People Break Down Their Favorite 'One Weird Trick' That Works Every Time
Got the hiccups? Here's a simple solution.
Grab a glass of water and drink from the opposite side of the cup while tilting your head forward.
Try continuously gulping until the glass is empty. By the time you come back up for air, the annoying involuntary spasm should be gone.
Works like a charm, I tell ya.
Wanting to find out about other life hacks, Redditor Smileycircus asked:
"What 'one weird trick' actually works?"
Home Remedy
When you don't have commercial house cleaning products, check your fridge for solutions. No, really.
Other helpful hacks include using lint, gravity, and plain dish soap.
Glass Magnet
"need to pick up small pieces of glass out of a carpet? Use a wet slice of bread. The surface tension 'sticks' to the peices of glass and the bread picking them out of the carpet. Just remember to vacuum afterwards."
Removing Wood Stain
"If you get wood stain in your hands, rub any kind of kitchen oil on it then wash your hands with warm water and dish soap! Works amazingly, otherwise I think I would still have that stuff on me and it's been about three months since then."
"Edit: there seems to be a few confused people not knowing what wood stain is, it's basically just a really sticky/oily substance you put on wood to give it a darker color!"
– MoeK430
Use For Lint
"Save the lint from your dryer and roll in vaseline. My grandpa used these back in the day when we'd go on hunting trips. Hed make them quarter to half dollar size and keep in a metal tin and the vaseline also made them virtually water proof. What we used for our campfires being poor white trash lol."
Let Gravity Be Your Guide
"Dead batteries bounce when dropped on a hard surface. Good batteries don't."
"This is better than my older sister's method back in the day. She used to tell me to put the prongs of the battery on my tongue, and if it shot me with pain, it was still live. I fell for this a couple years in a row; I was not very bright, and longed to hang out with her and her cool friends!"
Don't Sweat The Small Stuff
These harmless cheat systems will make you sleep easier at night – both mentally, and physically.
Read At Your Own Pace
"If you have a Kindle and are renting e-books from the library, put it in airplane mode and when it's due back, the book will still return but the content will still be on your device until you turn off airplane mode."
"I don't usually finish my books before they are due back so this trick works great."
Breathe With Ease
"If your nose is stuffy and congested (or you can try it regardless, it works anyway) press firmly on the bridge of your nose for about 15 seconds. You'll feel your sinuses draining and it helps immensely if you've been crying for a while and it feels like your face hurts."
"There's other pressure points too but that's a good quality of life hack"
When You Can't Contain Yourself
"If you feel like you need to laugh or scream, but you are not in a place where this is appropriate, open your mouth and breathe out an entire lungful like 'haaaa.' It will mitigate the feeling, and it's barely audible."
The Right Head Space
No need to wrack your brain when writing dissertations or when you're trying to comprehend something that just won't sink in.
Because when all else fails, you can use your rubber duck.
It's All In The Font
"Learned this a while back and for some strange reason it's actually helped. When you have an assignment to type out like an essay to write, use the comic sans font and your ideas just flow out of you. As opposed to times new roman or any other official font, you're less worried about the 'correctness' of each sentence and you can just write without being too much in your head. Then of course before submitting have a read through and change it to the official font required."
The Listener
"If you want to make sure you understand something, try to explain it out loud to a rubber duck."
"(Not kidding.)"
"Edit: Y'all, I'm a programmer. I know the origins. But it's useful in learning anything - not just debugging!"
The Right Portion
"Serve your food on a smaller plate. Tricks the brain into thinking its a large portion."
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade OR use the lemon juice to get ride of unwanted highlighter markings.
Just cut a lemon in half, get a cotton swab and soak the tip with the magical citrus elixir and glide it across the unwanted stain and watch it disappear.
All the previously mentioned "tricks" may or may not be 100% effective for you, but what have you got to lose? Lint and bread?
It's a small price to pay, if you ask me.
Life is complicated, but there are so many things that are worth being thankful for, even in the day-to-day.
But of course, there are some things that we would love to see in our lifetimes that would make living that much sweeter.
Redditor moltingtoupee asked:
"What is something you hope to witness in your lifetime?"
Not Even Gonna Lie...
"An Armored car spilling a sack of money in front of me and not noticing."
- explodingladybugs
Nature's Beauty
"An aurora."
- RedStradis
"I once met a British couple who were camping in the Canadian Rockies for their 25th wedding anniversary. We had a few beers around the campfire. At some point, the woman said the only thing she was a bit sad about this trip was not seeing northern lights. She always wanted to see one."
"We keep chatting and at some point after a few beers, nature called. I went to do my thing and as I was out of the fire’s light, I looked up and could see that great northern light dancing in the sky. I came back to the fire and took the couple away in the dark to show them. She was soooo thrilled."
"So you never know when it will happen to you."
- prplx
The Lives This Would Change
"A treatment for Alzheimer's. That s**t is terrifying."
- doobydoobydobap
"This is my pick, too. Watching my grandmother succumb to it, and it broke my heart. I’m afraid my mom is next, followed by me or one of my sisters."
- crispypotatocake
Cheering Our Loved Ones On
"All of my daughter's milestones in life. Until it's my time to go, I hope I get to see her grow up to be a beautiful smart caring woman."
- FlaccidWeenus
Infinite Possibilities
"Faster than light travel (minus any relativistic effects that make it impossible to come home at the sameish time, etc)."
"I know it's weird, but I find the thought of being confined to our little solar system a bit depressing when there's a whole universe out there."
- postitsam
Halley's Comet
"To see Halley's comet for the second time in 2061."
- craigoth
"If I can't live to see Halley's Comet (I should be 76), then I'd die happy knowing I get to see the total solar eclipse next year as my runner-up."
- curbstomprey
Who's Out There
"First contact."
- Minute-Loan7057
"Sometimes I think I'd like to see that too... But the way the last few years have been going, we'd expect the Vulcans and get Xenomorphs instead."
- coffee_cats_books
"Or the Vogons."
- Reddit_Hitchhiker
...What's That Like?
"My life full of happiness with no stress."
- HappinessSeeker7
Unrealistic Expectations
"I hope to witness the day when autocorrect finally stops turning 'F**king' into 'Ducking.'"
- Daily_Burnin12345
Ocean Views
"To see the Pacific Ocean, early morning, crispness to the air, wrapped in a blanket, sitting alone on the beach..."
"I am in central Kentucky, and this seems so far away to me. I can only imagine what the peace and tranquility would be to stare out and see nothing but water, clear to the horizon."
- Saltriverjohnny
One Small Step For Man...
"For man to walk on Mars..."
- Effective-Craft-1173
Outside the Box
"A US President elected from a third party."
- CatacombsRave
Flight MH370
"To find out what truly happened to Flight MH370."
- desperatelingling123
"I'm pretty sure it will appear back on the radar in 10 years and none of the passengers will have aged or be aware of the time jump and Stephen King was the reason for it all."
- ALIENAND
"I legit looked this up last night to see if there have been any advancements in the theory or new evidence. I hadn't thought about it in a couple of years. (I know that I'm lucky to not think about it all of the time. There are so many poor families that don't have this luxury and they still don't have concrete answers, which is heartbreaking.)"
- SparklesVibe
Supernovas
"A supernova event that lights up the sky. Even if it’s extremely unlikely, the most likely would be Betelgeuse or Antares."
- _Goose_
Time to Unite
"The middle class, working class, and poor realizing that they have more in common than the Upper class and super wealthy."
- Diverswelcome
It's always heartwarming to see when people are asked what they would most like to see changed, or want to see in their lifetime, they're less concerned about gainful wealth or arbitrary things, and more so in nature's wonders and cures for diseases.
Life might not always be perfect, but there are absolutely things to keep looking up for.
When people are wanting to get out of various situations and withhold from telling the truth so as not to ruffle feathers, they fabricate wild stories.
Because this tends to happen most of the time–whether it's an employee wanting extra time off or a date who is too afraid to say they're "not interested"–we've become conditioned to be skeptical when hearing excuses.
So it's surprising then that the one time we rejected a person's excuse to decline participation, it turned out to be true.
How embarrassing.
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor RadPs77 asked:
"What's the most bull**** excuse you've heard that turned out to be true?"
If somebody yelled, "fire!" there probably was one.
The Emergency Call
"My dad had to call and say he was going to be late on take your kid to work day, because the guys building a house in the lot next to ours set all the extra supplies on fire at 5am, and he called the fire department because it was a huge fire and the firetrucks were now blocking our driveway. He took a video."
– kingftheeyesores
The Blazing Car
"Couldn't make it to work because someone set his car on fire. Sure enough, it was mentioned in the local paper a day or two later..."
– res30stupid
Accusations of lying are especially hard on those who are grieving.
Proof Was In The Ashes
"Not really sure if this counts but... I worked at a mcdonalds years ago and I called in sick one day because I was having my dog put down, this was my childhood friend I'd had since I was 6. The day after the manager pulls me into the office and gives me a rant about how I need to come up with a better excuse for a sick day. In anger I ended up bringing his ashes into work with me several weeks later with receipts proving dates of attending vets etc."
"Then a good few months after all this, the same manager is moving house and isn't allowed to take her two dogs with her (no pets allowed at the new address) so she let's her friend adopt them who lives on the next street to where she's going to be living then proceeds to take 10 days off 'to say goodbye.' "
"It's been more than a decade but I'm still salty af about this."
– SolaWrex
"Unexcused Absence"
"Had this but when my brother died, took 2 weeks off because of obvious reasons."
"I was on probation at the time and they didn’t believe me, they wanted a death certificate - but where I live those can take some time."
"At the end of my probation I had an exit interview - my dad was able to sit in with me, so he did. He brought my brothers ashes and put them on the table while they tried to say it was an unexcused absence."
– tictactowbar
There are the odd circumstances.
Nature Strikes
"I couldn't go into work for a few days because a tree totalled both vehicles. My boss was pissed because I had requested the day off but was denied. I had to send pictures as proof."
– hotcookin53
The Gamer
"I injured myself badly enough I couldn't go to work for a few days, the night before World of Warcraft was released. Since I'd been talking about it so much, my boss assumed I was lieing to stay home and play it on opening day. Not only was I not lieing, but it meant I was unable to get to the store to pick up my pre-order."
– shontsu
A Birth Anomaly
"One of my guys didn't come into work he said that his unborn triplets had absorbed each other and he had to console his wife that she was gonna have twins not triplets."
– ShItllhappen
Repeat Offender
"I had the same teacher for trig and 2 years later Calc ii. Both times my house got hit by a car right before an exam. The second time she said 'you've already made this excuse" and asked for a police report. I happily obliged and gave her both. Literally could not believe it.'"
– Electronic_Soil5934
Animals are unpredictable.
That is all.
Kitty Bite
"Kid in high school was absent one day because he'd been 'bitten by a cougar.' Yeah, right."
"Turns out, he'd been bitten by a cougar. He thought he wanted a pet cougar, found some place he could buy one, and went over a weekend to pick one out. He was playing with a cute baby cougar, cuddling and wrestling on the ground, just having a great time. Then that cute little baby turned on him, bit down hard on his foot, and sent him to the hospital with numerous deep punctures that needed chunks of Nike shoe pulled out of them. He was on crutches for weeks."
– twothirtysevenam
Kid's Track Record Didn't Help
"Had a kid come into my class one day that was late and he had been a pain in the butt the whole year so I was like 'alright, what is it this time, house burnt down. No no, you went to the forest and got lost, not you used that last time.' He just stood there with a straight face and said, a bear slashed our tires so I had to walk. I looked at him with an as if that happened face and low and behold after school his mum comes up apologising that he was late again and told me that a bear had slashed their car’s tires. She showed me the ring video and everything. I was speechless."
"Edit for those of you complaining that I was mean, this kid was consistently late and rude throughout the whole year and was constantly giving me bs excuses that turned out not to be true. That’s why I was mad and didn’t believe him."
– cryptic_cookies
The next time you hear someone giving a wild excuse, you might want to take it with a grain of salt.
You never know if the person has actually gone through a terrible ordeal.
The truth always comes out eventually, whether it works in the person's favor or not.
We've all found ourselves at a crossroads of some kind at one point in our life, which has resulted in our needing to make a hasty decision.
Without much time to think, we often feel the need to ignore logic, and simply go with our gut.
Generally speaking, these decisions aren't terribly consequential, even if we might come across some new information down the line which makes us feel better about our decision.
In some cases however, making a decision based purely on our instincts may have proven to be a life saving situation.
In spite of the fact that the life or death stakes were completely oblivious to us at the time.
"What’s a time where trusting your gut quite literally saved your life?"
Hidden By Grass
"I almost drove through a big patch of tall grass on my dirt bike just for fun, but at the last second hit the brakes and turned around."
"Didn't know why."
"Next time I went there, turns out there's a 75 foot cliff over a river right behind it that I would have just flew off at top speed."
"Because of the scenery, you couldn't tell at all looking head on to it."
"I still don't know what made me stop back then."- Quiet_Stranger_5622
Always Safety First
"I was working in the sales office at an engineering company."
"I was asked to record the serial numbers off a stack of large steel plates on the shop floor."
"I had to get someone with crane operating experience to lift the top plate so I could read the one underneath."
"The guy lifted it directly upwards about 6ft."
"I was just about to lean underneath the plate when a little voice inside my head said 'don't do that mate, get him to move the overhead plate to one side'."
"Just as I thought that, the clamp holding the plate failed and it fell to the ground, just in front of me.'
"It must've weighed about a tonne."
'If it'd fallen on my head, I'd have been killed instantly."- dineramallama
Hanging With The Wrong Crowd
"My GF met up with a work friend at a bar."
"This girl was with a guy who gave me seriously bad vibes."
"He was fake friendly but his eyes were crazy."
"My GF didn't see it."
"I wasn't having it."
"I told her I was leaving, and she really needed to come."
"We fought, I left, she came running after."
"Next morning, we find out the guy stabbed someone in the chest and killed the guy."
"I straight up said I told you so."
"He was f*cking crazy."
"Gfs friend spent the night in holding too."
"I don't know if it saved my life but it saved me one helluva bad time."- S_204
Active Robbery
"My boyfriend at the time and I were house sitting for his uncle."
"My boyfriend was at work and I was bathing our son before bed."
"I had the bathroom window (facing the backyard) very slightly cracked, and heard a cough from outside."
"This house was in a residential neighborhood so it could have been a neighbor, but I suddenly felt anxious and scared and something told me to go make sure the back door was locked."
"I left my two year old son alone in a towel in the bathroom and ran to the back door."
"As i placed my hand on the doorknob locking it, I came face to face with someone through the glass, who had his hand on the outside doorknob."
"He started pounding on the door and juggling the doorknob saying he was looking for someone and i just told him no, they're not here."
"He kept jiggling the doorknob and i ran to my son and grabbed my cell phone to call for help."
"Remember Im house sitting tho, and this was in 2004/2005 when they had those flip open phones, not a smart phone where you can just look at a map."
"So i had no idea what the address was, or where the house phone was."
"Anyways, i call 911 from the bathroom on my cell, while hearing loud pounding on the back door."
"The dispatchers tells me to find a house phone, piece of mail anything with address."
"I locate the house phone and call 911 from that. so have no idea how police got there so quickly, but just as I hear the back door glass break, the guy on the phone tells me to cover my sons head with a blanket and run out the front door into the backseat of the police car."
"I ran out the front door and saw 6 or more police cars all with guns drawn and straight into the waiting cruiser."
"After they arrested the guy, they ask me if the machete on the back porch belonged to the owners of the house."
"The guy had a machete and had I not trusted my gut that the cough sounded a little to close, and to check the back door, he would've walked right into an unlocked house to a 19 year old female and her young son alone."
"Turns out he had been robbing houses and had a backpack full of stolen things, and was high on meth."
"Anyways, super glad so followed my gut on that one."- Liketheweatherpnw
Listening To Nature
"One time I was hiking after a storm and my intuition told me to freeze."
"I listened and a large tree just fell down across the trail in front of me, right where I would have been if I didn't stop."- LogicalFallacyCat
Home Alone And Feeling Uneasy...
"I had a sense something was wrong in my house but no reason why."
"I went around looking but couldn’t find anything wrong or anyone in there."
"Felt so freaked I stayed at a friends place."
"Ended up being a carbon monoxide leak."
"Could’ve saved my life."- Responsible-Bet-7485
Questioning Unsafe Work Conditions
"Not necessarily saved my life, but saved me from getting seriously hurt."
"I was a temp worker at a warehouse, worst 9 months of my life, I wanted to die."
"One day, my boss who had no training on the forklift told me to climb up on a ladder and move something out of the way of the forklift, and my gut said 'tell her to turn the forklift off first' so I did."
"She scoffed and said it was unnecessary so she got this other guy to do it because I was being 'difficult'."
"Well, she moved the fork up and smashed his fingers against the ceiling breaking every finger on his hand besides his thumb."
"The badass just went 'ow!' and was like eh, bout time i retire anyways, huh?"
"He was like 70."- xarthos
When In Doubt, See A Doctor
"Extreme pain went to ER."
"Gangrenous appendicitis."
"Could have died."
"Thanks gut."- SternLecture
If You Can't Trust Your Gut, You Can At Least Trust Your Dog
"I had gotten my first black lab."
"He was about 10 months old when we went to a local park early in the morning to walk the trails."
"We had just finished a long trail and were resting."
"I was sitting on a bench."
"My dog's hair stood up and he started to growl."
"When I looked up, I saw a man walking towards me."
"His eyes didn't look right."
"I knew he was high."
"When my dog growled, he stopped."
"He gave a smirky smile and asked if my dog would bite."
"I told him he definitely would if the guy came any closer."
"He hesitated for a moment, and then he turned and walked away."
"To this day I am certain he meant to harm me."
"If I hadn't trusted my dog, I hate to think what would have happened."
"I gave him lots of hugs and treats that day."
"He died many years ago, but I think of him often."
"And I believe that when I cross over, he will be there waiting for me."
"He was the best dog I ever had."
"I still love and miss him greatly."- angelangelica16
It's never a fun feeling when you have to make a decision without any real time to think.
But if your gut is steering you in one direction, it's probably the right thing o head that way.
As sometimes there's nothing you can trust more than the hairs on the back of your neck.
There is no feeling more frustrating than saving up for a fancy, expensive dinner at a restaurant everyone's been talking about, which you had to book months in advance, only to sit down to a very underwhelming meal.
What makes this all the more infuriating, is that there was absolutely nothing to suggest that this might happen, as the five star yelp reviews and sky-high prices suggested you were in for a treat.
Thankfully, there can be signs that certain restaurants aren't worth spending your money at.
Be it a grungy facade, a menu that seems a little too eclectic, or a less than welcoming greeting from a host, sometimes it's clear that you're bound to have a much better meal at your local greasy spoon than you are at certain restaurants.
"What is a Red Flag that you are in a bad restaurant?"
When They Just Can't Be Bothered...
"The restaurant isn't even busy but they take ages to serve you, and when they finally do they seem reluctant."- peculiar-pirate
coffee pouring GIF by South Park GiphyQuality Over Quantity
"Long menu."
"Pages and pages of food that doesn’t really make sense or go together."- blackaubreyplaza
"Sushi, pizza, AND burritos are ALL on the menu."- financialfreeabroad
"Huge, unfocused menu."- TheWarDoctor
Lets Eat Reaction GIF by Schitt's CreekGiphyLack Of Authenticity
"Ethnic restaurant with no customers of that ethnicity in a town with a large population of that ethnicity."- baronvonbee
Don't Be Fooled By It's Appearance
"I've eaten at ratholes with amazing food and had terrible food at nice steakhouses, both can have people cooking for minimum wage and bad management."
"If it's a small ethnic restaurant and you see kids doing homework at one of the tables; try the food, it's always good."-Dizzy-Particular-258
It's All About The Food
"It’s sometimes difficult to tell until you try the food."
"There’s a restaurant in my town that is consistently crowded."
"Fairly expensive."
"My wife and I went there and waited a few minutes for a table."
"Restaurant was dirty, food tasted stale, and my wife happened to walk by the kitchen and see like 6 microwaves on a table heating stuff up."- jonahvsthewhale
kitchen nightmares amy GIF by Global EntertainmentGiphyOne Unwanted Guest
"The very moment Gordon Ramsay appears and calls the employees f*cking donkeys."- Ch*ist_Hater666
When The Ambiance Is Anything But Romantic
"Bad lighting or sticky tables."- trashbagbum
"Dirty floor, if they can’t keep the floor clean, they aren’t cleaning the important stuff."- lovelynutz
"A dirty bathroom means a dirty kitchen."- ManifestsOnly
dirty spongebob squarepants GIFGiphy"Oh, Sorry We're Out..."
"Whatever is on the menu 60% is not available."- XqueezeMePlease
Whether Or Not It's The Food You're Smelling...
"Smells bad."- Louis-grabbing-pills
Roaches Check In...
"In university I went out with some friends and they decided to go to mid-priced restaurant before we caught a film."
"I was really broke so I feigned not being hungry to excuse the fact that I couldn't order anything."
"As we were hanging out I noticed a cockroach crawl onto the table and quickly scurry out of sight."
"That is one of the few times I was happy to be poor."- gildorratner
"If you smell freshly popped popcorn, but they don't serve popcorn, they have a cockroach infestation."
"The smell is the result of a potent insecticide and dead roaches."- Goatmanthealien
place cockroaches GIFGiphyMany restaurants are not worth their expensive prices.
While others aren't even worth a single second of your time.
Thankfully, those can be fairly easy to spot.