We unfortunately don't usually get to choose the way we (naturally) die. But wouldn't it be great if there were some things we could just avoid?
For example, nobody wants Alzheimer's. Nobody wants to drown. Nobody wants to die slowly and painfully, forgetting who they are.
Absolutely nobody.
u/Skystalker512 asked:
What is a cause of death you certainly don't want to die from?
Here were some of the answers.
Distress
A couple months ago I was on a train when it stopped and asked all medical personnel to report to my car. I look back and a man is on the floor with his girlfriend sobbing. Everyone went quiet so I heard him gasp "I....can't....breathe" and I was so scared I would witness this man's panicked last breaths. After about 20 minutes they were able to get him stable enough to carry him off.
Before I had never really thought of not being able to breathe as a terrifying way to die but damn....
Nope Nope Nope Nope
Death by lathe. It's not so much for me as it is for the poor jerk who has to untangle me.
I've seen photos of the aftermath, certainly taught me to respect the machinery.
The Trenches
Drown in the mud like soldiers during WWI
Oh damn, that. I heard Dan Carlin's podcast on Passchendele, and the unmitigated horror of slowly drowning in mud over the course of a few days haunts my sleep. They begged their brothers-in-arms to shoot them.
Nature's Slow Cooker
Glow Worms. The way they kill their prey is one of the most painful ways to die in the animal kingdom. They use the silk stands to attract prey, paralyse them, drill a hole in the side of their head and fill their insides with stomach acid, then leave them - for 2 weeks to digest.
Oddly Specific
Surviving a High-speed Car crash only to come out of surgery, live in massive pain for two days and then your heart gives out from all the excruciating pain.
Or surviving a fire but over half your body is covered in 3rd Degree wounds, only to die weeks before being cleared to leave and having to spend all those years in the burn unit only to never see the outside world again.
Mental Anguish
Killed by someone I know.
I don't want to spend the last minutes of my life with the conflicting thought of all the moments I lived with that person Vs. What they're doing to me at the moment. Fear, frustration, sadness, betrayal, pain.
Just Like Floyd Collins
John Jones, who got stuck upside down in a super tight cave passage in Utah and rescuers couldn't get him out... so they had to just let him die and then sealed the cave up.
Yeah. Not my ideal bucket kicking.
Ker-Plunk
Driving off a bridge into deep water. Its never happened to me, but for some reason the sound of a windshield cracking upon impact with water and the feeling of a seatbelt digging into my neck and hips pop up in my nightmares a lot. I have a hard time crossing bridges in vehicles, thanks to that.
The Worst Of The Worst
Giphy
Alzheimer's. I have a seizure condition, and when I have had a seizure there is a period of time where I cannot remember certain things. For instance there was an incident where I couldn't remember friends names, or how to do basic things like wash the dishes. I could not muster any memory of how to turn the water on, use the dish soap or how to actually clean the dish. It has lasted for upwards of a week. And it's scary. Because you cannot communicate meaningfully with others. So I couldn't imagine being like that without recourse.
Made Of Stone
Giphy
I remember reading about this guy that fell into a pit of concrete powder, and he inhaled some of it. It set in his lungs, causing him to very slowly and painfully suffocate.
The lungs are a series of tissues, crossing one another, which makes it worse. It's not like in a cartoon, where they're just balloons. They're like sponges to maximize surface area for respiration; having cement dust first burn and then set between the membranes is arguably the most horrible sensation I can imagine.
Stop Touch
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
The best known FOP case is that of Harry Eastlack (1933–1973). His condition began to develop at the age of ten, and by the time of his death from pneumonia in November 1973, six days before his 40th birthday, his body had completely ossified, leaving him able to move only his lips.
O.o
Lost
Like that poor chick lost in the Odessa catacombs; total darkness, panic, silence and just slowly fading from lack of EVERYTHING... cannot imagine a more drawn out and miserable way to go
So sad
Unconventional, Yet Still Horrible
Giphy
I just got told of a case, where a guy put a pantyhose over his head, added some cheddar on top and sat in front of a heating lamp. Suffocated on melting cheese. Way to go!
Reality Taken
I think more than anything on earth I'm scared of alzheimers.
To me it's just so sad.
You live a long, healthy life, with so many beautiful memories to just have them ripped away from you.
You forget your SO, then your kids, then everyone else, then what? You're alone in this world and you're stuck living with that hell.
You die with nothing, no memories, no loved ones (as far as you know) and that is the most heartbreaking thing to me.
I'd rather die than deal with that.
The hardest thing I've ever done was tell my great grandmother I love her and she doesn't even respond.
I don't want to live through that, no way in hell.
Anxietyeh
In a plane crash. The actual impact isn't what I'm talking about, it's the unbearable amount of terror you'd experience before. Like you know you're going to die while hurling to the ground, and everybody in a screaming panic around you. Gets my anxiety up whenever I think about it. I'm going on a 9 hr plane trip next month and I have a severe phobia of them.
Under The Ground
Buried alive with an oxygen tube running into the coffin/box/whatever it is you're buried in. Obviously it would suck if you were buried alive but you wouldn't be alive for long. There's only so much oxygen in that enclosed area before you run out and ultimately die (6 or so hours give or take). Well, now imagine you're buried alive but have a tube running from the coffin to the surface that provides you with enough oxygen to breathe normally. You're stuck there for days until you die of dehydration. Days trapped in a tight, enclosed area with no relief. All you can do is sit there and suffer in darkness until your body finally gives out or if you're lucky, die of shock. Sounds like a pretty terrifying way to go if you ask me.
Of course, most of the time, it was “just a phase". And looking back, those phases are regrettable, to say the least. Here are some prime examples of that.
SirGergoyFriendman asked:
What was your biggest/most regrettable "It's not a phase, mom. It's my life." that, in fact, turned out to be just a phase and not your life?
The enthusiasm of a young person can lead to some unexpected changes that parents are just not ready for.
Hi, Wheeljack!
I was VERY into The Transformers when I was a wee lad in the 1980s. One day, I decided to change my name to the name of my favorite Autobot. My name was lame, and I wanted an awesome Transformer name. And I was VERY insistent that my parents only call me by my new name. Calling me by my 'old' name would cause a big fat tantrum on my part.
So for the better part of a week, my poor parents had to call me Wheeljack.
Very 2008.
Ariana Grande Shrug GIFGiphyMy cat-ear phase. I wore cat ears every single day. Everywhere. I had like 20 pairs of them. Now everyone thinks I'm a furry.
I find that very cute and wouldn't have thought you'd be furry. Even if you'd had cat mittens. I think my suspicions would have started if you moved a bit like a cat, displayed catlike grooming habits or got a cat mask.
Not gonna lie, that car sounds cool.
I went to a car show once as a teen, and the only newer car there was some chick's PT cruiser. It was hot glittery pink, and at the time I was obsessed. I insisted that one day I would have a hot pink car, with pink seats, pink dash, pink carpets, etc. I was pretty heavily goth at the time, so my parents just rolled their eyes.
These phases can often lead to some very strange fashion choices.
That’s commitment.
When I was a teenager (early 00s), I was waiting for my mother to pick me up and was wearing one of those sh!tty sports wristwatches. It was itching me so I took it off for a second, but then she arrived and because I was struggling to get it back on my wrist, I looped it around the equally sh!tty chain I had around my neck in a rush to get out the door.
My mom asked me about it in the car, and I told her this was my new style and I planned to wear it like that every day. She rolled her eyes.
I wore that watch on a chain around my neck every single day for 3 years or so. There are even professional family photos where I'm wearing it because I refused to take it off.
One day, the chain broke and I lost the watch. I was in high school at that point anyway and it was a major lady repellent, so... phase over.
Not everyone can be Eminem.
slim shady eminem GIFGiphyBaggy pants, being a rapper someday and being a professional skater.
When I was about 14 and Eminem was starting to blow up I bought myself a keyboard with a synthesizer. It cost like $200 which was all the money I had saved up. It finally came (this was way before amazon prime and such) and I tried rapping.
My sister told me "you're effing horrible" and I gave up right then and there.
This should be a sin.
I used to button the top buttons of polo shirts.
I must say, this is probably the worst one I've read.
Looking back at our regrettable choices, all we can do is cringe.
An optimistic look at bad tattoos.
check me out season 3 GIF by PortlandiaGiphyBeing a tattooer. Regrettable because of those poor people who have my awful doodles on their bodies.
Take heart! My favorite tattoo is the one I drunkenly got my buddy to do in his living room one year during March Madness! It's dumb and frankly mediocre? But such a good story and has such good associations I smile every time I see it.
RIP Fredro’s.
My friend and I decided we were going to open a bar in Jamaica with exotic snakes in glass cages in the walls at each booth. We convinced ourselves it would be amazing for at least two years in college. It was going to be called Fredro's.
My entire family made fun of me for it. Once we got out of college, we realized it was not feasible and joined the office grind. We're also two white guys with no ties to Jamaica.
Talk about cringey.
I wore a top hat with an anime pin on it for around a year. Met one of my current best friends while wearing it, idk how he could bear to speak to me after that.
My weirdest phase was probably when I insisted on wearing knee-high rainbow socks to school every day. But honestly, I don't regret it. I rocked those socks, and I wish I still have a pair.
To all the people out there cringing over their past selves, remember that you were just a kid, and to be easy on yourselves. After all, we've all been there
Yet, too often, manufacturers who oversell their products fail to deliver what is promised and are inevitably left with angry customers who want their money back.
Whether the merchandise was defective or ridiculously overpriced, strangers online shared some of their worst purchases when Redditor BooksMcGee asked:
"What is the worst product you ever paid money for?"
Short Life Span
"This NERF gun that's supposed to shoot tennis balls for your dog. I bought it cause I thought you could load 3 at a time and shoot them far, but it's just one and it's super loud and the gun broke after like 4 shots (reading reviews later, this was a common issue)."
Lame Pets
"There were these toys called squiggles when I was a kid and the commercials made it seem like the toy was alive. It looked like you would get this crazy little fuzzy worms as pets that would follow you around an so sick tricks and listen to your every command. It was really just a piece of fluffy string tied to another piece of string with googly eyes on it. People may say that it was supposed to be a magic trick but they should also explain that to a 5 year old who really wanted a pet."
Card Value
"Not their fault, but I paid $70 for a Yugioh card hours before it was limited to one copy. Probably dropped to $20 by the end of the day."
These purchases were bad for your bum.
"A bicycle that literally fell apart before I made it out of the parking lot."
Not Worth Sitting On
"Joybird brand couch. Was so terrible, we returned it. Still hard to believe, we returned a freaking couch."
Going Nowhere Fast
"A 2000 VW Beetle (used)."
"Biggest piece of sh*t that literally had to have just about everything replaced before 100k miles and would still break down every time you left the driveway to the point where the tow-truck driver knew us on a first-name basis."
Expensive Lemon
"An Oldsmobile Achieva from one of those buy here pay here places. I should have known better, but I was young and thought I was getting a good deal. I had the thing for about 5 months, I drove it for maybe 3 weeks. The rest of the time it was either in the shop, or in my driveway waiting until pay day so I could afford to fix whatever broke on it this week. Eventually told the dealer just take it, I'm not paying for it any more. He said nope, and I will make sure your credit is ruined. I said well you sold me a lemon, do you really want to go this route? He came and took it. Never reported anything to credit. I heard he got sued by several other people who sold sh**ty cars too and eventually went out of business."
"Always amazes me when I see them driving around still, I can only assume there's enthusiasts who just love repairing horribly designed cars."
– zerbey
These Redditors were not convinced what they ingested was edible.
Bad Cereal
"A box of plain Cheerios. Thought they were honey nut, poured a bowl, was very disappointed."
"If I wanted to taste cardboard, I'd just eat the box."
– gor8884
Space Pizza
"A burnt frozen pizza at the air and space museum cafe in DC. I Don't wish that experience on anyone. There are some amazing restaurants in DC, don't settle."
– Alseids
The following electronics just gave off a bad charge.
"Asus Transformer Pad TF700"
"This was one of those early 'high end' Android tablets that was grossly underpowered, and it showed. Thing was slow as sh!t in no time flat. Rookie mistake investing into shiny new tech while they were still working all the bugs out. Think I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $350-400 for it..."
– Luke5119
Bad Apple
"macbook pro 2018 13" touchbar. 2 years old and dead (battery). they're asking $300-$400 to change the battery. malfunctioning keyboard with double presses and missing presses. that's a lot of money for bad design."
Chilly Reception
"Past winter my old room heater broke down and I had to buy a new one. Went to a store nearby and somehow got convinced to buy a very costly heating device.. It's also my fault, since there were some sligthly cheaper options around, but nope. I wanted the expensive one thinking it will make my small room a volcano with little to no effort/cost (that's also what the seller told me). Long story short the device wasn't doing ANYTHING. No significant temperature changes, too much space, a weird noise, and was doubling my previous device in utility cost. I still gloom over those 80 euros.."
Some of my disappointing purchases was clothing, but only because I purchased them online. Unless they are a brand I'm familiar with, I'm usually fine with buying new jeans off of their websites.
But when it comes to graphic tees only available on specialty shops, an M-size shirt is not necessarily the same size as those found in other reputable stores.
I bought a medium sized T-shirt from a boutique store online because I loved the look of the design. But when it arrived, the supposed medium fit me like an XL.
At least I gained a fierce cleaning rag from this impulsive purchase.