People Share Their Best 'How Didn't They Notice?' Experiences
Were you all blind?

People are oblivious, heck we're all oblivious on a day to day basis, we can miss things so simply.
Who hasn't searched and searched for their glasses only to realize.... you're wearing them?!!
We all believe we are astute creatures that relish detail but weeks can go by before you realize the obvious.
Redditor Riryiskool wanted everyone to divulge a few interesting tales about times people seemed shockingly oblivious by asking:
"What was your 'How didn't they notice?' moment?"
Penis Accident.
"I am a high school teacher in California and while explaining something, I accidentally drew a huge penis on my board. Confirmed not one kid noticed." ~ driveaforklift
Just Crap.
"I used to do customer service for a video game (can't give details; don't wanna get sued) wherein I responded to email tickets. Before sending a ticket, you were required to create an internal note wherein you documented their response and what your response was going to be, plus any additional necessary info to help conduct a search."
"Once, I wrote in the internal describing their message saying, "Customer sent me a bunch of useless crap" Because, well, they had. After repeated clear instructions, they failed to send me the correct info. So I typed it to unleash the rage, thought I deleted it, then the next day I come in and see I have a response, and I go to start a new internal note, and realize I had, in fact, left that line fully in the previous internal note (which can't be deleted or edited)."
"Meaning that if anyone from the company or my workplace saw it, well, I'd be in a lot of crap. Thankfully, I did this around the holidays and we were swamped with other issues, so no one did any audits of tickets that week. Needless to say, I never played around with that again." ~ blizzaga1988
No one else saw!
"I was buying weed a few years ago. I pulled up to an apartment complex and was waiting for the weed dude when a window in the apartment in front of me opened. A second later a little girl(maybe 10-12) crawled out. I was 21 so and buying weed so my thought was, do I yell up, no she could fall, catch her nope there's bushes under there."
"Then she jumped to the balcony next to the window, climbs over the railing, and tries to open the door, but she's locked out. She knocked and some irresponsible/seemingly confused parent opens it and lets her in! No one else saw!" ~ 843OG
Hot Damn!
"I was in class of 25 students and spilled tea on my new laptop. I said "DAMN!!!" decently loudly and ran my laptop to the bathroom. No one remembered seeing me spill the tea, hearing me say damn, or seeing me leave the class." ~ litttlebits
In the Navy...
"Went through an entire enlistment (in the navy) in a way where people thought I was dumb and I didn't bother to correct them. I let them think I was not able to fix things because they only assumed shit instead of actually asking me. I made E5 on the 2nd try and damn near the entire command was confused as hell."
"I was an ET and the entire exam was on specifics about equipment maintenance and repair. To this day I get to talk to old crew members and they bring up how I've fooled everyone into thinking I knew nothing so that they wouldn't bother me or wake me up from sleep to fix some stuff." ~ alexromo
Oh Granny....
"I used to have long hair and my granny hated it. The day after I cut my hair (lost about 8 inches) I went to lunch with her and not only did she not notice but when I pointed it out to her she didn't believe me until I showed her a photo of me from a week prior." __ace_p
The Girlfriend.
"My boyfriend and I initially started dating in high school. Our friend group was me and a bunch of guys, and I was relatively new to the group, and worried I'd become "his girlfriend" if we went public too quickly, so we kept it quiet. We later stopped caring, but it was too far in to make an announcement without seeming weird, so we decided to just admit everything if anyone ever asked, but not bring it up ourselves."
"Well, we weren't the couple that was all over each other in public, but we were fairly affectionate, always sitting next to each other, talking somewhat privately, playfully poking and all that. We would also hold hands on our way out of school, when we didn't see anyone around. That last one is what nearly caused problems the most."
"Regularly someone would come up behind us and say hi, and we'd quickly drop our hands. They never seemed to notice, shockingly (Our friends were really oblivious). We figured that they were probably noticing, but not saying anything."
"Until one day. Somehow a conversation arose about how some people are closer in our group than others. Both of our names are mentioned, and they all say that we seem like close friends. Somehow they all noticed we were close but never put two and two together. I know this because of the shock they experienced when they finally properly found out. We're still together, by the way." ~ Thunderflamequeen
he Comics Way....
"I straight up stole like, 40 comic book treasuries from a box in a locked attic space by my parents bedroom and kept them in my closet for years without getting caught. (Dad decided that Calvin and Hobbes was a bad influence and banned all comics from the house for two years.)"
"My parents caught me literally every other time I disobeyed them. In college I lied about which train I took and got yelled at because the times I was texting didn't match up to when the train was predicted to arrive at certain stops. (Mom thought I'd get rape-murdered if I took the CTA to Chinatown. She wanted me to make my friends wait at their apartment while I took the Metra down to them, and then take the CTA with the group up to Chinatown. I was 21 and it was the middle of the afternoon.)"
"But they didn't notice I'd taken the comics. And I know they weren't just letting me get away with that one because a couple of years ago my mom tried to claim the ban did help me behave better at school, and was not happy when I informed her that couldn't be true; I stole back the comics almost immediately. (Specifically, I stole the books right after being told that my attempt to earn them back with good behavior proved they were influencing me and therefore I wouldn't get them back for a year.)" ~ _Green_Kyanite_
3 teenagers who can't even walk straight
"A few years ago, my friends and I were drunk as heck stumbling down the street to a McDonalds. My best friend pulls out his penis and starts peeing and walking at the same time. While this is happening, a cop passes by and gets stuck at the light about 10 yards away from us."
"Literally all he had to do was look to his left and he would have seen 3 teenagers who can't even walk straight laughing their butts off because one is walking and peeing. Very grateful he didn't look. My life would be a LOT different if he had caught us." 69mi
DESTROYED!!!
"I absolutely DESTROYED this thing at an old job of mine. I nervously looked around because my co-workers were all over the place and it was LOUD. But no one looked. I managed to compose myself, clean it all up and make it seem like nothing had happened, then finished the rest of my day. A week passed before they casually brought up that everyone knew and saw what happened but didn't want to help me." TommF
Be Warned.
"In high school I got pulled over for doing just a whole bunch of stuff (mostly related to trying to get away from the cop). He asked me why I did it and I said I was trying to get home by curfew at 1:00. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was already like 3:00 so I changed my story. Just got a warning!" ~ redditaccounts2020
By Yourself!
"One day my sister mentioned in front of my dad that she'd been helping me rearrange furniture at my house. Mentions my boyfriend. My dad is all surprised: 'you and your boyfriend sleep in the same room?!'"
"...by that point, we'd been living together for six years. It was my bf's house. My parents had been over DOZENS of times. Where did they think I slept?"
"'Oh, we assumed you slept in the guest room. By yourself.'"
"EDIT: My family is Asian."
The Test is Positive.
"I went for a job interview when I was six months pregnant. I wore a fitted pencil skirt and a fitted short blazer over the top. To my eyes the pregnancy was obvious, I was very slim and I had a belly that poked out at the front, well defined by the fitted outfit I wore. They didn't ask anything about it during the interview so I assumed they were okay with it and didn't volunteer it."
"Got the job and on the first day, at orientation, I got introduced to two other women who had been hired the same day for other roles in the admin office I was in (one was accounting assistant, one was admin co-ordinator, and I was admin assistant/receptionist)."
"The two other women were also pregnant (one looked enormously so) and as it turned out we were all due within the same week. The woman who hired us said to me happily that they were very excited to have us all start, and I would be getting trained by the new admin co-ordinator so I could take over some of her responsibilities when she went on maternity leave."
"I had to tell them that I was also very pregnant as well and would be needing to go on leave at the same time as the other two girls. The organization was stunned and didn't know what on they were going to do when we all went on leave. Fortunately they were very comfortable with me coming back to work and bring my baby with me after two months off. It worked out great and I stayed working there for around eight years. Incidentally all three of us gave birth within a day of each other hahaha." ~ Trin20k
Hide & Seek is Hard.
"I was playing hide and seek at a friend's with her younger nieces. I was a teenager and not super committed to playing games with a couple of eight year olds, and as a joke I put myself in a corner between a wall and a bookshelf, picked up a pillow off the bed, and held it in front of my face. I was immediately visible once you cleared the doorway - I'm not a small person, and from the chest down I was just a person standing, completely unobstructed."
"The kids came through, looked right at me, and kept searching with growing confusion. The friend, my age, came in behind them thinking I'd gotten somewhere in the closet, and I had to actually wave to catch her attention. Her dad even came through to join the hunt, and I had to actually clear my throat to get him to notice me. Nobody was able to spot me on their own. I was just standing in plain sight holding a pillow in front of my face, but nobody noticed."
"Once everybody figured it out they were in hysterics - no one believed I'd been just standing there the entire time, they were certain that I had been hiding elsewhere in the house and then got caught after I'd moved. Nope. Y'all just can't see!" ~ healthycopingmech
Painted On.
"When I was about 13 I shaved my little brother's eyebrow off. I don't know why. I panicked and drew it back on with a marker with little hope that I would get away with it and avoid my mom's anger. Somehow I got through the first day, then the first week, every day getting ready for school and re-drawing his eyebrow on with a marker to hide it from my mom. After a couple weeks it had largely grown back and I realized that by some miracle I got away with it. Years later I came clean to my mom and she still refuses to believe that she didn't notice." ~ tj_w
I felt like a ninja.
"Cue me and the boys playing Hide n' Seek Senior Year. It's nighttime. Dark. It had previously rained. The only light is from streetlights and my friend's garage. Friend A counts to 20 in the garage, we all scatter around the outside of his house and a bit further to some other houses."
"I decide to hide not ten feet away, in the shadow of an AC unit right outside the garage. I was wearing full black, and I pulled my hood down to cover my entire face. I was in a crouched fetal position."
"I heard Friend A walk past me about five times, from both directions. I peaked once and he even glanced directly my way. I was in plain sight. I felt like a ninja." ~ CheesyfaceChase
Lost Hair.
"My hair used to be extremely long. Like all the way down my back.On a whim, I decided to cut off most of it, and rock a rather short haircut. I walked around my parents place for over an hour before they actually noticed." ~ P0ster_Nutbag
I was the one who didn't notice.
"I was the one who didn't notice. My now-husband, way back in the early days of our dating, replaced our giant, bulky, old CRT TV with a nice, new flat screen with his Christmas bonus. He did not tell me any of this. I came home from work one day, wandered past the tv and him playing video games, into the bedroom, back past the tv, then the kitchen."
'Took me a good 45 minutes before I went " wait something is different and I don't know what." He still had to point out to me that what was different was the old TV was missing!" ~ sunshineandcloudyday
SHUT UP!!!!
"In boot camp when it was lights out, many of the other recruits wouldn't sleep and would try to monologue to us about whatever. I wanted to sleep (since we always wake up at 5am) and they kept us awake 'til midnight with their debates... At the top of my damn lungs I yelled bloody murder "SHUT THE HECK UP!!!"... This went on for a while."
"Then I started doing it earlier and earlier and towards the end I didn't even wait for lights out. No one besides my rack mates knew it was me, no one else ever figured out my voice or where it was coming from. My rack makes got a huge kick from it and well they kept it real because we needed our 4 to 6 hours of sleep." ~ alexromo
Seeing Things.
"My friend came to work wearing new glasses one day and when she was showing them off to me I mentioned that I was surprised because I had no idea she needed glasses. She had been wearing glasses most days (on and off) for a YEAR since we started working together. Multiple people confirmed this when I didn't quite believe her. Maybe I need glasses." ~ Reddit
Sign Off.
"Photoshopping notes of doctors for high school to excuse myself for hundreds of missed hours." ~ MarkusPhi
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Insider Secrets Casinos Don't Want Us To Know
One Stamfordsterling asked: 'What is something that happens at casinos that is hidden from the public?'
According to the American Gaming Association, there were 1005 casinos in the United States as of December 2022. They accounted for $328.6 billion in economic impact with $101.4 billion gross casino revenue.
With all that activity and cash, casinos have to be carefully crafted, well-oiled machines.
For an industry based on luck, they leave almost nothing to chance.
One Stamfordsterling asked:
"What is something that happens at casinos that is hidden from the public?"
Data Mining
"In Las Vegas, the sheer amount of data that is collected and analyzed on everything."
"From the weekend traffic coming from LA, the demographics going to see a concert/show and how that impacts staffing, everything about your slot or table play, down to how the size of the pans used in a buffet relate to food waste."
~ srslytho
Rat Heaven
"How much waste there is."
"Literal tons of food, paper products, stuff like soaps, shampoos, lotions, key packets/folders... It's obscene."
"We've got a lot of rats here in Las Vegas that appreciate it, though."
~ hypothetical_zombie
What Time Is It?
"Casinos hide the passage of time."
"No clocks on the walls and, in general, no windows with views to the outside."
~ HardRockGeologist
"UK government changed the law that all casinos have to have clocks now."
"They don’t make them very big obviously but they can lose their license if they fail an inspection."
~ stoofa69
The Ground Beneath Your Feet
"Casino carpets are intentionally designed with crazy patterns."
"They are distracting to look at, so you keep your eyes up and focused on the slot machines and gaming tables. They also make it hard to find the exits and are easier to keep clean."
"There is a whole science to designing casino carpet patterns."
~ Robbie-R
Scent Memory
"Some casinos add scents to the air (they do not pump in extra oxygen in as some people believe)."
~ HardRockGeologist
"The lobby at The M Resort south of The Strip is a patented scent they have with vanilla, pear, and other aromas that frankly, is one of the best things ever."
~ Shoegazer75
"Every casino has its own scent. They want you to associate that smell with the casino subconsciously."
"It's like going to the movies and you smell the popcorn and your brain is ready for the experience."
~ Icuivan
Slot Machines
"If you like to play slot machines never play penny slots."
"Those are the machines that make the casinos their most money."
"Play quarter or dollar machines—you spend just as much or less each spin and they tend to have better payouts. But your brain says penny slots are cheaper but they have machines that you can hit $20 a spin and higher."
"Where I used to work penny machines had a 14% hold while quarter and dollar machines had an 8% hold."
"The hold is how much the machine will win over the lifetime of the machine the higher the hold the more you are likely not to win."
"Also, a machine is never due. They use random number generators that act the moment you hit the spin button or pull the arm."
"The machine already knows if you have won or not as soon as you push the button and everything you see in front of you is for your entertainment."
"Always use your player's card. Yes, they track your play and try to lure you back based on how you play but it's also how they determine if they give you things."
~ Icuivan
"Penny slots are designed so you can play so many lines that virtually every single spin you make wins something, but rarely more than you bet."
"It gives the player the excitement of winning constantly while their bankroll keeps dropping."
"For some players they'll happily put in a dollar, get 86 cents back, get told they're a winner, and push the button again without realizing they just lost 14 cents."
~ NS8VN
Underneath It All
"I wandered down to the basement of MGM from a truck ramp and man, it was like a whole city down there, imagine a massive warehouse with roads and offices and supplies everywhere."
"The opposite of the glitz going on above it."
~ Renorico
"My ex worked for MGM for a while and she hooked me up with a comped room at NY/NY when I came to visit family. She met me at the check-in at NY/NY and then asked if I wanted to see her office."
"She took me through a door, down some steps and then through several corridors, passing by laundries, cafeterias, locker rooms, offices, storage, etc. She would point out all of these different areas and points-of-interest along the way and all I could think of 'where the hell are we? Are we even in the same hotel?'."
"We eventually go up some stairs and out a door and we're now at the valet at Aria next to where her office is located. Granted, we've only walked a few properties over but it's simply unbelievable how much activity there is underneath those hotels."
~ FopFillyFoneBone
Unclaimed Funds
"Just how much money goes unclaimed/uncollected."
"I worked in the accounting department at one of the main gaming conglomerates and was tasked with cleaning up their unclaimed property accounts."
"There were players aka 'whales' who'd deposited millions and just forgot about it for years."
~ Swole_Troll
"My dad, who died last month at age 90, was awfully good at finding machines that had money accumulated on them."
"Most of the time, it was basically pocket change, but he found a couple of 3-figure jackpots over the years. Of course, he would play a round so nobody could accuse him of deliberately breaking rules."
~ wilderlowerwolves
"This was huge when electronic slots were first introduced. Many had a button you had to press to 'pay out' winnings that accumulated."
"But many people had no idea and thought they had lost all the time."
"I'd walk around and look for Pay Out buttons that were lit up, hit them, and rake in the money."
~ Rougaroux1969
The Inside Scoop
"I worked at a casino (well, the resort portion of the casino) for a summer. I don't have any sordid secrets, but general interesting things I learned:"
"The security cameras are scary good. Like can read your name off your badge hanging off your waist good."
"You aren't doing a damn thing the camera can't see."
"At this casino, employees were required to wear badges clearly visible at all times when on the premises, even if not on the clock."
"Escorting your grandma to the bingo hall after your shift? Badge still better be visible."
"In the parking lot? Badge still better be visible."
"At this casino, employees were only allowed to gamble there 1 day a month. You'd think it'd be money right back into the casino's pocket, but they don't want the risk of an employee being heavily in debt."
"Which leads to the next point..."
"Anyone getting a job within the casino itself is getting background checked, especially for bad credit and outstanding debts."
"If you're a guy down on his luck, with some maxed out credit cards and you want a job to get back on your feet, the casino doesn't want you. You're a liability, you're not worth the risk."
"All the cash goes into 'The Vault'."
"I assume it's a literal bank vault. But I've never seen the vault. Most employees have never seen the vault. You don't f*ck around when it comes to the vault."
"You better have a real good reason why you're approaching the vault. Security will turn your a** around and send you on your way, and you'll probably be flagged for questioning."
"People don't just stumble onto the vault, you end up there knowingly. And unless you were specifically, by name, called to the vault, or you have an urgent reason for being at the vault, for which you've already radioed ahead, showing up at the vault is a red flag."
~ thattoneman
I've been to a couple casinos in my life, but aside from the entertainment and food they offer, the experience doesn't appeal to me.
I guess I don't have the gambling bug.
Do you enjoy casinos?
Have you worked at one?
Share your stories in the comments.
When you're on a first date, one of three things will happen. Either you'll like the person and want to go out again, you like the person fine, but not romantically, and won't want to go out again, or the person will display a behavior that is so off-putting (or make you genuinely fearful), that you won't even want to see the person ever again.
My best friend and I are basically the same person, so when she met a guy who he had a lot in common with, she figured I'd like him too and set us up (I had previously told her I was okay with being set up).
Well, it turns out the guy actually hadn't read any of the books, watched any of the shows, or heard of any of the bands he talked about with my friend. I didn't understand why he would lie about all these things until I left the table.
When I came back, he was on the phone with someone and he was telling them he only told her he liked all those things because he liked my friend. When he found out she was in a relationship, he decided he'd let her set us up in the hopes that he could date me until my friend and her boyfriend broke up, and then he could swoop in.
I just walked out and when he finally texted me asking what was up, I told him I overheard him, then proceeded to block him. My friend was mortified to hear about the date, and I decided never to be set up again.
I'm not the only one who has gone on a date and discovered a huge red flag. Redditors have experienced this too, and are eager to share their stories.
It all started when Redditor APT3993 asked:
"What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?"
Dates Of Relationships Past
"They won't shut up about their ex."
– SiriusGD
"Had this happen to me on a 2nd date."
"Asked if she could use my computer, I said OK. Then she pulls up her ex's FB profile to browse through it, and she spent the next 10 minutes comparing me to him, saying he she thinks that I will turn out to be controlling and manipulative like him because we both grew up on a farm and we both like cars."
"Ummm, wut?"
– alwaysmyfault
"He angrily told me I would “love” his ex wife. Proceeded to cry while talking about her. They’d been divorced for 5 years. I genuinely hope he is doing better."
– TX_Mothman
"She constantly compared me to her ex, and sat on her phone for most of the night, then expected me to pay for her two bottles of wine, plus really expensive meal and desert."
"She asked me out btw, not the other way around."
– Stuspawton
I Know What I Want
"The guy who tried to change my order with the waitress because he didn’t think the drink I’d asked for was sufficiently feminine."
"I ordered beer. I don’t remember exactly what he thought I should have, maybe white wine? It was a long time ago."
"The waitress was looking at me like ‘You heard that sh*t too right?’ and I told her actually I wouldn’t have anything, thanks, and I left."
– MaggieLuisa
"He changed it FROM A BEER TO SOMETHING ELSE!!?! That’s amazing to me. Like it’s bad enough if you ordered an IPA and he said, “I dunno, sweetie, your delicate female taste buds probably can’t handle the hoppiness. Hey, honey, why don’t we get the lady a Coors.”"
– AdaptiveVariance
The Position Of Boyfriend
"We met for drinks after work (since we both work in the same industry) and she showed up with a list of interview questions. She literally had a checklist on her phone for me to fill out. I thought she was joking at first, but the questions were extremely personal, like how many sexual partners you've had, the oldest, the youngest; How much money you made the previous year; If you owned a house, a car, a boat, a plane; Did you have a criminal history; Where do you parents live; Are they alive; Who did you vote for in the last election; All kinds of stuff like that."
"I even proposed that we could just use that as a conversation starter and we could work through them like that as a fun way to get to know each other. I was really trying. She tells me that she's not answering any of them because I'm trying to date her, not the other way around!"
"I laughed out loud thinking she was kidding, then realized she was absolutely serious. I wished her all the best in the dating world, chugged my beer, overtipped the waitress, and left."
– OkFrostina
"Yeah, I would really push that to the limit without getting law enforcement involved. Start with all the times I have ended up in rehabilitation, my abductions by UFO, the wild, kinky sex partners I have had, the millions I have lost before living under a bridge, etc."
– passporttohell
Scary As Hell
"Had a guy who insisted on buying the most expensive pizza at the restaurant despite my protests then kissed my head when he walked past me to use the restroom. After dinner we walked along the waterfront, he kissed me and then immediately tried to choke me "to be sexy". First date, last date."
– Twours1944
"What the sh*t?? Who taught this idiot that choking in public on the first date all without consent is a great get-to-know-you move??"
– villainsimper
Stranger Danger
"This was literally the day of a first date. But I had matched with an older man when I was still on dating apps. We planned to go on a hike on a very beautiful day by the water. On the day of the date, he wanted me to leave my car at his place, while he drove us through the backwoods so we can beat traffic. I said I’ll be happy to drive myself, and he laughed and canceled. His reasoning was he’s been stood up so many times and he didn’t want to waste his time and me not show up. I said “okay!I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you find what you are looking for. “and blocked him."
"The red flag was when he genuinely got upset that I didn’t want to ride in a car with a stranger through the backwoods for our first date."
– Jesusdoescrack
"You should have said “you fear being stood up, I fear being murdered.”"
– The_She_Ghost
Truly Gross
"He pointed to another woman at the bar and said she was his ex. But she happened to be my lesbian roommate."
"Yes, I told him I knew he was full of it cuz she was my roommate, and I pointed out her girlfriend who was there with her. I don’t remember what he said exactly but he had no choice but to admit he was lying. I wish I had asked why he said it. I assume to make me jealous? Like that’s a good way to start a relationship? Obviously, that was the only date."
– Grapegoop
Those Who Came Before
"He told me he had been divorced 5 times. I'm taking the advice of 5 women I don't know."
– 13liz
"The way you phrased this killed me 😂"
– CumulativeHazard
Got Her Feeling Emotions
"Does bursting into tears after I told them I didn't like a TV show count?"
– JumboDakotaSmoke
"I'm curious as to what TV show it was?"
– ladydamnation
"Grey's Anatomy."
– JumboDakotaSmoke
"bursts into tears"
– akennelley
Um...What?!
"He took me to his house (he lived with his mom) just so HE could eat dinner with his mom while I sat in the living room. I listened to them eat and talk about my looks like I couldn't hear them. Apparently, I was pretty but "needed to be taken down a peg or two." I said my period had started so I had to go home. A future abuser and his enabler mommy."
– BigMcLargeHuge77
Ew...Just Ew
"We went to a movie. He spent the first half with his hand inside one of his socks, then pulling it out and smelling it, putting it back in, repeat, repeat."
"Then he spent the second half trying to hold my hand. With his sock hand."
– Deleted User
Bad From The Start
"She asked if I could order for her because she was uncomfortable talking to the brown waitress.
"Added: Same girl would not stop talking about Kardashian gossip even though I told her I know nothing about them and didn’t care to know."
– CanaDoug420
Stop, Theif!
"He showed up drunk with a bouquet of flowers he admitted he stole from his mother's flower shop."
Cringe-Worthy
"Went to a charity coffee shop for a date. It was “free” coffee where they just ask for donations which went toward their org’s efforts to feed and house people. They explained this to him and asked if he wanted to make a donation for our drinks."
"He said no."
– Shredded_Wheaties
Oh, yikes! I would be so embarrassed!
In fact, I'm kind of losing faith in dating as a concept.
The Craziest Things Airline Workers Have Ever Seen On The Job
Commercial aviation began in the late 1920s, spurred on by early aeronautical companies and several record breaking solo flights.
Since then, there are few places on Earth that can't be seen or accessed by plane. Only icing limits humans from low altitude flights over certain areas like the polar regions, while a lack of landing locations keeps some areas accessible to only the smallest pontoon planes.
From January through December 2022, United States airlines carried 853 million passengers. Globally, air travel reached a high of over 4.7 billion passengers before the pandemic limited flights.
Since then, global air travel has rebounded to over 3.7 billion passengers.
With almost 100 years and over a trillion passengers, the people who crew these flights are bound to have seen everything happen that possibly could at airports and on a flight.
Reddit user New-Low5765 asked:
"People who work in the airline industry, what are some of the craziest things you have seen?"
Don't Drink And Tow Aircraft
"Worked as ground crew. 2nd day on the job we were issued a notice to gather."
"So when you check in every morning you’re supposed to always take a breathalyzer test to prove you can like you know, ride around the tarmack, use pushbacks on planes, etc..."
"For whatever reason this dude hadn’t taken it/got past without taking it."
"He was not sober."
"He was tasked with pulling a 370 [aircraft] into a hangar."
"He eyeballed it for whatever reason."
"So here we are watching a video of this absolute loon break the whole wing off while damaging the hangar in the process."
"Because he was drunk, insurance doesn’t kick in."
"We were promptly told that Christmas bonuses might be a bit smaller."
~ ProbablyChe
Occupational Hazard
"Someone had the tip of their finger cut off when closing the door to the plane and didn't say anything until the flight landed at the arrival gate and when the door was opened the chunk of finger fell out."
"The staff then said, 'Oh yeah, that's my finger. you can throw it away'."
"I guess he just bandaged and wrapped his own hand."
"It was about 1/4 of his finger including the nail that was cut off. The cutoff portion wasn't particularly bloody and it was really pale."
~ If_I_remember
"A plane I got on once almost left without half of its aircrew on it."
~ BeerisAwesome01
"'Let’s just go, they can meet us there'."
~ InformativePenguin
"Plot twist. That included the pilots."
~ Windyandbreezy
Excess Baggage
"Coffin with dead body inside being left off the flight due to overload without notice either to us or the family and the family realising it by seeing it while the plane was leaving and screaming to us."
~ elenivog
Noped Out
"Saw the pilot walk into the passenger area and say 'I'm not flying this piece of sh*t' and get off the plane."
"All the passengers followed him."
~ Jaded-Session8422
"Hell yeah, I'm following the pilot off the plane if something like this happens!"
~ lukaron
"I had something similar happen, but never got on the plane."
"It was sitting there seemingly ready but they never started boarding."
"Eventually the pilots walk off the plane and a few of us heard them say ‘This junk isn’t going anywhere’."
"Flight ended up getting cancelled a short time later."
~ potatocross
"I was threatened with [pilots walking out] multiple times a week as an aircraft dispatcher."
"Auxiliary power units (APUs) run the air conditioning (AC) in the aircraft and they were always broken down and not fixed quickly, so when the pilots show up it is hot as hell inside and there's no ground crew to connect the external AC."
"So I would get a call from the Captain telling me he is not going to fly this piece of shit because it is too hot."
"Then they'd go on a tirade about how bad the company sucks because they don't do maintenance."
"I would agree with them completely."
"Then by the end of the call they'd say they will take it but the company sucks and needs to fix the APU."
"Occasionally the captain would refuse it, but then the ground crew would hook up the AC and they would always get back inside and fly it."
"For sure there were issues that popped up where the AC had an unsolvable issue and it would result in a cancelled flight."
~ Winchery
"I’m Dallas-Fort Worth based. No APU/AC in November? Meh, whatever."
"No APU/AC in August in Texas?"
"I’m not going on that airplane. Ground just can’t keep up."
~ poser765
☣️ Bio-Hazard ☣️
"Flight diverted to my airport because a girl in hotpants got uncontrollable diarrhea from the laxatives she took before the flight to help get over her weekend binge in Vegas."
"She sh*t in her seat and down the aisle and all over the bathroom."
"Five other passengers had uncontrollable vomiting because of this and the panic on the plane from the crew and rest of passengers caused the plane to make an emergency landing."
"They ended up having to cancel the remaining leg of the flight to decontaminate the plane."
"Police were sent and interviewed her and her friends and no charges were filed. I don't know if the airline put her on any kind of no-fly list or tried to have her pay for damages."
~ If_I_remember
Highly Unsuccessful
"There were two suitcases checked in that were full of nothing but weed."
"The police arrested him in the gating area & confiscated the bags."
~ Traditional_Pair4840
"Something similar happened when I was a ramp rat back in the 1960s."
"Law enforcement was going to do the arrest at his destination."
"The weed disappeared before they got there."
~ endadaroad
Stealthiest Catch
"As a baggage handler I once had a shipment of live Alaskan crabs escape their container on the ramp."
"Flights were delayed."
"Turns out those guys scatter when they panic and try to hide under anything and everything."
~ Gregwaaah
"My significant other worked doing maintenance checks on commercial planes."
"This explains why they once found a bunch of dead crabs under the floorboards in the cargo bay. It was a mysterious mystery."
~ Highly_Referential
Avoiding A Strip Search?
"A fully naked woman just walked through the terminal and tried to walk through security like she wasn’t fully naked."
~ Commercial-Chance561
"She was just very considerately trying to make it easier for TSA."
~ TrooperJohn
"They make you take off your shoes but they don't say that's all you can take off."
~ smartguy05
Language Barrier
"I witnessed this in the security screening of a large American airport."
"And to be fair, there was a language barrier as the passenger in question seemed to be speaking mainly French, and struggling to understand the TSA agent's instructions in English."
"Female passenger (tall, attractive, and sophisticated-looking) was wearing a business suit with a pencil skirt and matching jacket, which was buttoned closed, going through security."
"The TSA agent told her she had to remove the jacket. She ignored and tried to go through anyway."
"He stopped her and told her again more loudly (that's when everyone started noticing)."
"She said no. He insisted. She refused again, and tried to walk through."
"He got angry."
"She tried to explain something but it was unclear because her English was poor."
"It went back and forth."
"They both started getting angry and frustrated. It started holding up the line and other passengers were getting agitated."
"A few people tried to intervene and explain more calmly that she needed to put her jacket through the x-ray machine."
"Finally, near tears, she blurted out 'fine' and removed her jacket, revealing that she was wearing nothing at all underneath, and walked through the screening machine topless."
~ SigmaSeal66
I'm a nervous flyer so it's not something I do often, but I still feel a little cheated that nothing this bizarre has happened while I was traveling.
Has something ever happened during your travels?
Share it in the comments.
We've all heard our fair share of conspiracy theories, from thoughts about the White House to aliens and beyond.
But some conspiracy theories have become truly strange and nuanced, and it's hard to stop listening to the person explaining their beliefs, because as weird as some of these theories sound, they could almost by some stretch of the imagination make sense.
Intrigued, Redditor Accomplished-Leg-991 asked:
"What's the weirdest or craziest theory you have heard of?"
Seems Plausible.
"Traffic barrels are left up for so long because the Department of Transportation bought too many and has no place to store them."
- dailysunshineKO
The Grass Is Always Greener
"The truck driver that delivered my flooring gave me this gem: The push for green lawns in the US is by Big Pharma."
"The cliff notes version is that to get green grass, you need pesticides, pesticides cause cancer, and cancer is good business for drug companies. It was like a 20-minute long rant to get to that conclusion and it was an adventure."
- StillBald
"I need to drink with him for one night. That cannot possibly be the only banger he's got."
- karenalphas
The Ice Wall
"Recently TikTok kept giving bizarre suggestions where people trying to prove Ice Wall in Antarctica that Earth is bigger and something is hiding behind ice wall in Antarctica… What the h**l."
- XenophanesJunior
"It's a weird subset of flat earthers, who believe in an 'infinite plane' that lies beyond the ice wall (guarded by NASA, of all people), and the reason? The infinite plane has endless amounts of gold mines and gems they can mine for infinite money."
- bag2d
Tinkering with the Algorithm
"That Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen, and they made the movie 'Frozen' so that when people googled 'Walt Disney Frozen,' the movie would come up first."
- LizardPossum
"They updated this theory, but now it is with Taylor Swift. It basically says that she went to that Kansas City Chiefs vs NY Jets game so that when people search 'Taylor Swift Jets,' it will only show news about the game, and not about her going everywhere with her private jets."
- abirll
"It's so wild now these rely on people being completely unable to go to page two of a Google search."
- LizardPossum
The All-Important Celebrity Weddings
"I had a coworker that fully believes the government controls the weather so celebrities can have nice weddings."
- pinballgizard
"Out of all the reasons to control the weather, celebrity weddings are a top priority for the government."
- Suspicious-Craft4980
The Truth of Social Security Numbers
"Your social security number indicates which bank you were sold to at birth."
- compuwiza1
"Ah, sovereign citizens..."
- CaptainMikul
Dinosaur Bones, Huh?
"Dinosaur bones were placed on earth by Satan to trick people into 'abandoning' God."
- River_7890
"There's a big American Church whose members believe that dinosaur bones exist because God made the Earth with leftovers from a previous planet."
"Mental gymnastics to justify their belief that the Earth is only 10'000 years old and C14 dates dinosaur bones as being millions of years old..."
- mrsrosieparker
"I'm absolutely not shocked. The person who told me jumps through so many mental hoops to try to disprove science. She thinks that the government is secretly working for Satan to convert people, too."
"Oh and of course Disney. She's crazy overall. Not just with religious stuff. I could tell so many stories of her crossing lines and saying off-the-wall things. I try to not associate with her as much as possible."
- River_7890
The Worst Kind of Waiting Room
"The USS Philadelphia Experiment and the US army soldier who claimed he was in an interdimensional waiting room as a greeter for eternity until he was suddenly transported back onto the ship."
"People claimed it was a cloaking device gone wrong and left men's bodies trapped within the steel of the boat upon reentry."
"I never looked into it but read about it in a book that had a statement like, 'Nothing in this book is true but it's exactly the way things are,' or something similar. Always thought it was the wildest conspiracy theory ever when I was a stoned teenager reading it."
- Hereforthecake
Phantom Time Conspiracy Theory
"There’s a whole podcast with hundreds of episodes dedicated to this subject. Worth a listen. One of the wildest ones is that Charlemagne’s grandson moved the calendar forward ~300 years and thus the Dark Ages never happened."
- seandowling73
Gives the Shortcut a Whole New Meaning
"Met a dude at the gym who believed that the CIA had built tunnels throughout the Earth's core, connecting all the major cities. Was some kind of global takeover scheme."
- Latham74
Infathomly Large Trees
"Mountains are all the stumps of ancient fossilized enormous trees."
"I'm absolutely obsessed with this theory. It's connected to flat earth, but flat earth isn't a requirement for this theory nor do most flat earthers believe it."
- inkstainedgoblin
Under Control
"We're all infected by parasites that feed on our stress hormones released by negative emotions like guilt, sadness, anger, fear, and so on. They control our minds and, thereby, us to an extent. The only way to combat them is by being aware and questioning if your thoughts and actions are truly your own thoughts and actions."
- 42clickslater
Enough Said
"The one about JFK Jr. coming back to help Trump win the 2020 election is still tops in my book."
- pinkyknee
Big Pharma Chickens
"That owning chickens is the gateway drug to believing conspiracy theories."
- sarcasawm
"As someone who has owned chickens, the only thing they're a gateway drug to is getting more farm animals."
- CelticArche
"That’s what Big Goat wants you to believe."
- MissRockNerd
"Big Farm-A."
- cannedcream
As wild as some of these conspiracy theories were, there's no denying that they're fascinating, some for the simple fact that they're almost plausible.
They at least get you thinking in a new way, and perhaps that isn't such a bad thing every now and then.