We all want to help out our friends, and so when they ask a favor of us we are always ready and willing to help.
Well, maybe not always.
For sometimes, the favor in question might not exactly be helping assemble a bookshelf, or help move a sofa, but rather something a bit bizarre.
Possibly affecting our eagerness to help.
Redditor Tinyterex_ was curious to hear the strangest favors requested by friends of the Reddit community, leading them to ask:
"What is the worst/weirdest favor a friend has ever asked you for?"
We all scream for ice cream.
"Go to Doncaster, England, to pick-up an ice-cream van for a friend that he'd bought on eBay while he was in Australia."
"I said yes, and so it began..."
"Firstly he wired me £6000, which I withdrew in cash to pay for it."
"At the time this was the most money I'd ever held so I was a little nervous."
"My girlfriend then drove me down the M1 to Doncaster, and dropped me off at a house with a Pepto Bismol pink ice-cream van in the driveway."
'I knocked on the door and a jolly, gigantic man in dirty overalls opened the door and spent the next two hours with me as I learnt to strip and rebuild the Mr. Whippy ice-cream machine inside the van."
"I was thoroughly unprepared for this."
"I was also unprepared for the machine exploding in my face after loading it with the minimum 4 litres of UHT ice-cream mix."
"With slightly sour milk now liberally coating my clothes, and the light fading, the Friendly Ice-cream Giant talked me through the intricacies of starting and driving a 1973 Bedford ice-cream van."
"The ice-cream machine inside ran off the engine, rather than a generator like most do."
"So there was an elaborate set of linkages that transferred the engine power from the wheels to the machinery when engaged."
"They were also entirely exposed and directly where you would normally put your foot when driving."
"Lovely."
"The engine also didn't start on its own, you had to crack open the bonnet and spray a generous amount of combustable gas directly into the air intake before giving the accelerator a bloody good stomp."
"Fortunately, The F.I.G did this for me. He then let me drive it to the local petrol station to fill it up, during which time he also let me discover that the speedo, windscreen wipers and lights didn't really work."
"Oh, and neither did the fuel gauge."
"And, for some reason, the fuel cap was level with the tank, so you couldn't pump fuel into at more than a dribble or it all ran back out."
"This meant you had no real idea how much fuel was in it."
"But plenty to get it home, I was assured."
"After, sort of, filling it up, struggling to start it, and chugging home at an unknown, but very leisurely, pace, I paid him and we filled in some paperwork."
"At which point he let me know it was untaxed and, contrary to my friends belief, not exempt."
"So I'd be breaking the law driving it home."
"Which I now had to do."
"In the dark."
"With no real lights."
"Did I mention it had just started to rain?"
"But off I set, gingerly traversing the on-ramp to the busiest motorway in the UK, foot to the floor, wind whistling through the various holes in the bodywork."
"I had no idea how fast I was going, but from the waves and gestures I got from passing vehicles it definitely wasn't fast enough."
"I also realized I didn't know how good the brakes were."
"Or what condition the tires were in."
"And it was wet, very wet."
"And the off-ramp was downhill, with lights at the bottom."
"Oh goody, now there was smoke coming from the bonnet."
"By some miracle of agricultural engineering and blind faith I made it back to my flat, and parked the dreaded van in a visitors space."
"Where it sat for the next 3 months, as I gradually ate my way through the industrial sized box of Cadbury's flakes that were going out of date."
"Until my building management lost their sense of humor and forced my friend to come and get it or they'd have it towed away. because once he realized he'd bought a lemon, he was in no hurry to have it become his problem."
"But I'd do it all again."
"The joy you can give kids on boring car journey by hitting the ice-cream tune as they go past is brilliant."- Will-this-do
A real friend puts up with all kinds of sh*t.... literally
"Not something a friend asked of me but something a friend offered to help with."
"Had a lingering smell of rotten sewage in the house."
"Was a bit short on money at the time so I called a buddy who can fix anything to see if he could figure it out."
"He identifies the issue right away and crawls under my house to find a previous owner used drano and must have not done a proper flush so it ate away the main sewer pipe."
"At least 6 months of sh*t, piss, and food was built up that was probably 4 inches deep."
"He went to his truck to put on his boilersuit and crawled through my girlfriends and my sh*t for 2 hours replacing the rotted pipe."
"I was down there with him trying to help however I could but he pretty much did the repair solo."
"Every time he encountered a thick chunk of poo he would yell up through the crawl hole that my girlfriend should ease off on the corn."
"Didn't phase him one bit and he wouldn't accept any form of payment even though I insisted I had to repay him somehow."
"Best friend I've ever had, this isn't the only example I could give about how great of a friend he is but definitely the wildest."
"Dan the man, you the real MVP if you ever see this."- COYFC
"I became friends with a female coworker as I was dating a guy who was friends with her boyfriend at the time."
"She had this weird thing about not pooping around him to the point when they eventually did long distance she would visit him for the weekend and hold it in the ENTIRE TIME."
"We planned a trip together and shared a hotel room with all four of us."
"While her and I were getting ready to go out, she pulled me aside and told me she had to poop so bad but didn’t want to be in the bathroom alone because everyone would know she was pooping."
"She asked me to stay in the bathroom with her while she took a sh*t so it would just seem like we were doing our make up."
"I kid you not, it stank so bad that I’m 100% sure the guy smelled it in the room anyways and we both just looked like weirdos who poo together."- titsout666
But who helped him bury it?
"To 'un bury his boat' no other information was given, I said yes and turns out he thought that burying his boat in one of our cornfields would help protect it over the winter because 'it wouldn’t get snowed on cause it underground'."- EatingH_tlersB_oty
The "big cheese" indeed...
To borrow my truck to 'get the cheese'."
"He drives a Tahoe, I have no clue how much cheese he was getting."- Zpitfire_MK_VI
Keep your property off mine!
"Neighbour asked if they could put a dead rat in our bin because they didn't want to put it in theirs."- HungInSarfLondon
An underground operation gone wrong...
"Back in the old days, had a paranoid friend pay me good money to rent out and dupe porn vhs tapes because he didn't want a record of him renting them out."
"His logic: if he ever became famous he didn't want a record of him renting out porn tapes."
"Postscript: he never became famous."- jacklord392
Bizarre as many of these favors are, one will effortfully lower their raised eyebrow and muster up the courage to do it, on the assumption that this friend would do the same for you.
Then too, sometimes getting a bizarre request might actually indicate just how good a friend some people actually are...
Have you ever found yourself in a conversation, when someone brings up a topic they aren't too familiar with, but you are?
This gives you the opportunity to sweep in and share your knowledge on the subject.
While one would imagine that your relative expertise on the subject might result in thanks and appreciation, more often than not, the reaction from your friends is "why do you know that?"
Awkward as it may feel at the moment, there are very few people who don't carry some unusual areas of expertise and trivia on subjects most others are most likely unfamiliar with.
Redditor quadruple_b was curious to learn the random facts others have shared which wound up bringing their conversations to a halt, leading them to ask:
What is a really weird fact, that makes people say "why do you know that?"
Octopuses... they're just like us
"Octopuses are usually very antisocial but when they’re under the influence of ecstasy they are more willing to spend time around each other or even hug other octopuses."- Stab_That_Ukulele
The body compensates
"When you are starving, and have little body fat left, your body can grow almost fur-like hair to insulate itself in absence of fat."- A_Stupid_Fish29
"Your body’s normal functions can slow down to accommodate organ disease."
"For example, I have 40% lung function, but my O2 is completely normal at 98% saturation."
"They didn’t discover any lung disease until I had a ct scan done for other reasons and my lungs happened to show up in that."- nocturnal_numbness
What this would do for humanity!
"Cheetahs are so genetically similar that supposedly you can draw blood from one and inject it straight into another one without any health issues in the receiving animal."
"I.E. no blood type or clotting factor variations."- 0ttr
So strange, that it makes perfect sense?
"Coca-Cola can help with blood stains."- Buzzed_Woody
Good thing they don't need a toilet...
"Guinea pigs average pooping around 100 times a day."- morgandanso
Um...
"In Phoenix, Arizona, you are legally allowed to bury a dead body on your property without asking for permission/getting a permit/etc."
"The city asks that you contact them beforehand so they can send someone out to stake for gas/electric lines, but it’s not required."- hedalexa12
Who wouldn't?
"If provided with a mirror, dolphins will admire their own genitals."- Cymiril
The brain is a delicate creature
"There is a chemical called MPTP that specifically destroys dopaminergic neurons in the brain."
"About 3 days after someone ingests it, they get Parkinson's disease."- SheilaBoof
Gruesome with good intentions?
"In the 1960s or 70s, the Swiss Air Force dropped severed chicken heads all over the forests of Switzerland."
"The chicken heads contained the rabies vaccine, and the airdrop was to vaccinate wild foxes against rabies."- EnormousPurpleGarden
Makes you think twice about randomly plotted plants...
"If you bury a body, cover it with endangered plants so no one digs it up."- milkmankarl
This is why you don't play with your food
"Mayonnaise is flammable, and ketchup can be made into bombs."-- EGG_EGG_EGG_EGGG
I guess it's OK if it's in his own time?...
'My doctor at the GP is know in my town for violently masturbating between patients."
"It’s just something everyone knows but just ignores and accepts."- Waltz2496
Laying false claims!
"The dodo wasn’t hunted by the Dutch."
"It was by animals brought by the Dutch."
'Arizona has London bridge, despite literally being called London bridge, it was moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona."- ArizonanCactus
They're watching us...
"The NSA has a secret HQ in the middle of downtown NYC."
"They built it inside of a creepy skyscraper less than a mile from the World Trade Center.'
"Check out this video for more info."- Affectionate-Can-224
In case you wonder why it's taking so long...
'Most scaffolding in NYC isn't meant for construction."
"It's just sitting there to fulfill an inspection requirement."- Affectionate-Can-224
They were also often confused for sea serpents...
'A whales penis is 8 feet long or meters, can’t remember."- BenefitImpressive205
You have to wonder how he found that out?...
"Not mine, but Formula 1 driver Valterri Bottas knows that average penis size of a beaver to the mm."- tm2007
Let's hope these aren't related...
"So a pack of pirahnas can devour a child in under 5 minutes."
' Anyways, I was fired from the Aqarium yesterday."- MioncB
Ain't that a trip...
"A woman named Margaret Howe Lovatt had a sexual encounter with a dolphin during NASA-funded research in the '60s after the dolphine was dosed with LSD."- johnslegers
One never knows when learning this newfound information might become useful.
Especially for parents of children eager to buy a Guinea Pig...
Animals are sources of endless fascination.
Particularly in their natural habitat.
But while most people like to admire animals from afar, others like to know more about what goes on when they're not being watched.
And more often than not, what they find is shocking, to say the least.
Redditor Shoggy was eager to learn the most out there, unbelievable facts people have learned about various animals, leading them to ask:
What are some f**ked up animal facts?
Stealth killers.
"A polar bear will calmly stalk up to you and start eating you alive without roaring or charging."
"Like how you would just walk across the kitchen to pick up an apple and start eating while going about your day."
"No drama, no theatrics, just murder."- Malphos101.
One way to blow off a date.
"Female dragonflies fake their deaths and crash to the ground and play dead when stalked by an unwelcome lover."- SuvenPan.
Body and soul
"Put simplistically, male angler fish bite into and get absorbed by the female during mating."-tagibear.
They call them "killer whales" for a reason.
"Orcas are one of the very few apex predators of the ocean."
"They’ll actually hunt great white sharks, rip them open and eat their livers (and sometimes heart) as a sort of ocean delicacy."- TheRestForTheWicked.
"Killer whales will slap a seal into the air resulting in them dying from the fall just because."
"Not to get food or defense, but just because they’re bored."- FuzzyRoach642.
Something to keep in mind before kissing...
"Lobsters pee out of their faces."- NotACyclopsHonest.
Something that weird looking can't be real.
"The Royal Society thought that a taxidermied platypus was a prank when they saw the first one."
"Apparently naturalists would frequently send each other frankenstein'd abominations for goofs."- bjanas.
Speedy emasculation
"Camels have specially evolved canine teeth for the express purpose of biting off balls of other male camels- OneNastyJaguar.
"Let's get ready to rumble!"
"In Tasmanian Devil mating season, the male has to beat the female into submission."
If he fails, the female beats the male up."- bugboyjohnny.
A very brief time on this earth
"The honeybees you see in your yard are in the last 2 to 3 weeks of their lives."- Fit-Environment-8140.
Fascinating facts indeed.
Though, after learning some of these facts, best to behold these creatures within the safety of a zoo or aquarium.
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History can often be surprising or fascinating, infuriating or even mind-boggling. Sometimes, though, they're downright unbelievable.
Reddit user UWigsOfficial asked:
"What historical facts sound fake but aren't?"
Guess It Wasn't Meant To Happen
"The fact that two times the Mongols attempted to invade Japan and both times a storm sunk the invasion fleet."
"Same happened both times caesar went to Britain."
Even Kings Draw Phalluses, Apparently
"King Karl XIII of Sweden doodled penises all over his private diaries in 1785, when he was 37 years old."
"Clearly he was the inspiration for Superbad."
Christmas Spirit
"The Christmas Truce of WW1."
"It honestly sounds to good to be true, so I'm glad that it was real. It just goes to show you that deep down none of them were the 'bad guys' in the war, no matter what flag or country they fought for. They were all just soldier's that had to follow orders from their COs. It really sucks that it only lasted once & has become banned ever since."
Prime Ministers Don't Just Disappear, Do They?
"An Australian Prime Minister went missing while swimming at a beach."
"In his honour the US named a warship after him while in Australia his local electorate named a swim centre after him."
"There's a few Harold Holt memorial swimming pools around. I laugh every time I see one."
Operation Acoustic Kitty
"Operation Acoustic Kitty. A $20 million CIA project in the 1960s which implanted a microphone, radio transmitter, and wire into a cat, for the purpose of spying."
"The first mission involved releasing the cat near a Soviet compound in Washington to spy on two men. The cat was released and hit by a taxi almost immediately, and the project was discontinued."
"Sounds about right for a government project"
Wojtek
"There was a corporal in the Polish army during world war 2 who was a beer drinking, cigarette smoking bear."
"He didn't smoke he ate the damn lit cigarettes."
Who Needs An Enemy?
"Legend has it that the army of the Habsburg Empire lost about 10,000 people in the battle of Karánsebes in 1788 before the enemy (the Ottomans) even arrived. Basically they were drunk and thought the enemy had arrived and started fighting between themselves."
"The legend part is just the casualties. The event itself did actually happen, it's just debated whether it was anywhere close to 10,000 people lost or just a few hundreds killed and thousands injured."
But How Did They Open Them?
"The can opener (1858) was patented 48 years after the tin can (1810)"
"Did they just squeeze em til the tops popped open before that?"
"Cans used to be thicker. They were opened using a chisel and hammer"
"Also cans were significantly less common than jarring"
"Australian troops during ww1 went into no-man's land and dug out/recovered an abandoned german tank that was stuck in mud, pretty much because they were bored and the tank was there."
"The A7V Mephisto. Went and visited it a few months ago."
"As of 2020 at least, President John Tyler's grandson was still alive. That's 10th President if the US, John Tyler, who was born in 1790."
"I haven't seen any stories about his grandson dying so I assume he's still alive. It would be an interesting enough story that it'd be one of the top stories for a day or two."
It's commonly said that studying history will sometimes make you upset or uncomfortable, but most folks probably don't expect it to make them incredulous. Sometimes, though, fact really is stranger than fiction.
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People who work in forensics and conduct autopsies for a living inhabit a facet of life most of us would prefer to keep out of mind most days.
But someone has to do it.
Not surprisingly, those who've agreed to determine countless causes of death and piece together the details of so many people's final moments have some stories.
And a recent Reddit thread asked them to share those tales.
Redditor MimBim asked:
"Forensics and people involved with managing the deceased, what's the weirdest cause of death you have come across?"
Many shared the intriguing--and upsetting--freak accidents they've discovered. Life is a game of inches, people.
Stars Misaligned
"A girl that went to my primary school went to warm her car up in the winter and after starting it slipped on some ice and knocked herself out."
"She landed adjacent to the tailpipe and expired due to carbon monoxide poisoning."
Horrifying
"Had a sad one where a guy tried to hang himself from the 3rd floor balcony. The rope broke and he fell and impaled himself on fence spikes."
"A lady walking her dog hours later thought he was a gruesome Halloween decoration until she noticed leakage from the poor guy."
"Security camera footage from across the street showed he was alive for a while before he bled out"
Tougher Times Back Then
"My great great grandmother died after being cut nearly in half by a lumber saw in the 1930s. She was wearing a scarf or something when she took her son (my great grandfather) some lunch and her scarf became caught on the saw and pulled her down."
"They turned off the saw quickly enough and she lived for a while afterwards ("a while" here meaning hours or days, I can't recall, but less than a week). My understanding is she walked to the car that drove her to the hospital, but there was obviously nothing they could do for her."
In a Flash
"I work in forensics from an engineering and product design aspect. A man was using a large handheld wet saw (imagine an oversized circular saw) to cut a 3' diameter concrete sewer pipe that was suspended using two sawhorses."
"When he finished the cut, the pipe fell and pinched the saw blade between the two pieces, causing the saw to flip around quickly and sever off his own head."
Pinned Down
"I transcribed police reports and remember one call that was pretty terrible. A husband and wife were in a hot tub. It was a smaller one. The man must have gotten out and then when he tried to get back in he fell head first on top of her."
"His weight pushed her down so the water covered her nose and mouth. He must have been too heavy for her to lift up. A neighbor saw his feet sticking in the air and called police. They both drowned."
-- Elocinyls
Two Very Different Stories
"Paramedic here. Had a few. Homeless guy climbs into a recycling clothes bin to retrieve warm jackets in the winter and it had one of those barrel type drawers. He got stuck by his head on the way out and was strangled. Weirdest thing was walking up to him across a supermarket carpark and he was just looking up at the sky but with a frost covered face."
"Also had somebody die in front of a warm electric fire and wasn't found for 2 days. The guy was cooked like a roast chicken."
-- mrbounce74
Quite the Sequence
"Not a person who deals directly with the dead, but as a genealogist, I look at a LOT of death certificates, so I sometimes come across unusual and surprising causes of death. A rather well-known one is George Spencer Millet, who died in 1909. His headstone literally says:"
" 'Lost life by stab in falling on ink eraser, evading six young women trying to give him birthday kisses in office Metropolitan Life Building' "
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/morbid-monday-kissed-to-death
"I've personally uncovered many more, but it's hard to top that one."
Things Where They Don't Belong
"The man who got very drunk, somehow managed to get his 4-wheeler onto his roof, and then proceeded to launch himself off. Darwin took over after that."
"The person who died while asleep after a small airplane crashed into their bedroom"
Chefs Share Major Red Flags To Look For While Out To Eat | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Workplace Hazards
"Not in forensics or anything to do with the deceased but, if you're looking for a weird death, I have an interesting one from my genealogy research. A third great uncle of mine was a "driver" for the New York & Harlem Railroad in the 1870s - a time when horses were used to pull cars on rails in Manhattan, much like trollies."
"His death certificate states that he was kicked in the abdomen by a horse attached to a freight car. He succumbed to peritonitis 3 weeks later because the kick ruptured an old inguinal hernia. A long, slow way to die."
Others chose to recount the strange deaths caused by intoxication.
Hit Twice
"This guy was alive when he came in, though died later. He came into hospital with no legs below the knee and the top of his head missing."
"Turned out he was on his way home, drunk from the pub, and fell asleep on some train tracks whilst taking a short-cut. The train cut off his legs, then spun him around and cut off the top of his head."
"He died whilst in hospital but he lived for a bit, which is amazing. The paramedics brought his legs into hospital in a plastic bucket."
The Exact Wrong Position
"We had a family friend who was an alcoholic who blacked out and died of asphyxiation. Official cause of death was 'unconsciousness forced victim into a position incompatible with life'."
"When clarification was sought they said she passed out and fell into a position that prevented her from breathing. I did not know that was possible."
-- LOUDCO-HD
They Tried Their Best
"Not a forensic person, but a friend of mine went drinking at a bar. His got piss drunk and the bartender rightfully took his motorcycle keys away. He lived just a few blocks away."
"When the bar closed, he stumbled toward home, fell in a ditch and drown in the inch of water that was in that ditch from the rain that came down."
-- MizzGee
Lethal Munchies
"Not in forensics, but in healthcare. Saw a guy that got so high he decided to go into the freezer and start eating a bunch of frozen raw chicken."
"Ended up dying choking on it."
-- kristaz12
Finally, a couple people shared stories of truly bizarre murder mysteries.
An Unruly Weapon
"A teaching case: Death by bull"
"A woman was found dead in a pasture, trampled by a bull. Well, if you underestimate cattle, that can happen. But she was the farmer's wife, so she knew the animal was aggressive, and everyone else in the village knew that too."
"The neighbors also said he was never kept in that pasture because you couldn't see all of it at once. Yep, the farmer murdered his wife with a bull as the weapon. Put him in the pasture without her knowing, then sent her out there for some errand."
-- SillyOldBat
A Morbid Trophy
"We had a guy that died from multiple stab wounds to the chest, which isn't all that weird, except the wounds were all oddly shaped. It turned out that the guy recently divorced his wife because she developed a massive meth addiction and had moved out because she was psychotic."
"But she found out where he lived, broke in and stabbed him to death in his sleep. The guy was an avid collector of weird, goofy fantasy knives, one of which was used in his murder. His ex-wife decided to keep the knife afterward and was arrested when the knife and his blood were found in her kitchen sink."
-- allenidaho
Here's hoping you all die old, of old age, sitting comfortably on the couch.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/