My ex husband had a super strict NO BUFFETS rule. I thought it was a bit odd, but I had no idea how right that man was to have that rule. I'd only ever been to higher-end sushi buffets where you could see everything, and a Ponderosa once or twice as a kid during a Disney vacation. Six year olds don't care about hygiene when they're all hopped up on the mouse.
Fast forward a few years to my very own Disney vacation. My children (the oldest was about 7 for this) really wanted to go to a buffet. Since Daddy wasn't with us to act as a buffet-blocker, we totally went.
And we totally regretted it.
Can I just ask why people feel compelled to lick the communal serving utensils?!? How hard is it to cover your mouth when you sneeze? Do you really need to dip your finger into every sauce and taste test it?
I left with so many questions; as well as a newly adopted NO BUFFETS rule ... and a stomach bug.
Reddit user no_walking_anytime asked:
What are your all-you-can-eat buffet horror stories?
Brace yourselves, dear readers. Things are about to get incredibly vomitastic. I know that's not a "real" word, but trust me - it's the only word that fits.
Ranch Legos
Giphy
My mother insisted on going to Hometown Buffet because she found a coupon in the newspaper. The whole buffet smelled heavily of bleach. All the food tasted like it was trying to die but the preservatives were keeping it on life support far beyond normal reason. I stuck mainly to the salad bar and fruits. I'd been using the small portion plates to make salad with veggies and a little ranch dressing. I went back for a 3rd small plate of salad and veggies. I grabbed the ladle in the ranch dressing tub and poured it over my salad, at that moment a ranch dressing covered lego man fell out of the ladle and onto my food.
I kept him. He's chilling in one of my toolboxes somewhere.
Old Lady Vomit
One time I went with my parents and some relatives to Las Vegas. My dad was starving himself all day so he could fill up on crab legs at the Paris buffet.
So anyway, these relatives are just bitter, slow, awful people who make the whole day miserable. One of them is a very old woman in a wheelchair that my dad is pushing around all day. Basically he's hot and hungry and miserable; but excited for dinner. It's the only thing he's looking forward to all day.
We get to the buffet, get our table, dad doesn't even sit - he just goes straight for the food. While he is gone. the old lady throws up all over the table. Stinky, old lady vomit would bother anyone, but my dad specifically is a sympathy puker.
The relatives tried to complain and say the food made her sick, but we didn't even eat yet! We ended up leaving without eating anything. Some other tables nearby cleared out as well.
I was really young when this happened but I remember my dad walking back towards the table with a huge plate of crab legs and big smile and then his face just totally falling lol
Mystery Meat
Way back before you needed a Canadian passport to cross the border into the US, my family would make regular trips into Michigan and Ohio. Once we were at a Ponderosa buffet and my dad put something on his plate that he couldn't identify - he wasn't sure if it was chicken or fish even after tasting it but for some ungodly reason he ate the rest anyway.
Cut to twenty minutes later and we're all packed into the van listening to my dad LOUDLY vomit repeatedly into a bush in the parking lot. He sounded like someone was forcibly tearing out his insides and I still remember the sound to this day.
People walked right past him and kept going inside to eat.
The No Sugar Kid
When I was an emo middle schooler, my best friend's mom forced me to join girl scouts with them. One day she took the whole girl scout troop out to a restaurant with a salad bar buffet. I got stuck sitting next to a girl I hated. She was VERY religious and this was the first time she had ever been away from her mom (she was around 14) and she wasn't allowed to have sugar.
She ordered a large strawberry milkshake, chugged it, ate a huge plate full of spinach with ranch on it, and then vomited bright pink vomit all over the table, the floor, herself, and me. The worst part was that we had to sit in the car with her for the 2 hour drive home, holding our breath.
- 99Stars
Boiling Hot Crab Water
Went to a buffet for my dad's birthday one Saturday night. The workers had just brought out the new tray of crab legs and there was a line forming. My family and I waited patiently in line, when the guys in front of us starting arguing because one of them was taking too long to pick which pieces he wanted. Arguing turned into shoving, and then finally one of the guys pushed ahead and stuck his hand into boiling hot water, grabbed a couple crab legs, threw them on his plate and left the line. Pretty sure he had to leave soon after because he had some serious burns on his hand.
The Loophole
I'll never forget when I was a teenager and working the buffet line at a Ponderosa steakhouse, this morbidly obese child had a plate with a MOUNTAIN of food. Like some of literally almost everything from the buffet. Mashed potatoes, pizza, chicken wings, jello, pudding, like EVERYTHING piled on top of each other.
So I go up to him because it was bizarre and I'm like "Hey you know you can use a second plate?"
He said "I'm only allowed to have one plate"
His parents were trying to restrict his diet and he just found a loophole. But if you have a kid with this sort of issue, maybe don't go to a buffet?
Roast Beef Lady
I remember going to one a few months ago and there was a lady seated next to my table. I was eating when she leaned in and asked, "Hey, what's that you're eating?" I told her it was roast beef. She said, "Looks good. Mind if I try some?" and proceeded to cut a piece off of my plate with a fork she had used! She decided she really liked it and left to go get some more from the carving station.
I pushed the plate aside and finished everything else. I left to go cut some more roast beef when I see that there's no more left. Then I see the lady - I kid you not- with about 3/4 (all that was left) of it on her plate. I just got something else from the food bar.
After about 30 minutes, the lady only ate a quarter of the roast beef before loudly exclaiming, "I'm full! Excuse me, may I get my check?"
The waitress came over and said that she had wasted too much food and explained that they charged 20% more for wasted food. The lady got really mad and yelled "Heck no!"
She tried to leave paying only the regular price before the waitress told her she hadn't paid everything. The lady yelled "This is one scam business you guys have!" but she finally agreed to pay. On her way out the door, she yelled "I'm telling all my friends about you guys!" and stormed off.
People just kind of looked at her and continued on.
Mini Octopus. Never Again
Giphy
I had an internship a few years ago with an engineering group of an industrial plant. Every now and again they would go out somewhere for lunch and invite me along. One day they decided to go to a Chinese buffet nearby. I love Chinese food and cheap Chinese food so I was totally game. It was your typical Chinese buffet, and was actually pretty good.
But then one of my colleagues brought back on a plate the source of my soon to be woes. A singular mini octopus. I have no idea what the proper name was, but it was just a tiny octopus pickled in something, and was about the size of a thumb tip. He brought it back as a joke kind of passing it around trying to get people to try it.
Then I said "I'll give it a shot."
Everyone just kind of laughed and looked at me, but I insisted and he put it on my plate. Now I'm a pretty adventurous eater and love trying new and especially weird foods. I'll try just about anything and enjoy doing so. I had also had octopus many times before served several different ways so I thought "how bad can it be?"
Very. Bad.
I don't remember the exact flavor but it was vinegary and salty for sure. That and it tasted like it was sitting on the buffet for a week. The texture was worse. The best way to describe it is like trying to eat a rubber bouncy ball. I tried to chew it a bit but made little progress. So at this point everyone at the table is asking how it was, and somehow through all my grimacing I manage to say "not great."
They kind of awkwardly change the subject while I find myself in a weird position. I want to spit it out, however I was sure doing so would have made me vomit all over the table. But the thing was so damn hard to chew that if I actually chewed it properly I would have vomited anyway. So I decided to just swallow it mostly whole and get it over with. It was extremely unpleasant and an all around bad time.
However, my pain didn't stop there. Oh no. The real pain came when we got back.
Almost immediately after getting back to the maintenance office I could feel it. My bowels were in some of the most intense pain I ever felt. I very quickly got up and headed out of the office towards the bathroom, grabbing a clipboard on the way out to make it look like I was actually going to work instead of my own personal hell. I get to the bathroom and sit on the toilet.
The most vile poo you've ever seen. It felt like it was relentless. It burned so bad and I hadn't even eaten any spicy food. The fact that I didn't cry or scream still amazes me. As I'm writing this right now my bowels are crying in pain over the memory of what happened.
Wiping was the revenge of my expelled demon. It was like trying clean up an oil spill with one paper towel. The single ply toilet paper never stood a chance. Wad after wad, wipe after wipe came back brown, as if I had never even attempted.
Eventually though, I was finished. There was no more material, and no more wiping. There was already enough damage done. I wash my hands and look in the mirror at the broken man before me.
Then I check my phone and realize that I had been in the bathroom for over an hour and a half. Realizing this, I grab my clipboard, walk out of the bathroom, and head back to the engineering office trying my best to look like I accomplished something. I walk back into the office and sit back down at my laptop. No one says a word to me. They knew. They had to have. But they didn't say a thing.
So, yeah. That's my worst buffet experience. Mini octopus. Never again.
The Moment It Dawned On Me
Years ago, I would take my father to lunch every weekend. He loved buffets, preferring all-you-can-eat restaurants over finer dining establishments. On one such lunch occasion, we were quietly enjoying our first plates, and I see a teenager hurriedly making his way to the restroom. The kid has one hand over his mouth, and puke is running through his fingers and around his cupped hand. I immediately lose my appetite, and just hang out as my dad goes back a couple more times.
Cut to 20 min later, and I see puke kid at the buffet, loading up his plate, handling the same serving utensils as everyone else. I'm sure he did his best to clean up, but this still grossed me out. That's the moment it dawned on me that every customer, hygienic or otherwise, handles these same utensils. The guy that licks his fingers, the kid that picks his nose, the lady with an itchy armpit...
Pizza And A Fire Engine
I was a volunteer firefighter back in my home town. After a Saturday training class we went to Cici's, an all you can eat pizza joint. It wasn't my normal shift so I kinda pigged out, I think I earned it given the training we had just gone through. Most calls we get are medical emergencies and given that I wasn't on the responding shift I figured I was in the clear. I was wrong.
Towards the end of my pizza binge a call goes out a few districts over. It's a brush fire threatening a mobile home park. Weekends are usually when most volunteer departments have man power, and given that it was an actual fire we all figured departments would be fighting over it. Nope.
First department gets toned out, no answer. Second gets toned out, still no one answering. Third gets toned out, with an update of a confirmed mobile home fire. Well at that point we have made it to the fire engines and the chief offers our department to respond since nobody else is. One fire engine, one tanker (water tender, depending on where you are from), and utility vehicle with the chief and another fire fighter on board. We are bringing everything you could need to this fire. We are still the only department (district) that has answered.
So there I am in the back of the engine trying to get my bunker gear and scba on. It isn't easy to do that in a moving vehicle much less in an out dated fire engine with less room than a dressing room in a department store. I'm feeling the pizza at this point but once I sit back down all seems to be ok.
We get on scene and I jump out and start pulling an attack line off the truck. Get all 200 feet situated and ready. The chief puts two guys on that hose and yells for me to pull the other line. I feel the weight of every slice I put into my trap with each movement I make. But adrenaline has command so I pull another 200 ft of hose. By then other departments have started arriving.
Chief puts me and another fire fighter on that hose and we start concentrating on the fire on the outside and threatening other homes. I had to open my air flow valve all the way just to keep from puking in my mask. It's hot and sweaty and my pizza burps are not helping at all. I went through a 20 minute pack of air in 10 minutes. Once I was out of air the subs were put in.
The medical team there to support rehab zeroed in on me at this point. Apparently I was very pale and looked like I was going to pass out. I walked pass them, all the while they are trying to get me to sit down, and barfed up everything from that days meal. I swear it didn't stop for a good 2 minutes.
Once I was done with that I felt great. I continued to assist with outside operations, the med team wouldn't let me go anywhere near a spot where full gear was needed. We were able to save the surrounding homes. Once back at the station I let my mask soak in disinfectant to get the smell out.
- Acidain
"Yeah, We Know..."
Giphy
Went to Golden Corral while I was pregnant, and after we'd finished eating I reached to get a napkin out of the dispenser on the table and a roach came out with the napkin. I immediately wanted to vomit. I called the manager over and told her what happened. She said "Yeah, we know. We're working on it but we just can't seem to get rid of the infestation. We even had somebody come spray last night but I guess it didn't help."
I freaking lost it. I ended up reporting them to the health department after the manager told me she wasn't sure anything had been cleaned after the pest control company sprayed the night before.
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
Basketball Wives Ugh GIF by VH1Giphy"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
Kung Fu Wtf GIF by A24Giphy"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
Stanley Cup Nhl GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphy"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
Prayer GIFGiphy"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"
No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Nbc Jump GIF by SuperstoreGiphyHave you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
Season 8 Teacher GIF by FriendsGiphyThe dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
spelling GIFGiphyNo, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
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