There are several things in this life we know to be rare, resulting in millions of people seeking them out, or taking the opportunity to enjoy them.
These include seeing a solar or lunar eclipse, vintage bottles of wine, the first issue of a comic book, or being upgraded to first class without warning.
Sometimes, however, we take for granted certain things we just assume are part of daily life which are, in fact, quite rare.
Be it an uninterrupted night's sleep, a life-threatening illness, or a old recording on our DVR (or, for that matter a VHS!), some things we think can be enjoyed or could happen to anyone might be much harder to come by than we think.
Redditor f*ckandfrolic was curious to learn all about the seemingly everyday things that are, in fact, anything but common, leading them to ask:
"What is far more rare than people realize?"
Or, Perhaps, The Vaccines Are What Made It Rare?
"Tetanus."
"We get vaccines for it, but it's actually a bit harder to get than you may believe."- pheat0n
Meow
"Solid brown fur cats, apparently it’s some kind of recessive gene in them."- TheJadedSF
"We have a male tortoiseshell cat."
"Cat people tend to know they’re quite rare but others probably don’t."- Tacoma__Crow
In Love Cat GIFGiphyYou Never Know Who Your Friends Really Are...
"People who remain friends with you once you leave school."- GrockleKaug
"Good, honest friends who don’t have ulterior motives."
"The ones that genuinely enjoy your company and friendship."
"Hold onto them!"- ZealousidealWealth88
Think Carefully About The Last Time You Saw One...
"Blimps."
"I live in northeast Ohio near the Goodyear hangar."
"We see them all the time."
"I had to pull up a list, that northeast Ohio has 3 out of 4 operating Goodyear blimps named Wingfoot 1 2 and 3."
"Only maybe 12 are operating anywhere in the world, with a total of 25 existing at all."
"But we see them all the time at Wingfoot lake disc golf course."- Worried_Place_917·
good year zeppelin GIF by DiggGiphyMaking Others Green With Envy?
"Green eyes make up just two percent of the global population."- New-Tomorrow-4309
Not A Routine Occurrence
"Northern lights."
"The amount of people I’ve heard say: 'We’ve come all this way, what time do they come on?' Is staggering."- The_Town_of_Canada
Amen!
"Bit of peace and f*cking quiet."- Winoforevr1
Taking A Long, Hard Look At Ourselves...
"Humility and an understanding that we’re sometimes the victim and sometimes the perpetrator."
"No one is ever just one or the other."- Fitandfriendlydude
Money Talks
"Being a multi-millionaire."
"Lots of people faking it out here."- tab_completion
Some Might Say Thinking In General...
"Critical thinking skills."- hstarbird11
Thinking Think GIF by Rodney DangerfieldGiphySobering Reality
"Clean water."
'My son and I have been discussing this lately."
"He is a chemical engineer and works exclusively with water."
"Many of the studies he has been published on also have to do with clean water and forever chemicals."
"Water is a huge issue that is becoming bigger everyday and normal people are forgetting about it."
"Flint Michigan is in year 9!"- No-Fishing5325
Rare, Or A Myth?
"A stable, loving, peaceful domestic life."- reginapinsley
In Dreams, Maybe...
"Absolute silence and being in a place where no man-made light exists."- whiskey_formymen
black and white dark GIFGiphyPerhaps we can all rest a little easier knowing that some things that keep us up at night worrying are actually not a big deal in the slightest.
Or, next time we see and experience something truly beautiful, we might want to stop and truly take it in.
For all we know, we just experienced something that was truly once in a lifetime.
"What was normal when you were a kid, but you never see anymore?"
Honestly... Rude then, Rude Now!
"Showing up to someone’s house without a text or call."- lpkrew
Walking In Season 2 GIF by FriendsGiphyBefore There Was Bluetooth...
"Cassette tape innards strung out along the highway, glimmering in the sunlight."- bigolfurryhead
No More Second Hand Smoke!
"Parents smoking in a car with kids with the windows rolled up."- WonderfulEmergency77
"Everybody smoked everywhere. At restaurants, the office, airports, everywhere."
"There's a picture of my grandma holding me as a baby in one hand and a cigarette in the other."
"Nobody thought that was the least bit strange."- MeghanFI
mothers day smoking GIFGiphyNow We Have Google!
"Using a set of 20 y/old encyclopedias as reference for my homework."
"JFK is president!"- ResplendentAmore
It Got Them Off Shelves...
"Toys in the cereal box"- NightDreamer73
How Sad...
"Fruit bats."
"There used to be a *ton* of them in my neighborhood as a kid and every evening you could look at the sunset as twilight set in and see flocks of bats flying around."
"Apparently, around the time I was in middle school, a fungal disease ravaged the local bat population and they never recovered."
"You never see them anymore."
"Funnily enough though, at the time, a local high school girl had this huge campaign to set up bat feeders to help bolster the local bat population and help them survive the fungal disease by giving them easy access to food."
"Said local girl has since become a federal Park Ranger as an adult and currently works for a state fish and wildlife service."- DoctorWatchamacallit
Now They'll Just Send Them A Text...
"Moms yelling from the front door to their kids to come home for dinner."- sflogicninja
Depending On Your Circle
"People talking about the Bermuda Triangle."- GarconMeansBoyGeorge
Best Not To Give Them Bad Ideas
"Candy Cigarettes."- Mechhammer
They're a dying breed indeed...
"Pay phones and answering machines."- Mondayslasagna
phone call mall GIF by South Park GiphyEven Printers Are Uncommon, Thanks to PDFs...
"Computer paper filled with lightly printed numbers and it had tear-off sides."
"My dad used to bring lots of it home for us kids to draw on."- reverendgrebo
...what were you watching?...
"Quicksand in movies and TV shows."- kzab81
Well That's Poignant
"Fireflies."
'I swear I saw them every year, in our back yard or when we went camping etc."
"Now I never see them no matter where I am, except for a few nights in the summer of '21 after I moved to a new house."
"It was so nice to see them again."- ModernCivilWar
North America Lights GIF by BBC AmericaGiphySadly, Not Because People Started Reading Maps...
"Printing out directions from Map Quest."- Keone_710
To think there was actually a time when we couldn't say "I'll text again when I'm close" and had to ask a friend to record a movie or tv show we wanted to watch.
Simpler times...
"Were you ever that 1 in 1,000,000? If so, what's your story?"
Unexplained Malaria
"Not me, my wife."
"We lived in Jacksonville, Florida."
"She rarely gets sick, but has mild insomnia."
"Around Wednesday, she had a low fever, and complained of aches and sweats at night and trouble sleeping."
"That weekend she wanted to see the Doctor."
"I told her she probably had the flu, just wasn't used the aches, and she always has trouble sleeping, but if she was still feeling bad Sunday we'd go to a clinic."
"Saturday night she couldn't sleep so we made an appointment for Sunday afternoon."
"But on our way there, sure enough she's feeling better."
"Doctor checks her out, she's feeling fine now, no fever, he says she probably had meningitis but is recovering."
"I'm due to go on a business trip to California the next day, Monday, and ask him if he thinks it's fine I go."
"He says, yeah, no problem."
"That evening, wife is eating and laughing and all is good."
"Monday morning I leave early."
"That afternoon, my neighbor calls, and lets me know my wife was wandering in the street in a delirium."
"My wife didn't know where she was, so the neighbor drove her to the ER."
"I book a flight home that night."
"The hospital checks her out."
"She has a fever, her blood cell count is in the basement, and she is completely out of it mentally. "
"They're not sure what's wrong, and a bunch of specialists start descending on her."
"I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork on her medical history, where we've been, etc."
"They think maybe it's some weird auto-immune disorder."
"Not good."
"She gets a bunch of transfusions and put on a cocktail of meds while they figure it out."
"Third day in the hospital, the infectious disease guy comes in."
"Blood parasite."
"Maybe tick born."
"She'd been to the mid-West recently, coulda caught it if she went walking in the woods or a park."
"Next day he comes in."
"Figured out the parasite."
"'Why didn't you tell me she left the country?'"
"Huh?"
"She hasn't."
"'Well, she has malaria'."
"Malaria?"
"I thought you couldn't get that in the U.S."
"'You can't, you need to go home and bring me her passport'."
"What the hell?"
"I retrieve her passport."
"CDC comes, does a whole case study on her, which they wouldn't release to us."
"Mosquito traps setup around the neighborhood, mysterious vans start driving by spewing clouds of stuff."
"My wife stays in the ICU for a week, but recovers just fine. "
"If you look at the 2010 CDC Infectious Disease report you'll see a discussion of malaria, and how the XX number of cases all are related to people recently returned from endemic areas, except for one woman in Duval County, Florida who received it from a cryptic vector." Reddit
Invisible Appendix
"When I was 14 years old, I woke up one day with heavy stomach cramps."
"We called the hospital and they told us that i probably have a stomach flu and should go to the doctor next morning."
"After one of the worst nights ever, vomiting and sleeping next to the toilet we went to the doctor."
"I had a fever of 40 °C and was aching a lot."
"The doctor told me I had to to go to ER and have it checked out because she thought my appendix was inflamed and causing the pain."
"We went to the ER and I stayed in the hospital for about 2 weeks, but they couldn't find anything."
"They treated me with broad range antibiotics and after 2 weeks I was feeling a bit better and they told me to go home and recover."
"The night i got back from the hospital I went to bed and started hallucinating that I lived in a retirement home and that pirates were coming to steal our food."
"So I was flailing around trying to fend of pirates when my mother came in and asked what all the fuss was about."
"I told her what was going on and she looked at me like I had summoned a devil."
"She took my temperature and she instantly took me to the ER again."
"I had a 41°C fever."
"When we went back to the hospital I got treated immediately for inflammation and they did a wide range of test again."
"They saw that something in my body was inflamed but they couldn't find it."
"I stayed in the hospital for about 2 more weeks when they finally found what was going on."
"My appendix was inflamed and burst the night ."
"I was having the hallucinations but on all the scans they couldn't see my appendix."
"The doctor told me that if I came in 2 days later I would have died because of the puss flowing in my body."
"Apparently there is a 1% chance of all the appendix cases that the appendix is so stretched out that they couldn't see it on the scans or that the area was so inflamed they didn't see it."
"So after staying on antibiotics for about 2 more weeks they finally removed my appendix and all the pain was gone."
"I stayed in the hospital for over 4 weeks just because of my appendix and my bad luck on being that 1%."- Warplevel
Making The Happiest Place On Earth Even Happier!
"For my seventh birthday we went to Disneyland."
"They just happened to be having a car a day giveaway when we were there."
"For my seventh birthday, Mickey Mouse gave me a Pontiac firebird."- CaptchaGremlin
earth reasons GIFGiphyUnique Allergy
"I'm allergic to potatoes."
"Never met someone else who is so I guess it's one in a million."
"Never eaten chips or fries."- Mannaminne
Life Saving Bacteria
"I was diagnoses with leukemia i got a bacteria growth wich killed the leukemia, a real 1 in 1,000,000 chance."
"I almost died thanks to that bacteria though."- InNeedOfFriend
An Odds Defying Love Story
"How I met my wife."
"I’m from the Netherlands, she is from the US."
"We met in Israel."
"It was my first weekend in Israel, decided to go on a pub crawl to meet some people and have fun, as I’m buying the ticket my now wife walks up to the counter to also buy a ticket."
"The girl working there introduces us, we hit it off the first night but I’m leaving in 2 days to stay with friends of friends in the middle of the desert for 3 months."
"2 days after I leave I lose my phone, don’t have any way to get back in touch with her."
"I had little money and could stay/work with the people in the desert."
"But I kept thinking about her so after a week I say I’m leaving."
"Take the next bus, goes 3 times a week, at 5am, and then a train to Tel Aviv."
"I had no idea how to find her, where to stay and very little money."
"I email a couple hostels to find a work/stay agreement."
"Those jobs are very popular and usually planned months in advance."
"I get an email back when I arrive in Tel Aviv."
" I can come in for an interview because they have a spot, this is already ridiculously lucky."
"Right after the interview and dropping of my belongings, I went back to the first hostel to see if they would give me information."
"They wouldn’t give me anything."
"Now I’m at a loss, Tel Aviv is a city of more than half a million people, I don’t know anyone and have little more than the clothes on my back."
"Kind of defeated I start wandering around/exploring the city."
"After a couple hours I get hungry and decide to treat myself to a restaurant."
"I’m well out of the tourist area and find a place that’s almost empty and rather cheap."
"I sit down, order a drink and something to eat."
"As I get my food I see my now wife walking past the restaurant."
"She sees me I see her."
"I’m literally dumb struck and just kind of grin and wave."
"Remember how I lost my phone?"
"She didn’t know that and just thought I ignored her."
" She waves and keeps walking."
"I throw like 200 shekels, way too much, in the table and sprint after her, explained and the rest is history."- Dominusatrox
John Cusack Serendipity GIF by MIRAMAXGiphyJaundice
"I am a 19 year old male. In August of last year, I was driving with my sister, when suddenly her face turned cold. “Gavin your eyes are yellow”, I remember her saying. I quickly pulled down the passengers mirror, and to my horror, two yellow eyes radiated back at me.""
"Fast forward, I spent a month being sick, the initial diagnosis was Hepatitis A.
"Went back to the doctor, nothing was better(things were worse in fact). Was sent to the ER, then to the liver transplant unit at UCSF. By this point my eyes had turned muddy orange, and my pee was the color of... a mahogany tree."
"Anyways, the team of liver doctors at UCSF managed to save my liver. I was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. Oh, and my eyes are white again :)"
User Deleted
Crash
"I survived a “non-survivable” plane crush. I was on an old po-2 (famous for being very safe and uncrushable) on a tour of the desert in western China when I was like 7, my father’s friend who hosted me and piloted the plane didn’t survive but somehow I got out with a concussion and apparently passed out for almost a day In the middle of the dessert, in the wreckage of the crash, 50 km from the town/airport, on the edge of the desert. The people who found me were some tree planters (they plant greens in the desert to protect towns from sandstorm, a lot of people live in these desert towns in China do this) found me on there way picking up a shipment, and the only reason they looked was bc they were making a bet on how fast the egg would cook in the sand and went off the road to test."
"First thing first, according to legends, 15 min, I never tested it though. So, according to my dads, the theory that I might have lived was because the plane was mostly made out of fabrics and wood. So when the plane crashed, the front half collapsed and took the majority of the impact. Though I got knocked out, I was probably covered under the wreckage and in the shades, it cooled me off enough to survive for a day or so!"
yusenye
Tumor
"Had two 11cm benign tumours growing in my spine, resulting in gradual paralysis from my chest down. They had no idea how the tumours formed. Surgery took 11 hours when they thought it would take 4 because the tumours were so complexly woven throughout my spine. I now have pretty much half a spine and chronic pain but I’d take that over losing my life from paralysis and being unable to breathe 🙏🏼"
erieberie
Lucky 7s
"I was born on 7/7/77 and weighed 7 pounds & 7 ounces. Sadly though I clocked in at 6:50 A.M."
"The other is that around the age of 14 I started to notice the outsides of both of my feet starting to get much wider. After a couple of years of buying expensive custom-made shoes they decided to perform surgery on my feet. Turned out I had extra muscle growth along with something else I don't recall at the moment. My podiatrist told me he submitted a scholarly article on it. May also have been genetic as when my Dad was 3, he developed an extra toe growing out of each one of his big toes."
indiesnobs
You never know when the odds will, indeed, be in your favor.
Sometimes, when the odds seem against you, it's still worth it to give it your all, as you may find yourself surprised and happy with the results.
On the flip side, always best to be prepared, as you never know when your luck might turn on you...
Redditor scared4lyf was curious to hear more about the statistically unlikely experiences people have gone through, leading them to ask:
"What statistically rare thing happened to you?"
Miracle Birth
"My birth is in a medical journal and my mom still gives me crap about it almost 40yrs later."
Due to my mom's low rib cage and high uterus, I was stuck in the bottom of her rib cage."
"The doctors were convinced I didn't have a head and told my mom her whole pregnancy that I only had a brain stem and she should abort."
"Lo and behold she goes into labor and they rush her in to do a C-section, only to discover I'm stuck."
"They end up laying her all the way open and cutting 3 ribs to get me out."
"She ended up stapled back together."
"(Yay for 1980s science."
" She gave her doctors so much hell about her being right."- Silaquix
Blessed With Strong Bones!
"I've been hit by a semi truck twice, and both times escaped with minor injuries."- mydogsaysimcool
so fetch mean girls GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphyFrequently Chased By Death
"I was pronounced dead at 6 weeks old."
"I found a dead body when I was 10."- Smoochmypie
"Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, And Start All Over Again!"
"I’ve broken my ankles on 5 separate occasions."
"I also have flat feet. "
"Ironically I love running!"- ItsMyCakedayIRL
Lucky Discovery?
"Appendix cancer."
"Accidentally discovered during another surgery."
"No idea there was a tumor the size of an egg on my appendix."- Low_Bus_5395
A Mighty Wind...
"Got hit by a tornado."
"They don’t tell you about how it sucks the air out of the room while you’re inside it."- FriendlyFiber
Angry British Summer GIF by moonbugGiphyTalk About Victim Of Circumstance
"I was born in jail"- cavallinm
You Can Have Too Much Wisdom...
"I had 5 wisdom teeth."
"4 normal ones and 1 tiny one."- more_merkins
Lucky Day!
"My dad my uncle and me were all born on 8/11 different years."- Kimchiandfries
Happy Birthday GIF by Eat'n ParkGiphySome people have all the luck, and some apparently have none at all!
All the more reason we should never assume that any unlikely experience will never happen to us...