Ever since moving to New York to acquire fame and fortune, I've had to make sacrifices. For the first year I was able to live alone but I was stationed a little far from where all the action happens. Quickly I learned that in order to be in the thick of the action, I was gonna have to move in with people and share my space to save some coin. Now some thirty roommates later.... I should've just stayed with the commute. The book I could write. I wouldn't know where to begin. The roommate who had a two year old that he forgot to mention? The roomie who liked to dance nude in the kitchen while intoxicated? The guy who would have pornographic sound level intercourse? Oh the stories. Imma live alone forever.
Redditor u/epic-yolo-swag wanted everyone to unload about the worst choices we've all made by deciding to share a home by asking..... Redditors, what is your roommate horror story?College Fiend
disgusted new girl GIF
Giphy
In college, I had a strange suite mate who kept a Tupperware container in the corner on the floor of our shower.
One day, my roommate (who was my childhood best friend) came into our room from the bathroom all distressed. She had stepped on the container and it came open. It was apparently full of dirty underwear. For some reason, the first thing out of my mouth was, "They aren't mine, are they?" Her reply, "No. I checked." lol. Apparently, we both got the same weird underwear-stealing vibe!
While on Tour
Lived with two very bogan girls for about 4 months. Went away on tour for a few weeks, came back to find the house trashed, all their stuff gone and most of my kitchen appliances missing as well. They still owed about $600 in rent between them as well.
Four years later I'm at a pub with some friends and this big footballer-type dude I'd never met comes up to me and grabs me by the neck, yelling about how I used to hit his sister. Turns out he was the brother of one of the girls that did a runner and before she moved out she'd been showing up at home with the occasional black eye and bruises from her new boyfriend. But so her family wouldn't hate her new man that was touching her up, she told them it was me.
I eventually settled it out with the brother and he apologized, turns out when I was away on tour he and his footy team all showed up to the house and were planning to belt me up. When I wasn't there they decided to trash the house and break/steal a bunch of my stuff.
The Gem
She stole my underwear (she was at least 4 sizes larger then me), gave her boyfriend a key to our apartment and he would stay there 6 nights a week and not contribute to rent. On the night her boyfriend was not there she would bring random guys home and cheat on her boyfriend with them, LOUDLY. She'd complain I "never took out the trash" because I found it pointless to do it once a day when there was maybe 3 things in it.
Would put dead stink bugs in my coffee water tank, and when she moved out locked her bedroom door and left her sink running for 3 days until I was finally able to get it open to find her bathroom flooded. She also talked so much crap about me to my boss at the time (who happened to be a family friend of hers).I had no choice but to quit a find a better job because she cut my hours. What a gem.
Uni Hell
Look Whos Talking Now Reaction GIF
Giphy
First year of University in halls, one of my flatmates would:
-use a tray in the oven that had holes in it so any fat or oil would drip onto the oven not clean it up and there would almost be a fire everytime anyone else tried to use the oven if they forgot to clean it because he never cleaned up after himself, he even tried to blame it on other people when we caught him doing it multiple times (one of our other flatmates was a vegan so she basically didn't use the oven the whole year because of it).
-he would have his Iphone alarm going off for hours in the morning (used to start at 4am-8am).
-invite people round at like 2am and they would be screaming and shouting (on multiple occasions I had to leave my room to tell them to be quiet).
Never Again
This is more of an annoyance than a horror story. My roommate had people stay with her for several days to two weeks, about once a month. She also ran her tutoring business from the house. Unfortunately, we didn't have a guest room, and my roommate didn't want these people in her room for some reason, so these guests stayed in the living room.
As a result, it was impractical for me or the third roommate to use the living room and sometimes the kitchen. Apparently the area outside my bedroom door was a particularly comfortable sleeping space, and people lack common sense. It got really annoying having to check for and step over a sleeping person if I came home late at night.
The worst was when her parents stayed over. Her father was old-school Chinese and expected women to do all the housework. He constantly left the toilet seat up, and he dribbled pee around the toilet. My roommate wouldn't do anything about it, on the grounds that he was old and set in his ways.
I talked to him and his wife about it, and my roommate blew up at me for embarrassing her dad. They stayed with us rent-free for 3 weeks. Also, my roommate and her family all throw toilet paper in the bin instead of flushing it, even though the pipes in America are fine, so the bathroom was extra gross. After that, I never lived with roommates again.
Disgusting
I once lived with 3 guys in a house. There was what I called a "pee ring" around the toilet. As there was dust elsewhere. But the pee would mix with the dust to form this ring around the base of the toilet.
They'd also play garbage Jenga. If it toppled over usually that person would take it out. Sometimes said person was too lazy and would let it topple.
For the next person who had it topple over a 2nd time to take it out. The kitchen sink was always filled with moldy dishes and food. The kitchen counter the same. The stove top had dirty pots and the oven had dirty pans. We had lots of fruit flies, mice and mold.
Anger Management
Given a history of extensively crappy roommates, my freshman year roommate was bonkers. Upon moving in together, he found out a was into coffee and (in what I assumed was a joke) brought up starting a coffee shop in our dorm room. Two days later he informs me that he already has investors and he spent over a grand of start-up money to buy blenders, espresso machines, etc. We never used any of them. He was an ex Taekwondo teacher with some anger management issues which was always concerning.
One time he had sex with some random girl at like 3 am, while i was sleeping in the room. He bought a legit blow dart gun and would shoot it at our door without warning, so I always had to knock multiple times before entering (and it still wound up having to dodge some needles). About 3/4 of the way through the year, he started working at a hotel and blowing off his classes, eventually, he bought a house with someone from the hotel and proceeded to live there all while still paying tuition.
Our collective friend group got super worried about him since he wouldn't show up to classes or our dorm for multiple weeks at a time. One day he just showed up, grabbed all his stuff from our room, and said he was moving out but had paid room and board for the rest of the year, so I got a single room for the rest of the year for free. All in all, not a bad deal.
The CIG
Oh boy, let me share the tale of Crazy Italian Guy (CIG)
Let's get in the mood, shall we? We were 7 people in a house, in rooms where you could barely fit a bed (2×1m) and 1 kitchen, so no escape.
CIG was always kind of messy/loud. But i mean, you manage right?
One day I come home from work. Stop by the kitchen to grab a bite. And there he was. In all his Glory. Crazy Italian Guy, sitting by the table. He glanced at me shortly with madness in is eyes and got back to his business.
I realize there's a little pile of white powder by his side. 'Ok, so the guy's doing druggs. Explains a lot' I thought, innocently. Oh no, not at all.
CIG was not doing drugs. What he WAS doing is cutting up a newspaper in an obsessive manner until it turns to actual dust. A whole newspaper. In tiny piles. For hours on end.
From that day on, my door always stayed close. I do not trust the Demonic Pasta Man.
"Her" Side
When I was attending uni, had this one crazy roommate. She had graduated years ago but was not searching for a job or anything. She would just sit in her room all day, doing god knows what, only venturing out for groceries and, sporadically, cooking. No friends or family ever visited her, she never went anywhere.
She would also never clean anything in the apartment, not even her own dirty dishes - and proceeded to throw an angry fit at me whenever I cleaned her dishes for her (because layers of fungus in a communal kitchen). She would also get very upset whenever i put stuff on 'her' side of the countertop (which was also communal). I always wondered what became of her.
Ummmm..... Arsonist?
Season 7 Nbc GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Giphy
She set my hair on fire by waving a candle through it.
The Full Experience
Had a roommate who was fully enjoying her college experience, and I'll just leave that there with all the usual stories of how it affected us (her roommates).
Meanwhile I'm actually trying to study. She comes home after a football game and finds me in my books, sneaks up and fires one of those stadium compressed air horns directly in my left ear.
I still don't hear very well from it.
As bad as that was, I think the runner up was a week vacation everyone took. She brought a boyfriend home the night before we left and ate a bunch of seafood. They threw it in the trash and left without a thought.
What we came back to was THE most god-awful stench I've ever had to bear. Hundreds of flies, everywhere. The hate is real, y'all.
WAKE UP
wake up morning GIF
Giphy
One roommate always slept through his alarm, so he bought a VERY loud alarm clock that would go off until one of us would turn it off and yell at him.
Life Destroyer
I lived in a large house and had a housemate who was barely 21 and a full blown alcoholic. He was a nice enough guy when he was sober, but he was really mean when he drank. He'd destroy stuff, pick fights, stuff like that. He did stuff that he otherwise would have been arrested for, but his family was a prominent group of lawyers in the area, so he got away with the crap he did, and to some degree his parents were enabling his behavior. Eventually he caused too much destruction and my housemates and I voted to evict him.
There was also suspicion that he was getting into harder drugs like cocaine. When he was told to leave, he did as much destruction as he could to my housemates' property. He never targeted me because there was no conflict between him and I, but like I said, he was mean to the more assertive housemates. Eventually he got arrested and his parents had to come to the house to collect his stuff and apologize. I think he was actually left alone to cool his heels in jail. I just hope he got the help he needed.
Tantrums
Roommate 1 (nice guy) finished his bottle of peanut oil and accidentally left the empty bottle on the counter. Roommate 2 went completely nuts and started yelling. We assumed it was because she hated the mess and wanted people to throw away their stuff (which would have been fair, though a bit of an overreaction). Finally we could make out enough words to understand that she thought somebody had finished her oil.
No amount of reasoning could convince her that the full bottle in the cabinet was hers. After that, she locked salt and pepper in her room so stop others from using it as she had refilled them last. One of many tantrums... ironically, she would always tell people how chill she was and that they should be chill, too. To this day I hate the word chill.
Everything Brazilian
This Brazilian idiot. Ate all my food, I'd wake up and find Brazilians passed out all over the apartment half the week, if ever I had a female friend round, he'd be in there talking about how he's Brazilian 'you know Brazil? Im from brazil, I'm Brrrrazillian'. The worst thing he did was try and claim that Brazilian pizza was better than Italian pizza. But then apparently everything Brazilian is the best in the world.
He did sleep with one of my friends, she told me he lasted 2 minutes and the first thing he said after sex was 'so, is this the first time you had sex with a Brrrazilllian?' NEVER met someone so sickeningly patriotic. Brazil was his only personality trait!
The Maggot Man!
Guy moves in to a room in a shared house with my friend. They begin to realize guy is a not so functional alcoholic. Never leaves his room, they hear him groaning and stumbling around a lot.
One day friend goes to do laundry and new guy has just finished a load in the washer. When friend goes to put his clothes in the washer he notices its full of rice. Rice that moves.
Friend screams, take his clothes out of the washer, starts hot bleaching the inside of the machine trying to get all the maggots out. The housemates go to confront the new guy in his room about the laundry maggots and see he is living in absolute filth.
Piles of clothes next to vomit puddles that have now attracted flies and maggots, bottles of pee and garbage strewn around, there is no mattress he sleeps on the floor, the wood on the floor is WARPED from all the puke on it, there is vomit in the air vent...
They ask him if he is peeing in bottles where does he poop. Apparently he was going to the nearby gas station to take dumps because he was worried the house mates would be judgmental. :(
They kick him out less then three weeks after he arrives, clean the room discovering FURTHER maggot and puke piles. They leave all his furniture in the front yard to be collected whenever, while guy stumbles off to find new digs to ruin further.
Scream GIF by Originals
One night I woke up with him standing over my bed, his long curly hair flowing down his face... not doing anything, just standing there facing my direction.
The other time he sat on his bed in the middle of the night, shouting other roommate's name and asking "WHAT IS STANDING NEXT TO THE WINDOWS, WHAT IS THAT??!!!" and immediately laying down and sleeping calmly...we didn't close our eyes till morning came.
Feeling Wet
In a big city, expensive apartment, one evening I heard the sound of liquid in the hallway. Went to check and found a roommate peeing in the hall closet, drunk out of his mind. I told him the toilet was the next door down but he continued peeing until he was finished. The next morning I told the other roommate who then checked to find his dress shoes were 'wet'. Over breakfast, I overheard Pee-boy and Shoe-owner - both in their 30s - argue about the the pee. I moved out days later.
Meow.... LOLOL
They would wake me up at 6am, no matter the day. They care nothing for Saturday's or Sunday's. They had their own food, yet would watch me eat mine and beg for some. Other times, just taking when I was turned away. I would wake up sometimes and find them staring at me on my bed. So unwholesome. I found their hair everywhere. Bathroom time is no longer sacred if they need something. They would stare at me as I did number 1 or 2, doesn't matter. They never paid rent.
Damn cats.
Waterworks
Paris Hilton Reaction GIF
Giphy
My roommate peed himself in his sleep. Every. Single. Night.
Worst part is it's four of us sleeping AND living in the same room. The smell... I wish I could forget.
He also terribly stinks from constant sweating and leaves around rotting leftover.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
Basketball Wives Ugh GIF by VH1Giphy"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
Kung Fu Wtf GIF by A24Giphy"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
Stanley Cup Nhl GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphy"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
Prayer GIFGiphy"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
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/
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"
No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Nbc Jump GIF by SuperstoreGiphyHave you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
Season 8 Teacher GIF by FriendsGiphyThe dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
spelling GIFGiphyNo, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.