People Describe The Scariest Thing They've Ever Experienced In Their Life

Life is a roller coaster of experiences—from the amazing and happy to the truly horrifying. As great as moments like winning a contest, graduation, and your wedding day might be, there are also terrifying moments like losing a loved one or getting into an accident that you might experience too.
Redditor LuckyAdair asked:
"What is the scariest experience you have gone through?"
[Content Note: the following article contains stories of various traumatic events, such as loss of a loved one, injury to a child, armed robbery, murder, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.]
"Get The F*ck Out Of My House"
"Someone breaking into my house last year."
"It was really early in the pandemic and my wife was in the bedroom asleep, I was in the living room with headphones in playing video games with some friends while my son was asleep in his little jawn next to me. Was maybe 8PM."
"Basically I stood up and took my headphones off, and turned around just in time to see this guy in a bright red ski mask (which is way scarier than black it turns out) opening up the doors into the living room / dining room area I'm in. Nearly sh*t myself."
"He pauses, I'm like, frozen for a second but then stammer out 'get the f*ck out of my house' and he just lunges at me. Like, he wasn't armed, he wasn't bigger than me, I think he just panicked and thought he could knock me down and run...or worse..."
"But uh, it turns out when someone breaks into your house and your entire family is home and your child is now crying while you fight a tweeker in your living room...some really primal sh*t kicks in, and I fought the guy until I had him in like, my approximation of a choke hold (not a fighter), before shouting for my wife to call the police, who arrived like, instantly because:""My friends heard the entire thing on/through discord and one of them called the police."
"Was over in under 5 minutes but I couldn't use headphones anymore while I gamed in that room (we've since moved), I don't like having my back to doors, and I had to get a few stitches on my hand from how I fell."
-PlayerH8rzBallz
Armed Robbery Is Traumatizing
"Scary, just a few weeks ago I got robbed at gunpoint by three guys that came up behind me. It was 9PM and right in front of my house. Even when I complied and gave them my cash, they still punched and kicked me afterwards. My focus was on trying to make sure they didn't get my keys either to my house, where my wife and kids were at the time, or my truck that I was unloading. They did get my phone though and dumped it off a bridge.
"The police found it, but it was smashed to hell, but they did get prints off of it and there is a warrant out for one of the guys. Still scary that they know where I live."
-crlarkin
Get Out Quick
"My husband calling me to tell me his brother killed his parents and that I needed to get the dogs and myself out of the house immediately in case his brother was on his way to our house."
"I was incredibly fortunate that a neighbor let me hide the dogs in her garage and come in until my husband gave me the all clear to go home."
-storyofohno
"How did this end? Did the brother go to your place? Did end up in jail or underground?"
-kipopadoo
"He also set several fires across town (including his own property and his parents) and then killed himself in a confrontation with the police."
-storyofohno
Close Encounters
"Was doing some mineral exploration work up in Alaska this summer in a very remote mountain range. I was working at a drill site where a grizzly had been spotted at the rig earlier that day and I was naturally a little on edge. I was laying out some wires through very thick brush (couldn't see through it at all), and all of a sudden I hear a really large animal close by, and I smelled the typical wet dog bear smell."
"Before I had time to react the wire gets ripped out of my hands and dragged into the brush at probably 20mph. I'm freaking out trying to reach my gun and this massive bull caribou just pops his head out and looks me over, then walks away lol."
-jackkymoon
Fear Isn't Always Short-lived
"It's happening right now."
"My wife is in the ICU with pneumonia on top of a year+ long battle with cancer. Sedated, on a ventilator and barely clinging to life, her heart could just give out at any time and that's it."
"I'm literally sitting in her room all night fully expecting to lose her sometime tonight or in the next couple days."
"Ive been through some scary moments in my life, but in a completely different way, this is by far the scariest night of my life."
-DerpingtonHerpsworth
Just Trying To Make Pizzas
"Got a couple knives pulled on me one night while working at a pizza shop. Had a little mexican standoff. First time experiencing the thought "I might have to stab this dude or be stabbed'"
"Luckily our pizza knives were bigger and with my coworker backing me up the two dudes both left. I owe my life to my coworker from that night, dude had my back."
-ASmufasa47
Rockslides Are Terrifying
"I got caught in a rockslide and fell off a cliff while backpacking. Early Spring, things were starting to melt, we were hiking on a ridge and looking for a way down the side, maybe a 60 - 70 degree loose scree slope, to a stream about 500 feet below. I was in the lead, heading down at an angle, rocks kicked out from under my feet, and I fell backwards onto my butt."
"All of sudden, the entire slope around me began to move en mass, like an island of broken up rocks with me sitting in the middle. I rode it down the hill, bouncing off stuff and trying to stop myself and dig in but no luck, just picking up speed."
"At the bottom, the hill dropped off to a 40 ft cliff, and I was launched off with the slide. I landed in a pile of debris and loose stuff that previously came down, including a lot of loose snow, which mostly absorbed the energy. I was mostly OK, muddy, lots of scratches and bruises, a separated shoulder and broken tail bone, but I was able to walk out."
My one memory is being in mid air, time standing still, and looking to my left at a stove-size boulder likewise suspended in the air, about 6 feet away. Any good size rock would have killed me."
-psilome
"Impending Sense Of Doom" Doesn't Quite Cover It
"When I was a teenager I had an irregular heart rhythm, and required a medication called adenosine."
"Adenosine is usually given via infusion just once or twice, in hospital under careful monitoring, and the side effects include an 'impending sense of doom'. This side effect relates to your heart beat temporarily stopping. This fires signals to your brain, telling you it's time to panic. Or you've reached the end."
"'Impending sense of doom' doesn't begin to describe it. I was told in advance, but nothing prepares you for it. I went from sitting on the hospital bed, just finished a sandwich and thinking about my year 11 exam, to suddenly being certain that I was going to die here. I've never felt so sure of anything - I couldn't move or speak, and my mind suddenly raced very fast, to the extent I couldn't keep up with my own thoughts. It was similar to what you hear about your life flashing before your eyes."
"My brain was drowning, and telling me to find more oxygen - even though I was breathing fine. I was suddenly sure this was a nightmare, that this hospital was fake and all the doctors and nurses were actors, and I was poisoned."
"Then it was over in seconds. I haven't had a single heart problem since."
-manlikerealities
Seizures Can Be So Scary
"My son had his first seizure while I was driving. He was in the back seat and I heard a noise. I looked in the rearview mirror and he was convulsing with blood running out of his mouth. Then he collapsed, I thought he had died. To this day, I don't know how I was able to get off the freeway, call 911 and check his pulse. He was 7 years seizure free on Nov. 29, but that one day changed my life forever."
-bodicea-h5
Am I Going To Drown?
"Being held underwater by some classmates in highschool. Not the worst or most damaging thing I've gone through, not even close to being the worst incident of bullying, but it was the most frightening."
-ILikeBakingCookies
Words Nobody Wants To Hear
"'It is cancer. I'm sorry'"
"I was 34, and had just gotten married a few months earlier. Stage 2. Grade 3 triple negative, invasive ductal carcinoma."
"I'm OK now, treatment was successful."
"But three years on, my husband cheated on me, we're getting divorced and my only chance to ever have children (after the chemotherapy left me infertile) remains with the 12 embryos currently stored in a freezer somewhere."
"So now I have to decide if I want to be tied to the man who ruined everything and betrayed me, by having his children... its my only option if I ever want to get pregnant."
-TNBCisAB*tch
Where Is Everyone?
"I don't think that's the scariest thing that happened to me but it's the one I can remember now."
"I was sleeping in class and when I woke up the class was empty and it was dark outside so I got up started panicking and ran down 3 stories of stairs in 10 seconds only to find out that it was break and it was dark outside because a storm came in the half hour I was sleep in and made it look like night time."
-Fierce205
Don't Build A Bomb
"Being 18 and waking up to the FBI screaming and pointing guns in my face with bright lights and dragging me out of bed and getting cuffed and thrown into a van."
"Don't build a
"I dont do dumb shit anymore and I dont buy anything that would make them think im up to my old ways."anymore and I dont buy anything that would make them think im up to my old ways."
"I'm on the straight and narrow now and after all that the only job I could get was in the trucking industry and now I own 5 trucks and built a nice life and try my best to be a up standing member in my community."
-Sparkey_The_Great
Birth Scare
"Giving birth to my son, they put him on my chest for about 5 seconds then snatched him up and an entire team of medical types crowded around him working in complete silence. He wasn't breathing. I got to see him for all of 3 seconds, and only heard a couple of weak cries before they rushed him to the NICU."
"Two hours later they came up to tell us he was on a ventilator and not doing great, they suspected a heart defect and were going to helicopter him to the closest children's hospital (about 90 miles away). We did not get to see him for five hours and it was a couple days before we could hold him. I gave birth at midnight, so all of this was happening in the late late hours."
"A couple of relatively common issues had happened, both of which on their own need immediate attention but are not difficult to deal with, but the resolution of one caused serious problems because of the second. His heart is fine. He's a perfectly happy healthy preschooler now who is squirting bath water into the tub faucet and laughing hysterically."
-Yavemar
Parent's Worst Nightmare
"Woke up in the middle of the night to my smoke alarm and found my baby's crib on fire. Some people's literal worst nightmare (and mine now too)."
-Gubble_Buppie
"Is he okay?"
-Fierce205
"Aye. Thanks for asking. You can read my story here if you'd like."
-Gubble_Buppie
"Oh my goodness! I’m so thankful your son is ok now! I can’t even imagine what y’all went through."
-poppy_otter
Carnivals Are Supposed To Be Fun
"I was visiting some family in Edmonton years and years ago and they use to have this big fair full of rides and attractions. I wish I could remember the name sorry. All the rides were your standard carnival rides, the gravitron, tilt-a-whirl, log flume, etc. I had gone to many of these traveling fairs in my time and had a good time so thought nothing of it."
"After going on a few rides and having fun I decided to go on that ride that is the boat the goes back and forth before going all the way around. So at the beginning everything seemed fine."
"However at a certain point when going back the safety bar that was suppose to hold me in place just fell forward. It had not locked in and the ride was underway. The ride started heading the other way and the safety bar fell back on to me again. I pulled it as hard towards myself hoping to lock it into place."
"Yet when we started heading back the bar just flopped completely open again. I was sh*tting myself. I literally thought I was going to fall out of this ride and die. All those carnival horror stories were true I was fearing."
"I just wrapped my arms around the bar and held myself with my hands. If worst happened I would dangle from the bar I thought. Fortunately after a rocky ride it came to an end and I was safe with maybe only leaving my seat a few inches."
"I immediately ran to one of the workers after I got off and told them. The ride was shut down for 30 minutes after and I was done having fun for the night. The only other time I've been that scared since was the few times I've had sleep paralysis."
-MrSchop
Just A Bad (Or Good?) Year
"I have cheated death 3 times this year."
"2. At 2am a couple months ago carbon monoxide detectors go off in my moms house we start opening windows and calling the fire dept as we wait outside (w 2 dogs). The minute he opens the front door the detector starts going off like crazy. He said longer than 20 min we all could’ve died with the amount that was in the basement caused by a problem with the hot water tank."
"3. A large patio chair flying out of the back of a pickup truck which almost smashed my windshield had I not swerved just in time."
"An angel has my back and is watching out which I’m grateful for!!"
-IntelligentIsland167
Terrifying Tie
"Two are tied:"
"Being shot when our neighbor’s gun 'accidentally discharged' and the bullet came through the shared wall, severing an electrical line, barely missed my head, glanced off my chest, and landed on the other side of the room. The sheer thought of what could have been if I’d been laying an inch further left is terrifying."
"Gas pedal getting stuck while driving home from my mom’s funeral. I somehow managed to get the car pulled over and turned off, but I was going 85 mph+ going uphill. If it had got stuck three miles earlier, I’d have plunged off a seaside cliff, taking my aunt, cousin, and 9 month old daughter with me."
-Imaginary_Train_8056
Feels Like You're Dying
"Kidney stones. They were only about 1-2cm in size, but the pain they caused me was the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced. Doctors thought my appendix burst."
-Dear_Willingness_600
"God I think the worst thing about getting kidney stones for the first time, is that you never know what the f*ck it is. It’s literally one of the worst pains people can experience, and yet not knowing what it is just f*cks it up more."
-kcawks
Life can be truly terrifying, but not all of it is bad. The bad parts may stick out the most because of how human brains work, but the good parts are what helps get us through the bad.
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As a kid, I remember being obsessed (like obsessed) with David the Gnome and his fox Swift. I was tuned in daily to watch the adventures, get all misty eyed for the hurt animals the gnomes saved, and sobbed in abject wonder when the gnomes finally lived all 400 years of their gnome life and transitioned into the trees that make up the woods they live in.
The trees are their ancestors, y'all! The treeees! They protect the trees because they're family. Trees grow intertwined because they were so in love when they were gnomes.
Fam! This show was everything ... except memorable for other people because I was in my 30s talking to someone from another country before I met the first person who remembered this show.
Which, honestly, is kind of insulting to gnomes and trees.
Reddit user itchellFamily1045 asked:
"Which show do you think you're the only person who remembers it exists?"
It was David the Gnome for me (which I found out originated in Spain and was much more popular in France than it was in the US. Apparently, I was a Euro-trash hipster as a child), but let's take a look at what got Reddit.
Classic Wheel Of Fortune
"It's funny how nobody seems to remember the early seasons of Wheel of Fortune with host Chuck Woolery. You didn't win any cash. You had to choose prizes from a selection of things set up in a room-like fashion."
- opus_4_vp
"They still had the prize room with sajak for a while I believe. Camera would just pan across the room and the winner would try not to pick the stupidest things. Cause the items all had fn price tags on em and you'd only have the $ amount you won. Infuriating"
- Frosty_Shoulder_7825
"A broyhill coffee table!!"
- atlantachicago
"Always ending up with the porcelain dog statue cause it was all you had left after buying expensive items."
- captainvancouver
Eerie
"Eerie, Indiana"
- dammagedone
"I still think about the episode where everyone who stayed young, slept in Tupperware, and when their lids got taken off, aged overnight."
- CatasaurusRox
"Foreverware!"
"One of my favorite moments on the show had Marshall and Simon hanging out in Simon's room, one night. Through the walls you can hear a man and a woman laughing lecherously."
"Marshall: 'It sounds like your mom and dad are having a party'."
"Simon: 'Mom's not home'."
"It was a great weird kids' show, but some of the gags they managed to sneak in were hilarious."
- rick_blatchman
"I work w a dude whose daughter was on that show, We were just randomly chatting and he was telling me how she had done some modelling/acting when she was little"
" 'you probably dont know the show but...'."
" 'like hell i dont that show was great'."
- cyzad4
Early Edition
"Early edition- get tomorrow's newspaper today"
- cmoney1142
"I loved that show! What a concept!"
- MortLightstone
"Omg omg omg"
- TumorYaelle
"Quality 90s tv, right there. A warm-fuzzy show."
- DustBunnicula
Herman's Head
"Anyone remember Herman’s Head?"
- ClemofNazareth
"It had the woman that does the voice for Lisa Simpson and the woman that went on to play Ross' exwife on friends was one of the characters in his head."
- rhett342
" It has 2 Simpsons voice actors- Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria. I seem to remember that they were offered the roles- and maybe the whole show existed? - because they didn’t want to be ‘just’ VA’s, and FOX wanted to placate them."
- mr_oof
"That’s a real show?? They reference it on 'only murders in the building'.”
- Bebosherry
"I came for this one too!"
- whitemest
The Garry Shandling Show
"The Gary Shandling Show. No, not the Larry Sanders Show - Gary Shandling Show. Even the theme song breaks the fourth wall."
- MrNegativity78
"This is the theme to Gary's show, the opening theme to Gary's show. This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits. We're almost to the part of where I start to whistle, then we'll watch It's Gary Shandling's Show."
- OGREtheTroll
"Yeah, Garry Shandling and Tracey Ullman are pretty much tied up in my memory."
- Handleton
"Best theme song EVER!"
- 2WheelFotog
"My partner LOVES the theme to that show! Plays it in the background every now and then, it's a riot!"
- FuzzyChrysalis
Wonderfalls
"Wonderfalls"
"Mid-2000s show on Fox that was apparently too weird even for Fox. I think they canceled it halfway through the 1st season."
- l8apex
"I have the DVD. Excellent show that I still toss in every once in a while."
"The producers had planned out some storylines all the way to S3. The S2 cliffhanger was supposed to be Jaye being sent to the mental hospital where she had helped put away some guest stars, including the woman who tried to kill the therapist with gift store items, and the boy who bought the russian mail order bride."
- DonnieJuniorsEmails
"Bryan Fuller's early work."
- bottledgoose
Mary Hartman Square
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"
- Phuni44
"I remember watching this with my dad and my sister after the 11:00 pm news. I was in like 6th grade. That's what happens when there's no mom around. 😂"
- PJKPJT7915
"Her husband fell into a vat of paint thinner at work, and he needed to have plastic surgery over every inch of his body, so he requested to look like Tab Hunter."
- GuncleShark
"I thought her husband drowned in a bowl of soup. Maybe her first husband? That show was trippy af"
- Phuni44
"Her neighbor's husband. The clip is on YouTube."
- bitb
"Spin off of a spin off or Mary Tyler Moore as I recall, right? Wasn't Rhonda the first spinoff?"
- [Reddit]
"Not a spin-off. Mary Hartman was a very bizarre show for its time, a parody of a soap opera. Louise Lasser played Mary, and she was this weirdly detached character surrounded by crazy drama and violence. I think it might have been the first place I saw Martin Mull."
- rickpo
Terranova
"Terranova, ran for like a single season then disappeared"
- codyl0611
"I loved that show! So annoying they didn’t get a second season."
- LizHylton
"I was a young kid when it aired on TV so i dont remember much of it, but I recall it being a recurring topic with my mom every now and then"
- codyl0611
"oh god I’m old. I thought it was only a few years ago. I just looked it up and it was 11. Excuse me while I go get an AARP application."
- LizHylton
"It’s that old?! Holy sh*t, grab me an application too, please. It seriously felt like just a couple of years ago."
- KhaleesiXev
Room 222
"Room 222"
- HealthyTruck5691
"Karen Valentine was probably the cutest girl ever on a tv show. I used to love when she would be on the original Hollywood Squares."
"I'm old."
- Bartlett3313
"She was the only reason anyone watched that show."
- 7decadesofhistory
"I loved that show! My mom, my sisters and I would watch that show every Friday night. The cast was really good — Karen Valentine was a really cute and bubbly teacher, and Michael Constantine was great as the high school principal"
- CelticDaisy
Eureka’s Castle
"Eureka’s Castle"
- ofmiceandmodems
"Yes! I swear this was the first one I thought of! And Under the Umbrella Tree!"
- highmaintenancemama
"If you have the Paramount streaming app, it's on there!"
- vk2786
"Spicy, salty, sour, sweet, bring us something good to eat!"
- RoseyDove323
"I’m in my late thirties and still vividly remember the Christmas special episode where Magellan gets lost in the woods."
- doopcat
"Eureka’s Castle was the jam!"
- Vernon1031
"Euuu-reeekaas castleeee"
"*Worms going err errrr ER err ere rrr*"
- Ertuu1985
Let's talk about the shows nobody remembers but you.
Are they those early childhood favorites? Or maybe a teen-drama that only got one season before Netflix pulled it, crushing your hopes and dreams of resolved plotlines about a teenage ghost band who died of poisoned hot dogs and the incredibly talented, but heartbroken, young singer who gives them a new lease on life, love, and music?
No that is not a joke and YES I am still angry about Netflix not giving Julie and the Phantoms a second season.
Maybe it's a soap opera you think you remember watching with your mom, but maybe it was a fever dream?
Whatever it is, we want to hear about it.
Working in entertainment production is one of those things that sounds awesome - and make no mistake, it is.
It's just that it's also one of those jobs that means when your partner calls you at 1 in the morning to ask where you are, and you tell them you're out measuring lemons for Beyoncé... it's not a euphemism and it's not that weird.
Queen Bey wants a bowl of 15 evenly sized lemons for her dressing room, Queen Bey gets a bowl of 15 evenly sized lemons for her dressing room.
And because catering runners care about doing their jobs well and usually have a multi-tool on them anyway, Beyoncé is getting the sexiest, most uniformly sized, lemons we can find.
Reddit user Tacoma__Crowasked:
"What was the oddest job you’ve had and why?"
Lemons for the Queen doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, honestly.
Weight Ballast
"In small rural town, I (15M) close to 200lbs got a job as a farm Hand expecting to work planting and harvesting. I was quite a large athletic lad at the time. And I show up for my first day of work and the planting equipment on the back of the tractor was missing some parts. So my boss told me to climb atop the planting equipment to make sure it would plant deep enough"
"FML I got hired to be a heavy object, weight, ballast."
"I will never forget my first job as weight"
- Logical-Tomato-215
"Heavy Weight Champion! Literally!"
- AK--03
"I didn't know that was a whole job, I've only worked as ballast in addition to my other duties"
"(theme park ride operator, and would need/get to ride the rides sometimes when they needed more weight on them for one reason or another)"
- Lowbacca1977
"that's nothing I'm so fat that people pay me to sit in the back of their car when it snows"
- HairyNutsackNumber9
"My dad used me for ballast when I was a kid. Growing up in upstate NY where we would get 12-24" of snow a day, he made a homemade plow for his lawn tractor."
"He had weights for the back drive wheels, but he needed weight on the front for the steer tires. a 50lb 5 year old who could sit on the hood of the tractor was perfect."
- SafetyMan35
A Google-izer Or Is It Googlee ?
"Googling stuff for people."
"I used to work for kgbkgb, which was this text messaging service where you could text a number, ask any question, and get an answer for $.99. This was before smartphones became super huge, so it was a bit of a helpful gimmick back then."
"However, for everyone that we got asking normal questions like movie times, or what restaurants were open near them, or stuff like that, we got A LOT more people asking very stupid things that I would have to Google. I have this album of a bunch of weird questions that people sent to us."
"It was an interesting job that helped cover some things when I was in college, but it also had me using Google for a lot of weird sh*t."
- -eDgAR-
"Oh my god, my friends and I used to send so many weird questions to services like that (never used that one though). It never occurred to me that an actual person was answering them, I always thought it was a chatbot."
- NightOnFu*kMountain
"Dude I totally remember that service! I'm so sorry I definitely asked stupid questions 😅"
- CptBarba
One Day
"I was employed by JC Penney for literally one day. I didn't quit, and I wasn't fired. That was the term of my employment."
"This was back in 1998 and I was entering my senior year of high school. They had a huge sale in the store and they hired dozens of people to cover every department because they were anticipating huge crowds. This was not a Black Friday sale, but they anticipated correctly, nonetheless."
"One of the shift supervisors gave me some busy work to start the day (folding shirts or whatever). After lunch I was basically asked to walk around from time to time and pick up any knocked over merchandise. The last few hours got boring, so one of the other supervisors that I had been chatting with throughout the day invited me to hang out during his break. His words were, 'what are they gonna do, fire you?' Good times."
- ThePreachingDrummer
"One of our local department stores (might have been Penneys) would hire a bunch of people for one day to do inventory. My wife, my MIL, SIL, and my Mom & I always got hired. We did it for 5 years, working one day a year, counting every damn thing in that store."
- Eel_OBrian
"Ha! I got a gig at Filene's over Christmas break one year doing the exact same thing. I think I had maybe 2-3 shifts, just walking around refolding shirts. So weird, but easy money!"
- RowdyGorgonite
Ring
"I was the girl that crawled out of a fake well at a Halloween hay ride once - that was actually pretty fun! Why: I was 14 and after four weeks working Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays all evening I got $150! (Under the table of course.)"
- CaseyBoogies
"Damn. Sounds like you got scammed on pay unless this was like the 80s or before."
- McFluff_TheAltCat
"Haha it was shady, but like I said it was fun! It was especially hilarious later in the evening when all the drunk college kids would come through and freak the f*ck out at me - a kid in a ripped up costume wedding dress- practically falling out of a cardboard well with a strobe light blinding me!"
"Most of the people that worked there were teenagers and we'd just have a good time and smoke in between wagons - pay was sh*t but it was definitely an odd job that made some good memories."
- CaseyBoogies
Corpse Uber
"Transporting deceased people who our county declared John/Jill Does to the proper county or city coroner once they were identified."
"Some obscure state law back in the 80's made it illegal to transport that particular type of dead person while the sun was up... Screwed up job, but it paid $15 an hour back in 1985."
"Guess it paid so much because most people were unwilling to do it. That was a hell of a lot for a college student to turn down. Interesting fact. When you hit a bump in the road, with an unprepared corpse, their bodies will gurgle, and sometimes air comes out of their lungs and hits their vocal cords."
- Leftstrat
"Were you warned about the gurgling or learn from terrifying experience?"
- mangokittykisses
"Got to learn about it. I guess it was a break-in-the-new guy kind of moment. The first time that I heard a moan, that about went out of the vehicle window."
- Leftstrat
"Did this show up in nightmares? How long did you do that for?"
- RPA031
3D Pictures
"When i was a teenager i sold those magic eye pictures at a mall kiosk. y'know the ones you have to stare at for a while till your eyes make out a 3d picture? all day i had to try and help frustrated people try and see the f*cking sail boat."
"Ah, you worked in a mall between 1993-1997."
- fiddlenutz
Fancy Title
"My first job was with a temp agency; worked in an accounting office going through boxes of records and making sure there were no staples or fasteners in anything. Then the boxes would go to another dept to be scanned onto microfiche. I had some fancy title (like “Accounting Clerk”) and was making over $11 an hr (back when min wage was still like $5 and change) so I thought I was living large."
"A funny part of the story is that I started on a Friday, and came to work in khakis and a polo-Monday I came dressed the same way and got spoke to about dressing professionally because Friday was casual Friday and not normal dress code. Lol felt dumb having to wear business attire and a tie when I was in the back in a cubicle pulling staples out of documents."
- HalfBeatingHeart
"The entire existence of casual Friday proves dress codes don’t matter. If you can do your job the same on Friday as you can on Monday, what does it matter?"
- dreamqueen9103
"Exactly. I haven’t had to wear a tie to work since 1998. And I’ve worked in some pretty stuffy places since then—two Federal Reserve Banks, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the most uptight law firm in the entire history of the legal system."
- dendiverdown
Cutthroat Cookies
"Worked for the girl scouts and ran the cookie sale for a regional area that included a major American city."
"Craziest and most stressful job I ever had."
"It seems all cute and charming until you have 30 furious cookie moms screaming at you in your office at 6:30 AM on a Saturday because the truck carrying 5 pallets of thin mints is stuck in a blizzard."
"I had to break up fist fights between parents because someone 'stole' someone's spot outside of a grocery store. It's cutthroat."
"Anyway that job was decades ago and I still have stress nightmares about it!"
- Neither-Copy785
"How is 5 pallets of thin mints stuck in a blizzard really a problem? Advertise those as already frozen and sell at a premium"
- Lowbacca1977
Kitty Sitting
"Not a job exactly but one awesome day. I used to work in the concrete business. We once had a job pouring a slab for residential parking and a neighbour nearby had a kitten just a couple months old."
"It would not stay out of the concrete as you can imagine it thought us picking it up and washing its paws was a game. Eventually the boss told me to grab the kitten and go hold it hostage in the truck."
"So I spent the next six hours sitting in the truck with a super friendly kitten sleeping on my chest. I got paid to babysit a kitten."
- Sectaguy
"Goals"
- Sirenenblut
Kept That Swamp clean
"Swamp Janitor. Official title was "invasive species removal technician" but really I was a swamp janitor. "
"There was this invasive aquatic plant that would completely take over swamps and choke out all the native life, so my job was to go in with a rake and pitchfork and literally just clean up the swamp of this devil plant."
"Some parts were cool, watching eagles fish, seeing turtles come up for air and big fish swimming in the water but a lot of it sucked. The plant had sharp seeds that would pierce your skin and your waders. You'd get leeches, tics and mosquitos on you all day. Physically exhausting with lots of sun."
"You'd have to haul the plant matter to giant compost heaps that were full of snakes (for some reason the snakes liked it). It was a unique but grueling job."
- UniverseBear
"That sounds absolutely horrifying. How much did it pay?"
- Lemerney2
"Pretty sure it was min wage."
- UniverseBear
"What kind of plant was it?"
- borfmat
"European Water Chestnut (but in Canada, so no bueno)"
- UniverseBear
Okay so we've measured lemons for royalty, been a taxi for dead folks, and been an overpaid staple remover with a fancy title.
You're up, readers.
Got anything that competes with that?
In spite of considerable work being, and progress, made to change things, it remains a fact that men have countless advantages in modern society.
In addition to not having to deal with several biological issues all women must endure, men still seem to have the upper hand when applying for positions of power, or being trusted with major responsibilities.
As a result, those who do not identify as men often roll their eyes when men of any age offer even the slightest complaint.
Which doesn't mean that plenty of men still maintain that there are definite downsides to carrying those he/him pronouns.
Redditor jojomecoco was curious to hear what the men of Reddit considered the biggest obstacles and challenges which come with their gender, leading them to ask:
"Boys, what's the downside to being a male?"
What lies between one's legs...
"Getting hit in the nuts."- Phantomtastic
"Balls stick to leg."- BuffGroot
Societal Expectations
"All the expectations."
"'We must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon'."- SparkAxolotl
"Our childhood interests don’t truly change much into adulthood, but we are often seen as childish if we continue to pursue them."
"One of my greatest laments is the magnitude of friends who said, 'when I grow up I’ll be able to afford..,' yet abandoned those dreams due to social conditioning."- nixxy19
Don't let a persona fool you.
:Being called a creep when you call a kid adorable."- OkraFit3987
Men like hugs too...
"I haven't been hugged in 14 years."- Delphii42
It can be hard for everyone...
"Whatever dating is now."- Thompson_S_Sweetback
Ouch
"Almost never get compliments."
"Ever."- Redbeardthe1st
What are your intentions, exactly?
"I can’t be nice to women without them thinking I’m hitting on them or what have you."
"Like yeah you’re pretty but also, I’m just being polite."- pdeagz
When push comes to shove, sometimes we all feel like the world is against us, and we have to face an uphill battle.
But if one were to provide a study, the likely outcome would prove that men, namely white, cisgender, heterosexual men, often have a much less steep hill to climb than anyone else.
And though it might certainly be a different sensation, getting hit really hard between the legs is painful for everyone.
Depending on the job, non-office employees work tirelessly to push through with their physically-demanding tasks despite their fatigue to earn that paycheck.
But in their exhaustion, judgments can be impaired and exhausted workers can be vulnerable to workplace hazards.
And when an accident occurs while on company property, it's a devastating predicament that can have long-term effects.
Curious to hear job horror stories, Redditor Bwrice asked:
"What’s a work related accident that still haunts you to this day?"
"Beware of falling objects" was the last thing on these workers' minds.
Do Pets Miss Their Owners?
"While building Levi Stadium, a trucker was unloading rebar when the entire pile fell on him, impaling him multiple times and also crushing him."
"I never met the man, but his cat and elderly dog ended up a a local shelter. We planned to adopt the dog and ended up taking home the cat too because we didn't want to split them."
"Nena (the dog) passed away in her sleep in 2017 about 2 years after we brought her home. Seal (the cat) is around 7 years old now and doing just fine."
"I've always wondered if they ever thought of him."
– ryneaeiel
I Scream
"Worked for Edy's Ice Cream. My truck was loaded wrong so at a stop had to shimmy between pallets to get to the back pallet."
"Was unloading the top pallet and the pallet below collapsed. The top pallet slid on to me. But since I was between 2 waist high pallets about 1200lbs of ice cream bent me at the waist the wrong way."
"Sort of like bending over normally, backwards."
"Ended up with 2 broken vertebrae, nerve damage and was not fun."
"Eventually got a six disc fusion and was able to walk again."
"But now I have arthritis in my back and it really hurts most of the time. I also have numb areas in my right thigh and my whole lower back."
"Would not recommend."
– Im_too_old
Fatal Collapse
"Trench collapse. Guy was pinned mid chest. Not good but not immediately fatal. Guy’s coworkers freak out and use the backhoe to dig him out. Ended up catching him with the teeth on the bucket. Essentially cut him in half."
"The guy on the backhoe was his brother."
"Dude would have probably been alright had they rescued him the right way."
– Flame5135
Drowning in Molasses
"Not me, but at the cookie factory where my brother worked a worker died when someone accidentally dumped out a massive mixer full of molasses on top of him. He suffocated before they could dig him out."
– brainbarker
No one ever expected these jabs to happen.
Implementation Of A Rule
"Engineer decided to open a parcel with a Stanley knife, not sure if he slipped or what angle he was cutting at but BAM! Stanley knife in the eye. Never saw him again but h&s quickly introduced a policy that safety goggles needed to be worn when opening boxes"
– Quizzical_Chimp
Ruined Wedding Gown
"Used to be a wedding caterer. While the bride and groom were going to cut the cake it started to fall off the table as they were both trying to catch this ridiculously huge thing the bride slipped, fell into a pyramid of wine glasses on a foldout table behind her... The table collapsed and a wine glass stem pierced her neck."
"She survived, but she was not gonna be able to take that gown back to the rental place... I've never seen so much blood in my life."
– DanteWolfe0125
These accidents were uniquely different from the common examples above, but horrific, nonetheless.
Mad At The Machine
"I dunno if you can call this an accident but I was working with this guy and outta nowhere he says 'I'm sick of working here, check this out' and jammed his foot into the gears on the machine. Completely mangled his foot. Saw him 20 years later and his foot was still f'ked."
"He was looking for a couple weeks of workers comp, got a lifetime disability instead. It was pretty horrific."
– KingGuy420
Bashed In The Face
"Work in a dealership and once a tech was using a tool that broke free bashing him in the face, knocking out multiple teeth, splitting his lip and breaking his nose…it was a bloody mess. Young kid, with balls of steel appearantly. While waiting for an ambulance he was sitting there talking and smiled to show the damage. That smile was horrifying. He recovered and got a ton of dental work and still works there."
– smallboxofcrayons
"I was a cashier in a grocery store. One of my fellow cashiers was a senior, just killing time in retirement. One day, she had a dizzy spell, collapsed, and cracked her head open on the floor. Paramedics were called, and as they were loading her into the ambulance, she was crying out that she could still finish her shift."
– originalchaosinabox
Aviation Disasters
"I used to fly small airplanes in north west Alaska. In the two years I worked there I knew three pilots that died in crashes."
"Don’t miss how those days felt."
– SweatyMooseKnuckler
Severed Digits
"Coworker, who was fresh out of trade school was using a table saw to cut 1” thick sheets of plastic into strips. It was cold so he put on some leather work gloves."
"A glove got caught and pulled his hand into the saw, nearly severing his right index and middle fingers."
"He came to me and said, 'uh, I think I cut my hand'. It literally looked like a package of pork ribs - all mangled bone and tissue."
"They were able to save the fingers, but they’re non functional and don’t bend."
– funtobedone
Working in theater, I've seen my share of fellow performers getting injured.
From theme parks to Broadway, the things actors do for the sake of entertaining audiences are nothing short of risky.
Anything can go wrong when actors rush backstage for a quick costume change or when they rely solely on the mechanics of set pieces to move efficiently.
A good friend of mine was the victim of the latter, when he expected the bottom of the trap door would be clear of a moveable stair case when jumped in as he always did at a particular moment during a theme park show.
He landed on a staircase that hadn't been switched out for the airbag because of a crew member's incompetence.
My friend sustained several non life-threatening injuries but survived.
The things we do for art...