Hurt people hurt people. But because you're a hurt person doesn't mean you have to take it out on the rest of us. Sorry, but if you come for me, I'm coming for you. Most bullies will retreat once you let them know.... your wrath is to be feared.
Redditor u/VinceDeezer wanted to hear some stories about taking down the coward that is Goliath by asking.... People of reddit, what was your revenge on a bully?
50. From Enemies To Allies
A "bully" from my class used to tell me that i wasn't her friend, she often told me to sod off, and she told me she didn't like me. So at some point on instagram the people in my class created an instagram messaging group with all the people from that class and the bully was in there too. at some point she told me to shut up, as usual, and i start like freaking out and at some point i tell her "why don't you like me?!" she responded with "who told you that you like me?!" and i said "who told you that i don't?!" and at that point i think i got her thinking. from that moment we became friends. pals. chums, whatever.
49. Life's Own Comeuppance
I went to university and got a beautiful smart amazing partner of now over 3 years, got a sports car, a bachelors degree and I'm two months from having a masters. He has to see my periodic posts of sheer progress and happiness. He is still a fat aggressive jerk with a job at McDonald's and the only girlfriend he's had in the last two years cheated on him regularly until it finally ended because she'd rather be with the person she was cheating on him with.
48. Sexism Is Inherently Dumb
Got accepted to college before he did. It was my dream school too, and his scores were abysmal. He actually had to take it himself since his mom couldn't take the test for him. His dad tried to get him in the other way, but he didn't have enough money for the school to ignore the scores, so he was packed off to a satellite school in the middle of nowhere.
It's no secret he graduated college by the skin of his teeth. And he always claimed he was smarter than me, a stupid female. This stupid female has a masters and a career, he lives at home with mommy and daddy.
47. Immobulus!
I had a guy steal from me, a second time as well as other drama, and I had been made aware he had a warrant out for him so when me and a few friends were driving up the local main street and I saw him I jumped out of the car. Then went to the police station a half block away to say that I just saw so and so, when he came to he went back inside the bar he was out in front of and the police showed up and arrested him
46. Revenge Via Broken Heart
When I was in high school there was this one kid I didn't get along with. Not exactly a bully just bad blood, we would always get into fights and curse each other out. Eventually I got sick of it and I had realized that his current gf was a girl that used to have a a crush on me back in middle school and one day something he said pushed me over the edge so at the end of the school day I talked to his girlfriend about how she used to have a crush on me and asked about how she felt about me now, And well she ended up dumping him for me. Me and him don't fight anymore.
45. Germ Repellant
When my brother was in first grade, he came home from school upset because another kid was messing with him.
When he told my mom, her response was to "give that kid a good licking!"(meaning fight back)
The next day my mom got a call from the principal because my brother took her advice literally and licked this other kids face when he started messing with him again.
Well, I guess it worked cuz the kid left him alone after that.
44. Corporal Defense
This girl (i am also a girl) used to bully me in school, calling me names, made fun of my siblings etc. One say i had enough. Shoved her and pulled her hair in front of her gang of bullies. They never bothered me again after that.
Im not proud of this. It's sad that i had to do that in order to survive school. Snitching would only make the matter worse. This was the norm in my school. Stand up for yourself or be trampled by the bullies. We used to do this between the ages of 10-14. My school was messed up.
43. Whoops! Sorry About Your Face!
Not me but my mom. Thought her years in school she said she always dealt with bullying and that's why I should stick up for myself now.
One day the bullying was too much for her and decided it was enough. My mom and the girl that had been bullying her were both on the school field hockey team. My mom waited and at the perfect moment.
She broke the girls nose and her wrist with her hockey stick in a game.
Unfortunately the bullying continued. But she said she felt better after that.
42. The Anti-Umbridge League
Kid bullied me in summer camp, I organized a network of other kids who also hated him and he was soon punished. I wanted to beat the heck outta that guy but this was probably a better option.
41. Useless Adults
I was on the receiving end on bullying quite a bit. A pair of guys wouldn't stop touching me and I had enough one day. I just about broke the one guy's arm before the worthless teacher finally stepped in. Then, the next year, I ended up stabbing another jerk with a pencil right in the hand when the teacher just kept watching him stealing my stuff. After that I was finally left alone.
40. Fooled Ya
When I was younger I wasn't particularly tough but I sure was good at acting. Some kid in my class that was giving me a hard time threw a couple of soft blows at me, one of them grazed my neck and to show him a lesson I pretended he damaged my oesophagus and lay on the ground gasping for life. He started panicking. I eventually got up and started laughing
39. Bully Vs. Sociopath
I found a dead rat behind the school gym, I proceeded to learn his locker code and placed it in there over a 2 week holiday, the thing stank real bad. When he found it he actually squealed
Two years of constant torment concluded the same day when I said his dog would be next in that locker.
38. Dangerous With Utensils
Not revenge, strictly speaking. More like preventive measure. Guy in my class was messing with me and trying to take stuff from my table. I was trying to get some work done and the constant interruptions were pissing me off. Among the items on my table was a plastic fork (some kid was bringing cake for his birthday). So I told him that if he touched my stuff one more time I would ram that fork into his hand. He touched my stuff one last time.
The fork did not really penetrate his hand because it shattered into dozens of little pieces. But it gave him a good scratch and some minor bleeding.
Months or years later another kid was bringing something for his birthday and I was holding a plastic spoon in my hand. Turning it around and just looking at it. Some kid piped up "Good Lord! Who gave him a spoon!?". People remembered ...
37. Knocked The Music Out
There was this one guy that was pretty much a stereotype of the word bully. He also was just generally a pain in my behind and an all around jerk. One time, I had a really bad migraine and he was standing behind me while we were trying to change classes in middle school. He was singing this really annoying song at full volume, from less than 6 inches from my ear. I asked him nicely to stop and he screamed NO in my ear. I was on my way to math class. Our text book was about 6 inches thick and weighed in about 5 lbs. I also had a big notebook. I whirled around and whacked him in the stomach HARD. He left me alone for the rest of the year..........Ahhhhh silence.
36. Going For The Jugular
My first bully was this kid that always made me cry in elementary school, every day during recess. Last day of elementary I told her she took all her problems out on me because she had no friends, and because she was insecure about her weight. That one I regret because that was too mean even for an 11 year old.
My second was in high school to a girl that had not only been a bad friend to me, but came up with rumors about me obsessing over her and wanting to be her girlfriend. After we had fooled around once before.
After that I found out that at the time we had fooled around she had started dating a good friend of mine again, and I outed her cheating to the friend. I felt really guilty in the end and I felt like I had to tell the friend, it wasn't so much of a revenge thing, but more of a "damn I inadvertently hurt someone else" due to being a horny teenager. The end of high school was really lonely because I was made out to be a lying jerk, but I came out of it with some wonderful friends because the bad times cleared out the bad people in my life. I came out of it with a better understanding of my sexuality as well, so it was worth it.
35. Butt Pins
My bully was my 4 grade teacher (I was the quiet kid) he would belittle me and treat me like I was stupid and an idiot. So I decided to put pins on his chair, best day of my life. 8 years later, I still hate him.
34. Revenge In The Workplace
Not me but my dad:
This one kid bullied my dad when he was little, right now my dad works for a very successful firm as a supervisor. The bully was hired as a programmer, my dad gave him almost impossible tasks, the bully quit and now works for a very small rivaling company
33. Don't Mess, Princess
In school I was picked on a lot. One day, as I was bending over, a kid kicked me and I fell flat on my face, making the whole class laugh. I turned round, picked him up by his ears and banged his head against the wall saying "just leave me the hell alone".
At that moment, the teacher opened the door for us to go in and saw me. He called us both into his office and asked what happened. Gently told me he understood why I'd done that but it wasn't a good idea, and gave the other kid a detention and a letter home. People left me alone for a while after that!
32. Aaaaaand FLIP
Guy was trying to push me around and I tried to do a move out of some movie i saw and judo flipped him. Remembered that it was from a movie and as casually as I could walked away without looking at him.
Felt amazing.
Btw this was like 5th grade, at recess.
31. Getting Served
Some classmates of mine were throwing snowballs at older people in front of the school so I said they had to stop (what if they fell). Then they threw snowballs at me (i liked that because then they wouldn't throw at old people). Later that day I went to the McDonalds with some friends after school and they were there too. So I walked outside, grabbed snow, made a snowball, walked back in and just when he went to take a bite of his fries I threw a snowball in his face.
30. Who Wears Short Shorts
This kid (16/17) at school was awful to me. He would bully me every day without fail, call me names, throw stuff at me pull my clothing, put chewing gum in my hair etc. He would always position himself somewhere behind me on the school bus for optimum throwing/gum hair capability.
One day the planets and the stars aligned and I had somehow got on the bus first and he was in front of me for a change and I just so happened to have a tube of Nair in my bag (for unrelated reasons). Now this kid admittedly had a nice head of hair. I wanted my payback. The amount of sketchy haircuts I had to endure because of this clown was unreal. So like I said...he had a pretty nice head of hair. Until I managed to drip Nair onto the back of his head for a 35 minute bus ride. He came to school the next day with a sketchy haircut. It was glorious. I should probably feel worse about it that I do/did but this guy made my daily life a living hell.
29. Scot Free
Typical every day bully, I was targeted for being friends with a person for being gay and standing up for them. Day to day I just let it go by, but one day he tried to pull me off my chair in math class so I turned around and rammed my pen into his side.
Teacher noticed it and sent me out the room and asked me what happened. I got 0 punishment as they were aware of the problem and he filed it up as an accident. Bully needed 2 stitches and never bothered me or my friend again.
28. Veronica Mars Worthy Revenge
All through 7th and 8th grade, this girl made fun of me for being a "prude." At our 8th grade graduation party, I pushed her into a pool fully clothed with her new phone in her pocket. I was grounded for a month but it was worth it. 10/10 would do again.
27. Hulking Out
There was this guy bullying me for years and one time he got physical. He hit me in the face with his elbow and laughed when I covered my face in pain. He turned his side to me to laugh with the other classmates and that's when I lifted him up, started running to the wall with him, and threw him again it. He looked like a beaten boxer bleeding everywhere in the face and pissed his pants.
26. The End Of The End
My bully in elementary was a year older than me. Let's call him Howard because that's his name and he sucks. Would beat me up on the way home from school regularly. I knew he had really strict parents too. So one day, with a fresh scrape on my arm from him pushing me and a ripped backpack from him tearing it open, I went to his house and talked to his mom detailing all of the times he beat me up, harassed me, or otherwise tormented me over the year. Two weeks later they pulled him out of school and sent him back to Korea to go to some kinda military/disciplinary school. Apparently, he had been in trouble like, a lot. Never heard from him again.
25. Who Got The Real Revenge?
When i was in grade 9 some kid used to bully me. Things like always talking over me in class on purpose, embarrassing me in front of girls, tripping me over etc. One day i snapped after he kept pelting tennis balls at my face from about a meter away in PE. I got so angry i grabbed him by the throat and proceeded to start laying into him and punched his face till his nose broke and started bleeding. At the time i had long hair and i saw there was blood in my hair and i freaked out and ran home. Got expelled.
24. Braids Will Take You DOWN
When I was 7 there was this annoying dude in my class who wouldn't stop following me around at school and annoy me.
One day I had braids and he thought it was funny to pull them. I didn't, so I decided to do what would hurt his pride the most and tackled him to the ground.
He was one of the biggest guys in our class and everyone thought it was hilarious that he was knocked to the ground by a girl. We were in the same class for 5 more years after this and he never did anything else to me.
23. Diverted Threats
He was older, taller, bigger. So I told him that every time he bullied me, I would beat up his little brother. (Not true, btw.). The bullying came to a full and final stop.
22. Baseless Rumors
This guy in college harassed me and made my life miserable for a semester (weird phone calls, vicious rumors, serious bull) until he had the nerve to approach and threaten my mother on campus. Dumb face texted me later telling me if my mom ever talked to him again he would have public safety throw her off school property. Took those texts and the whole story to the president of student affairs. Of course she was appalled and immediately called him in. Turns out he had applied for a prestigious study abroad in Italy. After that his fate was essentially placed in my hands. If I reported that he even looked at me wrong he would lose his study abroad placement, period.
I took great pleasure the rest of the semester watching him turn pale and run whenever I entered a space he was in, although it certainly didn't make up for what was essentially a missed year of socializing, friend-making, and networking. I was still debunking rumors he spread by the time I graduated.
21. Properly Told Off
Had two.
Fourth grade, two boys were jumping over my friend and I. We told them to stop multiple times. They continued. I stood up and made one of the kids fall. Felt so proud of myself.
Eighth grade. Lectured my class on being jerks and was pretty blunt with them. I said what I had been wanting to say for two years at that point. Was a lot of fun, even though (according to my friend) some kids laughed about me. But news got around quick. Lots of kids in my grade knew, and I was proud for that too.
20. Take it All....
Giphy
I had a bully who'd call me Hitler only on the base that I'm Austrian, so asked out the girl he liked (she said yes) and became best friends with his brother. Rog3rcat
19. Snacktime....
I showed this boy in my first grade class this cool rock I found, as I was convinced it was a moon rock. He asked to hold it to admire it so I let him, and then he proceeded to launch it into the forest and laugh at me.
So I did what I had to. I grabbed my chocolate pudding container and put it in the pocket of his sweater and smacked it so hard it exploded all over him.
Even though I lost that cool rock and my afternoon snack, I kept my pride that day. orangecrushh99
18. So Hollywood...
It was like out of a movie.
He was making fun of me and I taunted him back. He came at me and when he got close I put my hands up in a "don't hit me" position, but he slipped on a wet piece of wood and fell.
That's not what the other kids saw. Everyone else saw him come at me and then my hands flew up at his face and he hit the ground. They thought I was a god that decked him in the face.
I didn't even get in trouble because the recess teachers saw how the whole thing actually played out and he got in trouble.
We became recess buddies after that. coscojo
17. The Sidestep....
In a high school soccer game, this jerk I was guarding kept sneaking in dirty shots (kicks & elbows) when the ref wasn't looking.
After that had gone on for a while, he turned his back to me so he could receive a pass. He kept banging his body into mine (right behind him) to clear out space.
I timed it just right, and as he tried to hurl himself backward into me one more time, I sidestepped and gave him a little shove... and he stumbled out of control, arms flailing, and fell flat on his back.
I wasn't a very physical player, so my teammates who saw that were surprised. The best part was when some of them just cracked up laughing. MisterBigDude
16. Weeded....
Giphy
Gave 3 guys a half ounce to beat him up and tell him to leave me alone.
They did. He did. Wrong_Answer_Willie
15. JUSTICE!!!
He destroyed my math project and pushed me down the stairs a bunch of times. I got his black belt taken away. snakyman
As a dojang mom of twelve years, this gives me a raging justice erection. Any kid wearing our name who bullies would meet exactly the same fate because OH HECK NO!!
Courtesy. Integrity. Self-control. Perseverance. Indomitable spirit. Bullying violates every tenet and shames the martial artist and the art alike. philemonslady
14. The Lawn Fanatic.....
Not me, but a friend. She had a neighbor from hell (is there a /r/JustNoNeighbor? If not, there should be). Decades of bullying, calling the cops when her kids played basketball in the driveway after school, yelling at her whenever leaves from her tree blew into his oh-so-perfect lawn, you get the picture.
This guy was a fanatic about his lawn. Out every day weeding, raking, mowing, fertilizing, whatever.
She played the long game. Planted mint several feet from the property line where he couldn't see it. That stuff can send roots a long way. It took a couple of years, but eventually mint started popping up in his lawn. She said the look on his face the day he noticed it was priceless. He's never going to get rid of it. capilot
13. Life will take care of it....
Not a bully really, but this older girl in high school loudly announced to the cafeteria that my thighs were "so huge" as I was wearing my cheerleading uniform. A few years later, I was going through my rebellious teens and dating this older crappy guy who ran in the same circle as her.
First time I saw her I was shocked that she introduced herself to me. Then she cried about how her boyfriend just went to jail for dealing and she didn't make enough money to keep the apartment and that was all the revenge I needed. am_lady_can_confirm
12. By the Hairs....
Not me, but my mom. At the place where she worked this guy liked to pick on her. So one day he decided to take her car keys and drop them down his pants. My mom was slightly embarrassed but needed to get home, so when he proceeded to challenge her to get them, she did. While she was grabbing them she may or may not have grabbed some of his pubic hair and twisted and yanked. He didn't mess with her again. LunaLovegood05
11. How Walter of You!!!
Giphy
My ex was emotionally manipulative. When we hung out he was always logged into Netflix with my brothers account because he refused to buy his own. After we broke up I saw that he was watching Breaking Bad. So we waited until he got to the last season and changed the password. PoeMeACup
10. Every Visit.
Going to college and becoming successful. She bags my groceries everytime I visit my hometown. I know its wrong to take satisfaction from this, but I can't help it. EmeraldEmesis
9. The Punch.
This kid on the bus in middle school always used to make fun of my friend for being gay. One day he was grabbing him by the hair and slamming his head into the window while calling him gay slurs.
So I tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a really bad punch in the face that didn't feel satisfying at all. But it was enough to break his glasses and make sure he never messed with my friend again so it was a win and my first real physical confrontation. lafleurricky
8. Cats....
Giphy
This kid at my brother's middle school once cut the whiskers off of a cat's face with some friends and bragged about it. Cutting the whiskers off a cat is like torture, leaving it unable to navigate and sense things around it. The whiskers are incredibly sensitive.
My brother loves cats.
When my bro found out, he grabbed the kid by the shoulders and head butted him as hard as he could, leaving the bully crying on the ground with a broken nose, blood covering his face.
Afterwards, my brother was known affectionately around school by the nickname "Head."
And of course he got in huge trouble for it, but he didn't care. SirMauriac
7. The Floooooooor....
We had a debate (for class) and I pretty much wiped the floor with him. Dude barley even practiced plus I was the quiet kid so people expected me to be passive. LateForTheTest
6. Waddle Away....
It wasn't my doing, but the girl who harassed me and hit me in the locker rooms after gym class got pregnant and quit bullying me... in the 7th grade. I still feel weird about the all-consuming schadenfreude I experienced when I saw her waddling through the halls of our junior high. foul_dwimmerlaik
5. Damn 8th Grade....
In 8th grade there was this guy in my class who just enjoyed mocking me. I was quite chubby, shy and insecure at that time.
One day he got my school laptop somehow and played a porn video on it in the middle of the hallway with the speakers turned to 11. He was screaming "Look everybody what (my name) is watching." Everyone was looking, laughing and begged me to take back the laptop from him.
I tried taking it back be he wouldn't have it. We had a small fight over it, all this while I was really embarrassed, sad and angry as well as people filming it all.
In the end I snapped so I grabbed one of his fingers and pulled & bent it so hard I broke it. I remember he left crying after that and all the kids around us walked away like nothing happened. He never mocked me again after that. Bonnarp
4. #2020.....
Giphy
Signed them up for mormon home visits online and specified that they should be persistent. toxic_pantaloons
3. Sister got it!
Not me but my sister.
There was this girl on the bus who kept messing with her everyday. No one would do anything about it. The other girl got off first and my sister followed. She put the fear of Satan into that girl. Didn't mess with my sister again. LouTenant6767
2. One. Good. Shove.
My friend, but at the end of the year he shoves his bully into a door and the teacher arrives as he is about to fight back. Friend didn't get into trouble. Mr_Chevalier
1. Just Chew....
Giphy
Gave him a stick of gum covered in laxative. He was out for three days. homerbartbob
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/
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
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.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
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.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
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.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.