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Police Officers Share The Craziest Situations They've Ever Been In

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Police Officers Share The Craziest Situations They've Ever Been In

We do not give our friends in blue enough credit. They face situations we can only try NOT to dream of. Danger lurks in every second, every second of their shifts. And Lord do they have some stories of survival to tell. Being a police officer is a whirlwind of crazy. And we need to know more.

Redditor u/Yokeyoyo wanted to hear from all the brothers and sisters in blue by asking...

Police Officers of Reddit, what's the craziest situation you've been in?

Gloves Please.....

A guy on a sports team I play in is a drug squad cop and told us the following story. They had staked out a meth lab house for awhile and surveilled the house with pinhole cameras for some time. They'd noticed that the occupants were becoming increasingly erratic, someone senior suggested it was due to them not replacing the filters in their protective masks.

Anyway, at some stage they decide it's time to go in, so tactical enter and grab all the guys and clear the rooms. Then a chemical team go in to make sure everything is safe. Eventually my mate and his team go in to collect evidence with a few young uniforms to help.

The house is a bit of a shambles but nothing too unexpected, until one of the uniforms picks up a large rubber dildo and starts playing around with it in front of everybody. The senior then tells him: you know that while reviewing all the footage on this place we never saw any women entering or leaving this house... And why are you the only one not wearing gloves? bPhrea

Over Chicken?

Giphy

Not a cop, but a cop friend of mind in SE Washington, DC. He got a domestic disturbance call and arrived to a calm scene. The husband explained he and his wife had been arguing, and that she had gone over the top, but they were both fine now. The wife confirmed the story, but stated she didn't want the husband back in the house that night. My friend asked if the husband had a place to go, and he agreed to go to his mother's house for the night.

The husband left, then my friend and his partner left soon after. About an hour later, they get a call back to the same house. When they get there, the husband is in the kitchen dead. The wife explains that right after the police left, her husband came back and resumed arguing with her. He got in her face and she stabbed in the neck with a chicken bone, hitting his carotid artery. abbrollher

On a hot midnight in The Bronx about 330 am......

On a hot midnight in The Bronx about 330 am got a burg call. Me and my partner found it strange when central gave us the address because it was a funeral home. We arrive on scene of this brownstone building and immediately see the basement lights are on. We look at each other and say "no way ... someone actually broke in here????" So we enter through what is an open door and begin to clear each room of the funeral home/ house. When we reach the basement and open what is a brightly lit body prep storage and prep room we are immediately confronted with several bodies on tables covered in different stages of undress with bed sheets on them.

Our attention is drawn to a very startled naked man holding playing cards . I look at him and simply say "What the heck and who the heck are you?? He looks at me and my partner and nervously responds ... "I'm the Mortician" .... wait .... "Who are you?? And what the heck are you doing??? "I'm the mortician and I'm working and playing cards " "Playing cards ??? My partner says ... "Yeah cards ...see????"... holding his hands out displaying the deck of cards.

I look around and see each of the 4-5 bodies have their own hands dealt to them ...

We asked for His ID .... verified he belonged there and proceeded to leave with a queasy feeling laughing out butts off.

My partner looks at me and says how should we mark this job.... ????

Best job in the world..... I miss the clowns but not the circus. nforcr

Be Naked.

Giphy

Not a police officer, but I know one.

I'm sure he has a million stories, but my favorite that he's told me was the time he was called to a local Mexican restaurant. When he arrived, he was directed to a Cadillac in the parking lot that was a rockin', if you get my drift.

He knocks on the window, and a butt naked 80 year old woman gets out, pissed off that someone interrupted her getting laid. Her 80 year old husband was laying naked in the vehicle still.

This old woman stood outside of her vehicle, completely naked, for a solid 5 minutes, arguing w my friend about how she should be able to get laid whenever she wants.

There was more to the story of course, but as I'm not the first hand story teller, I can't do the story the proper justice it deserves.

He didn't arrest them, even though she stood naked outside for 5 minutes, so she got off easy (pun intended). alwaysmyfault

Still with me....

I babysat for a cop (2 toddler daughters)(10/10 kids, cute and very affectionate) and he told me of one story where he was called to this old lady's home. When they got there they found her husbands rotting body under a pile of newspapers. So apparently the lady had really bad dementia and had thought the husband was a robber and hit him in the back of the head with a rolling pin.

The poor dementia lady went back to bed and he was dead in the morning. She didn't know what to do, so she covered his body with newspapers and somehow managed to survive on her own for a few days. A neighbor started to worry and came to check up on them. The neighbor was the one to call the police. That story haunted me for like a month. ratsoh

"Woodchucks"

I just asked my dad, who was a cop for 30+ years.

He told me he pulled over a car full of "Woodchucks", older drunkards from a rural area in the Northeast area of the US. He was in his late 20's at the time, so in good shape compared to the drunks. I think there were 4. While my dad was processing the driver, he had him in the front seat of his car. Once the guy realized he was probably going to be arrested, he started ripping the radio and anything he could grab out of his car. He grabbed my dad and pulled him out of the passenger side of his vehicle and onto the ground.

My dad landed between this guy's legs and into some kind of leg-lock chokehold. The guy, during all this, has started to scream to his friends to get his gun and kill him. Once he has him in a leg-lock, he looks down and says "now I'm gonna kill you." before he starts to choke my dad with his legs. I guess backup showed up just in time, or had been there, the deputy at the time hit him in the head with a baton and sent him out. tenthplagueb

I went home and hugged my son.

Did a stop on a pretty obvious dope car. Driver is tweaking on meth. Passenger also tweaking and is a female that weighs 95 pounds while being 5'8 or so. She looked like a concentration camp victim. She's offering to provide oral services in exchange for her release. Obviously I decline.

Guy in the back appears to be asleep. I get his ID from the tweaking driver as my backup arrives. We get all 3 out, I can see needles all over the car. The guy in the back wakes up and gets out. Dispatch gives us returns, letting us know the back passenger is has a parole violation (he was released early from prison IYDK) for felon in possession of a firearm.

The dispatcher was supposed to warn us before giving the return out loud over the radio but didn't in this case. Old dude stands up and reaches in his waistband. I see this happening in slow motion and realize it's about to get real. My partner swings from around the other side of the vehicle where he was talking to one of the other suspects. I start to yell gun in time for my partner to straight up linebacker this dude, which we got into cuffs. Had a .45 in the waistband.

I went home and hugged my son, who was 1 at the time.

Edit: was out at a family function. I am about to start replying to all the messages. Thank you.

Second edit: I have a few more good ones if anyone cares to hear them. Also, I don't work patrol anymore. I'm a detective with my agency now.

I posted another story below. Thanks for the positive words. 99% of cops are out there every day doing honest work to keep you safe. copswithguns

67 Stitches In.... 

Not a cop, my dad was. Was backing up a situation where guy allegedly was shooting up on the street. When he came over, guy was arguing with the officer on scene, definitely not being aggressive in any way, or suspicious though. Long story short, the other two officers on scene got aggressive with him and grabbed him and slammed him multiple times into a car parked on the street and he had the get 67 stitches. My dad told the chief and ended up having to quit since everyone was pissed at him for doing so. madiison1461

No Answers. 

I legitimately considered law enforcement as a career path, and regularly chat up officers in public or social situations. I used to ask questions like this.

A former Vegas officer told me a story about he and his partner going to break up a party with some expected underage alcohol and narcotics activity.

While there someone brought up an unusual van down the street. They went expecting more kids nonsense. It contained gang members waiting to kill someone leaving the party.

He was shot multiple times. Spent months in the hospital. His partner was murdered. Dead before EMT arrived.

I stopped asking after this answer. official_fox_news

Hey Ace.

Giphy

Answered a disturbance call to find a drunk dude climbing in a car while his wife screamed at him. She smacked his windshield with a bat, destroying it as he peeled out. We followed him maybe .5 mile with the sirens and lights while he drove with his head out the window Ace Ventura style. Poor bastard didn't get his head back inside in time passing a UPS truck and his head pieces ended up on my windshield. SgtSavage110

St. Peter?

Responded with my partner to a welfare check on an elderly gentleman. Knocked on the door, walked in and couldn't find him. Went to his garage and found him sound asleep behind the wheel. He tried to commit suicide by asphyxiation. Thing is, he only had a small amount of fuel and it was a new Civic. He was pissed when he woke up that I wasn't St Peter. Risin_bison

Showing Up....

Showed up to a call once about a baby crying nonstop for hours and no sign of an adult being home. We went into the house and I followed the sound of the crying baby upstairs to find an 18 month old with her arms duct taped to her crib. I undid the duct tape and it was obvious this was not the first time it had happened. I brought the child downstairs and outside. The mom was walking up the sidewalk of the housing unit and flipped crazy on me.

I handed the child off to a patrol and cuffed her. It was the most satisfying clicking of handcuffs I had ever heard.

Edit: This happened when I was in the Army as an MP. The father of the child was deployed at the time. From what I heard, he was granted permission to return home and take custody of the child. They got a divorce and I believe he won custody. I don't know what happened to her as far as a sentencing or jail time. dogballtaster

Put it Back.

Giphy

My dad friend who is a cop in NC told me that some teen tried to steal an electric shopping cart from Target with a ton of crap in it and tried to outrun the cops but the cart only went 5mph for like 25 meters then the battery died. The cop just asked him to push the cart back since it died and return the stolen items. Bigbadballer88

With an Axe. 

Dad tells the story of a guy he knew who kept getting caught for writing bad checks. He was such a big guy he wouldn't fit in the police car so they would just meet him at the magistrate office and write him tickets. (I know, some trust) but a year or so after this kept happening, he got a call that there was a domestic dispute at the house. So they rush over there and he's got an axe in his hand sitting on the front porch all bloody.

They approach and tell him to put the axe down which he does and proceeded to tell them that his wife is in the bathtub, or at least her head is. But guy was completely open and cooperative, didn't run or anything. Asked if he could meet them at the magistrate office and dad was like yeah nah dawg you're gonna have to get in the car this time.

xfilesarereal

I was in shock....

While serving in South Korea, my team was on patrol in the local drinking village when we heard someone drunkenly singing the US national anthem. At a loss for where this individual was, we finally looked up and there he was.... tight rope walking on the ledge of a building 3 stories up. This is when precision of language is of vital importance...especially when dealing with a drunk. The sergeant on scene said, "Hey, come down here!" The drunkard said, "On my way!" And proceeded to step off.

Under the impression I was about to witness my first death, I was in shock. Through some bit of weird luck/science, he glanced the hood of a slightly misted Daewoo truck and slid down to the ground. We ran over to him and he said, "Hey guys, how's it going?" He had open fractures on both femurs and after some makeshift splinting and controlling the bleeding, he was transported to the nearest hospital. Soju is a hell of a thing. Reddit

"I'm not crazy!"

Giphy

Definitely the time that an older, mentally ill woman tried to burn her house down because she believed that was the only way to disarm the atom bomb in her attic. I got her to walk with me to my car and get in the back by telling her it was the only place she'd be safe. When I got in and started driving, she started yelling that I couldn't take her to jail because she hadn't done anything wrong.

I calmly informed her that we were going to the hospital, which prompted even louder yelling of, "I'm not crazy!" I replied, "I don't think you're crazy." She screamed, "Then why are you taking me to the hospital?!" I told her, "Well, you were next to that atom bomb, right? We gotta get you checked for radiation poisoning." Her eyes got wide and she said, "Oh crap! I didn't think about that, you better hurry!"

Wolfhound1142

For you Rookie. 

First time my brother arrested someone was really funny. He and his training officer were working the graveyard shift and got a call for suspicious activity at a house. They arrive and the homeowner says they're is someone sneaking around his house that shouldn't be there. So they start looking around with their flashlights, grass is really overgrown in the backyard and my brother notice one of those Fisher Price kid's car (yellow & red plastic car) moving on its own. They found their guy, naked and high AF trying to hide under the kids toy and crawl away. Training officer says,"Well, he's your's rookie", had my brother cuff him (guy didn't want to go to jail and put up a naked fight) and take the guy to jail. j2142b

In a bunny suit....

Attended a structural fire in a downtown high rise. Was tasked with evacuating local residents in case the building collapsed.

Third house I went to, the guy answers in a full bunny suit with gas mask propped up in his head. English wasn't his first language, and as I was trying to communicate that he needed to evacuate, it became clear he was running a meth lab inside. Arrested Asian Walter White, and then had to sit in the shadow of the structure fire keeping eyes on the house while waiting for CLEAR (clandestine lab) team to show up.

In that time fire trucks basically surrounded my vehicle so I couldn't move it, even after CLEAR team moved in. Walter had his lawyer call in my pc, and it was about 10 hours before we could head back to cells. I've never had to pee so badly in my life. Philosorunner

Situations.... 

Former PO, I'll try not to make this long: Early morning about 1 hour before I had to end my shift, dispatch said to go lights and sirens to an address. A pit bull was actively mauling an elderly woman. I get there and the woman is practically hanging on to life, blood all over the home. I tased the dog, twice before it responded. A K-9 unit had a muzzle and a strong leash. Dog was eventually put down, woman survived.

Second situation was an active shooter with officer down. It was a real crap show. Dude was off his rocker, shot at a fellow officer. This officer ended up retiring after this, but I and many others thought he was dead.

Third situation. I respond to domestic violence call, shootout with husband, he shoots me 3x and all 3 hit my vest. This was about 6 months after the second situation. I ended my police career after this. KingNebby

"ghost"

Giphy

I know a guy, who was a cop in Texas when I was in middle school. He told me about this one time this woman called 911 because her house was haunted. He preceded to put handcuffs on an invisible "ghost" and acted like he was putting it in the police car. austingarrett

REDDIT

Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

Keep reading... Show less
Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?