Evil lurks among us and we must adhere to the signs. More often than not the signs are big and flashing in neon. When you feel that slight unease or "sense" in the pit of your stomach upon interacting with certain people, listen close, you already know that you're too close to trouble--your body is trying to tell you. I can't tell you how many stories on "Dateline NBC" start with.... "I had a feeling." Well if you have a scratch, itch it.
Redditor u/peasantchoker was wondering who else has been able to sense when they were surrounded by evil by asking....
People who knew Murderers, when did you know something was off?
The Boyfriend
I moved to a new town when I was 19 and was making new friends at my new job. I met this girl at work and she invited me over to hang out with her and her best friend. I went and the best friend's boyfriend was there and the vibes were waaay off. I was uncomfortable. He was cold, and just seemed angry for no reason.
They had mentioned to me before he got there that he was always controlling and had hit the girl before.
Turns out controlling was an understatement. She came home one day and he was digging a hole in the backyard and she asked what he was doing and he replied "digging your grave." He hit her, said if he can't have her, nobody could have her, all of that. So eventually she left him and had to get a restraining order and everything.
He somehow persuaded her to get in a car with him on her work break and they went missing for a few days. Turns out he stabbed her to death, threw her in a river.
I met the girl only a few times and him only the once but the face that I was in such close proximity to someone capable of that gives me chills. She was so young, it was really sad.
The Roommate
The murderer I know was more of an acquaintance or casual friend - he lived down the hall from me and we hung out sometimes but not like just the two of us. Still, we'd chill at each other's place regularly.
I passed him one day in the stairwell and I said hi. He said hi back but called me by the wrong name. He was really distracted and kind of awkward. He didn't make eye contact and kept moving.
I remember thinking maybe we we don't know each other as well as I thought. Later he was playing Nintendo (yep, my N64 - this was a while ago) with my roommate when I came home. He apologized and said his mind was elsewhere.
A couple days later there are cops all over the building, interviewing people and searching his place. They'd found the guy's roommate with a bullet in the back of his head in an abandoned lot across town. The next day he confessed.
The Gentle Giant
I didn't.
He was the sweetest, kindest, gentle giant kind of guy. Kind of a weirdo, but still a great guy overall. I remember once that he shed a tear just by talking about his kid, because he was so filled with emotion from having him in his life.
He turned out to kill his wife, kidnap his child, start the longest Amber Alert in the history of Canada, as he tried escaping to a different province he killed another man to steal his car.
I'm still unsure today if I should have seen anything at any point. It comes to haunt my nightmares from time to time.
That Kid
There was a kid i went to high school with who always gave me the creeps, we had a lot of mutual friends so we always ended up hanging out and it always made me feel really uncomfortable. Our senior year he got suspended for like a week because someone had found and turned in a hit list he had made, no one really took it too seriously. About three years after we graduated he was in the news for murdering a man in our town that he barely knew.
He told the police that he held the man's eyes open so he could watch his life leave his body.
Editing for spelling and adding to this because I remembered that I actually knew a second murderer. Im related to someone who attempted to murder his wife by stabbing her in the back several times with a butter knife when she found out he was gay and then many years later stabbed his partner to death after they broke up.
He Said So
When he said there was.
A teenager, his mother and his step father lived around the corner from me. My mother knew them better than myself, but we all thought they were lovely.
A couple of years ago the son went to the hospital several times asking for help. He claimed he had voices telling him to kill his stepfather, but each time he went he was released and told to come back (they would give an appointment).
A few weeks later during a small argument he stabbed his stepfather to death in the front garden.
He turned himself in the next day, and wasn't convicted as he sought help before it happened. Instead, he got the treatment he needed.
Edit: I see a lot of people wondering if it might've been a defense/planned murder. It wasn't. The way he was killed, and how the son acted after removed any doubt.
The Burns
Had an employee on my work crew, acted strange and wouldn't listen to direction. Had goofy huge sideburns. Ended up going to jail for a short time, when he got out he shot his GF and her parents.
The Uncle
My uncle murdered somebody and is currently serving life in prison. From my earliest memory I knew he had some screws loose.
Edit: I was at work when I originally commented so I didn't have time to provide details. He caught his wife at her lovers house so he shot the guy.
He was going to shoot her too but she convinced him she wouldn't tell anyone. He burned the guys house down in an attempt to cover his tracks. As soon as his wife could get free of him she immediately reported him.
As far as me saying I always got creep vibes from him, he always reminded me of a poor mans Charles Manson
The Customer
Obligatory didn't know him as a friend, but a regular customer in my shop. He would come in after his shift to buy beer and tobacco, on one occasion he caught and helped us to evict a shoplifter. He seemed friendly enough. Then a local girl went missing and was eventually pulled out of a river a few weeks later.
They announced they were looking for somebody in connection with her death and it was him. They had CCTV footage of him tailing her through a park and footage of him buying beer in a shop, still unconfirmed to this day being our shop as they blurred out the surroundings.
Anyway, as we had a TV in our shop switched to the news channel as it was a rolling story local to us, we started to discuss the guy, if we saw him on the day she went missing, that kind of thing.
We hadn't, but it was at that point when one of my staff, a young girl, who had previously said to management that she didn't want to work the closing shift anymore because there was "too many creepy men around", told us that he used to stare at her when he came in to the store in a way that made her uncomfortable enough to not want to be on the floor when he came in.
They never got to question him about the murder as he was found dead in a local park a few days later. \
The Bully
I went through primary and high school with a guy in the year below me who seemed a little... distant. We lived near each other and caught the bus from the same stop. He was a bit of a bully but it was something more. Like you could tell he wasn't a bully because he was hurting inside or because he felt threatened in some way, he was a bully because he did what he wanted to do and didn't realize that it hurt other people. Like the kind of kid who enjoyed pulling wings off flies.
Not long after I left my hometown I heard that he had been charged with the murder of a 2 year old. Apparently his girlfriend at the time left her daughter with him for an hour or so while she ran an errand. He couldn't deal with the toddler crying anymore so he beat her. He caused severe internal bleeding and she died in hospital not long after. He would have been around 22 when he did it. He was sentenced to 36 years with a non parole period of 27 years.
The Co-Worker
My ex-coworker was always a huge angry moron who nobody liked to work with. He'd always be on his phone and talking to someone, even when he had a customer waiting to order in the drive-thru. The moment I knew he had something wrong with him was when I caught him "looking for his dab pen" in one of the lockers in the backroom. He always used a top locker, but he was searching through one at the bottom, which happened to be my locker for the day.
I told him that, so he just stared me in the face for a second, and walked away.
Later that same year, I learned that he shot and killed someone at a gas station.
Edit: to clarify, he was (most likely) trying to steal from me, and the fact that he made up his lie on the fly set me off (not to mention the creepy stare at the end).
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| Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay |
Sometimes you just don't have any money and you have to make it work. I learned how to make the most out of bargains at the grocery store and know how to make food that is hearty and will last more than a day or two. Beans and rice are your friends, by the way. You'd be surprised by how many delicious meals you can make with just these two basic ingredients.
Being poor requires you to be creative.
Penny pinching is an art, as we were so deftly reminded after Redditor naranja_cheese asked the online community,
"What is the most penny pinching you've ever done?"
"I used to steal..."
"I used to steal half-used rolls of tp when I was a janitor. Lived off white rice and Worcestershire sauce for months. Got a job as a cook & always saved a few scraps while plating people's food so I would have something to eat without paying for a meal. Also worked at a butcher shop& would take home bones to roast and make a stew with. I can share hundreds of things like this."
"I worked part-time..."
"I worked part-time in school, but was pretty broke. I wasn't being paid until the following day, and I needed soy sauce for my extra super tasty stir fry. I literally had negative funds in my account. So I went to the grocery store, grabbed a sushi tray, threw a ton of packets of soy sauce in my pocket (they don't charge you for these), wandered a bit, pretended I changed my mind, and left."
"While at the grocery store..."
"While at the grocery store, putting back that pack of chicken breast that cost $2.98 for the other pack of chicken breast that cost $2.95."
Guilty.
"Things were insanely tight..."
"Used to make my own laundry detergent during a time when we had relocated and our prior home had not sold so we had rent on top of a mortgage for 18 months. Things were insanely tight in those days, to say the least."
I definitely know what this is like.
"I took some cedar boards..."
"I had no money for Christmas gifts. I only had enough to pay rent. I took some cedar boards in the backyard, cut them, burnt them a little black as I had no money to finish them. Then I passed them off as cutting boards."
"One Friday night..."
"One Friday night in college, my two buddies and I had a grand total of $3 to our names. I bought a box of Mac 'n Cheese, a can(!) of escargot, and three Lil' Debbie Star Crunches. We had a full meal with starch, protein, and dessert."
"I lived on pasta..."
"When I was at university my entire budget was less than £40 a week. I lived on pasta and stolen sauce packets from the Students Union. The cafeteria ladies would always take pity on me at closing time and give me free burgers."
"I lost my job..."
"I lost my job and lived in a $1400/month apartment where electricity (which included heat) and internet were ludicrously expensive. $400-450 a month in the winter because the building was an old mill with huge windows and no insulation. Fortunately, gas and water were free."
"I only turned on my lights when I had to, turned off the heat entirely, and heated my apartment by boiling a huge pot of water on the gas stove 24 hours a day and going to the business center to use the free DSL connection to apply for jobs. I ate rice with frozen vegetables and spices for three months."
"It sucked, but I got by."
Hopefully things are much better now.
"If I ate fast food..."
"If I ate fast food or takeout food, I would ask for extra sauce packets or garnishes that they give out for free. I would stock up on them, use them when I cook instead of buying the stuff from the store. For example, a $1 box of pasta, a clove of garlic, and 2-3 ramekins of parm cheese, half ramekin of chili flakes, and a pinch of Italian herbs I got from a pizza place makes a quick meal."
"My local mall..."
"My local mall used to do paid surveys, you'd watch a video or try some new soda or whatever and they'd give you a couple of dollars. Then I'd use that to buy a meal."
Sometimes you've just gotta do what you've gotta do. It's not easy.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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Now, this isn't going to be a long, "Let's all pile on how bad the internet is and only think about the good ol' days when the rocks were soft and we could only communicate using cans with string."
Reddit user, u/IRunFast24, wanted to know what the best things in life were before we were plugged in when they asked:
People old enough to remember life pre-Internet, what are some less obvious things you miss about that time?
Many habits we used to possess were made completely irrelevant thanks to the internet. Not that we didn't enjoy doing them, we just started asking ourselves, "What's the point?"
Completely Devoid Of Technological Interference
"Leaving home and just being gone for the day. No cell phones. If there were cameras, it was really different. You used them to take pictures of things or had people take pictures of you. But there was no social media to preoccupy your mind. It was just doing something. And whoever you were with, was who you were with."
No One Needs 24 Hours Of Nonsense
"News only being on at 6pm. That was it. Now we have 6 hours of local news and 24 hours of cable news. Not being bombarded all day with "news." And when you saw "Breaking News" on the screen you knew something serious went down."
You Mean We Actually Have To Go?
"It used to be a lot harder to bail on things. You'd have to call the person at home and tell them yourself, or at least leave a message if you wanted to be risky. Typically if you were gonna bail you'd give at least 24 hours notice. Nowadays people can let you know they're bailing last second since you're always reachable."
"RSVPing mattered. If you said you were going to be there, you made sure to be there. None of this facebook invites that everyone blows off without any form of social repercussions. If you said you were going to go and didn't go, you were the a--hole and everyone knew it."
You can get almost anything on the internet. Almost. Still no sign of real working Lightsabers anywhere out there, but the internet has eliminated many of our purchasing practices.
Just In Time For The Holidays!
"The Sears catalog. That was how I found out about all the cool new toys."
"Catalogs in general, for me. Before the internet made mindless browsing of stuff you didn't need ~really~ easy to do, we still liked doing this without having to drive to the mall. The solution? Sign your mom up for those cool seed catalogs, those not safe to browse at the office gag gift catalogs and then everything in between. That stuff was really nice to have when you grew up somewhere that was not even cable ready."
1 Good Song Out Of 15
"When you bought new music you just had to hope it was good. The single might be popular but otherwise unless someone had it you just bought it and hoped for the best."
"There was so much excitement to going to a cd store to buy an album that you only knew one song of or the band/artist name and just listening to that entire cd over and over again picking out which tracks were your favorite while still learning every lyric to all the songs on the album.
Building a cd collection was also fun."
Talk About The "Immediate Gratification" Generation, Huh?
"The instant win bottle caps / candy / chocolate bar wrappers where you could turn them back into the store and immediately get a free one. Now it's just codes you have to register on their website so they can get your info, i don't even bother anymore."
Finally, there's these activities, to difficult to explain to anyone who wasn't there. How do you get someone to understand that not having a supercomputer in your pocket at all hours of the day radically changed your life?
Keeping It In Front Of You
"I miss having an attention span of more than three seconds"
"It's so weird. I can only vaguely remember what it feels like to not have a smartphone and to be alone and think.
Wondering what my friends are doing and if they'd like to do something on the weekend. We'd have to talk during lunch break at school and plan it...
Trying to find the answer to a math problem... Having to figure it out by re-reading the problem and explanations 5 times."
There Used To Be A Time When You Couldn't Play Everything
"Not being overwhelmed by choice.
Don't get me wrong, having nearly every form of media downloadable is great, but back in the day, i rented a video game and i played that video game as much as i could.
Now, its hard to give it more than 2 seconds before i try one of the 20,000 games i have access to.
New game plus used to be cool. Now, I'm happy if just beat the game"
Floundering. Just A Little.
"My formative years were the 1980s. I remember like yesterday going to study in Paris my junior year of college. I got off the plane with no cell phone, no internet, a Let's Go Paris book, and just a hostel address written on a piece of paper I'd stuck in a French dictionary. I did not know a single person in all of France.
I had $500 of cash stuck in a money belt. The belt was tight and sweaty but that money had to last me for at least a month until I could find a part-time job with my lousy French. My "credit card" was my father's credit card numbers written down on a piece of paper. He told me I could only use it to buy a plane ticket home in an emergency.
I remember standing in the airport and having this powerful emotion of being 21 years old, scared sh-tless, but in absolutely completely control of my own destiny. There was absolutely nobody who could come rushing to my aid if I needed it. I was 100% on my own.
I'm actually very thankful for that experience. I found the hostel. I found a job. I made friends. I learned French. I made it all on my own which was just a big boost in life confidence.
I have no doubt if I'd had a cell phone I would've called my parents on Day 2, told them it was too hard, and been on the next plane home. But I had no other choice but to succeed."
We can never go back. Not really, anyway. The only way is to keep going forward, be aware of the effect the internet has on us, and do our best to not let it take away the things that really matter in our lives.
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Look, unless you enjoy cooking, no one likes spending time in the kitchen longer than they have to in order to whip up something mediocre to eat.
Ordering food or, for the time being, enjoying a socially distanced lunch at an establishment is convenient, but it can take a toll on your wallet.
So what options are there?
Fortunately, there are plenty of them that do not involve nuking a frozen entree.
Strangers on the internet shared their amateur culinary wisdom when Redditor SandandS0n asked:
"What's your go-to under 5 minute meal?"
These dinner selections are super sufficient.
In Case You Didn't Know
"Quesadilla. super quick and easy to make and there's a ton of ingredients that you can add without much effort that will make it even better."
Noodling Around
"Ramen and an egg, but not the traditional way."
- "Boil roughly half an inch of water (we want just enough water to boil the noodles, with very little water left over when it's done boiling)."
- "Smash up the ramen noodles, while still in the package (optional but cooks MUCH faster)."
- "Open the package and remove the seasoning."
- "Dump the noodles in."
- "While boiling, crack an egg and whisk in a small bowl."
- "Noodles should be done and almost all the water should be gone, if not strain out some.
- Remove from the heat."
- "Slowly pour in the egg while mixing very quickly, try not to let the egg touch the pan."
- "Mix as much of the seasoning packet as you like (I prefer 1/2 - 3/4 because I usually add a salty component at the end.)"
- "Add to bowl and top with some chives, thinly sliced, ripped up ham/salami and/or parsley. Leftover bacon or pancetta are fantastic crunchy components to dial up the texture."
"Easy, fast and checks so many of the 'munchie' boxes for me."
noodles ramen GIF by HUANG'S WORLDGiphyDon't Underestimate Soups
"Tomato soup and add tortellini. I like the spinach ones from Trader Joe's and Progreso creamy tomato with basil. It's bomb and it really makes a decent meal."
For people in a rush, these tasty snacks would suffice.
Goes Well With Veggies And Cheese
"Hummus is such an underrated food. It goes well with a lot of veggies and breads and chips or heck even cheese. All the time I hear hummus being listed as one of those weird, gross foods when its actually an amazing snack, or a meal if done correctly. It's not really unhealthy, either, especially if eaten with veggies (celery and carrots go great with hummus)."
Ready In Seconds
"All I do is get a paper towel, and put 5 Oreos on it."
"Then go back and get the whole package."
Peanut Butter Fantasies
"Peanut butter sandwich."
"If I'm feeling extra froggy I'll add nutella to the peanut butter and honey sandwich and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Goes down about as well as a popeye's biscuit though."
Nature's Candy
"Fruit."
"It's like cheating the system. You eat sweets and call it healthy."
Start your day without all the hassle of a fancy breakfast.
Put It In A Bowl
"Oatmeal or cereal."
– essa618
"Cereal is definitely underrated as a meal outside of the breakfast dynamic."
Thanks, Nonna!
"A very simple recipe my grandma prepared for me when i was a kid."
"It's basically scrambled eggs...but before adding the egg she would cook sweetcorn (from a can) with a little bit of butter, add the eggs and then when the eggs were almost ready, add small cubes of cheese and cook for a minute or until the cheese start to melt (she was using fontal, but any swiss or white cheddar will do). Just a little black pepper and salt."
"Takes 5 minutes to do but it's absolutely delicious, fill you up, not so unhealthy and I feel my late grandma with me."
'I tried variations with chives or spring onions, paprika or other stuff. Still good but nothing as good as a simple "uova strapazzate con mais e formaggio.'"
"Grazie nonna"
– Xelorath
I consider yogurt a healthy snack/lunch option.
I like having a bowl of non-fat plain Greek yogurt with raspberries, blueberries, sprinkled with granola and drizzled with honey.
It's packed with nutrients and gives me a nice boost of energy.
Yogurt also makes for a perfect chip dip. I sprinkle some onion soup mix and stir in the mixture. Who knew quick and easy food prep could be so delicious?
We all like to assume that a big old scar has an amazing, hardcore story behind it: maybe a valiant fight or some life threatening-escape.
But despite what Hollywood would have us think, that is so rarely the case.
Usually, some kind of bizarre accident leaves us with the biggest scar of our life. There's no action movie story behind it, just a careful mixture of foolishness and bad luck.
Clearly not put off by some gruesome anecdotes, Redditor fluffybear45 asked:
"People with scars, how did you get them?"
For many, it was the wild antics of childhood that left them slightly maimed. With many years now separating the Redditor from the event, these were pretty hilarious.
Out of Nowhere!
"I was playing on a swing and then my leg got stuck in barbed wire." -- Soviet_God-Emperor
"I feel like we missed a couple steps here, or your local park had some serious issues." -- Henfrid
"Yo that went from 0 to 100 real fast" -- IHaveButt
Classic
"2nd grade, defective slip-n-slide." -- AdmiralAkbar1
"I'm pretty sure the general design of the slip'n'slide was defective. Those stakes weren't covered originally, so you had to be straight down the middle of the slide or else....." -- Q-burt
"Could you refer to this incident in a gravely voice while staring into the middle distance, pausing only to shudder and sip your scotch?" -- CaptValentine
That's Why You Need an Axe Yard
"My dad hit me with an axe (bladed side) in the face. Stupid 10 yo me just had to look over his shoulder while he was hammering in herrings for our tent."
-- Gruuuf
Others talked about freak accidents that came not from the stupidity of childhood, but the bad luck of mistakes made as an adult.
Bad Conditions for Practice
"Dad gave me a folding knife for Christmas"
"I read online that you could flick it open with one hand"
"So I practiced it, after my hands were greasy from eating a burger"
Take Your Pick
"Multiple long scars on my back are from falling onto a old soviet steel welcome mat ( i dont know how to describe it in english but its meant to wipe dirt of your shoes with triangle shaped steel beams."
"Medium sized one on my forearm is from a barbed wire fence, another one next to it is from a motorcycle accident and one on the base on my thumb is from a cars hood slipping and cutting me."
-- Iracc1
One Heck Of a Fall
" 'This one is from a skateboard, this one was a truck accident, and this one was a fire hydrant.' "
" 'Oh really? I bet each one has a very unique story.' "
" 'Not really, I skateboarded off of a truck into a fire hydrant.' "
-- Aearly1
Last, some people talked about the medical procedures that left them with the big gash. These stories had some ninth grade words and not nearly as much stupidity.
Google It!
"A rare auto immune disorder called pyoderma gangrenosum twice... Don't google If you don't like gore... I had to have daily wound care and high doses of medical steroids"
Even Longer?!
"My intestines telescoped on themselves 8" scar on my belly." -- Anom8675309
"I never wanted to see the words 'intestines' and 'telescoped' together. Ouch." -- LadySygerrik
Frankenstein
"I was born 2 months premature. I wasn't born with an esophagus so drs. cut my stomach open and used parts of my colon or intestines and created a new one for me. I have a huge scar on my neck and my stomach is one big scar. Also had a stomach feeding tube for quite a bit and heart surgery at 2 days old."
"I love science. I wouldn't have experienced life if it hadn't been for advances in medical science."
-- rev2Arsenal
So if you've been sitting on an embarrassing backstory for one of your scars, feel free to share. You're hardly alone.
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