Faith is an important part of life. Faith in oneself, in people and in God gives you hope that we're not all alone and that we're more capable than we initially give ourselves credit for. For many people the main source of faith is housed in the church.
And for some faith has been hijacked by predators and those who only know how to espouse judgement. This has led to a lot of issues with communities and their connections to religion.
Redditor u/everyone-hates-me wanted the freed to open up and discuss, asking... Formerly religious people, what was your breaking point?
Fahrenheit 451 anyone?
Giphy
I was a Christian, but my church got to the point where they were banning tons of media (secular music, the news, certain books, wanted censoring chips in TVs, parental controls on the computer for adults) and then they started telling us that we needed to abandon/leave our secular friends and family (even Christians of different denominations) and only be friends with the members of the church/youth group.
At the same time they were saying that we were in the final years before the rapture/return of Christ and it would be best if we didn't go to college or have kids, due to the hardships it would bring. The youth pastor proceeded to have children and the regular pastor sent his grandchildren to college that year.
The red flags turned crimson. TitanicBead
No Pizza? No church!
I churched so hard in high school. So much so that in college I got invited to a dinner with my college Catholic priest. At dinner I said, "I love pizza!" He said, "You can only love God and people."
I mean I was already upset with broad, seemingly meaningless rituals, but that was the boiling point.
It kind of seems like the priest was power tripping and making up stupid rules.
My dad (not a priest, just very religious when he feels like it) did the same thing. We couldn't say "girls rule" because only God the king can rule. It wasn't just dumb, it was objectively false. realhorrorsh0w
You are enough!
Giphy
Striving so hard to be as good of a person as I could be but still being told I'd go to hell for certain aspects of myself or beliefs I held. Yet watching others carelessly do rotten things to others and going to confess their sins and feeling like they had the right to continue to be bad people or to act holier than thou. Finally realizing I didn't need a religion to be a decent human being or all the guilt that was put on me. faux--username
I got God.
I was raised Christian, but late in high school, I couldn't get it out of my head that good people I knew and friends I had that weren't Christian were supposedly going to hell. Be that Muslim friends, Jewish, agnostic, atheist, non-religious, etc. I had pretty much the gamut of religious beliefs among my friends, and I just found it hard to believe these people would be punished for how they were raised.
I'm not anti-religious. Religion is very cultural, and I think it's messed up to bag on people's culture. But someone's religion usually boils down to where they were raised and by whom they were raised. And I can't accept that people are judged based on these qualifications, in any religion.
For a while, I reconciled this by saying that being a Christian wasn't necessarily about announcing you're a Christian, and that accepting Jesus can also mean living a life like Jesus even if you're not consciously doing that, or not doing that in the name of God. But that's not what the Bible says, and it's not what the church believes, so I've moved away from that.
Now I'm kinda a universalist, agnostic or something. I don't really care if there is an afterlife or a God. If there is, then the God will reward those who were good people in this life, regardless of religion. If that God doesn't do that, I'm not particularly interested in worshiping him or his afterlife. Stinduh
Not Guilty!
I was raised by guilt. I finally got to the point where I refused to feel guilty for every little thing I did. cdplater
I can get that. The bible actually sets you up to fail. It's impossible to be sinless. You just have to have a church that goes, "well. We're sinners. It's a good thing Jesus loves us all the same." lucak98
Santa Forever!
Giphy
I was already questioning pretty heavily, but for whatever reason one of my friends comparing Santa to God was the breaking point. He said "When we talk about Santa as an all knowing being who rewards good behavior and punishes bad its a ridiculous fairy tale, but when we talk about God in that context we're just supposed to believe it blindly." Frotodile
God isn't perfect...
I was told that God would help you. If you prayed to God he would give you strength. He would help bad things become fixed etc...
I lost my religion when, at 7 years old, after years of praying and fully believing God would help, I still had to watch my alcoholic father beat my alcoholic mother up almost nightly. It was one night while I was picking glass shards out of her hair that I realized that if there were a God he didn't care enough to make things change... and honesty the idea of a cruel, uncaring God scared me more than the alternative so I decided to believe instead that there was no God.
Things are finally better now after years and years of pain and suffering in my family... and it still wasn't God who fixed it.tinylottie
But the Bible...
It was years and years of asking questions that apparently didn't have answers besides "...but the Bible says", but specifically the final straw was praying that my sick and dying grandfather would pass quickly and painlessly, instead of the three weeks he spent after that vomiting up his own stomach bile and starving because he couldn't eat before the cancer took him.
I never asked for anything remotely self serving or personal because I always thought that was wrong, but this one instance I begged and pleaded for help, not even for me but for my dying grandfather, and instead it was almost like someone playing 'corrupt-a-wish' on a message board.
It wasn't even a matter of believing or not believing, I just didn't and couldn't pray anymore after that. I was almost afraid to ask for anything else. DMan304
Now that's not Christian behavior!
Giphy
A pastor called my mother a whore. AgentDaleBCooper
In the baptist church I grew up in, I remember the adults nearly gasping when a woman member came wearing gasp JEANS. She had brought breakfast out to her husband who was working in the fields combining corn that morning, and went straight to church from the field. It was a wet year and harvest was getting late, they could only combine when the ground was frozen so many farmers were combining all night. They ended up having a meeting between the pastor, deacons, and the husband.
Looking back this infuriates me on so many levels. The guy was working on Sunday, but nothing was said about that. His wife could have skipped church all together but elected to come. So the man in the house can bend some rules and skip church, but for his wife to go out of her way when very busy to even make it to church, just in the wrong clothes was enough to have a meeting with the husband about how his wife should appear. It just makes my blood boil.yeah_sure_youbetcha
Worry about your own self Sir!
I'm agnostic but I stopped going to church once my pastor berated me for doing teenager things like getting a haircut and piercing my ears. He told me that that's what witches did when mourning their lost loved ones and handed me a conveniently provided information packet. He also had some hypocritical stuff to say during the bible study so I'm glad I never had to go again. Religion never really clicked with me but he was what made me hate christianity the most.tangledlettuce
No reading between the lines...
For me, it was seeing people misinterpret their own religious texts. Terrorists are prime examples of it. Also seeing how irrational people were being, following a religion. Riots, public parades, blockades... All for a god that others don't even believe in. Keeping the property and financial losses aside, this is probably why religious leaders are so successful. A mini government, in which their subjects have complete trust in. Manipulate them at your convenience, and get the work done
Ps: Maybe I'm not formerly religious. I used to go to gatherings because I was forced to, and couldn't understand anything. lestrenched
Bless you Father...
Giphy
My grandmother asked our local priest for a blessing for my (low-functioning) autistic brother, to which the priest replied:
"I'll bless him with a brick." nicrotex
Did this really happen? Please tell me this s**thead never walked the earth. FrikkinLazer
SO many books...
I read 300 books
Note: Any books will do. Just read a bunch of them. Get some outside perspective and some conflicting points of view. Done. woodentraveler
Well yeah, because if someone only reads one book, it's pretty easy to guess what book it is. Hugo_5t1gl1tz
The church has no real room for actual discussion outside of cliche answers. AdouMusou
Eyes Wide Unshut!
I was a Jehovah's Witness. I took a break and left for a few years. When I attempted to come back the time off really opened my eyes at the control they try to exert over every aspect of your life. That's when I opened my mind that they weren't the one and true religion. Then it became obvious the horrible things they are guilty of. Then became disheartened with all religion since they all use guilt, shame, and fear to control their members for money and power. Then I realized the bible is utterly ridiculous and that if I were to believe the bible, that God is a total a**hole. Elbiotcho
Staying Angry....
Giphy
Praying for many months and begging for things to get better while also getting bullied way more and finally falling into depression. I guess the anger made me start questioning everything, and religion is pretty easy to break with logic. Szarra
When I realized that God has never faith-healed an amputee, in any religion. AnticipatingLunch
Who's Plan?
Watching my primary guardian die of cancer over 4 years of my late child early teen life and constantly being told that it was God's plan that she was dying a slow and painful death while also being killed by her chemotherapy. If it was God's plan to kill the closest thing I have to a parent when I was 14, then I would rather burn in his hell than live in his heaven.animekid117
Simple Logic...
Not to be too cliché, but science and logic just won out over "big sky man get mad." SarahIsTrans
Yeah, me too. I wasn't raised religious. When I started thinking about religion it confused me that people would take it seriously and believe it was all true. It was all much too fairy tale for me. I tried my best to understand it and understand faith but it just would not compute. I think some people just have faith and others do not. I am comfortable not having faith and wouldn't change a thing about myself. starlit_moon
Hey Lazarus....
Giphy
I was raised Christian. I believed the Bible and I believed in miracles and I really absolutely believed. But I was a bit of an optimist, so while I believed non Christians went to hell I figured God loves everyone, he'll give them time to find him.
Then I got a phone call that my non Christian friend died. And I knelt on the floor and I prayed, in tongues even. And I prayed that if Jesus could bring Lazarus back to life he could give my friend another chance. That I would die in her place, I'd go to heaven so surely it would be better that way. And I knelt and I sobbed and I prayed to die for hours. And I was so sure, I mean God loved her right, this was the perfect answer?
Shockingly enough my friend did not magically come back to life. I didn't lose my faith all in one go. I tried to find justifications but I just couldn't anymore. So now I just love my friends as much as I can while I'm alive and if I go to hell when I die at least I'll be in good company. Bunny36
Nothing left to give...
In Christianity, you're expected to "give up" a lot: money, time, whatever. However, I don't have the will or the energy to give any of my time to my faith. I'm a senior in high school and these past few years have been utter crap. I don't do anything except go to school, study, and do my extracurriculars. I'm also applying to colleges, which is a whole other ball game. I'm so very very tired and I know it's only going to get harder from here. Still, I'm already drained. I don't have time for myself. I haven't seen some of my friends so far this school year, because we're all busy and we can't meet up. I now have sciatica because all I do is sit and stare at homework for hours on end. Sometimes, I can't get out of my damn bed. And for God's sake, I'm a 17-year-old girl who doesn't know how to drive or even apply makeup, because I don't have time to learn these skills. That being said, if I had a little bit of free time to myself on a Sunday morning, I most certainly would NOT go to Church- voluntarily of course. I'm expected to go and sit through the same lengthy liturgy, which bores me to tears. Why should I give up what little to no time I have left for myself for others? I don't want to sound selfish or bratty, but I'm damn frustrated. I've become a recluse because of my studies, and if I'm expected to give up even more, then I want out. sweet_autumn_goat
The Rainbow Bridge outta here!
Giphy
Oof, I have a lot of feelings about religion.
I was Christian until I was 16 years old. I had gone to Christian schools, went to church camps, etc. The bible didn't make a ton of sense, but I reasoned that it was all parables and metaphors.
And then my cat died, and now I was a shy, quiet girl and this cat was my very best friend, and he died. I was crying to a church counselor that at least my cat would be there waiting for me in heaven. And they told me no, that wasn't true, animals don't have souls. They're essentially meat robots put on earth for humans to do with as they wish, and they don't matter, that the rainbow bridge is fake.
That was literally the very last straw, and I was done. No way you can share your life with an animal and love it, and believe that if you can believe every other weird, horrible thing in that book.
As I've aged, my dislike for religion has only grown. I truly cannot stand how women and marginalized groups are treated across many different religions. It disgusts me, and I do not trust people who have found faith later in life. I understand being brainwashed as a child, it happened to me. I do not understand embracing those beliefs as an adult.onequestionisall
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
Basketball Wives Ugh GIF by VH1Giphy"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
Kung Fu Wtf GIF by A24Giphy"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
Stanley Cup Nhl GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphy"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
Prayer GIFGiphy"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"
No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Nbc Jump GIF by SuperstoreGiphyHave you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
Season 8 Teacher GIF by FriendsGiphyThe dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
spelling GIFGiphyNo, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.