People Who Have Been The Target Of An Assassination Attempt Explain How They Survived
Not all plotted murder attempts are political assassinations like I pictured. A lot of normal people out here are the ones on the hit list.
Moral of the story is, we can't really live a life without pissing off the deranged few that might come after us with a gun. We'd have to stay inside all day eating cold cuts and lacking Vitamin D.
Some Redditors unfortunately did find themselves in the cross hairs. But they made it out, usually because of pure luck.
u/Buttery_Avocado asked, "People who have been the target of murderers/assassins, how did you survive, and why did they target you?"
Murder by Traffic (still murder)
I'm not sure if it counts but a few years ago in high school, there was this guy that used to trouble everyone by taking naked photos of them when they were changing after PE class.
I happened to be one of his targets so I reported him to my teacher and eventually he got suspended for about a month and had to attend counselling sessions.
One day I was at the bus stop waiting for my bus when suddenly I felt a push on my back and I fell onto the road. Luckily for me, the bus driver stopped the bus in time and I survived. However, I fell directly on my arm and it was fractured.
Last I heard, he went to the juvenile centre and no one ever had to see this devil again.
Chosen One
They missed. That's about the only reason.
It was a random act of violence. A man ran up behind me, put a gun to my head and shot. He flinched or I did and he missed by an inch. Blew out my left eardrum and burned my hair behind my ear. He ran off immediately after.
Cops said it was probably a gang initiation thing. I have deafening tinnitus now and horrible anxiety in public.
Random Cars Are Your Friend
About a year ago, I was walking my dog at night when I saw this really beat up old Honda Civic pull up on the other side of the road. I noticed that two similar cars positioned themselves on the roads perpendicular to me both behind and in front of me. I was boxed in.
This kid no older than 19 gets out with 2 other people, and the kid reaches for a gun in his wasitband and makes a beeline towards me. A random car passes and they all scatter. Once the car is gone, they come back and try to do the same thing, but another random car passes again, and they take off. I made the quarter mile run home in about 2 minutes.
My guess is I was the victim of a gang initiation, and they ran away when witnesses saw.
Risky Blind Dates
I was almost murdered. If it wasnt for my manager I would have been.
My sister set me up on a date with her friend. I ended up having to work the weekend so I canceled. The date went out with someone else and afterwards invited him to her apartment. Right before they went inside someone killed them both with a gun. It turned out to be a jealous neighbor of the girl who she was also messing with.
That could have been me if i went on the date and she decided to let me in for tea.
When Everybody Knows the Same Hit Man...
My ex boyfriend hired some guy from Chicago to murder me after I broke up with him for selling drugs to my younger sister. Fortunately, my ex & I both had a mutual friend who found out & had more pull with the attempted assassin (both were polish immigrants). Ex calls me up later and demands $2000 from me because he "didn't get what he paid for", as the hired gun wouldn't give a refund.
Shoulda Rode with Clinton
While it seemed strange at the time, I actually didn't find out about the circumstances until 20 years later. I worked at the White House during the Clinton Administration in an IT capacity, and was traveling on a trip to the Philippines and the APEC conference in Jakarta, Indonesia.
We had flown into Manila late, and hopped on the bus to the hotel with the staff motorcade. Everyone was pretty awake, and we were all BSing on the ride to the hotel. About 45 minutes into the ride, I look out the window of the bus and we are on a narrow road lined by corrugated tin shacks. It really seemed strange at the time since why would the road from the airport to the nice hotels in Manila have to go through this neighborhood? We eventually arrived at the hotel, and it was quickly forgotten.
20 years later, I am watching a series on the History Channel about the United States Secret Service. This one episode was about how the Secret Service coordinates with Intelligence agencies, and talked about on a Clinton trip to Manila where they overheard Al Quaeda was talking about a "Wedding Cake" under the bridge. "Wedding Cake" was a known code word for bomb. Clinton was diverted to the alternate route (and undoubtedly got to the hotel a lot quicker than we did.) It turns out there was indeed a bomb under the bridge on the route to the hotel.
I was obviously not the target, but it was crazy, and many of us could have been collateral damage.
Too Familiar
Does a school shooting count?
I was not in the same part of the school, I evacuated with my class and got home safely a few hours later. Had I been in the wrong place at the wrong time I just as easily could have been one of the victims.
He was and is a deluded, violent, angry, lonely demon who couldn't stand a world where the rest of us weren't dragged into his demented hellpit. No way in hell. Life has recovered more or less to what it was, and twenty two months on, Stoneman Douglas is 0% his world and 100% the world I know our 17 fallen want it to be.
But But it's So Hard to Get Rid of a Tattoo
Not sure if this counts as I wasn't the intended target, but my dad ran a chapter of a fairly notorious biker gang (notorious enough to get their own episode of "Gangland"). Once my dad left, a guy who never really liked him all that much took his place and insisted that since he was no longer in the gang, he needed to get rid of his tattoo. My dad told him to go pound sand. Surprisingly, that didn't go over particularly well, and he ordered his SUV bombed. We lived in an apartment complex at the time and they blew up the wrong SUV. Thankfully no one was inside either. As far as I know, that was the only attempt on his life, at least as long as I was I've been alive.
How Not to Deal With Unwanted Neighbors
I lived below an insane person, in a shared house. For the record I lived there first. Insane Person wanted the entire house to rent, tried to force me out many ways, making noise, having people creep around and knock on my windows, call the cops on me for no reason etc.
So one day he lit a smouldering fire in the non-functional fireplace (we were told never to use it) and closed his off, forcing the smoke to fill my apartment. We luckily got out, but the hospital said one more hour in there and we would be dead. Me and my husband spent several hours in the hospital on oxygen.
My dad had replaced our smoke detector literally 2 weeks prior to this incident as we discovered it was broken. Since the laundry was in my part of the house, Insane Person could totally have come in and tampered with it but I have no evidence of this.
The funniest part of the whole thing was when I called 911 and the fire trucks showed up at 3 am, Insane Person cussed me out for calling them.
The second funniest part was work tried to get me to come in that day since nobody could cover my shift.
All that effort to rent out a teardown house in a sketchy neighbourhood.
That's Why Ya Pick Up Your Litter, Kids
Not sure If this one counts but... I was born in Iraq at the very start of the war. My parents tried shielding us from the war and death outside but sometimes things just happened the likes of which they had no control over.
I was about 5 years old (I can't remember my exact age but all I can remember is that I was too young to attend elementary school) my mom was getting my siblings ready for school(brushing my sister's hair) and I was sitting on her tailoring bench with a curtain less window behind me. I remember playing around with some pins she had laying around.
My grandma (alive at the time) was watching over me so I do not fall, thus when a pin dropped from my hand to the floor she was quick to tell me to pick it up so no one would step on it. I bend down to pick up the pin an I hear a pop (simmer to the popping sound of a balloon)
I glance back and the window was gone, and all i hear next is my sister scream and start crying.
My mom quickly yelled for all of us to get against the wall and to get away from the window. As We all look around the room to see what happened we see a bullet (as long as a index finger) in the middle of the room (one of my brothers goes over to pick it up but it was too hot to touch).
The next day we go over to the police and all they can do is tell us that it was a sniper bullet and they can't do anything about it.
I assume that a sniper saw me just sitting there in front of a window and took the shot, but it missed me when I bent down to pick up the pin so it went over my head, grazing my sister's arm before stopping on the floor.
James Bond Ain't Got Nothin
I was a photojournalist in an unnamed Central American country doing humanitarian coverage for a college. Suddenly there were riots against the government and officials started shooting people with cameras. My group was chased so I had to change my appearance (I.E. clothes, hat, satchel) and ditch my camera to an in country contact and acted like a normal student to smuggle my SD cards in little slots I cut in my shoes until I got to the US where I took them out and just had them in my pocket so to not arouse suspicion by TSA. 10/10 would do again
An Antidote to Ghosting?
No way to prove it, but had all the lugnuts on my trucks front passenger rim loosened which caused death-wobble so bad I almost crashed in the fast lane of the freeway. Luckily the rim stayed on. I had ghosted this one guy and part of me suspects he came and loosened my lugnuts in retaliation. My boss discovered it being the nice guy he was.
A Horrifying Boyfriend
One night, he seemed bored and started trying to stick his feet in my face. I pushed them away, disgusted, and he... exploded. It was a whole lot of action. He started by trying to choke me. I freed myself by grabbing a cat brush, the kind with the sharp metal points, and pushing it into his chest. He let me go but pushed me to the ground and lifted his air soft rifle and drove it to my head like he was trying to cave in my skull. At the last moment he hesitated. I ran out of the apartment and called the cops. It didn't occur to me until later when I was with a public defender documenting my injuries that he had really wanted to kill me. I had bruising so deep they were black in color, in places I don't even remember him hitting me. He really would have, if something in him hadn't hesitated.
Singers Can Be Ego-Heavy
Was in a band with a singer who wanted a coke empire. He said if me or the drummer mentioned this to anyone, he would just have to do a little "wet work". I didn't know about his threat until after I distanced myself and very easily could have had my head blown off in my sleep by a paranoid coke head
This Guy's Uncle Must Be a Loose Cannon
Not sure if attempted murder, well probably, guy ran me over while I was on a bike because I was texting with his girlfriend, I didn't even know they had a relationship. Dumb me didn't call the cops and let my uncle handle it, wish I just pressed charges.
An Nasty Divorce
A guy I know was going through a nasty divorce. It was not going well for him. He was set to lose custody and the house. Well I guess his wife wanted it all, because she hired (or asked I'm not sure) her brother to kill him. The brother attacked him with an axe in the lobby of his building. The axe actually connected, but he lived.
A Lethal Swirly
This was in Elementary school, surprisingly. A new student had moved into town, and had attended my elementary school. Let's call him Patrick.
I later asked the teacher is could use the bathroom. There was a policy where two people at a time may use the bathroom, and of course, Patrick decided he would be that second person. I later went into a stall to do my business, while he used a urinal. After cleaning up, I'm opening the urinal doors when he begins to force into the stall doors so he can bust them open. Then with full force, he just props open the door and rushes me with full force, smashing the small toilet to pieces. He begins to proceed to drown me in the toilet water, and cut my face with the leftover shards of the toilet. I manage to wrangle through his grasp and run immediately into my classroom and to inform what Patrick had done. He was later suspended, and was counseled. He wasn't allowed to walk in the hallways alone without an adult.
Things People Didn't Realize Were Expensive Until They Became An Adult
Reddit user ForeignReviews asked: 'What item did you not realize was expensive until you became an adult?'
I was very fortunate that my parents were able to pay all expensive not only through adolescence but even through college. However, they made it very clear that once I graduated, I was on my own.
I made every effort to make sure I could afford to live once I graduated. I made copies of all the recipes my parents got when they bought stuff for me, and started saving my own receipts, something I didn't do through high school. I calculated monthly expenses and created a budget for the future.
When I graduated, I had accounted for all the big expenses: take-out food, the expensive skin care essentials I needed to keep my acne at bay, and utilities (heat, AC, electricity).
What I didn't realize was that small expenses are not so small. Microwavable meals went up by $2. Gas, which was pretty steady while I was in college, seemed to shoot up daily. And things that don't seem expensive at first glance, such as toilet paper, become big expenses as they add up.
I'm not the only one who had these realizations. Redditors have too, and are eager to share what items they didn't realize were expensive until they became an adult.
It all started when Redditor ForeignReviews asked:
"What item did you not realize was expensive until you became an adult?"
Yummy, Yummy
"Food is both more expensive and goes bad quicker when you're an adult."
– BriSnyScienceGuy
"I know right! I honestly love grocery shopping, so when I started driving I would go grocery shopping when I had the car and so nowadays I do maybe half of the grocery shopping. But, it's just so expensive. I often look for deals and will buy generic/store brand on most items but, still."
"My biggest tip for "goes bad quicker" is to always get from the back, because usually that's where the longer lasting stuff goes and when it's stacked, get from the bottom. When it's stuff with longer shelf life like cereal and canned stuff, I don't usually bother. But I mostly do that with bread and dairy products. My mom taught me that when I was little."
– ariana61104
"Yes! Having to feed yourself and your household is getting too expensive and so tedious. I really admire my mom for making dinner every night when I was growing up. Thankfully I don't have kids so me & my husband are okay with just eating snacks sometimes."
– WildMoonWitch
So Sweet
"My parents split up when I was a kid in the 90s, and I remember going to my dads apartment in another city, and him cooking us steak on the grill. I always loved that."
"Once I moved out I was like "wait steak is how much? Why the hell did Dad keep feeding us this?""
"Then I realised he was eating poverty meals all week to treat his kids on the weekend."
"For his 60th birthday us kids pooled our money and took him to arguably the best fine dining restaurant in my province for the full tasting menu. Seeing him light up at trying things like caviar and truffles for the first time made me realize how much he has sacrificed for us."
"So yeah, steak is expensive."
– KFBass
"You guys are awesome; what a nice story. He raised y'all right."
– Augustus58
Where Do I Sit?
"Gotta be furniture."
– harrisrichard
"When I bought my house I only had a bed in the master bedroom and all my friends kept saying “you make good money just buy furniture, you could have it furnished in a month.” Then they themselves bought houses and now understand why it took me a year to furnish my house."
– Stetikhasnotalent
They Don't Need To Be That Nice!
"Rugs. Why did no one tel me a ‘nice’ rug was $18,000."
– BenSadfleck
"But it really ties the room together."
– alittlec4
"Dude, you could fly to Morocco and get a hand made wool rug for that much. What the heck are you buying?"
– mofukkinbreadcrumbz
"My dog isn’t going to want to butt scoot on anything cheaper than 10k."
– iamaliberalpausenot
Car Accessories
"New tires. Most unexciting $1,000 purchases I have ever made."
– PRCraig
"Also why the hell are oil changes so expensive now!?"
– johnstonb
"Bro fr I swear they were just $20 just a second ago now it’s like $60?? I asked my dad to teach me how to do it myself as a teen and he said it was so cheap that I might as well pay someone else. That didn’t last."
– greeneggiwegs
Walk It Off
"A good pair of shoes will set you back a bit, especially if you need more specialized ones for whatever reason."
– sedition-
Part Of The Family
"Pets."
– TeacherLady3
"They have gotten a lot more expensive due to expected care changing dramatically, and how we feel about them."
"The idea that you would put a pet down because a vet treatment costs too much is horrible now, but was pretty common in the past. Outdoor cats were the norm so they pretty much fed themselves and you had far fewer litter changes - litter was just clay, and you tossed the whole thing."
"Dogs ate table scraps and whatever they hunted down, or cheap as dog feed made of whatever ended up on the slaughter house floor (bones and all)."
"While purebreds were probably still super expensive, most people had a mutt or tabby, that the found/were given, instead of buying."
– RandomChance
"All true. But I waited until I was in my 50's and had raised my kids until I could afford a pet. Like kids, I wasn't going to be a pet owner until I could provide the care they deserve."
– TeacherLady3
The Cost Of People
"Kids."
"I'm amazed how my parents could afford me."
– only_stupid_answers
"My parents had 5 of us. It amazes me to this day, that my fathers paultry salary at the time had to support it all. How the f**k could anyone do that today?"
– The_REAL_McWeasel
Vroom, Vroom
"Cars, all grown-ups had them, maybe even multiple. I still think its insane that some cars are more expensive than a 2 bedroom apartment."
– Tommer_nl
"I remember people restoring cars all the time when I was growing up. I would love to do it but even a rough condition rolling rust is super expensive now for even common things people aren’t super after."
– Pup5432
"Yeah what the hell!? I feel like everyone's dad (mine included) had a project car that they were tinkering with."
"All of my 'tinkering' is to keep my single, daily driver running!"
– disisathrowaway
Shiny Teeth And Me
"My teeth."
– Bumfuzzled_Hobgoblin
"Teeth are luxury bones, don’t ya know? Why on earth would regular health insurance cover them? Hahaha. The fact that vision and dental are separate from the rest of your body is absurd."
– Blackfoxx907
I See You!
"Glasses. I have awful eyesight and an astigmatism and got quite a shock when I had to pay for my own prescription glasses for the first time."
– Heavy_Mycologist_104
Time Flies
"Free time."
"As a kid I had loads of it and gave it away. now I can't afford even a minute !!"
– TokenFeed
"I took a toll road home today for an extra hour of free time and it was the best money I ever spent."
– squidkiosk
What I wouldn't give -- or pay -- for some extra free time!
People Share The Dirty Secrets That Made Them Stop Supporting A Company
Ben Rosett on Unsplash
In the 1987 movie Wall Street, actor Michael Douglas' antihero Gordon Gekko infamously said:
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
The quote became a perfect representation of rampant corporate greed and corruption prevalent in the era during and after Republican President Ronald Reagan's stint in the Oval Office. The Reagan administration pushed deregulation and elimination of consumer protections.
While the government may not always step in to thwart shady or harmful businesses, consumers have one way to control them—their money.
Money talks.
Reddit user Wetter42 asked:
"What's a dirty little secret you found out about a company or service that made you stop using them?"
Poor Working Conditions
"Ashley Furniture—abysmal OSHA record, repeat and willful violations."
"People are not expendable."
~ surfinwifsharks
"I assure you, it's worse."
"That's just what OSHA made public, but I live near their factory in Arcadia and know people who work there, or used to work there."
"Someone bled for your dresser."
~ Wild_Question_9272
"I used to work as the lead designer for BLUENOTES in Canada. YM Inc knowingly uses near slave and child labour and denies everything in the press, but they do know, and they don't care."
"Money is more important."
~ Pkactus
"I used to work for Goodwill and in the back I saw one of my coworkers who has a physical and mental handicap come out of the office of our store manager crying. I really liked this coworker, I remember her as one of the nicest people I've ever known."
"I asked her what was wrong and she said that her wages were going to be cut substantially. She stated the store manager was told by corporate that it was since she was not able to work as fast as others in the back doing pricing.
"I asked if she would mind if I asked what they had cut it to and she said $3.30 an hour."
"WTF!"
"It turns out that Goodwill has a policy to pay disabled workers the legal subminimum wage."
"Sec 14 (c) allows corporations to pay people with disabilities a subminimum wage. According to Labor Department records, Goodwill pays some of its disabled workers as low as $0.22, $0.38 and $0.41 per hour depending on the state laws."
"Goodwill does not show much goodwill towards their workers."
~ Red_Beard_of_Tucson
Questionable Spending
"Susan G. Komen for the Cure."
"The pink ribbon is a scam!"
~ worldsokayestmomx3
"Most people also don't realize it just because something is pink, has a ribbon on it, says breast cancer on the front or is sold in October it doesn't necessarily benefit anything other than the company that made it!"
"There are no patents or trademarks on pink ribbons that mean that anytime it's used it has to benefit breast cancer research or awareness. Literally anybody can sell something pink with a ribbon and it doesn't mean a damn thing for actual cancer patients."
~ Crystal_crone
Shady Business Practices
"H&R Block used to do something like this with their tax preparation service. Not sure if they still do."
"Their slogan was something like, 'Come on in and we'll tell you if there's mistakes in your self-prepared return, for free!'."
"So you go in, they spend 5 minutes looking at your self-prepared return, and they tell you, 'Yes, indeed, there are mistakes here'."
"And then you ask them to tell you what the mistakes are. And that's when they tell you it'll cost $75 for them to tell you."
~ whomp1970
"Intuit lobbied the government to keep taxes complex."
"F*ck TurboTax."
~ lifesavingsgoboom
"Angie’s List (aka Angi). Did work for a person and they left a good review on Angie’s List.
"Next thing I know I’ve got a guy from their call center blowing up my phone. He wanted me to pay them to put more good reviews under my company’s name and to steer potential customers towards my business for an additional fee."
"Basically everything they say they don’t do on their ads. I’m sure it was a trustworthy company when Angie still owned it, but it’s scammy as hell now."
~ Tangboy50000
"My mother is terminally ill and closing her business. Angie’s List called about promotion and she kept saying no."
"Finally had to tell them she was dying."
"They offered her a cheaper promotion. They suck."
~ StitchingKitty897
"The sheer amount of people who still use uTorrent, even among my friends boggles my mind."
"It's basically an adware at this point. They even used to bundle a cryptominer at one point that secretly used your computer to mine bitcoin (or some other crypto)."
"ALWAYS use open-source Torrent clients."
~ vpsj
"There is a vintage toy store chain near me called the Toy Vault. The owner, Dan, has been ripping people off for years, offering them very little money for their toy collections."
"He treats his employees terribly. Many toy collectors in the area have their own Dan story."
"One time a couple of years ago I was setting up a pop-up shop to sell a massive collection of toys that my friend's parents had hoarded."
"We had been advertising for a couple weeks and were excited to make some people happy offering great deals on a lot of cool toys."
"The Thursday prior to opening Dan messaged me asking if there was a price we'd sell the whole collection for, saying that he could bring a truck that night and rid us of the burden."
"I said no because neither of us had the time and told him he could come Saturday with the rest of the buyers."
"He replied angrily calling me an 'amature' and said that if we were 'serious about selling' we would make the time, and that he knows we shop at his stores."
"Well I don't anymore, Dan."
~ ancient_scully
"There used to be a comics and collectibles store near me that was run by the same type of people. They would take the current month's comics and bag them and mark them up by at least 50%, so you would have to pay a premium for even the most recent issues."
"If they thought the comics were going to be hot, the marked them up even more). They were pretty much the only comics store in the area, and they were one of the few that sold a lot of independent comics, so it sucked that I had to boycott them."
"What's worse was their policy towards collectibles and action figures—the owner would buy case upon case of whatever the latest fad toy was and pull out the rarest figures and charge $100+ for them."
"Then he would drive his pre-teen son to the local Toys R Us with the rest of the figures, and have the kid walk in and claim that he had gotten all of them for his birthday, but he didn't want them, so could he trade them in for store credit.
"At the time, Toys R Us had a pretty loose policy towards returns—if you brought in something still sealed in its original box and it was an item they sold, you could get store credit for it. This worked for a while, but eventually this guy was banned from every Toys R Us within like an hour's drive."
"Eventually, the comics and action figures craze died down and this guy went out of business shortly thereafter."
~ WaldoJeffers65
"Companies like BetterHelp (mental health platform) exploit clients data/info and breached privacy."
"Yet they still advertise everywhere. Somewhere like 3 lawsuits about it."
~ Friendly-Jump-5307
"Therapist here. BretterHelp is total garbage."
"I feel bad for the clients who go through several green therapists to find someone who's actually a good fit and then the therapist leaves (understandably) because BetterHelp treats and pays them so poorly."
~ SpuddyBud
"The Weather Channel app collected and sold user location data without disclosing it would it be shared with advertisers."
~ KawIsTheLaw
"I will never buy anything from LG."
"Sometime around 2008ish, they (like many other hardware/software companies) were messing around with what was essentially adware, seeing how far they could push things to get borderline-malicious advertising onto your home computer."
"Stuff like the pile of CDs that came with your new Gateway, the 'do you also want to install X, Y and Z? We're going to imply it's necessary' when installing messaging apps, or the huge unnecessary printer 'software suite' when all you needed was the driver."
"LG went a step further."
"LG embedded adware in the firmware of their CD/DVD drives."
"Every time you opened or closed the drive, you'd get a little popup from your system tray that served you an ad—pretty much indistinguishable from the legions of adware/spyware your aunt would get from clicking 'yes' to all her popup ads."
"Except nobody clicked yes on anything, and it couldn't be removed. It was embedded in the drive itself, essentially performing an AutoPlay exploit on a virtual drive to show you the ads, then disappear again."
"They eventually were threatened with legal action and had to post a firmware update/removal tool on their website.
"The ad software was called BlueBirds, and LG scrubs all mentions of it from their Wikipedia article every now and then."
~ DJ33
Cruelty And Greed
"Nissan spent a decade ruining the life of the guy who owned nissan.com."
~ zonker77
"Crumbl Cookies. Their VP of HR did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on LinkedIn that I happened to see because they are fairly local and I have a few mutual connections."
"Anyway, she went off on why they were always understaffed in an area because 'everyone one else is paying above market value for employees and [we] only want to pay market value and hire people passionate about [our] brand and making cookies'."
"It really rubbed me the wrong way, because if everyone else is paying more than you it doesn’t mean they are paying above market value, it means you are paying below market value."
"I haven’t been back since, besides they also sued another company for also selling cookies in square boxes… and honestly the other companies cookies taste better."
~ Luckyfinger7
While we as consumers and customers can't directly dictate anyone else's morals or ethics, we can choose who we will and won't give our money to.
Use your buying power wisely.
When we hear the term "class clown," we inevitably can think of a specific person who filled that role when we were growing up.
And in some cases, we can recall a time when they took their role much too far.
Curious about jokes gone wrong, Redditor Sharp_Emu6639 asked:
"When did the class clown go too far?"
Cancer Isn't Funny
"Kept making ‘Yo Mama’ jokes to my friend who’d just lost his Mom to cancer. My friend snapped and broke his nose."
- darksaber522
The Speed of a Fire
"When I was in High School, we had a Firefighter Explorer program where we could go and do shadow work at a few of the local departments."
"One all-volunteer department let some of us Juniors and Seniors respond to specific calls to do minor light work (hold stop signs, carry the ladders, fetch tools, etc.) and allowed us to have a code to their cipher lock. They gave the code to the four local kids so we could get there, unlock the doors, and open the bays and get trucks started and ready to roll."
"One night, the class id**t decided to go into their fire department and play 'pranks' on them. Took all their hoses off the trucks, strung them around the bays and looped them through the axles, discharged all the foam out of the main engine, and screwed with everyone’s bunker gear by swapping boots and removing the liners of structural gear among other things."
"Naturally, it ended very badly when a call came in for a structure fire and when the actual firefighters showed up the entire house was in such disarray that no truck could even leave."
"They ended up calling a town 20 minutes away to respond."
"Two people passed away in the fire. Naturally, all four of us were the top suspects, and it didn’t take the police long to figure it out as the place was full of surveillance cameras. He was arrested, his parents got the bill for all the damages, and we never saw him or his family again after that. They just skipped the area and vanished overnight."
"The fire department killed almost all ties with the Explorer Program and stopped allowing us to respond to minor calls. I went on to get certified as a firefighter and spent five awesome years with them where I still seasonally volunteer (during wildfire season) with them."
- JimSpieks
A Ruined Presentation
"We had a student teacher for like six months when I was in sixth grade, and towards the end of her time with us, she had to record herself teaching a lesson to the class and then provide the video to her school (as a final exam or something)."
"We had this class clown who had to sit in the back, which happened to be near the camcorder. During the recording, he kept saying things like, 's**t, pen*s, f**k,' quiet enough for no one in class to hear but loud enough to be obvious on the recording."
"The student-teacher ended up having to redo the entire video and we had to sit through the exact same lesson a week later without the class clown present."
- sloppyjoesandwich
Deflected Trouble
"Art class. Teacher leaves. Class clown says, 'Dare me to eat this paint!?'"
"My buddy and I ignored him. He got real pushy about eating paint."
"We told him to do whatever the h**l he wanted. He stood on a chair and ate two bottles of paint before the teacher walked back in."
"He got marched to the nurse. We breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone."
"Later that day, my buddy and I got called to the principal's office. We were informed he was at the hospital getting his stomach pumped and it was OUR fault."
"I had never been in trouble before. I spent one hour in isolated detention to see if I 'wanted to share more,' literally just locked in a tiny a** room."
"I got a really long lecture about if I told someone to jump off a bridge and they did it, it would be my fault. I denied any fault again. Then I got put back in isolation until the end of the day."
"My parents went nuclear when I got home and told them what happened."
"The clown showed up the next day just grinning and laughing because he heard we got in trouble."
- Remz_Gaming
Boy Cries Wolf... Or Eats Candy
"Slightly off-topic, but our class clown choked on candy. We thought it was another one of his jokes."
"The whole class laughed at him, even the teacher. Then his face started to go red, his eyes got bloodshot, and he started slamming the table violently."
"Luckily somebody gave him the Heimlich maneuver and saved his life."
"Dude nearly died while everyone sat laughing at him."
- seneca_7
Enough Said.
"A classmate thought it would be funny to light somebody's mullet on fire in the middle of class."
- DrDWilder
A Graduating Vandal
"He came back to the school after hours and put caulking in the locks, and spray-painted pot leaves everywhere."
"Of course, he didn’t know there were cameras so it didn’t take long for him to be caught."
"This was right before graduation too so needless to say, he didn’t walk at graduation and his parents had a hefty damage bill to pay."
- Ozziwulf
Senior Prank Week Gone Wrong
"In my school district, it was tradition for the exiting seniors to pull a prank. One year, a few of the class clowns decided it would be funny to cover all the tile floors with cooking oil, cover the handrails of stairs with Crisco, and put large puddles of oil at the top of each stairwell."
"A girl already on crutches broke her jaw. We had to be evacuated to the bleaches outside. It was super not cool."
- QueasyAd7509
A Ruined Graduation
"Public school, small town. The graduating class only had 54 students in it."
"The kid smeared his s**t all over the bathroom. Walls, floor, sinks, everywhere. The principal had no way of knowing who it was, so the solution... they took the bathroom doors off the hinges."
- PhatWhiteCheeks
No Future in Serving Drinks
"He spilled formic acid on another kid who ended up with some light scarring on his chest."
"To be honest, it was a terrible call from the teacher to get him to carry it around for people to smell."
- CoolioMcCool
Substitute Teaching is Already Hard Enough
"They put staples in the substitute teacher's coffee... I went to school with some real monsters."
- This-Ad-1886
A Traumatized Teacher
"In seventh grade at a public school, our class was on the second floor."
"The class clown stood up in the middle of class, said 'I can't take it anymore,' and ran to the back of the classroom, opened the window, and jumped."
"The teacher screamed, and we all laughed. There was an addition to the building and the roof was under the window where the class clown was standing with a big grin."
"The teacher quit shortly after due to this and several other incidents in her class."
- OMOAB
Targeting the Substitute Teacher
"Sophomore year biology class, we had a substitute teacher during fetal pig dissection week."
"She had stepped out of the classroom for some reason while we were working on the dissection."
"The class clown took out his shoelaces, wrapped one end around the piglet, and rigged the other end to the door so that when the door was opened, his piglet would raise to eye level."
"He scared the teacher when she came back in and he was suspended for a few days."
- Ambitious_Misgivings
Caught Butter-Handed
"We had this kid who would take the small butter packets from the cafeteria and bring them to fifth-period history class. At some point, he would scoop out a glob with his pen and flick the dairy bullet on our history teacher's a** when he walked by."
"He did this probably five or six times without getting caught."
"One day, he f**ked up and scraped the teacher's butt with his pen."
"The teacher checked his pants and found the butter smear."
"The kid's eyes got super wide like a true deer in headlights. He had no excuse for why he did this prank. He just kept apologizing like it was an accident."
"Lol (laughing out loud). Who accidentally flicks butter on an old man's a**?? I'm pretty sure he never graduated. Not surprisingly."
- CannabisaurusRex401
Fun for the Students, At Least
"He stole the English teacher's substitute plans and rewrote them, giving us all a free period instead."
"Terrance, wherever you are, you're a f**king legend."
- jeconti
We can all agree that these pranks, jokes, and even assaults went much too far, whether the class clown was of minor age or not.
Sometimes a prank can be funny, when when it scares someone, severely scares them, or even injures them, it's obviously much too far. A joke is only funny if everyone involved is genuinely laughing.
People Reveal What Their Significant Other Did That Made Them Think 'F**k This, We're Done'
After all, the honeymoon phase is not forever.
Eventually, reality sets in for those who want to be in it for the long haul as the lovebirds gradually start discovering weird idiosyncrasies that can either be perceived as cute quirks or aggravating annoyances.
Is it worth it?
That depends.
Curious to hear of make-it-or-break-it moments in relationships, Redditor The_King_Of_Spades_ asked:
"What is something that an S/O has done that made you go, 'F'k this, we're done'?"
These exes had no regard for the lives of others, some literally.
Serpent Murderer
"She unplugged the heater on my red tail boa's tank. Since the tank was in the spare room I only checked it every couple days. It was winter and I had just fed it so I would always leave it alone for a few days after so it wouldn't stress and have issues digesting. She went in right behind me an unplugged it after arguing with me for weeks to rehome it, which I refused to do."
"I went to check on it a few days later and noticed it froze to death. I asked her if she knew anything about it and her response was 'oh bummer, now I guess you can throw all that sh*t out.'"
"The next day when she was at work I packed all her sh*t and threw it all over her sister's front yard, since her sister was always the one telling her to just do things if I don't give her her way and had told me numerous times to get rid of my snake or else."
"RIP Doobie. I'm sorry buddy."
– burkechrs1
Funeral Brawl
"She started a fight with someone at my gran's funeral."
– LapOfHonour
"That's odd. Nobody is looking at ME for some reason..."
– VAShumpmaker
"Ummm...ex-CUSE me! I'M the ALIVE one here!"
– PicaDiet
Family Comes First
"Gave me sh*t for skipping a minor league ballgame with her family so I could go visit my grandfather in the hospital."
"It was the last time i saw him alive."
"Edit - ok i get it, the last sentence is confusing. I’m referring to gramps."
– chickentimesfive
You never know about a person's true colors.
Dodging A Bullet
"Physically barricaded me in the bedroom and forced me to change into the exact outfit he wanted me to wear before we could go out to meet his friends. I put it on just so he would let me leave and then ran a couple blocks away while he was locking up and called an Uber to my friend's house."
– Particular-Natural12
The Freeloader
"My ex drove my truck and returned it with a drop of gas in the tank. Then she took my bank card from my wallet and filled up her SUV and went to work. I started my truck and got to the gas station, opened my wallet and my card was missing. This was back when I was kind of poor and didn't have any credit cards, just a debit card. I had no cash in my wallet, so no gas. I tried to make it back home but I ran out of gas. I called her asking for help, she refused."
"My buddy picked me up on the side of the road. I went home and packed up my stuff and immediately moved out. I stayed on my friends sofa for a couple weeks while I worked out new living arrangements."
– macmac360
The kids will always be priority number one.
Scared Child
"My 12 year old son was struggling emotionally and it was causing issues with his grades. Boyfriend told him he could go live with his dad if he was going to be a loser. My son called me scared because he thought he was going to have to move to his dad’s. I was out of town at the time. I broke up with him the moment I got back and my son and I moved out."
"F'k you Chris."
– Fickle_Freckle
You Don't Go After The Children
"Called my daughter (not hers) a 'f'king b*tch that ruined our relationship'. Hard no from me."
– javawong
"Thank you for prioritizing your daughter. So many single parents don’t."
– CowboyLaw
Those who abuse animals are not relationship material.
The Last Straw
"Kicked my (our) cat."
"He pushed and pushed to get a cat. I wanted one but didn't really want to spend the next 10 years cleaning litter boxes every day. I eventually gave in because he was so persistent."
"After a few months, he came home from work in a mood one day and the cat got under his feet - as cats tend to do. He kicked her and screamed at her, and she ran and hid under the bed for hours."
"Things had been pretty sh*t between us anyway, but this was the last straw. I told him that if he can't watch where he's f'king going, he shouldn't live with a cat. He responded with something along the lines of 'well f'king get rid of her then!', and I told him I'd rather get rid of him."
"I told him to pack a bag and find somewhere else to stay. He went to stay with his mum, and I only saw him once after that day when he had to sign some paperwork to confirm that he'd moved out of our flat."
"P.S. Still got the cat. She's perfect and I love her so much. She still trips me up almost every day."
"Edit: I do feel like I should clarify (even though ex doesn't deserve it) - he didn't like, kick the cat across the room or something, but he did kick her a lot more aggressively than just tapping her out of the way with his foot. She wasn't hurt at all, but was scared. Had it been any worse, I probably would have flipped out on him even more."
– aerialpoler
Always listen to your gut when it comes to being in a bad situation.
Vulnerable individuals who are deep in love have the tendency of ignoring warning signs and realize until too late that they are with someone they never should've been with in the first place.
That's the tricky thing about pursuing love.
You don't really know a person until you spend more time with them, which is all the more reason to not rush into things.