When my grandfather passed away, it fell to my grandmother to execute his will. He wasn't a wealthy man, so we weren't dealing in money here.
Instead, we were talking about things that had sentimental value. The items all made sense to us, but to a lawyer or another outsider it would have seemed strange to see a nail clipper and a ziploc bag of sea shells in a will.
Or maybe not. Reddit user shrimpthepimp asked:
And it turns out that "weird" stuff ends up in wills all the time!
Old Flames
Worked in a place that did wills and trusts.
One guy put aside a bunch of money to split between any of his old girlfriends that came to his funeral! The dude tried to name a few but could not come up with more than four plus a couple first names from high school! The lawyers try to steer them away from this junk but it was less than $25kUSD.
No Contact Contract
I administered trusts and estates for 35 years with a large national bank.
I had one trust where a woman left a ton of money to her grandkids. They got all the income the from her assets over the years and the trusts fully distributed to them at age 35. Except for one grandson.
He was gay and the grandmother believed that a particular individual was responsible for "turning" him that way. For him to get his inheritance, we had verify that he was not in contact with his ex-lover once each year. If he was found to be in contact with him, his funds would be withheld for the following year until he could prove he was no longer seeing the guy. If he ever formed what seemed like a lasting relationship with the man again, his portion of the inheritance was revoked and to be distributed to the other grandkids.
We used to get a signed statement from the kid each year and that was enough for the probate court to approve the money.
A few years later, courts started allowing people to remove provisions like these that seemed ridiculous to have to adhere to. The beneficiary and the bank went to court and we asked that the provision no longer be followed. The judge agreed that it was too much "control from the grave" and let the provision be struck down.
We don't know if he went back to his old lover after that.
Eve
Someone willed their Eve online video game account. It was worth thousands apparently.
He had no family, so he willed it to one of his friends... and one of his other friends threw a fit. So we ended up with two grown ass men fighting over an online game account.
We found out a couple of years later that friend 2 turned in friend one to the game's admins and moderators. The account got taken away from . Apparently they deemed it a terms of service violation or something.
- FXSB13
Merry Christmas
GiphyNot a lawyer but my buddy is one. Couple months ago he said an older lady had asked him to include something quite peculiar. She had left the instructions for her family to decorate the family Christmas tree.
The weird thing was that her daughter in law was the only one allowed to put ornaments on the tree and her granddaughter was supposed to put the star on top. After she had passed (about a week later) he read the will to the family, and a bunch of drama followed.
Pretty weird will if you ask me.
Buried With Their Best Friends
Elderly women deciding that their pets - no matter their age or health - should be immediately put down when they die so that they can be buried/cremated with them is shockingly common.
Year Of The Beard
My cousin is a lawyer and apparently one guy grows out his beard all year long before shaving it on New Year's Day and saves it in a bag with the year written on it. He has in his will that certain years go to certain grand-kids because that was the year they were born, got married, Etc.
The rest are to be raffled off equally to all of his decedents.
- S10rocks
Why does he think they even want his beard hair?
For the Polyjuice Potion
Read The Letter
This lady included a clause in her will stating that 1 of her 3 daughters wasn't allowed to get anything in the will, and to read the letter that was annexed to the will to find out why. I never got to see the letter since I'm the paralegal but I thought it was super odd.
The Scandal Sheet
When my very wealthy, Catholic grandfather died in 1983, his will read like a scandal sheet. He didn't just bequeath or withhold: he listed reasons why. My cousin Aaron was born out of wedlock so he was SOL. Another family member had her lovers named then received no money.
Someone else had a good job and was raising a family "the right way" (Catholic) so he was awarded money. Never mind that he was the biggest asshole on the Earth.
I was only 13 (and born to married parents) so I received $5,000.
He gave most of his millions to charity so some good came of it.
- Spooty03
Rooms For Life
A quite wealthy man willed specific rooms in his mansion. That is, the house was not to be sold or inherited, but designated people were given use of specific rooms for their lifetime.
Take Care Of The Dogs
GiphyWealthy women left 1 million dollars in trust for the care of her dogs. Her two sons and daughters, however, were each given exactly only $10,000. That was the amount of the loan the woman had initially received from her father to help her grow her wealth.
Redditor BarooTangClan wanted to compare notes on all the entertainment we've said "that's enough" to.
"What will make you instantly stop watching a movie or show and why?"
I hate bad acting, writing, storytelling... I hate bad anything.
Stop Jumping
Fight Scene GIF by Operation FortuneGiphy"Fight scenes with a million visual cuts. Gives me motion sickness. Contrast the absolutely masterful work in John Wick. long cuts, realistic use of weapons (mostly), 100% skill."
StabbyPants
Louder
"When the actors whisper the whole movie and you have to crank the volume to hear what's being said - but the soundtrack or some other misc noise starts blaring at a higher volume directly after."
Blaze*itch
"I basically had to watch Stranger Things up in my attic with the windows and doors closed. I was worried the neighbors would think something was wrong or be annoyed if I watched it downstairs in my single family home. It was ridiculous."
ForecastForFourCats
"spice things up"
"Love triangles out of no where in a second or third season to 'spice things up' because studio writers are hacks and their idea of relationship drama is 'potential infidelity' at all times. It's the most tired trope on the go**amn planet and the second I see it rear its head I dip right the hell out."
amalgamas
"The whole concept of a love triangle to begin with an incredibly juvenile. Any healthy functioning adult who found themselves in a love triangle would soon choose to find themselves single."
Ouch_i_fell_down
Save your lips...
"When couples in a movie/show have a fight and one of them instantly goes to a friend and end up kissing her/him after talking for 5 minutes. I cringe so hard i turn it off and never watch it again."
Dry-Mycologist3966
"This pissed me off so much in Manifest. Girl is desperate to get back her ex-fiancé, he finally breaks up with his wife to get back with her and she's like 'nah, it's not fair to your wife, let me do this other dude I just met through a calling and be pissed at you for being jealous.' Michaela was the worst and everyone acted as if she were a saint the entire time."
gingerisla
Talk to Me
In Love Flirt GIF by OriginalsGiphy"Shows where a single polite conversation could fix everything."
Horror_Librarian_133
We are going overboard with the witty repartee. Talk normal...
Shut Up
Scared Home Alone GIF by FreeformGiphy"Annoying main character, especially if it's a kid."
abananation
"Kids who have a quippy, sassy retort to everything, and everyone just kind of crumbles before their wit."
CarpetPure7924
Speak Good
"Shows where kids in high school talk like they are 30 years olds who have done everything, been everywhere, know it all and use a ridiculously flowery and extensive vocabulary in every conversation. Like, have any of these writers ever been to high school? Literally no one talks like that. Even worse is when, in addition to this, all the adults talk normal or are just plain stupid, like so weird parallel universe."
StretchArmstrong74
Nonsense
"If the movie is too dark. Not graphic, just literally dark. I lose all sense of intensity in dark scenes and I'm not straining my damn eyes trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
TheShadowOfKaos
"I've seen about 10 percent of all DC movies recently. I've seen all of the individual films in full, just actually saw 10% of each of them."
Mortlach78
"Movies in the late 80s had a lot of dark but you could see the depth because of different shooting techniques. Now you cant see crap because its a CGI fest drowned in black color so you can't see crap because you have no depth in a scene. Compare night scenes in dark alleys in 80's movies and movies now. Utter crap show in the new ones."
Bombzey
Pay Attention Storytellers
"Bad editing would be a big one. A lot of modern horror movies can't help but edit the movies like they're trailers, with added noises to scare the audience because they are afraid the script alone isn't enough to keep people watching."
ThisIsCreation
"I remember this is where the first transformers movie lost me. When the transformers are fighting at the end, it's all a big, jumbled mess of metal and I can barely tell what's going on or who is who."
1840_NO
Drama
will devry soap opera GIF by General HospitalGiphy"When they go straight to relationship drama right away when it wasn't the selling point of the show."
LightInthewater
Do better, Hollywood. It's not that hard.
RedditorCallMehRiverwanted to hear about all the ways none of us what to leave this life.
"What Do You Think Would Be The Worst Death Imaginable?"
My list of the worst deaths is long. My imagination runs amok.
Trapped
season 6 friends GIFGiphy"For me? Being trapped in a small tube or cave (like the ones you have to wiggle through) and getting stuck to where you can’t move your arms. And all you can do is wait to die. I’m getting chills just thinking about it."
Stuck
"The more I hear about cavers that get stuck, the more I think that's a crap way to go."
- braydenmaine
"There’s a great YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician and this was her #1 worse way to die. I can’t remember the exact details or their names, but two well-known divers went into an underwater cave."
"One of them became entangled and died. Years later, his friend dives back down there to try and retrieve his body, the body itself is rotten and his head comes off and the other guy also becomes tangled and dies. Really sad."
- melancholybuzzard
A Long Process
"Believed to be in a coma but coherent through the whole 20 year process until they pull the plug."
weebeardedman
"Oh man this just reminded me of a story I read on here about a guy who lost the ability to move and speak but was completely conscious. Had to just lay there and be awake but trapped in a useless body. His family thought he was brain dead or something and he couldn’t communicate to them that he was 'all there.' Crazy"
habeeb51
Slow & Steady
"Being slowly impaled by a growing bamboo. It was a form of torture probably used by the japanese during WW2 against Allied prisoners."
JazzySocrate
"My uncle who served back in the day said that people would have the bamboo slipped under their fingernails because it would continue to grow still. It would just continue growing into the body."
Payness0826
Excruciating
"Rabies."
Santolmo
"The scariest part is that once you have symptoms, you 100% will die. A 100% mortality rate has to be a psychological torture in itself."
RonaldRawdog
"Not only that, you feel irrational fear. Your brain is literally being eaten apart by the virus and it fu*ks up everything on it. You can't drink water because it hurts you. You feel dizzy, present a fever, excessively salivate, everything hurts and it only gets worse. I'd rather take a bullet and die when the symptoms are still tolerable."
Santolmo
Why can't we all just go engulfed in calm and quiet?
Suspended
"Some pulpy sci-fi book I read a while back had one of the best deaths of this real piece of crap bad guy. Left to die in a drowning sea lab under the Antarctic ice, he freezes himself in a state of the art suspended animation pod with some kind cold fusion power source that would keep it running for millions of years."
"But he forgot to inject himself with the drug that would put him to sleep. So basically he is in suspended animation at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean while his mind is perfectly awake and conscious in a near unbreakable machine that won't run out of power for millions of years and nobody knows about it."
DubiousAlibi
No Cure
"As an RN I have always thought that the worst way to die (natural process) is ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease."
randymn1963
"My mom and grandmother have Huntington's disease, which is essentially ALS, Alzheimer's, and Dementia combined into one really messed up genetic disease. I have a 50% chance of inheriting it and if I hit 40 and there's still no cure I can't promise I'll feel like continuing on with my life because that disease is absolutely freaking miserable."
DevTheDummy
Agony...
"Radiation poisoning."
binhan123ad
"The fact your chromosomes can be so destroyed your body basically lost it's genetic code and with it the ability to make any new cells. It's literally a 'dead man walking' and you slowly rot away in agony. Stuff is so unimaginably f**ked up."
yea_nah448
"What's also bad about radiation is that it affects your nerves and brain cells last, so you have everything in place to feel all the pain of the rest of your cells being destroyed."
nosmelc
Goo
Not Listening Season 2 GIF by The Fresh Prince of Bel-AirGiphy"I want to believe anything that slowly kills you painfully to be the worst. Such as slowly being crushed or something where the pain is beyond compare and yet not enough to throw you into shock or unconsciousness."
Beardless_Man
"Alternatively, being rapidly crushed into goo would probably be the least painful. I'm talking one of those massive industrial hammers they use for large steel work. Basically smooshed before the nerve signals make it to the brain."
Bannon9k
Now I'll never sleep again without nightmares of death.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
