We'd be lying if we said we haven't all made a poor decision in our lives. Whether it's letting a questionable ex back into our lives or pairing that shirt with those jeans, we all have a cringey memory to look back on.
But most of us don't have memories of inventing something terrible, let alone one of the worst inventions ever.
Redditor NPT1506 asked:
"What is the worst human invention ever made?"
Not Helping
"That little 'Press to Open' tab on Kraft Mac 'n' cheese boxes. That has been an effective way of opening those boxes exactly zero times."
- illusorywallahead
Caffeinated Pollution
"K Cups. The pollution of all that single-use plastic."
- AlabamaPostTurtle
Teeny Tiny Bits of Plastic
"Glitter. It N E V E R goes away."
- Mrherpaderptherapy
Going Obsolete
"Planned obsolescence."
"My printer one day just up and stopped working claiming I needed to replace a part. As it turned out, that part is meant to stop working when the printer reaches 5000 pages."
"I took the part out. There’s no damage or wear on it. So I ordered a 'reset chip' that reset the page count for that part to zero. Cost me $20 vs $110 for a replacement part."
"Later on, I found a way to enable tech mode on my printer to reset the page count for any part I want. Then again, the printer is old, and the WiFi stopped working a few weeks ago, requiring me to use direct WiFi, which sucks."
- ChronoLegion2
It's Getting Personal
"Serious answer: chemical toxins that have caused severe health problems."
"Personal answer: HP printers. F**king pieces of s**t."
- Unadulteredmilk
Unholy Packing Solutions, Batman
"Styrofoam is pretty abominable in my book, especially for things like takeout food that’s destined for the trash within minutes of use."
- tokage
'Nuff Said
"Child beauty pageant events."
- SuvenPan
Profit for Who
"For-profit prisons."
"Which leads to state prosecutors who are beholden to them. This increases the probability of being charged with a crime you didn't commit, under the plan that you're too poor to defend yourself and will plead out."
"They can't make a profit without prosecutors feeding them an ever-increasing supply of prisoners (plus parolees and probationers in "offender-funded" programs). It's a recipe for the corruption of our justice system."
"Private prisons are arguably foreign enemy assets."
- omgnesh
Addictive Pay-to-Win Games
"Pay to Win Games, especially mobile games."
- JustARandomOrange
Questionable Hobbies
"Cigarettes. They never should have been made."
- UrMooother
Transformative Gases
"Possibly leaded gasoline. It poisoned billions and left multiple generations more violent and less intelligent."
- dcdttu
Reminders of War
"Landmines. They don't just disappear once a war is over. They'll stay around to kill some kids playing. Awful things."
- CaptainMcAnnus
Bodily Weapons
"I’ll say Nerve Toxins/Chemical Weapons. I find few things worse than a weapon that literally gives you the slowest and most agonizing death possible."
- RidingRiptide
Chemical Warfare
"Chemical Warfare."
"While nukes are horrible beyond imagination, humanity learned to avoid them as a way to ensure their own survival, it's wise, but egoistical nonetheless."
"Chemical weapons on the other hand traumatized the f**k out of the survivors and the ones who called the attacks and got to see the aftermath. They were so horrible that many soldiers deserted after using them and many went mad."
"Throughout the last century, we successfully banned almost all of those: the 1925 geneva protocol, the 1980 chemical weapons convention, among others, but I'm afraid when the next generations start to forget the horrors of chemical warfare, it will resurface in the likes of what's happening with fascism."
- raduannassar
From modern inconveniences to climate changing inventions to the literal stuff of war, there are serious contenders here for the worst invention in human history. It would be hard to choose just one.
Baristas have an interesting job of having to create very intricate and delicate caffeinated drinks for the masses as they commute to and from work.
Unfortunately, that job comes with some really gross after-effects.
People are weird.
They have very specific and somewhat repulsive requests.
And then you have to make those things. You have to stomach it all.
Redditor Chodanmatt asked:
"Baristas, what is the weirdest/grossest drink you've seen someone order?"
Here were some of those answers.
Sugar Bomb
"I once had a customer ask for a extra caramel Frappuccino and to make him 'regret asking for so much caramel"'
"I put in 15 pumps each of the regular caramel sauce and dark caramel sauce as well as covering the entire inside of the cup in drizzle"
"He left the store and then came back in a few minutes later to tell me that was the best drink he's ever had"
– sorgte
Pure Unadulterated Chocolate
"I don't know if anyone remembers, but for a hot minute Starbucks had a thing called Chantico, which was marketed as a 'drinking chocolate.' It was basically a cup of melted chocolate, the consistency of thinned brownie batter, meant to be drunk in 4 oz cups exclusively."
"A woman came in and ordered a Grande."
"She miraculously survived and came back the next day and ordered a Venti."
"I still don't know how she choked it down."
– not-jimmy
Expensive AND Gross
"I had a guy hand me his own mug and I kid you not - ordered a vanilla late with 12 shots of espresso."
"Actually I clearly remember him saying 17 shots but everyone else was like 'oh he usually just gets 10!' So I say 12 now to be on the safe side."
"His drink was like $21 and mostly just espresso with a little milk and syrup. He also told me he'd been trying to cut down on caffeine lately."
– DefNotUnderrated
Heat Palpitations
"Not a barista but was a regular at a coffee shop near a halfway house. A guy would frequently come in and order a red eye with 10 shots of espresso. He claimed it helped keep him off the harder drugs."
– arrrdrrr
Not What I Ordered, But Cool
"Not gross but just funny that always makes me laugh. One time someone ordered a cold hot chocolate. Halfway through me making it i realized i was just making chocolate milk. So i added some vanilla syrup and whip cream and he was very happy with it lol."
– lilmilly
Hint Of A Hint
"Former barista here- I remember clearly 2 years ago a lady wanted a latte with Splenda. However, she didn't actually want Splenda in the latte. She wanted me to open the packet near her latte so that she could get only a 'hint' of Splenda."
– Jenniferbeach
Weird Flex But Ok
"When I was a barista, several middle aged men who were regulars would insist on hot coffee. They would loudly and frequently proclaim the coffee they order, in general, is never hot enough. I guess they wanted to emphasize their pain threshold to me, an 18 year old girl who just wanted to go home and watch tv."
"It's difficult to make very hot coffee without burning the milk. But often they'd order black coffee and I'd literally give them boiling water and they'd say it wasn't hot enough. If I made it hotter, it would convert the liquid state to a gaseous form and evaporate. Then they'd talk about their Lexus or something for awhile. I never saw them drink it, so I guess they'd leave, wait for it to cool down, and then drink it. Weirdest courting ritual I've ever experienced."
– manlikerealities
Large And In Charge
"In the 7 years I've been in the fast coffee industry, I'll always come back to one drink."
"A nonfat (lol) caramel Frappuccino with an entire 16oz bottle of caramel drizzle in it, plus 10 pumps of peppermint syrup. Topped with whip and...you guessed it; more caramel."
"Oh, and she wanted two large sized ones. Every day. 6am sharp."
– SgtColeslaw
Two Completely Different Tastes
"A mocha frappuccino with coke, sprite, and strawberry syrup added. When informed we were out of strawberry, they settled for grape as a substitute."
– Saxy_Toast
But Like...Coffee?
"Former Dunkin barista. I had a few people order iced coffees with so much liquid sugar that the cup was 3/4 full before adding the coffee."
"I'm not sure if this qualifies as "weird" rather than just pants on head stupid- but I once had a vapid college girl order an iced latte 'but like, with no coffee'. I explained what that would be, and she said that was okay."
"We had no way to charge for that other than just charging her for the full latte, so the girl happily paid $4 for a 16oz cup of milk and ice."
– Chazkuangshi
Cutting Back On The Jolt
"This is basically my husband. Just today he got a dark roast with 9 shots of espresso and 4 pumps of white mocha. He usually does 10-12 shots but cut down today lol"
– JustOnePack
Toxic Sweetness
"They called it a sugar bomb, a vanilla bean Frappuccino with 10 scoops of vanilla bean powder (usually 4 in a venti) 10 pumps of vanilla syrup, 2 extra pumps of frapp base syrup, made with heavy whip, finished with whipped cream and strawberry purée on bottom and top. Made us all gag."
– TinyTinasRabidOtter
"Grossest By Far"
"I used to work as a barista at a museum, and sometimes it was just the kind of person who would order a drink that struck me as weird. Like it's been a year but I still remember the middle school boy who asked me for a medium americano. I was like... okay... bc i don't think i would have known what that was at his age."
"but grossest by far was the lady who asked us to make her a blue raspberry latte with our soda syrups."
– newboyjulen
Espresso Yo'self
"When I was in college, I worked at a company that had an fancy coffee machine that made espressos. I hadn’t had expresso before so I tried one. It was great. So I filled my entire 16 oz coffee mug with expressos and drank the whole thing in like 15 minutes. I was fine for about a half hour until I started shaking and sweating uncontrollably. Good times."
– cb789cb
A Hack Concoction
"A grande java chip frappuccino with 4 scoops of matcha was my weird one. It turned out to be a Frankenstein frappuccino hack but still, really weird."
– StickyNoteMurdercat
Condensed Goodness
"Large iced pumpkin spice latte with no ice and heavy cream instead of milk. That’s about 22 oz of pure heavy cream."
– AnemoneOfMyEnemy
Lethal Dose
"This lady order 8 double shots of espresso. I thought that was crazy and that it must have been a mix-up on the machine but I still did eight regular shots of espresso. This lady came up and yelled at me for messing up her coffee. So effectively she wanted 16 shots of espresso. I don't even know if I'm allowed to give that much"
– NibbaHunta
Deep Regrets
"I once asked for a white chocolate/kiwi latte. Regretted that."
– Spidertiger86
More Like A Smoothie
"I once had a woman order a banana steamed into milk. I will repeat that. A banana. Steamed into milk."
– bbboozay
Now You've Heard Everything
"A semi-regular used to always order a black coffee and ask for a packet of butter to stir into it."
"I learned later that this is a thing that some people actually do instead of adding cream and I guess to give it a little froth. No thanks."
– annersiaxolotl
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Teachers Share The Worst Assignments Students Have Turned In Unironically
Teachers don't get the proper respect they most likely deserve, compared to, say, lawyer or a doctor. Educating the future of our world can be difficult, the pay isn't great, and let's face it, kids aren't necessarily our best citizens. Yet they strive on. Many do their absolute best with minuscule resources, and fortunately, most are willing to rat their kids out when they mess up big time.
Reddit user, Trev0r_P, wanted to hear what's the worst of the worst when they asked: