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Signs Someone's Gotten Way Too Deep Into Conspiracy Theories

Reddit user sheerduckinghubris asked: 'what is a sign someone is way too deep into conspiracy theories?'

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Photo by Agent J on Unsplash

About 10 or so years ago, my brother got really into the Illuminati. He spent hours reading and researching and knew everything about the Illuminati. He could recite lectures when asked. I used to tease him about being a conspiracy theorist.

Then, I met a new friend of his. My brother and his friend bonded over their obsession with the Illuminati, but I never teased my brother again. That's because, after meeting his friend, I realized I had it easy.

My brother's friend constantly talked about the Illuminati. He'd find a way to bring every conversation back to the Illuminati or relate every action or word of the Illuminati. My brother only talked about this when asked. His friend didn't even need the slightest prompting.

That was when I first learned that people who are really deep into conspiracy theories show signs that they're deep into it. I'm not the only one who knows this. Redditors know that there are signs people show when they're deep into conspiracy theories and are eager to share what those signs are.

It all started when Redditor sheerduckinghubris asked:

"What is a sign someone is way too deep into conspiracy theories?"

No Tech Please

"An extended family-member-in-law keeps the Wifi router and all other TVs and communication devices, aside from their cell phones, in their house unplugged. If you want to use them while visiting, you have to ask permission, plug them in, then unplug them when you are done. They’re legit afraid of 5G and other radio waves on their physical and mental health, and seriously believe that” the government” is listening and tracking everything they do."

"I always remind them that “the government” is literally other humans that you can interact with, possibly your neighbors that sit on elected and voluntary boards and councils, and not some arbitrary anonymous “the government” entity."

"Them: But but “they’re” poisoning our water!"

"Me: Who? You mean Bill, the director of public works? Let’s call and ask him."

"Them: You can’t just call “them.”"

"Me: Actually, you can, let’s call Bill and ask him if he’s poisoning your water, and while we’re at it, let’s call Tom the major and ask if he’s trying to mind control you."

– jklolffgg

Social Media Signs

"I have a friend from college who has gone down this route. My only reference at this point is the rants he posts on Facebook. But everyone starts out the same: "Facebook keeps taking this down and flagging it because they don't want you to know the truth........""

– CoolHandRK1

"I'm sure this friend has no problem with the cognitive dissonance of "private businesses should be able to do whatever they want" and "I'm being CENSORED by SOCIAL MEDIA.""

– HaveAWillieNiceDay

Too Far Gone

"I think when they start fearing 5G or saying the earth is flat/stop brushing their teeth...I'm good."

– unmistakably

"Wait what stop brushing their teeth?"

– notaveryuniqueuser

"I could be wrong but I think they are scared of fluoride."

– ConnerennoC

"yep. that AND they think their diet makes it so they don't have to brush their teeth. YOU'RE WRONG. I CAN SMELL YOU."

– unmistakably

"This reminds me of how Steve Jobs insisted that he didn't need to bath or wear deodorant because his fruitarian diet flushed his body of mucus so he couldn't smell bad, but everyone around him could smell how utterly wrong he was."

– lesbowski

Signs Of A Shot

"I have a buddy from college who lost his mind during COVID. Now he posts all sorts of weird things on FB. Any time anyone of note dies it’s, “I bet they got the jab! No one just DIES for no reason!”"

– Prsop2000

"I’m a funeral director and embalmer and I had a guy call me one day and ask if I had seen white threads in the blood of people who had died and gotten the Covid shot. MFer how the hell am I going to know if they got vaxxed or not? I had another dude tell me conspiratorially that he knew I was seeing the white threads in blood because other funeral directors had told him that. Uh no they didn’t."

– PsychoticMessiah

Check Out My Ride

"Stickers all over the car."

– harajukukei

"I’ll do you one better. Saw a white beater car with conspiracy theories written all over it in sharpie."

– Ct-5736-Bladez

"My neighborhood has one...I always give it a wide berth..."

– breakermw

Eels, Energize!

"They have conspiracy theories that you’re not ready for."

– Telrom_1

"Like throwing your used car batteries into the ocean so the electric eels can charge."

– One-Permission-1811

"Where do you think the electric eels get their energy from?"

– unsmartkid

Free Thinkers

"They wear a "Warning: Free Thinker" tee shirt to Costco."

– flibbidygibbit

"Ironically mass produced and bought by "free thinkers.""

– mr_remy

"They need a Costco card to shop at Costco. Doesn't that concern them? Why does Costco need to know their names and addresses and keep records of their purchases?"

– CoralSkinRot

Cheeto Hands

"When professionals like doctors and historians are lying but some rando on YouTube in his basement with LED lights in the background and Hot Cheeto cheese on his fingers is telling them the REAL truth about (insert topic here)."

– Late_Comedian_5269

Medical Quacks

"What I find even worse are the (very few, but loud) doctors and other professionals who fall down the rabbit hole and give a bunch of false information. They become a beacon to other nut jobs.

Which is crazy because these nut jobs have 0 trust in doctors but once they find a crazy doctor who shares their opinions, they suddenly trust that one specific doctor."

"The regulatory boards need to remove these doctors who spread harmful messages."

– DantesEdmond

"This happened with the "autism is caused by vaccinations" doctor. He was stripped of his medical license for the insane amount of damage he did with that campaign."

– agolec

"They often do strip them of licenses or whatever the equivalent is in what field they're in. The problem is that for many conspiracy theorists, that's simply proof that the "expert" is right and "they" are trying to hide it by attempting to destroy the person's credibility. Unfortunately, people can delude themselves into believing almost anything."

– CityofOrphans

It's Always Them

"They say something like "It's all a distraction. You see, they don't want you to know what's really going on.""

"Then when you ask them what they think is "really going on", they laugh and call you a "sheeple".

– BubbhaJebus

The Flat-Earthers

"When they install satellite dishes but don't understand how the satellites stay in space because the earth is flat."

"True story when I had satellite internet installed."

– Dijiwolf1975

Chicken Little

"They all have a look in their eye's that screams "the sky is falling". Hyper aware, anxious, paranoid, easily triggered."

– buffslens

Talk Talk Talk

"Don't worry, they'll tell you."

– FishAndRiceKeks

"Yes. And every video they post is from a dude sitting in a car. Just endless dudes in trucks and cars, that's who they get their news from."

– PreferredSelection

"I have a few friends who fell down the rabbit hole."

"The most tell tale sign is that it's literally all they will talk about. At all. Every convo you have? Back to conspiracies, Illuminati, QAnon, pizzagate, the elite, the NWO (not the wrestling kind...)... heavy fixation on Covid.... etc.. Every single one.

"Most of them sound VERY uneducated, but think they solved some master life puzzle. Some may be sovereign citizens."

"Another obvious one... I had one friend who ghosted me. I finally got a hold of him and asked him what's up and he said "well it's because you're a deep state spy.""

– BlackIsTheSoul

"There is this tour provided by this lady in Seattle visiting 90s Seattle music landmarks. It's typically small groups. Around 6 people when I did the tour."

"Most of them sound VERY uneducated, but think they solved some master life puzzle. Some may be sovereign citizens."

"In the middle of the tour, we stopped by a pub for a drink and just to talk. One of them was this US Army dude who tagged along with his wife. 3 minutes after talking about the places we just visited he started telling me his opinion on how certain events like 9-11 were actually perpetrated by the government."

– muthaflicka

"I nodded, and immediately got up and told him I wanted to check out the album covers being displayed on this wall."

"He was around 30-ish, fit, looked sharp and smart, and spoke eloquently about other things. Caught me off-guard."

– muthaflicka

"This is the answer."

"Most of these people have zero self awareness and will reveal themselves pretty early lol."

– nsfwtttt

Yup, that's the biggest sign (and the one my brother's friend gave me)!

History remembers Marcus Aurelius as one of the Roman Empire's "good" emperors—but this is Rome we're talking about. Even the good guys did some pretty twisted stuff. From his scandalous marriage to his tainted legacy, this so-called "Philosopher King" had some serious skeletons in his closet. So who really was the last good emperor? Dive in and find out.

1. He Was A Rich Boy

Marcus Aurelius was born into one of Rome's richest families, but that doesn't mean he had a charmed childhood. He lost his father when he was just three years old, never getting to know the man who gave him life. In a touching tribute, he'd later say he learned "modesty and manliness" by studying his deceased dad's life.

So he lost his dad, but at least he had his mom to raise him, right? Well, not exactly...

2. His Mom Wasn't In The Picture

Turns out, Roman ladies weren't exactly the "motherly" type. Marcus Aurelius's mother Lucilla basically never saw her boy, and instead he spent his lonely childhood in the care of nursemaids. But, as the boy got older, the testosterone-fueled Romans believed he needed a man in his life, so a new father-figure hit the scene.

3. He Had An Evil Stepgrandmother

Aurelius's caretakers sent him to live with his grandfather, Marcus Annius Verus. After his isolated days with the nursemaids, Aurelius instantly took to his ol' granpappy. He spoke highly of his grandfather for the rest of his life—but there was one part of this new life he absolutely hated. When Marcus's grandma passed, his grandpa took a mistress, and he utterly despised her.

Though generally a pretty polite dude, something about this woman rubbed Aurelius the wrong way, and he couldn't get out of the house fast enough after she moved in.

4. He Was...Odd

Marcus Aurelius was a homeschool kid, and let's just say it made him a little...weird. Thanks to his, ahem, "eccentric" teachers, Aurelius started wearing rough, worn-out clothing and sleeping on the floor. Imagine if Prince Harry started walking around in a burlap sack and camping out on the grounds at Buckingham Palace. Yeah, it was weird.

Eventually, Aurelius's mother had to beg him to start sleeping in a bed again. It was bad enough that her son was so eccentric—but all of a sudden, he became really important really fast.

5. He Wasn't Supposed To Be Emperor

File:Head of the statue of emperor Hadrian.jpg - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

See, the thing about Marcus Aurelius is, he was never supposed to be emperor. Sure, he was rich and came from a powerful family, but there were lots of rich and powerful young men who were a lot closer to the emperor at the time, Hadrian. But, in 136, something happened that changed everything: Hadrian had a sudden hemorrhage and barely survived.

Suddenly, the most powerful man on earth felt mighty fragile. He started looking for a successor—and there was talk buzzing about this weird kid who slept on the floor and loved philosophy.

6. Hadrian Made A Weird Choice

Soon after Hadrian recovered from his attack, he did something no one expected: He announced that his successor was going to be a dude named Lucius Ceionius Commodus. People were...absolutely horrified. See, our friend Lucius wasn't exactly emperor material. He was old, sickly, and frail. This guy could barely stand under his own power, let alone run the Roman Empire.

So why on earth did Emperor Hadrian make the Crypt Keeper his heir? Well, it all has to do with our boy Marcus Aurelius.

7. Hadrian Loved Him

If anyone thought Marcus Aurelius was a weirdo, Hadrian wasn't one of them. The ailing emperor thought he was just the man for the job, but Marcus was still too young to become emperor. But, here's the important part: Marcus Aurelius was engaged to marry old Commodus's daughter. So, Hadrian figured he'd make Commodus his heir, then Commodus would croak pretty quickly, leaving Marcus Aurelius the emperor.

I know what you're thinking: That plan's more convoluted than an 80s action movie, no way it's going to work. Well, guess what? It didn't.

8. His Father-In-Law Croaked

In 138 AD, the most obvious thing in the world happened: Lucius Ceionius Commodus fell ill and passed. That's right: Hadrian was already on death's door, and his heir still didn't manage to outlive him. Pretty sure he got plenty of "I-told-you-sos" after that one. Instead, he made a guy named Antoninus Pius his heir. Since a gentle breeze wasn't about to knock Antoninus over, I'd say he was an upgrade.

So, what about our boy Marcus Aurelius? Don't you worry, thanks he was very much still in the picture.

9. He Swapped Fiancees

Hadrian really wanted Marcus Aurelius to become emperor one day, but it took some really messy dealing to get it done. Basically, after his first heir kicked the bucket, Hadrian made Antoninus Pius his heir, then had him adopt Marcus Aurelius as his son. Then, to really seal the deal, he made Marcus dump his fiance and marry Antoninus Pius's daughter.

Did I just say that Marcus Aurelius married his new sister? Yes, I did. Turns out, Romans loved marrying their sisters.

10. He Went From Nobody To Heir

File:Antoninus Pius Palatino Inv1219.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

Now that Marcus Aurelius was officially in line to become emperor, Hadrian decided he was pretty much done with this whole "living" thing. He tried to take his own life several times, but people kept stopping him, so Hadrian decided to do it the old-fashioned way: He went to a ritzy seaside resort and started eating and drinking anything and everything he ever wanted.

Yeah, he didn't last long. Hadrian passed, Antoninus Pius became emperor, and suddenly our friend Marcus Aurelius was one of the most important people in the Empire—and that brought a whole host of new problems.

11. He Had So Many Kids

In 145, Marcus Aurelius married his sister-but-not-really, Faustina the Younger. This wouldn't end up being the greatest relationship, as you'll soon see, but at least this couple did one thing really well: Made babies. Faustina gave birth to their first child, a girl named Domitia, soon after their marriage. Domitia would be the first of a whopping 13 children.

But aside from that, I think it's fair to say their relationship was a total mess.

12. His Wife Had An Appetite

Marcus Aurelius was famously stern and reserved—Faustina? Not so much. Already a bit of a wild child, one vice possessed her more than the rest: Lust. I guess her Philosopher King wasn't exactly the most exciting partner, because she allegedly liked to sleep around. A lot. And this was the Roman Empire we're talking about, so she had no shortage of man meat.

This is why Faustina enjoyed one particular Roman tradition a little too much...

13. She Liked Tough Guys

The Roman Empire was one of the most militaristic societies in history, so it should come as no surprise that they held their own version of Fleet Week. Rome's finest legionaries, navymen, and gladiators would parade through the streets in their finest gear—and no one enjoyed the display more than Aurelius's wife Faustina. She would use the occasion to scout out new lovers.

But let's not be too quick to cast aspersions on poor Faustina—she faced more pain than most of us will see in our lifetimes.

14. They Suffered Heartbreak

Marcus Aurelius and Faustina's first daughter Domitia was a sickly child from the very beginning, and she barely clung to life for her first years. Almost immediately after she was born, Faustina became pregnant again, this time giving birth to twin boys. The couple rejoiced, but these were even more sickly than their first. The twins didn't survive long—and while grieving them, Domitia just got worse and worse.

15. He Lived His Worst Nightmare

File:Roman Empress Faustina the Younger, 161-170 CE. Marble ... commons.wikimedia.org

Marcus Aurelius should have been spending his days preparing to rule an empire, but he spent most of his time looking after his frail daughter. Sadly, his doting couldn't save her—she passed at just three years old. The loss devastated the couple once again—and according to Aurelius's writings, this was a moment that changed him forever.

16. He Grew Hard

After losing Domitia, Aurelius wrote this: "One man prays: 'How I may not lose my little child', but you must pray: 'How I may not be afraid to lose him.'" Rather than buckle under the pain of losing his children, Aurelius steeled himself into the hard man he'd become. He would end up needing every bit of strength he possessed—because the hard times were only beginning.

17. His Kids Had A Bad Track Record

Though Marcus Aurelius fathered 13 children, only one son and four daughters outlived him. Not a great track record. And the one son who did outlive him wasn't exactly the kind of boy who would make a father proud...

18. His Son Was A Demon

In 161, Faustina gave birth to a healthy son. They named him Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus, but you probably only know him by the last part: Commodus, the only one of Marcus Aurelius's sons to live to adulthood. Unfortunately, Commodus didn't have much of his father in him...He'd go on to be one of the most bloodthirsty, arrogant, and hated emperors in Rome's history.

But that's jumping ahead—we haven't even gotten to Marcus Aurelius's ascension yet.

19. He Made It

It's a good thing Marcus Aurelius was a patient guy (his wife can attest to that), because he had to wait a long time before becoming emperor. Antoninus Pius reigned for 22 long years before he finally kicked the bucket. As soon as that happened, Marcus Aurelius finally became emperor—but there was a bit of a wrinkle. In a strange turn of events, Aurelius wasn't the only emperor.

20. He Didn't Rule Alone

Colossal head of Lucius Verus (mounted on a modern bust), … | Flickr www.flickr.com

Marcus Aurelius didn't rule Rome alone at first. He had a co-emperor: Lucius Verus. Now, if you think that Roman emperors don't tend to be the "sharing" type, you'd be right. Though both of them were emperors, Marcus Aurelius technically had a little bit more power than Lucius Verus. He also happened to be smarter, calmer, and all-around less nuts than Verus.

And they both got along perfectly and nothing dramatic happened, right? Yeah, about that...

21. They Couldn't Have Been More Different

Poor Lucius Verus, the guy never stood a chance. See, Marcus Aurelius, for his all his faults and saucy personal life, was a pretty darn good emperor. That's why Roman historians called him the last of the Five Good Emperors. He kept Rome stable, managed to expand its borders, and didn't make half the empire despise him. If you're a Roman emperor, that's about as good as it gets.

On the other hand, history has almost entirely forgotten Lucius Verus. He was a total screw-up and he just couldn't manage to get himself out of Aurelius's shadow—but hey, at least he got a (super gross) consolation prize...

22. He Married His Brother To His Daughter

One thing is for sure: Unless your name is Commodus, you definitely did not want to be Marcus Aurelius's kid. First of all, you'd be lucky to see your first birthday. But then, even if you did, you'd probably end up married to some old dude before you were even a teenager. That was his daughter Annia Lucilla's fate. Aurelius betrothed her to his fully-adult co-emperor Lucius Verus when she was just 11 years old.

And if that's not gross enough, it gets worse. Aurelius and Verus were technically brothers, so that meant that Annia Lucilla wasn't just marrying a man decades older than her, but that man happened to be her uncle. Yick.

23. His Happy Times Didn't Last Long

Aside from marrying his daughter to his brother and his wife's taste for sailors and gladiators, the start of Marcus Aurelius's reign actually went pretty smoothly. In fact, he would call his first years as emperor the "happy times." Sounds nice right? Well, not really. See, if you call an early period the happy times, that can only mean one thing: There were some dark times ahead—and were there ever.

Marcus Aurelius's reign was about to devolve into chaos, and to make matters worse, his wife was at the center of it.

24. His Wife Had A Darker Side

According to Roman historians, Faustina the Younger played the game of thrones with the best of them: By that we mean, she never hesitated to poison or just flat-out execute anyone who got in her way. This was a serious contrast to her husband's more pragmatic approach to ruling, but hey, to each their own. And it's not like ol' Marcus Aurelius couldn't use the help. His predecessor had made sure of that...

25. His Predecessor Had Beefs

Take It Personally Michael Jordan GIF Giphy

As he lay on his deathbed, Emperor Antoninus Pius laid down the equivalent of an Ancient Roman diss track. He spent his final moments calling out all the foreign kings and political adversaries who had wronged him like Michael Jordan at the Hall of Fame. No, Antoninus Pius wasn't exactly the most diplomatic guy—and that meant he left quite the mess for Marcus Aurelius to clean up.

Eventually, those old enemies came back to haunt him, and Aurelius learned there's a difference between learning how to run an empire and actually doing it.

26. He Faced Rebellion

One of the enemies Antoninus Pius name-checked in his final moments was the King of Parthia—with good reason. Not long into Marcus Aurelius's reign, said king revolted. To make matters worse, the Roman governor in the region, a guy named Severianus, was a bit of an idiot. Convinced he could take on the Parthians himself, Severianus charged straight at them...and got his entire legion massacred then took his own life.

The situation in Parthia was getting completely out of hand, but Marcus Aurelius came up with a devious plan—a plan that could kill two birds with one stone.

27. His Partner Was A Disaster

Parthia was in revolt, but Marcus Aurelius had another problem: He co-emperor Lucius Verus. While Aurelius was all about running an empire, Verus was all about spending money, partying, and sleeping around, and it was starting to get embarrassing. So, Marcus Aurelius decided there was nothing like a little campaigning to straighten a man out. He sent Verus to Parthia to deal with the upstart king, hoping the conflict would teach him how to be a better emperor.

If you think that's what happened, you're greatly overestimating the incorrigible Lucius Verus.

28. His Plan Failed Miserably

Marcus Aurelius hoped Verus would lead his Roman legions to victory over the treacherous Parthian king. Verus said, "Nah." He spent the entire time partying and gambling with a bunch of bohemian actors while other men handled the conflict. Rather than make Verus finally smarten up, if anything, it made him even worse.

That didn't stop him from taking all the credit when Rome captured the Parthian king's main stronghold, though. But that's not nearly the worst thing he did during his little vacay in Parthia...

29. His Cousin Paid The Price

Anyone who knew Lucius Verus knew not to trust him very far, and that included Marcus Aurelius. He sent his cousin Libo along with Verus to keep an eye on the debaucherous emperor. However, Libo mysteriously turned up dead very early on in the campaign—and few people thought it was an accident. Historians have long speculated that Verus personally had Libo taken out of the picture so he'd be free to party as he pleased.

30. He Was Almost Too Nice

File:Cicero Denounces Catiline in the Roman Senate by Cesare ... en.m.wikipedia.org

It's hard to imagine two emperors more different than Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Verus went about doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted—which almost always meant drinking and gambling and almost never meant running an empire. Meanwhile, Marcus Aurelius always asked the Senate for permission whenever he wanted to spend money on a new project even though, as emperor, he could do whatever the heck he wanted.

But let's not go thinking that Marcus Aurelius was some saint. He was good...as far as Roman emperors go. As you're about to see, that was a pretty low bar to clear.

31. He Had A Dark Side Too

The early days of the Roman Empire weren't exactly the best time to be a Christian. Roman emperors brutally oppressed members of the fledgling religion—and somehow Marcus Aurelius managed to top them all. Under this "good emperor," not only did the Roman Empire persecute more Christians than ever, but the punishments they doled out got even harsher.

Apparently, Marcus Aurelius hadn't read the bible: If you mess with Christians, you get a plague—and one of the worst the world had ever seen was coming.

32. He Faced A New Danger

The world was changing fast while Marcus Aurelius was emperor. Trade networks spread further than ever before, and the Romans actually made contact with China for the first time ever. This meant goods and information spread across the globe—but that's not the only thing that spread. Around 165, Marcus Aurelius would face his greatest enemy yet. It came back with the soldiers from the East, and it claimed more lives than any battle ever could.

The Antonine Plague had arrived.

33. His Empire Suffered

As if Lucius Verus's campaign in the East couldn't have gone any worse, when he came back to Rome, he brought the plague with him. Believed to be smallpox or maybe measles, whatever it was, it hit Rome like a ton of bricks. People started dying by the thousands every single day. In a matter of months, Marcus Aurelius's hold on his empire started slipping—but at least there he found a silver lining to this catastrophe.

34. He Found The Bright Side

The Antonine Plague was one of the most horrifying events in human history. By the time it had ended, it had claimed the lives of up to 10 million people. However, it did solve at least one of Marcus Aurelius's problems: In 169, Aurelius's hapless co-emperor fell suddenly ill and passed at just 38 years old. Reports at the time said it was food poisoning, but many historians have speculated it was the plague.

Perhaps Roman officials didn't want people thinking a grand, divine emperor had died the same way as the common people. Either way, that was one less headache for Marcus Aurelius—but the worst scandal of his reign was soon to follow.

35. His Problems Piled Up

person walking near The Great Sphinx Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

They didn't have email in the Roman Empire, so that meant news traveled really slowly. And when news did arrive, who can say if it was even true. That's what happened when a general, Avidius Cassius, received earth-shattering news in Egypt: Marcus Aurelius was no more. He wasted no time in proclaiming himself emperor, completely unaware that Marcus Aurelius was very much alive.

The whole thing started with a simple misunderstanding, but it would end in bloodshed.

36. The Pretender Screwed Up

The smart thing for Cassius to do would have been to renounce his claim to the throne once he realized Marcus Aurelius lived, but no one who wants to rule the Roman Empire would give up power that easily. By the time he heard the truth, he already had two legions behind him and he decided he kinda liked this whole empire thing. That was the biggest mistake he ever made.

37. He Got A Head In The Mail

Cassius got to enjoy being a fake emperor for exactly three months and six days. After he realized the news of Marcus Aurelius's passing was greatly exaggerated, he kept up the charade, but the writing was on the wall. Soon enough, one of his own centurians stabbed him in the back—literally. They then cut off his head and sent it straight to Marcus Aurelius to prove their loyalty.

The head absolutely horrified Aurelius, and he refused to even look at it. Granted a head would horrify most people, but the Romans tended to be into that kind of thing. Maybe he dreaded it so much because he knew who was behind this betrayal...

38. His Worst Betrayal

According to the histories, none other than Faustina herself, Marcus Aurelius's own wife, put Cassius up to the whole thing. She knew that her husband was growing old and frail, so she wanted to set up a puppet emperor to keep the throne warm until her son Commodus came of age. As if it wasn't enough to sleep around on her husband, but now she stabbed him in the back too...

39. His Wife's End Was Mysterious

If indeed it was Faustina behind the false emperor, she didn't last long enough to try something like that again. She passed in 175 under mysterious circumstances; no historian is exactly sure what happened to her. So, not only did Marcus Aurelius outlive the majority of his children, but he also outlived his much-younger wife, too.

I guess he was too busy to die. After all, he was plenty busy finishing his greatest accomplishment—the thing that would make him a legend.

40. The World Read His Diary

Fragment of a bronze portrait of Marcus Aurelius, probably… | Flickr www.flickr.com

Marcus Aurelius's book Meditations is maybe his greatest accomplishment. Written over the course of 20 years, it's his reflection on life, politics, and philosophy. This landmark work has been studied by countless scholars over the centuries—which makes this next part a little awkward: Aurelius didn't want anyone reading it! He called the work, "To Himself" because it was basically his secret diary, intended for his eyes only.

Apparently, no one cares about an emperor's privacy after he's gone...

41. He Faded Away

Some Roman emperors died at the hands of their own soldiers. Some took their own lives, or partied so hard their hearts gave up. Marcus Aurelius was not one of those. This simple, reserved man met a simple, reserved end. He passed from unknown causes in 180 AD. He was nearly 60 and had been ill for years, and the man had surprisingly few enemies for a Roman emperor, so few historians think there was foul play involved.

The foul play would come later, because with Marcus Aurelius gone, Rome was about to enter a dark time.

42. He Was The Last Good One

When you picture the Roman Empire, you probably picture the 200 years of the Pax Romana, between the reigns of Augustus and Marcus Aurelius. Those were the golden years. Next came our boy's son Commodus, a spoiled and violent dictator whose rule threw Rome into utter chaos. From there, it was basically one long descent to the fall of Rome a couple centuries later. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

43. His Nepotism Doomed Rome

So where the heck did everything go wrong? Here's one clue: Commodus marked the first time ever that a biological son succeeded his father as Emperor of Rome. Why's that so bad? Well, recent emperors had tended to choose heirs who they thought would make good emperors. Commodus was a brat whose mother spoiled him rotten and believed he deserved the throne with no effort. See the problem?

And the saddest part is, Marcus Aurelius saw all of this coming, yet was powerless to stop it.

44. He Didn't Believe In His Son

Marcus Aurelius knew his kid was a screw-up. He feared that Commodus would be a poor emperor, more interested in his own hedonistic pleasures than in actually ruling an empire. Well, this is one time Marcus Aurelius was actually wrong. Commodus wasn't just a poor emperor—he was one of the worst emperors ever.

45. Commodus Was Worse Than Anyone Imagined

commodus as hercules | The vainglorious megalomaniac emperor… | Flickr www.flickr.com

Anyone who says, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" has never heard of Commodus. While his father was intelligent, reserved, and thoughtful, Commodus was arrogant, brash, and cruel. Convinced Hercules was his ancestor, Commodus loved nothing more than doing demigod cosplay and entering the gladiator area to murder innocents and slaughter animals.

And that's not even close to the worst of it. He neglected his people, bankrupted the Empire, and eventually fell to an assassin. So much for "making daddy proud."

46. There Was One Truly Scandalous Story About Him

No matter how much Commodus stained Marcus Aurelius's legacy, everyone still considered the latter a pretty remarkable man. But even remarkable men have skeletons in their closets, and there was one chilling rumor that dogged Marcus Aurelius wherever he went. His wife's many affairs were an open secret throughout Rome—but one of her flings got a lot more disturbing than the rest.

47. His Wife Fell In Love

Faustina allegedly had many partners, but one of them was special. Multiple ancient sources claim that she actually fell in love with a nameless gladiator. Two things made this man different: Faustina actually cared for him, and Marcus Aurelius found out about him. And when the emperor did learn about his wife's affair, his response was absolutely twisted.

48. He Asked For Help

Marcus Aurelius was never one to rush into anything, so when he found out about his wife's new man, he asked some Chaldean soothsayers for advice. And boy oh boy, did they give it. The soothsayers had the perfect way for Marcus Aurelius to reclaim his manhood. First, they said Faustina must sleep with the gladiator one last time. I'm sure Aurelius wasn't too excited about that part—but it's what came next that was the truly messed up part.

49. He Did Some Weird Stuff In The Bedroom

The soothsayers had Faustina sleep with her gladiator—then had Aurelius stab the man while they were doing it. Pretty dark, right? We're just getting started. Then, he made Faustina bathe in the man's blood, and once she was good and lathered up, Aurelius slept with her over the man's still-warm body! If you think Roman histories are boring, you're not reading closely enough, because this stuff is straight out of 50 Shades of Grey fan-fic.

50. Did He Like It?

File:Marcus Aurelius auf dem Pferd.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

After that bananas bit of foreplay, one question remains: Why the heck did Marcus Aurelius put up with his wife's constant affairs? He was, after all, the emperor of the freaking Roman empire, and he could have left her if he wanted. Well, evidently, he believed that as the last emperor's daughter, "her dowry was the empire." Basically, he thought if he left her, he'd have no claim to the throne anymore.

I don't know if I really buy that—maybe he was just into it?

History is shaped by mistakes. Some lead to monumental leaps forward in human understanding. Most do not. Of those in the second category, many are simply embarrassing, and result in a good bar story. Meanwhile, other have simply disastrous consequences. Below are 48 of the biggest mistakes that have been committed in history.

1. He Should Have Accepted the Offer

Google sign Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

In 1999, the founders of Google approached Excite CEO George Bell, offering to sell him the search engine for $1 million. When Bell refused, they lowered the price to $750,000, which he also rejected. Today, Google is valued at over $300 billion.

2. We’ll Pass

person holding black android smartphone Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash

In 2009, Facebook turned down a pair of programmers for jobs. No big deal, right? Must happen all the time at FB HQ...

A few years later, though, the pair developed WhatsApp. Facebook subsequently purchased that venture for a cool $19 billion.

3. Trains Were Too Wide

a silver train pulling into a train station Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

The French state railway SNCF spent $15 billion on a new fleet of trains, but unfortunately, they were the wrong size and were too wide for their 1300 platforms. The mistake cost them an estimated $50 million to correct.

4. A Case of Bad Timing

File:Napoleon at Fontainebleau, 31 March 1814 (by Hippolyte Paul ... commons.wikimedia.org

Just over 200 years ago, Napoleon’s army attempted to invade Russia.

Whoops.

A combination of factors spelled doom for the invasion. There wasn't nearly enough food for the men and horses. Poor discipline was rampant in the ranks. And, of course, none of the men were prepared for the unimaginable brutality of a full Russian winter.

It was a devastating failure. Napoleon lost 500,000 troops.

5. Infidelity is Expensive

File:Tiger Woods June 2014 (cropped).jpg - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

Tiger Woods’s admission of multiple illicit affairs with women cost him his wife and $750 million. He also lost his sponsorships with Gatorade and others, but even worse, the shareholders of the companies with Tiger Woods endorsements lost an estimate $5 to $12 billion dollars in the wake of the scandal.

6. Gambled and Lost

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The Spanish telecom company Terra took a gamble when they purchased the search engine Lycos in 2000 for almost $12 billion. At the time, Lycos was the third most visited site in America...but that was before the dot com bubble burst. In just about a year, most internet companies in America lost millions in value. And Lycos was perhaps the biggest loser.

Terra would eventually sell the search engine in 2004 for just $95.4 million. That's an astonishing loss of $11.6 billion dollars on their investment.

7. I Accidentally Taped Over It!

Buzz Aldrin on the moon in front of the US flag Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Back in the days of data tapes, it was easy to accidentally tape over earlier recordings. Unfortunately for NASA, that’s exactly what they did, and the original tapes of the moon landing were erased and re-used. Luckily, they were able to restore the original broadcast and offer the world a glimpse of the historic event.

The admission that NASA accidentally erased the original footage had fed rocket fuel to conspiracy theorists, who already believed the entire lunar program that landed people on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972 was staged on a Hollywood set.

8. The Worst Nuclear Accident in U.S. History

File:Exelon Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.jpg ... commons.wikimedia.org

The nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in March of 1979 was the result of mechanical failures that were made worse by poor training and oversights in the human-computer interaction design. It was the most significant nuclear disaster in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.

There are conflicting reports on the cost of the disaster, with some sources stating that the radiation exposure wasn't significant enough to result in additional instances cancer, while others insist the radiation caused thousands of cases.

9. Loss of Cultural Knowledge

File:The Great Library of Alexandria - Colorized.jpg - Wikimedia ... commons.wikimedia.org

The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world, and was dedicated to the Muses—the 9 goddesses of the Arts.

The burning of the library resulted in an irreplaceable loss of knowledge and literature.

10. Didn’t Understand the Food Chain

File:Mao Zedong 1959 (cropped).jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

From 1958-1962, Chairman Mao Zedong of China launched the “Four Pests Campaign,” which would exterminate rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. What they didn’t realize was that sparrows ate a large number of insects. Without the sparrows to eat them, locust populations grew and created an ecological imbalance that exacerbated the Great Chinese Famine, which claimed the 15-30 million deaths.

That's right, when Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the extermination of sparrows, he accidentally sentenced 15 million citizens to death, all because he didn't realize that sparrows were mission critical for pest control.

11. Is That Leaning?

people walking on green grass field near white concrete building during daytime Photo by Jainam Mehta on Unsplash

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a free-standing bell tower in the city of Pisa Italy.

The tower is famous for its lean, but that wasn’t by design. The foundation for the tower was built on ground that was too soft to support its weight, and it started to lean during construction.

12. Threw Away Millions

black and red UK flag pedal trash bin near white wooden door Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

A lottery winner in England lost $181 million when her husband accidentally threw away her winning ticket. The woman knew the announced numbers were hers, because she always wrote them down on a separate sheet of paper before giving the ticket to her husband.

13. Brought Down by Foam

File:Space Shuttle Columbia launching.jpg - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

On Feb 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disastrously disintegrated on re-entry, claiming the lives of all seven crew members. Back when the shuttle launched, a piece of foam fell from the shuttle’s external tank and punctured the shuttle’s wing, causing damage that made the rocket unable to withstand re-entry.

NASA knew about the problem when it occurred, and came under scrutiny for their negligence.

14. Cutting Corners

Deepwater Horizon - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

In April 2010, a BP oil rig burst in the Gulf of Mexico, pushing nearly five million barrels of oil from the well. It was eventually determined that years of BP favoring speed over safety and cutting corners were the true causes of the accident.

15. Couldn’t Corner the Market

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Yasuo Hamanaka, the former chief copper trader at Sumitomo in Japan attempted to corner the market (get enough market share to manipulate the price) on copper back in 1996.

Before prices dropped and the scheme collapsed, Sumitomo controlled as much as 5% of the world’s copper. He was known as "Mr. Copper" because of his aggressive trading style. On June 13, 1996, Sumitomo Corporation reported a loss of US$1.8 billion caused by unauthorized copper trading by Hamanaka on the London Metal Exchange. It was later revealed that the true losses caused by Hamanka totaled $2.6 billion dollars.

16. Should Have Prepared for Winter

File:RIAN archive 301 An attack.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

In June of 1941, Hitler was riding high on his victories and was determined to claim the Russian territories to fulfill Germany’s destiny. Convinced that he would easily win, he ignored the warnings of his military, and reportedly told them that “We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten Russian edifice will come tumbling down." Thanks to some strategical miscalculations on the German generals' part, and their unpreparedness for Russian winter, the Germans were eventually forced to retreat.

17. That’s Not the System We Used!

a red planet with a black background Photo by Planet Volumes on Unsplash

A group of Lockheed engineers used Imperial units of measurement to build the Mars Orbiter, but the rest of the team used Metric. The use of two different systems caused the spacecraft to approach Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the plane. It disintegrated as it passed through the upper atmosphere. The mistake cost NASA approximately $125 million back in 1999.

18. Guitar Groups are Out

File:Beatles ad 1965 just the beatles crop.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

Dick Rowe, an A&R man at Decca Records at the time of the Beatles’ audition, is known in history as "the man who turned down the Beatles." Sources that after Rowe first heard the Fab Four, he told their manager that “Groups with guitars are on their way out.”

After their rejection, he went on to sign the Rolling Stones and several other famous groups, but missing out on the Beatles was a big one: The Beatles have sold 600 million albums worldwide and 177 million in the United States alone.

19. They Defeated Themselves

<a href="https://api.aucklandmuseum.com/id/media/v/93335">commons.wikimedia.org</a>

On September 18, 1788, during their conflict with Turkey, a group of Austrian soldiers bought some hard beverages from a band of locals in the town of Karansebes. They had too much and began to shout that the Turks were coming.

Mass confusion ensued (partly due to language barriers), panicked men began firing at the supposed "Turkish invaders" and by the morning, 10,000 of their own men were dead. With Friends like that, who needs enemies?

20. Safety First.

Free Images : live, equipment, spray, training, flame, fire ... pxhere.com

Oil workers on the Piper Bravo Oil Rig were evacuated after an explosion killed 167 of the 226 men working on the rig in July of 1988. A safety inspector forgot to replace a valve after a routine check, and when a worker (unaware that a valve was missing) pushed the start button, gas leaked out.

21. Poked the Wrong Bear

File:YuanEmperorAlbumGenghisPortrait.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

The Sultan of the Khwarezm Empire in present-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran had agreed to a trade treaty with Genghis Khan, but when the caravan arrived, the Governor of Otrar seized the goods and had all but one of the merchants killed.

Khan then sent a delegation to the Shah to demand punishment, and he responded by shaving the heads of the ambassadors and sending the interpreter home headless. Kahn retaliated by invading and conquering Otrar.

22. A Not-So-Controlled Burn

a large fire is burning in the mountains Photo by Mike Newbry on Unsplash

In 2000, the Cerro Grande fire in New Mexico began as a controlled blaze, but things quickly turned into a disaster. High winds and drought let the fire spread rapidly, and soon authorities had completely lost control. The fire burned for more than a month, destroying 48,000 acres, and displacing more than 400 families.

23. Blind Belief

File:Fukushima radiation dose map 2011-04-29.png - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

The triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Number 1 power plant occurred largely because the Japanese government had a blind belief that the plants were so safe, a major disaster was impossible—despite warnings that the aging plants were vulnerable. The accident will take an estimated 40 years and billions of dollars to clean up.

24. They Should Have Listened

underwater photography of titanic Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

Stop me if you've heard this one...

In April 1912, the largest passenger ship ever built began its maiden voyage across the Atlantic from England to New York. It would never finish the trip.

The Titanic was called "unsinkable". It wasn't. The ship sank in the early morning hours of April 15, after crashing into an iceberg and taking on water.

Long before the actual incident, the Titanic's crew received warnings about icebergs in the area. In the interest of saving time, the warnings were ignored. That mistake claimed the lives of 1,517 people.

25. Billion-Dollar Write-Down

File:Sony Movies Logo.svg - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

Sony thought that they were making a smart purchase when they scooped up Columbia Pictures for $3.4 billion in 1989. The cost of the deal increased when they had to spend $200 million on another production company, and another $500 million to settle a lawsuit. In the end, they were forced to take a 3.2-billion-dollar write-down on the acquisition.

26. They Thought It Was Useless

Sydney Opera House, Australia Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash

Dutch navigators extensively explored Australia almost a century before Captain James Cook claimed it for Great Britain in 1770, but they chose not to settle there because it failed to live up to their expectations. The island had been fabled to be overflowing with gold and giants, and they were disappointed by the seemingly barren coastline.

27. Equipment Failure

flying stealth plane during day Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash

America’s most expensive jet was destroyed on a practice flight in Guam when faulty sensors caused the plane to stall on take-off and crash. Luckily, both pilots were able to eject safely.

28. They Wished They’d Kept It

brown wooden signage on gray sand during daytime Photo by Alexis Mette on Unsplash

At the end of the Crimean War, Russia was weakened and had very little money, and they knew that Britain could simply take over their Alaskan territory if they wished. As far as the Tsar was concerned, it was just a useless piece of barren land, so he decided to sell it to the United States, rather than lose it to their British enemies.

Neither party knew about the gold and oil that lay beneath the land. If they had, Russia likely wouldn’t have sold it for 2 cents an acre.

29. There Was No Feast

brown concrete statue under blue sky during daytime Photo by Azzedine Rouichi on Unsplash

In 1532, Conquistador Fransisco Pizarro lured the Inca ruler Atahualpa to a supposed feast in his honor. It turned out to be a trap. Pizarro’s men massacred 80,000 Inca warriors, and captured Atahualpa. As a final humiliation, Pizarro forced Atahualpa to convert to Christianity before executing him.

30. An Unsuccessful Merger

blue audi coupe parked on green grass field during daytime Photo by Udo Meyer on Unsplash

Unfortunately for Mercedes Benz, their 1998 merger with Chrysler failed to work out as planned, and less than a decade later in 2007, Mercedes sold the company for $7 billion—about $13 billion less than they’d paid for it.

31. Hydrogen Is Flammable

File:Hindenburg burning.jpg - Wikipedia en.m.wikipedia.org

The Hindenburg disaster marked the end of the airship era, claiming all 35 passengers and one member of the ground crew. The airship caught fire because of a spark that ignited leaking hydrogen. As the Germans discovered, hydrogen is an extremely flammable and dangerous substance, and using it to fill airships perhaps wasn’t the smartest idea.

32. Fire and Blood

silhouette of trees during night time Photo by Henrique Malaguti on Unsplash

A hunter was responsible for starting the biggest fire in California’s history back in 2003. He lost a lit signal flare near the San Diego County Estates and the fire spread. Close to 300,000 acres and 2,322 homes were destroyed. 14 people also lost their lives.

33. Who Left the Gate Open?

brown concrete building under blue sky during daytime Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash

Forgetting to close a gate isn’t normally that big a deal--unless you’re the unfortunate Roman who forgot to close the Kerkoporta Gate at Constantinople. That unfortunate soul single-handedly lost a siege.

You see, the walls of Constantinople were generally regarded to be impregnable. This contributed to a sense of confidence and security for the Roman defenders, who were under siege by a much larger Ottoman force.

So when one Roman guard accidentally left the gate open at night, a group of 50 Ottomans was able to sneak in under cover of night, slaughtering the Roman guards and raising their flag on the walls. This caused panic in the Roman ranks, who were left with the impression that the city had somehow been conquered overnight. The resulting loss of morale helped the Ottomans to actually conquer and loot the city with a subsequent invasion.

34. Abandoning the Navy

File:Zheng He Treasure Ship (15832736462).jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

500 or so years ago, China had one of the greatest seafaring fleets in the world. They boasted 5 times the size of those being built in Europe.

By 1525, the entire fleet had been destroyed. Chinese elites urged the government to destroy their own fleet, concerned about the rising status of the middle class who had benefited from the international trade that the "Treasure Fleet" enabled. The vessels were either set aflame or left to rot at port. Economists believe this act crippled China's economy and drastically reduced its world influence.

35. Serial Infidelity

Mining Magnate Dmitri Rybolovlev allegedly slept with other women on his yacht, leading his wife to accuse him of "serial infidelity." The divorce battle that ensued forced him to sell assets to raise cash for the settlement.

36. A Fatal Wrong Turn

File:HGM Wilhelm Vita Porträt Franz Ferdinand.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

Who would have imagined that a wrong turn could turn the entire world on its head? That’s what happened on June 14, 1914, when Archduke Ferdinand’s driver made a wrong turn. He turned down the road where the assassin Gavrilo Princip was enjoying a sandwich. The driver, realizing his mistake, slammed on the brakes and caused the car to stall, which gave Princip the opportunity to fire into the car at close range.

37. Great Ideas That Didn’t Work

classic teal sedan near house during daytime Photo by Peter Secan on Unsplash

In 1957, Ford introduced the Edsel.

The car was a massive gamble. For a year before its release, Ford spent millions on a teaser campaign, which billed the as-yet-unseen Edsel as the car of the future.

Turns out, it wasn't.

The car was introduced with fanfare and excitement... but Ford would stop production in 1959, just two years after the initial sale. Unfortunately for Ford, it failed to live up to the hype created by their advertising campaign. The whole debacle cost them an estimated $250 million.

38. A Strategical Error

File:Pearl Harbor submarine base in the early 1930s.jpg ... commons.wikimedia.org

The U.S. had three aircraft carriers assigned to Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack, but they had been displaced on missions on the day of the attack. The Japanese had received intelligence that the carriers weren’t there, but decided that it wasn’t important. This turned out to be the wrong decision, as those aircraft carriers later helped the U.S. win the fight against Japan.

39. A Flaw in the Design

File:IAEA 02790015 (5613115146).jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

On 26th April 1986, engineers at the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station, a Soviet facility, were testing a new cooling system designed to reduce the risk of a meltdown. Their test caused a meltdown, and the resulting explosion destroyed Chernobyl’s reactor 4.

The Chernobyl Forum predicts that the eventual toll could reach 4,000 among those exposed to the highest levels of radiation. That said, what many people don't know is that the plant actually remained a fully-functioning power plant for years after the disaster.

The disaster destroyed reactor 4, but reactors 1-3 remained open for business. Due to high levels of radiation, plant employees could no longer live beside the facility, but many continued to commute to work to supply power in Europe. The final reactor only ceased operating in 2000.

40. Lost His Hard Drive

gold and silver round coins Photo by Kanchanara on Unsplash

In 2009, James Howells bought 7,500 bitcoin when they weren’t worth anything, and by 2013, they had risen to a value of 613 British pounds each, giving him a multi-million dollar portfolio. The only problem was that he’d thrown away the hard drive where the bitcoins were stored.

When he realized his mistake, he went to the landfill to try and recover it, but he was unable to locate it.

41. A Costly Spelling Mistake

Petition to File For Bankruptcy Photo by Melinda Gimpel on Unsplash

The British government was sued for £9 million after a clerical error resulted in the wrong company being recorded as in liquidation. Companies House mistakenly mistook a 124-year-old Welsh company called “Taylor and Sons” for a bankrupt company “Taylor and Son” due to a clerical error that inserted an extra ‘s’ onto a liquidation notice. The mistake cost 250 people their jobs.

42. Too Easy to Copy

Day 250: Summer Addiction | I was first introduced to Snappl… | Flickr www.flickr.com

When Quaker purchased Snapple for $1.4 billion in 1994, their goal was to sell it in every grocery store in the country. But Snapple was so successful in the smaller brand-name grocery stores that companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola made their own copycat brands. Quaker sold Snapple after just three years for significantly less than what they paid.

43. Don’t Drink and Steer

File:Exxon Valdez Cleanup.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

In 1989, an Exxon oil tanker was headed to California when it ran aground on the Bligh Reef off the Alaskan coast. The tanker spilled around 760,000 barrels of oil into the water, and the captain was later accused of being drunk at the time of the accident. He was convicted of negligent discharge of oil.

44. A Fat Finger Trade

text Photo by jun rong loo on Unsplash

A Japanese trader cost his company nearly $2 million when he accidentally sold 610,000 shares for 1 yen, instead of 1 share at 610,000 yen. It was a “fat-finger keyboard error”, a mistake in which a trader places a buy/sell order at a far greater size than intended.

45. You Can’t Dock Here!

yellow and blue abstract painting Photo by Didssph on Unsplash

When a storm caused one of the 12 oil tanks on the MV Prestige to burst, the captain called for help from Spanish rescue workers, expecting to bring the vessel into the harbor before it sank. Because the Spanish, French, and Portuguese governments refused to allow the ship to dock in their ports, the ship eventually split in half and sank, releasing over 20 million gallons of oil into the sea.

46. No Heir, No Empire

File:Alexander the Great mosaic.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

Alexander the Great succeeded in forging the largest Western empire of the ancient world-- only for it to fall apart because he never named an heir.

Shortly before he gave his last breath, Alexander was asked who should succeed him. He responded simply, “the strongest"...as though that was a helpful answer.

As it turns out, men who've spent their lives conquering much of the known world tend to be a little competitive. Upon his passing, Alexander's generals immediately vied to fill the power vacuum... leaving his carefully crafted empire to crumble.

47. Houston We Have A Mistake

January 28, 1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger www.history.navy.mil

Approximately 17% of Americans were watching on the morning of January 28, 1986, as the Space Shuttle Challenger launched toward space. Onboard were 6 NASA astronauts, as well as Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe, who was set to become the first teacher in space.

Tragedy struck just 72 seconds after liftoff. Gasses in the external fuel tank mixed, exploded, and tore the shuttle apart. All 7 crew members were lost.

Prior to the disaster, the builder of the solid-rocket boosters advised NASA that they believed the O-ring seals in the solid-rocket boosters could fail at extremely low temperatures. On the day of the launch, the temperature was 15 degrees colder than any previous launch in history.

48. Rejected Harry Potter

J.K. Rowling’s literary agency received 12 rejections for Harry Potter. When the 8-year-old daughter of an editor at Bloomsbury demanded to read the rest of the book, Bloomsbury finally agreed to publish it...but also advised Rowling to "get a day job" as there was little chance of making any money with children’s books.

From an early age, we're taught not to judge people based on their appearances.

But as humans, it's simply in our nature to be judgmental of others, whether we've gotten to know them beforehand or not.

This habit can sometimes get us into trouble, especially in situations where we have to go up against a person who is secretly a master in their craft. These 50 stories teach us all a very important lesson: Be careful who you decide to take on.

1. The Spreadsheet Expert

I’m kind of the Google Sheets expert at work, and I make lots of new tools for different departments to use. Enter the “new guy” who needed to collect, aggregate, and display a bunch of data. My boss was like, “Send a calendar invite so you can tell her exactly what you want and she can set it up for you.” The new guy was having none of that and insisted he was going to do it all by himself.

Well, a week later, he created this really bad sheet that didn’t have half the information we needed, and we had to have the numbers for the State by the next day. So, my boss asked me to fix it and the new guy was like, “Yeah okay, that’s not really possible. This is as good as it’s going to get!” Boy, was he in for the surprise of his life.

Two hours later, I sent them both a fully functional and automated sheet that did everything we needed it to, and we’d be able to use it indefinitely, which meant that the next time we needed the data for the state report, it would already be done. The new guy ended up saying something like, “I would have added that in if I’d had more time.”

Wishyouamerry

2. A Mythical Blogger

I once went to a museum with my sister and her friend, who I hadn't met before. We got to the Greek art bit and her friend started telling me how she was super into Greek mythology. I thought that was cool because, unbeknownst to her, I was doing a Master's in it at the time and also keeping a blog of myth retellings.

My blog was pretty popular, and it was a relief to have something in common with this stranger. She then got weirdly haughty and told me she probably knew more myths than I did. Being polite, I didn't want to directly challenge her on it, so I just asked her to tell me her favorite so that we could have a conversation about it.

She proceeded to tell me the myth of Daedalus and the Minotaur. I asked her how she'd heard of that one because it's fairly obscure. Her response made my eyes widen. She told me she'd read it on a viral blog post on a blog about mythology. Turns out that it was my blog.

Teashoesandhair

3. Perfect Fencer

two person fencing inside the gym Photo by Eugene Lim on Unsplash

While I was in high school, I was the reigning city fencing champion in both the youth and adult tournaments. My high school decided to do a school-wide fencing unit for Phys. Ed. and the coach they brought in to teach all of the students was my actual coach. During my classes, my coach naturally brought me up to help demonstrate the various moves.

However, for some reason one of my classmates didn't understand that I wasn't chosen at random. He started talking about how I looked like I didn't know what I was doing, and how he could probably completely cream me in a duel. Now, he actually was pretty good for a guy who'd never fenced before, and at the first opportunity, he decided to have a go at me. It was about to go down.

I picked him apart, not giving up a single touch, and used the opportunity to practice my parry and ripostes. I admit I took a bit of sadistic pleasure in thoroughly beating him. Afterward, my coach made a point of congratulating the other guy for doing so well against the city champ, which changed his attitude considerably.

Philip_Anderer

4. Unexpected Baller

I'm a very unassuming-looking guy. 5'8", 150 pounds, and not a tattoo to be found. But back in the day, I was pretty athletic and I could hang in games with fringe D1 or semi-pro guys. I can't emphasize how much I didn't look like it at all. Anyway, in college, while hanging out in someone's room, it came up that I played basketball a bit.

Out of nowhere, some dude I didn't know started running his mouth about how he could destroy me. He just wouldn't stop talking. I gave him every out until it basically became personally offensive. The other guys were a bit tired of this guy hanging around and they knew I could play, so we all trooped over to the gym, late in the winter, so we could settle things.

Here's a spoiler alert: I ended up winning 11-0. I'm not sure if we played after that, but I remember it was 11-0 because I made sure to not let the guy score. And I'm a pretty mellow guy—I would have laid off and let him score a couple when it was clear that I was better, but this guy was a real jerk, so I just clamped down on him start to finish. I blocked a ton of his shots.

He stopped hanging around nearly as much after that, so I was kind of a hero to the rest of the guys. I totally drove that snake out of our nation.

Historical-Regret

5. A Tricky Pool Player

While I'd never claim I was an expert, I used to be pretty good at pool. My aunt and uncle had a pool table in their basement and my parents, for a variety of reasons, would go over regularly and spend all day there. There was nothing else for me and my brother to do, so we just played pool all day for years. Eventually, we got bored and saw that they had a book on trick shots, so we started doing that for fun.

I never really mastered the tricks, but they made for really good practice in understanding how to get the ball to do what you wanted. So anyway, for my buddy’s 20th birthday, he wanted to go to a pool hall and he invited a ton of people. Then he told me it was going to be a tournament, with drinks for individual games and a 50/50 type of deal for the winner.

He would get half regardless because it was his birthday, and he insisted I attend. We got there, started the first game, and they broke. That would end up being the only shot they got. At the end of it, I just looked at him and said, "I told you not to invite me..." I found out afterward that a bunch of them had never even played pool before and I felt pretty bad, so I took the money and bought everyone drinks with it.

Sorcatarius

6. I’m The Real Pianist!

woman playing piano Photo by Rūta Celma on Unsplash

I guy I went on a date with tried to serenade me with his mediocre piano skills. He was incredibly patronizing to me and tried to explain to me what the notes were, even though I had told him that I was also a pianist. So, after his endless explanations, I asked him to move over on the bench so I could play. The best part? He had no that I’m a two-time Carnegie Hall pianist. He never called me back afterward. Worth it!

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7. A National Competitor

I asked an 11-year-old if he wanted to play pool with me at the small rec room where I was staying in Alaska. That turned out to be a huge mistake on my part—he ended up being a pool genius, having competed in pool tournaments nationally. I won the first one because he scratched on the 8-ball, even though I had only pocketed two. Then he cleaned up the next two games without giving me a chance to get more than one ball in. I was maybe 19 then.

jbrittles

8. Pizza Bake-Off!

A neighbor on my block in Brooklyn challenged me to a pizza bake-off. I recently catered pizza for my daughter’s school and word got around the neighborhood my pizza was pretty darn good. My first thought was, "This guy is a Brooklyn native; my pizza will be terrible compared to his!" But there was something about him bragging that made challenging him irresistible.

He talked about how pizza was in his blood, and how his dad ran the pizza place around the corner years ago. I remained silent and let my skills answer for themselves. I got a buddy to let us use one of Baker's Pride ovens at his restaurant. We even had total strangers try our pizzas. Every last person chose my pizza over his.

I never mentioned to him that I'd worked in pizza places almost every day for the last thirty years. I never mentioned that when I'm not working at a pizza place, I'm making pizzas at home at least once every two days. I never mentioned that at nine years old, I knew that I wanted to be a pizza man. Here I am at 45, getting ready to start my own pizza business.

Yogisogoth

9. Silver Strikers

a futuristic space station with red and blue lights Photo by Joshua Parecattil on Unsplash

My brother and his best friend were in Baltimore for a baseball weekend in 2009. They were hanging out at a bar across from Camden Yards and there was a Silver Strike bowling video game at the venue. In our local bar back in Boston, we had one as well. I’m decent at the gam,e but my brother and his buddy were really amazing at this game. They were bowling 300 games and whatnot.

So these two random dudes were playing the game while drinking. We asked them if we could play once they were done, and they asked us if we wanted to play against them instead. We said sure and the rest was history. My brother and his buddy absolutely destroyed them. Like, it wasn’t even close. The dudes said it was a fluke and they wanted a rematch, but this time for a round of drinks. Again, annihilation city.

Even after that, they kept wanting to play, hoping to eventually win a game. After thirteen whole rounds, they finally gave up. They were great guys. We saw them the next day at the same bar and they walked up to us with drinks in hand, asking for yet another rematch. To this day we still hang out with them whenever we go to Baltimore. And to this day, they have never won.

Jerichomega

10. The Fake Expert

I worked with a guy who was supposed to be an expert in what we do. He would blast through jobs and hound our supervisor for more work. He would get through tasks a lot faster than I could and I didn't understand how...until I had to support him one day and found out he was faking everything. He didn't really do good work—anything he submitted was never up to our standards. When I confronted him about it, he got annoyed at me and insisted I had no idea what I was doing.

He thought he had the upper hand...until my supervisor swooped in. When he checked his product, he was reprimanded for doing a poor job. Then, I had to work with him to get him up to speed. After six months, he was still failing, and I was working on his projects as much as I was working on my own. I checked on some of his work, gave him a list of problems I saw, and he completely lost it and didn’t listen to me.

So I left him on his own. I told my bosses that I'd no longer be carrying him. They were getting ready to fire him, but he beat them to it and quit. He found another job where he could be a project supervisor for more money and better benefits. He failed there, too. We sent his new company a basket of muffins and a thank you note. I ended up getting the company car, a $5 an hour raise, and a bunch of other benefits.

Permalink

11. A Challenging Forecast

People say all kinds of random things about how weather and climate function. Little do they know that I’m a meteorologist in disguise, working as a data scientist but with an actual master's and Ph.D. in meteorology. When I politely correct people, they are usually super interested to know more. But occasionally, I get something like, “Oh yeah?! And how do you know?”

I always respond with the same jaw-dropping answer: "Well, I have published several papers on the matter, and would love to discuss it all night," I’d say to them. So far, they’ve all backed down after that.

jmortin

12. The Best Shot

people walking on green grass field during daytime Photo by Michael Satterfield on Unsplash

For reference, this is clay pigeon shooting, known as ‘trap’ in the south. Well, I'm from a rural area and not exactly super "southern," so when I'd go to other trap fields to practice in different conditions, there's always a person or two who place bets with me. This is definitely an old money sport with some of the bets going upwards of 5,000 dollars.

I had an old BT-100 that I got in a trade for a lead shot and some cash on the side. While the shot was not cheap, it was still much lower than other people’s shots and some folks would take that and assume I was a newbie. But they'd end up learning their lesson pretty quickly—the team I was on went to the Nationals almost every year from 2011 to 2018.

It was always funny because some would be good sports, but others would throw an absolute fit. One time, I saw one guy damage a 10,000 Perazzi because someone else had beat him. There was a guy from the county next to us who could blow us out of the water, and he always shot with an 870 pump...from Walmart.

Glickington

13. Fight Night

In college, my buddies and I always got the new fighting game whenever it came out, and we would put in a few hundred hours or so on it, just goofing around with the various modes before dropping it. During that time, we'd have fight nights a couple of times a week where we'd all get together at someone's place and duke it out.

It's not like I never won, but I was always just middle of the pack. After two years of this, no one would ever consider me to be some sort of fighting game wizard...until one fateful day when my luck changed for the better. For the first time ever, the group decided to pick up a 3D fighter instead of a 2D one: Soul Calibur 3 I think. Unknown to anyone in our playgroup, I had previously been obsessed with Soul Calibur 3, playing for 10 hours a day.

I had done this every day, for three to four years, playing against five other people who were doing the same and were just as good as me. It honestly wasn't even that fun. After the first half-hour, they were playing with 200% health while I was playing with 50%, picking random character select, and I still hadn't passed the controller once. After that, it was agreed that we would all play only 2D fighters from then on.

tehm

14. The Chess Master

I'm a Chess master. I think when people hear that, they think, "Oh, he's really good at chess." But what it actually means is that I've played in international tournaments and beaten other masters, earning my right to that official title. Anyway, I get challenged a lot by friends who think they're pretty good at chess.

What they don't realize is that their version of 'pretty good' does not compare to my version of 'pretty good,' and they all end up destroyed by my pieces in less than ten moves every time.

MapleDanish

15. Breaking The Language Barrier

three people in lab coats looking at a tablet Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

My brother works for a scientific instrument company as a technical expert in gas chromatography. He and his colleagues went to a trade show once to show off their new instruments. A couple of German scientists come up and asked them a bunch of questions, breaking the conversation intermittently to speak to each other in German. But here's the plot twist: my brother is fluent in German.

He let them talk amongst themselves until one of the Germans said, in German: “I bet this instrument is just as terrible as the last one.” To which, my brother replies, in German, how it was, in fact, not terrible because they’d done a tremendous number of improvements. The two Germans, now stunned that they’d been caught, politely thanked my brother, apologized, and walked away.

KaeTheGSP

16. A Professional Lesson

I just graduated from teacher's college and I’ve been working as a casual relief in the meantime. I play lacrosse is generally a small sport and even smaller here in Australia. I tried out for the last World Cup team and made it to the final cut. I was working with another teacher who was also stationed at the school. Before the period he spoke to me and said, “Hey mate, we are doing lacrosse today.”

He continued, “It’s a bit of an odd sport that's hard to teach, so just wait over there and then you can just help with supervision,” and walked off. Being a CRT from an agency, I wasn’t sure how I should speak to him. I tried to tell him that I used to play competitively but he didn’t give me a second, so I just listened and did my thing.

After a few minutes, I had enough. I just grabbed a stick and ball and started to work my way around the class, giving them pointers and hints. The way he was teaching was completely incorrect and I didn’t want to say anything, so when the kids broke off into groups, I kind of just taught them the correct way. He pulled me over at a drinks break and asked how I knew so much about lacrosse.

I told him about my playing history and his jaw dropped. He asked why I didn’t speak up and say anything and I said I tried to tell him. Anyway, I ended up running the rest of the class and even ended up teaching him and the correct way to teach the game.

jumpercableninja

17. Surprise Ping Pong

I was hanging out with a girl who I was seeing at the time, and they had a ping pong table near the bar. Two guys were playing, and they were making a big show about how good they thought they were. They were showing off with grunting, rolled sleeves, the works. When I handed them back a wayward shot, I made a comment about how it looked fun to play.

They said that I could get the next game after one guy who was waiting, but their “rule” was any challenger they added in the queue to play would have to buy drinks for everyone else if that challenger lost. Little did they know what they were getting themselves into. I played competitive ping pong in a league back in med school and had placed highly in some New York City championships.

I still play every so often in my current city and I have won a few tournaments here as well. I ended up destroying the two guys. I didn’t have to pay for a drink or give up my spot until my date was ready to go. No one even made it out of the single digits.

KidPowered17

18. Beware The Water

group of men attending on swimming competition Photo by Arisa Chattasa on Unsplash

I was a competitive swimmer for 14 years, including four years of NCAA, but I'm on the shorter side, so people don't assume I was any good. I was at a friend’s house on a lake one summer, and a macho guy challenged me to race to a buoy in the middle of the lake, to prove... something, I guess. The lake is deceptively large, about a half-mile across, so I warned him that if he wasn't a strong swimmer, it could be dangerous.

He was running out of gas after about two minutes, so I offered to let him off the hook. He still insisted he would finish. After I went to the buoy and started swimming back, I looked over at him and just sighed. I found him floundering, so I lifeguard swam him back to the house. His ego took a deserved hit that day. Don't get overconfident around water, even if you think you're a strong swimmer.

Squeakycleaned

19. Forty-Eight!

In primary school, I'd say grade three or four, we had a head-to-head times tables tournament. The teacher would ask a random multiplication question to a pair of students at a time, and the winner progressed. I wasn't exactly an expert at times tables, but I was an expert at 6 x 8. For whatever reason, 6 x 8 just wouldn't stick in my head when I was younger, so I had to spend additional time to bring the answer to the forefront of my mind.

I was decently prepared for any other multiplication problem, so while waiting my turn I was constantly repeating in my mind: "six times eight equals 48, six times eight equals 48, six times eight equals 48" over and over again. That strategy would end up working in my favor. Lo and behold, when it was finally my turn to be quizzed, the teacher casually selected 6 x 8.

Not an iota of time had elapsed from the teacher finishing her sentence when I yelled "48!" The astonishment spread as I became a human-computer in the eyes of my peers. Even the teacher was taken back. I went on to win the tournament, having already won in the minds of my would-be opponents. It was more than victory; it was complete annihilation.

PahoojyMan

20. Kart Battles!

I was visiting Kyoto a couple of years ago. My wife and I walked into a tiny bar that had five people in suits laughing and talking in Japanese. We instantly knew that this was not a tourist bar and felt pretty out of place. The bartender spoke the most English, so I asked him what his favorite Shochu was. Things got a little more comfortable as we drank and eventually, the whole bar tried to talk to us.

Someone mentioned Mario Kart and I said, “Yeah, yeah,” so the bartender pointed to an old Super Famicom in the corner, and apparently, I had accepted the challenge. I smiled to myself and my wife thought it was funny because I used to have some skill at the game. I had no idea what to expect, but when the bartender selected Battle Mode...I was floored.

I hadn’t played in a few years, and he buried me in less than a minute. The whole bar was laughing and I was a little stunned. But then got to the second and third rounds. I destroy him. Three balloons to zero. Everyone cheered except for the bartender. Two shots were put in front of me, and I threw one down. Round 3. We were down to one balloon each and I swear it was the longest battle round of all time.

I was sweating. Shell, dodge, shell, dodge. I had him in my sights and I fired. It missed. The shell bounced off the wall and I self-KO'd. The crowd went wild. So that’s the story of how a self-proclaimed Mario Kart expert embarrassed himself and his country in a small bar in Kyoto. We drank a lot and made a lot of great friends that night that we’ll never see again.

Jonpaul333

21. Hustling On The Table

man in brown jacket playing billiard Photo by Carla Oliveira on Unsplash

While in undergrad, I brought a new college buddy over to an old high school friend's house to hang out. There were a couple of other friends there, just hanging around, drinking, and playing pool. My new buddy was a pretty low-key guy; a wallflower, if you will. When he first meets people, he can be pretty quiet and he tends to seem a little out of place.

But after he gets to know people, he opens up and is a blast to be around. My old buddies, for some reason, decided to hustle my new buddy in pool. I mean, super textbook shark moves. "Let's play a friendly game, and if you think you're any good at it, we can play for money," etc. Well, I knew something that they all didn't. They were in for a shock: My new buddy played on the circuits for a while, winning pool tournaments across Texas.

He lived and breathed pool, and, of course, he saw these guys coming from a mile away. I just watched it all go down. I figured, if they are going to treat someone that I bring over in a snobby way, they deserve what they get. He roped 'em in as only he could. He missed some super easy shots to keep the game interesting and then pulled out the "lucky" win...

Soon after, they played for money. I can't even remember how much per ball, but he played two or three games, slowly playing better or "lucking out" just enough to keep them engaged while still taking their money. Then, the last game happened, and I'd never seen someone come alive more quickly. He sank shot after shot after shot.

These were shots I couldn't make if I practiced for a year straight. The entire time, he kept taunting them and updating how much money they owed them. I don't think my old friend had a chance to take a shot at all. Afterward, they were all furious: "How could you bring this guy over here and let him hustle us like that??"

"How could you try to hustle a new friend of mine just minutes after I bring him over and introduce him to you?" I snarled back. "You earned this one, man." It ended happily, though. They all became good friends and they are still in contact with each other two decades later.

Othersideofbroad

22. Whose Paper Is This Again?

There was a story about an old geotechnical engineer who used to work for the company that I work for. Several senior staff had to attend a meeting with the client, and some government regulatory staff were being awkward and not approving the design. The geotech guy was pretty much quiet the whole meeting. Throughout the discussion, the government guy kept referencing this one research document and rejecting any other suggestions.

Near the end of the meeting, the geotech guy asked the government guy if he had the research paper with him. He said yes and placed it on the table. The geotech guy then pointed to the author of the paper while simultaneously sliding over a business card. That's when he executed his "gotcha" moment. Turned out, it was the geotech guy’s own paper that the government guy had been referencing to defend his argument. The government guy went bright red and apparently approved the design the same day.

MoodyBernoulli

23. Climbing For Money

A local mall had a portable climbing wall. "Make it to the top and win $100," a sign read. The route was actually pretty challenging. As I walked by, the guy asked me if I’d like to try. He told me, “Nobody has made it to the top, so do you think you can do it, buddy?” At that time, I hadn't disclosed my big secret—I was a top 12-ranked climber in my age group and I kind of laughed to myself.

After taking my $100, I then proceeded to call the rest of my climbing team, and one by one they went to the mall and claimed their $100. After the fourth person, they got suspicious and took the sign down. We later told him we were all nationally ranked competitive climbers, and he got a good laugh. The company that owned the rentals was the one who lost the money—he just worked the booth and wasn’t the one who lost the prize money.

CaptainWaders

24. Tetris, Attacked!

There is this old SNES game called Tetris Attack that I played religiously when I was growing up. I got pretty good at it. I'm actually still half-decent, but I only play every few months when I visit my family. Anyhow, I was kinda-sorta seeing this guy and I have NO idea how the topic came up, but he challenged me a game of Tetris Attack.

He was NOT ready for what was coming to him. I had sincere doubts that he had ever played before despite his posturing, and it turned out...I was right. I trounced him and he actually said, "How are you so good at this stupid game?" Practice, my dude. Years of practice.

Unsolicited_Spiders

25. Submarine Cruise

My wife and I were taking an evening cruise for adults in Portsmouth Bay. The ship drove around the shipyard, where my submarine and several others were stationed. My wife and I were having a quiet drink when a really loud know-it-all started spouting misinformation about each submarine. He was calling them all the wrong classes, the wrong names, etc.

He literally pointed to my submarine and said, "...and that is a 637 class." My wife finally spoke up and said, "Actually, it's a 688." The guy got all gruff and scoffed: "Well how would you know?" My wife smiled and hugged my arm. She dropped the bombshell in the sweetest way ever: "That's my husband’s submarine, it is the Minneapolis St Paul, SNN-708." His faceturned beat red while his date laughed.

LeepII

26. Unmentionable Mascara

A Japanese client that studied in France asked me for a translation job but wanted to change all my sentences to prove she was better than me at my own mother tongue. She ended up writing something grammatically correct but it sounded so much like innuendo that if you Googled the terms, you would only find unmentionable videos and writing.

I had to tell my boss what she was forcing me to write (because it was for a mascara brand that was supposed to be sold in France) so he could stop her and after that, she stopped trying to best me.

Sarahohimesama

27. Lifting Weights

man placing weight plate on barbell Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

I am a government auditor. One of the programs I oversee is a sort of boarding school for teens with delinquency history and it’s very athletics heavy. I’ve put on like 30 pounds of body fat since getting this mostly sedentary job and drifting into bad nutrition habits. Basically, I’m meaty underneath with above-average strength.

Prior to this job, I had a side gig as a personal trainer and posing coach. At the program one day, I needed to interview a student who didn’t want to leave his weightlifting class. He told me he’d talk to me if I could deadlift the bar he was working with, like 90 kg. He would soon regret making that wager with me. The staff was visibly annoyed that this guy was giving me a hard time, but I was wearing stretchy pants, so I gave it a quick set-up and pull.

The interview followed and now it’s an ongoing joke at the program that when I ask for interviews, they ask if I need chalk or anything for the mandatory deadlift.

Tankautumn

28. Through Fire And Flames

My college has a dedicated gaming room in its central building. There are TVs for people to plug in whatever they want. I went in one day and saw someone playing Guitar Hero. He was playing on Expert, so he was decently good, but he was not perfect. I sat down, chatted him up, and eventually, he challenged me. It was a Pro-Face-Off on Through the Fire and Flames.

I'm not perfect at Through The Fire And Flames, but I figured what the heck, it'll be fun. Well, our fearless protagonist got a little too big for his boots on that one—he couldn't even hit the intro. The higher your combo in Guitar Hero, the more your score is multiplied, all the way up to 4x. If you don't hit the intro and can't keep your 4x through the fast strumming at the beginning, you're immediately behind somewhere in the echelon of 30k to 60k points.

The solos didn't fare him much better. He blamed his gear.

Im_Zackie

29. Never Again

I had a mate who would play Call of Duty with me a and I'd usually beat him in a 1-v-1 match, but he would occasionally win a game or at least get close before we switched to a different game, Motorstorm Apocalypse. I was a legitimate top 10 player on that game with multiple #1s, while e had just started playing through the offline mode. He was winning the races though, so he thought he was good.

I warned him, but he insisted on a 1-v-1 to show off his skills. Two minutes later, he started sweating like crazy. I'd go on to lap him on a three-lap race, and he ended up quitting the race before he was finished due to embarrassment. He never played that game again.

TryThat12

30. Forwards And Backwards

a group of people in a room with a projector screen Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I have studied memorization techniques and mnemonics. I decided to have a bit of fun with my teacher. He wanted us to write down a list of 20 items. He was the type of guy to quickly call you out for not paying attention in class. I sat there memorizing the list in my head knowing full well he would see me not writing anything down.

He chewed me out for not taking notes, as predicted. He took the bait. I said, "I have it all in my head." I knew he would call me out and have me recite the list. The next day, he turned to me in the middle of his lecture and had the biggest smug smile. "So, what were those items from yesterday?" I immediately proceeded to list them in order without hesitation. Then listed them backward. His smile grew bigger and bigger, and the rest of the class was cracking up!

RollerDerby88

31. The Google Boys

Astronomer here! If we were to just meet on the street, you probably wouldn't guess I was a scientist since I am a woman who enjoys dresses when the weather is nice. This was doubly true when I was a few years younger in my 20s and single. At the end of college, I was doing a summer internship in Mountain View, California where if you went out there'd be a lot of Google boys.

They would literally sometimes wear "Google" shirts so you'd know. I remember getting stuck chatting with one, and when he asked my major, he sneered at me saying, "D you really know the subject?" He asked me if I knew what the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle was, and I explained it in great detail. When I later explained his 20 other questions, he said "it's probably not so hard because they go easy on women because they don't want to scare them off."

Oh, but it gets better—he then he proceeded to tell me at length about a lecture he attended in Mountain View that he'd been lucky enough to visit, as a Google employee, by Jill Tarter who runs the SETI Institute. He even went as far as to tell me about the Allen Telescope Array they were building in northern California because I "might not know about it."

I gave him a minute for his spiel. Then I proceeded to drop the mic on him: I actually was working for Jill that summer at the SETI Institute, on interference mitigation for the Allen Telescope Array. And did he want to hear what she was really like, or see some pictures from the ATA site? I'd also just met Frank Drake, and he was really nice! Oh man, was that guy not happy! But at least he stopped talking to me like right after.

Andromeda321

32. Yes, I Do Know, Really

I’m a female mechanical engineer and I often get people working at Lowe’s, car shops, and dealerships talk down to me or say that I don’t understand basic concepts. For instance, a guy at Lowe’s swore up and down that bolt threading and pipe threading was the same thing. Another guy swore there were no diamond-tipped hole saws and tried to sell me a Dremel for the same job. I then found one in the tile section.

I’ve had mechanics swear up and down that my air filter in my car needed to be changed when I had just changed it weeks before, and my filter is circular and not square like the one they brought out to me. The best is the car salesmen though—they don’t seem to really care about my opinion, especially if my husband is there.

I’m usually the car buying decision-maker, but my husband also knows a ton about cars, and so they try to sell to him. It’s always hilarious. I usually just let them talk and clarify later with my husband because I’m not out to embarrass anybody.

buttsmcgillicutty

33. The Kart Racer

man in red helmet riding orange and blue f 1 car toy Photo by Ravi Palwe on Unsplash

Everyone thinks they are amazing at Mario Kart. They used to be good as a kid and think they still are. I played two to four hours every day in undergrad a couple of years ago. I raced in local and school tournaments and won most of the time. I was within seconds on several course records. I have every course memorized and know exactly when to break on every turn.

I don’t play much anymore, but anytime somebody sees my Mario Kart painting, they tell me how amazing they are. I’m happy to absolutely destroy them.

phish13

34. The Punching Challenge

When I was in the army, we had a gut-punch challenge. I chose not to participate since I have very heavy hands, but there was one guy who kept egging me on. I just kept saying no, until he started talking too much trash and I couldn't take it anymore. So, I let him go first. He reared back and I just absorbed the hit. Honestly wasn’t a bad punch.

But then it was my turn. I sized him up a couple of times with practice line-up swings. He mocked me while I did this. I gave him one more warning, and he laughed it off. So, I pulled back and blasted him. Square on the belly button. He doubled over and his face went pale white. Lips blue. Air out of his system. He spent a couple of minutes struggling to catch air.

Unimmortal47

35. Caught In The Crossfire

There was this game called Crossfire. It’s an FPS game that’s still around I think. Back in high school, this one kid wanted to play me one on one because he heard I was good at it. He talked a big game and had a pretty good rank from his public games, so he seemed like a formidable opponent. I accepted his challenge.

What he didn’t know was just how good I was at the game. He probably thought I just got good from playing it a lot, but in reality, I was on the #1 team in Canada at the time. I was playing against top teams all over the world at that time and would regularly play pick-up games with top players daily. Needless to say, he got absolutely wrecked.

Jkccuts

36. Oh, You Don’t Speak English?

blue and white country flag Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash

I live in Northern Vermont, so we have a ton of tourism from French-speaking Canadians coming down from various parts of Quebec. I am a bilingual American and I hold two degrees in French, the master’s being in Quebecois language and literature. While bartending one day, a customer from Quebec tried to pay her bill in Canadian money, which is about .73 cents to the American dollar.

The Canadian bills didn't even add up to the bill total if the two currencies were on par. So, I politely explained all of this in English, but she replied in French, saying that she doesn't speak English. That was my cue to hit her with the surprise of her life. To the delight of my entire bar crowd, I then politely but forcibly explain all of this in perfect Quebecois French. Her face at that moment is almost worth the pain I feel every month paying back my student loans.

FemmeFatale427

37. Don’t Look Like A Gamer, Do I?

When I was a freshman in undergrad, our floor had one of those big icebreaker meet-ups. One of my fun facts was that I really loved video games, which at the time was an understatement. I was bordering on obsessed. I was a girl, pretty athletic, and decent looking, so most of the guys kind of thought that was funny...and they probably thought I was just saying it to be quirky.

I didn’t bring my consoles to school because I was worried that my grades would be in serious trouble if I did. One of the guys on my floor invited me over to his dorm to play Xbox with him. When I get there, he asked me if Halo 3 was cool. I thought we’d maybe just go through the campaign together, but I noticed he was setting it up for a one-on-one. Big mistake on his part.

He says something along the lines of: “If I win, will you go on a date with me?” I ended up kicking his butt several matches in a row, with him really trying to win. Finally, I just told him we could hang out and play co-op together.

biowaresphinx

38. The Kids Section

I was working at a bookstore after school. since I was too shy to talk to coworkers, and no one wanted to get stuck in the kids’ section where I was often placed, I would spend a lot of my downtime reading. It was great as kids’ books are quick and easy, and you can catch up on ten new books in an hour.

On slower days, I could finish some of the kids’ chapter books in one go. Some series I would read from start to finish in a week. I quickly learned a LOT about the books in the children's department. Over time, I made friends with a lot of the local teachers and would try to get recommendations from them.

It was really helpful with summer reading and holiday chaos. I knew just about every book in that department, and a solid amount of the teen section, which was still sort of a 'new' reading section. However, as I was still in high school and it was very apparent that I was just a teenager helping them, some people wouldn't want to ask me for help.

They must’ve thought I was too young. Perhaps they thought a particular series was for little kids, so they needed to ask a parent instead. Whatever the reason, apparently I looked too young to be able to offer the help they wanted. Of course, every situation always ended in the same way—my co-workers would bring them right back to me. I loved proving them wrong and there were a lot of times where someone would assume I wouldn't know what was up

They’d be super vague and frustrated, and then amazed when I would just hand what they asked for within the next 30 seconds, or describe the cover in detail, with some plot points and my favorite part of the story. Some would even come back and ask for my help with their lesson plans.

brandnamenerd

39. A Really Long Game

a man in a red uniform skating on an ice rink Photo by Nathanaël Desmeules on Unsplash

A friend of mine is really good at hockey. He played in the OHL here in Canada and was invited to a few NHL training camps, but he never made the cut. Anyway, he ultimately quit pursuing professional hockey after college since it didn’t seem like he’d ever make it. One time I invited him to a drop-in league game where anybody could play.

Maybe two minutes into the game, this one guy on the opposing team (who was kind of good but definitely never played at the level of my friend) scored a goal and immediately came over to our bench to taunt us. “How you boys like that? It’s gonna be a long game for you.” That lit a fire inside my friend. We ended up winning 21-3, my friend scoring 18 goals and never saying a single word back to the other team.

CulturePlug

40. Pitch Perfect

I have a perfect pitch. It's not a thing I can turn off; notes simply are a pitch clear as day, much like how red is clearly distinct from green. Anyhow, it was music class in junior high. My teacher explained that Mozart had perfect pitch and he walked over to the piano, played a note, and said: "And just by hearing it, he'd be able to tell you what now that was... now can any of YOU do that?"

At the time, I honestly had no idea this was rare. I raised my hand, and the teacher, with a smug look, pointed at me and he was absolutely gobsmacked when I answered. I hit the note right on the money, octave and all. He figured it was pure luck, so he did it again and asked me to face the other way. I answered correctly again. He also tried it with chords, sequences, and two hands worth of notes.

Still right every time. That day, I learned that perfect pitch is actually kind of rare.

itskayguys

41. Alpha Running

I know a guy who tries to be a major alpha at any interaction with another male. One time, he challenged me to a distance race, saying they could run longer than I could. I knew he wasn't a runner at all, but he did not know I ran ultramarathons and had recently set the course record in a 50-mile race. Well, I said sure, and we set out the next morning at 6 am around a track with three of our mutual friends watching.

I just trailed behind him by like 20 feet at a casual pace. That way, he'd always be expending energy trying to put distance in between us. Surprisingly, he kept that up for like four miles, which is a lot for a non-runner. I eventually ran up to him and stuck with him for another mile talking about my running accomplishments.

Eventually, our friends wanted to leave, so I told him, "If you want, we can run in together." He agreed. But then, during the very last lap, he hit me with a curveball. He said, "Sorry but I'm gonna win" and tried to speed up to pass me. I was like, "Okay," and I dropped my pace. I still came in like 150 meters ahead of him.

He was full of excuses and challenged me to a sprint a few days later. I also completely wrecked him at that. Just give it up dude, you don't have to be "alpha" all the time.

UltraBuffaloGod

42. Five-Minute Mile

man in white tank top running on track field during daytime Photo by Colin FitzGerald on Unsplash

When I was a junior in high school, I was in a PE class of pretty much all freshmen. We were required to take two years of PE and I decided to do it my last two years instead of the first two like everyone else. There was one kid in the class—your typical freshman football player who thought he was gonna be the lead quarterback or something.

Anyway, in the first week or so, I didn't really say anything or talk to anyone because I didn't know any of the freshmen and I was a pretty quiet guy anyway. Soon after, our coach told us we were going to do the mile, and, of course, Mr. Quarterback started talking it up, thinking he was going to win. People like that really annoy me.

What he didn't know is that I had been keeping a secret the entire time—I've been running track and cross country for the last 2.5 years and had a mile PR at that time of about 5 minutes. To make it even better, I was kind of a bigger guy, 5'11", 180lbs; not fat, but you definitely wouldn't guess I could run a 5-minute mile or really anywhere close. Anyway, back to the mile—we lined up and of course, this kid went out like a bullet, so I just trailed a few paces behind him for the first lap and made my move in lap two, just barely overtaking him.

I could've just totally pulled away and won by a long shot, but I decided that I would just stay a few paces right in front of him the whole time to just drag him along. I won just a couple of seconds in front of him with a 6:15 time. He was totally exhausted right afterward while I had barely broken a sweat. He shut his mouth a bit more after that.

Aidenj6

43. The Real Competition

Seven teenage boys tried to get my boyfriend at the time to play Daytona, the arcade machine game, with them, as it was an eight-person setup. He offered me his place, which they accepted, thinking a woman in her mid-20s wouldn't be much competition. They had no idea who they were messing with— I worked at an amusement arcade at the time and played Daytona maybe 20 to 30 times a week.

I thrashed them, even playing in automatic mode. I may even have thrown in a "Did you just get beat by a GIRL?" as I strode off. I can still do it too. No-one has ever beaten me in a public playoff, though as a now middle-aged woman, I rarely get asked to take part.

ecapapollag

44. On Top Of The Scrabble Board

I got really good at Scrabble after playing for years. Now, lots of people think they are good at Scrabble, but there are those who are ‘pretty good at a casual game’ and those who have the tw0- and three-letter words memorized, think about rack management, open vs. closed board, etc. Unless you regularly play against other competition-level players with timers and the Scrabble Dictionary, you are probably not the second kind of good.

So, I was meeting my significant other's mother and she thought of herself as a great Scrabble player. Not good, great. I tried my best not to play against her, saying I don't play casually, but she got a little aggressive with her insistence and I relented. We drew tiles and I drew high. The first word I played on the open board made her jaw drop.

It scored me 111 points. She and my significant other never got closer than the end of that first round. I was calm, polite, and good-spirited throughout as I demonstrated the difference between casual and competitive play (a few hundred points). There was no big blow-up, but I don't think either ever fully forgave me.

RedditFact-Checker

45. Do You Play?

woman playing Yamaha piano Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash

I was hanging out with this girl I liked. We were just reading in a classroom that had a piano in it. At one point, I went over to the piano and she said, "Oh, do you play?" Now, I grew up with a piano, and I've learned like three songs from YouTube, but I only know them in a "what to hit in what order" kind of way. However, it is enough to impress most people.

So, I say "Of course," thinking that I would charm the heck out of her. With the most "get ready for your pants to hit the floor" attitude, I sat down and played that song from Amelie. After I was finished, she said "That's pretty good. Can I try?" When she started playing, I knew I'd screwed up. Apparently, she'd been playing piano her whole life.

She even studied classical music at university at some point. So yeah, she was not impressed.

Dachten

46. Dressing Contest

I was a firefighter in college with a bunch of other college kids. We spent nearly every shift challenging each other to these types of competitions, debating how to shave off time, and I usually was the top finisher. After college, I went on to some small-town, part-time departments. As the new guy, I didn’t want to be a know-it-all, so I never really talked about my experience unless I was asked.

One day, the full-time professional firefighters dropped into one of our training sessions and challenged the new hires to a race to put on all our gear. The standard for this is 90 seconds from wearing street clothes to all clothing with mask, helmet, gloves, and the air tank. I did it around 40 seconds in my prime.

The laughter started to settle down as I tucked my pant legs into my socks and carefully arranged all my gear on the floor...but things got really quiet during my last sequence. I both-foot jumped into my boots while putting the flame hood on mid-air and one handing the mask while putting on the air pack. We didn’t time it, but I was dressed and “on-air” before some full-timers had their coats zippered up.

It then became a regular thing for the full-timers to come up with some new competition to challenge me on and there were rumors they would practice on their shifts. But years of practice meant I’d never been defeated...

thebestmailever

47. A Real Distance Runner

I was a competitive distance runner for a while in my early 20s. Not a top professional or anything, but I’m talking 5k in the 14:15 to 14:30 range and 10k at around 30:00 even. Not fast enough to go to the Olympics, but fast enough for local sponsorship and pretty much a guaranteed win at any local road race, usually by a pretty big margin.

I was running a 5k or 10k nearly every weekend for the prize money, which for the record, was never a lot—only $100-$200 or so in value. But it was enough to pay for running gear, travel to races, and other things. Every week, I would search online for whatever race had the most prize money that weekend and I would drive up to race it.

I was going places where people didn’t recognize me. Every so often, the local town hotshot with a big ego who was used to winning their small church's 5ks would “challenge” me or talk hot stuff before the race. It never worked out for them. Normally, I would show up, not really talk to anyone, humbly run my race, and go home.

I wasn’t there to prove anything to anyone; I just wanted the $200 gift card or whatever they were offering. But when this happened, I had fun with it. I’d let them talk, which would always include them bragging about their personal record or recent race times. “Yeah, I won this race last year...I ran a 17:45 and won by a minute”...things like that.

I’d respond with, “Wow that’s impressive!” I mean, an 18:00 for 5k is a good time, but if you know 5k times, you'd know 14:30 for 5k is a different world. For reference, around this time, I ran the marathon in under two hours and 30 minutes. I averaged 17:45 per 5k in my marathon. So, it was not really going to be a “competition,” but I wanted them to think it would be. If they asked me about myself, I’d just brush it off and just say, “Oh, I’m just out here to have fun and support the local charity” or something like that.

When the race came, the real fun began. They'd take off like a bat, trying to prove a point. They’d try to put distance on me, but I’d just stay on their shoulder, letting them dictate their pace. This was almost always a pace they couldn’t actually sustain the whole race. Remember, at this point, they’d told me what they ran, so in my head, I knew what pace they should be able to sustain. I’d let them lead for the first mile, just running right behind them and never letting up.

Then, I’d slowly come parallel with them and take over. I’d constantly read their pace and run just fast enough to let them think they still had a chance, so they wouldn’t let up. They’d push themselves harder as a result, and you could see it on their face—the grit, the struggle to hold on, and their ego preventing them from slowing down to a realistic pace. They'd got lost in the moment and wouldn't realize what was happening.

That's when I'd slowly start creeping up my pace ever so slightly, but progressively until they started to hit their limit. At about two miles in, it'd be game over for them. They'd reach their lactate threshold, the point in which their muscles are producing more lactic acid than their body can remove and reconvert into energy. This is the physiological breaking point that forces a runner to slow down significantly.

When a runner hits this point, their body literally no longer has the strength to continue at that pace. That’s when I’d kick it into overdrive. I'd leave them in the dust, quite literally taking off nearly twice as fast as they'd slowed down to. By the time they’d reach the finish line, I’d been done for five minutes or more, despite them having been with me for two-thirds of the race. I stay and watch them stumble across the line, slowly, huffing and puffing, defeated.

Distance_Runner

48. I Didn’t Get The Email!

black laptop computer Photo by Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

The property management company for my homeowner's association insisted that I had received emails that I never received. So, I asked them to prove that I had received them. I'm a software engineer and at the time I had just finished an enterprise email delivery system; like an in-house, constant contact. I knew the rules of the CAN-SPAM Act by heart. I KNEW exactly how their system worked.

So, this property manager said, "I know how email works. You wouldn't understand." At that very moment, I couldn't help it—I had to put the guy in his place. I started to explain very methodically how email delivery works and how they'd track various actions. I spent about five minutes detailing my credentials and why I was absolutely certain they had never sent me the emails they alleged I received. When I was finished, the HOA board just agreed to waive the fines.

-aged-like-wine-

49. With Just One Letter

I dated a guy in college who was incredibly book smart. He was working on his master’s with the intention to pursue a Ph.D. I was doing the good old five-year plan for college and I was quite content with my level of brainpower compared to his. What he underestimated was my fondness for word games, especially Scrabble. I like to think I'm quite good.

Well, in the three years we dated, we only played Scrabble once, and I beat the Scrabble tiles out of him. But the icing on the cake was the epic way in which I had secured my victory—I got a 50+ word score for playing just one letter. He literally wiped all the letters off the board and had a small hissy fit, claiming that I cheated. I got out my trusty Scrabble dictionary and proved his loss.

Sidesleeperzzz

50. Impromptu Band Member

A buddy of mine was at a concert in bad seats and he started complaining about it via Twitter. All of a sudden, the band started reading some tweets and called my friend up to sit on stage for a couple of songs. They sat him at the piano and during the next song, they jokingly said, "Okay, piano solo!" The crowd laughed, but my buddy's next move shut them up real quick—he just started jamming out, as he plays the piano in his own band. Talk about dream moment getting to play with your favorite band.

noplanplan

Devastating Secrets
Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash

Ever had a secret that was so crazy it could ruin lives if the truth came out? From second families to confidential cover-ups, these people have anonymously shared their earth-shattering secrets on Reddit. Reading these stories will make you believe that sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.

1. No Regrets

I used to work in a call center for my country's tax agency dealing primarily with benefits. The government here gives regular payments to people under a certain income threshold which isn't that low and so a good chunk of the population here gets those payments. A frequent type of call we would get at the call center was asking about why they didn't get the couple hundred bucks the caller was expecting to receive as usual.

One day I answered a call from a lady who didn't get her expected payment. We would get all sorts of callers, and you get a pretty good sense of when people were being legitimate and when they were telling you a fake story to play on your emotions. This lady had my internal alarm bells ringing. She called in about the missing payment and was clearly trying to hide the fact that she was severely devastated about not receiving the payment. It turned out that it was her daughter's birthday the following day, and she was planning on using that money to get her birthday gift which she now had no means of buying.

I noticed when she called that she lived in the same city as me, maybe about a 10-minute drive away. The database we have access to is the government's central taxpayer database ... and it has a ton of info on every single taxpayer in the country. Access to any account and any bit of information on an account is highly monitored, and anything you access is strictly and demonstrably need-to-know access only.

Even the slightest mistake will get you insta-fired, and depending on what was accessed your termination can be accompanied by charges. Needless to say, recording any bit of information and bringing it out of the office is a big no-no.

But something in me felt...different when she called. I really felt for her. It wasn't a catastrophic situation like the calls sometimes are, but there are also a lot of callers who are clearly trying to guilt you into getting something. And she was clearly beside herself and actively trying to minimize and hide just how devastated she was that she as a single mother wasn't going to be able to get her pre-teen daughter a birthday present. After looking into the situation there was nothing I could do to get her the missing payment.

And she lived barely 10 minutes from my place ... so I decided to say whatever, I'm doing a good deed today, and memorized her street address. After work that day I went to her house and knocked on the door. She answered, and I told her that I was walking down the street and saw a $100 bill on her lawn as I pulled it out of my pocket and asked if she had lost it. She burst into tears, and through happy crying she told me that I had no idea about the day she's had and how timely this was. She did not refuse the bill when I gave it to her, and then I gave her some cheesy line about how the universe is a mysterious place.

So I mean technically was this a gross misuse of our country's taxpayer database? Absolutely. Did I feel bad about it? Not in the least lol.

Vandance

2. That Escalated Quickly

I had a close friend who loved breaking into vending machines back in the mid eighties to take drinks and change.

He tried breaking into one at an all Jewish school (I'm going to leave the location out) and inadvertently caused the machine to catch fire. This was on a weekend and no one was around. It burnt down almost half the school and caused them to close the school for over a year and probably a lot of money.

The news ran this "hateful act" for weeks and let me tell you, we were sweating that it would get out we were there and he was responsible. Lucky for us, it's the mid 80s and there were no cameras like today.

It was all over the news and in the newspaper. They just assumed some anti-Semitic organization had targeted the school.

Nope, two dumb, poor kids in hand-me-down clothes and bikes trying to get a free Coke.

Dartheduardo

3. The Wet Bandit

person opening faucet Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

I flooded the hotel on a field trip for school as I'd turned on all the taps in the men's bathroom and didn't understand why they weren't working.

I'd found out later there was a 10-minute cutoff of water supply during that time but forgot to turn off the taps after turning them all. Coincidentally a few of the taps had plugs in them that I hadn't noticed at the time. This caused two floors to suffer a lot of water damage including the girls’ dorm which would cost a lot to fix. (I guess this is why public places moved to push taps rather than manual).

Only one person knew I'd entered that bathroom during the time period and he kept quiet as the teacher grilled everyone. I refused to say anything as I didn't want my family to get fined and also didn't want to be ridiculed so to this day 15 years later I've not told a soul.

Puretyder

4. It’s On Me

I have spent 20 years feeling guilty about this. The first month I had my license, I hit the side mirror off of someone's car while driving down a narrow street. Nobody was around to see it and I knew my parents would freak out and be even more strict than they already were so I panicked and kept driving.

One time when I was in a restaurant, I overheard a random couple talking about how someone had done the same to her car. I anonymously picked up their tab. It didn't really make up for my mistake but at least made me feel a tiny bit better about what I did when I was an idiot 16 year old.

Littleirishpixie

5. Frosted Whats?

14 years ago, while IT was working on my work PC, the IT guy had to step away for a moment. I used those precious 5 minutes to exploit admin control. I went to the most-used company template used by 200+ people over 100,000 times a year and added a little easter-egg in tiny font. It said "Frosted Butts". I don't know why I did it. I just did.

I talked with a coworker who is still there about a year ago. Though I have long since quit, they have used that template millions of times in the last 14 years and it's still there.

Permalink

6. All Play And No Work

silver Android smartphone Photo by Rami Al-zayat on Unsplash

I don't ever work. My job is horrible. We are looking for a senior angular dev to work on the worst app I've ever seen run. It's an awful job when you actually need to produce results but you can't even get the environment to run.

On top of all this, the CEO made the app and is very proud of it so you can't point out how horrendous it is. I work from home but I spend less than an hour a day working. I have to assume everyone else does the same because my output is on par, lmao.

I'm getting a new job on Monday anyways.

Ghostwilliz

7. Evil Stepfather

I hate my father in law. I have absolutely no love for him. So does my wife (technically it’s her stepdad). Her mom can put it together that we all don't particularly like him. Everyone ignores him because he’s such a narcissist. No one knows why she puts up with him. He’s filthy rich so like maybe that’s why. But she has her own money too.

He is leaving us (well my wife) a LOT of money, and our kids, in their will. I guess greed gets the best of us and we swallow our pride. But he’s the epitome of a tool. The only silver lining I have with putting up with him is that my boys are set up for success. I hate that he has this power over our family. But that’s life I guess.

chicityguy

8. Knowledge Is Power

I have a spreadsheet that gives me a lot of power, and no one knows about it. It has the social security numbers and current salaries of every employee in the company, all the way up to the President. Someone in HR sent it to me by mistake.

asimovsroomba

9. Write Or Wrong?

person using MacBook Pro Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I learned how to write because I wanted to be an author. Anyways, I’ve made more writing personalized smut in a year than high-ranking engineers do.

crappy-mods

10. Mum’s The Word

I donated my eggs to a friend years before I had my daughter and the result was a set of twins. My family doesn’t know because they won’t understand that these are not my kids/their grandkids/their niece/nephew.

If they find out everything will explode and they will probably pester my friend, wanting contact. So I am waiting til my parents pass to tell my brother, since he can’t keep his mouth shut.

Cabbage-floss

11. Sad But True

I work with a lot of dementia patients, and I wish to dear god you could just end their suffering. There is nothing more heartbreaking than watching their families desperately hold on to a person that is no longer there.

They are just empty shells, they don’t recognize anyone or anything, they don’t remember getting hurt when they get hurt so they become distressed very easily. I hate it. I hate it so freaking much and wish that we could just put them out to pasture.

Rhiishere

12. Spreading Weeds

rough road surround trees with fogs Photo by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash

This singular moment is the only time I've felt like my life was a movie. I tossed about 1,000 not-so-legal seeds off the beaten path in a nature preserve 15 years ago.

Sarcasticguy30

13. WonderBread

I hacked my university’s website and changed the welcome screen from a group photo comprised of students from various ethnicities and religions to a picture of a loaf of white bread.

The administration had embarked on a media campaign to make the school look more culturally diverse, which I thought was disingenuous at best, false advertising at worst since the student body was 96% white and Christian.

The administration was furious, especially when they figured out I locked them out from changing the code. The entire site had to be taken down and replaced. There was a full-on hunt for the criminals who humiliated the community. They never suspected me.

Most_aggrieved

14. Shut Up And Drive

I never passed a driver's license test. When I went for my road test I failed it. I went to renew my learners permit, and upon exiting the DMV I looked at it and saw that instead of them renewing my learners they gave me an actual license. I went to the car and told my Mom, and she told me to get in the car and we left quickly. That was 30 years ago.

Weekly_Assoc_165

15. Thelma And Louise

Thelma & Louise | Kārlis Dambrāns | Flickr www.flickr.com

I “borrowed” a car with a friend when we were 13. We went on a ride for 300 miles. Then we abandoned it and hitchhiked back. No one ever knew. We had a great time–this was in the 70’s.

MarleneFrancais

16. Joyriding

When I was in high school, 14 or 15 years old, there was a little rover metro we used to “borrow” late at night. We were in a small rural town in the UK with officers about—but that didn't stop us from getting up to no good.

It would be left open with the keys in. We'd take it after 11 pm at night, drive around all night with smoke flowing out of the windows and go on little adventures, fill it back up with fuel, and park it back up before sunrise.

Other people found out about the little car and another friend started taking it and blew the clutch up and messed up the gearbox and then abandoned it about 10 miles away. I still feel sad that great little motor got trashed, and for the old person who owned it.

Ramakharma

17. Extreme Couponer

I worked at a big name crafting/fabric store for a while in college. It was kind of fun: I've always been referred to as an "old soul," so I got along really well with all the old ladies that went there. I'd ask them about their projects and what they were working on. It was really nice, and they seemed super excited to share their stories with someone who cared!

Now, this big fabric store chain does the thing where they overprice their wares, but then they "go on sale" for a more reasonable price. Well, the sale price is what the items should be priced as because that's usually closer to what they're worth.

They just use the "sale" thing to make you feel better about spending exorbitant amounts of money. There are sales all the time, and there are coupons on their app, but there are all sorts of weird loopholes and stuff that makes those coupons meaningless.

I worked as a cashier, and you might already see where this is going. The coupons all had the same barcodes and could be used more than once. So, when an old lady would come up to the register and be spending over $100 just for some silly little crafting supplies, I'd be like "Oh look! I just found this coupon! How convenient"!

And I'd give them the "discounted" price. I would also apply those discounts to most of the other things -- the 40% off one item doesn't work on anything on sale... But the whole store is on sale. So these people would be excited to use their coupon, and it wouldn't end up actually working because the thing they wanted was "on sale". So I uh...just bypassed that and entered the product key manually to change the price.

I saved people hundreds of dollars over the time I worked there (it was over the summer and into the fall, so like 4-5 months?). Was it unlawful? Possibly. Was it sketchy and could've gotten me fired if anyone found out? Absolutely.

But the customers were always so grateful and happy, and they were going to make so many cool things!! I wanted to help their creativity grow, not be the reason it got squashed flat.

Also: they had us sweep up all those fake, silk flowers that would come off their wire stems and onto the floor, and we had to throw them away. They were still perfectly fine, they just couldn't be sold, I guess. So instead of throwing them away, I'd put them in my pocket and take them home to scrapbook with or make into cute hair pins... To heck with that wasteful nonsense.

GmaNell42

18. This Smells Fishy

fish with onions and asparagus Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

I met my best friend in the 7th grade (2006/2007). We would spend almost every afternoon together as we lived in joined neighborhoods. We would 50/50 our houses. His mom would make salmon almost every time I came over because at one time I said it was my favorite (I think I was too nervous the first time I had it (she made it for me).

Now, this was a big deal for his family and they ALWAYS fought over the crispy salmon skin. From 2006-2017 I ate more salmon and crispy skin than I would ever want. I don’t like salmon and I HATE the crispy fishy tasting skin. It’s horrible. I can’t even smell it when my husband cooks it. I hate it.

I still have to lie to my best friend and his angel mother when I see them and she makes me my “favorite” food and tell them how good it is while dying inside. I can never tell them how much I hate it and it’s been too long at this point.

To add to this, I now teach in the same town I grew up in. I had dinner with them after school in December 2022. My best friend’s mom has had a hard go of things between caring for her elderly father with dementia (she herself is in her late 60s) and caring full time for her 4 rambunctious grandkids. This woman went out of her way to make my “favorite” meal that I know takes her a while to make. No one can know.

Jillisntnewhere

19. Close Enough

My father-in-law isn't really who he says he is. The truth is that he’s actually his brother—at least legally, he is.

His brother passed at a young age and his dad was too lazy to get another birth certificate. It was back in the day and they lived far away from the office where you apply for papers. So they just used his brother's documents.

Officially he’s named A, but we call him B.

Momo88852

20. You Win Some, You Lose Some

I made $4000 from $100 in a month from gambling in stocks. I proceeded to lose just about all of it shortly after.

If my family knew that I was trading at that time and that I lost $4k - I would never hear the end of it; especially since we’re deep in poverty and need just about every cent we have. I’m personally not too bothered by it anymore and I’ve chalked it up as a funny story and learning experience.

Arikorv

21. Grand Theft Napkin

white tissue paper in blue box Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

At a movie theater, I’ll often take dozens of napkins from the dispensary that I’ll hold on to, keeping them in my vehicle for “road napkins”.

I expect to be raided any day now.

cmdtheekneel

22. Speedran Life

I have no actual desire to do most things. I work to just support my family and I just go along with whatever goals they have in life because I feel like I've done all mine. It's a secret because I know it would just cause arguments.

I just have no real goals anymore in my life for myself, I'm tapped out, I did all the things that mattered in my life: I'm debt free, have a six-figure job, live overseas, sell and own homes, have monthly vacations with my family, been around the world...

Like I said... I'm tapped out and I'm not even 40. I had very little goal starting from a trailer park in a small town, and by the time I was in my 20s I already exceeded my life goals. I've just been adding to them, but now I'm out of ideas, wants, and needs.

HonestCup20

23. Friday I’m In Love

For most people this would be a dream, but for me, it haunts my conscience. My boss doesn’t care about my work and never watches me. I know this because after 30 mins of working every Friday, I go home while clocked in and clock out when my shifts are over.

PeroxyNapkin

24. Give It 20%

woman in black long sleeve shirt using macbook Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

I only really work one day out of a five day week. If there are deadlines, I work more. I look busy and do enough to not get fired. Everyone thinks I am constantly overworked and behind schedule. I'm not.

I don't volunteer for extra work or step up when they need an extra pair of hands. Why? Because I don't get a raise, a title bump, a thank you, or any form of recognition.

I no longer put forward my ideas (and I have really good ones). Any passion or enthusiasm I had was just ended by the narcissistic, demeaning, delusional boss who I have the misfortune of working for.

dead_PROcrastinator

25. Saved By The Belly

I cheated during the German version of a high school diploma.

If I had told anyone important up to two years after passing, I would have had the diploma taken away, i.e my university would have kicked me out.

I had written as many points on my belly with a sharpie that I could think of beforehand.

As we were allowed one short toilet break, I used it to check the things I couldn't answer.

I passed with flying colors.

Elorvin

26. He Didn’t Start The Fire

This happened to me when I was in fourth grade, back then we had a special needs kid in our class. He would often have sudden outbursts and overall was quite the hassle. Anyone, one day we had to get matches from our homes for a science experiment, and me being the chaotic kid I decided to try lighting a match in the classroom, which caused quite a stir.

And when the class was interrogated about what happened and who did it, I shifted the blame to the autistic kid, and due to his previous records and tendencies, they didn’t doubt me in the slightest. The autistic kid got a temporary suspension, while I got away scot-free.

I made it through the whole year without anyone suspecting a thing, and the next year I moved schools, so the chances of them finding the true perpetrator is impossible.

Am I proud of it, no. I exploited a person’s disability for my benefits, and I feel like a terrible person for doing it. As a kid I didn’t think much of it, I just thought I got away with it and that's all, but now that I am more grown and mature, I realize the absolute gravity of the situation. I could’ve gotten this poor kid expelled for something he had zero involvement in.

Remix-Pheonix

27. Road Ragers

man in black framed eyeglasses Photo by Joshua Wordel on Unsplash

I was involved in a road rage incident that caused an accident, and I fled the scene.

I was at a red light waiting to turn left when a motorcycle pulled up to the car in front of me and they started talking through the window. I honked as the light had been green and I waited at least 30 seconds but I didn’t wanna miss the light because I was on my way to one of my college classes.

The car drove off but the man on the motorcycle began spitting on my car and yelling at me. I honked and flipped him off, and he turned left and I quickly followed. He then proceeded to cut me off, screaming at me, and brake-checking me. I refused to let him get away with it—so as soon as traffic let me I did the same to him, and when I cut him off he must have hit the curb and crashed.

I didn’t make any contact with him, but I did cause him to crash and I just sped off. I saw a fire truck pull over to help the guy… I do feel pretty guilty about that. Since then I don’t engage with people on the road anymore, it’s not worth it.

No_Foundation_1132

28. Finders Keepers

A customer came in a couple of days ago and paid with a gift card. The register had trouble with the CVV code on the back and froze for a couple of seconds. Before I had the time to fix the issue, the customer had taken their groceries and left.

Now I'm sitting there and thinking she must have scammed me with a gift card without any balance. I put the gift card back in the register and thought nothing of it. At the end of the shift I let curiosity take the best of me, and I took it home. When I got home I checked the balance, and there was 550 dollars on it.

I have decided to use it all to pay for food and necessities for the rest of the month. I should point out that I am a struggling student, working two jobs on the side. Not that it makes it any more ethical.

Misse-and

29. Card Sharks

In 2006, here in Canada, there was a huge oil drilling boom in Alberta. Lots of young guys my age went out to Alberta to make $10k/mo+ doing manual labor jobs.

Several of my friends went. I stayed home because I was making a living playing poker at the time. One of my friends was injured on the job out there and invited me out there to play poker with him. There were tons of poker games going on everywhere, lots of young guys with tons of cash.

We spent the entire winter cheating at poker. We had a dozen tricks. Most of it centered around the idea of loading the bottom of the deck and base-dealing each other’s cards (mechanics grip). We had some good communication tricks, and we did it very well. We could make a couple grand per night.

We never got caught. It was a crummy living. We slept in a van or hotels for the winter and ate gas station food for a while.

FinestTreesInDa7Seas

30. Who’s The Boss Now?

person holding silver iphone 6 Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

I came into work one day and a female coworker had been using my computer to Facebook chat. She had gone home and accidentally left her Facebook up. So, seeing how it was my office and my computer, I read through some of the IMs. She had been sleeping with her boss for months and the conversations were VERY intimate.

Oh yeah, my boss is married. In one conversation he laughs about how the female employee left "five minutes before my wife came home". Now, the boss and I are even as far as rank goes, but we rarely get along and haven't for years. I've always thought he was a loser and this confirmed it.

This took place about three years ago. We've had several head-to-head arguments since then and I've always known I could ruin his life if I wanted to, but I've always taken the higher road. He has no idea I have that full conversation still on my computer.

Xts2500

31. Facebook Family

I found out my father isn't my biological father.

My real father passed a few years back and I never got to meet him while he was alive. Apparently, my mother was in love with him and once my parents split for a brief period in the early '80s I was conceived. Once I was born, my mother left him and continued with my father.

The twisted part? Nobody knows I know, and I found his kids and family on Facebook (I haven't spoken of this to them or sent a friend request). Occasionally when I'm feeling down I go view their profiles and see how their lives are going. So I have two younger half-siblings I've never met. I doubt they know I exist.

I'm scared of telling my folks I know in fear of reigniting fires that have burned out or hurt our relationship deeply.

Permalink

32. Swipe Right?

A little while back I downloaded Tinder to try it out. The tenth woman who came up was a friend's wife.

TributaryOtis

33. Forbidden Love

smiling woman in white long sleeve shirt standing beside yellow flower during daytime Photo by Quentin billington on Unsplash

One of my good friends' wives is in love with me. They have been married and have three kids, and she has told me that she is willing to leave all of that to be with me. If that info got out, I know at least four people whose lives would be turned upside down. Doesn't make it better that I'm a chick and am 15 years younger than she is.

TheDangerZone5

34. Not The Sharpest…

I teach high school.

A solid C student who is a good kid with not quite enough sense comes up to me after class. "Mr. Deradius, I was fishing this morning and forgot I had this in my pocket. I wanted to do the right thing".

My eyebrows instantly raised—he proceeded to hand me a pocket cutter,

The district has a zero-tolerance policy. It's unclear what will happen to this kid (depends on whether it has happened before), but it will be some pretty bad mojo.

The last thing I want is for this kid to learn first-hand at this point in his life that doing the right thing will get you fed into the wheels of a terrible bureaucracy where you will then be ground into dust. I knew I had to find a way around this.

So I told him about the policy and what would happen to him if I weren't me. Then I put the cutter in my pocket (wondering to myself if I'll get fired if I'm caught with it) and give it back to him at the end of the day, with a statement along the lines of: "I never saw this, you're going to go straight home and never bring this back to school, and we're never going to speak of this again".

Very, very rarely do I break or bend any rules or laws. I drive five miles under the speed limit. I felt guilty even doing this. But in this case, I could not in good conscience turn this kid in for doing what he was supposed to do.

Deradius

35. I Got You, Bro

Me and my identical twin brother are both juniors at our uni, he's a outgoing, social frat who's always the life of the party and drowning in poon. I, on the other hand, find solace in the quieter things, a small, close group of friends, picnics at the park, low-key get-togethers at my girlfriend's house, nothing large, unlike my bro.

Well, one night my bro had too much to drink and just started to go a-wall. He got into some fights, threw a TV through the window in his frat house…

And got caught on camera sucking face with a guy.

First off lemme say that I don't have anything wrong with gay people, they're no different than heterosexuals. Me and my brother were both raised this way by our parents and he shares the same view. However, his socialite status would shatter if he was discovered to be the dreaded, earth-shattering, dog-kicking, male-into-males that all of his "in-crowd" friends blindly hated.

So I did what any loving brother would do, I told everyone that it was me, not him. My friends and girlfriend knew the truth, and didn't care honestly, however, my brother was amazed I would do something like that. Seeing his face light up like that made all the jokes and ridicule worth it!

Twins-From the womb to the tomb!

Woody280

36. Like Father, Like Son?

woman in white tank top Photo by Molnár Bálint on Unsplash

When I was a senior in high school, I started dating a guy a year younger than me. Right before we split he confessed that his dad and my mother had an affair.

I didn't believe it until I confronted her one day and she admitted it. She begged me not to tell my father. 14 years later I still haven't, but I was spoiled and used it as blackmail every chance I got.

Pilotwifey

37. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I know for a fact my mother cheated on my father, and who she did it with. However, I know that life is complicated and people don't live in a black-and-white world. Furthermore, I was young and don't know the full context of their relationship. As a child, I was angry, but as I've gotten older I've seen that life is about choices. Sometimes people make bad ones. It doesn't always make them a bad person (I'm not excusing the behavior). It just makes them a person.

My parents are long since divorced for other reasons, but here's the plot twist—my dad is still madly in love with my mom. It would crush him and my younger sister if he ever found out. I'd rather my father continue to reminisce on the good times he and my mother had rather than tarnish everything because 'I need to tell someone'.

Permalink

38. Bed Of Lies

My friend's husband is under the impression that he is the first person she’s been with. She cheated on him a couple of months into their relationship. Now they're married, he has no idea and is one of the nicest people ever which makes it worse.

Pizzaaqueen

39. Would-Be Whistleblower

brown concrete building under gray sky during daytime Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

I used to work in a chain hotel in the burbs of a Midwestern city while I was in high school. It was a pretty easy job, but there happened to be a government-owned ammunition plant down the road that was going through a privatization process. The company that was buying the plant had a lot of their execs stay at our hotel during the process.

Well, one day a guy in a suit comes down late in the evening and asks me if I can fax some documents for him (late 90's alert! Fax machines in use). I ask him if he wants to wait for the confirmation and he says no thanks and just leaves.

Well, I go back to the office and start loading the documents into the fax machine and start browsing through and…holy cow. All the pages I'm sending are reviewing all the malfeasance, gross negligence, and environmental disasters that had been covered up at this manufacturing plant. Crazy stuff was going on like just dumping chemicals into the watershed that fed into the nearby town, chemical "storage" ponds whose dams would break, and on and on and on.

I could have totally screwed up a lot of people's days by making a copy of that and dropping it off at the local newspaper, but I was a coward and just dropped it in the trash bin and went on with my day.

Iamacoward_ama

40. Meet The Parents

I was the other guy in an affair. That's bad enough, but I also crossed the line to the point of no return—I ended up getting her pregnant. She gave birth to her in December. The husband still does not know. I regret my stupid decisions and now have to live with my mistakes and the weight that it brings.

I 'made a name for myself' so to say with the mothers of old classmates. I was a booty call for 6 mothers whose children I graduated high school with.

Bigsecretthrowa

41. Still In The Closet

I have had affairs with three active and two retired NFL players. I'm a guy. I met the first one through a response to a Craigslist ad and he introduced me to the others.

Three of them are married or engaged to women. Announcing what I've done would ruin several lives, maybe even careers.

i_m_a_throaway_ama

42. Truth Hertz

parked vehicles Photo by Obi - @pixel7propix on Unsplash

I work at a business where the owners have been breaking the law for several years. Let's say it's a car rental, though it isn't. The law says the business is only allowed to lease cars to persons that will use the cars for extended periods, let's say month to month. These leases are also much cheaper than say, a daily rental–$15 monthly vs $13 a day. So the amount of money the business can make is capped.

They've been breaking this rule for I don't know how long, a long time. Leasing the cars for $13 a day sometimes even more when there are a lot of people in town for events, and they need to rent cars.

They make a considerable amount of money. God knows what kind of taxes they've been avoiding from underwriting their profits.

They've been investigated a few times but can provide very primitive fraudulent documents that say they only lease for extended periods.

If I were to turn over the computer files that say otherwise, they would owe a certain city a fortune and have to close their business. I've considered turning them into the authorities or blackmailing them. Why? They don't pay me well. They pay me peanuts.

I probably won't do either though, as I'm almost certain they'd hire some nefarious fellows to harm me and people I care about.

Lowpaythrowaway

43. Everyone’s Guilty

At the end of eighth grade we all had a giant, I mean a giant project of writing all these papers, including immaculate bibliographies, and putting them in a binder. It was infamous. Even in sixth grade, we all heard horror stories. We technically had all year to do the project, but being eighth-graders we waited till the last possible moment.

Many pulled multiple all-nighters in a row. Kids from the high school who had already completed the project sold their papers and bibliography lists. It was pretty brutal for that level of schooling.

I showed up for school one day and the girl whose locker was next to mine was not present. She was cute and often hit on me so naturally I asked where she was.

She had been expelled. It was a private school with a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism, and the teacher discovered one of her papers had been copied directly from Wikipedia. She was instead-gone, and it was kind of a big deal because her father was a big guy in the city government.

The real tragedy here... all of us plagiarized. All of us. We just changed words and sentences around so that they wouldn't match the Wikipedia articles. She was doing the same thing but forgot to alter that one paper.

Lookatthisthrowaway3

44. Gave Away The Glory

A girl in my high school took a bunch of advanced placement courses early and pulled far ahead of the class. The yearbook took her photo early senior year to put her in the yearbook as valedictorian.

I took my advanced placement classes later and so near the end of the year, I was informed that I was the valedictorian. They asked me to come in and have my photo taken to replace hers in the yearbook. I would also be replacing her speech at the grad ceremonies. This would have been great news, if not for only one problem—she had been a friend of mine for 13 years: she was in my kindergarten class. No one even knew she was valedictorian, she was so quiet and introverted.

I refused. I refused to take my photo and I refused to give the speech. I wanted HER to have some glory, for once in her life.

They kept her photo but relabeled her as "top senior". And she gave a really good speech. I was happy with the knowledge that I was on top and was happy that she got to shine for one single day in her life.

Grewapair

45. Toupee Secret

man in gray crew neck shirt Photo by Zoran Borojevic on Unsplash

Back in the early days of the Internet, I was one of the founders of a company that specialized in creating websites specifically for recording artists. A VERY well-known artist, who wasn't that big of a celebrity in 2000, but still sold out shows, gave me his personal, digital camera to get pictures for his site. This artist was popular enough in 2000 to sell out arenas but got famous enough to sell out stadiums a few years later.

On the camera, there were SEVERAL intimate photographs—not just of him, but of his band and other well-known artists.

The worst (for him) had him and a member of his band in bed, cuddling. You could only see it was the camera's owner via a reflection in a mirror—but it was him and his blonde bandmate. There were other pics of him giving the same band member shoulder massages and photos of them close. Plus, there were a few pictures of him without his toupee. Not very attractive.

But, what would have destroyed him and his other VERY famous recording artist friends was the heavy substance use that was photographed backstage at some concerts and at some recording sessions. It's no surprise that when I met with him to talk about his site, he was sweating like a pig.

I copied all of his photos to a CD and kept them for a while. I showed them to a few friends when no one believed me after I told them the tale of the pics. Then, years later, I felt guilty and destroyed my copy of the CD. I left the company in late 2002 though. I hear they still have the pictures on their drives.

Stephenwphillips

46. Happy Families

When I was a sous chef, we had an open line with seating on the other side. There was this stereotypical rich executive type who would always come in and sit there, and he always had a different woman with him.

Then he started coming in with his wife and young son (5-7) but still kept coming in with random women too. His wife seemed like your stereotypical trophy wife, and they didn't have a lot of love left between them. The whole thing was almost comical, to see two people with so much money so unhappy with their lives.

The thing that bothered me was watching the sleazeball grooming the son to be another slimy human being. I always wanted to tell the kid what a piece of trash his father was, regardless of how financially successful he was.

permalink

47. The Old College Try

I have dropped out of college one year before getting the degree. If my dad and stepmom find out I might get kicked out in the streets again. Yes, I'm still unable to move out.

Tell_no_tale

48. None Of Your Business

stainless steel spiral bulb wire Photo by Hédi Benyounes on Unsplash

When I was ten, one of my school friends always told us that her dad was away on a long business trip, but one night on the local news I saw a piece about him. He was incarcerated for embezzlement and wasn't released until we were 20.

My mom made sure I knew that I had to keep this quiet and not tell anyone at school or in our friend group, or else I could make this poor girl's life completely miserable.

It came out when we were in middle school anyway and it still made her life miserable, but at least I delayed it a few years.

Blue convertibles

49. Don’t Ruin The Illusion

While setting up the email on my father-in-law's iPhone, a questionable text came in from a woman he works with. I clicked on the message and discovered a history of texts going back almost a year. They were secretly meeting up before and after work. My mother-in-law leaves very early for her nursing job, so this lady was coming by later in the morning to "drive him to work".

My in-laws have been married for 34 years and are very religious. My wife and her siblings had a fairytale childhood, and telling anyone would tear the family apart. The ONLY reason I can keep this secret, is because I don't know if my wife would recover from finding out what a horrible person her dad is. I've thought about confronting him privately, but I don't know where to even begin.

NVUQOR

50. The Heart-Breaking Truth

My grandmother always told us her dad was a firefighter who had a heart attack at age 35 and passed and her mom had told her a whole story down to the exact street corner he had the heart attack on and I never thought about it, except it did seem a little strange that no one else in our family had any history of heart disease, much less an early demise from it.

When she had terminal cancer, her last wish was to be buried next to him, but she didn't know where he was buried so I told her I would try and help. I did a bunch of research and found out that he actually didn't pass from a heart attack, but instead just left my great-grandma, moved to LA, remarried, and had a new family. He passed there some 30 years after my grandma thought he did.

I never told my grandma that her dad abandoned her- her last memories of him were good ones and she ended up in an orphanage after that so he did ruin her life.

I'm curious to meet his new family, but I don't think they'd be interested to know he never divorced my great-grandma, so his marriage to their mom was never actually valid.

Themcjiler