Ugh, family, why do you always need to bring that up?
Kids say and do the darndest things, which we know, considering our families won't let anything we have ever said or done in our childhood die. But there's always that one darn thing which nobody can ever get over. You know what yours is.
u/HarmonJames asked:
What is that "one thing" you did as a child that still gets brought up to this day?
Here were some of the answers.
The Home Video Is An Evil Tool
GiphyWhen I was really little I was running around in a family friend's yard. I was still potty training and had the "pull down your pants" part of going to the bathroom down pat, but hadn't quite mastered the "find a toilet" part. So I just drop my pants and poop on the grass. The best part is they were taking a video at the time, so now they have a home movie of me taking a crap in their yard. It's been 25 years and everyone still makes fun of me for it.
I'm Makin' Waffles
When I was about 4 my parents were taking about Bill Gates, or someone else super rich, and I said very insightfully, "I bet he can eat at Waffle House any time he wants to."
I think it stemmed from me constantly begging to go to Waffle House and my mom always saying, "We don't have the money to eat at Waffle House everyday!"
I just assumed money was THE ONLY reason I couldn't eat there everyday.
Medical School For 7 Year Olds
When I was 7 my neighbor had a heart attack. I felt like I could have helped prevent it because I had saw a commercial advertising bayer aspirin and how it kept your heart healthy or something. I thought the doctors didn't know about this miracle drug. From that day on, I wrote down every medicine commercial with a brief description of what the medicine did. One day at dinner my brother was complaining his hands were dry and itchy. I ran to get my notepad and told him he should try vagisil.
Determination
When going on long car journeys we would often have to use hillside routes and the like (rural Ireland), when going over a steep hill at speed it always gave a funny feeling in my stomach. As a child I proceeded to shout with utmost determination "Dad my willy is scared!".
They tell everyone this story....
Well Howdy Doo To You Too
GiphyWhen I was 4, I guess I was having a real bad morning. I came out of my parents room after I had woken up and went out to the living room where I sat down in my personal toddler-sized chair and stared straight ahead at the TV, not saying a word to my then stay-at-home dad who was already up watching TV after my mom had gone to work. He changed the channel to Spongebob just for me. he then proceeded to tell me good morning, to which I replied "f*ck off."
To this day he still has no idea how I heard that, though he assumes he heard my mom say it to him during an argument they were having. He tells that story to anyone he gets the chance to tell.
Accidentally Sold Out Our Friend
So, my parents had a nanny suite in our old house. They decided to let a family friend who was retired live in there and be our nanny rent free. They also paid her a few hundred dollars every two weeks. She was a pensioner.
So, I was about 4 and she used to bring me out on her adventures. What my parents didn't know was that she was a secret lush. She used to bring me to a bar midday. The barfly's found me entertaining. They would buy me ice cream if I sang "How much is that dog in the window?" As a 4 year old I found this perfectly acceptable I got to sing and free ice cream. My parents never knew because nothing bad ever happened to me.
After we sold the house and I was about 8 we walked by the bar and I go that's where I used to sing for ice cream. My parents asked what I meant and i told them. They were horrified at first and asked me if anything bad ever happened and i said no.
I'm 35 and still haven't lived it down.
You Sit On A Throne Of Lies
When I was three, in the midst of the 80s kidnapping scare and the Christmas shopping season, I decided I was going to go see Santa. While my dad was in line to buy my mom's Christmas present, I went to see Santa without him.
My parents, of course, freaked out, but they found me happily watching Santa because I knew I wasn't lost. I was going to see Santa, duh.
When they talked about it when I was older, the thing that stood out the most to them was my sense of direction was really good for a three-year-old.
There They Are A-Standing In A Row
My grandparents were flying back in from overseas but their flight got delayed. I was about 6 at the time and a massive The Lion King fan. I decided to provide some entertainment for my family so I got up on these half walls that were in the centre of the airport and just started singing at the top of my lungs "I'VE GOT A LOVELY BUNCH OF COCONUTS" with some pretty elaborate dance moves - including golden spirit fingers. My parents couldn't stop laughing, and neither could everyone else in the airport. Haven't lived it down.
Valiant Effort
My younger sister- we were watching some discovery channel documentary on marine life. Anyway, at one point, she turns to my mom and said "did you see that?" Mom's like, "no.. what?" Sister says "on TV... the animal there" Mom asks which animal. My little sister says "you know... (and then whispers) the octa-c**chie"
My sister was afraid to say octopus because she knew "pus" was a bad word.
We still talk about it to this day. To the point that I have since moved across the country and my husband and my friends all refer to an octopus as a "you know... an octa-c**chie"
No Moose For You
GiphySo I don't know if anyone has ever been to the Bugaboo Creek but essentially it's a restaurant with a bunch of talking animals on the walls. As a kid I went there on my birthday cause I loved animals and shit.
But what they don't advertise is that for birthdays they bring out this big moose puppet on one of the waiters arms and want you to kiss the moose.
7 year old me did NOT want anything to do with this puppet and I instantly shut down into tears yelling "I don't wanna kiss the moose"
Nearly 20 years later I am still haunted by the memory as my family constantly reminds me of my most infamous whine.
I don't wanna kiss the moose.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays
I was running a rolled up napkin back and forth through a candle flame. The napkin caught fire, so I threw it into a plastic Solo cup which, of course, proceeded to catch fire as well. My aunt grabbed the cup and tossed it into the sink.
The charred remains of the cup with a burned napkin inside were put on an ornament hanger and is hung on our family Christmas tree every year. The shame that keeps on giving.
Cañada
A lot of klutzy stuff.
Walked into door frames. Got a tooth knocked out by a wiffle ball bat. Took a different wiffle ball directly to the nose. Slid to home plate in a backyard game of kickball, ate the edge of the table. Broke my arm with a parked car. Tried to reach under a table to grab a fork, slipped underneath, then stood up under it. Got stuck 6ft off the ground the first time I climbed a tree. Broke a toe playing soccer barefoot.
A silly thing I asked. Mum explained the technical science reason for how someone gets pregnant when I was nearly 3. She explained women have eggs, that turn into babies. My first question was, "where's your nest?" Followed up by "you said you have eggs. So where is your nest??"
One of my brother tricked me into believing that Canada was pronounced Kuh-nay-dee-uh. I believed it until I was 14.
-Jaws Theme-
GiphyI watched Jaws a lot. I was 4 or 5 and my dad was called in for a shift at the police department he worked at as a part time job. It was early evening and my mom said, "What do you want to do tonight, Fightinscot?". My reply, "Wanna get drunk and fool around?".
Runner up, I was two and a half and my mom was potty training me one afternoon. I guess she kept telling me to go potty and we would go to grandma and grandpa's house afterwards. After a few minutes of being told to use the bathroom, I looked her in the eyes and said, "Piss off, bitch.". My mom swears I heard my dad say it, dad swears I heard it from my mom.
Never Forget What Never Was
I had a nightmare as a kid that my family burnt in a fire, and I cried enough tears to finally put the fire out, and then had to mop the tears up because it flooded the house. This was 100% not real btw. My mum dropped me off for school and I was still shaken up by the nightmare so I started crying. The teacher asked what was wrong and I said my family burnt to death. Immediately all the teachers were concerned, asking me was I okay. As the day went on, I forgot about my nightmare and was a happy kid again. The teachers were like wtf. Why is this child so happy? When my mum came to pick me up from school they asked her was she okay, and then my mum explained the whole situation. This happened when I was like 6/7.
I'm 20 now and people still talk about the time they died in a fire.
I Gave You What You Asked For
I was probably 10-12 at the time, but I used to go to local hockey games with my aunt.
One night, I was sent to the food stand to get hot dogs. She wanted "just a little bit of mustard", so I put exactly one dot of mustard on her hot dog. She thought it was absolutely hilarious.
It's been 30 years and I am reminded of it every time I visit family.
Ah To Be An Actor At Three
I was probably about 3, very dramatic, and The Little Rascals had become one of my favorite movies. At the grocery store with my mom and she wouldn't let me have something I asked for, so in my best Darla voice I loudly asked "ARE YOU ASHAMED OF ME??" and watched my mom turn bright red as everyone in the aisle turned around.
Also when I was about 6, I had seen a commercial for a movie (can't remember what it was) where the MIL(?) was crazy obsessed with cats and meeting her SIL(?) for the first time. So when my uncle introduced me to his now wife, I repeated after the lady on tv and said "You can call me pussy now." Everyone laughed, I laughed, but the joke was lost on me until years later.
I guess I watched too much tv as a kid lol
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor TheArchitect_7 asked:
"What’s a thing dumb people say that makes them think they sound smart?"
Some people just want reactions more than a back-and-forth interaction.
Attention-Seeker
"'You wouldn't understand.' Yeah, that's why I asked you for an explanation."
– Appropriate_Donkey18
Fancy Words
"I sometimes use big words that I don't really understand to make myself sound more ambidextrous."
– Alone_Ad1278
Looking At The Score
"The more someone emphasizes their IQ, the less smart I think they actually are."
– rmshilpi
Hackneyed Sayings
"Everything happens for a reason, nothing is actually 'free' as someone has to pay for it, both parties are the same, you may have book smarts, but I have street smarts, common sense isn't so common anymore, but that's how we've always done it!"
"An addition to the previous: 'We will send 40 billion to Ukraine, but we won't spend 40 billion to secure our schools!'"
– humorous_anecdote
Things can get wacky when dealing with someone who is cantankerous.
Futile Argument
"Something along the lines of 'You can’t prove it didn’t happen.'"
"A guy at work tried to pull this one on me. He believed one of those Animal Planet mockumentaries about a giant killer shark was real. When I told him it was all fiction and that there was no real proof of this kind of stuff, he tried to argue back about while he couldn’t prove it, I couldn’t disprove it either."
"There’s a saying about getting into an argument with a stupid person. This was my real world experience with it."
– WongoKnight
Status
"Do you know who I am?"
– FoxFourTwo
The Equivalent Of Winning
"Thinking that getting a reaction out of someone is the same thing as winning an argument."
– bcopes158
Please Define
"My friend once used the phrase 'By its very definition' while we were arguing about something...so I asked him what the definition actually was, while he fumbled with that a bit I told him to stop using weasel words."
– groovyinutah
No Kidding
"'it all depends on how you look at it.' yeah thats f'king obvious."
– psychpopnprogncore
We all love a good malaprop.
Or Intents
"For all intensive purposes"
– p38-lightning
It's Moot, Really
“Mute point”
"Cracks me up every time."
– Ed_The_Bloody
Sometimes, editing yourself a bit in discourse with those who are intellectually out of your league is better than trying to keep up with them in an attempt to win their favor by articulating something you know nothing about.
I would explain better, but you wouldn't understand.
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Curious to hear about some of the more ominous events experienced by strangers online, Redditor IM_Not_A_Robot_10110 asked:
"What have you witnessed that will haunt you forever?"
What happens inside hospitals are full of trauma and heartache, even medical professionals have a hard time processing what they encounter.
The Pediatric Patient
"X-ray tech here, but I was a student at the time. Called to ER for trauma code. Only know it's a pediatric patient. The terror as I walk around the corner and see it's a little boy, same size as my son. We go to take an x-ray and he's making this high pitched shrill wheezing noise. They couldn't intubate enroute so we were doing a chest/neck to see what was going on. His neck was full of air."
"Come to find out the story later, he had tripped and fallen in school and his neck went square on a desk and he had broken his trachea. Believe he was stabilized & flown out. Never found out what happened after."
– ZephyrGrace
Calling Time Of Death
"ER nurse. This won’t haunt me in a bad way, but it’ll stick with me for sure. We were coding a middle aged lady we knew was going to die. We were pulling out the last ditch stuff hoping we’d get lucky, but everyone knew which way it was going."
"Family was there and in the room. When it was clear we had run through all the Hail Marys and it was time to call it, the husband spoke up for the first time. He had apparently been an EMT for a long time so he knew what he was looking at. He said he was going to do the final round of compressions."
"It was very respectfully done. He got up to do his 2 minutes, the nurses quietly started turning things off so there wouldn’t be continuous alarms, we called for a pulse check which the husband did, then we called time of death. He was thankful we let him do that and I was thankful to be a part of it."
– pause_and_consider
Missing Jaw
"Not me, but my roommates fiancé is a flight nurse. She told me this story around Easter."
"They showed up to a scene being told beforehand that there was a patient with a gun shot wound and bleeding bad but that’s all they were told. When they got there they found a woman who was sitting on the ambulance gurney completely lucid and looking around, completely missing her lower jaw. She said you could see down her throat and she looked like a zombie. Her lower jaw was hanging to the side by some tissue and when she looked about it swung around and dangled. She said the woman seemed relatively calm and when she tried to speak what was left of her tongue kinda moved but nothing but gurgles came out."
"It was not a suicide, her boyfriend accidentally discharged his firearm while they were in his car."
"She survived."
– New_Hand_Luke
AIDS Epidemic Era
"Retired RN. I was working in the PACU and helped another nurse take her patient to his room. As I was adjusting something by his head, he grabbed my hand and started crying. He kept saying I don’t want to die. He was barely 20. In an isolation room. I looked into his eyes and tried to comfort him as he sobbed. This was in the early days of the 'AIDS epidemic.' He died within a week. To this day I still see his eyes and hear him sobbing."
– Tkay906363
Traffic accidents can be some of the most gruesome scenes no one should ever have to witness.
Accident Victim
"I live next to a busy street, inbetween lanes is a tram station. Teenager wanted to cross and got run over by a tram. Well, partly run over, he ended up with his body squeezed in between the tram and the tram station wall, with his legs stuck under the tram. It took about 1,5 hours until they had the equipment to lift the tram to get him out of there. They managed to reanimate what was left of him but he died in the hospital."
– ir_blues
Dangerous Road
"It was Easter Sunday about 5 in the afternoon. I was driving home from the lake with a friend of mine on a country highway that’s pretty well traveled. It’s one of those single lane coming and single lane going where the speed limit is 70 roads. The intersections are far and few between so instead of an overpass it’s just a blinking yellow caution light. In what literally felt like the blink of an eye the car driving in front of me is struck on the drivers side door."
"The impact pushes both cars off to the road and onto the shoulder. I hit my brakes and was able to stop to help render aid. My friend and I get out of the car and run over to help. The drivers side door is crushed inward, driver has been pushed into the passenger side. It was a younger lady, maybe mid 30s. The impact pushed her out of her seat and into her daughter."
"You ever see movies where a dead body jump scares someone and it just stares at the with wide eyes and mouth agape….. yeah. The girl is ok but very confused. She has no visible injuries and is freely looking around so we unbuckled her and pulled her out of the car so she didn’t realize her mom was laying on her. As we do it I look at the mom and I can see a little life is left in her, so I said the only thing we could say. 'She’s alright.'”
"You could see the light in her eyes fade and she passes away. More cars stop and help out. As more people are here to help I start to realize that someone has been screaming, at me. In the back seat is her son. He must have been knocked unconscious and he’s now yelling, not out in pain but asking 'Is mom okay, is she okay?' I had no words for him, he was maybe 6. His sister was about 9. Thankfully about 4 of the cars that stopped were off duty first responders so they quickly took over for me. This was about 20 years ago, I was 17 at the time and I just saw a mom die in front of her 2 kids. I’m crying now thinking back on it and to this day I still refuse to ever take that road again."
"They finally build an actual stop light a couple years back. The area isn’t more crowded so I can only imagine what the motivation to improve that intersection was."
– Boothulu
Pedestrians
"I was designated driver at my friend's 30th birthday party. Had just dropped off my last friend and I was heading home. Little blue car zipped by me going maybe 10 over. Maybe a block ahead of me I see the speeding car hit two 20 yr olds who were running across the street. They were running to McDonald's across from the nightclub they were partying at and didn't wait for a red light. I'll never forget the girls blond hair in the bright headlights as she got hit. One thing that isn't ever correct in tv shows when people get hit by cars is how much damage it does to a human body. I distinctly remember his legs laying like 2m from his body. Both died right when paramedics got there."
– SuchAGeoNerd
PTSD
"Getting hit by a car really is ugly. My girlfriend accidentally stepped on the street while we were having a minor disagreement and bam she was gone in a moment. I have ptsd, I can still see all the blood, her trying to breathe and the moment she gave up."
– More-Masterpiece-561
You never know when a friend or acquaintance is going through an extremely rough time–even though they present themselves differently in public.
All we could ever be as fellow humans is to always be compassionate.
Prolonged Guilt
"I found my roommates body in our apartment when I was in college. He had suffocated himself with a helium tank and a plastic bag over his head. That fucked me up pretty good, especially because I knew he was struggling with his mental health. He was cutting himself too, he tried to hide it but I noticed. And I didn’t say a word, i didn’t offer a helping hand. I could have done something to help him, but I didn’t. That guilt is still there, 10 years down the line."
– Jon__Snuh
What The Taxi Driver Witnessed
"I was driving Taxi once and I picked up someone who said he thinks he just saw a dead body. Said someone had jumped from the top of the parking garage. There was already an ambulance and what not on the scene. I remember briefly thinking of my friend Willzo, but dismissed it, I didn’t even think he was depressed like that. I found it odd that I would even consider such a thing out of nowhere. But I dismissed the thought and went about my work night. Couple days later I got a call from a mutual friend. 'Hey buddy, did you hear about Will? He jumped off the parking garage a few days ago.'”
– Everywhere-Danger
These Redditors' stories are a lot to take in.
However, they are good reminders about the brevity of life and how we should always strive towards being the best versions of ourselves while we're still alive.
Because you never know when you or someone close to you will have their last breath.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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