Eating alone has its pros and cons, but meals after a sad event are a struggle to get through, like when all your friends bail on your birthday dinner at the last minute. Or when you can't afford milk for cereal. Or eating your deceased spouse's leftovers.
Devastatedboy asked Reddit: What's the most depressing meal you've eaten?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Seems negligent, but okay.
Our parents would get so caught up in work sometimes that they wouldn't buy groceries for an inordinately long time, leaving us to forage for whatever scraps were in the kitchen. The worst it ever got was when we could find nothing to eat except a couple bags of bread in the freezer that only had a couple of endpieces left that were badly freezer burned and a block of cheddar that was so old it was dark orange and cracking. We used it to make the most disgusting cheese sandwiches we ever ate in our lives though.
Wow, hard same. Parents both worked doubles for awhile, and my great-aunt would drop off weird industrial sized food items from her church pantry for us. Three gallons of cottage cheese and 5lbs of black olives? Figure something out, kid.
When you realize that you may have an issue.
Pieces of an earlier meal that I carefully pulled back out of the trash.
I was struggling with an eating disorder, and threw away most of my meal thinking that it being in the trash would turn me away from it. I was strong enough to stay away for an hour or two, then decided I didn't give a F-- that it had been in the trash can. (It was my own, the one under my desk, so mostly just paper anyway.) I don't know if I've ever felt so low and disgusting in my life, knowing that it was my own fault and I was a spoiled bitch who chose to live like this.
Similar story here. My lowest point was standing in front of my parents' fridge, feeling hungry and light-headed, but being unable to eat any of the (completely normal) foods.
I know I might do the trashcan thing too, so when I throw any food away, I always crush it and mix it with trash.
Not so lucky.
Lucky Charms with water, because we didnt have milk, I didn't realize that it was depressing at the time but now that I'm older its sad af.
Just told my dad about this post and he said he also did this once as a kid, looks as if it's being passed down the family tree.
When I was fourteen, I poured myself a bowl of cocoa pebbles, realized were out of milk, and just filled the bowl with whipped cream instead.
Disgusting? Yes.
Delicious? Yes.
Sad Thai.
At a local Thai place me and my then girlfriend would always go, the owner always greeted us and was super friendly. Anyway after we broke up I went in as I fancied a green curry. He asked where she was and I explained. He looked sad and and said "oh..." I sat and had my green curry by myself. It felt sad, I just get take out from them now.
Maybe I'd be a terrible business owner, but I'd have given you that one on the house.
This is a lot.
I once had Thanksgiving dinner alone at a truck stop Denny's in Great Falls, Montana.
Great falls, Montana
You win.
Hey, f*ck you. I like it here.
Really? Why?
... I'm from Lethbridge I suppose it's not all that much better. We're relatively close to Glacier and Waterton though that has to count for something.
Because it has the right amount of nothing, I can walk in a bar and they know my name and drink, great fishing all year round, 15 minute drive gets you out to unruined nature. People aren't up their own butt, friendliest weird town I've ever lived in... I can make a modest wage and live like a millionaire compared to those making the same in any large city.
Came over from Belfast, Northern Ireland, I have been in busy, and I have been in nothing... I like the nothing.
Good for you. I grew up out in Montana/Dakotas and have lived in NYC for the past 19 years. I'm definitely retiring in Montana or Vermont someday. I miss the quiet sometimes.
Well, at least you were fed.
My grandmother died and we were over at her house cleaning stuff out, and mom put me in charge of cleaning out the refrigerator.
My grandmother was always someone who hated to waste things. To such an extent that if she opened a can of soda but didn't finish it, she'd put the open can back in the fridge and finish it later, even though it would be flat by that point.
So as I'm cleaning out the refrigerator, I'm crying and taking bites of all the cold leftover food in there. I was thinking that at least some of her food isn't going to waste, and thinking how sad it is that we'll never have one of her home-cooked meals again.
I gather it's a generation thing. Anyone who grew up during the early 20th century has "don't waste food" tattooed on the inside of their skull with a picture of a ration-card next to it.
My grandma is much the same.
My grandpa is the same, despite being halfway across the world. Grew up under japanese occupation in Singapore and would not let the tiniest scrap of meat on a fish's head go into the trash.
Mickey Dees, always there when you need it.
Mom ended up in the hospital just in time for my sisters b-day.
All my sister wanted to do was go see mom and see if she was okay. I said I would take her as I wanted to see mom myself.
Dad ended up screaming that we didn't have the gas to drive to the hospital she was at and that we could do something "Later."
I got pissed, raided my dads coin jar on his bureau, hauled my sister into the car, put $5 into the gas tank, and drove through McDonalds where my sister and I had a hamburger, shared a small fry and a drink and ate in relative silence.
THAT was a depressing meal.
What happened after that, if you don't mind me asking? And is your mom okay?
She's ok. Dad was upset with me for a bit.
Rest is history almost.
Depressing.
A leftover casserole my 2nd wife had made. I ate it when I came home from her funeral.
I have christmas dinner leftovers in my freezer that my mom made. Not sure if I'm going to eat them...but I also don't know if I'll ever be able to recreate her cooking.
Look at it this way, she made it for you. Would she want you to eat it or toss it? You could look at it as a way of honoring her memory.
Exactly, it's either going to be eaten and enjoyed or it's going to linger in the bottom of the freezer almost totally forgotten about for god knows how long, then chucked in the bin like any other piece of rubbish because you either really need the freezer space, the freezer died or you're moving house.
You may as well put it to good use and appreciate the effort and care that went into making it, rather than that person having spent some of their very last days making a weird frozen food shrine to themselves.
Times is tough and we're tired. And yes, I have.
You ever have sleep for dinner?
I have. The worst feeling is waking up not knowing what you're going to eat that day because you have nothing.
Are you doing better now?
Oh yes. Thankfully. Everything got better once I was able to leave home and support myself. Shitty family even took my hard earned money and used it to buy cigarettes instead of food
If you're going through a similar situation just know you'll be okay. It might not be tomorrow, it might hurt and be very hard for a little longer, but you will be fine and not hungry someday. I wish I could hug you and make everything okay.
When your friends had one job, and failed.
I invited some friends to a sushi restaurant for my birthday. I arrived a little early and sat down at the table for 6 I'd reserved, then one by one the texts came in canceling, and not a single person showed up. Even worse, the waitress noticed it was my birthday when she took my ID, so I knew the waitstaff could tell what was going on and felt sorry for me.
To everyone asking, yes, of course I just ditched all those friends and made a completely new set of friends in my mid 20s. And then everyone in the restaurant stood up and clapped. Those friends' names? Albert Einstein, all of them. Either that, or I learned a valuable lesson that if your birthday falls on a weekday and you're an adult, just celebrate it on the nearest weekend instead of asking people to schlep all the way downtown on a Wednesday and being shocked when they bail.
This sh*t right here is why I try and never cancel, even if I legit have a cold or something or I realize I can't stay the whole time.
You never know, you could be the one friend who came through for someone.
I wish I could go back in time and show up to eat all your sushi, friend.
Could be worse...
Some random snacks from 7-11, eaten for Christmas dinner with my father after my mother kicked him out. My father is a piece of sh*t, but I felt like it was still my job to try to hold the family together (and I was kind of afraid that he was planning to kill himself).
This was very close to a situation I was in 5 years ago except I didn't answer my dads calls. He must of thought we all didn't love him or wanna see him anymore cause he did it. It will always eat me up of how different it could have been if I answered and went to see him.
CAAAAAARBS.
Bread sandwich.
Buy a bag of potatoes with that bread. boiler the potato, mash it, fry, stick inbetween bread. nom nom nom.
And there are people who think carbs are the enemy...
No. Never again.
I once microwaved undercooked noodles with leftover meatballs and poured a bunch of ranch on it because it was the closest thing I could find to a pasta sauce. It 'twas a dark time in history.
How'd it taste?
Like sadness with ranch.
Welcome to Sadness Ranch, the home of the failed rodeo clown.
I've had to eat peanuts for dinner.
When I was scraping by living paycheck to paycheck and I had an unexpected car repair that took away all my spending money, I went to the grocery store and bought a few packages of ramen, a bag of rice and a 12-pack of eggs for like $4-$5 in change and can returns that I scrapped together. Ate a ramen/rice/egg bowl for breakfast and dinner for two weeks.
I'm there right now. In college, switched my major late, ended up going a 5th year so financial aid isn't paying the same. I fry my rice with eggs in the morning and just dump sriracha on it. For dinner I eat ramen with more eggs, or if I'm able to afford chicken breast I eat that.
Went from a bodybuilder to hardly being able to keep muscle o due to lack of calories and protein.
Dark.
Food pulled from dumpsters. The expired food still sealed was ok. Half eaten burgers from McDs? Not so much.
During a short time, my family was homeless (my mother took us in the middle of the night to some distant city via bus). My siblings and I would pretty much hang out at this McDonald's up the road from the shelter we lived in. We would watch people eat and take what was left over, digging through the trash cans when employees were too busy.
My little sister still had the habit after we moved back in with my dad. She would randomly appear with a McDonald's cup or half a burger before we even ordered. I tend to leave my cups on the top of the trash cans when I leave any fast food place, and I'm always looking to see if someone needs something. If someone had paid us more than a moment of attention they would have realized we needed far more help than we were receiving.
"If someone had paid us more than a moment of attention they would have realized we needed far more help than we were receiving"
right in the feels
Winner.
When I was in college I was a typical broke teenager and I relied on Subway a lot, mainly for their daily deals which was usually a 6 inch and chips/drink for $4 or something cheap like that. This was also back when they had the rewards points card, so the more purchases you made the more points you got.
Anyway I had enough points on my card for a free foot long and decided to save that until I was really pressed for food.
Most of the time I would get the daily deal and split it over lunch and dinner. Besides that I would have top ramen and whatever soup was on sale.
So anyway, I had a pretty light week of work and my only food for the week had been 2 packets of top ramen and an orange so I was STARVING and I decided to cash in those points for the foot long.
In my mind, I could split it into 4 or 5 meals which would last me another week until I got paid.
Then I got home and started eating while watching tv and before I knew it half the sandwhich was gone and I was eating the 2nd half. In my mind I told myself I needed to save my food since it was all I had but my bodily instincts kept pushing me to eat.
It was a delicious sandwich but those last few bites I had, I did it with tears in my eyes because I knew I wouldn't be eating for a few days.
So yea, sobbing while eating a meatball sub from Subway
EDIT: This was over 10 years ago, I was fresh out of highschool, my first time on my own with no real concept of money or cooking for myself aside from hamburger helper/Rice-a-roni/boxed mac-n-cheese (if you can call those cooking). I did not eat only Subway but as I said it consisted of most of my diet since I could spend $4 and get 2 meals out of it. In my mind it was better than ramen because I could get veggies and meats. I am a lot better off now in terms of making money stretch and using it in the proper ways. I am also very familiar with cooking cheap meals. TLDR: I was young and dumb.
The Closest People Have Ever Come To Killing Someone
"Reddit user BBQPancake asked: 'What was the closest you've gotten to killing someone?'"
We all... could be a Dateline NBC villain.
Life pushes us.
Of course, there are also times when accidents happen and we prove life is fragile.
One never knows what actions they will one day be responsible for.
More deep breaths should be taken.
Redditor BBQPancake wanted to hear about the times people almost let the devil win, so they asked:
"What was the closest you've gotten to killing someone?"
Everytime someone CHOOSES not to use a turn signal, I roll the dice if this is the moment.
No Hazards
lauren conrad car GIF by The HillsGiphy"Dude was changing his tire on the side of the freeway about half past midnight, dressed in dark clothes, no hazards on, and sitting halfway into the right lane. Almost splattered that dude."
Flooded_Strand
Totally Weird Experience
"11:30 pm Remote country road with no streetlights. There’s a tiny traffic island in the middle of the road and I see what looks like a slightly different-colored silhouette standing there. By all rights, I should not have seen him there but something in my brain clicked and swore there was a figure standing there so I slammed on my brakes as the figure jumped out in front of me, car stopped about 2m away."
"He smiled really sinisterly and started walking towards the car, I reversed and made to move around him slowly and he jumped in front again, I managed to drive on the wrong side of the road to escape him."
"A minute down the road I stop to flash my lights at every passing car to warn them and I sh*t you not the second car that passed was a cop and I explained what happened. I circled back a minute later and saw the dude on the side of the road in cuffs. Totally weird experience."
HeyMrCow
SLAM!
"When I passed my driving test many years ago, I asked the instructor if he had any advice for a new driver. He warned me that if I ever saw a ball roll into the street to immediately hit the brakes because there was a good chance a kid will follow. I never forgot that and have religiously followed it ever since."
"A couple of years ago I was driving down a residential street and it happened again and something in my mind told me to SLAM on my brakes and so I did. I came to a stop just feet from a really little kid who was completely frozen in terror."
"That driving instructor is probably dead of old age by now, but wherever he is, I hope he understands that he saved that little kid's life and saved me a lifetime of guilt and heartache."
MaybeADumbass
The potatoes were stuck
"Pneumatic potato cannon. My friends and I were shooting it in my backyard. Must have launched off dozens of potatoes at this point. We decided to stuff 3 potatoes in the barrel. When we open the valve to shoot it nothing happened. We were sitting around 60 psi and had no launch."
"The potatoes were stuck. My friend went to look down the barrel. I saw what was going to happen and lifted the back forcing the barrel into the ground. At that time the potatoes shot out and left a small crater in the ground."
ELONGATEDSNAIL
I Shudder
shooting breaking glass GIF by PhazedGiphy"I was fermenting homemade kombucha in a tightly closed bottle. Which I forgot to burp. One day a bottle exploded, while my mother-in-law was in the kitchen. Luckily, she was far from the bottle at the moment and got only a scratch on her hand, but we had to dislodge glass shards from the walls. I still shudder from a thought of what would happen if she were closer."
nazanar
Closed bottles and pressure, that is a toxic mess.
Take shelter.
Avengers Unite
the avengers GIFGiphy"Every time I drive in Sydney on a weekend 4000 people either wanna walk out into traffic without looking or cycle onto main roads without pausing or merge into my lane without indicating/checking. By staying in defensive driving mode I've saved more lives than the Avengers."
RGH81
6 Inches
"Was on a film set working when a mentally unstable person with a knife approached me and another crew member."
"Was forced to take a swing at him with a gobo arm (it's essentially a metal rod with a metal knuckle on the end of it). Swung hard enough that if it connected, would have caved in this dude's temple."
"Just missed, and it coming so close must have jolted the guy back to reality and he took off. So closest I came to killing someone was about 6 inches."
Ringlovo
A Few feet from the Girl
"Used to work a delivery job. One afternoon, I'm driving back to work in the old POS delivery van and some girl bolts across the road (presumably to catch a bus that had pulled over up ahead)."
"Slammed on the brakes and came to a sliding stop completely sideways in the middle of the road no more than 2 or 3 feet from the girl. I still think about it sometimes, it was a heavy old Ford van, with no ABS. If I'd been speeding even slightly I think I would've hit her."
ZatyDaddy
Madre de Dios
"Driving a loaded truck, probably about 10,000 lb or so, at the speed limit. Traffic in the oncoming lane is at a standstill. Some [censored] decided he was too important to wait with everyone else and pulls out, face to face with me, at very short range. I swerved hard right, didn't really expect to miss him but somehow did."
"Then swerved hard left to avoid the people on the sidewalk, somehow missed them too. Didn't think you could make a truck do that. Apparently, my passenger (the owner of the truck I was driving for) didn't think it was possible either. I learned some new swear words in Spanish and what sounded like the prayer of thanks to Madre de Dios."
philzar
Fired
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"High school friend's dad wanted to teach us how to shoot. Went to the range and when he wasn't looking I grabbed the pistol and tried the John Woo sideways grip shot. It flew out of my hand and the bullet ricocheted off the side wall. That was my last time to ever fire a gun."
eguez780
We really need to be vigilant.
Do you have any similar experiences? Let us know in the comments below.
As much as most of our favorite movies and books like to portray beautiful, functional, unconditionally loving families, we didn't all come from households like that.
It can be especially hard to be singled out by your family, functional or not, as the root of all its problems.
Redditor Yuizun asked:
"How did you become your family's 'black sheep'?"
Family No Matter What
"My family on one side shares a toxic belief that no matter how bad someone treats you 'family is family' and you continue to associate anyway."
"My parent on that side was abusive, so as an adult, I chose to not have that parent in my life. At first, I was given the 'Yeah, they were wrong and treated you horribly, but...family' speech by a few relatives, but I stayed firm on staying away from this parent."
"I'm now basically disowned. I guess family is family unless you refuse to deal with your abuser, then you aren't family?"
- Orchidforever
Not the Right Kind of "Successful"
"I didn’t go to medical, dental, or law school, lol (laughing out loud)."
- Additional-Brief-272
"I don't want to be that guy, but I'll one-up you."
"My brother is the black sheep because he's not a surgeon. He decided to be a pediatrician. My father was actually disappointed in him."
- GeneralGrueso
Adoption Troubles
"I was adopted at birth. Black Sheep Status attained!"
"My parents 'settled' for an adopted child after failing to conceive a biological one. S**tty for me that they finally got pregnant with the long-desired biological kid very shortly after my adoption."
- 1derHamster
Age Gap Issues
"I'm kind of the automatic black sheep because of my age. I'm the oldest grandchild in the family and my mom had me when she was very young so by the time her siblings had children I was already 13."
"So I'm kind of an island of my own experiences in a different phase of life than everyone... too young to really hang with the adultier adults and too old to hang with all my cousins who are 13+ years younger than me."
"Growing up, it was very isolating. It's gotten a bit better now that all of us are older, but I still don't really feel like I belong especially well anywhere."
- HeraPlum
Being Introverted
"Being an introvert in a very extroverted family."
- ApplesPeaches
"Try being introverted at home, and extroverted at work, while your family knows this."
"So it's always just, 'We know you can do better, why are you always so quiet around us?'"
- Martina313
The Sibling Shadow
"When my older sister set the bar too high starting in second grade."
- FiremanBillBradley
"My brother was always in trouble at school. I was quiet and too shy to do anything but get my work done but whenever there was trouble in my classroom it was always said by a passing teacher, 'Oh, that's x's sister, bound to be her fault.'"
- Valuable_Recipe_1387
Making Big Moves
"I moved to Japan, which I thought was fine, but in my family's eyes I am the same as Al-Qaeda."
"No joke."
"The day before I moved to Japan, my dad said to me, 'IF YOU HATE AMERICA SO F**KING MUCH, WHY DON'T YOU JUST MOVE TO IRAQ AND JOIN AL-QAEDA!'"
"Like bro, chill the f**k out, I'm moving to teach English, gawd dayum."
"My parents have since calmed down, but my 24-year-old sister basically called me a traitor the last time we talked, and my 27-year-old sister said I'm a f**king id**t for moving to a country that isn't even free."
"My parents still make fun of Japan constantly and tell me they will never ever visit me here (to which I said cool, I guess I'll never see you again, because I'm not going to America until you visit me here) so yeah."
"Somehow I'm the black sheep for just like, doing what I want."
- Particular_Stop_3332
Mental Health Stigma
"I was open about suffering from severe depression."
- LadySygerrik
Toxic Family Members
"For refusing my sister's toxic behavior in my life."
"My family is the kind of family where the saying 'family is family' really is implemented."
"However, not with me. I tolerate what I want. If you are a piece of s**t, you don't deserve to be in my life. My family did not accept that and well, baaaah."
- Kitasuki
The Wrong College
"It was a long time ago... but my older sisters were attending Wharton and MIT at the time. The best I could do was Carnegie Mellon. I still remember the look of utter disappointment on my parents' faces."
- PluckPubes
Unapologetic Lifestyle
"Pursuing my constructive life passions and even morphing them into my work, making a good living at it, and being happy and unapologetic about it."
"Instead of doing something my parent thought I should be doing instead, something that wasn’t a 'waste of my time' like a 'real' job."
"I’m the only one of my siblings without a DUI or any other legal issues. Still the black sheep."
- LivingWithWhales
Breaking Generational Cycles
"For being significantly more mentally stable and responsible, and also not enabling or making excuses for a problematic relatives behavior."
- missesalchemist111
The Unplanned Pregnancy
"I was born and had needs and that was it."
- Sunsa249
"I was born as a result of high school sex. That was my fault. They weren't ready for me. Then I had needs like education and medical care and that was just asking too d**n much."
- literally_lite_rally
Black Sheep by Association
"By being born to my mother who was already a black sheep because she was born five years after her four siblings as a 'pleasant surprise.'"
"Most people don't become the black sheep. They're born it."
- Disig
Supportive Siblings
"Supporting my sibling when my stepparent was continually unfair about them. Went from being the unwilling favorite to ‘She Who Must Not Be Named.’"
"Thankfully my in-laws are amazing!"
- bad_dancer236
From ridiculous and petty reasons to larger social issues that a child never could have chosen for themselves, people have been turned into black sheep for all sorts of reasons.
The common thread for each of these people was their decision to value themselves over how they were being treated.
Clearly, the people viewing them as the black sheep didn't like having boundaries enforced around them.
In order for medical professionals to properly assess and diagnose a patient, the patient has to describe their symptoms as best they can.
But not every patient gives all the accurate information, possibly because they may be embarrassed about how they got into their predicament in the first place.
Regardless, doctors and nurses have seen it all and can tell if a patient is not being forthright.
Curious to hear from medical experts online, Redditor DrPloyt asked:
"Doctors and nurses of Reddit, what’s the most blatant lie a patient has told you about why they’re in the hospital?"
Those who felt ashamed thought they could get away with lying.
The STD Source
"Had a patient convince his wife he got an STD from a dirty toilet seat in the ER when he arrived to the hospital. He was in house for about a week or two after, his wife dutifully staying with him each day until about 6. She home cooked meals for him every night and would bring them to the hospital each day while trying to file complaints to us for his STD he got from us."
"A doctor had to kindly explain to her the impossibility of him getting that particular STD from a toilet seat and it also become active / symptomatic in that time frame. She never believed us."
"After she went home each evening at 6 to cook for him for the following day, his affair partner would show up from 7-10 each evening."
– Duffarum
Running From The Law
"I’m a paramedic. I had that. They called 911 to get away from the police and a fight that had been happening.Jumped in the ambulance and started screaming at us to just drive away. We locked ourselves up front and said that’s not how this works and he ran away."
– Fianna9
Substance Abusers
"I’m a paramedic, and it’s the ones who deny doing drugs and insist we don’t know our job. I had one patient swearing up and down he doesn’t do any drugs, he was just sleeping. On the kitchen floor. While cooking."
“Do you know why your mom is crying? She just did cpr on you because you stopped breathing”
"Then admitted to doing some weed. And crack. And heroin. And meth."
"ETA- this was after he woke up to naloxone. I always ask twice if drugs are suspected before moving on to other medical issues."
– Fianna9
Attention Seeker
"I've told this story many times before, but when I worked in the emergency department there was a frequent flier who would come in complaining of migraines, seizures and stroke symptoms. She was completely full of sh*t, just wanted drugs and attention. One time the symptom she presented with was that she could only speak Spanish, but the thing was that in reality she couldn't speak Spanish*,* so you had to ask her yes or no questions or she just wouldn't respond. If the answer was yes she would say 'si' and if the answer was no she would shake her head, because she didn't know the Spanish word for 'no' is no.'"
– PigWithAWoodenLeg
The Axe Thrower
"Psych patient told me she didn’t know why they were keeping her in the facility. She claimed nothing was wrong with her, wasn’t on drugs, and didn’t do anything to be admitted… after 30 minutes of talking she admitted to throwing an axe at her neighbor, unprovoked after use of meth."
– lanakame
Quick observations revealed these patients were untruthful.
The Ex
"I lied to hospital staff once before, my ex gf stabbed me in the hand and it cut me wide open. So I get to triage and I tell them I fell and accidentally cut myself, because I didn't want to get my ex in trouble (yes I know I'm an idiot blah blah blah I've heard it a million times) when I get into a room I look around and notice an unusually high amount of domestic violence posters on the wall, I thought 'huh that's weird' the first thing the nurse says is 'we know it can be hard to talk about being abused' like damn they were on to me from the start, I still don't know how they knew, but I ended up spilling the beans, they said they wouldn't tell the police if I didn't want them to."
– dayzers
Does Not Compute
"I was in the ER for a suspected testicular torsion, and we saw a guy with a pretty clear bullet wound on his arm. The lady handling intake asked him what happened, and he said he fell off his skateboard."
– doctordoctorpuss
What's Up, Doc?
"I had a frustrating itch inside my rectum and the carrot was the only object that I could fit in there"
– LithuanianLion
What The Ex-Con Did
"Easy. A guy came in complaining of being constipated and couldn't poop for 5 days. He reported rectal blood and difficulty passing gas. A CT was done and showed a 9 inch linear object bordering or slightly puncturing through his bowel with questionable free air. With the CT results in hand we confronted the guy. 9 MONTHS AGO, yep, 9 months ago this guy got out of prison where he stuck a prison shank in his butt to hide it during a cell search. It was already in there about a year before he got out. He didn't tell anyone for fear of adding on his prison sentence. He was never able to retrieve it and thought it would just pass naturally. He was just hoping we'd give him some prescription strength laxatives and he'd have better luck. He needed surgery."
– alwaysforgettingmypw
Things got out of hand for these patients with erectile dysfunction.
Hard Situation
"Back when Viagra first dropped, every grandpa in Miami with chest pain would lie about why they had a raging erection. Or the boner would be gone, and they'd be so much more confident in their answer. No matter how much we stressed how unsafe lying would be, no matter whether we ferried the ladies out of the room."
"It was quite a way for little baby nurse me to learn how low blood pressure could get. Being in Miami at the time was like being on the front of a boomer battlefield for erectile rights."
– MissAnthropicRN
Forever Stiffie
"Oh boy."
"I'm an admin in a hospital and just the other week we had a younger guy (30s) come in because he had injected viagra into his unit...his erection had lasted for a worrying amount of hours so he came to ED."
"After having 220mls drained from his member, he regained full function."
"My colleagues and I joked that he wouldn't be touching it for at least a day or two."
– HailCrystals
The moral of the story is, it's pointless to lie to your doctor.
The truth will eventually come out, and it should, because your life could depend on it.
And the truth of the matter is, doctors and nurses don't care about your situation, no matter how embarrassed you are. They just want to make sure you are properly tended to.
Any judgement from them will most likely be because you're a bad liar, not because you shoved a foreign object up your bum.
Every moment we breathe is a moment to learn something new.
What's funny is the more we learn, the more we're shocked.
Some knowledge is so obvious it's stunning how oblivious we are.
Like, "How did I not know this sooner?'
And no matter what I can still be shocked.
Redditor r3tr0gam3r83 wanted to hear about which realizations in life have left people SHOOK, so they asked:
"What is something that blew your mind once you realized it?"
Avocados are not vegetables.
They're fruits, berries to be exact.
Like what?!?!
Colleagues
GIF by Bud LightGiphy"Sometimes it is more important to like your colleagues than the actual job."
"I had shi**y jobs with the most amazing colleagues and had shi**y colleagues and the most amazing job. I'd pick the first every time."
chr989
Star Trekking
"That you could legitimately travel at warp speed through the center of galaxies and never run any real risk of hitting a star. That’s how spread out space really is."
justanotherguyhere16
"Also, galaxies, stars, and even the Universe is constantly moving. I think time travel has been invented, but they can’t figure out the 'space' part of it.
"Yes, they can travel back in time, but relatively speaking, they can’t figure out how to navigate to the part of the planet they want to reach. So when they travel back in time, it’s relative to where they currently are, and end up not moving through space, thus ending up in the middle of an empty vacuum."
theknights-whosay-Ni
Jaws is Old
"That sharks predated the rings of Saturn."
BeardedDominant
"Sharks also developed the immune system that ended up in both dinosaurs/birds and mammals."
csiz
"We don’t know that. We can’t say for certain that the rings are only 100 million years old. It’s still debated."
The_Kek_5000
"I'm pretty sure that sharks are older than trees."
Cayderent
From the Trees
"One day I sat on a tram, passing a river. There was a duck in a tree. I realized I'd never seen ducks in trees. No one else seemed to notice, but I was puzzled. Now whenever I come across something that seems intuitive but I have never considered I call it a duck in a tree."
Ol_Pasta
"This realization happened to me this past year. We apparently have a family of wood ducks in one of the big trees in our yard. Our neighbor said she has seen a duck walking around on a branch. I made it 37 years without knowing some ducks can roost in trees. My wife caught a video of the mama leading like eight ducks into the field next to our house. We aren't even near water."
jwbourne
Artistic Timeline
Confused Eminem GIFGiphy"Pablo Picasso and Eminem were both alive at the same time."
leebon427
"I’d bet a lot of people think Picasso is a Renaissance artist."
editormatt
I admit it. I'm one of those people. Pablo and Marshall, in one lifetime.
New facts are fun.
The New World
Design Loop GIF by xponentialdesignGiphy"They were colonizing the Wild West at the same time as they were building skyscrapers in Manhattan. I always think of them taking place eighty to a hundred years apart. It's wild."
Emilayday
Oh the Power
"Nuclear power plants are just steam power plants that use nuclear reactions to heat the water. There's no fancy magic extracting energy directly from nuclear material. They just boil water and spin a turbine."
RenaKunisaki
"Most electrical generation is spinning a turbine. Photovoltaic solar power is pretty much the only exception, and it's not the only form of solar power. There's solar thermal power, which uses mirrors or lenses to concentrate the heat of the sun to make steam and turn a turbine."
Brawndo91
The Empire
"The Roman Empire fully fell less than 50 years before the discovery of the new world."
South-by-north
"The Romans also had copper wire, magnets, and battery acid. They could have invented electricity hundreds of years before it was actually discovered. But they didn't. The wire was used for jewelry, the magnets as lodestones, and the battery acid was used to clean the rust off of swords."
Kahzgul
"RIP Byzantine Empire. 1453 never forget."
crossbowman44
The Witness
"Owl‘s silent flight. I mean I always knew that but a while ago was the first time I actually witnessed it. Owl came flying towards me and landed only a few feet away and you couldn‘t hear anything. Crazy."
Zealousideal-You-324
"I saw a barn owl swoop down and catch a mouse while hiking at night, and the whole thing happened in complete silence. It gave me a deep sense of unease because it was literally like someone hit the mute button on life."
VulcanVisions
Bad Kermit
Kermit The Frog Meme GIF by IdentityGiphy"Poison dart frogs aren't poisonous in captivity."
"I own 5 of them and anytime I tell someone I own some I always get 'Do you ever lick them' or 'Can you go kill someone with them.' But yeah they get their poison from what they eat, and all I give them is fruit flies."
JMfury
Poison frogs?
That sounds like something Rose would have a story about on 'The Golden Girls.'