Everyday I have a daily hunt for items big and small. I've completely given up on owning sunglasses; that's why I only purchase them at the Dollar General now. So many things are simple to lose into the oblivion. However once and awhile a literal miracle occurs, when the ghost that moves my belongings gives them back. Or I happen upon the lost by sheer chance. Also, I actually have discovered needles in a haystack, and both are a great feeling.
Redditor u/Rushiilian wanted to help everyone revel in the times of great discovery by asking.... What's your " I found the needle in a haystack" moment?Blinded
scooby doo glasses GIFGiphyHaving a midnight bath in a lake while camping and the water I poured over my head to rinse my hair caused my glasses to fall off into the lake.
It was pitch black with the only light being from quad headlights and my vision being so bad I am legally blind without them. I searched for so long feeling around in the stirred up water, and just as I was going to give up and walk back to camp my foot brushed them.
Clovers
As a small child My mother had just explained what a four-leaf clover was and sent me outside to find one, probably to get me out of her hair for a few hours but I came back in 30 seconds later with one. She praised me and told me how special it was and to go see if I can find another one, obviously thinking I couldn't possibly find another one but I came right back in 2 minutes later with another so she stopped sending me out.
In the Picture
Not me but my mom: my grandma was a painter in her younger days and a reaaallly good one at that. She did a lot of landscape paintings but switched it up and did a simple flowers in a vase painting. We have it hanging in our dining room. Well my mom went to a flea market in her old hometown which has a huge population btw. And this is at least 40+ years since the painting. My mom found the vase. The same exact yellow vase with gold trim. Its so different and unique that there is no way it couldn't be the same one. The person selling it just gave it to my mom when she heard the story.
Trash
music video rings GIF by Jennifer LopezGiphyOnce I lost a ring I literally bought that day. Went out drinking with a friend and at some point realized it was gone searched all over the places we were and finally found it in the trashcan of a toilet I dug through out of pure frustration. Man was I happy.
Seconds Later
I'm a science teacher and just got married. Was putting some flasks away in the cabinet and banged my new ring on the cabinet and saw the diamond go flying across the room. The floors are white and the diamond is not big. Was on my hands and knees my entire prep period, found it like 15 seconds before the bell rang and kids came in.
Years Gone By
Did a fly-in fishing trip with my family for a day when I was a kid. Was playing in the mud waiting for our plane to come get us and found a spyderco (sp?) knife with my dad's initials in it that he lost some time 15 years prior.
Also. Was playing on a sandbar in Hawaii and found a Tiffany and Co band ring that was covered in barnacles. Reported it to HPD and no one claimed it after 30 days so they mailed it to me. Gave it to my mother.
After Boating
We had just come in from boating, and my mother banged her hand on the cabinet, and moments later realized the diamond from her engagement ring was gone (a one carat pear shaped stone). At first we were worried that it might have been lost while we were boating and would never be seen again. A couple minutes later we found it in a teacup in the cupboard.
Love at first Implant
dental teeth GIF by Katy Beveridge StudioGiphyFound my then-date's dental implant on the lake floor after it fell out. Took a good half hour of diving down and coming back up, making markers so I could tell where I'd searched.
We're married now, and had that thing replaced about ten years ago.
When at Chili's
When I was a kid at my first job, I found a customer's dental retainer in one of eight huge bags of plate scrapings and garbage from the dish-pit at the Chili's where I worked. It took over an hour, and I spent the time armpit deep in some of the nastiest soggy napkin slime and chewed-up rib bones that you could imagine.
At least the kid's father reached in his wallet and dug around for three crisp one-dollar bills for my time and effort. Everything about that job was terrible.
That was far from the last time a kid left his retainer on his plate and it ended up in the trash, but after that I learned that the correct response is "Oh wow, that really sucks, but I can show you to the dumpster if you're interested."
homer simpson GIFLocked for Good
I worked at a place and a woman flushed her keys down the toilet somehow and asked us if we could go get them somehow.
- Those sons of *itches are definitely in the sewer.
- Even if they aren't in the sewer there is no way my 7.35 makin' butt is gonna wade through poop to get your keys. fuzzyblackyeti
When eating BBQ
bbq GIFGiphyMy FIL once insisted on taking everyone to what I would consider to be the worst BBQ restaurant on the planet. It probably wasn't actually that bad, it was just the opposite of what I liked in BBQ and I couldn't eat much due to food sensitivities. He has a history of picking places I can't eat at and claiming their his favorite place ever. It's a family tradition at this point.
Anyways, I eat a bread roll, dinner ends. Suddenly youngest BIL realizes that his retainer is missing. He had wrapped it up in a napkin and the waitress had picked it up while clearing the table. This lead to all of us huddled around bags of garbage outside looking for the lost retainer. Except everyone else is too squeamish, so in reality it was me and BIL digging through the garbage looking for the retainer with everyone else watching.
We didn't find it.
In a Snowbank
Dropped my passport in the parking lot after a massive snow storm. When I went back the next morning to look, the entire parking lot had been plowed. Had to find the thing cause I was leaving to Mexico in like 3 days and there was no option of replacing it in time.
Drove around the parking lot looking for the freshest snow bank that the plow had formed. Picked one out and starting digging using the golf club I had in my trunk.
Couple hours in I noticed the snowy grave I was digging myself cause my gf would have killed me if I messed this trip up.
I ended up finding the freaking thing in the middle of the snowbank somehow. Screamed and did a snow angel in celebration, froze my unit off but it was all good as I was enjoying margaritas on the beach a few days later.
Mouth Issues
God, one time in my teens, I was at the store with my grandma, I dropped the box holding my clear plastic retainers (vacuum form retainers is the technical name). I was chewing gum at the moment so they were in the box.
Well once I got back home, I threw away the gum and was going to put my retainers back on, when the box was empty.
I realized they must have fallen out of the box when it fell on the store's floor, so my grandma called the store (she knew one of the cashiers well since she'd been going to that store for decades) and they said they'd found them on the floor and put them in a safe spot. The next day we got them back.
So yeah, saving someone's retainers from the trash is definitely a life saver, you're really nice to have done that for them!
When at Chic-Fil-A
I was working at Chic-fil-A we had a guy say he thinks he left his phone on the tray and it must've got thrown away, my friend and I realize the trash was already taken out, so we go out to the dumpster and start digging through a bag we thought was it and end up dumping it on the ground, everything slimy from being coated in sauce. We can't find the phone so we throw it back in, and as we're about to get another bag out, another coworker comes and tells us the guy had dropped it in his boot. Never have I wanted to smack a customer so hard before.
Funny Stuff
tina fey wow GIF by SistersGiphyLate one night about 8 years ago, I heard this really funny bit from a stand-up on Comedy Central.
I tried to find this bit as I thought about it periodically, but I could never do it.
Then over quarantine, I found a new comedian I like and started watching all of his stuff. Sure enough, he did that bit many years ago. I screamed when it came up in his special and tried desperately to explain it to my roommate who was not as impressed as I was.
Happily Ever After
On a camping trip I lost my wedding ring. A year later, I specifically went on the same route. Instead of two days, I walked the route for a week and looked under each bush, but I could not find the ring. Frustrated, I returned home and began to pull out all the things from the backpack, in the very last little pocket I found my wedding ring.
With friends....
I was hiking up a mountain with a group of friends. The last couple hundred meters were deeply covered in snow so we had crampons on and were tied together with one piece of rope. When he got to the top I realized I had dropped my phone (which has a white case btw lmao) at some point. Even though we could retrace back down the line we took up fairly easily, I had no idea when I lost it and it was still knee-height snow so was no easy feat. At one point otw down one of us fell and we stopped to all catch our breath as we were tied together.
My mate at this moment happened to drop his hand into the snow and miraculously emerge with my phone in hand. It had been in there for for probably 20-30 mins and was still working fine. This all happened when I was traveling on a tight budget in a foreign country too 😭 So having that phone was honestly kinda essential and not just a luxury. Typing this comment on that same phone now - still in complete disbelief a year later.... ahahha....
For Paw Paw
When I was a pre-teen, I was walking around my grandparents' property and found Paw Paw's wedding ring that he had lost 20 years before. It was just there on the ground. Paw Paw was astounded and then sent me out in the field to find something else he had lost years ago but I only found a snake...
Sitting Upright
trailer sledding GIF by The Yeti AdventuresGiphyA group of us were sledding and my cousin's glasses lens popped out into the snow. We all thought there is no way someone will find it but let's do a quick look before we go back inside. Somehow I found the lens sitting upright in the snow.
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Do you ever wonder what it must've been like to experience major events throughout world history when reading about them in text books?
But if you take pause and actually think about it, we're living through many newsworthy current events that succeeding generations will be talking about long after we're gone.
Reading about them online or in newspapers is one thing. But seeing them happen unfold before our eyes is another.
Curious to hear from those who'll have anecdotes to tell in the future, Redditor "What is the most historically significant event you witnessed IN PERSON?"
People recall the natural disaster events they've witnessed.
Tremors
"1964 Good Friday Earthquake 9.2 Richter. Was a boy in Cordova, Alaska at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
"My father was skipper of the USCG cutter stationed there. He was inport, and when the quake struck shortly before 5:30pm, he and my mom gathered me and my three siblings on the front porch. At first, it felt like the house was crumbling at the foundation, but on the porch we could plainly see our whole world was shaking. I remember watching telephone poles swaying, and the wires snapping and crackling in the street. The quake lasted about five minutes initially. My dad got his ship underway to avoid the tidal wave which was sure to come. We had several aftershocks in the coming weeks, some of which were quite strong, though nowhere near as strong or as long as the quake itself. I was seven at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
Collapsing Freeway
"October 17th, 1989. I watched the 880 Nimitz freeway collapse during the San Francisco earthquake. The Honda in front of me had the upper deck crush her front-end engine compartment. The mother and her daughter were shaken up but completely fine."
"I was driving a convertible Triumph Spitfire, which was scratched up slightly from debris. However, I walked away unscathed. Aside from the fact I pissed my pants, which I didn't notice until much later."
– CatDaddyWhisper
Thar She Blows
"I sat on the roof of our house and watched Mt. St. Helens erupt less than 100 miles away."
– stinkykitty71
"This must have been fascinating and terryfing in equal measure. What a thing to witness."
– runrossyrun
"It was amazing! The ash that covered everything like snow was interesting to kid me, but less so to my parents."
– stinkykitty71
People recall seeing major catastrophes as a result of malfunctions or judgement errors.
Bomber Crash
"The b-52 crash that led to changing what large military aircraft are allowed to do for airshows."
"I didn't see the plane, but immediately saw the fireball. It was just a perfect, bright red turning to black mushroom cloud."
"Fairchild is a nuclear air base and there were a few minutes there where I was sure the world was about to end."
"A few years before a KC-135 doing the same thing crashed near the school while we were in class."
– goffstock
Tragic Takeoff
"I was standing on my front porch watching the launch of the Challenger."
– StarChaser_Tyger
"Was riding in my parents car to a basketball game in the next town over in north texas when we saw a shooting star and thought that was neat."
"It was the Columbia..."
– Misdirected_Colors
Demolition Gone Wrong
"The failed implosion of the Zip feed mill in Sioux Falls, SD in 2005."
"They hyped it up, sold tickets to it, had a big 'BOOM' marketing thing, and broadcast it live on TV."
"The explosives took out the main supports on the first floor, and the rest of the building above it just plopped down 10ft or so and came to a rest. It was a massive failure, and was a funny little blurb on news stations around the world that day. Definitely not major news, just the rest of the world taking 20 seconds to laugh at us."
"The building sat like that (the leaning tower of SuFu) for quite a while until they figured out how to safely demolish it."
"Here's a clip of the failed demolition."
– KitchenBandicoots
These well-known historical events were seen by very few who are alive today.
Historical Remnant
"The tumbling of the Wall in Germany… along with people selling bits and pieces of it on tables in lobby in front of commissary and px in the following weeks and months. I had picked up a chunk about the size of an oreo and kept it… has blue spray paint on the flat side. Wonder if anyone is buying them now?"
– SingedPenguin13
Major Upheaval
"I would have to say the LA riots. I lived about two blocks from where it started. I was on my way home from school and saw someone throw a brick through a window. I didn’t even wait. I just started running the whole way home."
– Scarlaymama0721
Day Of Infamy
"9/11, I could SMELL the collapse of the towers."
– go4tli
"A friend of mine was there. One day in the warehouse we worked in together there was an odd electrical burning smell. He stopped in his tracks and went 'this is what 9/11 smelled like.'"
– mantistoboggan287
I didn't physically witness the fall of the World Trade Center but I was living in New York City at the time.
However, I did see the smoke.
I was living up north in Washington Heights at the time and knowing what happened, uncertain of what was to come, and seeing the plumes of smoke from the attack site was the most ominous sight I've ever seen in my life to date.
Have you ever lived through a historic moment or witnessed something sure to be noted in history books? Let us know in the comments below.
