People Share The NSFW Details That Are Usually Left Out Of History Books
All the things you never know....
Oh Lawd... history is FULL of scandal kids. The things they don't tell us is a mountain we'll never see the top of, and maybe we shouldn't, at least not without parental supervision. If everything that's not in the books was; we'd be living in libraries. And a large portion of history needs to come with a rating.... and a shower and a voucher for some vodka. Whew.
Redditor u/waxlrose wanted to know about all the things we're denied learning about history by asking.... What's a NSFW detail about a historical figure that's normally left out of the history books?
"When in Vienna"
GiphyIt's becoming more well known but Mozart wrote a chorale literally called "Lick my Butt" to piss off the bishop who employed him in Salzburg, hoping to get fired so he could go to Vienna.
After Alois....
After Alois Alzheimer gave the first ever speech describing the symptoms of what would later become known as Alzheimer's Disease, no one in the audience asked him any questions or made any follow-up comments, despite the fact that this was quite literally one of the most important presentations ever given in the field of medicine.
(For real: Alzheimer's Disease affects about 6% of people aged 65 and older. It's a big deal.)
So why did no one pay it much attention? Turns out they were all much more focused on the next guy on the docket, who (allegedly) was there to talk about about compulsive masturbation.
Hey Grover.....
President Grover Cleveland, 49, married Francis Folsom, 21, in the White House. He was basically her godfather and even bought her a baby bed when she was an infant. She knew him as Uncle Grover as a child and told him she wanted to marry him in the White House one day. https://www.vox.com/2015/2/27/8120283/house-of-cards-marriage
Ben is Strung.
GiphyIn school I was taught that Ben Franklin had a string of pearls that was several feet long. He would add a pearl to it each time he slept with a new woman.
"Dear Elizabeth"
Little late but worth a shot.
Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell (the poets) had a 30 year letter exchange where Robert, while married, swooned over Elizabeth after he initially met her, declaring his love and want to propose for her all while being married and her blatant denial and uncomfortable lesbian anguish at this fact.
He threatens suicide and lots of self harm while she's just like "haha let's read this book together and not think about romance".
He was a manic cocaine freak and she was a CRAZY alcoholic lesbian with a toucan. She drank rubbing alcohol when denied conventional drinks. There's a great play highlighting these events called "Dear Elizabeth".
being gay...
After Alan Turing cracked the enigma code, essentially ending WW2 years earlier than expected and saving countless lives, he was thanked by the British government in the form of chemical castration. All because he was a gay man.
Snowing....
GiphyFreud loooved cocaine. He had a friend with a morphine addiction, and he thought giving the guy cocaine would cure him.
It did not.
Oh Goddess....
Gaius Julius Caesar was a huge player. He slept with at least one women in every town he visited according to his soldiers. He slept with the queen of Egypt. He slept with his rival's (Cato the Younger's) sister. He also slept with a mother and her daughter (not at the same time). This was fitting as he claimed descent from Venus, the goddess of love and lust.
Harry Cheeks....
GiphyThe great magician Houdini once escaped a prison cell while fully nude as to not hide anything to escape. However what the guards failed to check was that he hid a skeleton key in his butt checks.
The Goth Way.
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein (who also popularized gothic literature), used to meet up with her future husband, poet Percy Shelley, at the cemetery where her mother was buried. They would meet up and have angsty sex on her mother's grave bc she was goth as hell.
Moreover, Frankenstein was inspired by her fascination with reanimation, the idea of bringing something dead back to life. When she learned about this idea, she was obsessed with the idea of bringing back her baby who died days later after being born, thus sparking the idea of the monster of Frankenstein.
A way out....
GiphyA bit late to the party, but....
During WW1, sex workers in Britain were more expensive if they had STD's. This was because if a soldier hired them and got infected, the soldier could be honorably discharged, and not have to fight in war.
The River Flow
Ancient Egyptians believed the god Atum created the universe by masturbating, and that the ebb and flow of the Nile corresponded to how much he came. To honor this, the pharaohs ceremonially masturbated into the river.
Kinky Victor.
Probably said here elsewhere, but Victor Hugo (author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, among other tales) was a notorious philanderer who had affairs on top of affairs with sex workers throughout his life.
When he died, ALL of the brothels in Paris had to close because so many of them attended his funeral.
Heard he also would write naked, and ask someone to keep his clothes outside the door so he'd continue writing.
And this kinky granddad was visiting brothels waaaaaay into his old age. Heard that he had a mark in his diary for each sort of visit?
Liberty for Who?
Patrick Henry (the American founding father better known for his quote, "give me liberty or give me death") kept his wife imprisoned in a cellar because of her frequent outbursts due to postpartum depression. His wife had eventually died in that cellar, and he had buried her in an unmarked grave. 10/10 quote but the wife killing part always seems to get left out of history texts.
Bottoms Up....
GiphyPyotr Tchaikovsky was a submissive bottom.
In one note, never before published in Russian or English, Tchaikovsky wrote of a young servant "with whom I am more in love than ever", adding: "My God, what an angelic creature and how I long to be his slave, his plaything, his property!"
In French....
I'm sorry but my source is in French, I can translate the beginning : King Louis XIV anal fistula
"The anal fistula of king Louis XIV is one of the many illness that king Louis XIV had suffered. It was his surgeon Charles-François Félix which carried the surgery successfully in 1686 after the development of a particular tool and a training on a dozen of indigents. The recovery of the king had a considerable impact in France and in Europe, and gave place to numerous civil and religious ceremonies in the kingdom."
Sessions.
Not hidden in his home country, but not known by the rest of the world though, is the fact that H.C. Andersen left a mark in his diary, every time he choked the chicken. Sometimes with a little note on the side, with his thoughts about the "session".
Dirty Diana....
Princess Diana and her "Le Gadget" - a sex toy that she carried around with her when she went on diplomatic trips. She had even shown a table of foreign officials her toy as a prank on numerous occasions. She also believed it brought her good luck, one time she forgot to bring it with her and actually asked a body guard to go back to the hotel to fetch it for her.
Edit: Ok just checked and she apparently left it all the way back in the UK while on a trip to Nepal (not just at a hotel), and ordered it to be dispatched to the capital Kathmandu.
"Father of Microbiology"
The first thing the "Father of Microbiology," Anton van Leeuwenhoek, put under a microscope was semen. They understood that semen was integral to the creation of life but didn't yet understand the concept of single-cell organisms. He fully expected to see tiny little humans in his specimen.
So yeah, the first thing he did was fondled himself on a slide and look at it.
Forget the Apples....
GiphyGeorge Washington had severe hemorrhoids, to the extent that he couldn't even ride a horse into battle sometimes, and had to be pulled on a cart.
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People Describe The All-Time Worst Dates They've Ever Been On
Reddit user sweet_chick283 asked: 'What's the worst date you've ever been on?'
Finally going out on a date with the person you've been chatting with online is a very exciting yet nerve-wracking first step.
But when you finally meet the person with whom you've developed romantic chemistry online, one of two things can happen–Fireworks or bombs.
In other words, being face-to-face with a prospective love interest for the first time can either confirm your hopes or suspicions about the person whom you know very little about online.
Curious to hear nightmare stories about dating life, Redditor sweet_chick283 asked:
"What's the worst date you've ever been on?"
People and their obsession with their electronic devices is getting out of hand.
Mr. Invisible
"Sat for 15 minutes to hear him talk about himself, work and his future plans, and then as he asked me 'what about you?" his hand went to reach his phone and he starts scrolling. I can't stress this enough, his hand reaches his phone at the same time those words left his mouth. It felt to me like he already decided whatever I am going to say was going to be boring so might as well multitask as I talk."
– dracarysthemdown
Self-Incriminating Date
"Went on a date with a chick that took my phone and put a picture of her on my Snapchat, I got 20 messages almost instantly from chicks that knew her and told me to stay away. She was 2 months pregnant, didn’t tell me till my friends did. That was a wild date for sure. She was very upset."
– ThatBrenon131
The Salesperson
"Tinder date. She pulled out her Ipad and started introducing me various insurance plans she is selling."
– IndigoldWeM
"Oooooh god that's almost as bad as trying to recruit a first date into your MLM line..."
– OP
"I had a date that tried to sell me whole life insurance. She told me before the date to meet her at her office. It was downtown so I thought nothing of it. Then she walks me to her desk and tells me to sign some papers."
– Pissedtuna
Sometimes, dates turn out to be disastrous through no fault of participants.
Things Went Downhill
"I thought I would be a little more adventurous and suggest that we go skiing for a first date. At the time, I lived in the south where the closest ski mountain was 2.5 hours away and it was opening day. It became clear that we probably didn’t click on the drive up, but I figured we’d still have a fun day of skiing. On the first run, maybe 100 yards in, she falls hard and tears her acl, lcl, and mcl. It was a very long and awkward car ride back, and I ended up staying with her for several days after to help care for her since she lived alone and was new to the area. She was a very nice woman, but that was just a lot for a first date."
– houston_g
People were forced to make a run for it.
The Great Escape
"So many bad dates over the years. One of the worst was this guy I met on a dating site. We agreed to go to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Turned out his profile picture really was of himself but it was just a 'few' years old. BS! In person, he straight up looked like Santa Claus on vacation complete with the Hawaiian shirt. I was a little unhappy about that but it wasn’t the end of the world. I thought well maybe he is jolly and fun. That turned out to be a big NO."
"So we ordered dinner and he started talking about ex wife #1. She was a b*tch and crazy. Ex wife #2 was also a b*tch and crazy. Ex wife #3 was a psycho crazy b*tch from hell. He told me ex #3 hit him in the face with a frying pan. He seemed to enjoy my horrified reaction. That was, until I asked what he did he do to her to make her smack him upside the head with said frying pan. Personally, I thought it was an awful date and I couldn’t wait to go home. He ordered dessert. :/"
"mentioned getting home soon and he said We can discuss that later as he was paying for my meal and we were going to enjoy our time together. I waited for a few minutes and politely excused myself to the ladies room. He stood up and watched me go in and was watching me when I came back to the table. It was as if he knew I wanted to bolt out the door. I got my chance when he finally went to the men’s room. I handed the waitress money for my food plus tip and told her I was on a very bad date. I left the restaurant just before he came back from the men’s room. He saw me through the front windows and started screaming like a lunatic. I don’t know what he was saying but I ran to my car!"
– SassyDiva13
Tasks First, Eat Later
"Went out with a guy from POF who lived an hour away from me. (I live in the sticks so this is normal.) I texted him to let him know I was on my way and this dipsh*t proceeded to text me every few minutes to ask me if I was still coming. So much so that I finally had to call him and tell him to stop because I can't text and drive at the same time. In hindsight, I should have turned around and went home right then."
"Finally I get to the place we were meeting. It was a store parking lot. Since we were meeting there and going somewhere else right away, I texted him and said I was there, where are you and he replies insisting I come into the store. He absolutely would NOT come outside to meet me. So I had to spend the first hour of this date following him around an auto parts store while he pawed through every display and bin, not talking to me very much at all."
"Finally he was ready to leave the store and I thought we were going to eat, as we had originally planned. I was starving but he said no, I gotta go return my work uniforms to my old job first. Uhh, okay I guess."
"So we drove in his car to this factory where he parks and says hop out so I can lock my car up. It was cold and rainy so of course he expected me to stand out in it? After like 15 minutes I was like f'k this and I went in the lobby of this place to get out of the rain. For some reason it took this guy 45 more minutes to return his uniforms so I was glad I went into the building to get warm. But apparently this was a huge no-no to him because when he came back out from wherever he went to return this stuff he glared at me like I just dropped trou and took a sh*t in his lap and asked me why I didn't just wait outside. In the cold rain. For almost an hour."
"At last he decided it was time to go to the restaurant. I sat there trying to keep a poker face while he talked to the waitress like he was addressing a toddler, messily stuffed his face and chewed with his mouth open wide and kept glancing around every 30 seconds like he was scared someone was going to see him out with a woman in public."
"Plus he kept asking me invasive and crude sex questions the whole time too. Lovely."
"I quickly inhaled a salad and managed to pay for it at the front without him seeing me, I told him I needed to go to the little girl's room and bounced. Luckily this restaurant was across the highway from the store where I had left my car so I crossed it real quick and blocked him everywhere before I even got the car warmed up."
"I'll betcha a million bucks and a house salad that a**hole was married."
– produkt921
It's unfortunate that people on dating apps aren't always forthright about themselves.
Older Woman
"I wouldn’t say it was the worst but it was the most interesting. Met a lady on a dating app. A Beautiful woman who claimed to be 38 which is my age. I suspected through the pictures she might be in her early 40s. Her profile said she had 3 kids. We talked and she seemed cool. We then met for dinner a week into talking. I could tell she was older but looked younger than she should because of Botox. Within 15 minutes she said she had to tell me the truth because she really likes me. She does not have 3 kids but 6! She is not 38 but 48!"
– bobismymother
The Date That Wasn't A Date But Actually Was A Date
"I didn't even know it was a date."
"Girl I worked with was talking up a breakfast place in a nearby town, and I was like 'that sounds great, let's go this weekend!'"
"We went, I had a great time, the pancakes were amazing, and I had fun hanging out with a work friend outside of work. I thought she had a good time too, she was laughing and fully engaged with the conversation just like normal."
"Like three weeks later, I was talking to another coworker when it all came out that she'd been telling people we went on a terrible date, how I didn't even make a move or flirt or do anything that guys she goes on dates with normally do, and how I even talked about a date with another girl at one point."
"I was flabbergasted, my fat a** genuinely thought we were just a couple of friends getting pancakes."
– SadlyReturndRS
If you're no longer in the dating pool because you found your person, congrats.
There's no doubt you have kissed some frogs along the way to finding true love.
Because if it weren't for all those "horrible dates," you might not be able to appreciate what you've got when the right person comes along.
The Dumbest Things The TSA Has Given Passengers A Hard Time About
The United States Department of Homeland Security was created November 25, 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some existing agencies were transferred to the jurisdiction of the newly created cabinet post.
Among the agencies moved to Homeland Security were Customs and Border Protection, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Secret Service and the United States Coast Guard.
Some agencies were created to address new security measures then placed under Homeland Security. Among the new agencies created post 9/11 was the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
TSA was created on November 19, 2001, to "improve airport security procedures and consolidate air travel security under a dedicated federal administrative law enforcement agency." TSA handles security for transportation systems within and connecting to the United States.
For most people, their interaction with TSA is at the airport. Those interactions aren't always pleasant for travelers.
Reddit user B2utyyo asked:
"What's the stupidest reasons the TSA gave you a hard time?"
Medication
"My Humira."
"I have a bag with an ice pack since I'm on Humira to treat an auto immune disease."
"Taking the caps off primes the injection. Each pen costs 500$ each. They uncapped all 8 of them."
"I raised a stink. Because I couldn't travel without this and then my doctor raised a stink when I called him for an emergency script."
"They were even in a special bag made for TSA in mind with all the drug info."
"Silver lining was I was able to file a claim and they were found negligent."
"They are not supposed to mess with medication."
~ Faedan
Clothing
"They said my shirt was a jacket."
"I kept telling her it was a blouse and all I had was a bra underneath and wasn’t going to take it off."
"After this exchange 4 times she finally let me through."
~ Phylace
Baby Supplies
"I brought formula through TSA for my 6 month old and they told me I had to dump it or consent to a full body pat down, which was conducted behind a sheet for privacy."
"I didn't have the money for more formula. I consented to the pat down."
~ Risky_Bizniss
"Every time we actually did fly with pumped milk or premade formula, they had to go stick each and every item in our diaper bag one at a time into their magic detector box."
~ jkster107
Wounds
"Dude they just waved a whole f*cking family through, then proceeded to aggressively fondle my balls and manhandle a bandaged injury while harassing me for not having a f*ckton of luggage."
"F*ck the TSA."
~ LurkerOrHydralisk
Wounds
"Had 14 stitches on my neck from a dog bite, 9 on one side, 5 on the other. Dog closed his jaws so both upper and lower teeth got me."
"TSA agent: 'it’s time to take off your Halloween makeup' and actually handed me an antibacterial wipe then made to pull off one of the bandaids."
"It was March? I don’t even know where to start."
"I like to think I’m fairly quick on my feet but my brain absolutely ground to a halt while she stared at me with the most misplaced smug expression I’ve ever seen."
"I slapped her hand away when she reached for my neck, honestly I think that reaction was a product of how completely offline my brain was because obviously that was not the ideal response."
"Anyway she wigged out, I got pulled out of line and dumped in a room for about an hour before the supervisor got there. I am not terribly proud of how I acted, but it was a less than an hour domestic flight and my grandmother was actively dying in the hospital."
"I let loose with applicable pent up things I never said to certain family members during COVID, which is why I’m not proud of it because some of what I said was particularly nasty."
"But when that woman reached for my neck I just about saw red—that was beyond comprehension."
"The supervisor let me go and had someone drive me on a cart to the gate so I made it with minutes to spare. He also apologized, which I appreciated."
~ goose_theslayer
Organic Matter
"Got flagged for organic material."
"It was a funerary urn."
"They asked me to open it."
"I refused."
"Only time I have ever made a stink in my life, supervisor finally let me go."
~ Cw2e
Sarcasm Service?
"I got like four sarcastic answers in a row trying to figure out which line to join (pre-check or regular)."
"Both lines backed up past the regular start, so there was no signs clearly visible, but there was an agent nearby."
"I asked casually which was pre-check, and he said 'if you don't know what pre-check is, then you don't belong in that line'."
"When I clarified I knew what it was and just couldn't tell which, he said 'you don't think it's the one that's probably moving faster?'."
"When I pointed out that neither was moving especially quickly, he said 'Well I guess it doesn't really matter then, does it?'."
"When I asked if there was a separate area for pre-check at a different spot, he said 'if there was, don't you think everyone would go there?'."
"Like guy I don't want VIP treatment, I just want to know what f**king line to stand in."
~ Art--Vandelay--
TSA Approved
"A small pair of scissors/hair trimmers, still in factory packaging, clearly marked TSA approved."
~ EverLastingSquint
Knife? No Problem
"I was coming back from a trade show and forgot I put one of those snap blade box cutters in by back pack."
"Went through X-ray, no problem and I only realized I had it once on the plane."
"Hair gel that came in a 120 ml tube that was well over 50% used? 'Come with me sir'."
~ ShoulderPossible9759
"The TSA fails 95% of undercover operations run against them, sneaking in knives, fake guns, fake bombs, etc..."
"But god forbid you don’t take your iPad out of your book bag."
~ _TheNorseman_
Mistaken Identity
"My uncle and father have almost comically common last names."
"Last time they visited the US they were stopped and held because there was a warrant for someone with my uncle’s name."
"Only problem, my uncle was nine inches shorter and thirty years older than the suspect."
~ probablynotaskrull
"This happened to my little cousin!"
"He too has an extremely common first and last name, and was held at the airport by security for being on the no fly list and having a warrant."
"Notice how I said 'little' cousin?"
"Yeah, that’s because he was a six year old boy; they were looking for a grown man!"
~ throwfaraway212718
Medical Equipment
"Wheelchair cushion (on which I was sitting, bc paraplegic)."
"TSA agent: 'That could be anything! We need to open it up!'.”
"Me: 'Sure. Put that in writing and also give me a letter guaranteeing that a replacement cushion (custom, costs $6k) will be waiting at the gate'.”
"TSA agent: 'oh, yeah, well, go on then'.”
"People worry about the airlines but the real obstacle if you’re disabled and use any equipment is TSA agents."
"I think they get paid to be their worst selves."
~ Pretend-Panda
"My CPAP is often chosen for extended testing."
"I think it was Chicago where two separate TSA agents were alternately yelling at me, one that I had to stay there while they tested my CPAP, and one that I couldn't stay there and had to leave the security area."
~ hymie0
"Several years back, I was flying with an orthopedic boot because I broke my foot a few weeks before. Nashville TSA was yelling at me and flipping out about it."
"I got yelled at about asking to sit down to take the boot off, yelled at for holding up the line because I needed to take it off, yelled at while it was off demanding to know why I would need it in the first place, yelled at to stop lying when I said I broke my foot, then yelled at one final time over how I was holding up the line needing to put it back on."
"Meanwhile, they were sending the boot itself through the scanner multiple times."
"Oakland TSA just glanced at the boot and waved me through. Quite a stark contrast."
~ HeyFiddleFiddle
Since the agency's creation they've come under scrutiny for inconsistencies and repeated failures during surprise testing.
What's your TSA horror story?
People Explain Which Things From Their Childhood No Longer Exist Today
When I was a little girl, I adored the American Girl books. These were books about girls in different historical periods of time in America. They weren't just books, however. There was a lot of American Girl merchandise, including dolls.
I adored the doll I had of Felicity Merriman, my favorite American Girl. A few years ago, I started reading the American Girl books to my cousin. She had her own favorite character, Samantha, and I decided it would be nice to get her a Samantha doll for her birthday. I went to order one only to find out they had archived the dolls of the four original American Girls, including Felicity and Samantha.
Eventually, new versions of the dolls were re-released, but they looked completely different from the characters from the books, which the original dolls captured. These dolls are just one thing that existed in my childhood that no longer exists.
I'm not the only one who has experienced these. Redditors have identified plenty of things from their childhood that no longer exist and are eager to share.
It all started when Redditor lil-gatorwrangler asked:
"What is something from your childhood that no longer exists now?"
Breakfast Gifts
"Cool spoons from cereal boxes!!! i miss the color changing and straw ones."
– pompomcinnamon
"Nothing like only buying a box of cereal because of the cool lil gift inside. 🥹"
– lil-gatorwrangler
"This reminds me I haven't seen my Taz spoon in a while. It makes Taz noises when you dip it in milk."
– TransformerTanooki
Family Phones
"Yelling “SOMEBODY GET THE PHONE.”
– Jfonzy
"Adjacent: “Get off the internet! I have to make a phone call!”"
– cold_dry_hands
"The ring tone was......the phone."
– DEADFLY6
Slime!
"Nickelodeon game shows. I miss Legends of the Hidden Temple and Guts."
– ShawshankException
"Every time I have to take a headrest out and put it back in my car seat, I pretend I am completing a mission from LotHT."
– ReineDePlatine
Ah, The Book Fairs
"Do you remember filling out book orders when it was time for your school's book fair? :'("
– sn0wballa
"Omg yes!!! And just say dreaming about all the books I could have, if I could afford it lol."
– FlannelPajamas123
"Oh my god the happiest days of my school year."
– clover219
Cell Phone Plans
"I remember when cell phones were newish and scheduling your calls to after 7 on weekdays and anytime on weekends because nights and weekends were free and didn't count toward your monthly allotment of minutes. You also only had a limited amount of texts per month included in your plan."
–cartertucker
The Old Food Options
"Wendy's salad bar."
– SirBlack_
"Wendy’s 4 for $4. Rip 🥲"
– lil-gatorwrangler
Toy Stores
"KB toys."
– AcademicSavings634
"It always felt so cramped and jam packed full of stuff that every time you went you felt like an explorer."
– MrMojoFomo
"I worked at KB Toys throughout college. Can confirm that cramming stuff in there was a corporate policy, maybe for exactly this reason."
"Had to be careful going exploring though— more than once I found a dirty diaper someone had hidden behind a bunch of Barbies. I feel like everyone should work retail for at least a little while, so they can get a taste for what monsters people really are."
– Engelbettie
"Toys-R-Us. I miss that place. I remember my dad taking me and I’d just wonder through the aisles amazed at all the toys. I got one of my childhood favorite Barbie dream houses there."
– FrostQueen05
A Thousand Words
"Photo Albums. My mother has been cataloging some of the old photos she never got around to putting in albums recently. It is a different experience than looking through someone's phone at curated pictures. You would get the pictures back and 90% of them would go in the album. No editing, no my hair looks like crap. You would find photos of yourself years later that you never knew existed. When your grandparents die and you start looking through albums for their memorial and can reminisce. It is so nice."
– HighFiveYourFace
Christmas Was Never The Same
"I recall hearing about a concept mentioned in movies known as a 'Christmas bonus.'"
– mockhouse
"I actually worked at a place where I got to see the idea of a Christmas bonus die."
"They had, for years, given out a Christmas bonus the 2nd week of December that was a cash bonus equivalent to about 1 week's pay. It wasn't huge but it was just that little extra for people already living paycheck to paycheck to have something to buy the wife and kids some Christmas presents."
"Then one year some dude in management came up with this really awesome idea: Instead of giving each employee a couple hundred dollars in cash we should totally give them a frozen turkey."
"It will be great! everyone needs a frozen turkey for Christmas dinner and we can order a whole semi truck trailer full of of them for a great bulk discount so they only cost like $20 each... employees win and we save money!"
"So that is what the company did."
"Only they did't tell anyone that was what was going to happen until the truck backed into the loading dock and happy managers started handing out frozen chunks of discount birds to people who had been budgeting their entire Christmas shopping on getting the cash instead."
"Christmas morning the owner of the company woke up to find hundreds of rotting turkeys on their front lawn."
"We never got a Christmas bonus again at that company - cash or cold turkey."
– varthalon
MY Personal Info
"Privacy. Mostly in the sense that we didn’t have big Meta mining our data/location/listening."
– ilike2makemoney
Weekend Mornings
"Saturday morning cartoons. Nothing beat the joy of waking up early in Saturday morning to watch five hours of your favorite cartoons, most of which were only on at that time on that day."
– nijaxi4567
"I know what you mean. There are cartoons on Saturday morning but with cable and YouTube and streaming and because those run 24-7, it isn’t an event."
"Few things beat running downstairs, pouring yourself a huge bowl of sugary cereal, and flipping on a full hour of Ninja Turtles, Garfield, Ghostbusters, and topping it off with Saved By the Bell all while your parents slept in."
– vmikey
Movie Night
"Blockbuster movie rental."
– lordharliquin
"Oh. My favorite thing we used to do is we would go to the video store and blindfold one of us and pick out a movie and just watch something random. It was so fun fun!"
– darforce
"I WAS LOOKING FOR THIS!! Those are some of the best memories from my childhood! So much better than Netflix!"
– betaflc
No Streaming
"Yelling "IT'S OOOOOOOON" as your siblings hurtled themselves back into the living room and across the couch after the ad break. That 'will I make it' few minutes of just not knowing if you had time to both pee and ALSO get kitchen snacks, were andrenaline-inducing."
– wildgoats2345
That was me and my brother as we watched Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sometimes, I really miss those days!
Humans are inquisitive creatures. We love a good mystery whether it's pure fiction or true crime.
Just check book sale statistics and TV and streaming ratings.
But humans also crave closure which can be why unsolved mysteries capture our attention.
Reddit user BubblegumCrocodile asked:
"What’s the creepiest unsolved mystery?"
Teteteke Gqontsi
"There was a man named Teteteke Gqontsi who was at the Stellenbosch Hospital in the town of Stellenbosch, South Africa for abdominal surgery, so he could barely move."
"One day a nurse came in to change the linens and when she came back inside from being right outside his room he had disappeared."
"He wasn't anywhere in the room. The hospital searched for a week until some men had to perform maintenance on the ceiling, when they opened the ceiling up, there found Teteteke inside the ceiling in the fetal position and he was deceased."
"The autopsy showed that his death wasn't of natural causes and someone put him in the ceiling."
"A few months later, a man named Sandile Sibaya was admitted to a different hospital to have his broken femur treated."
"After a few days there he was about to be transferred to a different hospital to see an orthopedist, but when they went to get him, he was gone."
"They looked for him and only found him when a bad smell permeated the hospital, so the staff opened up the ceiling and found Sandile dead in the exact same position as Teteteke, and they said Sandile also didn't die a natural death and was placed in the ceiling by something."
"I think that's creepy."
~ ResponsibleTaro1759
Baby Crystal
"On Thursday, December 12, 1985, a toddler was spotted wandering unaccompanied around a Kmart department store in Spanaway, Washington with no parent or guardian in sight."
"When authorities tried to coax information out of her to help locate her parents, the only piece of information she was able to give was, 'Mommy is in the trees'."
"A photo was placed in the local newspaper, and the toddler was soon recognised as Crystal by her maternal grandmother Louise Conrad, who took her into her care, later saying that Crystal appeared shaken and disturbed, perhaps by something she had seen."
"So where was mommy?"
"About two months later, the body of Diana Robertson, Crystal's mommy, was discovered deep in the forest around Elbe, Washington with 17 stab wounds and a tube sock tied around her neck."
"Nearby an abandoned 1982 Plymouth pickup truck was discovered covered in blood stains, and with a handwritten note on the dashboard simply saying 'I love you, Diana'."
"This truck belonged to her partner, Mike Riemer, a outdoorsman and trapper, who often spent time in these woods. Mike, however, was nowhere to be found."
"Initially, the police believed him to be responsible for Diana's murder; just two months prior, on October 19, 1985, Mike had been arrested and cited for domestic assault and malicious damage after allegedly kicking in a door at her apartment, throwing her to the floor, and rubbing her face in the carpet."
"They also connected her murder to a double murder that had occurred in the same woods four months earlier."
"A man named Stephen Harkins was found shot to death in his sleeping bag, while his companion, Ruth Cooper, was found strangled two months later."
"Both had a tube sock tied around their neck."
"So was Mike a serial killer? He had apparently been in the woods at the very time that Harkins and Cooper were murdered, and certainly knew how to navigate the tricky terrain."
"But with no trace of him, there was no way to tell for certain."
"Over 20 years later, on March 26, 2011, a hiker discovered a partial human skull in the woods off of State Route 7 in Lewis County near Mineral, Washington, about a mile from where Diana's body had been found. Subsequent analysis revealed that it was indeed Mike, and that he was a likely homicide victim himself."
"So four murders in the same woods by an unknown assailant."
"The question remains: how did Crystal find herself wandering around the Kmart over 30 miles away? She must have been driven there and dropped off, presumably by the serial killer. Crystal must have spent a silent 45-minute drive in the car with the very person who killed her mother, with no memory of the event."
~ UppruniTegundanna
Turn the Page
"Went to a good-sized college party with several friends. The location for the party was out in the woods in the middle of nowhere."
"The road leading to the party was fairly straight with one major feature. The road was flat for the entire length, but it had a hill that was 30ish feet tall halfway down it. A pretty good bump in the road, you might say."
"I was driving, and when I slowly topped the hill, I met a car heading in the opposite direction. That car slowed down to a stop. It was several of my friends temporarily leaving the party to make a beer run to the store."
"They knew who I was by my vehicle and flagged me down to ask if I needed anything from town, and we proceeded to chat for a minute about how the party was unfolding they left."
"When we both backed up to talk, we just happened to stop on top of the hill. Mind you, this was not a busy road and located, as we say, out in the sticks."
"As we were parked talking for a brief minute, we all noticed there was a song coming from the surrounding woods. We figured it was someone having a private party in a parked car nearby in the woods if you get my drift."
"The odd thing was it was 'Turn the Page' by Bob Seagar, but it was on repeat."
"We all went on to meet back up and attend the party and thought nothing more of our chat on the hill."
"A few days later, I got a visit from several police officers about an investigation. They learned there was a party that night down the road with the hill in question."
"They were tracking down all attendees. That is how they found me. A hunter the day after the party found something at the base of the hill off the road."
"Someone driving another car that night heading in the same direction down the road I was on had wrecked their vehicle. The driver took the hill at insane speed and killed themselves in a wreck that had ran way way off the road."
"Unsolved mystery that is still ongoing. The police said that they believed the driver they found was not the driver. There were 2 people in the car who wrecked."
"They found 1 set of bloody foot prints that led to the top of the hill. It looked like someone moved the body behind the steering wheel and fled on foot. They found extra sets of bloody hand prints in the car."
"The wild thing was that they found a cd with Bob Segar 'Turn the Page' in the cd player."
"Everyone that was on top of the hill that night volunteered to give fingerprints."
"Every so often, every few years, one of us gets a phone call to ask us to recount what we saw that night on top of that hill."
~ ApprehensiveVirus125
Kyron Horman
"Kyron Horman."
"Stepmom took him to school, walked around the 'Science Fair' in the gym then he went to class... has not been seen since."
"He was IN the school. C'mon now. It's been over a decade now. I have a 'Google Alert' on his name for updates."
~ sluggernate
Alonzo Brooks
"Alonzo Brooks."
"Not necessarily creepy in the traditional sense, though it has a long history and is literally close to home."
"The reboot of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ featured an episode about his disappearance. Because of it—after his death initially being ruled undetermined—he was exhumed and changed cause of death to murder."
"Which was always pretty obvious."
"He went to a party in a small Kansas town, LaCygne, with a few friends. Alonzo had some words with partygoers. His friends bailed. Alonzo doesn’t come home."
"The next day, his shoes are found down the road, separately. Police search the area, including along a creek near the party house—nothing."
"A few weeks later, the police let the family do a search—after not letting them be involved earlier. His body is almost immediately found along that same creek."
"Of note, though, is that his body didn’t show any signs of deterioration or decomposition that would be expected of having been there for weeks."
"It’s presumed he was in a fight at the party, dragged down the road, and possibly inadvertently killed in a shed near the party house (that was torn down shortly after)."
"The (other) f**ked up part is that it’s suggested his body was kept in a meat locker and covered up by the cops, and when the family tried to get more involved in the search, his body was dumped along the creek, thereby explaining the lack of decomposition."
"The party had some 100 people there. Someone knows something and no one is saying anything."
~ TommyRockbottom
Frauke Liebs
"Frauke Liebs."
"Was last seen leaving a bar to go home, then at some point during her walk home, went missing."
"She was able to make several texts and calls to loved ones over the next few days, but was very vague and refused to give information on her whereabouts."
"The details of her last phone call, to her sister, are pretty chilling. During this conversation, she is said to have answered the question of whether she was being held captive with a faint 'yes', immediately followed by a loud 'no'. Contact broke off after this phone call."
"Her body was found several months later in a wooded area, most likely dumped from somewhere else. No further details were found about the killer, motive for her death or disappearance."
~ Anxiouslytotingababy
Austin Froyo Murders
"Maybe not the all-time creepiest but certainly in the top 20 and also one of the saddest is the one of who murdered those four girls in that frozen yogurt shop in Austin, Texas back in November of 1991."
"Several teen guys were arrested, tried and convicted then later had the convictions overturned."
"Also, the DNA on one of the victims didn't match up with any of these guys."
"In addition, a married couple who left the shop shortly before closing time noted a pair of older and rather sinister looking guys sitting in a booth next to the counter as they left."
~ NoodlesrTuff1256
Andrew Gosden
"What happened to 14-year-old Andrew Gosden."
"He got a train to King’s Cross, London by himself and hasn’t been seen since."
~ bluebellfob
"Disappearance of Andrew Gosden is another super weird UK one."
A 14-year-old leaves his home in Doncaster in 2007, withdraws £200 out of his bank account, buys a one-way ticket to London even though a return ticket was only £1 more, is seen on CCTV leaving King's Cross station and then is never seen again."
"There have been a few weird potential leads in the case in the 17 years since but not a single solid or confirmed lead or sighting."
~ -JensonButton-
Ursula and Sabina Eriksson
"The Eriksson twin sisters that ran across a motorway in England, were hit several times by lorries and cars, and just kept moving somehow."
"Even the backstory and aftermath get weirder the more you find out, the stranger it gets."
~ section20sniper84
"What fascinates me about this one is the leadup to it."
"Like, one day one of them is a family woman living in Ireland and the other one is going for a nice visit to her sister, and the next day they're acting weird on a bus in England and from there it all goes batsh*t nuts."
"What happened between A and B?!"
~ zaffiro_in_giro
Skye Budnick
"The Skye Budnick case. Shy, socially awkward 21-year-old college student buys a one-way ticket to Japan without telling anybody."
"She takes no phone. Just 800 dollars, a laptop and a Nintendo DS. She leaves an unfinished, unsent, unclear, note in her email drafts on a home computer."
"She was studying Japanese but failing out of school and couldn't get into her exchange program, she was not fluent. She flew to Tokyo and then to Sapporo."
"She's reported to have gotten off the plane in Sapporo and maybe checking into her hotel (?) but after that she vanished without a trace."
"This happened over a decade ago and still not one shred of evidence or leads as to what could have happened, who she could have met, what her motives were. She left her car at the airport in the United states."
"No keys were ever recovered. The laptop was never recovered, nor the DS or the cash. Her family are left wondering forever."
"Her sister has a really good podcast called 'Surviving Skye'."
~ Igotyourexcominnext
Larry Bader/John "Fritz" Johnson
"Larry Bader. Not necessarily creepy, but bizarre for sure."
"Larry Bader was married with three kids. In March 1957, he went fishing on Lake Erie by himself, even though he knew a storm was coming. The next day, they found his crashed boat, but Larry himself was nowhere to be seen."
"Almost 10 years later, in 1965, he was found by his niece doing an archery demonstration in Nebraska, when he was originally from Ohio."
When confronted, he swore he didn’t know anyone named Larry Bader, as he identified as John 'Fritz' Johnson. He claimed to have lived in Nebraska all his life, having memories as a child named Fritz."
"He also got married and had another kid."
"His niece, convinced Fritz was her uncle, requested that he go to the police and be identified. He was, in fact, Larry Bader, but he had no recollection whatsoever of his previous life."
"Bader/Johnson died in 1966, not long after being found by his niece."
~ whereisthefrog
Bryce Laspisa
"Missing person Bryce Laspisa. While away in college, he started exhibiting some troubling behavior and his parents were worried about him."
"He said he would drive home from college and that he had a lot he needed to talk about. On the way home he pulled over like 3 separate times and just sat there for hours."
"At some point about halfway home he ran out of gas and a roadside assistance employee delivered gas to him at 9 am. By noon when he still hadn't arrived home, his mom called the insurance company and was able to contact the roadside assistance employee and have him check on Bryce."
"He found Bryce in the exact same spot where he had delivered gas to him, hours earlier. He had Bryce call his mom, and Bryce said he would be home by 3pm."
"At 6pm, he is still not home and his parents report him missing. The police find Bryce just 8 miles away from where he was previously sitting. He seems fine....they leave...he still just sits there."
"Again the roadside assistance employee checks on Bryce and finds him in the same spot the cops left him hours earlier."
"Anyway, after a lot of that, when he does finally start heading home, he crashes the car off a cliff. It was found he accelerated while descending the hill, so they think he crashed on purpose."
"Police find the damaged vehicle, no Bryce, and he is never seen again."
~ sallyjosieholly
Alistair Wilson
"The murder of Alistair Wilson in Nairn, Scotland in 2004."
"A 30-year-old banker living in a quiet neighbourhood has the doorbell of his home rang. His wife answers the door and a man in a baseball cap asks for Alistair by name and so he went to speak to him."
"He returned after a few minutes to his wife with an empty blue envelope that had 'Paul' written on it. Confused about this, he went back to his front door, at which point his wife heard three gunshots and then found him executed."
"The murder investigation was one of the biggest in the history of Scotland and to this day remains unsolved."
"In 2022 the Scottish Police announced they believe a planning dispute with a local hotel may have been a motive and then earlier this year that they believe the shooting was carried out by two people, one of them a local suspect whom was arrested on drug charges."
"However, while they now finally have a potential motive and suspect nearly 20 years later, it still has not been solved."
~ -JensonButton-
Sukumara Kurup
"Sukumara Kurup. Time period: mid 80s. This guy visits his hometown, a sleepy village in Kerala, India with wife and son, from Dubai."
"He goes out drinking with some buddies and on the way back picks up a random stranger and kills him. Burns the car they drove in with the body in it.
"Making it look like an accident. People think it’s Kurup’s body in the car until police investigated and find that it’s not Kurup. His buddies are caught but he’s missing."
"Police suspect he tried to fake his death to get insurance money of about 10,000 USD which is a pretty big amount back then. The man they murdered was supposed to be the body to fool the insurance agents to make the claim."
"Been decades now and he’s still missing. He’s currently one of the most wanted criminals in India who still hasn’t been caught."
"Growing up we heard stories of him being spotted all over the country. Recently they made a movie on him as well."
~ astro_not_yet
There are a lot of interesting cases here.
What unsolved mystery would you add to the list?