"What's an example of 'no good deed goes unpunished'?" –– This was today's burning question from Redditor anactualmeatball and if you feel frustration just reading that, then you've undoubtedly experienced this exact annoyance. You could mean well, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll walk away feeling appreciated or even glad that you helped out. Human beings are complicated, as you will soon recall.
"To be neighborly..."
To be neighborly, I once gave the couple next door some fresh veggies from my garden.
Thereafter, whenever I was at work, they'd raid the garden and take whatever they wanted without asking permission.
"I'm currently in a dispute..."
I wrote a semi-popular plugin for a software package that's common in my field and released it open source ("provided as is, no guarantee, warranty, or support is promised"). Occasionally I get an email asking a question which I am happy to answer if reasonable.
I'm currently in a dispute with a very angry professor in California who somehow thinks that I need to support him set up an entire bioinformatics pipeline because someone in his lab tried to download my free plugin.
"Guy lost his ID..."
Guy lost his ID for work, I brought him directly to security to get it sorted and they fired me on the spot for allowing a trespasser entrance.
"Basically anytime..."
Basically anytime I do something extra for a customer. I give them the benefit of the doubt and take care of something that's borderline? They are always the people that file a complaint about "omg, poor service!"
My office has a mantra that no good deed goes unpunished.
"When I was in the Air Force..."
When I was in the Air Force, I separated from my wife before a short tour overseas (England for 3 years). When I came back, we pursued a divorce (I was still getting paid for having a dependent since I was still technically "married" -- it was legit). When I went in to offer my finance group my divorce decree to get the dependent off my pay stub, the computer system was down, so I had to sign in on paper (they usually have a computer system to sign you in and direct you to the right person to help) and fill out all the paperwork by hand.
Six months later, I just happened to print up a pay stub to take in to Verizon to get a military discount on my bill and noticed that the dependent pay was still coming through. I verified every month prior to that as well (I wasn't checking each stub before then, just because I wasn't worried about how much was coming in -- so it's partially my fault).
When I went back to finance to tell them about it, they told me I was "stealing money form the government" and called my commander, who proceeded to demote me after I just tested for the next rank (I was a Tech Sergeant/E-6 at the time). They shredded my test results, took my stripe, and gave me an Article 15, non-judiciary punishment.
"God forbid..."
I was an events florist. This bride lost her grandmother days before her event and asked if I would make a small vase arrangement to place next to her photo on a memorial table.
Of course. I said It would be similar to her smaller centerpieces; great. She asked how much and I said I would cover it happily.
In the review she complained that the memorial piece "which was supposed to be very special" looked too much like the centerpieces.
God forbid your free flowers be cohesive with your event you cow.
"I let a friend of a friend..."
I let a friend of a friend stay with me while she "got herself together" for a little over twice as long as originally intended after going out of my way in the extreme she walked out one evening without a word said with my grandmother's silver place settings. Appreciation indeed.
"9 years later..."
A girl transferred into my school when we were 10, and bullied the sh!t out of everyone. She'd threaten the other kids, including me, not to tell on her, otherwise she'd make us regret it, and basically had a complete reign of terror over us. After about a year, I snapped and ended up being the one to tell the teacher everything she'd done and how she was treating us, and she got expelled. A lot of the other kids thanked me for turning her in, because I don't think it would have ended if someone hadn't, and we enjoyed the rest of our school years in peace.
9 years later, despite moving to a new town and getting an entirely new group of friends, she showed up out of nowhere and screwed my boyfriend.
"One day you're a TV performer..."
Cal Poly University had an incident in the 80s that made the school paper. There was a former Mouseketeer who worked in food services and one day a student asked for help because his purchase hung in the vending machine. She opened it and give it to him, but an alarm went off. She waited for security and explained things to them, but still lost her job.
One day you're a TV performer watched by millions, later in life you're fired because of a snack.
"I gave money..."
I gave money and made light conversation with a panhandler who frequented my campus. He ended up stalking me across three different address changes.
"Neighbors needed gas..."
Neighbors needed gas to get their car started, and asked if we had any to spare. We just so happened to have a full 5 gal can. We're taught as kids to 'take only what you need, replace what you use' well, not these people. Instead of only using a gallon or so (which would have been enough to get them to the nearest gas station) they use as much as they could get out of the can (would have used all of it if it weren't for the angle of the spout). Then they tried to return us the nearly empty gas can with a "here you go".
I looked at him and said 'well you've clearly never borrowed gas before'. Bet your @ss they'll never get another drop of fuel from me ever again.
"I was driving down an alley..."
I was driving down an alley and a car was coming up in the other direction. I pulled to the side to let them pass. They go through, I start to drive forward, and a piece of rebar sticking out of the ground ends up slashing my tire.
"Before long..."
When I was at lunch in junior high, there were a few times when, after I finished eating, I'd take one or two other people's trays up to along with my own and throw away their garbage for them. I was going up to dump my tray anyway, so I figured I could do some people a favor.
Before long, any time I left my seat to go to the bathroom, buy some desert, or whatever, I'd return to find 20 trays stacked in front of my seat with a mountain of garbage on top. I eventually got tired of being taken advantage of and told off everyone at the table. I only ever took up my own tray after that.
"I was in an exam room..."
I was in an exam room with a patient getting her history, taking her vitals, etc. She had recently lost everything and had found a mass on her body (can't remember where). She was a drug addict and did anything she could get her hands on, but she said she had been trying to get clean and had been so for a week.
I think I look like the type of person that people feel comfortable spilling their guts to (bc this happens a lot), because she vented to me about everything. I spent a huge amount of extra time sitting with her and letting her talk. She was sobbing. She said hadn't eaten in days and she was shaking, so I went into the break room and made her a bowl of oatmeal with protein powder and gave her some Gatorade and hot tea with honey. I really did everything I could to help this woman meet her basic needs, even if for an hour. Eventually I had to leave so the doctor could come in, so I gently wrapped things up and asked if I could give her a hug. She said she really needed it. I felt like I really made a difference.
"Right before the doctor..."
Right before the doctor came in to see her, she asked if she could step out for a cigarette (she had been waiting awhile). So she goes out to her car and around 30min later her car is still there but she didn't come back in, so we went to check on her. She was half conscious in the passenger seat of her car. She had tried to overdose and kill herself.
This haunts me every single day. I'm not really sure why I guess.
"Lady is outside a local restaurant..."
Lady is outside a local restaurant begging for a meal. Requests a specific meal, oddly enough. I bring her the meal, she b!tches about how I didn't get her soda and a dessert as well.
Thinking back now, I'm almost 100% sure she wasn't actually needy. Just a middle class lady who for some reason was looking for a handout. I was young and naive though and didn't know the difference.
"A kid stopped to help the trucker..."
There was a truck that went off the road and hit one of those woven steel cable barriers on the side of the road.
A kid stopped to help the trucker and the truck must have tensioned the cable to the point of near breaking. As the kid was helping, the cable snapped and hit the kid in the head hard enough to throw him across a four lane road. The kid ended up dying of his head injury.
"I used to be a secretary..."
I used to be a secretary for a business on the first floor of a multi-office building. As a result, I always had idiots from other businesses bumbling in asking for directions, to use the phone, parking validation, they have a meeting with a guy at another company in the building and don't remember the name of the business - it was a circus.
One day a lady on her cell phone came in asking to borrow a pen, which happened more often than you'd think. I obliged. Most times, the person will step just outside the door, take the message they needed to, dart back in to drop the pen on my desk, and leave.
This lady had the nerve to lean on my desk and hang out for the remainder of her phone call. I nearly shouted at her to leave but her call ended just in time.
"I offered to help a colleague..."
I offered to help a colleague with one aspect of their project and ended up having the entire project shirked onto me.
"And the list goes on."
Construction is my line of work. I own my own cabinet installation company and sub contract to cabinet makers.
So in my line of work I learned that if the supplier, who is in charge of the project we do, asks a favor then that « favor » ends up being part of the job for no extra money.
I'm asked to go back on an install to put an extra piece for just that one time? Well that extra piece is now part of my job at no extra cost.
I'm asked to go back and service a kitchen I did the week before and if I agree then it's also part of my job.
Site super wants more guys on the job? For the longest time I thought it was my problem when it absolutely isn't
And the list goes on.
I'm a super nice guy at heart but I learned to be a d!ck. And I get what I want now and charge extra if I want too. Being a nice guy os basically telling everyone else they can step on mu back. Every favor I did in the past ended up costing me money while the supplier or site super abused it. It sucks but that's the way it goes. We wondered why the mean guys got what they wanted. Doing it ow shows me exactly why.
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If you don't have any experience with construction, it can be pretty interesting to watch those reality HGTV shows (I know I'm addicted at this point). Some of the best episodes can be the one's where they open up the walls to find the builder didn't do anything right, causing a huge blow to the budget. The drama!
As someone who doesn't know much about building, and is dreaming of homeownership, Redditor Vast_Recognition_682 asked a question I wish I had thought of first.
Redditor Vast_Recognition_682 asked:
"Home inspectors of reddit, what are some horrible things that almost went unnoticed?"
Here's some horror stories that shed a little light on the home owner unknowns.
Behind the closet wall.
"Going through a home with [the] home inspector, didn't find any issues, bring my dad in to look through the house too and he was [incessantly] checking everything. Looks at the Zillow listing with the floor plan, measures the basement, finds out the actual measurements smaller than the floor plan which led us to go looking in a closet and realize they finished a wall and closet around the old oil tank, never decommissioned it, never planned to tell anyone about it, and we would have had to rip walls out to get to it to remove it. It was a non starter and we walked away. So happy to have my dad's sharp eye while home shopping."
If you need a good prank idea when you're renovating, here's one:
"I saw a post once, this guy said his dad's house had a diagonal outer wall and he was installing a combination wall and bookshelf to square the room. Since there was a small dead space on one side, the dad (who was a doctor), got a life-size plastic human skeleton from work and tossed it in there."
"So if someone tore the wall out to remodel in 30 years or whatever, they'd see it and freak out."
Man cave mayhem.
"Not a home inspector, but I did ask our home inspector what crazy stuff he had seen over the years. He had two stories."
"He inspected a modest three bedroom house and found that were very strange structural cracks in the walls. The area where the house was built is primarily clay soil which leads to a lot of foundation issues, but these were really abnormal cracks. He headed to the attic to wrap up his inspection; it was located over the garage so there was absolutely no structural support there. He poked his head up into the attic and couldn't believe his eyes: the owner had a fully furnished man cave in the attic over the garage. It had a couch, big screen tv, weight set, and a huge gun safe. He said he had no idea how in the world all of that stuff didn't come crashing down through the garage ceiling or how the guy had managed to get the giant gun safe up there without some sort of elaborate winch system. He said it was only a matter of time before the house collapsed."
"The only other weird thing he encountered was a cistern (an old well) in a crawlspace underneath a house. He said he was crawling along on his stomach when he almost fell into it; it was left uncovered."
A rats nest of wires.
"I'm sure there will be some stories about wiring above drop ceilings. When I was looking at houses, I saw (not the home inspector) one once where like 10 different wires came into one rats nest of a cluster. To make it even better, there was a regular lamp cord that ran from it to power the hanging kitchen light above the table. And if you want whip cream and sprinkles on that.... the power came into that mess through knob and tube."
"I am an apprentice electrician and this comment just made my soul cry."
- Saesama
"I found an uncapped steel conduit with live wires behind my sink while remodeling. There wasn't even a cap on the wires."
"While ripping out our old kitchen we cut the old crappy countertop with a sawzaw, to our surprise saw a spark and blew a breaker. some mother f**kers who previously renovated this kitchen ran the wiring for a new outlet on the wall around the studs in a crevice in the back of the countertop...."
Ceiling Lasagna.
"My family flipped a house a few years ago. There were four ceilings, each a couple inches lower than the one before, and all but one had old wiring in it. It was like cutting into a weird lasagna, trying to find the studs in that house."
- Sethrial
"Grandma was shrinking with old age, but her kids didn't want her to realize."
"Not me, but one I spoke to. Place almost passed, until out the corner of his eye... bam... jack stand holding up a beam under the house."
"Same with a house daughter was interested in. The place was a flip and totally redone. Beautiful. And down in the basement was a brick holding up a big beam."
- gouf78
This inspector had a full list.
1. "Furnace exhaust flue inlet at the attic furnace disconnected and a dead bird below it. Would have dumped all the furnace exhaust straight into the attic area. Obvious safety implication."
2. "Long time vacant house in a very secluded area. Reeked of cat p*ss and burnt plastic. No cats or cat feces in sight and no entry point for cats. Found small balloon in the corner of the floor where the fridge would be. Picked it up (with gloves) and white powder came spilling out. We came to the conclusion there was possibly the presence of methamphetamine in the home at some point and in some fashion."
3. "5 year old house, nice neighborhood, great shape, vacant. Everything looked good visually. In the attic, just after it had started raining heavily, a slight but constant drip was noticed from the roof sheathing in one area. Got lucky on that one. Sunny day, there would have been no evidence of any issue whatsoever."
4. "Homeowner DIY replaced the microwave and thought it would be 'clever' to run the exhaust vent into the wall cavity between the kitchen and adjacent laundry room. Just dumped the moisture into the wall. Mold city after a while if you do a lot of cooking while using the exhaust fan."
5. "60s house, well renovated. Range was a gas/electric dual fuel setup. Noticed broiler took forever to even start to warm up and never got hot enough that I couldn't touch it real quick (they usually glow red after like 30 seconds). Found out the range was plugged into a 110v outlet (enough to power the control panel and light) and not the proper 220v outlet (not even present). Oven was essentially useless. That one also had an incomplete drain line from a bathroom sink dumping everything directly into the crawlspace."
6. "New build. Got into the attic and just a quick 360° scan, something was off. Looking closer found a truss web beam that was completely gone, just ripped out (gusset plates bent to hell). Probably knocked out by the framing crews crane or something and they thought no one would notice. Time is money right? Lol"
- rr3dd1tt
They saved the day with this good catch!
"I used to work in a hospital, in IT. We were in a back corner of the oldest building. I used an out of the way stairwell, that had a 4 inch cast iron sprinkler main running through it."
"One day when I was leaving, I noticed a little tiny bit of water on the outside of the pipe. I went back to my desk, called maintenance, and asked them to send someone down so I could show them what I noticed. Walked the guy down to the stairwell and showed him, went on home."
"The next day I get to work and there's a letter on my desk. I open it, and it's from the director of maintenance. Seems that they shut down and depressurized the sprinkler line, and when they went to disconnect the section with the leak, the pipe just crumbled. They figured that my call prevented a major flood in materials management (which backed up to the stairwell on the floor below us) as well as a FD call-out, as the alarm would have gone when the pipe ruptured and water started flowing. The director sent me a very nice thank-you, and referred the situation to the cost-saving committee to see if they could get me a bonus based on preventing an accident."
- abbarach
The internet might just save homeowners on a whole lot of money by taking a closer look during the inspection. Thank goodness for this Ask Reddit post shedding light on the horror stories of homeownership and renovation mishaps.
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Unless you've been a member of the armed forces, you may only know drill sergeants as uncompassionate leaders who yell at privates all the time.
War Face GIF
Giphy
Apparently, their sense of humor has no bounds. Curious to hear from drill sergeants online, Redditor darkstalker1000 asked:
"Drill instructors, what is the funniest thing you have seen a Private do?"
The following examples were utterly humiliating, but valuable lessons were learned.
Longheld Punishment
"Had 2 guys get in a fight in our bay during basic. The drill sergeant made them hold hands and pretending to be on a date all week. Only time they could let go of each other's hands was rack time. They ended up becoming pretty good friends."
Confusing Paycheck
"Ex British Army officer here."
"A corporal went on a nine week mortar course and was accommodated (obviously) while he was away. It turned out he knew one of the DS teaching the course and was invited, regularly, to dine and drink in the Sergeant's Mess."
"The month after coming back from the course, he brought his payslip to me with a puzzled look on his face and, embarrassed, explained he didn't understand what it meant and could I help him?"
"It emerged that the Sergeant's Mess had a chitty system - you didn't pay for your drinks at the time, but signed for them and the total bill was deducted from your pay."
"This legend had managed to drink more than his monthly salary both months he'd been away and his payslip was a negative balance."
"I'm sorry Smith, I'm afraid you owe the Army £235 ($327.50) this month."
Asking For An Advance
"Former European Anti-Air Trainee here."
"Recruit spent his first check on alcohol and sex workers, asked his commander for next months check in advance the next day. Instead of having a good excuse prepared to actually succeed in that proposal he blankly told him in front of 80 other recruits why he'd need it."
Eye-Level Reprimand
"I saw a guy post about how he was like 6'3 and his DS was like 5'2, so whenever he messed up the DS would go up to him face to chest and yell 'Elevator!' and the guy would bend down to eye level with the DS and say 'Ding!' and the DS would proceed to look him in the eye while he chewed him out."
Some experiences were downright hilarious.
The Stain
"Not an RDC, but in boot camp I was over the laundry crew. One recruit sh*t himself because he thought he couldn't leave his rack after taps. It was funny at the moment before I realized I had to wash it."
– ScootaFL
Ambush Training
"This was the funniest f'king thing I ever read from u/odomotto"
"Recruit fired all his blank ammo during 'ambush training.' He crawled in ditch opposite where the aggressors were, and started throwing rocks at them. DI came running in middle of the road blowing his whistle and screaming 'what the f'k are you doing?' Recruit screamed back, 'throwing hand grenades drill sergeant!' Without missing a beat, the DI screamed 'out f'king standing.' And walked away."
"My sides hurt and I was wheezing laughing so hard at this when I first heard it!"
These punishments made no sense. And that's why they're memorable.
The Replacement
"When I was in basic, a kid we called 'Albino' shot off a blank round accidentally in the field. The sergeants were pissed and took his weapon away and replaced it with a broomstick for the remainder of the week in the field."
"Man I remember some dude didn't put the sheet on his bunk the right way and had to wear the sheet as a cloak and go to all the other barracks dancing around sing about how he was the 'Catch Edge Fairy' or something. It was pretty silly, he owned it though. He was doing twirls the whole time. This was Navy bootcamp."
– Konebred
Despite how they are depicted on film, drill instructors are people who care.
Like, Beals – a drill sergeant at Fort Knox, Kentucky – who said:
"We provide more than just physical, mental and emotional guidance for them. You are a father, a preacher, a financial advisor, a counselor-you provide so many different services to the Soldier that the regular public doesn't see on day to day basis."
"They see what they see in movies and what they hear about by word of mouth. But you are fulfilling so many roles other than just being a trainer and teaching an individual how to be a Soldier in the Army."
And occasionally, they are having a laugh at the crazy things their trainees do.
Sometimes, it becomes extremely clear that it's time to leave.
That goes for short term situations like a bizarre social moment, or longer term commitments like work or relationships.
Whatever the context, there is typically a tipping point moment when all the variables appear to suggest things have become unsafe, wildly uncomfortable, or maybe even a tad illegal.
It's those moments when all you can think about is the door.
Redditor Thotus_Maximus asked:
"What was your biggest 'I'm out' moment?"
Many people talked about the times they went to parties that turned out to be very different from what they had in mind.
Extremely Sus
"Went to a friend of a friend's 35th birthday party. There were like 3 people there when we showed up. Birthday boy says everyone's in the basement. Okay cool."
"We go down to the basement. Someone's DJing, they've got cool lighting, there's like 30 people dancing. After a minute or 2 we realize everyone in the basement is like 13. Nope Nope Nope."
THAT Kinda Party
"Lived in a hotel for a while when I was 18-19. One day a bunch of people I've met at the pool wanted to go up to this dudes room and party. I thought we were gonna drink, smoke, and have a conversation, but that's not how it went."
"While everyone went up there, I had to go back to my room and change clothes. When I finally went to join them, I walked in and saw this dude injecting hard drugs. I sh** you not, this dude turned completely blue and dropped to the ground like a rock. When I saw that, I just dipped."
"He got picked up by an ambulance and survived. When I saw him in the elevator the next day, he seemed like a completely different person. Seein' stuff like that (that wasn't my first time witnessing od's), I think kept me away from the drugs that can kill you easily."
The Great Escape
"I was at a party when I was a teen. Cops turned up. I was stuck upstairs. But there was a balcony and underneath a pool. And beyond the pool a gate leading to an alley."
"So I jumped in the pool."
"But when I resurfaced there were already two cops standing there looking at me."
Other Redditors recalled the times they encountered strangers that did not appear to have their best interest at heart, to say the least.
Business Dealings
"Was approached by someone and we talked about how we went to the same college and I showed him some of my art work, he thought it was pretty cool and offered me an opportunity and wanted to talk more later because I was at work at the time."
"I met up with him and his girlfriend and he told about what he mentioned. As I say there listening, it sounded familiar and BAM! It hit me. It was a pyramid scheme, it had nothing to do with art or any job prospects, I told him I wasn't interested many times in the nicest way possible l, but boy did they look pi**ed."
-- MythrPeace
Last-Second Decision
"I got stuck in an airport overnight as my flight was cancelled due to weather and I was starving because all the stores were closed. Some employee offered to show me where to get food so I followed him."
"He then opened a door to outside in the parking lot and motioned outside. I quickly said 'no thanks' and walked away."
-- ARCDad
And finally, some talked about when it became very clear that their work situation needed to end, like yesterday.
Quotas Reign Supreme
"I got buried by heavy packages while loading a truck for Fedex. It took 3 people to get me out. I was bloody, bruised, and had trouble lifting my arm."
"My manager came over and chastised me for my package count being too low. Walked out immediately."
-- Azuenz
Leaving Him a Stressful Day
"I worked in a contact centre several years ago. It was super busy and calls didn't stop coming. For some reason, my stupid boss removed everyone else from the queue for some stupid training, leaving me alone to handle all the calls. I messaged him a few times on Microsoft Teams, asking what was happening with no reply."
"After two hours, I shut down my computer and walked out of the company. I just recently withdrawn my last salary, so no regret whatsoever."
-- faridfreddy
Corruption At Its Finest
"I worked for a blood analysis lab machine company for about 6 months. Hated every minute of it because I was working well over 60 hours a week every week. I wouldn't be leaving some hospitals until after 11pm sometimes. The management would never support the techs, the customer is always right, that BS."
"So one week at during the over the phone team meeting, the manager actually asked on of the younger techs to complete paperwork and submit it. Which is normal, but the manager was having him submit the repair paperwork and schedule the repair when they got around to it. He wanted the tech to pencil whip documentation we submit to the FDA so he could a quarterly bonus."
"Managers who's group hits all the pm's, gets a very nice size check. Had the tech done that and the machine failed before it was serviced, somebody could have died and he might have gone to jail. I left that job the next day."
Out With a Bang
"I walked out of a job two hours into a shift and left them without anyone who could do my job."
"As a parting gift, I threw the manual I'd written in the rubbish and didn't bother removing or giving anyone my passwords to stuff so they couldn't do anything."
-- KittikatB
| Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay |
Years ago I had a classmate who was a total daredevil... so much so that he would often injure himself. He once drove a bike in the direction of oncoming traffic, just for the hell of it. He got out of that episode unscathed––luckily. By contrast, I prefer keeping all my limbs, and still have them all. I wonder where he is now. Hopefully not too banged up. I did do some stuff unwittingly––like the time I stuck a fork into an electrical socket. I thankfully wasn't shocked too much. I was young and naive.
People told us all about the dangerous things they did when they were younger after Redditor Not-an-Ocelot asked the online community,
"What's the most dangerous thing you did as a kid without realizing?"
"My chore..."
"My chore was to wash the floors. I would mix all sorts of chemicals together, not realizing they don't mix. Like bleach and ammonia with other cleaning products."
This is very easy to do––and so dangerous! Thankfully you didn't harm yourself.
"I used to walk..."
"I used to walk on a frozen river when walking home from school. I was about 7 at the time."
Nope!
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Seen too many movies about people stuck under the ice.
"We would sneak up..."
"I used to do parkour. We would sneak up onto the rooftops of condo buildings when they were washing their windows (the staircases leading to the top floor would be unlocked). We would then go roof hopping.
Literal roof hopping like in Grand Theft Auto. We would jump from a 12 storey apartment building's roof to an adjacent 10 storey apartment building's roof, etc."
How are your knees? That's bound to do some damage, no?
"I picked up..."
"I picked up a baby copperhead snake and gave it to my mom as a present when I was 6 or 7."
Wow.
You must have really hated your mom.
"There was a railway crossing..."
"There was a railway crossing on my walk to school, and the train would often be blocking my path so I would always wait until it stopped moving and then climb on top of it and jump off the other side so I could keep walking and not be late."
"Played inside..."
"Played inside an old broken refrigerator that was outside….not knowing it could have locked or tipped over."
Yes, it could have! Thankfully it didn't. There's a really frightening scene in The Leftovers involving a character who nearly suffocates in a fridge.
No thank you.
"Like most Florida kids..."
"Like most Florida kids I swam where I shouldn't have and I'm very lucky I didn't get eaten by alligators."
"After seeing videos..."
"Playing with fireworks. After seeing videos of kids blowing their fingers and hands off, I would never let my kids play with them, without lots of supervision."
"We are super lucky..."
"Getting on a boat with my then-boyfriend and not telling our parents where we were going. The boat ended up sinking during a storm and we had life jackets and floated on the ice chest. Only reason we are alive is because a ship that was coming in heard us screaming during the storm and called the coast guard. We were out there for a total of 15 hours and had severe hypothermia. We are super lucky to be alive."
This is pretty terrifying.
Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
Yes, thankfully, you're alive.
"When I was about..."
"When I was about 9 or 10 a friend and I rode an air mattress down a river. Neither of us knew how to swim and we didn't tell our parents so when we came back cops were looking for us."
Well... these were a read.
If you'll excuse me, I'll stay indoors and wrap myself in bubble wrap. The outside world is scary.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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