Imagine this: your grandfather just passed away. After the funeral, you head over to his house, unfold the boxes, line the bottoms with tape, and begin to pack away the contents of his life. You sift through old records, browned silverware, the silly baseball cap he used to wear to family picnics every year. You open the drawer to pull out his clothing some to keep, some to donate but... hold on...
WHAT IN THE WORLD?
Yeah, you've found it. Your grandpa's collection of anal beads.
As much as it makes you cringe to envision the deepest regions of your Grandpa's butthole, you smile just a little. Yeah, my Grandpa still had it goin' on.
Thanks to the awesome folks at Reddit who contributed their answers to this question. Some answers are silly, some are sad, some are even infuriating. In the end, these are the stories that make us all human. Enjoy!
1/30. A meter long bright pink floppy vibrating snake dildo
2/30. Not a grandparent but a great-aunt. She died in her 80s. Clearing out her kitchen cupboards and we found, in a pile of plastic bags, a loaded Smith and Wesson pistol. We're in the UK. We had to call the police who took it away and disposed of it.
3/30. Not so much shocking, but sad.
My great-aunt had a leather jacket, photos and letters this boy she liked had given her.
I'd heard the story in pieces from her over the years. She was banned from seeing him because he was a Catholic. Her parents hauled her off to Singapore to stop her from seeing him. He died in the war, and her father died during the Fall of Singapore. Her mother re-married, and she spent her whole life living in their house, looking after them until they died.
I never realised she'd kept all his things.
4/30. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my great grandfather died. After the funeral everybody was invited to go back to his house and go through his belongings. My great grandmother had died the year before, and my grandfather's will stated he wanted all of his possessions to be given to his family. I went upstairs with my mom to my grandfathers room. Upon going through his closet, we discovered a small chest with my grandfather's Klu Klux Klan robe, along with a ton of photos of him at clan meetings. That was also the day I first found out what racism was.
5/30. When my dad died I found a file on his computer that listed all the women he had had sex with. He wrote it in cypher but he's the one who taught me to solve cryptograms so it wasn't too difficult to figure it out. Twenty six women, despite being married for all but two years of his adult life.
6/30. After my uncle passed away in October, we were quite surprised to find that, despite his hermetic lifestyle and shoddy abode, he had over half a million in cash.
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7/30. A sap. It's the lead weighted, leather wrapped club favored by tough guys and mobsters in the 20's and 30's. My grandfather had it in the door pocket of his white ford taurus.
My grandfather was six five, a big man, I have a ring of his you can fit a quarter through. Even at 75 he was not to be fucked with.
I also inherited a pocket sized .25 caliber pistol from him.
8/30. When my grandmother passed, my mom, sister, and I went through the house - top to bottom. Aside from some cool photographs showing my grandmother as a teen/young adult I found some letters between my grandfather and her. In one letter, presumably building off of something she said, he asked if she'd been raped. I only had his correspondence, so I don't know the answer. I stopped reading at that anyway. My mom also found her journal. It was full of comments from a very depressed, tired woman.
Moral of the story: even after death, leave loved ones' letters and journals alone.
9/30. When my uncle died I went and helped clean his place out and I ended up finding his stash of pot. I just threw it away so my grandmother didn't have to see since she was already upset enough.
10/30. After my grandad died we found out that his dad (my great grandad) was a deputy chief Templar in India. We found a photograph and certificate - though now my mother has them (we don't talk, so now I guess I'll never be able to investigate further). We're all from England and had absolutely no idea. Weird.
11/30. After my grandma died I was going through her belongings, and hidden in the very top corner of her closet I found a box containing a "personal massager" from the 70's.
12/30. His porn. I'm not talking about a few DVDs and mags, I'm talking Costco volumes. Oh, and his guide to sado-mashocism, with bookmarks.
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13/30. I discovered that my Great Great Great Grandfather's brother won a Nobel prize.
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14/30. I was responsible for my great uncle's estate. I found a briefcase cleverly hidden beneath a drawer. It contained his porn on VHS, a sex-adventure book, and a LOT of possibly prescription pills imported from Europe. Everything else was totally standard.
15/30. After my grandad died I found boxes of lube and condoms. Weird cause he was really old and it was brand new lube.
16/30. Not a parent, but my wife left incredibly loving statements about me in her diary.
I still haven't been able to gut through reading the whole thing, but I did flip to the back and found where she wrote, "I knew you'd look back here. Thank you for slumming it with me all these years."
For the record, I've never "slummed" a day in my life.
17/30. After my grandmother passed we were packing up her clothes to give to charity when we found her purse (she had been sick for years and hadn't used it in a long time). Tucked inside her wallet was a love letter that she had been carrying for over 60 years. It was not from my grandfather. It was from a man she dated before grandpa who had gone off to fight in WWII. The letter was super steamy. He was writing to her from England just before D-Day. We assume he died shortly after.
18/30. I discovered that my Dad wrote sardonic and witty asides in the margins of many if his books, which were great to read as they were just so him.
Continue reading people's incredible stories on the next page!
19/30. My mom was planning on divorcing my stepdad and kidnapping her friend's baby.
Her death was sudden - an aneurysm in her bran had ruptured. When she was in the hospital her lawyer called her cell phone, which is how I found out about the planned divorce. I never told my stepdad.
The kidnapping wasn't obvious, but we were able to piece it together when going through her belongings.
My mom adored her friend's baby. She had a room in the house for her with a dresser full of outfits. When we were cleaning up we discovered that this dresser was empty, save for a few diapers. Her luggage was also missing. It was odd, but we didn't think too much about it until we found contact information for the landlord of the house she was renting in the next state. A house which she had rented under her maiden name. A house where we found suitcases with my mom's and the baby's clothes.
It sounds terrible, but we were lucky she died when she did.
20/30. After my mom passed, my dad discovered she had been carrying on an affair for years while going through her email account. It's messed him up pretty bad and now he's obsessed with the idea of getting revenge on the guy. I wish I had never found out because it's almost ruined the image of my mom in my head.
21/30. Not my parent, but had a friend disappear 2 years ago and his body was found several states away about 4 months later.
After he had gone missing, his parents got into his apartment and he'd packed up most of his stuff into boxes giving them to different people. His parents each got one, brother, sister, a few friends and I got a small box. He included a note to please honor his request to not open the boxes and give them to the people they were for. They held the boxes until his body was found.
His parents dropped my box by my house after the funeral and we talked for a bit. He'd had some mental issues and they were glad he felt he was finally at peace even though it ended this way.
Going through the box, he gave me ...
some PSone games we'd played together, a small lego set of a car I'd given him for christmas when we were 13 or 14. the last thing in the box was a note book. I opened it and it was a bunch of short stories he'd written. I paged through it and the stories started getting violent and scarey. The last few pages were drawings of dismembered people and animals. It looked very much like Patrick Bateman's planner at the end of American Psycho.
He'd always been a little off and taken medicine for it as long as I'd known him. We would talk 2-3 times a month, but I didn't know it had gotten as bad as it did for him.
I miss him and am sad he's gone, but I'm more sad he thought this was the only thing he could do.
22/30. When my grandma died 8 years ago, my aunts and uncles (my mum has 5 siblings to make a total of 6) found a box. Inside was a black and white photo of a baby boy and a name, date of birth and hospital name scribbled on it. Turns out my gran gave up a baby for adoption after she...
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had my mum, so there's a long lost uncle somewhere out there. As far as I know, no one has tried to track him down yet.
23/30. My grandfather hated cats. Couldn't stand them Wouldn't have them in his house, any time we talked about wanting a cat he'd harrumph and ramble about dogs.
A few years after he passed, my grandmother was moving out to live in a retirement apartment, so she didn't have to deal with stairs or worry about having another fall. As we cleaned, we started going through a lot of my grandfather's stuff. We found, in a box in the basement, a framed picture of my grandfather as a young child, holding a cat. On the back of the picture, lightly in pencil, is the cat's name. No one knows a thing about it, and we can only speculate. But clearly, at one point, he loved that cat.
24/30. When my grandfather died I found an old medal. There were two man on a motorcycle, one of them was driving and the other one was standing up on his seat. I asked by dad about it and it turns out that
my grandfather used to be a motorcycle acrobat. Seriously, how rare was that? How many motorcycle acrobats used to be in middle Europe around 1960/70?
25/30. My dad died a few years ago just before christmas. It was the first death in our family in a long time and it came out of nowhere so everyone was shocked. He still had packages coming in the mail for christmas so I would grab them because I wanted to wrap them up for the people and give them as a last gift from him.
I started opening the packages in my room and just dumping them on my bed. First one was a guitar wall mount, second one was some miscellaneous electronic components and the last one dumped out in slow motion. It was a cock ring, vibrator and some massage oils. I was mortified and just threw them back in the package.
I still have the box tucked on top of my closet because I have no idea wtf to do with it. I just can't give it to my mom because it'd be awkward and I can't use it myself because it'd be awkward so it just sits in my closet and every once in awhile I come across it and laugh.
26/30. My mom died of cancer a couple years ago. While I was going through her office I did some math and figured that she spent just shy of $200,000 on shamans, miracle cures and weird investments in South America during the last two years of her life.
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27/30. My grandfather took my grandmothers phone after she had passed. I had never called the number until 9 months later. Her voicemail was still set to her voice. It made me cry like a baby.
28/30. I found a folder of letters between my two grandmothers. My parents split when I was two, and my mother got together with a psycho when I was five. They were basically conspiring for my entire childhood to protect me as much as they could, and make sure that I had something of a childhood.
29/30. I was cleaning out my parent's attic after they both died (car crash) and I found a bunch of stuff from their teenage hood. They got married when they were in their twenties but had been high school sweethearts before that. Everyone just kind of saw them as this perfect, kind of square couple that settled early. Turns out they were both really into the kink scene back in the day. I'm talking old school kink scene, before the days of the internet when different sexual fetishes were accepted and sex positivity was a thing. There were tons of homemade sex toys, bondage material, and a scrapbook of the kink meetups they would go to secretly together. I have a whole new level of respect for my parents.
-Anonymous
30/30. After my grandpa died, I was scouring through his things and discovered a photo album and a few other documents hidden under one of the bases of the drawers in the dresser. It was him with his wife, him with his kids, him holding his grandchild. Except for they weren't my family. I did a little investigating and found an address in one of the photos. I went to the house, which led me to another house, which led me to my
grandfather's second wife. Not second as in the one he had after my Grandma. Like, simultaneous wife. We all knew that he was a huge business guy who was away a lot, but I never thought that it could be to go to his other life three towns away. To my family, he was known as Norm. To theirs, Teddy. I have no clue what his real name even was. I don't even know who he married first. I may have aunts, uncles, related blood family that I've never met, but after figuring it out I asked the woman to never try to contact me and I hightailed it out of there. Somehow I was able to gather all this information from this woman without letting her in on the secret, so I'm the only one that knows (to my knowledge). I don't plan on telling anyone. I don't want to be the reason for so many people's lives being ruined especially when they were all mourning his loss. Wherever you are, Grandpa, I still love you, and your secret's safe with me.
- Anonymous
External image source: Anonymous for Shutterstock
When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
Money Burn GIF by nog
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.