Family is everything. But... family is also crazy and burdened with deep secrets. When we start to excavate some of those secrets we learn why some much makes sense and we learn things we can NEVER unlearn!
Redditor u/starman123 wanted to hear about everyone else's family dramas by asking..... Reddit, what parts of your family history is interesting?
You're Banished!
GiphyMy great uncle traced our family back 14 generations. We tried to take over in Wales, failed and were then banished. dansden
The Community Stain.
Interesting, if not incredibly sad. I had a great great grandma (or aunt, can't remember) who had 13 children out of wedlock, all by different men. She was nicknamed notoriously loose Julie by her town. The doctor told her not to have anymore children after the 12th, but she did so, and both her and that baby died.
The community felt she was such a stain on the town's reputation they refused to bury her in the town cemetery (back in the old days, small town). PeppermintCarnations
The Affair.
Grandfather had an affair with my grandmother's sister. He got her pregnant and when the little boy turned 7, he went to live with my grandparents... and they raised him as their own. The pain my grandmother must have felt is insane. I didn't learn this until this year at 36. London82
To Australia!
My Swedish ancestors arrived to Australia by boat. When they arrived one of them got crushed by a crate that fell off a crane on the docks. He made it all the way and didn't even get to set foot in Australia. nimernith
The Loop.
GiphyMy family tree has this one branch that loops back to itself... The_Blatalian
Oh yeah? My family tree is essentially a family diamond.
My dad is my cousin and my grandpa is my uncle.
No, I'm not kidding. lukan2
Just the 2 of Us.
My grandfather is an identical twin. During WW2 he joined the military and his twin took his place at his job. Grandfather got out of the army made up a new name he's been going by since. handsthefram
Generations.
Women in my family have been going to college for seven generations (since the 1840s). Most of them have Master's degrees
Also one of these women (either my g-grandma or my g-g-grandma) was involved in the first car wreck in her city as a teenager when she stole her parent's car and drove it into a horse-drawn buggy. A legend. beesareoutthere
The Tilleys....
There were two Tilley's on the Mayflower that I could potentially be very distant relatives to. Apparently a prostitute and a horse thief. cockapooch
Elizabeth Tilley is my 14th great grandmother. No word on her profession or penchant for equine thievery. hedpe70
Wife 2.0
My great grandfather came over from Germany with his wife. They had one child, but her second was an ectopic pregnancy, which killed her. So he brought her older sister over from Germany and made her wife 2.0. littlest_ginger
Shatner/Eastwood.
GiphyI have pictures of my great great grandpa, great grandpa, regular old grandpa and dad. They look exactly alike. You couldn't tell them apart.
My dad just had girls, but my sister has a son and he looks exactly like my dad. They all look like a William Shatner and Clint Eastwood combo. The male genes are strong in our family.
ETA - all the girls in our family look like their mothers. My sister and I are a carbon copy of our mom, my aunts look nothing like my grandpa. If I was standing next to my dad you'd never know we were related. It's like the DNA said 'I have one job and one job only.'
Redditor gejiw94601 wanted to compare notes on how money can slip away so easily, so they asked:
"What's the biggest waste of money?"
Money is so easy to lose.
Just ask my best friend... vodka.
WHY?!
Idiot Facepalm GIFGiphy"Donating to rich Twitch streamers. I’ll probably never understand why people do it."
dring157
"I remember watching one guy drop $60k to Ninja. I was making 30k a year at the time, this guy drop double my salary in one stream."
IanFPS
Adulting
"Credit Card interest."
DweeblesX
"When I first go a credit card I used it only when I was short on cash, but it ended up me throwing money at stupid things because I knew I had a credit card to fall back on if I needed it."
"Now I use my card for the points, and I pay it off about every two weeks. While I'm still not great at adulting, at least I figured out this part."
boardmonkey
What about Florida?
"The $50 scratch-off lottery tickets you can buy in Iowa."
notthesedays
"I used to work for the VA lottery. I got to see the numbers, the payout was only about 20% (if that) of profit for scratch-offs. Slightly higher for the draw games. But print-n-play was almost 1-1 for payout vs profit. Don't know how it is now or how other state's payout margins are, but print-n-play is where it's at if you're gonna play anything."
DarthWeabu
Always Upgrade
adopt for sale GIF by Boomerang OfficialGiphy"Buying cheap crap you have to replace."
coinkeeper8
"My dad once told me to not spend excessive money on tools at first. Buy them for dirt cheap, and learn which tools you really need. And when they break: replace them with quality ones. Buying pro-grade stuff you don't need is wasted money."
.HarlequinSyndrom
Spending a little extra can go a long way.
Cheap doesn't often equal quality.
Flex
Costume Clothes GIF by Big Brother AustraliaGiphy"Buying ridiculously expensive clothes to flex."
PinkLemon4
"Clothes are a two-way issue. Good clothes last a long time and the price is worth it for the comfort on top of that. But some clothes are 100x the price and 1/10th the quality. So there is a fine line here."
Wdrussell1
Pay to Lose
"Pay to win games."
testthrowawayzz
"I played a lot of mobile games with in-game currencies. I have never spent a cent on these games. Why would I spend hundreds of dollars if I can enjoy the game and learn how to play even if it's slow? And many items don't even help you at the game. It's just skins or titles that only show other players how stupid you were to pay for a free app."
Pintermarc
And Silver?
"Gold Food, or more accurately food that is covered in something called gold leaf. In my eyes, food is worth buying if they provide a great amount of nutrition for considerably good prices. After all, you probably avoid paying 50 million dollars just to buy a few molecules that are useless to your health and needs."
"And then there's gold leaf food, sure the food looks fancy but at the cost of a ludicrous amount of money! And with the gold having no usable nutrients at all, it is just not worth it to buy such expensive food for a relatively small amount of nutrients."
"For instance, Industry Kitchen (hopefully that's the name of the place) in NYC serves a pizza with a gold leaf covering for a whopping price of $2000. While at my home country which is Indonesia, Domino's serves an American Classic Cheeseburger Pizza (IDK that's a thing) which is the most expensive pizza I could find on the website costs around $7 which is just baffling to me."
ScopeRicrit
Pretty Boom
"Fireworks, I love them, but it's like $50 per second for the good ones."
endisnigh-ish
"Yeah, I end up spending probably $300 each summer buying fountains and batteries and helicopters and cardboard tanks and sh*t--none of the big professional skyrockets. It's absurd, I'll be the first to admit."
"But it's fun!"
-RadarRanger-
Just Elope
"Weddings."
"Crazy expensive day. Guaranteed at least one relative will kick up a stink. Massive pressure to be The Happiest Day of Your Life. Everything doubles in cost if you say it's for a wedding (dress, suit, cake, venue) Just do the quick registry office paperwork, have a surprise party, and run away for a long honeymoon with the money you saved."
PinchAssault52
Roll of the Dice
Card Game Poker GIFGiphy"Gambling for sure."
snazyfragz
"I live in a small town where a casino is the big attraction They've had numerous people crap and pee themselves because they didn't wanna get up from the slots because 'it's just about to pay out.'"
11BREWER
Gambling is the greatest way to lose money.
Addiction will take everything if you let it.
