There is nothing like a good loophole.
If reading detective novels taught you anything as a kid, it was to look for the phrasing and the ways that something could easily be turned on its head.
When you do, and you're right, it's the best feeling on earth.
u/whiter96 asked:
What is the best loophole you have executed? And how did you find it?

Here were some of those stories.
50. Don't It Always Seem To Go That You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone?
My cousin and I were at Chuck. E. Cheese and we had just finished using up all of our tokens and headed to that one machine that "eats" your tickets. However, once the machine took all our tickets, the paper that came out was pink instead of white. For some reason, this was incredible to our young minds. We went up to the prize counter with our pink paper and showed it to one of the workers. She said it was probably because the machine was almost about to runout of ink. To our surprise though she said that this was a "special ticket" and that we could take any prize we wanted (the amount of tickets didn't matter). I was extremely dumb and got a pink diary when i could've got something so much better. To this day I wish I could travel back in time to change my decision and pick something better. Smh.
49. Rewards Up The Wazoo
Starbucks runs at work. I'm lucky enough that most of my coworkers are too lazy and busy to use rewards apps and I always offer to pick up coffee. I rack up points like no other. Sometimes when they Venmo me they round up.
48. Hundo For Sale
I exploited an oversight in the session programming for an online quiz thing I had to buy for some physics class in undergrad (basically it locked 5% of your grade behind a paywall). Can't remember the exact details, but by having a practice quiz open in another tab I was somehow able to trick the site into allowing me to reset the actual graded quiz (by default you weren't allowed to do that) and get 100% on a next attempt.
47. I Made My Own Bank
I discovered this by accident, I overdrew from my checking account paying for something. The money did not bounce and instead the bank charged me $35 for an overdraft fee.
So from this one time I was really broke I had literally 50 bucks in my account and needed 500. So I went to the ATM and withdrew 500 bucks anyway knowing that I would get my paycheck within a week. And my credit cards were maxed out and could not use them. Not a brilliant hack but only cost me 35 bucks to get 500 bucks.
46. I Tipped Myself
I worked at a busy restaurant that gave 10% off your bill if you had a AAA card (American Auto Assoc.), so whenever somebody would pay their tab in cash and then leave, you would grab the AAA card that one of the servers had, apply the discount, then close out the tab.
If a customer's tab was $50 for example, you would swipe the AAA card, get 10% taken off ($5), then close it out, thus giving you that extra cash on top of what they left as a tip. This was handy whenever they under-tipped or stiffed you, and technically, it wasn't really stealing....
45. I Got Off The Plane
My ex girlfriend not checking us in for a flight netted us €400 euros each and a night in a hotel.
We were traveling to Gibraltar from London for a few days for just to visit her family. She hadn't checked us in online and they over booked the flight. The airline in question had a policy that if the flight was over a certain distance(3 hours if I remember correctly) then the affected passengers would be given compensation of €400 per person. In addition to this, they put us in an airport hotel for the evening as there was only 1 flight per day to Gibraltar from that airport.
So, it's around 8am, we now have €800 to spend, a night in a hotel and all day and night in London to go enjoy ourselves before coming back to fly the next morning. Best loop hole ever, which the airline closed a few weeks later
44. Hell's Angels
Not that big but when I was around 12-14 my family would drag me and my cousin to biker meet ups/parties. Basically just a lot of friendly bearded dudes and their families enjoying a weekend camping/drinking. We got bored a lot and soon found out that they were taking a 4euro pawn on ever beer glass. And because many people were drunk, a lot of glasses were just never returned and we spend the whole night collecting glasses and pocketing the money, the hosts got annoyed after a while but didn't really care. I think we made around 60euros each that night.
43. The System Ain't Shit
Used to work at a certain grocery store. They had a promotion if you bought a $100 pre-paid visa gift card, you received a coupon $15 off the next purchase. There was not stipulations around it, so i realized i could just use it on another purchase of a visa gift card. I almost emptied the shelf of the gift cards gaining an extra 15 on each one. Ended up getting like $200 at the end of it and spent it all on food and gas. No regrets.
42. Take The Tip!!
Just yesterday I discovered that Aliexpress doesn't check wether you already have an account by address, phone number or name. They currently give $4 off every purchase from a new account, so I wondered if I could just use another email to make a new account and get another $4 off, and it actually works. Even with the same bank account, all details the same.
41. Hundreds Kept On Comin'
Not me but a friend. So my friend's family was sturdy financially, so what he would do is get a hundred dollar bill and give it to his mom to store for him. Once his mom put it away he would go and get it. once his mom would attempt to get it she thought she had lost it and would give him $100 is replacement, so it was like he was duplicating his money.
40. We Hacked Overboard
In high school, we had very strict security on the school computers; so strict, in fact, that we weren't allowed to use the programs necessary for our intro to programming class.
Luckily for us, our teacher told us "any program can be accessed IF you change its name to notepad.exe"
He shouldn't have told us that... We were able to access everything, including the county school database and remote access of any school computer in the county.
39. Extra Money For A Moment
A very long time ago I worked at a large shipping company. We could get extra money by submitting sales leads. If our lead resulted in increased volume, we got a kick back.
I and another co worker found a system that listed every company in the US that had a shipper number with us, who used a competitor's software. This list was nothing but companies that shipped with us, but also shipped with our biggest competitor. We started coming in on weekends, unpaid, just to enter sales leads. That year I got a full snowboarding kit (board, boots, helmet, clothes, and season pass to the local mountain) all with sales lead money.
Unfortunately we were stupid and greedy. If we'd have randomized the file, we'd have been fine, but sales in one state got flooded with these leads and complained that we were wasting their time with bogus leads. We got shut down.
38. Free Moo-sic
When Napster became legal I signed up for it. Then a month or two later I decided I didn't want it anymore and tried to cancel.
The only way to cancel was to call them. Of course, whenever you called, it would ring forever or if there was a connection you would be on hold with nobody ever answering. It was beyond frustrating.
Around that same my bank was issuing temporary internet credit cards. So you had a credit card just not a physical one. You could set the expiration date yourself.
On the Napster site you were able to change the payment type. So i changed it to the temporary credit card which had an expiration date the following month. I never got charged from Napster again.
37. Hip Young People Eating Salads
My college campus had a cafe with Deli and salad bar, the deli sandwiches were way over priced, like 8$ for a standard turkey sandwich. But the salad bar was very reasonable. (Subsidized to promote healthy eating)
So I found that the Salad bar had all the same ingredients as the sandwiches, the meat was just shredded. The Deli would sale slices of bread for $0.25 each, so I would just buy the bread, load up and weigh my "salad" and grab some free mayo and mustard packets, then build my own sandwiches for under 2$. Used that trick for my last two years.
36. The Loophole We All Need
Mushroom gorge in MarioKart!!
If you jump on a mushroom at the start with a boost, you can climb the rock wall and go around the start post. Once you land you can drive through the start and basically you end up completing a lap in 10 seconds.
35. Now I Have Abs, Duh
Walmart price match. Got a $400 home gym with free delivery for $180, because Academy Sports had it listed at $180. The loophole was that while Walmart had free shipping, Academy only offered $150 shipping and didn't carry it in store. Walmart tried to deny it for BS reasons, but caved when they wouldn't hold up.
34. How To Drink For Free
Vending machine at University all those years ago... worth noting, my little "loophole" ended up breaking the vending machine a couple of times, but it worked more often than not (as long as you accounted for weight and weren't greedy).
Basically, it was one of those vending machines with an arm that would come up, the drink would dispense onto the arm and then a conveyor belt on said arm would send it to a swinging door on the side where you'd get your drink.
So the trick was, when the drink comes to the door, you hold the door shut. The machine was designed to try it a couple of times, and then give up and give you your money back... but the drink is still on the conveyor belt.
So then you use the money you just got back to order another drink, arm does the same thing, gets your new drink, only this time you don't hold the door and when the conveyor belt goes, both the newly bought drink and the previous drink gets dispensed to you - 2 for the price of one!
Trial and error showed that the arm on the machine had a weight limit (because it's never really expecting to lift more than 500ml at a time). If I tried this with 2 500ml bottles of coke, the arm wouldn't rise again with the weight of both and the machine would break (though I still got my money back). You could just about manage with a bottle and a can of drink, but you were safer getting 2 cans.
Good times when you're broke.
33. Seriously Cheating The Honor Code
GameStop used to allow exchanges on used games within a week of purchase for pretty much any reason. Would buy an expensive used game, beat it and exchange for something around the same price. Basically renting but you got to keep the game if you had to keep it longer than a week
Also my Zune's warranty was about to expire, still worked but tossed it in the microwave for a few seconds and exchanged it for a freshie at the same GameStop. My local GS has closed now
32. Embezzle From Corporations Yasss Honey
When you do a warranty exchange on an automotive battery at Wal-Mart, its processed as two transactions: an item return, then an item sale with credit.
During my late teens, i paid many bills with the cash i got from taking that return receipt up front for them to process for cash.
31. Is It Jenna Jameson Or Nah
Well in kahoot; I would always out my name as a fairly well known pornstar. This would mean if the teacher removed my name and said it was inappropriate, that would admit that he or she knows who that pornstar is and therefore watches porn. I figured out the teachers who watched porn or not. Even if the teacher removed my name, my friends will still laugh about it.
30. It Was Losing Too Much Money!
A bit late but there was a kind of slot machine at a bar where you put in 1€ and you had to press a single button at the right time to double the amount, with every correct hit of the button the machine would go faster and you could double it again on a right press or loose. The trick was to just play the first round over and over 1€ to 2€ stop and start again. Did this a whole evening and made 200€ after that the machine vanished and was never seen again :(
29. Salad-de-salad
Domino's out of Caesar salad. So I pick a tuna salad, remove the tuna and the olives, add croutons and parmezan and buy Caesar sause from the store. I've never been prouder of myself after figuring that out.
28. The Extra $30 Bought Me This GPS
I used to get reimbursed mileage for work. According to Google its 55 miles going down and around on the bridge. In reality I only drove 26 miles taking the ferry. Didn't save any time bc I had to leave early to catch the boat, but I made $30 twice a month going to that office....
27. Rosebud;,;,;,
Sims Bustin Out on GBA: If you have an auction with a data cable between 2 gameboys, you can sell an item to your friend for a ridiculous amount of money, they turn their gameboy off afterwards, you save, now you both have the money.
26. Think Of The Caffeine
The McDonalds near my work has a punch card system where you buy 5 coffees and get the 6th free. The thing is, they check the card at the register, see that it's a free coffee then give you the card back to give to the next window to punch your card. I accidentally learned that if you don't give them the card at the next window they don't check or ask for it. So ... infinite free coffee? Or until I'm ultimately and embarrassingly caught!
25. The Prime For Prime
Back when it was first introduced, Amazon Prime Student was just free shipping and there was no expiration. I happened to have just started grad school and met the only requirement- a .edu email address. You didn't even have to open a new account, just convert your existing one. A few months later someone at Amazon realized the flaw in this - their best future customers were all going to have free Prime. Amazon quickly changed the program to one year free Prime (now 6 months).
Everyone already enrolled in Prime Student got grandfathered but was also limited to just free shipping. This was 2009 and Prime video and all the other stuff was not that big a deal yet so I didn't really care. A few years pass and Prime Video and all the other stuff starts to become a big deal but my wife had her own Prime account so I just piggybacked off hers and continued to enjoy my free Prime. Apparently most of my fellow Free Prime Students sucked it up and moved to regular paid Prime because sometime in the 2014-2015 time frame my free limited Prime got switched to free regular Prime. I assume it became more cost effective to just lose out on $10 a month than to maintain two classes of Prime.
24. Oooooooh
I signed up to Deliveroo's free trial of plus membership, basically gives you free delivery with every order.
The debit card I used to sign up to the trial had expired ages ago so when it came to the end of the trial and tried to charge me they couldn't get payment... but the I still have the plus membership.
I've currently got lifetime free delivery.
23. Glitched In My Favor
When I was a kid, I had Spiderman 2: Enter Electro for playstation. I played that game all the time but I was like 8 and I wasn't very good at it. Not to mention I didn't speak English and I couldn't follow the tutorials. At one point there's a lizard boss which has a ton of damage resistance. You're meant to kill him by running around the lab while he's chasing you, grabbing a special formula that brings his resistances down, this way you can actually do damage to him. Well I didn't know this and kept trying to punch him to death with his super tankiness for months. At one point the game bugged out and the boss got stuck inside a texture where he couldn't attack me but I could attack him. I spent about 15 minutes punching him and winning. I was the happiest kid ever. I only learned the proper method of doing it years later and facepalmed really hard.
22. Read Capitalism For Filth
So, I worked at this grocery store in high school that was, in a word, a sh*thole; you know, one of those places where, as long as the customer leaves a good review, f*ck everyone and everything else. We disregarded employees, store policies, and even laws on a few occasions to keep people smiling.
Anyhow, Christmas came along, and we were all promised bonuses. Which, of course, was utter sh*t. Managers got 2.3k+ added to their December paychecks, and hourly peons got $10.00 gift certificates . . . to the store . . . that expired on December 25th . . . when we weren't even open.
Naturally, a lot of pissed employees. And who could blame them, the store was essentially using our 'stipend' to pad their own pockets. I was (still am) quite petty, and asked the managers if we were allowed to buy anything with our certificates, and he she clarified that we could get anything but liquor. Told all the employees to buy gift cards to other places (since we sell $10.00 ones by the racks), and the cashier on duty had no choice but to ring us through.
Managed to take a little under $980.00 from a greedy grocery store, and give business to a few other places in town. Woods Co., if any of your managers ever read this, f*ck you and everyone who looks like you! :)
21. Fake Security
For all 4 years I was in college in a major US city, one of the faculty parking lot gates could be opened with any card with a magnetic strip. The lot only fit about 20 cars and was odd shaped as it contoured a hillside. There were 3-4 spots that were never occupied at the very bottom of the lot. I never bought a parking pass.
20. It Keeps Going
My family gets pizza every Friday. A few months ago, papa John's started taking ~45 minutes to deliver our pizza. So avoid the 3rd time it happened my mom called and asked if we could have a refund because our pizza was cold and made wrong. Papa John's gave us a credit on our account.
Next week we used the credit, pizza showed up 45 minutes later. We called and got a refund, papa John's put a credit on the account.
I think we've had 6 free pizzas in a row now.
19. Smart Smart Smart
I discovered that on a journey of 30 rail stations, they only checked your ticket when you enter and when you leave.
So instead of buying a ticket for all 30 stations, I bought a ticket for the start station to the next station, and from one before the last station to the last station. 2 journeys of 1 station each.
One tenth the price.
18. No More Two For Ones
Not really a loophole,but... back in the late 90's early 2000's when the self service lottery machines first came out if you bought the 'longer' scratch-offs, like the $10 ones, when you grabbed the ticket you would still have to tear it off the next one. If you could get a decent grip you could grab the very bottom of the next ticket and pull it out too! Now the machines just drop the single ticket so I guess they wised up.
17. Being Creative
If I draw really well during my classes my teachers won't care about me not doing my work. I have this teacher in Senior Seminar who got mad at me for taking a 3 minute break (since the class was about an hour and a half long). Anyhoo, she didn't get upset over the kid sitting next to me who took apart his computer and put it back together. Lately, I've been drawing Freddie Mercury and trying to do it realistically, she hasn't said a word and neither have other teachers.
16. Protection Or Just Anger
This loophole angered me so much.
The situation: I worked for a man who traveled so frequently that half my job was handling his itinerary and ticket purchases. Unfortunately, the previous person in my position had left without letting us know the password to get in to his account for one of the airlines, and IT had deleted her email, which was linked to the account. This airline charged an additional fee if you called them to make reservations rather than use the website.
I called the airline to update the login password. I was told that only the person named on the account could do that. Of course, said person was currently on a flight, and, frankly, too important to make such a minor call. I explained the situation, but no matter what I said, I was told no, it was for the account holder's protection, no one else could change the password.
So I asked her if she could change the email address. Yes, she could, and five minutes later, I was in his account.
15. Bunga Gone
On the Teenage Mutant Hero (Ninja) Turtles arcade machine when I was a kid, if you pressed start after inserting a credit it said 'Cowabunga', but if you hammered start really fast it went 'Cowacowacowacowacowacowacowacowacowacowacowa' as long as you hammer it and get free credits for each press.
Can't remember how I figured it out but I was very happy.
14. Free Lunch
I'm a truck driver and stop every day at the same place. There's a McDonald's next door. On the receipt was a link to fill out a survey. If you filled it out and wrote down a number on the receipt you could turn it in for a free Mcdouble or a medium fries.
So I made two separate orders and got two receipts. Filled out two surveys that took 15 seconds each.
The next day I used the receipts to place two separate orders for one free Mcdouble and one free fries to see if my suspicions were accurate. I got two receipts and indeed, the survey link was printed on each receipt. I ate free lunch for 2 months before I started intermittent fasting.
13. Looking Important
When I was in the Navy, I got stationed at a huge shipyard with very little oversight. I walked around with a form laden clipboard for an entire work week, looking at random objects and writing on my clipboard.
When questioned, I would look at the person's name tag and ask their supervisor's name, then write on my clipboard.
I eventually stopped and started actually doing my job due to boredom.
No one caught on or tried to stop me. Clipboard+scowl=immunity.
12. The Robin Hood Of The Modern Age
In high school I worked as a cashier at a major grocery store chain. Our store offered a loyalty card that accrued points for discounted gas. Every $100 spent = 10 cents off per gallon at the store's gas pump. Many customers would come in who didn't have/want a store card.
I filled out an application for a store card with fake info and a dummy phone number and used it on any customer without a card. This resulted in them not missing out on store deals and me pretty much never having to pay for gas throughout most of high school.
11. Such A Bop
Not really a loophole, but back in junior high, my school took a poll, asking what our favorite song was, and would put the results in that year's yearbook. Naturally, me and all my friends wrote down, "Wii Sports Theme". It was a simple google form, and me and my friends were the only ones who realized you could submit a form more than once. So we submitted thousands of entries saying "Wii Sports Theme", and saw the song in the #1 spot in our yearbook at the end of the school year.
10. I Wonder What The Code Was....
In 2006, me and a friend were in an intro to programming class in high school. Our teacher told us about this Microsoft programming contest for high schoolers, so we decided to enter. They had the goal for what you were supposed to do, an example, and the code they used for that example.
We realized that the rules didn't say it had to be original code, just that whatever we submitted would belong to Microsoft. So we took their code, tweaked a few lines to make it work for the test scenario, and submitted it. We ended up tying for second, which was good enough to win us each a pocket PC.
9. Perfect Defense
I was maybe 4 or 5. Mom and dad are having a party, all adults over. I'm told to not go into the living room to bother anyone unless there's an emergency, but I can go into the kitchen/get drinks/etc.
So the party's been going on a while, I go to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. (There's a stool so I can do this for myself easy enough). While in there, I notice a plate of freshly iced sugar cookies. A whole plateful. I love sugar cookies and I love icing. I wonder if I can have one.
Then I reason, it's not an emergency, so I can't ask, so might as well take the whole plate.
Mom came to find me later furious (with Dad on her heels). She asks me what I was thinking of, taking the whole plate of cookies. I said "I wanted to ask, but you said only ask in case of emergencies."
Dad started cackling. Mom deflated, and said "I DID say that didn't I."
Didn't get in trouble.
8. My Spite Made It Work
Back in the 80's, 2nd year Fortran programming and the final project was to write a program that would print Roman Numeral equivalent of any number inputted on the command line up to some large number -can't remember what the highest number was that we had to go to but it was quite challenge for the time - pre OOP and all. My program would trip up on a certain number and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why so I just said, f*ck it and buried a direct if statement for that one number deep in one of the subroutines. As luck would have it, my program was the only one that worked and I felt rather smug (and a wee bit guilty) as he congratulated me when he handed them back.
7. Work/Werk/Work
Had a salary job, contract said "you are paid $X for all hours work as complete compensation. No overtime pay will be granted, you are expected to work as long as it takes to finish your work"
Little did they know, they didn't specify a minimum hour requirement. Being a fast worker, I basically showed up whenever I wanted. The only thing that kept me at work longer than a few hours each day was my supervisor, he was a cool guy so I stuck around with him.
6. None The Wiser
I don't recommend trying this because I was honestly just really lucky but... One semester I had a handful of lab reports due for a class, all on the same due date at midnight. I ended up finishing them all...an hour late at 1 in the morning. I went ahead and submitted them anyway (because why not?), but the next day my professor emailed me back to remind me there was a no late-work accepted policy in the syllabus, work submitted late would receive a zero with no exceptions, etc.
I politely responded with the point that technically a time zone was never specified for the assignments that were due, and that at the point they were submitted there were still places where it would've been considered on time... He ended up accepting them with full credit.
5. A Winter Celebration
I moved to the mountains to snowboard for a year, after a year of aimless university. The student seasons pass was like half the price of the normal pass. So I signed up on the web for a few courses, got the student pass, then dropped the courses before any payment was due. Saved like $700. I actually didn't think they'd honor the price considering the university was in a prairie city ~2000 miles away.
I got over 150 days on that seasons pass.
4. Coding Comes In Handy
I once got a traffic ticket that required me to take online driving school. This involved a lot of tedious clicking, and you couldn't press NEXT until a certain amount of time had elapsed. On the clock at work, I wrote a script to do the thing for me. <sunglasses emoji>
3. I Fought The Law And The Law Did Not Win
Got pulled over when I was 19. Driving without a license. Got my truck impounded and was accruing daily impound fees. The impound lot couldn't legally release the truck unless the registered owner had a valid state license or permission from the court to release it.
My court date was like 3 weeks away and there was no way I could afford to pay the daily impound fees so I "sold" my truck to my friend who had a valid driver's license. He applied to transfer the title to his name and I turned in the bill of sale and he received a valid registration for the truck in his name. We both went to the impound lot and demanded the release of the truck. They brought it up front, he handed me the keys and I drove it off the lot. Impound people knew they got played but couldn't do anything about it.
He got the title in the mail a couple weeks later and "sold" it back to me. I gave him $50 for his trouble knowing full well he saved me well over $600
2. Never The Luck
When I was in high school a senior came to school with a bikini on. He argued that nowhere in the dress code did it say he couldn't, and the only thing close were "Shorts must be fingertip length" and "Sleeves must be X inches"
As he had neither shorts or sleeves, he technically wasn't breaking any rules. Obviously though, they didn't care. So I guess it's not really a loophole, but an attempt at one.
1. If You Can Avoid Tax, You Can Cheat Death
I worked in the US for a while, and since I didn't understand American taxes, I signed a form to say I'd pay tax on my earnings back home in the UK. Then, when it was time to sort it all out, I discovered the money wasn't taxable in Britain. So I accidentally avoided paying any tax at all!
Y'all know that one Hannah Montana song? “Everybody makes mistakes! Everybody has those days!" That's the song I sing to myself every time I accidentally burn myself while making ramen. It comforts me to know, however, that there are a lot of worse mistakes out there than some spilled ramen. Who knew?
In fact, some mistakes are so astronomical that they're remembered for decades afterwards, leaving the one who made the mistake a legacy of being a dumba**. Here are a few of them!!!
U/ronjans24 asked: What was the biggest mistake in human history?
Some may argue that the existence of the Universe was a mistake. I disagree. It was clearly Zayn leaving One Direction. But these next few were pretty bad too.
If you do the math, this is also the reason why Hentai exists.
I'll say the wrong turn Franz Ferdinand's driver made that went right in front of Gavrilo Princip.
EDIT: yes I'm aware war may still have broken out even if Franz Ferdinand wasn't assassinated
Imagine you're Gavrilo Princip. The assassination plot you and your friends had been cooking up for about the last year or so has been a complete and total disaster, just a monumental f*ck-up of the highest degree. You're staked out at this deli thinking maybe, just maybe the car will pass by, and by some stroke of sheer luck, it does.
If you're Princip, this is nothing short of serendipity.
Petition to return to the ocean.
"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams
This was, in fact, a monumental mistake.
Sears not beating Amazon to the punch.
Blockbuster not buying Netflix.
You thought THOSE were bad? Well gear up for their next few, because they are 100% accurate. Except the one about Cats, that movie slaps.
I don’t know sports, but sure.
Seahawks not running it.
I used to wear a Seahawks jersey whenever I took a test because I knew I would pass when I shouldn't.
CATS is great, y'all are just boring.
The Emoji Movie.
That live action movie about Cats is also up there.
Very fair point.
Social Media.
Humans are not wired to have that many social interactions and maintain that many relationships. Plus the echochambers it allows people to create for themselves, no matter how conspiratorial or vile their beliefs, means that stupid/evil people are no longer shunned into changing their mind.
Not sure it was worth being able to see what a celebrity had for lunch or what new "dance" your younger cousin and her tween friends are doing.
But in all seriousness, some horrible things may now have happened if the right thing was halted at the right time.
Washington called it.
Voting for people based on what side of the political spectrum they're on. George Washington himself advised against political parties because he thought they would cause too much division in this country. Unfortunately for everyone, he was right.
Big oops on that one.
Barack Obama mocking Donald Trump at the Correspondents Dinner might have led directly to his 2016 run....
"Now, I know that he's taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald," Obama said. "And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?"
Then he turned serious: "But all kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example — no, seriously, just recently, in an episode of 'Celebrity Apprentice' — at the steakhouse, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn't blame Lil Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled."
This is the best Star Wars and no one can change my mind.
I'll take 'Star Wars Christmas Special' for $100.
That atrocious pile of manure gave us Boba Fett, so without the Christmas Special there won't be The Mandalorian.
Wow, in this article, I openly admitted my love for Cats AND The Star Wars Holiday Special. So maybe my existence was the biggest mistake of all.
ANYWAY, I hope you enjoyed, and I hope you all feel a little bit better about yourself. Because when push comes to shove, at least you didn't accidentally start World War I
People Dispel Common Myths That Have Actually Been Debunked That Far Too Many People Still Believe
Image by Daniel Perrig from Pixabay |
When I was younger, it seemed every adult believed that you couldn't swim for several hours after eating. Why did they all believe this? I fought them on this all the time, by the way. I shouldn't have had to, just because I'd eaten some barbecue during a pool party. Guess what, though? That belief is unfounded.
After Redditor MelonInACat asked the online community, "What is a common myth that has been debunked that too many people believe?" people told us about the myths that are still around despite credible evidence.
"Do you know how many wellness checks..."
You must wait 24 hours before reporting a missing person.
Some questions:
- 24 hours from when? The time you realized they were missing? The time you estimate they went missing? The time of the initial report to police?
- Who is the legal timekeeper? If this is a law, it must have a designated timekeeper for official records. City police? County sheriff? Do I hire a private attorney to file a time-keeping motion in court?
- If the most likely time to find a missing person is the first 24 hours, why would you wait 24 hours?
- If the person dies or is severely injured because the county/state refused to initiate a search, doesn't that put some liability on their office? It seems like that would've been tested in court by now.
There's no law governing how long you have to wait before notifying the police of a missing person. It's nonsense. File a report as soon as you suspect the person is missing or in danger.
Do you know how many wellness checks officers go on in a day? Call it in, man...
CALL IT IN!
Why would you wait so long? It's absurd and wastes valuable time. And in the event something has happened, you could very well be saving someone's life.
"Popping your knuckles..."
Popping your knuckles is actually harmless and the "study" that claimed it caused arthritis was heavily flawed. Studies now show that it has nothing to do with causing arthritis.
I heard this one all the time.
I didn't crack my knuckles anyway because I didn't understand the appeal. Why were all the first-graders so fascinated by this?
"That if you get too close..."
That if you get too close to a baby bird, the mother will smell human on the baby and abandon the nest.
You probably should still avoid touching baby birds for other reasons like disease or risking injury to the animal though.
"That waking a sleepwalker..."
That waking a sleepwalker is dangerous for them. They might wake up confused, but they'll be fine unless you scream at them or something.
"That your hair and fingernails..."
That your hair and fingernails still grow after you die. It's mainly an optical illusion. Your skin decays and shrinks, causing hair and fingernails to look like they've grown.
I grew up hearing this.
There are entire generations of people who believe this.
"We all know the story."
The War of The Worlds broadcast in 1938. We all know the story: Orson Welle's broadcast War of The Worlds over the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). But people only tuned in partway through and heard the radio announcing that machines were landing in the country and were advancing and attacking. People panicked in the streets and thought aliens really were invading. There was hysteria on the streets, people were looting and traffic jams backed up as people tried to escape.
But it turns out, that isn't really true. It turns out barely anyone actually listened to the broadcast, and the few that were listening knew it was Orson Welles and knew it was just a broadcast of War of the Worlds. If there was anyone that did tune in and mishear it and panicked, it was nowhere near the hundreds and thousands that have been reported in this myth.
This one is definitely a popular urban myth by this point.
Cool story, but nowhere near as exciting as you might have heard. If anything, that mythos probably helped Welles get full artistic control of the projects, like Ciitizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, that made him a star.
"You don't have to wait..."
You don't have to wait 3 hours after eating to swim. Every summer I have to fight my in-laws about it.
"Do you really think..."
That not turning your airplane mode on (smartphone) can interfere/jam communications.
Do you really think if a smartphone might endanger a whole plane with passengers they would let it fly?
"No amount of reasoning..."
That cats kill babies.
I've run into this so many times since having kids. And it's not the older grandmas making these statements. I've had 20-year-olds tell me that you can't have cats if you plan to have babies because "they'll steal their breath" or some other variation. No amount of reasoning or rationale will dissuade them of this belief.
"Maybe it's just one of those things..."
YOUR. BLOOD. IS. NOT. BLUE! Seriously tho, I was told that everyone's blood was blue on the inside when I was younger, and I honestly don't know why my Mom thought that. Maybe it's just one of those things that you only believe because your family has been saying it since your Grandma's Grandpa's Grandma's Grandma's Grandpa or something like that.
Here's some valuable advice, guys:
Google is your friend. It's very easy to debunk this stuff. I remember being taught that the tongue had taste zones––we even had to fill out a worksheet labeling the tongue's different zones. That's totally wrong, in case you haven't figured it out.
Have some myths you've heard you'd like more people to know have already been debunked? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments section below!
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As much as we're not supposed to feel satisfaction upon observing the struggles of other people, it can be hard to resist a silent, internal fist pump when some blunder occurs immediately after we tried to help the person prevent it.
It is all a result of stubbornness.
The person we're trying to help is stubborn. They think they know the best way to do something, or the exact information required for a given moment.
And, on top of that, they think we're being stubborn when we try to intervene.
So all of our attempts to help fall on deaf ears. And the results can be as calamitous as they are satisfying.
TenaciousBrit asked, "What's your 'I told you so' moment?"
Many people chose to talk about the times their friends or family ended up producing some truly entertaining physical comedy.
And the laughter was only enhanced with the knowledge that they'd just predicted the whole thing.
ZAP
"Was picking beans with my sister and mom. To this day I still don't know why the fence was electric but it was. I touched it and I got zapped. It wasn't too bad but it hurt. I jumped away and my sister saw me, I said that it was an electric fence."
"Of course she just thought I was pranking her. I was trying to tell her the whole time we picked beans but she didn't believe me. Right at the end she touched the fence and she didn't see it coming at all... Her face was just like, 'Oh shi-' "
"Loved the car ride home, 'I told you... Idiot.' "
No Babies, Two Hurt Backs
"My sister and I were out sledding when we were kids at this place with a really steep hill. I had unknowingly gone down a sled path that had a jump in it, and when I landed it really hurt my back."
"So when I got back up to the top of the hill I told my sister 'don't go that way, the jump really hurts.' She called me a baby and didn't believe me that it really hurt so she decided she would go down that path on her sled."
"Well, she hit the jump and didn't get back up, turns out she fell so hard she had broken her leg. When we finally got her back up the hill and to the car, I got to tell her 'I told you so.' "
Drenched.
"This dumb a**hole woman wouldn't leave the llamas at our petting zoo alone, even after I warned her."
"Eventually they had enough and spit alllll over her. Green goopy spit from head to torso."
"She threw up a bunch and I laughed. Until I smelled it and then I was retching too."
-- craxiom0
Others recalled the times they trusted their instincts, only to be gaslighted by medical professionals.
But they did, eventually, get the help they needed. And the mixture of pride and frustration toward the other doctor was palpable.
Non-MD Spouse
"Had a weirdly dark freckle. The color of chocolate. I showed spouse and he called me a hypochondriac and if I go to a doctor, I'd be wasting their time."
"I went to the dermatologist. It was melanoma."
-- weaponizedpastry
Years of Itchy Apples
"Since I was 14, my throat got itchy when I ate apples. I told my mom but she thought I just didn't want to eat apples and forced me to eat them."
"Went to the doctor's office and got a test for allergies."
"Turns out, I'm allergic to apples, peaches, and many other fruits."
-- CayonSalad
This Was a Baby We're Talking About Here!
"My newborn baby was projectile vomiting after every feeding. I took her to the doctor several times, always ended up being sent away with suggestions to try a different formula. I tried like 4 different ones, no change."
"The 4th or 5th visit, they sent me away again with the same recommendation even though I pleaded with them to figure out what was wrong with my baby. I left the office and drove to the ER instead. She ended up having emergency surgery that day."
"The surgeon said she would have starved to death (or maybe dehydrated?) had she gone much longer without the surgery. I gave the doctors in that office a piece of my mind."
Dirt: Not Always the Answer
"Went to the doctor on and off for breathing problems to no avail. A lot of 'rub some dirt on it' mentality. Wound up in the ER as a result of an asthma attack. Kept the bracelet on and everything when I went back the next week to see him."
"Not as satisfying as I would've hoped."
And some people discussed the times they knew or predicted a piece of information, but couldn't seem to persuade someone else through dialogue or conversation.
But, of course, the truth always comes out.
Chose the Wrong Partner
"Lawyer here. Fired a partner who I found some real irregularities in their spending habits vs. what they were making after he couldn't provide a good answer to where it came from. Other partner left and started a new firm with them because they disagreed with my decision and refused to look at the evidence."
"Turns out he stole 500k of a clients money, got disbarred, and is now facing prison time. I told her to look at the evidence and she didn't listen. 🤷🏼♂️"
Sweet Victory
"Someone started talking about a bottle of Newman's Own salad dressing while at dinner with my family and I said something like 'I'm pretty sure that was started by the Actor/Race car driver Paul Newman.' to which one of my siblings replied 'No it was someone else.' "
"I grabbed the bottle and turned it around and started reading the label out loud. The first sentence was 'Paul Newman's career was acting, but his passion was auto racing.' I stopped reading after that."
He Knew Immediately
"Bed frame wasn't properly lashed down while moving, partner insisted the weight of the frame would keep it in place."
"Flew into the middle of a major intersection on a left turn. We dodged four lanes of oncoming traffic to collect the pieces."
"I fixed my partner with a look that could peel paint, and he said 'I know, I know, you told me so and you're right. I'm sorry.' "
"I still give him sh** for it every time we move something. It's funny now, but god damn was I pissed at the time."
We can draw a couple of lessons from this list.
First, know that, at the end of the day, you can only do your best to share your opinion. You need to accept that they're going to do what they're going to do.
Second, when someone tries to give you advice, maybe take a moment to listen.
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One of the most upsetting aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic––which is saying a lot, frankly––is the number of people who have been so affected by misinformation and disinformation. You know the ones to which I refer: These are the people who are convinced the virus is a hoax despite the lives it's claimed and the devastation it has wrought on society at large. Disinformation kills––there are stories of people who remained convinced that Covid-19 is a hoax even while intubated in the ICU, even up to their last breath.
After Redditor asked the online community, "Doctors of Reddit, what happened when you diagnosed a Covid-19 denier with Covid-19?" doctors and other medical professionals shared these rather unsettling stories.
"The one that sticks out in my mind..."
I'm a doctor working in acute internal medicine. I've seen lots of COVID over the last 12 months, probably 300+ cases. The one that sticks out in my mind the most was a 70-year-old lady with COPD. She refused to have a vaccine because she didn't trust it despite the fact she was eligible for one for weeks beforehand (in the UK). Subsequently caught COVID and was admitted to hospital. She repeatedly doubted this was the diagnosis. She refused to go to our COVID High Dependency Unit despite quite significant respiratory failure. Of course, she deteriorated over a number of days to the point where she was on maximal oxygen on the ward and at that point finally accepted treatment in HDU with high flow oxygen, although continued to doubt she had COVID. Died within 24 hours of her HDU admission having refused to go to ICU.
And of course, what did her family say? They were convinced she never had COVID and even went as far as accusing us of withholding life-saving treatment from her. Unfortunately, there's no treatment for stupidity.
Indeed there isn't.
A completely avoidable tragedy.
"My worst experience..."
My worst experience was when a 2-year-old kid got diagnosed with COVID. His mother had brought him with c/o fever and diarrhea. The child was severely dehydrated and so we had to do a mandatory swab test since we planned to admit him. It came positive and the mother refused to admit it. We were ready to perform a repeat test and we even advised the parents to get tested. Her defense was "The child never left the house. It's just me and the father who go to work daily. The grandmother babysits while we are away. How can he even get COVID without leaving the house." She had called her husband, he came with 10-15 relatives in a car, they broke a few chairs and then left with the baby. We just informed about the case to the COVID control centre.
"Only one patient ever accused me..."
Infectious disease doctor here. Seen about 450-500 COVID patients in the hospital since it all started. Only one patient ever accused me of using the nasal swab to give him COVID (along with a microchip). A handful have ranted nonstop about China. Everyone else has been sick enough to accept it, but lots still refuse the idea of vaccination even after being in the ICU.
"I had a lady who was maxed out..."
I had a lady who was maxed out on high flow (the next step is breathing tube) who still refused to believe she had Covid and was holding a negative test in her hand that she had taken a week prior.
The denial is so strong here.
It would be sad if it wasn't so horrifying.
"I'm an attending physician..."
I'm an attending physician at our Triage Unit. On a Friday, an older gentleman (60 + years) came in with his entire family (wife, sister, BIL, 2 nephews, and 3 children), none of them with a face mask. All had mild COVID symptoms except him, he was saturating 80% with evident shortness of breath. We insisted on doing PCR and a chest CAT scan looking for COVID but he and his wife refused, saying that COVID wasn't real and it was just a bacterial infection. The more we talked with him the more agitated he got to the point that his face was red. We suggested hospitalizing him to stabilize him and start treatment, but they accused us of exaggerating his symptoms and that we only wanted to hospitalize him so we could steal the liquid in his knees (a stupid rumor that was going around when this whole thing started).
They both cursed at us and said they were going to a better hospital to get antibiotics. Fast forward 24 hours later on Saturday, I get a call from the hospital next county over telling us that they intubated one of our patients because he went into respiratory failure when he arrived and they had to transfer him here because they don't have the appropriate equipment. We transfer the patient on Sunday only to find out on the CAT scan he had 90% of lung damage. He passed away on Monday morning.
Just before the family took the body away, I gave the widow the death certificate (that I filled out) and before walking away, she turns around and waves the certificate yelling "See! I told you it wasn't COVID! It says here: "Death due to pulmonary pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2! I knew it was a bacteria!" I told her: "SARS-CoV-2 is COVID-19, ma'am."
The lengths people are willing to go to stay in denial astound me.
Basic critical thinking appears to have gone out the window here.
"Unfortunately..."
I'm a family doc who mostly does outpatient.
I live in a pretty conservative area with a good proportion of COVID deniers, so I've been seeing COVID deniers since this mess became politicized (I've lost a few patients over the mask mandate).
Anyway, I'm pretty pleased to say that several of my COVID denying patients have completely turned their attitude around when they (or a close family member) contracted COVID. Even if their case wasn't severe, the sudden terror that they could wind up on a ventilator overnight really puts the fear of God into people.
Unfortunately, I still have some patients who are still pretty obnoxious despite their covid diagnosis. They mostly dig deeper into paranoia. If not about the virus itself, then about the circumstances surrounding them contracting it.
"If Fauci had done his job from the beginning, it never would've hit this town."
"It's the entire fault of Obamacare that I can't get the experimental immunoglobulin treatment!" (It's not, your eligibility for the infusion is dependent on a list of risk factors).
And, probably my favorite...
"So I have COVID and it's completely your responsibility to fix it. I need you to send Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, Vit D, Lisinopril, and azithromycin to the pharmacy..." Then they proceed to get pissed at me when I don't.
"During our peak time..."
I'm an emergency department physician in the US. I work in an area that had the highest death rate for a solid couple of weeks in the country.
During our peak time when we had national news crews here covering how we were a s***show, saw numerous people screaming their Covid disease wasn't real despite being hypoxic and on large amounts of oxygen due to Covid. That was an unpleasant time as this was still early (May/June) and it was extremely political like people apparently plotting to kidnap our state governor due to lockdowns.
Saw a lot of people refusing Covid testing who needed admission for non-covid purposes because the swabs would give them covid or put some sort of tracking device. They weren't pleased when they then had to be admitted to our full-blown Covid floors. Our Covid floors resembled a warzone because they were understaffed and relative s***hole conditions as we basically converted hallways into covid floors.
Also saw a lot of people young people who weren't exactly deniers but thought you basically couldn't sick if you were young. Lots of people with their lungs permanently scarred or at a minimum a couple of weeks of misery and/or spread it to their loved ones who got extremely ill.
"The willful cognitive dissonance..."
Physician here. The willful cognitive dissonance is real. It never ceases to amaze me how many patients will refuse assistance from me to register to get vaccinated, make claims that vaccines are harmful, but then accept my medical care on anything else that suits their whim. Patients absolutely have the autonomy to refuse care, but why would you continue to see a physician and accept their medical advice and care if you think they would simultaneously recommend something to you that would be harmful?
I've posed this question to patients who are vaccine-hesitant: "Why would you let me manage your diabetes and hypertension if you think I would harm you by recommending vaccinations?" You cannot get any kind of thoughtful response aside from, "I just don't want to be vaccinated."
"Some denier patients lived..."
RN here with most of 2020 spent in COVID land. I never had anyone refuse treatment when things got serious. I know some of the MDs I worked with got yelled at, like the rest of us...but honestly, that happens frequently anyway.
Some denier patients lived, many of which had accepted reality by the end of their stay after seeing what we all were going through to treat them.
Some died telling me I was a sheep or an idiot or a liar between gasps of air.
COVID didn't care.
This comment is strangely poetic.
Covid definitely doesn't care. The virus lays waste to people and... that's it. Good luck with your games of Russian roulette.
"People are crazy."
I work on a COVID unit and I ran into a patient like this. They'd tell me over and over again about how they weren't really sick and about how I didn't need to be gowned up in PPE. They even tried to take my face shield off. If you test positive for COVID two times then you have COVID! People are crazy.
Covid disinformation is a very serious problem and it's costing people their lives.
What can be done about it?
News literacy matters: It's important to get information from verifiable sources. Scientists and medical professionals are trustworthy. Those with backgrounds in public health know what they're talking about. Some conspiracy theory you received from your distant cousin on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger is not worth your time or consideration.
Have some of your own Covid denial stories to share? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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