Paul Revere, Jesus Christ, our parents... Anthony Fauci. Why is it humans always choose to ignore signs and try to discredit the truth tellers? Are we truly that arrogant? Now that I'm an adult I feel like I should always be on an apology tour to my elders who always warned me about growing up; they were right, youth is wasted on the young.
Thank goodness there always seems to be a handful of people who are willing to risk everything to expose what needs to told. And those people are never travelling an easy road. They are often ridiculed and lambasted. But thankfully, most of the time, they do get their "I told you so" moments.
Redditor u/MeargleSchmeargle wanted to discuss some of the people who tried to warn everyone and blow the whistles on so many things, though it often all landed on deaf ears; they asked... Who was crazy until they were right all along?Ludwig Knows
digging self destruct GIF
Giphy
Ludwig Boltzmann
His equations and formulas explained the physical properties of matter, but as it went against the then accepted Laws of Physics, he was ridiculed and ignored for years while fighting for atom theory to be accepted.
He took his own life just 3 years before Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of an atom, proving Boltzmann's theory.
Ernie's Concern...
Hemingway, before he took his life he became extremely paranoid the FBI was following him. His wife and people around him just thought he was mentally ill and grew deeply concerned. Hemingway went as far as getting electrotherapy at a psychiatric hospital to try and help with the perceived delusions. Turns out the FBI had been following and bugging him for years according to declassified files.
No One Would Listen
Harry Markopolos spent ten years trying to convince everyone (investors, journalists, regulatory agencies, etc.) that Bernie Madoff was a fraud, based on forensic accounting. Madoff was one of the most respected names on Wall Street and despite the overwhelming evidence, no one was willing to entertain the thought he might be running a Ponzi scheme. Harry's book, No One Would Listen is a pretty great account of financial detective work and just the abject frustration of being absolutely certain you're right but no one believes you.
EDIT: If you want to see Congressman Ackerman absolutely destroy the SEC right after Markopolous's testimony, here you go.
The Drifter...
In 1912 the meteorologist Alfred Wegener described what he called continental drift, an idea that culminated fifty years later in the modern theory of plate tectonics.[40]
Wegener expanded his theory in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans.[41] Starting from the idea (also expressed by his forerunners) that the present continents once formed a single land mass (later called Pangea), Wegener suggested that these separated and drifted apart, likening them to "icebergs" of low density granite floating on a sea of denser basalt.
[42] Supporting evidence for the idea came from the dove-tailing outlines of South America's east coast and Africa's west coast, and from the matching of the rock formations along these edges. Confirmation of their previous contiguous nature also came from the fossil plants Glossopteris and Gangamopteris, and the therapsid or mammal-like reptile Lystrosaurus, all widely distributed over South America, Africa, Antarctica, India, and Australia. The evidence for such an erstwhile joining of these continents was patent to field geologists working in the southern hemisphere. The South African Alex du Toit put together a mass of such information in his 1937 publication Our Wandering Continents, and went further than Wegener in recognising the strong links between the Gondwana fragments.
Wegener's work was initially not widely accepted, in part due to a lack of detailed evidence. The Earth might have a solid crust and mantle and a liquid core, but there seemed to be no way that portions of the crust could move around. Distinguished scientists, such as Harold Jeffreys and Charles Schuchert, were outspoken critics of continental drift.
So many have pleaded with us through science and fact. More often than not science can sound like fiction but reality is far stranger than fiction. It may seem odd that a plague is coming, or that certain aspects of the human body cause breakdowns and pain, because we don't initially understand the specifics. Sure, some truths feel too simple and others too vague, but rest assured plenty of people have known.
Dr. Fauci?
Corona Stay Home GIF by INTO ACTION
Giphy
That dude who suggested that it might be a good idea to wash your hands before performing surgery.
The Death
Semmelweis supposedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. He died 14 days later after being beaten by the guards, from a gangrenous wound on his right hand which might have been caused by the beating. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory.
Super Barry
For a very long time the medical community thought that stomach ulcers were caused by stress.
A doctor in Australia called Barry Marshall claimed they were wrong and that they were caused by an excess of certain bacteria, and the cure was simple antibiotics. The medical community ridiculed him and nearly ended his career. He eventually decided the only way to prove he was right was to infect himself, develop the ulcers and cure himself.
In curing himself he was proved right and won the Nobel prize for his efforts, and now stomach ulcers are very easily treatable (they previously affected 1 in 10 people).
"The Great Missoula Flood"
J Harlan Bretz
He was a geologist that in the 1920s came up with a theory about why the Dry Falls and surrounding scablands of Eastern Washington state were so sharp and abrupt, instead of smooth as should be with the general understanding of erosion. Especially since the falls have no real river to speak of to create erosion.
His theory was that a giant flood, created by an even more massive lake, ripped through the region millions of years ago, reshaping the landscape in a matter of days. He was laughed at and discredited in the geology community for almost 50 years. Until someone discovered evidence in the 1950s of an ancient and massive lake that started just north of Montana that stretched all the way to southern Utah.
The lake was believed to have been created by glacial dams (ice walls) during the last ice age. It would fill up over thousands of years and then hit a point where a glacial dam broke and the lake water would fire out the break like a water cannon, drain the lake, and reshape an entire region over several days as the water flowed toward the ocean. This happened several times.
Since the flood that carved the Dry Falls likely started from the Lake Missoula area in modern day Montana, it was named the "The Great Missoula Flood". Bretz was given an award in 1979 for his contribution to geology when he was 96 years old. He joked "All my enemies are dead, so I have no one to gloat over."
Never underestimate the people who seem like they're just spreading gossip. Within every lie, there is truth. And gossip has to be born from somewhere, it's sort of a parody of truth. And don't negate facts that seem so outlandish they can only be a masterwork of creativity. The wildest tales are never made up.
Drunk Martha
Martha Mitchell, she was the wife of Nixon's AG, John Mitchell. She was outspoken in the extreme and was one of the first to talk openly about what really happened re:Watergate. Since she was also known to love her martinis, she was widely written off as a drunk, crazy woman. Behind the scenes, a White House doctor began heavily sedating her and her husband locked her away from the press. No one believed her until Nixon resigned and the story came out. To this day, most people only remember her as that loud-mouth, Martha Mitchell.
Sherman's Truth
When the Civil War broke out, everyone on both sides thought it would be a quick victory. However Sherman kept saying it would be a bloodbath that would drag on for years. His superiors decided he was insane and sent him out west to fight Native Americans just to get rid of him.
After it all came true and they needed some better generals, they said "Maybe we should bring back that Sherman guy."
John Knows
game of thrones winter GIF by got50
Giphy
John Snow (yes, that's his name) was laughed at for believing that the multiple cholera outbreaks could be traced back to a specific source and that it was due to contaminated water. Essentially, making him one of the fathers of epidemiology. He has a fascinating life that went beyond that as well!
Mother's Know
The "dingo ate my baby!" lady. Got made fun of constantly, most notably in Seinfeld and I believe went to jail because nobody believed her. Turns out a dingo ate her baby. She is still made fun of.
Phil Knows
There was a sci-fi writer Philip K Dick who was convinced the FBI was monitoring him so he kept sending demand letters that they release his file.
His daughter was interviewed years after he passed (extras on Scanner Darkly dvd iirc):
"I heard you've actually seen your father's FBI file and it is quite large"
"Yes it's rather large, but the only thing in there are copies of his demand letters".
Radium
The Radium Girls.
When Radium had just come to the US and was being marketed on dials for war and watches, girls used their lips to fix the paintbrushes to make their numbers and dials perfect. Eventually they started suffering horrible, painful experiences due to the radium.
These girls fought for YEARS to figure out A) what was wrong with them, B) who was responsible, and C) how they were going to pay their bills/support their families.
It's a horrible injustice. These girls needed support and validation that they weren't crazy, that it WAS radium; and it took far too long and too many deaths for it to happen.
Hey Ladies...
Hey Girl Ladies GIF by Amanda Cee Media
Giphy
When I was in Boy Scout camp we had this counselor named Don. He was kind of odd, he knew everything about trees and only really talked about trees.
We had just gotten back from a hike that Don was on with us and we were just sitting around talking and he suddenly goes "You know, they're gonna let girls into Boy Scouts soon". We were all like, "yeah okay Don". But sure enough less than 3 years later, they did it.
Mr. Burry gets it...
Michael Burry. The first guy to predict the 2008 housing market crash. He was a hedge fund manager for Scion Capital at the time and basically bet his entire funds liquidity (all the money the fund had) that there would be a crash.
No one believed him except a few other people who also bet against the market. Several of his clients sued him for tying their money up in what they considered to be a foolish bet all to have him be right in the end. He made his fund something like $1.3 billion and the value increased about 489%.
The movie the Big Short is about him and the few other people who were wise enough to bet against the market at the time. I've watched the movie like 5 times in order to try to understand exactly what happened but still don't fully get it. I recommend it to anyone who's interested
Fun fact: Michael Burry was also ahead of the curve* in the recent GameStop surge. I think he had something like 1.2 million shares of GameStop months before the price shot up (might need to fact check myself).
Rotted to the Core
Johnny Rotten said in an interview that he knew Jimmy Savile was into all kinds of "seediness". People dismissed it as typical Johnny Rotten anti establishment talk (for which he is famous). As it turned out, he was right.
Pity Me Partyboy...
Me. About my (now disowned) cousin.
He kept stealing things from me which my family felt was no big deal. But it escalated. It went from stealing candy, to my things, to cash, and after that I asked them how much longer they would support him and call me "selfish" for "not sharing." The line was finally crossed when he stole our grandmothers credit cards and her car.
She finally wrote him off.
This was AFTER he had stolen all of her jewelry, including the last present (anniversary ring) my grandfather was ever to give her.
Oh, but he tried to say that our family kicked him out because he's gay. No. None of us cared about that, it was because he's a thief.
His "friends" have bailed him out of jail and then dropped him when he steals from them.
But he claims the world is "just unfair" to him.
Now he tells his pity story and milks the "my family disowned me because I'm gay" to everyone he begs from. I learned this when he tried to do it to one of my friends.
You're Sane
Season 5 Nbc GIF by The Office
Giphy
The ex-husband of my ex-girlfriend . Turns out he wasn't the crazy one after all. He kept trying to tell me and if I would have listened from the beginning I could have saved 4 years of my life.
Th Wardens
The people who discovered prions. All the other biologists thought they were crazy to suggest one protein could be an infectious agent. Nope those biologists were wrong and Nobel prizes were awarded.
The Tortured
The people who were tortured as a part of MK Ultra. Imagine trying to convince the people around you that the government is trying to make you crazy with mind control, only years later to find out that not only was it true, but you wouldn't get compensation for it. And you were subject to illegal human experimentation.
Don't Tell Me
Giphy
The classic example, of course, is Cassandra; in Greek mythology she was cursed to know the future, but for no one to believe her when she told them.
It just seems like eternal human error to constantly repeat bad patterns and already lived through cycles -which is the definition of insanity by the way- so that lessons are never learned. When will believe those that are trying to warn us for our greater good, the first few hundred times they tell us? Wash your hands, wear your mask and prepare to combat climate change. You've been warned... A LOT!!
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- People Break Down The Historical Lies That People Still Believe To Be True - George Takei ›
- People Describe The Historical Figures Who Were Mocked But Later Proven Right - George Takei ›
- People Break Down Which 'Crazy People' In History Were Right The Entire Time - George Takei ›
- People Describe The Times Someone Mocked Them For Being Wrong But They Were Actually Right - George Takei ›
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
Basketball Wives Ugh GIF by VH1Giphy"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
Kung Fu Wtf GIF by A24Giphy"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
Stanley Cup Nhl GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphy"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
Prayer GIFGiphy"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"
No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Nbc Jump GIF by SuperstoreGiphyHave you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
Season 8 Teacher GIF by FriendsGiphyThe dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
spelling GIFGiphyNo, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
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