Ever thought about the things you throw out? Someone out there is gonna see it one last time before it's buried away forever. These people definitely weren't thinking about that when they left these odd things in the trash.
Reddit user Illtema asked:
50. Rich People Are *The Worst*
GiphyMy friend's dad is the "do everything" kind of man for a CEO of a construction company. He gets asked to throw away jewelries and expensive art artifacts. He also had to get rid of old pick ups (sell them or whatever he could but get rid of them) he could keep the money the CEO doesn't give a sh!t.
49. ADVANCED Pleasure
I was doing waste analysis, collecting people's domestic rubbish and sorting it into categories, producing data for recycling planning. Fairly disgusting job. Anyway, I once found a nice wooden box with a hinged lid, lined with some sort of silky fabric, and in their own specialty shaped little recessed bits lay three large adult toys. One was the size of a fire extinguisher. The thing was scary. No idea why someone would throw them out when they'd clearly been cherished.
48. It's Like A Thrift Shop
I worked ~8 months while waiting to go to school in my small southern town. Summary of interesting things I found go as follows: 20$ , bullets, a live snake, a fully working 400$ amp (which I now use for my speaker setup), and a small bag of marijuana, and a can literally full of adult toys and open DVDs.
47. Wit Beyond Measure Is Man's Greatest Naval Officer Sword
We used to pull the recyclables out of the dumpsters by our rental condo in California. Found a Naval officer's sword, a nice set of cast iron skillets, plus a fantastic handmade leather chair. Still have those in my home. Lots of clothes with tags, pretty sure the residents one unit over were shoplifters and thieves; we took that stuff to the thrift shops.
Then there was Big Trash Day in Japan once a quarter. Fully working treadle sewing machine with a cast iron base, ceramic hibachi pot, marvelous glass and lacquer cases, a giant yellow quartz gem set in silver. A full set of WWII photos and albums, including a Kamikaze farewell party, but a history professor "borrowed" those to examine and never got them back to me.
46. Could Furnish My Whole Life This Way
I lived in a campus town and every year, end of the semester, (especially the end of spring semester) the most amazing stuff would be thrown out. Students (especially foreign students) leaving who had no way to take their stuff with them. Uncounted couches, TVs, furniture, computers, electronics, etc just sitting on the curbs all around the campus. They had to clean the apartment out and they had nowhere to put the stuff but on the curb.
45. College Kids Have No Perception Of Worth
I live in a town with 2 colleges in it and I like to go textbook hunting on move out week. I'll usually pull 2,5-3k in 2 weeks. I've found around 8-9 phones of vary degrees of degradation, around 4 laptops with fixable problems and a closets worth of name-brand clothing. My daily driver timbs are trash boots.
My friend though, after two years of gathering now owns a small business selling and renting what he calls "dorm kits", which usually include a couple lights, chairs, a mini-fridge, a microwave, an electric kettle and other odds and ends. He has a real job but makes about 40k a year supplemental, a lot in cash. (that he keeps in a cardboard box labeled "f--- you money") He will often find 2-3 of the kits he sold outright in the garbage that same year. I'm jealous of his work ethic, because those couple of weeks before/after the semester he works 18 hour days.
TL;DR- if you live near a college there's gold in the garbage.
44. More College Kids
Not a garbageman, but in my college town dumpster diving was a regional sport every May with all the college kids throwing away anything they didn't care to move. My geography professor found a brand new, never used, pair of skis in the trash one year. So, he started a freecycling program, which was an assignment for my honors human geography class.
We picked up unwanted items from the dorms and Greek houses, and held onto them until school started in the fall, when students could have their pick of anything. Certain items, like shoes, went straight to where my professor volunteered in Peru, and anything unused went to Goodwill or another thrift store. Laziness does terrible things when you're young.
43. Throwing Out Trashcans-It's Meta
I've volunteered at neighborhood cleanups and have found some amazing stuff.
I was working the metal bin, but took home a couple nice GT bmx bikes for the kids.
A brand new in the box turkey deep fryer.
Ironically a bunch of brand new trashcans (Rubbermaid brute)
Perfectly fine honda pressure washer.
Commercial paint sprayer.
42. Antiques From The Road-show
I have a (now deceased) friend who basically stocked his antique store with stuff he found on the side of the road.
I'm sort of ashamed to admit it because I feel like it was profiting off the misfortune of others but I lived in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina and I basically rebuilt my house from stuff that people tossed. I was amazed at the amount of stuff people ripped out that was above the waterline.
People would literally hire crews to gut their entire house and they would put everything, and I repeat, everything on the side of the road. At one point there
Some of the stuff I found: AC Units. 2-3 Sub-Zero refrigerators (compressor is on the top, people, there are no electronics in the bottom to get wet). A full room of paneling which I used to panel a small bathroom.
Marble flooring. Attic fans. Solid wood doors. A full vintage porcelain bathroom set (tub, sink, toilet and bidet). A skeleton shower from the 20's ($). Hardwood flooring. Chandeliers. Cabinets. Lots and lots of cypress molding and structural elements.
Also found: TV sets. Computers. 2 grand pianos (flood had discolored legs but not reached the soundboard). 3-4 bedroom sets. A stack of paintings by a well-known LA artist ($$). Lamps. Stereo equipment.
I still have a 3 storage units full of house parts I picked up back then that I have slowly been incorporating into my current home renovation. It was truly a shame to see all this great old stuff be tossed and replaced with Home Depot crap. I could have filled 10 more units with stuff I saw and couldn't store.
41. It's The Little Things
Brother owns a trash company which I worked a lot for during summer breaks. I've found a live possum, which hissed at me. Dead mice. Lots of adult videos. Blow up doll.
The most valuable thing to find is glass handles of vodka. We used to save them in the cab, throw them as high as we could at the dump to hear the most satisfying "pop" you've ever heard. Gotta find little enjoyable things that make you smile while working a literal sh*tty job.
40. Thank You For The A-A-A-A-A-Alcohol
GiphyNot a garbage man, but we used to hang out at the dumpster of the local U-Store type place (before the whole Storage Wars thing happened) and first of the month you could find the coolest sh*t in that dumpster.
I remember we got an entire wine making set. And I don't mean a little one, I mean like small scale professional level stuff. Wine corks, multiple heavy glass bottles of all different colors, those huge glass bottles, the hoses and valves, everything.
Basically looked like someone had an entire micro-brewery setup and forgot to pay the rent on his box. Whoopsie.
39. Ten Men Wearing The Same Garbage
I worked as garbage man last year as a summer job. One day a man came by who said he lost a high sum of money and he wants us to look for it. The money was in an envelope and he said it was € 10.000+. He said he wanted to bring the money to the bank and stashed it between some old newspaper he wanted to get rid of (yeah, what a genius, right?).
Anyways, we were about 10 men at that time and he promised to give all of us a fair share if we manage to find it, so, obviously we started the search.
As you can imagine, that shit usually takes a while to find because you have to literally look through every paper container (about 20) for a small envelope.
Well, the luck was on our side that day, after about 10 minutes a coworker called out that he got it. Awesome. He looked inside and told us later that it was definitely more than 10k (more like 30k).
Everybody got a 100€ bill and it was pretty much the best working day ever.
This man just threw about 30k in the trash and found it like 2 hours later. Should've went to the casino that day.
38. Heir-lewd-ms
Ooh I've had a few. One was a framed portrait of an elderly woman giving everyone the finger, another one was a little plastic monk who got a woody when you pressed his head down, and the third was a foam ballsack... just the ballsack. I can post pics later if anyone's interested.
37. Now Make Them Answer For Messing Up Star Wars
The cleaning company I work for regularly gets rid of unwanted stuff from an Electronics Arts office. We could keep the items they didn't use anymore. Some of the fun things we got were: a classic guitar hero set, wii fit + balance board, sim city mouse pads (still using those), some kind of singstar microphones (use the now for talking online with friends), old sims disks with all the commercials they have ever released (some weird stuff was on there), battlefield bad company key chains, old games like need for speed and rogue galaxy for ps2 and lots of minor stuff. This happens annually so i hope they got some fun stuff this year.
36. Food And Wine Up The Wazoo
At my sister's alma mater, she said the rich girls threw out a lot of good stuff when the dorms had to be cleaned out for the summer. She got clothes, shoes and purses.
I lived in Israel as an English teacher several years ago and since thrift stores aren't really a thing there, perfectly good clothes would be thrown out. I got so many bags of clothes.
Once they were washed, they were perfectly fine. (Got hand-me-downs from my teacher, the teacher of two people in my cohort and a few friends in my cohort as well.) Never had to buy clothes (minus a pair of boots and my Purim costume) during my 10 months in Israel! Before Passover, people toss anything that isn't kosher for Passover. I found more clothes and three unopened bottles of wine!
35. Comin' Down The Mountain On My New Ride
I usually find brand new stuff still in the plastic. Haven't really found anything illegal though.
My brother in law works for a recycling place and he finds all kinds of cool sh*t. One day he came home with 3 brand new dc snowboards. He said whatever company wanted to shred the last year's model that didn't sell so he took it home.
34. High School-Does It Really End?
I was a janitor for my high school in the summer months and one of the first jobs of the summer was locker clean out. I was given the master key for all the lockers and had to go in one by one to clean them out. I found so many bottles of ADHD meds (adderal, ritalin, vyvanse), relatively brand new shoes, nice north face fleeces among other random sh*t.
33. Softe™
I'm a major thrift store scavenger. I found a tiny hole-in-the-wall junk shop in a town just outside a big Tennessee city, near Amish country. Most of the stuff was old vending machine crap, and stacks of old magazines etc.
I saw a big plastic bag full of (what looked like) old, torn towels that had "donate" written on it and scratched out, and "whole bag $10" rewritten on the bag. I started peeking through it. Under the torn towels were incredibly beautiful hand-embroidered bed linens and pillowcases, some with crocheted or hand-tatted lace trim.
Most were incredibly soft linen, or beautiful cotton. I'm a crafter so I immediately saw the value. My guess is that someone's mother/grandmother passed away and they threw her whole linen cabinet into a bag without looking closely. I got up really quickly so the store clerk wouldn't see how excited I was and guess that the bag had more than towels in it. I paid the $10 and ran to my car to unpack.
In that bag were 8 pairs of pillowcases (all different, all flawlessly embroidered ), 6 embroidered woven dish towels , a 1950s style apron, and many small items like handkerchiefs..and 2 torn towels. Down the road in the antiques shopping row, I saw a pair of nearly identical pillowcases going for $50 a pair.
A bunch of the stuff is currently on my bed. Others were sold on eBay for 4 times what I paid for the whole bag.
32. Rich People Can Afford Anything
Friend's uncle owns some apartment buildings. Guy from China was living in one of the units and ended up needing to leave the country for Visa issues. Eventually got in touch with the guy somehow (email likely) to ask what was going on, why no rent paid, etc.
Guy explains and says that he can't give money for rent, and to just sell off anything in the apartment to make up for it. Guy had left computers, tvs, a f*cking mercedes, etc. Cleared way more than the $1600 for two months rent, plus kept the security deposit.
31. A Nice Weekly Tip
I worked on the back of a trash truck for one summer when I was younger. It was my girlfriend's dad's company so I rode with him pretty much the entire time. We never found anything truly odd but one of my best memories was when we used to go around to pick up trash at these multi-million and billion dollar homes.
There was this one house that we picked up trash at that always had four, five, six huge cans full of bottles and trash from their weekly parties.
The rule was, only two large cans were to be picked up. Anything extra would cost the customer more. Well, in order to avoid having to pay the company extra, every week there would be this old guy standing at the back gate with a $100 bill. He'd hand us the bill in exchange for us not telling the owner about the extra pick-up.
The owner, the guy who he handed the money to, always promised not to tell anyone about it. We always had a good lunch on those days.
30. A Past Blast With A Twist
GiphyMy dad was a garbage man. My brother and never paid for a bike as kids - he'd find bikes in various states of disrepair and bring them back home to fix them up from their usable parts.
Also, radios. My dad would find some incredible old radios - tons of 40s/50s era tube radio receivers, which we would fix up together.
As far as illegal, I remember him telling me that he found a big ziploc bag full of mary jane one time.
29. Yeah Don't Mess With 1970s NYC
Not me, but my Dad was. He found his share of cool stuff. he worked from 1969-1989 for the DSNY. I still have a lamp made from an old brass fire extinguisher that he found, like many others, he found lots of TV's, some new clothes (usually at Christmas time - that is why we always went through the wrapping paper), baseball cards by the box, wish I kept those, some WWII stuff, most notably an SS Dagger -
but one of the wings of the eagle was broken and attached with scotch tape. Stamps, cause I collected them when I was a kid. I have a Hitler postage stamp somewhere from this.
I wrote this before, but here it goes. The creepiest thing was in the early 1970's, Dad and the other 2 guys (at the time they were 3 to a truck, one drove, the others loaded the trash), were in East New York, an area of Brooklyn that is really sh*tty (and still is today).
They come across a very large human foot that was black (as in it came from someone who was black). Not knowing what to do, they put it in a paper bag and drove to the nearest police precinct. They walk up to the desk Sgt and place the bag in front of him. He asks what is this about?
He gestures to look inside. Desk Sgt does. closes bag up, looks at Dad and his partners, and tells them "Cycle it" (By cycle, he meant just run it through the truck with the other trash).
He tells Dad that the foot was likely removed as a warning to someone, that they (the police in that precinct) had seen it before. It was likely drug related. Even if they did find the owner, he wouldn't talk, and the foot couldn't be attached back. By moving the foot, they pretty much ruined a crime scene.
They cycled the foot.
This was the 1970's - NYC was in a downward spiral at the time.
28. For The Craft
Very wealthy neighborhood. I tossed 4-5 bags into the hopper, the fifth one ripped... sweet sweet mary jane. Although it was just trimmings. I laughed and kept going.
The most valuable would have to be an assorted allotment of unused winsor and newton oil paints. nothing too spectacular. But as an artist it was valuable to me.
27. What Is It With The 1970s
As a kid, I can chime in what rich people threw away, even in the 1970s. None of this would make that much sense anymore, but the number one thing that I found that was surprising were clock radios. They were perfectly functioning clock radios, they just weren't the new LCD models. They were the flip kind, or they would have a gear that would slowly turn and show the time. Are used to clean them up, and then sell them to other neighborhood kids for like five bucks. My mother caught wind of this, and put an end to it because she didn't like the thought of her son digging through someone else's trash.
Decades later, I went dumpster diving with some friends once in a while to get computer equipment from the back of failed business operations. It's how I built my first few computers. I remember looking at one of the contents of the hard drive, and wondering if people knew that I could read all of their medical records or private email. :/
I am told that it's better handled now. Almost every company I've worked for in the last 20 years has some sort of technology recycling service, but I always wonder if they're just paying someone else to throw it in the dumpster for them.
26. This Was An Episode Of 'My Super Sweet 16,' Probably
My uncle's friend picked up trash in Grosse Pointe in the 80's. There was a rich client who would often meet him by the curb just to talk every day. One day, he up and asks, "Hey, you know anything about cars?" Uncle's friend happened to be working the trash job to save up to open his own car shop, so he replied, "Sure do!"
The guy then asked him what he thought about the Ford Escort, and uncle's buddy replied that he thought it was cheap, but reliable. The rich guy hands him the keys, title, and tells him to pick it up after his route, he had bought it brand new for his daughter, but she hated it, and he was going to get her a different car. The odometer had less than 500 miles on it.
25. Sounds Like Abusive Parents But Ok
I enjoy dumpster diving from time to time even though I make enough money to live comfortably - I grew up in the poor parts of San Diego and would dumpster dive as a kid with my friends for fun and the habit never really wore off.
Back when I was a preteen/teen there was a fairly well off family in our apartment complex who had 4 kids and every month or two, their parents would get PISSED OFF at one of their kids and throw out ALL of their toys. This happened like clockwork every 2-3 months with one kid one month, another kid another month and sometimes 2or 3 kids in one sitting. My friend and I would dumpster dive and pull out EASILY $500 worth of toys each - sometimes brand new stuff with price stickers still attached.
One time, they threw out their kids Harry Potter collection stuff out. Got a few of the books, some limited edition golden Harry Potter bookmarks, unused journals and this brand new and unopened. I still have it over 15 yrs later.
More recently though I've found a F*CKTON of crafting supplies - mainly really expensive beads and beading materials to make necklaces/bracelets. I'm talking like 30 lbs of beads and beading materials in one big box - split it up into parts and sold them for $100 on ebay each.
Also found a set of really nice fireplace pokers with the holder, a few used brand name handbags, a bag full of Iron Maiden gear including shirts, CDs, random cutouts and printouts of Iron Maiden's Eddie and a huge cloth iron maiden flag all from the same dumpster (on different occasions).
Also, when I go out of town to big cities (or when I go back to visit my family in San Diego) I like to go dumpster diving at makeup stores since they tend to throw out perfectly near new condition displays ALL THE TIME. Easily have gotten over $5k worth of makeup products over the years by diving in their dumpsters.
24. A Cute Month's Rent
Not a garbage man - but at work there was this big cleaning spree in our storage room (IT place)
Rummaging through it because I was bored and noticed there were a LOT of brand new sealed in retail box Lexmark color ink cartridges. I don't have an inkjet but this was going to get thrown on a pallet and tossed.
I scored probably 25 or 30 brand new boxes (tricolor packs) and sold them all online for like $600 pure net profit (after fees) Turns out people are willing to buy those things when your price is 20% less than everyone else online.
23. Collections
My dad has been 'on the bins' (working for the council doing refuse, blocked drains, street cleaning etc) for about 30-odd years.
He brought a load of books home once, all hard cover Terry Pratchett's, that someone had just tossed in to a bin in a shopping centre.
He used to do tip runs, collecting stuff that had been dumped illegally and taking it to a tip (landfill?) and he used to come back with all sorts of sh!t. Mum would just bin it all again as soon as he was at work. "Look at this!" he'd say, dragging something utterly horrid in to the house "Can you believe someone would throw this away?!" Yes dad. We can believe.
Bonus points - his mates that worked our route would let me press the button on the trash compactor! 8 year old me f*cking LOVED bin day.
22. Let's Build An Entire House From This
Dumpster diver: Fender Telecaster, rusted strings but unplayed; Sony short wave radio; washing machine & dryer; silver ashtray, spoon, and chopsticks, a set; unopened whiskey and brandy bottles; a sword; a set of old handmade carbon steel kitchen knives with ebony handles; several printers; 3 Sony Trinitron monitors; books, lots of books; several 30-40 year old passports; a Raleigh 753 tubing road race bike; a top-of-the-line DeLonghi espresso machine. More stuff I can't recall.
21. Got That Moneyyyyyyyy
Not a trash story exactly, but....a couch was donated to a charity. It went onto the sale floor at a thrift shop and sat there for 2 weeks. Since it reached the time limit for sale they were throwing it into the dumpster. A last second inspection found $40,000 hidden inside.
20. Hang Onto The Rich Kids
GiphyI grew up near a very wealthy prep school, and at the end of every year I would dumpster dive for all kinds of things- electronics (mp3s, graphing calculators, etc...), brand new camping gear from the one overnight trip they do, desks/desk chairs, money, you name it. I'd sell some on craigs, keep some, and donate what I didn't need. It's hard to imagine what rich kids throw out.
19. Heads Will Roll
A normal day at the landfill was interrupted by a scream of terror from the dozer driver who came running full tilt and white as a sheet up to my me. He just kept saying heads, heads, heads, over and over again. They went back to his dozer and found a garbage bag torn open with ten bloody heads spilling out of it. Somebody had thrown away ten mannequin heads that had been used in a local haunted house.
18. Identity Theft
When former Football player Ricky Williams briefly retired to become a spiritual guru in the hills he moved into a place that was on my recycling route. I noticed a box he tossed once and grabbed it to see if there was any memorabilia or football items related in it. It looked important. What was in it was team doctors papers, contracts and just about all the personal information that one would need to actually become Ricky Williams.
I felt weird that this was out there, so I took it home and burned every piece of it in the fireplace. Felt guilty even looking at it as I tossed it.
17. Breaking The Code
My good friend who used to work at a recycling plant found an Enigma machine. That's an encryption device the nazis used. It was worth like 10,000 dollars.
16. CLASSIFIED!
I lived in Stuttgart, Germany back in the early 90's. They had something called Sperrmll day (bulk refuse), where people would put out their bulky items for collection. But a lot of useful and even brand new stuff would go out so it was common practice for a lot of people to drive around -particularly in the rich neighborhoods- to see if something good was available. I had a lot of furniture, skis, bicycles, etc, that I had gotten this way.
On this particular one I found a wooden roll top desk that only needed some sanding and refinishing. When I got it home and started taking it apart, one of the locked drawers had a binder with US department of defense schematics for what looked like a howitzer cannon. The whole thing had lots of RESTRICTED ACCESS stamped all over it.
I called the US embassy (this was at night) and left a voice mail in their emergency contact line. They called me within an hour and 2 MPs and 2 crew cuts in suits showed up at my house in less than 1/2 hour after that! After a lot of questions, thorough examination and some arguing about who would keep the desk (they took a lot of pictures of it and said they might send someone out later to collect it, but never did) they asked me to keep the incident to myself and left.
I never heard anything else about that event. My guess is that the documents were in the possession of a military worker living in the city and someone in his/her household wasn't careful about throwing stuff away. The fact that people who looked like CIA showed up in my house so fast is the exciting part.
15. Wrong Kind Of Litter
A box of live rabbits. I don't know how this managed to happen but a lady had mistakenly put the said box in her bin. She was hysterical, came to the site and we found the box with all the rabbits still perfectly healthy.
14. There Goes The Neighborhood
I work in the office a company that collects garbage. I got a call from a customer and she stated that every time they bring their bin back up from the street, something on it burns their skin. I called the operations manager who went out to check it out with the environmental officer. Turns out the next door neighbour was disposing of toxic chemicals in his bin and there was some transfer.
13. Got Off On The Wrong Foot
Bags and bags and bags of doll heads with no eyes.
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12. Urning A Living
You'd be shocked how people throw out their cremated family members.
11. Burying The Bad Memories
This was in the early 90's. I was emptying the public trash cans in a city centre in mid England. I saw this really expensive bound leather photograph holder book. I took it and lobbed it in the cab to check out later.
After work I started looking through it and it started with these fresh faced young soldiers laughing and grinning at the camera. They were doing their training I think in some leafy camp in England. Then it switched to an awful looking desert - it was the time of Gulf War I.
The smiles went and then the carnage came. Busted tanks, cars and people. Fires, death and destruction. Almost unrecognizable burnt corpses. Just horrible, horrible stuff.
Then I stopped looking and threw it away as the owner had intended. I often wonder who threw that away, I hope it was the soldier trying to forget rather than one of his grieving relatives. That was more than 20 years ago but I think of that poor boy a lot.
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10. We're Guessing She Said No
A friend whose dad was a garbageman once told me he found an engagement ring and a pack of condoms in a small disposable bag, he always wanted to know the story behind it.
9. This Guy's A Straight Shooter
We'd get some interesting stuff from crime scenes, police evidence, ect. But the most questionably disposed of item was a Smith and Wesson revolver from a police department in Virginia, in a box of evidence. Should have kept my mouth shut and kept that one.
8. A Regular Dragon's Hoard
I think the most useful thing I found was a 15-foot logging chain. It must have weighed 40 pounds, and I use it on my tractor. Other than that...
Two Egyptian Papyrus paintings, framed.
3 Mountain bikes- one had a loose rear axle (tightened the nut, had it fixed in seconds) the others had flat tires.
12 working VCRs. With LOTS of VHS adult films.
An entire box of new-in-wrapper embossed steel Rolling Rock Beer signs. Sold them on Ebay for over $300.
7. Roach Motel
One of the floors in the building had a huge problem with bugs. One night I was collecting the trash off the floor when I noticed she had very carefully decorated a cardboard box to look like a hotel, and had a sign inviting people to drop any bugs they found inside. It was weird, but I figured she was just collecting proof of the bug problem to get management to do something about it.
A few weeks later, I turned the corner to her cubicle, and it was covered in bugs. There were about 20, tacked up all over with pushpins. And they were BEDAZZLED. Each of these bugs had its own unique pattern.
After we told management about it they finally did bring an exterminator in! We still talk about the "bug lady" to this day.
6. Like A Garbage-Collecting Unicorn
I once found a big black adult toy that was around 10 inches long and a good 2 1/2 inches wide. We promptly decided to play tag with it and eventually fastened it to the front of the truck.
5. Gives Disposable Income A Whole New Meaning
My ex's dad was a garbage man for a decade. He told me once while drunk he found ton of cash in a recycling box and pocketed it before tossing it in the back of the truck. Said it was almost $3K in a rubber band.
4. Dead Drop
I was a garbage man for a number of years in the early 90s. I live in a very small town that is mostly Italian, and one morning we were sent out to collect the dumpster from a trucks top on the outskirts of town. As the truck was pouring the contents of the dumpster into the back, I saw a wet box break apart and inside were a bunch of submachine guns and magazines of ammo.
I stopped the winch, told the driver, and we both decided to play dumb (not difficult) and pretend we didn't see them. So I continued on and crushed it all as though I hadn't seen them.
I just remember being afraid that they were dropped off for a pickup or exchange and if some saw me taking them or I was found with them, it'd be a really bad day for me.
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3. Nobody Thought This Was A Bad Idea?
In an old school, a forgotten high school chemistry lab from the 60s. Jars and jars of things like thermite, sticks of yellow phosphorous submerged in some yellow-colored liquid that had evaporated to the point where there was only 1/8" of liquid covering the top of the sticks and the slightest movement would cause the top end of the sticks to be uncovered.
This was all on the same racks as a jar of mercury, about a pound of powdered asbestos, spools of magnesium ribbom, quantities of powdered sulfur, nitroglycerin, potassium permanganate, cans that had rusted through (they still contained - something -
but the labels were too corroded to read), acid nitric and too many other bottles to read as just being in that room for a couple of minutes gave me a splitting headache.
It had apparently been a well-stocked chemistry lab for high school students decades previously then one day the school closed so they locked the door and nobody had entered it (much less cleaned it out) for decades.
2. What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas, Including Your Money
My uncle in Vegas was a trash man. After work he would walk through the landfill and find casino chips, jewelry, other valuables and money - enough to buy a very nice home on his modest wages after only a couple years. Rich, drunk and/or stupid means a lot of disposed, as opposed to disposable, wealth
1. A Dis-Arming Find
A severed arm with no hand... At first I thought it was from an animal until I looked closer in horror that it clearly was a human elbow.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.