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People Reveal Who Was Their Worst Teacher Horror Stories

People Reveal Who Was Their Worst Teacher Horror Stories
Photo via Wikimedia Commons

A teacher can really make or break the way you absorb information. Not all teachers are great, but most aren't terrible. However, every once in awhile you get that teacher who just really has their entire life set out to ruin yours. These are their stories...


u/LimitedInterest asked Reddit:

Who was your worst teacher?

Here are the answers. Students, beware, you're in for a scare...



No Care, Inc.

College professor who didn't respond to any questions and just gave a final grade. It was an online class without lecture too. Unlike other professors who would post mini lectures or videos or whatever, it was a very "here's the book, do your entire marketing campaign on this."

One student called and messaged him nine times to get her grade from our midterm (something none of the rest of us got). He finally sent her an email with nothing but a bunch of white space and a one letter reply of her grade.

He gave me a B for the course. He gave the chronic C student that I tutored an A.

I'm pretty sure he just randomly assigned grades.

It was an awful experience overall.

swtadpole

Mrs. Damn-her

Mrs. Danner in the third grade.

She was a terrible teacher in general. She talked about her migraines constantly instead of teaching and explained how chocolate and Taco Bell triggered her migraines and explosive diarrhea and told us that anyone who drinks diet soda would immediately get cancer even if they drank it because they have diabetes and can't drink regular soda.

She picked on different students, was vaguely racist, and loved to have loud, patronizing conversations with her teacher friend next door about students in her class as a passive aggressive way to get on to students.

She was particularly mean to me because she wasn't from what would be considered a "good" family in the area but married well. In her new social circle, she wound up rubbing elbows with my grandmother, who absolutely despised Mrs. Danner and was not shy about making that fact known. So when she saw my last name on the first day of class, she decided to get her revenge.

It all culminated in one incident in which I had an altercation with a boy outside of school hours and not at a school event. On the Monday following the event Mrs Danner and her teacher friend pulled me into the hallway and said things like "Looks like the Pandersons aren't as wonderful as they pretend" and "how ashamed your grandmother must be" and other things that turned poor, sensitive Dan Panderson into a mess.

I went home and my tears turned my mother into a bear ready to attack. The following day, my mother put on her best suit, donned her pearls, and pulled her hair into an elegant chignon and stomped her high heeled feet into that school at 3pm and stepped into the classroom. Mrs Danner said "Hello [Mom First Name]" my mother said, "Oh, you may call me Mrs. Last Name, my friends use my first name" and then laid the most gloriously condescending smack down on that b*tch that the world has ever heard.

Eventually the principal came down and Mama said "well, I've said my piece. Mrs. Danner will finish the year being much nicer to Dan or I will be forced to have a meeting with my cousin (the school board president) and see how he feels about renewing her contract." Mama flounced out leaving shattered remains in her wake and it was honestly amazing.

Mama, being a grade A b*tch, proceeded to sign up to make all the baked goods for class and only made chocolate because Mrs. Danner can't have chocolate.

God, I miss my mom. And f*ck you Pat Danner!

DanPanderson18

Sadism

My 6th grade teacher. He loved to pick on kids and make them the butt of his jokes. Unfortunately, I was his target for an entire year. He would always single me out. He always made me do humiliating things in front of the class. Sometimes, if I put an answer that he deemed dumb on an assignment, he would read my answers in front of the class. He would show the class my poor handwriting and ask them if he should mark the answers wrong just because he couldn't read the answer. Having an entire class laugh at you day after day can wear you down. Unfortunately, when your teacher makes fun of you in front of the class, it spills over into the playground. Kids think they have immunity to make fun of you however they want. 6th grade was not a fun year.

I sometimes look back and wonder how sadistic a person must be to purposely humiliate a little kid.

casino_night

Sigh

Ms. Collins. She remarried, so her last name is something else now, but she was awful. Had her in high school for a couple of different classes, and she only cared about popular girls and baseball players- that's it. If you were anything but a popular girl or a baseball player, she wouldn't give you the time of day.

She was hateful, sarcastic, lazy, and entitled- but the popular girls and baseball players loved her because they knew they'd get away with murder with her. She had assigned seating, and she even made it obvious with her seating arrangements.

She was more worried about who was dating who, who slept with who, who wants to fight who, and other teenage gossip instead of actually teaching.

Trevor_From_Kentucky

Deutsche Grenzkontrolle

I'll never forget Herr Taylor in college German. This dude was a f*cking riot, let me tell you.

When I first took the class, I heard rumors that he was a bit off but I didn't know any specifics so I had a fairly clean-slate when it came to my experience as one of his students. He always wore a suit and was constantly sweating even though it was normally temperatures in the room and he was not overweight. Most days I had this class, he ended 20 min early because he had to "lie down because of his migraines." I also saw him quite a bit out of class. As any college student, I frequented to local grocery store liquor section and I saw him there just about every time I went. After weeks of seeing him behave erratically in class and witnessing his weekly cart fills of wine, I connected the dots that he was likely an alcoholic.

About a month in to the class, things started getting nuts. He would go on these long rants that were completely unrelated to the course and we would just sit there in silence as he talked about being a hippy in San Fransisco in the 60s and having sex with some random "free spirit" on Jim Morrison's grave. He once went on a 20 min tirade about Catholics and how religion has completely destroyed the fabric of academia and will be the end of civilized society as we know it. When he saw that we were just sitting in silence (very awkwardly), he'd just smile and say "you guys are just too young to understand."

This dude also LOVED squirrels. We would sometimes have class out in the quad because he'd rather talk about the senseless bombing of Dresden during WW2 and how it destroyed a ton of art under one of the shade trees. He would constantly get distracted if one wandered by and immediately yell out "oh my, look at that one! It's so pudgy and cute!" He once even claimed he saw a squirrel that looked EXACTLY like John Lennon. I wish I was making this up. Also, if you drew a squirrel on your quiz, you were given extra points. Not that this class was hard because he handed out the quizzes on Monday and collected them on Fridays each week. Never got below a 102 on any of them.

In the end, I felt bad for him. He always talked about loves lost and how great it was to be a hippie in the 60s. I didn't learn shit about German that semester but I guess I got a taste of what radical hippies were like back in the day. It was a wild ride.

Organicplastic

Paid Suspension

Mrs. Hazlet had her in 5th grade and she was extremely rude to most of the class. I was bullied a lot during elementary school and I would always come to the teacher and my parents for help. She would never do anything about it at all and would sometimes just get me in trouble for asking her about it.

So one day I get beat up by some kids outside because they were trying to take a kickball that I brought from home. So I was covered in dirt and extremely upset and she comes over to them. I thought that this was finally when she would just them for something. Nope. She screams in my face and tells me to not tell my parents about this.

Went home and told my dad about it and he talks to the principal about the situation and is furious. She was removed for a week in class and we had a sub. She came back and never paid much attention to me after that.

handwalker12

Take Allergies Seriously

Ms. Morales, we had a girl with a bunch of health issues and allergies in our class, including latex, and one day she chose to let her favorite student hold a birthday party in our class with latex balloons everywhere. Girl, who was in a wheelchair, gets to class and immediately has breathing problems and starts breaking out. She asked the teacher if she could go to the nurse, and this b*tch had the audacity to say "just tough it out until next period, I'm not letting you go to the nurse yet" luckily, our TA saw the girl and convinced Ms. Morales to let her go, but the girl wheeled to the nurse (which was at the other side of the school) by herself because the teacher wouldn't let anyone else go. Girl got an epipen shot and was ok, but it still pisses me off 4 years later.

nick3797

Vengeance

I'll call her Mrs. R from here on out. She was one of my teachers in eighth grade.

A little background info: I was bullied horrendously growing up. In middle school, there was a kid named C who was the ringleader of bullies. He was the worst one.

Well, in Mrs. R's class, she stepped out for a second and C decided that was the perfect time to chase me with a pair of scissors in an attempt to cut my hair. I grew tired of it, stood up, and screamed my head off. Mrs. R comes in and I thought he was going to get in trouble.

Three days later, my mom and I get called into the principal's office. Mrs. R had sent a disciplinary report to the principal requesting I get suspended from school for disrupting her class and the special education class next door. My mom threatened to press charges against the school and C for assaulting me. My nana, who decided to see how bad things were for herself, tagged along and popped off asking if Mrs. R was sleeping with C's dad because in what universe is allowing someone to attack another child not disruptive.

From that point on, Mrs. R tried daily to fail me on her class and get me either suspended or expelled. We had homework? Mine would go straight to the garbage can and a note would get sent home claiming I never turned it in. Tests? Didn't matter how well I did, I'd always fail. Group projects? Everyone else in my group would get A's and I'd get a C- because "I didn't do any of the work." Even though I was the only one who did the work on one project. And C? She allowed him to be as brutal to me as he wanted.

I barely passed her class with a C at the end of the year. I bawled like a damn baby.

cjcmommy0123

Near Failing

Had a teacher in my first semester of college in an Intro to Linux class that was pretty terrible at teaching us anything about Linux for a few reasons.

  1. She had not used Linux in over 10 years.
  2. She had been assigned this class 2 days before classes started because the original teacher got caught sleeping with a student a few weeks prior
  3. She barely spoke english

Her lectures consisted of her going through the powerpoints that the previous teacher had set up for the last semester, reading some of them word for word, and just flipping through the rest wordlessly. Then she'd have us do an activity from the workbook and would be of no help to anyone who got stuck.

Me and a few of the other students who had a VERY basic understanding of linux ended up organizing study groups and basically the class had to self teach in order for us to pass.

lord_fartulax

Racism Is Fun, Kids

9th grade English teacher. She sincerely believed that I didn't speak English. I don't know where she got this idea, other than I am Spanish-English bilingual?

The first time she took attendance, Day 1, she asked, "Oh, minorfall27! I heard you speak Spanish! Do...you...speak...English...?"

She would noticeably slow down to talk to me, and made comments (several times) about my not understanding something because, "English is my second language." (My English is better than my Spanish nowadays, they were probably about even back then.)

Meanwhile, at least 3-4 students would copy my homework.

It's fine for a teacher to do these things if the student does need the extra help, if their English is indeed weaker than their native language, but that just wasn't the case for me.

minorfall27

Old Wounds

A male math teacher at my school was very similar to this. It was obvious he hadn't exactly been popular when he was in high school, so he remedied this by trying to get in with the popular kids as an adult. Senior year, he cut the band kids out of the pep rally completely so that the cheerleaders could have a longer show, and then promptly got in a Twitter fight with a member of the color guard over it. He got s--- from administration.

2413435

Avert The Eyes

Gunnar, gym teacher. Old white dude with a grey fro. He wore very short shorts and sometimes his testicles fell out.

Edit: Bonus Gunnar: I was never good in class, lazy kid. So final year he sat me down and said "Well, /u/Mr-Rubber-Cot. Last year you barely got a passing grade and this year you somehow performed even worse. What kind of grade do you think you deserve?" I shrugged and said "It doesn't matter."

Then graduation day comes and I got a BETTER grade than the year before! Still think he must have mixed up the papers, wonder if he failed someone else by accident.

Mr-Rubber-Cot

Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

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Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?