We've all had moments in our lives when we've been glad that there wasn't a camera to catch our embarrassing fumbles and flubs.
But what if there was?
This formed the basis for today's burning question from Lord_Urjit, who asked the online community: What moment of your life would have gone viral... if it had been recorded?
"We were hiking..."
GiphyWe were hiking, and came across someone in a lowered sporty car, stuck in the mud out in the middle of nowhere. We started helping them try to dig their car out of the mud, only to have a truck (friend of driver) show up and immediately get stuck as well. Car owner called for more backup (bigger trucks) and they all proceed to show up, one by one, and get stuck in the mud. One of the trucks caught on fire (driver absentmindedly set down a high powered, heated flashlight on his center console). Truck driver got so mad his nose started bleeding, and wanted to kill the original car driver stuck in the mud. It was like one of those comedy movies where everything went wrong.
"My husband..."
My husband is a bit of an active sleeper. He has done all sorts of things in his sleep: eat, make coffee, check the mail, move furniture. I wish we had a camera in our house to capture the night we fell asleep in the living room and he picked me up and carried me to bed. I woke up along the way (he wasn't super gentle) and he dropped me on the edge of the bed. I bounced right off.
"Probably the time..."
Probably the time I was messing around with my family at the park and punted a basketball the full length of the court only to nail my little brother in the head. Luckily he had a helmet on, unluckily he was riding a scooter and went down pretty hard.
"I was in a sport class..."
I was in a sport class, doing a game similar to tag as a warm-up or something.
A friend of mine was chasing me, so I ran at a small goalpost (corner at head height, you see where this is going) and dodged out of the way at the last second, expecting my friend to nearly go into it and have to stop himself, giving me time to escape.
He careered head-first into the corner of the goalpost and I didn't see him for the rest of the day.
"As a teen..."
As a teen, during a game of one-on-one, I tried to toss the basketball to the other guy by bouncing it off my crotch.
It would've worked fine, except I'm not built like a Ken doll, so I just powerslammed the ball into my dangly bits and fell to the ground.
"The two different trust falls..."
The two different trust falls I tried at a party within 5 min of each other and both people stepped away and I landed flat on my back. Good thing alcohol numbs both your physical and emotional feelings... Sometimes.
"We were in the middle..."
We were in the middle of math class and a lot of us were being quite loud, talking, etc. while the teacher was talking. He got really upset and started yelling at all of us. He is normally very calm, so we were all shocked and speechless. When he was done, there was complete silence for a solid 20 seconds. No movement whatsoever. When all of a sudden, the Mario theme started playing. We all looked to where the sound was coming from to see one of the kids scrambling his phone out, saying "sorry, sorry, that is my ringtone." Thinking about this moment never fails to make me laugh.
"A bunch of us guys..."
A bunch of us guys were throwing a water bottle across the classroom at each other before class one day, and one guy misthrew. He nailed this tough girl goth chick right in the side of the head. She turned to him with the purest look of murder I have every seen. That stare lasted a couple of seconds... then she burst out crying and ran out of the room.
"When I was..."
When I was young younger, my neighbor, Josh, flipped a water bottle and landed it on the back of the rim. Would've been less impressive if his older brother, Jake, hadn't capped another bottle on top of it. Wish I recorded that moment, only have a photo.
"At my 13th..."
GiphyAt my 13th birthday party I was laughing hard and went to lean back against the wall. I fell through. Whole room laughed hysterically and I laughed so hard I nearly stopped breathing.
"Probably the time..."
Probably the time I fell off a scooter, in the middle of the road, and there was a truck coming in my direction and it was very close. There was no time to run so I laid back down, figured I was going to be in between the distance between the tyres. The truck driver stopped just as the truck was half-way over my knees. Good times.
"Walking home to the dorms..."
Walking home to the dorms wasted in the winter. Lose my balance and fall against a parked car's hood, roll/flopping down the hood onto my back in front of the car. I'm laying there for a few seconds when the car's light flash and the siren blasts a single whoop whoop. "Oh f---," I say outloud, "it's the police!" I get up and start running. I make it as far as the twenty feet to the other side of the street and try to vault the single chain and post fence lining the dorms' walkways. My foot clips the chain and I face plant right into a snowbank. "My dad is going to murder me," I think to myself as I lay there, waiting to be arrested.
But the footsteps that had been coming after me stop, and uproarious laughter ensues. With my head buried in the snow I'm not sure if the officer(s) said anything, all I heard was laughter as the car door closed and the patrol car drove off.
Not believing my luck I scrambled out of the snow and stumbled back to my dorm. I was freezing at that point and one of the girls on the floor took pity on me, wrapped me up in a blanket and we watched Fight Club. That's also the story of the first night I spent with my wife.
"I was around nine..."
I was around nine when I was able to build my first paper aeroplane in class. The teacher had gone to the toilet so I decided it was the best time to play it.
As I launched it, it went right across the room and made the pointy front tip hit my classmate straight in the eye. I was sent straight to the office and my classmate had to go home, and probably wasn't in school for a week.
Oddly enough, we still stay in touch and he's fine.
"I was walking home..."
I was walking home and saw my teacher stuck in traffic on his scooter, so go up to him from behind and go 'Hey sir!' really loudly, I kinda wanted to scare him a little bit, but he freaked out when he heard me and while turning his head to look at me, he also pushed on the accelerator and drove right into another scooter that was in front of him, all the while screaming and cursing me out. I was laughing so hard but also felt really bad for him, oops.
"Considering the string wasn't that long..."
Was camping with my dad and brother, we were eating some Ritz chips. We left some on the ground for chipmunks/squirrels right in front of us. My brother decided to tie one to a string, then held the string and waited.
We kept telling him they'd just ignore it and get any of the other chips on the ground, especially since his was in the center. A couple of minutes later, a chipmunk came up. It passed every single chip, grabbed the one on the string, and darted off. My brother kept holding the string, so it got ripped out of his mouth and he got flipped over.
You might think this is where the chipmunk runs away or grabs another chip. Nope. It grabs the same chip, digs in its heels, and plays a game of damn tug of war with my brother for the chip. Eventually my brother let go of the string and it went running off with the chip.
Considering the string wasn't that long (like 4 or 5 feet tops) and my dad and I were dying, I can't believe it stood up to us for that chip.
DQ: What moment in your life would have gone viral had it been recorded?
“'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience'.” What's your best real life example of this?"
They Literally Won't be "Shut Down"
"When I tell people to just reboot your computer and it will fix all their problems and yet they won't because they said if you wait long enough it will shut down, when in reality it only goes to sleep."
"Then when I tell them they have to completely shut it down they look at me like I'm an idiot and say they did."
"I tell them it seems like it but it only went to sleep."
"They argue back."- niallaa
Some People Just Don't Get It...
"I used to argue a lot with my sister when we were kids."
"She would do this thing where she would say something, and then I would reference back to it literally a minute or two later to prove a point and she would say 'I never said that' or 'that’s not what I said'."
"Absolutely impossible to argue with someone who will just deny having said things that could hurt their argument."
"Also, trying to change the course of an argument if they feel like they are 'losing'."
"A coworker once called me an idiot for doing something 'incorrectly' when I was actually doing it the right way."
"When I politely explained to them that the way they suggested doing the task didn’t actually work, they started asking 'why are you getting so angry?? I was just trying to help' etc."
"So now we’re arguing about whether I’m angry or not instead of the right way to complete the task."- themightypianocat
Facts Are Facts...
"Arguing is pointless if you do not agree on a set of facts."- niallaa
Facts GIF by Judge JerryGiphyYou Can't Have It Both Ways...
"For a short while, I worked as a line cook at a Cracker Barrel, and there was a little saloon style door that led to the staff section (kitchen, bathroom, etc)."
"There was a staff only sign on the door, above the doors, and on the wall behind the doors at eye level."
"Usually if someone from the customer side comes in, they said, 'Coming in' before opening the door, so they didn't hit anyone, but of course customers didn't know that."
"So when this dude opened the door and hit a waitress carrying a ton of drinks, we were reasonably upset with him."
"He said, ;You should really put a sign up'."
"We showed him all the signs, and he goes, 'That seems a bit excessive'."- GreyFoxHound1
So Wrong.
"Had an employee sign an NDA about an upcoming art installation that had investors."
"He told everyone."
"He argued with me the NDA only meant he couldn’t disclose anything with the people in the company."- BosskHogg
He Knew What He Was Talking About
This was best said:
“'Never wrestle with pigs'."
"'You both get dirty and the pig likes it'.― George Bernard Shaw"- Zerowantuthri·
pigs GIFGiphySome Outdated Inventions Are Definitely Not Missed...
"I’m showing my age here but I used to work for an estate agency, and we had sales offices set up at the site of large new housing developments."
"Our primary method of communication was fax."
"One of the sales associates telephoned our office to say that the fax machine had run out of paper."
"No problem, I said, one of the guys is coming your way later for a house tour, I’ll give him a box of paper to give to you."
"We then had an almost 20 minute long argument when they kept insisting 'NO, YOU JUST SEND ME A BLANK FAX BECAUSE I NEED THE PAPER, IT WILL JUST COME OUT OF MY FAX MACHINE'.”
"It was like trying to nail jelly to a tree."
"Difficult, irritating, and it achieved nothing."- BettieKat
Very Few Hills Are Worth Dying On...
"I had a friend in university who was a world-class high school debater."
"Over meals, she liked to pick a ridiculous proposition and then talk circles around people until they had to concede to her point, no matter how absurd."
"When she tried it with me, I just stonewalled her."
"Met every point with a solid 'I don't think that's true'." or 'That doesn't make sense'."
"Eventually she gave up and never tried it with me again."
"It was the only time I've ever used the tactics of the stupid to win an argument."
"But, to be fair, if you're not arguing with me in good faith, I feel no obligation to respond in good faith."- kitskill
IS The Customer Always Right?...
"Working retail."
"Especially when I worked in the tech shop or a computer store."
" Trying to convince someone their $500 laptop is never going to be a gaming system no matter how many of the very few replaceable parts we throw at it can be exhausting."- MOS95B
happy episode 7 GIFGiphyEducation Only Matters If You Learned Something....
"Was arguing with this dude about something math-related."
"He didn’t know how to read a study that involved statistics. claimed he was in multiple AP math classes."
"Tried saying that I 'probably don’t even know basic integration'."
"Gave me a common integration problem."
"He wrote it but forgot the minus sign, making it unsolvable."
"I pointed it out and he edited the comment to make it correct."
"Told him that some people can see when you edit comments."
"He claimed that he just capitalized a letter. on and on and on."- SaturdayNightCity
Good Legal Counsel Might Be Worth The Splurge...
"I asked a representative from the Friend of the Court to explain something she said and she told me that I understood what she was saying."
"I replied that I wouldn't have asked her to explain if I had understood."
"She said if I was going to be difficult, she would hold me in contempt."
"My X chimed in that she didn't quite understand what she had said and was greeted with a smile and an explanation."
"From that point on I always disagreed with the Friend of the Court on EVERYTHING, so that I could be seen by the 'Actual Court' and a Judge."- PURPLEPEE
Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphySore Winners Are No More Attractive Than Sore Losers...
"Once worked with a guy who, by his own admission, got his rocks off by picking fights."
"He'd start an argument over the smallest thing."
"If you said it was white, he'd say it was black, just to try to start something."
"The one that always stood out for me was the weather app competition."
"One day he asked me what temperature it was, so I read it off my weather app."
"He got all offended, because his weather app said it was a couple degrees warmer."
"So he decides we're going to have a weather app competition."
"He was going to chart what our apps said the temperature was, and at the end of the week, whichever one was closest to that day's high would be the winner."
"And the loser would have to start using the winner's app."
"To which I said, "What is your f*cking problem?'"
"So, yeah."
"For the first few days, he'd make a big performance about marching into my office, recording the temperature off my app, jotting down some notes, and walking off."
"This started on a Monday."
"He gave up after Wednesday."
"Either because I was winning, or he was disappointed because, despite his best efforts, I just did not give a f*ck about weather apps."
"Or maybe the boss told him to stop because I filed a complaint that this was bordering on harassment."- originalchaosinabox
Im Always Right GIF by ZionGiphyIt should perhaps be said calling someone an idiot, or even thinking it, is not a particularly nice thing to do.
Even so, if you're tempted to do so when you're in the presence of a particular individual, probably best not to provoke them.
After all, if you're so determined to "win," does it really make you any better than them?