Isn't it always the small things?
We study and prepare for every difficult aspect of life but how are we stumped and then one-upped by such simple things?
Sometimes we just have to be patient, calm.... and READ THE DIRECTIONS!
Redditor LaCreamy wanted everyone to share all the times we realized we were behind in figuring out the basics by asking...
What was your biggest "aaaahhh that's how that works" moment?
"by the ears."
Giphy"When my brother and I were really little we had an old family friend who would pick us up 'by the ears.'"
"He would grab each ear but then would also have us grab onto his forearms. It took me until I was much older to realize that he wasn't actually picking us up by our ears, but instead used his forearms to lift us up. Still a great trick to use with little kids!"
nirvanavrin
Oils...
"I bought a car and was worried for months that my oil level never lowered, after 6 months I called my friend who sold me the car to ask about this, he explained that's that how it supposed to work, then when I realized every single car I owned and my dad owned my whole life leaked oil."
omninephilim1
Lights Off.
"For a while, my christmas lights would randomly turn off. I couldn't figure out what it was. Was it the wireless switch? Was it some fault in the electricity? It would seemingly be random, and I couldn't figure out what it was. Then one day I was coming home from work and my neighbors got home at the same time. As they were locking their car doors, my lights turned off. I realized, "Ah, that's how that works."
TheCaptainCog
REPEL!
"I bought some of those expensive windshield wipers that repel water and I they sucked. It would smear the rain and the damn blade kept sliding off. I'd have to get off to fix put it back on. This went on for a 4-5 months. One day I went to slide the blade back on that I realized it wasn't the blade, but the blade cover that I kept putting back."
becelav
"How long have you had this thing?"
Giphy"Got a laptop for a job managing a cafe. Worked fine but it was inconvenient to use behind the counter and in the kitchen. After watching me struggle to use it standing up, the owner took it from me, rotated the screen and flipped it closed. It was a combo laptop/tablet and I had no idea. "How long have you had this thing?" Two months."
Positivistdino
Kitchen Tools...
"I have an air fryer. It's a pretty handy kitchen tool. The food goes in a basket which is attached to what's basically a metal bowl. So the grease and crumbs and whatever fall out of the basket and into the bowl."
"My only real complaint was it was hard to get the food out without a mess. You try and dump the basket onto a plate and the oil in the bowl still kind of runs out in a puddle. You can keep it away from the food if you're paying attention and like wipe it up but it's an annoyance."
"Then one day I mentioned it to my wife while making some fries. She just looked at me and said "Why don't you take them apart?" and took the handle and pressed the button to separate the basket and bowl, dumped the fries out mess free, and reconnects it back to the bowl."
"Now you might be thinking I'm an idiot for not knowing about that button. It's actually WORSE. I knew that button was there, I just used it to separate the pieces for cleaning and it somehow never occurred to me to take them apart during use despite the fact it's just one simple button that can be used with one hand."
sharrrper
29 is Hard!
"I just realized, this past spring at a party, that I've been using corkscrews on wine bottles all wrong. Turns out it is NOT correct form to screw it in by turning the bottle, then depressing the handles."
"I was publicly mocked."
"I deserved it. (I'm 29.)"
strixx-variaa
The Jiggilies....
"My "aha" moment was learning why the little metal bits on the end of tape measures are always loose and jiggly. It's so that it can slide to compensate for the thickness of the metal stop depending which side of the edge you measure on. Genius bit of engineering that most people don't even realize is helping them out all the time.
SeeRight_Mills
Know the Limit.
Never knew why some yellow lights seemed to change so fast and others felt like they took forever. I thought it was just a flat amount of time for everywhere. Then Reddit told me that yellow lights stayed yellow for the speed limit divided by ten, in seconds. So 25 mph speed limit means the light will stay yellow for 2.5 seconds, and 45 mph means it will stay yellow for 4.5 seconds. It all makes sense now."
BamboozledBigTIme
I discovered.....
Giphy"I discovered, by accident, that when I push the car door "unlock" button 3 times, it makes all the windows go down."
"It's a very handy feature in warm weather."
Back2Bach
Signals
"Turn signals. I couldn't understand how the car seemed to know where my dad was going to be turning so I started to watch closely when we were getting in the car to see when he told the car where we were going so the car would know what turns to signal. I was freaking amazed that it was this tiny little gesture he was making before every turn!"
MajorMustard
She was floored...
"When we were like, 28 I had a friend that would drive her outgoing mail to the post office every time she had to mail a bill. She had been doing this forever. One day I asked her why she doesn’t mail them from her house. She looked puzzled and said, 'because if I put them in the mailbox the mailman isn’t going to just take them.' I was like 'Why not?' She proceeded to tell me mailboxes didn’t work that way. I told her they do if you put the flag up. She was floored. I asked 'What did you spend the last 28 years thinking the flag was for?' She said 'decoration?'"
RachelisonReddit
Read Ed
"I grew up in a time and place without any real sex education."
"I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I thought it was a myth that women had multiple holes to pee with and have sex with."
"First time I had a tampon in while peeing, I thought exact the phrase in this question."
ligamentary
Thumb Action
tv land snap GIF by Lopez on TV LandGiphy"When I learned the snap sound from snapping your finger comes from the finger hitting your palm fast, not from the finger snapping from your thumb. This also helps tremendously for when you teach people how to snap."
enderep12
Highways
"Open road tolling happens because a car breaks a magnetic field and at that very time a camera takes a picture. I have met the guy knighted for making this happen at highway speeds."
Leucippus1
"The Dartford crossing works like this now. You have to pay online within 24 hours or you get a fine. Easiest way is to just register a payment card and it will charge you automatically each time you drive through. I assume the London congestion charge works similarly but I stay away from that."
iambecomeaname
foul moods...
"My (now wife, then girlfriend) sometimes gets into a really foul mood, and I always thought I was doing something to piss her off. One day, her uncle was visiting when she got like this. He calmly told her to go get a snack.Turns out my wife gets really hangry, and has done so ever since she was a little girl. Everything suddenly made sense!"
Orderves
Mind Blown
Eric Wareheim Mind Blown GIF by Tim and EricGiphy"The alphabetize icon in excel. I had a professor in college demonstrate this feature in a huge lecture hall while going over APA citations for a paper. Half the class when, 'ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh' and had their minds blown."
dogdrinkincoffee
Best Place on Earth
"Almost all of the IKEA products."
MIND2206
"A couple of weeks ago I put together a pair of Ikea chests of drawers for my mum. It was a pretty painless experience, all the parts fitted very well and the fastenings all fitted precisely."
"Today she presented me with some knock-off Ikea shoe storage thing from EasyLife. What a f**king contrast. All of the fastenings worked on the same principle as the Ikea ones, but the engineering was just shocking. Nothing fitted exactly as it ought to, and the whole thing just looks awful. I love Ikea."
xilog
They must have covered some of these topics on the days we were out sick from school!
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.
