Medical workers are used to seeing shocking things. Even so, sometimes, even the most seasoned professionals are left astonished. Doctors, nurses, and even some patients on Reddit share some of their OMG moments that left them speechless.
1. Papering Over The Crack
I was working as a surgical junior when my team was called down to A&E to see a patient who had come in with a complication from a recent hernia operation. When we came down, we saw that the patient was holding a plastic bag over their abdomen.
When this was removed, we found that their wound had opened, and their intestine was visible to the air. But that wasn't the worst part. It transpired that this was not something that had happened overnight; it had taken several days.
The patient had started using plastic bags and newspaper to dress the wound when they ran out of dressings.
2. She Had A Bone To Pick With Him
This middle-aged married couple in rural Alabama had presented to the ER after they had been drinking for almost the entirety of the evening and got into a heated argument. Things got intense, and the woman eventually fell off the porch of their trailer into the shrubs a few feet below.
The husband, in his plastered state, suddenly dropped the argument and came to his wife's aid. She didn't suffer anything too serious, just a couple of scratches here and there, except for what the man said looked like a piece of glass, pipe, or something that became lodged in the woman's arm when she hit the ground.
He decided not to come to the hospital because he could remove this object himself. He got his largest pair of pliers and gripped onto this glass/pipe-looking thing lodged in his helpless wife's arm. He clamped down and pulled and pulled, cranked and cranked, trying to remove this object, and it wouldn't budge.
After his masculinity was defeated and the booze wore off on both of them, they decided it sensible to come to the ER finally. Upon arriving at the ER, the doctor immediately made the most disturbing discovery. He realized this poor woman had a compound fracture of her humerus.
This "pipe or piece of glass thing" was her bone sticking through her skin that her husband was trying to pry out with a pair of pliers.
3. On The Fence About His Care
danger electric fence signPhoto by Alan J. Hendry on UnsplashI was a nurse and worked in a very rural hospital. We had a patient population that seemed to avoid the hospital at all costs. My favorite was an elderly farmer who came in with chest pain that, “Wouldn't go away”, as he put it. When we asked him if he had it before, he said that he had been having chest pain on and off for years, but it would typically go away after he grabbed his electric fence.
Apparently, the first time he had the pain, he was standing out near an electric fence on his farm. He reached out to steady himself and accidentally grabbed the electric fence, which shocked him, and made the pain go away. So after that, whenever he would have the pain, he just went and grabbed the fence and it made him feel better.
He had literally been cardioverting himself for years.
4. An Unwelcomed Vacation Souvenir
A friend, who is a family doctor, was treating a pre-teen girl who was complaining about pain in the back of her neck. He did a preliminary examination and found a lump, and thought that it was likely a cyst that had become infected. The parents agreed that he should remove it. That's when he noticed it move.
It was a large botfly larva that the girl had picked up while vacationing with the family in South America and was the size of a nickel.
5. Scraping At The Stink
A woman about 35 years old came in for a Pap smear. I saw something dark brown in the right lateral fornix. My first thought was cancer. I tried to gently scrape at this dark brown area to get a feel of what it was when the smell hit me. My medical assistant scooted away to the edge of the room.
I stopped breathing through my nose and started to breathe only a couple of times a minute from my mouth, turning my head away from the source of the smell to take a breath. Maneuvering the speculum a bit more and scraping a bit at the brown area some more revealed an answer to the mystery.
It was a thick cylindrical clump of something—an old tampon! The patient had no idea that it was there, and her period had ended over a week ago. So this thing had been there for over a week and the lady was walking around living life as usual. Thankfully she did not get TSS.
Retrieval of the tampon was uneventful and the lady was sent home with advice on being more careful with remembering to take out tampons, or perhaps consider switching to pads instead.
6. Freed By A Falling Flap
man sitting on grey sofaPhoto by Jonathan Borba on UnsplashMy mom is a nurse and has seen some pretty messed-up things. The one story that sticks in my mind involved an elderly man who came into the hospital three times a week to have a growth on his face washed and redressed. The growth had slowly taken over the left-hand side of his face, so much so that his left eye—his only working eye—had closed over. He was effectively blind.
This meant that his wife—whom he had been looking after for years due to her frailty—was now tasked with looking after him instead. Furthermore, this bloke was old enough that the hospital didn’t want to operate on him. So the hospital visits stopped.
He could no longer get there, so instead, a nurse would visit him three times a week. The growth was unsightly, wept constantly, and smelled bad—really bad. The whole house stank of it. During one of these visits by my mom, she was cleaning his face over the sink and noticed a flap of loose skin.
She went to clean it with the sponge and the unthinkable happened. “SQQUELPCH”! The growth fell off into the sink, and it was CRAWLING with maggots. The sink was now filled with necrotic flesh and maggots. It turned out a fly had laid some eggs on it at some point.
They had hatched and started eating all the necrotic flesh in the growth until it fell off. The man was fine. There was new, pink skin where the growth had been, and he could see again out of his left eye. It gave him a new lease on life.
7. Totally Tongue-Tied
I noticed a small lump in the middle of my tongue and thought, "Oh, I must have burned it, whatever". The next morning, however, it had grown by a lot. It was freaky-looking, so I told my mom. She flipped out and took me to the doctor right away. Near tears along with my mother in the ER, we waited for hours as she bothered the attending nurse to no end.
Finally, they called my name and brought me to a room. It started as a normal visit until the doctor said, "I've never seen anything like that". My mom was crying, and my heart was pounding. Growing up in a medical community, my 10-year-old brain was conditioned to think that doctors knew everything. They brought in another doctor and another.
Then, they put me on a dentist-style chair with huge, bright lights shining on me. Before long, there were five doctors and the chief of staff staring at my tongue. My mom was sitting silent in the corner absolutely horrified. So what did this brain trust of brilliant medical minds come up with? "We're going to try poking it". Even at 10, I was thinking, "Can I get a second opinion?"
I could not, however, talk because they were literally holding my tongue. They sprayed me with a local anesthetic that tasted like mustard, and the chief surgeon washed up, and put on goggles and a mask. He slowly moved a shining metal prod into my mouth; I could feel the pressure on my tongue. He pulled back, looked at me, and asked me possibly the grandest non-sequitur I've heard in my entire life.
"When was the last time you ate popcorn"? I was completely caught off guard and said, "A couple of days ago". I remembered because I was trying to eat it quietly as we watched The X-Files. So the doctor sets on my bib a perfect half of a kernel husk. It had, apparently, suctioned itself to my tongue, and because tongue tissue is so quick to generate, it was essentially absorbed by my body.
Lots of doctors were laughing, my mom was crying for joy now, and I was totally stunned. I even wound up in a big medical journal because of it.
8. The Endless Gaping Wound
I was the tissue viability nurse for my ward which basically meant I went around checking people are not developing ulcers from being stuck in bed too long. I was doing a normal round and I came to a 19-year-old who had just had a lung procedure. "This will be quick," I thought to myself, as younger people are generally at a lower risk for these things.
I had been looking after this guy for a few days post-op. We were both pretty young and I got to build up a good rapport with him. So, I approached him and explained how I need to check his sacral area (aka the rear) and apologized, saying it should only take a glance.
He laughed it off and said, "Actually, there is something there. I didn't really want anyone to see, so I have not mentioned it before but for the last YEAR it is always painful when I go to the toilet and wipe after". At that point, alarm bells rang, and I went full-nurse mode and decided that something was not quite right.
So, I put on my protective gear, drew his curtains, and dove on in. However, I was NOT prepared for what was there. As I pulled his cheeks apart to inspect the skin, it literally just kept going, right down to muscle and bone. The worst part, though, was it was full of infection.
The smell was so powerful, it literally hit me in the face. Not only was there a bacterial infection, but a fungal one too. It was as if Jackson Pollock had gone up in there and created a masterpiece. I did not dare part the wound open all the way because I could not see how deep it went.
I turned to the poor guy and explained he had a serious wound there, and I needed to get the doctor to look at it. He was amazing about it. While I was fetching the doc, he got his friend to take a picture on his phone so he could see it. I will never forget the words he said when I came back around the curtain.
He said, "Oh my God. MY [REAR] GOES ON FOREVER. No wonder it hurt". At that point, I nearly keeled over laughing. He made a full recovery.
9. Her Vile Vapor Filled The Vents
woman in teal shirt wearing white maskPhoto by SJ Objio on UnsplashI was working in a smallish hospital in a rural town in Australia. We were asked by the medical team to see a patient who had been admitted under their care by the emergency department overnight with a CT demonstrating a very distended bladder. They apparently had trouble with a catheter, so they called me to have a look.
With much hesitation, I went up to see her in the ward. I managed to put the catheter in with a lot of trouble. A little bit of urine drained out, and I just kept thinking something was not right. I went back and looked at the CT scan and the IDC placed in the emergency department looked like it was appropriately positioned and subsequently pulled out.
Behind it, was one big uterus, absolutely full of what appeared to be a fluid density. The report read that there was a very distended bladder, the catheter balloon was situated in the PROSTATIC URETHRA, and moderate to severe hydronephrosis was noted. I spoke to the consultant, and we got her to the theater.
With great difficulty, we managed to dissect our way around this HUGE uterus, and we called the O&G guys to come and help get it out. Unfortunately, during this process, the uterus burst and there was a boatload of pus that just streamed out. It smelled horrible.
There were people gagging around us at this yellow-green, sulfuric-smelling goo. The scrub nurse could no longer take it and vomited in her mask. We finished this case; I went home and kept thinking I could still smell this awful thing. The morning came, and I couldn’t have breakfast because I could still smell it.
I got to the hospital, and EVERYONE was wearing masks. Apparently, the smell was so horrible, and the extraction in our theater was so outdated that it had somehow pumped the smell into the vents around the hospital. All night, small amounts were leaking out into the atmosphere, causing this horrendous smell.
The lady lived for another three years.
10. The Ugly Tooth
I was a children’s nurse. On my first week in the pediatric ED, we had a young girl, about six or seven, come in with a really swollen jaw and face. The poor girl was unable to move her jaw without intense pain and hadn’t been able to eat for several days.
It turned out she had only just started cleaning her teeth for the first time ever, and managed to develop several abscesses and rotten teeth in the process. To make it worse, her mom told us she was recovering from the same procedures to remove most of her teeth because of almost the same thing.
They didn’t want to bother going to the GP, as they thought she was just messing about to get out of school.
11. Cooked To A Crisp
I am a med student, and I've seen some pretty nasty stuff, but the best stories come courtesy of my parents, who are both doctors. My dad's story occurred while we were living in Scotland in the early 90s. It was a particularly sunny day by Scottish standards and one of the rare days you might be able to get a tan. The Scots are not known for their ability to tan, and the typical Celtic Scots less so.
However, one such Celt was rather overzealous and decided he would really go for it on this day in question. He cracked out several sheets of tin foil and basted himself in cooking oil. Probably the biggest mistake of his life. Needless to say, he pitched up to the ED a few hours later with third-degree burns all over his body.
12. Bag It Up!
people in white shirt holding clear drinking glassesPhoto by National Cancer Institute on UnsplashThere was a patient who came in with a well-known history of diabetes. When I saw him, the worst of it was already over, but he still had legs like sausages, and the smell in the room was like a garbage dump. There were these strange bands around his ankles that were indented to over a centimeter deep. Apparently, he had developed an ulcer on his foot.
Instead of cleaning it and bandaging it, he decided to just put a sock over it. Eventually, the ulcer developed into gangrene, and the pus began to soak through the sock. The smell became overwhelming, even for him, so he decided to seek medical attention as a responsible adult would do. Just kidding—he put a plastic bag over it.
Eventually, the pus seeped around the edges of the bag and started leaking again, giving rise to the horrific smell. Now things were getting out of control, so he decided to get it properly looked at. Got you again! He put another plastic bag over it. This process was repeated about 9–10 times.
In the ER, they had been peeling off this giant mass of plastic and necrotic tissue glued together with pus and held on with elastic bands around the ankles. It was like his foot turned into a giant onion with each layer smelling worse than the previous one.
Two or three nurses apparently threw up and they had to rotate people in to do the next layer. He wasn't even in much pain because he had long-standing neuropathy in his feet, which was why he was able to ignore the problem for so long.
13. Bladder Leakage
I have seen a lot of things, but the one thing that really sticks out is something I saw as a medical student. I was on a general medicine rotation and was seeing an elderly lady for urinary problems. Specifically, she was having trouble holding her urine. She mentioned in passing that she had something coming out of her, like a mass, but she couldn't see what it was.
My resident and I decided that we ought to take a look. Upon examining her pelvic region, we were unable to use a speculum to visualize the interior of her parts because there was a firm mass protruding from her. That's when we made a chilling realization. The mass was her bladder. It had prolapsed.
14. An Out Of This World Excuse
I was a med student and have a few stories. This one isn't gross, it’s just sort of a Twilight Zone moment. I was explaining to a woman that we needed to do an MRI and she calmly informed me that she couldn't get an MRI because she had a metal tracking device in her body that had been implanted 10 years previously when she was abducted by aliens.
Previous to that, I had been speaking with her for an hour, and she had given every indication of being a perfectly sane and normal person with intact mental faculties. I just replied, without skipping a beat, that we could safely CT her instead. Virtually nothing shocks me anymore.
15. Blind To The Truth
black and gray wheelchair on blue floorPhoto by vitor camilo on UnsplashI had a patient come in saying he couldn’t see. When we asked how long it had been going on, they said five days. The man had been blind for five days and didn’t come in because he thought it might be “like a cold or something”. During the exam, when I asked him to move his legs he said, “Oh, I can’t do that”. My jaw DROPPED.
I asked how long he’d been unable to move his legs or walk and his wife chimed in, “About two years”. He never saw a doctor about it. They just borrowed a friend’s wheelchair and kept it rolling. It turned out he’d had multiple strokes with multiple risk factors he never addressed.
Given how little insight he appeared to have into the condition, I honestly felt sorry for him.
16. Some Crazy Monkey Business
A good friend of mine is a nurse and by nature has the best stories. She was working the med-surg floor in the hospital and had a female patient who was so obese, she needed a service animal to help her. It was not a dog, as most people would think, but a monkey.
This lady had a service monkey that would get her glasses for her, grab the remote for the TV—all kinds of things. It was odd, but not really a crazy moment...until she walked into the room to take the woman’s vitals and found her with the monkey sucking on her bosom feeding it.
17. Stash Bang
I was working in the ER one night when a woman came in with a "retained foreign body". When I went in to see her, she told me she had been doing the deed, and the man told her that something had slipped off inside her. She tried to retrieve it but was unable to, but she could feel that something was in there.
I grabbed a nurse, a speculum, and some forceps and took a look. There was certainly something in there, but not what I was expecting. I pulled it out, and it was a $20 bill. I asked her if she had put it in there, and she said she hadn't. She was clearly as confused as I was.
I asked her if she wanted it, and she declined. Needless to say, it went in the trash. I could never come up with an adequate explanation of why this woman had a $20 bill in her, nor why her partner would have put it there.
18. The Discovery Of A Tasty Treat
woman in blue and white polo shirt standing on yellow flower field during daytimePhoto by Luke Jones on UnsplashMy dad is a nurse. I have asked him this question before and most of the stories are about people who come in with deodorant cans up their rears and try to claim that they were climbing in a window and fell on the can or something. However, there is one story that he has told me that really stands out.
When my dad was in his mid-20s, he worked in the emergency department of a hospital. One day, this overweight lady came in complaining of abdominal pain. They started to look her over. Everything was going fine until they decided to look in the folds of her gigantic stomach when they smelled this horrible smell.
They found a decomposed chicken wing covered in maggots, which had started eating at part of her skin. Yum.
19. A Bundle Of Joy
I was on OB/GYN rotations, delivering my first baby. It was an older lady from the rural side of town. When I asked her to push as the baby had fully crowned, a bundle of worms exited her rear. I'm talking at least 60 live worms. I gagged so hard but managed to keep a straight face throughout and deliver the baby.
I realized then and there that OB/GYN was not for me.
20. What’s In The Bag?
I was an ER nurse. We brought in a code trauma off the helicopter; a lady who was a passenger in a really bad wreck. Her husband was driving and lost his life at the scene. Once we got her stable, the OR staff came to take her to surgery. I gathered up the clothes we had cut off of her and grabbed her purse that the EMTs had removed from the car.
There was a lot of blood on it, so I thought I should just grab her wallet instead. What happened next still haunts me. I reached in and grabbed what I thought was her wallet and pulled it out—it had hair. It was a chunk of her husband's scalp.
21. Quaking In His Shoes
man in blue and orange adidas crew neck t-shirt standing beside white van during daytimePhoto by Michel E on UnsplashMy friend worked as a paramedic in Hamburg for some time. They were called to an unconscious person who was slumped down on a park bench close to the train station. They approached the guy and tried to wake him up, checked his vital signs, etc, then put him on the ground. He had no shoes on but had wrapped up his legs in plastic bags.
If you have ever been around addicts, you know most of them don't smell too good. After a while, they just give up on personal hygiene, which, incidentally, is actually more dangerous than the substance itself since they tend not to treat their scabs, etc. This guy reeked to high heaven, and once they proceeded to check his plastic bag shoes, they discovered the heartbreaking reason why.
His legs up to his knees were completely black and full of maggots. He had an infection in both legs due to using needles and never treated them. Once they lifted the plastic bags up a little, which were melted into his decaying flesh, little mountains of maggots would fill around his feet.
It was hands down, one of the most disgusting things he had seen.
22. The Crusty Old Man
When I was working in the ER one evening, I had my worst experience so far. I was called to one of the examination rooms that were designated for infectious patients. This was already a bad sign as it usually involved some sort of abscess that needed to be drained. However, this time it was far worse.
I was told by the nurse that it involved a man who had bilateral venous ulcers on his legs and that they were now infected. I looked through his journal and saw that he last saw a doctor about ten months earlier, and no note of any check-ups after, not by a nurse or a GP.
Therefore, I asked my nurse when someone last took a look at his legs. They replied, "Not since his last journal entry". Then I asked when was the last time he changed his dressings on the legs. They said, "He hasn't". The patient was an old man who lived by himself in his trailer that was parked in the middle of the forest.
He had no running water. He was a bit of a drinker and had a general "I don't care” mentality. I suited up and went into the room. The room smelled like an odd combination of stale brew, mold, and disease. Certain infections smell different, and this one was very pungent, almost sulphuric.
I introduced myself to the patient who didn't understand what he was doing there. All he wanted was some antibiotics for the flu, and then he was sent here. He asked, "Why do you want to look at my legs for? They were already taken care of last year". We started unfolding the dressing.
They were crusty and crackled as we unwrapped the first leg. As we got deeper, it changed color to some sickly yellow and the stench became worse and worse. One of my nurses left the room to throw up. Then I saw it. It was very small but inside a fold, there was a little maggot who squirmed.
When we finally got to the wound, we saw all the little maggots feasting on this man. There must have been 50 of them. The stench was absurd, I was focusing a lot on breathing through my mouth, but then it felt like I could taste them, which made it even worse.
My nurse came back and promptly went out again. I unwrapped his other leg and, same story there, but the infection was much deeper and I could see a few tendons on the base of the ulcer. We had to clean off the maggots and place them in a bowl, but they were squirming, and went on the floor and crawled all over the place. I had to watch my feet so I didn't step on them.
After that, we took the patient to hose him down to at least try to get rid of some of the smell. Then, we booked to the OR for debridement and a fresh vacuum dressing. He was discharged a few days later with strict instructions, and we booked him in to return for re-dressings and check-ups. Then, we never heard from him again.
23. Dancing With Doom
There used to be a well-known patient who would present to the emergency department with frequent urinary tract infections. Urinary tract infections are much less common in men than in women and don't occur sporadically that often. This gentleman was a male exotic dancer, and his party trick would be what he called a "ruby shower".
In essence, he would empty his bladder, and replace its contents, via a catheter, with red wine. He would then empty his bladder during his performances. Unfortunately, fate caught up with him. One infection became too severe and he did not survive.
24. Guess What Was Bugging Him
When attending a urology conference, you get to hear quite a few stories. My favorite even had a video along with the question, "Guess what we're looking at?" My guess was what was being shown was the inside of a bladder—got that part right—and two small corn cobs floating around inside of it.
Two small corn cobs would have been weird enough as it is, but we were looking at two slugs. Apparently, the patient walked into the hospital claiming that something did not feel right when peeing. After being confronted with the contents of his bladder, he claimed that he had taken a nap in the grass the day before, and the slugs "must have crawled inside by themselves" without him noticing.
25. Intestical Distress
two men wearing blue lab coatsPhoto by Olga Guryanova on UnsplashI recently spent some time working in the operating department and one day we had a "giant inguinal hernia". At this point, in my experience in the hospital, I thought nothing could surprise me, but dear Lord, was I wrong! The patient had mental health issues, and we got him on the table, knocked out with anesthetics, and pulled off his gown to take a look.
We did an open surgery through his abdomen and spent hours pulling his INTESTINES out of his family jewels. Basically, the guy’s abdominal wall broke through and allowed his intestines to slowly fill them up, but this had been going on for years before he got it checked.
26. Two Gut-Busting Dilemmas
My father-in-law, Dr J, was an ER doctor for 20 years. Twice he's been really surprised. The first time was a patient that came in holding his stomach, with the front of his jacket bloody. He looked very out of it, and it was obvious he was under the influence of something. Dr J asked him what the problem was, and the guy calmly said, "My stomach hurts".
He went to have a look. As he pulled the guy's coat away, the worst happened. His intestines spilled onto the floor! It turned out he and a friend were getting high when the friend accidentally blasted him in the stomach. He explained it very matter-of-factly, "Oh man, I need to go to the hospital".
The other incident was when a male patient came in complaining of abdominal pain. Dr J decided after an examination that they needed to do a scope. So there he is, minding his own business, navigating through this guy’s bowels with a camera when suddenly a light facing the opposite way blinded the camera.
It was a flashlight. I can imagine why it was there, but I h have no idea why it was on. Dr J had told the man he had to consult with another physician, then left the room and collapsed from laughing so hard. He said it was like watching a cartoon where somebody runs down a tunnel and meets a train head-on, except the tunnel was a rear end, and the train was a flashlight.
27. How To Free Willy
silver and black combination lockPhoto by Nicolas HIPPERT on UnsplashWhile working in the ER one night, we had a guy come in complaining of groin pain. So we brought him back and it turned out he had a Master Lock—the kind with the spinning dial that you use to secure your locker at school—locked around his member. Essentially, blood could flow in but could not flow back out, so this thing was hugely swollen.
He had panicked after he realized he could not remember the combination and he took a screwdriver to the dial and snapped it off. So, we consulted with urology and the urologist wanted to take him to surgery, cut him length-wise, slide the top out then the bottom, and then suture it back up. Needless to say, the patient wasn't thrilled with option A.
So, option B was for this big nurse, Tom, to go in with bolt cutters and cut it off. Option B was selected. The curtain closed and Tom gave a “one, two, three”. There was a loud scream at “three” and a popping noise. Tom exited with a broken lock and the man was sent to the floor to recover.
28. Fountain Of Goo
I was working in the emergency department one afternoon, and we had an elderly lady just calling out, “Help me, help me," repeatedly all afternoon. She was brought in by her nursing home for “agitation," which is normally code for they can't handle them anymore.
So the patient was placed with a care assistant to try and calm her down and make sure she didn't wander around the ward. The carer was helping to feed the patient and I walked past when, suddenly, the lady just breathed in her liquid diet and collapsed backward.
I, of course, instantly pushed the medical emergency button and everyone came running from all over. We assessed her airway and it was deemed clear, but not self-supporting. There was no food in there, which was strange. She wasn't breathing and no heartbeat was present, so one of the male nurses started compressing her chest, while another nurse tried to insert an airway.
As he compressed on her chest, a nightmare ensued. A literal fountain of murky green goo spurted from her mouth, all over the walls, ceiling, and medical staff. The poor male nurse had to keep compressing the chest while the other nurse kept trying to suction the patient's airway to clear it enough to insert an airway.
After five or six minutes, the nurse finally got the airway in after suctioning over six liters of this goo, and after some defib, the doctor declared the patient deceased. The bay and the surrounding area was just drenched in this slimy, murky brown-green mess. It was absolutely breathtakingly disgusting.
Eventually, we found out the poor old lady had a massive bowel obstruction. Her heart stopped while eating, and the goo was days and days of liquid poo. Safe to say I scrubbed myself raw in the shower that night.
29. Stuff A Sock In It
When my professor was an ER nurse, an elderly 80-something-year-old woman came into the ER. As he assessed her, he noticed her oral temperature was normal despite her neck being extremely hot to the touch. He decided to take her temperature through the rear, which ended up being around 103 or something crazy.
While he was down there, he noticed something peeking out and proceeded to remove it. It was an old sock. She said her uterus had prolapsed months before, and she was using the sock to keep it in. They began treating her for toxic shock syndrome immediately, but sadly she went septic and lost her life later that day.
30. Trying To Absorb What We Saw
woman in red shirt wearing blue gogglesPhoto by MedicAlert UK on UnsplashSo this young female came in complaining of acute abdominal pain and a fever. We ran through all the normal procedures and came up with nothing. So, we pushed ahead and gave her a quick pelvic exam. As soon as she spread her legs, I almost threw up. I've been around some stinky folks and some smelly wounds, but this was horrendous.
We wound up evacuating half the clinic because the smell that emanated from her was causing people to gag in the hallways and waiting room. She had left a tampon in, forgot it was there, and shoved another one in, burying the first one. That tampon sat for what we guessed was at least two months, decaying.
Then, of course, the area around was extremely infected. When she came to us, she was in the early stages of septic shock.
31. She Sprung A Leak
As an imaging tech, we once had a patient who was close to 400 pounds who was fairly well bedbound. To assist with hygiene, the patient had a tube that drained their poo away, but it had fallen out probably a day earlier. As a result, there was a pool of horrible substances trapped beneath her, brewing.
This was discovered when we rolled her to position her for X-rays. The smell cleared the room and lingered there for hours. Meanwhile, people went and showered and changed their clothes from the pervasive creeping miasma that was the worst thing I have ever smelt in 15 years working in hospitals.
32. Poor Little Kitty
I just recently caught up with an old friend who is now an OR nurse. She told me she was preparing a morbidly obese woman for surgery, scrubbing her down and cleaning the areas up underneath the fat rolls that hadn't seen the light of day in God knows how many years. When she picked up one particularly hefty roll around the side of this lady near the lower back, she stopped suddenly.
She discovered what looked like a bone. She mustered her courage and continued to investigate. A moment later she uncovered the skeleton of a small kitten. The bones were fused with the still-rotting flesh of the sad little creature. Holding back tears and vomit, she walked around to face the large woman and said, "Ma'am, I don't want to alarm you, but I've just found the remains of a small cat in one of your fat rolls".
The lady's response, seemingly unfazed, was, "Oh! I've been looking for him!" Apparently, people that are huge develop rather thick calluses in their rolls from all the friction. This cat could have been clawing for life in there and she might not have felt a thing. Poor little guy.
33. As White As Snow
Doctor wearing a maskPhoto by Ashkan Forouzani on UnsplashMy dad is an internal medicine physician. A young man in his late teens came into the hospital with a question about a condition he was having. He said his groin region was itchy and uncomfortable, so my dad asked him to remove his pants, so he could try to identify the problem.
The guy was African American, so my dad was shocked when the man pulled down his pants, and the hair down there was white. It turned out the guy had gotten crabs from his lover, and the little bugs had laid microscopic eggs in his groin hair, making it look white. The mental image still gives me the chills.
34. Not A Leg To Stand On
My wife is a surgeon. I get about an hour every night where she unloads the horrible stuff she sees. One that sticks out is the girl and her boyfriend, who were on a motorcycle. They were taking an underground turn from one highway to the next, and he was going way too fast.
He started to get close to the wall, so the girlfriend on the back made a disastrous decision. She decided to go ahead and put her foot up on the wall of the tunnel. Her foot caught the wall, she flew off, her leg broke at the femur, and the broken bottom half of her leg drove straight into her groin.
35. Getting Busy After Baby
This has happened a few times, but I had a gal come in on a Monday after being discharged from the hospital the Friday after giving birth. So, basically, we tell ladies to avoid intimacy until a doctor clears them. Well, her spouse kept insisting and insisting and insisting, so on Friday night, she caved in and let him go to town.
He wound up tearing some stitches that were placed and she was bleeding badly all weekend long. She came into our clinic, blue in the lips and fingers, and her hemoglobin was a four when the normal should be 12–15. She didn't want to be a bother, so she waited until she started feeling dizzy all the time before she came in.
She got another trip to the hospital for a transfusion and repair for that.
36. Clear Out!
man wearing white uniform salutingPhoto by sydney Rae on UnsplashI was a nurse working in emergency for the first five years of my career. An old guy about 80 presented with a foreign body in his rear end. It turns out he was a Veteran and had a live shell about the size of a slim Coke can up his behind, probably about nine inches long. He was very stoic.
However, we had to call Australia's version of the bomb squad to assist in the removal.
37. Picking His Brain
A group of guys were plastered and driving around town. The passenger was leaning far out of the window vomiting when the car took a sharp turn around a corner and began to tip over. The top of the passenger’s skull was literally rubbed off along the asphalt during the wreck, leaving his brain showing. But it doesn't end there.
My friend, who was an EMT, had to PICK GRAVEL AND DEBRIS OUT OF HIS BRAIN. The guy was still conscious too. He said that human brains have a very distinct smell he will never forget. The story still makes me cringe, and I wasn't even there.
38. Someone Did A Hatchet Job On Her
My mother was an ICU nurse for over 10 years, so never a dull moment. On her first day, she was taking a break when a woman walked into the hospital with her head wrapped in a towel. The woman was speaking quietly and calmly and explained that her husband had a vicious outburst and threw a hatchet into her skull.
Lucky for her, he hit her in the forehead, the thickest part of her skull, so, she was able to wrap herself up and drive herself to the hospital. The woman was fine overall, and the authorities took the husband into custody.
39. The Face Of Self-Destruction
child in blue hoodie sitting on floorPhoto by Vladimir Fedotov on UnsplashI am an ear/nose/throat doc, and while I mostly take care of sinus diseases and ear infections now, I had a hard-nosed residency, and we took a lot of facial injury calls. One day, we got a call down to the ER for a self-inflicted wound to the face. Those are never good, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw.
A guy had filled his face with buckshot. He completely blew off his face, and some hero EMT somehow got an oral airway in the field. We converted the orotracheal airway to a breathing tube in the throat and closed the tissue as best we could.
A couple of days later, he had a 14-hour operation in which we used part of his abdominal wall and part of his leg to rebuild his face and mandible. We actually were able to make him a mouth in a subsequent operation so that he could eat some things, but without a tongue, it's pretty tough.
40. Crab Nauseum
When I was a paramedic student, we used to do rotations in the ED. A guy was brought in from what I assume must have been a horrendous nursing home. He looked fine at first, but once they took his pants off, the issue became apparent. His balls were about the size of a football and necrotic. It’s called Fournier gangrene.
He must have had it for quite some time as well, judging by the size, color, and smell. He had a stroke in the past and was now much less alert than his normal. It looked painful, but the worst part was the smell. It smelled like rotten crab meat. One of the residents that came in to evaluate him looked as if he was going to vomit and left the room within 20 seconds.
I felt terrible for the guy, he had no clue what was going on, and he clearly must have become used to the smell. When I went home that night, my roommates and friends decided to make appetizers. One of them brought mini crab cakes. The smell gave me an image of that guy's situation immediately. It was the most bitter irony I could think of.
41. A Hernia As High As The Heavens
I had a 95-year-old patient with an inguinal hernia. They had it for the last 25 years or so, and it was getting bigger. As a student, I knew I was going in to examine a "lump," and prior to the examination, I was warned by my assessor to refrain from showing any expression.
I went in, uncovered the patient appropriately, and was literally like, “Oh my GOD," but obviously in my head. I clenched my teeth so hard that I felt all my facial muscles tense up like never before and proceeded to examine this "lump!"
This "lump" was, basically, this patient's intestines that were protruding entirely through this defect. It was a HUGE hernia that was reaching their knees, and that's with them laying flat! As soon as I walked out, I needed to vent. I couldn't do that with the assessor, so my placement partner and I had a good long chat about it in the pub straight after.
The patient sadly passed.
42. The Worst Split
My mom's an RN. One night, a dude walked into the ER holding a bag under his crotch. He had been drinking with a bunch of his friends. The designated driver drove a pickup, and this dude and his buddies sat in the flatbed, speeding down the parkway. The dude, in his infinite wisdom, decided to stand up when the driver hit a bump. He went flying. Then I found out why they call it a "split".
He was carrying his insides—including his lower GI tract—in the bag. The guy was rushed to surgery and had his full reproductive capabilities restored.
43. Pull My Finger
I had a guy show up in my clinic one day with a complaint of finger swelling. So as the story went, his finger got swollen and painful about a week prior. It just got worse and worse, and about three days prior to coming in, a hole opened up in the tip of his finger.
So, when the day of his visit came, he said, “By the way, I pulled something out of the hole in my finger yesterday with a pair of tweezers; no idea what it is”. I asked him if he had taken a picture or kept it, and he produced a tissue from his shirt pocket. I couldn't believe my eyes.
It was his distal phalanx—the last bone in the finger. The bone had become infected, and the body did its thing and basically tried to eject what was now a hot foreign body. The guy pulled his fingertip out of his fingertip. A better magic trick I have not since seen.
44. His Beard Was All Buggy
My ex-husband was a cardiovascular tech and did echocardiograms. One day, a patient came in with a scruffy, unkempt beard. He started doing the test and kept noticing something moving in it. Upon closer inspection, he had roaches in his beard. He called in a nurse, and they discovered that he also had a massive case of body lice.
My ex had to go get sanitized and had to wear scrubs for the rest of the day.
45. That’s A Wrap
white and red car on road during night timePhoto by Yassine Khalfalli on UnsplashI’m an EMT. One day my partner and I got called to a house for someone who was “unable to be ambulated”. This is a common thing we get dispatched to, and it usually means someone is too weak to get out of a recliner or out of bed. We expected to go and help this person to their feet and maybe get a refusal or transport them to the hospital based on an assessment.
When we arrived on the scene, an officer was there, along with a neighbor who told us it was really bad in there. The second I walked through the door of the house, the smell hit me. I have smelled many decaying bodies that were not this pungent. We walked into the living room to find a man lying on the floor, saying he could not get up.
His legs were wrapped in what appeared to be plastic wrap and plastic bags. You could see the wrappings filled and dripping with brown liquid. The guy said he had started getting sores on his feet, and rather than go to a doctor, he elected to just wrap them up in plastic wrap. I don’t know how long he had been doing this, but it had reached a point where he could no longer gather the strength to get up, and he was extremely septic.
It was HORRIBLE. We carried him out of the house, and I was down at the legs, and the gangrene juice was dripping all over me. The back of the ambulance smelled horrific for days. We dropped him off at the hospital, and I went outside and puked. I see nasty stuff every day, but this was by far the nastiest.
When they took the wrappings off in the ED, the nurses told me both his legs were completely black and rotten up to the knees. They had to amputate both legs up to the hip, and they found the gangrene had gone up into his pelvis, so they had to transfer him out for more surgery.
46. Hoping For A Miracle
My father was a plastic surgeon in the emergency room of a major southern city. A family of four was driving on an urban highway that passed right by the hospital. The parents were in the front seats and their two young children—boy and girl, 3–5 years old—were in the back seat, apparently unrestrained by child seats or seat belts.
Coming from the opposite direction was a speeding and swerving woman driver in the throes of a psychotic episode. As the two cars approached from opposite directions, she swerved into the median and hit a barrier that launched her into the air upside down. Her car landed on the roof of the family's car, bending the roof of the rear portion of the passenger compartment downward and backward.
It was bent in such a way that left the mother and father unscathed. But tragically, the children met truly terrible ends. The parents carried them into the emergency room. It was an unspeakable sight—and obviously, nothing could be done.
47. Making Its Way Out
I’m a CNA at the moment, and this was the strangest thing I have ever seen. At work, we had a payroll woman who in a previous marriage had been blasted in the back of the head. When it came to removing the slug, the surgeons decided it was too risky to remove.
It hadn’t caused any major damage to the brain, and she would be able to function normally as long as it healed properly. One day, I was in her office, picking up my paycheck. We were chatting as usual when suddenly she started coughing sporadically.
I patted her on the back to help, and the next thing I knew, she coughed up the round into her hand! I was in shock; the slug over the years had slowly moved its way out of the body. She was fine after and kept the metal item as memorabilia.
48. Nothing Upstairs
person in blue denim jeans lying on bedPhoto by National Cancer Institute on UnsplashIn college, I took part in some psychological experiments. Most of them were surveys and games, but one researcher had me do a few MRIs. They mostly looked at the occipital lobe and left parietal lobe, which is the back left side of the brain. I did this stuff throughout all four years and became familiar with the research team's findings.
In February of my third year, I hadn't seen them in a while since they were still between their main experiments. Out of the blue, I got an email from the graduate department’s head of neuroscience. I got it at around 6:00 PM. He was polite but essentially said, "We saw something on an MRI, and you need to come see me tomorrow".
He gave me his office location and said to email him so he could meet me at that time. I didn't quite register the significance until the next day when I was walking to meet him. The HEAD of a graduate school department put himself on call to meet with me, a lowly undergrad taking part in their studies, within 24 hours. I was pretty nervous.
I met with him, we introduced ourselves, and he asked me to sit down. He got out this piece of paper and gave a short speech that they found something on one of my MRIs. They couldn't make any diagnoses because of the quality of the ones done, and I needed to schedule a medical-grade MRI and a consult with a neurologist right away. He then handed me the print.
There was this empty, round space about the size of a ping pong ball on the top right center of my brain. There wasn't a mass or disfigurement; there was just nothing.
The rest of my brain was somewhat smushed out of the way for this invisible ball. I was in shock for the rest of the meeting, pretty much. He asked my permission and then did a brief neurological exam to test my senses, reactions, and motor movements, but oddly enough, they were normal.
He was VERY weirded out that everything seemed normal, and he seemed more concerned. He actually took my planner, called the student medical center, and scheduled an appointment for me so I could get the referral with minimum wasted time. I basically made an entire research team and their department head say, "Oh my God, what is that?"
49. Snakes Alive!
While my wife was in medical school, she helped treat a patient who was having difficulty urinating. She and the doc asked all the preliminary questions, but they still weren't sure what the problem might be. So, the doc ordered an X-ray. She noticed a tangle of dark lines in the patient's bladder. The doctor then went in to show the patient the results, as she was thoroughly stumped.
After the patient saw the X-ray, he freely offered up the jaw-dropping reason. Apparently, he liked to take baby snakes and let them slither up his urethra where they ultimately perished in his bladder. His reason for doing this was that it gave him a "funny feeling".
50. A Real Jaw-Dropper
One day, my friend who was a nurse, was working in the emergency room and it was just one of those bloody days. She had seen more nosebleeds that wouldn't stop on that fateful day to the point where a person freaking out and getting woozy from the blood pouring out of their nostrils with no end in sight had become routine. Then this guy walked in.
He entered the room holding a bloody rag tightly to his face. She took one look at him and thought to herself, “Oh, another nosebleed”. She said to him, "Lower the rag sir," so that she could take a look at how bad it was. The man lowered the rag and his jaw just dropped. It literally dropped from his face and swung about, dangling.
Shocked and unsure how to respond to the sudden surprise, she could only say, "Please, put the rag back sir," which he did. Then, he was taken to the trauma center for help. She looked into the guy's case, curious as to what had happened to him. She found out that he was cleaning a piece upstairs in his house.
Then, when he was done, he was walking downstairs with it to put it away when he tripped. He discovered, in the most unfortunate way possible, that it was still loaded when he accidentally set it off in his fall and nailed himself in the face at close range.
A malleable fact isn't a fact, it's an opinion.
So it feels like much of early education has been a big bag of opinions heeped onto generations prior.
No wonder those standardized tests were such a mess.
On the flip side of that thought, life, and science evolve, so facts do change.
Once you're out in the real world, so much has to be relearned and disproven.
Who can keep up?
It feels like we should be paid as participants in the school of life.
So let's do some relearning.
Redditor yepvaishz wanted to hear about the times we've learned some new things about some old things, so they asked:
"What was a fact taught to you in school that ended up being disproven during your lifetime?"
The amount of lies we were fed in school is too high to count.
So let's sift through memory lane and make some corrections.
RECOUNT!
My Work Animation GIF by AndiGiphy"From an educational filmstrip: 'Saturn has four beautiful rings...' The Voyager photos of the thousands of rings had come in like a week before we watched this."
robaato72
Never say Never
"Germany would never reunite. The French would never allow it."
Powerful-Ad9392
"I'm German and I was 11 when it happened. We housed our East German part of the family for a couple of weeks when they came over to visit. My cousin was my age and had never been shopping (just wandering around a mall looking at things) and my uncle begged my dad to take him to a hardware store just to see what stuff was available."
"Just three months before the wall fell, my dad had been over to visit them, just by himself, saying it was too dangerous for us kids (and I imagine it would have been a hassle getting permission for the whole family). It was such a wonderful time. A peaceful revolution without a single gunshot."
"I'll never forget the moment when the people who had fled to the German embassy in Prague got told they were allowed to leave. That collective scream of joy and relief by 4000 people still makes me tear up every time I watch the video. https://youtu.be/Qh9EwNurawE"
best-in-two-galaxies
200 MPH
"Pompeii was buried slowly by falling ash. They pointed out that remnants of people were found, right in the middle of doing things, but didn't realise this contradicted the burying being slow. It's now thought that it was buried very quickly by pyroclastic flows - superheated gas travelling over 200mph."
ablativeyoyo
"It’s also blew my mind to find out the 'bodies' you see at the site were the hollow spaces where a body once was, filled with plaster, and the hardened ash removed. As a kid I never thought about it I just saw shapes of bodies and thought 'that's a body.'"
Zanzoken814
Bye Kraken
"When I was a kid, the Giant Squid had never been captured or photographed, and some people talked about it like it was el chupacabra. My little brother always said he'd be the first person to get footage of one. Sadly, it has since become an ordinary animal that we know exists. RIP the Kraken."
EarthExile
"I’ve seen the preserved corpses at the Smithsonian. It’s pretty fascinating to think no evidence existed until our lifetime."
UnihornWhale
Crack Away
Sonic 2 Punch GIF by Sonic The HedgehogGiphy"Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis."
panda388
"They just wanted us to stop."
Admiral_Minell
I've cracked for years and probably will for life.
My fingers are still slender.
Diet Lies
Season 7 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Food pyramid."
OutrageousEvent
"Of all the facts that have since been disproven, this might be the worst. We have a generation of adults who are getting diabetes and fatty liver disease because of what these people said."
calumin
Bad Illustrations
"Your tongue has different areas for tasting different tastes:sweet on the tip, sour on the sides, bitter in the back, etc. I feel like this was some elaborate prank played on my generation. But I remember seeing this in my elementary school biology textbook. I don’t even think it was disproven, like, they just stopped telling this lie. WTF."
"From what I have read, more like a game of telephone.Study results got slightly distorted, and then changed into a graph which didn’t have meaningful numbers, which lead to an illustration, which got re-purposed. That an illustration got put into textbooks for years and years."
danneedsahobby
Exposure
"Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen."
mwjb86SFW
"This one triggers me. I had an old lady teaching my 6th grade science class that sent me to detention for arguing with her when she said the blood in your veins was blue but red in your arteries. To be fair, I argued with her on a lot of things she was wrong about, but this is the only one that resulted in detention."
"That's the only time I can remember my dad, a chemist, actually go to the school to confront a teacher for being wrong. Incidentally, she also counted off on a test because I said sound was one of the senses. She wanted hearing. I said you sense a taste, you sense a sight, you sense a smell, and you sense a touch, so why don't you sense a sound? That argument lasted several days, but she did give me my points back."
pacer_3iii
The Science of It All
"Neurons can never regenerate. This was from my then-one-year-old anatomy and physiology textbook, and my private, Catholic school actually took - and still takes - its science seriously; we never talked about creationism or the divine influence on our natural world, not to mention our solid AP Physics and AP Chemistry scores. It turns out that that the peripheral neuron system actually can regenerate; as of now, it doesn’t seem that the central nervous system has much in the way of that capability."
Brunt-FCA-285
Jokes on Them
muppets computers GIFGiphy"Playing with computers is a waste of time and won’t lead to a career. Said to me by a very old, and bitter teacher. 25 years in IT and counting."
zerbey
Who knew computers would take over the world?
They seemed just like big cumbersome machines at first.
Now they build and destroy lives and careers.
Naming a child with a unique name can be quite a challenge, but it is one that many people are willing to take on.
However, there are risks involved.
You don't want to come across as unoriginal, but you also don't want to burden the child with a lifetime of mockery and ridicule for a moniker that didn't seem silly at the time of the naming.
While some people succeed at this, others fail miserably and...well, poor child.
Curious to hear of epic name fail, Redditor Soy_nanami asked:
"What's the ugliest name you've ever come across?"
There's a theme going on here.
"My sister has classmates named Pigeon and Beans."
– Abug_sa_Yawa
"Wait, one was Pigeon and another was Beans, or one poor unfortunate soul was Pigeon And Beans?"
– rancidtuna
If The Names Fit
"my sister had classmates in the 5th grade that were Levi, Jean, Denim, and Blu. not so much ugly I guess. but their names together make a sentence. Blu Denim Levi Jeans."
– puppycatisselfish
"The twins. Fly and button."
– 111110001011
It's A Choice
"X Æ A-XII "It's pronounced 'Kyle' ... F'k off Musk"
– The_Evil_Owl
"No, it's 'Ash.'"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/08/musk-grimes-baby-name/
– rdickeyvii
"I thought it was pronounced Sasha but it's anyone's guess."
– Cali_4_nia
These don't roll off the tongue so easily.
Name Fit For A Villain
"My Great, Great Aunt DARTHULA. She hated the name so much she signed her marriage certificate as 'Thuley'. I had a helluva time tracking her down because of this 🤣"
– StevenGaryStout
"Darth ula was the dark Lord of the family, so powerful and so wise, she could even keep the ones she cared about, from Karens."
– ResistRacism
See Ya Later
"Adeusmano."
"I live in south America. This would be something like "Goodbyebro.'"
– Raigheb
Unfortunate Correlation
"Candida (as in Candida Doyle of Pulp). I'm sorry. What a name. Like the genital fungus?"
– samit2heck
"It's rather sad that these Latin-influenced names have these collocations now. It's a pretty cool name, and means 'white' or 'bright.'"
– curmudgeonpl
Getting into NSFW territory.
Oh Myyy
"A guy I know is called Nuttaporn. Nutty for short."
– pantheonofpolyphony
"Porn is very common in Thai names."
– grosselisse
"I've seen quite a few over years in a call centre but Kok Hung Lo was my all time favourite name."
– bigredmidget
Bordering On A Slur
"I served with a guy in the military whose surname is Fagg, you refer to everyone in the military by their surname. You can imagine how that went down."
– Weak-Tap-5831
"Oooh, the military. Last names were sometimes unfortunately hilarious. The two that come to mind immediately are Browneye ('Browneye aye!') and a girl whose last name was Guzzler or Guzzlar (in the Navy, the third enlisted rank’s title was “Seaman”, which everyone in my rate started out as)"
– Game_Changing_Pawn
They Got Around
"Slutt. Prounced slooth."
– Huge-Advantage7838
"How to make sure your kid gets bullied."
– heisl_
"You can’t fix stupid."
– hyperion420
"People will pronounce that however they please."
– SappySoulTaker
Her Dad Was The Worst
"Went to school back in the 90s and 2000s with a girl named Ashely Head. It came to light one day back in jr. High that her dad's name was Richard 'Dick' Head and their number was listed in the phone book. The prank calls came so fast."
– gil_beard
A Little Jarring
"A friend's mum was called Kunti. Maybe it's not ugly but you definitely get a shock when you hear it the first few times."
– Teefdreams
"Kunti is a common name in India. It’s not pronounced Cuhnty. The u is pronounced like the u in Uber."
– Ill-Inspector7980
It wasn't the ugliest name but a friend told me about a guy he knew whose name was Otis.
His surname was Payne.
While I personally think it's a cool name when read together, I'm sure he was subjected to lots of mockery.
So, if you read this Otis Payne, I feel for you for all the ribbing, or "Payne" you must've suffered through.
"Ohhh-dis Payne!"
Dining out can be quite a memorable experience, but not always in a good way. From dealing with hot-headed staff to unwelcomed additions to their meals, these Redditors share some of the worst restaurant experiences they’ve had. Check, please!
1. Terror In My Taco
I was peacefully eating my drowned tacos with some friends at a tiny family-owned restaurant a block away from my home. After I ate almost half my meal, I lifted up my spoon and made a disturbing discovery. There was a cockroach leg in there. It was the same color as the fried taco meat.
I stopped and left at that moment and could barely hold the urge to puke. The only thing worse than finding a cockroach in your tacos is finding half a cockroach in your tacos.
2. Duped At The Olive Garden
I was proposing to my girlfriend a few years back at the Olive Garden. I gave the engagement ring to a waitress to stick on the straw of some drink we were having. BAD IDEA. The ring wasn’t overly expensive; it was about 350 bucks. Well, our drink order came in, and the waitress apparently went home sick. There was no ring to be found.
3. Skewered At The Greek
brown sun hat on top of table near calm waterPhoto by Constantin Panagopoulos on UnsplashA friend of mine and I used to go to a local Greek diner called "The Amphoras". In their heyday, they were able to open up a second location. That location was special. The first diner was kind of a dark, cavernous place with a bakery next door. It used to be one of the few places open 24/7 in the 70s when it opened, but by the 90s, it was one of many.
The wait staff was always a mix. I don't know what their hiring process was, but they were either incredibly good waiters or really, really bad. Late at night, you'd sometimes get people who were insane. They all wore "uniforms," a kind of upscale suit that was even stranger. The second location tried to be more hip with a strange "southwestern vs art deco" vibe when it opened.
It had a lot of financial issues and underwent a lot of remodels. This story takes place during one of those remodels. It was the middle of a weekday and post-lunch rush. My friend invited me to have lunch, but I already had lunch, so I just ordered a sundae. There were the constant sounds of remodeling coming from the kitchen area.
As I scooped into my sundae, I felt something very hard in my mouth. I spewed it out and saw the silver curl of a metal shaving. I looked in the sundae and saw a few more. I called the waiter over and said, "Hey, there are metal shavings in my sundae". But instead of saying, "Oh my gosh, sir! How awful," or even a sympathetic vibe, the waiter looked at me like, "Okay?"
I asked, "Well, may I have a sundae without metal shavings in it"? He replied, "You want a free sundae? Huh? That what you want? Wise guy. YOU THINK YOU CAN COME HERE AND," then the rest of it switched to a language I didn't understand, perhaps Greek. The manager heard this guy screaming at me and came over to see what was going on.
He asked what the problem was, and the waiter started shouting at HIM. The manager then shouted back. Soon, the two of them were screaming at each other in this language very heatedly. Finally, the waiter tossed his serving tray down on the floor and stomped off into the kitchen.
Then, we heard screaming and shouting in Spanish, followed by horrific crashing noises like someone was fighting or tossing around pans. The sounds of construction stopped. We heard people shouting in alarm in English, Spanish, and possibly Greek. The manager sincerely apologized and said he would be right back.
He went into the kitchen, where there was more shouting and crashing. The rest of the wait staff rushed to the kitchen, and looked into those little round windows, trying to see what was going on. Eventually, the crashing and shouting stopped.
The manager came back out and said, "Hello. Listen, I am VERY sorry about his behavior. I am going to comp both of your meals. However, I would like you to leave immediately because I am about to fire that man, and fear for your safety afterward," so we got out of there.
As we were leaving, I heard someone say in English, "Did he just lock himself in the freezer??"
4. Vanished Without A Word
I was at the Spaghetti Warehouse in the Flats in Cleveland in the early 90s. A few coworkers and I were visiting for some work at a steel mill for a week or so, and it was one of the only times we were out as a small four-person team. We were seated in some train car thing. The waitress and a coworker of mine were flirting back and forth.
They served bread from a wicker basket. The waitress took a knife to serve one while holding the basket and sliced through the basket to part of her hand where her fingers met. She left quickly, and we had no idea what happened. Then, we noticed the trail of blood in the train car. We assumed she told the restaurant team.
We sat there figuring we'd hear from her when a manager lady walked through and asked if everything was all right. We hadn't seen or heard from our waitress in about 25 minutes by that point, and the manager didn't believe it until we pointed out the blood trail. She was aghast.
It ended up being one of three times I've had my waitress leave a shift or quit while I was sitting there, and the restaurant was unaware.
5. Bungled Burritos
We went into a newly-opened Mexican place after booking the table the week before for a party of five. We entered, and the place was absolutely jammed. We got a table that was clearly too small for five beefy dudes to sit around. After a few minutes, a waiter came over and took our drink order.
Since it was so busy, we asked for six bottles of Corona and four bottles of Heineken, so we wouldn’t have to wait for extra drinks. About 10 minutes later, just as we were about to ask for an update on the drinks, they turned up. They were all at room temperature, and there was no lime in the Coronas.
Whatever, we just wanted a quick bite before heading into the city to drink. The waiter then took our food order. We asked for normal, basic Mexican menu items, no custom orders. Nearly 40 minutes later, we had finished our drinks and had gotten another round. That's when we noticed something weird.
While all the tables were full, very little food seemed to be coming out of the kitchen. We were about to pay for the drinks and leave when the food arrived. It looked undercooked, the portions were tiny for the price, and the plates simply didn't fit on the table.
We had to place our drink bottles on the floor to make space along with the little cutlery holder. As soon as my friend took a bite of his burrito, he dropped it on his plate. It was frozen in the middle. I opened mine up, and while it wasn’t frozen, it was barely lukewarm in the middle.
We called for the waiter and asked for them to be replaced immediately, as we had been there for over 90 minutes at that point. The waiter just shrugged and took the plates away. Ten more minutes passed. The table next to us just left without paying for their drinks, as they had been waiting nearly an hour for their meals.
Then, the food came back. They had just nuked the same burritos; my friend got his back with the bite mark out of it! We got up, paid for the drinks, and told the cashier that we were not paying for the food. They shrugged and said, "We are disappointed you didn't enjoy the service today, but you ate three of the five meals. You still need to pay for those".
We refused. The place lasted about four months before closing.
6. Full Of Fungi
flat lay photography of mushroomsPhoto by Andrew Ridley on UnsplashMy hubby and I were out eating. I asked if a certain dish had mushrooms because I was allergic. The waitress said it did not, so I ordered it. It came out covered in mushrooms.
I asked the waitress if it was maybe the wrong order or if she had thought I wanted it with mushrooms. I don't know how she would have gotten that impression, but I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. I asked for the dish to be remade because of my allergy.
Before walking away, she replied, "You could just, you know, pick them off". So I got up, went to the register, and asked for the manager. I explained the situation, being sure to mention the allergy and being far more apologetic than I should have been, given the situation. His suggestion was that I switch entrées with my husband.
Hubby had ordered the stuffed mushrooms, so I explained that wasn't an option and that I really would just like the dish remade. I said, "Don't get me wrong, it looks delicious, and I wish I could eat it. I just don't think you want your front entrance blocked by the ambulance that has to come to take me to the ER if I do eat it". I said it sort of jokingly because I didn't want to tick off anyone who saw my food before it got to me.
The manager huffed, briskly walked to our table, took my plate and my glass of vino for some reason, and disappeared into the kitchen. I told my hubby to eat, so he did and had another glass, as did I. The waitress only brought his drink and the check. We were charged for six drinks, his meal, and two times for my meal.
My husband contemplated arguing with the manager, but, in the end, he just did the math for his meal, two full glasses and the half glass I did drink, and left exact change. It's the only time we've never left a tip for wait staff, but it's also the only time we experienced anything like that.
7. This Place Was To Fly For
I finally went to the fancy wine bar in our historic downtown area and ordered a ridiculously overpriced glass. The server brought it out and there was a deceased fruit fly and some egg-like thing floating in it. I asked her to bring me a new glass. She tutted, but took it and reappeared with another glass, set it down, and walked away.
I went to take a drink—and couldn't believe it. It was the same glass with the same fly and the same egg thing. I waved her down and told her there was still a fly in it. Clearly annoyed, she told me that if it was her, she'd just fish it out with her fingers and drink it, because it happens all the time and it's no big deal.
I've never been back.
8. I Won’t Brie Back
About nine years ago, we went to a new brunch place in Chicago. We were the only ones there, which seemed a little weird for Chicago. The server was obviously the owner, and really pressured us to order a few menu items; it was becoming uncomfortable.
When my ham and brie omelet came out, one bite showed that the brie was still wrapped in plastic with the label still stuck on. We waited 15 minutes for the server to come back out, and I showed him the issue. Without saying a word, he took the plate to the back and proceeded to scream at the cook so loud and for so long that I started getting worried for our safety.
No one came out for another 10 minutes or so, so we just left.
9. This Dinner And A Show Was A No
grayscale photo of people sitting on chairPhoto by Brands&People on UnsplashMy dad and I went to this place in NYC that put on a little theatrical show while you dined. I was 14 at the time and my dad and I walked into this place, and it already looked sketchy. Off the bat, it looked extremely understaffed, and all the staff that were there looked like they hated their job.
There were straw wrappers on the floor and no one sat us for 15 minutes, so we just sat ourselves. We had been to this place before when I was little, so we decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, expecting the food and show to be the same fun experience it used to be.
One of the actors for the show was walking around to greet the guests and my dad, being the guy he is, was trying to playfully joke around with him. However, he seemed really caught off guard by it and didn’t play along, which was weird. But that was only the beginning.
The service took forever, and after we finally got our order in, my dad had to use the bathroom. As he was gone, the actor approached me, sat in my dad’s seat, and asked me, “Does your dad embarrass you?" I was like, “Uhhh, no”. He proceeded to say, “If I had a dad like that, I’d hide my head in shame”.
Normally, that would be funny to me, but this guy seemed like he was serious about it. I then noticed that the only guests this “actor” was talking to were children. He was fully hopping booths and scooting next to the kids. He wasn’t looking at or speaking to the adults AT ALL. I’ve never been so uncomfy in my life.
We got our food after an hour, and it was mid at best. I ordered a pasta dish and it was low-key tasteless. My dad got a patty melt, but it tasted like it had been left on the counter for way too long. The “show” itself lasted a grand total of about three minutes, and it was just the creepy actor guy talking to a mummy that descended from the ceiling.
I realize this story sounds like an actual fever dream, and as much as I wish it was, it wasn’t. It actually happened.
10. Giving It All Away
Once, for a family Christmas dinner, we went to a really nice restaurant. I ordered their club sandwich, and the rest of my family ordered their food. If I remember correctly, about 30 minutes after the rest of my family had been brought and eaten their food, the waiter came over without my food.
He told me they had given my sandwich to people in the drive-through TWICE and that it would be another 15 minutes for my food and asked if that was OK. It definitely wasn’t.
11. A Glutton For Gluten-Free
We went to a place where the service was ridiculously slow and incredibly disorganized despite the restaurant being mostly empty. We waited at least twenty minutes to get menus, and they kept sending out other servers to confirm our orders. It took well over an hour before we even got our food.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, the server was the most aggravating human I've ever dealt with at a restaurant. One of my friends I was with had celiac disease. This story took place around when the "gluten-free" fad was at its peak, so it was understandable (to a degree) that a server would be a little annoyed when someone said they couldn't have gluten.
This man was not "a little annoyed"; he seemed to take it as a personal insult. He just rolled his eyes and acted condescending whenever he spoke to my friend. The breaking point was when my friend asked if a certain meal had a gluten-free option when we were ordering. He gave some dismissive reply and said he'd go check after he placed our orders.
The server came back an hour later with our food and saved my friend's meal for last. When he got to them, he said, "There isn't a gluten-free option for this meal, so you'll just have to eat it as it is," and then placed the dish in front of them and walked away.
12. Our Service Was Discounted
sliced meat on black ceramic bowlPhoto by Yann Allegre on UnsplashI went to an American fondue restaurant chain in Centerville, Ohio, with eight friends on a Saturday evening. We had Groupons for some special group meal deal, which I assume was the reason our service was comically slow. It really felt like they were intentionally ignoring us.
We were there for about three hours because that's how long it took them to get our food to us. It also took an hour for us to get our first drink order, and they just never brought our second round. I'm usually a person who tips way too much and will still do 15% for bad service because waiters must eat too.
However, this was the only time in my life I've ever felt completely justified leaving no tip at a sit-down restaurant. It was that absurd.
13. Proof Of Purchase Please
I was picking up takeout, and it took a while for them to bring me my order. I got the order and paid with a credit card. As I was leaving and out the door, the hostess/waitress chased me outside and accused me of not paying for the food. I told her to check the merchant slip for the credit card transaction. Her response was deranged.
She told me they threw it away and demanded I dig it out of the trash. Despite it being a good restaurant, I never went back, and they subsequently closed.
14. They Nailed The Burritos
A friend cracked a tooth because a wooden nail was his burrito. They tried to make us pay for that meal but gave us vouchers for free meals to come back. We refused. We left our info with management, and the next day, my friend got a call from the corporate office. They paid for him to go to their headquarters area and paid for him to go to a dentist and get all of his teeth fixed.
However, they had some nerve trying to get us to buy dinner that had a wooden nail in it.
15. Clean Up Your Act!
people standing in front of storePhoto by Yusong He on UnsplashMy favorite Chinese restaurant was this little hole-in-the-wall place downtown. It was this small, dingy restaurant that only took cash. It didn't look too clean, but the food was fantastic. It was the kind of restaurant that didn’t give a hoot about atmosphere but really just put out bangers for food.
This place was not the cleanest restaurant, but the food was so good that I ate there in spite of that...until one horrifying day. While waiting for an order, I saw a homeless guy come in who was sick with something nasty. There were snot ropes hanging from this dude’s nose and clothes.
He was hacking up a storm and was just one of the dirtiest, sickest people I had ever seen. He was begging people for money or a meal, and he got one. Then, it hit me that the restaurant would not properly clean where this guy had been.
As my eyes darted around the restaurant to the vents that had thick layers of caked-on dust to the silverware stands that hadn't been restocked in days, I realized that cleaning just wasn't a priority. I have never been able to go back. I just can't see the restaurant now without wondering how hygienic everything is.
16. Her Salty Attitude Did Her In
We used to frequent this Italian joint owned by a cranky old man who gave everyone guff, but in an endearing way; the food was delicious. He retired, and his daughter took over. The first (and last) time we dined there after she took over was horrible.
My husband wasn’t really hungry, so he ordered soup and salad. He asked for no tomatoes and got a salad that was absolutely doused in tomatoes. He didn’t complain, just picked around them. Then he tried the soup and literally almost spewed it out; it was so salty.
We are not salt sensitive; there was something wrong with this soup. Like the lid-of-the-salt-shaker-fell-off-while-seasoning kind of wrong. She inquired specifically about the soup, and he politely told her it was too salty. She used his own spoon to taste it without asking.
She fully agreed that it was too salty and took it away but didn’t offer to replace it with anything else; she just took it. Somewhere along the line, despite agreeing that the soup was off, she decided we were jerks. At the next check-in, she looked at his salad and snidely said, “What, you don’t like tomatoes?" This, to the customer who asked for no tomatoes and didn’t complain when they got all the tomatoes.
She then went to the bar and very obviously talked trash about us to the regulars. She was pointing, laughing, and we could clearly hear the words “salt” and “tomatoes”. As we were walking out, having still tipped her, she rudely shouted, “You might want to try a different soup next time if you’re so sensitive to salt," followed by cackling from her and the bar patrons.
The place closed down a month later.
17. A Husband’s Sacrifice
My wife got a horrific case of food poisoning from a very upscale restaurant in Vermont. The restaurant didn't believe her. We were with about a dozen of my family members, and they didn't believe her either. They swore up and down this place was the best restaurant in town, and she probably ate something else earlier that caused the vomiting.
So, I volunteered to eat some of her dinner just to prove she wasn't lying, and sure enough, within the hour, I was gagging, heaving, and trying my darndest not to puke and poo at the same time. Never, ever order seafood in a landlocked state.
18. Dining Room Diaper Station
baby's white onesiePhoto by zelle duda on UnsplashThere was a woman who decided the table in the middle of the restaurant was the best and most hygienic place to change her baby's diaper as opposed to the purposely-built baby changing station. When she was challenged by another customer about this, her reaction was so horrifying—I'll never forget it.
She barehand grabbed a pile of baby poo out of the diaper, smacked the customer across the face with it, then smeared poop on the table and her chair, all while screaming and swearing her head off. Eventually, another customer walked up to her, and one punched her to the ground, then walked out.
We had the authorities, an ambulance, and CPS all pile in. The worst part was that management tried to make another employee who was not trained for this situation to clean up. He just straight up quit right then and there when we were already short-staffed.
19. Where Did All The Grown-Ups Go?
It was a small family-owned Mexican restaurant. We showed up around 1 PM–2 PM but were the only ones there. Their 13-year-old daughter greeted us and sat us, but she seemed almost confused about having customers on a Saturday at that time.
Shortly after we were seated, two little kids under the age of 10 came into the otherwise empty dining room from somewhere in the back and sat in the booth directly behind ours. They both started watching a kid’s program on the tablet they had at full volume.
We couldn't hear each other at that point with the blaring tablet behind us. You could hear it throughout the whole restaurant, so we figured the owners would pop out of the kitchen where they were hiding and say something, but nope.
Then, the 13-year-old girl came out again with water and chips but apparently thought nothing of the blaring tablet. She tried taking our order, but she seemed to be really uncomfortable or shy and kept mumbling, which we couldn't hear over the tablet. Finally, I just ordered a soft taco to go, but we still never saw any adults.
20. Winging It
I got chicken wings, and half were insanely undercooked. I told our waitress, and they comped them. But that wasn't the worst part. In the middle of chatting, something hit my face and bounced off. I glanced at my arm, and there was a cockroach the size of my palm sitting on my arm.
I am terrified of bugs, so I let out a horror movie scream. I managed to fling it off of me, screaming, and then had a good old panic attack that set off my asthma.
21. Done With Denny’s
Denny's (New London, Connecticut) | Former Pizza Hut | JJBers | Flickrwww.flickr.com
When I was still in high school, my two friends and I were getting done with a late-night lacrosse game and were pretty hungry. Unfortunately, most restaurants in our area closed at 10 PM, and it was already 9:30. We didn't want to be impolite, so we settled on Denny's because it closed at 1 AM.
We walked in, and the first thing we noticed was how empty it was; we were the only ones there. We waited for a solid five minutes before someone finally came to seat us, and she seated us at a dirty table. She asked if we would like some drinks, and we just all got a couple of glasses of water.
We asked for a couple of minutes with the menu. Ten minutes passed, and we still hadn’t gotten our water yet. Meanwhile, we were the ONLY guests in the restaurant. After another five minutes, she finally brought us our waters. She asked if we were ready to order, and we said yes and gave her our orders.
She said they would be done in about 15 minutes. Just like the water situation, 15 minutes passed, and no food. By this time, it was around 10:20 PM, and we were all very hungry and tired. Another 10 minutes passed, and nothing.
Finally, at almost 11:00 PM, our food still hadn't arrived, so we called our waitress over to our table and told her that we would be taking our business elsewhere and to cancel our order. She insisted that we needed to pay for the food we ordered even though we hadn't ever received it.
We told her we wouldn't be paying for food that is almost an hour late. We left that Denny's that night, and we haven't returned to a Denny's since.
22. What A Mess
We waited for about an hour for the first round of drinks. Meanwhile, the owner of the bar and his friends were surrounded by three out of the four hosts/bartenders. Then, when our food came out, a disaster ensued. They dropped it on me, and I got nacho stuff all over me.
When our check came an hour late, the hostess made a mean-spirited joke about how messy of an eater I was. It was the first and only time I have ever given a $0 tip and written terrible service on it. I honestly thought I was on a hidden camera show.
23. Dissed For My Love Of Disney
I went to a local breakfast place with my dad when I was 14. We were ready to order, and I wanted to order a Mickey Mouse pancake because it came with a bunch of whipped cream and fruit, which I was craving on a pancake. The server asked for my age which I told her was 14.
She then proceeded to scold me in a thick accent, saying, "You are too old! You no get Mickey Mouse pancake!" My dad tried to ask why it mattered, but she just kinda kept arguing the same thing with him. I just ended up ordering something else, but she could have just said the kid’s menu was age-restricted.
Luckily, my Dad and I goofed about it later, so it ended up being a net positive experience.
24. A Soul-Crushing Experience
a bowl filled with rice and greens on top of a tablePhoto by Kim Daniels on UnsplashWe were at a soul food restaurant in my neighborhood. I showed up before the lunch rush with my (then) toddler, who needed a high chair. We were the only people there. The older couple who ran the place ignored me for ten minutes while hissing at one another about something.
The guy took my order, did a double-take at the baby, and asked if I needed a high chair. I said yes. The dude turned to their open kitchen window and had a loud screaming match with his wife (the chef) for ten minutes. They went into their attic storage and slammed a high chair down in front of me with the chef loudly shouting, "I cook, I'm not your SERVANT," at the husband.
At that point, I asked for a soda and was looking at 25 minutes before they even took my order. Finally, I politely asked if I could place an order for fried chicken. That's when it took an even darker turn. A pan was thrown across the kitchen and bounced off the wall and they argued about whose turn it was to marinate the chicken last night.
I just put my kiddo back in the stroller and walked out while they had a full street brawl in the kitchen. They closed within a month but still paid rent on the place for two years without ever being open. It's now a small unremarkable Mexican fast-food joint.
25. Your Time’s Up!
I live in Melbourne which is known for its high level of quality customer service, but it's also why I refuse to go to Okami's anymore. They had a booking system during the pandemic, in one-hour blocks. You came at the start of the hour and had to leave at the end. We were seated at the table furthest from the counter, and there was also a loud family near us.
Almost every single time we tried to call wait staff over, they'd be caught by someone from that family. So, service was very slow, and my girlfriend and I had spent the whole meal being agitated about how little we were being attended to. It was so bad, we had to skip dessert because the hour was coming to an end and we were still eating our main meals.
We were finishing off and everyone except us had left, and one of the wait staff came and thrust his watch right in my face and tapped it. I still regret not saying anything, but both my girlfriend and I are non-confrontational people, so we just paid and left. We left a bad review on Yelp, but I still fume when I think about it.
26. The Big McRip Off
I was at McDonald's. I actually don't like the Golden Arches, but I was hungry. I went in, and no one was there, so I figured it would be quick. I gave my order, paid, and waited. I waited some more and more. Someone else came in, gave their order, and they got it fairly quickly. Meanwhile, I was still waiting. Finally, someone saw me and asked if I was ready to order.
I told them no, and that I was waiting for my order. They lost it. A manager came out, she was confused, and the order was completely gone. By that time, I had been waiting nearly half an hour, so I just said forget it and walked out. The money was never refunded to my account. They may have lost my order, but they managed to keep my money.
27. Post-Pandemic Pain
brown and gray concrete storePhoto by shawnanggg on UnsplashI went to a restaurant in a relatively small town with a group of six people. This was mid-2021, that weird interval in the pandemic where things were kinda back to normal but also not. Apparently, most of the other restaurants in town were shut down because of a Covid outbreak that week, so everyone was at this restaurant.
There were only two waitresses in the whole place, and every table was full. It took them an hour to come and get our order, and while they were doing that, some Karen came up and yelled at us for getting our orders taken before her party, as if that was our fault.
It took another hour for us to get our food and we each got served at different times. I got a personal-sized pizza that was half burnt—like black burnt—but I was so starving, I didn't care. I tipped 40% because I felt bad for the waitresses, but what a terrible experience all around.
28. Not Worth The Hype
People seemed to froth at the mouth about the Viking Lobster Company because it was BYOB. My wife and I went there for our one-year wedding anniversary. The place was located in an area that I would not like to be in at night. We had to call the restaurant to make a reservation because they didn’t take walk-ins.
Instead of confirming the time on the first call, we were called back. The building itself looked like it was one loose roof shingle from being condemned. The prices were fair for what the menu said you would be getting. We both ordered lobster feasts, which came with salad.
It was a solid 45-minute wait between our salads and entrees. This wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that there were only two other couples in the restaurant with us, one of which came in after us. The feasts themselves came in large plates.
It looked like everything (scallops, fish, lobster tail) was placed inside aluminum foil that was unwrapped atop the plate. It was a major disappointment. My guess is that the chef/cooks simply pre-made the feasts and cooked them en masse in aluminum foil packages.
As a result, the fish and scallops had a heavy metal taste. They didn't taste "spoiled," but you could tell they were cooked in the foil. The only saving grace with that place was our waitress and the BYOB aspect. The worst part was when my wife gave them an honest review on Facebook.
It was a one-star review, but it was as fair and respectable as it could be. The owner replied almost immediately and said something along the lines of, "Unfortunately, our waitresses will remember who you are the next time you come in". There was no way we planned on returning.
Looking through Viking's Facebook review history, any reviews less than three stars were met with borderline childish retorts by the owner, essentially blaming the customers for everything. I spent over $200 that night and will never return nor recommend that place.
29. Steak ‘N Wait
I went to a Steak ‘n Shake years ago. We came in and saw the stove in the kitchen was completely filled with burgers. They sat us down, took our orders, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Over an hour went by, and there was no food. Eventually, we found a waiter and asked what was going on, and they said that they were short-staffed.
Another half an hour went by. We finally had enough, so we got up and started leaving. They ran to stop us, apologized, and told us to wait just five more minutes. They gave us our meals to go and gave us half off.
30. Left In A Pickle
stainless steel fork on green labeled canPhoto by SuckerPunch Gourmet on UnsplashI was about eight years old, and my mother took me to a deli-style restaurant where we met Annie, one of her fellow high school teachers. They had large bowls of pickles on the table, and my mother and Annie were eating them. I hated pickles and still do. Annie took the last pickle from the bowl. That's when she spotted something rather unwelcome—a cigarette stub.
Annie was a bit potty-mouthed to begin with, so you can imagine what words began bellowing out of her mouth. My mother quickly hustled me out of the restaurant lest I picked up some bad words I already didn't know. The restaurant went out of business not long afterward.
31. Running To The Loo After Some Bad BBQ
When my brother and dad came over to visit me, we went to this sandwich chain called Erberts and Gerberts. All of us had heard of this place before, and because there was one in the city I was in, we decided to go there for dinner. Both my dad and I got a BBQ brisket sandwich, and my brother got something else.
The sandwiches were really disappointing. I wasn't expecting anything amazing, but still. We went our separate ways for the day, and I ended up back at my apartment. Eventually, I went to bed for the night. When I woke up, I heard a growl in my stomach. This was a normal occurrence, as I'm usually hungry when I wake up in the morning.
However, the growls intensified dramatically, and knowing that nothing good could come of it, I sprinted to my bathroom. What followed was the worst case of the runs I have ever gotten in my life, and it was making me feel sick. I spent a total of an hour in the bathroom.
I went to call my dad on his phone to tell him that we had to cancel our plans for the day, but my brother picked up instead. Apparently, my dad had also got the runs. We concluded that it must have been from the sandwich place we ate at, so we swore never to eat there again.
32. Left Out In The Cold
I was traveling with a group of 30 people on a sightseeing trip and we went to a big restaurant for dinner. The place was jammed but we managed to get a huge table. The waitress came to take our orders. Mine was simple—a glass of water, and a cutlet with fries. The drinks arrived except for mine. I asked the waitress—but her reaction was infuriating.
She just rolled her eyes and stormed off. Thirty minutes later, the food came, but not mine, and still no drink. I asked again and she snapped at me, "Can't you see we're jammed right now?? You won't starve!" Then, she stormed off again and didn't come back. I was quite puzzled. We tried to get her back, but she just ignored us.
The others were kind enough to share their food, so I got a full meal from different plates. When it was time to pay, she insisted I pay for the meal the others donated to me. We politely told her to get lost and left.
33. Met With A Chili Reception
sliced red chiliPhoto by Aliona Gumeniuk on UnsplashI have food allergies related to spicy foods, mushrooms, and nuts. We went out for a lunchtime meal at a fancy pub, and they were operating on a reduced menu, which was no problem. They had a steak sandwich that could be altered to fit my needs.
I explained my allergies to the waitress, wrote her a list of what was required to be removed, and double-checked when we paid. The first sandwich came out with all the problematic ingredients on it, so I flagged the waitress down.
I explained the issue and allergies again and wrote her ANOTHER list with my allergies and required removals for her to show the kitchen staff, and she said she’d fix it straight away. Twenty minutes later, my friends had almost finished their food, and mine hadn’t been sent out yet.
I flagged down the same waitress, asked if it would be much longer, and after disappearing for 10 minutes, she came back with my sandwich. I checked the second sandwich, and they removed the salami but not the chili jam. By this point, everyone else had finished their meals, so I flagged down the waitress again and asked for a refund.
She spent five minutes trying to argue with me into waiting for the kitchen to remake it, by which point I was furious. I stormed out of the pub and emailed them later that day, detailing what had happened. The manager told me that “they do their best to accommodate food allergies but can’t always help” and refused a refund.
I give that place the finger every time I drive past it.
34. An Uninvited Guest
Years ago, I went out to a local Indian restaurant in the neighborhood. There were about four other tables of what looked liked couples. We'd been seated at a table for about five minutes. Then a random middle-aged woman walked in—and did the unthinkable.
She plonked herself down at our table, grabbed a glass, and started drinking our vino. Then, she started rambling on about a bunch of stuff. The restaurant was about three-quarters empty apart from the other four tables. Most of them clocked what was going on, and all their conversations subsided to a murmur.
We told her we wouldn’t be sharing our food or any more drinks with her. I managed to motion the one waitress over and told her, “We don’t know her, can you get rid of her”. The waitress high-tailed it back into the kitchen without a peep. The rest of the room was completely silent now, no doubt counting their lucky stars she didn’t sit down with them.
Things began to get pretty heated and she was telling us how she still had “contacts” in the cult and how she’ll find us and get us. She was finally convinced to leave when my housemate said she could either leave by the door or he could throw her through the front window.
35. Abandoned At The Airport
I was traveling alone and had a layover at a very busy airport. I hopped into a restaurant for a snack and a drink. I sat and waited 15 minutes for a server to come by and ordered some chips and guac and a Modelo. I finished my chips and was still thirsty. I tried for over 40 minutes to get the server’s attention.
She walked by multiple times with empty hands and blew off my, "Excuse me, may I's". She very purposely and almost comically avoided eye contact with me, and at one point sat at the adjacent table with a friend to eat lunch. She knew I existed. It all seemed very odd—my drink was empty, I wanted to pay for more food and I was CLEARLY being ignored.
What did get her attention very quickly was when I said forget this and left my table, took my bag, and went and stood at the server’s station to pay and go. She IMMEDIATELY noticed I was gone and I could see the panic on her face. I coyly wave to her from the server station. We said nothing to each other.
She gave me a pink gel pen to sign my credit check and walked away. I signed but did not tip. I crumpled the slip into a ball and left it on the counter, then yeeted the pen across the floor and under an empty booth. I've been in the industry a long time, and I never thought I'd be that guy, but holy moly.
36. The Butter-Fingered Waiter
File:Tony roma's prime rib.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org
I was at Tony Roma's in Vegas. It was late, but still a couple of hours before their closing time, and it was pretty much our last resort. We were seated, got our menus, and then had to wait about ten minutes for the server to show up. We were the only guests at the time, so it's not like he was too busy.
We had already decided on everything, but the moment he got our drink order, he was gone. He didn't even hesitate when we said we were ready to order. About five minutes later, our drinks came out, and he promptly spilled some of my wife's iced tea. This time he stuck around long enough to take our order at least.
Fifteen minutes later, our order of mozzarella sticks came out, and he fumbled the plate, so one of them fell off and bounced across the table. He grabbed it and left. There was no replacement and no discount on our order. At that point, my drink had been empty for a while, but he was gone before I could say anything.
Another 20 minutes later, our food came out, and I half-jokingly told my wife to move in case he spilled something again. Famous last words. Sure enough, my wife's side of coleslaw fell off the plate and spilled right where she would have been had she not moved. Again, no replacement or discount there either. I managed to get in my request for a refill before he left.
I ordered a crispy chicken sandwich with cheese, but I found no cheese. When the waiter came back with my refill, I mentioned that, and he whisked away the plate. Another five minutes later, it came back out with a cold slice of cheese on the now cold chicken with a cold side of fries. By then, I just wanted to eat and leave.
That was the last time we saw our waiter. Over half an hour later, we were done and wanted the check so we could leave. I finally went to the host and asked her to find us our check. The manager brought it out and asked us how everything was. We gave her the full story, and she just said, "Oh, I'm sorry," and left.
I foolishly thought she might be going to bring us an adjusted check, so at least we weren't paying full price for food the waiter dropped, but no. It was so bad that I went through the trouble of sending an email to Tony Roma's corporate about it. Their response was, "We hope you visit us again soon!"
37. Meat Mixup
I was the waiter at a nice steak/seafood restaurant. A couple came in. The husband ordered prime rib "as rare as we can serve it". I brought the food. A second couple came in and were seated right next to Couple #1. The wife from Couple #2 ordered a sirloin steak. Couple #1 asked me to cook their prime rib a little more. Meanwhile, the husband had eaten half the steak and veggies.
I brought his plate back to the kitchen. A few minutes went by, and I brought Couple #2's food out. I went back into the kitchen, and Couple # 1's prime rib was ready, except it was a sirloin. The chef put the half-eaten prime rib on a new plate with new veggies and a new baked potato. Couple #2 were eating the prime rib sent back by Couple #1.
I had to explain this to both tables and my manager. We gave free steaks for both tables.
38. Crushing It On New Year’s Eve
I was at The Common Man in New Hampshire on New Year’s Eve. It is an upscale chain but has everyman food. I was walking back with two small plates of cheese, crackers, and fruit from the little table of nibbles before the meal. I had two because my boyfriend hated walking through the crowded tables, and he's a huge dude.
I tapped into a chair two tables over and said, “Oh, excuse me”, smiled, and sat down. We got a drink, appetizers, and a meal. Everything took a while because they were busy but it was fine; we were having a great time. I was ALMOST done with my meal when the craziest thing happened.
A woman leaned over me and said, "Excuse me, are you done with your plate?" I thought she worked there, so I said, “Oh yeah, thanks, I'll take a box”. She had a CRACKER in her hand and crushed it on what was left of my meal.
She said, "When you bumped my chair, this fell off your plate. You should have picked it [up]. I could have crushed it on the floor". She had this big smile on her face and continued, "Have a Happy New Year". She left and went back to her table. We just stared at each other. It was surreal.
39. A Doggone Embarrassing Dinner
white noodle soup with green leaf vegetable in white ceramic bowlPhoto by Markus Winkler on UnsplashOne of our favorite restaurants at work was this Vietnamese place that had some really good food for reasonable prices. The most popular dish amongst us was the spicy beef. Some people at the office loved to call it “spicy dog” because they thought they were being funny.
So, it wasn’t uncommon for some people to ask other people around lunchtime, “Hey, want to go eat some spicy dog?" It was a particularly popular joke amongst the management, so nobody called them out on it. One day, a few friends from work and I went there for lunch.
None of us ever used the spicy dog joke at work, but we heard it all the time. We were putting in our orders like normal when one guy said to the Vietnamese waitress, “I think I’ll just have the spicy dog today. I mean the spicy beef”.
His face slowly went beet red as the waitress glared at him and eventually said, “Uhh, sir, we don’t serve dog here”. You could’ve heard a pin drop, and I wanted to hide under the table.
40. No Way Satay
My husband and I used to go to lunch at least once per week at this Thai restaurant. It was good, quick, and they knew us by name. During our time going weekly to this restaurant, my mom got diagnosed with terminal cancer and was declining rapidly. On this particular day, my mom was quite sick in the hospital, and we just got PET results showing that she hadn’t been responding to chemo.
My husband took me for Thai food to cheer me up. Neither of us were too terribly hungry, and we were both kind of pushing our food around our plates. My husband found a well-seasoned cockroach in his dish. Neither of us ate, and he was too embarrassed to tell the lady. She tried to give us boxes, but we declined; she was clearly confused. We paid, left, and never went back.
41. A Series Of Unfortunate Events
I went to this Mexican restaurant with six buddies. So many ridiculous things happened that I struggle to remember them all. First off, the waitress came over and took two of our party’s orders and then just walked off. We had no clue why.
After a while, we managed to flag someone down to take everyone else's order too. Then, they brought three of the meals, but only one was from those first two orders. Something was also wrong with one of them. Then they tried to bring something else that nobody had ordered and seemed to have no idea what to do with it.
We pretty much gave up on flagging down waiters to fix things and just ate what was there because we were trying to get to a football game. At one point, they brought an extra margarita that nobody had ordered, and we just shrugged and drank it.
All this could almost be forgivable, except that when it came time for the check, they tried to pull the shadiest move. They insisted on charging full price for everything, including stuff we hadn't ordered, and a 20% auto-gratuity. We had enough cash to put down an amount that felt appropriate and left.
42. A Fasching Failure
brown bread in sackPhoto by Daniel Schludi on UnsplashI went to a German restaurant with my parents and another couple when I was around 13–15. It was during the German equivalent of Mardi Gras. We had a reservation, but they were swamped, and we had to wait an hour to be seated. Then, it took an hour to get drinks, another hour for appetizers, and yet another hour to get our food.
While waiting for our entrees, the waiter came back four times to inform my dad that they were sold out of what he had ordered and asked if he would like to select another option. The last time he gave them three options, just hoping he'd get to eat. By then, people were getting up and leaving all around us. It had been four hours, and we had just gotten our entrées.
Then, it took another hour to receive our bill. We were the last table still in the restaurant. Apparently, most parties had walked out on the bill.
43. Take A Bit Out Of This One
There was a trendy cafe I went to once. When I had a couple of pieces of bread while waiting for my order, I found one with a very distinct bite out of it. I pointed it out to the waiter, who gave me a foul look and refused to continue serving me. I wound up getting up and walking out after explaining it to the manager.
To this day, I don't get what the waiter’s problem was. I was civil about it even though I knew they were just dumping leftovers onto the next customers.
44. Holiday Burn
I was hitching a ride with a friend to another state on Thanksgiving. Before departing the city, we met his idiot adult daughter and a bunch of his friends at a restaurant. The waitress spilled piping hot soup on my hair, clothes, and on my hand, with a majority going on my hand.
The soup burned my hand pretty good, but not enough to need to go to a doctor. It hurt for two days. The idiot daughter, who was close to age 30 at the time, went full-on into a laughing fit while nearly the entire packed restaurant looked on. I was mad and embarrassed. My meal wasn't even comped.
45. There Was Something Up Her Sleeve
File:Buca di Beppo, Rookwood Commons, Norwood, OH - 40715093273 ...commons.wikimedia.org
I went to Buca di Beppo for a girlfriend's dinner party. The bill came, and I put three $100 bills in the sleeve. I thought that maybe I was not tipping enough and added another $20 to the sleeve, left it on the table, and went to get the car so we could leave. As I got back to the restaurant, I noticed no one from our party was out yet.
So, I drove around again, and still nothing. As I was about to drive away, I noticed someone in our party waving me down. They told me that I'd better go back inside the restaurant as there was a huge commotion when our group was leaving. Apparently, the waitress grabbed the sleeve as everyone was walking out, saw the $20 bill, and figured we were doing a dine-and-dash with 15 people.
My dad told her to check the sleeve as he had seen me put the $300 in. She replied that she had and only saw the $20. He told her to check again. Things escalated. My dad is a bit of a large, aggressive guy. The staff got their largest waiter to confront him. All this was going down 10 feet from the exit in a room full of diners.
Things got louder and more heated until, finally, the waitress looked into the sleeve and saw the money. Her response was "Oh". That's it. We wrote a letter to corporate and got all our money back, plus another $100 in gift cards.
46. Crying Over Broken Glass
I was at Teton Steakhouse in Jackson. They had a buffet salad set up. My gal found broken glass in her salad by biting down on it. We freaked and got the manager. He just took the plate and walked away like it was no big deal. He didn’t even check the salad buffet.
So, we warned other patrons before they tried to serve themselves from it. We just sat there the rest of the time because we couldn’t trust anything after that. The server charged us for the entire bill.
47. We Made A Clean Break
My favorite Chinese food place somehow got a huge piece of brass scrubber buried in my fiancé's lo-mein. She almost threw up and cried. I brought it back and I asked for a refund. They offered to remake the food, but I refused and left extremely upset. I knew that I would never be able to order food from there again.
The place was going downhill, and that was the final straw. They ended up eventually closing.
48. Management Was Out Of Order
a plate of food with meat and broccoliPhoto by Clark Douglas on UnsplashI went to a restaurant with my wife, and we both placed our order of chicken parma with the waitress. My wife’s food came out in 20 or so minutes. She finished hers, and I was still waiting. I asked the same waitress if my food was on its way. She told me I didn’t order any food. I asked her why would I come to a restaurant and not order food?
She was insistent that I didn’t order anything. There was a lot of back and forth. The manager finally came out and took her side. I voiced again why would I come to a restaurant and not order anything. After they were being persistent, I knew what I had to do. I said, “I’ll be back in five minutes”.
I walked next door to McDonald’s, ordered a Happy Meal, came back, sat at the table, and ate it in front of them.
49. Getting Physical Over Some Fish
A few years ago, I went to a restaurant with a friend. She was considering ordering a dish she never had before, but before she did, she explained to the waiter that she was severely allergic to shellfish, as in, she could go into a seizure and lose her life; she was very clear about this.
The waiter went back to the kitchen and said the chef could make it without any fish in it, so she ordered it. When it came, it had fish in it. My friend sent it straight back to the kitchen and ordered something safe that she'd had before. When the bill came, they had charged us for both her meals.
She reminded them what had happened and said she wasn't paying for the returned meal. The waiter started arguing with her, so we put the correct amount of cash on the table and stood up to leave. But that wasn't the end of it.
The waiter started shouting across the restaurant in a foreign language, and a man who we assume was the owner came running out of the kitchen, grabbed my friend by the arm, and barricaded the front door so we couldn't leave, all the while yelling at us in a different language.
We eventually managed to get the door open while he kicked my friend, and he followed us onto the street. He started yelling after us that we were thieves, while people stopped and looked at us. He again ran after us and grabbed my friend's arm. She got her phone out and started calling the authorities.
He then left her alone and went back to the restaurant, and we filed a report.
50. A Showstopper At The Mall
We used to frequent an Italian restaurant that was on a paved mall and had outdoor dining. It was the type where they'd put tables on the mall part and just put a rope around the area to designate it as restaurant space. We were facing out towards the mall, and there was a table of suits—around ten or so—enjoying their dinner at the table that backed straight onto the mall.
An old toothless overweight woman ambled over, lifted her shirt, and placed her enormous and very saggy bosom onto each shoulder of one of the suits at the table while cackling with glee. It took a moment for the guy to realize that it wasn't in fact someone's hands on his shoulders.
I don't know whether that was the best “dinner and a show” I've had or the absolute worst.