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People Share The Story They Can Barely Ever Tell Because Nobody Believes It's True.

We've all got those stories that require a pre-emptive "Okay, I know this doesn't sound true, but believe me it is." Well, these people take those kinds of stories to a whole new level. Thanks to our awesome contributors!

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1. I hardly ever tell this story unless someone that knows me very well is with me to confirm it. Here it is anyway:

It was Thanksgiving night in 2006, and I had driven home from our family dinner early so I could hang out with friends. For one reason or another I had decided that I was going to destroy my liver and any other organs standing in the way of me and about a liter of whiskey. I got to my friend's apartment and started drinking Weller's like there was no tomorrow. Another friend of mine showed up with a liter of Seagram's 7 and I started to dip my toes into it as well. Within an hour I had consumed more alcohol than I usually do today in an entire night of hitting it hard.

It is at this point that I decide to drive myself home, which was only around 7 or 8 blocks because I grew up in a tiny town. I walk down to my car and my friend walks with me. He fights with me for awhile about driving but after repeating how short the distance was to him a million times, he buckled and let me drive. I started my rotary engine, I drove a beat up Rx-7, and began the journey home. Two blocks from the start I hit a parked car. This is where my memory gets really fuzzy. I felt as if I had woken up from a dream, there was some drunk bastard on my hood screaming at me to get out of my car. At this moment in time, I was so messed up that I thought I had hit an actual person. I started apologizing frantically and asked the guy what happened. He was a drunk redneck that just wanted insurance money and wouldn't talk to me other than to scream at me to stay put and wait for cops. Had I known I didn't hurt anyone I would've just ran right there and dealt with that bullcrap in the morning.

The cops show up and I know the arresting officer decently from my older brothers always getting into trouble. I walk right up to him and tell him that I'm too drunk to walk, much less drive. He makes me take a field sobriety test anyway and I quickly fail. He then takes me back to the station. I do not remember the drive there nor do I remember being processed. From here on I am in and out but I'll use info others have told me that were there. I know I blew a .234 on the breathalizer because it was on my paperwork. After being processed, some stranger takes me into a room and starts asking me questions and then typing my answers into a computer. I still don't know what that was all about. After some time passes he stands up and tells me to wait where I am and that he will be right back. I am unaware at this point that my mother has already been contacted and is on her way to pick me up from the jail. All I know is that the I am alone in a jail and my booze-brain thinks that if I somehow make it out of there that I will be in the clear.

So the man had stood up and left me on my own. I noticed that when he left the room he went to the right. I waited a few seconds and quietly left the room and went left. At the end of the hallway there was an exit sign and a door. I bolted. I remember getting out the door, running through the gravel parking lot in the back and falling a time or two while trying to make quick turns around the jail. This jail by the way was on the outskirts of town and, as a crow flies, about a mile and a half from my parents' house.

The sprint home is almost completely black. I do remember laying down in grass while a cop car spotlighted the area around me, and then my next memory is being back at the police station, being told how lucky I was that the arresting officer decided not to charge me with a felony for evading the police.

My mom's point of view: Gets a call to pick up her hammered son after having Thanksgiving dinner, remember this was only about 2 hours after I had left, and I left early. When she arrives, the officer tells my mom that I, uhhh, wasn't there anymore. So she loads up my older brothers and starts searching as well. They call me several times, I remember none of this, and they said I answered once and said that I'd be okay and I kept calling my brother "doggy" which I never do. After giving up on the search for a while and leaving it to the cops, they return home. Shortly after, my drunk self stumbles in and they throw me in the car and rush me back to the jail to plead for mercy. The next day I wake up in my underwear on the couch, home alone, with a tapping on the door. It's a police officer looking for my brother because he was trying to fight the drunk redneck that turned me in.

NOTE: Drunk driving is extremely dangerous and I do not do it anymore. I paid a hefty price and was punished for my actions in more than one way. I deserved my punishments and I learned my lesson. I am so lucky that no one was hurt during this whole ordeal.

stickipedia

2. Im a living witness to something known as the McMasterVille Explosion. CIL, the paint company, made explosives. Their explosives factory, which was a giant factory on the same grounds as the paint making factory.

One night the whole thing blew up. I was looking right at it when it went. Not just the explosives but (continued)


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Not just explosives but thousands of gallons of flammable liquids from other parts of the factory all went up at once. It was estimated to have the power of a one kiloton explosion.

I lived on the side of a mountain called Mt St Hilaire a little over a mile away looking down at the factory site. When you see an explosion like that from a distance the land ripples like water, like when you drop a stone in water. I was riding a bike, the ground shook me first then the air blast knocked me on my butt.

The factory was deliberately sunk into the ground and surrounded by a high trench wall in case it ever blew up so the nearby town of Beloil wouldnt get leveled. So the explosive force got punched into the gound and the factory was blown straight up in the air. Tons of wreckage rained down for miles, no one I know of was hit by anything but many small fires were started all over the place. My next door neighbor found a train wheel in his back yard and it was red hot when he found it.

Patches67

3. That my father was arrested for stealing 100K worth of Hershey Kisses and during his time in jail I found out that he was not my biological father. My biological father owned a chain of restaurants that I frequented as a kid and teenager.

I found this all out a few weeks after my 18th birthday.

kekembas17

4. I was 6 years old, and my parents took my family down to Disneyworld. Yay! On the flight down, the pilot made an announcement that if you looked out the window, you could see the space shuttle launching! It was kind of far away, but I could definitely see it in a plume of smoke. Very cool.

We land in Orlando, and everyone is dead silent, glued to the TVs. It was the Challenger, and it exploded on launch. I saw the Challenger explode.

ddrager

5. I faked playing a xylophone for 2 years so I could go to China once. Here's what happened:

I played trombone for 8 years through middle and high school, and I knew a few people at my college before I went there. They convinced me to join marching band, but were always complaining that the band director wrote impossible drills (10 counts to move 30 yards in some instances, run through the bass drums, that sort of crap). I, being the genius that I was, figured "Well, I played keyboard in a ska band for a couple years; how hard could xylphone be?" Xylophones don't march, after all. Answer: Xylophone is pretty hard, and I'd never played one in my life before the first day of band camp, which is when the auditions were. The guy doing the auditions was the percussion instructor for the college of music and after my audition he told me to "Put the mallets down, step back, and never play a xylophone again." Which, to be fair, I did butcher "Hot Cross Buns". Due to some sort of administrative mess up, they never got around to actually kicking me out that year, and I hung around and pretended to play the xylophone.

Now, every two years, my college's marching band takes a big trip somewhere overseas to perform and yadda yadda yadda, and I had entered on an off year. The second year, I show up and do the same thing, except the percussion instructor had been fired (I never really dealt with him beyond offending him with my ability to mess up xylophone music, but to my understanding he was a general douche and the music department had been wanting to chuck him out for years, so they made a big stink about him doing some paperwork incorrectly or something). So, it was left to our section leaders to audition the section, and being good friends with the section leader, he just said "Jenkins, hit something every now and again, but not very hard, and make it look like you're playing." So that's what I did. Found the softest mallets in the place, barely tapped the keys, wham, bam, goin to China. Everything would have worked out peachy.

Except our band director also (Continued)


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Except our band director also didn't pay any attention to the orchestra pit, so when he was doling out the parts for the music we were gonna play in China, he assigned me to concert bells. Like, that little tiny 50 pound xylophone that has a sound that would cut through an aerial bombardment. Not only that, I had a solo at the beginning of "The Moon Represents My Heart," which as it was explained to me is basically "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for Chinese people. Everybody knows the song, it's a cultural treasure, and not something you wanna mess up at national landmarks cause folks will notice.

So I busted my butt actually learning how to play that bit over the span of a couple months, and managed to avoid pissing off people in Shanghai and Beijing. (Not all the people, though. A group of Chinese youths caught me urinating into a bush in Shanghai's club district, and I had to duck into a place called "Club Highway 3" with my dick still hanging out to get away from them.) Got to play a set of concert bells on the Great Wall and see a whole bunch of stuff in China, though.

_Old_Man_Jenkins_

6. When I was 19, some friends and I were visiting New York City. After picking them up from the airport, we decided it would be fun to drive down Broadway at night and see it all lit up. It was fun, we got some good pictures from the car, and around 8:30, we decided to drive home.

Going northbound on the West Henry Hudson, we were talking and listening to some Journey, when someone hopped the highway divider and ran right out in front of my car, stopped, and looked right at us. There was no time to stop, no time to swerve, and at 50 miles per hour he came crashing straight through the front windshield, hitting my best friend directly in the face. Immediately, I pulled over and called the police, then went to look to see if there was any slim chance the man might still be alive. I saw his leg, severed roughly four to six inches above the knee, on the road near where my car had stopped.

My friend in the backseat was crying her eyes out, and my buddy was amped on adrenaline and shock in the front seat waiting for the police to arrive and remove him from the car. Walking further back, I saw a bunch of people who had stopped to help crowded around the man, I saw his head caved in and a dark pool underneath him before a kind old gentleman turned me away, saying "You don't need to see this". In almost no time at all, the fire department was there helping my friend (who had a broken nose and shards of glass embedded in his eyes and face) out of the car. When the ambulance arrived, they tried to put him in with the man I had hit, which made him freak out and refuse, and wait for another ambulance.

The cops on the scene took down my story and ran a breathalyzer on me, but I hadn't been drinking (at this time in my life, I didn't drink), then put my friend from the backseat and I in the back of a car to try to calm us down while they waited for the investigators to arrive. I had called my mom, who lived outside the city, to tell her I had been in an accident and that she should come for support.

After about an hour, the investigators arrived, took time marking off the scene, and interviewed us again about what had happened (the police were very nice, and all of us were in shock). After interviewing me, I asked the investigator where I could go to the bathroom. He nodded to the trees on the side of the highway, and said to have at it. So I stood on the dimly lit bloody highway near the trees, and under the watchful eye of the 50 block traffic jam I had created, let forth a piss I had been holding in for hours.

Afterwards, they took us back to the local precinct to finish paperwork and meet up with my mom and sisters who were waiting there (after having left my stepbrother with my friend who had been taken to the hospital. They had gotten lost and caught in the same traffic I caused, which is why they didn't meet us at the scene). With the paperwork done, my mom asked what had happened to the man. The officer looked at my little sisters and then asked my mom and I to step outside. "He was DOA. He had been released from prison that morning". I was shocked when he extended his hand to me and thanked me for helping to "clean up the city".

After going to the hospital to get my friend and stepbrother, we went home for the evening. The next day, when we picked up my car from the auto shop, I saw in the meager sunlight the after-image of what had transpired: blood and brain matter all over the front of my car, an imploded front windshield, and, entering the car to take it to a place to get the glass repaired, a large chunk of bloody skull in the passenger's seat next to me, hidden under some napkins.

My friend who had been in the passenger's seat wandered over, and I told him not to look inside, but he wouldn't listen and did anyway. I think that is when the reality of what had happened sunk in for him, because his eyes grew large and he turned around silently to go sit in my mom's car. The entire experience was completely surreal, especially during the drive to get the windshield repaired, when alone, I drove the car to the shop, the wind whistling through the broken glass.

DoctorWhom717

7. I opened my wallet to show some friends I had no money, and a moth flew out.

Plethorian

8. I actually don't tell anyone in real life, but now that this is anonymous... I won millions of dollars in the lottery about 15 years ago & kept it secret. I didn't change my lifestyle much except to (Continued)


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I didn't change my lifestyle much except to buy a modest house and new (used) car. I waited a few years to quit my job. I did not tell a single soul that that I'd won, including family. The only people who know are my accountant & lawyer. A few people noticed I had a little more money than usual, but I told them I inherited a small nest egg.

SecretMillions

9. When I was about 5 years old I drove from Mass to Virginia with my family. Upon arrival, my legs just wouldn't work. Eventually my parents took me to the hospital. I went through various testing before being diagnosed with a flesh-eating bacteria. They wanted to amputate. Not sure if the procedure was ever scheduled, but my legs healed magically over night. Turns out my blood sample got contaminated. What really happened was I had sat on my legs the whole car ride there. 15 years later and I've retained all appendages thus far.

guyina3000dollarsuit

10. My brother and I made a fake earthquake video and convinced several tv stations of its authenticity.

I had just gotten home from work and was wasting time on the computer. I felt a rumble like a dump truck driving nearby, but it continued for a while and became even more intense. Nothing crazy, I don't live in an area of the world with a lot of seismic activity, but it was strong for the area. Maybe a 6.2. Of course my brother runs out of his room to ask me if I had felt it, and in passing said it was too bad he didn't catch it on video.

My brother at this point was obsessed with YouTube videos. He had his own channel with his small amount of followers, and was always recording himself or anything else. Then I came up with the brilliant idea of faking it. We started recording one of his typical videos, I shook the camera slightly (nothing crazy, just enough to be convincing). He then said something like "what's that?!", runs to grab the camera, and runs outside. All while the camera shake of simply walking was more than enough. We added some earthquake sound-effects we found online, posted it on YouTube, and then it exploded.

We would refresh the page, and almost instantly it maxed out at about 330 views. Then the phone started ringing. It was the weather network. It was CTV. It was tv stations in the city and out. It was the CBC! They were all asking for permission to use the video, to which we very enthusiastically agreed.

Then the interviews started.

My brother chickened out doing an over-the-phone interview with the weather network, so I impersonated him over the phone. They actually made a comment about re-calculating the length of the earthquake based on our video, as what we had seemed to be a few seconds longer than what they had thought had actually happened.

CTV simply ran the video without an interview.

CBC requested an in-person interview that night, so with convincing (and lots of it) my brother and I bused it down to the CBC building downtown, and my brother did an interview with "Connect with Mark Kelly". It was a quick (and awkward) interview, but was worth it. We had officially trolled one of the biggest news broadcasters in the country.

Oh, and the video got about a third of a million views, and very briefly appeared first on the "Most Viewed" page. This was a few years back though, so I don't know if that many views would get to #1 any more.

To answer a few questions:

How did they get our number? No idea. Our last name was on Nathan's account (nathan is my brother, the person you see in the video) so no doubt they tracked us down with that.

Why was he so awkward? He was reluctant to do the interview in the first place. I BEGGED him to do it, since when would we ever get the chance again?! When CBC called, Nathan refused to take the call, so I was the one to do the pre-interview. They asked all the same questions again in person, but Nathan didn't know what to expect.

Where is the original video? It got about 300,000 views (Nathan made a little over $100 from ads) and then he deleted his whole account. I was furious. It was internet history! (for us at least). As others will point out below, there are other videos that used his footage, if you're desperate to watch it.

Are we still in Ottawa? Yeppers.

Something else that was pretty cool that I forgot to mention. Nathan was recognized in public a few times after that. Nothing crazy, but still pretty fun at the time.

skip-itsfaster

11. Around the age of 12 I was diagnosed with severe OCD. I struggled with it so much that (Continued)


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I struggled with it so much thatI had psychiatrists say they could do no more for me, a therapist that made house calls and I've even participated in studies. (Evaluated on the other side of a one way mirror kinda stuff.) Perhaps in desperation, my parents eventually sent me to a psychiatric hospital half way across the country which specialized in the treatment of OCD. I was there for three months until my insurance ran out.

Now I'm 22 years old and I've overcome it so much that nobody (besides family) even realizes anything is/was ever wrong with me. With all these people running around saying "I'm soooo OCD! I eat my M&M's one color at a time!", and them not knowing me back then, I don't even bother divulging a part of my life they would be unable to comprehend the severity of.

dead_pan

12. My story is a bit spooky, hopefully someone will find it a good read.

My mum and I moved into a completely normal/average house when I was about 15. Everything was fine, we loved it. One day I was home "sick" from school and I was messing around on the computer when I heard our garage door open. I freaked out and went down the hall to get my mobile phone and saw the hallway door that connects to the garage opening, I panicked and yelled "get out!!!" and two young boys slammed the door and ran off. I stared crying and called my mum (I don't know why I didn't call the police first) who told me to go next door to my neighbours and she was going to come home from work. When she got home she was speaking to my neighbour for a bit. She (the neighbour) ended up telling us that she thought it was probably the young boy that lived in the house before us... Apparently he sometimes goes around to everyone's houses and "breaks in" and eats their food and watches TV and stuff... And for what ever reason, they were all OK with that. Apparently he came from some sort of broken home and they all felt sorry for him so they didn't call the police. Mum and I were completely unsettled by that and put new locks on all the doors that week. We didn't care if the other neighors were OK with that... We weren't.

A few months pass and nothing ever happens again, we figure he knows we're not cool with his weirdness and doesn't try to break in again. A week or so later I'm in bed asleep and I wake up in the middle of night for no reason at all. I'm not hot or cold, I don't need to pee, I didn't have a nightmare... I just woke up. I had this incredibly uneasy and weird feeling wash over me. I felt like something or someone was watching me and I got completely freaked out. I went into my mum's room and slept in her bed that night. It kept happening a few nights and I thought I was just having nightmares or was getting scared of the dark for some reason. I ended up sleeping in my mums bed for about a week because I was so legit scared of the dark now. I finally worked up the courage to sleep in my own bed one night, but I could barely sleep. I felt totally uneasy and nervous/scared. I got to sleep for a bit but then I woke up again. I looked outside my window and I could SWEAR I saw face/figure of someone standing there. Obviously, I nope'd out and ran back to my mum.

One of the nights I was back in her bed, we were all asleep and feeling fine when I wake up to my dog on the end of the bed, growling. Now, our dog is an old golden retriever and has never growled or barked at ANYTHING. She is a huge wuss and completely placid, she has no problem with strangers, even if someone knocks on the door and comes in, she couldn't care less. So I wake up, all dazed, confused and half asleep. I hear the dog growling and I'm asking her "what's wrong...?". I look up from the bed and I kid you not - there is a (Continued)


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there is a man standing in the door way... With a knife. I screamed like a banshee and the dog started barking at this point. Mum woke up and saw the man too... He went running down the hallway and out the back door. I'm crying my eyes out, the dog is barking her face off and mum is frantically trying to call the police. An HOUR later they finally get here and of course, the dude is gone. Morning comes and we go outside to see that the back gate has had its lock cut with bolt cutters, and the door leading into the house had been smashed in. The cops come in and dust for prints and leave stuff everywhere but at the end of the day, they can't and don't do anything.

We moved out that same day and went to live with my grandma and grampa until we found a new house. Pretty much no one in the family believed us, or thought we were just making it up for attention. (my family are jerks) A few weeks later we get a call from the police and we were shocked to hear that they managed to match the prints to some teenager who just got arrested for breaking into another house.

It's the same guy that was breaking into all the houses in the neighbourhood and used to live in the house we were in. So mum's talking to the cops and some of the neighbours when suddenly someone tells us, completely casually, "Oh yeah, that's the Milat kid." Wait... Did they just say, MILAT? Yeahhhh... Pretty much any Australian will know this last name... Ivan Milat. The serial killer. His NEPHEW was breaking into people's homes... And our home. While we were sleeping. WITH A KNIFE. And people were OK with that.

...So anyway, we move into a new house and forget all about it... Until about a year ago.

Milat nephew gets 43-year jail sentence - NEWS

He and his friend murdered another teenager in the same place his uncle dumped all those bodies. ...WTF!?

So... The guy that broke into our house, watched me while I was asleep and stood in our bedroom doorway with a knife while we were sleeping actually MURDERED another teenager a few years later. Mum and I nearly fell over when we heard about it. No one really believes us... Which pisses me off. But it really happened.

Sometimes when I think back on what could've happened if I slept in my own bed that night, or if the dog didn't bark, or if we never woke up... It really freaks me out. It's also left me with a huge fear of the dark. I get really uneasy if I have to go outside at night by myself or if I wake up in the middle of the night.

bumblebec

Infamous Internet Rumors That Ended Up Being True

Reddit user strakerak asked: 'What started out as an internet rumor that ended up being infamously true?'

boy playing at laptop inside room
Photo by Ludovic Toinel on Unsplash

In 2017, I returned to my office after my lunch break to hear my supervisors discussing Tom Petty. This seemed like a random topic to me until one of my supervisors told me Tom Petty had passed away. He was a huge fan of Petty and spent the next hour or so combing through the internet to get more information.

He came back into the room my other supervisor and I were working in and announced that Tom Petty wasn't dead after all. News outlets had jumped the gun to announce his death, but he was actually still alive.

The next day, I came in to find out that Tom Petty was dead; the news may have been premature, but true.

This is a classic example of the rumor being started on the internet. Sometimes, like with the news of Tom Petty's death, the rumor can run wild and appear everywhere. Other times, the rumor can be seen by just a few people and dismissed. However, a lot of times, these rumors turn out to be true.

Redditors know a lot of internet rumors that turned out to be true, and are eager to share.

It all started when Redditor strakerak asked:

"What started out as an internet rumor that ended up being infamously true?"

The King Of Pop

"Michael Jackson writing the music for Sonic 3."

"He actually did, but was never credited on the game because it would breach his contract with his record label."

– -WigglyLine-

"He did the same when he appeared on The Simpsons. He appeared under a pseudonym, and the Producers said it was an impersonator."

"Only years later they confirmed it really was Michael."

"His singing voice was actually done by an impersonator, though."

– given2fly_

The Truth Comes Out

"In 1998, US Men’s National Team captain John Harkes was shockingly cut from the team right before the World Cup. The coach claimed it was because Harkes wouldn’t fit into his new preferred formation, but rumors flew on the early internet that it was actually because he had slept with his teammate Eric Wynalda’s wife. The rumor was so well-known in soccer circles that Harkes expressly denied it in his autobiography the next year."

"Fast forward 12 years to 2010 and Wynalda admits it’s true. The coach then came out and admitted it was why he dropped Harkes, but that he’d planned to keep the secret as long as Wynalda did."

– guyfromsoccer

Video Evidence

"The Tim Burton Hansel and Gretel that aired once on halloween in the 80's."

"I heard for years that it was fake but I knew it was real because my dad recorded everything in the 80s and he recorded that. We let a good friend of ours borrow it and switch it over from VHS to DVD and soon after that it made its way on to the internet , and there it is now. I know it's our copy because the tracking in the beginning is screwed up. Still have the VHS."

– Frozenthickness

"There was a similar story with a Nickelodeon movie called Cry Baby Lane. It was supposed to be so scary that Nickelodeon got complaints and denied its existence for years. Someone uploaded a taped copy to youtube about a decade ago."

– PattiAllen

The Movie Business

"That North Korea hacked Sony Pictures because of The Interview movie."

"I worked in the movie business at the time and the account managers at Sony all basically needed to get new identities as all of their personal information got leaked online."

OldMastodon5363

"My partner worked on that movie and the production bought all the crew 1 year of an identity theft tracking service."

CMV_Viremia

Keep Away From The Ears Of Kids

"Some banned episodes or scenes of cartoons."

"For example, I remember there was a Dexter’s Lab cartoon where he clones evil versions of DeDe and himself and they swear like every other word (censored of course), and people debated whether it even existed cause they only aired it like once. Now it’s pretty accessible online."

– Spledidlife

Yes, It's True

"Echelon, a massive electronic espionage system by the US and allies to intercept all electronic messages, especially emails."

"In the mid-nineties it was a topic on conspiracy BBS boards. A lot of people in my bubble at the time (mainly uni students in Europe) were including fake threats to the US in the their email signatures as a way to "protest" and "fill the system with false alarms" (obviously useless)."

"Then, in 1999-2000 came out to be true and a lot of security service agencies from UK and other US allies started to admit they were part of the espionage network."

– latflickr

How The Mighty Fell

"John Edward’s love child."

– ACam574

"A reminder that he was cheating on his wife while she was hospitalized for cancer treatment."

– Fanclock314

Ugh...

"Carrie Fisher's heart attack. Some a**hole who was on the same flight was livetweeting the whole medical emergency and justified it by insisting she was just making sure the family was informed."

– everylastlight

It Actually Happened

"Every year around her birthday there was a rumor that Betty White died. When I heard she died, I scoffed, saying that dumb rumor is back.... then saw it on the news. I was in shock."

– Known-Committee8679

"The fact that Betty died literally right before she turned 100 is such a Betty White way to go out."

– Paganigsegg

Big Actor, Small Roles

"I distinctly remember some rumors about the reason why Bruce Willis was taking so many roles in sh*tty movies before it was announced he has dementia."

– KampferMann

"RedLetterMedia did a deep dive on his recent movie activity to try and work out why exactly he was taking part in basically scam-movies. They noticed he had an earpiece in one of the scenes and joked that the director was feeding him lines. I remember they even disclaimed over the rumours at the time, and possible made a follow-up vid when it was revealed to the public."

– CardinalCreepia

What To Do Next?

"That the writer of LOST were making it up as they went."

"Turned out to be absolutely true."

– homarjr

That last one was kind of obvious!

Do you have any to add? Let us know in the comment below.

Person holding large stack of books
Photo by Jay Lamm on Unsplash

Whether you're naturally interested in fun facts and trivia or not, it's always nice to know a few that you can pull out of your pocket at a moment's notice as a nice conversation starter.

But there are some fun facts out there that are so weird, people become more preoccupied with how the teller found out that information rather than the information itself.

Redditor Dry_Bus_935 asked:

"What is your 'don't ask me how I know' random fact?"

Nuclear Fail Safe

"You have quite a lot of time, certainly more than ten seconds, to turn back on the main pumps of a nuclear reactor once you have accidentally turned them off."

- egorf

"I'm not surprised. The amount of fail safes, redundancies, and emergency scenario planning for nuclear power plants is insane."

"I toured a nuclear plant and wrote my high school senior thesis on the plans put in place to ensure the Fukushima disaster would not happen at that plant."

"I'm sure the secondary pumps are plenty capable of handling the reactor until the main pumps are repaired or just turned back on."

- Borderlandsman

Happy Cat

"If your cat chews on fresh eucalyptus, they might start hallucinating and fall over repeatedly, leading to a $400 emergency vet bill just to be told she’s just kinda high."

- oddidealstronghold

"And, that's part of why koalas love it. Little stoners."

- littlebluefoxy

Archaeology: Do Not Lick

"Old human bones are very porous, so if you lick them, they’ll stick to your tongue."

- clanculcarius

Sharing is Caring

"A pigeon will only eat a Starburst if you chew it up a little bit first. Just to clarify: chew the Starburst, not the pigeon."

- OhTheHueManatee

"Instructions unclear. Pigeon unhappy."

- Wild-Lychee-3312

Intriguing Anatomy

"Everyone is here with the creepy crime stuff, and I'm just like, 'A soft fur rat has 22 nipples.'"

- horroscoblue

"Okay, so either they have really small nipples, their nipples overlap, or they have nipples in places where there shouldn't be nipples."

"(I've never written the word 'nipples' so many times in a singular sentence before.)"

- GdeGraaf

'Don't Ask Me,' Indeed!

"Turmeric can be used as clothes dye. It is capable of permanently dyeing cotton cloth even after it has passed through the digestive tract of an adult male."

- SlefeMcDichael

"You s**t your pants, didn't you?"

- PMmecrossstitch

"I'd prefer not to answer that question."

- SlefeMcDichael

High-Risk Survival Skills

"If you ever trying to survive in the Arctic, don’t eat polar bear liver. It is so high in vitamin A, it will kill you."

- WrongWayCorrigan-361

"It's also surrounded by a lethal amount of angry polar bear."

- horanc2

Real-Life Spies

"TV shows and movies go out of their way to make military/intelligence officers look bada**."

"But real-life 'spies,' by design and training, are boring. They have regular houses and standard second-hand cars, they dress down, and they have vague, boring job titles (accounts receivable) as cover, and they do not draw attention to themselves. Most come from specialized academia."

- Ok_Worth_1093

Haunting Reality

"Your muscles can keep twitching for several hours after you die."

- JustDave62

"Also, beards can appear to grow. This is however not because the beard itself grows but because the skin shrinks."

- RRautamaa

"I worked at a morgue for over eight years. If you grasp the hand of a dead body to move the arm, the hand will grasp back, but that's just muscles and tendons reacting to the tension."

- goneferalinid

The Sneakiness of Drowning

"When a drowning victim is revived, get them to a hospital as soon as possible. Drowning is the leading cause of death of kids from the age of one to seven and is ruled as accidental drowning when it comes to secondary drowning or dry drowning."

"Basically, your lungs are full of water despite being revived. Your lungs will absorb the liquid, but not before your body acidifies from high levels of carbon dioxide. The only chance to survive is to have the lungs pumped with oxygen via CPAP machine and time."

"Also, drowning is extremely quiet. You don’t hear the victim go under. And if you see flailing, do not attempt to save the victim otherwise you’ll become another drowning victim. Throw them a lifeline and hope their amygdala realizes that a rope or something is floating near them and grabs on it."

- Dfiggsmeister

Not Everyone's Favorite Chocolate

"Hershey’s chocolate has the strong smell of vomit or feces to some people (me), and that’s because they use butyric acid as a preservative. Butyric acid is the compound that makes vomit smell so bad."

"Edit: Digging further into it, there are some claims that they may not be “adding” the butyric acid, but rather it is occurring from essentially spoiling the milk in their milk chocolate. Either way, the butyric acid and putrid smell remains a part of their product."

- hefewiseman1

"That explains the weird aftertaste I always get! I don’t smell it but their chocolate always has this super unpleasant sharp/acidic aftertaste that I find repulsive. I assume this is why!!"

- PomegranateNo975

Do Not Lick the Asbestos

"Asbestos tastes like chalk. And if you lick it, it has the texture of extremely gritty sandpaper. Which is actually the feeling of microscopic asbestos needles piercing your flesh!"

- TooYoungToBeThisOld1

Mapping Out the War

"Beginning in 1911 in anticipation of the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, two statesmen, one from England and one from France, began visiting locations in France that they believed would be the settings for a number of major battles that would occur during the great war."

"Long bike rides through these future battle zones in the countryside and weeks spent building a foundation for a French-Anglo codebook that would later prove important in helping win the war."

- fjordperfect123

Avoiding Lawsuits > Protecting Patients

"Doctors, or surgeons more specifically, that make too many mistakes during surgery, ie, leaving instruments in patients, frequently gets ‘quietly traded’ to other hospitals where they continue their path of destruction with the patients not being aware of their past record. Hospitals tend to keep quiet about the matter to avoid lawsuits."

- Kittytigris

Bonus Points: Do This While Having Lunch in Your Car

"If you overfill a fast food gravy cup and then put a lid on, it will create a pressurized gravy stream that sprays all over your face and uniform while your coworker looks on in horror."

- thechaosjester776

This subReddit thread was so a roller-coaster of random facts, we've surely all walked away learning something.

But the biggest takeaway might just be: Maybe don't lick so many things.

Shocked woman covering her mouth
vaitheeswaran Nataraj/Unsplash

When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.

But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.

Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.

It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.

Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:

"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"

These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.

Bleeding Out

"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."

"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."

– DongLaiCha

Tragic News

"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."

– accountnameredacted

Bottom Of The Barrel

"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."

– Crotch-Monster

A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.

Like Father, Like Son

"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."

– psycospaz

Busted

"Flashing blue lights."

– FiddleOfGold

"This sobered me up just thinking about it."

– redmaple_syrup

Losing Sight

"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."

– MissHibernia

Quitting The Bottle

"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."

– omgtater

These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.

Unplanned House Guests

"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."

– Oneinsevenbillion75

Serious Health Warning

"Elevated liver enzymes."

"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."

"So I opted for recovery, instead."

"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."

– Far_Meal8674

The Joyride

"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."

– foxfood9116

The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?

How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.

But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.

Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.

Woman holding multiple shopping bags
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.

Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.

These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.

From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.

Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:

"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"

"Tale As Old As Time..."

"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","

"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."

"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."

"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."

"Lol!"

"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom

"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."

"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."

"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."

"I think he was a germaphobe."

"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."

"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."

"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.

"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."

"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."

"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000

Money Burn GIF by nog Giphy

Who Wore It Better?

"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."

"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."

"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."

"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'

"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"

"No."- mertsey627

Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...

"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."

"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."

"It was very low key."

"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."

"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."

"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."

"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."

"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa

south park wedding GIF Giphy

See You In Court!

"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."

'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."

"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."

"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."

"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."

"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin

It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!

"I work in a public library."

"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."

"A popular book that just came out."

"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."

"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten

A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!

"My own."

"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"

"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."

"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"

"Unacceptable!"

"This shall not stand!"

"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."

"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."

"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."

"I got over it."- DeathGrover

homer simpson episode 23 GIF Giphy

Holy Matrimony!

"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."

"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."

"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."

"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."

"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."

"It's just a party."

"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree

When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...

"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore

In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...

"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."

"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."

"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."

"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."

"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."

"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."

"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."

"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."

"We don’t offer wrapping services."

"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."

'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae

Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso Giphy

Happiest Place On Earth!

"I used to work for Disney."

"That in itself should tell you everything."

"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."

"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."

"Suddenly got worse huh?"

"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."

"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."

"I'm not kidding."

"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."

"My wife worked booking."

"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."

"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."

"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."

"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."

"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."

"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong

Disney World GIF Giphy

The horror!

Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!

It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...

Said absolutely no one.