redditoru/sulemannkhannwanted to hear all about the presents some of us have received that we prayed, came with a receipt, by asking:
What's the worst birthday gift you ever got?
Have we met? That is an actual question I asked a gift giver once. (Who shall rename nameless) Football tickets. FOOTBALL TICKETS?! Who? What? I can't.
Looks Familiar
"My own scarf. Yes, that's right, my mother went into my room took my only scarf, wrapped it and gave it to me like it was a new scarf."
Devastation!
"Thought I was getting a bike for my 15th birthday but my foster parents announced that they were sending me to a group home after living with them for 11 years. Devastation! That place was a wake up call. More independence then at my foster home but those kids had it really really bad, 12 year old heroine addicts, abuse... what the entire hell! I hurried up, graduated from high school at 16 and got the hell out of that place. I turned out ok, work in the legal field, live in Las Vegas. I did forgive my foster parents before they died."
The Forgotten One
"My brother and I worked for a farmer one summer, and he paid us with a used car. At the end of the next year, my brother graduated high school, so my parents paid me out for my half of the car, and that was his graduation gift. I gave them all a big discount compared to what it was worth. So like $500 for my share of a $2500 car."
"2 years later, and I needed $50 for some graduation fees, so I borrowed it from my mom until I could get to the bank. (Before mobile banking and ATMs everywhere.) Later, when my mom is telling me they invited all their friends over for a 'graduation' party, I asked if they had gotten a gift for me. "Well I gave you fifty bucks."
"I paid it back the next day, and she didn't blink. The 'graduation party' was just my parents friends, who said congratulations to me, but it wasn't really for me. A few years later, my little sister graduated, she got a car. They bought a used car for her, and our other little sister got the same when she graduated. My parents are mostly nice, and I never felt like they singled me out at birthdays or anything. Just my graduation seemed like I turned invisible."
Office Party Fail
"HR complaint from two subordinates fighting over how to throw me a surprise birthday party."
- BBoySlim
"I've never worked in an office environment, but the stories I've heard of people being required to buy a cake for the whole office and to celebrate their birthday with their coworkers would be enough to keep me in blue collar work for life, were it not for the fact that I love being active and working with my hands and could never sit at a desk all day anyway."
Basics
"My Asian mom's gift was "no extra Kumon homework after school homework" so my birthday gift was that I didn't get extra homework from her."
Regifting is trash behavior. Do better. I'd rather you just say I forgot. Or... I just don't care for that much. But regifting? No.
Unlucky 13
"Stomach flu and my first ever period, at the same time. I think it was my 13th birthday."
- kelpself
"Omg, exact same story for me. It was my 13th birthday and my family took us kids to visit our relatives in Subsaharan Africa for the first time. I was sick, jetlagged, overheated and riding down a bumpy road in a Jeep driven by my dad in the complete darkness. We had just eaten at a restaurant where I found a giant scarab beetle in the bottom of my soup bowl. I have flashbacks to this day."
Lazy Thoughts...
"My grandparents have been gifting me (and my brother) the same set of three vice grips for almost 10 years. Collectively we have 60 vice grips. I don't know if they bought a pallet of them, or where they are coming from. GET A GRIP GRANDMA!"
"I had a friend who's father was famous for doing Christmas shopping at the last minute. One year she complained that she went downstairs on Christmas morning and found, sticking out of her stocking, a spatula. Her birthday was a few days after telling that story, so myself and her friends all decided to get together and get her spatulas for her birthday, as a gag gift."
"Well, when it was our birthdays she retaliated. Which lead to a counter-offensive. And soon a new tradition was formed. And guys, I have so many spatulas now. Everything from dollar store cheap plastic, to hand-carved spatulas, a golden spatula, and even a replica of the famous Malaysian fighting spatula."
"I've got seasonal spatulas. As in, today it's time to pack away the Christmas spatulas and bring out the heart-shaped Valentine's day ones, followed by the bunny-shaped Easter ones. We've also been passing around this clip from the Weird Al Yankovic movie UHF. "Spatula City, we sell spatulas, and that's all!"
Their ultimate whack-a-doo move...
"A pair of homemade custom pajamas. Only problem was that they weren't made yet. It was just the fabric and a promise to make them for me. I had to give the fabric back and I never got the pajamas."
"Holy cow my parents do crap like this. It's so freaking weird. Their ultimate whack-a-doo move was to give my wife and I a few acres of their property."
"Nothing legal just at our wedding they gave us a card that basically said 'have some land.' When the dust settled I asked what they thought we would do with it, they said build a home. I said ok, gonna need legal ownership for like building a house. They said sure we will get right on that. Then they decide to sell out and retire and never mentioned our wedding 'gift' again."
Gross...
"My grandma got me a hairbrush with a plastic horse head handle. The horse head was all chipped up and there was hair in the brush."
Bummer...
"My Godfather sent me a Birthday card each year which said, he paid 100 bucks to a bank account which I was supposed to get, when 16yo. He then got into alcohol, used all the money and died."
Oh for God sake, why even bother giving anything at all? Lint rollers, used brushes, homemade pjs... y'all ever hear of a gift card? Just put five bucks on it and call it a day. You can't hide cheap, so stop trying.
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Great writing changes lives.
Great snippets can stay with us forever.
And beyond the grave.
So many people put great quotes on tombstones.
Redditor downtownshibawanted to discuss the words of wisdom that have left a forever mark. They asked:
"What quote changed your life?"
Wisdom is everywhere. I have found hope in the witty advertisement of a vodka bottle. You?
Truth
"There is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse."
Emilyx33x
I Love You
"Grief is just love that has nowhere to go."
i_am_scared_ok
Andrew Garfield’s quote on this subject really touched me. When talking about his mother who passed away he said, 'I hope this grief stays with me. It’s all the unexpressed love I didn’t get to tell her.'”
kyhansen1509
So Empty
“'What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.'”
"-Epictetus"
Crypto_Bro12
"'Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. -Rabbi Tarfon'"
"It helps when I'm feeling anxious about geopolitical events I have no control over."
HonestSummer
The Burn
"'Doing what you love as a job is a great way to make it something you used to love.'"
"Former boss that got burnt hard. That's funny but honestly idk what his past was. He was a very bitter person when I knew him. He said that when I was talking about wanting to be a full time artist when I was younger. The idea gave me pause."
Crying_Reaper
I'm feeling slightly inspired so far. You?
Winning
"There's this awesome webcomic called Multiplex that I used to read ( it finished its run a few years ago). It's mostly goofy jokes and snarky digs at Hollywood, but one of the characters said, 'You should get out of the mindset that for you to win, someone else has to lose. It's unhealthy.' Don't know why it stuck with me, but I've been trying to get out of that way of thinking ever since (I don't always succeed, but I'm trying man, I'm trying real hard)."
Raptorthrust
“it is what it is”
"Might be lame but my mom gave me a mug with 'it is what it is' written on it and it truly changed my philosophy about how I handle my anxiety. I was going through a lot but drinking coffee everyday with that mug really gave me a weird sense of peace."
corpcoincorporated
No!
"'Don't tell yourself no. Let someone else tell you no.' -- a co-worker who stopped me from canceling an interview 16 years ago. He's embarrassed that I bring it up because to him, it was just an off-the-cuff comment. But it literally put me where I am now."
farrenkm
'It's always those off-the-cuff remarks that do it. I will say, this one might be THE one from this thread that sticks with me... Most often it seems that the only person who ever gets in my way is myself."
CautiousCactus505
No Room
"The graveyard is full of people who had the right of way."
SANTAAAA__I_know_him
Words have power. Do you have similar quotes to share? Let us know in the comments below.
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Hindsight really is 20/20.
I never fully understood that thought until my thirties.
So many of the things we thought were just an average part of life when were really just a whole hell of a mess.
Some "quirks" and behaviors are not meant to be the normal.
We just decide they are, but they're actually part of bigger issues.
Redditor ComfortableMess3145wanted to compare notes on the certain things that maybe we had the wrong idea about at first. They asked:
"What is something you thought was normal but found out it isn't?"
We need to prepare. Some of our regular daily life activities maybe not the best idea.
Streaks
"I have astigmatism so I see light in streaks. For the longest time I thought that was how everyone saw it."
Onirity
hence the name...
"Visual snow. My whole life, my field of vision has always been covered by shifting multi-colored dots of light. Similar to light snow on an old TV transmission, hence the name. I see it all of the time, I never don't see it, though it is worse in the dark, or if staring at the sky. In the dark or when I close my eyes, it is all I see. I thought everyone had this until my early 20s."
smuffleupagus
"roll over laughing"
"I was joking around with my friends in 8th grade History and we were trying to see how many pencils we could stick into my friend's afro (with his consent) and right as I was trying to lift my arm and put the pencil in his hair one of them cracked a joke that sent us into a fit of laughter. My arms went limp and when my friends started coaxing me to put it in I told them I couldn't."
"They were noticeably confused, so when I regained my composure I explained that everytime I laugh, my muscles go limp and I am not be able to move them. It ranges from droopy head and weak knees, to full body collapse. Because of the term 'roll over laughing' and portrayals of people in media falling over in laughter I thought this happened to everyone, and they were just better at controlling it."
"My friends all agreed that it in fact did not happen to them, and that I should get it checked with a doctor. 1 year later I was diagnosed Type 1 Narcolepsy: a sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, and Cataplexy. Cataplexy happens when a trigger, such as strong emotions like laughter or fear, trigger a sudden loss of muscle tone, making it difficult to move, stand, or even breathe."
I was lucky to be diagnosed as early and quick as I was, since the condition is widely unknown outside of the context of Narcolepsy patients and specialists. The symptoms of Narcolepsy are so common, in both puberty where it starts to present more heavily, and other diagnoses such and depression and anxiety."
"It's estimated that around 1 in 2,000 people have this disorder, and the lucky few that actually get diagnosed usually only do so later in life after 5-10+ years of multiple tests and misdiagnoses. The takeaway from this is that if you think that other people 'deal with it better' or 'suck it up' or 'control it better' chances are that's not normal, and you should speak up about it."
Savannahisded
The Friend Group
"I thought it was normal for every friend group to have one person that everyone picked on for no reason. I don't mean light roasting, I mean legitimately bullying them and putting them down. My brother's friend group had one, with my brother being a primary instigator."
"I was the punching bag in my middle school friend group. It took until the end of high school/the beginning of college for me to actually be treated like a person and realize that friends aren't supposed to make you feel like crap about yourself."
yeetgodmcnechass
You're gonna hear me...
"The ability to make a roaring noise in my ears by tensing a muscle. link"
Jmen4Ever
The human body is a crazy thing. I sure the animal body is a sh**show too.
Once in awhile...
"Pooping once in 3-7 days. Since childhood I always do it in that frequency. However, when I was 21 my doctor told me that it's not normal at all and it should be everyday thing. I always thought that everyone does it once in 3-7 days, not everyday."
2 dippy eggs, please...
"I'm from Pennsylvania. Growing up, when we went to a restaurant and I ordered my favorite eggs, I would say, '2 dippy eggs, please.' It wasn't until I got married and moved out to the western part of the country that I realized most people don't call them that. I can still see the look on the waitress's face when I asked for dippy eggs. Apparently, most people call them 'sunny side up.'"
fourjoys99
For the Pizza
"Asking for permission. I was raised to always ask permission to have water, a snack, turn on the TV, or go to the bathroom any time I am in someone else's home. My best friend's mom thought it was weird that I would ask permission for small things. Like 'May I grab a knife and fork for my pizza?' instead of 'Where can I find a knife and fork?' was super weird to her."
Awkward_Society1
Lip Service
"Not being able to watch Movies/Shows without Close Captions or subtitles. Also never understanding what they are saying on the radio. Turns out, I have an Auditory Processing Disorder. If I don't see peoples lips moving my brain doesn't recognize they are words more than half the time."
SugarLily0420
Normal? Not
"Having OCD. The thoughts that come with it I thought were normal for YEARSSS."
foxgirl1318
Well I have a lot to think about how I live my life.
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Secrets, secrets, are no fun, you say?
Wrong. Secrets are very fun to keep. In fact, we should all work on building our trust we've set up with our loved ones so they feel comfortable holding on to our secrets for a long time. That way, ours don't end up on a list like this one.
Since we're all here, however, let's learn some stuff!
*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Reddit user, Duck_Diggler_, wanted to know the secrets no one else was supposed to know when they asked:
"What's a secret you'll take to your grave but you'll share with reddit because you need to get it off your chest?"
Matters of family are hard to keep close to the chest because the people you would normally discuss the secret with is the people who it's about.
It's Just A Habit That Got Out Of Hand. Right?
"The amount of empty liquor bottles I found hidden around the house after my husband passed away. I knew that he liked to drink, sometimes a little too much, and it was something we bickered about occasionally, but I didn't appreciate the full scope of how much exactly he was drinking. Maybe 2-3 years before his death he started working from home full-time and I'm guessing being home alone all day was when he started going off the rails."
"Absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances surrounding his death and I wouldn't want to tarnish his memory to family or friends, so I keep it to myself but I don't mind sharing it with strangers."
Hrekires
Unable To Properly Move On
"A year ago my partner of 8 years left me out of the blue, two months before our wedding."
"People tell me how ‘strong’ I am and how well I’m doing. Compliment my work ethic (I work 60+ hours a week between two jobs) and tell me how ‘admirable’ my coping skills are. When people ask I’m quite firm in saying how much better off I am without him and how happy I am."
"Truth is, I think of him every minute of everyday, I work so much to avoid being alone in our house, I still love him, I cry myself to sleep at least twice a week, I think about suicide a lot and truly I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone like I love him. He was truly my best friend."
"We bought a dog a few months before he left me, I don’t know where I’d be if she didn’t come into my life."
ArtVirtual6866
When Even The Family Doesn't Back Them Up
"My ex-girlfriends family told me to break up with her because of her erratic behaviour - I will never ever let her know this -"
beermansam
Now, not all secrets have to be "dark" to have to "go to the grave." Sometimes, you were just really, really, really trying to avoid getting grounded that one time when you were 12.
Exploding Tank, But Not The Cool Kind
"I lit a firework in a public park and panicked so I flushed it down the toilet... boom. No more toilet. Whoops, I was 12."
No_Housing_4819
Walking To What She Really Wants
"My first day as a nanny looking after a baby girl. I take her to the park and I'm taking videos of her and getting her to walk to me. She walks three steps to me and then falls on her butt and cries. It occurs to me that I don't actually know if she has walked with her parents yet, she isn't sure of foot yet. Speaking to her mum later on she tells me she is super close but hasn't walked yet. I figure she must have walked with me because she was feeling clingy without her mum. I never told her parents she walked with me and it was about three weeks later she finally walked for her parents."
Sydneyfigtree
Getting Revenge Any Way You Can
"Not as dark as the most in here..but as a teen I had a really bad relationship with my dad...and one day I was really pissed and signed his e-mail up in any freakin newsletter I could find online... He still get's spam mails and doesn't know why .. (we get along great now)"
CutimedSiltecSorbact
Sometimes It Never Leaves You
"The first and only time I stole something in my(M8) life was from my neighbor who was having a yard sale to take his kids to Disney land. He had a DS game of backyard baseball and I had the money for it, it was $5 and I wanted it. I went up with the money and he told me that he was going to give it to the landlords kid who was my age too. I was so mad and annoyed that he was going to get the game for free. A few hours later I went back outside and I saw he wasn’t there, I walked up to the stand and I saw the game was still there so I took it. I also grabbed a bag of golf balls he had for $10 and a few more games that were marked $1 each so he wouldn’t think it was me."
"I then ran into my apartment and the guilt was eating me up, 30 minutes later he knocked and asked if I took the games because he knew I wanted one. I told him no that I was inside the whole time. I never played any of those games I felt so damn bad I couldn’t put in my DS. I even wanted to take them back but I knew I would get caught. They did end up going to that trip, and the landlord kid was mad he didn’t get his game (I didn’t like him so I was fine with it). I still have that guilt and I remember the prices of everything and the stand."
"Edit: to clarify I’m 23 now"
Chivasguy1906
Sometimes, the hardest lessons to learn only come when you think you're at the absolute end.
Thankfully, these people were willing to share their experiences.
All It Takes Is A Lifeline To Hold On
"When I was nineteen I was seriously considering suicide. I had written letters to my family and everything. The day I was going to do it my mom took me on a surprise errand. It was a woman selling chihuahua puppies. My mom had me pick one out to be just my dog. I fell inlove with that puppy and knew I couldn't leave her by herself. My mom and that dog saved my life."
UnicornQueefsGlitter
Heartbreak So Bad You Don't Think You Can Go On
"When I was 26 I got divorced. Should have never been married to that woman but here we are. I was already in a bad mental state but that put me to the edge. I after the first couple weeks where I was kinda shell-shocked, then it really sank in and I was just looking for the best opportunity to do it."
"She calls me one day and says she’s taking my dog to the shelter because of some bullsh-t reason. I tell her to f-ck off, I’m coming to get him. I pick him up and get him home, look down at him and know that as long as I have that little fuzzy f-ck, I can’t do it. That was 7 years ago and he’s the reason I’m alive. I don’t know how I’m going to handle it when he passes."
Barf_el_Moggo
Hoping For The Best
"I'm pregnant right now, but I can't tell my husband because I usually have miscarriages. I don't want to make him sad because I know how badly he wants a second child. I'm 39 and time is running out. I'm just waiting, trying not to feel anything about it, not excitement, not sadness, just nothing"
Apprehensive-Ad4244
Something for all of us to learn, really. Make sure you're friends with people who have an eye out for you.
Feel like sharing a secret you were never going to share with anyone? Tell us all about it in the comments!
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You might think you have it bad at your job, that somehow your career of turning in spreadsheets before the boss goes home for the day or making sure your "deck" is adequately formatted will somehow bring about the end of the world if you don't spend hours on it. (This isn't really taking the weight off anyone's career. Obviously, do your best and all our jobs are important.)
But then you read about jobs like these, where even the slightest misstep could lead to actual death, and suddenly your deck doesn't seem that important anymore.
Reddit user, Guilhermedidi, wanted to know what job have zero room for error when they asked:
"What job allows NO f-ck-ups?"
When your job is to make sure other people make it out of any particular situation alive, it certainly adds another level of difficulty to your job.
Always Double Check Yourself
"The person who checks the safety harness on a bungee jump."
QuinnieB123
"I did a rock climbing wall with my friend when we were 18. They messed up and didn't secure her harness. I watched her fall from the very top. 2 weeks in the hospital. 2 months in rehab. It was awful."
exhaustedmommyof2
Too Little, Too Much
"Anesthesiologist."
[usernamedeleted]
"My cousin is an anesthesiologist at a teaching hospital. He has some stories, people with multiple pre-existing conditions, the complex cocktails of meds and monitoring needed...dang... not a profession that tolerates mistakes."
joeyjojojoeyshabadu
"And you don’t lie to your anesthesiologist."
"They don’t care if you recreationally use opioids or pot or something even heavier."
"Not disclosing to them could be fatal"
CrotalusHorridus
You Said A-, Right? RIGHT?
"Working in the blood bank. Any f-ckup, even the tiniest clerical error, can cause someone to die a horrible death."
coffeeblossom
The job itself may not even appear that challenging on the surface. Maybe a majority of your day is spent sitting around, doing nothing. However, when it comes time to be on it then you better be prepared to not make any mistakes.
Zooming Overhead
"Air traffic control. At one point, IIRC, it was ranked the most stressful job in the world based on number of decisions per minute. You're responsible for a LOT of lives."
Plug_5
Big Crane Go Boom
"My ex made a small miscalculation on an industrial part he was engineering for like a big crane and cost his company hundreds of thousands of dollars and they had to shut down. The part was for a high precision valve where even a fraction of a millimeter is the difference between something being perfect and absolutely useless."
"As a web developer if that were the case in my industry I would be out of a job today."
texting-my-cat
Watching Someone Else Face The Consequences
"The clinical technicians who prepare cellular material for bone marrow transplants."
"I worked at a major cancer treatment center across the hall from the lab that did this. They slipped up once and gave the cells for one patient to a different patient. Both patients died. One from being given incompatible cells, the other from not receiving their transplant in time after their radiation treatment."
"Lots of pain for everyone that day. Imagine losing your job because you killed two people."
scoobasquid
With consequences like these, it kind of makes you wonder why someone would take this job in the first place.
You Think Your Job Is Under A Lot Of Pressure?
"Underwater welder. And they have the fatality rate statistics to prove it."
djvandebrake
"Saturation divers in general, any time you need to be that deep for that long, any screw-up can be the last one you make."
"Underwater cave diving is generally thought of as being similarly dangerous, however nowadays you can be trained and if you spend the time to learn and understand how to avoid the main risks, you can do it relatively safely. Shout-out to Divetalk."
Tempos
One Slip Up, And You're Gone
"The people who climb and repair those radio towers. my brother fell off one of the towers while working on it, his harness luckily caught him and they got him down and he was immediately fired."
pushittothemax11
"What did he do wrong?"
KaiserRebellion
"Lost his grip and fell, if he didn’t have his safety harness on he would have died, and that’s a huge liability most employers are not willing to deal with, so yeah if you fall once it’s a done deal."
pushittothemax11
They Usually Make Movies About This Kind Of Thing
"Astronaut"
"If you mess up in space it's usually bad."
Emergency_Paperclip
Be safe out there. Seems like even driving in to the office can be the end of something.
What's so dangerous about your job? Tell us about it in the comments!
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