Daredevils Reveal The Most Illegal Thing They've Done And Gotten Away With
Move fast, hide quick.
Wait long enough at any dinner party, and almost surely someone has a story like this. A tale from their past, usually involving ignoring the law and breaking a couple of rules, which they happily share with anyone who will listen. People with a "breaking the law" story from their youth and, most surprisingly, from old age feel a liberation to ignoring the status quo and living to tell the tale. Sometimes they're epic, sometimes they're a little smaller, as evidenced by the following stories.
Reddit user, u/StrangeDamage9, wanted to know about those times when braking the law was life-changing when they asked:
What is the most illegal thing you've done and gotten away with?
When You Absolutely Need To Play
GiphyI used to technically break into my high school after hours just to play computer games. (Well before people had PC's at home.) I'd just unlock a window and then come back into the school later.
This is actually kind of impressive.
Fire Me, Will You?!
I stole my boss's car when he said I wasn't allowed to quit my job (we were based really far in the mountains and the only way to leave was with his vehicle... so thats what i did). I left the car a day later in a nearby town.
I need to know more. Why didn't he let you quit? What happened when you stole the car???
It was an equestrian centre in Bavaria. They exclusively hired extremely young foreign girls and took advantage of them. I worked illegal hours... getting up at 5am and finishing at 9pm with about 15 minutes rest. I was also promised at least 1 day off a week but it turned into 1 day off a month. There was no way off of this mountain, and it was January, so it was dangerous to walk anywhere. I told my boss I was done and wanted to go home, but he told me that I had to fulfil [sic] my 3 month contract. I tried calling a taxi in the night but they said they wouldn't send anyone up there.
One afternoon I decided f-ck it, and I waited until my boss and his wife was out in the paddock when I went into their house and stole their car key. They were parked facing a snow bank, and as I threw my bag in the back I remembered that the car doesn't reverse and you have to push it out. I couldn't do it by myself, so I just smashed through the snow bank instead. There was some scratches to the front. I drove over an hour to the nearest village and tried to hide the car as best I could before getting a b&b for the night with a fake name (OTT i know but i was 18 at the time and was on a dramatic high lol). Next day I drove the car to the nearest train station and left it there with the key behind one of the wheels...
Never know what happened to it. I got a text from my boss that day but I deleted it without reading because I was so scared about what it could say. Flew back home and never heard from them again.
When You Absolutely Need To Play Pokémon GO
GiphyI once smuggled my smartphone into the military, kept it inside a book Andy Dufresne style, used it when I was alone and got away with it.
How did you charge it??
You're allowed to keep your power bank in your locker in my country's military, so every once in a while I took it to bed and charged it under the pillow.
To Be Fair, This Doesn't Seem Like Your Fault
I bought 2 sets of furniture one day. An end table and an dining room table set that was in 3 boxes. All of it was assembly required, all stacked up on a heavy duty cart, all from the same company. The cashier scanned the top item, an end table that was 50 bucks, and thought it was the whole cart of sh-t, worth 500 bucks.
I was poor and I accepted his mistake.
Sorry. i am bad.
That's how I got a free Nintendo switch, grabbed it with the full intent to buy it but when they didn't scan it I wasn't gunna say anything, did speed walk out of the store as fast as possible tho
What A True Mafioso...?
Serial Jaywalker right here. I do it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Try and stop me.
I'm making a Citizens Arrest. Right Now.
Target Better Be On The Lookout
GiphyA friend of mine would compulsively steal from clothes stores all the time, she'd brag about how she could get away with anything and would put on jewelry and clothing and just walk out. Then one day she started working for the store and they had a binder full of faces pulled from CCTV who'd been caught and oh no, hers was in there. To her advantage she'd changed hair color and had lost quite a bit of weight so wasn't easily recognizable but I doubt it really taught her any real lesson.
We don't talk anymore.
Was it Target? Their LP does NOT eff around and will purposely let you get away with it at first just so they can start building a case and hit you with a whammy
So what you're saying is that you can steal one thing from every Target.
The giant flat-screen bandit has hit every Target on the east coast. But NEVER twice!
All Signs Point To: REBEL
I took a lot of street signs as a teen. It was dumb, but whatever. They are still stashed in the woods. I've considered returning them to somewhere where it can be picked up because I feel kinda sh-tty about it today.
The best is when you take it and you put it in your friends yard at night and they wake up and see a sign planted in their yard.
Who Wouldn't Need A New Door?
I once stole a guy's apartment door for a little while.
I want so much more information than that!
My friend and I saw that he'd had a new door delivered but it wasn't yet installed. We took it, leaned it up against a tree nearby, and invited people to the party at our new place. They came and it was a good time. It got cut short when the door's owner caught us, politely asked for his door back, and we returned it.
It's The Thought That Counts?
GiphyThe other day I was taking my shopping to the car with a trolly and I realized I hadn't scanned a packet of vegetable stock that was hidden underneath my bags. I felt too awkward to go back into the TESCO to explain the situation, so kept it. I'm so sorry Lairg TESCO, I owe you one!
Get your pitchforks ready there's a monster among us.
And The Winner? House. Stole A House.
We stole a house.
As young poor mountain hippies (way different from city hippies) unable to afford building materials, we came across a (seemingly) abandoned 2 story cabin in the woods. No furnishings or windows. So the three of us dismantled it board by board and salvaged the hand hewn beams and every scrap of lumber. Even found opiate elixirs antique bottles hidden in the walls under 1800's newspaper used for insulation. It took several weeks, many trips over the mountain, and much hard labor, but we considered it a recycling project.
On the last day, as we were securing the final load on my '47 Dodge flatbed truck', the property owner showed up and was angry and amazed at the same time. This was before cell phones and the nearest phone was miles away. We apologized, saying we thought it was abandoned, and left. He couldn't even prove that the house ever existed we left the site so clean.
No dude, the story can't end there. This man went home to his family and had to explain the cabin he bought to fix up was TAKEN away and that next years week long camping trip is canceled.
H/T: Reddit
Do You Even Lift, Bro?
Used to break into my high school to use the weight room :-D
Would just leave the lights off and lift in the dark!
Probably creeped the shit out of the custodian who would hear grunting and metallic noises coming from a dark room.
It's just the ghost of swoleness past.
Shots Fired
GiphyI returned from an active war zone, by aircraft, and then taxi and public transport on the train, hitch hiking the last 2 miles. When I got back to my parent's house, I dumped all my dirty laundry and headed out to see my girlfriend right away.
When i got back my mother had put my smock in the wash, with a ton of ammunition in the pocket that I had not known I had in there.
That can get you in a lot of trouble, and it was a total accident. I decided the best place for it was at the bottom of a deep hole with a pond on top.
You Want A Pizza Me?
I once took the last slice of pizza at a birthday party.
I later realized I forgot to ask the buyer of said pizza before I snatched that delicious morsel away from anyone else's grasp.
I am ashamed.
That Escalated Quickly
When I was 16 I was making some very high quality fake IDs. But I was also participating in a site called ShadowCrew that focused on carding, identification etc. Well somehow I got access to the "Upper levels" VPN. But the site operator had been busted and the VPN was essentially just a monitoring device for the US Secret Service.
Eating dinner with my parents one night, I hear a smashing at the front door, look down the hall and see the door fly open with about 5 guys in kevlar with automatic weapons and then the back door flies in as well with "RCMP RCMP! GET ON THE FLOOR!". I was handcuffed in front of my parents and taken in for questioning with 2 USSS agents watching. I guess they thought I was a lot bigger than I actually was, they put me in a cell until 3am then let my dad come pick me up. I never heard another word from them again, no charges, no follow up. I was in the newspapers etc. You can read about the operation on Wikipedia it was called Operation Firewall. They arrested like 30 people around the world at the same time and a lot of people did time.
This is the excerpt from the news article describing me. They got the username wrong due to my info being sealed:
A 17-year-old Canadian went by the nics "Liquid Dust," "LIQ.dust," or simply "Dust," American authorities say. But this is impossible to corroborate through police and prosecutors in Canada; the teen's name cannot be published because of provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
A third teen was later also taken into custody.
Details of the crimes allegedly perpetrated by the Canadians remain sealed by court order, as prosecutors in that province continue to weigh what, if any, charges will be laid against them.
But what investigators in both countries allege is that the 17-year-old was the mastermind.
"He was unusual," says Johnson, "in that you typically don't get that high up in that hierarchy at that (young) age.
And one of its elite, police allege, was a 17-year-old youth, said by police to be the brains behind a Canadian document forgery and drugs operation that allegedly included two accomplices from the Lower Mainland.
Armed officers from the Vancouver Emergency Response Team, the local RCMP detachment and the Vancouver police arrested the youth at his Richmond home as he sat at the dinner table eating lasagna with his father, brother and a teenage friend on Oct. 26, 2004. His computer, switched on when officers arrived, was taken into evidence.
"We went in there and literally the fork just came out of the mouth," Det.-Const. Mark Fenton, a computer crime investigator with the Vancouver Police Department, says. "Then I had to sit down with the [17-year-old's] parents and explain why we were there because obviously [they] were dumbfounded, to say the least."
Goldilocks
GiphyFinding a random suburban unlocked home in the middle of the night, sneaking into the house and emptying the liquor cabinet.
Pushing Your Luck
I used to steal Playstation 2 consoles. The Wal-Mart Supercenter by the place I was staying at, had sensors (specifically set to respond to the strips that were stickered onto each unit's box) that would trigger the alarm system by both of the sets of doors on each of grocery and general merchandise sides, but I noticed that the home and garden department had an exit after the registers that had no sensors, so I would put a PS2 in my cart, and some other things to make it look realistic, stroll out of the gardening department, and just kept doing it. After the tenth time or so, they installed sensors by the gardening doors.
So I started peeling off the stickers, so that I could still walk through said doors without triggering the alarms. Several consoles later, they implemented a policy of locking up the consoles, so I would ask an employee to get one of them out of the locked cases for me, and then I would repeat the process. Then, it became policy that once they console had been taken out of the locked cases, they were required to be checked out before leaving the electronics department. That is when I started stealing them from Best Buy, which turned out to be much easier. I would walk in with a legitimate but dated receipt for a PS2, pick one up, walk to the door, they would glance at said receipt, and let me walk out.
Several successful repeats later, I saw the difference in policy when they started reading the receipts much more carefully, so I would walk in with an empty PS2 Box, (making sure that it had the small metallic strip on it that would set of the alarm when coming in) get a pink sticker on it (this denotes that the merchandise came in for return or repair, so that it could be walked out with) then casually stroll over to the PS2s proudly on display, take the pink sticker off of my empty box, place said empty box in the display, and slap the sticker onto the new box, walk to the front, go through slowly so that the alarm would go off, brandish the sticker towards the employee at the front, so that I would be waved on out.
This all happened during the winter of 2000 and lasted until the fall of 2001 when I got a job, which changed my outlook drastically. I completely lost count of how many consoles I got away with. If I'm being boastful, I would say in the 70's, but honestly, it was prolly much closer to the fifties in quantity. I'm not proud of the choices, and to be frank, as much as it was for the money, there was a much more needy concept of feeling like I was outsmarting (for all intents and purposes) THE WORLD, but I know that I would just being a shitty person, and making life harder on good people that worked at the Wal-Mart locations, and the Best Buys that I preyed on.
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Life is beautiful.
But life is really damn arduous.
Every day we're witness to the unfairness of it all.
That can cause some deep internal struggle.
And then that's why people change.
Sometimes for the worse.
Redditor Brianna6871 wanted to compare notes on what makes us all... over it, so they asked:
"What has caused you to become bitter?"
Becoming bitter is easy. I try to fight against it.
Loyalty is overrated...
Happy Season 5 GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Being with my company for 8 years then finding out new people that I trained make more than me."
km8907
"If it makes you feel any better, this is very common. Loyalty is overrated. The more you stay, the more they take you for granted. I also made the same mistake."
sensiferum
K.I.T
"Attempting to stay in contact with friends and then realizing they wouldn’t do the same for you once you stop."
Snowgoosey
"I agree. I used (and still do, to some extent) to have the mentality of 'don't make it into a competition, if you care about someone- contact them!'" And I did. But after 10 times of being the one initiating the conversation I just wonder if they'd bother to do the same."
"Each time they say 'I've been meaning to call you!' and they never do. And I'm talking good friends who share history together, not someone I met a month ago at the gym. I still love them of course, but this bugs me and leaves a bitter taste whenever I think of them."
Michelle_Evelyn
Hard Pills
"Expectations. I had these expectations about how life was supposed to go, how I was supposed to be. Life didn't work out that way, and I know it was my own doing by having those expectations, but I'm still bitter about it."
edgarpickle
"I find that going from 'promising and intelligent young person' to 'average middle-aged man' has been a hard pill to swallow that snuck up on me. I will say that having a young child and great partner still gives me lots of joy and hope."
GarconMeansBoyGeorge
Burned Out
"Working in healthcare."
RemoteForeign3300
"Worked a decade in healthcare, seven years in the military and three as a civilian. Every professional I ever met, from the doctor on down to the nursing assistant, was burned out and sick of seeing patients. It was amazing I stayed as long as I did."
BroScience4LYFE
"Yes, I feel like part of me changed drastically because of this. Don't get me wrong, I really like to work in a hospital but sometimes it make me lose faith in humanity."
Yeny356
Life
Angry Aubrey Plaza GIF by Parks and RecreationGiphy"Aging and realizing that good, kind people suffer and die far more often than the sh**heads of the world."
Josephdirte
Aging is a good thing but can be sad. Who doesn't miss the past?
Nothing to do...
I Have No Idea Reaction GIF by MTV Movie & TV AwardsGiphy"After realizing that hard work is not fairly rewarded. Someone else who is lazier and/or less competent can get something that you wanted/deserved, and there's nothing you can do about it."
kofed62181
The End
"The death of my wife."
Pitbull60usa
"I’m with you. My husband died 3 years and 4 days ago at the age of 42. It’s not just that your favourite person and best friend in the world is gone. It’s that everything you thought would be your future is gone too."
"Cancer f**king sucks."
Intelligent-Low6442
"Dude I'm so sorry I couldn't imagine. Just know she wouldn't want you to be bitter at the world. She would want you to be happy, easier said then done but do some s**t for you man maybe take a trip or something."
"Nothing will ever change the pain, but shaking life up might at least mix it up with other emotions. All the love!!"
knowledge-is-power91
The Past
"Realizing my childhood trauma left me unable to form meaningful relationships and now I have to invest a crap ton of money and time to maybe (!) achieve some sort of progress and peace. I envy the people who grew up with loving parents and have the confidence to choose good friends, partners and look at life with hope."
whatdrivesme_insane
Worse and worse...
"The unshakable hopelessness that the world is only getting worse and worse. No matter what we do to try and better ourselves financially will be met with some new corporate bullshi**ery that will knock us back down. I'm losing my motivation to keep pressing forward. I just want to retreat into my apartment and do what makes me happy until I die."
"Working on my masters in education right now, and as much as I want to teach in school, all the horror stories I see all over the place are making me wonder if this is the right choice. It really feels like I'm jumping into a bureaucratic hellhole, but I've invested this much time, money, and energy into this career that I have to see it through."
Cedrico123
Trust Fail
"My ex cheated on me. My job told me a bunch of lies to get me in the door and now I feel mistreated. Housing is a nightmare and landlords just take your application money and give the place to someone else. It feels like everybody is just out for themselves and I can’t trust what anyone says. I’m tired."
exhale358
Oh Humanity
Good Night No GIF by Robert E BlackmonGiphy"People."
JimAbaddon
"The general public has gotten so much worse over the years. I really dislike having to interact."
NCBadAsp
Life can certainly get us down. Even if we try squeezing the lemons into lemonade, you tend to get some pulp in your eye.
Do you have any experiences to share? Let us know in the comments
People Divulge The One Secret That Would Change The Way People Saw Them If They Found Out
Everyone has a secret–a shameful history, an embarrassing tendency, or a life hack they want to keep to themselves.
Whatever it is, secrets can either completely destroy one's reputation because of a regretful past or make them venerated for an admirable act done anonymously to avoid praise.
These mysterious qualities keep you from fully understanding who your friends really are.
Do you truly really know your boss, the person you've looked up to all your life, your child, or even your spouse?
What would happen if you discovered something about them that wasn't intended for you to find out?
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor Difficult-House6853 asked:
"What’s a secret that would change how the people around you look at you if they knew?"
If you think you know everyone in your little community, you have another think coming.
Former Group Member
"I was in a cult for a couple years."
– Sleepy-Spacemen
The Escape Plan
"All of my friends and family are Jehovahs witnesses, they think I am but I plan to leave. 85% of them will shun me when I leave."
– Allegedlystupid
Complete Christening
"Our house was the first one on our street to be built. My husband and I had sex in every single house on our street while they were under construction. I imagine our neighbors would look at us differently if they know we’d f'ked in their house before they even had a chance to."
– MediocreMerkin
The discussion people have with themselves can be startling.
The Passive Confidante
"People think that I’m a good listener, and that just makes them say things to me that they really shouldn’t. I’m only listening because I don’t want to be rude, not because I care. Don’t tell me your family secrets, please."
– A_Guy_From_The_ME
Inner Dialogue
"My intrusive thoughts. Holy sh*t sometimes i surprise myself on how gnarly i think in just a second."
– MaybeNot_MaybeYes
All The Vulernabilities
"How incredibly terrified I am nearly all of the time. I'm not confident, I don't think I'm in control any more, I don't think I can do this. And still, here I go"
– Bron_3
Let's play trivia with the people you think you know well.
Lawbreaker
"I’m a convicted felon. Nothing violent, a white collar crime."
– PhotographIcy600
Easily Detached
"I have a very hard time liking/growing fond of people, even after knowing them for years. I could just drop all contact with them and not miss them at all. Was like this even as a child, all the way to now…"
– Infinite_Ebb_2856
More Than Meets The Eye
"I’m a janitor. But I’m worth over a million dollars because I own real estate."
– Flashy-Weather3529
Everyone is entitled to keeping secrets.
But has anything good ever come as a result of revealing something you've kept close to yourself?
I have. Coming out while I was in college made me feel like a heavy burden was lifted once I received an outpouring of love and support from friends and family.
What changed was not only their perception of who I truly was, but also how I viewed them.
I regretted having underestimated them–thinking they wouldn't embrace me for who I am as a person–when the exact opposite wound up happening.
I do acknowledge that everyone does not have the same experience.
I've been very lucky and I count my blessings for all the love surrounding me in my life.
Due to the nature of the discussion, this article contains movie spoilers.
There's nothing quite like sitting down to watch an incredibly good movie with equally great company and food.
But the movie can become a particularly special experience if it's surprising in some way, like having a unique plot twist.
Redditor Gooderzk asked:
"Which movie has the best plot twist?"
The Prestige
"'The Prestige.' It seems so obvious when I rewatch it, but when I first saw it I was blown away. The ending was a big shock to me, as well."
- kee80
"I love how the movie tells you exactly what will happen in the opening scene, and you spend the whole movie letting yourself get fooled exactly like it said, but then the prestige happens."
- OldManHipsAt30
Inside Man
"'Inside Man' is a good movie like 'The Prestige.' It tells you what is going to happen at the start and there’s so much sh*t going on for the rest of the movie you absolutely forget they ever did that until you get to the end."
- ImmoralModerator
Frailty
"I would never call it my favorite, but I always thought its twist elevated a would-be schlock story into something memorable."
- ArthurBonesly
Primal Fear
"When I read the question, 'Primal Fear' is the first thing that popped into my head. Great movie with a great twist at the end."
- archie905
Saw
"Yeah, it's gross, but 'Saw' had a great plot twist."
- MlecznyHuxel99
"Not only is it a great twist, it’s not at the end, either. There’s one movie, the twist, and then allll the fallout afterward. It doesn’t just twist and fade to black."
- Randvek
"That plot twist redeemed it for me. I just wasn't enjoying it, and then bam, 'What the h**l did I just watch!?!'"
- jackfaire
Arrival
"'Arrival' has an incredible twist and is probably my favorite movie of the last 20 years."
"The twist holds up incredibly well on repeat viewings. That's the sign of a good twist in my opinion. The bad ones (including some mentioned here IMO) tend to invalidate a lot of the movie. Great twists add layers of depth to previous events."
- doktarr
Cabin in the Woods
"Well, the entire movie is one big twist; 'Cabin in the Woods.'"
"Not spoiling it. It must be watched blind, but, totally worth the watch."
- valeran46
Oldboy
"Hard to find the Korean version, but in my opinion, 'Oldboy' is a must-watch if you can find it. It’s English subtitled but nothing could prepare me, lol (laughing out loud). Don’t watch the remake, only the original version."
- Striball
The Sixth Sense
"'The Sixth Sense' was such a big deal that the director is still able to make big budget flops over and over again anytime he wants to."
- PMYourTiny
Gone Girl
"Am I the only person that wanted to jump into the screen and strangle that woman???"
- themissrebecca103
"Just from watching that movie I've had this hatred for the actor that played the chick, she did such an insane job of depicting her character that now I just cringe at her face in other movies."
- Crazy-visit-5078
Se7en
"'Se7en.' I was not expecting that ending and will never watch that movie again."
- FreshStarLiving
Parasite
"I went from, 'Hey, this is a really fun and entertaining movie, but why is it up for an Oscar,' to 'Holy f**king mother of God' in about five seconds flat, lol (laughing out loud)."
- MissPinkieB
Shutter Island
"'Shutter Island' is an obvious pick."
"Probably the greatest plot twist I've ever seen, at least on par with 'The Sixth Sense,' in my opinion."
"And it gets even crazier when you realize that Andrew Laeddis was faking his delirium at the end because he wanted to be lobotomized. He had fully 'come back' to his normal cognitive capacities but simply couldn't live with the guilt over what he had done."
- washington_breadstix
Crazy, Stupid Love
"I was taken by surprise during the twist in that movie."
- 0rangePolarBear
Book of Eli
"I wasn't expecting the twist. But if you rewatch the movie, you actually see it's shown since the beginning. D**n, Denzel Washington can act."
- Khaos_Gorvin
For those who love a movie with a solid twist, this list is a great place to start. In the meantime, for those of us who have seen these films, it might be time for a rewatch.
It's not surprising that each country is different, with various beliefs and rules, but what is always eye-opening is what one country will deem a basic necessity, another will deem an expensive, even allusive, luxury.
Americans in particular are often perplexed by the luxuries that Europeans are able to enjoy on a daily basis, which Americans would not be able to have without paying a premium.
Redditor Specialist-Metal-458 asked:
"Americans, what do Europeans have every day that you see as a luxury?"
Required Vacation Time
"My husband (we’re Canadian) did his post-doc in Finland; when he was signing his contract, they said, 'You’ll get six weeks paid vacation and you HAVE to take it.'"
"He was shocked. He had friends elsewhere doing post-docs who were doing 14-hour work days, six to seven days per week, and with no vacation, let alone PAID vacation."
"One of the years when he was nearing the end of his cycle, HR reached out and in a panic said, 'You have 3.5 days that you HAVE to use,' unbeknownst to us. So, we booked a trip for an extended weekend away."
"I miss that. And it’s something we both negotiate when starting new jobs; rather take a bit of a lower salary with more vacation time."
- ahope1985
Paid-Paid Vacation
"Six weeks vacation, extra pay just for vacation (at least in Germany), government healthcare."
- Royal_Acanthisitta51
"Wait. Is that paid... paid vacation??"
- a**lly_ExpressUrself
"Yes, lots of companies give half a month extra pay for vacation each year. Some also give half a month's extra pay for Christmas. It's like, 'Here's some extra money for you to have a nice vacation or a nice holiday.' It's quite common for larger companies."
- DnDVex
"I am an American who is now living in Sweden and a Swedish citizen, and I will never NOT be amazed that I have the legal right to four continuous weeks of paid vacation during the summer. THE LEGAL RIGHT."
"Literally amazing."
- ingenfara
Affordable Drinks
"This is only really true for Southern Europe, but cheap wine by the glass, cheap coffee, and pastries."
"Cafes in the US are marketed as very trendy and if you want a pastry and a coffee, you should be ready to pay eight to ten dollars. In most of Italy, Portugal, and Spain, you can get coffee and a croissant for three euros (approximately three dollars)."
- kulkdaddy47
Particularly Affordable Wine
"Where I live in Spain, the standard price for a glass of wine in a cafe or every day (non-fancy, equivalent of a diner) restaurant is 80c - €1. In a restaurant, I’ll usually order a half liter for about €4 (That’s 2/3 bottle of wine)."
"Soda and bottled water are more expensive. Soda is usually €1.20-1.60."
- KimchiMaker
"At Denver International Airport last month, I paid $23 for a glass of wine that I know would cost about $7 per bottle at Costco. Probably €4 per bottle in Italy. It was like getting robbed in broad daylight without a gun, but I get really nervous before flying."
- Missmoneysterling
Slower Living
"Time! I spent time abroad in Italy for school, and there was just so much less of a 'rush' everywhere. Oftentimes the latest person to my classes were professors. Everyone really took their time and I didn't really feel the bustle of constantly 'going' somewhere when I was there."
"I mean, dang, the village my apartment was located in shut down for a few hours in the afternoon so the shopkeepers could go have lunch. It was wild."
- SpaceMush
University-Bound
"Affordable universities… our daughter is going to university in Scotland. Our US friends always respond with shock at the 'luxury' of going overseas for school until I tell them it’s half of the cost of an equivalent US college. That includes travel expenses."
- Crafty-Arachnid6824
Accessible Public Transportation
"This blew me away traveling in Europe. It doesn’t matter where you are, even if it’s some middle-of-nowhere farm town, you’re never far from a train station, and you can just hop a train and go anywhere you want."
"I would love to have that here, but noooo, we only have rail links between some major cities, and since I live in a more rural area, I have to drive four or more hours everywhere. In Europe, all I had to do was drive 20 minutes to a train station and then just chill on the train for a few hours. It was great!"
- SirTophamFat
Well-Balanced Work
"An American friend of ours was gobsmacked that I have a well-paid, head of department level job, don't work unpaid overtime, and get 33 days paid holiday a year, with eight days of public holiday on top."
- Major_Twain
Extensive Travel
"They can travel between different countries in Europe without spending days driving or flying."
- WhimsicalGrenade
"And without border controls or checkups! I can just sit in a car here in Germany and drive to France and all the other EU countries, just realizing I’m in another country because of the traffic signs."
"Once I sat in a Train and slept in, after like 30 minutes I woke up, got off the Train, and realized I’m in Enschede, Netherlands. (Living in NRW, so pretty close to the border). I was like Hm, okay, I've got 50€ in my pocket, so I decided to visit a coffee shop and walk a bit through the City until the next Train in the right direction arrived. Like I’d do in every other City while traveling by train."
- DisguisedAccount
Publicly Acceptable
"Being able to walk around town with a beer is awesome."
"Public transportation in non-huge cities is also awesome."
- ooo-ooo-oooyea
Bathroom Conditions
"Bathroom stalls that actually go to the floor. I don’t need to know what shoes the guy taking a s**t next to me has on."
- maxncheese67
"Don't forget the intentional gaps on the doors."
- jensbert
E. All of the Above.
"Healthcare. Life work balance. Walkable communities. Great train service."
- zunzarella
Legitimate Sick Days
"I recently read a post about an American residential doctor who couldn't afford to take a vacation because they had to spend it on sick days."
"Not going to lie, my brain short-circuited at that a bit. Was a doctor supposed to come sick to a hospital full of other sick people to avoid personal financial penalties?"
- HQMorganstern
Paid Parental Leave
"Paid parental leave. I had used all of my leave with my first kid, so when I had another kid a year and a half later, I was back on my feet teaching in under six weeks."
"Dogs get better treatment than working mothers."
- ElegantGoose
The Need of a Car
"Not having to use a car every single time that you leave your house... For a lot of people, you have to go drive somewhere to safely take a walk... This place can be a h**l, and it is numbing."
- _aelius
It's All About Perspective
"As a European, I'm amazed how you guys (Americans) are looking at certain things I consider basic needs as luxuries."
- FridgeParade
As the final Redditor pointed out, it's terrible to think that Americans see what others view as basic necessities as a luxury that they can only dream of having.