Every job has their downsides. Working in retail means you need to handle the occasional awful customer, working in education means you have to survive long hours for very minimal pay, and some professions even have you interact with chemicals capable of ending your life....Wait, what?
Reddit user, u/Shinespark7, wanted to hear the the closest of close calls when they asked:
What's the most toxic substance you've come in contact with?
Burning Grass
In my home town we have a mill yard for the pulp and paper mill that shut down a while back. When I was in high school there was a derailment of a car with really high concentration peroxide. I'm not sure of the percentage, but it was causing grass and other plants to spontaneously combust. I was probably about 30 ft from it passing in a school bus.
For everyone asking, Fort Frances is the place. And here's an article https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/transportation/2452811-chemical-spill-reported-after-train-derailment-fort-frances%3famp
Concentrated H2O2 is no joke, that stuff will oxidize just about anything.
Gently Wafting Radiation
GiphyI'm originally from Belarus and while I didn't come into direct contact, Chernobyl radiation was gently breezing on my family daily.
Material Intended To End Lives
As a vet intern, I frequently handle Euthasol in small doses for companion animals or very large doses for horses. I'm warned to keep gloves tight & wash my hands after to prevent residue getting on me or my own animals.
IDK if its overkill but since its the drug we use solely to end lives, ya kinda dont want to be complacent around 100 ccs of it when 12 will likely kill someone my size
It works similar to anesthesia I believe. Your cells use Na/K gates to transmit nerve signals and preform actions. It sits at a certain level and a signal depolarizes it to threshold, causing those gates to do their thing. IIRC, both Euthasol and anesthesia push your cells farther down so usual signals cannot reach threshold and will not pass on signals the brain or limbs send.
Or in the case of euthanasia, it prevents the heart from beating on its own as well as knock them out. Just a few mL of this bright pink fluid will mess you up and it aint pepto bismol.
Takes A Lot To Get Our Charge
Airborne cadmium dust in a battery manufacturing plant.
why is that bad
Cadnium metal, transition earth metal on periodic table, pulls oxygen out and makes a cadnium oxide, proper protection is a PD,PP SCBA, is also a carcinogen, all around nasty sh-t
You Move As We Move
I don't know what it was, but during a safety briefing for touring a chemical plant I was visiting the guides said, "Follow us. If we stop, you stop. If we walk, you walk. If we run, keep up."
Apparently they were chemicals capable of becoming airbourne if there was a breach and in large enough amounts could kill you from coming into contact with your skin.
Living, Breathing Fear
hydrofluoric acid.
it's the only thing that really gave me a sensation of actual fear.
TL;DR for people who aren't familiar with hydroflouric acid.
It's not as corrosive as something like sulfuric or hydrochloric acid, meaninng it won't burn you as badly. However, it quickly leeches into your skin and your bloodstream, where it reacts with the calcium in your blood.
When your blood calcium drops to a large enough degree you can go into cardiac arrest.
To make matters worse, it also binds to the calcium in your bones and really f-ck up your calcium metabolism. From a medical point of view, it can be really hard to treat and in large enough quantities it's almost always fatal.
Oh, Also...
I am a pharmaceutical analytical chemist so I often work with pure drug substances. These include cancer/aids/hepatitis drugs that are highly potent and only require doses in the microgram range.
Oh also fentanyl.
"The Green Cloud Of Death"
Concentrated chlorine-
AKA "the green cloud of death"
Cleaned the bilge on my sailboat the other day with a bleach compound. Crappy ventilation in a tight space. Had to evacuate for fresh air. Couldn't breathe and I was gagging. Terrible idea. My ribs still hurt a few days later from all the coughing and my lungs still have a small bit of fluid in them.
Explosions EVERYWHERE
GiphyI'm on a spill team at my work at a contract lab so any dangerous chemical spill I have to respond to with other team members. I think the worst I responded to was either sodium arsenite or potassium cyanide. We had to clear out the whole lab and suit up to clean it...
...The scariest I've seen in the chemistry division (I'm a QC microbiologist on the volunteer spill team) is phosphorus pentoxide. The nasty chemicals are usually used in the raw materials testing group or Mass spectrometry group.
I don't know what most of those things are and I'm still scared
White phosphorus (phosphorus pentoxide)plus any moisture and you have a Michael Bay movie.
We're Done. That's It.
When I worked as a gas station attendant, the other workers let a puddle of brown urine (indicating possible hepatitis) and vomit about a centimeter deep sit in the corner of the women's restroom for two weeks. By the time I got there it had mixed into a fecal-like sludge that was actively rotting. I'll let you guess what ELSE I found in that puddle (hint: it was sharp).
Jesus Christ that's it, it's over. You've won retail hell.
What's the most toxic material you've ever escaped from? Let us know all about it!
"After a recent study found 1 in 8 men under 35 admit to taking condoms to funerals "just in case", what's your experience with this?"
Select Crowd...
"I went to my grandma's funeral and hit it off with this hot nurse."
"Things were going great until my brother pulled me aside and said it was my second cousin."
'You know who shows up at funerals for old people? "
"Family members."- bumblef**kglobal
"I remember seeing a really hot chick at my grandmother's funeral."
"Immediately thought was I should chat her up."
"Then my brain went to, 'What if she's family and we just never met?'"
"I just went back to mourning."- VideoGameDana
Okay then...
"Once I was dating a girl whose dad absolutely forbid us from dating."
"Like, would lock his daughter in her room and take her phone to make sure we did not communicate."
"She told me when we spoke for a moment at Starbucks that she would date me if her dad was out of the picture."
"He died is a car crash on the freeway, and since her mom liked me invited me to the funeral."
"My girl and I sat next to each other at the funeral and couldn't wait, got it on in the parking lot of the funeral home."
"Condom was necessary."- crunchysquare
car studio GIF by ZI ItalyGiphyNever The Funeral, Always The Wake
"Ngl, some of the best parties I’ve been to have been wakes."
"In no way disrespectful, they were a celebration of the person’s life and also a massive tension release after grimness of the funeral itself."
"So I’m not surprised some people take a condom just in case."
"I’ve never done it, but I didn’t often expect to get laid regardless of situation."- Goryokaku
Oops...
"Proudly in the 7 out of 8 camp."
"But the 1 in 8 aren’t wrong."
"Heard through the family grapevine that one of my female cousins met a dude at a funeral and they banged it out the same night."
"Also turns out they were related (what’re the odds at the funeral of a relative? )."
"Distant enough they would never see each other again (different branches of her family), close enough that their family photo albums have overlapping people."- ESQBOJaguar
If You Really Think About It...
"Biologically speaking mourning/death triggers mating instincts as though that death tells the lizard brain in us that we need to procreate because death is scary."
"Scum'ically speaking, funerals typically leave people especially women in a state of fragility that leaves them vulnerable to suggestion and coercion."
"Socially speaking, some people, both men and women, seek comfort and company after/during a mourning period and when two people engage in comforting each other emotionally through a death it can trigger chemicals in the brain that cause the idea of connection or chemistry which can inevitably lead to copulation."- KURO-K1SH1
Season 18 Episode 3 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyBetter Safe Than Sorry!
"If you forget to bring a condom you increase the chance of casual sex with 10.000%."
"It’s a well-known fact."- Mukkeman
Not Just Men...
"I'm not a man and I've taken condoms 'just in case' pretty much anywhere."
"I've told folks to take condoms 'just in case' to a festival who I was sure would never have a one night stand and who I had never even seen mingle with any man/woman."
"It's a safety."
"The thing costs less than a dollar, but if anything somehow would happen, not having it could cost you your healthiness or independence/freedom due to a child being your new responsibility."
"Unless you absolutely, 100% am sure you will not be having sex that day, and no one will be able to change your mind - carry a condom."
"And having visited a funeral is likely not impactful enough to everyone to make them absolutely sure of that."-deterministic_lynx
It Is, Indeed, A Source Of Comfort...
"I'm a woman, but I'm going to point out that grief affects everyone differently."
"Some people get an intense need for sex when they are grieving, I speak from experience here."
"Perhaps they're carrying them everywhere already, but choosing to take some specifically to a funeral makes perfect sense to me."- Sexy-Snowflake
"My bf's son died, and his sex drive was significantly higher around that time period, I think it's just a way men deal with stress."- Arielxxxlee
Sexy Ava Gardner GIF by Turner Classic MoviesAlways Listen To Your Mother...
"When I turned 15 my mom told me to always have a condom in my wallet just in case."
"That was before people realized it was really bad to keep it in your wallet."
"So yeah I’ve been pretty much everywhere with one 'just in case'."- euphoria110
If It's Already There, Why Take It Out?
"I do too."
"I'm not going to remove the random condom that is in my wallet just because I'm going to a funeral."
"Not that I ever needed one, I'm still a virgin BTW."- azarbi
When One Life Ends, Another Begins...
"I’ve heard that the proximity of death increases the desire to make new life."
"Anecdotally, my FIL and MIL met at a funeral and 9 months later my husband was born."- KerouacsGirlfriend
Lionel Messi Hug GIF by FC BarcelonaGiphyNot SPECIFICALLY Funerals...
"We bring condoms everywhere, 'just in case', not only the funeral, you silly!"- WeetIkVeelNL
No one should be judged if they happen to have a condom with them when attending a funeral.
After all, should the moment arise, better to be prepared and safe.
On the other hand, if any of these people are attending the funeral with the intention of "getting lucky", that's just... yeah...
Redditor Spinksy48 wanted to understand the fun of letting your opponent lose by just doing nothing, so they asked:
"What is your 'never interrupt an enemy while they are making a mistake' moment?"
If the story starts to get really crazy, just wait for a break.
Then ask a question from the beginning.
I guarantee you know more of the lie than they do.
Just keep talking, friend.
Gotcha
Dashcam Hello GIF by TranscendGiphy"I let the lady who changed lanes into me run her mouth about how I rear-ended her before pulling the cop aside to show him my DashCam footage."
ThrowingChicken
A Cherry Wave
"I was accused by a neighbor of reversing out of my drive and hitting his car. He gave me the date and time I had allegedly done it and pointed to a (small) scrape on my car that supposedly matched perfectly the location of the dent on his. This was 7 weeks after the alleged event, by the way."
"I said it wasn't me but told him to contact his insurance and we'd see what they said. A few weeks later I get a letter from my insurance asking what had happened, to which I responded with the date I had bought my car (and updated my insurance) - two weeks after the supposed bump."
"He never spoke to me again but I used to give him a cheery wave every time I saw him glowering at his window."
Gazcobain
Speak Once
"In a meeting with my project manager who has not been in the office or worked a proper full day for MONTHS, she has increasingly been annoyed by people bypassing her to get things done by telling me and her other direct reports what to do."
"I was about to answer a question for stakeholders, and she told me to let her speak one sentence and will let me have my bit. I did as I was told, and she told the stakeholder a completely wrong thing about the system we were handling and made a complete fool out of herself. She got sacked this month."
choiaera
We Hated Each Other
"Guy stole a presentation from me, this is 25 years ago. We hated each other. When he started presenting I realized I had made a huge error, didn’t say anything. Let him get through it. Asked him about the error, but he couldn’t answer. This was in front of COO. Got fired, not for just that, he was an overall douche. This was before everyone was on PCs, and had one printer in one room."
Bmilvis
Whoops
Office Space GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"When a coworker who I hated got fired a few weeks after I decided to stop fixing his mistakes even if it impacted a client."
Hrekires
It's always thrilling to see the bad colleagues go!
Bye. Bye. Bye.
I will see you on the 15th
Idiot Reaction GIFGiphy"Not my story, but several years ago my older brother was fighting for custody of his son with his ex-wife. As the first custody hearing date approached, they were exchanging [un]pleasantries over text and my brother ended up saying something along the lines of, 'I'm not continuing this conversation. I will see you on the 15th.' The ex-wife told him, 'The hearing is on the 25th dumba**.'"
"So of course instead of correcting her, my brother just allowed her to keep thinking it was the wrong date, and she missed the first hearing entirely. It became the first of many mistakes she made in the court system that eventually led to my brother and the woman who is now his second wife winning full custody of his son."
Damn_Furries
Follow the Prints
"I'm working on a job site and the architect is there one day. I've been given some light fixtures for the sconces in a leasing office lobby. The fixtures are meant to be hung from a ceiling, they can't be installed on a wall. I attempt to convey this to the architect, but he brushes me off and just tells me to follow the prints."
"I turn to the apprentice and say, well you heard the man, put them up. A bit later, we hear the crashing of glass. The architect asks what was that? I said your light fixture. As I picked up a broom and dustpan to go clean up."
Ohhhhhhthehumanity
No Debt
"As I was being fired from a job, the district manager requested we record the conversation. He thought I was gonna be very upset, so I obliged. Then when he started to tell me why I was being fired he started with, 'You are gonna be graduating college soon, and we want to make sure we get ahead of you leaving us.'"
"I very calmly asked him to send me the recording right after he said that. Then later that day I called a lawyer. I now have no student loan debt."
JRTHEAMAZING
The Screams
"I reminded my ex-wife the divorce court was the next day and was invited to Get F**ked. So I went by myself, she failed to appear and pissed off the Judge so he asked what would be my desired outcome for assets and Custody of the kids. He wrote down whatever I wanted and I could hear her screams when she read the Orders from 3500km away."
comfortablynumb15
Silence
"There's a thing in law enforcement/legalese called a spontaneous utterance. Many many people will bury their own cases with these while bi*ching and moaning at their arresting officer on the way to jail."
raccoonsonbicycles
That last one is good knowledge to have in the back pocket.